The Beginning of the End

1 “There is nothing worse or more frightening than looking at a blank page,” Patrick told his students as he paced back and forth in front of the class, “Writing essays of any kind on any subject is just going to be part of life until you are through with high school.” He stopped pacing and scanned the room, looking at each of his students. “Who here wants to go to college?” He continued to look at them and was disappointed that only four out of his thirty-five students raised their hands. “Well,” he said, the disappointment in his voice evident to all the students in his class, “Let me ask you another question. How many of you plan on joining some branch of the military?” This time 10 of the students raised their hands. He looked around the room and pointed at Sammy. “Sammy, what branch?” Sammy stood up looking a little embarrassed, “Well I’m not sure yet. My dad was Army and my grandpa was in the Navy. I was thinking about maybe joining the Air Force.” Patrick looked at the boy and smiled, “That is interesting,” he said as he began to pace the room again, “Did you guys know I was Lt. Cornel in the Air Force?” The kids looked at each other, a few of them whispering to each other, he smiled and stopped pacing again looking over the class, Sammy still stood by his desk not sure if he should set down or not. “Noticing this Patrick gestured to the boy to sit, “I am sure you know that if you want to become an officer in any branch you will need a college degree, Sammy.” The boy just looked around nervously with a crooked smile on his face as their teacher continued to p’]]]]]ace the room. He glanced at the clock, ‘Damn, still thirty minutes before the bel,’ the boy thought as the second hand slowly ticked along. A loud sound caused all the children to jump, startled they all began to look around not yet noticing that Sammy had slumped in his seat. The class broke into chaos as the girl in the desk next to him began to scream, everyone noticing that her snow-white dress and golden blonde hair had turned to a deep scarlet red. Patrick yelled for everyone to get down as another window shattered and Johnny, a older boy at the front of the class, fell sideways out of his desk. Patrick ran through the classroom shoving the stunned children to the floor as he made his way toward the back of the room where his locker with his pistol was. Upon reaching it he quickly retrieved it and his two spare clips then, keeping low, made his way to the outer wall to assess the situation. A glint of light from the woods just beyond the basketball court gave away the position of the shooter. Calm and collected he slowly took aim with his pistol, it was a long distance for a pistol, but he had been trained as an anti-sniper when he was in the Air Force. He slowly took in a breath then released half of it as he homed in on his target. With a deliberate slowness he began to squeeze the trigger, there was a deafening explosion in the small classroom as the .45 slug left the barrel of his revolver. A red cloud briefly appeared at the side of one of the trees before it was disbursed by the light breeze that was blowing outside. His trained eye scanned the tree line as the students behind him were whimpering, crying, and praying. He was satisfied that it was safe, so he stood just in time to see the first police car whip into the parking lot, sirens and lights shattering the silence. Patrick Watched as men poured out of the police cars and began flooding the area, ‘Damn, fools,’ he thought to himself, ‘they would not last long in his world.’ He scanned the tree line one more time and began to turn around, then he saw it. Nothing flashy, or even noticeable from a normal standpoint, it was just a shadow. The shadow of what he was not sure yet, but he had a very good idea, and it caused the hair on the back of his neck to stand up. After all this time, all these centuries, it had finally found him. He was tired of running and looking to the sky one more time he said in a low gravelly voice, “Let the war begin.”