Mercy

by J L Aarne

  Eddie frowned at her. “I don’t know nothing about that shit you said. First time I heard of it,” he said.

  “You can be the nicest guy in the world, but if you do bad things like rape, you’re still a bad person,” Lundy said. “I can’t remember it and that’s almost worse. I sometimes sit around wondering if it is worse. Is it worse to remember it or not remember it? I don’t know. He did that to me.”

  “Then maybe you should just fucking forget about it,” Eddie said. “It ain’t worth someone dying like this over it. What do you want, some kinda apology?”

  Mercy and Corey exchanged a look. Eddie was lying his ass off and they both knew it. She nodded and Corey stepped over to Billy’s right shoulder. He had his gun out in his hand at his side.

  Eddie saw it and his eyes widened. “No! Fuck, man, you can’t prove any of this. It’s this bitch’s word against Billy’s and that’s not fair. Look, it ain’t fair, right?”

  “So far, Billy hasn’t said a single thing to redeem himself,” Mercy said mildly. “Unless you have something else to say, sit down, please.”

  “I ain’t sitting down,” Eddie said. “I ain’t doing a goddamn thing you—”

  Mercy shrugged. “Stand then. It makes no difference,” she said. “Billy, do you have anything to say for yourself?”

  “I didn’t do it,” Billy said.

  “I think you did,” Mercy said.

  “Fuck you, then.”

  “Mhmm, you know, I like sex,” Mercy said. She paced around Billy, slowly circling him as she spoke. “A lot of people do. You boys aren’t the only ones. And the thing is, women get a raw deal. We’re constantly being sexualized and the moment we become sexual we’re hated and ridiculed for it. If you go to a strip club, you’re just a guy being a guy doing what guys do. You’re a virile, heterosexual male and it’s perfectly acceptable that you go to these places and watch women take their clothes off and dance around naked for money. But, if I’m a stripper, that makes me a slut and nothing else matters.”

  Mercy stopped in front of Billy and crouched down before him on her heels. “Some men don’t like sex as much as they like taking away someone else’s right to say no,” she said. She was speaking softly, but into the microphone. Everyone could hear her. “Have you ever had a woman go from flirting with you to threatening to kill you in the time it took you to tell her you weren’t interested? No?”

  Billy didn’t say anything. He was still glaring, but he was afraid now. He was sweating and his eyes watered like he was fighting back tears. He was a low piece of garbage, but he was also a seventeen year old boy staring his death in the face. He was allowed to cry.

  “Mercy,” Corey said, drawing her attention.

  He nodded to something behind her and Mercy turned to see another girl with her hand in the air. She looked terrified, but she didn’t put her hand down when Mercy turned and stood to look at her.

  “Yes?”

  “Um. Ah… I’m Sarah. Sarah Peterson,” the girl said. She stood up and those around her shrank away from her like she was diseased. “I had sex with Billy.”

  There were a few titters of nervous laughter in response to this and Sarah blushed.

  “I mean… What she said. Lundy. She said it was like, if you did it, it might stop,” Sarah said. “That’s what it felt like, right? Yeah. He… I mean, there was no song or teasing or anything like what… what happened to you, but he… he kept on. Harassing me and… it was kinda threatening. I was scared he’d do something eventually and I thought… I could just do it. Just do it and get it over with, you know?”

  “Is this true?” Mercy asked Billy.

  “It wasn’t rape,” he said. “Ask her. Go on, ask her. I didn’t rape you.”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, it wasn’t rape. I didn’t really want to do it, but it wasn’t rape.”

  Maybe not, but it was bullying at its worst and it was another strike against him; it suggested a pattern of behavior.

  “I think we’re done here,” Mercy said.

  Corey lifted his gun to Billy’s head and they all drew a collective breath. A girl in the back let out a little scream. Eddie shouted that they couldn’t do this shit, it was insane, it was murder.

  “Wait,” Lundy said. She looked between Corey and Mercy, took a breath and asked, “Can I do it?”

  Mercy and Corey both stared at her in surprise.

  “I don’t know, can you?” Mercy asked.

