Eric Harris' online rants began as early as 1996 in the form of hate-filled journal entries broken up with bad jokes and dark lyrics from his favorite songs. After he threatened Brooks Brown on his website and the Browns reported it to the police (Guerra report), Eric turned to keeping his violently angry thoughts in hand-written journals dating back to April 1998. He kept notes about the Doom WAD levels he was creating, but mostly what he wrote about was how much he hated the human race and the world.
His writing explained that he and "V" (short for VoDkA, Dylan Klebold's internet handle and nickname) were different because they had "self-awareness". He wrote: "I will sooner die than betray my own thoughts, but before I leave this worthless place, I will kill whoever I deem unfit. " He documented that he wanted revenge against anyone who he thought had ever wronged him. At one point he complains bitterly about being unable to steal from the van he and Dylan broke into Jan. 30, 1998. Interestingly enough, in an essay he had to write as part of the juvenile diversion program he was sentenced to after getting busted for breaking into a van, he shows a completely different face. In it he talks about the moral lessons he's learned and how sorry he is for what he's done. right at the same time he's writing heatedly in his personal journal about how he should have the right to steal from a van if someone's dumb enough to leave stuff in it worth stealing.
On April 26, 1998, Eric writes about how he thinks society could be improved by boosting natural selection. He outlines plans for how he and "V" would do this, complete with a short weapons detail and tactics. It's a rough but violent fantasy, a foundation for future mayhem. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here, where he suggests crashing a plane in New York City.
* There's some contention over this date, as it does not appear in the Columbine Documents that were released to the public in 2006. This date was derived from a CNN article where I first obtained the scans of the rant in December 2001. You can see a copy of that article at CNN's website here. CNN had first access to the reports so they would know better than I where this date on the scan came from and why it doesn't appear on the version Jefferson County formally released to the public later.
October 1998: Eric predicts that someone is bound to ask, "What were they thinking?" to which he answers, "I want to burn the world, I want to kill everyone except about 5 people. if we get busted any time, we start killing then and there. I ain't going out without a fight."
November 1998: Eric writes in detail about how he wants to have violent sex with a woman, quoting Nine Inch Nails' song Closer (a song about having rough, animalistic sex). This heated entry dissolves into a gory description of how he would like to taste human flesh. The cannibalistic diary entry eventually wraps around to school where Harris shifts his attention from a woman to a freshman, going on in vivid detail about the twisted, violent things he'd like to do. He goes on to write about picking up guns with the help of "someone I won't name" who later turned out to be Robyn Anderson, a close friend of Dylan's. He specifies weapons that were eventually used at Columbine, saying they've reached the "point of no return" and this is what he wants to do with his life.
December 1998: Eric writes that he would have made a good Marine, that "it would have given me a reason to be good." It's hard to say whether he wanted to be a Marine because his father was in the military, because he admired the uniform, or because he thought it would be an easy way to kill people legally. He applied for enlistment in the Marine Corps, but the day the recruiter came to meet with him about his application, Eric's mother Kathy Harris came down into the basement and asked the recruiter if the medication Eric was prescribed for anger management (Luvox) would disqualify him. The recruiter asked to see a bottle, which Mrs. Harris provided. He took the empty bottle with him when he left. The recruiter told investigators that he had tried to contact Eric later about his application but had not reached him, and didn't leave a message about his approval one way or the other. However, according to Brooks Brown, Eric told him shortly after the interrupted meeting that he had been disqualified because he had lied on his application about taking Luvox and a chest condition he had. Eric never got the formal word that he wasn't going to be accepted, but was smart enough to have come to that conclusion himself.
There was only one journal entry for 1999. In it, Eric evaluated his and Dylan's preparations and munitions. He ended it with: "I hate you people for leaving me out of so many fun things." As with the videos he made, in his writings he excused his family of blame for what he was planning to do. "It's my fault! Not my parents, not my brothers, not my friends, not my favorite bands, not computer games, not the media, it's mine." In another entry he wrote, "I'm full of hate and I love it.".
In Klebold's 1998 yearbook Harris wrote, "God I can't wait till they die. I can taste the blood now - NBK" It's believed from other reference of NBK in both gunmen's writings that NBK stood for Natural Born Killers, a gory movie about a senseless killing spree. He went on: "You know what I hate? . MANKIND. kill everything. kill everything. " He drew a gunman standing in a sea of dead bodies, with a caption quoted from KMFDM's 'Dogma', "The only reason your still alive is because someone has decided to let you live." He wrote in his own '98 yearbook as well, writing on the photographs of almost every student things like "worthless", "die", and "beat." Further in he simply put X's over the students he didn't like. Very few photos were unmarked. In his 1998/1999 academic day planner were lists of things to buy and "things left to do." On the page for Mother's Day 1999, Harris quoted Shakespeare: "Good wombs hath born bad sons.".
Eric had 4th period Creative Writing class with Dylan. According to the written statement (see pages 1, 2) his teacher Judith Kelly gave to investigators after the shootings, Harris never missed this class. until April 20, 1999. She mentioned that Eric often made 'machine gun gestures' and wrote stories about the Marines.
A page from Eric's weekly planner shows a diagram of a figure showing how ammo would be worn (drawn over the April 20, 1999 day) and next to it is a list of munitions. Pictured below, his day planner has one entry for April 20, 1999, written in Dylan's handwriting: