by Jade Wright
He's resting his head against the glass now, hovering just outside the door.
We're all holding in a collective breath, silent in wait.
The gun taps against the glass, tantalizing us.
I look around the classroom. Cody and I are supposed to be the strong ones here.
We are the mentors.
It is our job to protect and look after these students, but we are just as petrified as they are.
“Ms. Brady...” Luke's voice shatters the silence.
“Knock, knock,” he taps at the glass with the barrel of the gun.
Cody scoops me closer to him, holding me close.
The other students don't move a muscle. Their eyes are huge with fear.
“You need to tell them Ms. Brady. You're the only one who knows the truth,” he sounds hysterical. His voice is quaking, high-pitched.
The doorknob starts to twist and with that Britt screeches into action.
“Stay the fuck away!” she cries, scrunching herself up into an impossibly tight ball. As if that would somehow save her.
“No, Britt. You don't understand!” I can see his body crippling over from behind the glass.
“You have to believe me. I didn't do anything to all those girls!” he sniffles.
“You're fucking crazy!” another student yells back.
I clench my jaw, wishing everyone would just shut up. Shut the fuck up! Don't provoke him.
We don't know how close he is to the edge.
“I'm not fucking crazy!” Luke bellows in rage, his fist pummelling into the glass. It doesn't break at first, instead a web of cracks instantly appears.
When he punches it again, shards of glass come flying into the room and everyone starts to scream.
“You want to play this game? Let's play,” he spits.
Most of the students have their hands over their eyes.
“Look at me!” Luke begs everyone as he stumbles into the room.
His eyes seek me out.
He chokes on his saliva and bites back tears.
There's blood spatters on his shirt.
What have you done?
“Tell them, Piper!” he shouts.
I know he wants me to tell everyone about the threats.
To make them see he isn't involved in the disappearances, but I'm suddenly not so sure.
What if he made it all up?
What if he created these threats to make me trust him?
“Fuck!” his voice travels down the hallway.
He's infuriated with my silence. So am I, but I can't find my voice.
He kicks over my teachers desk, sending books, stationary and my sisters potted plant flying.
“Put the gun down, Luke.” Cody's voice is strong and authoritative.
“No! I didn't do this! You guys have ruined my fucking life! Do you know what it's like? For everyone to look at you like you're a murderer? To walk by and hear people whispering and pointing?! You don't understand what you've done to me!” he's scratching the gun against his head.
His finger is on the trigger.
“I loved you,” Britt is sobbing.
My head jerks in her direction.
Britt was seeing him too?
“No you fucking didn't! You turned your back on me just like every single one of you,” he waves the gun wildly around the room.
The students are trembling behind upturned desks and shelving.
“I can't take it any more,” Luke's bottom lip wobbles uncontrollably.
“You're a monster!” someone screams from behind me.
Luke snarls at him, he looks like an animal as he stalks right up to him.
The blast from the gun is deafening.
Everyone screams in unison as the body of one of my students falls to the floor, blood instantly pooling around him.
I make myself look.
It's Steve, one of Luke's best friends.
He's choking, clutching onto his stomach in sheer agony.
He's struggling to breathe.
I don't know how he's still alive.
I crawl on my hands and knees over to the boy. Putting my hand over the wound in the boys stomach, I start to apply pressure. Thick, warm blood covers my hands.
It's slippery and I feel myself starting to slip.
I can't keep the pressure on, my arms feel like jelly.
Luke is staring down at us, his eyes look bizarrely glazed over.
He doesn't know what he's doing or what he's done. He can't.
There's no recognition as he looks down at his best friend, bleeding out at his feet.
Steve starts to cough, his blood spraying onto my face. He's dying in my arms.
We all stay silent as he struggles to take his last breath.
“No!” someone wails, but their cries are cut short with another explosion from the gun.
Another student falls right at my feet. A bullet to the head.
“Luke,” I whisper, taking my hands away from Steve's lifeless body.
I can hear sirens getting closer to the school.
It's almost over.
Luke is standing over me, pointing the gun right at me.
“Please,” I beg, holding my bloodied hands above my head. I can feel Steve's blood running up my arms, soaking my shirt.
“Don't do this,” Cody pleads, very carefully edging closer to me.
I can't believe he's moving. He could be killed.
In that moment, I think I may love him.
“There's only one bullet left,” Luke's voice is little more than a murmur, but it's a warning.
Cody's fingers find mine.
Out the schoolroom window I catch sight of the flashing lights from ambulances and police cars.
It will all be over soon, I think, squeezing Cody's hand. The gun is still pointed at my head.
The sound of the squad running through the hallway echoes into the room.
I can hear them kicking other classroom doors open, trying to find us.
“Fuck,” Luke quivers, the panic in his eyes unmissable now.
