Amanda's Got a Gun

The little blonde cheerleader grinned, waved to me, then aimed the gun.

"Fuck!" Bobby screamed, his eyes growing wide at the sight of Amanda, the captain of the cheerleading squad, holding a .357 up to her squinted eye as she steadied her objective.

"Get down," I hissed at him, darting behind the metal bleachers. They wouldn't offer much cover, but they would have to be enough for now.

Bobby didn't listen to me. He stood there, looking like a deer stuck in headlights, absolutely frozen despite the necessity to move.

I remembered that he'd dated Amanda for a while back in our junior year. They'd parted pretty amicably, I'd thought. Neither of them had been into melodrama, unlike the majority of my friends.

Hell, I'd thought Amanda was my friend, at least until she'd pointed a gun at me.

"Bobby! Quit standing there!" I yelled -- screw being quiet, because obviously that wasn't helping Bobby to fucking move. I threw an abandoned coke can at him. It hit him on his shoulder, seeming to startle him awake, and he turned towards me, animation coming into his face.

He lifted his foot to run, his sneakered foot. I'd bought him those Nikes for his birthday last August. He'd been really grateful, since his mom was poor and he couldn't really afford anything good. He'd worn them every day ever since.

I watched him, his foot seemingly dangling in midair as the entire world slowed down to a crawl. I wanted to scream at him to hurry up, that the expression on Amanda's face was anything but friendly. My mouth opened to yell something, anything, but everything was too slow.

And the back of Bobby's head exploded.

I heard the gunshot a millisecond later, the sound catching up with the action, but by then I'd processed everything: the splatters of red flesh spraying though the air like confetti; the little chunks of white -- probably pieces of his skull -- bouncing off of the Astroturf; the way the hole in the center of his forehead was really small, almost too small for the size of the hole in the back of his head.

As he fell, I saw the last expression on his face; bewilderment. He had no idea what was happening. Poor Bobby. Oh god, oh god. Poor Bobby.

The moment his body landed, time sped up again, back to normal before my heart had the chance to start beating.

"One!" I heard Amanda call in her loud, cheerleader voice. She sounded happy, perky, just like she always did. I spared a quick glance over to where she was standing -- oh fuck! She was aiming the gun in my direction! -- and there was this horrible, manic grin on her face. It was too wide, like invisible hooks were pulling her face into a gristly mockery of her normal smile.

There was something wrong with her. This wasn't the Amanda I knew, the one who'd braided my hair after school and told me about her crushes. This wasn't the girl who'd cried after getting a D in honors biology and then worked extra-hard the rest of the year to pull her grade up to an A.

This new girl, the new Amanda, was something different. Something wrong.

Bobby's lifeless body, head still seeping red liquid onto the green Astroturf below, lay like a giant, disfigured doll in the middle of the football field. He'd been so handsome before... Strong, African-American features dominated his rugged face. He was on the football team -- the starter -- and his arm muscles bulged out of his sleeves no matter what size the shirt.

Now he was nothing. A bleeding lump on the field.

My best friend, the one I'd secretly had a crush on for the past five years, all gone because Amanda had gone insane.

Fucking bitc-

A bullet ricocheted off of the metal support beside my face. Jesus! It'd only been an inch away.

The bleachers weren't enough cover. I knew that, but I'd been standing around like it was enough. No! No, I had to get somewhere better.

The school building was twenty yards away. There was open road between it and the football field, nothing there to block Amanda's aim once she got past the bleachers that surrounded the field where she stood. It'd be close and I'd be exposed, but it was my only choice. My car was too far away, on the other side of the school building. I'd never get to it in time.

A movement caught my eye. She was coming towards me. No time. Run!

I burst into movement, forcing my legs to run faster and faster as I dodged the steel beams that held up the bleachers. I reached the other side. The sudden blast of sunlight tore into my eyesight, making everything turn dark, but there was no time. I had to get out of there.

Beyond the grassy strip next to the sidewalk, there was the main driveway/road that went in front of the school's front entrance. It was empty - it was after school, after all, and there were only the few extra curricular clubs going on during a Friday. Mostly everyone was gone.

Bobby and I'd been hanging out in the field, tossing a football to one another. I didn't play it -- they wouldn't let girls on the team anyway -- but I liked sports and it seemed like something fun to do before I went back home for the weekend.

Now I knew it was the worst decision I'd ever made in my life. Because I'd agreed, instead of suggested we go to an arcade or something, Bobby was dead.

My best friend was dead.

No.

I forced the wave of sadness down and lowered my shoulders, aiming my body into the run. The black asphalt was uncomfortably warm underneath my cheap tennis shoes, but I relished the feeling. Anything to distract me from the overwhelming despair that threatened to overtake me, make me give up so I could go join Bobby in whatever happened after life was finished.

