Non-Fiction horror in a fiction writer's life

While I write fiction as a writer, sometimes real life rudely intervenes and pulls me from my imaginary worlds.

I live in Northern California, and three of my children are in the public schools here (the youngest is still at home). Yesterday afternoon while typing away, the phone rang. It was an automated alert telling me that my eldest son's high school was in lockdown due to a "credible threat", and had been since that morning. Police were swarming the area, looking for the suspect.

That should make me feel safe, right? Wrong. I'll add a little personal history here: I worked for police and fire departments for 16 years. You can't always find the bad guy in time to save the innocents.

This specific person had apparently called his pastor, saying that he had an AK-47, explosives, and poison, and was going to make the school shooting at Virginia Tech look "mild" compared to what he was going to do. He lived in the city next to where my eldest son's school is. While it was very difficult to find current and accurate information, the rumors were sure flying.

I had my husband pick my eldest son up from high school while I retrieved two of my younger ones from their school. We frantically searched the news channels for information, the internet local news websites for updates, and my son was on the phone with his friends constantly. We received another automated message that all schools in the surrounding 5 counties had been closed for today (Friday), just as a precaution. Another friend told us the suspect's cell phone had been traced and he had been making calls within sight of my son's school.

*gulp* Sometimes reality hits hard.

Eventually, the suspect turned himself in, with his current girlfriend telling media how sweet a person he was and that he'd never hurt anybody (by the way, he did this while he was out on bail for spousal abuse on his wife...yeah, the girlfriend has her own fantasy world).

I had to explain to my 6-yr. old daughter and my developmentally delayed 8-yr. old son why they weren't going to school today. She was crying after I picked her up yesterday, saying everyone at the school was saying that a man was going to come with a gun and kill them all.

As a writer, I hear the best fiction is based in truth. I've used the tactic myself. However, this is one truth that I won't put in any of my stories... the real horror experienced by the families, friends, and students of Virginia Tech; the survivors of Columbine; and the many other tragedies which have been all over the media are enough.

While that psycho sits in a cold, hard jail cell, hopefully coming down from his meth high, I'm hopeful that there's someone even nastier than him in the next cell who takes a big dislike to him.

Am I bitter? Vindictive? Yep, I sure am.

We were lucky--our kids are all home safe, and we just got one of those "appreciate it while you have it" scares. Too many don't have the chance to reevaluate the things precious in their life. On that note, I think I'm going to take the rest of the night off, spend it with my family and cuddle my kids.