by David Haynes
She watched the football team take the field for practice. Half of them had it now too. It was obvious. All that scratching and itching. Had Sam noticed? He must have done. He wasn’t as clever as she was but he wasn’t dumb. He had to know what was happening, yet he hadn’t said a word to her. He just kept on at her, pleading with her to have sex with him. It always caused arguments between them. It seemed like they were constantly arguing about it now. He ought to be thankful Emily hadn’t slept with him and given him this…this…whatever it was.
The teacher had been a mistake. He hadn’t been her first choice, but Mr. Law had turned her down. She didn’t know why. She didn’t think he was gay but maybe he was. Emily didn’t hold a grudge, there were plenty more men out there and she was too busy trying to get around as many as possible to worry about a little knockback.
But the teacher who’d accepted…now he was disappointing to say the least. He was no better than the boys on the football team. She’d met him on the path leading up to the lake. He’d taken her up to the parking lot in his car. But it ended almost as soon as he took his pants down. Since then he’d been swooning around after her like some lovesick teenager. Not even Sam behaved like that. It wasn’t all bad though, he had given her thirty dollars and promised more if she let him try again. She was undecided on that point yet.
The boys were always bickering with each other now too. Emily could hear them down on the pitch taking swipes at each other. Sam told her it was the way things were between teammates but it looked to have taken an edge now. Even in the classroom, the comments had been barbed rather than funny. It didn’t bother her, she had plans.
Her story said she was destined to marry someone rich and famous, a rock or movie star. She was pretty enough, but up until now she was lacking in experience. That was what she was doing – building up her experience so when she met the man of her dreams, she would be ready for him. She just needed to get rid of this goddamn itch.
Coach Grayson had the boys on tackling practice, smashing into the great big foam pads time and time again. They were all sweating like crazy but he kept them at it, yelling at them, telling them it wasn’t good enough.
Sam was holding a pad for Tom Holiday. There was some kind of contest going off there. The harder Tom drove his body into the pad, the more Sam smiled.
“Call that a hit, you fat prick?” Sam shouted. “My mom hits harder than that!”
Tom walked back to his mark and charged in. This time he took Sam off his feet, driving him ten yards backward and dumping him on his ass.
“On your back, legs open, just like your girlfriend,” Tom sneered down at him.
Some of the guys laughed but it was nervous, like someone had just stepped over the line. Tom walked back to his mark.
“Good hit, Holiday!” Coach shouted over.
Sam got to his feet but slowly, like he’d been hit by a truck. He took a moment to gather himself and then sprinted at Tom, hitting him in the middle of his back, bending him the wrong way and driving the wind from him with a loud gasp.
Tom hit the grass face-first, creating a narrow trench. His front two teeth popped out, not cleanly but broken off in a jagged slash. Emily put her hands over her mouth, not with horror but with glee. It was exciting. She was responsible for all of this. It was like something out of a magazine, or maybe even a movie.
Sam landed on top of him but rolled off immediately. He grabbed Tom’s arm, pulled him over and then knelt on his chest. He punched him five times before Coach Grayson intervened. By then Tom’s face was just a smear of blood. He groaned, semi-conscious as Sam was hauled away.
“Get the hell off my football field!” Coach screamed.
A couple of the boys, hands down their pants scratching furiously, started to laugh. Coach turned on them. “Any more and you’re off the team!”
Behind him, Sam Portland delivered a last kick to Tom Holiday’s ribs and then stalked off the field. He walked directly toward her, kept his eyes focused on her. He looked mad and he had a streak of Tom’s blood in his cheek. He looked ready to pop.
She smiled at him, watching him grab his kit bag. She was sitting only a couple of yards away, on the second row of the bleachers.
“You okay, honey?” she called.
“You fucking bitch!” he snarled. “You goddamn fucking bitch!”
He rummaged in his bag, grabbing something that flashed silver in the light, then turned to her again.
“I know what you did, Em. I know you fucked them all. Wasn’t I good enough for you? Is that what it was? Is that why you wouldn’t fuck me?”
Emily shrugged. She didn’t know the answer to that question.
Sam turned back to the field. They were all running their drills again. Tom had been helped off the field and was on his way back to the changing rooms.
Sam jogged casually back to the huddle. The shiny, silver thing in his hand was a knife. He stabbed two of his teammates in the kidneys, blooming their kit a deep dark red. Emily hadn’t actually slept with those two yet. She didn’t think she would be able to now.
One of the other guys turned to face him, a look of complete incomprehension in his eyes. Sam pushed the knife up through his chin into his mouth, and then pulled it out to push it into his guts. He dropped to the ground, clutching the wound in his neck and then his stomach.
Sam managed to stab two more before he sprinted across the field, catching up with Tom Holiday. He stabbed him five times before Coach Grayson tackled him to the ground. The rest of the pack piled in, wrestling the knife out of his hand.
Emily watched but she didn’t scream or try to shout out. Sam was too far gone to reason with now, besides it was about time she moved on.
