The survivor

Forty-Three

Courtney wasn’t sure what time it was, but when she looked away from the computer screen, out her bedroom window, she could see darkness at the horizon. The light was fading, the day almost gone. And the clouds had come back. It was so typical of Vancouver weather. So depressing.

No wonder Mom had wanted to move away.

A sad feeling enveloped her, and she took a sip from the herbal tea she’d made. Liquorice Spice. It was hot, and it burned her tongue a little, making her suck in a mouthful of air to help cool it down. She set the mug on the blotter, the smell of liquorice filling the room, and pulled a dark green kangaroo jacket over her shoulders, zipping it up against the cold.

Once again, Dad was screwing with her life by keeping the heat turned down. There was always something.

She looked back at the computer screen. The bluish light tinted the walls of the room around her. She was on Facebook. Lookin’, searchin’, bloggin’ — seein’ what was up. Everywhere she looked, people were blogging about the massacre at the school. At first she had to work hard to find something else because just the thought of the shootings made her feel like she was going to puke. So she logged off.

But the carnage was as darkly fascinating as it was terrible, and before Courtney knew it, she was back online. She went back to Facebook, logged in and read through what her friends were saying: that three gunmen had opened fire in the school for no apparent reason. And rumour had it that Sherman Chan was one of them.

‘Sherman?’ The word escaped her lips.

Courtney struggled to make some sense of it. She knew Sherman. Kind of. Well, she knew who he was. Some computer nerd. Always kept to his own little group. Always smiled at her and seemed really… nice.

It was hard to believe.

She paged through the forum, and read the list of the dead. The first three killed were people she didn’t know — one she’d never even heard of, which was rare for such a small school — but the fourth hit home. It was Tamara Marsden.

The name zapped Courtney like an electric shock. And she leaned back from the computer, as if this could somehow protect her. With nervous fingers, she scrolled down the page, reading the rest of the names. When she finished reading the list, she sat there very still. Then she shuddered. Cupped her hands over her mouth. Sobbed.

And she sat that way for a very long time.