Jason Simon's Blog
November 28, 2025
Short Fiction: Shelter in Place
Hurston writes, “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” Sitting there that day, 365 days beyond the tragedy, we weren’t exactly sure which of these it had been, only that it was a long, punishing period of trial and hardship, of pain and loss. Some of us had stoically persevered while others had fallen apart and been reassembled with the help of friends and loved ones and, maybe, even the town itself.
The first speaker that day was the mayor, and we all listened politely to his banal remarks about overcoming grief and leaning on one another. Many of our minds wandered to to-do lists and work obligations or to kids needing to be ferried to or from youth sports events, but we all applauded at the speech’s conclusion and felt something like goodwill. He wasn’t a bad man, just a bureaucrat.
Next, it was the school principal, and when her voice broke and quavered partway through her speech, we all felt genuine compassion for her. She had been there that day at Burton Elementary School, had taken cover under her desk in her office as the Maniac–his name doesn’t deserve to be preserved here for posterity–rampaged through the fourth-grade hallway on that brisk April Tuesday morning and transformed the lives of everyone in this small, tight-knit community.
After that, the chief of police took the stage and began by rehashing some of the chronology, not that anyone needed a reminder. For some of us, our lives had come to an end that day, and what we lived now was an unsatisfying sequel. Chief Bill didn’t linger over the lurid specifics long: the tragedy of the first classroom and the unutterable horror of the second, but we all held those details in our minds. We remembered how the first responders sobbed without abandon when they entered the first room and how a few had been physically ill upon encountering the second, but that was inappropriate to mention on a day like today.
Besides, a few of the families from that second classroom were here among us now, at least those who hadn’t left town in the aftermath. We wondered about those families, where they were now, whether the current classmates of their children knew what they’d endured and taken part in on that day. Obviously, we weren’t judging the families; their children had survived. We wondered, though, if the parents ever looked at their kids–the boys and girls of Mrs. Thornton’s 4th-grade class–and felt any faint sense of fear or revulsion.
When the Maniac arrived that day, the hallways were still. Although construction paper drawings of astronauts and dinosaurs adorned the lockers in the hallways and the teachers’ doors were decorated with festive spring-themed class photos, there was barely a sound to be heard throughout the building. No kids ran or skipped to the drinking fountain. No one pushed or shoved or struggled with the complicated calculus of lining up properly on their way to lunch or PE. No teachers barked out reprimands for running or horseplay. The only sound the Maniac heard as he entered the 4th-grade corridor was a faintly buzzing siren and a pre-recorded monotone voice repeating, “Attention! Shelter in place!”
The Maniac had come prepared to unleash horror upon the children and teachers of Burton that day. He was armed with two pistols–a Glock 17 and a Sig Sauer P226–with back-up clips for both and a Claymore OTF dagger for close combat. Maybe he could have been better stocked and done a little more planning, but he expected little resistance from a bunch of toddlers and a few old lady teachers.
Burton held no special significance for the Maniac. He wasn’t a former student there and had no real connection to any of the students or teachers. He chose Burton mostly at random. It wasn’t the closest school to his apartment, but it was close enough. The Maniac knew only that killing a large number of innocent children would send a chill through his entire community. A chill across the whole world.
When the Maniac finally came to Burton Elementary School on that Tuesday morning in April, everyone was well prepared for what to do. Fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Harris, bolted the door to room 107 and switched off the lights. She and her 15 students crouched along the classroom wall below the whiteboard so as not to be visible from the hallway or the outside windows. Throughout Burton, other teachers and classrooms full of students did the same. They had been trained through semi-monthly shelter-in-place drills to know exactly how to respond to a situation like this. If they felt apprehension this morning, it was offset by their readiness.
Across the hallway from Mrs. Harris’s 4B Shooting Stars, Ms. Thornton’s students in room 110 were also getting ready. Savannah S. sat sharpening her pencils to a fine point. Lilah G. practiced parrying with a pair of pointed scissors. Brandon J. and Ayden T. constructed piles of textbooks arranged in descending weight on either side of the classroom door, while Bella H., Emmy S., and Rachel S. stocked the classroom tables at the front of the room with staplers, paperweights, bookends, and a hefty snowglobe, all easily accessible. The 4F Supernovas had also been training, and at the moment the Maniac appeared in the 4th-grade hallway, Ms. Thornton’s students were all set.