  “Yes.” Lundy looked down at Billy and she was pale and scared, but there was a flinty hardness in her eyes. “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

  Corey turned the gun in his hand and offered it to her. “Don’t try anything,” he warned.

  He and Mercy both stepped back and let her have some space. Ezra and Isaac were sharing a sandwich and watching them, their guns close by. Molina was still sitting on the floor with her legs drawn up, but she watched over the tops of her knees.

  “Miss Pierce,” Dr. Hunter said.

  Lundy’s shoulders tensed at the sound of her name and his voice, but she didn’t turn to him and she didn’t say anything. She felt the weight of the gun in her hand, then slowly lifted it. Billy picked his head up and looked at her, blinked rapidly and looked away again.

  “You did it, didn’t you?” Lundy asked him.

  Billy shook his head.

  “Miss Pierce, please,” Dr. Hunter said. “Please don’t do this. It’s too late for Miss Hartwell and her brother and these other boys, but you haven’t done anything yet. You’re still innocent. You don’t have to do this. You know it’s wrong. Don’t let them make you like them, Miss Pierce. You’re a good girl and—”

  “Say it!” Lundy screamed at Billy. Her hands around the gun shook faintly. “You did it. Didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Billy said, quietly. “I… I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not,” Lundy spat.

  Corey cleared his throat, dragging her attention to him reluctantly. “The safety’s on,” he told her when she glanced his way. He pointed to the little button on the side of the gun. “It’s that little—yeah, there you go.”

  “Miss Pierce, this boy has a family,” Dr. Hunter said. “Try to think of them. Don’t do this. You don’t have to—”

  “Yes, I do,” Lundy said through clenched teeth.

  She pulled the trigger and she was standing so close to him that she could hardly miss no matter how much she was shaking. The bullet went in one of Billy’s eyes and came out the back of his head along with most of his brain and half of his skull in a stringy burst of blood and gelatinous brain tissue. The impact threw his head back and overbalanced him in the light, flimsy plastic chair. Billy’s body went over backward still sitting in the chair and only fell out to flop onto the floor when he landed. His left leg kicked and his fingers jittered, then he was still.

  Total silence followed. Lundy stood with Corey’s gun in her hands held out before her, her eyes big as Ping-Pong balls in her face, her hair fallen loose from its braid around her ears, her legs slightly spread to brace for the kick. Corey touched her arm and she flinched, but relaxed when she saw him and let him take the gun out of her hands.

  It really hit her then and she began to shake violently. She turned and grabbed Corey. Mercy reached for her gun and Isaac and Ezra started to get up, but Lundy was just hugging him. He put an arm around her awkwardly and let her hold onto his shirt as she broke down and began to cry.

  “Thank you,” Lundy said around her sobs. “Oh my god, thank you.”

  Corey gave Mercy a pleading look over Lundy’s shoulder and Mercy stepped forward to gently take her from him. “Okay. It’s okay now,” she said. “It’s over. Sit down and you go ahead and cry. No one’s gonna stop you. You just cry. Let it out and you’ll feel better.”

  The phone in the coach’s office began to ring again. Hysterical, insistent, constant. Unlike with cell phones, it would not be going to voicemail if they ignored it.

  “Goddamn it,” Isaac muttered. “Mercy
, I am going to yank the cord on that thing if we’re not answering it.”

  “Just wait,” Mercy said.

  Isaac sighed but he stayed by the steps with Ezra and waited.

  She went with Lundy over to the bleachers and got her to sit. Miss Tolstad was nearby and Mrs. Millay was sitting on the floor nursing her wounded leg on the first step. Both women moved away when Lundy sat down. Lundy clung to Mercy’s arm when she let her go. With her relief had come a flood of tears, but she was still very aware of the tension in the room and now that she wasn’t angry anymore, she was scared.

  “I have to take care of something,” Mercy said, keeping her voice low and soothing. “We’re not done here. You’ll be fine. Corey’s here. He’ll make sure you’re okay.”

  Corey nodded and said, “Yeah.”

  It was enough. Lundy let her go.

