M̶O̶N̶S̶T̶E̶R̶

Everybody in New York City was shocked by the horrific news. Nothing, had made the hair on the back of people’s necks stood up like this since 9/11. This was the worst mass shooting in not just New York City, not just America—but the whole entire world. Four-hundred elementary school children. Dead. Murdered. The suspect surrendered at gunpoint, as the NYPD surrounded him outside of the school building.

A variety of civilians from the New York City area, all had their opportunity to comment on the actions of the person responsible for the shooting when being interviewed live on ABC 7 news, just approximately an hour after the shooting:

A monster!

A man that doesn’t deserve to see the light of day.

That bastard needs to see the inside of hell!

Lock that violent crazy monster up in the worst prison in the world and throw away the key.

You can say many and several people were flabbergasted, heartbroken, shocked, and emotional over the P.S. 116 Mary Lindley Murray school shooting. Let’s begin.

Detective Crossby makes his way to the interrogation room. His breath consisting of a diet running on a pack of Newport cigarettes, old coffee, glazed donuts, and stress. He hasn’t slept in days, but he doesn’t look like it. His black shirt, neatly pressed, along with his chocolate-brown dress pants. His slip-on Skechers sneakers add a casual tone to his professional appearance. He makes his way inside the room and walks to the table slowly with his hands inside of both of his pockets after closing the door to the room without looking backwards, and chairs himself. There’s only one thing—or person, that was catching his attention.

There he was—Adam Bigby—the mass school shooter. He’s young. 24-years-old. Graduated from Barnard College.

Adam’s midnight black hair sitting over his pale freckled skin, a grin births his way to the center of his face. He wasn’t handcuffed at all, anymore. Free as a bird, sitting awaiting Crossby. Crossby wastes no time on the clock, clears his throat, sits down in front of Adam, and finally stared him down. Both eye-to-eye. There was a loud silence.

“Why?” Crossby shrugs his words out. Adam sits up in his chair and scratches his chin. He says nothing.

Crossby fires again, “Why?” even louder. The echoes bounced across the walls of the room. Adam gives a smirk to Crossby, then chuckles. The detective’s face goes from tan to red in a matter of seconds. Crossby’s heart racing one-hundred miles per hour—launches out of his chair, grabs Bigby by his shirt and pins him hard—slamming his back against the wall, his grip on his chest holding the mass shooter at an eye-to-eye level.

“You think killing four-hundred little children at an elementary school is fucking funny?”

Detective Teddy Willshire, watches from outside the interrogation room through the glass window. He witnesses Crossby’s violent actions, but doesn’t stop to referee the match, he just lets the players play. Willshire is calm like a swan on the outside…but on the inside, he’s as happy, excited, and hype as a person who’s won the lottery twice; seeing the monster getting man-handled was one of the few things that made him smile that day.

Crossby continues, “Do you think killing innocent little fucking kids is funny?”

Adam chuckles again. Crossby gets heated up even more. Furious. He raises a fist and punches Bigby right in his mouth.

Pow!

And then again.

Pow!

And again.

Pow!

And again.

Pow!

The punches work their way from Adam’s mouth, all the way around his pale (used to be), battered and tattered, bruise-colored face. Bright blood drops from below his nose like rain in Seattle—and Crossby was the thunder cracking the gray and gloomy skies. Adam laughs, not chuckles this time. The bright blood dripping from his nose, now entering into his mouth, then in between his yellowish teeth.

“What the fuck is so fucking funny? Huh? Tell me! Tell me now!” a roaring Crossby erupts out the words. The beating on Bigby’s face comes to an end. Crossby, now weary, still holding Adam by his shirt against the wall. Detective Teddy, still smirking outside of the glass window of the interrogation room, liking what he sees. Adam, still bleeding from his nostrils, yet still chuckling. Now laughing.

“Fine!” Bigby fires out. Crossby raises his eyebrow. The breathing gets intense between both men. The air is silent, but not for long. “I’ll tell you.” Crossby lets go of Adam’s shirt. The wrinkles and damage to the chest area around his shirt could be easily fixed, along with his broken and bloody nose. And teeth. “I’m not the monster you think I am.” chuckled out by a misunderstood Adam. Crossby raises his eyebrow, takes a step back, and scans Adam from head, to toe, to eye.

“You’re not?"

“Monster. And me, shouldn’t be in the same sentence.”

This time, Crossby chuckles.

“And I wasn’t laughing because I killed the kids. Murdering people isn’t funny. Only a monster would laugh at that.”

