|
|
|
A boy walks down an empty school hallway on a warm April morning. The boy is of average height and stature, he looks rather normal with his short, messy dark hair and light brown eyes. He's wearing a simple dark blue t-shirt along with blue jeans. Everything about this boy appears to be normal, except for one thing - he has a pistol in each hand.
The boy, Holden, continues his way down the empty hallway, expressionless and casual. He stops outside the closed door of the first classroom he sees and looks inside the small window on the door. Study hall.
Inside the room some students are pouring over text books, trying to cram before an exam while other students are chatting with each other, care-free and cheerful. Unsuspecting.
Holden, still looking into the study hall window, doesn't notice someone walking up slowly behind him.
"Hey." calls a mans voice.
Surprised, Holden whirls around, raising the pistols to face the newcomer.
"Easy, Holden. Just me." Relief flooded into Holden's face as he recognized the man. He relaxes, lowering his pistols. It was only his comrade, Justin.
"You should know better than to sneak up on me. I didn't think you were going to show up, you're ten minutes late." Holden says, glancing at his watch to check the time. Ten thirty-five.
"Just had a bit of car trouble." Holden's tall blond-haired friend replies, shrugging his shoulders. "Did you get your fath-"
"Yes." Holden cuts him off sharply.
"How is she?"
Holden lets out a sigh, and then takes a quick look back in the study hall classroom. "You ready?" he asks Justin, ignoring his question.
"yeah, I have to be ready in order to be here don't I?" Justin responds and lets the matter drop, pulling out his own two pistols.
"Remember the plan." Holden whispers, and without another word opens the classroom door and charges in, Justin following quickly behind him.
As they charged into the class, they start firing off shots at random students who start going into frenzy, falling down and running to the windows in terrified chaos, screaming while the professor hides under his desk.
"Stop!!" Holden yells to Justin, firing the last couple of rounds at students trying to escape through the windows.
Justin stops while Holden drops both of his pistols, pulling two additional loaded semi-automatic pistols out of his pockets. Ready to move, Holden nods at Justin and leaves study hall in death and chaos.
The two boys start running through the hallway, hearing alarms and announcements echo off the walls as they encounter fearful students on the way who, when seeing Justin and Holden, scream and run in the other direction.
Holden, firing a few shots at the terrified running students, turns and runs into the school library with Justin right behind. Stopping at the door, Justin fires a few shots behind them, scaring the students who are still inside of the library.
Several of the students start to run towards the desks, diving underneath, shaking a sobbing. Holden once again nods at Justin, signaling him to stay at the door while Holden takes a few steps towards the desks where students are hiding.
"Come on out guys!" Holden demands maliciously, taking a look under the desks. When nobody moves, he aims at the nearest student, under the desk in front of him. Suddenly, he hears Justin calling from the door.
"Police!"
"Stay there." Holden responds and fires off a round at the unfortunate student in front of him, who collapses. He then moves on to another desk, where a student is hiding and begins to aim.
"STOP!" Yells an officer, bursting through the door, throwing Justin aside. Two other officers follow behind the first, one tackling the surprised Justin and bringing him to the ground, where he drops his pistols.
Holden turns to look at the officers, still aiming at the sobbing student.
"Drop your weapons, kid." demands a police officer, raising his own gun to aim carefully at Holden.
Holden, who still has two pistols in his hands, drops the one in his left hand, remembering he fired off all the rounds in it. Wordlessly, Holden stares at the student under the desk, pistol still aimed.
"Drop it!"
Holden ignores the officers, and fires one final round at the student under the table, going through her head. Immediately as he fires the shot, officers open fire at him, shooting him in the chest, causing him to crumple to the ground and lie dead in a pool of his own blood.
"Distraught families, sobbing children, brothers and sisters, mothers, fathers stand outside of the Kellington High School hours after the shooting incident where so far we have found ten students killed, and many more injured. Authorities have told us that there were two gunmen, one is in custody and the other is dead via suicide by cop. Names will be released after we find out more information.
We believe the two gunmen were Holden Michaels and Justin Matthews, they go to Kellington High. Holden is sixteen and Justin is seventeen. We have reason to believe that Holden Michaels is dead while Justin Matthews is in custody.
It appears that Holden, before leaving his home today, shot and killed his father, leaving his mother alive but locked in her room. However, she appeared to have commit suicide. Stay tuend for more information on this horrible event on News Channel 2.
Justin glanced around his jail cell and let out a long drawn out sigh. He was in maximum security. He had a bed, toilet, and that was it. Sitting on his bed, alone in the cell he could only think one thing over and over. "It's over."
But he knew, deep in the back of his mind, it was just the beginning of the end. He would have to go through trial, most likely as an adult, become convicted, and he would either die or spend the rest of his life in prison. He wasn't afraid, or scared. But he couldn't feel anything right then. He was just numb, numb since the police tackled him. Numb since the death of Holden.
In his prison cell, Justin had a lot of time to think. He guessed that was the purpose of jail, locking you up to keep you away from other people and giving a lot of time to think about what you've done. It reminded him of a time in kindergarten, he had stolen a crayon from a little girl, and they put him in the corner to be in time-out for ten minutes so he could think about what he had done. Justin hadn't used the time to think about what he had done, he had used the time to think about how to get back at the teacher. Well, he wondered, who could blame me? Ten minutes felt like a lifetime back then.
A lifetime. Justins life would be spent here, in this tiny cell, alone. At least, what was left of his life. He had no idea how the authorities would deal with the shooting, if they would try him as an adult of a juvenile, if he would stay in maximum security or if they would even sentence him to death.
