Charlie Decker shoots Mr. Vance

Charlie Decker shoots Mr. Vance, a history teacher at Placerville High School, during the opening minutes of the hostage crisis in Room 16. The killing is swift and almost casual, a second murder that cements Decker's control over the classroom and deepens the terror of the event. Vance's death, following immediately after the shooting of Mrs. Underwood, transforms a shocking act into a pattern of lethal violence, forcing the remaining hostages to confront the reality that Decker is willing to kill again.

The Interruption and the Shot

Moments after Decker has shot Mrs. Underwood and announced to the stunned class that "this is known as getting it on," the fire alarm, triggered by Decker's burning locker, begins to blare. Lines of students are filing out onto the lawn. The classroom door is snatched open, and Mr. Vance pokes his head in. "Fire alarm," he says. "Everybody . . . Where's Mrs. Underwood?" Decker picks up the gun and tells him to get out. Vance, a porky man with a neatly crew-cut head, stares in confusion. "What? What did you say?" Decker fires and misses; the bullet whines off the upper edge of the door, chipping wood splinters. A student murmurs "Jesus" mildly. Vance, still not comprehending the situation, decides to go back to the beginning: "There's a fire in the building. Please—" Mike Gavin, in a discussing-the-weather tone, says, "Charlie's got a gun, Mr. Vance. I think you better—" The second bullet catches Vance in the throat. His flesh spreads liquidly like water when a rock is thrown into it. He walks backward into the hall, scratching at his throat, and falls over.

Immediate Aftermath and the Class's Response

Irma Bates screams again, but again she has no takers; the narrator notes that if it had been Carol Granger, there would have been imitators galore, but no one wants to be in concert with poor old Irma Bates. Everyone is too busy peeking at Mr. Vance, whose scratching motions are slowing down. Decker then instructs Ted Jones, who sits closest to the door, to shut and lock it. Ted complies, though he looks at Decker with a kind of scared and scornful distaste. Down the hall, someone is yelling that it's in a locker and that Vance has had a heart attack, calling for water. The class settles into a tense, hypnotic silence, watching the action with close interest, as if they have stumbled into a pretty good movie by accident.

Legal and Narrative Consequences

Vance's death is later formally recorded in the legal judgment against Decker. The court document, dated August 27, 1976, convicts Charles Everett Decker of the willful murder of John Downes Vance, a human being. This legal language stands in stark contrast to the chaotic, almost accidental quality of the killing itself. The shooting of Vance, like the shooting of Mrs. Underwood, is an act that Decker later reflects upon as part of a larger pattern of violence learned from his father. In the garage confrontation with his father, Decker recalls the hunting trip where his father spoke of slitting his mother's nose, and he later thinks, "Now I wish it was him I'd killed, if I had to kill anyone. This thing on the floor between my feet is a classic case of misplaced aggression." The killing of Vance, a relatively minor figure who simply opened the wrong door at the wrong time, becomes emblematic of Decker's displaced rage against his father and the world that shaped him.

Thematic Significance: The Randomness of Violence

Vance's death underscores the novel's central theme of random, senseless violence. He is not a target; he is an interruption. Decker does not plan to kill him; he reacts to an intrusion. The killing is a demonstration of power, a warning to the authorities outside, and a further step in Decker's descent into a state where violence becomes the only language he can speak. The class's muted, almost detached reaction to the murder—watching Vance's scratching motions slow down—illustrates the psychological numbing that accompanies extreme trauma. The event also serves as a catalyst for the class's later, more organized violence against Ted Jones, as they begin to participate in Decker's "getting it on" ritual, moving from passive hostages to active participants in a collective breakdown.