Today is the day she’ll make them pay.
Priscilla “Porky” Myles has had enough. She’s tired of the jokes, the cruel, constant whispers behind her back, the spurned crushes and teasing and juvenile bullying. Everything.
It ends today.
For everyone who ever wronged her. Today.
Today is the day she’ll make them pay.
She walks swiftly through the crowded mall, darting between the constricting Christmas shoppers with a deftness that would put a cyclist navigating through traffic to shame. Today she has a clear purpose, an enflamed passion for the moment to come, and she’s not about to let anything or anyone slow her down. Despite the wintery weather outside, she’s significantly overdressed in her black leather jacket. The large size and spacious interior pockets made it even easier to conceal the gun.
She’d discovered it in her father’s closet last week, hidden in the back corner beneath a pile of ancient National Geographics. It was so small that she initially mistook it for just a toy. When she discovered out how to open the chamber and saw the genuine bullets lodged inside it, she knew it was real.
And perfect.
This gun is going to help her solve all her problems. Today.
No more waiting. No more hurting. No more excuses.
Today is the day.
She spies a perky attendant at an exotic lotion kiosk start to approach her, stepping directly into her path. Priscilla fixes her with her gothic gaze, attempting to emanate a concentrated dose of her venom through her glare. The girl doesn’t get the hint.
“Hello there! Would you like to try our—”
Priscilla growls an obscenity at her as she barrels past, intentionally knocking into her shoulder with her own. The frail girl cries out in surprise as she spins around, nearly sprawling to the floor. Priscilla walks on, ignoring her and the concerned looks of the shoppers turning to watch.
They’re too late. She doesn’t care what they think anymore. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks anymore.
Especially not today.
Today is the day, and she has a job to do.
Priscilla steps onto the escalator and starts the slow descent into the crowded chaos of the food court. She glowers at the throng, remembering all-too-well the countless times she’d come here for lunch only to find nowhere to sit. More than once she’d been forced to eat her Taco Bell alone, standing in an obscure corner while being stared at by the seated elite.
Oh, how she’s hated those days. For the past two years she’s hated those days with a pulsating passion.
She stares at her classmates below, the social menagerie a blend of holiday exuberance and exhaustion. Unexpectedly, Priscilla cracks a small smile.
Today it’s crowded. Today, collective cliques are standing around, searching for seats, constantly bumping into one another because there’s barely enough room to maneuver. Priscilla’s smile widens, her face unaccustomed to the sensation. Today, she will make them pay.
She exits at the bottom of the escalator and stands in the nearest corner, taking a few moments to study the room and assess her best starting position. She quickly concludes that the most ineffective area to begin would be near Mister Salad. Despite the Christmas rush and the packed food court, there’s only one person standing in line.
Priscilla shakes her head. Who in their right mind goes to the mall and orders a salad? That’s just sad and pathetic.
She turns to her right, surveying the rest of the room. Taco Bell is overflowing, as usual. The gyro place is equally packed, as are the Indian and Italian food areas. Still, the largest collection of teens are sitting around the Asian spot.
Figures, she thinks.
Cheapest food around, and the Asian girls are always the ones who got the guys at school. Not the cheerleaders. Not the ones with genuine intelligence and personalities like herself. No, it’s always the Asians.
And Suzie Chen is the worst.
Suzie is not only Asian, but she’s also intelligent and a cheerleader, (of course). Even worse, she’s currently dating Derek Peters, Jr., the only boy Priscilla ever seriously had a crush on. They used to be friends back in grade school, hanging out on lazy Saturdays, playing video games and going to the creek to catch frogs — real tomboy stuff. It was fun and innocent and Priscilla had loved every minute of it. Loved him, every minute of it.
Then came high school, and the two of them slowly drifted apart into different social circles. He settling into the popular, good-looking sphere, and Priscilla… banished to the one reserved for social outcasts. The misfits. The rejected ones.
Yes, of all the people Priscilla hates and writes about the most in her Diary of Death, Suzie Chen retains the majority of the entries by a long shot. But today? Today Priscilla is going to bring a harsh and sudden end to Suzie’s reign. An end to everyone who has ever wronged her in life. And maybe a few who haven’t, but honestly? She’s beyond caring anymore. They’re all just as guilty for standing by and doing nothing while she suffered in silence.
They will all pay, and today is the day.
Priscilla meanders over to the center of the food court and closes her eyes, taking in a deep breath.
This is it. There’s no going back. She’s really going to do it this time, she’s finally ready.
