In the mind of a killer

[Patrick]

OOC: Author's comment: this story is totally fictional, I only used recent events as inspiration.

 

 

The rain poured as Peter made his way home from school. It crept into every possible hole in his raincoat and drenched him to the bone. He was now only fifty meters from the bus stop at the corner of Mason Street and Western Avenue. He might actually make it today. His hopes slightly rising he increased his pace. Then he heard the footsteps behind him. His heart sank and he broke into a run. He heard the footsteps also become faster, then he felt the hands pushing him in the back. He lost his balance and fell faceforward onto the wet pavement. His heavy schoolbag, which had been on his back slid forward and hit him in the head, knocking it into the hard concrete.

 

Slightly dazed Peter got to his knees, but was then kicked by a foot in his ribs. He tried to get up again and again, but each time he was either kicked or punched to stay down on the pavement. Resigned Peter lay still and did not move. Yet the punches still came raining down on him. Then they suddenly stopped, and the footsteps started to move away. Still not daring to look up Peter lay motionless. Sure enough the footsteps came running back and he braced himself for the new assault. He was surprised to feel two strong hands grab his shoulders and pull him up from the ground.

 

As the hands turned Peter around, he felt a sharp pain in his lower back, but gritting his teeth he did not make a sound. A middle aged man was facing him. He had a large hat, which protected his hair from the rain. His expression seemed friendly enough. He held Peter, who could barely stand on his feet.

 

"You were lucky I happened to be coming this way kid. That other one was giving you a pretty bad beating. If you want I can take you to a hospital or to the nearest police station. You ok?"

 

Peter blinked at the man, still trying to clear his mind.

 

"What?"

 

The man let go of him and reached for a cell phone in his pocket, wanting to call an ambulance. But as soon as he let go of Peter, the boy grabbed his schoolbag from the ground and started running away.

 

"Wait! Where are you going?" - he shouted at him, then broke into a run after him, while at the same time trying to put his cell phone back into his pocket. But Peter was running at his utmost and used shortcuts, he had learned of during his years of being terrorized by his own classmates, and friends turned enemies and easily lost the man.

 

It took him another two hours, until he got home from school walking in the fields around the town. At home he spotted his uncle's car standing in the driveway. He entered the home and taking off his raincoat hung it up on the beg. He then went towards the stairs aiming to go to his room.

 

"Peter! Thank God! I was starting to get worried that something might have happened to you too."

 

It was his uncle's voice. Uncle Jeff was standing in the salon, a sad expression on his face.

 

"I went to your school, but you were already gone. When the bus got here, the busdriver told me that you hadn't taken the bus. Where have you been?"

 

He then noticed the bruises on Peter's face and that his trousers were torn. He walked over and put an arm around Peter, but Peter violently pushed him away.

 

"Ok. Ok. I know you don't like me, but you'll have to listen to me now Peter. Peter, please!" - he said as the boy turned to go to his room. Peter stopped and turned, an unreadable expression on his face.

 

"Thank you. I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but a few hours ago your parents died in a car crash. A drunken truck driver crashed into their car. I'm sorry."

 

Peter turned and ran up the stairs and went into his room, locking the door behind him.

 

The day afterwards was his eleventh birthday...

 

 

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Five years later.

 

"Peter! Breakfast is ready!" - it was Aunt July's voice.

 

Peter hadn't slept the whole night. Ever since he had started taking anti-depressants after the death of his parents, he had had trouble sleeping. And his problems had never stopped. The other, stronger kids always picked on him, and even some of the teachers never left him alone.

 

Peter looked at the gun in his hands. He had taken it from Uncle Jeff's room, while Aunt July was in the kitchen and Uncle Jeff had gone to the toilet. Uncle Jeff was an avid hunter and therefore had a lot of guns. Peter had taken the first he could find. It was a long, two shot hunting rifle.

 

"Peter! Breakfast! Don't have me come and get you!"

 

Uncle Jeff's voice was coming from the corridor in front of Peter's room. Peter took the cartridges from his pocket and loaded them into the rifle. Closing the rifle with a click he pointed it at the door. He only had to wait two minutes.

 

"YOU WANTED IT!"

 

Uncle Jeff's heavy footsteps came towards the door and then the door flew open. As soon as he saw the rifle pointed at him Uncle Jeff froze.

 

"Peter. Don't do anything stu-"

 

The sound of the rifle going off startled Peter. Uncle Jeff was hit in the stomach and flew back into the corridor.

 

"What is going on up there? Jeff? Peter?" - Aunt July's voice drifted up the stairs.

 

Peter stood up from the bed and walked over to Uncle Jeff, who was clutching at his bleeding stomach. He pointed the rifle at Uncle Jeff's head and pulled the trigger again.