'Stop thinking about it!' I ordered myself.

I heard another shot ring overhead, but the bullet didn't touch me. It sounded close, though, and I sped up even faster. If I wasn't careful, I was gonna trip over my own feet.

That would guarantee death. I might as well just put the gun to my head myself, if I did that.

Finally, finally, I reached the door. It opened outwards, so I had to stop for a precious second to yank the door open enough so that I could slip inside.

Another shot echoed through the air and the window glass in the front door shattered, spilling shards of glass all over the hard, linoleum floor.

Inside. I was inside, but I was in front of windows so Amanda could still see me. Had to move.

I didn't turn around to see how close she was. I ran down the hall in a zig-zag pattern -- I remembered reading somewhere how it was harder to hit someone when they moved like that -- and turned the corner.

There. There was a light on in the one of the classrooms. I grabbed the classroom door, pushed it open, and stumbled inside, my foot catching on the slight upraised metal strip at the bottom of the entrance.

"Vicky?"

I looked up, my heart pounded so hard that I thought I could feel it in my throat. Madame Bertrande, my French teacher, was sitting at her desk, looking at me like I was absolutely insane. I glanced around the classroom and froze. It was full of about twenty students, each sitting in pairs, their desks facing each other with the checkered game boards set up in the middle.

Chess club. Of all the after school clubs to burst into, why did it have to be chess club? There was the fencing club, and the wrestling club, and hell, even the science club would have some halfway dangerous chemicals sitting around. How the hell could I defend myself from Amanda here? Throw a pawn at her?

"What in the world is the matter?" Madame Bertrande asked, getting up from her teacher's chair.

"Amanda has a gun," I gasped. I didn't seem to have enough air in my lungs. I couldn't get enough to speak properly. "She killed Bobby."

A gasp rose up from the class. Several people jumped up from their seats, knocking the chess pieces on the floor.

"What?" "No!" "What's that girl talking about?" "Not Bobby!"

The mixture of voices flowed around my head, making me dizzy. It was hard to concentrate. I was inside a classroom, but how much longer could that really be safe?

"We have to move the desk in front of the door," I said.

"What's going on, Vicky?" Madame Bertrande repeated, staring at me with a confused expression on her face.

"I told you! Amanda has a gun and she's gonna kill us all if she gets inside! I need to move the fucking desk! Help me!" I said, losing my patience.

I leaned all my weight against it, but it was heavy. Unlike the student desks, which were all made of aluminum and plywood, the teacher's desks were these heavy, huge, metal monstrosities. This one guy from the school board even complained about them, calling them 'eyesores' and saying that they made the school look cheap.

Screw him. It was useful to me now. To all of us.

Madame Bertrande snapped out of her bewildered dazed and joined me on the end of the desk. Another student, Stacy from English, joined us on my other side. Together we pushed at the desk, barely moving it an inch at a time.

"Come on! Help us!" Stacy groaned. I was impressed -- I didn't even have enough breath left to say another word, but no one else moved. They all stood there, shell-shocked.

God dammn it, they wore the same expression as Bobby had, right before Amanda had shot him.

Clenching my jaw, I heaved into the desk and it moved an entire foot. Then, still pushing, it went another and another.

Closer to the door than ever. Another yard and we'd have it blocked. There was a tiny window above the door, a foot from the ceiling, but it was too small and too high off the ground for Amanda to get through. Since the classroom door opened to the inside, the desk would block her from getting through. We'd be safe.

"One more time," Stacy breathed. We all tensed up to push at the desk again when the classroom door burst open. It caught on the edge of the desk before it could swing the entire way, but it was wide enough for Amanda -- skinny, petite little Amanda -- to squeeze her way inside.

In her hand she still held the gun. It glinted, almost friendly, in the sunlight streaming through the classroom window.

"Two," she said, her unceasing smile so wide that all of her gums were exposed, her teeth showing small and white.

I ducked down under the desk, grabbing someone's shoulders -- I wasn't sure whose -- and pulling them down with me. The gun went off with a loud bang and someone fell backwards beside me. I looked over to the person I'd pulled down. It was Stacy, and she was staring at something beside me.

Madame Bertrande was sprawled on the floor. Dead.

I only looked for a second, but it was enough. The image burned itself into my mind. I knew, for the rest of my life (however long that was), it would haunt me.

The bullet had gone through her left eye, bursting it open like a ripe fruit. Some white...liquid was seeping out with the blood, making little streaks in the seeping fluid like liquid candy canes. Just like Bobby, I knew the majority of the destruction would be in the back of the skull, hidden by Madame's hair. I was grateful she'd fallen onto her back so I didn't have to see that again, but the white and red streaks running down her face made me sick.

Just like candy canes, I thought. Not sweet, though.

A little filmy piece of something was stuck to the bridge of her nose and I realized it was a torn part of her eye, broken off by the force of the bullet.