Today she will bring justice to the world.
Reaching inside her jacket, Priscilla wraps her hand around the handle of the gun. It feels cold and unfamiliar. Heavy, despite the small size. She tightens her grip, then yanks it out of her jacket and points it at the ceiling.
She tightens her grip and pulls the trigger.
Click.
Nothing happens. Frowning, Priscilla brings the gun down and stares at it.
Stupid safety.
Flicking it to the side, she raises the gun again and pulls the trigger.
The explosion in her right ear deafens her instantly. Priscilla screams, instinctively lowering her hand to cover her ear. The hot muzzle sizzles against her temple for a second before she yelps and lifts it back into the air, watching as people start to scatter around her.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, she thinks to herself. Put your arm back down! This isn’t a freaking bank robbery! Focus!
She blinks twice, then scans the area for someone to shoot. She only has five bullets left, and she doesn’t want to waste any more of them on unimportant targets. Like ceilings.
There.
Less than twenty feet ahead sits her nemesis: Suzie Chen.
Suzie hasn’t moved from her table. She’s sitting perfectly still, frozen in fear as her friends scamper away in every direction. Even Derek is nowhere to be seen, and Priscilla extends the gun ahead of her and flashes a crooked grin.
Good-bye, Suzie, she thinks, pulling the trigger.
The gun jumps in her hand. A bullet tears through Suzie’s large soda and embeds itself into the bright blue backpack on the table beside her. Mountain Dew starts spurting through the two neat holes punched through the center of the cup.
Suzie still doesn’t move. She stares at Priscilla, terrified but unmoving as the chilled soft drink slowly spills across the table and dribbles into a puddle on her skirt.
Priscilla frowns. How could she have missed her? Especially being so close? Was she that horrible of a shot?
She grabs the gun with both hands, squints one eye shut to take aim and points at Suzie’s head. The gun fires. Behind Suzie an electronic menu at Taco Bell explodes and shatters, raining down sparks and shards of glass onto the countertop. Priscilla swears, shaking her head in shocked disbelief.
She takes two steps closer and is aiming at Suzie’s too-tight pink sweater when something warm and sticky slaps her across the face. Priscilla’s hand reaches up and sinks into a conglomeration of chicken, noodles and steamed vegetables. She pulls her hand down and stares at it, revolted.
Lo mein?
Did someone actually just throw a plate of lo mein at me?
As she swings around to face her attacker, a refreshing, ice cold beverage explodes on the other side of her face. Priscilla screams and shoots wildly, the soda stinging her eyes as an icy rivulet finds its way down the front of her shirt.
A moment later an empty tray flies through the air and glances off her shoulder, followed by an oversized slice of pizza. Priscilla spins around and notices for the first time a handful of people surrounding her. They’re all armed with various food items, beverages and an assortment of plastic utensils. As she raises her arm to shoot a second tray appears from her right and slams hard into her elbow.
Priscilla yelps as the gun fires, her arm growing numb from the impact. Somewhere in the distance a display window shatters, followed by a fresh chorus of shrieks. She bellows in rage, but before she can fire another shot she’s suddenly bombarded from every side.
Pizza and popcorn.
Sodas and sushi.
Candy canes, cupcakes and milkshakes.
She thinks she even sees a bowl of salad narrowly miss her as she ducks down, covering herself with her arms.
“Stop it!” she shouts. “I’ll shoot you! I’ll shoot you all!!!” She waves the gun around at them and opens her mouth wide, letting out a high-pitched, angry shriek.
The tail end of a teriyaki shrimp darts through the melee and lodges between her lips. Priscilla chokes on it for a moment, fighting her revulsion. Eyes closed, she spits it out and stands up, swinging her arm around her and blindly firing again. Another display window shatters nearby. A second later a large reindeer display totters through it and clatters to the floor awkwardly.
More screams. The food onslaught suddenly stops, and even with her eyes shut and her one good ear Priscilla can hear the frantic footsteps and shouts surrounding her. It’s a mass exodus, but by the time she regains her balance and wipes the food from her face and opens her eyes, the entire food court has been evacuated.
“Crap!” she screams furiously, disbelieving what’s she seeing. “Crap, crap, crap!!!”
Priscilla looks down at herself, now covered in a global conglomeration of fast food abominations. Her left shoe fills with something cold as it runs down the length of her leg. She brushes a strand of spaghetti from her forehead and scans the room once again for Suzie Chen.
It’s no use. Suzie’s gone.
Everyone is gone.
Crap.
