Special 1: The Wichita Exclusion Zone
By Nova & Roach
The classroom was dark, with only a sliver of sunlight entering beneath the window blinds. Desks and chairs had been pushed against the walls to make room for the group of students. They formed a circle on the floor; limbs sprawled out like starfish, heads oriented toward the center.
Jay traced the lone ray of sunshine with their gaze, eyes barely open. The light scattered into an open palm—Gabriel’s, on the floor right next to Jay. The rest of the drama students completed the circle, Camilo following just after Gabriel. Everyone was silent. Jay’s eyes slipped shut again.
The first few minutes before and after drama class, Ms. García made the students lie on their backs in the darkened room. Normally, they would use the theater for class. But, normally, the theater staged plays—not powerfights. Normally, it wouldn’t be closed off for investigation or reconstruction.
According to the drama teacher, lying on the floor in the dark was meant to help empty the mind and body, so that actors could more readily channel their characters. “For your character to truly come to life, you need a clear mind. Your body should become a vessel for someone else—to make room for your character, you have to erase yourself,” she had explained at the beginning of the semester. Repeating the exercise after class supposedly reverted your body back to its original state, or something along those lines.
Jay had never quite figured out what to make of this exercise. Lying in the darkness for a few minutes had never helped them “erase themself.” No, if anything, it made Jay more self-aware. They could feel every little twitch in their body, hear how their breathing always seemed a little shorter than that of their classmates. Jay pondered their next class, worried about the annotated bibliography that was due, counted the hours until they could go home. And then, feeling none the wiser, the exercise would be over.
“Alright everyone, that’s all for today,” Ms. García announced. She turned on the lights as the school bell tolled.
Jay sat up alongside the rest of the class, the hard flooring leaving them a souvenir in the form of a faint ache crawling up their back. They followed Gabriel and Camilo, filing into the hallway.
“When do you think we’ll get the theater back?” Gabriel said, stifling a yawn as he stretched out.
“No clue,” Jay said. They glanced at Camilo, who was occupied by his phone—texting something, by the looks of it.
“They must have done a real number on it, huh?” Camilo said with a glimmer of humor in his eyes.
“Maybe. It’s only been a few days,” Jay said.
Camilo’s phone buzzed. He looked up suddenly. “Sorry, gotta go. Catch you guys later!” Then, with a wave, he separated from the group as the hallway forked. Gabriel waved back, Camilo already off to a different class.
“Why the hurry?” Gabriel muttered, lowering his hand.
Jay shrugged.
The two friends continued in silence, until they passed the closed biology classroom. The taller boy looked toward the room, as if expecting a new revelation about Mr. Howells’ tragic death, then looked back to Jay when the revelation never came. “Who do you think they are?” Gabriel said.
“Who?” Jay replied.
“The Chapel Heroes.”
“Can we talk about something else for a change?” Jay looked down at their light blue Crocs, decorated in cryptid-themed Jibbitz—Mothman, Bigfoot, and the like. “There are other things happening, you know.”
“Umh, sure. What do you wanna talk about?”
But, even as Jay mulled over the question, everything else seemed to pale in comparison to the latest news. After the theater showdown, the most interesting thing to happen was the powerfight between Seraph and Sasquatch. From what Jay had gathered, the government had pulled together some type of superhero team in the aftermath. They didn’t really wanna think too much about that either. While one of the First Way villains had ended up behind bars, the fact that the terrorists now seemed to operate in the city was disturbing in and of itself. Before Jay could come up with an answer to Gabriel’s question, the two of them reached the history classroom.
Mr. Whetter already stood by the podium, where he flipped through a notebook. Once the class finished settling down, he spoke up: “Alright folks, today we’ll be watching a movie. Before you get too excited, it’s going to be a documentary.” He adjusted his square-shaped glasses. “The film provides an in-depth overview of the Wichita disaster, which will complement our next unit on modern American history. And please remember to be respectful, as some of us may know others who were affected by the tragedy. Any questions?”
When no one said anything, the history teacher proceeded to turn on the overhead projector. It slowly whirred to life. “Now, where did the audio go…” Mr. Whetter mumbled.
“You can click on the bottom right,” sounded from the back.
“Thank you, Max,” the teacher said as he fumbled through the settings.
On the row in front of them, Jay caught Amber rolling her eyes to her two friends nextby. The friends—Jazmine and Raegan—returned her smug look, seemingly stifling a giggle.
