It was on that day that everybody started talking to themselves. At first it was just some weird guy in a bathroom stall muttering something unintelligible, but then it was the people in the halls and at every desk. 

It took him a while to notice, but when Reese Gibson finally did, he thought it might be some sort of practical joke that everyone was in on except for him. 

The longer he paid attention, the more it seemed like thoughts and words were spilling uncontrollably from everyone’s mouths, and weirder still was the fact that nobody seemed to notice anything was going on except for him. It was as if they were not speaking at all the way nobody reacted to the words tumbling out of their mouths, not even the speakers themselves. 

Reese was a shorter kid. His backpack bulged off of his back at twice his size as he weaved around people’s waists to get to class. He kept his head down and his white-blond hair shaved as short as he could shave it. He picked at a scab on his scalp, glancing up to gauge how far he was from his next class. 

He looked up just too late and his shoulder knocked into the stomach of another kid. 

His eyes went wide as they met those of Benjamin Porter, a very tall eighth grader who everyone called “Benny” with his very tall twin brother Dominic. He had seen them get into slap fights before, with the whole school huddled around in amazement as they pummeled some poor kid. Reese knew with sudden and terrible understanding that he was the next poor kid. 

“Watch where you’re going, dumbass,” Benny said. 

“S-sorry, man, I-”

“Man, shut the fuck up,” Benny interupted. “You little shit, you did that on purpose.”

“I didn’t, I was just getting to class. Just leave me alone.” Reese’s fists had balled up and he turned his head to glare at Benny. His eyes darted left and right between the glowering faces of the towering set of twins. He tried to push his way past them but was stopped when Dominic’s hands caught him on the shoulders. 

“Hold on now, little buddy, you’re not going anywhere until we make things right,” Dominic said. Reese felt an uncomfortable mix of fear and anger as he turned, ready to yell.

Benny’s broad hand came down with a painstaking slowness in Reese’s mind. He watched and winced as it made contact with his cheekbone, sending out a resounding “SMACK!” into the halls. 

Reese’s eyes welled up with tears, but he didn’t feel like crying. He was furious and his face stung. He threw his weight, and all the momentum his backpack would give him, behind his curled fist and swung around, landing it into Dominic’s side and throwing another and another and another. His wrist cracked and shot pains all the way up his arm. 

Though he could scarcely tell it with all the emotion built up in him, the hall was around him now, huddled in amazement as Dominic stepped in toward him and sank his fist into Reese’s stomach. 

He crumpled to the ground and his pants started to feel warm and heavy. The hallway filled with the unmistakable smell of feces and the crowd started to disperse. Pre-teen girls screamed and clutched their bedazzled notebooks, rushing into the nearest classroom and as far away from the rotten, disgusting little boy as they could get. 

After what felt like forever, curled on the floor, teachers started to flood into the hall and ward off the last few stragglers who had yet to abandon the scene. 

Reese got to his feet and tried to get his bearings. It was still hard to tell what was going on. His stomach ached and felt like it was twisted into a tight knot. He was vaguely aware of the smell himself and started to suspect with rising horror that it was him. 

A frantic hand felt his pants and came back damp. He nearly threw up. 

Several teachers were closing in, bent half over in a placating manner, not sure how to approach him. Their hands floated in the air indecisively between not wanting to touch the contaminated student and trying to comfort a boy in what would almost surely be the most humiliating moment of his life.

It was then, when he had gone to the bathroom to clean up and maybe bolt out the window and never come back, that he started to hear everyone talking to themselves. He looked over at the stall divider to his left, the corner stall, and stared intently as if he was going to be able to see through it. 

What the hell was that guy talking about? 

“It smells in here. Is it almost lunch yet? Did I do that homework? I am NOT going back to Mrs. Saddler’s class yet, no way am I doing another math problem today,” he blabbed.

The words came out monotone in a sort of mumble. They didn’t seem to have any purpose or even like he meant to speak them. Were they his thoughts?