Crossby puts his hands in his pockets.

“I was laughing at how selfish you are, and how unearthly you are, for a detective, for that matter.” Adam chuckles again.

“Huh? What?” a stressed Crossby releases.

“I overheard you talking about your daughter when the police brought me into booking.”

Crossby takes two steps forward, now closer to, and in front of Adam’s face. They could kiss, but love isn’t in the air.

“I never want to hear a monster like—”

“I. Am. Not. A. Monster.”

“Whatever the fuck you are. I never want to hear a person like you mention my daughter. Got it?”

“Got it.” Adam nods. “My point is that you said you’re daughter loves art.”

“…And?”

“Look, the point I’m trying to make is that I wanted those little sweet kids to be free. I wanted them to be alive in such a painful, cruel, and unfair world. That’s why I killed them. So they can avoid what life has to offer them. There. Happy?”

Crossby takes a sigh and rubs his jaw.

“Go on.” Crossby wants to hear more.

“As an artist myself, I have a free-spirited mind. I have a creative mind, what can I say? But it’s not always a good thing apparently, since me and the law don’t see eye-to-eye. The unique, creative, and misunderstood, suffer in a world like this. This world wasn't built for the different.”

“Go on.”

“Why of course! I didn’t want to hurt those kids...like how you hurt me."

Crossby looks away, then faces the “monster.”

“I apologize.” (He’s not sorry.)

“I, wanted to free them. And as a detective, you should be a little more open-minded, because you, don’t make up the population, of this cruel and harsh world. Everybody has their own perspective on what’s good or bad.”

Crossby walks around the interrogation room in circles, ovals, triangles, trapezoids, and even squares, scratching his scalp, and thinks. A thinning out hair follicle dwells within his fingernail before being bitten away as a puzzled detective bites his nails.

“…So what you’re saying is—”

“I’ll say it again.” an eager Bigby interrupts.

“Please.”

“I wanted to save those innocent kids from a painful life. Life is nothing but struggle, injustice, problems, uncertainty, unfairness, and unexpected outcomes. It’s a shit show of a wild rollercoaster in this stupid game we all fucking play.”

Crossby freezes.

“Got it.” Crossby sarcastically agrees. Crossby takes a sigh. “So if you think life is so fucking bad, why didn’t you start the shooting by shooting yourself? Stand the fuck up. Now. Let’s go.”

Adam chuckles, “Why of course, Detective.”

Adam knows whatever the news reporters say about him (being a monster), whatever society thinks of him (being a monster), whatever the police think of him (being a monster)—he knows, that they're wrong. He knows that there’s only one person that would be in there right, to rightfully scold and judge him—and that person is invisible—nobody. Not even the Creator of this unfair, cruel, and harsh, cold world, can judge him, because the Creator isn’t perfect for making this invention, we call life.

Detective Crossby escorts Mr. Bigby out the interrogation room. Adam has the last laugh literally, as he laughs his way out.

“They really think I’m a monster. Ha!” Adam chuckles while being escorted through the hallway.

***

That night, Detective Crossby drives home to his house in Floral Park, New York. It's not far. A nice area in the suburbs. He works mainly in New York City, New York, but he wanted to stay within his roots of Queens, New York (where he grew up), and Nassau County (where he also grew up). Floral Park—what better place to do so? He’s lived there for approximately ten years…soon going on eleven.

A weary detective makes his way out of his hardy sedan, zombie walks his way to the front door, fishes in his tight pockets for his keys, keys his way inside the house, sighs, and is tackled with love by his two golden retrievers and his daughter as well. Bonnie’s hands are covered in paint as she holds up an awful painting of her family that she had just painted. Detective Daddy scans the image.

“Daddy! Look what I painted.”

Crossby smirks. “Why don’t you go upstairs and get yourself washed up? You got paint all over you. Ok?” Father rubs daughter’s head, as Daughter Bonnie agrees. Samantha, his wife, is in the kitchen making hot Chinese food, Crossby’s favorite.

“Honey, is that you?” she asks.

“Yeah. Long day. Sorry I’m back so late.”

Bonnie rushes upstairs, and Biscuit and Teddy, the golden retrievers, tag along behind her, like kids chasing and running behind Mister Softee ice cream trucks in the summertime. Crossby follows the smoke of orange chicken sizzling in a pot, with Lo mein bathing in steaming, hot, bubbly water, inside another pot, from the entrance of the house, to the inside of the kitchen. Samantha’s back to Crossby as she stirs and stirs the sizzling chicken. Crossby remains standing. He doesn’t sit. His legs tired.

