Red and blue lights flashing in the rearview mirror. Eric looked at me and I felt my eyes go wide. Then a cop in a blue uniform stepped out of the car behind us. I froze in my tracks and slowly turned around. The cop told me to put my hands behind my back. I did as I was told and the next thing I knew I was in the cop car driving to the police station waiting to be arrested. All for stealing electronics from a van. They were right there!
I walked into the station and was surprised to see my mom sitting in one of those little, uncomfortable plastic chairs. She started to say, “Dylan--”
But I cut her off, “Don’t tell me it was f****n wrong! I don’t care about you or your f***** lies! I just don’t want to hear it! That’s all you ever tell me! Just go away you M****** F****!”
She started to cry and said to herself, just loud enough that I could hear, “I give up. I give UP” Then she walked out of the police station and left me here by myself.
I am Dylan Klebold and I am one of the shooters in one of the worst school shootings EVER. You may have heard about me and Columbine High School. Let me tell it to you from my point of view.
-----------------------------------------
6 Months Before…
The door slammed behind Eric as he walked into my house. Eric called out, “Hello Mr. and Mrs. Klebold!”
Mrs. Klebold replied from upstairs, “So polite! Dylan why can’t you have more friends like Eric?”
I assumed it was a rhetorical question and did not respond. I looked up as Eric entered. “Could you fake it just a little more?”
Eric smiled, “Oh do you mean how I am always being polite to people I don’t like?” He lowered his voice “You know if they find out that our whole plan is down the drain. They can’t suspect anything. Only 6 more months and besides if I act nice, then they will think I am a good influence for helping your anger management.”
I glared at Eric, “Well for your information it isn’t getting better, but they have to think so. Otherwise I will be back in reform school and this plan will not go on.”
Eric looked up, “I know. So, tell me what do we have and what we still need to get. I can contact Kevin again and give him the money to go back to the gun show…”
I thought about this and went back upstairs to get my journal. My mom asked, “Dylan you have school tomorrow, so Eric should probably go home.”
I felt my face turn into a scowl. “He is my friend. Don’t tell me bedtimes for my friends! I know that I have school tomorrow and I don’t need you to remind me of what I already KNOW!!!”
My mom started on the steps that they taught me in anger management in reform school, “Stop. Think. Breathe. Stop. Think”
I thought to myself, When we go in the school and shoot everyone she won’t be like this anymore. She will respect me and be frightened of me. Everyone will know my name. No one will be able to tell ME what to do! Not even my own mother!!!
I remembered what Eric had said about my anger management and to pretend that it was getting better so I told my mom, “I’m sorry mom. I am going to tell Eric to go home right now. Then I will do my homework and go to bed.”
My mom smiled a sad smile, “It’s all right. I love you Dylan.”
I turned my back on her and walked down the stairs to say goodbye to Eric.
“Oh man! Bring out the lies! You aren’t going to do homework. You are going to finish the plan,” said Eric.
I fist pumped him, “Oh yeah! I just need to figure out our weapons and make the bombs. The rest is all set”
“Kay sounds good. See ya tomorrow!”
---------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, April 20, 1999
When I ran upstairs after saying goodbye to my mother I found Eric. Eric was in my room getting dressed in our shooting gear. We had semi-automatic pistols and shotguns strapped to our backs. To cover them up we had black trench coats. I was about ready to walk out of my room with Eric and then I remembered the bombs in the garage. I grabbed a lighter from under my mattress and accidently knocked my journal to the floor. I didn’t notice, but Eric did. He placed it in a pocket inside his coat.
He said, “This here has all of the plans from the last 12 months. We should probably take this with us in case we need a backup plan. And besides I want this to be with us when we die. It has all of the information about shooting practice, how we got the guns, our plans… I want the police to have the full story so we can be famous forever.”
I was too tied up in gathering the bullets and bombs from around the room that I didn’t really hear what Eric had said. I just nodded.
“So are we ready yet? It is almost 4th hour. We have 45 minutes.”
I replied, “Yep, we are ready. Let’s do this!”
Eric smiled wickedly, “Revenge and fame. The two things I have wanted most.”
I said, “And what makes it even better is that the police could have busted us at any time, but they thought that all of these little tiny pieces of information didn’t mean anything.”
Eric said back, “Mhm. The bomb threat against Brooks Brown. The police never pursued that file against us. Your English teacher didn’t think anything about your essay about the man in a trench coat who shoots people. Your dad knew about us making bombs and when he told us to stop, he thought we really did! HAHA now that was a GOOD lie.”