Justin supposed he would cooperate, he wouldn't put up a fight with anyone trying to him him or hurt him. The fight, he felt, had been drained out of him in the past couple of days sitting in the sell. All alone. He could expect no sympathy from anyone, and he didn't want it. He had done what he had done, albeit with Holden's leadership and command, but he had done it.
His thoughts began to drift over to the past and his childhood dreams, and friends. Of course, all would be gone now. They had been gone for a while. He wondered what his parents thought about him after all of this. He had killed ten people with Holden, and injured several more. Before the shooting, his parents seemed to be proud of him. He had average grades in school and a respectful relationship with them. They got along well. However, they always seemed to ignore the problems he had, thinking that they would always work themselves out. Justin used to think things worked like that, too. Well, they worked themselves out all right, he had let Holden plan the shooting, and followed right along, letting things take their course, he let himself lose control and because of it he sat here. In a maximum security jail cell. By himself.
Justin started thinking about Holden again, and how the whole event started. A couple months ago Holden had called him up. It was late, probably around ten at night and he had sounded pissed off. Justin remembered his words coming out jumbled, he was speaking so fast Justin could barely understand him.
"I can't believe it. Over and over again it happens. They don't even care about each other."
"What? What happened?"
"My parents! I got home from the park a few minutes ago and my dad's trashed. passed out on the couch. Mom's upstairs, I can hear her crying from my room. He did it, again. I wish I had been home when it happened. I could have defended her. She never does anything wrong, and all he does is abuse her. Next time, I will be here. I will make him know how it feels... I'll let everyone know how it feels to be hurt. Ignorance is bliss. I'll show them all." He hung up.
Justin simply sat on his bed, thinking. He'll show them all? Justin had always had thought about taking revenge on those who hurt him most. He had been picked on for the dumbest things throughout his school career. Too tall, too dumb, too bold, too loud, too quiet. No matter what he did he received criticism from his peers. His parents were supportive, and Justin felt like he couldn't even begin to understand what Holden felt. Holden had been bullied too, but he was stubborn. Holden's father had always been abusive, and Holden hated him. He believed his mother deserved better, and Justin agreed. Whenever Holden would turn to defend his mother, he would take the hits instead. Holden had grown tough over the years, but it appeared he was just as sick of people as Justin.
That was how it started, and from thereon they talked and planned through the weeks, thinking of how they would get back at the people who hurt them, who ignored them or pressured them to be who they weren't. This is what it resulted in.
Ten students dead. Holdens parents dead. Justin jailed. He wondered what else happened since he was placed in this cell. He had lost track of time, it felt like he had been here forever, though he knew it had only been a couple days. His parents hadn't come to see him at all, they must be ashamed of him. Parents of students who had died came to see him, yelling and cursing at him before they were escorted out.
Justin was the surviving gunman, so they parents blamed him for everything. He remembered one mother who came in, she couldn't stop sobbing and would go on about the death of her only daughter. Jenny. He remembered her saying her husband died in an accident and Jenny was all the had left, but now she was all alone. Justin hadn't responded, hadn't even looked at her. He didn't feel remorse, but still he was numb. He wondered about the other lives of parents of students who were dead. Eh, what mattered now was his life, or the end of it. Or maybe, he thought, it didn't matter. What did, now?
He heard footsteps coming in, and he saw what looked like a regularly dressed reporter with short dark hair, messy like Holdens. He stopped in front of Justin's cell and peered inside.
"So, you're the infamous living gunman; Justin." He said looking at Justin, expressionless. When Justin didn't respond the man let out a sigh. "If I were to ask a few questions, would you answer?"
"If they're worth answering." Justin quietly responds, thinking he might be entertained for a while.
"I guess that'll do. My name is Jon. First off, I'm helping a friend work on a book about school violence. And it doesn't matter what book or for who. I'm here to ask questions."
"They why did you tell me that?"
"Question number one, how old are you?"
"Seventeen, but you probably already knew that."
"Number two, how do you feel about animals?"
"Animals? That's random. They're okay I guess. I don't really like cats or dogs that much, I don't care about them."
"I see, are you or have you been on medicine for a mental problem?"
"Well, no, not that I know of. Who knows if I was slipped something."
"Have you felt bullied at school? Out of it?"
"Why do you need to know all of this, anyway?" Justin asks, a nerve touched.
"Just answer."
"No, I don't feel like it."
"How about another question?"
"Depends, is it as stupid as the first ones?"
"Do you get angry frequently or easily?"
"I'm done with this." Justin turns his back on the man, ignoring him.
"Alright, you can be like that kid, but I'll be back later. You could do the world a favor by answering, but I guess I can't expect that much from a guy who killed ten kids." He turned and walked down the hallway, leaving.
Justin let out a sigh, listening to the footsteps echo down the hall as the man left. Well, he thought, I guess no company is better than him. Why would anyone care about what I think of animals? What a moron.
Months later, Justin learned that he would be spending the rest of his life in a jail cell. His parents had visited him a couple times after the days of the shooting. The visits seemed awkward, they acted like they had no idea why he had done such a thing.
There were more interviewers, people asking questions that visited him in his cell. He started to refuse answering any of them, not wanting to talk anymore about the shooting or his personality. He had guessed people that weren't local simply forgot the shooting happened, or didn't find it worth giving attention to. He was becoming white noise.
Well, he guessed it didn't matter what people thought. Nothing related to him anymore, he was stuck. Alone, in the maximum security jail cell for the rest of his life.
 Unbelief · Wed Jun 17, 2009 @ 02:04am · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|
