The New Kid (9 page)

“Nice catch,” said Kellog. “Now let’s see if you can run. Listen up! We’re doing end-around 88 double B!” Two squads formed quickly, and the ball was snapped and handed off to Will. He didn’t know the exact play but he knew what an end-around was. He also knew he had to hold back and was tackled for a loss, hard. There were a couple of late hits, too, but Will jumped up afterward like a good sport and patted his adversaries on the helmets.

“Nice hit. Good footwork,” he said.

“Come on, Hunter, don’t sandbag! I’ve seen your wheels, now give me some heat!” growled Kellog. “Slant left!”

They lined up for another play and this time when Will got the ball he feinted inside like he was going to slant but shifted his footing and sprinted outside the tackle, and when the tight end laid down a decent block he was around the corner. Nobody was going to lay a hand on him now. He cruised into the end zone and did it all without time-bending.

“That’s more like it!” shouted Kellog, and then he spit and yelled at the defense. “You girls want another shot at boy wonder or shall we call it a day?”

Duncan was sucking wind and he snorted and pounded his chest. “Run pretty boy again, Coach, we’ll stop him.”

“Green T5! Green T5!”

The quarterback told Will that Green T5 was a halfback option. Will nodded and when the QB flipped him the ball he looked downfield but the receiver was purposefully dragging his heels and was totally covered. Will had only one option and that was to run. He did, but Todd Karson laid down an illegal trip and caught Will’s toe, slowing him down just enough for Duncan to hit him full on and hold him up while three more defensive players plowed into him, helmets first. Then Jocko Morgan, the biggest kid on the field, flew into Will low and hard, trying to take out his knees. Morgan was big but dumb and telegraphed the move, so Will was able to twist just enough to save his kneecaps from being shattered as he was knocked to the ground face-down. Will was lying there wondering if they were going to simply surround him and kick him to death when he heard Coach Kellog’s shrill whistle pierce the air.

“Alright, gimme a lap and then hit the showers!” he yelled.

As Will got up and walked gingerly toward the showers the coach stepped in front of him. “I looked at your transcripts. All that talent and you never went out for the team?” Coach Kellog stared hard at Will.

“I guess I’m just not much of a team player,” said Will.

“Things change.”

“Yeah, sometimes they do.”

Coach Kellog nodded slowly. “I like you. Now take another lap and then get your butt outta here.”

 

Minutes later in the locker room Will showered alone. When the steam cleared he found himself suddenly surrounded by a half-dozen
players led as usual by Duncan. They were in their street clothes, holding towels. Will wrapped a towel around his waist as they formed a circle around him.

“You shout for help and we’re only gonna make it worse,” said Duncan.

“Do you hear me shouting for anyone?” said Will. “If you girls have something in mind, get on with it. You’re boring me.”

Will knew what was coming. He stood and took it, his teeth clenched tightly as they snapped at him with the towels, the stinging tips bringing up welts on his chest and back. He felt tears welling in his eyes, felt the fury swelling up within him but managed to keep it corralled. For now.

Duncan and the others kept at it until Duncan raised a hand. Some of the guys looked at each other, wondering what the heck this New Kid was made of that he didn’t even let out a peep when any one of them would have dropped to the floor and whimpered like a baby after such a beating. He just kept staring at them with cold steel eyes and it freaked them out so much they backed off a step.

“Are you done?” asked Will calmly.

“Not even close. Midnight. No pads. Fifty-yard line. Be there.”

They left and Will closed his eyes, trying to find a serene place to park his roiling anger while he composed himself. He’d learned a long time ago that controlling his mind was the key to directing his own life. Feelings started with thoughts and if you thought of things that made you happy, or strong, that’s the way you felt. It was a Zen kind of thing and he’d mastered it years ago. When he opened his eyes his anger was gone and he was ready to face the next challenge.

When he got home he entered through the side door, slipped past his mom, and went right to his basement chamber where he applied his healing balm to the myriad of welts that crisscrossed his back and chest. Minutes later he was completely healed. But midnight was coming and would be upon him before he knew it. He checked his computer monitors and noted that the readouts on the
cemetery showed recent activity. It didn’t surprise him to see that
He
had been recruiting the dead again. It was nothing new.

Will went to the far corner of his chamber, moved a large trunk aside, and lifted a floor panel to reveal a safe, which he opened with his thumbprint. He pulled out an object about the size of a track relay baton. It was a smooth shard of crystal, with a metal handle in the middle and intricate carvings on its surface, and had the heft of a short length of metal pipe. The power rod was the most valuable thing he had in his possession and he hadn’t used it in weeks so he knew he needed to test it. Attaching a tiny flesh-colored patch to the back of his neck, he slipped the power rod into the back of his jeans and exited the basement.

A half mile from his house Will found a wooded thicket in a deep gully with good surrounding cover. It was unlikely he would be seen by anyone. His only audience would be a smattering of birds, some croaking frogs, and the chirping crickets. He took out the power rod and thumbed a symbol. The weapon whirred to life.

He thumbed another symbol and long laser-like spikes shot out from either end. They were like stationary molten lightning, so powerful was their burn, and formed a double lightning saber, a kind of deadly javelin with burning hot blades on either end. Holding the weapon in the middle he twirled it and smiled at the thrumming sound it made as the lightning blades knifed through the air. Leaping sideways he calmly touched the shimmering blade into a thick maple, instantly burning it. He knew he could cut through it if he applied enough pressure but this was just a test. Function one, double-tipped lightning saber: check. Will quickly deactivated the saber function and then squeezed another symbol. The power rod vibrated as it built up a blast charge. Will whirled and pressed a spot and the power rod fired a golf ball-sized fireball that slammed into a rock, which exploded on impact. Will quickly ducked down and turned the power rod off. He looked and listened. Silence. The frogs and crickets were suddenly mute. Function two, fireball blaster:
check. Finally Will touched yet another spot on the rod and aimed it at a leaf dangling from a maple about twenty feet away. In two seconds the leaf froze solid and dropped from the branch. Function three, freeze beam: check.