I laughed, “When he asked if we were still making bombs and you lied and told him, No Mr. Klebold me and Dyl are NOT making bombs anymore, hahaha that is a good one!!”
Eric did his wicked smile thing again and walked out of my room. I followed and tightened the strap that held my gun.
Eric told me, “Dyl stop fidgeting! You will be ok! This day will be remembered forever. You don’t want to be remembered as NERVOUS. Do you?”
I thought about that, “No!”
“All right then let’s go!” he shouted.
“Oh YEAH!!! We are gonna be famous! We are gonna be famous!!!”
11:10 A.M. April 20, 1999
The cafeteria was starting to fill up with students for lunch. Eric and I snuck in the school and placed 2 duffel bags on the cafeteria floor. No one noticed. I turned my back on everyone and placed the lighter in the bag and lit it. Then I ran. Still no one noticed.
I waited outside the school for Eric to come back. It had occurred to us that he might not make it out alive if the bombs went off too early. Casualties of war. Oh well. That is just too bad.
Minutes went by and still, no Eric. I started to wonder what had happened. Eric was just supposed to oversee that the bombs went off. He hadn’t come back so… Did that mean they didn’t go off? I looked around the wall I was hiding behind. Nothing had happened. There was no flames, no smoke. What had gone wrong? I could feel the anger rising up inside me like a black wave just waiting to consume me. I grabbed my pistol and gripped it so hard my knuckles turned white. As I was running around a corner I ran right into Eric.
“WHAT HAPPENED??” I screamed at him.
“Dyl! Relax! I brought the notebook! We have a backup plan.”
“What is this plan? WHAT IS IT?!?!”
“So we shoot everyone. No mercy. First people you see, they die. We work our way through the school and all the way back to the library. If the police haven’t caught us yet then we shoot ourselves.”
“Hm. That might work. I won’t let all this work go to *****n waste!” I shouted.
“That’s right! Let’s do this! Guns, bullets, trigger. Let’s go!” Eric started to run.
I followed. I could feel the thumping of my shotgun on my back and the heat of the sun of my face. The last time I would ever get to see it. I felt a moment of reminiscing. No, FOCUS! I can do this. Revenge, fame, glory. It would all be mine.
Eric tapped my shoulder and opened the doors to the school. The halls were empty. All students were in the cafeteria and the teachers were in their classrooms. Perfect! We headed down to the cafeteria. As I rounded a corner I blind fired. I heard screams. And then I saw the body lying on the floor. No mercy. That’s what Eric had told me. So, I kept going. I got into a rhythm. Turn, fire, turn, and fire. It felt like a song. The refrain was the shooting and the people were the lyrics.
Eric said, “They’ve got us Dyl. They know who we are. They KNOW WHO WE ARE!!!”
I smiled, “That right there is the first thing that has gone right today! WHOOHOO!” I body bumped him.
And that’s when I saw the business teacher, Mr. Sanders. I never liked that teacher. He gave me an F on my exam. There was that anger again. Rising up. I felt my finger pull the trigger again and again. He fell to the floor with a cry. There was a pool of blood by his face. I shouted down at him, “You knew me. I bet you never thought that I would do THIS! This is me Mr. Sanders! Maybe you should teach lie detection in your class! Oh wait you obviously can’t teach that because you don’t know what it is!!!”
“Ouch that was a burn!” Eric said.
“Moving on!” I stepped on the top stair leading into the cafeteria. “FIRE!!”
Bang! Pop! Thud. The bodies falling to the floor. The blood. It was so unreal. I told Eric, “time to start going through the school!”
“Okay.”
We made our way through the school. There was hardly anyone left so we started to run. We pushed open the doors to the library. There was screams and one girl even came up to me. “Dylan, PLEASE. I’m sorry! I wanted to ask you to the dance, but”
I shot her. She fell to the floor. Eric had already moved to the back of the library so I started to shoot under the tables whenever I saw movement. 3 shots and a scream. 2 shots and a scream. A table set up as a shield. One shot and a scream. There was no more movement so I called out to Eric, “I think it’s time!”
“Me too!” he called back. He slowly walked to me in the middle of the library.
I reached around and pointed the gun at my head. I felt Eric touch my arm, “On three Dyl. I just want you to know that you are the best friend I have ever had. I have had more fun with you than with any other person. This was our best adventure Dyl, but now it’s time to quit. I will see you soon. Under…”
I smiled, “Thanks. I will see you soon Eric. We will be so bad that we’ll even be kicked out of h***! But, wherever we go we will be together.”
One shot from us each and my world went black.