Storymania - The Last Day by Erika Sutton

The Last Day
Erika Sutton

“It’s gorgeous outside today.”
“I know, I’m really gonna miss this.”
“Just like that, we’re graduating, and heading back to the States for college. I haven’t been there in so long. I won’t have any idea what’s going on at the University of Florida!” I stated, kicking pebbles down the road with my foot. Katie walked next to me watching the rocks roll down the brick road.
“I can’t imagine living anywhere but here, Columbia is like my home.” Katie responded, swiping a fly away from her forehead. She casually pushed her bangs out of her eyes and glanced towards school. It was our last time to walk this path together. Our last day of school had come to fast, and we were seniors, ready to take on the world of college classes, fraternity parties, and parental freedom.
My eyes squinted as I looked towards our school. “McAuley Ambassador School – The American Bridge.” I’d gone there since seventh grade, when my dad got appointed to Ambassador of Columbia. The school was for American kids and really lucky Columbian kids with rich parents. The American Embassy protected out school. See, Columbia isn’t exactly the safest place to live. There are lots of gangs and drug dealers. But I had gotten used to the culture here. It’s my culture now.
“OW!” Katie shouted. I turned to look, and her kid brother Cody had run by and smacked her on the back of the leg with a stick. She took off after him and made up the distance quickly, even in her school-issued loafers. She threw him to the ground and grabbed the stick from him. His struggles were fruitless, he only managed to kick up a lot of dust and cover his light and navy blue uniform with the red dust. “Try it again and see what happens,” she threatened out of breath.
I jogged to catch up with her, but the knee length skirts made it awkward. School uniform could make anything awkward.
“Let him be” I said, “it’s the last day of school, he’s just antsy.” But we are were really, school days were much longer and harder here, than back in the states. Our school “raises the future politicians of the World.” God, I didn’t want to be a politician.
“Use your brain Amber, you’d make a great lawyer, why don’t you apply to Harvard or Yale, you’re sure to get in,” my dad always said. So I did what any normal girl would do when her father gives her advice about life – applied to the University of Florida and major in Marine Biology. He would just have to deal.
“This is it!” Katie grabbed my arm, “The very last time that we walk through these doors as students! We’re going to be adults now!” Huge grins spread across our faces as we looked at each other, and took a giant, dramatic step inside. The bell rang.
“I’m headed to biology, I catch you at lunch. Save me a seat?” She nodded, tugged on her ear and winked, then walked towards her Government class. I didn’t have to ask her, I knew she would, but it was out tradition, and I wasn’t about to break it on the last day of school.
“Good morning graduates!” Mr. Garza greeted us. He was one of my favorite teachers, and this was a great way to start my last day. “It’s time for the lab that I have been promising all year. That’s right, prepare to be amazed.” My class of ten students gave a small shout of excitement. Everything at this school was small, only five hundred kids in first though the twelfth grade.
We were going to take local fish from the area, and dissect them. Sounds geeky, but to a marine-life-geek like myself, the day couldn’t have started better. The class suited up in aprons, latex gloves and goggles.
“Are you ready doctor?” Brian said to me in the worst horror movie villain impression voice ever.
“Oh yes! I’ve been waiting for this all year!” I giggled back. Brian shook his head and smiled, he knew me all to well.
“Scalpel!” He said as he held his hand out for the cutting knife. I gave it to him and he began to delicately open the fish. “What a smell!” Instantly, I was taken to the beach, and the smell of salt and sand filled my nose, and then the smell of dead fish. I coughed and movie my hand towards my nose.
We were deep into dissecting the fish when Mr. Culliver, out assistant principal entered the room. He pulled Mr. Garza to the side and spoke with him quietly. I turned my attention back to the fish.
“Look, the stomach! Oh man, his guts are falling out!” Brian excitedly exclaimed. It never failed, no matter how old boys were, they would still act like twelve-years olds around gore.
“Ok class, I’m going to need you to clean everything up, we’re going to move to the auditorium,” Mr. Garza stated, interrupting our precession dissection. Moans were heard throughout the class.
“What?! Why?!” Brian protested, “Just as we were getting to the good part.” I had to admit, I was dually disappointed. But the worried look on Mr. Garza’s face had my attention at the moment. Typically a fun-loving guy, Mr. Garza was now hurriedly making his way to the back of the class.
“I’m not kidding! Pick up!” he shouted and I glanced at Brian. His confusion was obvious by the expression on his face.
