School Shadows

A friend who would stab your back wasn't a friend at all. That at least was Peter Heinrich's argument about that. It was that morning that the rage began to build.

Peter was getting up for another day of high school like he always did on the weekdays. He got up, ate his usual bowl of Frosted Mini Wheat's, and signed into his MySpace account real quick before the bus came to pick him up for school. It was earlier that Peter discovered his best friend, Blake, had not replied to Peter's message that he sent him the other night. On top of that, Blake dropped Peter to forth place from first place on his top friends list.

Outraged, Peter banged his fist on the computer desk and screamed. His mother came in and asked if there was anything wrong. "No, nothing serious mom," Peter lied and she went back into the kitchen. Peter then said curse words under his breath as tears ran down his face. Peter left the house that morning in tears.

One of Peter's school friends named Casey asked if something was wrong. Peter told him his frustration. Casey told him not to worry about it and move on with his life. Peter told him that was a good idea and that he would do that, but the issue of that plagued him all day.

That was why Peter was now outside in an October thunderstorm in the deserted streets of Lakewood, which was a suburb of Denver. Peter was dressed in black with black overalls and a black jacked covering a black sweatshirt. In his pants pocket was a switchblade that he stole from his father right after he went to bed a couple of hours ago. Peter also carried a wallet and a black backpack, which had many trash bags in there.

It seemed pretty obvious what Peter was going to do to his best friend. He was going to kill him. Peter knew what he needed to do and it was tougher than he thought to kill him. It wasn't because he didn't know how to kill him or anything like that. Instead it was because he had to do a lot of research on Blake and his location before he did the murder. On Blake's profile, it said he lived in Boulder.

After Peter remembered Blake's full name, it then became easy. Blake's last name ended up being Mathews. From there, Peter looked up all the Mathews in the online phone book in Denver and found that was the only Mathews family there. Peter grinned evilly as he copied the address down and stuffed it in his black overalls and got ready to leave.

Now, Peter found himself out in the middle of a pretty bad storm at his nearest bus stop ready to take the bus up to Boulder. Tonight was the night he was going to get even with Blake. Peter was going to kill him tonight. He was going to kill Blake who liked his friends more than he liked him. Then he was going to find Blake's scumbag friends and kill them too. Peter then would consider the deed done and would disappear into the night for good.
A loud crack of thunder filled the skies as the transit bus to Boulder arrived at the bus stop. The bus door opened and Peter walked up the stairs, put the required amount of money into the money holder, and took his seat alone in the middle of the bus next to the window. Peter opened his backpack that he had behind his back as the bus started moving and took a piece of paper he had and started doodling on it without ever taking his eyes off of it. Even when someone tried to talk to him and ask him what a student his age was doing out so late, Peter ignored her completely. The woman than walked away, but before she did, she caught a glimpse of Peter's face. That next morning, she remembered telling the Denver Post that his face resembled the face of evil.

The drive to Boulder roughly took forty or so minutes. Peter never kept count of the drive, but he knew it was too long for him. The whole time on the bus, Peter spent doodling and whispering to himself. No one on the bus sat anywhere near him. Everyone didn't like the looks of Peter. Many thought to themselves he was creepy. Some on the bus even whispered amongst themselves that he was creepy. Luckily for them however, he paid no attention to them.

The clock struck midnight when Peter finally arrived in Boulder. This was the first time that Peter had ever been in Boulder. He heard many things about the city, which mostly was not good. Peter watched a lot of the O Reilly Factor and he remembered hearing about the Boulder High School incident where these three speakers told everyone having sex was perfectly normal. Peter thought those people were freaks, even as a liberal minded person himself.

The city though seemed rather normal passing by on the bus though. The residential streets in town seemed quiet and deserted, just like they were in Lakewood. Juniper Avenue was the residential street that Peter needed and was dropped off at. Peter walked off the bus.

Peter took out the address and then started walking in the direction of where the house was at. The rain had lightened by that point to a light drizzle, but the dark purple sky remained ominous. That didn't concern Peter though as he remained determined to strike revenge on someone who had decided to give up on the idea of friendship.

