“I’d avoid talk about visions and secret societies. But you’ve all been through a lot. Talk about how you feel about what you’ve experienced. And talk to each other too.”
We nodded, and Archer stood up. “I’ll be in touch. In the meantime, get some rest. Be kids for a while.” He trained his eyes on me. “I might be out of the city for a few days, but make sure you call if you have any more visions.”
“I will.”
He grinned. “Great job, you three. Really great job.” Then he turned and strode away.
Chapter 26
We stopped by the museum several times over the next few days. It was actually hard to stay away from the place. News of the vandalism hit papers on Monday, and pretty much every day thereafter the lineup for admission stretched farther and farther around the side of the building. Sok was nowhere to be found, not near the museum or in the little park across the street. I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d say to him if we did see him. He was probably lying low, expecting me to tell the police that I’d seen him. Lisa tried to talk to Sok’s grandfather in French a couple of times, but all he said was that Sok was working on convincing people to give the relic back. I thought that was a lot of pressure to put on a fifteen- or sixteen-year-old.
“What do you suppose that means?” Lisa asked.
I shrugged. “I feel bad for the guy, but as long as I’m not having visions, he can do whatever he wants.”
Colin nodded. “I agree.”
“Even if he’s going to try to steal it again?” she asked
“Can you blame him?” Colin asked. “It was stolen from his village first. It’s not really stealing if you’re just taking something back that belongs to you.”
I felt the same way.
Sok wasn’t the only one we couldn’t find. We also walked all over town searching for the homeless guy who had adopted my bike, but he seemed to have disappeared. I guess almost getting shot would be a pretty strong motivator to move along. My parents hadn’t noticed my bike missing yet. They were too busy hammering me with questions every time they got me alone—especially my mom. It seemed she thought I’d grown accustomed to all the attention I’d received over the past couple months and wanted more of it. She kept encouraging me to have my friends from therapy over to hang out. I was getting more attention than a pop star, and none of it was any good. My dad wasn’t much better, but he did keep his questions simple.
“Anything you want to tell me, son?” he would ask almost every time we were alone. I figured he knew something was up, I just hoped he didn’t know I was the kid who smashed the window at the museum.
Needless to say, I tried to spend as little time as possible at home. We tried to meet up with Archer again too, but he must’ve still been out of town because he never returned our calls.
When Friday finally arrived, I relaxed. Despite everything my parents had been on me about during the past week, not once had they said I’d have to keep going to therapy after this last session. Hope surged in my chest that this was the last day I’d have to talk about my feelings, the last day I’d have to see Eric or listen to his whiny voice. I waited in my room until it was time to go, not wanting to risk doing something that would make my parents reconsider, and I only came downstairs when my dad called up that it was time to go.
***
Colin met me on the curb after my dad dropped me off. “Did you get my emails?” he asked when we’d pushed through the main doors.
“No,” I said. “I was trying not to make any noise in my room. Why? What was the message?”
Before Colin could speak, I was shoved from behind into the wall. I spun around to face whoever it was, but lost most of my nerve when I saw the giant goon leering over me. “Hi, Rodney.” His bottom lip jutted out, and his right eye, bloodshot and deep brown, twitched.
Eric stepped from behind his friend and sneered. “I’m looking forward to tonight, Curse,” he said. He gestured to Rodney. “We both are.”
I smiled. “Oh, are you two going out on a date? I always thought you made a nice couple.”
Colin and a couple of the kids around us laughed.
Eric’s cheeks reddened. “You know, Curse, we spend a lot of time in The Field. I can’t wait to get you alone in there.”
“Huh?” I turned to Colin, and he grimaced. “The Field? What the heck is he talking about?”
“I tried to email you. I only just found out this morning. I guess your mom didn’t want you to find out until today.”
“Hi, Dean,” Rylee said from over my shoulder. “Thanks for the invitation to your party. I’ve never gone paintballing before. It should be fun.” She turned and walked over to the circle of chairs.
