WhiteSpace: Season One (Episodes 1-6 of the sci-fi horror serial) (2 page)

Milo turned to see if Manny had noticed. He had, making a face at Milo as if to say, “What’s up with Mr. Heller?”

Katie wore the same expression, as did the rest of the class.

Mr. Heller stood behind his desk, hands on either side of his closed briefcase, as though exhausted, too tired even to lift his head and look his students in their eyes. His hair, usually precisely combed in the exact same old-fashioned style, was all messed up; a sweaty mop atop his head.

Class with Mr. Heller began exactly the same way every day. He’d wait for the students to settle down, giving them a full minute after the final bell before he stood up, turned to the whiteboard, and then neatly wrote the topic of the day’s conversation. Once the topic was recorded in neat black lines on the whiteboard, he’d turn to the class, and say something like, “Good morning, class. Today we’re going to discuss foreshadowing,” or whatever subject he’d written. Most days, he’d also throw in a terrible pun to kick things off.

Mr. Heller was such a stickler for routine that Milo could easily imagine the man starting his weekend mornings the same way at home, in front of a whiteboard with the words “bacon and eggs” written on it. “Good morning, family. Today we’re going to have bacon and eggs. Here’s a little joke I heard. This one will
crack
you up.”

Seeing Mr. Heller just standing there, staring down at his desk, was unsettling enough to send a shiver down Milo’s spine.

“Are you okay?” Stephanie Blankencamp said from her front row desk.

Mr. Heller said nothing.

Instead, he turned around, grabbed a black dry erase marker, and started to scribble on the whiteboard. His handwriting, normally block-perfect and in a straight line, was wild and erratic, like he was writing in an angry rush.

The whiteboard read: “Eleven”

Eleven? What the hell? Is that how many beers he drank before class?

Milo turned to Manny and Katie, the three of them exchanging quiet confusion. Milo then looked over to Jessica, who was staring back with the same bewildered and nervous expression.

Mr. Heller turned from the whiteboard, finally meeting the eyes of the classroom. His face was clammy, and his eyes were bloodshot. His hands were shaking as he turned his head back and forth, as if he were counting students. . . or searching for someone.

He looked down at his desk again, then opened his briefcase with a loud snapping sound. He stared into the briefcase for what seemed an eternity, as Milo, and probably the entire class, wondered what he was looking at. Had the class done so poorly on their reports the previous week that Heller couldn’t bring himself to pick up the stack of graded papers?

Mr. Heller reached into the briefcase and pulled out a pistol. 

Time stopped for Milo, even as a million things seemed to happen around him at once.
 

First, Manny laughed, like Mr. Heller was going to show them a cool trick or joke or something using the gun as a prop. Or perhaps it was the nervous laugh of a brain which hadn’t quite registered the threat. But someone else, Amber Riley, screamed. Several students gasped. 

Mr. Heller aimed the gun and fired, shooting Tommy Hopkins, the school’s star rower, right in the face. The gunfire was thunder in the enclosed classroom, like an explosion in Milo’s ears as Tommy fell to the ground.

Chaos erupted as Mr. Heller turned, as calm as a man choosing his doughnuts from behind the glass, and fired another shot, then another, barely audible over the high-pitched ringing between Milo’s temples. One shot missed one of the students and sailed through the wall into the next classroom. Milo heard muffled screams from next door. Had the bullet hit someone, or were they screaming in response to the sound of gunshots?

Students scrambled in every direction but with one destination in mind — out of the classroom. Milo remained rooted to his desk, unable to think straight, much less move. And then something caught his attention. Jessica was running toward him, eyes and mouth wide open. He had to get up and protect her.

But he was too late. Milo’s eyes shifted from Jessica to just over her left shoulder, where Mr. Heller’s blurred figure came into crystal-clear focus, gun aimed directly at Jessica.

No!

Milo opened his mouth to warn her, but his speech was cut short by the thunder of another gunshot which sent Jessica forward, and straight into him. Milo, Jessica, and his desk tumbled in a painful collision of flesh, wood, metal, and carpet.

And blood, spreading across the front of Jessica’s powder blue sweater.

Jessica stared up at him, scared and searching for a reason. She said something, but her voice was muffled as if he were hearing it through a wall of cotton. He pulled her to him, as though he could protect her from more bullets. 

The gunshots stopped, and the only sound was the whistling in Milo’s ears.

Milo turned his head and saw another victim of Mr. Heller’s gun — Manny lying in a river of blood. He appeared to have been shot in the stomach. His eyes were glassy, but he wasn’t dead. Yet. He was staring back at Milo, eyes pleading for help.

Just as Milo wondered where Mr. Heller had gone in all the madness, the teacher appeared, walking toward them, gun drawn in his shaky hand.

Milo wanted to get up, knock the gun away, or do something. But he was still paralyzed on the spot, afraid that he’d do the wrong thing and get himself or his friends killed. He looked down to see Jessica’s blood seeping into his shirt and jeans. Her eyes were closing, and he prayed that Mr. Heller would keep walking out of the class and past them, so he could save his friends, even if he had no idea how he intended to do so.

Mr. Heller paused, looking at Manny with hollow eyes, and his expression drifted from nervous to one of bottomless sorrow. He kneeled beside the boy, face almost apologetic. Manny began to tremble, unable to move as Mr. Heller leaned down and said something to him. 

Milo couldn’t hear what Mr. Heller said, or read his lips. But whatever he said, seemed to remove the fear in Manny’s eyes.
 

Milo’s mind was suddenly focused on the acrid scent of piss, though he wasn’t sure if it was Manny, Jessica, Mr. Heller, or himself who had lost control. 

Mr. Heller turned to Milo and held his eyes.

Milo winced, preparing for death. 

Why is he doing this? Why is he going to shoot me? What did I ever do to him?

