Damaged (29 page)

Theyyyyy're heeeeere!

Adam put his thumb on the trigger.

"No, don't!" Chris said. "We'll get through this."

"Why? You just don't want to be blown up. You don't give a shit about me."

"Yes. I do. Otherwise I wouldn't be here—"

Adam interrupted:
"No you don't!
Nobody gives a shit about me."

"Are you that blind? So many morons have torn you down your entire life, and you refuse to believe, because of them, that nobody can like you? That nobody cares? Well fuck you. I care. Believe whatever you want. Your mother cared about you. And your father, too, before you—I think you don't want anybody to love you. You're afraid."

"You're afraid of being blown up."

"The hell with that bomb. You think I'm afraid to die? Do you honestly know what I do when I don't hang out with you, Adam? You know I party and drink and smoke pot. But that's nothing. I've tried heroin three times. I snorted coke. I slept with the wrong girl before I began dating Amy. Now I have genital warts—"

Another knock on the door, much harder…

Adam held up his hand. "I don't want to hear this."

"Why not? Because you can't accept it. If somebody isn't exactly like you, or
you
, you shut them out. You kill people, and I accept you still. I make a few minor mistakes, and you scold me for it. Well, nobody in this world is perfect. Jesus, Erica wasn't even anywhere near perfect."

“Why are you here?"

The officers knocked on the door so hard, Adam and Chris thought they were going to knock it down. Adam never took his finger off the button.

"I am here because I'm with you through thick and thin. You don't remember, do you?"

"Remember what?" Adam said, irritated.

"The pact we made back in fourth grade. We swore that we would remain friends in this life till we both die. We even buried stuff at the park. You put a comic book in a can and I put in that Yankees cap I loved so much."

Adam tried to remember. Couldn't.

"Or do you remember the time when—"

Adam stopped him: "Remember, remember, remember. Remember the time, Chris? Neither of us are those little kids anymore. Every time we talk, we talk about all the fun we used to have together. About this time, about that time. Well, I don't want to be remembered of something that just doesn't exist anymore. What about now? Today? Tomorrow? Where did all the fun times go? Huh?"

Chris became quiet.

The door upstairs, however, was anything but. It soon opened, and Officer Rivers peeked his head in. "Adam, you in here? I need to ask you a few questions. Adam?"

Chris looked at Adam, who nodded and said, "Go tell him what's going on. That I have a bomb, and that if they open fire, we'll all be turned into goop."

"What if they want to talk to you?" Chris queried.

"They can open the basement door and yell down. I don't want to see anybody come down here. At least not yet."

Chris turned and took a step.

"Chris?"

Chris stopped and turned back.

"Except you. I want you back here as soon as possible."

Chris smiled. He ran back upstairs and into the hallway, where Officer Rivers was standing with his hand dangling over his gun.

"Hold it right there!"

Chris stopped and held up his hands. "Whoa. It's just me."

"Are you the one who called this in? Where is Adam?"

"Yeah, I called. He's in the basement."

The officer took a step toward the basement door.

Chris said, "Don't go down there. He's got a pipe bomb. There's a trigger on it and everything. All he has to do is push a button."

"All right. Please come outside with me. I need to ask you a few questions."

They walked out the front door.

***

Police cars, officers, and citizens jam-packed the streets. Some people were dressed against the weather, and others were still wearing their pajamas. Nobody looked happy, but everybody looked curious. Chris could not believe the turn out. Everybody in town was waiting to see the mastermind behind the tragic murders. Throw them a few lit torches, a pitchfork or two, and you'd have the great American witch-hunt underway.

Chris, in some strange way, was proud of Adam. He'd finally stood up to his enemies and avenged them in some extremely creative styles. His actions were talked about all over the news, on every national channel, on Larry King Live… Jay Leno even commented about it on his show. Adam had made the big time and had proved, once and for all, the ultimate outcome of severe bullying.

Chris, himself, almost wanted to whack some of the people who gazed at him as he followed Officer Rivers down the porch steps.
They
stared at him like they wanted
him
dead. Some whispered into each others' ears, others pointed at him, and others even wanted to approach him, but were stopped by police.

Now I see why Adam hates people so much. They hated him first.

"How much do you know about Adam and the crimes?" Rivers asked Chris as they stepped over to a tree, away from the mob.

"I read a document he wrote on his computer that described what happened in every detail and how he felt about it. Everything. I also found a jar of Chloroform that I believe he stole from school. His dad was missing. I just put it all together. Plus, his mother died and his first girlfriend left him a day or two before the first murder."

The officer rubbed the back of his neck with a stiff hand. "You haven't actually seen a body?"

"No, I didn't. I know it's him, though. For sure. He talks about how much he hated the three victims all the time."

"Do you think he intends to use the bomb?"

"I don't know. He's been so unstable lately, I just don't know. Officer, what is going to happen to him if he does get out of there alive?"

The officer looked at him suspiciously. "Prison without parole at worst, death sentence at best. I sure as hell hope the latter."

Chris thought about yanking the gun out of his holster and blowing his head off.

"Why?" Chris demanded.

"Excuse me?" he said.

"Why do you hope he dies?"

"Kid, this friend of yours killed three innocent teenagers in cold blood. He hacked them up. He didn't care about them or their friends or family. As far as I'm concerned, he can burn in hell for the rest of eternity. Stupid question. Now I need to know—that bomb—is it real? Do you know what it's constructed of?"

