Blood Brothers (32 page)

“Now!” the man said, this time both
forcefully and quieter.

Mrs. Wylder slouched a bit then. She nodded
weakly, turned and slammed the hood.

She twirled so fast Christal could hardly
believe her eyes. She’d never seen the woman move so fast. It was
like a turn a professional ballet dancer would do. In one swift
movement, Annie Wylder turned all the way around, brought her heavy
“old lady” hand bag up and smacked the mean man right on the
jaw.

“Run, Christal, run!” she shouted before
she’d even finished with the man. And as soon as she felt the knife
move away, she did just that. She took off like a racehorse, one
running the final race of its career, the one to save it from the
glue factory.

But she heard a very scary sound behind her
even as she made herself run faster and faster. It was a grunt. And
then a shout, and then feet on pavement chasing her. She looked
back to see Mrs. Wylder on the ground just behind the car. She saw
the face of the bad man now. It wasn’t nice, it was angry, like he
was growling. Christal wanted to help Mrs. Wylder but she was too
small to do anything but run. But that would help, if she wasn’t
hurt to bad. If she ran, she’d get the man away from Mrs. Wylder,
and give her time to get help. Maybe call the police, or the fire
department or even Daddy.

Threading her way through two parked cars,
Christal ran up on the side walk and ran just as fast as she could.
People, adults and strangers watched this strange scene, and some
folks were annoyed that this little girl was acting so…well,
childish. No one she saw could help her, even if they wanted to.
Even if she had the time to explain, which she didn’t, the bad man
would snatch her up and hurt anyone that even considered helping
her. No. She had to outrun him. Lose him somehow.

Christal didn’t chance looking behind her
again. All she thought about was running. Pumping her legs up and
down. Up. And. Down. Over and over.

She passed the place that used to be the shoe
store, where her mother had bought her shoes until it moved out by
the mall. She passed by the place with the shiny signs in the
window, some type of printer. And then she was on another street.
She flew by Hudson’s Donut Shoppe. Sprinted in front of the place
where Beck Gillis, a friend of her mother’s, did people’s
taxes.

And then she made her first mistake. She was
on Beauregard Avenue. The next street over was Daddy’s office. If
she could only get there in time. She had to. She cut through the
alley between the pizza place and another shop or office or
something—she just couldn’t keep them all straight. Halfway down,
her foot landed on something slippery and down she went. That was
an accident, not her fault, but a mistake all the same.

Christal didn’t dare to look back. If she
didn’t look at the mean man, the sharp knife, then he couldn’t get
her. Right?

Wrong.

Before she could even get to her feet, she
was knocked back down, her legs scratching on the rough surface of
the alleyway. She flipped over and started flinging her arms to
fight her attacker off. She screamed. She couldn’t hold it any
longer and she finally, after all this, peed in her panties. She
didn’t even care. Not now, maybe never again. She was dirty and
grimy. Tears flowed from her eyes. Things just couldn’t get any
worse. Or so she thought.

The man was fighting her clawing hands away.
She went for his face, for his eyes, for anything she could get her
nails into.

And then he brought the knife’s blade to her
face.

“Stop it. Stop it now, you little brat.” He
was breathing hard, but Christal knew he still had strength left.
He was a big man, but not fat, with plenty of muscles, even. “I’ve
had enough of fighting today.”

The blade was long and narrow. Christal
didn’t know a lot about knives. Really, she didn’t know anything.
But if this knife wasn’t pointed right at her, at her eyeball now,
she would have thought it was pretty.

Too scared too move, Christal became as stiff
as a board.

“Come on, brat. It’s time for Uncle Jerry to
take back what’s his.”

.

Then

Michael Cole felt like a god.

It might be blasphemous, sacrilegious, and
absolutely wrong to feel that way, but that is exactly how he
felt.

The crowd was on their feet. The roar was
earth-pounding and constant, and best of all—it was all for him.
The countless lights, each as bright as the sun itself, bathed the
field in a daylight that was supremely crisper than reality.

