The Darwin Variant

by Kenneth Johnson

  Others were cheering, too. Some chanting, “Char-ley, Char-ley.” On the field, Charley knew he was the top dog. He was completely unaware that Tim Green—playing fullback again—was seriously glaring at him, mad about Charley getting the crowd’s adoration that had always been reserved for Tim.

  I wasn’t the only one who thought the game was extra brutal. Darren glanced back at me several times from the Ashton bench after some violent action on the field.

  I also noticed that Steph and Jenna, who were sitting with Lisa as usual, weren’t cheering like they had last week. All three of them were watching with a kind of silent intensity. It was a little weird and creepy. They looked like confident carnivores, patiently waiting for some opportune moment to strike.

  After the game, Darren and I were riding our bikes beside each other along a quiet street in Ashton when something he said startled me, prompting me to ask, “What? Jenna invited the whole team to her house? But aren’t her parents out of town?”

  “Yeah.” Darren wiggled his dark eyebrows at me. “I want to see what’s up, don’t you?”

  I definitely did, but I was also worried.

  Jenna lived in a large ranch-style house in the best part of Ashton. A six-foot-tall redwood fence ran along the back of the property. Darren and I rode up quietly on the outside. He leaned his bike against the fence and stood, balancing on the seat to peek over the top. He thought it was cool to be spying on them, but I was frowning about it as I climbed up.

  We were a little closer than I really wanted to be. The football team was straggling in, fresh from the showers and really cocky. Like rock stars. Or maybe gladiators still tasting the blood of their defeated foes. I saw how they were eyeing the group of girls, Steph, Jenna, Lisa, and a bunch of others, who’d been waiting to greet them. It was easy to tell that the boys’ internal juices were heating up. Tim leaned to C.J. Gutierez and said, “Gonna make this an orgy, man! Hey, Steph, how’s it goin’?” I looked at Steph and was surprised to see her smiling at Tim. That was really weird considering how distraught she’d been in our kitchen after he’d assaulted her. She was actually giving him a look like she was ready for more. It didn’t make sense to me. I looked closer at Steph and realized that her smile was strange. It reminded me of a cobra. And her eyes had that peculiar sorta superiority now. Like I’d first seen in Lisa’s.

  Darren Green. . .

  Charley and his teammates had grabbed beers from a tub near the dark swimming pool. They were tossing ’em to each other. Some of the guys shook them up and squirted them on others, laughing like goofs.

  Lisa called out to them, “Hey, guys. GUYS!” Many of them continued their screwing around. Lisa chuckled to the girls. “What a mature group, huh?” She shouted back at the boys. “Hell-lo? Could I have your attention? Before we begin the evening’s festivities—”

  “Hey, I got your festivity right here, Lisa!” Charley grabbed his crotch and chortled.

  Katie McLane. . .

  That is so gross. And stupid. I hate it when guys do that.

  But Lisa took it in stride. “I know you do, Charley,” she said with that dark twinkle in her eyes. “And you guys are such a great team, we thought it’d be fun to try another sport. We’re gonna play a little red rover. But to make it more interesting . . .” The lights in the backyard suddenly went out, making the entire area very dark except for one garden light that was behind the girls, shining toward the boys, who all hooted eagerly. Then Lisa said, “We’re gonna do it skinny dipping. So strip down, you big tough jocks.”

  Tim chuckled to his teammates. “Wooo! What’d I tell you, man! Let’s do it!” The boys pulled off their clothes. Even in the near darkness I caught glimpses of the guys eyeing the silhouettes of the girls across the pool, who also seemed to be tossing aside their clothes.

  Lisa’s voice came out of the darkness. “Ready? Get up by the edge on your side.” The boys did as instructed, then Lisa said, “Okay, now: check it out.”

  The pool light suddenly turned on. The guys stood there, buck naked, looking into it, curious. There were dozens of big blocks of ice floating in it. Tim laughed, “Whoa! The world’s biggest punch bowl! Awright!”

  But Charley saw the girls had only stripped down to bikinis. “Hey! You cheated!”

  “Yeah,” Lisa said with a leer, “we decided it was time for you guys to chill out.”

  Then four other girls suddenly rushed side by side from behind the team, holding a twelve-foot-long two-by-four in front of them—which they used to bulldoze the boys into the icy pool!

