IA: Initiate (5 page)

“No. I’m not sure who did it. At least, I don’t remember who locked me in.”

“Well, how did you know it was seven people if you were locked in the bedroom?”

Naz paused and tugged at his hair. “I can’t remember that either.”

“Hmmm … as my dad would say, it looks to me like you’re up a creek without a paddle.”

“What does that mean?”

“That means you got a problem with no solution,
amigo.
” Ham laughed again. “But like I said, dreams don’t mean nothin’.”

CHAPTER SIX

GANG

As
they walked up the street, Naz noticed the two boys he had seen earlier when he was with Meri. The boys were walking toward them.

Ham continued, “I read …”

Naz cut in jokingly. “You read, Ham?”

Ham gave a phony laugh then continued, “That’s funny, Sam-I-Don’t-Remember-Who-I-Am. Like I was saying, I read somewhere that sometimes people actually know when they’re dreaming and can control parts of the dream.”

Naz watched the two boys as they continued to approach. They were a block away.
Why would they be here in this section … today … so early in the morning?
he wondered
. If they’re new to this section and on their way to Union High School—
a half mile away
—they should have been long gone by now.
He had seen them only twenty minutes ago two blocks away.
Why are they still here?
he obsessed. 
Something’s wrong. It doesn’t feel right.

Ham continued. “I think they call it ...”

“Let’s cross here.” Naz began to nudge Ham.

Ham nudged back and said, “Like I was saying, I think they call it lucid dreaming.”

“Enough about dreams. Let’s cross here.”

“Why? Lincoln’s on this side.”

“I know, but …” He didn’t know what else to say to persuade Ham to cross the street. But something was definitely wrong. He could somehow sense the emergence of danger. He could feel it, and he knew now he wasn’t going to be able to get Ham to cross. Ham was no coward. Naz had never seen it for himself, but had heard from others in Section 31 that Ham was good in a fight and had the scars, including a nasty one under his right eye, to prove that he had been in wars. Naz had never been in a fight, at least not one that he could remember.

Ham now noticed the two boys in front of them and caught on, only he had a different reaction. “Cross for them? This is our section. We ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Ham’s whole attitude and body language changed, and instead of slowing, he sped up a bit. It was another side of him that Naz had only heard about, but had never seen.

“What are you gonna do?” Naz asked nervously.

“Nothin’. We’re just on our way to school talking about dreams is all, right?”

The boys were now within a half block of each other.

“Have you ever had a lucid dream?” Ham asked, as he slowly reached into his back pocket.

“A what?” Naz asked in confusion.

Ham continued the conversation as if nothing had changed. “A lucid dream, you know, when you actually know you’re dreaming.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Naz saw Ham pull a black object out of his back pocket and hold it behind his back. Naz and Ham were now about fifty feet from the two boys. They were even bigger and possibly older than Naz first thought, but that didn’t seem to bother Ham.

“I don’t … I … I don’t think I ever had that dream … before.” Naz struggled to speak not even knowing what he was saying.

When the boys were within thirty feet of each other, Ham said something in Spanish, something that came out very fast that Naz didn’t understand. His hope that it was a peaceful greeting faded when he saw the reflection off a shining blade—a blade from the black object Ham was concealing behind his back. The husky boy in front of Ham said something back in Spanish—something Naz remembered the taller boy saying earlier.

“
Únete a nosotros,”
said the husky boy.

Then, as if on cue, like something out of a Western, they all stopped about fifteen feet from each other. The two strange boys and Ham were smiling at one another, and Naz hoped that it was because they knew each other. But he was soon certain that wasn’t the case, especially when the taller boy, who was also concealing something behind his back, began to taunt Naz and started moving slowly from facing him to Naz’s side. His voice was unusually gruff, as he was laughing and speaking in Spanish. Naz was confused.
Is this a robbery?
he thought. He didn’t have a whole lot of money. He didn’t understand what this was all about.

Naz said,
“No hablo español.”

It was something he remembered Ham teaching him, but the boy just continued to laugh. The taller boy was obviously trying to angle around and get behind Naz, but with the boy’s every move, Naz turned to face him.

Suddenly Ham and the husky boy with the Mohawk pulled their knives and crouched in what looked to Naz like some sort of attack position. They were still smiling and still making verbal exchanges in Spanish.

That’s when it happened. Naz hadn’t heard the voices in almost two months and now they were back. It always seemed to happen when he was scared or angry, but there were other times it happened, too.

“
He’s mad,
” the voice said.

Naz was angry because he allowed himself to get involved in something like this. He had avoided similar confrontations for over three years, and now he was smack dab in the middle of one.

“He’s scared,”
the voice said.

Naz was scared because he didn’t know what would happen to Meri if something happened to him. That was unthinkable, and he became even angrier. He needed to find a way out of this. His mind raced, but everything around him was in slow motion, just as his dream from the night before. He now recalled it vividly, but he wasn’t dreaming, and he knew it.

“He doesn’t understand us,”
the voice continued.

Are there voices … or just one voice?
Naz thought. He wished he had taken Ham’s efforts to teach him Spanish more seriously, and he vowed to do just that if he ever …
no, when I get out of this
, he thought.
If I could just speak Spanish, I know I could talk my way out of this.

