He had put on a crucifix necklace his grandmother had given him before she passed away. If things went wrong, and he wound up dead at the end of the day, he needed as much peace as he could get.
During his drive to the office, a small stretch of the route faced the Rocky Mountains straight on. They looked majestic with their soft blue tint in the distance, and the snow-capped tops were like something out of an artist’s painting.
“They really are beautiful.” He drove in silence; no music, no talk shows. Just himself and nature one last time. Friday mornings were always light on traffic, and Jeremy arrived to the office at 7:45.
He parked in front of the side exit doors so he could have a more central station when the time came to get things ready. Sylvia’s car was parked across the lot, and he knew she would have questions for him. It was never a secret when someone on the floor was pulled into a meeting room. Everyone would sneak a peek, to try and get a read on both Shelly’s and the employee’s faces. The way their meeting had ended yesterday was sure to be causing a buzz around the office.
Since he didn’t see Shelly’s car yet, he figured he would go inside and get the awkward conversation with Sylvia out of the way. He wouldn’t tell her that he might be getting fired, but she should be aware of what they’d talked about, since it involved her.
Jeremy grabbed his backpack that he always brought to work and entered through the side doors he would be barricading in a few hours. He strolled across the floor, nodding to a couple of support team staff on the way to his desk. Sylvia met him at his desk as soon as he arrived.
“Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You’ve been acting weird the last couple days. Then your meeting with Shelly yesterday didn’t exactly look like a happy discussion.”
Jeremy nodded. “We were overheard the other day.” Sylvia stared at him, confused. “Janae heard it all and ratted on us.”
“That fucking slut.” Sylvia’s expression changed from puzzled to furious in the blink of an eye. “What did she say?”
“I don’t know exactly what she told Shelly, but she knows we were talking shit, and that you called her a slut. Shelly called us bullies.”
“Did Mark say anything?”
“Of course not. He sat there quiet and useless like always.”
Sylvia grunted in disgust. “So does that mean I’m getting talked to today?”
“I’d assume so, so be prepared to try and bullshit your way through it. Not that Shelly will hear any of it. Whatever Saint Janae says goes, there’s no reason to hear anyone else’s side of the story.”
Sylvia shook her head. “They on some bullshit around here, Jer. I can’t do this shit anymore.”
She went back to her desk and banged on her keyboard while continuing to shake her head. They wouldn’t speak to each other for the remainder of the morning.
*****
Jeremy made his eight o’clock call and managed to make it take up an entire hour. When he wrapped up the call at nine, he noticed Shelly had still not arrived to the office. This was concerning, since she was usually in before eight.
Is she coming in today?
Mark had shown up on time and avoided Jeremy at all costs.
He was flustered by Shelly’s absence. The purpose of his experiment was to bring the issue of mental illness into the limelight, but the biggest perk was the opportunity to blast that two-faced bitch in the head. He considered calling it all off if she didn’t show up.
But then what? Get fired today and have a clear motivation if I come back and try later?
It had to happen today, and it had to happen at the originally planned time of eleven if he wanted to execute it before his job was terminated.
He returned to his desk with a glass of water, and Clark came by to greet him.
“Hey man, everything okay? You were pretty out of it yesterday.”
“Yeah, was just trying to hit my numbers. Sorry if I’ve been distant.”
“It’s cool. Gotta stay under the radar these days. I get it.”
“Indeed.”
“Alright then, sir, I’ll leave you to it. Almost free for the weekend. Have a good day.” Clark left Jeremy to return to his desk without another word. Jeremy thought back on that conversation vividly, remembering those were the last words Clark ever spoke to him.
Jeremy had a 9:30 call to make, which would be his last work call ever. The thought of that liberated him.
He glanced around the office. Live or die today, one thing is certain. I won’t be coming back to this fucking place again. He dialed his final call, and completed it as smoothly as ever.
*****
He was writing his notes for the call at 10:05 when Shelly walked in. The sight of her brought relief and a new, different kind of stress. She strolled by the onboarding team, gave a quick grin to Mark, and proceeded to her desk without acknowledging anyone else on the team. Her tired face suggested a long night, possibly of contemplation about him.
Janae spoke in her high-pitched voice, and the sound made Jeremy’s blood boil. That bitch threw me and Sylvia under the bus. If he could avoid Shelly for the next fifty minutes he’d be in the clear, so he went to the bathroom to sit in a stall and gather himself.
He sat down on the toilet and buried his face in his hands. This is it. It’s actually time to change the world. Never thought this day would come.
Jeremy’s legs shook and bounced to the point that he had to push down on them to make them stay still. The feeling of impending doom consumed him, and his emotions turned numb. He interlocked his fingers in prayer.
“God, please forgive me for what I’m about to do. My intentions are pure. Remember me how I was before today.” He whispered in the stall, not wanting to be overheard by anyone coming in for their morning shit. One last flood of tears remained in his ducts, and Jeremy let them flow. It was a silent cry, no sniffling or sobbing, just tears falling from his face to the floor in a miniature puddle.