When the pack cleared, Sam was motionless on the ground. The knife, his knife, was jammed in his throat. It wasn’t the only wound. His torso was peppered with slash marks, his shirt red instead of the white team colors. Including Sam, five members of the football team were dead.
37
JJ had been outside the police station earlier that morning. He’d seen Dave Pope hanging from the scaffold and he’d seen the vicious carnage that took place afterwards. Dave Pope might as well have been a bomb for the devastation his body caused. The people fighting, kicking and stamping on each other was unbelievable. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he would have thought it a fiction.
He got out of there as soon as the station’s window exploded, running all the way to the safety of the school. He was scared. He didn’t mind who knew that either. Something was happening to the town, something he didn’t understand. A few weeks ago, the worst thing that ever happened was his mom opening a third bottle of wine. Now it seemed like Silver Lake had become hell on earth.
There had been another incident at school today. Something happened out on the football field. There weren’t many details yet but school had closed early and all the kids sent home. The ambulances arrived, everyone watching them from their classroom windows as they pulled up. A short time later, a black SUV turned up and four men in dark suits sealed off the field.
JJ walked past the police station. The windows were still blown out. He could see a couple of shadowy figures inside the reception, a howl of laughter and then they disappeared. Probably looters, looking for some cop memorabilia. He turned toward home.
He got as far as the park before stopping. Megan Palmer and Ryan Simmons were sitting on one of the benches. He had his arm around her shoulders. It hadn’t taken them long to get cozy again. Maybe it was all the shit going down that had brought them back together, or maybe they actually did love each other after all. Either way, they seemed made for one another. Megan’s uncle was a pedophile and a killer, and Ryan was a thug. A dirty, smelly one at that.
It wasn’t the sight of the two lovebirds that made JJ pause, though. It was the thought of the insecure police station. Alex’s book would be in there somewhere. Mr. Law was right, they would never just hand it over to him, not in a million years. There w
as no way he could break into the building; he didn’t know how. But it was open right now. There was nobody, at least no police, to stop him. It was the best chance he’d have of getting hold of the book, of helping his friend get better. He turned around and ran back to town.
He grew nervous as he approached the building, checking both sides of the road before crossing the street. He stood outside for a while, edging closer to the broken windows, checking in all directions before finally committing to climbing through.
Once inside he stopped moving, listening for footsteps, someone coming to arrest him. There were only voices, faint and indistinct. He listened for a moment more before deciding they were coming from out on the street somewhere.
His feet crunched over the glass-strewn floor. To his left was a huge desk. There were marks on the wall behind it, stains and bullet holes. Beyond that was a sign pointing downward that read Cells. On the other side of the foyer was a sign that said Canteen. He didn’t expect either to contain what he wanted. He’d heard about how the detective had shot Megan’s uncle and the old librarian in their cells and then shot a whole load of cops too. The silence of the building was all the more disquieting because of what happened here.
JJ turned toward the stairs and hurried across the foyer. The voices were a little louder but they seemed to be coming from below. Maybe in the cells.
He ran up the stairs two at a time, slipping on the dog leg, trying his hardest to ignore the blood spatters that seemed to decorate every wall in the building. At the top of the stairs he paused. The hallway went right and left. He had no idea where he might find the book, but he picked right and ran on.
It opened into a square room filled with desks. It wasn’t a large room, there were only six desks. He scanned the names on each one until he found what he was looking for. Ronayne.
The top of the desk was empty, save for a photograph of his family. JJ stared at it for a moment. A wife, a baby. What would make a man do what he did when he had a family? He shook his head. No time for pondering useless questions.
There were two drawers and he opened those. Sheets of paper, a couple of empty files. Nothing much. Where would it be? Had he thrown it in the garbage? JJ kicked the desk leg. It could be anywhere.
He was about to get out of there when he turned and saw the door at the other end of the room. Evidence Room. He made for it, bumping into a desk on the way.
He tried the handle, expecting it to be locked, but it moved downward and the door opened. It was stacked with boxes from floor to ceiling. He worked along the shelves, reading out the names as he passed. It was sorted alphabetically.
“Potts,” he said. “Alexander Potts.” He pulled the box down and smiled. Right at the top was a sealed evidence bag. Inside it, there was no mistaking the book. Alex’s book. His story. Beneath the book was a knife tube, the outline of the blade just visible through the frosted plastic. The knife Alex had used to hurt himself. JJ felt close to tears.
He stuffed the book into his rucksack and pushed the box back on the shelf. There were other things in the box he didn’t want to see. Clothing and photographs.
On the shelf next to Alex’s box was the name Linda Phelps. The librarian who’d killed her brother. Poking out of the top was a plastic bag just like the one he’d taken from Alex’s box. He reached for it, with a sharp intake of breath. Another book. The librarian had one too. His mind threw up all kinds of questions and thoughts, but he pushed them aside. He needed to get out of there. He took Linda’s book too, pushing it into his rucksack, and rushed out of the room.
At the top of the stairs, he heard the voices again. Now he could discern two distinct tones, both male. He peered over the banister, looking down on the foyer. There were two men talking to each other, laughing. He recognized both but only knew one of them. It was Ryan Simmons’s dad. They were both wearing police uniforms, or partial uniforms.
