The Gunman

Chapter Twenty-One

I had swept the bottom floor already, passed all of the classes. So, it was time to walk up the green staircase to the second floor. My feet made no noise as they slowly, and quietly, led me up the stairs that I had been pushed down for the past three years.

My eyes analyzed the posters hung on the walls by the stairs. There was one that drew my attention more than all the rest. It was a picture of two very different looking people walking next to each other, laughing like they were having the best time you could possibly imagine. Under the picture, it said, "Come to All Friends Club! We are all friends here, come help us spread that joy around the school!" I didn't read the rest; I just shot my gun straight at the laughing faces of the people.

As I stepped up onto the second floor, it was virgin ground. There was no blood, no red. The doors were all locked, and closed, like they were downstairs. My footsteps echoed louder than they did downstairs, or maybe it was just my brain, just tricking me.

I heard no sobs coming from the rooms; they didn't know that I had gotten up there. If they did, I knew they would fear. The gym was a few doors away and I walked towards it. I inhaled deeply, I was nervous for once that day. The gym teachers would be in there, the only teachers who had ever stood up for me. But I needed to go in there, he was in there.

I waited for my breathing to calm, and then stood for a minute, outside the double doors.  No noise came from the gym, but I could smell the people in there. They smelled of oily skin and B.O. My gun was raised, pointed at the door handle. Then I shot.

It was an all-boys gym class, so no girls sat in the corner. There were boys ranging from thirteen to eighteen years old in the giant room. My eyes calmly looked past one of the gym teachers and landed on him, Jake Johnston. He was only a freshman, but I knew his brother. He had graduated a year earlier. The only kid in the school that I could strike revenge on, was his little brother.

When I was in ninth grade, Louis Johnston was in eleventh. I had looked up to him, wanted to be like him. He had the girls, the friends, and the looks. Everything I didn't have. I had followed him for weeks and weeks, and he let me. He liked knowing that I would do anything for him if he asked.

It stayed like that for a long time, he would ask and I would do. Up until the one day he decided he didn't need me anymore. The one place I had even partially belonged to, threw me out. I no longer had a place in school, or anywhere else.

My days seemed to take longer and longer to get through. That was the first time I tried to commit suicide. I had left over pain killers from when I had broken my leg in third grade, and I slowly pulled them out of the wooden covers in the bathroom.

My throat swallowed one, no problem. Two, three, four, five. It went all the way up to twelve, the last one in two pain killer bottles I had. Then I had laid down, ready for my death to be quick painless. Just go to sleep and never wake up.

But I didn't stay asleep; I woke up in a hospital which smelled of too much disinfectant. My mother sat by the bed, a tear stained face, an worry lines. When she saw I was awake, she called my dad over. He was wringing his brand new baseball cap in his hands as he leaned over the bed, looking me in the eyes. All he said was, "You gave us quite the scare son." Then he walked away, and I looked after him.

A doctor came in the room, wearing a white uniform. A clean, pure white that made me angry. Why was that color so perfect? Nobody saw one thing wrong with it; it was the sign of innocence. But nobody had innocence, why would a color be able to carry the one thing, nobody got through life with? It made no sense.

The doctor had talked to me and my mother about therapy, how it could "fix" me. They never stopped to ask me if I wanted to go. They didn't know I wasn't broken, I was just done. With everything.

I had spent months in that classroom, they talked about the wonders of the world, all the things I could grow up to do. All the things I could be. They tried to give me a reason for living, and I acted like it worked. I nodded enthusiastically, and told my parents that I wanted to be able to see the Grand Canyon one day, and the Eiffel Tower. They believed me.

I was taken out of that horrible room, never to see it again. And I spent the next couple months smiling and laughing when I was at home. My family and I even played games together, and I welcomed them. If it made my parents believe I was okay, then I would do it.

Jake sat there, tears soaked his young face. He looked a lot like his brother, the same red hair, and freckled skin. His green eyes nearly glowed as they stared at me, the innocence that he would lose sooner or later sparkled at me. Our eyes locked, and he shook his head. He was silently begging me for his life, he was telling me he wanted to live. He thought that he had something to live for, that there was a reason to keep trudging through life.

Eventually, he would have a cruel wake up call. He would wake up one day and realize he wished he had died the day I stood here, with a gun in my hand. This wasn't about his brother anymore, it was about him.

I raised my gun, and the shot echoed around the room. He fell on top of one of his classmates, and I walked out. He would never lose his innocence, or wake up one day with the regret of living. He would never lose hope, ever. All it took, was a bullet to his head. And his life ended a happy memory.