Maggie and I weren’t dating. She’d been my best friend since we were little, and I didn’t want to mess up a good thing. She was one of those girls who’s better-looking than she realizes—or if she did realize it, she never let on. Her blond hair had a life of its own. So did her hazel eyes.
Yet, if anything, we had grown closer while we were away at our separate camps. Her emails were the one thing that kept me from going crazy at a place where the only people my age wore military uniforms.
“Where are you going?” a raspy voice behind me called as I walked down a quiet sidewalk beside weedless lawns, immaculate houses, and even a few new white picket fences. I turned to see a soldier with stubble on his baby face and a large rifle at his side.
“Just headed to my friend’s house,” I said. “We were in different camps.”
“The town of Mount Hope is currently under martial law,” he said with a robotic intonation. “You must heed the curfew rules until the emergency protocols are lifted.”
I fast-walked in the other direction, not looking back until I hit a dirt path. The empty lot next to Redmond’s Lumberyard was a shortcut to Maggie’s house. The grass and weeds were almost as tall as I was.
As I made my way through the thicket, I heard a growl.
You know how something might sound large or small to you? Whatever made this noise did not sound small.
It was not a cat.
It was not a dog.
I froze.
There it went again, louder. It reminded me of when I visited the Charleston zoo, and a lion roared and the bars seemed to shake.
And there it was, about thirty feet away, standing up on its haunches amid the weeds.
A bear. A ten-foot-tall bear.
I remembered from Boy Scouts that brown bears attacked when they were hungry, but grizzlies liked to fight for the sake of it. This bear was black.
I knew there was a hole in the lumberyard’s chain-link fence halfway down. The bear was right behind me, snorting like a bull just before it charges.
Now I wasn’t running; I was flying, going faster than I’d ever gone in a football game. I ducked behind an old red cedar tree next to the fence and—shit. The fence had been fixed, the hole gone. Thanks, do-gooding military.
Not looking back, I latched onto the limbs of the cedar and started climbing, my old sneakers scraping against the loose bark of the branches.
I made it up that tree in an instant and dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence, sticking the landing with my knees bent, including the surgically reconstructed one. It didn’t even hurt. I looked back at the bear halfway up the tree, grabbed a piece of loose lumber off the ground, and heaved it like a javelin.
Bam! That wood got a snoutful of bear, knocking the animal off the tree and back onto the path on the other side of the fence. It landed with a squeal and an ummph.
CHAPTER 3
Maggie
NERF WAS THE sweetest golden retriever ever. He didn’t walk so much as hop on his paws. His ears would prick up, his brown eyes would brighten, and he’d let out a gentle “Aarf! Aarf!”
Now Nerf was slamming his face against his kennel cage, lunging, barking, and trying to gnaw through the plastic bars. He had murder in his eyes, and those eyes were aimed at me.
“What is wrong with him?” I asked my mom again, crouched on the floor of her veterinary office.
“I gave him a sedative,” she said. “He should be calming down soon.”
“He should’ve calmed down already.”
Mom let out a dramatic sigh. On the drive back from camp, the McAlisters rear-ended the Mitchells about twenty-five miles from town. There must’ve been fifty soldiers on the scene within thirty seconds.
“Could this be a reaction to the radiation?” I asked from the floor. “It’s like he got infected the moment we were back in town.”
“No,” Mom said, stepping into the entryway to pick up a suitcase. “Radiation doesn’t work like that. And that’s all gone, anyway, remember?” She lugged the bag upstairs.
I looked back at Nerf.
“Hey, boy!” I said in my sweetest voice.
He smashed his face into the bars, jolting me backward again. The collision didn’t faze him at all as he growled and reared back on his haunches. I worried he was going to concuss himself. He barked savagely.
“Mom, Nerf is freaking me out!” I grabbed my two duffels and joined Mom upstairs.
I tossed my bag onto my bed and looked around. Our living space was basically a studio apartment, the attic of the vet practice. Any money we had went for what Mom, Dr. Renee Gooding, called “infrastructure improvements,” most recently, twenty thousand dollars into an X-ray machine.
I pulled out my phone and looked for a text. Jordan and I had emailed about getting together when we both arrived in town, but the phone was showing no bars.
“Did the accident do something to the cell towers?” I asked.
“The phone companies probably haven’t reactivated the towers yet. Bureaucracy.”
Emails came through, though. Most of my friends were in the camp, so we didn’t email much, but from the moment I sent a message to Jordan, way over in the “sick” camp, I started checking my in-box compulsively. And when “Jordan Conners” popped up in my in-box, I smiled.
I felt even closer to him many miles apart than I did growing up with him in Mount Hope.
I also missed him.
After his injuries, how would he look now?
I checked my phone again. No signal.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
I turned from Mom to hide the smile breaking across my face, and I scrambled down the stairs. I ducked into the office to check myself in the mirror.
“Are you playing hard to get?” Mom called down.
“Aooooo!” Nerf howled from the other room.
I took a breath, straightened my posture, and opened the door.
Jordan burst in, slammed the door behind him, locked the bolt, and peered back out through the blinds. His shirt was drenched in sweat, and he was gasping for breath.