While the students of Burton Elementary School had been taught through repetition what to do in an active shooter scenario–lock the door, turn off the lights, draw the blinds, silence phones, etc.--Ms. Thornton had developed an entirely different sort of pedagogy in preparation for an intruder.
“I call the program GET,” Ms. Thornton had told 4F at the beginning of the school year, writing the three letters of the acronym on the whiteboard for effect. “G.E.T. stands for Groin, Eyes, Throat, and if anyone comes into this classroom with the intention of hurting us, we’re going to GET them.”
While the other classrooms at Burton practiced sitting in silence in the dark and the teachers worked on calming breathing techniques, Ms. Thornton drilled her students on close-quarter hand-to-hand combat using common classroom items. Sometimes she borrowed the CPR dummy from the PE office, and students practiced gouging its eyes and throat with safety scissors or throwing science textbooks at it from a distance. Other times, Ms. Thornton donned a padded suit and face mask and entered the classroom firing a Nerf dartgun indiscriminately while her students overturned tables and practiced returning fire by hurling their shoes and other makeshift projectiles at this ersatz assassin.
It sounds ridiculous now, and had that hypothetical event not actually come to pass, we might have laughed about eccentric Ms. Thornton and her crack commando unit of paramilitary preteens. Strange as she was, we know Ms. Thornton’s heart was in the right place, and, to be fair, all 18 of her students walked out of Burton that day, blood-stained and strangely exhilarated, having passed the ultimate high-stakes summative assessment of nearly a school year’s worth of direct instruction.
Now, a year later, we sit in Burton Elementary’s gymnasium as the superintendent reads a list of the dead: one security guard, Carol, the front office lady, Mrs. Harris, and, of course, Mrs. Harris’s 15 students. These are the modern-day martyrs of our community, exalted figures whose likenesses appear on t-shirts and billboards and local television programs. Each person is a household name here, and no one in our town holds a more exalted position than the parents of those 15 kids, whose lives were so cruelly shortened on that tragic day.
Ms. Thornton is long gone, having opted for an early retirement and relocated up north to be near her sister and nieces. Most of 4F have moved away too, but some of them still live in town and are homeschooled. Two of them, Savannah S. and Bella H., actually stayed at Burton and are just a month shy of finishing 5th grade. We sometimes wonder how they interact with their peers. Are they feared or respected? Do they have friends or do they sit isolated during lunchtime at cafeteria tables, gazing down at their plastic forks and wondering about their utility in a moment of emergency?
We wonder about the Maniac sometimes too. Not about what led him to the school that day, which is an uninteresting, clichéd story of mediocrity and resentment but about what his last moments were like as he exited Mrs. Harris’s classroom triumphantly, having executed all of its occupants, and forced his way into Ms. Thornton’s room. What were his first thoughts when he realized they’d been expecting him, and how long did he survive as those small children crouched over him, bashing and blinding and slicing and eviscerating him?
Mostly, though, we wonder about the parents of some of those 18 surviving boys and girls who are here among us today, watching the whole community celebrate the dead children of some other parents. Their kids are heroes, if you want to be technical about it. Think about how many other classrooms throughout the 4th-grade wing and the school itself are here today because the Maniac’s second stop became his last. Even so, we can’t help but wonder if what the parents of Mrs. Thornton’s 4F Supernovas feel most days is gratitude or envy.
Written November 2025
The first speaker that day was the mayor, and we all listened politely to his banal remarks about overcoming grief and leaning on one another. Many of our minds wandered to to-do lists and work obligations or to kids needing to be ferried to or from youth sports events, but we all applauded at the speech’s conclusion and felt something like goodwill. He wasn’t a bad man, just a bureaucrat.
