The reporter pushes the microphone into my face asking me, “You’re a hero! How do you feel about the new title? How did you do it?”

“I watched my son die today…..” my voice simply trailed off. For a few minutes, that was all I could force myself to say, but my son’s story deserves to be told.

Ring! Ring!

“Hello, this is John,” I answered the phone with the same tired old phrase as I always do at work.

“I am going to shoot up the school! They are going to regret firing me! Don’t call the cops or I will kill them all! I have it all planned out! I am going to shoot all you traitors that got me fired! Sadly, you’re going to miss the fireworks! Better hurry! I don’t know if your ex-wife told you, John, but your son now goes to the school in town.” The mystery caller yelled and then hung up. I ran out the door and sped to the school.

Five years ago I lost custody of my son, Thomas. I have hardly seen him since. He was two when my marriage ended. All I could think about was his face, his smiling face, gone forever from me, from my ex-wife, from the world forever.

Pulling up to the school I could see the broken window he entered through. It was out of sight of the camera by the front door. I barged in the front door by the school office. Icould see the principal laying on the floor in a pool of red, lifeless. I had to hurry! Running through the halls I saw what you would think to be the remains after a tornado. There were books, bags, and stray papers everywhere. After I turned the corner, I found where everything had happened.

The first classroom I checked was empty. In the next classroom, I found a teacher on the ground without a pulse. I heard a bang from next door. Running in I found the fired French teacher, Bon Homme, or Mr. Goodman (his name in English), wrestling with the present history teacher. After shooting her, he turned and pointed the gun at me.

“There! Now I can leave without any regrets!” Bon yelled. What I didn’t realize was by leave he meant the Earth itself. “But first I have to take care of you and every other idiotic person in this building!”

“DAD!” from the corner of the room I see Thomas, my Thomas, climbing out of one of the cabinets.

“Son, stay over there! Bon don’t touch him!” I yelled, hoping to draw his attention back to me.

“I am the one holding the gun and you have the nerve to tell me what to do?” He laughed in a wicked tone while cocking back the hammer of his gun.

“NO!” Thomas yelled as he jumped on Bon.
“Don’t touch him!” Before I knew it Bon had thrown my son to the floor and shot him. Anger rushed over me and I wrestled Bon to the ground.

“Shoot me!” he kept yelling at me over and over but we both knew he didn’t deserve the easy way out. In a few minutes, the officers arrived and took him away in hand cuffs as someone else explained it was safe to cancel lock down. Out of nowhere it seemed, twenty or more young students piled out of the cabinets, closet and a few from behind the teacher’s desk.

I dropped to the floor next to Thomas with uncontrollable tears coming from my eyes. Then a small little blonde girl walked up to me, “Excuse me, but why are you crying?”

I could not take my eyes off of his limp body as I barely choke out the words, “Thomas was my son and he just died. I could not save him.”

“It’s okay!” she said, trying to comfort me. “He stopped the very mean guy that was going to hurt us! And it’s not like you will not ever see him again. My mom has told me about this place called heaven and I think he went there.” I almost formed a smile.

As I walked away from the speechless reporter, I realized my son always wanted to be a super hero. Now he is one to me and the whole town, forever!