I
Maureen R. Martinez
Age: 15
Freshman, Music Cluster
I never saw really saw anything that day. I was a little bit late to school because my little brother wouldn’t let my mom dress him, and he was running around the house until she caught him. Let’s see, I think I finally got to school at like 9:40-something, it would have been during my music theory class.
I remember everything from then pretty vividly, because there’s no way for me to forget any of it now. I paused outside the door when I got to the classroom, so I could get myself looking like I had been running a lot and was going as fast as I could. Really nobody really cares about getting to class on time once you are like over thirty minutes late, but I at least like to fake it so maybe my teacher will think a little better of me.
So, I got into the classroom and told Kent, I mean Mr. Ellings, that I was sorry and told about my brother and everything. And he just looked at me for like a full five seconds without saying anything, and then sighed and said “ok” and went on with what he was talking about. You can’t really do anything when you are that late and it wasn’t because of a doctor’s appointment or something.
I sat down in the crappy desks against the wall that no one had taken and started taking my notebook out to try to catch up when we started hearing loud noises.
We were pretty used to noises because of the shitty pipes in the building. They’re old so when the heat kicks on or really any change at all happens to them they make loud clanging noises you can feel vibrating on the floor. Also one of the dance classes upstairs sometimes does some kind of dance I guess that sounds like they are all falling on the floor over and over again. The orchestra class also sometimes knocks music stands over. Basically, we’re used to hearing loud noises so we did the usual pause, and then Kent went on teaching us...non-harmonic tones I think. But these were different sounds, they were more of a popping sound than metal clanging on metal or bodies hitting the floor.
It got really scary really fast for me, and I think for pretty much the rest of
the class too. I mean someone was shooting up the school, there was nothing else it could have been. Images of Columbine and Virginia Tech just started flooding my head and I was scared I was gonna die. I was really scared.
Kent told us all to get under our desks, but I had one of those old-fashioned ones that has a really small desktop. I couldn’t fit under the desk, or at least not enough of my body. So I just ran to other side of the room to put all the newer desks between me and the door and hoped it would be enough.
We just sat there in silence the whole time. Occasionally I could hear some whimpers from some people in the room who I could tell were as panicked as I was and were crying. I couldn’t stop myself from shaking the whole time.
I had my eyes peeled to the door the whole time, watching the little window, waiting to see someone with a gun appear. But no one ever did. It was just the police coming to tell us it was safe to come out now. No one cheered or anything. We just got up, most of us forgot to even pick up our stuff. My mind was as far from school as it could have possibly been. I just wanted to get outside and away from there. I wanted to get outside and see my family.
II
Charlie T. Hardesty
Age: 17
Senior, Theatre Cluster
That kid, Rich Miller, he was always really weird. He just, never talked. The only time he ever did talk was after English class in the morning, and that was to our teacher. I just wouldn’t have expected him to do something like that. I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that I was shot, with a real gun. That image of him blowing his fucking brains out in front of all of us still wakes me up at night.
I’m not a bully. I’m not like those jocks in high school movies that stuff the nerds in trash cans and things like that. We don’t even have sports teams here, its a magnet school. Really we’re all a bunch of nerds, I just have a mean-spirited sense of humor. I never mean for any of it to actually hurt someone.
I think I know why he singled me out though. I did end up hurting him, even though I didn’t really mean to.
His first year, which was last year I think, we had the same history class and the teacher made us sit in a big circle to do these stupid exercises that would help us “get to know each other” on the first day. Well he always wore really baggy khaki pants to school, he even did on the day he came into English class and started killing people.
Well this first day we’re sitting there in class, and I look around the room and I see him on the other side of the circle. He might as well have had a giant target on his face. He was fat, had long hair that looked like he never washed it, and was wearing baggy pants and a black trenchcoat. That overcoat he wore for the whole year, the pockets he always had filled with just random crap, some of which I had seen him pick up off the floor.
