Prologue #2
Just outside the door, when I finally squeeze my way out between other runners, is Rashon Prudhomme.
He’s on the track team with me. He’s my friend.
He helped me with a flat on my dad’s car once when he passed me broken down on the side of the road.
He’s sweating, his face tinged a weird gray color, and he’s clutching his mangled leg, bleeding out.
It’s sprayed up the white wall next to him. There’s an artery in legs, isn’t there?
I don’t stop to help him or comfort him. I don’t hold his hand. I don’t even give him a backward glance. I let him lie there, leave him to die alone, because the M-16 behind me sounds closer than it did a few seconds ago and I have to get away.
I can’t even remember how I got here, time fracturing once again in the panic, but I’m running down the halls.
They’re filled with gray, acrid smoke, and my stomach drops as I see through stinging eyes that the main exit is on fire, the frame blown to rubble as though a bomb hit it.
The roar of the fire alarm is fading, sputtering, just another piece of confusion in the nightmare.
There’s no way anyone can use it to get out without the roaring wall of flames burning them alive.
There was a loud bang earlier, before the shooting began, but we all thought it was Evan Desjardin’s piece of shit Chevy backfiring again, like it always does.
It’s a Nolan High institution: every morning, Evan’s car backfires, and every morning we all mime shooting a gun, trying to sync the action up with the ground shaking boom. Just because it was funny.
There’s so much blood on my shirt and pants, and it’s slick and slimy and sticking to me and starting to congeal. I’m never gonna get my deposit back now. Shit. Why do I care? Why is that even a thought in my head? I will do anything, I just want to make it out alive .
Tamika Jourdain and Niesha Dubreauil are crying and trying to fit themselves into Tamika’s tall sports locker in the main corridor, the one she and the rest of the lacrosse team store their equipment in.
Even with the lacrosse sticks thrown out - giving away their position even if they did manage to get in - the locker is much too small, too narrow.
The door would barely close with just one of them in, let alone both, but they’re not giving up and keep trying to pull the door shut all the way.
It ain’t gonna happen. They’ve lost their minds.
Gunfire, behind me.
SHIT .
The screaming is louder again.
I run, gasping for air until my lungs hurt, my throat so dry I start to gag.
I think I piss myself, or maybe I already did, or maybe I just imagine it, I don’t know.
My rented shoes have no grip, and I skid across the polished floor until I fall almost face first into another dead body.
It’s so shot up, the face such an obliterated mess, that I can’t make out who it used to be.
Swallowing bile, I struggle to my feet again and head for the corner, running past the Nolan High trophy cabinet, past the track team photo from last year showing Eli before he graduated, standing with his teammates and holding up the trophy. Eli . Thank fuck he isn’t here for this.
There’s a crash and a shatter of glass as the gymnasium door is kicked open, and the motherfucking Terminator steps out, still armed to the teeth, a never-ending supply of ammo destroying everything in his path.
FUCK.
It’s pandemonium. Those of us that are left are running in all directions, not thinking any more clearly than just getting away .
We’re trapped inside, so all we can do is hide, and hope like hell it’s enough.
I sprint around the corner as hard as I can, no idea where I’m headed, and a burning pain bursts at the back of my right arm.
Terrified as to what that means, I ignore it for now and keep running.
I’m going to die. I’m going to die now . Not on a far off ‘someday’ I don’t need to think about yet. Not as an old man in the distant future, surrounded by loved ones after a long and happy life. Now.
I can’t. There’s so much I haven’t done yet. I’m not ready.
Neither was Callie. It didn’t keep her alive.
I’m never going to see my girl again. Unless there is an afterlife, and I might be about to find that out .
I don’t want to. Not yet.
I head up one flight of stairs to the classrooms, not wanting to go upstairs, but there’s no other choice open to me. I try one door, and then another, and then another. Fuck - they’re locked for Prom, I guess so no-one would come hook up in them or vandalize anything.
Amazingly, one door I try is unlocked, swinging open and smacking the wall as I push with all my might.
I stumble, landing on the classroom floor, and kick it shut.
Scrambling to my feet again, I try to wedge a chair underneath the doorknob, but it’s not tall enough, so I just collapse against it instead, sinking to the floor as my shaking legs finally give out, trying to catch my breath as my heartbeat throbs in my temples.