“What is going on?” he mouthed to me. I shook my head, but began picking up all the lab materials. “Shit,” Brian mumbled under his breath. I glanced over towards him and noticed that he had cut his finger with the knife, and it was bleeding pretty badly.
“Go clean yourself up, I’ll take care of the rest of this.” He nodded and headed towards the sink. I put all the materials in our box.
“Just stop where you are, we have to get to the auditorium. File out now!”
“Is this some sort of senior prank?” Alex asked from the back of the class. He gave his friend Mike a high five. The class clowns. The look Mr. Garza shot them quickly quieted them.
“What’s going on here?” I thought to myself, picked up my purse, and headed out the door. As we moved down the hall towards the classroom I noticed other classrooms leaving too. I heard screams; they were coming from behind me so I turned around. I sharply drew a breath in, I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. Fear gripped every inch of me and I couldn’t move. I just stood there in shock. A man was pushing a student down the hall, with a gun to her back. I didn’t recognize the student, I think she was a seventh grader. The man was dressed in black from head to toe, and wearing a ski mask. The gun was large and looked automatic. It looked dangerous.
“Get down!” he yelled in a familiar accent. This man was defiantly local, because when speaking English he had that same, almost Spanish, draw to his words. Immediately everyone hit the floor. I couldn’t move still. The gunman’s eyes caught mine, and his gun moved from the girls’ back and pointed at me. “I said ‘get down.’ ” I slowly sunk to the floor with my hands up in air to show that I meant no trouble. “Good,” and he moved the gun back towards the girl. I let out a sign as I rested my head against the wall. I hadn’t realized how long I was holding my breath.
The shooter pushed the gun hard in the girl’s back to get her to walk forward. She tightened up but began walking. As she passed me I could see tears in her eyes, and her lip was quivering. What was going on here?
As the man in black reached the end on the hall, he turned around, “Don’t move,” he said forcefully, and began to walk again. As soon as the man rounded the corner with the girl, Alex stood up and began to run to the door.
“Alex!” someone shouted, and the gunman rushed back around the hall. A shoot, and Alex fell to the floor, right in front of me. I screamed.
“I said, ‘don’t move,’ ” and the gunman walked back around the corner. No one stood up this time.
I looked over at Alex. I could see his chest rising and falling. He wasn’t dead! There was a lot of blood on his shoulder. He’d only been shot in the shoulder. “Alex!” I said quietly, and he moaned. I did a quick scan back the front of the hall. The gunman was gone. I crawled out to where he laid a few feet in front of me and grabbed him by his waist. “This might hurt a bit.” I dragged him back to where I sat against the wall and laid him next to me. It felt like dragging dead weight. He started to give a yell in pain, but I quickly put my hand over his mouth. “You want to get us all shot?!” I whispered into his ear, and he was quiet.
I took a closer look at his shoulder. The bullet went right through the top of his shoulder, I could even see an exit wound. He was bleeding pretty bad. I took of my jacket and covered his shoulder. I was no doctor. I felt someone standing to the left of me and froze. Slowly I turned my head. It was just Mr. Garza. “Oh my God you scared me.” He squatted next to Alex and began looking at his shoulder.
“This is pretty bad,” he said. “Prop him up against the wall. He will bleed less.” We both sat Alex against the wall and he moaned, but otherwise kept quiet. “Alex, Alex, can you hear me.” Alex nodded, but never opened his eyes. “He’s lost a lot of blood, I’m afraid he is going to become unconscious.
“What should I do?”
“Just make sure to keep an eye on him. There isn’t much else we can do.” Mr. Garza took of his lab apron and began to tightly wrap Alex’s shoulder. “The blood is going to soak through pretty quick,” he looked around the hall. “Brian, hand me your lab apron.” I hadn’t noticed before but Brian was sitting just a few feet up the hall from me. Brian quickly untied the apron and crawled down the hall towards us.
“Is he alright?” Brian asked handing his apron to Mr. Garza.
“He just got shot.” Mr. Garza said sharply. Brian and I looked at each other. Mr. Garza was about at the end of his rope.
A gunman ended the back of the hall. Everyone turned to look. “I thought I should let you know what is going on,” he snickered. This man was defiantly from around this area, but spoke English well. “ We are members of the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional, and are taking hostage of your school. See we don’t like you Americans being in our country. You seem to only cause problem for us.
“We cause problems for you because you are a criminal organization” I thought to myself. I knew about this group. The ELN was the most notorious revolutionary gang in Columbia during the 1970s. They had waned since Americans cracked down on their drug trafficking, which is how they had gained wealth and power in Columbia.