Pop! Pop!

Gurgle. Gurgle.

Dinner’s almost ready.

“I heard about that shooting that happened today.”

“Yeah.”

“Hope that monster gets what he deserves.”

Crossby looks away. He scratches his face. Sighs.

“Well…don’t you?”

Silence.

The orange chicken and Lo mein cooking—the only thing heard.

Pop! Pop! Gurgle gurgle.

“Well. I don’t know.” Crossby sits down at the table. Samantha eyes her husband. Crossby looks down and locks both his hands together while he processes his draining, stressful, emotional, and long day at work.

“Babe. What’s wrong? Tell me.”

Crossby clears his throat, hops up from his chair, grabs a fork, stabs a piece of chicken from the torching pot, and stamps it down his parched throat.

“It’s just…the things he said."

“Who said?”

Crossby coughs on the chicken and then uses his greasy saliva to wash it down, before clearing his throat.

“Adam.” he coughs out. “The shooter. I talked to him today at the station. He’s a smart kid. Graduated from Barnard.”

“Really?” a puzzled Samantha asks.

“Yeah. He made me think. He made me think a lot.”

Samantha eyes her husband.

“You know what?” a stressed Crossby releases.

“What?”

Crossby turns away from his wife and walks off the scene. His back out the kitchen door. Vanished.

“Babe, where are you going?”

Silence.

Pop! Pop! Gurgle. Gurgle.

Pop! Pop! Gurgle. Gurgle.

Crossby goes upstairs to their master bedroom and grabs a pen from his desk and a piece of yellow paper. He has a couple of words to let off his chest. He writes it out. Weary he is. He huffs and puffs while he writes a note:

We all must be free. I want us to be free from this world. My family and I deserve to be free. Adam’s right. He’s fucking right. I have to kill us all. As a man, I must save my family.

After finishing the note, he grabs a key from his desk, goes to his safe, unlocks it, and grabs his gun out his safe, to make sure he and his family is. He leaves the room, making his way through the corridor and knocks on Bonnie’s room three times before entering. Bonnie smiles and the two golden retrievers run up to him and tackle him with love once again.

“All cleaned up! I clean up pretty quick.”

Daddy smiles. Daddy cries.

“Daddy?” Bonnie asks. “Why are you crying?”

Crossby aims the gun at Biscuit’s naive furry little head.

Bang!

Samantha hears the gunshot from downstairs, and freezes in the hot kitchen. Bonnie fears for her life. She’s stuck. She didn’t know what was going on. Crossby does the same with Teddy.

Bang!

Crossby stands above a shaking, frozen, and crying Bonnie and aims at her forehead.

“Daddy? What are you doi—”

Bang!

Bonnie falls on her back resting like a snow angel. Samantha hears someone coming down the stairs. She goes inside the living room and sees her husband with a revolver approaching the ground from the staircase. Crossby halts upon seeing his wife. So does Samantha. She looks like she’s seen a ghost. She’s shaking and shivering, but the house is torching from the activities of the kitchen. Husband isn’t shaking. Tears fall from his eyes and splash onto the carpet floor. He aims the revolver at his wife. Her forehead.

“Babe! What the fu—”

Bang!

Samantha falls face front on the ground. Crossby wails, then puts the weapon to his temple.

“I must be free from this world! We must be free from this world!” he shouts inside the soon-to-be haunted house, then fires.

Bang!

Bonnie’s bedroom, and the living room, looking like an art studio in the city—splatter and mess everywhere.

***

The next morning, Adam Bigby watches TV in the common area of the county jail, awaiting his court date to see the judge. The news comes on. All eyes are on the TV. The volume turned all the way up.

“Breaking news! A murder-suicide in the neighborhood of Floral Park, New York. A New York City detective kills his wife, daughter, and two dogs, along with himself. 48-year-old Detective Sheldon Crossby, left behind a murder-suicide note, stating that he wanted him and his family to be free from life—therefore that led to him killing himself, his wife, his 6-year-old daughter, and two dogs. My partner, Ryan Gomez, will have more on that for you. Take it away Ryan.” The pale, well-endowed, neatly dressed, while young, female news anchor says. The general population inside the common area of the jailhouse is shocked and can’t believe it.

Adam laughs out loud as the inmates stare and watch him, and the TV. The news report goes on. And on.

Tragic.

Adam stares at you and smiles, “We all need to be free.” He chuckles, then laughs out loud as the inmates continue to erupt of shocker from the news report.

Tragic.

THE END