by Alan Janney
“Never heard of you. And real men keep playing, even with broken bones. I read that Chase played with fractured ribs and busted organs.”
“We already have a kicker next year. Thanks for playing. You’re dismissed,” he sneered.
“I just watched your boy kick,” she bit off the words. “And that’s what he is. A boy. I can kick farther in my sleep.”
“Yeah right,” Andy laughed, hands on hips. “Who are you anyway? A nobody.”
“I just moved here from Oklahoma, where I own the state record for long distance field goal. And if you weren’t so fat I could kick you through the uprights,” she said, and then she grabbed my jersey. “Follow me, Chase.”
I let her draw me away from a fuming Babington. I obediently followed because she was fascinating. Who has that kind of guts? That kind of confidence?
“I thought you were bigger than this,” she said, scanning me from shoes to hair. She appeared disappointed. “You look taller and broader in the pictures.”
“I get that a lot.”
“Time for you and your coach to watch me kick,” she said. “And you could have backed me up, you know. With what’s-his-name, the second string quarterback,” she said, and she backhanded me in the gut. Hard.
“I don’t even know you,” I grunted, rubbing my stomach. “And I already forgot your name.”
“But you think I’m hot.”
“Uh…” I stammered.
“It’s okay. I’m used to it. Besides, I’m in your math class. We met in pre-calc yesterday.”
“We did?”
“Yes,” she rolled her eyes. “Now introduce me to your coach.”
She pulled me towards Coach Garrett, a tall, ramrod straight man under a baseball cap and sunglasses.
“Coach,” I said as she shoved me from behind. “I’d like you to meet someone.”
“I’m Samantha Gear,” she interrupted me and shook his hand. “My former football coach called you yesterday, I hope?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Garrett said. “That’s right. The girl kicker with the state record.”
“That’s me,” she confirmed. “I’d like permission to work out with your team.”
“Well this is a first,” he grinned, chomping on his gum.
“Not really. Happens all the time. Babington is already trying to get rid of me, but Chase Jackson wants to see me kick. See if I’m any good,” she said, lying smoothly.
Before I could deny this, Coach said, “Knock yourself out. Field goal unit is warming up.”
“Great!” She jogged on to the field.
Coach Garrett and I stood silently as she introduced herself to the long-snapper, the holder and our current kicker. I didn’t even know our kicker’s name. Embarrassing. I need to get better with names, apparently. The four of them kept stretching; the three guys did their best not to stare at her but they failed. Coach Todd Keith, our offensive coordinator, walked up to watch the recent developments.
“I’ll be damned,” Garrett said.
“Can she kick?” Coach Todd Keith asked.
“Guess we’ll find out,” Coach Garrett said.
I said, “She’s like a whirlwind.”
“She’s got moxie, I’ll give her that.”
“What’s moxie?”
“Stones, Ballerina,” he said, referring to me by my hated nickname. “Sand. Guts. She’s got guts. This is going to be trouble,” he said, gum smacking. “A lot of damn trouble. But she’s the best looking thing I’ve ever seen in pads. Eh, Chase?”
“Are you allowed to say that, Coach?”
“Just make sure you keep your hands off her,” he ordered.
“Coach, I…”
“I’ll never forgive you if you blow it with that cheerleader,” he barked. “Hands off.”
“Yeah, definitely, no sweat,” I said. “Hands off.” Assistant Coach Todd Keith laughed.
Our kicker lined up and kicked a forty-yard field goal, which was pretty good in high school. He stood aside, nodding his head smugly, confident in his superiority.
Then Samantha Gear kicked. Her lines were long, her posture straight, her muscles hard, her motion fluid, and her form perfect. She drilled the ball. Absolutely destroyed it. I’d never seen a ball kicked that hard. She made a forty-yard field goal that would have been good from over fifty, a length very very few teenagers can reach.
“I’ll be damned,” Garrett grinned again. “Got ourselves a new kicker.”
Just then, the outdoor public-address speakers blared to life.
