Sanctuary (13 page)

That night, as per tradition, Katie’s mom made a pre-game dinner for Cory and me. This year Katie also invited Samantha Gear and Croc. Her small kitchen table was dangerously over capacity. Even dad stopped by! We ate so many shepherd-style tacos that Samantha raced to the store for extra groceries and Croc slipped a hundred-dollar bill into Ms. Lopez’s purse. She kept referring to us as her
familia grande
.

After dinner we returned to school, took a dozen pictures with tailgaters in the parking lot, and marched into the glistening locker-room. The only thing more exciting than a Friday night football game is the almost certitude of victory. Expectations for the season were skyscraper-high. The face-painted fans were delirious with victories not yet earned.

Croc was nervous. I hadn’t expected that. I wasn’t nervous, just eager. Perhaps my butterflies had been ground into dust by the previous twelve months. He paced in front of my bench, spinning a football on each of his pointer fingers.

Cory said, “Croc. Chill, homie. You ‘gon be good.”

I grinned. “Yeah mate. This will be fun.”

“Too right,” he nodded, but he didn’t stop pacing.

“What’s got you worked up?”

“M’not.”

I asked, “Didn’t you race motorcycles? The chances of breaking your neck are much less on a football field.”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Yeah. But if you wreck a ringdinger, the only person disappointed is yourself, mate. Jus’ you and the bike. Don’t you ever worry about that? Disappointing the mob?”

“Well…maybe…”

“Katie’s mum will be watching, right? What if we play like buggers? What if we lose? She cooked dinner for nothing. And what about Katie? Your dad?”

“
Alright
, Croc!” The first hint of cold anxiety crept in. What if I
did
play bad? “Maybe you should shut up now.”

“Yeah,” Cory agreed, looking a little queasy. “That was messed up.”

I felt better on the field. The Panthers didn’t look nearly as monstrous as last season. They stomped the green grass, raced through warmups, and bellowed like animals, but they looked more like kittens than jungle cats.

“Did they get smaller?” I wondered out loud.

“No sir,” Coach Garrett said, walking up with a clipboard clamped in his hand. “You’ve gotten better. And more experienced.”

“I’m going to torch those poor guys.”

“That’s the plan.” He smacked me on the butt, the way football players often do. However, my adrenalin was pumping and my skin and muscles were hardening, and he walked away with a grimace, shaking his hand.

The players were announced. The band played. The fans roared. The national anthem was sung. Cory and I had been selected as two of our team captains; we shook hands with the opposing captains at midfield, and lost the coin toss.

As we trotted back to our sidelines, above all the screaming and madness, I distinctly heard Katie laughing and cheering with her friends. Her soft voice pierced the cacophony, like a searchlight in the night. Infected often have heightened senses. Perhaps mine were tuned towards Katie in particular?

“I know!” she was saying, the sound intimate and warm in my ears despite the distance. “I knocked over my drink in less than thirty seconds. I’m clumsy.” More laughter. Her friend brushed beads of water off her shorts. “At least I didn’t get it on Chase’s jersey.” More discussion from friends. “Yeah, I sleep in this most nights. Please don’t tell my boyfriend!”

Katie was fifty yards away, but I was watching and listening like we were at the same lunch table. The experience was dreamlike. She pulled strands of hair from her face, surveyed the field, and found me. Our eyes locked. Hers widened slightly with surprise and pleasure. Her heartbeat quickened, the pulse in her neck visible to my eyes. I felt like I’d been struck with electricity.

“Chase.” Samantha Gear hit me with her helmet. “Focus. I don’t want to lose my first football game.”

I shook out of my trance. Samantha glowered at me like a drill sergeant inspecting her troops. The sounds of the stadium crashed back into my ears, filling the void left by Katie’s absence.

“What’s the matter, kicker? Nervous?”

She shot back, “Heck yes, I’m nervous.”

“Why? This is a game. You’ve been in
combat
.”

“I never played school sports. I’ve never been cheered for. Or booed. This is intense. So get your act together,” she called as she ran onto the field for kickoff.

“Yes ma’am.”

Samantha was pumped. Her kickoff sailed across the field and out of the end zone, practically impossible for a high school student. That hadn’t happened once last season, not even close. The other team watched it fly by in disbelief. She’s a
girl
?? Our fans nearly hyperventilated in delight.

