Fatal Games

by Bruce Richards

  His words sent a shiver down Chip's back. "Huh?"

  "I was pushed," Barney said firmly. "I just don't think it was you. I've got a cousin who goes to Middleton. I talked to him on the phone. He says you're a good guy. So I probably screwed up identifying you. But I know for sure I was pushed."

  Chip felt dazed. "So who pushed you? Do you have any idea?"

  Barney shrugged. "It was too crowded to tell. But I definitely felt someone give me a shove." He glanced at Chip. "Did you see?"

  "N-no, not really," Chip stammered. He didn't want to accuse Al and be mistaken.

  "Well, if I ever find out, that guy is dead meat." Barney ran his tongue over what was left of his front teeth. Chip had to look away. His gaze shifted to the football field, where a play was already in progress. They were in a zone defense, and most of the receivers were staying out of Al's territory, Chip noticed. Bad news travels fast. One play and Al's reputation as a heavy hitter was securely in place.

  And his reputation as a dirty player. A forearm shiver to the head was one of the dirtiest plays in football. Its sole purpose was to maim the quarterback, to take him out of the game.

  "Run!" Chip heard some of the defensive guys yell, alerting the rest of the defense that the passing play had broken down and the quarterback was scrambling for his life.

  Chip and Barney stepped back as Roger the Dodger Dawson scampered up the sideline toward them, the defense converging on him at a sharp angle. Roger should have gone out of bounds. It's what the defense thought he was going to do. But instead, Roger tried to cross them up and cut back against the grain, against the wall of defenders rushing his way.

  Against Al, racing over from his free safety position.

  Al planted his thick, heavily padded shoulder in Roger's midsection and took the smaller boy off his feet, slamming him hard into the turf, a clean but brutal shot. The ball bounced loose.

  Al tossed Roger aside as if he were a rag doll, scooped up the ball, and started running in the opposite direction, high-stepping it all the way. He didn't stop until he danced into the end zone with the ball held arrogantly above his head.

  "That Parker kid can hit!" Chip heard Coach Cuttler say with admiration from a little way down the sideline.

  Chip glanced at Al in the end zone, exchanging high fives with some of the defensive players. Then he looked back at Roger, on his back, still writhing on the ground in agony, his mouth twisted into a wide O of pain, one leg bent back at an impossible angle.

  "My leg!" Roger screamed. "He broke my leg!"

  Chapter 33

  Boomer zipped his wheelchair over to where Roger lay prone on the ground. He motioned frantically to the team trainer. "Get a stretcher! Fast!"

  "He needs an ambulance," Chip heard Barney mutter next to him.

  Coach Cuttler slammed his clipboard to the ground when he saw that Roger was injured. "Goldangit!" he fumed. "That's two quarterbacks I've lost in two days. Who's next?"

  Me, Chip thought, strapping on his helmet. He was the only one left.

  The team trainer ran out onto the field followed by two second-string players carrying a stretcher. They gingerly lifted Roger and placed him on the stretcher. Chip started toward Coach Cuttler when he saw the jagged bone end poking through Roger's skin just below the knee.

  Chip jogged past the stretcher, purposely averting his eyes. But he couldn't shut out Roger's torturous cries of pain.

  "I'm kind of running out of options here," Coach Cuttler confided in Chip, almost apologetically. "We've got a big game Saturday and I have to suit someone up who knows how to play our kind of offense. You think you could run a few plays?"

  "Absolutely," Chip said, feeling like the next lamb on the way to the slaughterhouse.

  Coach Cuttler blew the whistle and gathered the team around him. "Ah… it looks like Dawson's going to be out of action for a while."

  A few of the team members glanced back to where Roger's stretcher rested by the stadium exit.

  In the distance a siren wailed.

  Al stared off into the blue sky, a sky as light and blue as his cold eyes.

  "Let's take it easy out there, fellas, okay?" Coach Cuttler implored. "I want you guys to play hard, even in practice, but I also want to be able to suit up enough guys to play our next game. So let's keep our heads up out there. Especially you offensive guards and tackles. Protect your quarterback. Okay? Let's go!" Coach Cuttler clapped his hands. The team responded with an unenthusiastic clap.

