Sorry that this has taken me so long. There have been more than a million things that have come up, but at least I have a few more themes and main ideas to add, that have been learned by myself in the past two months. The other two months I was just lazy.
Once he saw the busses headed out of South Park, he knew where they were going. The high school.
Sighing, he pulled the Suburban over, parking front of a store he'd already destroyed. As he resurveyed his own destruction, a twinge of remorse hit him. Slowly it ebbed away, along with his anger at the world. He glanced at the gun stuffed purposefully in his coat pocket and knew what he wanted to do. Shaking, he raised it to his head, thinking about the few good times he'd had with the few friends he had.
The roar of a pickup truck speeding past him jumped him into nearly dropping the gun and shooting the dirt on the ground in the process. The driver, catching a glimpse of Butters, backed up.
"Hey, kid, what-" Before he could finish, a bullet flew through his head. An angered Butters searched through the man's truck for anything of interest.
He opened the glove box, and a handful of food stamps and some scotch fell out at him. In the seat he saw and grabbed the man's wallet, which lay next to a handgun. Inside it he found a torn twenty and a very old and obviously illegal drivers license. When he realized who it was, he dropped the wallet, grabbed the scotch and the gun, and rushed back to the Suburban, eager to get away from the truck.
Leaving a bloody fingerprint of the dial, Butters flipped on the radio, and Hoobastank's "The Reason blasted throughout the car. Quickly he changed it, trying to find a song that he could stand. The next song he found made him swerve in the road, trying to wipe away a tear.
"If you find your family, don't you cry
In this land of make believe,
Dead and dry
You're so cold, but you feel alive
Lay your hand on me
One last time
Show me how it ends, that's all right
Show me how defenseless you really are
Satisfy an empty inside
Well, that's all right,
Let's give this another try"
"Kenny, you're sure you'll be all right?" Stan, the leader of the support group surrounding the shocked blonde, asked.
"Yeah..." He answered in a small voice, staring at his feet and holding the girl at his side like a child would hold a teddy bear. "I mean, they were shitty parents... But they didn't deserve to die..."
Biting his lip, Stan tried not to look at Kenny, who looked so kiddish in the dark, his skinny body slouched in an air of disappointment, his arms around his girlfriend to serve as more of a comfort to himself than to her. Kenny, who was the youngest age-wise, but much older in life experiences, having had sex more than he let on, done every drug short of heroin, and been killed by everything that he could possibly be killed by, really looked depressed for the first time that Stan could remember.
"Dude..." Kyle whispered, pulling Stan back from the small crowd. "You don't honestly believe him, do you?"
"I think he'll get over it... it wouldn't be the same if he didn't."
Kyle uncomfortably fingered his curly hair to avoid responding to Stan's comment. The crowd around Kenny was already starting to disperse, its members heading to mull around on the gym floor.
With his support group gone, Kenny stumbled up and closer to Stan. Hesitantly his girlfriend followed.
"Do you want some chocolate?" Kyle asked Kenny flatly, digging out the bag of Snickers bars from the 6 inch space under the fold out bleachers.
"Sure." Taking two bars from Kyle's outstretched hand, Kenny handed one to his girlfriend. As the wrapper of hers crinkled open, Kenny sat, staring, at his own. After a while he slowly opened it, his movements almost delicate, and ate it even slower as he stared off into space.
"Kenny-" Kyle started, but an angered glare from Kenny stopped him from prodding any further.
"I'm gonna be fine, why can't those assholes see that?" He asked the girl after he got up, pulled the hood of his jacket on, and walked off.
Kyle sighed in an "I-told-you-so" manner, and opened up one more snickers bar. He watched the orange of Kenny's hoodie journey through the crowd and into a dark corner.
"Do you think we'll be ok?" Stan wondered, hoping to start a good discourse.
"Why wouldn't we be?" Kyle snipped. He shook his head, as if to get rid of any anger like flipping water off of his hair. "Sorry... I, uh, I hope so." He glanced over at Stan. Their gazes met and held for a few seconds, then, quickly, they both looked away.
Butters pulled into the 7-11 in North Park. Getting out, he stared down the road at the busses trucking away from him. As he'd predicted, the line of them pulled down the dirt road leading to the high school.
Silently he stumbled inside the store, hoping the blood splattered on his coat and pants wasn't that noticeable. He wiped some water off of his head and started in.
