Halloween of '84: You Better Fucking Run

7. Rekindled Bond (In An Unlikely Way)

    Next thing you know, as the sirens approach the front desk lobby, Randy wakes up with a start, coughing up blood.

    "Fuck!", he shouted in pain and fear, "Where is he?! What the hell happene-", he coughed more dark red liquid.

    "Whoa, easy there old friend." Brayden said to Randy as he leaned him back up against the wall.

    I almost forgot that Brayden, Randy and Jack used to be best friends all together at one point. In middle school, they used to play football with one another on the little grassy field behind the school where the track was. They planned to continue to play together in high school, to be friends forever. But, Randy and Jack were in the eighth grade and graduated to high school while Brayden had to repeat the sixth grade instead of going to seventh. 

    That's how Brayden and I met. Then came Vicky, now here we are. The three boys never had a fight. Nothing came between them other than distance and lack of communication. I'm sure if it wasn't for Brayden's love of drums, he would be playing football with Jack and Randy. No doubt we would all be a friend group by now, though. But, since that didn't happen, this incident was the beginning of our lovely friend group. 

    "Brayden? My god, man, it's been years. How are you?" Randy chuckled. More blood poured from the side of his mouth. How is he laughing right now? Must be braver than I thought, huh. I thought to myself.

    "I'm fine, but right now, you aren't." Brayden said, a small, half- hearted smile on his lips.

    The paramedics came in and rushed Randy out of a stretcher. The remaining six of us sat in the office for some time before calling our parents to pick us up. 

    "Bray? How did you know it was Randy? When he screamed and the lights went out." I asked. He looked pale and distraught. We all did pretty much, I mean we could have all died.

    "Yeah," sniffled Jack, "after all this time I figured you would have forgotten our faces and all."

    "I don't know how, but I just got a flashback to when Randy broke his arm trying to tackle you one day after school. Tossing around the football in middle school. It hit me that the screams were painfully identical, and scared me even worse when I noticed he wasn't with you like he normally is." Brayden answered, putting his head in his palms. We were all exhausted and traumatized.

    "Well, it's great to see you again, O'Conner." Jack said. Who would have thought number 43 getting shot would be how Jack and Brayden rekindled their friendship. Who would have thought something like this would happen to us and bring us all together as quick as it did.

    "I'm sorry for joking around! I didn't mean to jinx it, I just wanted to believe it was fake! I didn't think it was real, or that something like this would happen, I'm so sorry!" Ally sobbed. She had finally broken down, and she was pissed at herself. I felt bad.

    "Hey, hey, Als, listen to me. It's gonna be okay. You can come home with me tonight, my parents won't mind." Sammy said, hugging her friend.

    After all of our parents came to get us, there were loads of concerns and questions. "Who shot up the school?" "Who would shoot Randy McHalliester, was it on purpose?" "How did they even get inside if it wasn't a student?"

    These were all questions we couldn't answer. These were questions I had myself. I didn't get any sleep that night either. If I did, the nightmares would have kept me awake anyway.