Spree (YA Paranormal) (4 page)

“Trash got in my way,” Zipper said, walking past the trash can, back into the cafeteria. “It won’t next time. That I promise you.”

* * *

The principal closed out the day before the cameras, addressing the entire community with a monotone befitting an administrator. His eyes made it to the reporters, but not to the half-drunken kids who could hide their addiction better than I could or to the blossoming school shooter who sat surrounded by acquaintances he called friends.

“Fay Marie DeSoto was one of the most popular and ambitious girls I’ve ever had the opportunity to meet,” Principal Buckley said, “and we all miss her dearly.”

As he droned on, I wondered if he even remembered who I was.

“To lose a girl this young, in such a way as this, it hurts us all. We constantly ask ourselves why we had to lose Fay at all, why Cindy and Aliya lie comatose, but all we’re left with is their absence and with each other. Fay loved this school.”

Really?
Loved
? Even in the afterlife, I didn’t know what he was smoking.

“She loved her friends, and she loved the support she found here,” Principal Buckley went on. “Her friends will recover, and we will help them. We’re a good community. We’re a strong community, and we will pull through this, no matter how long it takes. Because Fay is with us, a part of us, and her smile will live on forever in the halls of Burgundy Hill High School.”

That part alone sounded more like a nightmare—a fate worse than replacing Crazy T.

“We want parents to know that qualified counselors have been working with their kids throughout the day and will be available throughout the week,” Principal Buckley said. “We thank all those who have reached out to us in this time of need, all of the other schools who’ve offered counseling services. We in the Burgundy Hill High School family are determined to make sure that Fay’s life will send a powerful message to other students and speak to the need for responsible behavior. And we will stand by Aliya’s and Cindy’s sides no matter how long their recovery takes. We ask now that reporters respect the privacy of students, faculty, and parents. We direct all reporters to speak to Dr. Wendy Richards, our superintendent of schools.”

The cameras flashed, the questions flew, and token friends I wasn’t even close to circulated, talking to reporters just outside the school about how awful they were feeling.

I shook my head as I watched the reporters pounce like locusts on unsuspecting kids. They devoured every tear, every frown on the face of a child, billing it as exclusive content for the six o’clock news.

I watched as the principal concluded the service with a little ceremony. A tree with a small plaque above it was planted in my honor. Cameras flashed, and I wondered if these pictures would make the front page of tomorrow’s papers or just the local news section. Despite all the grandstanding of grief, I felt touched by the show. It’s just too bad a kid has to die to be remembered.

FOUR DAYS TO GO

Chapter 3

An image of a lost pale kid with hazel eyes and disheveled long black bangs came to view.

I didn’t know why. I sensed the kid was packing his bag when his father came into view. His father was a drinker, and watching the old man down the whiskey, then scratch himself, ignited something in the boy. I felt the boy’s fury, not because his father beat him—maybe because his father didn’t even care enough to do so. Instead, this balding, lanky middle-aged guy ordered the kid off before the man grabbed the paper and lounged in a ratty recliner with plaid, seventies-style upholstery, still drinking. I sensed the man didn’t have a job. And I could tell the boy lost respect for the man, realized that the man was legitimately hurt in a construction accident, but had been sponging off of insurance money for the past two years. In that time his wife had left him, and the man had turned to alcohol. This boy felt so alone.

The boy scurried off, leaving his father behind, but not before going to the gun case and jimmying the lock. The man was a hunter, a real man’s man before he became a drunk, and he had all kinds of hunting rifles, knives, and gear. The boy took only two guns—one a rifle of some kind, the other a pistol. He also took a vest and a hunting knife before searching around for some rope. After he found it in the garage, he came back. I saw him look at the man as the man prepared to watch
Good Morning, America
. The boy’s eyes became slits; they looked so vacant, like they weren’t even there. The boy stepped forward with the hunting rifle, then muttered about not wanting to risk it. He packed the pistol in his vest pocket, placed a smaller rifle, vest, and rope in his bag, and headed to school. It was much later than he should’ve been going, and I sensed that he was waiting for something. As the kid’s thoughts clarified themselves to me in his aura, I could tell that he was waiting for gym class, third position. All the kids he wanted to kill would be there.