Anyways, so he’s wearing these baggy pants, and he’s sitting up straight with his arms crossed. And all the material bunches up at his crotch and it looked like he had a huge erection. I held back my laughter the best I could, and whispered to my friend J.C., who was sitting on my right, “Boner boy over there looks really happy to be here.” He looked over and snorted trying to hold back his laugh, which caught the attention of the girl next to him. He whispered to her what I said and pointed over at Miller, which caused her to immediately turn to her right and tell her friend. They both laughed, loud enough for the teacher to stop and ask them to be quiet. It spread one by one around the circle, like a game of password.
Looking back, I sort of regret it now. Maybe if I hadn’t been such an ass I could have prevented everything that happened.
I remember hoping that he wouldn’t notice, but of course he did. He wasn’t stupid. All those people pointing at him and snickering, it couldn’t have felt good.
The worst part of all of it, though, was that “Boner boy” stuck, for the entire rest of the year. I didn’t mean for that to happen, I really didn’t. I’m not a bully. I don’t take pleasure in constantly making someone’s life miserable. It just happened by accident. I never had the balls to apologize to him, at least not until it was too late.
III
Roger C. Harbin
Age: 32
English Teacher
I won’t ever be able to forgive myself for not trying to reach out to him. Rich always seemed like a troubled guy. He was very introverted, never talked, never really showed any emotion at all. But during class, I could always see that the gears were turning in that head of his.
While I wished he was more social, I was flattered that I was one of the few people he felt comfortable talking to. Even when I did hear him talk though, it was always in a monotone, mumbling voice. Whenever I would give him advice on the things I assigned, which is all he ever asked about, he would respond in such a way that seemed like he was thinking “well, that’s your opinion.” Whatever he was really thinking I could only guess from his writing, which was always something I looked forward to.
I could tell he was a bit of an outcast to the other students. I myself was sort of a nerd back in high school. I hated some of my classmates and even some of my teachers. That’s one of the reasons I felt like I understood him and was happy to listen to him, I had a sense of where he was coming from.
I never thought he was capable of what he did though. I always had a feeling like something was wrong, both in the way he acted and what he wrote.
I assigned an essay the week before he brought the gun to school. It was an extremely easy prompt: “Describe your perfect day.” I know, cliche, but I was working with what I had, and what I had were lots of artistically talented students who could barely use grammar correctly.
Rich came up after class that day and asked me if I had any restrictions on what we could put in the essay. Normally I would say yes, to prevent anyone from writing something extremely profane or sexually explicit. Because of who was asking, though, I said that he could write about whatever he wanted. I don’t know whether I should have said that now though. Maybe restricting him would have prevented him from snapping and saved the lives of some students.
The essay he turned in was very good, one of the best things he had written all year. It was also extremely dark though, and I hope to God it wasn’t what inspired him to do it. I hope it wasn’t all my fault.
IV
Katy H. Munson
Age: 17
Senior, Visual Cluster
I’m glad he’s dead. I hope he burns in hell for what he did to me, for what he did to Emma. I never did anything to him. I don’t deserve this. He ruined my life.
My friend Emma, my best friend who I had been friends with since 3rd grade, she was kind of a bitch. Now, I don’t mean that to sound like an insult to her, she took pride in it. I was proud to be her friend too, I wasn’t always as mean to people, but for some reason I thought of myself as the counterpart to her. The yin to her yang, to be a little bit cliche.
It was kind of an understood thing around school. Emma was someone no one messed with, because she wouldn’t take any shit from anyone, including teachers. Apparently that kid, Miller I think his name was, didn’t get that memo.
He wasn’t necessarily a bad looking guy, I mean by car accident victim standards. He was really fat and his hair was disgusting, but his face seemed calm. The fact that he never talked was a little creepy, but I guess it suited him, or maybe we were just used to him never saying anything.
I think Emma had something to do with why he killed her, and himself, and all those other people.
The day before he killed her, we were in English class and I saw him looking at her through the class period. Not like a creepy stare or anything, just staring, expressionless. I thought it was kind of cute, that even though he never would have had a chance he still had a crush on a girl.
Emma didn’t. I think she was actually offended. I pointed it out to her during class and she just turned away with her mouth open and this expression like he had just flipped her off or something. After class she walked right up to his desk, got in his expressionless face and said “stop fucking staring at me, boner boy.”
