The Coke Can

 

The Coke Can

by Louis Gooding-Fair

Peering over the upturned table, my left ear suddenly radiated with a pain I hadn’t felt since childhood. I ducked down instinctively and pissed myself a bit. I felt the ear for damage; my hand was covered in spots of blood, which was dripping onto my shirt. My heart was a bass drum in my chest; that was too close. Two older boys - Harris and Pollard - were gods with their shotguns. Peering round, Carruthers had bolted towards the door, rattling the handle to open it; it didn’t open. Attracted by the sound, they looked at each other and stepped over the broken bodies to flank him. Carruthers face was contorted in fear, a trickle of urine running out of bottom of his trouser leg, over his shoes and mingling with the blood. He backed up against the door as they approached. The bigger one, Harris, stood up to him, looking down at him. In a blink, Harris whipped the butt of the shotgun round, connecting with Carruthers chin with an almighty crack. He crumpled to the floor in limp mess, adopting the foetal position. His hands cradled his broken jaw as he whimpered through the pain. Harris pressed his right boot into the boys neck, pinning his head to the bloodstained floor. Harris pointed his weapon down at him and was about to fire when he caught himself. He readjusted his grip so that the shotgun stock pointed towards Carruthers head. He hoisted the weapon up and ferociously drove it into the boys head, the skull giving way like an egg shell. The stock had bits of skull and brain on it. He wiped the stock on the boys jumper. Pollard’s ugly sneering cackle cut through the silence. Sterry was peering round the edge of the table, “You chose the wrong day to do a Columbine.” He retorted, “Yeah, well Duff and Shane aren’t going to bother us no more. I’ve had enough of shit being put in my locker, and being beat up every other day. It was coming to them.”

He was right; they couldn’t humiliate me in class anymore either. I reflected on my behaviour towards Sterry; we spent five years together in the same form and bore the brunt of the “banter”, but he would retaliate in kind. I wondered where that left me. “Why didn’t you shoot me…..” The gunfire paused and he hit me my shoulder and put his index finger to his lips, whispering. “Shut up. My weapon is over there. I need to get to it.”

I peeked out from behind the table to track their movements. To my right a girl was dragging herself along the ground by her arms, off-white school shirt had been stained red, and her legs appeared to not be working. She was sobbing softly, and turned her head, revealing a gaping hole where her left cheek had been blown away; her eyeball was hanging out, bouncing against the exposed cartilage and bone. Her teeth were broken or missing and her hair was matted with her own blood as well as that of other students. A hunk of flesh hung by her left shoulder, the glistening of a gold ornament suggesting it was her ear. She saw me hiding behind the table and began to cry, “Help me” she cried softly. Harris turned suddenly, “we got a live one here bah,” he chirped. I hid again. Pollard grabbed her legs and yanked her away, as she fought to find purchase on the slick floor. Pollard stood astride her, grabbed a clump of hair and yanked her head towards him as he leant over. She shrieked as he did and winced. He recoiled as the sight of her face but brought what remained of her face up to his. She whimpered softly as he held her up to him. “Well your a fucking state, intcha?” “Please….don’t hurt me, I’m...I’m pregnant,” she protested. His eyes bulged and he dropped her. She cried out in pain. Harris smiled, “two for one then, bargain.” A loud pop, and the whimpering ceased. I looked round to see her vacant eyes blood running out from her lifeless body and in between the tiles, glistening in the light. “There’s someone behind that table.” I was toast.

The growing sound of footsteps was halted by a familiar Essex accent, “Oi, what’s this?” I mouthed to Sterry, “That’s Brookes.” I peered round to see Pollard raising his weapon to shoulder level and firing it with a deafening at Brookes’ torso. The impact knocked Brookes backwards against the vending machine, a coke can dropping as he did. His eyes bulged buglike and his mouth dropped open as he grabbed his belly. He slid down it slowly with a squeak, slumping at the bottom of it. He let out short, sharp squealing sounds as he looked down to see red rubbery tubes spilling into his hands. His breathing became shallow and irregular. Despite his state, he remained defiant, spitting “Wronguns…..I always knew…..you were…..nasty little...bastards.” Harris and Pollard approached Brookes, his eyes darting between the two. A smile appeared across Harris’ face. He hitched up his blood splattered khaki bottoms and sat down onto his haunches in front of the dying man.

He pinched Brookes face tightly and brought it to his own, almost touching noses. Brookes squirmed impotently in his grasp as Pollards cannabis breath encroached on his nostrils. “You….look at me.” Brookes peered up. “You dirty old perv. Was it you that got Lisa pregnant?” Brookes tried kicking out and turning his head away while making muffled screams sounds; Pollards’ grip increased. “Look at her now,” Pollard forced Brooks to look at Lisa’s body, his face distorted with a lurching despair as he saw her and their child dead. Pollard squared his face up to Brookes and held him there, “My face will be the last one you will see before you die.” With each spastic contortion he lost more blood, his life ebbing away onto the tiles. Fatigue slowly enveloped Brookes’ muscles, each movement and each reflex requiring more effort, effort which he struggled to muster. Pollard felt Brookes’ head relax in his hands and he became inert. He pushed himself up using Brookes’ lifeless body. “Good boy” muttered Pollard flatly, patting Brookes’ head, smiling. He wiped the excess hair gel on his trouser leg. “Greasy fucker”. He felt vindicated for killing his cheating ex-girlfriend and her lover. Scum, like the rest, he thought. He turned to Harris, “That’s the nonce dealt with, what now?”

Before Harris could respond Pollard was covered in a mix of brain, skull fragments, blood and thin blonde hair as the top of his friends head exploded with gore. Some went in Harris mouth; his mouth went dry from the shock and he swallowed some of deceased friend. The corpse maintained its balance momentarily and then dropped. Pollard’s weapon clattered against the tiles and he scrambled behind a table that had been turned over, the pellets spraying everywhere. Harris torso caught some of the fire; the left arm below the below had been blown off. Sterry took pot shots at Pollard. “This is my day,” roared Sterry at Pollard as he approached him. He pulled the table away, leaving Pollard exposed on the floor, his hands up in the air pleading and protecting himself. “This is my day, not yours.”, Pollards left kneecap was decimated by a point blank shot to it. Pollard howled like a dying animal; and he shuffled backwards on his elbows until a wall stopped his progress. He looked round and turned to face Sterry, smirking uneasily while panting. “Do it then, you RUNT.” “Say hello to your mate for me.” Pollard put his arm up to protect himself; the first shot blew his hand off and the second blew a hole in his head. Everything went quiet for a lifetime. “Sterry…....is..is he dead?” He didn’t say anything. A shell rattled on the ground. As I got up from behind the table Sterry was pointing his weapon at me, his face and glasses masked with Pollards blood. Suddenly, he stumbled and fell face first into Pollards crotch, the back of head mulch of hair, skull and gore. Seconds later the police burst in.

I was the only survivor. I told them that Harris and Pollard had massacred everyone. You got the wrong guy, I said. He saved me. I wasn’t completely truthful with the police; he had killed most of the students in the canteen and he was about to kill me too. Luck works in funny ways; I ended up in two school massacres, one after the other, on the same day at the same place and survive them both. So as a “fuck you” to luck and to my would be killer, I told them he saved me. He’ll be remembered as a hero, not the villain he wanted to be.