 

Walking calmly down the stairs he reloaded the rifle. When Aunt July spotted him she screamed and started running towards the front door. She never made it as Peter shot her twice in the back. He then went back up the stairs to his uncle's room and inspected what guns were in there.

 

Even though he had just killed, he felt no particular emotion. He had been with his aunt and uncle ever since his parents died, but there had been no love between them. Uncle Jeff regarded him as an unnecessary burden.

 

Peter took several pistols and an automatic rifle from his uncle's cache and stashed the pistols in his bag. He put the rifle inside his sports bag, which he needed for tennis class later that afternoon. He put his bag on the kitchen table and calmly had breakfast. When finished he left the house, carefully avoiding stepping in the pool of blood around his aunt's body.

 

He took the bus as he did every day and sat at the back again, as he did every day. At the stop two stops away from school George and Harry, the twins who abused Peter the most got on the bus. They went to the back of the bus and sat next to Peter.

 

"How you doing today Peter?" - asked George sarcastically.

 

"Is that your sports stuff?" - Harry said pouring a bottle of water on it.

 

Peter did not react in the least. This surprised Harry and George as at other times Peter had always tried resisting them. The bus stopped at the last stop before the school. Peter still did not react in the least. Harry and George sent each other quizzical glances.

 

"You forgot to take your medication today Peter?" - they had found out one day, when they had emptied the contents of his bag in the toilet.

 

"You know what I've been wondering about in the last five minutes?" - Peter's voice was cold and measured, nothing like the usual scared voice he had when speaking to the twins.

 

"What? The meaning of life?" - the twins laughed.

 

"I've been wondering why my uncle needs a silenced pistol so as to go on his hunting trips."

 

Two soft thudding sounds were heard and Peter stood up. Half a minute later he got off the bus, leaving Harry and George in there. The police investigation later ascertained that they were both shot in the head with a silenced pistol from close range.

 

Peter made his way towards the school gates. Since the incident at Columbine high school the entrance had been equipped with a metal detector. Peter calmly walked through the metal detector triggering off the alarm. The security guard, a fat, black man, called John in his fifties stood up from his desk.

 

"How many times have I told you kids to take all keys, chains,-"

 

BANG!

 

The sound of the unsilenced pistol rang in the entrance hall. John, shot in the neck fell to the ground. Girls in the line behind Peter screamed and turned to flee. Peter turned and pointed the pistol at their retreating backs, and pulled the trigger repeatedly. Sixteen times altogether. Five bodies remained in the open space before the entrance to the school. All the others had run away. Several were already calling 911 on their cellphones.

 

Peter was determined not to make the same mistakes as the boys at Columbine had. He planned to leave the school before the cops got here. Peter went towards the teacher's offices. It was still fifteen minutes till classes. Most of them would still be there. As he approached the offices he took the assault rifle from the sports bag and dropped the sports bag. A first grade boy looking out from his classroom spotted Peter and jumped back into the class. Peter did not take notice of him. He entered the teachers offices and emptied the assault rifles magazine at the teachers in there.

 

He reloaded and made his way towards class B12, the window of which gave onto the roof of the caretaker's shed. That was his planned escape route. He heard the first sirens when he reached the classroom. The classroom, where his class was going to have history class was still empty. Nevermind. He could not wait. Anyway those whom hated him the most were already here. With a gun in one hand and the assault rifle in the other he entered the classroom. Disregarding the screams he started shooting. Some tried to escape via the windows, but none made it. All of them were hit. Peter making his way towards the window so as to escape. He then heard a voice from behind him.

 

"Peter...why?"

 

It was Susan, a girl with whom Peter had developed a sort of strange friendship. She had lost her parents by the time she was four years old, and lived with her grandparents. There were a lot of similarities between Peter and herself. Lately they had been spending a lot of time together. Peter pointed the gun at her, but then a tear appeared in his eye.

 

"Goodbye Susan. Whatever the investigation shall bring I'd like you to know that I loved you."

 

He turned and jumped from the window, landing on the roof of the shack. He jumped down from the roof and landed in some bushes. The rifle got caught in the branches of the bush. He wasn't going to need it anymore anyway. He still had three pistols and thirteen extra magazines. He made his way through the bushes towards the road. Then he spotted the police car just stopping on the back lawn of the school.

 

Two officers got out, and Peter saw his opportunity. Selecting his silenced pistol he aimed for several seconds and shot one of the officers in the head, then rapidly fired three shots at the other one. He then took the ignition keys from the dead police officer and sat in the patrol car.

 

Fifteen minutes later...

 

"The suspect is in patrol car 4Y42 heading towards the south on the highway leading out of the town."