Priscilla starts sulking. She turns around slowly, watching the massive crowd of bodies rapidly flooding away from her at the far end of the courtyard, like a school of fish trying to escape a predator. She smirks at the irony of the image.
She’d always been the one who felt so alone the past few years, as if she had been the polar opposite of everyone she saw, day in and day out.
But were they repelling her? Or… had she inadvertently repelled them? Who could say? At this point, it was pretty irrelevant. Priscilla had now become the predator, and they’d become the prey.
The escaping prey, she corrects herself.
A voice shouts at her from an upper level. She looks up, sees a mall security cop pointing at her and yelling into a transmitter on his shoulder. Priscilla ignores him and walks toward the nearest exit. She knows she won’t be able to escape being captured, but she can at least be a pain in the butt for them to apprehend. After two steps, she stops to glare at a smart phone lying on the ground at her feet. The cracked screen has Santa grinning up at her and giving a double thumbs up.
Priscilla raises her boot and stomps on it. There’s a satisfying crunch before the phone suddenly slides out from under her. In an instant she falls on her butt, landing in a puddle of pasta and marinara sauce, the gun clattering away from her across the floor.
Priscilla swears again and quickly scrambles to her feet, wiping her hands on her thighs. She slowly walks to where the gun sits, picks it up off the floor and freezes.
Less than fifteen feet away from her, sitting in the center of the food court in plain sight, is a body. No, a guy.
He’s hunched over. Motionless.
Dead?
Priscilla smiles. Maybe she hit someone after all. She walks toward him, satisfied that even if she didn’t kill Suzie Chen she at least killed someone today. Tt would all be worth it then, having the satisfaction of knowing she saved even one random person from experiencing the constant agony and frustration of simply being alive.
Mall security continues to buzz about on the levels above her, barking a variety of contradictory commands. She ignores them and walks toward the slouched body, his face obscured by the black hoodie. She looks closely at him and frowns.
He doesn’t appear to have any bullet wounds at all. The guy’s not even bleeding, as far as she can tell. Priscilla glances around the room again, searching for any other bodies. There are none. Now she’s getting angry with herself.
Five bullets.
I fire five freaking bullets, and I didn’t hit a single person.
That’s not just sad. That’s pathetic.
Then she smiles.
But maybe I can make up for it with this punk.
“Hey Dork,” she says, raising the gun in front of her.
He slowly raises his head and glares at her. His eyes are red and watered, and it’s clear he’s been crying. Priscilla smiles, satisfied that she terrorized him. She reasons it would make the gift of a swift death that much more appealing.
Then she frowns. “Wait a second. I know you.”
She studies his face for a few seconds, then grins and lowers her gun. “Yeah. I know you! Graduated from Garfield last year, didn’t you?”
He doesn’t move.
“You’re Cooper Stein.”
He flinches, then continues to stare up at her, eyes burning with hatred.
“What did they call you again…? Cooper ‘Pooper’ Stein! Am I right? Cooper ‘Poop Stain’ Stein?”
He doesn’t move, but his body is shaking, his nostrils flaring angrily.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” she says, shrugging. “Being called names? Teased? Believe me, I know all about it.” She raises the gun up and points it directly at his head. “But you know what? Today I’m gonna make everything better for you. I promise.”
She pulls the trigger.
Click.
She frowns, firing again.
Click.
Click! Click!
“Huh,” she says, frowning. “Guess this is your lucky day, dork. I’m all out.”
“…ruined everything,” Cooper mutters quietly.
She throws the gun to the floor and takes a step closer.
“What’s that? You’re mumbling. Stop mumbling! I hate it when people mumble! Open your freaking mouth! Take out the marbles and e-nun-ci-ate.”
He stands up and shakes his head, clenching his fists. Hot, angry tears start to stream down his cheeks once again as the muscles in his face contort tightly.
“Had it all planned out…. for weeks… perfectly timed for today,” he seethes, wiping his nose with a sleeve. “Today was the day. But you…” He shakes his head. “You. Ruined. Everything!”
Priscilla starts to laugh, shaking her head. “I did, did I? Well, boo-the-hell-hoo. That’s life! Life sucks and then you die, right?”
“No kidding,” Cooper says, unzipping his jacket. Beneath it Priscilla stares at the colorful collection of explosives, wires and duct tape. A lone red wire connects the center of the mass to the trigger he was squeezing tightly in his hand.
“Whatever,” she says, shrugging. “Go ahead and do it…”
She leans in closer to him. “POOPER.”
He did.
Anna.