“Students and staff. We’ve just been ordered by the Sheriff to execute a campus lockdown. If you are near the building, come inside immediately and you’ll be escorted to the nearest classroom. If you are closer to the parking lots and you have your keys, please get into your vehicle and drive home immediately. If you see anyone you don’t know, do not approach them. This is not a drill. The police will be arriving soon. I repeat, we’ve just been ordered by the Sheriff…”
The announcement continued. Schools are scary places recently, with campus shootings happening more frequently, and this was as terrifying an announcement as I could imagine. We were much closer to the parking lots than the school structures, so all the coaches began bawling out orders, urging us to our cars. Kids sprinted off the fields, confused but convinced.
Katie! Where was she??
But…she had no extracurricular activities today. She’s already home. Thank goodness.
What about Hannah? I glared through the rushing mob of athletes until I spotted her across the field, gathering her bags. She wasn’t moving fast enough. I sprinted to her, weaving through the other kids, with a sack of footballs bouncing over my shoulder.
“Hannah, we have to go,” I yelled.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she replied. “I’m sure this is just precautionary.” I hefted the bags she’d been struggling with and turned towards our cars.
That’s when they arrived.
A heaving sea of humanity climbed over the ivy fence on the border of our school’s practice fields. Hundreds and hundreds of men. They were scrambling up the chain link fence and the vines and landing on our grass. Those who had already made it over were sprinting towards us, towards the school. It was a haunting, freaky sight.
“Ugh. Who are they?” Hannah asked with disdain.
“I don’t know. Let’s go,” I said with more urgency, and we started jogging towards the car. “This is obviously not precautionary.”
The gangs of people behind us were shouting in Spanish. I risked a glance backwards. All the attackers looked hispanic. So this was a protest, one of the recent racial riots.
“Vete a casa! No habrá problemas! Ir a casa o vamos a hacerte daño!”
“Jackson, you okay?” someone shouted. It was Samantha Gear, jogging alongside us.
“Who’s she?” Hannah inquired. For the moment, I ignored her.
“Do you know what they’re saying?” I asked Samantha.
“They’re yelling that we need to leave or they’ll hurt us. Telling us to go home,” she replied.
“Good idea. Get out of here, kicker,” I shouted, leading Hannah into the parking lot. Samantha vanished among the luxury cars. Hannah and I found her car and loaded the bags.
“Get in?” Hannah asked me, lowering into the drivers seat. Jeez she was gorgeous. She’d never starve; she could sell a hundred cars a day just by climbing into them.
“No, that’s okay,” I said, monitoring the crowd of latinos still on the fields. We were safe now. There would be no violence. The protestors weren’t attacking students or coming into the parking lot. They were just overturning trashcans and spray painting messages on the grass and the walls. The men had a message that they wanted to reach national attention, and rioting on a rich campus was a sure-fire way to do it. In a minute or so they’d disperse before the authorities arrived. “Take off. Text me when you get home safely.”
“I will. Thanks boyfriend!” she called, gunning the e
ngine and joining the congestion jockeying for the exit.
I walked away, a little shaky from the adrenaline rush. Los Angeles was getting more and more dangerous and the violence was spreading. A recent Dodgers game had been postponed for safety reasons. This protest wasn’t mean spirited or overly savage, but how long could that last?
I was angry. Angry and jumpy. I probably shouldn’t have been but the sudden riotous onslaught had startled me and now I was mad. These guys were only trying to make a political statement that could improve the living conditions of their children…but I was still pissed. I didn’t want to hurt anyone, just cause a little trouble.
I dropped the black mesh football bag and grabbed one of the the balls. The bulk of intruders was about fifty yards away, swarming and spray painting one of the fields. After a moment’s inspection I spied one of the leaders. He was issuing orders and laughing.
“Okay, my friend,” I said. “Pride goes before the fall.”
I spun the ball in my hands and pathways began to materialize in the air. I could almost literally see the angles I should throw if I wanted to hit him hard or hit him soft, hit him in the head or in the stomach.
I could do anything with this football.
