Mercy

by J L Aarne

  It ended after Wayne put a foot against his ass and shoved, knocking him down on the floor. Mr. McGuinn saw it and shouted at them all to get outside and leave that boy alone before he started issuing detentions. They all scattered like startled birds, but they fled trailing laughter behind them.

  Mr. McGuinn asked him if he was okay, but Paul couldn’t answer him. He crawled to his feet and hurried as quickly as he could to the bathroom to throw up the gummi bears.

  Ezra

  Ceasefire

  Paul stopped talking and wiped tears from his eyes with pinches of his fingers. There was a quiet sort of dignity to Paul Flockoi even though he was weeping as he relived his most humiliating moments aloud. Ezra had known a little bit about Paul before he raised his hand, but not much. Like most people there, even if they hadn’t taken part in bullying him, Ezra was aware of Paul; Fat Ass Pauly. He was huge, at least four hundred pounds, but he had always seemed like a nice enough guy. Ezra admitted that this was probably because Paul was shy and skittish and almost never spoke, which apparently wasn’t natural behavior for him; it had been learned over years of taking shit from everyone for everything.

  He was curious about something though.

  “Why John?” Ezra asked.

  “What do you mean?” Paul asked.

  “I mean, it was me, I’d want Wayne’s ass blown to pieces and he’d be top of my list,” Ezra said. “You only chose him after you couldn’t have John, so why?”

  “Oh,” Paul said. He looked uncomfortable for a minute, but they waited him out and finally he said, “Last year he set my locker on fire. Lit a book of matches and just threw them in there and they caught fire to my notebooks and stuff and they burned up my textbooks. No one believed me that they weren’t my matches. No one wanted to believe me, I guess. Ruined my history and science textbooks and I got suspended. My dad… Textbooks are expensive. My dad beat me one pretty good when he got the bill for the books and everyone was saying I did it, so he was gonna have to pay for new ones, not John. Didn’t really matter I didn’t do it.”

  Paul grimaced and lifted his head to look Ezra in the eyes, then shifted his gaze to each of them before looking at Cameron and Wayne. He regarded them both with contemptuous dislike.

  “It’s a funny prank,” he said. His voice changed a little then, became mimicking and slightly hysterical. “Ha ha, got Fat Ass Pauly a good one, didn’t we? Ha ha. A harmless prank, setting my locker on fire, setting off the fire alarm, getting everyone outside and out of class for an hour. Except it didn’t end there. It doesn’t end there. I go home and my dad, he’s got a phone call from the office and he wants to know, did I do this? I say no, I say it wasn’t me. It was some guys at school. It was John Rehbein thinking he was funny, playing a joke on the fat ass. Except my dad, he isn’t listening, not really, because he doesn’t even really care I didn’t do it, he cares it’s gonna cost him a lot of money.”

  Paul coughed out a humorless laugh. “I was actually pretty glad I got suspended for two weeks. I couldn’t really sit down for a couple days after that.” He shrugged. “The gummi bears thing was awful, but it didn’t go home with me, you know?”

  “Yeah,” Ezra said.

  Paul nodded and looked around at them again. His eyes landed on Corey sitting on the floor and he frowned. Corey was picking at the frayed threads on one of the cuffs of his jeans, but he was listening.

  “Even the teachers like them best,” Paul said softly. “Like Mrs. Millay. I thought she liked me. At least enough that she wouldn’t just keep walking, you know?”

  Mrs. Millay was sitting in the front of the bleachers nursing her wounded leg. She looked like she wanted to sink right through the floor and disappear.

  “They don’t even like them best because they’re good at anything or the best students or smart or anything,” Paul said, voice rising in his outrage. He shifted his eyes to Wayne and Cameron. “They like you best because everyone likes you best. That’s all. Everyone except a few weirdos like me, and probably even some of them still wish they could be you.”

  No one said a word and Paul seemed to be finished. He gave the microphone back to Mercy.

  “You want to do this?” Ezra asked him. He held up his handgun, offering it.

  Paul shook his head. “I don’t like guns. Can I… I just wanna sit down.”