He checked his phone and the clock read 10:35. Jeremy stood from the toilet and took a deep inhale, feeling at peace with his soul.
It’s time. Everything is in place. No need to wait another half hour to get started.
*****
The sunlight blinded Jeremy when he stepped out the back door exit. The parking lot was deadly silent and the sea of cars glared at him. No smokers were around, further confirming his decision to get the party started sooner. He walked around the corner of the building to his car, and went straight to the trunk, which he opened with the remote.
The duffel bag and rifle case were neatly aligned. He pulled the black hoodie over his tee. Only the flesh of his face and hands showed, and he reduced this too, by putting on sunglasses that hid everything from his forehead down to his nose.
Jeremy grabbed the duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder. The bag probably weighed twenty pounds with all the ammo stored inside, but his adrenaline was starting to pump so hard it felt like a little kid’s backpack. He felt like his hands were moving faster than his mind could process as he watched them open the case and pull out King Kong, smacking in a magazine in the smooth way he had perfected over the past few weeks, and pulling the rifle’s strap over his other shoulder.
Time to hustle. Jeremy had planned a minute in total to get from his car to the back door, barricade it, run around to the side door, barricade it, and run to the front door of the building, to enter the office from the inside door behind Shelly’s desk.
He’d bought a couple of two-by-fours from the hardware store to stick between the door handles. He grabbed them and broke into a sprint for the back door of the building. The glare of the sunlight off the reflective glass zoomed by as he ran.
To his delight, the back door remained deserted. He fed the wood between the handles and pulled on them to test it. The doors opened a couple of inches before hitting the wood, which wouldn’t budge. Perfect. He pivoted and broke into another sprint, like a baseball player
trying to steal second base.
When he rounded the corner toward the side door, he skidded to a halt when he saw Clark walking out of the building. He didn’t notice Jeremy and kept walking to the back of the parking lot, where he always parked. I guess it’s your lucky day, Clark. Good for you. As long as Clark stayed outside until the firing began, he would make it home to his wife and kid.
Jeremy returned to running when Clark disappeared into the parking lot. He placed the block of wood between the side door’s handles, and wasted no time sprinting for the front entrance. He knew anything, in the next few seconds, could change the outcome drastically. The main entrance was the one variable he couldn’t predict. Anyone could walk in or out at any time.
Jeremy pulled open the doors, and as he stepped in a man dressed in an all-black suit walked toward him, to exit the building. He thought about shooting him, but the man—who had pale skin and black, slicked-back hair—winked at him as they passed each other in the doorway. The man’s leg bumped the duffel bag and Jeremy felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen.
The brief encounter cost Jeremy a handful of seconds, but he pushed forward down the hallway, where he could see someone approaching the back door. He stopped in front of the door that would open to Shelly’s back, pulled King Kong around to get a grip on the gun beneath his sweating palms, and pulled open the door.
The office looked the same as always. Everyone sat or stood at their desks, either typing on their keyboard or talking on their phone. Normally music blared on Fridays, but no one had turned the music on yet, so the room felt quieter than normal, almost still. The door clicked shut behind him, but no one paid him any attention.
King Kong was cocked and ready, safety turned off, as he positioned the butt into his shoulder. Instantly, he felt the sensation of the gun becoming an extension of his arm. When he had that feeling, his aim never failed. The adrenaline tried to burst out of his fingertips, pulsing desperately against the cool steel of the gun. Even his eyeballs pulsed as his vision focused in and out. Despite that, his hands remained still and confident.
He stood five steps behind Shelly, her back to him. He took soft steps toward her and tapped the tip of the rifle on her shoulder. “Hey, cunt.”
“Excuse-—” BOOM!
Jeremy pulled the trigger as soon as she turned her head. The shot echoed throughout the quiet office and blood and brain matter splattered across the ceiling, computer screen, and desk, as her body collapsed to the floor, knees thudding first.
Instantly all eyes were on him. “What the fuck?” someone shouted from the back of the office.
Mark sat fifteen feet from Shelly’s desk, on the end of his team’s island. He looked at Jeremy in confusion, trying to figure out who was behind the sunglasses and black hoodie.
Jeremy swung King Kong around to aim at Mark and pulled the trigger again, without hesitation. The slug caught him in the chest, where a dark pool of blood immediately formed on his light blue shirt. Mark grasped at the spot on his chest as his mouth hung open, gasping for air.
Two for two. It had felt like five minutes, when in reality it had only been fifteen seconds.
His shot accuracy as sharp as could be, Jeremy started swinging King Kong from person to person, pulling the trigger with the ease of flicking on a light switch over and over. Green chunks from the desk dividers blasted in every direction with each shot he took.
Screams broke out. Some people ran frantically around like headless chickens and others took cover under their desks.
“Everybody get the fuck out!” someone screamed. “He’s got a gun!”
“Oh, my God!”
“Help!”
Jeremy felt his mind numb as he emptied the first magazine. He watched through his eyes while his hands and trigger finger did all the work.
He replaced the magazine with a fresh one with a quick flick of his wrist. A group of maybe six people huddled near the side exit, banging on the door.
