Chapter 1

It was perhaps a moment of madness or bizarre curiosity, but I chose this time of all occasions to visit my old high school after three years since graduation. Boy was I in for a shock! I parked in the principal’s spot just because I realized that I could and just felt like it. There it was. Harry S. Truman High School. Not a bad name, actually. Old Harry wasn’t a bad President, after all, was he? Far removed from this day and age, though, he was, and all of that generation, now long dead and gone.

I walked through the eerie, ghostly silence of the rubble that used to be brick and mortar. It wasn’t all ruins, of course. Plenty of it still stood, in fact. A good portion of the place was bombed-out, shelled by artillery, and pockmarked with gunfire, to put it mildly. School shootings were out, just like school itself. Now in? School bombings, shellings, and the use of school grounds as a literal battlefield.

It looked pretty vacant. Surely, there wasn’t anyone there, right? There was no way that anyone would try to hide out amidst the rubble, one would assume. I decided to scavenge and probe, just in case. One never knew what one might find. I even checked out the school store and the ladies’ bathroom and locker room, because, why the hell not? I doubted that I’d find any ladies, but I might find some free trinkets in the school store. The other places were just to solve my own curiosity about them.

That was when I heard it ... sobbing ... pretty loud sobbing, in fact. Who the hell would hang out here, other than me, anyway? This place might well suit me as a good place to squat for a little while, but I figured that I’d be alone in that sentiment. To me, it had already taken its beating in the first hours or day or so of bloody mayhem, and now it was unlikely to be a victim twice over. Was that what the other parties figured, too?

“Roman ... is that you?” I heard a familiar, feminine voice rather abruptly, a voice choked by recently shed tears.

“Yeah, it’s me, teach. You know, I don’t think that you’ll get hazard pay for this, so why stick around?” I joked with my usual dark humor.

“Well, it’s a little late for extra credit, even if I could give it. Last I heard, you were a soldier, anyway. Shouldn’t you be off with some warlord now that the Army’s kaput? Or maybe a warlord yourself?” the teacher in question retorted.

“Hey, I’m Polish, not stupid,” I poked fun at the “dumb Polack” jokes often made at my expense.

“Roman Eduard Danek ... it really IS you!” Mrs. Levinson expressed her relief now.

“Well, last I checked, anyway. I could call myself whatever I like nowadays, but I haven’t found a suitable alternative yet. What brings you to this boneyard of dead dreams, Mrs. Levinson?” I used her surname out of habit.

“Call me Sandy. Technically, it’s Sandra, but my friends always call me Sandy,” Mrs. Levinson asked me now, “Sandra Odisho Levinson. An Assyrian married to a Jew, now hanging out with a Pole. What a nice, multicultural apocalypse we have, right?”

“Speaking of your husband, how he is?” I probed now.

“Dead. That’s what happens to high school principals in an apocalypse, kid. Turns out that they’re among the first to be shot. A damn shame, too. Judah Levinson was a great guy. He never once pressured me to convert, despite me being a lackluster Christian. Not once in six years of marriage, you know. Of course, we were both into things that the rabbis wouldn’t like, nor the priests, for that matter,” Sandy licked her lips as she recalled her activities.

“Things?” I chuckled as I playfully slapped her tush.

“Yeah, as soon as we’re safely in bed I might tell you all about them. Lauren already knows, right, babe?” Sandy pointed to her friend and colleague, Lauren Franco.

“Ms. Franco?” I recalled her.

While Sandy married the principal and taught World History, Lauren taught Latin, French, and Spanish. I took the latter two in high school, so I had more than a little exposure to Lauren. She was a classic Italian beauty, dirty blonde hair in long tresses, a golden tan, and baby blue eyes. She was also rather taller than Sandy, who was short, plump, and olive-skinned, with jet-black hair and grey-green eyes. Both women were lovely enough in their own way, and somehow, I got the impression that they were an item, a package deal.

“Are you two ... lovers?” I cleared the air, getting nods and knowing grins from both ladies.

“There’s a lot of missing details here, but the gist is that we were a throuple ... me, Judah, and Sandy here. Including the whole year that you went to Truman High, I might add,” Lauren explained, making things make a lot more sense now.

“No others, huh?” I asked to be clear.

“Only on birthdays, anniversaries, and other such special occasions. And even then, we tested well in advance. Orgies are great, but not worth getting the clap, trust me. My first husband gave me that and it was a bitch to get rid of, I assure you,” Lauren declared, making me nervous at how loudly they spoke in the ruins of my old high school.

“What did your second husband give you?” I asked her, my curiosity now piqued.