by Ryan Gattis
So Wilkes was just Wilkes when he showed up for another day of doing the only job he ever loved. Scrubbed the tabletops down himself then set out the lab notes next to the ring stands. He'd already unlocked and locked the big ingredient locker at the back of the classroom, the one that was opposite his gunmetal desk, and put out just the right amount of the stuff needed for the experiment. To the milliliter.
The kids would file in and he'd greet them all by name, ask them about their parents. Ask them about good things in their lives, then shut up and listen. Wilkes was the only one who ever listened and he'd always pull you aside at just the right time, when nobody else was around. He was like our only guidance counselor. The rest left three years ago after a big brawl in the guidance office. Supposedly they considered it an unsafe work environment and because they had a different union than the teachers, they could walk. Dermoody didn't care and neither did we. For him, it meant more budget money to switch to security. For us, it meant we didn't have to go to stupid meetings anymore.
But the kids came in and didn't want to answer questions. Ricky only mumbled when Mr. Wilkes asked about his mom being back home from the hospital. Cynthia couldn't look in Mr. Wilkes's face when he asked her about her club basketball team winning the weekend before and he heard she had six assists. Mironov pulled his hood up over his head when Mr. Wilkes asked how his driving license test went. Something was truly going down. He had felt it, but he was forced to believe it now Wilkes recalled how he had brushed past the other teachers in the lounge before they could even tell him what was happening or that there was a signal to get out. He wouldn't do it, wouldn't get out, even if he had known. Everyone abandoned these kids. Not him.
Mr. Wilkes knew he was running out of time, never in his forty years of teaching had he felt such a chill in a room, so he started speaking before the bell rang, before all the students had come in: "I know you're all lonely, scared, hurt, and upset, but don't do this. Whatever it is, we can get through it." Mr. Wilkes's chin was wagging as he said the words and his beard shook like a snow-covered Christmas tree getting sawed down as he leaned hard on his desk with his left hand so his old army watch pushed down on his wrist. It made extra wrinkles because it was too tight.
"Don't put your rage outside you, don't hurt others because you're hurting, you'll just end up alone. Trust me. It'll just be worse. Violence is never the answer to a problem. It just prolongs it, becomes a web, involves more people and hurts them too. Even ones you love, innocents. Please don't do this." Mr. Wilkes had to take his glasses off and wipe his face, because maybe he was crying.
Nobody'd ever seen Wilkes do that before. He knew the rules at Kung Fu better than anyone. He'd seen the families grow from nothing and then start shrinking. He'd seen the culture develop. And one of the reasons he stayed around and alive was because he never spoke out against them. Just treated the kids like individuals and tried to help them that way. He was still kind of shaking when he turned his back on the partial class and took up a piece of chalk to write on the board behind his desk.
Melinda came in halfway through his little speech but she felt like Mr. Wilkes was talking right to her. And of course she felt bad, a bit of shame that Mr. Wilkes had to break protocol and say that. He must've felt that something was going to happen, something that would change Kung Fu forever, and she hoped so. It was just the alone part that must've got to her. She had to think it weird that he didn't go off on a moral rant about how violence was bad. She knew he couldn't since he'd fought in a war and all.
She thought about how violence can teach powerful lessons: a smaller pain to avoid a larger pain. Like the time her mother hit her hand real hard when she was five years old reaching for the handle of a boiling pot. Right before she almost tipped it over on herself But then Melinda became aware of the threat in the room as she was taking off her backpack at her stool on the far side of the first table to the left. And she wanted to respond to Mr. Wilkes, start a conversation about how sometimes people more powerful than you can make the decision for you. They can take it away. Impose it on you. And then all you can do is choose survival in the only way possible: to fight. Because it's that or die and might as well go down swinging, right?