“It’s not opening. It’s fucking locked!”
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
He reloaded again and pulled the trigger, watching each body at the door fall to the ground into a limp pile. The sound was repetitive and flat, each shot echoing around the office walls as the screams faded towards silence.
He scanned the room and saw bodies splayed across the office floor, splatters and actual puddles of blood on the carpet. A head poked around the corner near the side exit, and Jeremy whipped the rifle over and fired. He was sure it was one of the girls from the HR team.
The office was silent now, nothing but the steady hum of computers. Jeremy had changed magazines three times, meaning he had fired at least ninety rounds in less than two minutes.
He had two more magazines in the duffel bag and planned on using them, so he crept toward the corner, where Miss Human Resources had just been, and saw all of Nicole’s team absent. They’d likely run out the front door of the office, he thought, but then he saw that the training room on his right was full of sales team members that must have come down for a meeting. They had turned the lights off inside the room, but with the light from the office Jeremy could see at least ten people hiding under the desks.
The more, the merrier! The higher the body count, the more attention I’ll get.
He pulled open the door and walked to the front of the room, facing the desks. “Class is in session, motherfuckers.”
More screams broke out in hysteria.
“Don’t do it!”
“PLEEEEASE!”
Jeremy fired more rounds. The barrel of the gun started heating up, but Jeremy didn’t notice, numb to everything happening outside of his mind. He had one more magazine to use, but nothing left to shoot, so he walked calmly back to his team’s side of the floor and looked for Janae.
He wanted to make sure Janae wasn’t getting off easy, like always. He found her on the ground, lying next to Cherie below their desks. Cherie had her eyes closed and a pool of blood underneath her back, making her purple hair look black instead. Janae had been hit and lay on her side, blood pouring from her mouth and stomach, shivering in a pool of her own blood.
“This is kind of your fault,” he said to her, no emotion in his voice. “I hope it hurts.”
Her brown eyes gazed at him, and her lips quivered. Jeremy assumed she was trying to speak, but couldn’t. He stepped around her to get on the other side of the island, where Sylvia lay splayed on the floor, a clear gunshot wound in her throat. Her eyes stared lifelessly at the ceiling.
“I’m sorry, Sylvia. I promise this won’t be for nothing.” Jeremy ran his eyes over her eyelids to close them.
He saw Elayna on the opposite side of his desk. He could see a wound in her leg and blood puddling beneath her, but she lay still, likely playing dead. A quick mental estimate suggested he had shot at least forty people in all, so he decided to show some mercy on Elayna.
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
“Now the hard part begins. May we all be a special part of history. You’ll never be forgotten.”
Jeremy sat in his desk chair, dropped King Kong to the floor, and waited in the silent office for the next three minutes, until the S.W.AT. team arrived.
37
Epilogue
“Denver PD! If you have a weapon, drop it!” a voice barked as the doors burst open from the side exit. Five S.W.A.T. team members entered the room, guns cocked and aimed, looking for anything suspicious. Bodies lay all over the room, except for Jeremy, who stood from his desk with his hands raised above his head.
“Don’t you fucking move another step!” the man screamed, and Jeremy froze.
Three of the men dashed for Jeremy and tackled him to the ground, securing handcuffs around his wrists in seconds.
“Bag his hands!” the one who arrested him shouted. “He’s got powder on his hands.”
Someone pulled tight, plastic evidence bags over Jeremy’s hands. Knowing he needed to appear as insane from
this moment forward, he started to make puppet gestures with the bags behind his back.
“How are you, Mr. Bags?” he asked in a low voice, opening and closing his right hand in a speaking gesture.
“It’s a delightful afternoon, wouldn’t you say?” he responded with his left hand.
The man who had cuffed him stood in shock as he looked around the room. He pulled his radio from his shoulder to his lips. “I need every officer and ambulance I can get right now. There’s bodies everywhere.” He spoke calmly, probably in disbelief.
More S.W.A.T. entered the building, breaking off into different directions. They would find a surprise in the training room, but everywhere else had been left untouched.
The arresting officer read Jeremy his Miranda rights. “Do you understand your rights?”
Jeremy grinned and nodded.
It felt like at least an hour that Jeremy kneeled in the middle of his office with his hands cuffed behind him. He kept staring at King Kong, resting on the floor, lifeless and innocent without his touch. As word started to reach the public about what had happened, cell phones started ringing all around the office. Buzzing and ringtones created a mix of chaos, until they hauled Jeremy out of the office.
They took him out of the side exit, and he caught a glimpse of his car, which hadn’t been touched. A couple of news vans had already arrived on the scene and caught Jeremy being pushed head first into the back seat of a police car.
It was a short ride to the police station—six minutes, he had calculated—and the driving officer didn’t say one word. Meanwhile, the radio cut in and out, with other officers screaming at the scene Jeremy had left behind.
“There’s fucking blood everywhere! There’s at least fifteen bodies that I’m counting. No one touch the bodies, leave everything how it is until forensics gets out here. We need more officers. There are survivors that need to get to the hospital!”
Insanity (Insanity Series, Book 1) Page 19