The Competition Read Online Free PDF

were wearing camouflage jackets.”
    I pointed to the bodies on the floor. “I don’t see any on these guys.”
    “I know. But like I said, even that description wasn’t consistent. Some kids didn’t notice any camouflage jackets. The video footage should resolve that question. And even if the suspects were wearing camouflage jackets, they could’ve taken them off and dumped them somewhere before they got to the library.”
    The library, the talk of two bullied, disenfranchised losers going ballistic—it all seemed too familiar. “Doesn’t it kind of sound like a rip-off of Columbine?” I said. “With a different ‘uniform’?” The Columbine killers had worn trench coats and hadn’t covered their faces.
    Graden nodded. “Yeah, it does. Like a deliberate copy, in fact.”
    “Seems pretty obvious the suspects knew the layout of the school, and knew there’d be a pep rally in the gym today—” I said.
    “Had to be students,” Bailey said.
    I dredged up what I could remember about Columbine. “But no propane tank bombs?” Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had set up propane tank bombs in the cafeteria of Columbine High, but they’d malfunctioned and never went off. If they had, the death toll would have topped three hundred—more than the Oklahoma City bombing. Their goal, according to Harris’s journals.
    “No,” Graden said. “And we haven’t found any pipe bombs or Molotovs like the ones they used at Columbine either—”
    “But they still managed to top the Columbine body count,” Bailey said.
    Graden nodded. We stood in silence for a few moments. Finally, Graden spoke. “Seen enough?”
    “For a lifetime,” I said.
    We headed out of the Hellmouth.

5
    Graden took us to an ambulance that was parked behind the school where a surrounding wall and steep hillside provided a measure of privacy and quiet. He gestured to a figure wrapped in a blanket sitting on the gurney inside. “This is Harley Jenson. He’s still a little shock-y, obviously, but he’s pretty coherent, all things considered.”
    We walked over and introduced ourselves. Pale, baby-faced, and slender, his dark hair cut conservatively short, Harley was the quintessential studious high school nerd. But right now, huddled inside that blanket, he looked more like a frightened sixth-grader.
    In halting sentences, he told us what he’d seen. As he described how one of the killers put the gun to the girl’s head, he began to shake and his teeth chattered so hard he had to stop. We waited in silence until he found his voice. Finally, speaking in a monotone, his eyes staring, vacant, he told us how he’d been momentarily deafened by the shots that killed the girl under the nearby desk, how he’d heard the killers do the countdown, and how he’d been sure he was going to die.
    “Did you see their faces?” I asked.
    “No, I—I was afraid to look.”
    “Did you see what kind of shoes they were wearing?” I asked. “Or their pants?”
    Harley shook his head and began to shake again. “I must have, right?” Harley said. “But every time I try to remember things, I just keep hearing that girl saying ‘Please, please don’t’…” Tears filled his eyes and he swallowed hard.
    I knew the sights and sounds would haunt him for the rest of his life, so I didn’t offer any platitudes about the healing effects of time. I don’t lie to victims. They deserve the respect of honesty. I gave Harley a few moments to recover, then asked whether he remembered what the suspects said.
    “They really didn’t say anything, except ‘Knock, knock’ and the things I already told you. And then the countdown.”
    “Did either of the voices sound familiar?” I asked. Harley shook his head. “They didn’t say anything about jocks?” I continued. The “why” of this atrocity was going to be the focal point of the investigation. The more I could gather from the survivors about the suspects’ words and behavior, the more we’d learn about