He got as cleaned up as he could, which wasn’t saying much. The back of his pants were stained brown and the cloud of stench wouldn’t leave him alone, like a constant reminder he’d been beaten to a pulp and shit himself in front of the whole school. 

He didn’t feel wet anymore. Maybe if he pretended nothing had happened nobody would notice, but they noticed. 

As he walked the halls, the words filled the room up to the ceiling with a droning hum that he could only make out individual words from with great focus. He concentrated and tried to read the dull lips as they spoke. 

“What happened to that kid?”

“He smells like shit,”

“What the heck is that nasty smell?”

“Ew, is that Reese Gibson?”

Nearly every sentence he caught wind of was about him and they could definitely tell. He let the words fade into noise. When he got to his classroom, Mrs. Delaney stopped him at the door. 

“Oh, honey,” she said, trying to disguise her disgusted facial expression and pass it off as sympathetic. “We need to get you to the office.”

She radioed over and a man in a tie came speed walking down the hall through the crowd of students shuffling reluctantly into each class and grabbed Reese by the arm, immediately retracting it as soon as his nose caught up to him. “Let’s go,” he said and set off toward the office. 

In the office, Principal Rikeland’s thoughts seem to be coming right out of his mouth too. At least, if he meant to say all of those things out loud something was seriously wrong. 

“Wow, this kid smells like shit. I am gonna need to get a new chair,” he said. “Alright there, uh, Reese,” he began with a degree of intentionality that had not accompanied his words before. “It seems like you’ve been in a fight, and you know that fighting is not allowed here at Willow Creek Middle School. It seems like there’s been an accident as well, so we have called your parents and asked them to bring you some new pants. Your mom is on her way and we told her about the fight too. She will be here in a few minutes.” 

A lump grew in Reese’s throat. He was in big trouble now. Not only had he been in a fight, but his momma had been pulled out of work to bring him new pants, and she got in trouble enough at work as it was. He tried to tune out the thoughts that kept pouring out of Principal Rikeland’s mouth as they sat in what seemed to everyone else to be silence. 

“Can I go home?” he asked. 

“If your mom wants to take you home after what happened today, you can go,” he said. Reese let out a sigh of relief. 

Reese sat on the chairs lined up outside of the principal’s office, listening to each mumbling student as they passed. He pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from his backpack and unfurled it on his knee. He grabbed his pencil, which barely had the nub left on it, and started to write “Kill List” in big letters across the top of the page. He added Benjamin Porter and Dominic Porter to the top of the list. 

The more people passed and the more he could hear what they really thought.

“That kid is pathetic,”

“What a disgusting fucking idiot,”

“Little ass kids like that shouldn’t be picking fights if they can’t even hold their shit in,”

“Who would want to go near that shit stain?”

He added their names to the list as they passed, but one day he would shut them all up.

He folded the paper up quickly and stuffed it into his bag as he heard mamma’s footsteps rounding the corner. 

That night it was quiet around the dinner table. Reese’s dad didn’t usually come home until late, so he picked at his plate and kept his eyes down away from his mother’s. 

Her thoughts were muddy. She muttered something that sounded like pity, something that sounded like anger, and a twinge of fear. Louder than she had been muttering her thoughts, she said “I am going to have to tell your father, you know?”

He knew. “May I be excused?” he asked. 

She nodded and he got up, setting his plate on the counter and dashing back to his room. The pit had returned to his stomach and the sound of his mother’s thoughts droned on in the kitchen in an endless, monotonous stream. 

He pulled open his sock drawer and dug to the bottom, pulling out the BB gun he had been given for his 12th birthday. He grabbed an extra container of BBs.

He swung open the back screen door and dashed out into the woods, throwing his camo jacket over his other arm and pushing a canister of BBs into the gun. His legs pushed him as fast as they could go up the hill and down by the creek. The leaves crunched beneath his neon sneakers and he slowed to stop when he was far and away from all of the blabbing. Finally, some quiet. 