Next, it was the school principal, and when her voice broke and quavered partway through her speech, we all felt genuine compassion for her. She had been there that day at Burton Elementary School, had taken cover under her desk in her office as the Maniac–his name doesn’t deserve to be preserved here for posterity–rampaged through the fourth-grade hallway on that brisk April Tuesday morning and transformed the lives of everyone in this small, tight-knit community.
After that, the chief of police took the stage and began by rehashing some of the chronology, not that anyone needed a reminder. For some of us, our lives had come to an end that day, and what we lived now was an unsatisfying sequel. Chief Bill didn’t linger over the lurid specifics long: the tragedy of the first classroom and the unutterable horror of the second, but we all held those details in our minds. We remembered how the first responders sobbed without abandon when they entered the first room and how a few had been physically ill upon encountering the second, but that was inappropriate to mention on a day like today.
Besides, a few of the families from that second classroom were here among us now, at least those who hadn’t left town in the aftermath. We wondered about those families, where they were now, whether the current classmates of their children knew what they’d endured and taken part in on that day. Obviously, we weren’t judging the families; their children had survived. We wondered, though, if the parents ever looked at their kids–the boys and girls of Mrs. Thornton’s 4th-grade class–and felt any faint sense of fear or revulsion.
When the Maniac arrived that day, the hallways were still. Although construction paper drawings of astronauts and dinosaurs adorned the lockers in the hallways and the teachers’ doors were decorated with festive spring-themed class photos, there was barely a sound to be heard throughout the building. No kids ran or skipped to the drinking fountain. No one pushed or shoved or struggled with the complicated calculus of lining up properly on their way to lunch or PE. No teachers barked out reprimands for running or horseplay. The only sound the Maniac heard as he entered the 4th-grade corridor was a faintly buzzing siren and a pre-recorded monotone voice repeating, “Attention! Shelter in place!”
The Maniac had come prepared to unleash horror upon the children and teachers of Burton that day. He was armed with two pistols–a Glock 17 and a Sig Sauer P226–with back-up clips for both and a Claymore OTF dagger for close combat. Maybe he could have been better stocked and done a little more planning, but he expected little resistance from a bunch of toddlers and a few old lady teachers.
Burton held no special significance for the Maniac. He wasn’t a former student there and had no real connection to any of the students or teachers. He chose Burton mostly at random. It wasn’t the closest school to his apartment, but it was close enough. The Maniac knew only that killing a large number of innocent children would send a chill through his entire community. A chill across the whole world.
When the Maniac finally came to Burton Elementary School on that Tuesday morning in April, everyone was well prepared for what to do. Fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Harris, bolted the door to room 107 and switched off the lights. She and her 15 students crouched along the classroom wall below the whiteboard so as not to be visible from the hallway or the outside windows. Throughout Burton, other teachers and classrooms full of students did the same. They had been trained through semi-monthly shelter-in-place drills to know exactly how to respond to a situation like this. If they felt apprehension this morning, it was offset by their readiness.
Across the hallway from Mrs. Harris’s 4B Shooting Stars, Ms. Thornton’s students in room 110 were also getting ready. Savannah S. sat sharpening her pencils to a fine point. Lilah G. practiced parrying with a pair of pointed scissors. Brandon J. and Ayden T. constructed piles of textbooks arranged in descending weight on either side of the classroom door, while Bella H., Emmy S., and Rachel S. stocked the classroom tables at the front of the room with staplers, paperweights, bookends, and a hefty snowglobe, all easily accessible. The 4F Supernovas had also been training, and at the moment the Maniac appeared in the 4th-grade hallway, Ms. Thornton’s students were all set.
While the students of Burton Elementary School had been taught through repetition what to do in an active shooter scenario–lock the door, turn off the lights, draw the blinds, silence phones, etc.--Ms. Thornton had developed an entirely different sort of pedagogy in preparation for an intruder.
“I call the program GET,” Ms. Thornton had told 4F at the beginning of the school year, writing the three letters of the acronym on the whiteboard for effect. “G.E.T. stands for Groin, Eyes, Throat, and if anyone comes into this classroom with the intention of hurting us, we’re going to GET them.”