Michael breathed hard inside his helmet and
looked around at the stands. They were filled to capacity, no doubt
about that. It was the state finals, after all. Everyone that could
buy, borrow, or steal a ticket was here. Reporters, college
scouts—maybe even one or two for the pros was here tonight. It was
the most highly anticipated showdown between high school sports
clubs in recent Mississippi history. The game between the
Winchester Central Black Bears and the Bay County Stingrays was,
according to the professionals, anyone’s call.

And it had been just that until Michael Cole,
number 18, scored the decisive touchdown at the final buzzer.

He could hardly believe it himself.

He now truly believed in miracles.

Camera flashes sparkled like glittering
diamonds in the crowd; the Black Bear cheerleaders were saluting
him.

There was no way his life could’ve turned out
this great.

He’d been a natural football player. He’d
learned that fast. After his showdown with the community college
running back in eighth-grade, Howard Smith, the head football coach
for the high school varsity team had paid a visit to Mike’s home.
Apparently, the events at the Halloween party had spread like
wildfire.

Coach Smith had suggested that Michael try
out for the team, maybe a second- or third-string lineman. Michael
knew nothing about the game, but with Jerry’s urging, he decided to
give it a shot.

His life had been nothing short of a dream
ever since.

He’d made the team, quickly becoming the
first freshman quarterback in ten years. He’d met more and more
people, eventually being elected class president. He was an honor
student and his teachers loved him.

His team came rushing to him and the slaps on
the back plucked him from his reverie. Just as well. This was his
final game. He was a senior and graduation was close at hand. This
victory deserved to be savored.

He and Jerry had saved the day, as
always.

Michael was the quarterback, Jerry the
running back. Michael threw the bombs, and Jerry threaded the
needle. Tonight, they’d made history. The school hadn’t won the
state finals in almost twenty years. Yep, put Michael Cole down
right between Coca-Cola and Calvin Coolidge.

And, of course, he had Jerry Garrett to thank
for this moment. Though, in fact, it had been a spot of bad luck
for Jerry himself. A sprung ankle in the third quarter had put him
on the bench. With his best friend and the second-best player—in
Michael’s humble opinion—on the team out of the game, there was no
one to throw to. Ben Goode was the second string running back, but
compared to Jerry, his hands were greased with butter. Nope,
tonight’s game meant too much for Michael to throw it away on a
pass to an incapable player. It all came down to the old saying: If
you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

And that’s exactly what he did.

As soon as number 76, the center, snapped the
ball to him, Michael clenched the pigskin, tucked in under his arm,
faked to the left, spun on his heel and shot through the line on
his right. Michael was not a big man. His five-eleven, one hundred
seventy nine pound body was not meant to run the ball. Instead, his
body had been trained and developed to throw the football as fast,
and with as much accuracy as possible of the human machine.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t run. And run
he did.

The blue and yellow jerseys of the opposing
team blended with the golden and purple ones of his own team until
the players on the field melded with the green grass underfoot and
the cacophony of colors in the stands on both sides into a rainbow
in motion. Players bigger than him, much bigger in some cases,
rammed him, knocked into him, even grabbed at him as he ate away
the field lines like they were nothing more than stepping
stones.

His lungs took in cool, crisp air, and
expelled the bad air. His legs were pistons, ram jetting a perfect
machine.

And he passed the thirty yard line.

The twenty.

Then ten.

The end zone.

Mike’s touchdown brought the crowd to their
feet. It was a play that, even though the coach hadn’t called, he
would claim and reap its benefits for a long time. It would be
shown on local TV stations, be plastered in newspapers and
discussed on radio shows. It was the kind of play that old men,
once sports stars—at least in their own minds—couch coaches,
working Joes and everyone that had even a passing interest in the
game would talk about over and over, until the recount left the
land of the factual and entered the world of myth.