Then the bell rang and it sounded funny to her ears because it wasn't the normal one and she looked up at the chalkboard, at the sappy-ass message that Mr. Wilkes wasn't done writing in gangly capital letters on the old ashy green background: VIOLENCE SOLVES NOTHING PERMANEN
SWINGING
See, Melinda knew it was time. She howled to find out who was with her and it was damn depressing, only three more out of sixteen, all in the middle of the room. Well, four against thirteen it'd have to be. Like good little cronies, her opponents shut and locked the front door and the back door too, the one that went to the science offices. In the back, Mironov pushed the plastic tubing onto the spigot and started the flow to his burner, before using the sparker to light it, to get the blue flame to jump up.
Melinda didn't wait, she claimed the first strike, grabbing her burner and leaping across the tabletop to smash Cynthia in the forehead with the curved metal base. It came back with a wicked dent on it. Melinda swung it again but Cynthia got her arm up to block and instead of the base cracking her skull a second time, the newly sharp edge created by the dent tore into the radial artery just above her wrist and Cynthia toppled over awkwardly, clutching her bloody arm and wailing.
Wasting no time, Melinda hurled the base end over end at Ricky's head while she stomped on Cynthia's throat as hard as she could, crushing the wail into silence. Spinning on her back foot, Melinda unleashed a vicious roundhouse to the kid who had locked the door and as he was trying to recover, she plunged her fist deep into his solar plexus and then slammed his head, eye first, against the corner of the nearest wooden cabinet. It made a sound like an eggshell shattering. By then, Ricky was on her.
He faked a punch and as she dodged, he hooked her left arm with his right and tried to hammer throw her, tried to slam her flat-backed onto the nearest indestructible tabletop but Melinda flipped out of it, landed on her feet, and retaliated with a nasty shot to Ricky's knee that forced him to stumble. He didn't even see the chop to the back of his neck that Melinda delivered with stunning accuracy. He just hit the floor with a full-on smack.
An unseen leg kicked her in the back of the knee and then she caught a hard right hook with her ribs before recovering enough to scramble onto the tabletop. From there, she jumped the six feet across the room to the other tabletop and just by coincidence missed being hit by a flaming projectile. A Runner threw something wet on her and she didn't know what it was but that sure as hell wasn't good. Probably flammable.
She kicked the alum into the Runner's face, leg-whipped him in the neck, and jumped down, dodging another flaming projectile from the back of the room. One of her Wolves wasn't so lucky though. He was trying to get his clothes off while being kicked by three kids. His entire chest was on fire and as he spun the flames shook in the wind of movement, flags on the flagpole of his body. In a last desperate effort, the Wolf jumped on his attackers, trying to light them up too. They all hit the ground hard.
Melinda dodged another mini-fireball and absolutely crushed a kid coming right at her with a stiff clothesline when her remaining Wolves slung the kid with a throw. She had to stop Mironov from burning the place up. Fast. But before she could do that, she had to dodge a crane-style punch combo that nearly took one of her ears off Whoever the girl attacking her was, she was good. Melinda retaliated with Iron Fist hung gar, a tremendous punch to both shoulders to slow the girl down and throw her off Melinda's true style when faced with multiple opponents: capoeira.
The little crane must've expected a less straightforward tactic, as she did not move her foot when Melinda stomped down hard on her toes. She merely grimaced but it gave Melinda enough time to dance left, bend low, and shoot her leg out in a backward kick, delivering a devastating blow to the shin of the Blade coming up behind her. He'd t
hought he had a clear shot at her. He didn't. Instead, what he got was Melinda rocking her body forward as if she was going into a handstand but kicked him in the nose with her back foot instead. The force of her boot crammed his nostrils back into his face as the bridge of his nose shortened by an inch and the cartilage dislodged from the nasal bone, disappearing into his sinus cavity, charging into his brain in a burst of blood that sprayed across the room like a popped-open bottle of champagne that had been shook. His whole body went limp long before hitting the floor.
Little Crane was on top of Melinda before she even maintained her balance, using long, straight arm movements, keeping Melinda far enough away that she couldn't go for a quick body blow to end it. The girl's kicks were impeccable too. Very stylish but lacking in power. Melinda had a chance to test them with her shoulders, waist, and forearms. Yes, Little Crane was impressive but Melinda was wasting far too much time when there was a roving arsonist in the room.