  “Go sit with Lundy,” Mercy said. “We’ll take care of it.”

  Paul went and sat with Lundy. She turned her head to look at him and smiled. He looked surprised, but he smiled back.

  He was very brave, but Ezra didn’t know how to tell him so even if he had been inclined to. He doubted that Paul would have believed him anyway. It was more likely he would think Ezra was fucking with him. Boys like Paul though—and girls, too—were some of the bravest. They kept raising their hands, they walked the gauntlet every day in the lunchroom and they showed up to P.E. and they did it on time. They sat on the bus right beside the monsters that haunted them.

  Corey stopped picking at his clothes and got up. He walked over to Wayne and took the safety off his gun as he approached. Isaac stepped back without needing to be told and let Corey have him.

  “I’ll do it,” Ezra told Mercy.

  She nodded and he smiled at her. Mercy wasn’t remarkably beautiful, but Ezra guessed he loved her. He guessed he must love her. There was no other explanation for it.

  “And me,” Corey said. He stood right in front of Wayne and looked directly into his eyes as he spoke.

  Wayne was pale and shaking, his pimples standing out bright red on his sallow face.

  Corey smiled.

  “I didn’t do it,” Wayne said.

  Corey raised his eyebrows at him. “Didn’t do what?”

  “Take that picture of you,” Wayne said. “I didn’t make those fliers. I didn’t do it. It was Jesse.”

  “I know,” Corey said.

  “If anyone has anything to say in defense of these boys’ actions, now would be the time to speak up,” Mercy said.

  She looked around at them all and waited, but no one stood or raised their hand, not even Jesse.

  They were learning. It was a small variation of a rule of social interaction that they were all familiar with anyway. They would not speak out now for the same reason most people did not speak out against bullies and what they did: survival. Civilization had evolved from man’s discovery that working in groups increased the individual’s chance of survival and the same was true in high school. Make the right friends and you were safe, even looked up to and respected, but make the wrong friends and you might not make it out alive. Right now, Cameron Williston and Wayne Olmstead were the wrong friends to have.

  Cameron started to wail when no one spoke up for him. He looked around frantically for someone, anyone to stand up for him, but no one would. His friends either closed their eyes or turned away, distancing themselves from him. He bent over like someone had kicked him in the stomach and gasped for breath, not even trying to contain his hysteria.

  “Please, someone,” Cameron begged. “Please. You guys, I’m gonna die. Oh God. Come on. You can’t just let me die! You can’t just let them fucking murder me! Say something!”

  Ezra was watching him and watching Cameron’s friends turn their ashamed, frightened faces away, when there was a heavy thump on his left. Wayne had fainted.

  Isaac laughed. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  Corey prodded Wayne with the toe of his boot. “Now what?” he asked.

  “Wake him up and shoot him,” Isaac suggested.

  “Isaac,” Ezra said.

  Corey looked like he was thinking about taking Isaac’s advice. “Mercy, what—?”

  Mercy crouched down beside Wayne’s head and stared at him for a moment. Then she smacked him twice across the face, quick and hard enough that the sound of the blows cracked loudly through the gym.

  Wayne groaned and his eyes fluttered open. When he saw Mercy looking down at him, he let out a faint little s
hriek.

  Mercy stood, pulled her gun and before Wayne could get to his feet, she shot him in the face. Corey jumped back at the blast of the gun and put his hands over his ears, wincing.

  “You can get the next one,” Mercy said calmly.

  “Oh Jesus,” Cameron whispered.

  He stared at Wayne’s body and went slowly to his knees. So slowly that Ezra wondered if he was about to faint as well.

  About half of those on the bleachers were staring in open-mouthed horror and fascination, the other half were hiding their eyes and crying. A girl a couple of rows from the front leaned forward very casually and vomited between her feet. Still no one spoke up in Cameron’s defense.

  They could screw around waiting for someone to protest, but they were wasting time. Ezra pointed his handgun at Cameron’s head.

  “Oh God, oh God, please no,” Cameron babbled. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, please.”