  The phone stopped ringing for a few seconds only to start again. Isaac stood outside the offices, tense and restless, gripping his baseball bat in one hand. She could imagine what he was thinking and, much as she would have liked to let him bash the thing into a million pieces like all of the cell phones, she couldn’t do that.

  They were going to have to talk to the cops if only so they could find out what they were planning to do. The cops were going to get in, there wasn’t even a question about it, but they would be more reluctant to cowboy up and come busting in if they knew that what they had on their hands was more of a hostage situation than a rampage.

  Rampage killers only wanted to kill as many people as they could as fast as they could before they were killed themselves. Time was of the essence in such situations if anyone was going to be saved. Hostage takers wanted something; they could be reasoned with. Reasoning with them (manipulating them) saved more lives than storming in half-cocked. Making the people outside believe that was what was happening inside was the only way that Mercy was going to get them the time they needed to finish what they had started.

  The cops were going to have a hell of a time getting through the doors into the gym anyway. The bike locks they had used to secure the doors were the kind that couldn’t be removed with bolt cutters. Even if bolt cutters could have done the job though, it wouldn’t have mattered because the locks were on the inside and you needed some space to work with them. No, the only way anyone was getting in or out of the gym before Mercy, Corey, Isaac and Ezra wanted them to was with a cutting torch, and they could still be shot if they tried that.

  Mercy started across the gym to where Isaac and Ezra were sitting outside of Coach Kapinski and Mrs. Woodell’s offices. As soon as she wasn’t there, people started begging Corey to let them go, demanding to be released because they needed a doctor, telling him he couldn’t do this and calling him a monster. She glanced back to see how Corey was taking it all to see him dragging Billy’s corpse out of the way so he could set the chair back up.

  Molina got up from the floor as Mercy drew near and she looked frightened and pale. The gun Mercy had given her was forgotten in her hand.

  “Oh my god, Mercy,” she said, her voice shaky. Then again, “Oh my god.”

  “Yeah,” Mercy said. “Come on, Lina. I need you to do something.”

  Mercy gestured for her to follow her and went by Isaac up the steps to the coach’s office. The door was closed but not locked and they went inside. The telephone was an old office phone with a cord attaching the receiver to the cradle and a button pad for redirecting the call or putting it on hold. Every time it rang, a tiny light above the buttons glowed green.

  Molina stood in the doorway of the office looking like she was a second away from crying. Perfect.

  “They’re going to ask you who we are,” Mercy told her. “You’re not going to tell them because you don’t know, got it?”

  “Um… no. What?” Molina said.

  “I want you to answer the phone, Lina,” Mercy said patiently. “When they ask you what’s going on, tell them. Don’t tell them everything, of course, but tell them some people in masks with guns have everyone trapped in here. We’ve got hostages, they need to know that. When they ask you who we are, you don’t know because we’re wearing masks. When they ask you if everyone’s all right, tell them whatever you want, just don’t tell them about Billy, okay?”

  “Okay,” Molina said. “Mercy, I don’t… I don’t think I can do this. I can’t. I don’t… I didn’t think—”

  “It’s okay,” Mercy said in her best calming voice. “Just answer the phone. You’ll do fine.”

  “I don’t… I feel sick. I can’t,” Molina said.

  “That’s good, actually,” Ezra said, coming to stand in the doorway behind her.

  The phone had stopped ringing.

  “That’s why you should answer it,” Ezra said. “You don’t seem like a killer.”

  “I’m not!” Molina said.

  “Well, there you go,” Ezra said.

  The phone started to ring again.

  Molina reached for the receiver, but Mercy beat her to it and hit the button that answered it on the speaker for all of them to hear.

  “Hello? This is Sheriff Rollins, who am I speaking with?”

  Molina looked at Mercy and Ezra in panic.

  “Hello? Who am I speaking with?” the sheriff repeated.

  “H-hi,” Molina said. “Um. I’m Molina. Molina Allsberg, um… sir.”

  “Are you responsible for the gunshots heard inside the school this morning, Miss Allsberg?” the sheriff asked.

  Don probably knew better—he knew Molina fairly well through her friendship with Mercy—but he was not Don Rollins right now, he was Sheriff Donald Rollins and he had to ask.

