Project X-Out

By Alexander R. King

This planet is filled with all types of criminals. Some act out with rage and kill other people, while others are reckless and abuse drugs, but the one type that no one seems to take as seriously is a school bully. Bullying affects everyone in different ways. It can even change a good person to become a bad one. I was one of those good people. Once upon a time

This is a story about a boy, Lex Rivers, who, through his entire life, was bullied and hated by everyone but his family. He had little to no friends while in school, but the friends he did have he cherished so deeply and would do anything to protect them.

He keeps a journal which he writes in on a regular basis. Inside this journal at the back is a list of people along with a small report of what kind of person they are and how they have mistreated others in the past. Rivers has plans to kill everyone who's name is written in his journal. One by one he plans out how, when, and where he is going to kill these individuals. He has many obstacles and trials to complete while deciding if he really wants to kill these people. The largest one being a girl he fell in love with. The only girl who can change his vicious way of life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499023206

Book preview

Project X-Out

title.jpg

Alexander R. King

Copyright © 2014 by Alexander R. King.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 05/19/2014

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Contents

Chapter One Killers are made, not born

Chapter Two Year end

Chapter Three First of many

Chapter Four Welcome to Western

Chapter Five Too close for comfort

Chapter Six Minor set-back

Chapter Seven Cover up story

Chapter Eight Family feud

Chapter Nine Chopping down the tree

Chapter Ten Don’t save me

Chapter Eleven Some things never change

Chapter Twelve Valory

Chapter Thirteen Transcript

Chapter Fourteen Down memory lane

Chapter Fifteen Amherst… Finally.

Chapter Sixteen Midterms

Chapter Seventeen Chicken Run

Chapter Eighteen Snuff it twice

Chapter Nineteen Forever Alone?

Chapter Twenty End-Year Emprise

Chapter Twenty-One This means war

Chapter Twenty-Two A grave mistake

Chapter Twenty-Three Get out of jail free card

Chapter Twenty-Four Living the dream

Chapter Twenty-Five ’Till death do us part

Chapter Twenty-Six Hello, my other half

Chapter Twenty-Seven Outta my head

CHAPTER ONE

Killers are made, not born

T he date is December 9, 2002, 2:10 pm. There are fifteen days, ten hours, and fifty minutes left until Christmas morning. I am sitting outside, alone during afternoon recess, sitting by against a fence as far away from the other students as possible. I am cold, I am crying, and I am angry.

Ever since I entered grade four at this school I have been getting bullied and pushed around by the students and the staff. I am 12 years old, and I am already tired of living life. I have little to no friends and I am too young to fully realize the consequences of my death.

Earlier today, approximately two hours and five minutes ago, it was our lunch recess period. I was eating my lunch and looked to the right of me only to see a group of the popular kids in my grade all facing me. I didn’t think they were exactly watching me, nor did I suspect them of talking about me; however, I was wrong. Before I could finish my chicken-and-lettuce sandwich they all got up and sat next to and around me. I had a terrible feeling but I just assumed I was just intruding on their area. I put my sandwich in my forest green lunch bag, got up, threw away my garbage, and walked to a new location to finish eating.

They stopped me by hollering my name and asking where I was going. I told them I was just finishing my lunch and then I apologized for sitting at their table. They didn’t like that too much. They said I was being very rude by walking away and decided to follow me. One of them—his name was Matt Holkman—grabbed me by the back of my favourite light-blue shirt and tugged me backward. Before I could fully realize what was happening they were all standing around me.

What do you want? I asked.

I don’t think we got off on the right foot back there, Matt said with a slight grin. Everyone was looking at me, they crowded close to each other and sent one of their own, Collin, to go distract the teacher on recess duty.

I had a bad feeling about this but I couldn’t walk away since they blocked off all exits around me.

Are you trying to walk away, Mr Rivers? he said my name as if it was unique and he didn’t like the fact. He mainly called me Mr Rivers because that’s what the teachers call me that whenever they want me to demonstrate something or answer a question in front of the class. However, my first name is Lex.

Can I please get through? I asked politely and as calmly as possible. I really didn’t want any trouble, I just wanted to go finish my recess break and get back to class.

Certainly! He said opening a gap between him and the person next to him. Her name was Bree Krumble.

I walked through the gap and he tripped me then punched me in the stomach on the way down. I retaliated, pulled my body up and hit him in the chin with my elbow. I did not control the hit, as I should have, and missed his nose. After that elbow hit him all seven of them were pushing and hitting me. I fell to the ground, outnumbered by them; I was forced into submission while they beat on me.

It was a wonder how the teacher did not hear me pleading for them to stop. Collin must have done an exceptional job as a decoy for teacher not to hear. My guess was he walked with her and led her as far away from the tree at the far back right corner near the basketball court.

No one would help me anyways. Everyone thinks I’m a freak. Just an outcast. A waste of space. They always said mean things to me, called me dumb, said I smelled bad, even if I didn’t, made fun of my Scottish accent and called me ugly. The list goes on. Every day I would take their verbal and physical abuse. Every day I would pray for their deaths.

So here I am now, sitting at the back left of the school grounds, as far away from the students as I can possibly get. It is snowing and I am cold and bruised.

After recess I went back to class. I managed to finish my class without being bothered by the bullies; but during the class, I wasn’t working on just my school work. I was devising a plan. I called it Project X-Out. Project X-Out will take years to prepare and will only be able to be completed and acted upon once I graduate from high school. Until then, all I can do is take names and write bios.

I often think to myself about how I would live knowing I want these people dead, but with the power that their influence held it didn’t matter. I would rather die than see them live a full life causing grief to others.

As the days went by I started taking more and more detailed notes as to the actions of the bullies. I got their names, descriptions of how they treated not only me, but others, too, and also the names of all of their victims. My list after only 11 days is now at 13 names. What a coincidence, that is also my favourite number. Today is also the last day before the Christmas and New Year’s break. School goes out from Friday, December 20th until Monday, January 6th. I am so glad to finally be able to get a break from coming to this wretched hell hole every morning. To top it all off I can finally find a good place to store all these papers and notes I’ve made. If my mother were to see these she would probably force me to see some sort of doctor or therapist, and I can’t have that getting in my way.

It’s now December 25th and my family is all waiting for me in the living room where our Christmas tree is set up. It’s the time of the morning where every decides to leave their rooms and get off their video games to open gifts, just to back to their video games and not spend any time with the family until New Year’s eve. If you ask me, this is a waste of a holiday. However, I did ask for something on the off chance that I would actually get it. I asked my mother for some tools such as an exact-o knife, stainless steel ruler, pencils, leather, various types of thread ranging from normal to nylon, a few wood planks, no more than 12 feet worth, some ply-wood, a deadbolt lock, and some lined paper without any company logos, trait marks, holes, or margins. Of course, this request is far more than I can ever expect to get from them. I would be surprised if I was even able to get half of what I listed from them. No matter though. I’ll just have to open these gifts and see.

I looked around the tree, it seems they had organized all the gifts by name and left mine behind the tree, scattered. I grabbed the first one I saw. It felt like a sweater, bigger than my size, but I like my sweaters to be larger. I opened it up and sure enough it was a sweater. I had to act surprised and very thankful for the gift I had been given. After all, even if I don’t get all or any of the materials right now I can just buy them or even get them from school.

After I had finished opening all the gifts, I spend a few moments with my three brothers and my parents. Just so I didn’t seem rude by just walking away after receiving something and then not speaking with them for the rest of the night. Knowing them they would think they did something wrong and feel bad until the finally decided to go see what was wrong with me; and I can’t be bothered today. I have far too much planning and preparing to do if I want to ever follow through with my project.

After all that was done, I was finally able to get downstairs in my room where I could get to work on my notebook I will use to keep my notes and also the storage box I will be able to hide in the backyard, underground. Today wasn’t all that disappointing. I did manage to get the perfect amount of leather and it was also the perfect width for the cover of my note book. I had spent the majority of the afternoon cutting and sanding it down to the right size. After I had finished that I took a break from making the book and started working on the box. My parents were very curious as to why I wanted the wood, but they, surprisingly, bought it for me anyways. The box wasn’t very hard to make.

After a few small measurements, some cutting, trimming and more measurements I was able to make a box big enough to fit my book, once completed, and also had enough room for the deadbolt lock to be applied to the top of it. The lock wasn’t the only security mechanism inside, however. I managed to use some extra pieces of wood, nails, a spring, and some strong elastics to make an extra security lock on it in case someone tried to open the box. Basically, if someone were to open the hatch of the box without turning the nob on three times to the right and pushing it inward, it will release a spring loaded nail into their hand once they open the door to the box. The only bad part about it is it has to be reset after it has been set off. Maybe I’ll enhance it once I have time.

