'Room 116', by Laura Frost

The minute hand lurched forward one notch, then stopped to catch its breath. Sage stared into the clock, willing time to keep marching.
“…and what do we do with the exponent?”
Sage blinked heavily and turned to Mr. Stelter. His marker flew across the whiteboard and filled the space with numbers, symbols, and arcing arrows. As he recited the laws of math, the giant maple outside the window waved. Its sun-dappled leaves danced as though enticing Sage from the tedium of the stale classroom. She could already feel the tug of the fluffy white pup on its leash as she and Mira traded gossip from the day.
“Attention please,” the principal’s voice boomed over the intercom, pulling Sage from the whisper of freedom. “This school is in a lockdown. Stay in your classroom or go to the nearest safe area now. Follow all lockdown procedures. Repeat: This school is in a lockdown.”
Mr. Stelter’s hand froze on the whiteboard, half a blue 8 left in waiting. A flash of adrenalin swept through Sage and she bolted upright. As though a switch had flipped in Mr. Stelter, he dropped the marker and marched out the door.
“Where did he go?” a voice at the back of the room said. “He’s not supposed to leave.”
As murmurs swelled to chatter, Mr. Stelter escorted three extra students into the room, closed the door, twisted the lock, and dropped the blinds, cutting any view of the hallway. He looked across the sea of faces.
“You know what to do. Follow protocol and make space for these students.”
Desks scraped along the floor and the noise around the room ramped up. Sage looked to the desk beside her where a well-used copy of Math 10 lay open, waiting for Brooklyn’s return from the restroom. Her eyes flew to the door, locked and concealed from the outside world.
Voices rose above the chatter.
“Why are they running a drill at the end of the day?”
“I bet there’s a bear or rabid dog outside—so they can’t release us.”
“If I’m late for my movie, I’m going to scream.”
Sage headed for the back of the class, wading through the cacophony of questions and complaints. She sunk to the floor; the cold linoleum sent goosebumps down her back. Kids pressed in and a foot knocked her knee as legs and bodies provided only glimpses of the emptying desks. The girl who always wore a crop top lingered cross-legged atop a desk while her friends crowded around her.
Sage gritted her teeth and stared into Mr. Stelter, who looked just as lost as the students.
“Is stay quiet and out of sight really that hard to understand?” she mumbled.
“Pardon?”
Sage turned to a girl whose knees were pulled up to her chest.
“It’s just…”
Sage shook her head and shot a glare at the group. They laughed as they moseyed to the back of the room.
“We’re supposed to stay quiet. That’s the whole point of a lockdown.”
The girl nodded, and rested her forehead on her knees.
Overhead lights flicked off, one row at a time, and the blinds were drawn. The classroom plunged into grayness reminiscent of a mounting thunderstorm. A vibration against her thigh pulled Sage from her thoughts, and she slid her phone from her pocket to see a message from her mom.
Don’t forget you promised Doreen you’d walk her dog after school.
Josh’s distinctive, relaxed laugh bounced through the air, and Sage looked up to see him push Carter into a desk, sending it careening into another desk. The crash of metal was a thunderclap in the mounting unease. Sage’s jaw tightened and she shoved her phone away.
“I don’t need a stupid reminder,” she mumbled under her breath.
Penelope bumped Sage when she scooted back while other students hopped over each other as they tried to find a spot near a friend.
“Lockdown protocols, gentlemen,” Mr. Stelter said and directed Josh and Carter to the space behind the divider.
“Everyone get down and stay quiet.”
The students who, minutes before, were spread out in desks under bright lights and the promise of last period bell were now jammed together like a cluster of grapes in a dark crate, backs curled over phones.
“And no phones. Put them on silent until we hear otherwise.”
One by one, phones dimmed and were tucked into pockets, placed on the floor, rested on laps.
The rowdiness had settled out. Students adjusted themselves on the floor as stupid jokes, lockdown theories, and laughter flitted away.
Room 116 sat eerily quiet.
Sage trained her ears for any sound—voices, footsteps, bumps or thumps—outside the door. An echoing cough erupted on her left. The ffft of a sweater unzipping. A whisper from the middle of the cluster. But the world outside had gone silent. Sage drew her tongue across her lips, parched and on the verge of cracking, and pictured her lip balm fifty feet away on the top shelf of her locker.
The end-of-day bell blared through the room and echoed down abandoned hallways. The door should be opening. She should be pushing her way into the hall, swimming upstream in a crowd of highschoolers, ready to meet Mira at their lockers.