Eric growled and got right in my face. “You’re so dead.” He glanced at Rylee and then back at me and growled again before backing off. A couple of the other kids in the group walked by and thanked me for the invitation. I had no idea what was going on.
“Party?” I looked at Colin as Lisa jogged in.
“Did you tell him?” Lisa asked. She turned to Eric and Rodney. “What do you two jerks want?”
A wicked smile spread across Eric’s face. “Oh, I forgot you’ll be there too.” He rubbed his hands together and glared at each of us in turn. “Payback times three.” Rodney laughed deeply, and the two of them stomped away happily.
I turned to my friends. “What the heck is everyone talking about?”
“Your mom,” Lisa said. “She’s put together some kind of end-of-therapy celebration. She invited everyone to play indoor paintball tonight. I didn’t find out until this morning.”
“Laser paintball,” Colin said with a grin. “It’s just like regular paintball only with special effects, like lasers and flashing lights and stuff like that. It actually sounds like a blast.” He nodded to Eric and Rodney. “Except they’re gonna be there.”
“Why didn’t she tell me she invited them? Why didn’t she tell me about the party at all?”
Lisa smiled. “I heard my parents talking about it last night. Apparently she wants to show you there are safer ways to get attention than acting out, and she thought you’d put up a fuss if you knew about it.”
“Safer ways?” Colin laughed. “Clearly your mom has never been shot by a paintball.”
“And she invited Eric and Rodney?” I asked again, unwilling to believe she’d do that. “She has to know I hate those guys. I mean, she’s heard us talking about them enough.”
“She invited everyone,” Colin said.
“The place is called World of Paintball,” Lisa said quizzically, “so why are they calling it The Field?”
“It’s a nickname,” Colin said.
“The nickname is The Field?” Lisa laughed. “Not exactly catchy.”
“It’s not called The Field,” Colin said. “That’s just what some people say. The real nickname is something else.” He paused for effect. “The Killing Field.”
Chapter 27
Just like Colin said, the place was called World of Paintball, which sounded a bit like an amusement park. But when we pulled into the parking lot, it looked like something else entirely, and I saw why they called it The Killing Field. Cinder block walls painted a drab gray formed sharp right angles that went up about three stories to a flat roof. Spotlights lanced out from the rooftop and rolled across the parking lot. The word “prison” sprang to mind. Rodney was going to feel right at home here.
“All right, kids,” my mom said, “I’ve already taken care of everything with the manager. Just go right in and have fun. Remember to play nice. I’ll see you at eleven.”
“Play nice?” Colin asked, then leaned toward me and whispered, “Your mom does know we’re going to be shooting each other, doesn’t she?”
“Thanks, Mrs. Curse,” Lisa said happily. “We’ll see you at eleven.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled, “thanks, Mom.”
A couple other kids from therapy waved as their parents drove away.
I shivered. The on
ly thing that made this place look like it might be okay were the glass doors leading to the lobby. Prisons probably don’t have glass doors, I told myself. Or lobbies for that matter.
Eric and Rodney shoved past, carrying duffel bags. They seemed far too comfortable in this place, and I wondered how often they came here. The girl behind the counter wore a tight black shirt and a green army-style hat. She had a tattoo on her forearm of something I couldn’t make out. She greeted Eric and Rodney with smiles. Yep, it was pretty clear they came here often.
“Listen up,” the girl said. She pointed to a long table at the side of the room. “You’ll find coveralls, goggles, and masks on the tables over there. Put your gear on and proceed to the next checkpoint through the door.”
***
“Not bad,” Colin said, looking down at his paintball suit. “I look like an Army Ranger.” He eyed Lisa maliciously. “Better watch your back, girlie.”
She laughed and then sighed and jabbed him in the stomach. “Call me girlie again. I dare you.”