  The startled boys surfaced with hoots and hollers, laughing, but also gasping for breath in the freezing cold water. They made for the side of the pool and tried to climb out. But the girls were hard-eyed, and used shorter two-by-fours to poke the boys back in. Again and again.

  The boys were laughing at the stupid game, and tried to grab the boards, but their hands slipped off.

  “What the hell, man?!” Charley panted, “They greased our end!” The boys’ hands kept slipping off as the girls prodded them back in among the floating blocks of ice.

  In the frigid water, Charley was laughing nervously, his teeth were chattering. “We’re g-gonna get your asses!”

  Lisa smiled with supreme confidence. “I don’t think so.” She prodded him back.

  Tim determined to rally the team. “C’mon, Warriors! Let’s get these bitches!”

  The boys all gave a big rebel yell and made a simultaneous swim for the side. Tim led the charge. Until Jenna swung her two-by-four like a baseball bat, smashing Tim violently on the side of his head. He was knocked back into the pool, dazed, barely conscious. Two boys grabbed and supported him in the water. The others were startled into silence. There was blood in the water now. And fear. Darren and I looked at each other. Scared.

  On the side of the pool, Steph watched with mixed emotions. Like she was happy but worried at the same time. She seemed less into the harshness than the other girls. Charley looked from Tim to the girls; his voice was thick with cold, “C’mon Lise, Tim’s hurt. And w-we’re freezin’ our fuckin’ nuts off!”

  Lisa was matter-of-fact and deadly. “Let me know when your fuckin’ nuts get up into your chest, you asshole.”

  Charley made another rush to get out, but she clubbed him really hard on the shoulder with her board. He yelped loudly with pain, then another girl, Beverly, shoved him back. All the boys were beginning to turn blue, their breaths coming in short gulps.

  Charley sputtered, “Lisa, g-godammit!”

  “Just a little hypothermia, guys, the water’s about forty-five degrees.” Lisa calmly checked her watch. “You’ve got another minute before you lose consciousness. Then the brain damage starts.”

  “Lisa! For fuck sake!” Charley stammered. Then his clouding eyes saw Jenna moving toward the edge of the pool again.

  “Maybe we should let ’em off easy,” Jenna said, holding up the outlet end of a heavy electrical cord over the water. The boys’ freezing eyes widened. There were shouts of “Jenna! No! You’ll fry us! Don’t!”

  Darren Green. . .

  Katie gasped in a big scared breath, and dropped down onto her bike, pulling out her cell. “I’m calling the sheriff.”

  I caught her sleeve, pulled her back up. “Wait. Look!”

  Katie stood back up to see that Steph had put her hand on Jenna’s arm, holding her back. Jenna was annoyed. “Hey, this is for you, Steph. And all of us.”

  “I know,” Steph said, looking down at my brother, Tim. She seemed really uncomfortable now.

  Tim was all bloody and weak. He raised up a shivering hand, pleading, “St-Steph . . . I’m . . . I’m s-sorry. Okay? I’m sorry.”

  Steph stared at him as Lisa spoke sternly for all the girls, “It’s not just you, Tim. We’re equals, understand? All of us. You’re not the only ones who’ve had strawberries. So don’t try any more of your fucking macho Neanderthal bullshit. Or this is only a taste of what you’ll get.”

  Kati
e McLane. . .

  There were embarrassed murmurs from the numbed, faint boys. Like they were all giving in. “Y-yeah,” said Charley, shivering badly. “. . . Yeah. Just . . . please . . .”

  Lisa looked down at him, slowly smiling, with clear superiority.

  Finally she nodded to Steph, who said, “I’ll get the blankets.”

  Then Lisa, Jenna, and the other girls stepped back, allowing the bedraggled, naked boys to crawl—I think the word is ignominiously—and with a lot of difficulty, out of the pool. Several of ’em vomited, others collapsed, gasping. The girls stood over them a moment. Then they took the blankets that Steph brought and threw them on the ground beside the defeated boys.

  Behind the fence, I looked at Darren. I could tell his mouth was as dry as mine. We were both barely breathing.

  9

  ALARMS

  Dr. R.W. Hutcherson. . .

  Susan had invited me for a homemade dinner with her and Lilly. Their condo’s living room was a pleasant reminder of the friendly, homey comfort I’d felt in Montana. Susan had made it warm and inviting: rich woods, leafy plants, and soft, understated furniture. A well-used mountain bike hung on a wall near the door, and there were photos of Susan with her sister and other friends: some in rustic hospitals, of course, also in scuba gear, on horseback, and a particularly striking one of her rock climbing a precipitous cliff face. I noticed Christopher Smith was in several. That made me uneasy.

