Author's note: I first wrote this novella back in 2019, and though it is a major departure from my usual type of fiction (fantasy and horror), I hope it enjoys a home here.
Introduction
I should begin by saying that the book you hold in your hands, whether it be in physical or electronic copy, was not what this project was originally intended to be. At the start of this all, I had intended for this to be nothing more than a two-or-three-part essay within the pages of ‘Look Back’ Magazine, a periodical that specializes in revisiting important stories that, for one reason or another, seem to have been lost from the national consciousness over time. The magazine’s editors don’t typically like a piece to cover any events older than fifteen years of age, and when I first set out to compile the notes and interviews for this project, the ten-year anniversary of the incident in question was rapidly approaching, so I was well within the boundaries of their usual expectations.
Upon my return from Deertrack, Georgia, however, I discovered that what I had on my hands was not a long form essay, but something that would require more than ‘Look Back’ would be willing to spend its precious content space allotments on. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t do something for their fine organization, and as such, I would like readers to know that twenty percent of my net royalties for this book are going to them. They financed approximately fifty percent of my travel and lodging expenses, so this seems like the least I can offer them in return.
Readers should also be made aware, in the interest of preserving my own journalistic ethics, that the entire impetus of my having decided to take on this project revolves largely around the fact that I am, myself, originally from Deertrack, Georgia. I graduated from Delta Heights High School in 2019, just two years before the horrific events of April 17th, 2021. At the time of the incident, I was enrolled at Georgia University, a sophomore majoring in journalism and communications science. I would eventually graduate and make my way to the American Midwest, where I would work primarily for the Star Tribune as a political pages contributor.
My connection to Deertrack is the whole reason I decided to undertake this effort. In the decade since the massacre at Delta Heights High School, Aaron Sitanski, one of the two boys responsible for the events and the only one to immediately surrender to authorities upon their arrival on scene, has steadfastly refused to speak to anybody in the media concerning the events of that day, or the time preceding it. In journalistic circles, it became something of a running joke that if someone didn’t want to talk to a journalist, they were ‘being Sitanski’.
Like most infamous prisoners, requests from members of the media to talk to Sitanski had to first be put forth to his state-assigned representative. This woman, Holly Maxwell, has been a public defender in the state of Georgia for seven years, and was assigned to Sitanski two years ago. She, like each assigned representative of his, had been given a single imperative by her client as regarded requests by members of the media to speak to him.
When I reached out to her for access to Sitanski, she carried out this imperative by asking me, “Are you from Deertrack?” When I answered that yes, in point of fact, I was born and raised there, attended Delta Heights just a couple of years before the incident, likely had seen Sitanski and Norris at some point in my junior and senior years at the school, there was a queer kind of silence on the other end of the line. She finally cleared her throat and replied to me, “Call me again when you get here, and I’ll get things set up.”
I honestly don’t think she had ever expected to get an answer in the affirmative while her client was still alive and walking this Earth.
**
In part because I keep tabs on happenings back in my hometown and in part because I don’t like being too crunched for time, I should inform readers that I didn’t actually start research for this project after pitching it to the folks at ‘Look Back’; I started almost six months prior, after coming across a blog page entry by a current resident of Deertrack. In the blog, she revealed that work had begun on a memorial installation that was going to eventually be placed in the town square, to mark the ten-year anniversary of the incident as a reminder that those who were lost that day were never forgotten. The moment I read this, I knew I had to set to work, and immediately, before I could lose my nerve.
I informed my editors at the Star Tribune that I would be taking a sabbatical. They were more than accommodating. That’s something that you may not know, reader, and I’d like to take a moment aside to just briefly cover it. Midwestern folks are as hardworking as anybody you’ll ever meet, and they are, on the whole, an earnest people, regardless of ethnic background or color or creed. People from the ‘flyover states’ have a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude that is almost infectious, and deserving of respect. They are also, generally speaking, people of great conviction; some folks would call it stubbornness, I suppose. As such, if you waffle or hesitate, even in the slightest, they will land on you like a sumo wrestler. As such, when I informed my editors of the need for time away, I didn’t request it timidly, or via email or text message. I went into the offices, knocked on Hal Turner’s door, and when he told me to come on in, informed him bluntly that I would be taking a sabbatical, possibly as much as a year, and that I would continue to be in touch and offer commentary if he wanted it.
Hal didn’t even blink, just nodded his head and told me my desk would be waiting for me when I got back. He didn’t drag me over the coals for an explanation, didn’t threaten me with termination or blacklisting; he just effectively said ‘okay’, because I have never given him or anyone else on the staff a reason to think less of me. I spoke with conviction, and he respected and acknowledged that. Anything more would have been, in his native Midwestern estimation, I think, an intrusion into my privacy, and unworthy of that old chestnut, ‘Minnesota Nice’.
I tell you all of that in order to tell you this; the main body of this project is going to begin, after this rather lengthy introduction, with notes leading up to and then the inclusion and takeaway aftermath of an interview with one Miss Tabitha Crowell, who lives in Minneapolis. The reason I went to speak with her only a few days after coming upon that blog post? Because she’s geographically so close, and because she is one of the ‘Delta 26’, a nickname that was given a decade ago to the twenty-six members of the student body and staff who survived the massacre at Delta Heights High School.
And so, let’s get started.
-Matthew Hayes
September 22nd, 2031