The New Kid. Temple Mathews

him whenever he had these kinds of hallucinations. Because that’s what they were, weren’t they? They had to be. This whole thing couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t be. But it was. Duncan was infected, rotten to the core—a servant, a soldier, a slave.

      Mookie didn’t die, but he broke both his legs and suffered compression ruptures in two disks in his lower back, an injury that confined him to a wheelchair for an indefinite period of time. Instead of funneling his anger, bitterness, and hatred toward Duncan, Mookie turned it all back on himself, channeling it inward. It was his fault, the voice told him, and the only path toward redemption was through servitude. He must serve him. And Mookie made up his mind that he would. He would shave the hair from his body. He’d always been into tattooing and now he threw himself into the art with a vengeance. His numb legs weren’t useless, they were a canvas and he would spend his days alone in his basement as the Michelangelo of tattoo artists, emblazoning himself with the perfect pagan symbols to prove his worthiness. He would be a soldier in the New Army, the Army of Rage, loyal only to the Dark One.

       Chapter Five: The Challenge

      Just as she had last year as a sophomore, Sharon Mitchell led the cheers at the lunchtime pep rally to help drum up support for this year’s gridiron campaign. The Harrisburg Mustangs had been perennial conference doormats but all that had changed last year. They started out 0-3 but had a miraculous turnaround, finishing 9-3 and tying for the conference title. This year they were 7-0 and were steamrolling opponents in a punishing fashion. Will sat in the bleachers not far from Natalie. Rudy was right by his side.

      “She’s looking at you, man,” said Rudy, elbowing Will and indicating Sharon.

      “She’s looking at everybody,” said Will.

      “Hey, get a clue, she’s definitely checking you out. Gawd, I can’t believe how lucky you are! You know what I’d give to have her look at me just one lousy time?”

      “You’re telling me you’ve been going to school with her for years and she’s never ever looked at you?”

      “No, she did look once,” said Rudy.

      “Well, there you go.”

      “I don’t think it counts. She only looked at me because I was throwing up on one of her friends.”

      “Thanks for sharing,” said Will.

      “Man, she is just nailing you with her eyes, dude!” quipped Rudy.

      Sharon Mitchell was staring at Will as she did her routine. She had stunningly beautiful eyes but Will didn’t need the distraction. Instead of staring back at Sharon, Will scanned the entire gym. All the kids looked healthy and vibrant, the gym brimming with excitement and color. The hardwood floors gleamed and the glass back-boards shined. Everything was squeaky clean. It was like an advertisement for chewing gum or some soda drink; this was the ideal, this was Americana at its best. How could there be anything evil in the midst of these wholesome young teens? In situations like this sometimes Will had to pinch himself to break the spell. He knew that even when things looked wonderful and pristine on the surface, underneath there would be pain and suffering, young minds full of malice. As he scanned the gym he was looking for them but he saw only regular normal teenagers and a smattering of adults. The creatures he sought knew full well how to hide in plain sight, though, and strike when you least expected it. He had a feeling there was at least one of them in the gym. But who was it? He kept looking at the eyes, always the eyes.

      “Stand up, it’s time to shout, come on fans, yell it out! Say it proud, Go Mustangs, Go Mustangs, Go Mustangs!”

      Sharon and her cohorts were in fine form, working the crowd up, getting everyone into the spirit, though truth be told, most of the boys in the stands were not thinking about the upcoming football season but praying for some miracle wardrobe malfunction. Natalie’s eyes ping-ponged back and forth between Sharon and Will, noticing how Sharon was openly locked in on Will as she bounced and shook her green and gold pom-poms in a syncopated rhythm. Then Sharon leapt forward and as she shook her hips she did a solo yell.

      “Salt makes you thirsty, pepper makes you sneeze, but when it comes to football we make you buckle at the knees! Go Mustangs!”

      She high-kicked her way closer to Will and then tossed off her pom-poms, backed up, and with a running start executed a magnificent handspring front flip, landing breathless and flushed right in front of Will. The spectacular gymnastics move brought the most ardent fans in the “Pony Power section” to their feet, screeching. But Duncan wasn’t cheering. His eyes were dark and he stared at Will and Sharon as though they were terrorists. If looks could kill.

      Moments later in the hallway Will walked along with Rudy.

      “I hear Coach Kellog’s looking for a new running back. What about you? Can you run?” asked Rudy as he joked around and handed off an apple into Will’s stomach like a football. Will just kept walking.

      “Well then, maybe you can throw. Hit me, I’m going long!”

      Will smiled and waited a few beats, took a bite of the apple, then tossed it down the hall.

      Rudy made a juggling, overly dramatic catch. “He scores!”

      “Trust me, the jerk’s not going to score.”

      Will heard the familiar voice and turned around to see Duncan right in his face. His breath smelled acrid and his eyes were bloodshot.

      “Keep your creepy eyes off my girlfriend,” he snarled.

      Will didn’t want to deal with this right now, but he was also sick of guys like Duncan. Every school had way too many of them and they needed to be put in their place. He knew he should keep his mouth shut but somehow he just couldn’t. He figured Duncan couldn’t be one of them because that would just be too easy. Still, He often went for the cruelest alpha males, luring them with power and glory, so anything was possible.

      Will baited Duncan even before he knew he was doing it. “Your girlfriend was in the gym? Gee, somebody must have left the barn door open.”

      Rudy howled like that was the funniest thing said in the history of mankind and even Duncan’s acolytes couldn’t help but burp out some muffled chuckles.

      “I’m talking about Sharon Mitchell, the head cheerleader. The most beautiful and bootylicious girl in the whole school, dipwad. I saw you gawking at her. Knock it off, she’s mine.”

      “Funny, I didn’t see your name tag on her,” said Will.

      Duncan’s fuse had been lit a long time ago—probably at birth, thought Will—and this set him off. He grabbed Will by the collar and slammed him into a locker, hard. Will closed his eyes and breathed, thinking of the surface of a pond, the skin of the water so calm it was like glass. The trick worked and he remained relaxed and unfazed. Duncan’s nostrils flared like a stallion and he yelled in Will’s face.

      “She’s wearing my pin! We’re going steady!”

      “Not anymore.”

      Sharon’s voice rang out soft and sweet. Rudy thought it sounded like liquid candy and he let out a low whistle as Sharon removed Duncan’s two-year football pin and handed it to him. Farther down the hallway Natalie was watching Sharon put on her little show for Will’s benefit. Natalie told herself she didn’t care and stalked off, but only got ten feet before turning back around and taking it all in. The truth was she did care, and she watched in horror as Sharon continued with the public dump.

      “Sorry to do this now, Dunky, in front of all these people. Wait a minute, no, I’m not, because this definitely makes it officially official.”

      Smiling politely and then tossing a come-on look at Will, Sharon walked off with the other cheerleaders laughing and trailing behind her, leaving Duncan floundering in a pool of humiliation. If he was angry before, he was seriously, dementedly, borderline-brain-exploding furious now and he sucker-punched