  "I can't hear you!" Coach Cuttler bellowed like a marine boot-camp drill instructor.

  The team responded a little more forcefully, then took the field. All except for Al. He was staring at Coach Cuttler and Chip. Cuttler referred to his clipboard. "Let's try that slant pattern again," he said to Chip, who was standing next to him.

  "What about me?" Al asked.

  "Ah, yeah, Parker, that hit looked clean on Dawson — don't worry about it." Cuttler glanced anxiously in Roger's direction. The ambulance had just arrived. "Just take it a little easier on our own players. Okay?"

  "I wasn't worried about it," Al said calmly. "I just wanted to know when I was going to get my shot at quarterback."

  "Let's cross that bridge when we come to it, shall we," Coach Cuttler said curtly, dismissing Al. "Stick with the free safety position for now. Maybe next week or the week after that I'll have some plays diagrammed for you, some plays better suited to your style of play. Just in case we need you."

  Al fumed but said nothing.

  As Chip jogged out to the field Al sidled up to him. "Be prepared to cross some bridges of your own, bro'," Al said, his voice full of malice.

  Chip ignored him and joined the huddle. He knew the coach wanted him to run a slant play, but since Al had heard him say it, Chip didn't think it was a very good idea. "Who's the fastest guy on the team?" Chip asked.

  A lean, whippetlike boy raised his hand.

  "But Stevie Fumble-Easy's got hands of steel," someone said, and a few of the players laughed.

  "Don't worry about it," Chip said. He locked gazes with Stevie. "Just head up the far sideline as fast as you can…"

  "I'm supposed to stay in to help with the protection…" Stevie started to say.

  "Don't worry about it. Just head up the sideline as fast as you can go." Chip fixed the other receiver with his steady brown eyes, the receiver who had run out of bounds the day before. "Stay in bounds this time," Chip said firmly, his voice commanding. "My brother will try to come over from the free safety position and drive you out of bounds, like he did before. It's an old trick of his. Don't fall for it again."

  The receiver nodded, listening intently. The whole team was attentive now.

  "And watch out for his forearm, Justin," the big guard named Sam said. "That's another trick of his."

  Some guys chuckled, but not Justin.

  As Chip broke the huddle he felt a steely resolve wash over him. He was going to win that quarterback position. And he was going to do it now. Coach Cuttler's screeching whistle caught his attention. The coach was over on the sideline, striding back and forth, clapping his hands.

  "Let's go, offense," the coach shouted to Chip through cupped hands. Boomer was nervously wheeling up and down the sidelines in his wheelchair, right behind Cuttler, with Cuttler's clipboard in his lap, trying to keep up with the coach's nervous pacing.

  Chip lined the team up. On three the ball was hiked. Chip took four steps back and planted himself, scanning the field, trying to disguise the play.

  Stevie, out of habit, dropped back to help with the protection.

  "Get up the field!" Chip screamed at Steve, shoving him with his free hand. "Go, go, go!"

  Steve, startled back to attention, shot past the onrushing linebackers and dashed up the far sideline. Chip rolled out of the pocket to buy time for his receiver to get up the field.

  Then he swiveled his head and fixed his attention on Justin just as Justin was making his cut. He planted his lead leg and pumped a pass
in Justin's direction to fake out the defense.

  As Chip anticipated, Al came dashing over to lower the boom. Justin looked up just in time to see Al coming. He dove to the ground as Al, forearm swinging, flew over him.

  Then Chip whirled about and looked up the field for Stevie. Stevie had outraced the man covering him, and, without the free safety in position to double cover, had managed to break free. Chip reared back and threw the football with every ounce of strength he had, putting his full body weight behind it.

  The ball shot across the football field at a difficult angle, traveling over sixty yards through the air, as if it had been shot out of a cannon.

  Even from sixty yards away Chip could see the startled look on Stevie's face as the ball thudded into his stomach with such force he couldn't have dropped it if he wanted to. Stevie's momentum sent him hurtling into the end zone.

  Touchdown!

