Chapter 1: Chris Kriegman

May 1st, 2001, 10:06AM

A/N: This is the fifth deleted story that I am attempting to rewrite, hence RS5, Restoration Series 5. Honestly, I feel that the last 4 rewrites went well, though with the traffic this fandom gets, I'll probably get little to no feedback confirming or denying that impression. The original story by the name "The Reactions of Many" was posted to this site by another user on 12-20-2011, and was inexplicably deleted by that user sometime in 2016. I spent hours on this and each of the other RS stories, trying to remember and rebuild what I could from the original story as a sort of scaffolding within which to write the rest of the story, filling in the gaps with my own work. This isn't going to be an exact replacement of the original story, but it's as close as I can make it and does contain pieces and segments of text from the original story.

Chris Kriegman yawned as he walked back into the room, scratching at the back of his neck. He looked around, trying to figure out if anything was out of place. As he did so, Chris frowned as he saw a piece of paper that had been placed purposefully atop some books that he didn't remember putting there.

He walked over and picked the paper up. Before glancing at it, he pulled open the drawers of his desk, wondering now if anything else had been moved or any more items placed there that hadn't been there before. No, nothing new in the desk drawers. Okay, so he'd checked that at least. Chris now directed his attention to the piece of paper.

Chris sorry we took your guns. We needed them for our movie. Have fun at yo momma's.

There was no signature, but Chris didn't need to see one to know who had written it.

Suddenly Chris knew he had to check something else, and he had to do it right now. He set the piece of paper back down where Andre and Cal had left it and hurried out of the room he used as his office. He had the most horrible feeling that his cousin and his cousin's best friend hadn't been kidding in that note. Chris stopped at the entrance to his hallway closet; he had always hidden the key you needed to get at the guns on top of the doorframe, where you'd never see it and almost nobody would ever think to look. Reaching up, he grabbed the key for his gun closet door. He swung it open and very quickly determined the truth.

Only half of his guns remained, half or so. The M1 Garand was here, his No. 1 Mk. III Lee-Enfield was here. His .22 LR bolt-action rifle and his .22 LR gas-operated, semi-auto rifle was here. No boxes of .303 British or .30-06 seemed to be missing, and ditto for the .22 LR ammunition.

The M1 Carbine was gone, and so was every magazine for it. The .30 Carbine ammunition was all missing. The Smith & Wesson Model 2000, his 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun, the Norinco .45 automatic pistol, the Glock 21, also chambered in .45 ACP, and the Ruger GP100 .357 Magnum revolver- they were all missing and so were their magazines and their ammunition.

Andre and Cal had come here and taken them. They'd known just where to find the key.

What the hell for?

Why had they stolen Chris' guns?

This was a serious crime and as much as Andre valued family ties, he was not going to be able to just let this go. Community service was not going to do it, either. Andre and Cal would both need to learn a stern lesson from this.

But they'd never been in trouble with the law before, not so far as Chris knew, and he definitely would have heard about it from Andre's parents if either of the boys had committed larcenous crimes.

Andre and Calvin were both eighteen now. Chris was going to have no choice but to report this to the police; the boys were going to have to learn a lesson and that was all there was to it. That meant that this would be going on their record, and theft- especially theft of firearms- was no joke. This was going to follow them for a long, long time. Yet Andre and Calvin were not stupid or needlessly reckless; they were actually more thoughtful and considerate than the average guys their age were. They tended not to do things, especially serious things, without a damn good reason. There had to be one for this, but damned if Chris could see what it was.

Chris had tried to teach those two about gun safety. Didn't Andre and Calvin get how fucking dangerous guns were? What were they going to do with them?

Thoughts were racing through Chris' mind, memories and possible scenarios. He was struggling to comprehend why Andre and Cal, who had never abused his trust once before, would do this now.

"What do you think would be the best gun to actually kill somebody with?" Calvin had asked him. "Well, they'd pretty much all kill somebody," Chris had answered.

It may have been Chris' imagination, but Andre and Cal had seemed oddly… interested in the answers to some of their questions. There were just things they'd asked him, here and there, where they had seemed riveted by Chris' response, hanging on every word. At the time, Chris had never given it much thought. He had figured that Andre and Cal were just curious teenagers, or that he was an interesting guy and they were just impressed with him. It looked like the reality was neither was true. Maybe they had never been interested in Chris at all. Maybe they'd been biding their time, behaving innocently and throwing a question they seriously wanted and perhaps needed an answer to in amongst all the normal stuff.

