Not that the two have anything in common. When you hear the term “sudden death,” you normally don’t expect there to be an actual loss of life, sudden or otherwise, but there was nothing normal about that night.

It was the night it began. The night of the death.

The first death.

I was sitting on the end of the team bench, more interested in the cheerleaders than the game. To be honest, I didn’t have much business being on the team. There weren’t many freshmen on the Arbortown High varsity, but with a student population that barely squeaked past two hundred, if you had two legs and didn’t mind being brutally punished by guys who were older, bigger, and faster than you, you were in. I’m not exactly sure why I accepted the role of living tackling dummy, but I liked football and figured that in a few years I’d be the one running over hapless freshmen. So I guess I was paying my dues.

My main duty during a game was to be the sprinter on the kickoff team. That meant I had to run directly for the guy who fielded the kick…which made me the first to get taken out by the wall of blockers who were intent on stopping that very thing. It was an ugly job but at least it meant I’d come out of a game with a little dirt on my uniform.

My other duty was to be the backup for our senior tailback, Marty Wiggins. That’s why I spent most of my time on the bench watching the cheerleaders. Marty was a legend. He’d had big-time colleges sniffing around him since he was a sophomore. He was that good.

But on that night, he was just sick.

The stands were packed. For Arbortown High that meant maybe five hundred people. It wasn’t exactly the Rose Bowl but you wouldn’t know that from the excitement Marty was generating. The place went nuts every time he got his hands on the ball because he was running over guys and knocking them aside like bowling pins. When he was tackled, which wasn’t often, it took three players to drag him down. It was like watching a pro beating up on Pop Warner boys. He was in for most every play of the game until, with only a few minutes left, he dropped down next to me on the bench to take a rare breather.

He sat there gulping air, staring back at the field.

I figured his night was over so I held up my fist for a knuckle-bump and said, “Dude. Awesome.”

Marty looked at me…and I froze.

He had a fiery, wild look in his eyes that made me think for one terrifying moment that he was going to hit me. The guy was totally
charged up with…what? Excitement? Anger? Insanity? He didn’t bump knuckles. Just as well, he might have broken my hand. I sat there like a fool with my fist hovering, un-bumped. I didn’t want to say anything else for fear he’d drive his helmet through my face. Instead, he grabbed my forearm in a grip that was so fierce I had black-and-blue marks the next day.

“What’s happening?” he whispered through gasping breaths.

He said it with a disturbing mix of fear and confusion that made me believe he truly didn’t understand what was going on around him. Or with him.

“Uh…what do you mean?” I asked tentatively.

“Wiggins!” barked Coach.

Marty jumped to his feet and sprinted back into the game as if he had been launched from a catapult.

I was left on the bench, not knowing what had just happened.

The play was called and the team went to the line. Marty was pitched the ball and he rumbled around left end for another fifteen yards. All was well. Marty was fine. I chalked up his odd behavior to adrenaline and the excitement of the game and went back to my all-important cheerleader review.

Arbortown is a pretty small place, so going to a high school football game was the best thing to do on Friday nights in the fall. Okay, the
only
thing to do. As I scanned the crowd, I saw many people I knew, including my mother and father. Dad gave me a big smile and a thumbs-up. Mom wasn’t as enthusiastic. She hated that I played football. Her deep frown meant she was expecting me to get injured just by sitting on the bench.

I gave them a small wave, then looked away…to notice a
strange face in the crowd. It belonged to a man with longish blond hair wearing a hoodie. He looked like a surfer dude, complete with beard stubble and a single earring. He stood out amid the sea of fans because he was the only one not cheering. Instead, he wrote furiously in a small notebook. I figured he might have been a college scout. It would explain why Marty was playing like he was possessed. This could be a scholarship showcase for him.

“Button up!” Coach ordered as he strode past. “We’re going to score again.”

That meant all the wretched scrubs, like me, had to be ready for another kickoff. We were on the ten yard line and about to go in. There were only a few seconds left in the game and I was surprised that, seeing it was a blowout, Coach hadn’t pulled Marty. Maybe he knew there was a scout in the crowd taking notes. Or maybe he didn’t trust Marty’s backup—me.

I stood up with the rest of the team and cheered for the offense. It felt cheesy to be screaming for another score since the game had been over since halftime, but what can you do? It’s football.

The team came up to the line, the QB called signals, and the ball was snapped. Marty took the handoff—no big surprise—and blasted into the line off right tackle. The defense had had enough. They didn’t want any part of him. There were a few halfhearted arm tackles that didn’t even slow him down as he burst into the end zone.

Touchdown.

The crowd exploded once again, cheering ecstatically while the band kicked in with our fight song, “Jericho.” The cheerleaders jumped around and hugged each other like we’d just won a championship when all we’d done was add pad to an already lopsided score.

Marty sprinted to the back of the end zone, turned to the stands, threw his arms up in triumph…

…and dropped dead.

Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. All I saw was Marty fall over and land on his back. At first I thought it was some new kind of celebration dance, like spiking himself instead of the ball. Our players were jumping on each other, chest-bumping and high-fiving. When they finally got around to focusing on the guy who was the cause of the celebration, they pulled on his arms to help him up…but Marty didn’t respond.

In seconds the emotion of the moment flipped from elation to concern.

“Hey!” our guys yelled while waving to the sideline for help. “He’s hurt!”

The crowd noise died instantly. It was a rude jolt to experience the sudden and dramatic change from joyous cheers and music to absolute silence.

Coach sprinted onto the field, waving at the other players to back away. He was quickly joined by a paramedic. With the rest of our offense huddled nearby, watching expectantly, the paramedic knelt down to examine Marty.

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that something serious had happened to our superstar. As he lay still on the grass, two more paramedics ran onto the field with a fracture board.