He turned to stalk towards a thicket of spray painters near the bleachers and I spotted my moment. I set and loosed a tight spiral that went whistling across the parking lot and straight into his foot as he was striding. I’d thrown hard. The collision caused him to miss his footfall and he fell, landing sharply with a cry.
Beautiful! Glorious! Hah! I was so far away that he never even looked in my direction.
He rose in a rush, furiously casting about for the cause of humiliation. His friends were laughing at him. He tried to storm off but another football streaked in, again disrupting his stride, and again he collapsed. He was outraged!
Well, that was fun. But perhaps I shouldn’t be a bully. Time for me to go. I left the fuming man on the ground behind.
I spotted my car from a distance. It was…it looked…it was on fire! What?! Smoke was pouring out of the cracked windows, and the chairs smoldered. As I approached, the interior fabric reached a terminal heat and caught fire all at once. The rear view mirror was dripping. The texture of the paint and the glass was changing, distorting. There was a guttural cough under the vehicle and then a louder hot crash as the gas tank exploded. My old faithful beat-up Toyota was toast.
I laid in bed that night monitoring the news, exhausted from talking with police and my insurance agent. The police declared arson. No one had seen a thing. I could postulate one culprit, but I certainly wouldn’t tell the cop that Tank Ware had done it in retaliation for me throwing a ball of quarters through his window. The insurance adjuster would send me a tiny tiny check soon for a replacement car, but it wouldn’t be enough. My father had glared from his lazy-boy, like it was all my fault.
My bank account still had some money from a generous gift I’d received last year, and I was about to open my account online to check the balance when the news coverage of our school attack came on the television. The Sheriff officially labeled it a protest against the recent sanctions passed in congress. No one had been hurt and only six were arrested, the vandals with spray paint cans. Then another news story caught my eye and I sat up in bed.
A smiling news anchor I didn’t recognize said, “And perhaps our most important news story this evening, or at least the juiciest…we have an Outlaw sighting! You probably know the Outlaw has been missing in action for months, not seen since the dramatic rooftop showdown with the mystery villain that kidnapped teenager Katie Lopez. The internet has produced hundreds of Outlaw copy-cat photos, but none were substantiated as authentic. However, two nights ago that all changed. The infamous Outlaw made an appearance on top of his favorite haunt, the rooftop of a condominium building that houses famous movie starlet Natalie North.”
“This would be newsworthy enough, but the story only grows more outlandish. We know about this Outlaw sighting because apparently dozens of amateur photojournalists installed cameras zeroed in on that particular rooftop, all eager to capture the masked man in action. As you can see in this raw footage, the Outlaw leaps into the screen and stops in front of the rooftop door, perhaps waiting for Natalie North? We don’t know yet. But then, the bizarre happens. The Outlaw is attacked!”
I sat up straighter, riveted to the screen. Holy moly! This was actual real footage!
“On the bottom of your screen you’ll see two individuals sneak up behind the Outlaw and capture him! A bag is forced over his head, and his hands and feet are bound. Watch as the Outlaw is hoisted up and carried off, and the whole attack happens in a matter of seconds.”
I stared, spellbound, as the screen replayed the incident over and over. The camera wasn’t very close, obviously situated in one of the office windows surrounding the building. Carter could move so fast! And who was that dark figure helping him? The Shooter?
“However, the story still isn’t over. With all the cameras that exist in our world today, we should be able to get another glimpse of where the Outlaw was taken, but no other footage exists. In fact, most of the footage that existed of this incident has inexplicably vanished. Let me repeat, the video that you just saw is the only remaining video of the capture. All of the other data has been erased. Here is our correspondent Joe Walsh with more.”
The camera switched to a man in glasses sitting at a computer. He said, “Forty-eight hours ago, the digital community witnessed a computer hack like nothing the world has ever seen, and it all centers on this character, the Outlaw. All known footage of Tuesday’s Outlaw incident has simply vanished. I mean, the video data has been erased. Wiped clean. Personal computers, servers, data warehouses, cellphones…all gone. It’s the most impressive virus ever documented. Someone, some unnamed mysterious computer genius has apparently built a program that crawls across the entire internet and all the hard-drives and also all the intranets, and does it incredibly fast. What does the program do? That’s what the most brilliant minds on the planet are working on right now. But this is the only plausible explanation we can come up with for how all of the video and all of the data on all of the computers were hit at the same time. Or at least, all hit within minutes of each other. This virus found every piece of video from Tuesday night’s Outlaw appearance… and permanently deleted it.”
