SYNOPSIS: After being visited in prison by Morgan LaDona Tigh, Lance Martin has agreed to Dr. Duncan's request to detail what happened in the time that Lance is calling "the Trap." Lance begins his journal by describing the morning before the trap fell, where we learn his father was the Principal of Loren High, that Lance is a Junior, and has a sister named Diane who is a sophomore. After a couple hours at school that morning, where we see how different is relationship with Morgan is, we also meet Lance's best friend, Artie Pentler, and their gang. Just as Lance is ready to ask Ginny Estill out, the Trap falls, and they witness the horrible death of two P. E. students as they are caught in some kind of electrical storm. After a very rocky, scary day, the students were called to gather in the gym, where some students broke out. After the rally, Lance and his sister meet with their father and find that he doesn't know much more than they do. Lance spends his first night in the trap, listening to late night screams and sounds of electric zapping. When this scene opens, it is now two weeks later, Wednesday April 30th.
4
I don't think we
fully realized what a psychological barrier we were passing by being on the
verge of entering into another month.
The unspoken promise was that this was an April problem. That surely things would wrap by then, and we
would all be back with our families.
When May would hit, it was like it was becoming impossible to pretend that
this might not go on and on. As illogical
as it might sound, as if it might not ever end.
They had already
divided the day for most of us. We all
had chores and responsibilities. Mine
was at the TV studio, where I helped prepare the morning newscast. Mostly involved in the writing, I was up
earlier than most preparing that day's stories.
In many ways, between my Dad as Principal, my position on Student Council,
and seeing the raw information that we would turn into news stories, I was
privy to a lot more information than most.
But that didn't mean that I knew what was going on. Much of what I was learning I couldn't piece
together to make any sense.
I was up by 6 AM,
down at the news studio, helping to prepare the news Bob Short would read. Mr. Resart, the TV studio teacher, would
carefully look over the news we were preparing, trying to make sure we weren't
going over the line. He would often consult with Vice Principal Crowler via
intercom. A couple of mornings Mr.
Crowler had actually been with us.
One morning there
was some confusion about a story concerning girls and their periods. The gist of it was that there had not been a
run on sanitary napkins like they thought there would. The nurse had a very limited supply
available, but there had been virtually no requests for them. I think there was the fear that, maybe,
because of the stress that was happening, girls periods were coming into
alignment. If that was so, then the
administration feared the sudden onslaught when all the requests came in at the
same time. They didn't know how to make
an announcement about this, about where girls should go if they needed this, or
any other help they might need in this regard.
It was finally decided to handle the problem off air, by going through
health and P.E. teachers and other female staff.
They also censored
any speculation that there might be a hole or gap in the barrier that some
students were getting through, Some student names were given, asking if they
could report to the front office, or if anyone who might know their whereabouts
to let the front office know as there was important information they needed to
give them. They actually located a couple
of students that had been thought missing, but that still left over a dozen
more.
There was also a
damper put on speculation as to why we were not running out of things we had
been expected to be running out of. Other
than worries about things like fruit or clean underwear, this had not yet reached
a level yet that most students thought about.
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