  Chip's fist shot into the air. He trotted off the field as if he had just completed the easiest pass of his life. All around him his offensive line was jumping up and down, giving each other high fives, excited by the magnificent pass. On the sidelines Coach Cuttler was beaming with a mixture of euphoria and disbelief. As Chip came nearer he heard Coach Cuttler chortle to Boomer that he had found his quarterback.

  Standing a few feet behind Cuttler, Chip saw Al rip his helmet off and drop kick it halfway across the football field.

  As Chip watched Al's helmet bound away, he had the unnerving feeling he was watching his own head roll across the field.

  Chapter 34

  "Thanks for coming with me," Alicia said, standing next to Chip a few evenings later.

  "No problem," Chip said, peering about the cemetery. On the horizon the sun was just going down. It would be dark soon.

  "I wanted to say good-bye to Scott in private," Alicia said. Chip looked about the deserted, spooky-looking cemetery. This was about as private as it got.

  "Ali," Chip said, "why don't you come back to school? You haven't been out that long. You can still make up your classes and graduate with your class if you come back now."

  Alicia didn't answer. She just kept her eyes fixed on Scott's tombstone.

  Chip had gone to the funeral services yesterday. He hadn't told Alicia. He didn't want her to know how few people had been there. There were almost no mourners besides Scott's family. And Boomer. Boomer in his wheelchair with a dark, bitter smile crimping his face.

  Alicia had told him that Boomer and Scott had been best friends, and Chip could only imagine the range of painful emotions Boomer must have been feeling at the funeral. Just a few weeks before, Scott had been a local hero.

  Now Scott's broken and burnt body was just a memory, even while the dirt above his grave was still fresh.

  Chip wondered if there were so few mourners because Scott was a reminder of the curse that hung over Elm Street. The unseen terror that lurked in every shadow, in every thought of everyone who lived in Springwood.

  Well, almost everyone.

  His mother liked it here.

  And his brother, oddly enough, appeared to be getting used to living on Elm Street.

  Chip wondered what Al would do after graduation — if he did graduate. Al had no future to prepare for, no dreams or goals, except to be a professional quarterback.

  And since Chip had been named starting quarterback for tomorrow's game, and probably for the rest of the season unless he got hurt, the chances were remote that Al would be offered a sports scholarship to play quarterback at any college.

  Now Al's only goal in life is to hate me more, Chip thought morosely. Without me to hate, Al wouldn't even have a life. Before they moved to Elm Street, Chip and Al would toss the football around together, and even though the play was rough, it was still friendly. But since they had moved to the new house, that had all changed. Al and Chip hardly spoke anymore. And Chip was growing more than a little afraid of his big brother. Al had been pumping iron more and more lately, often all night it seemed, and had bulked up tremendously. He was solid muscle, even with all that junk food he ate down in the basement every night.

  Chip heard Alicia sniffle. He looked over and saw her face wet with tears.

  "I really did love Scott," Alicia told Chip as another tear rolled down her cheek. "I thought right after… the murders… everything would be all right. He seemed so optimistic that the plastic surgeons could repair his face, that he could live a normal life again."

  The wind wailed through the trees that grew alongside the cemetery, bending them to its will. Somewhere in the distance Chip thought he heard a siren howl, and howl again, coming closer, growing louder, as the sun sank over the horizon.

  Alicia removed Scott's letter jacket and wrapped it around the cold granite tombstone. "He must be so cold down there," Alicia said, staring at the fresh mound of dirt that covered the casket.

  Unless he's burning, Chip thought, burning in hell. Chip was still unsure of Scott's intentions the night he had died.

  "Rest in peace, Scott," Alicia said in a soft whisper.

  Chip watched Alicia say her gentle good-bye. She looked so lovely, even through such intense sadness. When she looked up and saw him staring, her expression warmed even more. Then her eyes darted away from Chip's face over his shoulder, and she gasped.

  "Alicia — what is it?" Chip's head shot in the direction she was staring. He saw nothing. Just a rat perched on top of a gravestone, staring at them, before scampering away.

  "Johnny!" Alicia's eyes were wide with disbelief, still staring up the gently sloping hill of tombstones. "I just saw Johnny Murphy."

  "Where?" Chip's eyes scanned the area, looking for Johnny, looking for anyone.