Back on the sidelines, she scowled at me defiantly, so I kept my mouth closed. I didn’t need to tell her the kick was too far. She knew.

“Hell, Samantha,” Coach Garrett said, chomping his gum with relish. “Never seen that before. School division is going to test you for steroids.”

“Once in a life-time kick, coach,” she explained. “Won’t happen again.”

“Better not,” I mumbled under my breath.

“Shut. Up. I’m excited.”

Croc intercepted the Panther’s very first pass. He darted in front of the receiver, plucked the ball neatly out of the air, and ran out of bounds. Our players and coaches pounded him on the back. He released a primal roar, tore off his helmet and pumped his fist at the crowd. He was so happy and handsome I worried our fans might rush the field.

I grabbed both of them by the necks of their jerseys. “Nice game so far, high school
students
,” I hissed. “You’re playing well for
teenagers
. Keep up the good work,
normal kids
.”

The message didn’t penetrate. I could tell. The virus was a roaring inferno inside their bodies, filling their eyes with mania. They were volcanoes.

I couldn’t stay mad at them, though. I ran onto the field with the offense, the crowd raged, and I was engulfed by the disease too. The virus floods our bodies with vitality and life, and I could have thrown the ball to the moon. The fight-or-flight response was consuming. My breath came in ragged heaves. I wanted to start a fight against the other team. The
entire
other team. I wanted to leap into their midst and start swinging, not from hate, but from urgency, to release pressure.

I rifled my first pass a thousand times harder than I should. It hit Josh Magee in the helmet and ricocheted thirty yards into the sky. All twenty thousand fans and players stared at the ball spinning upwards into the dusk, and then held their breath as it plunged. I jumped over them all, far too high, caught the ball, and was massacred at landing. Even from underneath the dog-pile of Panthers leaping onto of me, I heard Croc and Gear howling with laughter.

“Nice job,
teenager
!”

“Good on’ya, mate! You’re a
normal student
!”

They were laughing so hard they couldn’t stand.

After that debacle, the three of us bore down and played more like high school football players should. Really really
really
good football players, but still. I threw touchdown passes to Josh Magee and Brad Atkinson, both junior wide receivers, and another one to Gavin, our running back. He and I also rushed for one touchdown each. Samantha’s kicks returned to the realm of normalcy, and Croc only intercepted one more pass. We won forty-one to ten, and our fanbase’s thirst for blood was satiated.

Samantha, who wasn’t allowed inside the boy’s locker-room, was waiting for Croc, Cory and me outside. Croc spread his arms and smiled. “Which victory rager should we attend?”

Samantha scowled. “I’m sick of people, and I’m going home.”

I didn’t say anything. PuckDaddy was texting me.

> >Nice game i listened on the radio

>> dont want to crash ur party but…

>> the chemist just sent u a message

>> and thats not a typo

When the sun came up Saturday morning, it found me staring at the message on my tablet.

From: napoleon
Date: August 28. 19:32
Subject: Los Angeles

Dearest Wart,

The future king,

Greetings. From your most ardent admirer.

All is on the hazard. Eh, scout? The fate of Rome rests on your shoulders. So perhaps its greatest generals should have parlay.

Good words are better than bad strokes, young man. You can trust me. Merlin was never treacherous.

Martin

* respond quickly, son. Soon your city will be no more and I will be elsewhere.

* if I were you, I’d leave Carter out of this. Old Baldie is using you.

What. The.
Heck
.

I called Puck last night, seeking answers. “He emailed me,” Puck said. “Believe it or not, he and I used to communicate a lot, though it’s been a while. Last night, bing, there it is in my in-box, with a polite note asking PuckDaddy to forward the message to the Outlaw.”

“Did you tell Carter?”

“…no. It’s addressed to you. And I think I agree with the Chemist’s final line.”

“What should I do?”

“Beats me, man. This is way above PuckDaddy’s pay-grade. I’m just the messenger.”

So I stared at the words until I feel asleep, and I was staring at them again in the morning. I knew he was referencing Shakespeare’s
Julius Caesar
, because I studied it in English last year. The Chemist was comparing our situation to Anthony and Brutus battling for Rome, and he wanted to talk before he destroyed Los Angeles, like the generals did in Act V. And he thought I should leave Carter out of it.

