Shooter

by Caroline Pignat

  At first, I did not know if that was good or bad. “Crap” is like that.

  Then he pulled out the first issues of X-Men and Avengers and got really excited. It made me happy to see Max happy. Mrs. O’Neill was right. Again.

  “You like them?” I asked, even though I knew he did. I wanted him to say it.

  “Like them? This is fricken’ awesome!” He slipped one out of the sleeve and started flipping through it. It’s okay to do that. Just not in the store.

  “They were my dad’s…but I want you to have them.”

  I’d debated it all the way to Max’s house. What if Dad came home? What if he wanted them? But the look on Max’s face told me I’d made the right decision. It had been six years. Dad wasn’t coming for the comics.

  Or for me.

  Max asked if I was sure, said they were worth a fortune. And I realized that even if my dad didn’t want something, it didn’t make it any less valuable. Or any less important to someone else. So I pointed to the poster on the wall over his workbench: “100 Comics to Read Before You Die,” and I told him, “Now you can finish.”

  I hate leaving things incomplete. Like sandwiches. Or Lego Death Stars. Or books. No matter how much I hate something, I have to get to the end.

  Max didn’t say anything. He just stared at me. Like, more staring than Mrs. O’Neill would find appropriate. He seemed sad, and I wondered if I had made a mistake. Maybe he didn’t want the comics. Maybe I’d just made things even worse.

  I turned to go.

  Max asked me if I wanted to finish. His voice sounded strange, like he had something stuck in his throat, and he said, “You with me to the end, X-Man?”

  I nodded so hard I thought my head might rattle.

  He picked up a red gym bag. It said “FitLife” on the side in white letters. My mom has one too. She got it free for joining the gym, and she didn’t even have to go to keep it. It hangs, empty, in our hall closet. But this one was heavy. It was full of something.

  “Cherry bombs, paint guns, the usual,” he said as he gave it to me. Then he turned back to the workbench. “I’ll be bringing our secret weapon. The Special F.X.”

  Our secret weapon? I couldn’t believe it. We were doing it. Me and Max. Together.

  “Just bring that to the atrium tomorrow at 1:15. Right at the start of period 4,” he said over his shoulder as he went back to his soldering. “I’m relying on you.”

  I told him I would. I’d do anything he asked just to be a part of anything he did.

  “We’ll see, X-Man,” he said, as I left him in the smoke and shadows. “We’ll see.”

  ISABELLE

  The atrium is packed with students and teachers. I don’t have to hear the buzz about chains on the front doors or being trapped to know what’s going on. Alice is right. This has been Maxwell’s plan all along.

  Hogan drives through the crowd like a snowplow. I try to keep up, but people keep pulling on my arms.

  “Isabelle what’s going on?”

  “Isabelle, what should we…?”

  “Isabelle, where do we…?”

  Faceless hands grasp at me as I try to run, but can’t. I lose sight of Hogan. The space is closing in behind.

  “Isabelle! Izzy!” People keep calling my name. Pulling at my arms. My shoulders.

  “Just stay calm!” I screech as I drive forward. I have to get to Mr. Wilson. Now. “Everyone—just STAY calm! Everything is going to be all right!”

  But they don’t believe me. How could they?

  I don’t believe it myself.

  HOGAN

  Wilson is standing just outside the main office. Beside him is Officer Scott, the cop assigned to our school and, unfortunately, the same cop that arrested me for stealing the bike. By the time I reach them, my heart is pounding from the effort of pushing through the crowds. I can barely catch my breath.

  “Hogan?” Wilson’s eyes go wide as he looks at me half-crazed and half-naked. “What the hell are you—?”

  “It’s not a fire!” I gasp. “It’s not a prank!”

  Officer Scott moves to intercept me. “Easy, Hogan. Easy.”

  I shrug him off and push for Wilson. He has to listen. Why won’t he listen?

  “Maxwell—” I gasp. “He’s trying to—”

  A look passes between the men, one I know all too well—suspicion. Scott grabs me, then, wrenches my arms back in some cop-hold. I could break free. Easily. But I don’t.

  “What do you know about Maxwell?” Scott asks.