"Sup, Little Dude?" a heavily pierced Junior he recognized greeted from behind the counter, her hands taking off headphones blaring an Esham song.
"Uh, n-nuthin'." Butters dashed towards the food aisle. Randomly he grabbed a bunch of junk food, then some soda, and walked as calmly as he could manage back to the counter, where he added a few candy bars and a newspaper to his purchase.
"That all, Little Dude?" The clerk asked, flipping her dyed black hair back from her eyes. In doing so saw some bloody prints on one of the Mountain Dew bottles. "Um, Little Dude, is that paint?"
"Yes! Y-yeah, I was paintin' a p-picture earlier. Guess I forgot to w-wash my hands." Nervously he formed a grin, watching the clerk bag his two bags of Doritos, three beef jerky sticks, four Hershey bars, and two twenty ounce bottles of Mountain Dew.
"Anything else?" She asked, placing the newspaper in one of the paper bags. A gulp traveled down her throat as she watched Butters cautiously.
Butters saw the nervous gulp going down her esophagus and frowned. "N-no."
"Okay...then, uh, that'll be $15.37, Little Dude." Butters dug through one coat pocket and pulled out a $20 bill.
"Here, Ma'am."
"Thanks." She tried not to panic at the blood on the bill.
"$4.63 is your change, uh, OK?"
Butters walked out of the store with a paper bag in each hand. He put them in the passenger side of the Suburban and, turning, saw the girl, terrified, picking up the phone. Frowning, he shot her though the window, in the side of the head.
Without thinking anything else, he drove up the street and turned sloppily onto the dirt road.
"Go fish," Kyle responded dully when asked by Wendy if he had any 7's.
"Ok, Go, Stan." Wendy peered seductively over her cards at him.
"Clyde, do you have a King?"
"No- I mean, 'go fish.'" He rolled his eyes, in disbelief that they were actually playing such a childish game. "Dude! I know! Let's play strip poker!"
"What?" the massive group of Go Fish players chorused.
"I said-"
"We all heard you, dumbass! It's just that I can't even play regular poker!" Bebe protested.
"So? Who says you have to play?" Craig pointed out, and got an agreeing "Yeah!" from the crowd.
Insulted, Bebe sulked over to the bleachers to sit with her parents. Wendy dragged Stan off to the locker room, and, Kyle, upon feeling more insecure about his body than every woman on the Earth, decided to opt out of the gigantic strip poker game. Instead he wandered over to the dark corner that Kenny had gone to after being insulted.
He formed a tight-lipped smile when he got there.
As he slowly munched down the junk food, Butters watched the high school across the dirt road. The white Suburban rested in the driveway of the home of a freshly murdered couple, giving Butters a great view of the crowd slowly filing into the massive building.
"Yes..." A handful of Doritos disappeared behind Butters' lips. His happiness grew with each bite he took. Slowly he unfolded the paper he'd bought and turned the interior lights of the SUV on.
"Hm... Flying squirrels... K-Kelly Clarkson... Iraq..." He muttered, flipping erratically through it. "G-Godamn it!" As the paper soon joined the soda bottle and Hershey bar wrappers on the floor, Butters shut the lights off again.
In a vain attempt to preoccupy himself, he poured the few crumbs in the bottom of the Doritos bag. Suddenly the high school's lights went out, jumping him.
"W-what the hell?" He stepped out of the vehicle and squinted at the darkened building. "Huh..." Butters sighed, and figured he could check it out later. He wandered distractedly inside the white, cookie-cutter house. Awkwardly he stared down at the body of the middle-aged man on the tile floor, then shook off the overwhelming feeling of guilt long enough to arbitrarily grab some food items from the man's fridge.
"Ok, I'll g-go over when I'm done with all this." He glanced down at the box of cold pizza and jar of pickles, placing them on the table. "Th-this'll be a great last m-meal. Thanks, mister."
The dead man could not reply.
"Kyle? Jesus Christ, give me a minute, dude!" Kenny mumbled through the hood, quickly pulling his pants up. His girlfriend scrambled back into a sitting position, sheepishly wiping off her face.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to, uh, interrupt you," Kyle apologized, trying to stifle a laugh.
"It's OK..." Kenny said, trying to sound mad. He found it impossible to do so and laughed. "Sit down, man."
