Today started just like every other Wednesday in recent memory. I woke up at 2pm, got ready, let the dogs out, and left for work. I arrived at work at my usual 3:11pm, and walked across the parking lot feeling good and soaking up a little sun. When I got to the basement and walked into the maintenance shop; I heard my boss babbling on about the local news report. I started my standard mundane routines when I heard thunder outside. I assumed that now would be the best time to get my chemical readings from the pool, under the impression that a storm was moving in. When I got out of the basement, there wasn’t a cloud in sight. Then I heard jets; one jet is usual since we have a regional airport across the road, but this sounded like several jets. After I finished my readings, I heard sirens coming toward the hotel and decided to go to the roof and see what was happening. When I got there I was in disbelief, the jets I heard were coming back, and they were dropping bombs on the interstate.

I had prepped for this; I called my short list and told them to go to the meeting spot to wait it out. Word was spreading; people were running from both our building and the mall on the other side of the highway. Whoever was behind this was trying to cause mass panic, and they were succeeding. By hitting the highway, they had essentially cut the entire area in half forcing everyone trying to get out onto two other roads neither of which was designed to handle that amount of traffic. I decided to lay low for now and see if anyone else had stayed behind. I walked down all the guest corridors, but they were all deserted. I walked through the basement employee area where a heard one of the showers running, I knocked loud and yelled into the bathroom. I heard whoever was in there reply and the voice sounded very familiar. I told her that she needed to finish up quickly, and that there was some serious stuff going down. When she came out, I realized that it was Stephanie and I explained what was going on. She freaked; but who can blame her, I took her upstairs so that she could try to call her family. I took her to the conference room and told her to stay put, and I would be back soon. I continued on towards the restaurant, where I found one of the waitresses crying. Her name was Amber, we had chatted in the past a few times. I startled her, but she quickly tried to put on a brave face. I talked to her to try to calm her down; but then she told me that when she realized what was happening, she called and talked to her sitter when the line went dead. I took Amber to the conference room to check on Stephanie, who was crying because she couldn’t get through to anyone.

It was two hours after the initial strike, and I was sitting in a board room with two grieving, panic-stricken young women. Every time that I tried to get up and leave they pleaded for me to stay, I finally had to explain that I had an emergency kit in my truck at all times, and needed to retrieve it. I left the building and tried to stay low and run as fast I as I could to the back of the parking lot. I grabbed my pack and my truck gun and began hading back towards the building, trying to ignore the udder chaos all around me. As I reached the doors, I turned back to take it all in. Every direction that I looked had smoke and secondary explosions.