by Scott Sigler
Quentin smacked Ju’s helmet, a wet slap against caked mud. “Chin up, little camper. We just have to get it back.”
Ju pointed to Kill-O-Yowet, who was still lying on the ground. “May I suggest we run away from wherever Schultz lines up?”
Quentin watched the medsled slide onto the field, following Doc Patah.
“Good idea,” Quentin said. They walked off the field as the kick return team came on.
Turnovers were killing them. First an interception for a touchdown, now a fumble return for another. Heading into the fourth quarter, the Krakens were down 28-10.
Someone had to take this game over for the Krakens. Terrible footing, speed advantage negated, no way to do fancy moves and little success running the ball up the middle. On top of that, their starting right offensive tackle had been injured and was out of the game. How could Quentin use the bad field conditions against the defenders?
“Barnes!” Coach Hokor’s voice in his helmet speakers. “Get over here, we’re going to try something different.”
• • •
THE KRAKENS LINED UP in the “power” formation. No wide receivers. Rick Warburg at left tight end and George Starcher at right put seven big, black-jerseyed bodies in tight on the line of scrimmage. Cheboygan lined up a yard behind Starcher and a yard to his right, Tara the Freak in the same position on Warburg’s left.
Behind Quentin, Yassoud was the single back. Hokor had pulled Ju, opting instead for Yassoud’s pass-catching ability. If the Krakens were going to catch up, they were going to do it in the air.
Quentin dropped back five steps and carefully planted, cleated feet managing the muddy ground. The tight ends drove straight out 10 yards, stopped, then came back. The defenders ran with them but slid when they tried to quickly react.
Quentin hit Starcher on the first pass for 8 yards.
On the second, he pump-faked to Starcher, then hit Tara over the middle on a crossing pattern. Tara caught the perfect pass in stride, already moving too fast for the linebackers to change direction on the wet surface. The mutated Quyth Warrior turned the ball upfield for a 17-yard gain before the defensive backs brought him down in a sliding spray of mud and torn blue Iomatt.
Next, Quentin hit Cheboygan on a simple out-pass, putting her one-on-one against Smileyberg. The Cloud Killers star cornerback tried to tackle Cheboygan up high, but the rookie receiver was bigger and stronger. Cheboygan took the hit, kept pumping her back-folded legs. She finally popped free as Smileyberg fell to the ground. The Krakens receiver covered 20 yards before being pushed out of bounds, putting Ionath on Coranadillana’s 15.
The next play saw both linebackers lining up close, showing blitz.
“Green, seventy-seven,” Quentin called, audibling to a quarterback-keeper. “Greeeeen, seventy-seven. Hut-hut ... hut!”
Quentin dropped back as all the receivers, including Yassoud, ran slant patterns away from center, taking them and their defenders toward the sidelines. After only three steps, Quentin planted, keeping his knees bent deep to maintain balance as he slid over the wet field. His cleats caught. He sprang forward, slipping through the rushing defensive line. The linebackers couldn’t respond in time. Quentin left them all behind. The defensive backs closed on him, but he reached the goal line first, diving under their tackles for the 15-yard touchdown run.
After the kick, it was Cloud Killers 28, Krakens 17.
• • •
THE DEFENSE SEMED ENERGIZED for the first time that afternoon. John Tweedy and Company forced the Cloud Killers into a three-and-out. With seven minutes to play, the Krakens got the ball back on their own 35-yard line. Quentin again used quick passing to take the Killers apart, not dropping back long enough for Schultz or the other defenders to reach him.
On the seventh play of the drive, Quentin dropped back, looking for targets. Everyone seemed covered. The pocket started to collapse. Yassoud threw a block on an incoming defensive lineman, then ran to the open space on the left as he was supposed to. Quentin flipped a pass out there just as two defensive tackles brought him down. Yassoud hauled it in. He was lighter than Ju and faster — ‘Soud handled the mud better than the bigger man. Yassoud did a head-and-shoulders fake on the linebacker, then shot by as the linebacker slipped and fell. Griffith, the cornerback, closed in, but Yassoud stiff-armed her and put her into the ground — all that off-season weight training had paid off.
