Scott Andrews - School's Out Forever

“Maybe,” I replied. “But the silence is bothering me. What can you see out the window?

Cheshire poked his head outside and leapt backwards as bullets ripped into the glass.

“Missed!” he shouted. He turned to me. “They’re covering the window from the tower.”

I walked to the door and knocked on it.

“Anyone out there?” I asked.

There was a pause.

“Um, yeah. Hi,” came the tentative reply. It was a young man’s voice.

Norton sniggered and started me giggling. Borderline hysteria.

“Hi yourself. So, you guarding this door to stop us escaping then, yeah?”

“There’s three of us and we’ve got guns.”

“Good to know. The others gone off to the morning sacrifice have they?”

“Got to purify the moat.”

“Great.” I turned back to Norton and Cheshire. “They’re all going to be on the tower for a while, so we’ve got some time to prepare.”

“Any chance of a cuppa while I’m waiting to die?” said Mac, witheringly.

The morning sacrifice was one of the Blood Hunters’ more disturbing rituals. The selected victim was brought to morning worship and blessed by David, then everybody processed up to the tower. David then slit the victim’s throat and two acolytes dangled the poor sod over the battlements so they bled into the moat. Fresh blood in the water every morning kept them safe, they reckoned.

Serenaded by singing and screams from the tower I opened Mac’s backpack and we got to work. It took about ten minutes or so, but by the time the ritual was finished we were ready. Cheshire had picked Mac up and put him on the sofa. He was still conscious.

“You haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance,” he said.

I ignored him.

“Hey, Norton,” he went on. “How long you been planning this little takeover?”

“Since day one.”

“Traitor.”

“What you gonna do, slit my throat, like you did to Williams?”

“Come over here and I’ll show you.”

“Enough, already,” I said. “Does everyone know what they’re doing?”

Norton and Cheshire nodded.

“What shall I do, Nine Lives?” gasped Mac, sarcastically.

“Fuck off and die.”

We heard footsteps on the stairs. A group of people coming to talk. Then a voice I recognised.

“Hello in there.” It was their leader, David.

“Morning,” I replied, cheerily. “Lovely day for a blood sacrifice.”

“Are any of you hurt?”

“Why do you care?”

“We have first class medical facilities. If you open the door I give you my word your wounded will be given the proper treatment.”

“What, no bleeding?”

He laughed. “Of course there’ll be bleeding. Got to be made safe. But we need fresh, clean, healthy blood. So we’ll make you better first. While there’s life there’s hope, isn’t that what they say?”

“I’ve got a better idea. We want to convert. We want you to make us safe.”

“Sorry. No initiations today.”

“They’ve got a bomb,” yelled Mac. I punched him in the face as hard as I could. I felt the cartilage in his nose shatter. Felt good.

“One more word and I’ll finish you now,” I hissed.

“Like you’ve got the guts,” he replied, and spat in my face.

So I took my Browning and I smashed him over the back of the head, knocking him out.

“Everything all right in there?”

“Fine. We’re just, um, conferring.”

I gathered up the strings we had taken from the window blinds and backed towards the open windows, where Norton and Cheshire were already waiting.

“Ready?”

They nodded.

“All right, we agree. Come and get us,” I shouted. Then we all three turned and leapt out through the windows.

The gunmen on the tower opened fire. As I fell I took the string with me. I felt a slight resistance at the other end and then it came free and sailed out the window after me, with the pins of all our remaining grenades attached to it.

We hit the bloodied water before any of the bullets could find their mark, and the room above us exploded while we were still submerged. Stone, glass, wood and furniture crashed into the water all around us as we swam for safety.

The fire, smoke and confusion that reigned in the building behind us masked our clumsy emergence from the water, using the rubble from the exploded bridge as a ramp. We made it to the tree-line safely. The other boys and the Hildenborough captives were long gone. I stood in the shadow of the trees and watched the conflagration take hold of the fragile wooden house.

Mac was in there. The explosion had probably killed him, and if he’d miraculously survived the blast then his wounds would probably finish him off. Either way, he was gone for good. Everything had gone according to plan. I’d gained his trust, lulled him into a false sense of security, and betrayed him. I was a traitor, pure and simple. I hated myself for it. Mac had been right, I was a coward. I’d opposed him because I’d never accepted that the ends justified the means, and yet look at what I’d done. In order to get rid of Mac I’d betrayed every principle I’d ever held dear. I’d lied and cheated, betrayed trust and committed murder.

But the school was free of him now, and with the Blood Hunters burning in front of me, and Hildenborough ravaged and leaderless, there was no-one around to threaten us. At least for a while.

The means had been despicable, but the end had been achieved. Still, I wondered whether I hadn’t failed in one crucial thing: preventing myself from becoming the thing I hated. After everything I’d done I couldn’t help but feel that I was that little bit more like Mac than I’d ever wanted to be. I didn’t know how I was ever going to come to terms with any of this.

I’d killed two people today and seen many more die. As I watched the fire I prayed that this was the last I would see of killing.

Should’ve known better, really.

“WASN’T MY FAULT. They were bigger than we were.”

Wylie was making excuses, but his heart wasn’t in it. Like all the best bullies he was a coward at heart. It turns out the boys hadn’t blown the bridges to get rid of Mac and me. The adults from Hildenborough, scared out of their wits, some of them armed (by us), had demanded that the boys blow the bridges immediately. Wylie, who’d been in charge of that part of the operation, had agreed.

I was wet through, cold, tired and very, very pissed off.

“You left us to die,” I said, through gritted teeth.

“You look fine to me.” Cocky little shit.

I raised the Browning and pointed it at his face. He hadn’t expected that.

“Give me your gun,” I said.

“You what?”

I twitched the gun sideways an inch and fired a shot past his right ear. He jumped, yelled and backed away.

“What the fuck are you doing, man?”

“I won’t ask again.”

He threw the rifle at me. I let it fall to the floor.

“Here, have it you fucking psycho.” His shout was half whine, like a spoiled brat being told to give back the car keys.

I didn’t lower my gun.

“How old are you, Wylie?”

He glanced left and right looking for support or a way of escape. I had him cornered.

“Seventeen. Why?” he said. Half petulance, half defiance.

“And how many men have you killed?”

His eyes widened as he felt a jolt of genuine fear.

“Just the one.”