Once the spring season arrives I’ll be able to dig up some of the dirt in the back yard and plant the box in the ground. After that I will make a hidden door with the ply-wood I received by flipping the grass out of the ground without separating it from the soil, planting the wood along the walls and ground of the square hole I will dig for the box, then for the door part I will attach hinges to one of the sides and then attach the ply-wood to the top with a rope tied to it so all I will have to do is pull it up and it can be easily hidden with the grass still on top. The only thing is I’ll have to plan it behind the shed; that seems to be the only place the grass doesn’t get cut when my father goes to mow the lawn. For now, though, I’ll keep the box inside the box spring of my bed. There should be enough room to hide everything there since it’s just a large hollow space.

After a few days of working on everything and re-writing the notes onto my semi-complete notebook, I am finally able to take a break and celebrate the New Year with my family. Every year we have a huge party and light off fireworks at my cousin’s house, in their back yard. The fireworks this year, I assume will be just as good as they are every year.

Now with only four days left until school starts I should start getting back to my studies. I can’t slack in my school work or else people will start questioning why I’ve been so distant from my work in class. If I want this plan to go as I’d like, I will have to act as naturally as I can without it looking like I’m acting natural. It has to be natural, not just seem natural.

All through my year of grade seven, I kept my grades low and made people think I wasn’t as smart as I actually am. Keeping grades low and my intelligence levels at a high was very difficult. I had to constantly study on the computer at home and sometimes I would even make copies of my work just to hand in a dummy copy to the teacher so she could mark it and I would be able to compare my real answers at home.

I know it may seem like an unwise move to make, especially so early in my life, but it’s all a part of my plan to get rid of school bullies and change the way they are disciplined for their actions in schools all around the globe. Some people will thank me for my sacrifices and the risks I am taking to make schools easier for people like me to be in.

After I graduate I can finally begin a real challenge. High school.

It’s finally the end of the year and I can begin all of my next year studies during the summer break. Everyone will be outside playing, getting into trouble, having fun, and the bullies will be out even more looking for those kids so they can ruin their days. Not me, though. I won’t give them that satisfaction. I remain inside for most of my summer studying and making notes of certain actions I will be taking in the coming years for high school. If I want to keep this low-grade score balanced I will need to get a head start on what will be learned in grade 8. Luckily, my older brother just finished grade eight and I still have all his notes from his classes. I can study these and get a head start on almost the entire year of work that is to come. I can’t waste any more time.

The two months of summer vacation went by overnight from what it seemed. I feel like there wasn’t enough time to learn everything, but I guess this will have to do for it is now the first day of grade eight, my final year in grade school.

As usual, I have a very bad feeling about going to school. I could just be worried of getting beat up again, but I could be wrong. Maybe all those bullies have changed. Maybe they grew a sort of respect for people over these last two months and maybe I’m over thinking the entire situation? Perhaps I may be going a little overboard with this whole X-Out project and I should just focus on what is really important. Enjoying my last year of grade school and getting top marks in my class. I’m sure that will really stump my teachers when they see how smart I really am.

I walked to school with my two little brothers; I made sure they met up with their friends and also got to their class on time. On my way to my class I bumped into Gordon Willman, one of the bullies from Bree’s group.

Oh sorry, I shouldn’t have been looking at my feet. It was only after that where I realized he would have probably hit me back down if I stood up. So I took my time picking up my books and papers that were dropped.

It was my fault, I’m sorry. He replied. I was incredibly shocked. Gordon Willman, one of the most short-tempered people I’ve ever met just apologized to me and even helped me pick up my papers. He even sounded sincerely sorry for bumping into me.

After he helped me pick up my papers he walked with me into the classroom. Maybe I was right about this morning. Maybe I was overreacting a little or maybe people do change with over the summer. It seems as though Gordon had managed to grow some sort of maturity.

I sat at my desk at the back left corner of the room when I saw Gordon sit three seats in front of me. Just as I was about to open my notebook to make it seem like I was doing something productive, I saw Bree pass a note to Collin who passed it on to Matt who then passed it on to Luca who handed it over to Gordon. How the teachers never notice this note passing during classes amazes me. Gordon opened the note, read it and looked over at Bree then turned a glanced over at me for a second. Within that second I knew that note was about me, I knew what was going to happen and, like always, I had a bad feeling about going out for first recess. I feel like this is going to be another long and agonizing year.

At the end of class I saw Gordon get up and leave with his group. Just before he left the room he threw the piece of paper into the red recycling bin. I was the last to leave the room and I grabbed the crumpled piece of paper from the bin and read the note.

