History of the Trap: June Dreams Part 4

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 his relationship with Morgan is.  We 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.  The students soon realize, as April marches on, that the so-called storm is something more, and that they may be trapped at the school and it's grounds for a very long time. May involves grizzly murders of staff that remain unsolved, as Lance's father and staff struggle to come to grips with events.  They decide to schedule more activities for the students to become involved with, including sports,  a TV variety show, and the beginnings of the tunnel project. Lance realizes that Ginny has chosen Artie, and finds himself moving closer to the studious, pretty Lisa Carlton.  Lance and Lisa stumble on to a drug ring being led by David Izzner and the band teacher, Mr. Black.

4

Students were not the only ones addicted to smoking.  There were a good number of teachers and staff who smoked.  There were several rooms designated as teacher/staff areas where they could gather, talk and relax without being around students. Two teacher's lounges  were in existence even before the trap.  One of them permitted smoking.

As the number of available cigarettes dwindled, some students couldn't help but notice that the staff smoking lounge still remained fairly tobacco odor tainted.  Did they have their own supply, or were they being furnished by David Izzner and Mr. Black?  This mystery was partly cleared up by the awful events of that mid-June morning.

Many students milled in the hall leading to Joe Oliver's guidance counselor office.  The staff blocked the students off before they could get too close, but that made them all the more anxious. I stood near the front and saw my Dad coming out of the office, looking very shaken and pale.  I was standing near Phil Irman, my friend from the TV studio.  He had been there longer than I had.  "What's going on, Phil?" I asked.

Phil shook his head, trying to absorb and articulate what he knew.  "Not sure, Lance.  I think someone was killed in there.  I heard Mr. Tate say that the office had been ransacked, and that it was too late to help them, and that's all I heard." 

My Dad came forward towards the crowd of students.  "Listen up, everybody.  There is a terrible incident here that we need to investigate and clean up.  If you have information, please report to Mr. Tate's office.  Otherwise, I will be on the newscast tonight to tell you all whatever we know about what occurred here.  Now please get back to your classes or work assignments, and we will do our best to take care of this."

As the crowd broke up, I went with my Dad to his office.  He was very shaken up.  He sat at the conference table and struggled to hold his composure.  His friend and colleague, Joe Oliver, head guidance counselor, had been found on the floor with his throat slit, lying in a pool of his own blood.  The office had been torn apart, records strewn every where, office equipment thrown and smashed.  He believed they were after some cartons of cigarettes that Mr. Oliver had hidden in his office.

"I tried to turn a blind eye to it," my father said, his voice shaking. I had rarely seen him so emotional.  "I tried to ignore the whole cigarette thing, let it run its natural course.  Maybe their slow decline would facilitate a more gradual withdrawal.  I was wrong.  We should have destroyed them all to begin with.  And now it's cost me the life of one my closest friends."

I tried to reassure him, but the best I could do was just to put my arm around his shoulders and be there for him.  Sometimes presence is more important than words.

I wondered how he must feel.  He was a very good man, hard working and devoted to us and the school; family, faculty and staff alike.  And how much it must be hurting him being apart from Mom.  Sometimes we forgot about how hard it must be to be separated from your spouse, with no certainty you would ever see them again.  It was different than our anxiety we had as young adults being apart from our parents, and it was different than the early relationships we had as kids, like Linda's separation from her boyfriend at Huron University.  There were a small number of teachers that were in the trap that were attached to each other, from the originally rumored but now growing relationship between the shop teacher, Mr. King and the health teacher, Miss Symms, to the one intact married couple, the Branches.  But the largest numbers were like my Dad and Mr. Eurich, tragically cut off from their one true love.

That night my Dad gave a speech that was broadcast throughout the school.  He started with a very moving tribute to Joe Oliver.  The guidance counselor had helped many students over the years, and I imagine there were a lot of students breaking down throughout the building.  Then he turned to the matter of finding the killer, who many thought was the same murdering scum who had killed math substitute teacher Mr. Franks and front office secretary Betty O'Neal, and assured everyone that the investigation would lead no stone unturned, and redoubled on the buddy system that would ensure no student be left alone.  He concluded with the dramatic statement that "The scourge of cigarettes is now over.  All cigarettes will be searched out, found, and destroyed.   Anyone caught smoking will be sent to detention, including any staff that does so.  I know that smoking is a horrible, addictive thing, and we will have staff available to help you through it.  But no drug, whether in taking it, or in fighting over its possession, is worth another life.  It ends with Joe Oliver."

I think my Dad made absolutely the right decision.

Not everyone would agree with that.