Valley of the Lost Chapter 1

“Valley of the Lost”

1.

“Blake wake your a*s up!”

“F**k you mom” I murmured to myself as I climbed out of bed in the same clothes I wore the previous night before.

I’m so damn tired of this place and all that comes with it. All the unnecessary bull and drama. I can never catch a break from it and I always fall short at everything I do. It’s as if I’m a mosquito, the world is an electric zapper cage, and my aspirations the light. Always constantly biting me in the a*s every time I try to reach for them. Well today is the last day. You’d be surprise how cheap you can buy a gun for off the street. Given the 9mm I bought is the same one used to kill the convince store clerk at “Zips” last month for a pack of Newport’s and a hundred and forty-three dollars and sixty-nine cents. Along with Lil Ole’ Ms. Robertson’s damn yapping poodle Princess. I don’t think a single person was mad to see that dog go. All it did was bark and chase kids down the side walk. It even bit a toddler over a piece of burger. No one bitched about it because no one cares. That’s the thing with people today if something doesn’t directly affect them then it’s not their issue to deal with.

“Hurry the hell up you’re going to miss the bus!” she screeched from her bed.

I bellowed back “Okay”, and grabbed my tattered back pack that I’ve had since the seventh grade and started out the house.

As I walked along the cracked concrete stomping on every last crack I realized I was okay with not seeing her again. She was a far from par mom and was never a real mother. She never packed my lunch or kissed my boo boos. She would go out all night, get drunk, and come home for me to babysit if she wasn’t some a******s unlucky one night stand. It was like this every since I was eight. She fed me drunken I love yous till I was sick. For nine years I have dealt with this but no more. She would tell me I love you son and that you are my world while I held her hair as she puked and then a second later blame me for ruining her life as she threw knives and plates at my head. Always calling me a son of a b***h. She had one thing going for her. She knew she was a b***h apparently. Never once did I retaliate because I’m not worth the scum on the floor, or that’s at least how I felt.

As I reached the bus stop I saw him. The guy who had made my life hell since I could remember. That b*****d Jared Foxx. He gave me so much crap every day since I could remember. It was physically like slamming me into the locker room walls after football practice. in tenth grade, slapping my lunch tray out of my hand in seventh grade, and those God awful wedges in fourth. He always rubbed it in my face that he had taken Ashley Rose’s virginity and went into detail about her soft silky skin and how she smelt like vanilla. He tortured my heart by going into deep long detail of every way of when, where, and how he had her. This broke my heart and shattered my soul. He knew how close we were and how I felt about her. He did this just to make sure I didn’t tell her about me catching him screwing his ex-girlfriend Baily. Given I would but I didn’t know how I would. Her and Bailey were both very good friends and at the top of our class. They were in debate, chess team, and even model UN together. They both were very attractive and smart, but I knew everything about Ashley.

I knew her favorite color was green because it reminded her of nature and matched her eyes. Her favorite animal is actually a reptile. The bush viper who has exquisite color. It is beautiful but deadly. Everyone knew her birthday but only I knew why she hated it. The day she was born was the day her mom died. Of course she is not to blame but to her it’s all her fault. Only god knows why. I guess it’s easier to blame yourself for something you deep down know you didn’t do rather than always wonder why. She was afraid of the dark because of her uncle who really wasn’t her uncle. She told me these dark secrets in our club house, which was actually an old work shop in my back yard. It was easy for two broken kids to become as close as we did especially when they are neighbors.

Ashley and her dad moved in next door the third grade. Her dad was abusive and she would come over and play at my house. My mom didn’t care because she was never there. We would plan to run away time after time. We would have elaborate ideas like taming a tiger at the zoo, using it to kill our parents, then riding it to Mexico. Then as we got older it became more of an adult plan like going away to college on the west coast. She wanted to study marine biology and all I wanted was to be by her. So we planned to go to the University of California. We both scored high on our SAT and ACT. It was all good. Keyword was…

This all went away the day Jared told her that he caught me jacking off to a picture of her last year. This was untrue and a bald face lie. He turned her against me. The only thing that kept me sane. He knew how this would hurt me. The look she gave me of betrayal and just hurt makes me sick. If I can’t have her then so one can. She deserves better than me and most defiantly she can do better than him. She is an angel who deserves to fly away from this wasteland. This is just what I’m going to help her do. In home room I’m going to sit by them and half way through class I’m going to off Jared then off myself. Set her free of us both. She deserves something more than a bully of a boyfriend. Someone who she is with because self in her self-conscience he reminds her of her father. She can do better than a slacker who repulses her. Even though we were best friends I know we would never work out, and I guess that’s why I was so okay with dying. It’s like I haven’t got nothing to live for except a casket. There is only way I can see her happy. That’s with him dead and me gone.

I glared over my seat and all I could see was his oversized pin head. I wanted to reach into my bag pull out the gun and pop his head like an infected pimple, because next to him was her. Ashley and I used to always ride this bus together and now we don’t. I decided to lay back and get some sleep. I rather sleep than see what was in front of me any day. Even my last day to see anything.

SCREEECH!!! I heard the bus come to a halt.