I tried to talk to the ghost, to tell him not to do this, to beg him. Clearly, I’d missed out on the real killer. I felt so sure. But maybe it wasn’t Zipper. Maybe it was this kid all along.

The more I tried to talk to the kid, the more I saw that he was determined to go it alone.

A small yellow SUV, the kind my mother once drove, pulled over. I saw a younger version of my mother get out. Her maternal instincts had taken over. She sensed something was off, but felt sorry for the kid.

“Hi, Teddy,” she said.

“Hi, Mrs. DeSoto,” he said in reply.

It hit me. I stopped trying to intervene.

“Just watch,” a vaguely familiar voice told me.

I did. This was the day Crazy T blew away two jocks at the school. I forgot what it was like before the shooting. We lived on the same street. Everyone knew of everyone else in so small a town. Even I knew who Teddy was, and I was only five. He had played with me once or twice at Ocean’s Edge Park. I had fun, even giggled. I looked up to the older kids. I even looked up to him.

“We’re headed into town,” Mom said. “Would you like a lift?”

“Thank you, but I’m all set,” Crazy T told her.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” Mom asked.

“Who are you, my mother?” Crazy T asked her.

His voice was snotty, and he pulled his hand towards his vest pocket.

“I’m sorry,” Mom said. There was an awkward silence, and she added: “I just thought you looked sick. I thought I could help.”

Crazy T kept his hand on the pocket.

“I am sick,” he said. “But before you know it I’ll be fine.”

“Suit yourself,” my mother said. “Just watch out for traffic.”

“I know, Ms. Desoto. Have a nice day.”

“You too.”

“I will.”

I saw Mom go back to the jeep. A little girl, me at a younger age, stared back with her pale blue eyes. She waved to Crazy T, and Crazy T waved back. We then drove off. My mother told me to be kind to Crazy T and said that he didn’t have a mommy anymore. The concept baffled me, but I knew that I was supposed to be nice the next time I saw him. I never got the chance.

As Mom talked to me in the car, Crazy T headed to the small woods near the school. He found a great big oak. It was one that had special meaning to him. He had played by it as a kid. On Friday nights, though, the area became one of the teen hangouts, mainly for getting drunk. I’d gone there a few times myself not long before I died. I knew that Crazy T had been invited to a party, told that a girl he liked named Lisa would be there. I knew that two kids had gotten him drunk just to beat him up. He was an ugly kid, not athletic, smart, or social, and no threat to them. Just an easy target: a kid without friends trying to make some. They’d beaten him up there, ostensibly over the way he looked at some girl, and thrown him against the tree. He lay drunk and unconscious until morning. His father never even noticed that he was gone.

The rope he now tied against the lowest sturdy branch he could find wasn’t for him. It was for them. In fact, he cut the rope and formed two nooses, not just one. He didn’t want to kill them quickly, just get them to run into the woods and have fun with them. He’d pick them off one at a time. He fantasized about shooting at them as their bodies jerked and twitched at the end of the rope. I saw him approach, put on his vest, take out his rifle, and strap his knife to his belt. He made sure he had the rifle ready and started looking for a position to lodge himself as a sniper between the gym class and the school. I felt his breathing grow heavier. I could hear the kids playing soccer rushing from one goal post to another as Crazy T found a secure branch on the edge of a second tree. He’d fire a few shots from there, then run back to the tree with the nooses. From there he could corral a few of the kids into the woods where his real fun began. I could see so many Takers swirling around both Crazy T and the soccer players that the sky looked as black as a moonless night.

Crazy T positioned himself, aimed his rifle.

“Closer,” Crazy T whispered. “Just a little closer.”

Birds began to grow frantic. A few sparrows, rustled from the branches, took flight.

The fleeing birds and a speck of piercing sunlight peeking through the clouds gave away Crazy T. I saw a player point over to his direction, laughing, until the first shot rang out.