With four minutes to play, Yassoud Murphy took the ball into the end zone for an 18-yard touchdown pass. Cloud Killers 28, Krakens 23.
Quentin looked to the sidelines and held up two fingers, signaling to Hokor that they had to go for the two-point conversion and cut the lead to three points. Hokor was already sending Ju Tweedy onto the field.
The Krakens would smash it in from three yards out.
Quentin waved everyone to the line. They’d run a play without a huddle, try to catch the Cloud Killers off-guard. The Killers tried to run players off the field, but they saw that the Krakens were already lining up and had to sprint back.
“Blue, fifteen!” Quentin called out.
A simple dive-play. Our offensive line against your defensive line, our running back against your linebackers.
“Hut-hut!”
Mud flew as the teams smashed together. Quentin turned to the right, extended the ball for Ju. Ju clamped down on it and lowered his head, but Killers HeavyG defensive tackle Jay Otaku slipped his big body between the Krakens offensive linemen. Ju tried to jump, but Jay undercut him before he could go airborne.
Ju fell to the mud, two inches short of the goal line.
Two-point conversion failed. Ionath was still down by five points and would need a touchdown to win.
• • •
IT WAS UP TO THE DEFENSE NOW. The home crowd seemed to be losing its collective mind, screaming for a chance to complete the come-from-behind victory. Coranadillana tried to run the ball and chew up the clock. They managed two first downs, forcing the Krakens to use all of their time-outs. With 1:08 to play, another first down meant the Killers could run out the clock in the victory formation, then sneak out of foggy Ionath with the win.
But the wet conditions that had kept the Killers in the game proved to be a double-edged sword. On a run up the middle, Mai-An-Inkole managed to catch the runner and — instead of tackling him — stand him up. The running back kept his feet pumping, instinctively trying to power forward, but John Tweedy shot in and put his helmet right on the ball. The pigskin popped onto the field. Mum-O-Killowe jumped on it, clearly in possession even before the mass of players from both teams piled on top of him.
Krakens’ ball on their own 45-yard line, 1:01 to play. They needed a touchdown to win and a touchdown was what Quentin Barnes would provide.
• • •
ON THE FIRST PLAY, Quentin hit Cheboygan on a 5-yard out pattern. She made a rookie mistake — instead of running out of bounds, she tried for extra yards and was brought down inbounds for an 11-yard gain. That kept the clock rolling.
Quentin rushed his players to the line, but this wasn’t the main starting unit and they were slow getting to their positions. He snapped the ball and immediately spiked it to stop the clock, then looked to the scoreboard — 0:48. Three plays, maybe four, depending on his players’ ability to get out of bounds.
Hokor let Quentin run things; the coach had full confidence in his third-year quarterback. Quentin kept the same tight formation, opting for his bigger, stronger receivers.
The spiked ball made it second down, 10 yards to go on the Coranadillana 34.
In the huddle, Quentin called three plays in a row. They might not get another chance to huddle up if no one got out of bounds.
He took the snap and dropped back, looking downfield. The Cloud Killers defenders were playing deep and to the outside — they were willing to give up a short pass underneath if they could bring the receiver down in-bounds, keep the clock rolling. Everyone looked covered, except for Warburg, who was open at 10 yards. Quentin start
ed going through his reads again, looking for a deeper pass.
He felt pressure. He started to scramble, but it was too late. Jesper Schultz blasted past backup left tackle Shut-O-Dital and dragged Quentin down for a 7-yard loss.
“Told you I’d see you again, Barnes.”
Quentin ignored the taunt, pushing and hitting Schultz in an effort to get up fast. Time was ticking.
“Krakens, get on the line!” The home crowd roared, the clock ran — 0:41 and counting. Now it was third and 17 on the Coranadillana 41 — spiking the ball would stop the clock, but also bring up a do-or-die fourth-and-17. Instead of spiking Quentin had to run a play, try and pick up at least 10 yards to make the fourth-down conversion more possible. His players scrambled to the line, the defense ran to cover them.
“Red, forty-four! Hut-hut!”
