The Killer (Part 2)

CONTINUED FROM PART 1

Note: This story contains a graphic depiction of a deed that some readers may find upsetting or alarming. The story is an attempt to explain the motivation of the mass murderer and what the meaning of “suicide by cop” might be. In no way is it intended to glorify, condone or serve as an apologia for the act the protagonist commits.

How I acquired the weapon—an AR-15 with a 16-inch barrel and iron sights, or the half-dozen 30-round magazines that came with it—is nobody’s business. I will report that I found it, in its design and craftsmanship, to be a stunningly beautiful instrument and that, immediately in its thrall, when I first held it in my arms—it weighed maybe six or seven pounds—it seemed to pulsate as if it was possessed of a beating heart. Was I, at that moment, projecting the excitement of my own wildly beating heart onto it? The gun was also, considering it was second-hand, remarkably clean. All the preparation it needed was a quick tidying.

Per the previous owner’s instructions, I removed the rear takedown pin and took out the bolt carrier group and charging handle. With that done, I wiped these components with a rag to rid them of small bits of black sludge that was dirty oil. Then, using a nylon bristle brush, I scoured the inside of the upper and lower receiver. Next, I ran a bore snake through the barrel to make sure it was completely clear. Finally, I added fresh oil to the outer three flanks of the charging handle and, returning to the bolt carrier group, put several more drops of oil into the holes on the side.

And that was it.

With the gun all set, I became feverish and agitated. Anxious to get moving, I was unable to sleep that night. In the morning I left a voice mail for my boss to tell him I was sick. After that I did nothing but pace the breadth of the apartment over and over again, pausing periodically to glance out the window at the shuttered night club below. Then, when darkness eventually fell, and wearing a thick parka with the loaded gun clutched against my chest and extra clips in a backpack, I climbed the two flights of stairs to the roof. Once there, I slid the long dead bolt rod and opened the creaking metal door to a blast of icy air, which made me wish I’d thought to bring gloves. Maybe twenty patrons, most of them young, were queued now in front of the club when I got to the roof’s ledge overlooking the street some thirty yards from the door. Pulling the parka’s hood tighter around my head and laying the gun at my feet, I crouched and wedged myself between a skylight and a fireplace chimney and, peering down, watched them. I could hear some in the group laughing. They were anticipating a good time.

I didn’t wait to start. The ready and easy marks I'd correctly envisioned clearly illuminated by street lamps and the club’s neon sign and decorative lights, I picked up the gun and began firing right away, moving my aim from the back of the line to the front. Having had no prior experience with this rifle, the crackles and pops of the reports were much louder than I’d thought they’d be. And the force of the recoil against my armpit was stronger than I’d expected. It would doubtless leave a bruise, but I felt no pain. The thing was I couldn’t really feel my body. I wasn’t even cold. From the moment I’d started shooting I was liberated from my body and, by extension, from all the grief that it generated for me. I wasn’t scared anymore. On the contrary, I was ecstatically happy. In the process of killing you kill your own death, at least your anxiety about it. Feeling far greater than anything I’d ever felt on coke or amphetamines, I realized what being truly “high” meant and why people coveted it. It meant to be outside of and above the body that will ultimately destroy you. I’d mimicked nature—given it what it obviously relished—and I’d been rewarded by euphoria. The vivid red blood that was erupting like a fountain of mini geysers all along the line was glorious to behold. I heard muffled cries, but no screaming. It was happening too quickly for that. One guy, who I’d hit in the torso, looked in my direction with a quizzical expression before falling. Even with the wind up the smell of sulfur was thick in the air. Shell casings were scattered all around me. And in short order sirens began to wail.

I think I got most all of them.

Since I’d always eschewed social media and had given no hint of my intentions to anyone, I knew there’d be puzzlement about my purpose. Had I come from some twisted ideology? A grudge against the club? People would look for a rationale that, however demented they’d deem it, was comprehensible to them. What could my motive have been? Well, I’ll tell you. Self-defense. I was defending myself against my crippling terror of death. But no, they won’t get it. This explanation will willfully mystify them because to understand it would oblige them to examine the devices they use to protect and sustain themselves and would, in turn, undermine those devices.

It was at this point that, separated from my body and with the prospect of my own death no longer frightening me, I thought to turn the gun on myself. If death or permanent incarceration were all that was left for me—and not knowing how long my exaltation (which might have made a life in prison tolerable if it continued) would last, I wanted to take advantage of a moment in which my demise would be near to painless. That was when I heard a slight grating sound at the rooftop door. The first responders had showed up. They’d knocked out the stairwell bulbs, but there was still sufficient light from the windows of the surrounding and taller buildings to see the door, which I’d left slightly ajar, slowly opening wider. They were cautiously pushing against it with their weapons. Then they egressed, dropping to their stomachs on the tarred roof floor and crawling military-style along it. Although they were helmeted and heavily armored, it still, I thought, took courage to do what they were doing. Unlike me they had normal lives to lose. Almost simultaneously though, I also flashed on the possibility that, perhaps burdened with a problem similar to mine, at least some part of them had picked this job precisely for a chance to get a taste of the sensation I’d arrived at. But why they’d chosen to be here didn’t really matter. Either of those reasons was enough to move me. Out of admiration for their heroism, if heroism was what it was, or empathy, if a private misery was what it was, came a swelling of generosity and a better idea.

Standing fully upright and facing them, I emptied a clip in their direction, careful to aim above them. There followed a crackling fusillade of hail-like metal, the impact of which lifted my feet and hurled me backwards and, in its deafening volume, so all-consuming of my senses as to further reduce my capacity to know any pain to a slight burning in my chest. With that, as the blood spilled from my ripped heart into the cavities of my body, I entered a sweet oblivion.