So she sprang forward from her back-and-forth dancing position and swung both arms toward the head of Little Crane. Melinda knew Little Crane would duck them, which allowed her some room to jump forward and spin on her hands and kick her legs out above her like helicopter blades. Little Crane blocked the first of Melinda's kicks but she caught the next one squarely in the chin, and the kick after that knocked her to the ground for good. Melinda might've taken another moment to relish the victory but when she came up from her spinning position, she was on fire.
Immediately, Melinda stopped, dropped, and rolled, like the old public service announcement always said. She wriggled out of her still-flaming vest despite solid kicks to her ribs, thighs, and shoulder. Lucky nothing else on her was on fire. Whoever her attacker was got a shot squarely to the cup, then to both knees and in his voice box as he bent over.
Melinda rolled forward, dove through the splayed legs of one of her Wolves and bounced up right in front of Mironov, who was so surprised that he dropped his burning missile by reflex when the flames singed his fingers. Not even hesitating, Melinda swung her special move at him from close quarters: her Frostbite Cross Combination left Mironov no chance. The first punch hit him in the neck while the second one went clean into his jaw, crushing it up into the socket.
Up to that point, she had blocked out the noises, the screaming, and the awful stench of burning and alum mixed together like the chem lab was some kind of death camp. She felt light-headed as she turned and darted for the front door. Her two remaining Wolves did not stare at the smoldering and screaming bodies in the middle of the floor. They followed her.
When Melinda ran across the hall to Mark's English class she was only thinking of herself, of survival, and not the bodies behind her. It would be Mr. Wilkes that would emerge from the corner behind his desk to get the fire blanket out and pat down the burning bodies that used to be whole boys and girls and see if anything could be done for them. Old Mr. Wilkes would have to tend to Ricky, Cynthia, and Mironov. He'd be the one that had to stand on a stool and unlock the high cabinet in order to get the first-aid kit down and care for all of them. Alone, Mr. Wilkes would dispense bandages, lay cool wet towels on burns, smooth on ointments, and tie tourniquets with his wrinkled, shaking, arthritic hands.
GOING DOWN
Melinda and her two remaining Wolves found Mark and six others cleaning up their room, tying up the living and gathering dropped weapons like it was some kind of yard sale from an isolated incident. Like it was coincidence that their whole English class just up and turned on them.
"Don't bother!" Melinda screamed. "The whole Fu is going up! Right now!"
Mark didn't believe her. It couldn't be possible.
There was no time to explain. They had to get to the quad, to the meeting place, before anyone else did. Then they could rally. The fastest way was out the door, left down the hall, then down three flights of stairs and through the cafeteria. So all ten went together and they encountered minimal resistance because they traveled in such a large group. Isolated Blades or Whips would turn and run in the other direction when they saw them coming. Those kids would jump six steps down on the stairs and take off for the nearest open space on the next floor, just to avoid Melinda.
But when the group got to the cafeteria, they were in for a surprise. Dermoody was standing on a lunchroom table, holding a shotgun, and screaming something about martial law as he plugged one kid, a freshman Wolf that was running away from him, right in the back.
So it was Mark that made a run right at Dermoody, completely devoid of sense, just insane-crazy; maybe he thought he was protecting Melinda, protecting his family. Dermoody saw him. Shot again but missed Mark, and the scattershot piled itself into the Wolf in front of Melinda. He collapsed in a heap, groaning. But Mark never made it as far as Dermoody because Cap'n Joe moved out from behind him and in one large step, cleared the table and crushed Mark with a tackle. The whole cafeteria echoed with the smack like a hundred pairs of hands clapping once.