He scanned the surrounding area for any sign of movement, allowing his ears to adjust to the quiet and detect the smallest of scurries through the leaves. He turned quickly as a rustling came from his right. He lowered his BB gun and squeezed one eye shut tight to focus with the other. As soon as he saw the motion again he fired. The gun cracked into the chill air as it sent the pellet flying in the direction of the leaves. 

They rustled slowly. The movement didn’t stop entirely but seemed as if whatever he had hit was writhing on the ground where it lay. 

He walked over to it and bent down. A small, gray rabbit had been struck square on its leg and was struggling to get up. Bullseye. 

He crouched down closer and put the BB gun against its head. The glint of his classmates’ eyes flickered across the rabbits as he pulled the trigger and smashed a pellet into its delicate skull. 

It’s back paw began to twitch faster, kicking leaves around and splashing dirt onto the sides of his shoes. He stood, putting both arms behind the hilt of the gun, firing again at its head. The leaves were splattered with red droplets and the movement stopped. He was barely focused on anything anymore, not even the rustling of the leaves as someone approached over the hill. 

He fired again and again until the rabbit’s skull was shattered and its brains were strewn across the forest floor. That sure shut it up. 

A larger hand grabbed the barrel of the BB gun and ripped it out of Reese’s hands. His shoulders tensed and he stepped back with fright, turning to see the face of his father, twisted with fury as his mouth opened and spit came flying out. 

“What the hell are you doing out here?!” he bellowed. His father’s eyes darted between his son and the mutilated rabbit that lay on the ground. He was at a loss for words. Not even a thought escaped his lips before his fist had curled and knocked into Reese’s face. Without time to process what happened, Reese’s vision went dark. 

…

The next day at school, he held an ice pack to his face that the nurse had given him from the “nasty fall” he took at home the night before. He could already see on her face what she thought about his bruise, but like everyone else, the thoughts came tumbling out of her mouth anyway. 

He walked the halls with the eyes and words of everyone on him double. First he got his ass kicked, then he shit himself, and now he had to walk around with a bulging blue and black bruise on his eye. 

As he sat down in his first class, he felt the crumpled up Kill List in the pocket of his backpack. His BB gun may have been enough for a rabbit, but he would need one of daddy’s real guns from the safe to really shut these motherfuckers up. 

Their thoughts hammered at his head as the teacher started the lesson. 

“I bet his dad beat the shit out of him just like Benny and Dominic.”

“He probably deserved what he got.”

“If he was my son, I would be ashamed. Not only can he not fight, but he shit himself, too.”

“I heard his mom drank when she was pregnant, that’s why Reese came out such an idiot.”

He shook his head, trying to focus on what was in front of him, but it was impossible. With 30 different voices coming at him and at least half of them – all that he could hear – were about him or his daddy or his momma, he had to get out of there. 

He raised his hand and asked the teacher to go to the bathroom. 

“Probably going to go shit himself again,” someone said. Reese couldn’t tell if it had been a thought or if it had been said aloud. The class erupted in laughter and he knew with a well of anger that it had been out loud. 

“Fuck you,” he said on his way out and thought he heard a faint “Watch your mouth,” form the teacher when he was already half way down the hall. 

When he got to the stall, he shut it behind himself and sat on the toilet. At least he could get one moment of privacy. 

As he sat, the door creaked open and he heard hushed laughter as a couple sets of footsteps stumbled into the bathroom. The thoughts were hard to make out through the laughter and kept a low volume. He could only catch bits of what they were saying.

“-catch us…”

“Of course he is-”

“… Go, go, go-”

The stall next to him opened up. Reese sighed and tried to ignore the racket. Suddenly, the thoughts became more clear as they came out of the boys’ mouths. 

“He is shitting again. This is gonna be so good.” They could hardly contain their laughter. 