Kyle did as he was told, lowering his lanky body down next to Kenny. "Can I do anything for you?"
Kenny thought about it, and nodded. "Yeah. Turn around for a minute."
Kyle laughed, and Kenny's girlfriend nervously tittered along with him. Kenny grinned, taking the hood off.
"Where's Stan?"
Kyle shrugged. "Beats me."
Kenny smirked, staring blankly off into the mosh pit forming to some Linkin' Park song blaring on the speakers in the gym ceiling. Kenny's pretty sophomore girlfriend suddenly shot up, getting confused glances from the two boys.
"Um, I like this song a lot, Kenny..."
"Oh yeah? Well, I like how I can see straight up that mini skirt," Kenny chuckled, looking up at her.
She blushed, crossing her legs and arms. "I'm gonna go dance, okay? If it's all right with you, I mean..." Kenny waved her away, and he and Kyle watched her walk off, trying to pull the skirt down to cover more of herself.
"Does she always do that?" Kyle asked.
"What? Make sure everything's ok with me before she does things?"
"Yeah..."
"Yup."
"Why?"
"Well, I think that she had a really jealous boyfriend who made her do that, and now it's a habit... It's annoying, but other than that she's awesome."
"Must be nice," Kyle muttered to himself.
"Kyle, I thought you were dating that Mormon chick."
"No. We broke up last year, remember?"
"Actually, I don't. Jeez, I pay so much attention to you guys!" Kenny laughed. He bit his lip, watching his girlfriend dancing reservedly among the outskirts of the crowd.
Though there was noise to abound, an unusually awkward silence passed between the two. Kyle wet his lips, hoping he could salvage the conversation by driving it away from the topic of girls. Lately, whenever someone started speaking of such, words said spiraled into a corner. He didn't know why, and didn't like it.
He had just barely thought of something to say when someone tapped him on the shoulder.
"Thank you v-very much, Mister," Butters sighed to the body on the floor. "The p-pizza was v-very good..." He wiped away a tear. "Well, mister, I g-gotta get goin'. S-se ya in another life, s-sir."
Butters rushed to the Suburban before he totally lost it. Once safely inside, he opened and slammed the door until his arms hurt, all the while bawling, screaming, crying until he couldn't any more. One last time he slammed the door, falling against the steering wheel. He let the horn blast into the rain for a few seconds as he regained his composure. Finally, when he was sure he was ready, he turned the key and the engine roared to life. He put the car in drive, pushed the gas petal, and made a sloppy turn into the driveway of the school. He pulled cautiously around behind the big brick building and turned the Suburban off.
After gathering his small collection of guns from the back seat, he looked at his distorted reflection in the rain covered window. He picked up a piece of broken tar and threw it with all his might at the window. It bounced off. After trying several more times, he shot out the window and climbed inside, hoping that no one had heard.
"Stan?"
"Hey! Where've you been?" Kenny asked, sliding over to make room for his friend between himself and Kyle.
"Locker room," Stan answered through gritted teeth. When Kenny and Kyle stared questioningly up at him, he added, "With Wendy."
"Ah," Kenny and Kyle said together as Stan slid down the wall to sit in between them.
Stan dropped the subject immediately, titling his head back on the wall and sighing. He glanced at Kyle. "Got any of those candy bars left?"
"Actually, only three. How convenient." Kyle dug the Snickers bars out of his pocket and gave two to his friends.
They ate in silence.
Butters knew where he was. The science lab.
He fumbled his way past the chairs and tables in the dark, stubbing his fingers and toes but not caring. Had he been thinking about anything at all, he would have shot himself dead on the spot. Instead, he kept his mind on trivial things, like how bad the weather was, and where the gym was.
He knew that was where they'd all be.
Slowly he walked out of the room. As he made his way up the hallway, he was unaware that he was even doing anything. Just an occasional stupid thought flitted in and out of his mind.
Before he knew it he was standing outside the back entrance of the gym.
"I s-sure hope I know what I'm doin'."
Although the move was unnecessary, Butters sighed to calm himself down as he slowly pushed open one of the gym doors.
Ah. Next chappy WILL NOT take anywhere near as long. I will not forget!
The song Butters played is "So Cold," by Breaking Benjamin. I heart that song! The headlines he was reading from the newspaper are real, random headlines I got from a newspaper a loooong time ago.
R & R and thank you for dealing with my procrastinating bullshit!
