by Alan Janney
“You’re full of surprises.”
“If you’re twenty-nine, you really shouldn’t be hitting on high school kids like Cory and Lee,” I pointed out.
“Touché. But nothing happened between Cory and I,” she laughed mischievously. “I was just having fun, trying to fit in.”
“Why were you at our high school in the first place?”
“Lots of reasons.” She took a deep breath and blew it at the sky. “I murder teenagers as a profession, Chase. Sometimes older adults, but most of them are your age. It’s hard, grinds me down. You know? It has to be done. The kids are sick and dying and sometimes they’re hurting people around them. I don’t know them, I just…alleviate their pain. Right? But you. I felt like I knew you because of the Outlaw gig. I couldn’t just kill the Outlaw. He’s the Outlaw! I was as intrigued by him as everyone else. So Carter calls me in and spills the beans about my next target, but I told him I’d only do it after I verified for myself that you’d gone insane. So I had Puck enroll me,” she shrugged.
“PuckDaddy’s pretty good, huh. I imagine he fabricated a full official academic history and fake kicking statistics.”
“Puck is the best,” she nodded. “I don’t know what we’d do without him.”
“It’s like he never sleeps.”
“He doesn’t, hardly. One of his Infected traits is that his brain never turns off. I think he just…goes comatose for a few hours a day.” She pulled out her telescope again and glared at something in the distance with one eye screwed shut.
“Where does he live?”
“Got no idea. Never asked. Carter wouldn’t want me to know.”
“Jeez, freaking Carter,” I scoffed. “Why do the Infected jump whenever he says to? He seems so unreasonable.”
She closed the telescope between her palms with a soft smack and said, “He is demanding.”
“So…why? Why is he the boss? Does he pay you?”
“Actually, he does pay us,” she grinned wryly. “He’s Michael Jordan rich. We get monthly ‘allowances’ to support ourselves without getting into a real line of work. That way we can assist him full-time or be on constant stand-by. But that’s not the real reason why he’s the boss.”
“So? Then why?”
“He’s old, Chase. Our Infected symptoms grow stronger the longer the we live. Carter is ancient. I’d wager over a hundred years old. Maybe a hundred fifty. He’s extremely powerful. Much more so than the rest of us. And he’s temperamental, so we’ve learned to tread carefully.”
“So it is a monarchy,” I mused. I was dropping small pebbles between my feet and watching them twist and whirl out of sight.
“He likes to pretend it isn’t,” she nodded. “But he’s in total control.”
“I overheard your phone conversation. Sounded like you were breaking ranks.”
“Kind of,” she said. “He trusts my judgement. Or he used to. Recently he’s been less than pleased. After tonight I might go into hiding. There’s a rumor of an Infected living on a yacht in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for the past ten years, where Carter can’t find him. I don’t know what he did. Or if it’s true. Maybe I can go live with that guy.”
I frowned and said, “That doesn’t sound like the arrogant Samantha Gear I know.”
“Arrogance is worthless against an avalanche. And that’s what Carter is.”
“Is he the oldest living Infected?”
“Seven years ago PuckDaddy let it slip that Carter’s mentor was still alive, but that he was a hermit. Permanently hidden. He’d have to be old beyond belief, so he might have died recently. Who knows. Natural causes, like heart disease or renal failure, will eventually claim all of us who live long enough. Skin cancer? Something like that.”
“Maybe that’s why Carter never lets all the Infected gather together,” I said. “Because then you’d have enough strength to defy him.”
“Perhaps, champ, but you’re getting it wrong. He’s not a villain. Carter is not an evil dictator that we must overthrow to preserve ourselves. He’s a man that takes this disease more seriously than anyone else and he makes the hard choices to keep us all safe. And besides, there’s nothing we could do about him anyway. Not only is Carter much stronger than us, he’s never alone.”
“What do you mean?”