We rolled out like cows to a slaughtering house. As I stepped out I glared at the high school that I hated so damn much. “M.L.K High” it was written in chipped ivory stone or what was probably some knock off from a far off country. The irony in this is that this is where dreams come to die. If the people and food didn’t kill you then the education would. As I walked in I felt as if all eyes were on me. Like everyone knew what I was up to. I was sweating expecting some to call me out or attack me to become a hero. Everyone loves being a God damn hero. What they don’t realize is sometimes the hero is the villain. I could hear their thoughts and taste the tension. All these rare emotions were draining every ounce of smoothness I had. All I could do was look at the ground.

THUD!!!

“Watch where you’re going b***h boy!”

As I looked up I noticed it was him. That son of a b***h who ruined my life. Now everything was silent except my thoughts. I could tell he was delivering a heavy assault to my character and me personally. All I could do was picture me pulling out the gun, pulling out the gun, and splattering his brains against the locker like a bowl of spaghetti thrown against the wall. I would save this world of another d********g. Save the human race of his off spring. Poor kids would be doomed from birth. They wouldn’t be able to help the fact their DNA contains the Neanderthal and asinine gene. Just as I reached for the gun I heard a familiar voice.

“Is there a problem here boys?”

“No Sir”, we both replied. He gave us a stern look and he shuffled away.

Principle Knowles has always had a soft spot for kids being bullied. His plump middle aged figure and crescent bald head showed he was probably the victim of several toilet bowls in his youth. He was a good guy. He always spoke with a gentle but raspy voice. As if he goes home every night after a long day at work and hits the pipe.The other student made fun of him and we all thought he was gay. Even if this was true who am I to judge? Hell I’m about to murder an a*****e.

As we parted ways I couldn’t quench the thirst of how it would feel to blow him away. The feeling was like a drug I’ve never had. It was all I wanted. The time couldn’t get here fast enough but it had to be perfect she had to see what I was doing, and what I was doing is for her. I know it would pain me to not see her beautiful face anymore but I knew it had to be done. I also know she might not understand what I was doing. At least not right now but in the future when she reflects what I was really trying to do. Hell she might see me as a lunatic and I’m actually fine with that I guess. At least id know the reasoning behind my actions.

As I reached my locker I opened the rusted, red chipped door, and looked inside. Nothing. Not even a spare run away piece of paper. Then I looked in the door and there were several pictures of me and Ashley. Five pictures were taped in the door. Ranging from us as little kids with more on our thought than the normal child does, but you couldn’t tell from the photo because we are smiling. Given the only reason I’m smiling so big is because my mother told me “You smile or I’m going to tan that a*s!” man you got to love parenting at its finest. We looked so… so weird. Her in pig tails and a god awful red and white poke a dot dress and me in some lime green shorts. A dinosaur T shirt, and my light up Sketchers. Then the most resent one. The picture that was taken last year. We both were smiling so big. These smiles were authentic. No one forcing me to display false emotions. It was just a good day for once. She had passed some test she was stressing about, which I knew she would. I personally was just happy because she was happy. So we went to the fair that was in town to celebrate. This was taken at the top of the Ferris wheel with the s****y town behind us. It was us artistically expressing how we were going to reach the sky and leave this town behind us. Now that was gone and I was about to be also.

That walk from my locker to class was a daze. I can’t even recall how I got there. I felt as if I was a ghost. Passing through people in a slow haste to get to a certain destination I was unsure of. As I stepped in I saw my seat second roll from the back and third seat from the right. The seat right next to Jared who sat right next to Ashley. Ms. Mequreta came in, slammed the door, and screamed at us to “sit down and hush up!” it was obvious she wanted to say f**k but couldn’t because of school policies. Plus I couldn’t blame her if she wanted to use f**k instead of hush. Our class was a bunch of f**k heads who wouldn’t be able to finish life after school.

The class went by so slow. Ms.Mequerta lectured to us about some economic bull s**t. The same stuff we talked about last week, but she felt we were too ignorant to learn the first time. In all fairness she was partially right. I sat there listening to nothing. Watching the second hand tick on the clock “TICK! TICK! TOCK!” it was a soothingly twisted little melody. Then it was time 8:47 a.m.

I laid my bag on the desk and reached in for the gun. I slowly took off the safety. What happened next seemed like it was all in slow motion. I pulled it out and pointed it point blank to Jared’s face. He didn’t even seemed fazed if anything he was smirking. It was as if he knew what I was doing, why I was doing it, but didn’t think I’d do it. That damn look in his eyes. That God damn look of him wanting to be the hero. I couldn’t look at him any longer. I went on to explain the tedious details on why I was doing it. I told the class how he beat me and tortured me. They all looked at me in fear, as if I was the monster. They didn’t understand it wasn’t them I came to kill. I had no issue with them only him. I wanted him to feel my pain. I wanted her to be free. I glanced over with tears in my face to see the terror in hers. She was so terrified of me.

All of a sudden Jared grabbed me. I looked away for a micro second, I guess that was a second to long. We fought for it then “POP”. The gun went off we both looked and there stood Ashley grabbing her throat. The bullet went straight through her neck. I could see her life drain in front of my eyes and it was my fault. Oh God how it was my fault. As I watched her eyes roll into the back of her head I lost the power to fight.

“POP POP”.

Jared fired two rounds into me. One into my stomach and another in my heart. Ironic how the one thing that drove me to this insanity is the thing that’s gets blasted away. As I feel to the floor all I heard was screaming and chaos. I looked in front of me and saw her. With each last breath I took, the next harder than the last, I saw flashbacks of all the fun times we had together. Then the darkness…..