I remember waiting for a reaction from him, maybe we would actually see some emotion for once. But we didn’t get one, he just looked back down at his desk, put the rest of his stuff into his backpack, stood up, and quietly walked his way out of the room. Emma smiled back at me, she was definitely proud of herself. I felt kind of bad.
That day he brought the gun, we were in the same English class as the the one where Emma told him off, but he wasn’t there. Mr. Harbin was returning our essays from the week before, which of course Miller probably got a perfect grade on. He was always Harbin’s little pet. We got back our essays and our teacher was about to go into some grammar thing when we heard yelling from down the hall and a couple of really loud pops, followed by nothing.
Harbin looked curious and went to the door. He opened it looked outside, and then as soon as his head went out the door he shot back in and told us to get under our desks immediately. We knew immediately what was going on, or at least I knew, I had some sense of who was out there. Maybe it was the look on Harbin’s face when he looked outside, or because of who wasn’t in class that day, I could just sense that it was Miler out in the hallway shooting.
We all got extremely quiet, panicked breaths were the only thing I could hear. That, and the heavy footsteps out in the hall.
The only thing I could think about was that maybe he wouldn’t kill me, maybe he would know I didn’t really do anything to him. But I was also thinking that because I’m friends with Emma he thinks I’m just like her, and he that now was going to kill me.
I looked over at Emma under the desk on my left, and she was terrified, her everyday armor was gone. Words can be bullets, but I guess they can also lead to real bullets too.
The footsteps came closer and closer to our room and then he appeared in the doorway, holding that silver gun at his side. The first thing he did was point it at Charlie, the guy who started “boner boy” last year. Charlie put his hands up and started pleading with him. He told him he didn’t mean any of it and that he was just joking back then. He told him he was really sorry and didn’t plan for what happened.
He was in the middle of all this, and Miller shot him. It looked like he got hit in the chest, but it turned out it was just his shoulder and he survived. But it didn’t matter where he was shot at that moment, he was shot. Emma, or I, or anyone else could have been next.
Mr. Harbin got up from behind his desk and started to talk to Miller. Told him that he didn’t have to do this. He asked him to just put the gun down. Miller looked at him for what felt like a really long time before he started to shake his head and wave the gun around while he paced in a circle, like he was trying to decide what to do next.
He stopped, and then turned around and shot someone in the first row point blank in the face. I still remember the blood that sprayed out from behind them, and how they just fell over with a blank look on their face. He shot three other people, it looked like he picking randomly, like an animal that just attacks what appears in its vision. I remember I wanted to just be away from there, I didn’t want to die. As much as I didn’t want to see it, I couldn’t look away from what was happening. I think I must have been in shock.
He turned in my direction and walked over towards the desks me and Emma were underneath. It was like everything was moving in slow motion.
I can’t forgive myself for what I did then. The only thought I could process was that maybe it would be someone else who dies and not me. It was all I could hope for. Nobody deserved to die though.
I remember hoping that it would be someone else as I met his eyes. There was a mixture of fear and determination I saw in them. He looked back at me for a second before looking away, and over at Emma.
He walked over to her, put the gun up to her forehead. I still remember her wincing as the metal touched her face, and closing her already teary eyes.
He cocked the gun, looked straight at her and said “you fucking bitch” before pulling the trigger.
The image of her head opening up won’t leave my memories, no matter how hard I try to forget. There was a loud bang and a flash, and when I opened my eyes again I was covered in blood and my best friend was dead in front of me.
Her forehead had a small hole in it, and the back of her head had a big one. That’s the only way I want to think about, I can’t think about brains or blood or being dead or my emotions will catch up to me.
I don’t know what happened after that. I was staring at her body and then there was another bang and people started to stand up and run. Mr. Harbin grabbed me, telling me he was sorry but we needed to leave right then, and pulled me off the floor and out of the room. The rest of the day was just a blur. The world was moving around me and people were talking to me and hugging me, but I was still staring at the body of my best friend on the floor, and I was still covered in blood.