Minutes later, Peter arrived at the address of the Mathews residence. A slight grin was spotted on his face as he stood there for a minute in front of the house. All the lights were off at the Mathews residence. Peter looked next door to them on both sides and saw their lights were off as well.

That was perfect for Peter, absolutely perfect. Peter than approached the house and took out his switchblade. Peter finally noticed the house itself as he got near the porch. The house appeared to be a two floor home with new white vinyl siding and black storm shutters on every window of the house. The home was on a rather small piece of land close to each of their neighbors, but not too close. It was the perfect distance for Peter to get into the house.

After standing there noticing the house for a minute, Peter then looked around his surroundings. The street was empty and all the houses around were dark. Peter smiled to himself as he walked up the porch steps and onto the porch. Peter noticed the perfect entrance, a large window that was placed right beside the door on the porch that he didn't see until walking up the porch. Peter thought to himself that it was easy. Just kick down the window and enter the dark house.

But then, another thought entered his mind totally different from his thoughts he had all the way up to Boulder. "Don't do this Peter," a voice in his head said. He was sure it was a voice in his head because there was no one around at the future crime scene. "Don't do this Peter. You know what you are doing is wrong. Go back! GO BACK! DONNOT GO IN THERE!"

Peter, who was about to kick the window, stopped. Then he told himself it was nothing. "I know what Blake did was very wrong Peter. He has no excuse, none at all. But what you are going to do is much worse. You can change that right now by not going in there," the voice rang again. Peter was frightened at that point.

"FUCK THAT!" Peter yelled at the top of his lungs. Peter than froze for a second to check the surroundings. Nothing happened. Peter breathed a sigh of relief and paused for a moment. Peter's smile grew into a wide smile as he stared at the window. He stared at it for a moment with an expression of excitement on his face.

Just then, Peter kicked the window. It was so unexpected that not even he knew he was doing it at first. Luckily for Peter there was no alarm that rang as he jumped inside through the broken glass and entered the living room. The living room appeared very large in size, but it was hard to tell how the living room looked like due to the lights being off.

"Who's down there?" A deep voice from upstairs yelled? Peter remained silent and the living room was dead silent again. That didn't satisfy the voice. "Who goes there? If you don't answer, I have a baseball bat and will come down there swinging!"

Moments later, Peter heard footsteps from upstairs come closer and closer. Peter then found an area at the bottom of the stairs where he stood there and waited. Finally, the sound of someone moving down the steps filled the house. Peter grinned to himself when the sound arose.

A tall figure appeared finally at the top of the stairs and was moving down. Peter spotted the light switch, which was closer to him at the bottom of the steps. The tall figure moved closer, closer, approaching Peter. Peter flipped out the switchblade for the first time and put it next to the man's neck, which halted him. For a minute, it remained dead silent.

"Don't move," Peter whispered to the tall figure. "Don't move a muscle. You will do exactly as I say. When I tell you to do something, you will do it. If I want something, you will give it to me. Now I don't want to hurt you. You are the innocent man here. But that doesn't mean I won't kill you if you make one move I don't like. Understand?"

"Yes I understand," the man said softly sounding frightened.

"Good," Peter answered in a soft voice. "Now I want two things from you. First I want you to make no phone calls whatsoever. If you do, you die. Secondly, I want you to answer me this question. Are you the father of Blake Mathews?"

"Blake? What do you want with my son?" The father asked still in his low voice, but sounding frightened at the same time.

"You'll find out," Peter silently replied. "Take me to his room and make sure everyone stays in their own rooms."

Both of them walked up the stairs into the hallway, which was lighted due to Peter's entrance. Both then made contact with each other. The father of Blake looked very astonished for some reason. He was tall and was a little overweight. He had short and thin white hair that looked to be balding and was in a Denver Broncos night gown.

"You look..." The father started to say before he was cut off by Peter.

"That's none of your concern Mr. Mathews. You take me to Blake's room," Peter interrupted silently. "Anyone awake?"

"My wife. That's it," Blake's father replied.