“He has a Shadow. Wherever Carter goes, someone else goes too. Like a body guard. I’ve seen the guy just once. Puck and I don’t know what to call him so we call him Shadow. Puck knows about Shadow because he’s had to erase pictures of him at Carter’s insistence. He’s Infected and his sole purpose is keeping Carter safe. If Carter meets with you inside a church, you can bet the Shadow is outside. Shadow was probably on the roof with you that first night, but you never saw him.”
“That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard,” I said and I actually shivered. “But also kind of cool.”
“Wait till you meet Carter again,” she scoffed. “You’ll be looking everywhere for the guy.”
“Has it occurred to you that Carter could be the Chemist?” I asked.
She took a long time answering. She stared into the stars, as if she hadn’t heard me, and then she scanned the city again with her scope. Finally she replied, “Yes. It’s occurred to me.”
“And?”
“And…I doubt it.”
“Me too,” I said. “But maybe? Right?”
“Carter is a mystery. He’s doing things I can’t guess at, and he’d kill PuckDaddy if he tried spying on him. But I don’t think he’s a drug lord. Or a gang leader.”
“I talked with the FBI about the Chemist. He said the profile they have of the Chemist isn’t what we’d expect of an urban general. The witnesses describe an older white guy.”
Her face cracked into a grin and she shook her head. “You’re so stupid.”
“What?”
“Amazing you’re still alive. You talked with the FBI??” she howled in laughter. “What is wrong with you?”
“Shut up.”
“Really,” she wiped her eyes. “So dumb. You never stop doing the absurd. You’re threatening our very existence. I should probably kill you now. Carter definitely would.” She made a gun with her finger and thumb and pointed it at my skull. “Bang, quarterback. You’re dead.”
“Hah. What makes you think I’d let you kill me?”
Her face grew serious and she leaned in. “Has Puck told you that you’re advanced?”
“Uh…no? I don’t get it.”
“Any Infected that survives is like a newborn Bambi. All elbows and bravado. Too much ability, too few brains. Stumbling around, falling down, doing stupid stuff. They don’t have the capacity to control their enhanced bodies yet. Follow? But not you. You have a very advanced harness on your body, for lack of a better analogy.”
“Yeah, I’m the best.”
“No really, Chase,” she glared. “It’s wild. You’re stronger and faster and in much greater control than you should be.”
“Why?”
“Why? How the hell should I know? Carter doesn’t know either.”
My stomach growled. I realized I was famished. “Do you ever get crazy hungry? Like after climbing a building?”
“Of course, Chase. You’re human and you are burning through a truck load of calories.” She pulled out a handful of granola bars from her pocket. She handed me two. I could have eaten a thousand. “You’ll learn to keep food handy. Otherwise you’ll go into shock, almost like a diabetic.”
“Thanks,” I said, chewing gratefully. “Oh good. They’re chocolate.”
“I bet you love chocolate. We all do. All Infected crave it. I dunno why.”
“I do crave it. Change of subject. Does Carter know why all these Infected are popping up in Los Angeles? LA is turning into a zoo.”
“We don’t know why. It shouldn’t be happening. Another one died last night, went crazy, but thankfully I got there quickly,” she said and she indicated southeast LA with her telescope. “The odds of this ma
ny Infected in a localized area are astronomical.”
“Carter doesn’t know why?”
“If he does he hasn’t shared it with me or Puck.”
“You know, you’re not helping things, Sniper,” I said. “Why are you terrorizing the public with your wax bullets?”
“Because it’s awesome,” she grinned. “And I’m bored.”
“You cannot be serious. You’re shooting people because you’re bored?”
“Oh come on, Outlaw!” she laughed. “Surely you’ve been in bed at night, practically on fire, just itching to do something dangerous! That’s the disease, and those urges don’t do away. Being Infected is the BEST!” Without warning she leapt to her feet, balancing on the rail. She screamed at the top of her lungs with such physical force it hurt my ears. “Sometimes! Sometimes I want to jump off this tower and FLY! Spin off into the stars and NEVER come back!” She’d undergone an instant transformation. The quiet girl beside me had been replaced by a wild eyed maniac. Power pulsed inside her, physically radiating off her body. She closed her eyes, arms wide. “God, Chase! How I envy you your jumping ability. I can’t do that. I can climb, but not jump like you,” she said between deep breaths. “You see this, Outlaw? This is the disease. The insatiable desire to fly, to risk, to die. I have so much adrenaline pumping in my ears and in my limbs that I can’t even think straight. This is why we die. This feeling I have right now. It’s intoxicating. It’s everything.”
