Chapter 24: April 22nd, 2000

April 22, 2000, 9:07PM

A/N: And here we go… the beginning of Zero Day. Even though the description- which is verbatim from the original- says this story goes until May 1, 2001, it actually stopped on April 22, 2000 and I have chosen to be faithful to that original stopping point. The original author at first intended to write this story up to May 1, 2001, but evidently changed their mind and just never changed the story description. With the original story gone and the author having apparently abandoned their account on this website, it is a mystery I doubt will ever be solved. But that's okay. The story's back now and that's what matters.

This story was the most intimidating of all the RS stories to do. When I first sat down and decided I would be rewriting 8 superb Zero Day stories after learning they were gone in December 2016, I despaired of ever being able to recreate the spirit, the greatness, the insightfulness of "Calvin's Video Diaries". The original author wrote that story like they knew Calvin Gabriel personally. It was stunning. The story also used a descriptive style I am not used to writing in and had never used before, further intimidating me. But as you can see, nevertheless, I persisted. It helped me a great deal that on 10-28-2017, I found I had managed to save an original copy of the story after all, which made completion of the story by December 2017 a reality. Without any further ado, the end of "RS7- Calvin's Video Diaries", and the beginning of Zero Day.

"For once, I actually have a lot to say." Calvin began almost as soon as he turned on the camera, looking as if he was trying to hold back a smile. "There are so many things to say but… I'm not sure where I should begin. I guess I should begin on… I think it was April 7th—it's the 22nd now—and Andre and I had been having a conversation."

"It was all hypothetical, we were talking crap about Tielson—our school—and how it's the perfect fucking setting for one of those school shootings. It's in a nice little town and full with morons who think they run the place and we said we wouldn't be surprised if some kid grabbed his dad's gun and went and shot everybody." Calvin gave a small laugh.

"But then we got to talking and we just started talking about how we would be smarter than that kid and how it takes time to perfect something like that and actually be able to carry it through, you know. Well, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it despite the fact it was just a joke we were talking about and I ended up grabbing a map of the school that they have in the library and I just… drew things down on it."

"I guess in my mind it's become non-hypothetical. I really don't think it's a joke anymore. I want… I want to do it and this part of me gets excited at the thought of it, but another part of me is still nervous because… I know I can't do it, not without Andre. I can't… I just couldn't, but I wasn't exactly sure if Andre would actually be up for doing it. I wasn't sure what to do about this. And then… something amazing happened today."

"So we were just talking and hanging out in the basement of his house and he brought up that hypothetical conversation that's turning into a non-hypothetical thought for me and he started talking about all these ideas that were just popping into his mind such as making pipe bombs and recording the process of doing all this and we started hatching a plan right there in the basement of his house while his parents were upstairs doing whatever it was that they were doing."

"It's not hypothetical anymore, I can feel it. Both of us have decided that this is what we're going to do. We're going to do this and get back at those motherfuckers by putting bullets in their fucking skulls and… I've never felt more alive than I do right now. Never. It feels so good to finally standing up to these assholes and they don't even know it. That's the best part. They don't even know that these two 'kids' they push around are going to get as even with them as anybody could."

"I want to do this at every school, in every town we possibly can. Wouldn't that be amazing? We would like… we would be fucking heroes; getting revenge for the underdog, for ourselves and everyone like us and it would be so brilliant. I don't… I don't know why we haven't seriously thought about this before but… no harm done, because we're doing it."

Calvin stared into the camera's lens. "We're going to fucking do it and nobody will know until that day… they'll see kids running out of the school in fear of us and they'll hear the list of the dead, the injured and then us… our names will be plastered all over the TV, the internet, newspapers and its going to be fucking glorious. I can't wait… Andre and I will be gods."

A/N: 11-15-2017.

This is it, the end of the story. Soon, Calvin will begin recording videos together with Andre, and they will work together to do that until their deaths in May, 2001. Calvin has reached the decision about what he is going to do with his life. He won't be turning back from this. He was wondering before, debating, trying to figure out what he was going to do. Now he knows.

Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold never recorded what conversation they had that started the chain of events that led to the shooting at their high school. My best guess, and presumably that of the original author of this story, is that the first talk where they started to think of actually carrying out a school shooting went something like this one Calvin recalls between himself and Andre.

Below is every single word I was able to recover for Chapter 24 from the original story.

A/N: And here we go... the beginning of Zero Day. (and on a slightly unrelated but also related note, I just finished reading "No Easy Answers:**The Truth Behind Death at Columbine" by Brooks Brown,**who had been a friend of Dylan and Eric and whom Eric had threatened to kill in ...

Calvin began almost as soon as he turned on the camera, looking as if he**was trying to hold back a smile.

"For once, I actually have a lot to say.

"We're going to fucking do it and nobody will know until that day…

if some kid grabbed his dad's gun and went and shot everybody.