  "Up by Ellen Sawyer's gravestone," Alicia said, pointing. Her finger was trembling. "He was hiding behind it. Spying on us."

  Chip looked in the direction she was pointing, but still saw no one. Just the setting sun dipping beneath the horizon line as the evening sky turned to a soft gray. The wind suddenly picked up and swirled about their feet.

  "I met Johnny's uncle and he told me Johnny tried to hang himself," Chip said.

  "I know," Alicia said. "His heart stopped and he was dead for several minutes — but they cut him down in time to revive him."

  "He's still in the hospital, isn't he?" Chip asked.

  "Are you sure it was him?"

  "I'm not sure. It was hard to tell who I saw. He had his hood pulled up around his head."

  Chip felt a chill go through him. "He was wearing a hood?"

  "Yes," Alicia said without hesitation.

  Chip's eyes drank in the area around Ellen's gravestone. Shadows danced across her mound of dirt, also fairly fresh, cast by a pale moon shining through the branches of an ancient maple tree. The sky was rapidly growing a soft charcoal color. A few stars came out, faint but growing, as the wind picked up again.

  "C'mon, I'll walk you home," Chip said, feeling increasingly nervous in the cemetery as the night grew darker. Johnny or no Johnny, Alicia seemed certain there was someone spying on them. Chip and Alicia locked hands and hurried toward the cemetery entrance.

  Chip looked up when he heard a fluttering sound. Several dark shadows dipped and twirled in the air above, making zigzag patterns, flying erratically.

  "Bats," Alicia said, turning her face to the darkening sky. "The woods are full of them."

  Chip picked up his pace. The surrounding trees were hulking, dark, full of hungry eyes that followed their every step.

  "Before, on the way over here, when we were talking about Evan and his uncle and the house and stuff, didn't you tell me Dr. Hawke's heart stopped?"

  "Yeah."

  "Scott said the same thing. And they got it going again, right?"

  Again Alicia nodded.

  "And they found Johnny dead and got his heart going again, too, right?"

  Alicia said nothing for a few moments. "What do you think it means?"

  "You tell me," Chip said, his voice quaking a little. "But Scott beli
eved an evil spirit entered Dr. Hawke's body. Like taking over an empty shell."

  "He also thought it took over me," Alicia reminded him.

  Chip paused. "Yeah, I guess you're right." He pushed the macabre thought to the back of his mind.

  "You think it's in Johnny, now, don't you?" Alicia asked, as if reading his mind.

  An owl hooted nearby. Chip heard a crack, like a twig breaking, in the woods just ahead of them. Then a rustling of dead leaves.

  Chip tensed his body, ready to fight whatever it was that lay ahead of them. Maybe he could hold it off long enough for Alicia to get away.

  Something darted out of the woods at them. Alicia uttered a startled cry of surprise and Chip leapt back as a raccoon scampered out of the woods, spotted them, and then shot back into the woods again. Chip relaxed his taut muscles. He could hear Alicia's heart pounding. Or was it his own?

  Still hand in hand, they began to jog. Chip realized that it had been a mistake to go to the cemetery that late. Night comes too quickly to the autumn sky, and the Elm Street cemetery was no place to linger after dark — not if you wanted to stay above ground.

  Chip strained to see up the dark path, watching out for things they might trip over. Beside him he could hear Alicia breathing heavily as she tried to keep up with him. Chip imagined he heard whispering all about, saw dark hooded forms hunkering behind every tree and bush with eyes staring out at them, switchblades gleaming through the blackness.

  The murmuring in the woods seemed to grow louder as the wind thrashed a tall oak tree, sending down a painful shower of hard acorns. They ran faster, their sneakers crunching on the flat, dead leaves. Scraggly, thorny bushes growing alongside the trail tore at their jeans as they ran by.

  Finally they reached a clearing in the woods. The sirens Chip had heard before were louder now. A short distance away he saw the back of his house in shadow against the dark sky. The TV antenna hung from the chimney at a crooked angle as if lightning had struck it. In fact, everything about the house looked crooked to Chip.

  And yet it was a welcome sight after their harrowing run through the dark woods. He stopped to catch his breath, to breathe a sigh of relief, to give his thudding heart a chance to slow down.