By the time the first calls came over the scanner the night of Oct. 25, 2023, people were already dead at the bowling alley.

When we heard the firetrucks come wailing out from the fire station around the corner and the police cruisers screaming down the street from the Sun Journal office in downtown Lewiston, we had no idea that our lives and our careers were about to indelibly change.

In mere minutes, more would be dead at a bar two miles away. The sirens became louder, even more intense.

Sitting at my desk, after sending my co-workers, photographer Russ Dillingham and reporter Joe Charpentier, toward scenes of such horror, the sirens drowned out the sound of my heart thumping in my chest.

The sirens shattered that night into a thousand pieces.

It’s a sound that, a year later, still makes me hold my breath for a moment. When I work at my desk at the office during my night shift, it’s the sound I fear the most.

It’s a sense memory response.

The sirens continue all night long. Long after the shooting stopped. Long after the shooter had fled Lewiston. Long after the lockdown orders. Long after most people retreated to their homes knowing there was a killer on the loose — the sirens remained.

From all over surrounding towns and counties they came in bursts. Emergency vehicles heading up and down Main Street and Lisbon Street and nearby Lincoln Street.

The more we learned about what happened, and the more we realized we knew very little about what happened — it was all punctuated by the screaming of emergency vehicles breaking any moments of peace in an otherwise silent city.

That was the thing: Lewiston and Auburn have never been so quiet. The juxtaposition unironically made the Twin Cities feel downright desolate.

At some point in the evening I went out to find someplace that was open where I could get some food. I hadn’t eaten all night. I had forgotten all about dinner, honestly. I drove around Lewiston and Auburn where the roads weren’t blocked. Nothing was open. On Center Street in Auburn, I stopped at a light and rolled down my window for a moment. Other than the distant sounds of emergency vehicles across the river, I heard nothing but a slight wind and police quietly and slowly patrolling, scanning the nooks and crannies of the businesses.

I suddenly felt out of place. Even though I was working I had an intense feeling of “I shouldn’t be here.” So, I returned to the office. My husband and kids wanted me to come home because they worried about me being in a downtown building at night — on that night. I knew I couldn’t go home. Not yet.

My place was with my co-workers in the bullpen.

Information in and out, written and rewritten; for hours it was nonstop. As more and more of my co-workers from all of our sister papers — Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal, Morning Sentinel, The Times Record — joined the frenzy of work to be done, I felt fortunate to be part of such an organization.

I felt scared. I felt such intense adrenaline.

From the start I was acutely aware of how huge this thing was that we had been tasked with, doing justice to a story that was in real time altering lives and ending them.

We’ve covered shootings and violence. Practically old hat for some of us old news folk. But this was something else. This was the story none of us wanted to write.

And still the sirens wailed.

About 2:30 that morning I started to think about going home. I had been working for more than 12 hours and was emotionally and physically exhausted. I had been called and interviewed by MSNBC and the BBC. I almost broke down on international television. I had managed to coordinate and write a comprehensive story with my incredibly talented co-workers AND tear apart a story lineup and rework a whole new paper to be put out the next day. We had managed an incredible feat.

We were proud of what we’d done and profoundly distraught, all at the same time.

After answering text messages from family and friends around the country that had been left unanswered for hours, I packed my things to head home.

I left the office and headed to my car. I scanned the plaza outside the door before I stepped out into the open. I kept my head on a swivel. When I reached my car, I stopped before getting in. Something was different.

It was quiet. Not even a whisper of wind. The sirens had stopped. I drove home, no radio. I walked into my house. Everyone had long ago gone to sleep. I popped my head into my daughter’s room and then my son’s, both safe in their beds. My husband was breathing heavy on his side of the bed and the dogs gently snoring next to him. I’ve never loved the sound of my family sleeping more than I did then.

That night, I dreamt of sirens.

Marla Hoffman is the nighttime managing editor of the Sun Journal. She can be reached at [email protected]