The trill of the bell faded—swallowed by walls and closed doors until the air was still. Sage pictured a half-open locker, a lost pencil on the floor, a water fountain that sat unused. A ghost-like school frozen in time. In the quiet darkness of the math room, Sage’s textbook sat open on her desk, pencil ready for the next notation, calculator mid-calculation. Brooklyn’s book waited for her to come back from the restroom. To come back at all.
“This is a dumb time for a drill,” someone murmured. Sage glanced over her shoulder as the word drill swam through her head.
Hugging her arms around herself, Sage focused on her shoe that her mom insisted needed replacing. She ran her finger over the flaking glue and cracked sole, and dug her nail into the exposed lip. Grit stuck under her nail, and grime colored the pad of her finger as she picked and tugged until a flap of rubber hung from her shoe. She flicked the flap. It bobbled to a stop.
Whispers drifted through the group, and kids shifted in the shadows while the clock tried to convince them that only eleven minutes had passed. After-school plans faded as Sage’s phone became a brick in her pocket. All her friends were on the other side of that phone. So were her mom, dad, and brother. Sage slid the phone out and found Mira.
You ok?
In a blink, Mira’s words shone out at Sage.
ok but scared. u?
Ok but my classmates are dumb
do what ur supposed 2 do. dont worry bout them
They are loud & stelter isn’t keeping them quiet. Do you even know what’s going on? idk. thought its a drill but timing is weird
I know
Keep safe luv u
Luv u2
Sage pulled up her brother.
You ok?
She stared at her screen, waiting for Delivered to become Read but the word sat dead.
“No phones.”
Mr. Stelter’s eyes were on the collection of teens hunched on the floor. Sage slipped her phone into her pocket and prayed for the buzz of a notification.
A voice, deep and muffled outside the door, cut the air, and heightened the tension like a restrained spring.
“Sweep the second floor.”
Sage’s head snapped up. The world stopped turning as the voice filled Sage’s head.
“Down the east hallway.”
As though building to a crescendo, the pounding of boots grew louder and then faded.
Sage’s breath rushed in and out and she hugged her knees. A whispered voice floated across the pod of students.
“Mr. Stelter, who’s out there?”
As if on command, broken words from police radios followed the cadence of the boots. Sage pictured radios strapped to police officers. And handcuffs. And guns.
In their school.
The boots and radios faded, until the only sound was Sage’s heart pounding in her ears. Her mind filled with images of guns and blood, and her favorite people lying lifeless in the hall. She swallowed, the ball of saliva pressing against every ring of cartilage in her throat as it pushed its way down to her stomach.
Fists clenched and jaw tight, Sage forced herself to focus on the back of Penelope’s head. Her golden hair was pulled back in a clip mottled blue and pink like cotton candy, with a tiny green plastic gummy bear fashioned to each end. Penelope’s hair gathered in the clip before spilling down her back, like a river coming to a pinch point before plummeting over the falls. Sage breathed deeply and stared at the gummy bear.
A vibration in her pocket snapped Penelope’s perfect hair from Sage’s mind. Rhett. She slid her phone out but it was Mira’s rather than her brother’s name on the screen. Tucking the phone between her knees, Sage glanced at Mr. Stelter, and clicked the message.
A news article sat heavy on the screen, and flaunted an image of their school, police cars everywhere, cops with helmets and face shields captured mid-run, massive guns held to their bodies.
North Shore High School in Late-Day Lockdown
The story was filled with fear-inducing dramatic fluff amid quotes from terrified parents. Sage skimmed it again, but there was no indication of why they were in lockdown.
She rested her head on her knees and stared at the floor—gray-white with red and blue specks, polished until it was shiny, but shrouded in the shadow of her body. As Sage connected the specks into pictures, a tingling sensation in her hip worked its way down her thigh, and the muscle began to seize. The cramp intensified, and the tingling faded to numbness. Wincing, Sage extended her leg a few inches until the floppy rubber of her shoe brushed Penelope’s shirt. After a few restrained leg wiggles and twists, the cramp released its grip.
“Mr. Stelter, can I go to the washroom?”
Josh’s head had popped up from the cluster, his mop of hair falling into desperate eyes.
“We can’t leave,” Mr. Stelter whispered. “You’ll have to hold it.”
Carter elbowed Josh, but they hadn’t snickered in at least twenty minutes. Or was it thirty…or one-hundred…
Sage’s gaze drifted over her classmates. Some stared forward, a few were whispering. A girl with black lipstick hugged her knees the same way Sage did: her eyes were wet, and rimmed in red.
“Hands up! Drop your weapon.”
Sage turned towards the door as a voice boomed through it.