“Through the doors!” the girl behind the counter shouted. The door led to a platform that overlooked a huge warehouse with corrugated steel walls and a concrete floor. Small barriers had been erected randomly throughout the area, and crossover steps and metal gangways rose all around, offering a height advantage to anyone who managed to claim one as a perch during the game. At first it reminded me of one of those mazes that scientists created for lab mice, but when I looked closer, it was clear it wasn’t a maze at all. It would be easy to run straight from one end to the other…except, of course, for the people who might be hiding around the corners waiting to blast you with paintballs.
A voice boomed from somewhere below. “Walk down the stairs to the weapons station.”
At the base of the stairs was a long table filled with paintball guns and large metal canisters of compressed air. Two men stood behind the table, their lips pressed into identical lines. The first man was a giant with thick arms and no neck, just a giant head on giant shoulders. He reminded me of one of those WWE wrestlers you see on TV. His head was shaved bald, but he had dark grease streaks all over his face and head, which made him look extra dangerous. The other man was scrawny, with a narrow face and a long, dark goatee that hung from his chin and covered most of his neck.
“We’re the judges,” the scrawny man said, stroking his goatee. His large partner stood unmoving, hands clasped behind his back, his narrowed eyes moving down the line, sizing us up with a piercing glare. “My name is Dyson,” the man with the goatee continued, “and this is Tank.” He paused and seemed to dare us to laugh. When no one did, he continued. “We’ll show you how to use your weapons, break you into two teams, and then you’ll be set loose.”
A couple of the girls on my right giggled, and Colin kept rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet like he was preparing to take flight. Pretty much everyone was smiling and I was just starting to think that maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea when my gaze fell on Eric and Rodney. They weren’t smiling, but they seemed pleased. Their eyes were glued to me in a murderous stare, and they kept rubbing their hands. Great.
As if reading my mind, Lisa leaned over and said, “We have guns too, Dean. Being big won’t mean a thing out there. In fact, it will just make them easier to hit.”
“Good point,” I said, feeling a little better.
“First rule,” Tank said in a deep voice. “When you’re not in the game, you keep your gun pointed down.” He plucked a gun from the table and demonstrated.
“The guns can go off by accident,” Dyson added, “and if you swing it around, it might go off.” Tank raised the gun and swung it wildly at our group. Girls and guys screamed alike, and Rylee, who was standing behind me, grabbed my shoulder.
“Sorry,” she whispered, then laughed.
I laughed weakly and managed to say, “Any time.” I caught Colin raising his eyebrows at me. He gave an approving and somewhat mischievous nod. I started to turn back to Tank and Dyson and spotted Eric once more. He looked like someone had just shoved a gym sock in his mouth. He kept glancing from me to Rylee.
“Rule two,” Dyson said, “if you get shot, shout Hit!, raise your gun over your head, and walk back to your team’s end zone. And if you’re doing the shooting and someone yells hit, stop shooting them.” A metal man-shaped target popped up on the right, and Tank turned and fired. A paintball splattered across the target’s head and then it fell back, but Tank fired again and moved forward until he was standing above the target and then fired at least a dozen more times.
“That,” Dyson said when Tank had finished, “is what we don’t want to see.” The metal target rose again, paint dripping down its featureless face.
Eric caught my attention and pointed, first at me and then at the target. Rodney nodded and flashed a creepy, toothy grin that sent a shiver up my back.
“Now,” Dyson said, “does anyone have their own guns? We’ll need to check them out.”
“We do.” Eric gave a quick wave.
“No worries, Feldman. We know your guns.” He turned to the group. “Anyone else?”
“They brought their own guns?” I whispered.
Rylee spoke from behind me. “I heard that Eric and Rodney play paintball a few times a week.”
“Are you kidding me?” Colin asked.
She shook her head. “No, I’m not. I even heard that one of those guys is Rodney’s brother.”
Colin and I gasped at the same time.
“Rodney has a brother?” Lisa asked.
