Last year for "Above Ground Testing", I received some short stories, with a definite hallowe'en twist, I'm printing one of them for you.  Special thank you to Ben Ohmart for this work and all his work.  He is a great support of the different ezines I've put together.  Read his work.

Unused

by ben ohmart
 

        Ste raised his hand and the teacher's back ignored him. They could all
hear the bombs, but the teacher's chalk was becoming unbearable;
scratching at the blackboard, as if the guy with the whiskers up there
was wanting his slate clean for the coming invasion. Like it was the
only thing that mattered. Ste looked around at clumps of the terrified
masses cowering under mobile desks, and wanted to laugh at the
absurdity, but the only man standing began to use a box cutter on the
chalkboard, and in his mind was the only quiet place.
        The ones with the big tits were protected enough, even though the
jocks lining up the lower depths of the college floor couldn't think
about their dicks for a change, all huddling together like they were
All girls, at last breaking the social barrier. Even if it Was near the
end. But the man kneeling with Ste had gas and Ste just had to get
away; he wasn't very puny, but the other guy really did need a desk for
himself, because of the stink and the sheer Size of this 50 year old.
That's what comes from listing a college shelter as the "one nearest".
They don't care a damn about classes, Ste thought, just about saving
their own fucking selves.
        "Excuse me, Mr. Dunsleski?" The teacher turned around; sweating like a
man up against a 99 watt bulb; his eyes large and unresponsive, only
going to the target from a lifetime of answering questions. All the
eyes were on Ste, as he asked his question about ischium. "Aren't you
going to tell us about the simultaneous difference between the
posterior and the inferior part of -"
        There was a tremendous explosion near what might've been the newer
John P. Andowz gym; might still be. The teens wished alongside the
parents of people they never knew that there was no more inside
swimming pool and inside track and whatever else was beneath the dome
of that gym, knowing that the odds would be that much better for them.
For the building they didn't want to be in.
        Ste stood, waiting for his answer. For that piece of knowledge
Dunsleski had selfishly started before, when things looked better. Fine
coats of cocaine-like plaster fell on his head. The whir of the
unrelenting attack rattling the very lightbulbs in their once thought
stationary globes now dangling above. The teacher had vanished. Yet Ste
didn't bother to think there may have been enough room beneath that
podium.
        The rest of the tables, cement beams that looked safe, the desks that
had been thrown about when the adults first entered, looking for room,
rifling through outraged girls' purses for the elemental hope of a
candy bar meal, but everything was full with people, and they clutched
together, and began to scream, and the planes grew louder until the
whimpering subsided and the empty flying machines circled back home for
another fill up.
        He opened the door, and like rats the others hoped in the sunlight for
a few minutes until the hydraulics of the door pushed them back into
the darkness. No one followed, and Ste felt some peace. No mocking
voices of the packs behind him doing the mating ritual and trading
phone messages so they could feel closer to that word Adult; so they
could feel freer before class. No smoking and self-loathing from the
comparison of Ste and his betters; at least, he and the rest of the
world thought so. No disruption of concentration for the notebook he
pulled out. The book he began to open and read, pencil ready. To jot
down tomorrow's homework.
 

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