  “There’s a bomb!” I say. “Maxwell is driving everyone into the atrium because that’s where he’s set a bomb!”

  Officer Scott radios to dispatch, but he keeps a firm grip on my wrist.

  Wilson gets on his walkie-talkie. “Mr. Dean, I need those bolt cutters at the front doors, NOW!” He yells to a few nearby teachers. “Mr. Miller. Get Ms. Beckman and take the students through the staff room exit.”

  The two teachers start herding kids two by two, like Noah’s ark, through the door and hall leading to the staff room. There’s no way all 1,500 of us will get through before Maxwell rains down his next surprise.

  “We’re running out of time!” I say.

  “Just tell me, son. Tell me where it is,” Wilson says to me.

  I look up at the ceiling where the Doves of Peace hang from the skylight. Six huge sculptures of flying birds hang level with the second-floor windows that ring the atrium. Some art class made them as a remembrance for every student who’s died since our school opened. One for Randy, too, I suppose. I’d avoided seeing it all this time.

  I look away, not wanting to think about how many doves we’ll need if we don’t find that bomb.

  I’d hoped Resolution would be more obvious. That we’d get to the atrium and see some big package on the picnic tables, some huge disco bomb just hanging there, like in his drawing. Hell, I could find Where’s Weirdo? in every one of his pages. Why couldn’t I see it now? Surely, he is here somewhere, too. Unless—hope sparks inside me—unless he’s already been caught.

  “Did the cops catch him? Maxwell?” I blurt.

  “Look, Hogan.” Scott moves in front of my face. He means business. “No more messing around. You are going to tell us. Right now. Where did you guys plant the bomb?”

  I look away.

  He thinks you’re in on it. That you told him outta guilt. And that you’re withholding outta shame. Ohhh yeah, Hogan! Your loser rep just keeps getting better and better!

  But I don’t blame them for thinking that. Why wouldn’t they?

  “Hogan,” Wilson says, “this isn’t just another prank. Not this time. We’re talking life and death here.” He waves his walkie-talkie at the mob of kids. “Look at them. Look!”

  I scan the crowd of terrified faces. Girls crying and hugging each other. Trembling grade 7 and 8s. And Alice, like a bug-eyed grade 7 herself, lost and alone in the middle of it as she screams Noah’s name.

  “You don’t want to see them hurt, do you?”

  I shake my head. Of course not.

  “Just tell me where it is,” he goes, “and everything will be okay.”

  But it won’t. Because I can’t.

  ALICE

  “Noah! NOAH!” I scream until I’m hoarse. I’ll never find him this way. Not in this mayhem.

  I scan the wired crowd and spot Hogan talking to Mr. Wilson over on the side. At least Mr. Wilson knows now. We did our job. It’s out of our hands. Finally.

  But Hogan doesn’t seem relieved. In fact, he looks almost defeated.

  I push my way towards him. Maybe he’s seen Noah. Maybe he’ll help me find him. But the truth is, I just want to be near him. By him. To know that even in this crowd of hundreds, a thousand frantic people…we aren’t alone.

  The mob opens for a second, just as Officer Scott steps up in Hogan’s face and Hogan slouches. In a flash, I see the whole story, read it in the slump of his shoulders. They blame Hogan. Of course they do. He is involved, but not in the way they
think. He knows way more than an outsider should, so, naturally, they assume he is in on it. That he is the unknown second shooter. Heck, I even accused him of it—why wouldn’t they?

  I push through the crowd, eager to reach them and set things right. Hogan won’t do it—not to save himself, anyway. Because, if I know anything about Hogan King, it’s the story he tells himself—that he has to suffer, because he deserves it.

  ISABELLE

  In the thick of the crowd, I spot Hogan on the far side. He’s talking to Wilson. Seconds later, the fire alarm stops and everyone cheers.

  It’s over. Thank God, it’s over. But my stomach sinks when I see Mr. Wilson’s shocked expression. He hasn’t turned it off. It isn’t over. Clearly, this is another part of Maxwell’s plan.

  “Hail Mutants!”

  The voice comes over the P.A. and echoes through the atrium. I glance through the window into the office. Empty. No one is at the phone used to make our announcements.