"Tell her to stay in her room," Peter ordered. Blake's father then walked into the master bedroom, which was the second door on the right in the hallway that had five rooms. He came back out a couple of minutes later and nodded.

"Done," he finally said when Peter gave him a curious look anyway.

"Took long enough. Now let's go to Blake's room, shall we?" Peter replied and both walked to the second door on the left at the end of the hallway. The white door was shut. "Now you will follow me into the room. I am going to confront him and your job is to stay in the room and out of our business. You can hear what your precious son Blake did to me."

Peter then walked to the door and opened it. The light was off and right when they walked in there, he was asleep under the cover. The door opening changed that though because he did rise up into bed and turned on the light. Blake looked at his father and then at Peter who had the knife in his hand. Blake at first didn't know who Peter was because he shrieked.

"SHUT UP!" Peter yelled. Just then, Blake knew from past experiences talking on the phone.

"Peter?" Blake asked sitting up in bed. Blake was around Peter's height and was thin. He was shirtless in bed and was seen in purple boxers. "Why so mad?" He finally asked after staring at him for a minute.

"You know damn well why," Peter responded quieter than the last time. He then turned to the father. "Go to the closet corner." Blake's father did just that.

Peter then looked around the room. The room was a smaller room than Peter had at home. It was a green colored room. On the wall were many posters. There were two posters of the Colorado Rockies and there was one poster of The Fray. The room was a mess. There was stuff everywhere when it came to clothes, CDs, and other things. Peter was almost surprised. Both Blake and his father looked at Peter curiously before he finally talked.

"Pretty nice room," Peter finally blurted. "Needs cleaned up, but what do I expect from pigs?" There was no reply. Peter didn't care.

"That's right, pigs like you probably always keep stuff messy. It probably is a distraction when their guilty soul wants to take their minds off of the guilty sin they committed," Peter continued raising his voice a little bit as he moved to the door and closed it.

"Peter, what are you talking..." Blake started before Peter interrupted.

"You know damn well what I'm talking about," Peter answered angrily. "You know what you did to me you pig! YOU KNOW!"

"No I don't!" Blake answered getting out of bed. Peter walked up to him with the switchblade in his hand.

"You get your ass back in your bed!" Peter said with bitterness showing the knife to him. Blake did as he was told and sat in his bed. "You totally disgust me. You stab me in the fucking back and then you have the nerve to deny anything ever happened. What a pig you are. I should make you suffer right now, but I won't."

Peter paused for a moment looking at Blake angrily. "So pig, just tell me why you did it. Tell me why you have blown me off and dropped me on your top friends list when you said we would be top friends. I thought you were the first person in my lifetime who actually liked me for what I am and you betrayed me. Why?"

"I didn't betray..."

"LIE!" Peter yelled and stabbed his switchblade right in front of Blake, which forced Blake to back up a few inches as a reaction to Peter's action. "YOU LIED!"

"No, I didn't!" Blake answered back. "I just needed to be around the friends close to me..."

"So you didn't think I was close?" Peter asked upset.

"It wasn't that at all..."

"Then what is it?" Peter snapped.

"I meant that it was that I never get to see you, so I put my friends I always see at the top..."

"But you said we would be best friends," Peter argued. "You said we would be there always as best friends and you lied." Peter then started to tear up. You could see it in his eyes. But Peter quickly regained control of himself.

"So, here is the last thing I want to know from you. Where do your other three friends live?" Peter asked.

"My one friend lives on Elder Avenue. My other two friends live on Evergreen Avenue..."

"Thanks, that's all I need to know," Peter replied and he wrote them two streets down with the corresponding information. Then with Blake's father in the room, he approached Blake who was on the bed helplessly.

"Now that you have told me everything I needed to know, it is over now between us Blake. If I can't have you as a best friend, then I suppose we are going to have to cut ties," Peter said silently with a smile on his face. Blake's father could only watch in horror as Peter approached Blake closer, closer. Minutes later, the sound of Blake's father screaming echoed the neighborhood as Peter took off from the home and went off into the night.