“On the ground!”
The crash of something hitting a locker sliced the air.
“Down! Now!”
Another crash, another thump. More boots. A rapid rattling rang through the space and Sage’s eyes locked on the twitching doorknob. Something crashed against the door and the teens flinched in unison.
“Hands where we can see them!”
Penelope’s head was buried in a boy’s chest, and a whimper rose from the middle of the group. Carter bubbled out subdued sobs. A siren wailed as though it was the background symphony for an absurd play in the halls of Sage’s school.
Sage grabbed her phone and found her mom. Fighting through shaky hands, Sage delivered her words: thers aschool shootr. im scraed. i luv uou mommy
Her breath lurched, and spilled in disarrayed patterns, and the tears that had been hovering poured down her face. She forced herself to take four deep breaths the way her dad had taught her.
The school was holding its breath. The hallway had grown silent. Sage clutched her stomach.
“Police got him,” she murmured, nodding.
“It’s over. We can go home.”
On the other side of the group, Carter stood up, then Josh. A few other students got to their feet.
“Sit down,” Mr. Stelter said. “Until we hear an official announcement.”
“But we heard the cops take someone down,” Josh said as he stepped over peers. “It’s almost over. I’m just getting my stuff so I can make the next bus.”
Mr. Stelter stood like a barrier.
“Down. Now.”
The intercom clicked over their heads, like a god ready to deliver a message of salvation.
“This school is still in a lockdown. Remain in your classroom. Follow all lockdown procedures. Repeat: This school is still in a lockdown.”
Sage squeezed her phone to her chest, hugging all the beautiful people on the other end of it while fighting against sobs and screams that were clawing to burst out. As though feeling her ache, Sage’s phone buzzed against her heart.
Mira’s words filled the screen with half a dozen messages and a screenshot stolen from a social media site. Police surrounded their school like bees swarming a hive, and they held back parents using giant shields. Was that Brooklyn’s mom? Where was her mom?
She checked her message to Rhett. Nothing.
You ok? Just tell me you’re ok
Another image from Mira invaded her screen. A kid was lying on a stretcher, blood running down his face as he brandished an anguished expression, his arm extended to capture the selfie. Sage furrowed her brow, and searched for bullet holes on the kid’s chest. Her fingers flew over her phone.
Was this kid shot at our school?
A banging at the door froze everyone in place. Carter dropped back to the floor as though shot. Josh, turned to stone, stayed on his feet.
“This is Constable Cox. Open the door.”
Mr. Stelter was a statue.
“Police. Open up.”
Jostled into action, Mr. Stelter motioned for the class to stay put as though they were dogs, then turned to the door.
“What if it’s a trick, Mr. Stelter?”
Sage peered past heads and around the divider as her teacher moved across the classroom like he was evading a firing line. Pressing his back to the far wall, he created a slit in the blinds and peeked out. An eternity later, he stepped from the wall and flipped the lock.
The door pushed open, sending Mr. Stelter stumbling back. Two police officers swept into the room, but they weren’t dressed as the beat officers Sage was used to seeing around town. They must have been seven feet tall and forged from iron, with helmets and face shields obscuring their identity and making them look like they were going to war.
Sage drove herself backwards into the bookcase. Her heart tried to leap from her chest and make a last-ditch run for it. The officers loomed over them with cannons rather than guns.
“Put your hands where we can see them.”
Sage’s hands flew over her head. Her breath stuck in her throat while her heart drummed like a jackhammer. The gun was the only thing in the room and it stared into her soul.
“Sit down!”
She was sitting. She didn’t know what he meant.
“Phones down.”
She had no idea where her phone was. She looked up at her hands, high over her head. No phone.
“Hands where we can see them. Now!”
She stuck her hands as high as she could, straining with every finger to touch the ceiling.
One officer swept through the students like a dog on the scent, and then he was on Stelter in the far corner while the other officer looked around the classroom.
“Clear.”
And then they were gone. Mr. Stelter rushed to the door and turned the lock.
Sage’s lungs had seized and her body begged for oxygen. She gulped but could not find air.
The room tilted and spun and waves of nothing and everything rushed over her.
“Sage!”
A hand on her arm burned and she pulled back. Penelope took her hand and squeezed.
“We’ll be okay, Sage. The police are going to figure this out.”
All around her, kids cowered with tear-streaked faces or sat solid like rocks. A stench wafted over Sage, and she spied vomit down Carter’s shirt and staining his jeans. A beam of sunlight broke through the slits of the blinds, and lit the puddle like a spotlight.
“Why is there sun?” Sage said.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Didn’t the sun set already?”