“Reckon we’ve got enough supplies?” Simmons asked. He held up a set of handcuffs, and a bulletproof vest.
The other man nodded. He was putting something that looked like a gun belt around his waist. He slid something into the holster. It was yellow and had black markings on it. A Taser.
“Now we’re starting to look like cops. When this current situation is under control, I reckon they’ll be begging us to go full-time.”
Simmons smiled but looked unsure. “Not sure I want to go full-time. Helping out is one thing but…”
“Oh, stop your whining,” Taser Man interrupted. “Let’s get out of here and try and find who’s been killing all those dogs. Hey, didn’t he get one of yours?”
They started climbing through the window. “He was welcome to that ugly mutt, damn thing was useless. I would’ve shot him myself if I could be bothered wasting the ammo.”
They both laughed, disappearing onto the street.
JJ waited a few minutes before going down into the foyer and out onto the street. He was gone before anyone knew he’d been in there.
*
“How long you been friends?” Ryan asked. He was sitting in the park, on the bench they had sat on a hundred times before. That was before everything changed. He had his arm around Megan’s shoulders, not tight, just enough so she knew he was there.
“Ten years,” she answered.
He nodded. “And she just walked away from it. Just like that.”
Megan whimpered a little. Her body trembled against him.
“A bit like Sam and me,” he said. “He just decided he didn’t want to be friends anymore after…after…”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Hey, you’ve got nothing to be sorry about. I was the dick, I was wrong and I know that. It’s me who’s sorry, Megan. I just wished I had the chance to make it up with Sam before…before what happened today.”
Ryan bit down on his tongue until tears pricked his eyes. He was disappointed he hadn’t had the opportunity to talk to Sam Portland again, to tell him what he really thought of him…to get to work on his head with the baseball bat. But the guy had chosen a different route.
“She’s got a lot to answer for, if you ask me.”
“Emily?” Megan pulled herself upright again.
He nodded. “For what she’s done to you and to Sam.”
Megan frowned. “You think all those rumors are true? About what she was doing behind Sam’s back?”
“Don’t you? Come on, Megan, she was sleeping with half the football team. Haven’t you seen them all scratching their balls? She’s given them something. That’s what started it all off today. Sam found out what she’d been doing.”
“You think so? I’m so out of the loop right now.”
“Of course. I’ve known all those guys for years, played football with them for ten. They were teammates, friends, they’d go to war for each other. To see them fighting among themselves like that, it breaks my heart. And what happened to Sam…well…I just know something big was going off behind the scenes. And that thing was Emily Carr. The very same girl who won’t even look you in the eye anymore.”
“I thought she was my friend.”
“And so did I. I thought Sam was my friend and all the boys on the team too. I was wrong. They only cared about themselves, about their reputation.”
She sat quiet for a moment. “And what about your reputation? Don’t you worry about being seen with me? After what my uncle did to those girls?”
He almost laughed but bit down on his lip. “I don’t care about that, Megan. That has nothing to do with you.” He smiled. “Besides, my reputation is already shot to pieces.”
“I’m sorry,” she repeated.
He nudged her. “Hey, come on, it was a joke. I’m trying to make you see how little it bothers me. I only care about you, about what happens to you.” The last part wasn’t a lie, he did care about what happened to her. He’d given it a lot of thought. It was practically all he thought about. The rest of what he’d said was utter bullshit.
She looked up at him. �
�You’ve changed,” she said.
“For the better?”
She nodded. “Definitely.”
They sat in silence for a while. The streets were deserted. Silver Lake was never quite the bustling metropolis of Rainworth, but it was unusually quiet this afternoon. Eerie.
“Emily’s a bitch,” Megan said. There was a bit of the old Megan in her voice. The confident assertion of fact.
“I won’t argue,” he replied. “I never really liked her, just kept my mouth shut to keep things sociable.”
“She tried to sleep with Jacob. You know that?”
He’d heard about that. Emily’s exploits were pretty much all anyone talked about.
She continued, “I never liked him that much anyway. He isn’t like you.”
He hugged her a little closer. “You know who else she slept with?”
“You?”
He laughed then, couldn’t help himself. Truth was, Emily had made some pretty overt comments to him. It was clear the option was on the table, but he didn’t want to screw Emily. He didn’t really want to screw Megan either, not in a way she would understand anyway. He wanted to do other things to her. He had somehow risen above the need for simple sex. A good word, a word used in his book, was ‘transcended’. He had transcended above that particular desire, but he had surrendered to other, more visceral needs.
“Not a chance. She was never my type.”
“Who then?”
“Fletcher.”
“The math teacher?” She pulled away from him, studied his expression to see if it was another joke. “Are you serious? He’s what…fifty?”
“And then some.”
Megan sat with her mouth open.
“Watch him walk. He’s got the Emily Carrs wriggling around all over his balls, just like the football team.”
“That’s hideous!” she said, covering her mouth.
“But true.”