Soon enough, the humming of the projector was replaced by a howling wind filtering through the stereo. A flat wasteland of short brown grass filled the screen, almost entirely unbroken save for a solid gray wall in the foreground. Guardhouses were stationed along the wall, pointing huge guns into the vast brown expanse. Old, broken, burnt out buildings were visible in the far distance, with dead trees occupying the middle distance.
A deep, solemn voice spoke over the footage: “A new world began in 1965. America only realized it after Wichita.” A caption provided an attribution, although the quote was so infamous that Jay didn’t need to be told that it belonged to General William Olstien. The General’s voice was punctuated by the sigh of a cello.
The narrator took over. “Wichita was many things. A turning point, a battle of previously unimagined proportions, a hint of what was to come, and—above all—a tragedy.”
A video played of a town like any other; Wichita. It wasn’t a big city—at least not like San Francisco—but a handful of tall buildings still rose out of the skyline. Houses and squat commercial buildings lined the streets. People walked along the roads, passing by old-looking brick buildings. Families picnicked along the grassy shores of a big river, whose water continued lazily along its course.
The narrator continued, “May 6th, 2010, was a day like any other in Wichita, Kansas. There was no omen, no threats from any villain. In fact, the first sign of trouble began as a single 911 call.”
The screen faded to black. Captions transcribed the following call.
“H-hello?” a woman said, the recording distorting her voice.
“911, what’s your emergency?” a 911 operator responded.
“Hello! There’s something-” The sound of banging interrupted her before she could finish.
“What is the address of the emergency?”
“There’s people! And they’re trying to get into my house!”
“Ma’am, please keep calm. Where are you?”
“I’m in my c-closet. Please! Get here quickly! I think it’s the whole neighborhood… I’m on 1026 Nor-” Once again, she was interrupted by what sounded like shattering glass. “Oh my God! They’re in my hou…” Her voice trailed off, followed by a thud.
“Ma’am?” the 911 dispatcher said. Footsteps sounded in the background, becoming gradually more distant. “Ma’am?” the dispatcher pressed. A door creaked opened. The footsteps grew fainter, until they disappeared.
“Ma’am?” the dispatcher’s voice quivered, one last time before the transcript faded to black.
The narrator took over once again. “Police were immediately dispatched, but no one could have suspected the true scale of the escalating emergency. Police arrived in Lambsdale—a once peaceful Wichita suburb—to find what looked to be the entire neighborhood amassed in the street.”
Now, one of the peaceful suburbs from the previous snippets had become overrun by people. Crowds streamed through the streets, marching in unison. The strange thing about it was the lack of a leader, and, how normal everyone looked. People had showed up in their work uniforms, t-shirts, or dressing gowns. There was no sense of shared identity between the masses. Not like you would expect to see in a military formation, or even a protest for a shared cause. They just all just seemed so… normal. Like they could be anyone, from anywhere. Yet, despite their lack of cohesion, they marched in synch—with the discipline of an army.
“After delivering their initial reports, the reporting officers fell silent. Fearing the worst, the Police Department dispatched riot control teams, and called upon one of Kansas’ premier hero teams: the Rangers. While they would take some time to deploy en masse, the police ran interference, trying to slow the growing mob down.”
What appeared to be a body cam displayed a group of police officers as they scattered to set up a barricade, with the cameraman among them. They closed the road off using metal fencing.
“Nevertheless, they had less time than they initially had thought. While the Rangers recalled their members from all over Kansas, the mob entirely refused all calls to disperse, and seemingly ignored threats to their well-being. Despite fears of mind-control, rather than popular uprising, Police Commissioner Daniel Fullbright gave permission to the police manning the barricades to open fire if the mob failed to disperse. Since the horde was unresponsive, he reasoned that they may only react to force, as they had apparently already killed the responding officers.”
Gunshots sounded off in the background of the chaotic scene.
“But even this might not have been enough. The mob grew even larger as it advanced toward the barricades. Several officers refused to shoot at the, apparently, unarmed crowd—in spite of Fullbright’s orders. Yet, even if they had, it may not have been enough. The mob suddenly charged forward.”
The body cam footage grew shakier as the crowd rushed toward the barricades. At the forefront, people toppled over, like the final piece in a string of dominoes. But as the mob pressed onward—trampling the falling bodies—they didn’t appear to resist or even scream. The mass swallowed them, continuing their march with a sense of purpose. Like a hivemind, ignorant to the sounds of shots firing off.
Jay recognized the clip. Not just because of how strikingly ordinary everyone looked. Not just the apparent apathy on their expressions, becoming clearer as they neared the cameraman. Not just because of how they resembled so many of the zombie movies that came out in the following decade. No, there was something else to it.
