Dennis put out his hand to calm the students but it didn’t do anything to stop their crying. “I’m not. Christopher please...” he said.
He put the phone back in his pocket and with his body held up by sheer willpower, he looked up, absolutely livid. “Why are you doing this?”
“I can’t tell you,” Dennis said. “Please, just—”
“Just what?” Christopher shouted back. “What do you want me to do? You want your gun back? You want to do what? You’ve got me. You want the kids? Hell, no. You can’t hurt them, okay?”
He shook his head. “No. I don’t want to hurt them. Just stop fighting.”
Christopher let one hand go free and grabbed the gun from under his foot. He barely got back up. One of the kids gestured to help but he waved them away. “I won’t.”
The gun was pointed right at him. Dennis put his hands up and tried to back away, but it didn’t seem to matter where he went in the room. “Buddy, just put the gun down, okay?”
Christopher took a step back and stumbled, barely catching himself. Even as he leaned heavily against one chair, the gun was still pointed towards Dennis, albeit closer to the floor than his head.
All he had to do was play out the clock. Dennis stayed still, his hands still up in the air.
“Why... why di’ya do this?” Christopher mumbled.
Dennis shook his head. “My son. I had to...”
Christopher pushed against the back of the chair and stood straight up. With what seemed like his last shred of energy, he held the gun aimed right at Dennis’ head. It was a perfect shot if he could take it.
“You,” he said with labored breath, “were my hero.” A tear fell down his cheek as he struggled to keep the gun straight. Dennis couldn’t let it show how much those words hurt.
This wasn’t over yet. Any sudden moves could startle him. All he could count on was Christopher’s lack of nerve. “I’m so sorry. I really am,” Dennis pleaded.
Christopher hadn’t put down the gun, but he also hadn’t pulled the trigger.
“I can’t… I...”
As he began to fall, Christopher’s finger slipped. A shot rang through the room. Dennis braced for the pain that didn’t come. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw the hole that been created in the whiteboard behind him.
He’d run out the clock.
It was no reason to celebrate. There were two kids surrounding a fallen man who lay stuck between two desks. A little girl kneeled at his side and patted Christopher’s head, like she was tending to a fussy baby. The motion was robotic. She was in such shock that she did what came naturally, not aware of the blood that had seeped onto her dress.
As Dennis walked towards the teacher, the boy who had been trying to stop the bleeding with a handful of tissues from his desk skittered away. The little girl didn’t move a muscle. Her little hand drifted over Christopher’s forehead as his eyes struggled to focus on something, anything, in the room.
The gun sat by his side. Dennis kicked it away as he kneeled at Christopher’s side.
He was barely awake. His eyes fluttered as the little girl brushed her fingers against his forehead.
“I’m so sorry,” Dennis said. “I am.”
Christopher looked up with a gentle smile. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not. It’s not okay.”
“I don’t know why,” he said, “but there was a reason. There had to be a reason.”
Dennis grabbed Christopher’s hand. “It’s not an excuse.”
He heard the footsteps creep up behind him and the hulking driver bending over. “Finish this. No more of this... got it?” Eduardo grabbed the gun that Dennis had kicked away and handed it back to him.
Christopher didn’t have much time left, minutes at most. “Can’t we just let him...” Dennis asked.
Eduardo shook his head. “Get it done.”
The gun had specks of blood on its handle. He couldn’t use it. To shoot Christopher now was overkill. There had to be a more humane way to do this. All he had on him was his own two hands.
He moved the little girl aside and settled at the front of his head. With one finger over Christopher’s nose and the other covering his mouth, he clamped down so no air could get through.
The man had hardly any fight to give. There was the slight rise and fall of his chest and a kick of his foot but that was barely noticeable to the kids who thought he was there to save their teacher’s life. They looked on in breathless anticipation.
Dennis felt the body rise and fall under his control. What began as small desperate gasps for breath slowed to nothing. A few seconds later, Christopher’s body fell limp.
“Make sure,” Eduardo said. “Make sure you finished.”
The blonde girl stood over them with her arms crossed. “Is he okay?”
Dennis felt Christopher’s neck for a pulse. Nothing. There was nothing there. He felt his chest and his lips to make sure he wasn’t breathing. Again there was nothing.
He was gone.
Dennis got up without looking at any of the children. He couldn’t face them anymore. All he wanted to do was get out of that classroom and be back in that basement where he couldn’t hurt anyone else.
As Eduardo ushered him to the door, he heard one of the little girls desperately shaking her teacher. “Mr. Kimball? Mr. Kimball?” she kept shouting as her words grew more terrified with each syllable.
“Keep moving,” Eduardo said. “Don’t look back.”
As they shut the door behind them, they saw a pair of men in suits walking down the hall in a hurry. “Shit,” Eduardo said. “They’re here for this. Follow me.”
They went around the corner and into the nearest open door, which happened to lead to the boy’s bathroom. As Eduardo shut the door behind them, they were greeted by an eleven year old holding a large wad of paper towels.
He stood, frozen, at the sight of two grown-ups, one covered in blood, at the door of the bathroom.
“Get out,” Eduardo said. “Now.”