“Maybe you should step down.”
“This is why you wear the mask. This is why you venture out at night, why you keep risking your life. The Outlaw, the disease, forces you to. This is why the Infected perish after surviving adolescence. We want to. Because the chance to cheat death is euphoric,” she said. The slipstream around the tower was tossing her hair. She quit talking, eyes still closed, and began leaning forward. Then back. Then farther forward, like a diver, but before she slipped past the edge of balance she came back again. “Worried, Outlaw?”
“Very! Please sit down.”
“This is why I shoot people,” she said and she squatted down beside me. Her eyes were feverish and her breath was sweet and hot on my face. “It’s why I’m still alive. It gives me something to do while I’m sitting on a tower, fighting the disease, trying to keep from leaping. Make sense?”
“It does. Why is your face so close to mine?” I asked.
“Because you’re a boy and I’m a girl and I’ve never found that bandana so sexy before,” she said huskily.
“I’m in high school,” I chuckled uneasily. Her passion was contagious and I’d always found her pretty. We needed to change the subject. “And you’re old.”
“You’re eighteen,” she said. “It’s legal. And also,” she said and she hit me so hard I nearly slipped off the ledge. “Don’t call me old. I’ve barely aged since I was nineteen.”
“Ouch,” I growled.
She sighed, returning to rest on her perch. “But you’re right. Shouldn’t mix business with pleasure. It’s hard to think straight if you give the disease an inch. But maybe you should find an ugly mask. The one you have gets a girl’s blood hot. Also, the new red accents on the vest? It should look stupid but somehow it works. I like it.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re special, Chase. And not just because of the mask. PuckDaddy agrees, and we both think Carter realizes it. You’re different. The virus makes us all mean. We grow selfish and secretive. We’re arrogant and too serious. But you seem able to resist that. You’re generous and you care about others. You’re the only one of us that genuinely tries to protect the civilians, the people without the disease. One of the reasons we’re not unified is that we naturally don’t trust each other. There’s no camaraderie, only suspicion. You’re the first Infected that’s actively sought out the company of others.”
“You have no desire to meet PuckDaddy in real life?”
“No. Well, not until recently. Maybe now I do, I’m not sure. All the Infected are interested in you. Carter, me, PuckDaddy, and Puck said a couple of the others asked about you too. The Outlaw is something we all have in common. We trust you, for whatever reason. We’re fascinated that you’re so public and…heroic. I’ve been ordered to kill you and…and I just can’t. And when I don’t? Carter seems relieved! Like he was hoping I wouldn’t! This is the longest conversation I’ve had in ten years, Chase. By a mile. And I hope it never ends, you know? It’s hard to explain. Puck concurs. He digitally spies on you as often as possible, because you’re such an anomaly. You’re special, Chase.” She finished in a reverential whisper, as if fully processing the implications of such a change in her world.
“Maybe you’re all just jerks?” I suggested. She glanced sharply at me but I was smiling. She rolled her eyes. “So now that I know who you are, will you quit attending our school?”
“No way, quarterback. It’s getting too good. I’ve got a front row seat to the drama. Katie is one in a million, and I adore her. But I bet Puck a thousand dollars you’ll die before working up the courage to tell her how you really feel.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Wednesday, February 22. 2018
“Dude, you see the magazine article about you?” Lee asked me at lunch.
I groaned. “Oh no. What now?”
As if on cue, Hannah Walker strutted by and smacked a high school football magazine down on the table, already open to the correct page. “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” she purred, close enough that her lips brushed my ear, and walked off.