  Ezra pulled the trigger. The bullet went into Cameron’s temple and exploded out the left side of his head. He fell to that side and his face made a thick, sodden sound as it hit the floor. He died instantly.

  The phone in the coach’s office began to ring again. They ignored it.

  “You kids ain’t gonna get off so easy, you know,” Coach Kapinski said.

  He was sitting on the floor with his back to the first riser, his legs out in front of him. Mr. Seaver’s handkerchief was tied around the hole Corey had put in the left one and there was a small puddle of blood on the floor around it. He glared after Ezra and Isaac as they dragged Cameron’s and Wayne’s bodies to one side. Both of them ignored him.

  “What you’re doing here is gonna get you lethal injection for sure,” Coach Kapinski declared. “They’ll strap you down and put you to sleep like a dog. You know, they say that’s painless, but I always did wonder. What do you boys think?”

  Henry Hutton sat four steps above Coach Kapinski and he stood up to walk down to them. Isaac and Ezra both watched him expectantly as he approached. He wasn’t coming at them; his movements were calm and measured, not aggressive. As Henry passed him, the coach turned his glare upon him and the look on his face became one of mocking disdain.

  “You going to make nice with your murdering faggot friends, Hutton?” he said.

  “Shut the fuck up, dipshit,” Henry said. “You want me to give them your name?”

  Coach Kapinski tried to keep on looking tough, but he paled and dropped his gaze to the floor. “Didn’t mean nothing by it,” he muttered. “Shit, Hutton, can’t you take a joke no more?”

  Mercy asked the inevitable question again: Who’s next? A big girl named Emma Taylor stood up and walked down to take the mic from Mercy. Corey ushered Kristy Lamont down to the floor and pushed her into the chair. She sat there crying and hysterical, trying to curl into a ball in the chair and disappear as Emma began to talk.

  Henry stared at the bodies of Cameron, Wayne and Billy piled up at Isaac and Ezra’s feet as he drew near them. He seemed sickened by the sight, but he crossed the floor to where they were anyway. A hundred eyes turned their way to watch, but he didn’t pay any attention. It was possible that he didn’t even notice.

  “What do you want?” Ezra asked.

  “I’m out of smokes,” Henry said simply. “Figured I could bum one.”

  Isaac cocked his head in that curious way he had when something had revealed itself to be more interesting than previously thought. “Aren’t you afraid?” he asked.

  “Me?” Henry said. He shrugged. “Sure. I mean, it’s a fucked up and scary situation, right? But I’m a pretty nice guy. I don’t think you’re going to shoot me.”

  Ezra studied Henry with narrowed eyes. He didn’t become uncomfortable and fidgety as he stared him down and Ezra finally glanced away and took out his cigarettes to offer him the pack.

  “You’re probably right,” he said. “Take a couple. We’re still gonna be here awhile.”

  Emma Taylor was Isaac’s age. She had been horribly harassed for years and called a devil worshipper. The devil worshipper thing seemed to have started because Emma wore a lot of black clothing and was a bit misanthropic. Kristy Lamont hadn’t started it, but she had been responsible for an incident in the lunch room not that long ago that had ended with Emma being ganged up on by all of Kristy’s many friends, who had then thrown food at her.

  Henry took three cigarettes. “Thanks.”

  “Why did you say that?” Isaac asked.

  Henry frowned at him and lit one of the cigarettes. “Say what? ‘Thanks’? It’s polite and my mama taught me manners.”

  “No,” Isaac said. “To Coach Kapinski. About giving us his name. Why would you give us his name?”

  Henry looked thoughtful, then shrugged. “I’d rather not say.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m not the secret sharing type.”

  Ezra glanced over Henry’s shoulder at the coach, then back at Henry. Henry Hutton had been one of the most popular boys in school the first year Ezra and Isaac were in town. He had been on the basketball team, run track, helped coach little league in the summer and he really was a nice guy. People gravitated toward him. Girls giggled and blushed and flirted with him, boys sought his approval and friendship. The previous year, without any warning at all, Henry had quit basketball and track, dumped his beautiful, popular girlfriend and become a bit of a loner. He smoked a lot of pot and when he was seen in the company of friends, they weren’t his old friends; they were the kids with all the piercings, with the tattoos, who wore eyeliner and took a lot of shit about being goth or slackers.