“You can’t fight,”
said the voice.

He needed to find another way.

“You better not run,”
the voice said.

That’s a good idea,
he thought.
I can run.
He was fast, real fast. He had always been faster than anybody in his class. But he couldn’t leave Ham, even though it was Ham who had gotten him into this mess. Still, he needed to find a way out, another way.

“You’re going to die,”
said the voice.

All of a sudden, the husky boy lunged at Ham with his knife. Barely moving, Ham slid to the side evading the husky boy’s attack and ended up right next to the boy.

Between the voices and the commotion of the fight, Naz lost sight of the taller boy. He had suddenly grabbed Naz from behind and was holding the point of his knife at Naz’s throat, while jabbing and just breaking the skin.

“Don’t move, or you’re going to die,”
said the voice.

“¡ÚNETE A NOSOTROS!”
yelled the taller boy as he continued to hold Naz.

Meanwhile, Ham elbowed the husky boy in the nose and caused him to drop his knife and fall to his knees while he covered his face with his hands.

“Oh, my God,”
the voice continued.

As the boy holding Naz tightened his grip, Naz could feel the searing sting from the tip of the knife. He wasn’t sure if it was blood, sweat, or a combination of the two running down his neck. He tried to block out the voices, but now there were more of them, and they were growing even louder.

Ham yelled something in Spanish to the boy that was holding Naz. Naz could only assume he’d said to let him go.

“What should I do now?”
the voice yelled and then,
“Blood!”

Naz tried to see if the voices were coming from one of the boys. They weren’t. They were all speaking in Spanish, and he didn’t understand any of it.

“Blood!”
the voice screamed again. The voices were in his head, and they were distracting him.

The boy yelled something back at Ham. Ham repeated himself, and it turned into a shouting match.

“But he’s too little,”
the voice said.

By this time the boy on his knees was holding his bloodied nose and began creeping toward his knife. The knife was lying on the ground several feet away. Naz noticed and began yelling, but it was too late.

“He’s a coward,”
said the voice.

With one quick move the boy picked up his knife and stabbed Ham just above his belt.

“Oh, my God!”
said the voice.

Ham let out a terrible scream. “AAAAAAAAARGH,” yelled Ham as he fell on his side and curled into a fetal position.

All of a sudden the husky boy that had stabbed Ham took off running down the street yelling, “
¡Roffio, vamos! ¡Roffio, vamos!”
 

Without warning, the boy who held Naz threw him to the ground and ran down the street after the other boy.

At first Naz didn’t move, until he felt the sharp sting on his neck and instinctively brought his hand up to touch the puncture wound that was now oozing blood. He tentatively looked down and saw the trail of blood that stained his gray shirt a dark, maroon hue.
Am I OK?
Is this what shock feels like?
he wondered. He had never seen anything like this, much less been in the middle of it.

“Look … blood,”
the voice said.

Naz heard Ham moan. He tried to shake the voices out of his head as he stood up and stumbled over to Ham who was writhing in pain.

“Look … blood … he’s bleeding,” Naz heard a girl say.

He only now noticed the kids gathering, walking by, and pointing, probably on their way to school, he figured.

“Blood,”
the voice said quietly.

He didn’t know what to do.
It’s not like the movies now,
he thought. There was no hero, no music, no riding away. There was just blood, everywhere, his blood, the husky boy’s blood, and Ham’s blood, a lot of Ham’s blood. It was thick and deep red.

“Blood,”
Naz heard the voice say again.

“Somebody call an ambulance!” a lady in the distance screamed. He didn’t know what to say to Ham who was clearly not OK.

“I’m scared,”
the voice said quietly.

He kneeled down with his hand still on his neck. With his free hand, he grabbed Ham’s hand. It was cold. He didn’t know what to do after that. Ham was still moving, and that made him feel a little better.

“Ham,” Naz called.

Ham moaned.

“I’m scared,”
said the voice again.

“Ham,” Naz called again, and again Ham moaned. Naz noticed that Ham had wet his pants. Between that, the blood, the sweat, and the smell, all of it made him feel sick, nauseous. He turned to the side and threw up. But he wouldn’t leave Ham’s side.

“I’m scared,”
the voice said one more time.

With his mouth dry and soured with the taste of vomit, Naz began to yell, “Somebody call an ambulance,” and then louder, “Somebody call an ambulance!” and then as loud as he could, “SOMEBODY CALL AN AMBULANCE!”

“Somebody call an ambulance,”
the voice said quietly. Then it was gone, and there was silence. Looking to his side, Naz noticed a man driving by on the street. It was the same man that had been parked in front of his house earlier, and he wondered,
what does únete a nosotros mean?

CHAPTER SEVEN

FEARS

“Mr. Andersen”
, the voice bellowed, snapping Naz back to reality. “For the third time, that is your name, isn’t it, son?”

When Naz looked up, the entire class was staring at him. He had obviously been daydreaming about what happened earlier that morning and missed something. He saw the towering figure clad in a royal blue T-shirt and royal blue fleece pants in front of the classroom. The figure’s eyes fixed on Naz. Naz decided to take a chance.