This fictional guest submission was received one week after “A Cautionary Tale” by Hank Pollard was published in the March 8 edition.
Jason felt great. Spending most of last night playing Assault Force II, he’d reached level 13 for the first time. And he’d stopped taking the Adivan that always made him groggy. Soon everyone would know.
The games and movies prepared him, so when his mother’s Sentra wouldn’t start he had a backup plan. His mom worked a late shift at CVS stocking shelves. Coming home at three it wasn’t the first time she’d left the parking lights on, draining the battery. His dad lived in Phoenix and was never around.
Riding his bike made him 10 minutes late to school. Almost everyone was already inside. The cop who manned the new metal detector must be out again since the janitor—Ernie—yelled out that he was late. Jason shrugged. He pulled the handgun from his belt and fired, watching the little red splotch spread as Ernie collapsed on the cement.
From his backpack, Jason removed the white trash bag and set it on the steps. It held his mom’s pressure cooker. He’d followed the instructions on the internet. A call from his phone would send nails exploding everywhere. If he timed it right, kids would be rushing out of the building when it went off.
As he passed the office, he saw the vice principal at the counter talking to a student he didn’t know. Coolly he shot both, though he really wished he had the AR-15 from his neighbor’s gun case. It was cool, but when he’d broken in to their house the rifles were locked. He settled for two .38 police specials and a box of ammo.
Suddenly the lock-down alarm sounded. It was unnerving. The wounded janitor had managed to set it off.
Three freshmen girls walked out the girls’ bathroom in front of him. Seeing his gun, they screamed. Waving the revolver around to scare them, he let one of them run. He shot her in the back. The other two were begging. But as he fired, Mr. Mack, the basketball coach, jumped in front of them. Jason shot him four times.
Now, he ran. His homeroom was on the second floor. He shot the one student in the upstairs hall. Then he had to reload, but he wasn’t rushed. He knew no one at the school would have a gun, and the cops wouldn’t show for 10 minutes.
Hearing the warning siren, Ms. Martinez bolted the door and ordered the class to stand out of sight against the wall. She loved her students. Serving three years in Afghanistan, she recognized the sound of gunfire. Most kids thought it was just another false alarm. No one at the school knew she carried. She felt it was her duty. The class went dead quiet when she took the 9mm Glock from her purse and removed the trigger lock.
Jason kicked the door as hard as he could, but unlike in the movies, it didn’t give, so he fired six times from two feet away. Kicking again, the door sprung open. This was his moment!
Trying to be cool, he strutted into the room, a revolver in each hand. He didn’t notice Martinez behind her desk. He was looking at the scared kids against the wall when he heard her yell “drop it.” He tried to pivot but she was faster, ending Jason’s quest for notoriety.
The five-foot-four teacher kicked his gun away, then knelt over the dying 18-year-old boy. As she tried to stop the bleeding, she prayed over him, not realizing this would later result in her being suspended.
Scott Dittrich