Gimme Back My Bullets: How to Survive a Mass Shooting
Instructions that might or might not help. [horror flash fiction]
About the series Horror Rocks, including Content Warning.
You can listen to the Horror Rocks playlist here or at the bottom of this post.
“Ain't foolin' around 'cause I done had my fun / Ain't gonna see no more damage done” — Lynyrd Skynyrd
Run, hide, fight.
Alternatively, freeze, pee, faint. One option is preferable, but do your best.
Text your mom or your husband, so members of the public can be reminded that the people who did not survive were indeed people.
Do not look for your friends. When gunshots pop in the air, you do not have friends anymore. What you have are potential human shields, or people who might drag you down with them.
If you are relatively safe and hidden, call 9-1-1. They might come, or they might spend an hour outside the building cosplaying as the Punisher.
If you are a child, hope an adult will protect you, but do not count on it.
If you are an adult and there are children present, hope you have the courage to protect them, otherwise if you survive and they don’t, you’ll have to live with yourself.
If you are Black and help is coming: run, hide.
If you’re disabled: you’re on your own. Just like when no one is shooting at people, no one thought of you because we’d rather you didn’t exist. You remind the rest of us that our bodies and minds are frail and that time passes. It makes everyone uncomfortable. If you get killed, we will hide our relief behind platitudes, the same way we hide our disgust when you’re alive.
If you’re a trusting person and you see a group running in one direction, follow them: they probably know the place and will lead you to an exit.
If you have trust issues and see a group running in one direction, stay put or go in the opposite direction: those dumbasses are probably panicking together and rushing to their deaths.
When it is over, and whether you have spoken to the press or not, written a memoir or gone to therapy, or gone back to stocking shelves, waxing eyebrows, changing oil filters, teaching poetry or engineering or history, and pushed it all down to keep going, remember that no one wants to be around a wet blanket - yes, there are always risks: someone could drive drunk, a fire could start and engulf everything, you heart might get broken, someone could write a manifesto, think what they’re doing makes them a hero, and aim their assault rifle at a crowd. But the news cycle has moved on and you should too.
December 6 is the 35th anniversary of the École Polytechnique mass shooting in Montreal, in which a 25 year old man went on a rampage fuelled by misogyny and killed fourteen women.
Thank you for reading!
Don’t hesitate to let me know if you’ve enjoyed this story. Or if you wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. Either way, feel free to say hi!
Incredible writing 👏 It's an inescapable historical event for me since it occurred on my birthday (though not birth year) and in the city I've lived in my whole life, and I think about it a lot. Thank you for highlighting it 🩷