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Cody Hill

UP UNTIL THAT MORNING, Cody Hill had been an eighth grader at Hollows Bend Middle School.

Two hours earlier, he decided he no longer planned to return to that life.

He’d had an epiphany.

A realization.

A come-to-Jesus moment.

He wasn’t particularly popular, never had been. Most kids didn’t see him when he walked down the halls, and that was just fine by him. The assholes of the world, guys like Mason Ridler and Brett Murphy, the ones who did see him, he wouldn’t miss at all. Hell, just two weeks ago they’d tied him to one of the metal beams under the bleachers after a school pep rally and left him there for the janitors to find three hours after school let out. A month ago, they’d dragged him into the showers fully clothed.

Cody went out of his way to ensure guys like that didn’t see him, and after tonight, they never would.

After tonight, those worries would be gone.

Cody smiled, bent closer to the light, and held the soldering iron still long enough to fix the thin lead wire directly to the contact on the nine-volt battery. The instructions he’d pulled from the internet didn’t include anything like that, but it couldn’t hurt. No reason to risk the battery getting jostled and coming loose. It’s not like he’d ever have to replace it.

The people of Hollows Bend had gone bat-fucking crazy. Cody wasn’t exactly sure why. He’d managed to put a couple of theories together, but none of them really mattered. All that mattered was that it had happened, it had happened today, and it would give him perfect cover for what he had planned. Nobody would suspect him, and even if they did, he could blame it on whatever crazy juju was in the air. I did what? Oh, man, I didn’t mean to! I’d never hurt anybody! You gotta believe me! Yadda, yadda, yadda.

He was always so quiet.

Cody figured they’d say something like that. That’s what they always said. He could be loud, though. They’d learn that soon enough. Originally he planned to write it all down, create a manifesto, a crowning fuck-you listing all the dead and why they deserved to be that way. He’d started that project about a month ago, but it didn’t take him long to realize he wasn’t much of a writer and couldn’t properly communicate the assholeishness of his targets. Even when he listed them by name along with every crappy thing they’d ever done to him, they didn’t come across as the villains of the story, at least not on a level that satisfied him. He tried drawing pictures, too, but he was a worse artist than he was a writer. The manifesto wasn’t working, so he burned it. It was somewhere in those flames he found his plan B—why shoot them when he could use fire? He’d originally planned to use his dad’s AK and chase everyone down in the halls at school, but he’d seen that story play out on television enough times to know how it ended. He’d be dead, and he wouldn’t get them all. But fire? A bomb? There’s no stopping a good bomb. With a bomb, it’s over before anyone realizes it actually started.

Besides, his dad had gone hunting up in Maine and taken the AK. The gun was out, the bomb was in. He wasn’t sure he could wait until school tomorrow, though. Not with all the craziness going on. Tonight would be better. He just needed to get everyone in one place. That was easy enough.

His computer printer went quiet, ran out of paper, and Cody loaded in another stack. When it got back to work, he picked up one of the flyers: EMERGENCY MEETING! 9:00 P.M.HOLLOWS BEND MIDDLE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM

The timer on Cody’s phone went off.

Setting down the soldering iron, he silenced the phone and leaned over the mixture on the hot plate at the corner of his workbench. He’d added the oil, gelatin, petroleum jelly, putty, and starch when the water started to boil. He stirred it again and lowered the heat.

It was thickening up nicely, just like in the YouTube video.

Cody tested the mixture with his hydrometer and got a reading of 14. When it hit 17, he was supposed to take it off the heat. At that point, it was supposed to have the consistency of ice cream, and he could shape it. Originally he planned to turn the makeshift C-4 into a series of square bricks—that’s how it always appeared in the movies—but all the websites he had studied said shaping it into balls was better. Spheres guaranteed the highest detonation velocity. That meant he’d have to pack the explosives in the pockets of his vest rather than affix them to the exterior. It wouldn’t look as cool, but if it worked better …

The explosive vest was his plan C. He’d wear it, but he’d only set it off if he got in a jam. The bomb on the corner of his desk, that was his crowning jewel. His masterpiece. Timer and remote. Not only was it packed full of explosives, but he’d added nails and ball bearings. Bye-bye, Hollows Bend Middle School. Bye-bye, assholes. If all went well, he’d get to watch them die and nobody would ever know about the vest. If it didn’t go well, he’d still get to watch them die; he just wouldn’t be able to revel in it as long before detonating the vest. He wasn’t about to go to jail.

The microwave timer went off upstairs.

Cody’s stomach rumbled.

Food, then finish.

He took the steps up from the basement two at a time and nearly tripped over the body of his mother on the kitchen floor. She stared up at him blank-faced, the butcher knife still in her neck. Cody had forgotten all about her—he’d have to move her somewhere before heading out.