The FLASH

Thursday, April 1, 2024

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Things had been quiet for a while… A little too quiet. This reporter was asked to stop doing his job when it was deemed necessary to infringe on personal rights and the propagation of the truth among the inhabitants of our little campus. It was determined that in order not to worry students and parents too much by recent reports, a strict ban was placed upon all news outlets. We were not allowed to cover the story of the events which have changed forever the lives of our students and faculty.

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When asked for comments on the lift of the ban our school president, Dr. Dan Schierenbeck, had a few words to say.

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“If it were up to me, that ban would still be in place. We don't need people spreading bad news around campus. It’s not good for morale… …If it weren’t for the endless appeals and the Supreme Court’s verdict that the ban was unconstitutional, it would still be there and we would all be better off!”

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It is necessary to briefly go over the events of the last few months if one is to understand the current situation of our campus. At the end of October, the squirrels came. No one knows where from, but they did. Evil little rodents that consume all living flesh, be it student or professor. They came with a vengeance and ate their way through nearly half of the student body before people developed enough sense not to go looking for them in the woods. A few days after the first sighting, President Schierenbeck declared a state of emergency and took upon himself the title of supreme dictator. Eau Claire Animal Control was called in to assess the situation and immediately a quarantine zone and high cement walls went up around campus and surrounding areas (from State to Stein, and the end of Ellis to I94) to control the spread, but the damage was done and classes would not be canceled.

Students and faculty alike were stuck waiting it out. Classes changed, however, and students started learning useful knowledge that would help them get to the next day. Professor Rodebaugh taught his students self-defense and toughened them up with his Marine Corps training methods, turning your average no-name freshman into an instrument of defense and a hero for our cause. Professor Schierenbeck (the elder) took a break from physics and had his students build themselves air rifles capable of taking down even the largest of squirrels with a single well-aimed shot. He also taught a class on how to make hand grenades to deal with swarms. Professor Naumann, recovering from his wounds, embraced his new reality with delight. He taught hunting tactics when he wasn’t hunting the little devils himself. Professor Roehl was endlessly at work. He and the groundskeeping crew were set as foremen for the construction of the barricades. These were completed in early November. One stood at the entrance to campus. In it was made the gate to the inside of our safezone. The other barricades with gates extended from Ingram down to the Commons and from the Commons to the Garage Mahal. The rest of campus was enclosed by chain link fencing crowned with barbed wire curls. Watches were posted every night and every student was required to take his or her turn on the barricades or patrolling the fences, waiting to sound the alarm. The extra-curriculars pitched in their fair share too. Robotics decided to retrofit the green machine with wheel spikes, a squirrel catcher, and mounted flamethrowers (Professor Schierenbeck’s work).

“It isn’t really all that necessary, but it sure looks awesome,” said Joe LeDuc, admiring his team’s work.

With winter came a time of relative peace. The enemy struggled to survive in their high holdfasts and lived off of their food stores. Classes continued largely uninterrupted. In a frantic effort to put an end to the madness of the situation, the faculty began to deploy more resources toward understanding the monsters they faced. In February, instead of dissecting the usual pig carcasses, the students were required to harvest the frozen bodies of squirrels, mowed down by air rifle pellets just outside of the barricade under the watchful eye of Professor Rodebaugh. Rumors have circulated that Professor Schierenbeck, using the data gathered from these dissection labs, has begun work on a bioweapon.

Friday, April 19, 2024

The beginning of April saw the coming of Arbor Day and the student body was thrilled to have a break from classes. The faculty arranged the student body in groups of twelve and assigned them a section of trees to clear.

“Trees attract squirrels, they need to go,” said our groundskeeper, Brett Lau.

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 All of the trees on campus were cleared that day and students never stopped complaining about the work. When asked why she wasn’t working, one anonymous student said, “Working the saw is really only a two person job. I don’t know why we were put into groups of twelve.”

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April also saw the beginning of spring, and a return of the squirrels with a ferocity unmatched by previous months. They were awake, and they were hungry. Professor Schierenbeck insisted that they were also becoming organized. Instead of having to defend against individual perpetrators, they more often attacked the barricades in swarms of ten or twelve. “Squirrels have a herd social structure very much like highschoolers,” said Professor Schierenbeck, “They are beginning to find it easier to hunt in packs than to go alone.”

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More troubling was the observation made that the herds kept getting larger. After an especially gruesome late night defense on the barricade, this reporter asked multiple participants,

“Do you think you did not see not more than thirty squirrels in this herd or not more than that many?” An enormous sum of 27% of participants said yes, they did. 12% said no, and 61% said they didn’t understand the question.

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Troubling statistics indeed. Only the future can tell if this trend will continue. Meanwhile, we bide our time, longsuffering under the heavy burden of classes and nighttime guard duty. We must remain vigilant, we must stick it out until the end.

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-Noah Buck