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“The crowd overran all barricades, and the police realized that they were massively undergunned in the face of the mysteriously growing horde. Desperate for answers, various theories were put forward by health and power experts, ranging from zombie viruses to the work of a powerful mind-controller—but no conclusive answer was ever discovered. Nevertheless, it was clear that backup was needed. The governor deployed the national guard, which met the horde at Chisholm Creek.”
The body cam’s view became engulfed by the horde, presumably alongside the cameraman. At the same time, the footage switched to a drone overview. From above, it showed military vehicles, big metal brick looking things, driving along the streets and highways. Soldiers hauled sandbags into large barricades, getting into position on top of the buildings. Helicopters, bristling with weapons, thudded over the skyline, occasionally firing guns or rockets at a target just off screen.
A fuzzy—yet, strangely clear in unexpected ways—memory flashed through Jay’s mind. Back then, they would have been 3 or 4 years old. Not old enough to understand, yet old enough to remember. They were in the living room, making a paracosm of the inherited toys from their older brother and sister—ranging from dolls, dinosaurs, and hero action figures. Jay had positioned the toys across a fleece blanket portraying neighborhoods and streets, placing a Champion figure on a T-rex that looked more like a dragon than a dinosaur.
“The battle did not begin instantly. First, the mob spread out through the suburbs of east Wichita. Since the nature of the mob was unknown, officials only declared evacuations for regions west of interstate 135. To prevent the possible spread of an unknown pathogen, residents of other neighborhoods were told to lock their doors and shelter indoors. The result was chaos.”
Drone footage showed a family leaving their house, dragging heavy luggage. The image changed to security footage, where a man tore water bottles off the shelves in a gas station, piling them into a duffel bag. The scene switched back to an aerial view, revealing seemingly everlasting lines of cars stuck in traffic. The screen flickered again, to a burning bus.
Jay could see a face through the fire, pressed up against the glass of the windows. The footage was too grainy to really distinguish much, so maybe it was their imagination filling in the gaps, but they swore they could see the contours of eyes and mouths through the flames—like gaping, yawning holes. Somehow, the image merged with that of their old memory of playing with the toys; the faces of the dolls like the victim’s, and the roads on the fleece blanket blending with the Wichita streets.
The narrator continued in the same steady tone, “Since the national guard was unsure who was a civilian and who was a part of the mob—or if there was any difference between them—anyone who fled into the guard’s lines was fired upon. It is thought that hundreds, perhaps thousands, died trying to cross Chisholm Creek. This tragedy was only made worse by the arrival of the horde itself.”
The horrorshow continued as the mass of people poured across the defense lines and into the crossfire. Jay had seen snippets of these clips before, on that day when they were playing in the living room. Their parents had become silent, their wide eyes glued to the TV, its screen lighting up their faces in a blue hue.
“The battle of Chisholm Creek has been described as the only traditional battle of Wichita. It began simply enough. The national guard found great success deploying heavy weapons against the horde, but their earlier clashes with refugees left some units under-equipped to deal with the full mob. Some units were quickly overrun, lines of communication broke down, and chaos gripped the city as reports spread of national guard units firing upon each other.”
The drone soared over a burning neighborhood. Countless bodies littered the streets below. Soldiers stood on rooftops, in streets, or behind barricades. From their positions, they fired into the masses of people and—most troubling—at each other.
Jay looked away from the projection, quickly surveying the classroom. Ahead, Jazmine and Raegan looked at their phones, concealing them under their desks. Jay guessed that they were messaging each other, judging by the occasional exchange of looks.
“Wichita lay on the edge of complete collapse. America held its breath as reinforcements from the Army—in conjunction with the Rangers—arrived. Twelve hours after the initial 911 call.”
Tanks rolled down the streets, passing by the occasional dead body sprawled in the ditch. One of the Rangers—Gunsmoke—flanked a tank. The hero sported a classic cowboy outfit, with spurred boots, bell bottom jeans, fringed jacket, and wide-brimmed hat. White, black, and blue stripes criss-crossed the costume. As he ran, smoke fumed from his heels. His power crawled up his ankle in the form of a blue flame. Gunsmoke appeared to shout orders to his teammates, although he was too far away for the recording to pick up his voice.
While Jazmine and Raegan continued to tap away on their phones, clearly unimpressed by the documentary, the last component of the trinity—Amber—stared ahead. Although she sat next to them, her stare remained uninterrupted, unengaged with the antics of her two friends. From behind, Jay couldn’t read her expression.