Soon your city will be no more.

Old Baldie is using you.

I needed to talk with someone about this. Someone I could trust. Someone who cared about the city as much as me. Someone not tainted by Carter or the Chemist. Someone…without the virus.

I texted Natalie North.

I need to meet with your boyfriend. Pronto.

That night, just after dark, Croc and I went to our training grounds again. The spot he found was perfect: a secluded clearing in the back of a construction/lumber yard. Croc was quickly leap-frogging up my list of favorite people. Most Infected were grouchy and secretive, but not him. He was secretive alright, but also honest and happy and eager to be around others, like a stray golden retriever.

“Okay, mate,” he said, holding up a quarter. He was wearing his usual jeans and cowboy boots. “Let’s see how you do. I’ll flip it, you get to the pile of wood and back, and then catch it. Ready?”

“Croc, I can’t do that. Maybe in the heat of battle, during a fight-or-flight episode, but not right now.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, Chase,” he grinned. “Real sorry. Because my girl Samantha is going to shoot you with a wax bullet if you fail.”

“What?!” I whirled around. Sure enough, Samantha Gear was sitting cross-legged on a stack of treated lumber, ten feet high, calmly screwing a silencer onto her pistol. Both the silencer and pistol caught the cold gleam from the overhead security light. “Samantha! You can’t shoot me. I took you into my home! Shame on you.”

“Sorry, Outlaw,” she shrugged. “Better learn fast.” She fired four shots, the bullets snapping and breaking on a nearby pallet of bricks and rocks. “First failure, I’ll shoot you in your rear end. Second, your shoulder. Third, your skull. That one’s gonna hurt.”

“Guys,” I half laughed, half groaned. This sucked. “I’m not good enough-”

“Ready Go!” Croc called, flicking the quarter upwards.

I bolted without thinking, cursing under my breath! Stupid friends…gravel, lumber! Back! The world was a blur. Made it! I snatched the quarter a foot off the ground and hurled it at Samantha. She yelped and ducked, just inches under the slicing coin. Had she been a tenth of a second slower, the coin would have scalped her like a small scythe. I’d thrown hard enough to bury the metal into concrete.

“Hey!” she shouted. “What’s that for??”

“You were going to shoot me!” I yelled back, anger hot and gritty in my voice.

“But I didn’t!”

“Well, I didn’t hit you with the coin either.”

“You tried!”

“No I didn’t! I
hit
my target.”

“Me too,” she snarled, and she fired. Two shots.

Time slowed. I could see the projectiles distorting the air. I heard their hiss. Outraged, in the ocean of time during that half-instant, I twisted away from the first bullet and plucked the second bullet out of the air. Or rather, I redirected it, slinging the bullet around my body and releasing it back in her direction. The bullet caught her in the stomach. The wax melted from the hard impact against her jacket, sticking to the leather. She didn’t react. She gaped at me, stunned.

“Crikey,” Croc whistled.

“Jeez, Chase.”

“What?!” I asked. I was still mad, determined not to be distracted by their shock. “What’s the matter with you two jerks?”

“You just…”

“That was a pretty spiffy trick, mate.” Croc laughed and shook his head. “Ripper, bonzo, you know? Good on’ya.”

“You just caught a bullet, Chase.” She was gingerly rubbing her stomach.

“No.” I frowned and tried to remember what I’d done. It didn’t seem impressive at the time. “I just…aimed it back at you. That’s all.”

“
That’s all
??”

“I don’t…” I said. The details were fuzzy. It just…
happened
. “I don’t know what that was. Yeah, that was weird.”

“Didn’t know we could move that fast. And, mate, you caught the quarter.”

“Of course I caught the quarter! She was going to shoot me.”

“No she wasn’t,” Croc said. I was getting sick of his mischievous smile. “We just told you that. Made you believe a whopper.”

Samantha said, “We lied. There was no genuine external stimuli, Outlaw.” Her jacket and shirt were pulled up, and she was examining the skin of her stomach. Her abs were impressive. She could be on an exercise magazine. “You just thought there would be.”