I’m almost afraid to move a muscle, but my arm feels weird, and I touch it reflexively. The wound is wet, and it burns. I stifle a shout of white hot pain, my fingers coming away bloodied. But I think it’s a flesh wound. I don’t think there’s a bullet inside me. I mean, I’d know, wouldn’t I?
Wouldn’t I?
I take a deep breath. I’m alright. For now. I need to think. I need my racing mind to slow down so I can think.
What the fuck am I gonna say to Callie’s parents? They trusted me to have her home safe by one a.m. They’re going to be furious. They’re going to kill me for failing her, and they’re right.
They’re right .
I should have taken the bullet for her. I would have, if I’d seen it coming. I’d have died in her place, no hesitation, I swear it.
Oh, god, I might have to puke. I mustn’t. I need to be silent.
The front of my shirt starts to feel cold and clammy, and I’m gripped by a kind of madness as I look down and see the blood and flesh and brain matter all over my front. I scrub my sleeve hard over the mess until the skin underneath feels raw, hurting my arm in the process but not caring.
“S...stop,” I hear someone whisper.
My stomach plummets.
Mrs Oberman, my English teacher, is cowering behind her teacher’s chair.
She’s hugging her knees as best she can.
She’s heavily pregnant. She stares at me with glassy, horrified eyes.
Suddenly, in the middle of this nightmare she’s in, here’s some kid from her senior class whose face is drenched in someone else’s blood.
Oh, god in heaven help me, I’ve led him right to a pregnant woman.
I’m sorry I’m sorry oh shit please forgive me I didn’t mean to -
There’s a loud thudding noise in the corridor. Sounds like someone slapping their hand on the doors at the far end.
“Heeeeere, kitty kitty,” he sings like a demented shit. “I know you’re iiiiiiiiiin heeeeeeeere…”
It doesn’t sound like Mr Whitmire, and yet it does. It sounds like a little kid trying to sound like a tough guy. And the familiarity of his voice makes this even more terrifying. He’s a teacher. He’s supposed to be someone we turn to for help.
I hear someone running, and then what sounds like a shotgun rather than a machine gun this time, and then a horrible retching sound from whoever got hit. Mr Whitmire is giggling like a kid playing a shoot-’em-up arcade game.
Mrs Oberman claps both hands over her mouth, shuddering and terrified, sweat running down her face. We’ve got to keep quiet. This room is all we have, all that’s keeping us from him and his guns. We need him to walk on by and think it’s empty.
I cower next to the door, wishing I could make myself small enough to disappear.
Footsteps.
Slow footsteps.
Too slow.
I dart my eyes around the room, but there are no cupboards for me and Mrs O to hide in. Even the tables aren’t going to provide much cover, and the act of moving things around to protect ourselves will make enough noise to draw his attention.
Move, asshole! Walk on by. Just walk on by. Please. I don’t want to die.
I think of Mom. Dad. My sister. Eli. I’m never going to see them again.
They’ll be holding on to each other, crying over what’s left of my body in some sterile, depressing funeral parlor, wondering what the hell happened in my final moments.
My throat closes up until I feel throttled, and I can’t catch a decent breath.
My eyes prickle with the threat of tears.
What’s going to be left of me? Half a head, like Callie, and a body that looks like Swiss cheese?
Closed casket all the way? I’m rigid and shuddering with panic. This isn’t happening.
This cannot be happening.
We were having such a great night, dancing and laughing and grinning into each other’s eyes as we thought of the rest of the evening and the rest of our lives ahead. How did this happen…how did it turn to…
No. NO! If I lose it now, I’m done for, and so is Mrs O. I have a pregnant woman to protect. I didn’t protect Callie, but I can protect her, and her baby, and I’m gonna. I WILL.
I hold my breath and try to be too rigid to move, since relaxing is just impossible.
I’m not religious, I’ve never had any beliefs, but it turns out I’m not above begging a higher power for help. Please, whatever god is out there, make this stop…don’t let him find us…
And the truth comes crashing down on me.
God is a fairytale. There can’t be a god.
There just can’t be. No omnipotent being who loved us would abandon us to this kind of horror.
There is just no way to justify it. I don’t care if you’re a god or a man.
No reason, no “plan”, is good enough to make this OK.
His footsteps sound different. He’s walking away. Oh, thank FUCK…