I turned around to look at my parents. Dad’s expression now matched Mom’s. They knew something horrible had happened. Everyone knew. A few seconds later we heard the urgent scream of a far-off siren.

I didn’t look back to the field right away because I was mesmerized by the communal look of anxiety and horror on the faces of each and every person in the stands. All eyes were on the end zone and the guy who lay on his back, not moving.

People cleared a path for Marty’s dad, who pushed his way through to get to the field. The poor guy was about to find out that his son had just gone from playing the game of his life to taking the final breath of his life.

Every last person feared that they were witnessing something horrific. Something they would never forget. Nobody moved as they waited for the news they knew wouldn’t be good.

Almost nobody, that is. As I stared at the stands, I noticed that one person had already left. He hadn’t even stuck around long enough for the ambulance to arrive.

The surfer dude with the notebook was gone.

It was the night of the death.

The first death.

And it was only the beginning.

TWO

I
needed a midnight ride.

Gotta get out.

I sent the text to my best friend, Quinn Carr. He would know what it meant. It was a custom that Quinn and I had started shortly after we first met in middle school. Whenever one of us couldn’t sleep, we’d sneak out of our houses and meet up with our bikes near the town pier at the end of Main Street. From there we’d saddle up, turn on our headlights, and race each other along the frontage road that circled Pemberwick Island, our home. We usually went after midnight, which meant there was little or no traffic to deal with, especially since we always took a remote route that traveled along the beach and away from civilization. It was ten miles of frantic insanity since most of the time it was too dark to see beyond the throw of our headlights and neither of us would bow to safety and slow down. A major crash might change that thinking, but neither of us had ever been thrown. So far.

Quinn came up with the idea. He said the rides would release endorphins into our systems that would shoot electrical impulses to
the brain that helped reduce stress and create a feeling of well-being. Quinn was always coming up with things like that. I think he spent too much time watching Discovery Channel and reading Wikipedia. All I knew was that the rides were a perfect outlet for blowing off steam and working out problems…and that night I was definitely having a problem.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Marty. How could somebody that young and in such great shape just…die? I lay in bed, only hours after the game, trying to keep my mind from replaying his final moments over and over, but it was no use. Sleep would not come.

I threw on my sweats, grabbed my helmet, and left my bedroom the only way possible at that hour of the night—through my window. My parents wouldn’t have been too happy if they knew I was flying around the island in the middle of the night, so I quietly made my way across the roof over the porch and shinnied down a column to the ground. I kept my bike in the garage (which was separate from our house) so there was little chance of my parents hearing. I’d done it enough times that I had it down to a quiet science. Less than five minutes after I had sent the text to Quinn I was in the saddle and pedaling toward town.

It was long past midnight and Arbortown had shut down for the night. The restaurants closed by ten and the shops long before that. It was a tourist beach town, not an after-hours hangout. I rode straight to the town pier, where the ferryboat that made the five-mile run between Pemberwick Island and Portland, Maine, was tied up. It was a huge old thing that carried not only people, but trucks and cars as well. During the busy summer months, it was incredible to see the number of people and vehicles that would
flood off that vessel. It was like watching one of those circus clown cars. I have no idea how it could handle so much weight and not sink. I’m sure Quinn knew. He’d have read it on Wikipedia.

At that hour the ferry and the pier were quiet. The ferry boat wouldn’t be fired up again until five in the morning, when it would start making round trips to the mainland. I coasted to a stop at the head of the pier and pulled out my phone to see if Quinn had texted back, when…

“What took you so long?” came a familiar voice.

I spun around to see Quinn lying on a bench.

“No way!” I exclaimed. “I only texted you like ten minutes ago.”

Quinn sat up, stretched, and rubbed his face.

“I’ve been here since midnight,” he replied with a yawn.

“But…” I thought a moment, then said, “You knew I’d want to ride.”

“It’s amazing how insightful I can be.”

“Did you hear what happened?”

“Seriously?” Quinn exclaimed sarcastically. “We live on an island, Tucker. News like that travels at the speed of heat. Besides, I was there.”

“At the game? You hate football.”

“True, but I wasn’t going to miss you playing in your first varsity game. Not that there was much
playing
involved. But you did have some all-pro bench-sitting action going on.”

“Give me a break. Most of those guys are three years older than me.”

Quinn laughed. “I know. I think it’s cool that you’re even on the team. Crazy, but cool.”

Quinn and I couldn’t have been more different from each other and maybe that was why we got along so well. He was tall and thin like a lanky scarecrow with a wild mop of curly blond hair that rarely saw a brush. He wore heavy-framed glasses that sat on his big nose, making him look like he was wearing one of those Halloween glasses-and-nose combos, but it worked for him. It didn’t hurt that he was incredibly smart—and enjoyed the fact that he stood out in a crowd. I, on the other hand, was more of the “blending in” type. I stood a good head shorter than Quinn and kept my brown hair cut short. I wouldn’t consider myself particularly brainy, though I weighed in with a solid B-minus average in school. Not bad, in my book. Unfortunately my parents had a different book. I was tired of hearing: “Tucker Pierce, you are not living up to your potential.” How did they know what my potential was? How could anybody know? It was a constant argument that often led to a midnight ride.

Quinn jammed his helmet down over his bushy hair and pulled down goggles over his glasses. He looked like a dork and couldn’t have cared less.

“What do you think happened to Marty?” I asked.

Quinn shrugged. “We’ll know more tomorrow.”

“Why’s that?”

“My parents are doing the autopsy as we speak.”

The quiet night suddenly got quieter. I’d forgotten that Quinn’s mom and dad were doctors at Arbortown Medical.

“Oh, right,” I said softly. “Thanks for that image.”

BOOK: SYLO (THE SYLO CHRONICLES)

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