He scanned the sidelines for a familiar face.
He saw plenty that he recognized. It seemed as if he were on a
first-name basis with not only almost every student at Central, but
also the teachers, coaches, boosters, and sponsors of the
school.

And then he saw her.

A cheerleader bouncing up and down, her
breasts jiggling inside her tight top like two feuding melons,
demanding his attention. He raised his hand and she waved back. Her
name was Kara Malone, and for the last year or so, she and Michael
had been a hot item. Theirs was not an exclusive relationship, but
it was as monogamous as any relationship between two red-blooded
Americans could be when one happened to be a football hero and the
other the captain of the cheerleading squad.

Kara was the stereotypical blonde bombshell.
Sparkling smile, toned and tanned skin, a trim waist and lips as
juicy as an exotic fruit. She was remarkably bright for a high
school cheerleader and possessed all the carnal skills one would
expect. To her credit, Michael had dated a ridiculous amount of
girls since hitting high school, but out of all of them, he enjoyed
Kara’s company the most.

After he finished cleaning up in the locker
rooms and gently turning down everyone’s invitation for a
celebration—it seemed everyone on the team had a separate party or
plan to properly commemorate their victory—Michael slipped outside
and made his way to Kara’s car. Luckily, tonight’s game had been at
home and they hadn’t all been bussed down south to Bay County.
Kara’s father, a respectable banker at one of the largest banks in
Ivy Springs, had bought his daughter a Mustang 5.0 as an early
graduation present. It was a convertible and candy apple red.
Michael loved the car. He himself did not own a mode of
transportation and relied solely on rides from either friends or
girls.

When they were together, Michael did all the
driving.

Kara was waiting at the car when he arrived.
She’d changed from her outfit into a sweater and jeans, the brisk
winter air demanded such. She looked beautiful, and all of Mike’s
fatigue from the game melted away. Kara made him feel strong, no,
more than that, invincible.

And tonight, he was about to see just how
strong he was.

* * *

Two weeks after the big game, with graduation
bearing down on them with its bittersweet promise, Jerry decided to
lose his mind.

Michael had buried his mother last year, her
body finally tiring of living on without a soul, and his father
stayed pickled from surviving on liquor from dawn to dusk, leaving
Michael with quite a bit of free time where one would normally
expect to devote at least a few hours a week to “family time.” To
not only help fill this time but to also earn some cash for both
play and for school, he took a job at Grisham’s Grocery as a bag
boy. The work was steady, but not hard and Hank Grisham, the
founder and manager of the popular market, found it in his heart to
work around Mike’s football and baseball practices and games. Often
working until ten, he emerged from the dark market with a few other
kids at quitting time to find Jerry’s Trans Am parked next to his
rusted Toyota pickup.

Smoke curled from the Trans Am’s
tailpipe.

Walking up, he saw Jerry behind the wheel,
pulling on a bottle of Budweiser. The bass line of punk rock music
could be heard even through the closed door.

Jerry didn’t move as Michael approached.
Bending a bit, Michael knocked on the window. If his presence
startled his friend, he didn’t let on. Jerry turned his head slowly
and rolled down the window. Jerry was biting on his lower lip. His
eyes were red, as if he’d been crying. That was a crazy thought in
itself. Michael had never once seen Jerry shed so much as a tear,
even in pain.

“What’s up, man?”

“Hey buddy, hey pal.” Jerry slurred his
words. The bottle he was downing was not his first of the evening,
unless it was the first of a second six-pack.

“What’s going on? I thought I was going to
meet you at Fray’s party?”

“The hell with Fray and the hell with the
party, man.”

“Something bothering you, Jer? That’s just
the last party of high school. We graduate soon. Thought we were
going out in a blaze of glory.”

“Oh, it’ll be a blaze alright.” Another sip
from the bottle, the last sip. Jerry tossed the empty into the
back, pulled a full one from the floorboard, twisted the cap off
and took a big drink.

“Tell me, Jerry. Whatever it is, tell
me.”

Jerry sniffed, looked up at him. “Get
in.”