  Emma Taylor was a friend of Henry’s these days.

  “Why’d you quit basketball, Henry?” Ezra asked.

  Henry raised his eyebrows at him and smiled. That smile didn’t reach his eyes, Ezra noted. “Nah. I don’t want to be part of this homicidal puppet show,” he said. “No offense.”

  Ezra shrugged one shoulder. “None taken. You should go sit down though.”

  “Sure, man,” Henry said. “Thanks again for the smokes.”

  He turned and walked back to the bleachers. Ezra and Isaac watched him go, then exchanged a thoughtful look. Something had happened to Henry Hutton last year. Not something little either, something big. Something huge. People didn’t really change, not like that, not that abruptly or completely without a very good reason. The switch from high school athlete to slacking stoner weirdo was not like flipping a light switch. People did not make such changes and tear down their whole world lightly.

  “What do you think Coach Kapinski did to him?” Isaac asked.

  Ezra smiled. “You caught that, huh?”

  “Pretty damn obvious,” Isaac said.

  “No idea,” Ezra said. “Could have been anything.”

  “I’m sorry!” Kristy wailed, drawing their attention. Her tears had melted her makeup down her face until it looked smeared with soot. “I’m not the only one though. I’m not! Everyone says it!”

  “That doesn’t mean it’s true!” Emma shouted. “My mom’s been down here a bunch of times trying to get something done about it, but no one does anything. Not even when you threw food at me. I had to go home! They’re right, too, you know. If this wasn’t school, you’d get in trouble for it. It’d be like assault or something. Wouldn’t it?”

  “Yes, it would,” Mercy said.

  “But it’s not my fault! Everyone says it!” Kristy said. She had her hands open in her lap like a supplicant, her face a miserable mess, her eyes wide and desperate and doomed. “You can’t kill me! Over this? This is so stupid! I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry we threw food at you. I’m sorry about the whole devil worshipper thing. I mean, it’s just… you’re so different. You don’t… It’s weird. And people think things. Maybe they’re not true, but it’s not my fault!”

  “I don’t care!” Emma screamed at her. “I never did anything to you. I can’t fucking stand you, but I never did anything to you. My mom had to come get me. She had to see what you all ha
d done to me. Then I had to go home and wash mashed potatoes out of my hair. Then I had to come back to this shithole the next day so you could all laugh at me about it, so fuck you!”

  “I’ve been thinking. I’m gonna go check the doors in the locker rooms,” Isaac told Ezra.

  “We’d have heard something if they were trying to get in back there, don’t you think?” Ezra asked.

  “I think it’s dumb to assume they’re all just sitting out there with their thumbs up their asses,” Isaac said.

  He was right. The authorities were calling on the coach’s phone trying to make contact and negotiate, but while they were doing that (and being ignored) they would also be trying to figure out ways to get into the gym, and the doors in the back of the locker rooms that led out onto the track and field were the most vulnerable point of entry. Those doors were locked like the rest, but they were out of sight and they might not hear anything if the cops were trying to break through them.

  “Hold on,” Ezra said. “Let me tell Mercy and I’ll come with you.”

  “There’s another lock in Corey’s bag,” Isaac said. “I’ll get it in case.”

  In case they were already starting to cut through one of them. Shit.

  Mercy was passing her handgun over to Emma Taylor as Ezra walked over to her. She left Corey to keep an eye on things and stepped aside with Ezra.

  “What’s going on?” she asked. “What’s Isaac doing?”

  “Listen, we’re going to check the back doors in the locker rooms,” Ezra said. “Isaac said something and I don’t know, but I’ve got a bad feeling about it. He might be right. Those doors. We need to make sure they’re secure.”

  Mercy’s eyes widened as she realized what he was saying and came to the same conclusion he had after Isaac brought it up. “Oh. Shit. Yes, go check.”

  Ezra started to turn away, but she pulled him back and kissed him. He laughed a little, but kissed her back, ending it quickly.