Acoustic Shadows. Patrick Kendrick

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СКАЧАТЬ The giant clock above the teacher’s desk clicked as it turned to ‘8:23’.

      Footsteps coming down the hall; now closer.

      More screams. More gunshots.

      Finally, Erica found the courage to move. She ran to the door and locked it.

      ‘Quick, class. Everyone to the back of the room. Now!’ she ordered.

      The children scurried to the back like bait fish fleeing a predator. Erica heard a thud and glanced at the window in the door to the hall. Suddenly, Lynn LaForge appeared in the frame, her face a mask of horror. She peered in the window for an instant, her eyes wide and wet with terror. Her hand rattled the door urgently. She opened her mouth when a bullet ripped through her face, blood spattering the window, and she was gone. That fast. Alive one second, gone the next.

      ‘Inside the closet,’ Erica ordered, trying to calm her voice.

      The kids began pushing and shoving to get inside the small space. It would not hold them all. Erica packed in as many as she could and closed the door, her mind racing, her breath ragged. She sprinted to the front of the class again, grabbed her purse, then hurried back. She began frantically piling desks into a barricade.

      The doorknob rattled, then violently shook. A masked face appeared in the bloodied window. The gunman banged his rifle butt against the door handle, once, twice. Erica turned to the kids who couldn’t fit into the closet; they were huddled behind the overturned desks, whimpering, fear transforming their faces. She put a finger to her mouth to shush them. She clutched her purse and tried to squeeze in with them behind the makeshift barricade, but couldn’t quite conceal herself.

      An abrupt burst of gunfire sent parts of the door flying, glass spraying. The smell of sulphur crept into the room as the barrel of a rifle came into view where the door had been, slowly revealing a black, gloved hand on its grip. Then, the man was in the room. A ski mask covered his face but his eyes were wide and wild through the openings. The weapon he wielded was an Armalite AR-15, semi-automatic. With a thirty-round clip, it weighed only 8.8 lb. It was light, manoeuvrable. Deadly.

      Erica could see his eyes hone in on the pile of desks where she and the children were hiding, and realized her leg was sticking out.

      ‘C’mon outta there,’ he commanded. She reached for her purse, her heart now in her mouth. She stuck her head up.

      ‘Please,’ she said. ‘I…I sent the kids out to the playground…’

      ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP!’ he screamed, wincing, as if he were in pain. He stared at her and pulled his mask up, sweat running down his face, his breathing hard, laboured. He was in his forties maybe, with a blunted, street-worn face: twisted nose, cauliflower ears, scarred brows. He squinted at Erica. ‘What’s your name?’ he hissed, sweat dripping off his nose.

      She stared back at him over the top of the overturned desks ‘Wh…what?’ she asked.

      A whimper issued from the closet, followed by some rustling. The door began to creep open. The gunman swung the rifle in the direction of the noises, aimed high, and pulled the trigger. Flames spat out the barrel as bullets sprayed across the room, splintering wood from the closet door and bursting the windows, sending glass flying through the air like thrown diamonds. The noise was deafening. Now hysterical, the kids screamed.

      Erica stood up. ‘It’s Mil…Millie,’ she said, realizing now with a paralyzing fear, he isn’t here for the students. ‘Please,’ she added, ‘don’t shoot the children.’

      The gunman nodded his grisly head as he removed the empty clip, plucked a new one off his belt, and shoved it into the rifle.

      Rachel stepped out of the closet, her face pale, blood pouring down her arm, her mouth hanging slack.

      Erica ran to the bleeding girl. A bullet had nicked her upper arm. Only a flesh wound, but she was in shock: her colour blanched; her skin cold and sweaty. Erica’s emotions morphed from paralyzing fear to unequivocal rage.

      The gunman grinned after reloading the bullet clip and looked up at Erica, whose back was to him.

      ‘Turn around,’ he said, pulling the bolt back on the rifle, chambering a round.

      ‘She’s bleeding,’ she said, her voice trembling with rage. ‘Let me help her. I just want to stop the bleeding. I…have a scarf in my purse.’

      The gunman coughed and spat on the floor.

      Erica retrieved her purse and came back to Rachel. She pulled out her scarf, tied it around the wound, and brought her over to the pile of desks.

      ‘Stay down,’ she whispered to the little girl. Their eyes locked and Rachel robotically obeyed the command.

      Erica reached into her purse again, her hands shaking. This time she came up with a small, almost toyish-looking Bersa Thunder .380 automatic pistol, with matt nickel finish. She had taken a deep breath and now let it ease out, exhaling slowly, her hands locked together, steadying them as she stood and swivelled back to the gunman – who stood transfixed – and squeezed the trigger.

      There was a bang, amplified in the small room, and a red vapour puffed out the back of the gunman’s head. A small, dark hole appeared in his forehead, then blood began to flow from the hole and poured over his still open eyes. He blinked once and fell to the ground as if he was a marionette and someone had cut the strings.

      Erica sat down with the children, her legs shaking, trying to swallow, but her throat was too dry. She settled for a deep breath and closed her eyes, her ears ringing from the gun blasts.

      The children behind the desks stared at her with their mouths open. One by one, the other kids began to slip from the closet. No one said anything. Some began to sniffle, some cried, some were ominously silent. Several of them came over and hugged her.

      She took another deep breath, trying to calm herself.

      ‘Everyone, please…sit down,’ she pleaded.

      She stood, extricating herself from the swarm of children. Holding her gun pointed at the fallen man, she approached cautiously. She noticed he was still breathing, just as she heard more gunshots coming from down the hall. Then more screams. She looked back at the children.

      ‘Get in the closet,’ she whispered, harshly. ‘There’s another one out there.’

      They pushed inside, silently but quickly. Erica looked over at the kids behind the desk pile. ‘Close your eyes,’ she told them, calmly. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

      She stood for a moment, her mind racing, but she could not arrive at a different conclusion. She aimed her gun at the gunman and put another bullet into his head. The shot took off a section of his skull and stopped the breathing.

      One of the boys jumped up from behind the desk pile, trembling, his mouth an ‘O’.

      She recognized the boy from another class and felt the need to try to reassure him.

      ‘I’ll be back, Ricky. Please stay down until then.’

      The boy slumped as if deflated, his white, spiked hair giving him the appearance of having seen the devil himself.

      Erica pushed СКАЧАТЬ