Bad People (A short story)
 

This is a short story that I wrote a few days ago.
All vagueness is intentional. As is the underdevelopment of the narrator. If you'll notice, her gender is only even mentioned once, and she isn't given a name. This is intentional. As is the fragmented telling of the story.
It's all intentional.

WARNING:
This story contains some profanity, mentions of suicide and abuse, and is apparently a little disturbing.
One word is censored at the request of a mod, but words like "fuck" are left in place, so if you can't handle those, then don't read this.



Experiment #7 (see page 6)

People: Approx. 150
Good People: 6
Bad People: 22
Watchers: 70
Unawares: Approx. 55

It was obvious to me that the larger the problem, less people would be willing to do anything. People couldn't be bothered to truly make an effort and take time out of their day to help. No, it would interfere too horribly with whatever pressing and highly important business they had to attend to. After all, soft drinks and french fries are far more important than other people, aren't they?


"I think I'm gonna do it, man," Keith had murmured, staring carefully at the floor.
"Do what?" Michael asked distractedly as he pulled a textbook out of his locker. He hadn't told me that he was distracted when he told me what happened. But I know Michael, and I could read the faint guilt on his face when he told me.
"You know what." Michael said that Keith seemed tense, but calm and withdrawn.
"What happened?" Michael had asked.
"Everything, man." Michael remembered that Keith stared at the floor for the most part during this conversation, making eye contact only for a brief second before looking away. "Everything's just shit, you know? My mom hates me, there's no way in hell that I can pull my GPA up in time to get into a good college, I can't hold down a fucking job flipping fucking hamburgers, my friends don't give a shit about me and my girlfriend cheated on me and left me."
"Hey, come on, it's not that bad," Michael mumbled automatically, not even thinking of his words.
"Isn't it?" Keith had asked. Michael said later that Keith seemed angry then, so he had tried switching sides to calm him.
"You're right. It's shit," Michael conceded. Michael told me that he then tried to give Keith a pep talk and convince him that things would be okay. He said that Keith's spirits seemed to have been lifted before he left to his next class. I'm pretty sure that Michael was lying about that though, just to relieve some of his own guilt and to make it seem like it wasn't his fault. I have at least one person who saw Keith and Michael talking that day, and they saw Keith walk away quickly and obviously upset.
Really, it wasn't completely Michael's fault. All Michael had done to Keith was fail to help, but he didn't hurt. The Bad People hurt.
The Bad People narrow in on someone who is hurting and relentlessly pick at them until they're pushed over the edge. Much in the way that a flock of chicken will pick at one of their own who is bleeding until the chicken is killed, the Bad People mindlessly attack.
The Bad People found Keith. Maybe a speck of blood was showing on his feathers. Maybe they are so highly trained now that, unlike chickens, they don't even need a visual cue. Maybe they can smell the weakness, taste it in the air.
Either way, they made him do it.


Experiment #10 (see page 7)

People: Approx. 300
Good People: 1
Bad People: 13
Watchers: Approx. 285
Unawares: Approx. 5

It was my most depressing experiment.
I hired an adult friend to pose as my father. We went to the mall and found a crowded area, and then he began yelling at me and hitting me as if in response to something I had said or done. A friend sitting on a bench nearby watched the passing people for their reactions.
Many looked shocked or sad, many pretended that they didn't notice, some even stopped to watch.
"Kill the little whore!" One Bad Person had yelled out. A few people shot surprised looks at him, but no one protested. However, his cry encouraged a few other Bad People in the crowd, who had previously been silent.
"Give her a good kick to the c***!" Another yelled.
My friend who was watching all this described that a good amount of Watchers seemed to base their own reactions off of those of others. When they would see me being beaten, they would look at the people around them, and then carefully set their expression and demeanor to mimic that of the other person. A few Watchers even mirrored the Bad People, yelling out horrible encouragements, but all the while looking a little unsure of themselves.
After about ten minutes of our experiment, a man finally pushed through the crowd and pulled my "father" off of me and punched him in the face. The crowd slowly dispersed then, looking disappointed.


A crowd of people were gathered in the parking lot, focusing themselves around a car. Most of them stared blankly and lifelessly, as if watching television. A few girls sobbed loudly and theatrically.
"My car," One boy in the crowd mumbled and then began pushing his way towards the focus of the group. "That better not be my fucking car!" After breaking free from the crowd, he stared in shock. "Motherfucker landed on my brand fucking new fucking car!"
He punched Keith's lifeless, extended arm for good measure before storming off.


Experiment #2 (see page 6)

People: 15
Good People: 7
Bad People: 2
Watchers: 3
Unawares: 3


The next day Elliott pulled up in his father's Mercury, slamming the door especially loudly to show his displeasure with the car. His new Civic had a dented hood and a broken windshield, but would be repaired in a few days.
The principal announced Keith's death over the PA, as if anyone in the school didn't already know about it. He called him "Kevin" twice before realizing his error.
He announced a moment of silence, which the students used to whisper and pass notes, and he said that a counselor would be on hand if anyone was having trouble dealing with Keith's death. A few people went, but the counselor told me later that few of them seemed to even know or care about Keith, and were just there to get out of class. Only a few people were actually grieving. His ex-girlfriend was not among them.