“With the Rangers here, some thought that the situation in Wichita—which had taken over the national airways—would begin to resolve. Furthermore, Washington had declared a state of emergency. They deployed more and more units to Wichita, in an effort to bring peace to the city and support the advancing heroes. The chaos had also attracted the interest of other heroes, perhaps most prominently Texas’ Lone Stars—the largest hero team of the South. This, commentators declared, would bring an end to the chaos.”
A massive line of tanks and other military vehicles appeared on screen, driving down a highway while an equally long line of cars occupied the other lane, driving the other direction. Scores of jets flew in formation over the city, a few dropping payloads which ignited an inferno in the streets below. The scene suddenly changed as the camera focused on a new jet, one that looked sleek and high-tech. On its side was a single large white star, which the camera zoomed in on as the jet landed on an open field, its engines firing beneath it to slow its descent.
Jay looked to the left, where Gabriel had taken the seat next to them. Unlike the girls ahead, at least he seemed to be paying attention, although Jay wasn’t sure how he reacted to any of it. That seemed to be the case for most of the classroom—a sort of passive discomfort toward the graphic display.
“However, the discovery of the mob’s true nature would bring an end to such optimism. While CDC experts suspected aerial contamination as the cause—resulting in the distribution of respirator masks—the horde, in actuality, seemed to operate under a contagious type of mind-control. Anyone who stepped within 15 feet of the mob would, seemingly permanently, fall under their control. This was learned the hard way when Ironsides—one of the most powerful members of the Rangers—became infected. He managed to single-handedly destroy an entire armored column of the army, and infected 12 other heroes, in less than fifteen minutes. This resulted in a chain reaction that left nearly the entirety of the city in addition to 31 heroes under the control of the horde. All surviving military units were forced to retreat to a perimeter around the city.”
The screen showed Ironsides, bedecked in a silver suit of armor, jumping from tank to tank, smashing them like they were made of cardboard. Bullets rebounded off of him, and he moved so quickly that the camera—clearly grainy drone footage—couldn’t keep up. The scene changed to show soldiers walking alongside tanks, streaming out of the city on the same highways they came in on. Helicopters landed on rooftops as soldiers and civilians alike scrambled into them. In the background of each of these shots was the constant image of Wichita burning. Huge pillars of smoke belched out of raging fires. Buildings collapsed as bombs struck them. One video, more drone footage by the looks of it, zoomed in on what appeared to be hundreds of bodies, all blackened to a husk by fire.
Jay surveyed the blank expressions around them. The faces of their classmates only seemed to light up at the sight of Ironsides, perhaps impressed—or more accurately, sucked in by a morbid fascination—with his superhuman feat. Jay glanced at the clock, unable to make out the time in the dark.
“While the Pentagon attempted to bomb the city into submission with conventional aircraft, mind-controlled heroes and military units managed to shoot the planes down. Further complicating the situation were rising reports of mob activity, spearheaded by fast moving infected heroes, in El Dorado and even Hutchinson—more than thirty miles from the horde’s epicenter. This left army units essentially trapped behind enemy lines, with anyone they met a possible enemy. With no cure—or even an identified source—for the escalating mind-control, the UN Security Council convened in an emergency session.”
A solemn meeting in a large hall played silently on the screen. People sat at tables, the names of countries written before them. It had to be the UN Council Chamber, Jay concluded. Although the concerned expressions of the Council members were far from reassuring, the scene offered some respite from the violence of Wichita. Still, Jay couldn’t hold back the sickening, sinking feeling in their stomach. They were no stranger to the story’s ending. And it wasn’t going to be like any Hollywood movie or comicbook. In the real world, there was no such thing as a happy end.
“The Security Council discussed the potential for the horde to overrun all of America, or even the world. Ultimately, it was determined that a Shattered Arrow Bombardment of Wichita and the surrounding area would be required. The President, reluctantly, concurred and—with reports of the mind-control spreading—ordered the bombardment of Wichita and everything within 112 miles of the city, with thousands of high-yield nuclear warheads.”
The narrator fell silent. Wichita took up the screen, filmed from a distance. The city was already in disarray, with huge columns of smoke belching from it. Then, everything disappeared in a huge flash of light. The camera zoomed out at another flash of light. Then another. And another. The scene changed to what seemed like a satellite view of the area. Countless bright dots appeared over the landscape, each one probably the size of a city. As the entire area turned into a sea of burning light, the camera changed again, this time to an aerial view. Huge mushroom clouds rose out of the landscape, which was entirely invisible under a sea of smoke and fire. There was no sound, no music. Just silence.