He pulled out a cell phone from his pocket and began dialing. “Hello, Mr Ambassador.” My dad! He was talking to my dad! “I have an interesting situation to report to you. Members of the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional have taken the McAuley Prepatory School hostage. We don’t like you Americans in our country. So what are you rich Americans willing to pay to save the children here?” The sheer audacity of this man was shocking, he was completely blunt and to the point. “I’ll call you back in 10 minutes,” and he hung up the phone.
“You just stay put,” he said to us, gave a satisfied smile and walked back around the corner.
I quickly grabbed my cell phone out of my purse. I was so glad I grabbed my purse just before I left the room. I began to text my dad a message. “What is going on here?! Please help us.” Simple, but to the point. I knew my dad would do all he could to fix the situation.
I looked over at Alex. He was getting really pale. “Mr. Garza, is he gonna be OK?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He said and shrugged his shoulders. He looked tired.
What was happening, how did all this start and what did these men want with us kids? All I wanted to do was get out of here alive. Why hadn’t my dad texted me back yet? What was the Embassy doing to get us out? And just how much money did the terrorists want? I knew that since September 11, the American government hadn’t cooperated with terrorist. Would this stand true at the risk of citizen’s lives? And not just any citizens, but children at that.
Five hours had passed. Tensions were running high. It was obvious that things were not going as planned for the terrorist group. I had heard from my dad, but all he said was to hold tight, and try not to aggravate the terrorist. What where they doing at the embassy?! I just wanted to get out of here.
Alex was now taking very shallow breaths. If he didn’t get some medical attention soon, he was going to die and that was obvious.
The man who called my father earlier rounded the corner with his cell phone to his hear. “What do you mean there are police forces are outside?! I told you not to get them involved. Things are going to go very bad for you now!” He slammed the flip phone shut and shouted in anger. The men were so upset that it scared me. This situation would not end well for anyone.
Brian looked at me. “Where do you think Katie is?” He asked. I just shrugged. I didn’t know where any of the students were or how any they were doing. For all I knew they could be dead at the other end of the school. I leaned my head against the plaster wall, and sighed.
“Nobody move! Get Down! Get Down!” Men exploded through entrance at the beginning of the hall. They looked like local police forces-about ten men. I screamed. Our captors rushed into the other end of the hall. For a moment both groups of men froze, not sure what to do next.
Then, one of the men from the ELN pulled the trigger on his gun. It broke the glass window right behind a police officer. The sound for bullets being fired rang out from the hall. I covered my head with my hands and pressed myself as close to the floor as I could. This is it, we’re all going to die.
I couldn’t see anything, but I could here shouting and screaming, and not just from the men, but from the children. I could hear more men coming in the hall, and for a while the gunfire intensified. Then slowing, it receded, and then there was none. I was too scared to look up.
“Kids, get up. Run out the door!” I peeked up just enough to see what was going on. I saw a man from the police force at the entrance to our hall holding a door open and motioning for students to get out. I stood and began running towards the door. Brian didn’t. I turned to him. Blood was spilling from his side and his chest. Oh, God, he was dead. Tears stung my eyes. “Get up. Get out of here now!” I didn’t have time to grieve now, I had to run out the door. So I ran, passing bodies on the way. I ran until I reached the fading sunlight of dusk, and behind police lines.
My father and mother ran towards me and grabbed me and hugged me. They pulled me in tight, and I fell apart in their arms. I couldn’t control the tears, they just poured out, and I let them. “It’s over,” they whispered.

I stand here at the memorial for all those who died that day, the last day of my senior year. It was the beginning to a new stage in my life, but not the way I had expected. I laid 37 flowers I brought onto the memorial. I held two back in my hand and stared at them for a moment. They were for Brian and Katie’s brother Cody. A silent tear rolled down my cheek. Even after fifteen years it still hurt, the pain was still there. You don’t ever recover from an experience like that. You just have to go forward. But no matter where you go, it follows you, haunting you.
That next fall I didn’t go to school at Florida, but I did move back to the States. I was too scared to stay in Columbia. I went to Manchester University to major in Education, starting in the winter semester. I decided that I would become a teacher, and I knew I would have to overcome my fear of Columbia and go back there. I would teach the children there, show them that they have a future. No more children would grow up to become members of the ELN. Not while I could do anything about it.
I wiped the tear away from my cheek. The wind gently blew across the open field in front of my old school. I turned from the memorial and began towards my car. It was time to head towards my classroom on the other side of the island, and begin the last day of school.