Chapter Text
Tuesday, May 1st
“Come on,” Andre said with a grin, stretching wide across his face like a Cheshire cat. It wasn’t a comforting smile, but it lit something in Cal’s chest, especially since he was wearing his new camo shirt. Andre looked especially handsome today. Eager to please the brunet, his mouth moved before he even thought about it.
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
They pushed through the doors of their high school. The halls were almost empty, except for one girl whose blue eyes widened the moment she saw them. Cal looked down and finally registered the weight in his hands… a gun. He’d never held one before, not really. Just those pellet guns at the fair you used to pop balloons for prizes. Yet somehow, the sight of it didn’t faze him. It felt expected, like it belonged there, dark metal against his pale skin, dark fabric against pale skin. He too was wearing his new shirt.
Andre laughed, bright and giddy. “Well hello there.” He lifted his own gun, one Cal hadn’t even noticed until now.
The girl, he didn’t know her name, barely had time to turn before Andre shot her in the back of the head. She collapsed with a dull thud, a puppet whose strings had been cut. And Cal… smiled.
Down the hall, a boy had seen everything. Cal recognized him, he played percussion in band and had always been decent to him. Still, Cal’s arms moved on their own. In slow motion, he saw himself line up the shot. A blur of a body tried to run, a voice begged, “Please, no!” Then his finger squeezed the trigger. The boy’s face, once whole and human, exploded into unrecognizable nothingness. Another puppet, cut down.
Andre chuckled. “One to one!” He called it like a game score. “Let’s see who gets more.”
“Where do you think the rest are?” Cal tilted his head, curious, hungry to keep the game going, to win.
“Hmm… in class. Then probably the library.” Andre ran a hand through his hair.
“They’ve probably barricaded the classrooms already.” Cal shrugged. “Let’s check the halls first, then the library. Sound good?”
As he spoke, movement caught his eye. Someone peeking over Andre’s shoulder, from behind the secretary’s desk. Cal smiled, licking his lips like a wolf spotting prey. He sidestepped and raised his gun again. The woman ducked beneath the desk, clutching the corded phone, trying to hold back sobs.
“You think I can’t fucking see you?” Cal barked out a laugh.
She shook uncontrollably, her whole body trembling. A soft whimper slipped out, like a terrified animal. Then she looked up at him.
“Peekaboo,” he said, pulling the trigger.
Her eyes went wide. Blood bloomed across her shirt as she clutched her throat, trying desperately to hold it in, gurgling as it poured between her fingers. The phone cord tangled around her arm; the receiver clattered against the floor.
Cal turned to Andre, smirking. “Two to one.”
Andre was charged with a sudden burst of energy, eager to even the score, and spun around looking for his next target.
Cal realized he couldn’t even feel the gun’s recoil. His shoulder was fine, but everything felt hazy, dreamlike, and he didn’t bother turning when two shots cracked through the air, followed by a heavy thud.
“Come on.” Andre grabbed his arm and, with a faint smile that didn’t fit the situation at all, tilted his head. “Library?”
“Fuck yeah,” Cal said.
When they moved again, it felt like they were the only living things left in the building. Aside from the faint gurgle of the woman behind the desk, only their footsteps made a sound. With the halls empty and the whole school frozen, their feet, clonk, clonk, clonk, were the only thing breaking the silence.
They cut through the school and finally reached the library. It looked almost untouched; faint voices floated from inside, but Calvin couldn’t make out the words. Someone was whispering frantically, on the verge of crying, and he thought, palming his gun, I’ll give you something to cry about.
It was wildly exhilarating to finally give this place a taste of its own medicine, to make people hurt the way he wanted, to see for the first time what the inside of a skull looked like, what life leaving someone’s eyes looked like.
He figured the school’s first mistake was not putting doors on the library. At least they could’ve closed them; it would’ve offered a semblance of protection against the two of them. Sure, the doors would’ve been easy to break, but they would’ve been there.
They slipped in, already ducking behind a shelf to hide from anyone who might see them. Cal caught Andre’s eye. His pupils were blown wide with adrenaline, his grin shark-like, the gun held perfectly still in his hands, his shoulders square and proud.
In a quick, almost embarrassed introspection, Cal realized he was actually excited to be here, hungry for more. He and Andre were like two starving hounds waiting for prey; two sharks in the water, smelling blood everywhere, thinking only of killing, annihilating, destroying, and enjoying it.
“We should split up. Let’s meet back here when we’re done and see who won, okay?” Cal said.
Andre nodded and was the first to leave the aisle. Cal went the other way—fast, frenzied—while Andre’s steps were slow and deliberate.