  From one of the second-floor windows a beam of light projects an image on the opposite wall. A huge head fills the space meant for our grad mural, the one we painted over—whiting out the vandalism, our way of “taking it back.” With the flick of a switch, he’s stolen it from us again.

  A red helmet blocks most of the face, its sides cutting in like metal sideburns around his smirk and framing the eyes in a frown: Magneto. I look at the eyes, those eyes: Maxwell. Names I’d never heard until thirty minutes ago. Names I’ll never forget.

  Everyone turns to watch, jostles closer for a better view. Just like he hoped.

  This is it. It’s happening.

  Only I don’t know what to do but stand and watch.

  The shot pulls back to show him in his purple cape, standing, hands on hips like some villain. So cliché. A bedsheet hangs behind him, painted with that damned circled red X. Some kids whistle and clap. Others heckle. They don’t get it. They’re so relieved to see him, to realize it’s not a real fire. They just assume it’s another prank.

  “I have accomplished mission after mission,” Max continues, “and still you doubt—no, you slander the Brotherhood! For that, you have been punished. I have locked you down. I’ve smoked you out,” he says, raising a fist. “I am a god among insects. Do not doubt my powers.”

  Mr. Dean passes by me and slows to watch the video that seems to have mesmerized everyone.

  “Hurry!” I shout, snapped out of my trance by the sight of two bolt cutters in his hands. I grab his second pair and push past the students towards the doors. “We’re running out of time. Cut them, NOW!”

  Fortunately, the video has pulled most of the crowd away from the exit. Otherwise, I doubt I’d have been to able get close enough to cut the chains. I start on one of the thick chain links looped around the handles, but it’s harder than I thought. The blades bite into the dull metal and stick.

  “But first,” Max’s voice echoes from the atrium, “let me reveal my true identity.”

  The crowd goes wild. Fans or not, they want to know who he is. After months of guessing names, and debating clues, all those conspiracy theorists who accused the rugby team, some dropout, rival schools, or even Mr. Boyle, the disgruntled supply teacher, now they will finally get their answer. The crowd roars and I glance back to see Maxwell remove his helmet. The roar subsides into murmuring. Clearly, they are as unimpressed as we were when we first saw Maxwell’s face in the yearbook.

  “Who the hell is that?” someone yells.

  “That’s the guy?”

  “Wait…he’s not the rugby captain.”

  “It just another copycat!” someone calls out.

  People boo and the crowd turns. This isn’t who they want. He can’t possibly be the infamous Magneto, the mastermind behind all those crazy pranks. This guy? Not in a million years.

  “We are all mutants, really,” Maxwell’s recorded voice continues. I wonder where he really is. If he hasn’t already lit the fuse to the bomb, all this booing and jeering will totally push him over the edge.

  I squeeze the bolt cutters’ arms but I haven’t the strength to make it cut through the links.

  “Try the locks,” Mr. Dean suggests from the far end of the doors as he snaps one loose and unravels the chain. It falls to the ground with a clank. But there are still two more locks to go. Maxwell knew what he was doing. Probably knew how long it would take to cut through three locks on each of the three sets of doors. But maybe, just maybe he didn’t know there’d be two of us cutting.

  A quick glance at the bottom of the video tells me time is running out. The video has thirty seconds left, if that. And I wonder if that means that’s all we have, too.

  “Hurry, Mr. Dean—something really bad is going to happen at the end, I just know it. We have to get everyone out!”

  “Soon you humans who think you are superior will learn,” Maxwell’s voice says. “The hard way.”

  Then the screen goes black.

  HOGAN

  The video stops and something buzzes past our heads.

  Wilson curses. “Not that goddammed plane again.”

  Only it’s not a plane—this one’s a drone. Four arms, each with a propeller. The flying X hovers so we can all get a good look. I remember the drawing and see the barrel of the gun duct-taped underneath. A paintgun, I think, but I can’t be sure.

  “Get down!” I yell, as it swoops low over the crowd, but no one listens.

  A few hands grasp for it as it skims overhead. One guy even climbs up on his buddy’s shoulders to catch it, eager to be the guy that took it down.