Maybe they'd wanted to know which guns out of the ones Chris owned would be best to kill someone with- because they were planning to do just that.

Chris turned away from his gun safe, feeling a bit guilty for thinking of his cousin and his cousin's friend like that. Andre and Calvin may have chosen to be thieves, but… they weren't murderers.

Right?

Yes. That was right. Chris had known Andre since he had been a little boy, and he and Cal had been two peas in a pod ever since they had met in September of 1997. He knew those two, or he was pretty sure he did anyway. They were a little odd, a little unusual, but they weren't killers. Chris just didn't believe that about them, even when they'd robbed him of half his firearms. But… he had to admit… the idea had more gravity than it ever would have before. Chris would have rejected the idea of Andre and Cal stealing his guns from him right alongside the idea of them using the guns to kill anybody. They'd done one thing Chris would have never believed they'd do. Would they do the other, too?

Everyone thought that they were just two normal boys, but they weren't. Andre said it himself though; who would want to think that their friend, son, peer, would ever do anything like this? Who would see it coming if that person concealed their intentions until the very end?

Chris didn't like this. He didn't like it at all. He went downstairs and into his living room, turned on the television and went to channel 6, ZNN's channel.

"…what type of situation exactly is unfolding, but it appears that armed intruders are active at Tielson High School. So far numerous 9-1-1 calls have been placed from inside the school and there are reports of as many as 6 serious injuries, all from gunshot wounds. Viewers are advised to keep their distance from Tielson, as police have advised that gunshots are still being heard."

Chris stood there, dumbfounded. Tielson. That- that was Andre's high school. Cal's too. One or more armed intruders, gunshots being heard, reports of students getting shot…

Was it possible?

Could it really have happened?

Was this some impossible coincidence that Andre and Calvin stole Andre's guns and now there was a shooting at their high school… or was this all happening exactly the way they had wanted it?

Chris Kriegman stood immobile for almost a minute. Then, by chance, the ZNN camera panned over the parking lot, the one where teachers and staff parked. A blue 1989 Pontiac Grand Am was sitting in one space, and there was no pretending that it was some teacher's car. Chris caught the license plate number before the view changed. It was Andre's car, parked against school rules in the faculty lot. Like it didn't matter where he parked, not to him, not today.

Like he didn't care…

Suddenly, Chris ran over to the corded phone on his wall. He dialed 9-1-1, terribly afraid that he had an valuable information on the identities and armaments of the shooters at Tielson High School. There was no way this was real. This had to be a bad dream. It couldn't be happening.

Yet Chris was dialing 9-1-1, about to tell them he thought that it was.

A/N: 3-6-2017 was the original upload date for this chapter. Below are the sections of original text I was able to recover from Chapter 1 of "The Reactions of Many". The first two lines are a piece of the original author's notes for this chapter. Chris Kriegman was chosen as a featured character because, as the original author states, Andre and Cal left him a note. Even if they hadn't, given that those are his firearms being used in the shooting, Chris would be a superb feature character for a story like this. As you can see, the original author at least briefly entertained the idea of writing a fifth chapter, but I can testify that they never did. It would be difficult to do a fifth chapter anyway, because after Chris, Rachel, the Kriegmans and the Gabriels, who would you feature? I will not be writing a fifth chapter due to that issue and the fact that I plan on recreating the original story as closely as possible, which means sticking to the original number of chapters.

So probably around 4 or 5 chapters... this is the first chapter. I chose Chris as Cal and Andre left them a note. Also, seeing as how there was ...

Chris yawned as he walked back into his room, scratching at the back of his neck. He looked around, trying to figure out if anything**was out of place.

Looking around, Chris frowned as he saw a piece of paper placed purposefully**atop some books**that he didn't remember putting there.

Standing up he walked over and picked the paper up.

Chris opened the drawers before taking a few steps back.

Chris, sorry we took your guns. We needed them for our movie. Have fun at yo momma's. There was no signature, but Chris didn't need to see one to know**who had**written it.

Reaching up, he grabbed the key for his gun closet door.

Only one gun remained—the gun he had removed the indicator on.

So far, there have been six kids taken to hospitals for serious injuries.

Chris always had the feeling of de-ja-vu but it never amounted to anything.

"What do you think would be the best gun to actually kill somebody with?

That question had been purely hypothetical.

Didn't Andre and Calvin get how fucking dangerous guns were? What were they going to do with them?

Everyone thought that they were just two normal boys, but they weren't.**Andre said it himself though; who would want to think that their friend, son

away, feeling a bit guilty for thinking of his cousin and cousin's friend like that.