Chapter 120: School Shooting (2)

“Fasten your seatbelt and hold tight!”

Everly shouted as she yanked the steering wheel and slammed on the gas, driving the car onto a northern road away from where the shooting had taken place.

One advantage of having studied the campus map in advance was that, when something happened, there was no need to waste time checking directions—she could just drive based on memory.

Driving the Grand Cherokee, Everly circled around behind the library along the campus roads, then exited through the road on the west side of the main gate.

At that moment, the security guard in the booth at the school entrance had only just learned about the shooting and was frantically calling campus police and university officials to report the situation.

Everly stopped the car at the gate, thought for a moment, and then called campus police as well.

There weren’t many campus police officers, and they were probably busy right now. It took quite a while before the call was finally answered.

“Hello, this is the Campus Police Department of New Osebuch State University. How can we assist you?” The officer spoke quickly; Everly figured many students were calling for help at this moment.

“Hello, I was just at the front of Teaching Building No. 2 when the shooting happened. I have some information that might help you. The attacker was wearing a Premier Model 906 riot helmet and a Blanc ST-series body armor. He had a tactical gun bag on his back. So far, he has only used an AU-15 semi-automatic rifle. I’m not sure if he has other weapons in the bag or how much ammunition he’s carrying…”

Everly spoke clearly and methodically, first explaining the purpose of her call, then relaying all the information she had gathered.

“Understood. Thank you for your help. I will report this immediately,” the officer replied before quickly hanging up.

Having reported everything, Everly felt she had done her part. She put away her phone and drove toward the nearest weapons shop.

Since she had flown here for college and had to go through security, she hadn’t brought any weapons with her.

She wasn’t yet 21, and under U.S. law, she couldn’t obtain a firearm license. One of the requirements for shipping firearms was that the recipient must hold such a license, so Old John had no way to send her a gun remotely.

However, the United States was a country where firearms were widespread. Although those under 21 couldn’t get a license or buy handguns, anyone over 18 who passed a federal background check could legally purchase rifles and shotguns from a gun store.

And New Osebuch State happened to be one of the rare states where firearms could be openly carried without any permit.

That meant even if Everly went to a gun store right now, bought a rifle, and slung it over her back while walking around in public, no one would arrest her.

In fact, Everly had already gone to a gun store yesterday. But under normal procedures, purchasing a firearm required passing a background check and waiting 3 to 10 days before taking possession. So yesterday, she had only placed an order and registered her request—she hadn’t actually received the weapon.

Who could have expected that on just her second day at school, she would run into a school shooting—and, because of insufficient firepower, feel a long-forgotten sense of fear!

Damn it—forget it. Time to gear up. Get everything!

Everly had actually heard that the so-called “3 to 10 day waiting period” wasn’t absolute. If the gun shop owner bent the rules a little, or if some money was used to smooth things over, it was possible to place an order and walk out with a gun on the spot.

But Everly had always been someone who followed the rules and didn’t like going through such “shady shortcuts.” Moreover, the regulations at New Osebuch State University clearly stated that, to ensure the safety of students and staff, bringing any kind of firearm onto campus was prohibited.

If everyone followed the rules, the university would be a very safe place. Besides, Everly spent all her time studying on campus and didn’t go out much anyway, so waiting 3 to 10 days didn’t seem like a big deal.

As the saying goes—who could have expected it? Without even a buffer period or any warning signs, she ran straight into a school shooting today!

Just unbelievably unlucky.

Rule-abiding Everly arrived at the gun shop filled with anger and frustration.

Honest Everly pulled out cash and, outside the range of the surveillance cameras, engaged in some rather shady financial dealings with the clerk.

Unlucky Everly then left the gun shop carrying a large amount of weapons, ammunition, and protective gear.

Only when the trunk of the Grand Cherokee was packed full—with rifles, shotguns, body armor, stocks, red dot sights, and all sorts of miscellaneous equipment—did she finally feel a heavy sense of security. Satisfied, she drove back to the school entrance.

She had already thought it through: although firearms weren’t allowed on campus, there were no security checks at the gate. As long as she kept everything in the trunk and out of sight, wasn’t that basically the same as not carrying any weapons…? It seemed you couldn’t be too rigid about following rules—you had to be flexible.

Because “persuading” the clerk had taken some time, by the time she finished shopping and returned to the school, it had already been an hour since the shooting began.

Based on what Everly had witnessed, there was only one attacker, and he didn’t seem like a highly trained professional. The campus police numbered around twenty, and the local city police also had jurisdiction over the university—once they received the report, they would definitely come to assist. With that many people, an hour should have been more than enough to catch a single attacker, right?

But that wasn’t the case.

Everly had to stop her car near the school gate.

She couldn’t go any farther—there were crowds everywhere. Students who had escaped from the campus, city police officers and paramedics who had rushed over after receiving calls for help, parents of local students, curious onlookers who came just to watch, and media reporters who had arrived to cover the scene…

Farther in the distance, from inside Teaching Building No. 2, the sound of gunfire—rat-tat-tat—could still be heard.