The kid’s eyes widened as he got a better look at Dennis’ clothes. “Why are—”
Eduardo pointed to the door. “Now,” he growled.
The boy dropped the paper towels on the floor and slid out from between them and ran out of the room.
“Don’t you think he’ll tell somebody?” Dennis said.
Eduardo pointed to the window. “We don’t have time to worry about that. We need to get out of here before the police show up.”
“What if we don’t?”
Eduardo was already halfway to the window. “Shut the hell up and help me open this thing, will ya’?”
Simon grabbed the last piece of bread that the others had left for him. Ever since Lila had been taken, he felt a shift in the room. No one cared anymore. She used to bring him food when he didn’t have the strength, or will, to get to the plate and grab it himself.
The others had long since given up on him. Over the years he was used to people being afraid of him. Anything could set him off. He was like a powder keg that never stopped being lit. His mother stopped disciplining him after they found him. His dad couldn’t stand the coddling and tip-toeing around the house on Simon’s behalf. It wasn’t in his nature. After a minor fight that caused Simon to freak out and run into the middle of a busy street, his dad was gone. It had just been his mom and him ever since.
Here, they didn’t care. Even if they knew his whole backstory, they still wouldn't care. This wasn’t the real world. In the real world a sob story opened doors. If you were the guy who got kidnapped ten years ago, then people went out of their way to help you. In here he was just a nuisance.
Without his pills he had to focus on whatever was in the room to keep his mind from flitting back to what he had done. Everything reminded him of Brianna and Brianna reminded him of what Edwin had done to him first. The gun he held to Brianna’s head was the same that got pressed against his cheek that first night. Her cries were the same that he’d shed as his arm broke a
fter Edwin hit him with a baseball bat.
What he had done to that girl still didn’t seem real. Just thinking about her body and where she was now, was like touching a fresh wound. Even the slightest tap sent waves of pain through his system. Ignoring it was the only thing keeping him sane.
Milo hated him. He didn’t know why, but Milo hated him. In a room of people who had stopped caring, he thought that Milo could have been his one ally but that ship had sailed long ago.
At least that’s what he thought, until he saw Milo deftly move from his spot against the wall to Simon’s corner cave. Simon covered his face to protect himself from another angry onslaught. Marie’s attack on him still hurt. Her fingernails had dug into his face and scratched near his eye. Every tear he shed hit the wounds and burned.
“Hey,” Milo said. “You awake?”
Simon turned his head just enough to see Milo, but not enough to give away his state of consciousness.
“Simon? Are you awake? I want to talk to you.”
Reluctantly he turned around. “What?” he said. It was the first word that he’d said since they’d brought him back in and it came out gruff and angry.
“I’m not mad. I mean, I’m not mad at you. Sorry for being like that to you,” he said as his words bounced from wall to wall.
“What is it? What do you want?”
Milo’s smile faded and he got in close. “It’s Benjamin. What do you know about that guy?”
“Not a lot,” Simon said. “A little.”
“You do?” Milo said. “How?”
Of all people, he wanted Milo to know about his past the least. Marie was a therapist and was used to traumatic sob stories. Milo would either use it against him like the kids from high school or be so put off that they’d never speak again. He’d had enough experience with people shutting down around him to not let his private life define him.
“I knew him before all of this,” Simon said.
Benjamin was asleep, as was Marie, which was probably why he and Milo had suddenly become fast friends.
“How?” Milo said. “He’s like forty. What, were you guys, like, dating or something?”
Simon turned back around. “Forget it.”
Milo laughed. “I’m sorry. God, can’t you take a joke. You’re such a—”
Simon shook his head. “Such a what? What do you want to know?”
Milo settled back against the wall and rubbed his face in his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. His voice cracked as he spoke. “I don’t know why I keep doing this. I just—I’m sorry, okay?”
“Fine,” Simon said as he turned back around. “I’ll talk to you. Just calm down.”
Milo rubbed away a tear from his cheek and nodded like a child just sent to time out. “Yeah, okay. I will.”
Simon pulled up the sleeves of his dress shirt. Every time he looked at it, he was reminded of where he had been. The blood, her blood, was still caked on the cuffs. He kept it rolled up so he wouldn’t have to see the blood but it kept creeping down.
“He was at a law firm that I used to go to. He was the head of the department, I think. I’m not sure about that but I know he was really important. He refused to represent me so they handed off the case to some other guy.”
“Why didn’t he want to do it?”
Simon shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean it was a big case, a really big case. He took me and my mom in this big conference room and had this whole speech about how we didn’t have a case and that we were being greedy and asking for too much money. He basically told my mom she was a bad parent for putting me through all of this and made her cry.”
“Wow. That guy? But he seems so... not nice... but not that.”
“I guess. I never really saw him after that. He worked near the guy that represented me so he walked through the hallways and looked in, but I never talked to him again, not like I wanted to, anyway.”
Milo leaned in. “What was your case?”
Simon grabbed the cuffs and pulled them up even higher. It had been years since someone didn’t know what happened to him. The last time he’d had to really lay it out had been with his first, and only, girlfriend. She was from England and didn’t get the whole “Good Morning America” onslaught when it had happened in real time.
