Books by K.T. Banks

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..   Sam glanced at his watch as he explained to his daughter why he couldn’t stay for lunch.

“That’s okay, Daddy. I’m going to go find Jill anyway.”

 As they were about to walk out into the hall, a loud scream pierced the air, followed by a popping sound. Sam quickly pushed Shannon back into the cafeteria. “Stay here honey; I have to go see what’s going on.”

He put his face down to the same level as hers, looked her straight in the eyes, and repeated, “I mean it, stay here, no matter what.”  Then he ran down the hallway.

One of the teachers was yelling for everybody to get down under the tables. Shannon got underneath the nearest one. It got very quiet because no one knew what was going on. She could actually hear each tick of the clock above the door.

After a while some of the children began to whisper, “Are we having another fire drill?

“Maybe it’s a real fire.”

“Maybe it’s a bomb!”

“We’re all gonna die!”

 The girl closest to her began to cry.  It was starting to feel like a long time had gone by.  Shannon wanted to go check on her father.  And where was Jill? Getting more worried by the minute, she jumped up and ran out the door. It was too late for the nearest teacher to stop her.

 As she moved swiftly down the deserted hallway towards Jill’s homeroom, she saw some black shoes sticking out of a doorway. Sneaking up to the door, she was horrified to discover a policeman lying on his back with a pool of deep red blood spreading across the floor. His eyes were open, staring blankly across the room.

Flyers that had fallen around him had the smiling face of a dog in a trench coat talking about crime prevention.  Now she knew she had to find her Dad and Jill to warn them. Her heart was beating so hard; she thought she might throw up. She took a deep breath to try to steady herself and crept along the hallway, staying close to the bright blue metal lockers.  Everything felt surreal; she had never seen the school this deserted and quiet. It reminded her of a scary movie that she and Jill had watched late one night, when Jill’s parents had thought they were asleep. 

Suddenly she heard her Dad talking in a low voice. “Come on man, she didn’t have anything to do with putting you in jail. She was practically just a baby at the time. You don’t want to hurt her.” He was speaking with authority, like he did with his football players, but Shannon thought she could hear desperation in his voice. As she turned the corner, she could see her Dad standing in a doorway. She could hear someone crying.

“Shut-up and get out of the way!” The voice seemed to snarl, making Shannon jump. “Mr. D.A. has to pay for what he did to me. I’m not going to hurt her so long as he pays, and I know he has plenty of money coming from a family like that. I’m only telling you one more time, get out of my way.”

As it dawned on Shannon that he was talking about Jill, she heard her father say, “I can’t do that.” He took a step further into the room just as a loud boom went off. She watched—it seemed in slow motion, as her father’s body flew backwards out of the doorway.

Even with the loud boom still echoing in her ears, she could still hear Jill screaming in terror. The man was yelling at her and trying to pull her out the door.

Still feeling like she was in slow motion, Shannon turned and walked back the way she had come. She went to the school room with the body of the dead policeman and bent over him to get the gun out of his hand. She wiped the blood off the gun with the bottom of her new dress and went back down the hallway.

As she rounded the corner, she saw the man pulling Jill around the body of her father. He looked up and saw her standing in the middle of the hall with the gun pointed at him. He laughed and sneered, “Well, look what we have here.”

Then his face hardened, “Get out of the way little girl, or I’ll just take you with us.” With numb recognition she realized it was the man from yesterday, the one with the camera. Holding the heavy gun as straight as she could, she said in a low voice, “You just killed my Dad, and I’m not gonna let you hurt Jill too.” She looked into Jill’s horrified eyes for a split second. The little girl dropped to the ground just as Shannon pulled the trigger. With disbelief, the man grabbed his left arm.

“You little bitch, you shot me!” With a loud snarl he raised his gun to aim at her. Shannon fired the gun again and he fell to the floor, still cursing. As Jill watched from the doorway, Shannon walked up to the man and shot him twice more.