He knows they're coming for him.
He brings the gun to the side of his head.
Cody's grip on my arm tightens. We're both relieved that the gun is away from me at last but petrified at what he is going to do next.
“I didn't do it. I didn't take those girls,” his voice breaks.
They are his final words.
He cocks the gun, looking right at me.
Every memory I have with him from our short time together flashes before my eyes.
I stare back at him, shaking my head, silently begging him not to do this.
I can't tear my eyes away, until they are blinded by blood.
*
Shards of Luke's skull are stuck to my clothing, poking through the material and digging into my skin.
Little bits of bone have entangled themselves into my hair.
I'm waiting for detective Engelbrecht to come back into the room. I'm becoming really well acquainted with him now.
He needs to ask me more questions.
I'm only here to make a statement, but it feels oddly like an interrogation.
We had to take a break. The sight of Luke's head exploding has permanently embedded itself into my brain.
It happened so fast. In the blink of an eye, his face was gone. Destroyed.
“I should have said whatever it took to calm him down, but I didn't. I killed him,” I cried as he pushed a mug of tea in front of me.
He looks tired, unsympathetic, like he always does.
I can tell he's unsurprised to see me surrounded by all of the drama once again. At least this time, I'm sober.
He didn't just watch someone's brains splatter against the wall. He's just doing his job. Come five o’clock he'll head on home and switch off, push whatever slivers of information about a suicide and a school shooting he had to note down far from his thoughts. How I wish I could be him; but I will never forget.
When he's certain I've detailed everything I can possibly remember, he lets me go.
I step out into the chilly afternoon fog that hovers heavily across the entire town and head towards my car.
Everything that happened before Luke shot himself is hazy, but I find myself thinking about what Britt had said.
She'd told him she'd loved him.
How had he managed to juggle us all this way?
Hadn't Britt known about Bibiana, anyway?
Out of everyone, he'd been most public about his relationship with Bibiana.
I'm chewing the inside of my cheek, trying to wrap my head around it. Both Bibiana and Chloe were seeing Luke and now they were both missing.
I'd been seeing Luke and had been getting threats.
A thought occurs to me.
Could Bibiana and Chloe have been getting threats too?
If so, why hadn't they come forward about it?
Nothing makes any sense, it's making the pounding in my head worse and worse.
I scrunch up my eyes and massage my forehead, wishing I had more pills on me.
I'm desperate for a shower. To change into fresh clothes and wash the clumps of blood from my hair. To take my pills and sleep. Exhaustion is taking over.
Cody had wanted us to be together tonight after everything that happened today, but I'm just not up to it.
I'm a few meters away from my car when a flash obscures my vision. I'm momentarily blinded.
I stumble forward, gripping onto the trunk of a tree in front of me for support.
I shake my head and open my eyes.
A searing headache almost makes me want to scream. It's unbearable.
I close my eyes again and instantly a flash of an image is in my head.
It scares me.
I can't make it out at first. I don't know what is happening. Everything is all blurry and too bright.
I concentrate hard, willing the image to focus.
The figure of a girl getting into a car slowly emerges.
The engine revs to life.
The girl adjusts the rear view mirror and investigates her eye make-up for a few moments.
I open my eyes again and blink several times.
The streets are quiet. I whirl around at the sound of a car engine starting up.
It's the same car I had just seen in my head.
I don't understand what is happening to me.
How had I seen that?
I squint to see who the driver is. She's brushing mascara onto her lashes. When she puts the tube of mascara away I can see her clearly.
It's Britt.
She fans at her eyelashes for a few moments to let them dry before indicating.
She turns out of her parking space.
I watch in stunned silence as she starts to drive away.
There's the sound of another car starting up just up the street. They're further away so I can't make out who is behind the wheel at all.
They too pull out of their parking space and creep forwards in the same direction as Britt, who has stopped at a stop street just up ahead.
I'm well hidden behind the tree I'm still holding on to so neither driver notices me.
As the driver in the car behind Britt edges past me I notice that the driver is wearing a big, black hoodie.
It's impossible to make out who it is, but I'm suddenly absolutely convinced that they are following Britt.
She's in danger.
I sprint towards my car and yank at the seatbelt as I put my keys into the ignition. I have to follow them.
I'm busy trying to unlock my phone but I'm shaking so much that I keep getting the password pattern wrong.
I look up and see Britt and the car behind her starting to move again.
There is no time to call the police right now.
I can't lose them.
I discard my phone, tossing it onto the passenger seat.
Gripping the steering wheel with sweaty hands, I start to follow them. All thoughts of my shower and sleep forgotten.
I try to keep a good distance to not attract attention.
When Britt turns down a road to the right, the driver behind does the same.
I'm not being paranoid, whoever is in that car is definitely following her.