Chris thought about it for a second. Something came out of his mouth, but it wasn't exactly the truth: "It's a dirty bomb. I know he used some kind of chemical from a nearby lab. This thing blows, everybody in this street is going to choke to death from the acid gas."

The officer suddenly looked tenfold tenser.

***

In the basement, Adam fiddled with his metal baby. He nervously removed the trigger, and with a few nearby tools, reconstructed it so that it would explode…
on impact
.

***

“Are you kidding?" Chris asked the officer. "I have to go back in there. I'm the only person he'll listen to."

"Kid, you're not going back in there.

“Come on, Carey, clear the streets! Let's go!"

Most of the people were gone now. Left remaining—a dozen or more officers and a few paramedics waiting for the worst.

"What's going to happen if you, or someone else Adam doesn't know, goes down there and negotiates with him? He won't even talk to
you,
" Chris said.

"And what good’s it going to do when I have to send your parents your body parts in a bag?" the officer replied. "Now I can definitely use your help, but you sure as hell ain't going back down there. End of story!"

The hell I'm not!

"Heeeey!
" Officer Rivers screamed at Chris as the boy ran back up the porch steps, into the house, through the hallway, and down the basement steps.

"Who's there?!" Adam shouted.

"It's me. Don't worry." Chris stepped into some light and sat in a chair across from Adam.

"Did you talk to the pigs?"

"Yeah." Chris gazed downward.

Adam knew that that was not a good sign. "They want me dead, don't they?"

A moment passed without Chris speaking or moving. Then he nodded. "It doesn't look good, Adam. Are you going to give up? Or are you going to—" He pointed to the bomb.

"I'll tell you this—you are definitely not going to die today. I will. They might. Either way, I'm done. You know what the shittiest part about all this is?" Adam said.

"What?"

"I didn't solve anything by killing anybody. I just made the hole in my own heart a lot bigger. For the time being, I felt relieved, that I did the right thing, but now… I just realize I lowered myself to their level."

"Don't think about it. It's not your fault."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it isn't. You just been dealt a bad hand. It's not your fault the way they treated you."

"I know a lot of people who would disagree with you. People on the internet used to tell me that people treat us the way we treat ourselves."

"Bullshit," Chris said. "Do you go up to people and ask them to cuss at you? No. I know people who do horrible things and they have tons of friends. It's all circumstance. ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you’, makes a lot more sense. But no, don't blame yourself. The people who tell you that are basically saying it’s ‘
all your fault’.
It's Bain's. It's Erica's. It's Pete's. They're in the wrong. Everyone I saw out there is far more problematic than you."

"Why did it have to come to this? I can't really believe anything I've done. It just seems like a bad nightmare. It's like it didn't happen at all. I tell myself it didn't. I wish it didn't."

Chris sympathized for him. "What I wish is that people had hearts. If they did, you wouldn't have killed anybody. And your idols—Eric and Dylan—wouldn't have shot up the school. Adam, you did nothing wrong. You acted on instinct. You had to protect yourself. Your enemies were the evil ones. They didn't do what they did to you out of necessity, or ignorance, or protection, or instinct. They hurt you because they knew they could. They saw a wounded animal and kicked it when it was suffering. They should be the ones in your position now. Don't you dare blame yourself."

"But it
is
my fault."

“No!" Chris raised his voice. "That's them talking to you! Everything they ever told you was wrong. Do you hear me? Adam?"

Adam's eyes watered. He looked up at Chris and said, "When I was younger, I knew who I was. In primary school, life was kind to me. Kids our age were just that—kids. In middle school, I was ridiculed, laughed at, and teased day after fucking day. I've been told my entire life that I was a freak, a loser, a nobody that shouldn't exist. They reprogrammed my head. I want to believe you, but I can't. They're right. They have to be. It's you versus them. Majority rules, right? One person can be wrong, but not the whole world. Right?"

Tears filled Chris’ eyes, too. "You listen to me. This whole fucking world is shit, Adam. Complete garbage. Everybody on it sucks. If anything, you make this world better. Maybe not because of what you did, but because you're you. You're not them. You're not greedy. You're not a liar. You're not a bully. You're not a drug addict like most of the people around here. You don't listen to people. Trust me, everybody I know listens to somebody they shouldn't and do things they shouldn't, all because they don't own themselves. They give their souls away so they can fit in. You
never
have, no matter how badly you wanted a girlfriend or friends. To me, Adam, you're
my
hero."

Tears streamed down Adam's cheeks. Then down Chris's cheeks. Chris forgot about the rule that guys don't hug guys. He threw his arms around Adam and cried. Adam did the same.

"You don't listen to what they told you," Chris told him. "You keep listening to your fucking self."

Adam was crying too hard to fit in a response. He almost forgot about the bomb across his lap and the cops outside the house—

Until, that is, the front door upstairs burst open so loudly that Adam almost dropped his only weapon. He and Chris broke their hug and looked at each other.

Adam said, "Do you see that table over there?" He pointed to a large, solid oak table in the far corner. Chris nodded.

"Hide behind it."

"What are you going to do?"

"Just hide behind it! I don't want you getting hurt."

"No! Don't do this to yourself, man. You're not killing yourself! I'm not going to let you!"

"You get the fuck over there now! Hurry!"

Chris didn't want to, but he did go over there and barricade himself behind it.

A split second later, the basement door creaked open. Officer Rivers walked down into Adam’s dungeon.