Now it was time to test the retrieval patch. He pressed the patch, which was perfectly disguised as part of his skin, the exact color of his flesh. Upon the touch of his index finger the patch glowed briefly before becoming invisible again. He then threw the power rod into the sky like a boomerang. It arced high up into the clouds where it hovered, pulsing and finding an invisible shelf where it remained until Will activated the retrieval patch, at which point the power rod swooped back down right into his waiting hand. Good. The power rod was up to speed and ready to rock and roll with the best of them. He returned to his house, chowed down on a couple peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a tall glass of milk, then breezed through his English homework, an essay on
Lord of the Flies
. It was familiar territory: the two sides of human nature, civilization versus savagery, good versus evil.

He set his watch alarm and slept for forty minutes, then awakened at 11:45. He shoved a couple of pillows under his blankets to form a teen-sized lump in his bed. It was a lame ruse but it was better than nothing. Then he snagged his backpack, slipped out his window, and made his way through the shadows toward the high school.

W
ill knew he had to go to the midnight tryout, not to save face but to check the players out. They thought they were going to put him to the test but they were wrong;
he
was the one testing them, using himself as bait to see if he could draw them out. Because if any one of them was infected he would spot it and then maybe they would lead him to the place he knew he had to go.

The sky was overcast, making the night seem thicker, darker, more foreboding. A block before the stadium Will saw the lights blazing. He removed the power rod from his pocket and sent it into the sky where it would wait in the clouds until called. Then he walked toward the stadium.

If he’d been as careful as he should have been he’d have noticed that during his walk to the high school someone was following him, watching his every move. But he was too busy thinking about what was ahead to pay much attention to what was behind him. He paused to stash his backpack in some bushes, then walked into the stadium and as soon as he hit the track the lights suddenly went off. When his eyes adjusted only a sliver of moon gilded the gridiron, making it seem like a scene from a dream, or a nightmare. He
walked out to the fifty-yard line and stood waiting. A football sailed out of the darkness and he caught it. Then he saw them, emerging from the darkness like a band of Mongol warriors. They were wearing pads, but not the usual kind; these were painted hot red and fretted with bands of metal. Getting hit with them would be like being hammered with giant brass knuckles.
Cute
, thought Will,
I’m so glad they told me no pads.
They wore face paint and sported heathen deity tattoos drawn in henna on their bulbous biceps.

Will knew what was expected. They were there to punish him, pure and simple. It was a blood gauntlet and he knew he’d be hit ten times harder than he had been on the practice field today. He tried to read their eyes from a distance but they wore eye black and he couldn’t see much of anything.

“Are you ready, New Kid?” growled Duncan, who had shaved his head for the occasion and topped off his dome with a pagan symbol for death.

“I thought you’d never ask,” said Will, doing his best to control the dread that was creeping through his veins.
Never let them smell your fear
, he told himself.
They’re pack animals and the weaker you appear the more bravado they muster.

“Then bring it, dipwad!” shouted Duncan.

They spread out and crouched down and Will slipped in the mouth guard he’d brought along and began to run. He was either going to have to spill blood or have his blood spilled, probably both. He ran straight at Duncan and lowered his shoulder and at the last second he planted his left foot and danced right so the blow from Duncan’s heavy pads only glanced off his shoulder. The next two hits he took he wasn’t so lucky. Todd Karson slammed into him and Jackie Boy Weaver, another drone warrior thug, threw a vicious forearm uppercut that knocked out Will’s mouth guard and made his gums bleed. But Will kept on running, feinting and slipping off tackles and stiff-arming his way down the field to the forty, the thirty, the twenty. By then they were routinely smashing into him two at a time,
then three at a time. But he was built like a Mack truck and had probably endured more punishment in his travels than all these steroid freaks put together. He knew all about pain; pain was his constant companion.

“Give it up, stupid, lay it down!” shouted Duncan as he jammed a shoulder into Will’s face for the umpteenth time. But Will wouldn’t quit and kept pumping his legs like a plow horse. The hits kept coming. Will felt his ribs crack and cartilage in his knees give out.

By the time he staggered to the ten-yard line he’d been hit in the ears and nose and had rivulets of blood running out of both. Still his legs churned, his heart raced, his head throbbed. And he kept on going until there were simply too many of them, mobbing him now in a scrum.

“Hold the son of a bitch up!” yelled Duncan, and Jackie Boy and Todd pushed defensively into Will, propping him up like a target. Then Duncan got a good running start, went airborne, and speared Will’s chin with his bald head. Will’s head snapped up, whiplashing like a crash test dummy in a head-on. The skin on Will’s chin split, as did the skin on Duncan’s noggin. Both of them staggered from the blow. Will’s strength gave out and he collapsed onto the turf just across the goal line. He rasped: “Touchdown. Looks like I scored after all.”

He briefly passed out then regained consciousness and rolled onto his back. He gazed up at the pack of brutes surrounding him, staring down at him. He wasn’t sure, because his bell had been rung but good, but he thought he saw the irises of their eyes go that sickening liquid black.
Son of a bitch
, he thought to himself,
they might all be infected, every last one of them. They might be the real deal. Demonteens.
But he shook his head and the image went back to normal, or as normal as it could considering his blurred vision.

As his world went black again Will heard a rumbling, coarse, animal-like voice that rose the small hairs on the back of his neck.

“Bring him on down.”