“Jordan! Great to see ya!” I announced. “Which bank did you rob?”
“I must have lost it,” he said, his eyes still directed through the front window.
“What?”
“The bear.”
“Oh, the bear,” I said.
“Hi, Maggie,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I was chased here by a giant black bear. Sorry.”
He wrapped me in a hot, damp hug.
“Eeesh,” I said. “You smell like a giant black bear.”
“More like a panther,” he said, and let go of me, crossed the room, and picked up the phone at the receptionist’s desk. “No dial tone.”
“Go figure.”
He returned to the blinds and scanned the neighborhood.
“I missed you, too,” I deadpanned.
Jordan flashed that grin I’d missed so much. “Maggie, it was an actual bear.” As I stepped toward the door, a loud clang burst from inside the office.
“What the hell was that?” Jordan asked.
“C’mere,” I said, and led him to the cage where Nerf was growling, teeth bared.
“Spooky,” Jordan said as Nerf hurled himself toward us.
“What?”
“That’s the look the bear was giving me.”
CHAPTER 4
Maggie
THE BEAR HAD moved from Redmond’s lot onto a quiet county road by the time we pulled up, but as we cruised the town in Deputy Ruby’s squad car, we couldn’t miss the massive furry black animal lumbering down the center of the woods-lined County Road J.
Holy crap, that thing was huge and not friendly-looking. No wonder Jordan worked up such a sweat.
“That’s some bear,” Deputy Ruby said as we crouched behind his car.
Mom got out the tranquilizer gun and rested the barrel atop the car’s hood.
The bear was loping along in the opposite direction, getting smaller and s
maller. Mom steadied her aim and squinted.
And fired.
We were too far away. The dart skidded by the bear’s feet. The bear looked down, then whipped back toward us.
Oh, shit.
“Maggie,” Jordan said as the four of us ducked behind the squad car.
“Not now, Jordan!” I hissed.
We heard scraping on the gravel. Then it stopped, then started again.
It was getting closer.
Then heavy wheezing, growing louder.
Mom was sitting with her back to the car door, the tranq gun cocked and loaded. She spun around, held the barrel over the hood, and …
Whack! The bear slapped away the gun, which then skittered to the edge of the woods. The bear roared, loudly, and we heard a screeching of metal. As we bolted away from the car, I looked back to see the bear hoisting the passenger-side door over its head and then flinging it our way like an oversize Frisbee.
“Look out!” I cried, and Deputy Ruby dove to his left to avoid decapitation.
The bear was now atop the car’s roof, stomping it down into the cabin, shattered glass from the windows and flashing lights spraying onto the road. The tranquilizer gun had come to rest just beyond the road’s shoulder. I was the closest to it and could get there faster than the bear—I thought.
“Maggie!” Jordan shouted as I scrambled toward the gun.
The bear was taking giant strides, closing the gap. In one fluid motion, I grabbed the gun and whirled toward the charging animal, which was two steps from me, claws out.
Zap! The dart hit it right between the eyes, and the bear spilled over backward.
“Damn!” Jordan cried. “Nice shot!”
I blew into the muzzle and smiled.
“That’s my girl,” Mom said as she and Jordan jogged toward me and wrapped their arms around my shoulders. “I’m not sure how to get it back to the clinic for an exam.”
“Well, it’s not going in that squad car,” I said, nodding toward the pile of twisted metal and scattered glass in the middle of the road.
I looked at Jordan and put on my sweetest voice: “So what were you trying to tell me?”
“I was wondering how effective a tranquilizer that didn’t work on Nerf would be on a raging ten-foot-tall bear.”
The smile on my face froze. I turned toward the bear just as it was launching itself back onto its feet, towering above me.
“Maggie!” Mom cried.
Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! Blam! A crouching Deputy Ruby emptied his pistol chamber into the animal, red patches oozing in its fur. The bear roared—and bolted toward the deputy, who fell over backward, his hands in front of his face.
As the bear arched over him, snarling, teeth out, I saw a flash from inside the woods and heard a voop!
The bear exploded, and the sky was filled with raining clumps of fur and bear meat.
Four young military officers stepped out of the woods, one hoisting a grenade launcher.
“The situation has been neutralized,” the officer with the launcher said. “Please proceed back into town.”
Mom’s face was as white as the newly painted stripes on the road.
“Don’t worry,” I said, rubbing her shoulder blades. “We’ll find another bear for you to examine.”
“Thanks,” she coughed out.
Jordan extended a hand to pull a bloodied Deputy Ruby to his feet.
“That was some bear,” the deputy grunted, and we all started walking back to town.
CHAPTER 5
Jordan
CHARLIE SCREAMED WHEN I stepped in the door.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s not my blood.”
Wearing a horrified expression, Mom leaned in and plucked something off my forehead.
“Is that fur?” she asked, holding up a sticky strip.
“Not mine, either,” I said.
“You smell like charred meat,” she said.
“Mind if I shower?”
Mom backed away with her hands up. She wasn’t going to argue with that.
“Tico came by,” she called up as I headed to the bathroom.
“Cool.”
The house hadn’t been looted. Actually, it looked fantastic.