“Quick, record him.”

As the boy mumbled these words, Reese was frozen to the spot. He could hardly believe what he was hearing. That one had to have been out loud because when Reese finally was able to crane his neck, he saw the top of a phone peeking over the stall with the camera pointed right at him. 

He jumped up and screamed, swatting his hand futilely at the phone as he scrambled to pull his pants up from around his ankles. He hadn’t even been able to wipe. The boys erupted with raucous laughter and the phone drew back. They yelled “He’s shitting himself again! He’s shitting again!” as if it were some kind of chant. “Reese is shitting himself again!”

“I can’t wait to show this to everyone,” he heard them shout as they scrambled out the door and it shut behind him. His face was hot and flushed red. 

He could feel his blood boiling and he let out a guttural yell into the empty bathroom, his voice echoing back off the walls and onto him. Those fucking kids were gonna get it this time. He banged out of the stall and over to the sinks. His body moved as if it wasn’t under his control anymore. His muscles were all tensed and he tore the soap dispensers off of the wall, purple liquid oozing out all over the floor beside the sinks. 

The thoughts of the students passing continued in a buzz as the bell rang and they started to change classes. 

He saw his scowling face in the mirror, red as a firetruck with embarrassment and rage. He threw his fist out at it and smashed the mirror to pieces, the reflective shards clattering to the ground as his knuckles dripped blood into the purple pool beneath him. 

The tiles were covered in soap, blood and shards as he stomped back toward the stalls. They would pay this time. If only he had brought daddy’s gun today, but oh they would pay this time. 

In the first stall, he pounded his fists down on the toilet paper dispenser. It cracked but didn’t break. He brought both of his fists down in a renewed fit of rage and let out yells and grunts of anger as he pounded it. Finally, the plastic covering came clattering off of the wall to reveal the two rolls of toilet paper. 

The walls of the stall had been splattered with blood that was sent flying from his knuckles as he beat on the dispenser in the next stall until it too came clambering down to the ground and freeing the rolls of paper. In the handicap stall, he swung his leg up with extra force and smashed his neon shoe into the dispenser and cracked it open in two kicks. His jaw was so tight he thought his teeth might chip but he didn’t care. 

The droning continued around him in the halls as students passed, but he didn’t listen hard enough to make out any of their thoughts. He wasn’t sure he would even notice if someone had come into the bathroom. 

He snatched the rolls out of each stall and threw them into the corner of the bathroom. He climbed up onto the back of each toilet and threw his fist in the air to knock out as many ceiling tiles as he could reach and threw those into the corner too. His hand patted his pocket and felt for what he had hoped would be there, his lighter. 

He stood over the pile he made and hoped it would make a flame tall enough to reach the ceiling and burn this whole fucking school to the ground, with all of these motherfuckers who won’t shut up stuck inside. 

He flicked the lighter on, lit a piece of toilet paper and tossed it onto his pile. 

The muscles in his body refused to let up as he stared on and fumed with anger. The flames climbed up the rolls of toilet paper and flickered up from the tiles, licking at the ceiling. It only took a second before the fire alarms started to blare and the lights began to flash. His feet stayed rooted to the spot. 

The real screams of students in the hallways filled the air and Reese noticed, with a sudden sense of realization, that their thoughts had disappeared from the air altogether. Screaming or no screaming, the low murmur of people’s consciousness that had been pouring out of their mouths uncontrollably for days had vanished into the blaring siren of the fire alarm and the screams and shouts of the scared students as they ran for the exits. 

The flames grew as the school was enveloped in chaos. Surely nobody was thinking about him or that video at all. He put the lighter in his pocket and stepped outside of the bathroom as smoke billowed out from above and underneath the door. In the screaming scene of the hallway, where everybody’s thoughts stayed firmly in their heads, he walked calmly toward the exit. Finally he was in control. 

Finally they shut up.