All Good Children - Catherine Austen [48]
“You weren’t at school Tuesday,” I whisper. “You missed the vaccinations.”
He shakes his head. “Nobody missed those vaccinations. I’m allergic to eggs so I took the shot at the hospital.”
“The hospital where your mother works?”
He nods. “They have medical staff in case of emergencies.”
“Good decision,” I say.
Coach Emery walks over and pats Brennan’s shoulder.
“Time to go, son.”
The whole school comes out for Monday’s football game— more fans than I’ve ever seen. It’s drizzling and windy, but students crowd the bleachers. They sit in uniform side by side, gray and greasy like zombie sardines. Parents claim their own section. My mother sits behind Dr. Richmond, bundled up and biting her lip, waiting for the worst.
Kayla climbs to the top of a zombie pyramid and shouts, “Go, Scorpions!” with a big vacant smile on her shiny face. Brennan turns away—Kayla split up with him this weekend. She says fifteen is too young for romance. He pretends not to care.
The Blue Mountain Devils descend from their bus in silence, heads high, helmets cradled in their arms like rifles. “Looks like the other quadrants have been vaccinated,” I whisper.
Dallas nods. “My father says it’s happening everywhere.”
The Devils are devils no longer. They don’t look our way while they warm up, don’t say a word on the cold muddy field. It’s like we have no history.
The game is freakishly quiet. There’s still the thud of feet, clash of armor, scream of whistles, but there’s no shouting, no laughing, no swearing or grunting. We make the plays with a vague dedication, like we want to do what’s right but we’ve all forgotten why. We’re big and strong, we run fast and hit hard, but nobody cares. We’re just taking a ball and putting it somewhere else.
Whether we lose our ground or gain ten yards, each whistle is followed by a feeble clap from the spectators. The bleachers gleam with wet bared teeth that pass for smiles.
Dallas fakes it well. I don’t. Not at all. I just don’t want to. I want to run.
I intercept a pass by leaping four feet in the air and landing in a sprint. Zombie Devils are easy to dodge and shove. I guard my ball like a stray dog and run it for twenty slippery yards. The wind roars in my ears. My heart pounds in my head. I feel like I might rise from the ground. I tear into the end zone and slam the ball to the earth. I jump up, kick my cleats, and turn to the friends who are supposed to be running over to congratulate me.
They stand scattered across the field, yards away, smeared in mud. They’re identical but for the numbers on their jerseys. Dallas leans on his left leg, clapping out a rhythm with the rest of them. I don’t know why the sight hits me so hard. It’s like my team is part of the background—they blend with the dead grass and cold skies, the naked trees beyond the bleachers, the rows of staring, vacant eyes. I’m yards away from them and the space between us forms a void instead of a path.
A scream flies up and out of me from some hollow place I didn’t know I carried—a long drawn-out fury that rises in pitch and intensity until it pierces the clapping from the field and the stands, then tails off in a guttural growl as my breath runs out.
I can’t bear the thick silence that follows. I drop to my knees and rest my butt on my cleats, rocking and moaning in the end zone like my baby just died. Mud soaks into my skin and I want to melt with it, lay myself out on the field like compost.
Dallas jogs to my side and shields me from the rain. He shakes my shoulder and says, “What are you doing, Max? Get up.”
I sway in his shadow.
Coach Emery squats beside him. “You can’t be here, Richmond. Go back with the team.”
Dallas shakes his head.
The coach wraps his fingers around Dallas’s mask and stares him scared. “Your father is in the stands watching you right now.” He rises with a fake smile. “Go back with the team before you’re both caught.”
Dallas nods and walks away, leaving me exposed.
Coach Emery performs a first-aid check: airways, circulation, scrapes and abrasions. “Stretch out your legs,” he says.
I can