“Mom, have you been dusting?” I asked when I reemerged, looking and smelling human again.
Mom walked to the big front window. “Who painted the house and planted the vegetable garden?”
“Maybe Dad got his army pals to make it look like new. Whatever. A few hours ago you were worried that the house would be looted and trashed. Now you’re riled up that it looks too nice.”
“I don’t believe in perfect,” Mom said.
With the phones out—cell and landline—I couldn’t call Tico back, which was too bad. I missed him and his dry wisecracks. But I’d done quite enough walking on this day, thank you very much. I’d have to wait till football practice bright and early the next morning to talk to him.
When I saw him out on the field, he looked a bit chunkier around the middle, though he was still a crafty little guy. “Too much sitting around at camp,” he complained, patting his stomach.
I didn’t have that problem, having spent so much time rehabbing.
Tico was a speedy defensive back. I was a less speedy linebacker, though now when the coach called for team sprints, I found myself in the unusual position of leading the pack.
“I think that bear made you run faster, son,” Coach Garner said, clapping me on the shoulder. “Maybe it taught you how to move—how to draw up all that energy inside and go.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
Who told him about the bear?
“Aw, man, everyone knows about the bear. Are you kidding?” Tico said during a break. “I’m just glad animal control was able to shoo the thing out of town.”
“Well, that’s not what really—” I was interrupted by the coach’s whistle to start the next set of drills.
Football practices usually began in August, a month earlier, so we had to get right to it. Classes started next week.
Coach Garner, a wiry man with a whistle always close to his mouth, ran a tight ship, with little chitchat on the field, just a lot of huffing, grunting, and thudding. Not long into the practice, he pulled me aside and said, “I want you to train with Coach Winters.”
“But he’s offense,” I said. “I play linebacker, sir.”
“I want to try you on offense. Running back, maybe. Run through the drills.”
“Yes, sir.”
Coach Winters, who was built like a defensive lineman, started me with more sprints, running alongside guys I’d never played with. Starters like them and benchwarmers like me rarely interacted. Yet I beat them with every sprint, every plant-and-cut, every stance-and-start. I was faster and more agile, turning on a dime. Every footstep was precise, and I felt like I never felt before: born to play. Usually I got winded easily, but not today. I was tearing it up.
To add to this surge of good feelings, I spotted Maggie sitting in the bleachers, witnessing the football clinic I was putting on. Even though we emailed a lot from our respective camps, I didn’t know where we’d stand once we were back home. That she wasn’t sick of me after yesterday’s bear adventure was a good sign.
“Conners!” Coach Winters barked as we finished a cut-block drill.
“Yes, sir?” I said, jogging over to him.
“Bowman?” he called toward the hulking blond guy nearby.
“Yeah, Coach,” said Luke Bowman, the starting running back.
“I’ve got a problem,” the coach said. “I’ve got too many running backs and not enough quarterbacks. I want you both to join their drills and show me if I’m crazy or if one of you can throw as well as you run.”
“Yes, sir,” we both said.
Luke wasn’t just the starting running back; he was the team’s star, a ripped gym rat with calves like Virginia hams. A year ahead of me, he was a senior who’d made all–South Carolina last year and had been attract
ing recruiters before our season was cut short.
“Luke,” Coach Winters said, and nodded toward the bleachers, “those guys here for you?”
Two men in suits were sitting and watching.
“Couldn’t say, sir,” Luke said.
“Well, play your ass off, just in case.”
He motioned for us to go, and we jogged off toward the quarterbacks.
“You’re better than last year,” Luke said as we ran. “But I’ve been practicing all year for this. Do not screw me.”
“Just playing the game,” I said lightly.
“Part of the game is that I look good in front of those scouts.”
“Look, man,” I said with a straight face, “they’re here to scout me. They heard I’m back in town, bringing the Chocolate Lightning.”
Luke looked puzzled. “Yeah, right.”
I laughed. “C’mon, Luke, they’re not scouts. We’ve been in quarantine, remember? No one could even get in here.”
“Then who the hell are they?”
I put my finger to my lips. “You ever see The Matrix?”
He scowled.
I never thought of myself as a quarterback. My arm strength was just okay, and I took too long to read the field.
Yet today, once again, I could do no wrong. Everything felt easier, like I was watching perfectly executed football from above. In a distraction drill, I couldn’t be distracted. In an off-balance drill, I never got off balance.
We ran a few plays, some with me as the quarterback and some with me as the running back, and we did the same with Luke. Aiden Cole, the presumed starter after our previous QB graduated, got some reps, too, though they were unremarkable. I completed seven of nine passes, and Luke hit six of ten, not that I was counting.
I heard Maggie cheer whenever I completed a pass or got in a good run. The book on her lap remained closed.
Despite all this activity, my ribs didn’t ache. The doctors at the sick camp had cleared me with no restrictions, even football and mountain biking. They said I’d be fine.
Coach Garner whistled us all together for a six-on-six scrimmage. With Aiden under center, Luke pounded through the line for five and eight yards. Then the coach called me in for a couple of running plays. I managed to get seven yards on the first attempt and broke away for a 41-yard touchdown on the second.
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