  But it takes him down first.

  CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!

  Point blank. Three direct hits. The guy falls back into the crowd grasping at the red that splatters across his chest.

  People scream.

  “It’s a paintball gun!” I yell, now that I know for sure. But what they see and hear tells them different. Shooting. Red smears. Hysteria.

  The drone circles around for another pass and sweeps, rapid-firing as it rims the panicked crowd scrambling below. A dozen people on the outer edges cry out and fall, and the place erupts. Hundreds of them, sure they’re in a war zone, rush the exits, like a manic school of fish trying to escape the shark. Some make it to the staff room door, or the front door that Mr. Dean unlocked. But the mob clogs the exits, pressing Izzy and the old janitor up against the still-chained doors, and in the madness, no one seems to be getting out.

  About ten cops come running from the far hall at the sound of gunfire. They appear on the other side as Officer Scott joins with them, yelling instructions no one hears.

  I grab Wilson’s arm. “It’s only paint.” Not that it won’t sting or bruise. It might even take out an eye. But it won’t kill them. At least, the drone won’t. But knowing Maxwell, it’s just a distraction from what he’s got planned next.

  “Look for Maxwell!” I shout. “He’s here somewhere—he has to be. That drone is remote-controlled. If we find him, maybe we can stop him.”

  Wilson doesn’t ask how I know this or why. At this point, I’m all he’s got. He nods and runs to the cops.

  The crowd panics, crushing up against the picnic tables scattered throughout the atrium—nerd-feeders, I call them, because they attract a flock of geeks every spare and lunch. I hate the atrium. And not just because of the nerds, or those doves of the dead. It’s the windows. Three stories of them ringing the space—it always makes me feel like I’m in a fishbowl.

  Of course! The windows! What better way to watch his sick plan unfold?

  I scan the glass.

  Come on, Maxwell. I know you’re watching. Show yourself, you coward.

  But all the windows are dark. Their blinds still closed from lockdown.

  All but one.

  A flicker of movement catches my eye. Second floor, right above the mural. Right across from the projector.

  Gotcha!

  I meet Officer Scott’s eyes across the atrium and point up at the room as I bolt for the stairs.<
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  “It’s him! It’s Magneto!” people scream. Only they’re not pointing at the second-floor window.

  The crowd backs away from the empty stairwell in front of me, where a guy staggers forward, a dark shadow against the sunlight streaming in through the stairwell windows. Something on his head keeps me from seeing his face. Even his body is lost in the outline of his cloak.

  Four officers burst from the crowd behind me, guns drawn.

  “Stop! This is the police. Do not move!” Their voices echo in the sudden, terrified silence.

  But the guy, ignoring them, takes a step and stops. Starts and stops. He slowly raises one hand.

  My mind races. Maybe it is Maxwell. Maybe that second-floor shadow was Xander. Maybe the turncoat turned again.

  “On the floor!” a policeman shouts, the others edging closer. “On the floor, NOW!”

  But the guy doesn’t listen. It’s like the cops are not even there.

  Maybe this final showdown is all part of Maxwell’s plan. I watch his hand rise from the shadow of his cape. I know he’s gripping something, even before I see it clearly.

  A gun?

  The trigger?

  The bomb?

  “Drop it!” the cop yells. “This is your last warning. DROP YOUR WEAPON!”

  But the guy doesn’t. He lifts that hand until it catches the light.

  Everything freezes, like one of Xander’s photographs, and I see it all in stark black-and-white:

  the weapon—

  its foot-long shaft—

  a rectangle at one end.

  And I bolt. I run at him full tilt. Because it isn’t Maxwell or Xander. And that isn’t a weapon. Or a trigger. Or a gun. Just a broken piece of broom handle, labeled with the one word I hear Alice scream as I hit him. As a gun fires—

  “NOOOOOAH!”

  ALICE

  Hogan, running full tilt, collides with my brother just as the shot explodes, and both of them fall to the ground. Neither moves.

  My God, what if…? What if…?

  My mind goes numb. This is not a story I want to imagine. Not a reality I can even contemplate.