“You may be wondering,” the man continued, adjusting his spectacles, “how this one video remains. How did Channel Four news get a copy of it, when all other copies were destroyed? Well, the answer is simple. This video wasn’t stored digitally. In other words, it wasn’t stored on a computer. Our video was shot with an out-of-date camcorder and stored on a physical cartridge not connected to the internet. Brilliant, right? However when the journalist tried to email us his video, the email was intercepted and deleted! This super virus is scanning millions of emails every minute! One of our tech guys drove to the journalist’s house and physically retrieved the cartridge containing the video that you just viewed.
“So the real question is, why this Outlaw incident? Why would this computer hacker, or group of hackers more likely, choose to reveal their existence with this stunt? What, exactly, is being hidden?”
“And where is the Outlaw? And is he safe?” the news anchor returned to the screen and kept talking. Just then, one of my phones buzzed.
I had two phones. Or rather, Chase Jackson had one phone. And the Outlaw had another phone. The Outlaw’s phone was pink. Long story but it used to belong to movie starlet Natalie North. In fact, Natalie North was texting the Outlaw right now.
>> Oh no!!!!! Are you okay? Are you hurt? I just saw the news!
I smiled. Only one girl knew this was the Outlaw’s number, and she cared about me. That was nice.
I’m fine. Nothing I couldn’t handle. Thanks for asking.
>> I’m so glad! I was very worried.
>> Were you coming to visit me? =)
No. Was on a business trip. Kind of.
>> >=(
>> Who were those people anyway?
I’m not exactly sure, I replied, and rubbed my forehead. My brain was starting to hurt. We didn’t exchange business cards.
>> I haven’t seen you in two months! Where have you been?
Before I could reply, another message arrived on the Outlaw’s phone from a different number. It was from Tank, who bizarrely enough had texted with the Outlaw previously.
>> …Hope you’re not dead, pajamas…
>> …I’ve been looking forward to doing that job myself…
I grimaced against the pain building in my skull and typed, Still here, ugly. Not going anywhere.
>> …Next time I’mma strap you into your car before I ignite it.
I hurled the phone across the room. Of course it was Tank! I HATED that guy. I retrieved the device and was pounding out a reply when he texted again.
>> …you throw a rock into my living room? I destroy your piece of junk car. Payback. And the Latino girl will suffer for it…
Katie! Outraged, I started to reply but then I…I couldn’t breathe. I had no oxygen. I was suffocating! I sucked in air to no effect. I tried again. Nothing. My lungs refused to respond. Sweat broke out all over my body. The walls, the very walls of my room, started to collapse on me. The ceiling began lowering. My head cracked and pain spilled in. I gasped and only swallowed agony. I needed oxygen! Peering out through clenched eyes I realized I was wallowing on the floor.
It was a panic attack. It was the virus! Carter was right. I’m dying!
Calmdowncalmdowncalmdowncalmdown!
I did my best not to writhe and shake, but it was impossible. He’d said that my brain was tender and could snap. Seems like tonight’s news was enough. No air. Like a plastic bag was over my head.
RelaxrelaxrelaxrelaxrelaxrelaxyougottarelaxChase!!
I was dying and it was taking forever.
Katie…
Finally, right before the blackness and stars consumed me, I found a trickle of air. I sucked as hard as I could but it wasn’t enough. I heaved in air but found only a mouthful. Again and again and again and again I pulled in insufficient air, barely staying conscious…still alive…shallow breath, shallow breath…still awake…shallow breath, shallow breath…Katie… still alive, shallow breath, deeper breath, deeper breath… lights coming back on…maybe I’ll survive this…
