Folie à deux

Chapter 4: Son of a Gun (November 1998)

"We all have a monster within; the difference is in degree, not in kind." - Douglas Preston, The Monster of Florence

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November 7th, 1998

On Saturday, Derek celebrates his eighteenth birthday at a paintball range in a Denver mini-mall. All of the Rebels are there, even Reb, who ought to seem out of place at a teenager's birthday party, but it's not as if any parents are in attendance. According to Derek, his "real" birthday celebration with cake and presents will take place at his parents' house tonight; the paintball game is meant for him and his friends to have fun. Syd supposes it's an upgraded version of having your birthday party at a Chuck E. Cheese.

Derek has chosen this venue for the sake of a class project. "I need to make a movie for my filmmaking class," he said during Tuesday's lunch, biting into a barbecue wing. "And I have no fucking idea what to do."

"What's the prompt?" Taehyun asked.

"That dickhead doesn't give us prompts," Derek said. The dickhead in question was the school's video class instructor, Mr. Sanders.

"Isn't that a good thing?" Taehyun said. "You're not restricted to a certain topic."

Derek gnawed on another wing. Both sides of his mouth were covered in barbecue sauce. "When you can literally do anything, it stifles you. Limitations are responsible for some of the best art of our time. Look at Halloween. Michael Myers' mask was just a cheap Captain Kirk mask spray-painted white. They didn't have the budget for special make-up effects or anything."

"Neither do you," Syd pointed out.

Derek scowled at him. "Whatever. It's due on the 14th. I still have time to come up with something." He sucked the sauce off his thumb. "Oh, you guys need to come to my birthday party. It's this Saturday at the paintball range."

"You know," Syd started, "maybe this paintball thing could be your movie. Make it a short war film or something. And film in black and white so the paint looks like blood."

Derek grinned. "I like the way you think."

And that's how they ended up here, five players per team, taking cover behind inflatable bunkers. The Rebels—sans Derek, since he's filming with his handheld camera—are on one team, and the other consists of various siblings and friends invited to round out the numbers. Syd, an avid Doom player, feels right at home in a tactical situation with an airsoft rifle in his hands. He shoots from behind cover like a soldier in the trenches. Taehyun covers him as Syd darts from one bunker to the next.

The first game is orchestrated by Derek. He shouts commands across the field, ordering his actors to move in, fall back, or make a dramatic run for one of the teams' flags. During one of these flag runs, Jesse is captured by "enemy" soldiers and held hostage on the other side of the field. While this move is unorthodox and usually illegal in an actual paintball game, this run is entirely for the sake of the camera. They will play a real game later, untethered by the need to capture video footage.

As Jesse is held at gunpoint by the leader of the blue team, Derek orders Syd to climb into a nearby sniper's nest. Syd sneaks to the higher vantage point and aims his rifle, feeling like Charles Whitman taking shots from the university tower. Syd fires. An explosion of red paint blooms on the dark T-shirt of Blue Team's leader. Jesse wrenches free, and a bloodbath—or paintbath, rather—begins, with both sides firing frantically. Syd jumps back when a paintball splats against the exterior of the tower, though he isn't hit himself.

The film culminates with Taehyun and Syd as the last men standing. The field is strewn with bodies covered in red and blue paint. Taehyun reveals he has been shot in the scuffle, as his hand peels away from his abdomen in a mess of blue paint. He draws from the well of movie cliches, rasping, "Tell my family... I love them..." before dying in Syd's arms.