The gym class didn’t know what to do. Many continued playing ball until a second shot rang out and one of Crazy T’s tormentors crashed to the field, half of his head blown open. The players screamed, boys and girls alike, some covered in blood, frantically dashing in all directions. Crazy T shot repeatedly, but his breathing was heavy, and he felt rushed. He hit one girl in the leg and fired a sniper bullet into his second tormentor’s back. The boy dropped dead, unaware of who had killed him or of why he’d died. Takers lifted the fallen boys’ souls up, devouring them until they too were black as night. Bits of light gathered around Crazy T, fighting with the Takers. I couldn’t make out their faces, but I sensed they were Keepers doing their best to keep the Takers at bay. The Takers flew off, feverishly trying to cling to any boy or girl, to bring the extra targets into Crazy T’s line of vision. But just then the Keepers rustled a few more birds that flew out, startled, over Crazy T. The birds striking his gun and shoulder upset his balance, and Crazy T fell. In that moment a Keeper whispered to the girl shot in the leg, and I saw her reach for her phone, dial or text something. Crazy T approached the team, firing away on the remaining members. He was too flustered, though, and lost his aim. Unintentionally, he wounded rather than killed. The kids played dead. The girl stopped texting, but the phone was pointed towards the woods. It was the distraction that saved lives.

Crazy T put the phone in his sites and fired away. As Crazy T took his shots, giggling, a soccer player who had gone around the school and back to the woods knocked the rifle out of the shooter’s hand. Crazy T stared with a blank white expression. He was caught totally off guard. The boy, a stocky, flat-faced guy with a crew cut, wrestled Crazy T to the ground. Crazy T reached for the knife on his belt. The two fought over the knife until Crazy T was able to stab the kid in the leg and run away. I’d never seen anyone run as fast as Crazy T did, back into the woods, mud and dirt and stone flying up all around him. The player called out to his friends, a few who were just behind him, and made pursuit. Injured as he was, the boy couldn’t catch up with Crazy T. His friends were still too far away. The boy grabbed the fallen rifle. Crazy T took out his pistol and fired some shots, but the boy looked like he knew how to handle a gun. He shot back, and Crazy T dropped the pistol and focused on running.

Crazy T made it back to the tree with the noose. Shots rang out around him. Crazy T climbed the tree as quickly as he could, put one of the nooses around his neck. The boy with the stab wound came through the woods just in time to see a twisted smile on Crazy T’s face, the one I saw when he first appeared to me. Crazy T fell with all his weight, instantly snapping his neck. The boy took two shots, both of which landed in Crazy T’s skull, but the school shooter’s fate was already certain. Dozens of Takers seized Crazy T’s soul, a shade of pure black, and yanked it from his body. They circled around him, devouring him, until the entire flock of Takers disappeared. The Keepers gravitated around the young hero, until police showed up, combing the woods. My last vision of the day was the body of Crazy T still swinging, helped along by a gentle breeze.

* * *

I shuddered. Just then I realized that I was seeing the last few seconds through a Youtube video entitled “The Butcher of Burgundy Hill”. I saw the angle shift until I made out the face of the boy looking on admiringly, until I saw the smile on the face of Zipper.

It was strange.

Zipper’s home life was hardly the wreck I thought it must have been.

He was a quiet kid, but he could talk, make friends when he wanted to.

His parents checked in on him, asked him how his day was, and then trusted him to complete homework in his room.

He was an NHS kid, the kind who had a real future.

Like me.

Only tonight he was in his room alone, researching school shootings. There was a song playing, one that might have been by Coldplay, if I remember correctly, and a list of shootings longer than such an obscene list had any right to be. It was about the history of American school shootings. Some were famous, like the Bath School Disaster, where Andrew Kehoe, a local treasurer, handyman, and farmer, set off three explosions, one of which was in an elementary school. It was said that he was angry over an increase in property taxes that led to foreclosure on his farm, so he planted petrol in the school for a year while performing maintenance on it. One morning, he killed his wife, set his barn on fire, and while firefighters were tending to the barn fire, ignited the school, full as it was of little kids. Kids flew everywhere. Kehoe eventually killed off his superintendent, among others, with a bomb that blew Kehoe up too.