The same silence overtook the classroom. Jay looked around. Ahead, Jazmine and Raegan momentarily glanced up from their cellphones. Next to the two of them, Amber had slumped back in her seat, maintaining an ambivalent aura. But, as she crossed her arms over her chest, she gave herself a small hug—a gesture which seemed to betray her normally nonchalant attitude. Yet, most of the students appeared more obviously concerned. Gabriel knotted his dark brows into a frown, while Max bit his lip and tore off small pieces of an eraser. He piled the pieces into a small mound on his desk.
“It is estimated that more than 700,000 people died in the blast. This includes hundreds of thousands of refugees and soldiers who, by all likelihood, were not infected. While strategic experts around the world agreed that such measures were required in the face of such a threat to the world’s security, the scale of the tragedy cannot be understated. To prevent any survivors—all who were presumed to be infected—from escaping, the United Nations erected a wall around the blast zone. This formed the Wichita Exclusion Zone, which persists to this day. While Shattered Arrow Bombardments have occurred in other countries, perhaps most notably in Cameroon during 2003’s Walking Plague, this was the first to occur in America and resulted in the resignation of President-”
Before the narrator could finish the sentence, the bell tolled. Its chime extended from the tower above the school. Mr. Whetter paused the documentary. “We will watch the rest next class. I hope everyone is taking good notes, since some of these things might show up on the quiz.”
Jay and Gabriel left the classroom together. The fluorescent lights of the hallway seemed searingly bright after spending the last hour in darkness. Jay rubbed their eyes.
Gabriel spoke first. “Sheesh…” he started. “Mr. Whetter really thinks that’s quiz material?” He kept his tone light, although Jay knew him well enough to tell when he looked for the irony in things he would rather not think too deeply about. “That’s kinda heavy, even for him.”
“Yeah…” Jay trailed off, unable to find a response other than quiet agreement.
“At least it’s not Latin,” Gabriel sighed. When Jay still didn’t say anything, he continued, “Hello? Penny for your thoughts?”
“I just… I just feel like Chapel has been kinda screwed up lately.”
“I don’t think anyone is gonna argue with you there.” Gabriel didn’t have to state the obvious—the murder of Mr. Howells, the monster in the theater, the anonymous heroes… It was beyond just screwed up.
The two of them reached the end of the hallway, then exited the high school. The smell of smoke tinted the air—perhaps a distant wildfire, Jay speculated.
“But, I mean, like…” They paused to collect their thoughts. “Like everyone is acting as if everything is normal. When it really isn’t. Nothing is normal about this.” As they walked away from Chapel High, Jay gestured sort of aimlessly toward the school, as if any part of the building could embody what they were trying to say.
Yet, Gabriel wasn’t quite as prepared to decipher the frantic gesture. “What do you mean?” he said.
“Have you noticed how all the teachers are acting?”
“Not really…”
“That’s what I mean. They’re acting so normal. Like they’re trying to convince us that history and math and grammar or any of it actually matters when something terrible can happen at any moment. When something terrible did happen.”
“So… Well…” Gabriel fumbled for something to say. “What do you think they’re supposed to be doing?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Gabriel put a hand on Jay’s shoulder. It was a firm but reassuring gesture. “Look, the monster’s gone now. Nothing else is going to happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, I guess I don’t.” He chuckled awkwardly. “But bad things happen all the time. That’s just a fact. You can’t put your life on hold because of it.”
“It’s just… That thing… Who knows how long it was in the theater. While we were practicing in there.” Jay was taken aback by their own words. It was like a floodgate, unbeknownst to even themself, had opened. “It’s just dumb luck that nothing worse happened.”
“But it’s gone now. And that’s what matters.” Gabriel’s voice was firm without being stern.
Jay didn’t say anything else. Gabriel removed his hand from their shoulder. In a way, their friend had been right. But even if one problem was gone, that didn’t mean that others wouldn’t come up… These things could easily flourish like the heads of a hydra. Even if Jay wished for Gabriel’s optimistic attitude, they couldn’t shy away from the darkness in the world, left behind by all the Wichitas out there. Everything they knew lay in the shadow of the next powered disaster.
“Let’s see if Camilo went to Aesop’s, alright?” Gabriel said, interrupting their thoughts. “We can try that card game you keep talking about.”
Jay nodded slowly.