Dave Cullen: Columbine

Dave was all laughs that might with Linda. She was shocked when she learned later how tense his evening had been.

“That’s how the man could change,” she said. “Walk through our door and he was done with basketball. Now he was thinking of my mom.”

He went down to fix himself a Diet Coke and rum. He found a game. Linda fell back asleep with a smile.

Morning was less pleasant. The alarm buzzed at 6:30. Linda and Dave were both in a rush. Linda had to pick up balloons for her mom’s birthday party, and Dave had to drop Linda’s poodle off for a haircut.

Dave had no time for breakfast. He snagged an energy bar and a banana for the car. It was trash day— his job, but he was going to be late. He asked Linda if she would do it.

She was too stressed. “I really don’t have time today.”

“I’m really going to be late,” he muttered.

They rushed out to separate cars and realized they had forgotten to kiss good-bye. They always kissed good-bye.

Dave blew her a kiss from the driveway.

On Tuesday morning, the boys rose early, as usual. It was dark but warm already, set to soar into the eighties, with blue skies, perfect for their fires. It was going to be a beautiful day.

Dylan was out of the house by 5:30. His parents were still in bed. He called out “Bye,” and shut the door behind himself.

They skipped bowling class and went straight to work. Dylan scrawled the schedule into Eric’s day planner under the heading “make TODAY count.” Eric illustrated it with a blazing gun barrel.

First stop was the grocery store, where they met up to acquire the last of the propane tanks: two for the cafeteria, two for each car, and two for the decoy. The big bombs were the heart of the attack. Eric had designed them months before but had left acquisition to the final morning. The boys had stashed most of the arsenal in Eric’s bedroom closet, and he had faced a couple of close calls with his parents already. Hiding a cluster of twenty-pound tanks in there was out of the question.

They returned to Eric’s house at 7:00 and then split up: Eric filled the propane tanks, Dylan got the gasoline. They allotted half an hour to assemble the big bombs and set up the cars, and an hour for one last round of gear-up, practice, and “chill.” They got something to eat. Dylan apparently had potato skins.

Several friends noticed peculiarities. Robyn Anderson was surprised to see Dylan a no-show for calculus. He had sounded fine on the phone the previous night. Then a friend told her Eric had been missing from third hour. The boys cut an occasional class together, but never an entire morning. Robyn hoped Dylan wasn’t sick; she made a mental note to call once she got home.

Their friend Brooks Brown had a stronger reaction. Eric had missed a test in psychology class. What kind of stunt was that?

Chill time was over. It had gone on too long, perilously over schedule. Shortly before 11:00 A.M., Eric and Dylan set off with the arsenal. Dylan wore cargo pants, a black T-shirt printed with WRATH, and his Red Sox cap turned backward, as usual. His cargo pockets were deep enough to conceal most of the sawed-off shotgun before he pulled on the duster. Eric’s T-shirt said natural selection. They both wore black combat boots and shared a single pair of black gloves—the right on Eric, the left on Dylan. They left two pipe bombs behind at Eric’s house, six at Dylan’s. Eric laid a microcassette on the kitchen counter with some final thoughts. They also left the Basement Tapes, with a final good-bye recorded that morning.

They drove separate cars to a park near Eric’s house, dumped the decoy bomb in a field, and set the timers for 11:14. Combat operations were under way.

They hopped back in their cars and headed for the school. They had to hustle now. The last few minutes were critical. They couldn’t plant the big bombs until “A” lunch began. Fourth period ended at 11:10. Once the bell rang, they had seven minutes to carry the bombs in, navigate the turbulent lunch crowd, stash the bombs by the designated pillars, get back to their cars, gear up, take cover, and prepare to attack.

Eric pulled into the parking lot at 11:10, several minutes behind schedule. A couple of girls spotted his car as they headed out for lunch. They honked and waved. They liked him. Eric waved back and smiled. Dylan followed him in. No waves.

Dylan drove to his normal spot in the senior lot and parked his BMW directly in front of the cafeteria. When the attack began, this would afford him a clear sweep of the southwest side of the building: the long, wide arc of green-tinted windows that wrapped the commons on the first floor and the library above.

Eric continued on to the small junior lot, about a hundred yards to Dylan’s right. Eric had the choice spot, directly facing the student entrance, where the bulk of the survivors would presumably flee. He could also cover the full southeast side of the building and interlock his fire with Dylan’s to his left.

Brooks Brown walked out for a cigarette and spotted Eric parking in the wrong lot. Brooks charged up to confront him about the test; by the time he got there, Eric had stepped out and was pulling out a big hulking duffel bag.

“What’s the matter with you?” Brooks yelled. “We had a test in psychology!”

Eric was calm but insistent. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “Brooks, I like you now. Get out of here. Go home.”

Brooks thought that was strange. But he shook his head and walked on, away from the school.

Eric’s friend Nate Dykeman also caught sight of him arriving, and also found the circumstances strange.

Eric headed in with his duffel. By 11:12, they were scheduled to be back at their cars, arming up. A surveillance tape time-stamped 11:14 indicates they had still not entered the commons. They had less than three minutes—the timers were set for 11:17. There was only a modest chance that they could make it to safety in time. And they could hardly have hoped to be locked and loaded when the bombs blew.

They could have reset the timers and sacrificed a few casualties. That would have required coordination, as they had parked across the lot from each other and it would be risky to expose the bombs inside the cafeteria. They could have abandoned the plan, but the decoy bombs might already be exploding.

Shortly after 11:14, they entered the commons. They moved inconspicuously enough to go unnoticed. Not one of the five hundred witnesses noticed them or the big, bulky bags. One of the bags would be found inches from two tables strewn with food.

They made it out, and armed quickly. It was just like the drill, except this time each was alone—close enough for hand signals, too far to hear. They strapped on their arsenals, covered them with the dusters. Time was tight and they broke with their drill, leaving the shotguns in the duffel bags. Each boy had a semiautomatic against his body, a shotgun in his bag, and a backpack full of pipe bombs and crickets. This is probably the moment they set the timers on their car bombs. It would just be a matter of seconds now. Hundreds of kids dead. As far as they knew, they had instigated mass murder already. The timers were winding down. Nothing to do but wait.

Surveillance cameras should have caught the killers placing the bombs. They would have, if either the bombers or the custodian had been on time. Every morning, the custodian followed the same routine: a few minutes before “A” lunch, he pulled out the prelunch tape and set it aside for later viewing. He popped an old, used tape into the machine, rewound it, and hit Record. Rewinding took up to five minutes, meaning a brief pause in taping. Kids could leave all the garbage they wanted during that window, but hardly anyone was around to do so.