Quentin took the snap and dropped back. The defense rushed in, collapsing the pocket almost immediately. Quentin scrambled, rolling left. His receivers tried to find open spaces.
Quentin saw Warburg, open yet again, at the 15 and near the sidelines for a probable clock-stopping first down — but Quentin didn’t throw it.
A flash of mud-caked black — Cheboygan, running deep down the middle.
Quentin threw, but as soon as it left his hand he suddenly saw the double-coverage that he’d somehow ignored, somehow blocked out of his vision. He’d made a terrible mistake. The ball arced through the foggy air, descended toward the three players who waited at the 10. All three Sklorno jumped, almost hitting the black-and-white striped Harrah official that floated close by. Smileyberg leapt the highest. Twenty feet in the air, the Cloud Killers cornerback wrapped her outstretched tentacles around the ball, robbing Quentin yet again.
But on the way down, Cheboygan’s tentacles slid up between Smileyberg’s, grabbed the ball and ripped it free. When they all hit the ground, Cheboygan had it tucked to her chest.
The floating Harrah zebe was right there. He signaled a reception and a first down.
Tragedy had just turned to a last chance. The clock read 0:17 and counting.
“To the line! Move!”
Quentin ran at his exhausted players, pulling them to their feet, hitting them, urging them to sprint 40 yards downfield and line up before time expired. They ran hard, even the scuttling Ki, the crowd’s rage ripping through the hanging fog.
Bud-O-Shwek was the last to arrive, the center lining up on the ball. Quentin glanced at the clock as he reached under center — 0:04 ... 0:03 ...
“Hut!”
The ball slapped into his hands and he spiked it to the ground.
The clock stopped at 0:01.
One play left. Down by five, the Krakens had to score a touchdown to win.
He huddled his team. Cheboygan ran off, Halawa ran on. Halawa had the best vertical leap. If Quentin threw to the back corner of the end zone, Halawa had the best chance of bringing it down for the win. Quentin stuck with the same formation: Yassoud at running back, two tight ends, two receivers on the wings.
He broke the huddle. The Krakens lined up, their beloved orange and black barely visible beneath a thick sheen of brown and blue. Victory was only a few feet away and every Kraken knew it.
Across the line, a wall of angry defenders, their white jerseys now dark with moisture and mud, blue streaks criss-crossing them like camouflage. Brown smeared their white helmets, caked in around their blue facemasks.
Quentin looked over the defense, then bent under center. The mud-filled game had come down to this single, final play.
BLINK
The crowd noise vanished.
He barked out the snap count, but he couldn’t hear his own words.
He felt vocal cords rip on his final hut-hut!
He pushed away from the line, knowing the clock had just ticked 0:00, his cleats digging into the wet, torn, blue field. Somehow he felt the dirt, the mud, the ravaged Iomatt plants, felt them through his armored shoes as if his feet were moving tree roots that connected to the ground, drew sustenance from it.
His eyes saw everything, a slow motion, hand-to-hand war of filthy black-jerseyed warriors trying to hold back an onslaught of attackers wearing mud-covered uniforms of white, blue and yellow.
At five steps, he planted his left foot, then bounced a half step forward. First option, Halawa on the corner-fade: covered by Smileyberg. Even as his eyes flicked to the second option, Tara the Freak on a crossing route over the middle, Quentin felt the left side of the pocket collapsing — Jesper Schultz easily powering through the overmatched Shut-O-Dital.
Quentin stepped forward, into the pocket, giving Shut-O space to use Jesper’s momentum against him, to keep the defensive end moving to where Quentin had been, not where he was. Jesper reached over the offensive tackle, fingers stretching for Quentin, but those fingers brushed across dirty black Kevlar fabric without locking down.
Tara was covered, two Cloud Killers linebackers bracketing him.
Now the right side of the pocket collapsed. A silent instinct told Quentin to move right and he did, pushing off his left foot as hard as he could. Something hit him from behind. Multi-jointed arms grabbed at him, tried to drag him down. He tucked the ball tight in his left arm as he fell, then reached his right hand down and planted it on the ground, his legs still pumping the whole time.
His right hand pressed into wet, cold mud.
