I wipe the sweat out of my eyes and grab another soccer ball from the giant mesh bag at my feet. There are about seven balls inside the goal, and four more sitting on the grass field just to the left of it.
Even though I’m all alone, I can still hear Coach Mulligan’s voice screaming in my ear with every kick: “More power, Tonya! More! Power! You can do it, Tonya! You! Can! Do! It!!!”
(Yes, he really does use all. Those! Exclamation! Points!!!)
I try, I really do, but the more power I put behind each new kick, the more each soccer ball veers off to the left. I have no idea why, and that’s why I’m out here, an hour after everyone else has gone home from school, practicing my power kicks.
One after the other after the other.
The sweat stings my eyes but I’m used to it by now and, besides, the sun’s gone down a lot since school let out. There is a nice breeze, the field’s empty and it’s just me out here. I’m like a lone warrior, doing battle with this frickin’ soccer goal and it is. Kicking! My! ASS!!! (She says in her best Coach Mulligan voice.)
It’s kind of nice, actually. The solitude, the fresh air, the sweat on my skin, the soreness in my legs, just me and the goal. That is, if I didn’t have notes to prepare for Chem Lab tomorrow and that oral report due in Sociology next Monday and about 1,500 chores waiting on me at home.
Still, the quiet time is nice. God knows my sister’s home from middle school by now, raising a ruckus when she sees Mom’s redecorated her room – again.
So, yeah, alone time + quiet time = good time.
I just wished all the balls could land inside the stupid net. We’ve got that game against Central coming up next week, and I really want to start this time, and no way is that happening if I can’t score 10 goals out of 10, consistently.
I kick another ball, it goes in, and I start to feel good. Really good, like maybe this could happen. Like this could be it, the vibe, the rush, the rally I’ve been waiting for.
Then I kick two more, quick like that, and both land, again, just to the left of goal. Literally, like... right next to each other.
I reach for the mesh bag Coach lent me to practice with and find it empty. I groan, drag a sweaty arm across my dirty forehead and run past the goal, gathering up all the balls that didn’t quite score and slipping them inside the bag. Then I grab the balls inside the goal and shove them in as well.
I’m reaching for the last one, the bag full to bursting and nearly twice my size by now, when I feel the rumbling on the grass field beneath my sweaty fingers.
I put my hand against the grass and it gets even thicker, like a freight train right beneath the surface of the practice field. It’s like a herd of buffalo approaching, but that can’t be.
A second later I hear the roar of engines and, I don’t know why, but I duck, crouching behind the massive bag of soccer balls like a cowboy hiding behind his horse. (It’s almost as big and I’m just about as sweaty!)
Just as I’m peering over the top of the mesh bag, feeling slightly – okay, completely – ridiculous, I notice the first black truck. It’s massive, with all kinds of wheels and bars over the windows and tinted windows and antennae wiggling and dangling from the roof.
It’s on Bayside Drive, the street just beyond the back of the school, rumbling along when suddenly the driver slices left and leaps onto the practice field itself.
Right. Onto. The. Field!
The great, giant wheels tear up turf and rumble over the extra hurdles the track team never yanked back into the gym after practice and come about as close to the goal stands as you can without actually plowing right thought them.
I let out a little “eek” and cover my head, grass and turf landing – and sticking – everywhere; on my sweaty arms, my sweaty calves, the back of my sweaty neck and all up in my ponytail.
I almost stand, instinctively, to scrape it all off but this close to the ground, using the giant mesh sack of soccer balls as cover, I can feel more rumbling coming; lots more. Thicker, louder, rumbling as they get closer and closer.
One, two, three more massive black trucks grind onto and over the practice fields, each coming closer than the next to literally driving over me without even looking down.
I watch as the last one passes, the rumbling growing distant as it parks, next to the others, just behind the Harrington High School gym.
They just sit there like that for a minute, engines ticking, backsides rocking with the momentum of their assault, four massive trucks lined up in a row.
Then, as if on cue, the doors all open at once and soldiers, all in stiff blue fatigues, storm out. We went to the circus last year, as a family, one of those “we need to do more things together” evenings my Mom cooks up every few months when some women’s magazine article has made her feel guilty or doubt her parenting skills or whatever.
It was pretty lame, though we each got our own cotton candy, which was pretty cool not having to share with my little sister. Anyway, there was this one act where a little tiny car pulled up into the middle of the big center ring, sat there for a minute, then the door opened and one by one, all these clowns got out.
At first, just like one or two, then we kept counting and it was fifteen or so by the end. I couldn’t believe it, and that’s kind of what I’m thinking now as this army of soldiers streams out of these four trucks.
And these are big dudes, too. Most of them six feet tall or more, a couple hundred pounds with guns clacking and packs thick on their backs and big, leather boots pounding the practice field as they stream toward the back of the school.
I can’t imagine what they’re doing here, and as they fan out around the back of the building, pairing up and looking left and right, I inch down behind my mesh bag camouflage and watch from what I hope is a safe vantage point.
But it’s not; not really. Two of them, big suckers, too, all dressed in blue, skin gray like they’re wearing makeup or something, head over to me. They’re coming slow, and I could probably run, but they’re carrying guns, big ones, and I’m not that fast.
Just ask Coach Mulligan!
I hunker down, wondering what I should do, as I hear the grass of the soccer field crunching beneath their sleek, black boots. I risk a glance over the sack of soccer balls and they’re both staring right at me!
Their eyes are yellowish, like maybe they’re sick or wearing contacts but they don’t really seem to be looking at me, maybe just past me. Then they slow down and I hear sniffing noises, but I’m too afraid to look over and see what – or who – they’re sniffing.
Grass crunches so close I can almost smell shoe leather when, suddenly, glass shatters back at the school. More grass crunches and I can sense the soldiers turning when I risk a peek above the mesh of my hiding spot. Sunlight catches on falling glass as hands, bloody hands, and lots of them, wave from the third floor Chem Lab window.
The men, the soldiers, run toward the school. They all do. Everyone converges below the window and, shocked at what’s happening, I finally stand from behind my hiding place.
The hands inside the broken Chem Lab window are attached to arms, bloody arms, attached to faces; bloody faces. I recognize a few from the Math-a-Letes club. Missy Lamkins and Foster Clark and Tyrone Wallace, but… what are they doing in the Chem Lab?
Just then Mary Sinclair shoves her face through the crowd and screams, “Zombies! There are zombies in here!!! HELP! US!!!”
I smirk. This is some kind of elaborate prank, I figure. Somebody making a YouTube video for AV Club or something. But, I dunno, the blood sure looks real and, as dramatic as Mary Sinclair can get reading the announcements in the morning, she sounds pretty believable right about now.
The soldiers look up at the window, then at each other, and then raise their guns. Mary Sinclair screams as the first shots ring out, the sound of shattering glass and crunching grass under my feet drowning her out as I run, run, run for home.
Across the playing field, down Bayside Drive toward our apart
ment complex, my kleets loud on the deserted highway, cop cars racing in the opposite direction as I flee, faster than I’ve ever run, long past tears and my breath ragged and wheezing before I finally fall down in the cul de sac outside our apartments, grass between my teeth as I gasp and scream into the dirt.
And I wait, just lying there, for the rumbling to come. For the ground to vibrate beneath my wet, muddy cheek, for the trucks to squeal around the corner and empty on my lawn and gun me down as well.
But when they don’t, when they never do, I get up. And that’s how I know, that’s the only way I know, I’m not a zombie.
At least, not yet…