“Sage, it’s not even five in the afternoon.”
Sage smelled the vomit and swallowed her own.
A familiar buzzing, quiet but close, filled her ears. She looked down at her phone, abandoned a foot away. Rhett’s image filled the screen as her phone trembled again.
Sage snatched her phone and, cradling it in her hands, opened the message.
This is ridiculous. It’s another stupid drill that figured would scare us by having it at the end of the day.
Sage stared at the message. The police. The pictures on the news. The hours…or minutes…that had passed. Sage shook her head, and typed out a response.
Police were in my class with guns. It’s not a drill. Didn’t you see that pic of the kid in the hospital that’s all over social media?
That was Cade from his car accident last year. Did you really believe that was from today?
Sage found the picture from Mira and studied the kid on the stretcher. Looked again for bullet holes. Tried to find where the blood was coming from.
Sage sucked back the fresh crop of tears that her brother had summoned. She closed her eyes and steadied her breath.
Soft whimpers drifted through the air. Someone shifted on the floor and their shoe squeaked the linoleum. A low voice outside. The sound of a locker closing.
She opened her eyes. Rhett is alive.
She filled her lungs with air. He’s right. I’m overreacting. It’s a weird drill.
She looked again at Carter, covered in his own stomach contents.
Sage hugged her legs until she was the smallest ball possible. She squeezed her eyes shut and began to hum. The melody came from the deepest part of her, from when she was a toddler and her mom would sing her back to sleep when she woke from another nightmare.
As Sage hummed, the melody poured through her. Her body enveloped the song, and she rocked herself as she repeated the tune over and over.
An image of the faceless police officer and his cannon walked into her mind, but she hummed it away. The classroom disappeared. The school vanished. Terror sat inside of her, but she hummed through the panic, rocking herself in a rhythmic motion.
A knee to her shoulder knocked Sage from her reverie. Legs surrounded her, and she looked up to see her classmates gather things from their desks and leave the classroom.
Leave her behind.
Sage shot to her feet and turned to a boy with greasy hair hanging in his face.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Lockdown is over. Didn’t you hear the announcement?”
“Over? What happened? Was it real?” Sage rushed to keep up with him.
He shrugged. “Dunno.”
Sage grabbed her math book from her desk and paused when she saw Brooklyn’s book lying open, untouched, waiting for its owner. Turning her back on the book, she joined the stream of students pushing through the door. She burst into the hallway and pressed through hundreds of bodies while searching for a face. The air was soupier than usual, the normal din of chitchat and banter heightened yet thick, and when she saw the back of Mira’s head at their lockers, tears spilled from her eyes.
“Mira.”
Mira spun around and enveloped Sage in a hug.
“Gawd, Sage,” she cried. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”
Mira’s heart thumped against Sage in rhythm with her own beat. Sage squeezed Mira, never to let go, and breathed in the scent of her passionfruit shampoo tinged with the acrid smell of sweat.
“Was there really a shooter?” Sage said through tears.
“I don’t know. The police were here but I don’t know why. No one is telling us anything.”
As the girls held each other, Rhett drifted down the hall. His hair was a rumpled mess, his face white, and he stared ahead expressionless, as though unaware of the crowd jostling him about.
“Rhett,” Sage called. He looked through her. “Rhett!”
The girls broke from their hug but kept their hands clasped as Rhett was swallowed by the crowd.
“I wonder what he saw,” Mira said. “What he knows.”
Phones lit the hallway in scattered bursts as students poured over social media and text messages. Sobs and gossip filled the air. Sage looked over her shoulder at a group of girls beside them.
“There were two shooters,” one girl said. “They were tenth graders. They came to get a girl who embarrassed them online.”
“Yeah,” said another, “but did you see that picture of Cade? He was shot and was taken to the hospital. I hear he needs major surgery, but he should survive.”
“I heard that it was the gym teacher they wanted to target for making them climb the rope.”
“No. There were three kids and they weren’t real guns, just water guns.”
“They were definitely real guns. I heard the shots. I think a police officer may have been killed.”
All around her, kids gathered in circles, tears and hugs and rumors overwhelming the North Shore High School halls.
Sage looked down at her phone, heavy in her hand.
With her best friend clinging to her side, Sage swiped away the ruthless apps. She shoved the gossip and spectacle into the deepest pocket of her backpack and walked away from Room 116.

Laura Frost is a novelist and short story writer with a penchant for delving into battles of the heart and mind. Laura’s short stories have been published in print and online, and she leans on nature, baking, and adventures with her family to both calm and stir her writing muse.