Samantha Gear slid over and said, “Let me see that.” We read it together.
Hidden Spring’s Hidden Gem
Hidden Spring’s junior quarterback Chase Jackson is a bad man.
I heard the rumors so I went to see him play against the Burbank Bears last September, only his third game as starter. Words do not do him justice, but I will give it a shot. The kid swells as the game goes on. After a forgettable first quarter, the seventeen-year old appeared to grow taller, straighter, broader. He started the brutal mid-season clash as a boy and ended it as a demigod.
I presumed my enthusiasm was simply playing tricks on me until I witnessed the phenomenon again in the divisional championship against the Patrick Henry Dragons, and then again recently at a quarterback competition. It was not my eyes. It was Chase Jackson. Guy just seems to get bigger in big moments.
Obviously his actual physical dimensions do not increase, so what is the deal? Why does he appear to increase in size? Because he is other-worldly good at football, that is why.
Let me describe what I saw.
He makes professional throws. I saw him almost out-throw senior burner Adam Moseley. He chucks fifty yards on a line. He snapped a receiver’s fingers, and I would bet the deed to my house the ball was screaming at over fifty miles per hour. He won the long-distance toss without trying. I was there. I saw it, his effortless pitch that sailed nearly seventy yards.
I saw him outrun every player on the field against the Bears. He runs at minimum a 4.5 forty-yard dash. At minimum. He jogged the quarterback obstacle course and finished third, and I know that I know that I know he wasn’t trying to win. He was coasting, and his coach knows why.
“Yeah, kid’s a humble guy. Doesn’t like the spotlight. Watch him long enough and you’ll realize he doesn’t want you to know how good he is, like he’s embarrassed.” Coach Garrett smacks his legendary gum even harder when discussing Jackson. “He won’t have that luxury for long. The word is getting out. He’s special.”
His teammates know. I attended several recent practices. They know. They would face a firing squad for him. The team loves its reluctant superstar-in-the-making. On the field, his word is law, even if he does not realize it.
I saw him change directions so fast it broke the ankle of all-planet linebacker Tank Ware. I saw him cross the goal line with most of Burbank’s population hanging on his back.
His school knows. The Hidden Spring public relations director has s
topped fielding requests from college coaches, due to sheer volume.
His father knows. He declined to comment, but he did mention that he preemptively trashes all the football mail Jackson receives, so the junior will have less to stress about.
His girlfriend knows. The sparkling bombshell of a cheerleader gushes, “He doesn’t even know how many followers he has on Twitter. It doesn’t matter to him. To us.”
So why did Chase Jackson’s team lose the divisional championship game? According to the medical records, he suffered injuries similar to those of a bad car wreck. The notorious Dragons took so many cheap shots that the refs had to eject one of their players in the first quarter. Jackson still almost won the game on a last-second heroic drive, despite being rushed to the hospital afterwards for treatment to life threatening injuries.
Go see this kid play next year. If you can wrestle a seat away from the college scouts, that is. He will be the guy throwing lasers and lapping the field. He will be the player you can not take your eyes off, the one you subconsciously recognize as different. He stands differently, runs differently, almost dangerously. His bark is louder, his bite is unbearable, a preternatural predator. You will know it is him. Just like I did. He will be the guy that is growing bigger than the game itself.
“Way to go, dummy,” Samantha growled.
“What?” I snapped at her, balling up the article in my fist. “It’s not my fault. I didn’t know. And I can’t believe dad is throwing my mail away.”
“Walker never gonna let you go now,” Cory noted sagely.
Samantha scoffed and said, “Speaking of the sparkling bombshell that obviously paid to get in the article, why is she eating with our Katie again?”
Lee, Cory, Samantha and I stared glumly across the cafeteria at Katie, wondering what we’d done to drive her back to Hannah Walker. They were deep into an animated discussion, leaning towards each other, food forgotten.
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “But it can’t be good for me.”
“Why not?” Cory mumbled around a chicken sandwich.
“So so many reasons.”