Melinda lined up Cap'n Joe's skull for a lobotomy kick, effective immediately, but Dermoody had reloaded with one more shell, quick as a cat. He pointed the gun in her direction. She could only halt her movement by reflex, her leg still in the air as she watched Cap'n Joe slam Mark's head into the floor, once, twice, smashing his fragile brain against the unforgiving wall of his skull, and picked him up like a rag doll. Mark's legs twitched as he tried to find his footing but there was none to be had as Cap'n Joe lifted him off the ground with a firm chokehold.
"Why?" It didn't come out so loud at first, but Melinda tried again, "Why?"
Mark's ears were bleeding.
"Because I can," Dermoody said it loud, "because nobody's going to miss a bunch of poor gang kids that would be better off in jail or dead anyway. So go ahead and do it, Joe. I want to see this."
"No, don't do it!" Melinda shouted but didn't move. The shotgun was still pointed at her.
And with Mark's neck in his spinach-eating forearms, Cap'n Joe just twisted.
That was about where me and Jimmy came in.
DEALING WITH PRINCIPALS
"What the fuck is going on?"
I couldn't help it. It just popped out of my mouth from sheer surprise as I stayed bunkered behind my Jimmy shield. Hearing about Dirty Dermoody and Cap'n Joe's deeds was one thing, but seeing them was another thing completely. Still though, it was Dermoody. Of course he had a fuckin' gun. I expected that shit out of someone like him. It was par for his crooked course.
Jimmy held me hard to the brick wall next to the doors. His body between me and the gun. He was wet, and whether it was sweat or blood or falling in the showers, all of it combined, I didn't know. I didn't look down. The shoulder where Donnie kicked me was aching bad. Still that hot coal in the car hood. Like an overheated engine. I guess the good news was I couldn't even feel my hands anymore. They'd gone completely numb from almost my elbows down. All I could feel was Jimmy's pressure and it took an effort to hold back a sad laugh. Nothing ever changes. Curiously, none of the Runners had followed us into the cafeteria from the pool. Maybe they knew something we didn't.
"Why, I'm trying my utmost to discourage a riot in progress, now isn't that what I'm doing, Joe?" Dermoody cocked open his shotgun and discarded one empty red shell with a brass-colored bottom. It clinked on the tile and rolled over near Mark's body, stopping next to his outstretched hand. After moving the remaining red shell to the empty chamber, he took another shell, this one yellow, from his back pocket and put it in, clamping the gun shut and cocking the hammer for the barrel with the red shell in it. The other hammer stayed down. I don't know much about guns, but it looked old.
"Yessir," Cap'n Joe said. The guy was a fuckin' automaton.
"Joe here, he's doing the same thing," Dermoody said as he stepped down from on top of the table. "Why, that kid was coming right at me, and you know what? He could've killed me."
Without warning, Dermoody smashed the face of a she-Wolf right next to Melinda with the butt of his shotgun. The girl fell over
, hitting the floor straight-backed. If the blow didn't break her beak, she was a real lucky girl. Of course, Melinda tried to kick the gun from Dermoody's hands but Cap'n Joe was too close. He grabbed her midmotion and threw her to the ground. She bounced right back up but stayed put.
"See now, I'm doing my best to protect myself and my staff from being overrun by teenage killers." He held his gun across his body, almost lazily. It was still pointed at Melinda but he was looking at me. "Now any sane person with the wherewithal and means would do the exact same thing."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he pulled the trigger.
Melinda hit the floor fast, hard and flat on her back. That was how much power the shotgun had. She coughed loud, then had a massive intake of air like every breath she ever took in her life needed to come back right then. I swear it looked fake. Like special fuckin' effects. Like she was on a wire or a snare that snapped her to the floor and maybe they sped up the camera speed in editing.
"Aw, don't look so sad, it's just homemade scattershot anyway. Rock salt mostly. Stings worse than a midnight smack in the face but isn't even lethal." Dermoody kicked Melinda in the head and she moaned. "Sure wakes you up though. See?"
"You can't do this," jimmy said. Still in front of me, I felt him flex his back muscles and push off, walking a beeline toward Dermoody.