  Anyone who spent a little time with Susan Perry would naturally want to get to know her better. I sure did. Professionally, of course. And yeah, personally, too. But Christopher Smith was an acknowledged genius in our field. And from what I’d heard at the CDC, a pretty good guy as well. How could I think that this bright, attractive, engaging woman who’d been his partner might have any personal interest in the likes of me? Compounding my unease: I hadn’t even thought about getting involved with anyone since Marianne died. So I quickly determined to tread lightly and make a graceful exit as soon as possible.

  After dinner Lilly’d gone to her room, and Susan was cutting me another piece of her warm cherry pie while I looked over her bookshelves. I always joked, badly, that bookshelves spoke volumes about their owners. I was impressed by Susan’s eclectic collection, which included science books appropriate to her biomedical specialty, but also authors like Hardy, Dickens, Dostoevsky, Twain, plus a sprinkling of later works by Steinbeck, Huxley, and others. The shelf over the wet bar was also crammed with books. “Obviously you’re more concerned about storing literature than liquor.”

  “Thanks for noticing,” she said with a warm smile as she brought over our pie. She sat on the Persian rug in front of the gas fireplace and leaned against the couch. One book by Sinclair Lewis had caught my eye. “I loved his Arrowsmith, about doctors like us, but what was It Can’t Happen Here?”

  “He wrote it in 1935,” she said, “about a wave of autocratic demagoguery and Fascism suddenly rising up in the United States, like what was happening in Germany and Italy then.”

  “Ah. So it can’t happen here, but it does?”

  “Big-time.” She seemed more mellow than usual. Maybe because Lilly’d gone to bed, so Susan was off guardian duty. “Lewis makes a disturbing case for how insidious it can be. Starts with a low groundswell and creeps up on a whole society until all of a sudden you find yourself living in an entirely different country.” She held up my pie, smiling. “Want to sit down around my faux campfire?”

  Dr. Susan Perry. . .

  Hutch slid down onto the floor near me, leaning against the couch and taking his dessert plate. He spilled one big burgundy cherry on the rug and seemed mortified. “No worries.” I chuckled. “It’s the same color.”

  He smiled, took a bite of pie, and mumbled approvingly, “Mmmph. So good.” Then he refocused on the little contest we’d drifted into after dinner. “So. I think it was your turn, Doctor.”

  I nodded. “Right, Doctor. Well, I got diphtheria while I was treating the epidemic in Detroit.”

  “Diphtheria in Detroit. Pretty good, and alliterative. I’ve got one of those,” he said proudly. “I caught typhus in Texas!”

  “Very impressive,” I acknowledged. Then I thought for a moment, cocked an eyebrow, and leaned closer. “But not as exotic as yellow fever in Uruguay.”

  “No way!”

  “Ohhhh yeah!” I nodded with delighted emphasis, having played my ace. I celebrated victory with a bite of pie.

  Hutch spoke low, “Well, how about . . .”—he paused, setting up to deliver his coup de grâce—“. . . dengue fever in Dominica!”

  I shook my head, truly amazed. “Get outta here!”

  Hutch raised a three-finger salute. “Scout’s honor.”

  I smiled, leaned my head toward his, teasing, “Probably infected yourself. Sometimes I think you’re a little too ambitious.”

  “No.” He chuckled quietly. “Just . . .” He glanced downward and suddenly seemed as shy as that first day we met. “Just probably . . . trying to make up for insecurity.”

  “What?” I thought he was kidding, but inclining my head lower to study his averted eyes, I realized he was entirely sincere. Confiding a closely guarded secret.

  It gave me pause. I was extremely touched by him sharing such a personal vulnerability, felt a tingle of emotion rise in my chest that I hadn’t experienced in two long and empty years. It was unexpected, but tangible. We sat silently for a moment. Then I ventured, “Why would you feel insecure, Hutch?”

  He shrugged. “Always have. Even among longtime colleagues, and particularly now at the CDC, lemme tell you.”

  “But you’ve got a tremendous track record, years of experience, and—”

  “I know, I know.” He shook his head, looked away, trying to frame it. “But I always feel like I’m a teenager in a roomful of grown-ups. I’m positive that at any moment they’re all gonna realize I’m way out of my depth, nowhere close to their levels of competence—particularly yours and—”

  My blurted laugh was so loud it shocked him. I waved an immediate apology. “Sorry!” I said, still laughing. “Really. Sorry. It’s just that I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt the same way exactly!”