At the end of an aisle someone was hiding: a dark-haired girl he didn’t recognize. She sat with her hands over her ears, eyes shut, trying to make the world disappear. “Hey,” he said. She didn’t move. He put his shoe on her shoulder and pushed lightly. “You there, bitch?” he spat.
A bullet split the air nearby. Andre was quiet and efficient, and Cal felt he had to step up his game. “Shit.” He aimed. “Say bye.” He took a few steps back and blew her brains out.
A yelp came from not far away. Cal spun like a guard dog and locked eyes with a boy peeking through the books in the aisle. When the kid scrambled to his feet, shoes squeaking, Cal only had a few paces to clear his shot. It was easy, he was a slow target. “Don’t try to fucking run, dumbass. Bullets are still faster than you.” He shot the boy in the leg; it bent awkwardly as he fell. Then he aimed again, this time for the head, as the boy tried to crawl away. boom. He was still ahead, 4-3.
Moving fast through the aisles, he finally reached the work tables. From underneath came frantic sobs. Another shot from Andre cracked through the air, making the person cry harder. He crouched, like someone would in front of a child or a dog, and looked under the table. Two girls were clutching each other’s hands. A puddle spread across the floor beneath them. He snorted. They recoiled like terrified animals, because that’s exactly what they were.
“What, can’t hold it in?” he said, pointing at it with the barrel.
No answer.
“Fucking answer me!” he barked, his gun steady now, aimed at the one further away.
“I-I-I. M-m-m—” The girl closest tried, her mouth hanging open, dark eyes filled with tears.
“Can’t hear you,” Cal mocked. “Speak up.”
“I-I—” she tried again.
He shot the girl next to her. Blood sprayed across her face, freezing her in place.
“Would’ve spared her if you’d spoken,” he said, knowing he wouldn’t have, then aimed at her, fired twice.
When he and Andre met up again, after minutes that felt like seconds to Cal, his blood pumping hard, he felt truly alive. Alive for the last time, because he knew what came next. Sirens wailed outside the school; it wouldn’t be long before the cops stormed in.
“How many?” he asked Andre, curious, proud.
“Five,” Andre said. He looked happy, but drained, hollowed out. He’d done good work, and Cal felt like he had to say it, had to praise him. But deep down he realized this was the end. After today there wouldn’t be a Cal and Andre. People would spit on their graves, erase their names from history.
No more Cal and Andre, the high school duo who did everything together. No Andre for him to secretly love. The thought hit him hard, should he tell him now? No. Absolutely not.
“Seven,” Cal said instead, voice ragged. “Good job, man, but I won.” Childish, proud. He patted Andre’s shoulder.
“Thanks, man.” Andre nodded. “You know what we have to do, right?”
“Yeah. How do you want to do it?”
Andre rubbed his hand through his hair, thinking. “Kneel and… one, two, three, boom?”
“Right. Well.” Cal gestured at the floor, your turn. Andre sank to his knees in front of him. First and only time, a little voice whispered.
He knelt too.
They locked eyes. Pupils blown wide, breath uneven, adrenaline surging… but steady, certain.
“One,” Andre started.
“Two.”
“Three.” Boom.
Calvin’s gun jammed. His finger squeezed the trigger, eyes closed, but nothing.
For the first time through all of this, his heart lurched. No. No, no, no, no. How could luck fail him now, when he’d just won?
He opened his eyes.
Andre slumped to the side. First, Cal saw the untouched half of his face. Then the ruined half, red and mangled, too grotesque to look real. Not Andre. Not his best friend. Just wreckage. Just meat. A mannequin split open. The gun lay by his side. Cal’s body felt made of lead as he forced his hand to reach for it.
He wanted to confess his love now, but staring at Andre’s ruined face, clutching his gun, he couldn’t. This wasn’t Andre anymore.
The weapon was warm in his grip. He placed the barrel under his chin, finger on the trigger, feeling its weight, its power.
He didn’t count. Boom.
Cal’s blue eyes snapped open in the dark of the room he shared with Andre. Gasping for air, his throat clenched, saliva pooling in his mouth. Disoriented, he nearly fell out of bed, ripping the covers off and stumbling toward the bathroom, half-blind in the dark. Blood roared in his ears. His shoulder slammed into the doorway, but he didn’t notice. He was searching for the cold porcelain of the toilet.
He dropped to his knees, head over the bowl. Dry heaves racked him, tears streaming. Then he vomited. Again. Again and again, until nothing came but bile.
He kept his eyes shut, terrified to open them, the last image of Andre’s body burned into his memory. If he opened them, he might find out it was real. A shiver ran through him, shaking his whole body. That wasn’t me, he told himself, replaying the words he’d heard in his own voice, the things he’d seen himself do. That wasn’t me. That was a monster.
A warm hand pulled him out of the spiral.
Calvin didn’t go to school on May 1st. He couldn’t.