Oh God, I don’t want to die.

“Please, don’t kill me,” Milo cried, tears streaming down his face. “I’m friends with Alex. You know me!”

Hearing his son’s name seemed to waken something in Mr. Heller’s eyes. He stared at Milo as tears dripped down his face. He looked back at the whiteboard and pointed at the word, “eleven” with the gun.

What does that mean? What the hell is eleven?

Mr. Heller then raised the pistol, but not at Milo.
 

Instead, Mr. Heller parted his lips and shoved the gun into his open mouth.

Oh God, no!

Mr. Heller pulled the trigger and Milo screamed.

* * * *

CHAPTER 2 — Alex Heller

Wednesday…
 

September 6

noon

Just like that. In a flash. Everything was gone.

Before he killed himself, Alex’s father shot and killed five of his students, including Jessica. He shot Manny and put him in a coma. And seemingly by accident, shot and killed a teacher, Sarah Hughes, in the next classroom.

And all Alex had were questions, and a bottomless well of grief.

No matter how many different ways he tried to pull sense from the senseless, Alex could not make sense of the tragedy. This was the kind of thing you saw on TV, that happened to other people, not to his friends — not to his family.
 

Everything felt like a bad dream where he hoped to wake up any minute and find things normal again. Except he wasn’t waking up. Nobody was. This nightmare was real and had shaken the entire island to its core.

Neither Milo nor Katie would return his calls.

He wasn’t sure if it was because they didn’t want to talk to him, or if their parents had forbidden them to talk to the son of the madman.

Alex sat in his bedroom, staring blankly at the television as it broadcast collages of the funerals from earlier, photos of the victims, photos of his father, reporters standing outside the school, a flock outside the funeral home, and even the island’s most famous celeb, Jon Conway, though Alex wasn’t sure what the hell he had to do with this. The only thing Alex was grateful for was that the reporters were finally gone from the front of his house.

The TV cut to a reporter in front of the island’s police station, where Alex’s mom was now, answering yet more questions she didn’t have answers to. Probably variations of the same questions they’d asked him.

“Do you know why your father did this?”

“How long has your dad owned a gun?”

“Did he ever talk about any of his victims?”

“Has he ever hit you?”

“Has he ever hit your mother or sister?”

Alex’s answer was the same for all the questions. “No.”

Alex was as shocked as anyone else, if not more so.

Since he didn’t have answers, the police ransacked their house, seizing every computer, flash drive, and journal his father had kept over the years. Alex wondered if they’d yet found some answer in the “evidence” they took, and maybe that was why his mom was down at the police station.

He watched as the TV showed a blonde reporter talking. He didn’t bother turning the volume up. Not like they’d said anything new since Friday, just speculation heaped on top of sensationalism. After the reporter said her piece, the TV flashed to a familiar video that Alex had almost forgotten about, an interview with Alex’s dad after he’d won a Washington State Teacher of the Year award three years ago, a prestigious honor for the island and the school, in particular.

Alex turned the volume up to hear his father discussing the importance of connecting with students and how he used stories to teach. As his father spoke through the TV, Alex felt a sudden hollow in his stomach, realizing that confiscated computers meant confiscated photos of his father. This video on the news might be the only chance he’d get to hear his father’s voice again. Alex grabbed his TV remote and hit record on the DVR to record the segment.

His father looked so happy in the video.
 

So normal.

So unlike the man who opened fire in his classroom, who killed his own students. It made no sense. Alex’s father was a devoted man, who often spent his own time and money to help teach his students, above and beyond the job. He loved teaching and he loved his students. His dad was practically a genius. Surely, he could have struck it rich had he done anything other than teach.

For his father to do something like this, there had to be something wrong.

If that were the case, the next question was, for how long had something been wrong? The sting of guilt for not noticing was sharp. While their family was relatively close, especially compared to other families Alex knew, it wasn’t like they had real conversations, at least not many that went more than a few inches below the surface. Alex was wrapped up in his own world, with his own problems, and rarely allowed his parents a glimpse inside, or looked beyond his to see into their worlds.

If things were different, would he have seen the signs?
 

Could he have prevented the massacre?

The TV returned to a scene outside one of the funerals. Alex lowered the volume, stared at his cell phone, then dialed Milo again.

Still no answer.

He left a voicemail. His fourth.

“Please, Milo. Call me. I need to talk to someone,” he said, trying not to cry.
 

He hung up, feeling stupid for talking about
his needs
, when Jessica, the girl Milo had a big crush on, was dead, and their closest friend, Manny, was in the hospital in a coma and on life support.
 

As long as he’d been friends with Milo, Alex had been the more popular of the two. Milo had always been his nerdy sidekick. But he loved the guy like a brother. Milo was hysterical, and into the same games, movies, and stuff Alex liked. He was the perfect hangout buddy, never too serious, never depressing, despite his family problems, and almost always around. Perhaps the coolest thing about Milo, was that he was an awesome writing partner. The two had written several scripts together, TV shows and movies they hoped to someday pitch to Hollywood. But suddenly, none of that mattered.

Whatever friendship they had was severed by the inexplicable actions of Alex’s dad.

Alex considered calling Jesus, Manny’s brother, to get an update on Manny’s situation beyond the TV reports. But Alex figured that he was the last person in the world that Jesus, or his family, wanted to hear from.

He set the phone on his bed and crawled under his covers, listening to the soft white noise bleeding through the baby monitor. His six month old sister murmured in her sleep, and he hoped she wasn’t gonna wake up soon. Aubrey was too young to understand that “Daddy is in heaven,” and kept looking for their father, waiting for him to come back home. It broke Alex’s heart, and he wasn’t very good at comforting his sister. At least if his mom were there, she could cuddle with Aubrey and distract her.