The Gunman

Chapter 18: Anna

I tip toed down the open wasteland, not breathing or blinking. If I had been breathing I wouldn't be able to hear if someone approached and if I was blinking then I might not have seen if someone was coming. So I settled for the burning eyes and lungs, as I carefully walked down the hallway.

As I passed rooms I would hear sobs, whispers, and soft screams. Occasionally I would pass a room that smelled of puke and urine. I couldn't blame them. The fear made a sick taste in my mouth, but I kept walking.

The deafening silence made my ears ring, or maybe that was the many gunshots I had heard that day. Who would ever know? Another gunshot filled the hallway, and I stopped walking.

I had been using the gunshots to tell me how far I was from the psychopath with the guns. It sounded like he was maybe four hallways away, give or take. The loud sound of the guns followed by the echoes made it almost impossible to give an exact location.

My feet shook, every time I lifted one off the ground. It was a deliberate walk, and every step was followed by another, and then another. My mouth was dried out from fear, and my stinging eyes forced me to blink at the same time my burning lungs made me take in a deep gasping breath. Much like one a fish out of water would have taken.

It was then that I fell, my face slamming nose first onto the hard tiled ground. I was expecting to get up to look at the traitorous white ground, but it wasn't white. It was stained red, like most of the school must have been by then.

I scrambled back on my hands and knees, feeling desperately at my nose, hoping that's where the blood had come from. When my hand pulled away though, it came away clean. My nose wasn't bleeding.

I turned around slowly, with my eyes no longer open. They were closed, clamped shut, until I was all the way turned around. My eyes cracked open and a half gasp half scream echoed from my mouth. There was a body, in the middle of the deadly hallway.

A hole was in the middle of his back, like he had been trying to run away from the bullet as it struck him. My hand reached forward, and turned the kid on his back so I could see his face. The tears were inevitable, and they fell to the ground to mix with the blood.

It was Dan Rift, a boy Ellie had dated back in the eighth grade. He had been a jerk, not letting her talk to any other boys, and he hated me more than anyone could imagine. However, that didn't mean he deserved to be killed. He had a mom, a dad, a grandma, grandpa; I thought he even had a new girlfriend. There were people that cared about him, and they didn't deserve to hear that he had been shot by some angry kid with a gun.

I closed his eyes, much like I had closed my brother's and said a quiet prayer, asking God to watch over the dead, and the living. That was the first time I had prayed in years, and it made me feel better to believe that there was someone watching over all of us.

It also made me think, though. Why would God let this happen? What could the big picture possibly be? I sighed heavily as I got up onto my feet, and continued walking down the once safe halls.