So what are you doing hanging with Lex? First recess, you are going to show him that he’s not cool enough to have friends.

I could easily just stay inside during this recess break and hang out with all the smart kids. Pretend I’m studying or something. If I did that I would probably seem like a coward for avoiding them and they might even suspect that I had read the note Gordon mistakenly threw away in the recycling bin and then they would get more even worse for avoiding them at the lunch hour. Technically it could be used as evidence towards their actions for beating me up. I could also blackmail them; this is clearly Bree’s handwriting and it easily worth a good three day in-school suspension. Though, she would get off with a warning since her father is the gym teacher here. I guess that would only put more pressure on me if I did something like that. Then there’s always the option of me fighting back. I have been in karate for over 5 years now and I am pretty sure I can take on at least two of them without too much trouble, but if there is as many as I’m thinking, I won’t stand a chance. Never bite more than you can chew, I guess.

It seems my best option is to go out there and face them head on. If I don’t do that all other scenarios lead to an even more painful route for me. I’ll just have to take the blow to the stomach and suck it up for the day.

As I was just about to walk outside I realized I had my notebook in my hand. If they even take small look at this they will notice their names are written all over it so I turned around and went to go put it in my desk, when suddenly, Where do you think you’re going to, Mr Rivers? asked the second grade eight teacher, Mr Kinder.

Mr Kinder, I was just going to put my book in my desk. I told him.

He grabbed the book and said, This is a pretty neat looking book you have here, is this for school? I prayed he wouldn’t open it.

Though, he shouldn’t be able to open it anyways. The book had a string tie on it and the butterfly knot was pretty tight, I doubt he could untie it.

I held out my hand as if expecting him to give me back he book and said, Yeah, it’s going to be for my art project. I made the book myself at home.

He looked at me almost suspiciously and handed the book back to me, smiled and said. I’ll be looking forward to it, Mr Rivers. I grabbed the book. And Mr Rivers, try adding a title on it if you can. I’m sure you can get extra marks for that.

A title, but of course. After that said I quickly walked back into the classroom and put the book in my desk. Now with only eight of the fifteen minutes left for recess I wonder what those bullies plan to do. With such short time I doubt they could do much.

I made my way back to the door and glanced out the window before opening it. I didn’t see anyone there, but that, of course, doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone there. I opened the door and walked straight towards the benches where I usually sit are at. The benches are next to a giant tree, this tree is said to be the largest and possibly the oldest tree in the historic part of my town.

So far I don’t see any of the bullies in my direct path. The only one I see is Collin. I kept walking and glanced over at him to see if the rest of the group was with him when I suddenly realized that it was Collin, of all people, that was alone. This must mean only one thing is happening. Collin is standing out there as a distraction while the others are probably closing in on me. I turned around and saw that Bree and Jonny were behind me, then I looked to my left and saw Matt and Gord. Ryan met up with Collin and Ben they all casually walked over to me.

I wonder how the teachers don’t notice this. There are six students all focusing in a circle walking towards a specific individual. It’s quite obvious that something is about to go down here. I walked a little quicker to the benches when suddenly Tasha came out from behind the tree and day on the bench. I have absolutely no idea what is about to happen.

Natasha Fidélle, commonly called Tasha or Tash, is one of the victims of these bullies. However her situation is a bit different. Her having an IQ of 119 at the age of 13 and being in the top 5 smartest kids in my grade, she has a slight advantage over the bullies since she can aid them with their work if necessary. I, on the other hand, hide my intelligence and cannot do such things without exposing some unwanted attention to myself. I just need to know why she is here right now, sitting at the benches where only myself and two others sit. Could she be threatened by the bullies and is being forced to block off the only possible exit I could take? No, that doesn’t seem like her. Last I heard she had a crush on me and was a little too shy to ever really talk to me.

Hey Lex, can I sit with you today? She asked innocently and smiling.

Sure. I won’t stop you. Maybe she isn’t a part of their plan. Maybe this is just my lucky day. So I sat down next to her on the left so I could a good view on any actions coming my way. To my surprise Bree looked over at Collin and Ryan then Collin shook his head and the four that were closing in on me changed directions and headed to meet up with Collin. It seems Collin was their leader for that manoeuvre. Figures as he is the most tactically intelligent of the group with his obsession with the world wars.

That was pretty close. They seem to have an interest in you, Lex. She said smiling still. Her positive attitude makes me both uncomfortable and relieved.

"Yeah, I’m