Oh god.

A wave of hysteria flowed over me, but there was no time. Keeping my head down low, I ran to the other side of the classroom, to the corner where all my other classmates were huddled.

I saw my mistake as soon as I reached my destination; there was no cover here. Fuck! There was no cover anywhere in the classroom. There were no closets, the cupboards were all built in and made of wood, and the desks wouldn't stop shit!

We were all gathered together like fish in a barrel.

The window! I could run to the window, throw something heavy through it, and jump out to the ground below.

I started to move, to at least get over to the other side of the classroom where I could be closer to escape, when Amanda appeared.

She'd jumped on top of the desk and was walking across it, kicking off the various items that still stood on top of it.

"Hello, class," Amanda said. "Three."

She squeezed the trigger. A boy, a pretty, pale boy with wire-rimmed glasses whose name I didn't know, but who I'd seen around the school in the hallways, fell down onto the floor, clutching at his chest. A fount of blood flowed out of it, splashing the students around him.

He was still alive, still gasping. Amanda hadn't stopped to aim the gun and her usual headshot hadn't been accomplished.

She seemed to realize this, that her perfect kills had stopped being so neat because she was hurrying it. I could see it in her eyes -- her too happy, too wild, demented blue eyes -- that she was ruining whatever goal she'd set for herself at the beginning of her shooting spree.

First, Amanda got down from the desk, carefully kneeling and sliding off instead of doing her normal, cheerleader jumps.

Then Amanda raised the gun up, squinting her eye as she aimed more carefully this time. I was standing by myself, away from the poor bleeding boy with the wire-rimmed glasses.

She swung the barrel towards me and her smile, her horrible mockery of actual human happiness, spread a little wider.

"Goodbye, Vicky. Four."

I screamed -- I couldn't help myself -- and waited for the blast of noise, the pain of a bullet ripping through my face and into my brain.

Nothing.

Instead, there was a thump. And another thump. And another.

Stacy was standing behind Amanda, holding something in her hand as Amanda swayed where she stood. A line of blood dripped down her cheek, leaking from somewhere unseen underneath her mass of curly blond hair.

Stacy raised her hand above her head and I saw what she was holding. It was Madame Bertrande's miniature statue of Michelangelo' s David.

I remembered seeing it before, so many times. I'd taken classes with Madame Bertrande since the 9th grade, and every day she'd used the statue as a paperweight. The boys would grin and tease each other about the statue's visible genitals, but the school hadn't made Madame remove it since it was considered art.

Besides being a perfect, two-foot tall replica of the original, it was also made of the same, heavy marble.

Stacy gripped the statue's torso and swung the square base, again, down onto Amanda's head. The sharp angle of the square base crashed into the center of Amanda's skull.

This time, she fell, the gun loosening out of her grip. I ran over and kicked it away. It slid over to the corner of the room, where one of the other girls -- another person I didn't know -- picked it up and aimed it at Amanda with shaking hands.

She was lying on the floor, face down, but her back was still slightly rising, although jaggedly. Amanda was still alive.

I bent down and pushed her over so that she was lying on her back. Her eyes were half-closed, her pupils rolled up so that all I could see were the whites.

"Why?" I asked, the word torn from my hoarse throat like a bullet. "Why did you shoot Bobby?"

"And Madame Bertrande? And Quentin?" demanded someone from the back.

"But why Bobby?" I demanded, tears spilling down my cheeks. Flashes of Bobby flew past my eyes: his sweet voice, his handsome face, the way his hand had felt those rare times when he'd touched my chin, or my wrist, or my shoulder.

Amanda's eyes fluttered at me and, very slowly, she focused on my face. Lifting one limp hand, she folded her bottom three fingers into her palm and pointed her index finger at me. Very slowly, she lowered her thumb against the side of her hand.

It was her version of a gun. She was shooting me.

"Bang," whispered Amanda, the word leaving her mouth like a dying butterfly. Her grin widened, and then her eyes rolled back again and a gurgling erupted from her throat.

Her body convulsed, a horrible, shuddering few seconds, and then there was nothing. Stillness.

She was dead.

"What the fuck just happened?" shrieked someone from the back of the classroom. I didn't look at them.

Stacy was just standing there, still clutching the statue of David so tightly that her hands were turning white from the strain. Her face was pale and she looked shell-shocked, but at least she was alive.

Bobby would never be alive again. He was my best friend and he was outside right now, face down in the Astroturf, slowly beginning to rot.

I imagined the flies finding him, landing in the sticky sweetness that bled from the back of his skull. Sucking at the liquid.

Laying their eggs.

Putting my head into my hands, I fell down onto the floor next to Amanda's body.

I began to weep, horrible wracking sobs, barely able to breathe, choking on the absolute despair.

From far away, the police sirens began to wail.