“It doesn’t matter,” Simon said.
Milo pointed at Benjamin. “It does. He knows all about it and, if I’m right, I should know just as much. Who knows what kind of mind games he could play on you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“No,” he said. “You first. I have to trust you.”
“Bullshit,” Simon said.
“What?” Milo said. “How bad could it be? You didn’t get murdered or anything. God, just tell me.”
“No,” Simon said. Whatever immature games Milo was playing, he didn’t want any part of it.
“God dammit, Simon. I just want to talk to you. Stop being such a jackass all the time.”
They weren’t friends. They had nothing in common. Milo was just another jerk who wanted to revel in the sordid details of his own past.
Milo sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“Fine,” Simon said, “what do you want to know?
“You don’t have to tell me every little thing. I really don’t give half a shit about what happened to you,” Milo said.
“Thanks.”
Milo rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
He did. In fact, even with all his protesting, the lack of caring was oddly comforting. “I was kidnapped. When I was fifteen my neighbor abducted me for three weeks.”
“Shit,” Milo said. “Did he hurt you?”
Simon nodded. “Yeah. Pretty bad.”
Milo sat back, his mouth still agape. “I’m sorry, man.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the big secret.”
It took him a beat, but a veil of shock washed over Milo’s face. “Hold on. So all of that happened to you and he still blamed your mom?”
“Yup,” Simon said. “He said that I was ‘unsupervised’ and that the blame fell partially on her shoulders.”
“Jesus. What an asshole.”
Simon couldn’t help but smile. “Pretty much. So, what’s your big news?”
Milo scooted in. “Well,” he said, “I’m pretty sure Benjamin’s a plant. Like a spy or something.”
All this for some conspiracy theory. He fought every urge to go back to his solitary nightmares. “Why? Why would you think that?”
“Check out his clothes. He’s been wearing the same suit since they brought him in. I mean these are the clothes they gave me like a week ago and they’re covered in dirt and shit. His fancy ass suit barely has a wrinkle in it. And do you ever see him eat? I don’t. He seems too together to not be a plant. I think they’re paying him or something to watch us.”
He had noticed Benjamin never did much but observe. He just stood and listened. But the rest of the pieces didn’t fit in place. “Why would they need a spy?”
“Make sure we don’t rise up or try something funny. They take him out to do his ‘job’ and get all the dirt. Why is he still in here? He’s been in here almost as long as I and they don’t even look his way. If I’m not right, then why?”
As he looked at Benjamin, in his suit jacket and still coiffed hair, he couldn’t help but have questions. If Milo as right, then what were they up against?
Eduardo got them through the back exit of the school where the football field met the parking lot. It was as far away from the car as the building got. Already, in the distance, they could hear the sirens. In a few moments the administration would have the school in lockdown.
“Run,” Eduardo said. “Run like hell.”
Eduardo began to sprint towards the parking lot. Dennis’ body was running on fumes. He started to run but quickly lost the ability to go any faster than a limping walk. The driver was two hundred feet in front of him before he finally turned around.
“Hurry up!”
He t
ried to take a deep breath but all he got was a wheezing whistle. “I can’t.”
It wasn’t until he stopped running that he felt the stinging in his side. It was like someone had stuck a hot poker into his rib cage. He felt where it hurt and his hand came back covered with blood.
“Shit,” he muttered.
Eduardo had run back. As he got back, Dennis held out his bloody hand like a confused toddler. “Look,” he said.
“When did that happen?” Eduardo said as he pulled back at the jacket.
“I don’t know,” Dennis said. Each word he said made it hurt more.
The sirens wailed in the distance. They were getting closer. Eduardo looked all around for a better plan, but all he had was grabbing Dennis’ arm and wrapping it around his neck. “I’ve got you. Just try to help out, ’K?”
Eduardo had a tight grip on his arm and dragged him through the parking lot. The school passed by in a blur as they weaved through SUV’s and mini Coopers. He hid both of them behind a tree as a group of squealing preschoolers wandered by. The police sirens seemed right next to them as Eduardo pinned him against the side of a car door as he grabbed the keys.
His knees wobbled and Dennis reached out for anything to keep from falling. Eduardo caught him by the shirt collar before he got to the ground. “Stay up, all right? Just let me get my keys.”
He felt everything shutting down as he grasped at Eduardo’s arm. The door bolted open and he was thrown inside. The car hurtled forward as they drove from the school. The sirens became deafening soon after and then they were gone.
They’d made it.
He woke up to bright lights and the light blip of a machine. Every part of his body floated, despite the fact that he quickly found out he was belted to the bed.
There wasn’t a door to the large room he was in, which was empty except for two hospital beds. The one next to him sat empty. A sweet young woman in blue scrubs walked past him mindlessly with an IV in hand. He adjusted his body just enough to get her attention.
She smiled and then waved over at someone else. “He’s awake,” she said.
A tall man in green scrubs double-stepped to Dennis. “You give him his last round?”
She held up the IV bag she was about to administer. “Doing it now.”
The Six: Complete Series Page 14