  “No!” Molina said, too loudly. “No, I’m not, I didn’t do anything, sir, I swear. They just… I’m just supposed to answer the phone and talk to you.”

  “Okay,” Don said carefully. “What’s happening in there, Miss Allsberg?”

  “I don’t know if I can… I mean, you know, they’re right here and I don’t think—”

  “Do what they want you to,” Don said. “Don’t do anything to anger them that might get you hurt, Miss Allsberg. They wanted you to answer the phone for a reason though, didn’t they?”

  “Yes,” Molina said. Mercy smiled encouragingly when she glanced at her. “Yes,” she repeated. “They… ah…”

  “Can you tell me what’s happening?” Don asked. “What do they want?”

  “They want…” She swallowed, closed her eyes and took a breath, then said, “They want you to know it’s a hostage situation, not a… not a school shooting… thing. I guess… I guess that’s important.”

  “It does change things a bit, yes,” Don said. “Who are they, Miss Allsberg?”

  “I don’t know!” Molina said, her voice breaking. “I don’t know, Sheriff, but I’m scared. They have guns and masks and some people are hurt and I don’t know!”

  Ezra put a hand over his mouth to hide a grin. Mercy shared a pleased, amused look with him and didn’t bother to hide her own smile. Molina was scared, but she was more worried about trying to say exactly what she was supposed to say to hide it well. Her agitation was evident in her voice. As Mercy had thought, she was perfect for this.

  “Sally Braunberger tells us that my son, Corey is involved in this,” Don said. “Is that true?”

  Mercy shook her head no, but Molina was already answering him.

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “He’s in my homeroom class and I saw him there. He came in late, but he was there and he’s… he’s not wearing a mask or anything. He’s just… But he’s here. I mean, he’s okay.”

  Don let out an audible breath. “Thank God,” he said. “And Mercy?”

  “She’s… She’s fine. I mean, I saw her, too,” Molina said.

  “Thank you,” Don said. He was Sheriff Rollins right now, but he was also a father.

  “I have to go, Sheriff,” Molina said.

  “Miss Allsberg, we’re going to figure this out, okay?” Don said. “We’ve got
state police on their way and we’ll get someone here to negotiate. We’re going to get you out of there. Hang in there, we’re working on it right—”

  Mercy reached over and disconnected the call. “Sorry, Don,” she said. She turned to Molina with a wide smile. “Good job, girl.”

  “Yeah, you’re a fucking natural,” Ezra said.

  Molina blushed and ducked her head, pleased by their praise in spite of herself. “God, we’re in so much trouble,” she muttered.

  Mercy patted her cheek and walked by her out the door. “Nah. You’ll be fine,” she said. “This thing’s going to be such a clusterfuck when it’s over, they won’t know who to blame for what.”

  “But he said state police,” Molina said. “State police.”

  “Yeah, well he had to let us know he means business,” Mercy said over her shoulder.

  “Come on,” Ezra said, following Mercy out of the office. “We better go make sure Isaac hasn’t beat anyone’s head in with that bat.”

  “He wouldn’t really… do that, would he?” Molina asked.

  Ezra shrugged. “Maybe.”

  Isaac had not beaten anyone’s head in with his bat, but he was sitting in the chair recently vacated by Billy Cullen with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, his gun held casually in one hand while he drank from a bottle of water and eyed their hostages with barely contained dislike. There was a snail trail of blood on the floor left by Billy’s body. Corey sat Indian fashion on the floor nearby eating half of a sandwich Isaac had given him and not looking at anybody. A few people were talking in hushed voices, but most everyone was quiet, watching them with the eyes of cows waiting for the hammer to fall.

  Isaac handed Mercy the microphone when she approached.

  “All right, so now you all know how this works,” she said. “Who would like to go next?”

  No one said anything and those who had been talking shut up.

  “Now’s your chance,” she said. “If there’s anyone you’ve always wanted to pay for something and they’re here in this room, this is probably the only chance you’re ever going to have to make it happen, so speak up.”

  Nothing.