That spiritual feeling of connecting with the field.
He would not go down.
Quentin pushed hard with his right hand and both of his feet, then felt the Ki lineman’s arms slip away. He was free.
He sprinted right. Ten yards to the end zone, to victory. Could he run it in? Yassoud, facing him, shuffling along the goal line — but the other Coranadillana cornerback was just a step behind him: ‘Soud wasn’t open.
Quentin kept running. The receivers scrambled, trying to find open space.
There, in the back of the end zone, just under the goal post — Starcher, sidestepping to his right, to Quentin’s left. Running right, Quentin turned his body the other way and flicked the ball into the end zone. A lefty running right, then throwing back across the field was a difficult pass under any circumstances, let alone these wet and miserable conditions. The ball wobbled through the air. It seemed to float, seemed to invite the defenders that closed in from all sides.
The ball hung forever, players converging on it, reaching for it ...
... but they were all too late.
A thrill exploded in Quentin’s chest as the ball hit George Starcher in the hands. Touchdown! Victory!
George bobbled the ball.
Quentin’s hyper-focused mind saw the brown leather slide out of Starcher’s hands. The ball dropped. Starcher reached for it lightning-fast, but his big hands knocked it to the ground.
The football hit the black-painted surface with a small splash of brown water.
Pass incomplete.
BLINK
The agonized roar of the crowd snapped back into full-volume existence. Quentin was still running, his slowing momentum carrying him a few more steps. George stood there, looking down at the ball. Cloud Killers players leapt with joy and satisfaction. Krakens players put hands to helmets, or fell to the ground, exhausted and spent, finally claimed by defeat. No penalty flags. Quentin looked at the clock, hoping he’d made some mistake, that there was still time left for one more play.
The clock read: 0:00.
Cloud Killers 28, Krakens 23.
Game over.
• • •
THE KRAKENS GATHERED in the central locker room. Drained, beat up, the big knot of disappointment stayed lodged in Quentin’s chest. They’d had the game won, an amazing comeback and it slipped away by one dropped pass.
A muddy George sat on a bench against the wall, elbows on his knees, head in his hands. He was rocking back and forth — slightly, slowly, but it still looked somewhat disturbing. Other players stared at him with expressions of disgust or anger. Quentin was one of them — he
hated George Starcher in that moment. One dropped pass away from 3-0.
Coach Hokor walked to the holoboard in the center of the room. Some heads continued to look at the floor, some to stare at Starcher, but most turned to look at the coach.
“Krakens, that was a hard loss,” Coach said. “Every team in the GFL can beat any other team on any given day. Every ... single ... team. All of you, take a moment and think to yourself — did you prepare for the Cloud Killers the way you prepared for the Ice Storm?”
Hokor let the question hang. More players now looked toward the floor. Quentin was one of them. He’d spent too much time on calls with Somalia or trying to deal with the fallout of Yolanda’s cover story.
“We will learn from this,” Hokor said. “I wanted a win, but I’d rather learn this lesson now than in the playoffs. We overlook no one, understand?”
Heads nodded, eyestalks bobbed.
“And I don’t want to hear anyone blame a single play for this loss,” Hokor said. He didn’t name the play. He didn’t have to. “If we had executed properly in the first half, we would have been ahead and would not have been in a position where we needed to make a play at the end of the game to win. Every one of you had a tackle you just missed, a sack you couldn’t finish, a run you could have broken. A game is not a single play, it is a body of work. A victory or a loss is sixty minutes of execution, not five seconds.”
Hokor paused again, letting the words sink in. Quentin nodded, noticed that other players were agreeing. Coach was right. This loss wasn’t Starcher’s fault. They had failed as a team.
“This game is over,” Hokor said. “Put it behind you. We are still two-and-one, a game out of first place. Next week we have a tough opponent in the Hittoni Hullwalkers. That is all we care about from this moment on. Tell me, are we going to overlook the Hullwalkers?”
A mumbled cluster of no leaked out of the players’ mouths.
Hokor took off his little baseball hat and whipped it down to the ground. “What did you say? Are we going to overlook the Hullwalkers just because of their losing record?”