I speed up slightly, worried I'll lose them once they've rounded the bend.
I forget to indicate as I swerve down the street they'd taken and a car behind me hoots angrily. I look back at them and mouth an apology, the person in the car is shouting at me and waving their hands around. I don't have time for niceties.
I look back towards the road in front of me and my heart leaps into my throat. Up ahead is a roundabout with three different exits.
I have no idea which one they've taken.
Frustration takes hold.
I'm about to pull over and call the cops when another flash comes. My eyebrows scrunch together in agony as I try to make out what the picture in my head is.
I'm about to burst into tears when I make out a street sign, covered in ivy but the wording is just visible. Elm street.
The picture in my head starts to move.
I'm in a car, but it isn't mine.
Gloved hands are at the wheel.
Up ahead I see Britt's car with her personalised plates.
In my head I'm following her and I feel a sickening thrill for it, an anticipation of what's to come.
In my head, I want to hurt her. Torture her. Make her pay.
I open my eyes and I'm back in my car, in front of the roundabout. My entire body is trembling with fear and confusion.
I scan each turn off for a street name.
Everything around here is so overgrown and old.
I see the ivy before I see the sign. It looks exactly like it did in my head. The faded lettering on the street sign reads, Elm Street.
I have absolutely no idea what is happening to me; why I am seeing things in my head and why I am feeling these things.
It's bizarre and overwhelming but I have no choice other than to press my foot down on the gas pedal.
I take the turning onto Elm Street.
It's a street full of red bricked, double storied homes with gable rooftops.
I rub at my eyes as I explore the area, looking for any sign of life. It's only midday so most people will still be at work, though it still feels eerily quiet.
There's no one milling around on the streets anymore.
Not since the Pirouette Predator surfaced.
All of the houses are identical.
I see a scruffy looking Yorkshire Terrier staring at the world outside from a window. He barks at my car as I drive by, a high-pitched yelp that could wake the entire neighbourhood, if anyone was home.
It makes me think of River.
Guilt immediately builds inside of me.
I'm momentarily lost in thought about my dog when I hear a car close by.
I snap back to reality and hunker down in my seat so that no one can see me. I peer just over my car window and see Britt exiting her car.
There are no other cars around to be seen.
She slings her handbag over her shoulder, looking all around her as she bolts up to a front door.
Before she gets there, the door swings open.
I hold my breath as I watch a middle-aged man wrap his arms around her.
A woman comes to the entrance too, her hand over her mouth as she shakes her head and sobs.
Britt is a mess.
She's crying and rambling words I can't hear from my car.
I recognise the couple she's with. I've seen them at the school before. Her parents.
She's safe. She's home.
A third flash comes, but this time it's a feeling instead of an image. It's a feeling of complete and utter anger.
It frightens me.
That fucking little slut! A voice comes out of no where.
It's in my head.
It's my voice.
I rake my fingers through my f
ilthy hair and start pulling at it, trying to rip it from my scalp.
I want it to stop.
I want to make the voices stop.
I wait until the door to Britt's home closes behind them before I start up my engine and very slowly make my way back to the cottage.
While River does her business out in the garden, I swallow my medication with a big glass of water.
I stand under the shower for what feels like hours, my students' blood washing off of me and pooling on the tiles at my feet.
I watch as the water cascades down my naked body. My once tiny figure has changed so much these past few weeks.
I look seven months pregnant I'm so bloated at the moment.
My guess is that it's all the alcohol. It could also be the medication. I've heard anti-psychotics cause weight gain.
I wish I could stop taking them, but then I know how dangerous that could be.
God I miss my old body. It's painful to look in the mirror these days.
Michael used to tell me that I must have serious body dysmorphia. Just another condition to add to my collection.
He used to tell me I looked amazing, that is, until he started telling her that she looked amazing, of course.
I'd never told him about my struggle with eating disorders as a kid.
The truth was, I loved seeing my bones protruding from my collarbone and hips. I felt dainty and cute.
Now, that flat stomach feels enormous.
I know I'm not pregnant, though. Can't be. Never will be.
I've accepted that now, so really, I could just throw the birth control away.
I sluice my disgusting body with hot water, the sound of the gunshot still ringing violently in my head.
I change, tossing the clothes from earlier into the bin as I walk into every single room in the cottage.
I check every nook and cranny until I'm certain I'm alone.
I lock every door and window and feel the pills starting to kick in. My eyes are already rolling into the back on my head by the time I collapse into bed.
I black out, holding onto River's warm body like a security blanket.
The night is dreamless and I am grateful for the brief escape to nothingness.
However, when I wake up and turn my phone back on there are countless alerts that come through all at once.
Our teachers chat group is flooded with messages.
Links to various news stories covering the school shooting.