  “No.” He stared in all seriousness. “No. I don’t believe that you—”

  “Believe it, Hutch! Particularly when I’m around Lauren. And I’ve known so many people way more knowledgeable and credentialed than me who’ve admitted feeling the same way when they’re in a group.”

  He wasn’t buying it. “No. You’re just trying to—”

  “Trying to assure you, Dr. R.W. Hutcherson, that everyone—except maybe Stephen Hawking—has felt that sometimes.” Hutch gazed keenly at me, like he would really like to believe me. But I saw that I still had more convincing to do.

  Dash-Cam Video, Carroll Co. Sheriff, Unit 712, Date: 09/04/20 Time: 01:49:13

  Transcript Analysis by: Halzinger, Renata D., GSP #98432

  Suspect Vehicle: 2015 Hyundai coupe, GA BB7519

  Registration: Timothy Green

  S/bound on Bridger Road, Ashton GA, Mrkr 12

  Routine traffic-violation stop. No wants or warrants. One person in vehicle.

  Weather: Light rain, wet roadway

  Vehicle pulls onto shoulder in response to Code 2 from Carroll Co. Sheriff, Unit 712.

  01:49:50 Ofcr Badge #14625. Patton, Brice T., age 20, Deputy, is seen slowly approaching vehicle from north, weapon holstered.

  Courtesy Carroll Co. GA Sheriff, FBI

  Body-Cam Video/Audio, Carroll Co. Sheriff, Unit 712, Date: 09/04/20 Time: 01:49:52

  Ofcr Badge: Carroll Co. Sheriff #14625.

  Ofcr: Patton, Brice T., age 20, Deputy Sheriff

  Transcript Analysis by: Halzinger, Renata D., GSP #98432

  Activation Time: 01:49:52

  Video:

  Deputy Patton approaches 2015 Hyundai coupe GA BB7519. Driver is white male, dark hair, maroon Ashton High School jacket.

  Audio:

  Timo
thy Green: (mutters, sounds like) Fucking son of a bitch.

  Ofcr Patton: Yo, Timbo. Rolled right through that ol’ stop sign. Pretty dumb for Mr. Big Georgia Tech Football Scholarship.

  Timothy Green: (sighs angrily) Aw, give me a fucking break, Brice. You already busted me once for what you and I both know was bullshit.

  Ofcr Patton: Nuh uh, man. Shoulda had the old turn signal on that time. Now I seen ya weaving across the centerline, and it sure smells like beer in there, huh? (Ofcr shines flashlight into car, then onto TG’s face.)

  Timothy Green: Look. I’m sorry, Brice. Had a really bad night, take a look, man. (TG turns, pulls left shirt collar back, angles head away to show badly bruised, bloodied, scraped face, neck, and shoulder. Some fresh blood apparent.)

  Ofcr Patton: (chuckles) Whoa. Somebody whomped you a good one upside the head.

  Timothy Green: Yeah. It was pretty bad.

  Ofcr Patton: So . . . what? Am I s’posed t’get all teary-eyed with sympathy and shit? (Ofcr’s hands can be seen opening his citation book.)

  Timothy Green: Please, Brice. My old man’s gonna ground me if I get another ticket.

  Ofcr Patton: This just ain’t your night, is it? (Ofcr begins to write citation.)

  Timothy Green: Aw, come on, cut me some slack, Brice.

  Ofcr Patton: Just doin’ my job, ol’ buddy. Hey, this is the only job some of us can get, Timbo. Gotta uphold my oath. Protect and serve the public. Make my quota so Sheriff Randolph’s a happy camper. And ’sides that, I gotcha good, dickwad.

  Timothy Green: Hang on, man. (speaks more quietly) Listen. Maybe we can make a deal here.

  Ofcr Patton: You ’tempting t’bribe an officer of the law? Thas great. I’ll add that to the charge. (resumes writing)

  Timothy Green: Wait, wait, goddammit! (reaches toward passenger seat)

  Ofcr Patton: Whoa! Keep them fuckin’ hands where I can see ’em! (shines light toward passenger seat)

  Timothy Green: Take it easy, man. It’s just this. (a gallon-size Ziploc baggie seen)

  Ofcr Patton: What the hell are those!?