“They’re still not done? That’s pretty inefficient…” Misha complained, pulling out her phone and skillfully browsing forums and student group chats, then sharing the information she gathered with Everly.

“As for the shooter, since he was wearing a mask and a helmet, no one has seen his face, so his identity is still unclear for now. However, someone on campus recognized the black car—it belongs to a junior named Dustin Grove. People think he’s very likely the shooter.”

Misha handed her phone to Everly to take a look.

That Dustin clearly wasn’t very well-liked. His personal information had already been dug up and posted on the forum, pinned right at the top and boosted into a trending thread by countless onlookers.

In the photo, Dustin had brown hair and brown eyes, with an average build. He looked fairly ordinary, but his expression was arrogant, and he was dressed in all designer brands. According to posts below, he came from a well-off family but had a nasty personality. Relying on his wealth, he often mocked others and even bossed around classmates from less privileged backgrounds, treating them like servants.

“Not long after we escaped the campus, campus police arrived at the entrance of Teaching Building No. 2 and exchanged fire with the attacker. But they arrived in small numbers and lacked coordination. The attacker wounded the first three officers who showed up, then, seeing the situation turn unfavorable, retreated into the building and started killing people classroom by classroom.”

“It was also around that time the school issued a campus-wide announcement, declaring a ‘lockdown.’ In the broadcast, the principal instructed all staff and students in Teaching Building No. 2 to immediately turn off the lights, lock the doors, push desks and chairs against entrances to barricade them, and have all students hide under desks and stay concealed while waiting for rescue. As for those in other buildings—classrooms, the arts building, the library—they were told to find safe places to hide and wait for police instructions before evacuating.”

“Sounds reasonable enough.”

“Yeah, but the campus is huge, and students are scattered across different buildings. That requires a lot of officers to assist with evacuation. So the newly arrived city police weren’t immediately sent to Teaching Building No. 2—they were reassigned to help evacuate students instead.”

Everly thought for a moment, then took out her phone to study the internal layout of Teaching Building No. 2. She said, “If every classroom in Building No. 2 is locked with doors and windows secured, it’ll be very difficult for the attacker to break in. He’d only be able to wander around the corridors and emergency exits. In that case, if the campus police split into three teams and enter from the main entrance and the two side doors, conducting a floor-by-floor search, it shouldn’t be hard to locate and take him down.”

Misha nodded, sharing the same view.

“But that’s not what the campus police did,” she continued. “A student who managed to escape posted on the forum, saying they saw the campus police cautiously guarding the three entrances of the building, just waiting—but not a single one of them went inside. That gave the attacker plenty of time to break into classrooms.”

As she spoke, Misha scrolled down and pulled up a photo from the forum. “Look—classroom doors in Building No. 2 are made of solid wood with glass panels. Break the glass, reach in to unlock the door, then force open whatever’s blocking it… and the students and teachers inside are basically doomed.”

“They just stood outside and didn’t go in?” Everly asked in disbelief.

“Yeah. More than one person saw them crouching at the three entrances with their guns, holding position the whole time. One officer even had a wife who was teaching in Building No. 2 at the time—he tried to rush in to save people, but the other officers stopped him.”

“…”

Everly couldn’t help but wonder if this “school shooting” thriller was actually based on a real event. She remembered that in her previous life, she had watched a video by an online creator summarizing a school shooting in Texas. Hundreds of police officers had effectively spent over an hour in a standoff with an empty hallway, while the attacker remained inside a classroom, killing at a slow pace. In the end, it was an off-duty border patrol officer who ignored objections and rushed in, finally taking the attacker down.

The situation had been so absurd that even after being reborn, Everly still remembered the shock she felt after watching that analysis. It was also from that moment that her faith in American police completely shattered.

Now, even in this alternate world, the unreliability of the police seemed just as consistent. Officers like Old John appeared to be few and far between…

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Author’s Note:

Regarding the conditions for buying firearms at gun shops: most of the information I found says you must meet the age requirement, pass an FBI background check, and wait 3–10 days—it shouldn’t be possible to buy and receive a gun on the spot. But I also watched some videos about school shootings online, and in one case, a person had just turned 18, went to buy a rifle, and because he had no criminal record, he got the gun immediately. He even went home, took photos, posted online saying he was going to attack a school—and not long after, he actually did… Well, I’ve never bought a gun myself, so I can only write based on my own understanding [clown].

The case mentioned in this chapter refers to the Robb Elementary School shooting in Texas, USA. In many well-known U.S. school shooting cases, the police response hasn’t been very impressive… Of course, it might also be that because the police response wasn’t effective in the early stages, the situation escalated into something much more serious and widely known. Overall, I personally feel that U.S. police aren’t always as reliable as people imagine.