 

Peter had never driven a car before, but he had been several times to game arcades, and managed not badly. Then he spotted the road block. He tried hitting the breaks, but his foot slipped off them and he crashed into the road block at full speed. Several seconds later he came back to his senses. He saw blood on the steering wheel. His own blood. His legs were stuck under the crushed instrument panel. He felt a strange pain in his lower back also, but turning his head was painful.

 

They shall not have me and show me to the world as a lunatic. - he thought to himself and pointed the gun at his head.

 

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From the police report on the incident:

 

"Investigation has determined that the suspect, Peter Geary, aged 16 took his legal guardian's, Jeff Geary's hunting rifle and shot Jeff Geary, aged 47 twice, first in the stomach, then in the head. Going down the stairs he killed July Geary, born Oppo twice in the lower back. Both died before emergency services reached them. The suspect then took bus 12 at 07:43 am and at some point before reaching school shot and killed Harry Hunter and George Hunter, twins, both aged 17 in the head at close range with a silenced pistol.""

 

"Security guard John Boltson was shot in the neck and remains in intensive care at this date, in critical condition. Several female students were shot in the back as they tried to flee. None of them died, and all are out of critical condition. The suspect made his way to the teacher's offices, where firing a rifle and a pistol killed Jonathan Kimble, 62, Angela Midson 34, George Thomas West, 27 and wounded Jack Able, 28, Pamela Kiddon, 45, Harold Harold Betral, 39. Jack Able and Pamela Kiddon died in hospital, Harold Harold Betral is still in intensive care, in a stable condition."

 

"Continuing to class room B12 the suspect killed seven students aged between 15 and 18: Bill Young, Fred Treethorn, Kyle Midson, Claire Blaise, Anna Washington, Omar Ayal and Peter Frorn. Susan Michelson was spared by the suspect, having only received a pistol shot wound in her arm. In her witness statement she wrote that the suspect had confessed his love to her as a reason for not killing her. The suspect left the building via a first story window. His rifle was found caught in a bush just outside the window. Officers Jaskel and Fornetti were killed with a silenced pistol next to their police patrol car. The suspect stole the vehicle and after a chase lasting less than twenty minutes crashed the vehicle into a police roadblock along third highway."

 

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Excerpt from the psychologist report on Peter Geary:

 

"The subject was most probably acting under the influence of mind influencing drugs, including anti-depressants. He was clearly not fully in control of his own actions. Blood tests after the incident showed that he had a very high level of medications in his bloodstream."

 

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From the award-winning autobiography of Peter Greary, the famed writer published forty-two years later:

 

Chapter 3: The school shooting:

 

"After the loss of my parents at the young age of eleven, I had to go and live with my uncle and his wife. I had to be put on anti-depressants and five years after the death of my parents something snapped in me. I went on a killing rampage, killing seventeen people and wounding several others. If any of the family members of those I killed are still alive I would like to present them my deepest regrets for what I did."

 

"...After the car crash I tried to kill myself, but today I must say, that I am glad that the pistol did not work. I was taken to intensive care and had to stay there for three months under strict guard. At this time the anti-depressants were no longer administered to me and I realised what I had done."

 

Chapter Four: The trial

 

"I was put to trial and thanks to the psychological report I was only sentenced to thirteen years in a psychological institute, albeit a top security one. After ten and a half years, due to good conduct and massive improvements in my mental state I was released."

 

Chapter Five: The years after I left the institute

 

"...Two years later I met Susan Michelson the girl I had spared at the school again. At first she was much afraid of me, but in the end we had a very long chat. Turned out she had been on medications for seven years after the incident at the school, due to the shock. Yet she never accused me of doing what I did. She understood what had been going on with me at the time, and she was the only one to forgive me."

 

"...We married when I was 30 years old and she 29. We've been happily together ever since. The same year we got married my first book on the effects antidepressants can have on young people got published. I had started writing the book, while still in the mental institution."

 

Chapter Six: Epilogue

 

"...At the current date I am 58 years old and am the author of two best selling novels. I still receive a lot of mail from people thinking I should never have been allowed to walk free. I have replied to all of these messages."

 

"I know I shall not go to Heaven, because of what I did, but I'm trying to get my past amended for. Ninety percent of the profits I acquired from my books have gone to charity, mostly to the Fund for the Victims of the Hedgeton School Massacre."

Edited March 26, 2005 by Patrick Durham

[Sweetcherrie]

As far as I can say well written, and I really enjoyed the story

 

Lets just hope that not all kids on medication start doing this sort of stuff

 

Oh, I liked the fact that he actually marries the girl he spared, and that she has a similar history.

[Patrick]

Oh, I liked the fact that he actually marries the girl he spared, and that she has a similar history.

Well I wanted it to have a non-conventional ending, because otherwise it would have just been the same story of the kid suiciding himself at the end that happened in the real world cases.