While the other classrooms at Burton practiced sitting in silence in the dark and the teachers worked on calming breathing techniques, Ms. Thornton drilled her students on close-quarter hand-to-hand combat using common classroom items. Sometimes she borrowed the CPR dummy from the PE office, and students practiced gouging its eyes and throat with safety scissors or throwing science textbooks at it from a distance. Other times, Ms. Thornton donned a padded suit and face mask and entered the classroom firing a Nerf dartgun indiscriminately while her students overturned tables and practiced returning fire by hurling their shoes and other makeshift projectiles at this ersatz assassin.
It sounds ridiculous now, and had that hypothetical event not actually come to pass, we might have laughed about eccentric Ms. Thornton and her crack commando unit of paramilitary preteens. Strange as she was, we know Ms. Thornton’s heart was in the right place, and, to be fair, all 18 of her students walked out of Burton that day, blood-stained and strangely exhilarated, having passed the ultimate high-stakes summative assessment of nearly a school year’s worth of direct instruction.
Now, a year later, we sit in Burton Elementary’s gymnasium as the superintendent reads a list of the dead: one security guard, Carol, the front office lady, Mrs. Harris, and, of course, Mrs. Harris’s 15 students. These are the modern-day martyrs of our community, exalted figures whose likenesses appear on t-shirts and billboards and local television programs. Each person is a household name here, and no one in our town holds a more exalted position than the parents of those 15 kids, whose lives were so cruelly shortened on that tragic day.
Ms. Thornton is long gone, having opted for an early retirement and relocated up north to be near her sister and nieces. Most of 4F have moved away too, but some of them still live in town and are homeschooled. Two of them, Savannah S. and Bella H., actually stayed at Burton and are just a month shy of finishing 5th grade. We sometimes wonder how they interact with their peers. Are they feared or respected? Do they have friends or do they sit isolated during lunchtime at cafeteria tables, gazing down at their plastic forks and wondering about their utility in a moment of emergency?
We wonder about the Maniac sometimes too. Not about what led him to the school that day, which is an uninteresting, clichéd story of mediocrity and resentment but about what his last moments were like as he exited Mrs. Harris’s classroom triumphantly, having executed all of its occupants, and forced his way into Ms. Thornton’s room. What were his first thoughts when he realized they’d been expecting him, and how long did he survive as those small children crouched over him, bashing and blinding and slicing and eviscerating him?
Mostly, though, we wonder about the parents of some of those 18 surviving boys and girls who are here among us today, watching the whole community celebrate the dead children of some other parents. Their kids are heroes, if you want to be technical about it. Think about how many other classrooms throughout the 4th-grade wing and the school itself are here today because the Maniac’s second stop became his last. Even so, we can’t help but wonder if what the parents of Mrs. Thornton’s 4F Supernovas feel most days is gratitude or envy.
Written November 2025
September 14, 2021
Repatriated on Kindle Vella
If you're among my TENS of readers, you may have noticed that I haven't published anything new in my novel-in-progress Repatriated in a while. It's been a busy time with big life changes, new surroundings, etc.
Anyway, the point is that I've decided to migrate Repatriated to Amazon's Kindle Vella platform, which seems to make more sense for what I'm working on and even lead to additional tens of readers. Over the next few days, I'll release the old chapters, and then sometime this month, try to get the next episode released.
Here's the link. Also, thanks for reading.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/s...
Anyway, the point is that I've decided to migrate Repatriated to Amazon's Kindle Vella platform, which seems to make more sense for what I'm working on and even lead to additional tens of readers. Over the next few days, I'll release the old chapters, and then sometime this month, try to get the next episode released.
Here's the link. Also, thanks for reading.
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/s...
March 1, 2021
Repatriated: A (Serialized) Novel
I've started my next writing project: a serialized novel on Substack and the follow-up to my 2019 short story collection World Sick: Stories. If you're interested in following my progress over the next year or so, sign-up at repatriatednovel.substack.com and get new installments once or twice a month right to your email inbox.
December 22, 2019
World Sick: Stories
My first short story collection World Sick: Stories is now available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats.
