LITMIR.BIZ

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      Charlie jerked at the sound.

      “Code Black!” A cop was running up the hallway. He had his radio in one hand, a shotgun in the other. Panic cracked his voice. “Get to the school! Get to the school!”

      For a brief second, the man made eye contact with Charlie. There was a spark of recognition, and then he saw the body of the dead child. Horror, then grief collapsed his features. The toe of his shoe caught a streak of blood. His feet slipped out from underneath him. He fell hard to the ground. His breath oofed out of his open mouth. The shotgun flew from his hand and skittered across the floor.

      Charlie looked down at her own hand, the one that had held the child’s. She rubbed together her fingers. The blood was sticky, not like Gamma’s, which had felt slick like oil.

       Bright white bone. Pieces of heart and lung. Cords of tendon and arteries and veins and life spilling out of her gaping wounds.

      She remembered going back to the farmhouse after it was all over. Rusty had hired someone to clean, but they hadn’t done a thorough job. Months later, Charlie was looking for a bowl at the back of one of the cabinets and she’d found a piece of Gamma’s tooth.

      “Don’t!” Huck yelled.

      Charlie looked up, shocked by what she saw. What she had missed. What at first she couldn’t comprehend even though it was taking place less than fifty feet in front of her.

      A teenage girl was sitting on the floor, her back to the lockers. Charlie’s brain flashed up an image from before, the girl sneaking into the edge of her tunnel vision as Charlie ran up the hallway toward the carnage. Charlie had instantly recognized the girl’s type: black clothes, black eyeliner. A Goth. No blood. Round face showing shock, not pain. She’s okay, Charlie had thought, running past her to reach Mrs. Pinkman, to reach the child. But the Goth girl wasn’t okay.

      She was the shooter.

      She had a revolver in her hand. Instead of picking off more victims, she was pointing the gun at her own chest.

      “Put it down!” The cop was standing a few yards away, his shotgun jammed into his shoulder. Terror informed his every movement, from the way he was bouncing on the balls of his feet to the death grip he had on the weapon. “I said put it the fuck down!”

      “She will.” Huck knelt with his back to the girl, shielding her. His hands were up. His voice was steady. “It’s okay, Officer. Let’s stay calm here.”

      “Get out of my way!” The cop wasn’t calm. He was amped up, ready to pull the trigger the moment he got a clean shot. “Get the fuck out of my way!”

      “Her name is Kelly,” Huck said. “Kelly Wilson.”

      “Fucking move, asshole!”

      Charlie didn’t watch the men. She watched the weapons.

      Revolver and shotgun.

      Shotgun and revolver.

      She felt a wave pass through her body, the same kind of anesthesia that had numbed her so many times before.

      “Move!” the cop screamed. He jerked the shotgun one way, then the other, trying to angle around Huck. “Get the fuck out of my way!”

      “No.” Huck stayed on his knees, his back to Kelly. His hands stayed in the air. “Don’t do this, man. She’s only sixteen years old. You don’t want to kill a—”

      “Move out of my way!” The cop’s fear was like an electric current crackling the air. “Get on the floor!”

      “Stop it, man.” Huck moved with the shotgun, blocking him at every point. “She’s not trying to shoot anybody but herself.”

      The girl’s mouth opened. Charlie couldn’t hear the words, but the cop obviously did.

      “Did you hear that fucking bitch!” the cop screamed. “Let her do it or get the fuck out of my way!”

      “Please,” Mrs. Pinkman whispered. Charlie had almost forgotten about the woman. The principal’s wife had her head in her hands, her eyes covered so she didn’t have to see. “Please stop.”

      “Kelly.” Huck’s voice was calm. He reached his hand over his shoulder, palm up. “Kelly, give me the gun, sweetheart. You don’t have to do this.” He waited a few seconds, then said, “Kelly. Look at me.”

      Slowly, the girl looked up. Her mouth was slack. Her eyes were glassy.

      “Front hallway! Front hallway!” Another cop rushed past Charlie. He went down on one knee, sliding across the floor, two-handing his Glock and screaming, “Put it down!”

      “Please, God,” Mrs. Pinkman sobbed into her hands. “Forgive this sin.”

      “Kelly,” Huck said. “Hand me the gun. Nobody else has to get hurt.”

      “Down!” the second cop boomed. Hysteria pitched his voice up too high. Charlie could see his finger tense on the trigger. “Get down on the ground!”

      “Kelly.” Huck made his voice firm, like an angry parent. “I’m not asking anymore. Give me the gun right now.” He shook his open hand in the air for emphasis. “I mean it.”

      Kelly Wilson began to nod. Charlie watched the teenager’s eyes gradually come back into focus as Huck’s words started to penetrate. Someone was telling her what to do, showing her a way out of this. Her shoulders relaxed. Her mouth closed. She blinked several times. Charlie intrinsically understood what the girl was going through. Time had stopped, and then someone, somehow, had found a key to wind it back up again.

      Slowly, Kelly moved to put the revolver in Huck’s hand.

      The cop pulled the trigger anyway.

       2

      Charlie watched Huck’s left shoulder jerk as the bullet ripped through his arm. His nostrils flared. His lips parted for breath. Blood wicked into the fibers of his shirt like a red iris. Still, he held onto the revolver that Kelly had placed in his hand.

      Someone whispered, “Jesus Christ.”

      “I’m all right,” Huck told the cop who had shot him. “You can holster your weapon, okay?”

      The cop’s hands shook so hard that he could barely hold onto his gun.

      Huck said, “Officer Rodgers, holster your weapon and take this revolver.”

      Charlie felt rather than saw a swarm of police officers run past her. The air billowed around them like the cartoon swirls that came out of clouds, nothing more than thin, curved lines that indicated movement.

      Then a paramedic was holding tightly to Charlie’s arm. Then someone was shining a flashlight into her eyes, asking if she was hurt, if she was in shock, if she wanted to go to the hospital.

      “No,” Mrs. Pinkman said. Another paramedic was checking her for injuries. Her red shirt was soaked with blood. “Please. I’m fine.”

      No one was checking on Mr. Pinkman.

      No one was checking on the little girl.

      Charlie looked down at her hands. The bones inside the tips of her fingers were vibrating. The sensation slowly spread until she felt like she was standing an inch outside of her body, that every breath was a reverberation of another breath that she had previously taken.

      Mrs. Pinkman cupped her hand to Charlie’s cheek. She used her thumb to wipe away tears. Pain was etched into the deep wrinkles lining the woman’s face. With anyone else, Charlie would’ve pulled away, but she leaned into Mrs. Pinkman’s warmth.

      They had been here before.

      Twenty-eight years ago, Mrs. Pinkman

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