Chapter 3
Aftermath and Clean Up
Chapter Description: The authorities inspect what remains of health class.
Soon after the boom echoed down the halls, the entire school went into lockdown and the police were called, and shortly thereafter the S.W.A.T. team arrived. Every person outside the scene, and almost every person inside the scene was well versed in seeing these kind of events in far off places, and afraid of it happening to them. The people inside the school that weren’t well versed, used to know all about it as well, but extenuating circumstances caused them to forget about it in the few minutes that just passed.
They couldn’t detect anything going on inside at this point, and they established contact with people inside, who only reported distant screaming. Assuming the perpetrator had taken their own life, the decided that they could move in slowly, and sweep the corridors for casualties and survivors.
They had to break in the glass of the front doors since it seemed like there was no one left to buzz people in the front door. But when they entered, none of their training had prepared them for. They didn’t see any blood or viserca that littered scenes akin to this in the past. They found some empty piles of clothes that appeared to be damp in most cases, some even appeared to have human waste inside of the piles. In some piles, there were young babies that appeared to be abandoned there, and other piles had infants that had not made it too far away.
They talked with each other and were under the impression that this was a high school and not a babies nursery, but in all the cacophony they realized they might have been confused as the type of institution they were entering.
They radioed out “Sarge, checking the name of this school?”
“Marble Hills High School.” The outside commander quickly radioed back.
Their confusion was justified it appeared. “Any reason for a large number of babies to be present at this school?” The squad leader asked.
“Were there a lot of babies at your high school, officer?” The sergeant asked jokingly.
“I’m counting at least 5 young babies, with no diapers or any adult present just inside the entrance of the school, sir” he responded.
The sergeant thought that extremely odd, and ordered the sweep continue. “Make sure the babies are safe but don’t allow yourself to get distracted by them” he ordered.
They continued down the hall as outside local news and concerned parents began to gather. They came upon an area with four corners, but could see two more piles of clothes down only one of the hallways. They walked down this hallway until they came upon an open door, where they heard a chorus of wailing infants.
“Holy shit” one of the officers exclaimed. There were at least 20 babies in this room, along with a charred hunk of metal next to one of the babies who appeared to be crying the most intensely. All of the babies were on the floor covered with piles of clothing, besides one, who appeared to be slightly younger than the rest of them as was relatively composed compared to the rest of them.
The team called in for reinforcements and swept the remaining sections of the school and found no other babies. It seemed like the threat was gone and they allowed medical staff to come onto the scene to evaluate the infants and the other teenagers and adults on the school grounds.
The final count was 30 babies found on the premises, with 21 of those being in the health room. All students who were found unharmed were released to their parents, but a reasonably large amount of parents waiting outside, some crying and all extremely nervous about the fate of their children.
The authorities were not sure about the state of these people’s kids for a what seemed like an eternity to the parents, growing anxious as other families were being reunited around them.
As the preliminary investigative team was done marking the position of where the infants were found, along with the pile of clothes and the smoldering metal wreckage, they allowed the paramedics to enter and render aid to the babies, which largely wasn’t needed, and to gather them up for identification and potential transport to a nursery wing of a hospital. They put as many as they could inside the health room since it had many surfaces and countertops.
The paramedics found that the children ranged in age from about 2-months old to 11-months, with the bulk of them falling in the 4, 5, 6, month range. The youngest baby was the one laying on the desk in the classroom and the oldest was the only one to have had the coordination to move from clothing prison, near the entrance.
As paramedics they did not regularly deal with pediatric care of these types, so they found that none of them possesed any diapers of any size. One of the faculty did let them know that Ms. Bailey did keep a small amount of diapers in the cabinet for demonstration purposes for the parenting portions of her class. They found only a few diapers, only one of each size, and they seemed relatively old. But they put the smallest diaper on the baby found on the desk, one on the comparatively large 11-month old that was in the hallway, and then there was only about 4 diapers to go around with the remaining 28 babies, some of which were too big, so only 2 of the rest of the babies received a diaper at all. The rest were swaddled in whatever unsoiled piece of clothing remained of their bed of clothes.
They carried them out to the front of the school, and in front of parents and media one by one. The babies significantly out numbered the medics so some officers had to be enlisted to carry them out. It was only upon close inspection of one of the swaddled babies, wrapped in a pink t-shirt that one of the parents recognized. Then looked further at the wailing baby, inexplicably being carried out of a high school, and realized there was something extremely familiar about the baby that was wrapped in that shirt. She knew that wailing face from memories of sleepless nights 18 years ago, and many viewings of old pictures since.
“EMILY!” The mother screamed at the top of her voice. Which led the other parents to look closer as well…