I know I can't do it, not without Andre. I can't… I just couldn't, but I wasn't exactly sure if Andre would actually be up for doing it. And then…

We would like… we would be fucking heroes; getting revenge for the ...

I know I should have kept myself in control but you can only do that so many times… "It won't happen again though, I just… had to release that**anger I guess.

thought for me and he started talking about all these ideas that were ...

I think it was April 7th—it's the 22nd now—and Andre and I had been

Calvin gave a small laugh. "But then we got to talking and we just started talking about how we would be smarter than that kid and how it takes**time to perfect something like that and carry it through, you know.

"It was all hypothetical, we were talking crap about Tielson—our school—and how it's the perfect fucking setting for one of those school**shootings.

about it despite the fact it was just a joke we were talking about and I**ended up grabbing a map of the school that

I want to do it and this part of me**gets excited at the thought but another part of me is still nervous because… ... the process of doing all this and we started hatching a plan right there in ...

and they'll hear the list of the dead, the injured and then us… our names ...

"I guess in my mind it's become non-hypothetical. I want ...

were just popping into his mind such as making pipe bombs and recording the process ...

I've never felt more alive than I do right now.

A/N: It amazes me that this movie came out 14 years ago. Had Zero Day been real, it would have been nearly a decade and a half in the past at this point. The April 20, 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado was 18 years ago. America has changed and the world has changed; the K-12 school system that Eric and Dylan and the fictional, yet somehow very real, Andre and Calvin grew up in would be virtually unrecognizable to them today. And yet the problems facing American schools and society in those days still exist now. In my view, they do.

Zero Day was a fictional event, but it is nonetheless very real and relevant. Do not fool yourself; Columbine and its effects are still with us today. The people who lived through that event or were affected by it will carry it with them for the rest of their lives. School shootings happened before 1999 and 2001, during those years, and they have happened since. I don't have any more answers than anyone else does. But personally, I find modern America's affinity for "4/20", "National Weed Day", quite offensive. I have no personal connection to Columbine, but think about it. Not one person who was affected by what happened there on April 20, 1999 will ever be able to associate that day with anything so trivial and stupid as an unofficial holiday celebrating America's obsession with weed. Out of respect for those people, and for the lives lost at Columbine, I refuse to recognize April 20th as anything other than a day of solemn remembrance. I doubt I will ever change that position.

At any rate, Zero Day gives us plenty to think about. A great deal, in fact. If there's one thing I've become convinced of in my own research on this subject, it's that only rarely do school shooters match up with the "Hell-spawned, born-to-kill" demon that a lot of the public want to believe in. Most of the time, they were- emphasis were- ordinary kids at the beginning and became something else over time. Calvin Gabriel is meant as a fictional parallel to Dylan Klebold, who absolutely did become someone else over time. The scariest part about this, as Brooks Brown pointed out, is just that- the next Calvin or Dylan could be your neighbor, your cousin, one of your own friends. Very few people just decide one day that murder-suicide is the thing for them. It is a process, as this film shows us. This story aimed, I believe, to demonstrate the same thing.

Two books I'd like to recommend for anyone interested in learning more about all this:

-No Easy Answers: The Truth Behind Death at Columbine (2002) by Brooks Brown & Rob Merritt

-A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy (2017) by Susan Klebold

I would also recommend reading "I Will Never Know Why," an essay written and released by Mrs. Susan Klebold a few years ago. It was, I imagine, the beginning of the process of her writing her book. Had the events of May 1, 2001 in this movie actually happened, I imagine that Mrs. Gabriel would have one day written something similar, and perhaps written a similar book as well.

Never forget that even some unbelievably terrible people were once decent humans. The Nazis could never have found enough people to staff the death camps otherwise. Timothy McVeigh was once a truly outstanding soldier. And Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, as well as Andre Kriegman and Cal Gabriel, were once decent people. That is, as I said, quite hard for most people to accept or believe. They want to think that these people are monsters, spawned from some place of evil and completely alien to society. Sometimes they are. But just as often, and probably most often, they are not so alien as that. It is frightening to imagine the kid next door to you, a classmate or even a friend, could one day do something evil, especially as the final act of his life. But it happens.

I have no answers to any of it, and certainly I doubt they could be found in the author's notes of a fanfiction story. I hope one day answers can be found. I hope the dead at places like Columbine can always be remembered, but most of all I hope that one day there won't be any more killings like that for us to remember.

If you liked this story, if you found it interesting, please leave as detailed a review as you like. Post reviews for as many chapters as you like. I welcome all feedback. I believe, as I have said before, that the point of "Zero Day" was to make us think. I believe that was Ben Coccio's goal. And in this story, in all of my stories for this film, I have worked to do just that. I am glad to have finally completed the Restoration Series, which is by far the most extensive and ambitious work I have ever undertaken on this site. I hope the restored stories will be as thought-provoking for readers as they were for me, back when I first read them in 2011.

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed or will review this story. I appreciate it.