If it was anyone, it was Tank. The two of them clearly came from the same genetic pool. If he was anything like Rodney, I wasn’t sure we’d get out of this alive. Dyson called us forward and handed us our guns. He made each of us take a couple practice shots at the pop-up target, and in a matter of minutes, we were all geared up. I glanced over at Rodney and Eric and suddenly felt very faint. Where our guns were short and boxy, their guns were sleek and professional looking.
Rodney looked like a character out of a war movie. He had a long-barreled gun with a scope resting on his shoulder and a pistol strapped to his thigh. Eric had a smaller weapon, but it was no less menacing than Rodney’s.
“Those do shoot paintballs, right?” someone on my right asked, looking at the two bullies.
Colin followed my gaze and said, “Oh wow!” He seemed to forget himself and stepped up to Eric to examine the guns. “That’s an MP5, isn’t it? And that…” He pointed to the gun strapped to Eric’s thigh. “That’s a 9 mm, right?” He turned to Rodney. “And that’s a Tippman X7 sniper rifle, isn’t it?” Colin knew guns not because he had any actual experience with them, but because of video games. He loved his war games and studied the weapons manuals for those games more than he studied history for school.
As an answer, Eric swung around and fired two shots at the metal target and then pulled the pistol from his thigh and fired again. All three shots splattered against the target. “Don’t worry, Colin,” he said, “you’ll be getting a good look at these weapons soon enough.”
“Save it for the field,” Dyson said.
Eric nodded and turned back to me and tapped the top of his gun, a gesture I took as some kind of warning. If he was trying to freak me out, it was working.
Dyson and Tank divided us right down the middle, forming two teams, and then stepped forward. “Team A,” Dyson said, pointing to his right. “Tank will take you to the other side of the warehouse, where you’ll find your flag. You’ll have just a couple minutes to work out a strategy, and then the game will start.”
“Is there a whistle or something?” asked Gavin Richardson, an eleventh grader from the newly formed Team A.
“No whistles,” Dyson said, “but don’t worry. You’ll know when the game is starting.” There was some more giggling as Tank led Team A out of sight and then Dyson turned to us. “Team B, better make your plan.”
Rylee waved everyone over, and we all huddled up. “Okay,” she said, smiling,
“who’s played this before?” Colin’s hand shot up.
“You’ve never played this before,” I said.
“I did,” he said, “Once. But I play Comrade Killer online all the time. It’s just like this. Trust me, I know strategy.”
“Comrade Killer?” one of the other girls asked.
“It’s a war game,” Colin said. His smile widened. “If it doesn’t work, someone else can lead on the next one.”
“Thirty seconds,” Dyson shouted for the benefit of the whole warehouse.
“Okay, Colin,” Rylee said. “Tell us what to do.”
Colin laid out a plan in seconds. My job was to get to one of the gangways on the right and pick off the other team as they ran by. Easy enough if I could get there, but I figured the other team would be thinking the same thing, so I’d have to be fast.
“Five, four, three,” Dyson yelled, “two, one.” An evil smile spread across Dyson’s face. “Welcome to…The Killing Field!”
Chapter 28
The atmosphere in the room changed instantly. The large overhead lights flicked out and were replaced by black lights that illuminated all kinds of graffiti around the building that had, up until then, been invisible. Strobe lights flashed, and thin beams of red, green, blue, and yellow lights lanced out from the ceiling and surrounding walls. In a flash, everyone except the two people Colin had designated to stay behind to guard the flag surged forward.
I hunched and sprinted for the gangway. There were at least a few seconds when I wouldn’t have to worry about getting shot. The gangway was closer to our base so I didn’t have far to go. I spun around corners without looking and made it to the metal staircase in a flash. I climbed the steps and positioned myself behind a piece of plywood that leaned loosely against the metal railing. I squinted through the plastic face mask and strained to see movement. The flashing lights made the whole building look alive. My pulse raced with anticipation. I hadn’t even pulled the trigger yet, and I already loved this game.
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