Dead Shot Clock Read online

by household, forced them to sign confidentiality contracts on pain of execution. Jacob thought the contracts were an overreaction because who would believe them? The demons had abated their war on humankind simply at the opportunity to play basketball with preadolescents. The terms were a mockery, a jeer against human fragility. That could be the only explanation.

  Double doors lined the hallway, clearly opening up to what would be the court. At the end of the hallway, a door labeled LOCKER stared back at the team. They started towards it, but then heard a sudden, "Hey!" A soldier had come in behind them. "Practice first. Then locker room."

  Eric scowled. "We're in street clothes!"

  "Treaty rules."

  They entered the court, if it could be called that. Unlined, spare the sidelines. The hoops were wooden, the nets chains. Only two sides of the area had any real space, and four troops had sat themselves behind a foldable table in one of the zones. A table and chairs sat empty on the other side. The demon's corner. At center court laid ten basketballs, but even these were tawdry. No grooves, smooth-surfaced, leather distressed beyond reason.

  "How are we supposed to shoot with balls like that?" said Deandre.

  Jacob went and took one up. "With confidence." He dribbled to where he hoped the three-point line would be and let loose a shot.

  A clanking miss against the front of the rim.

  He couldn't even face his teammates. He had to keep talking, keep positive. "They're challenging us. Throwing us out of our element. They can't even take us seriously and they shouldn't. Right, Carlos?" He passed a ball over to the other teen. "We have a girl on our team. We've got a short guy, don't we, Eric? We shouldn't win, right? Earth's toast, right?" A ball to Emma, a ball to Eric. "Who are we to prove them wrong?"

  Eric jacked one up from half court. Swoosh. Straight through the hoop.

  "So let’s go through our loser drills, practice our loser post moves, our loser screens and prove all the haters right. That's what we do, after all." Jacob picked up another ball, raced up to the basket, and slammed a layup in. "We put in all that practice for nothing. Stayed crouched for over fifteen minutes for nothing. Shot until our hands bled for nothing."

  After that, everyone stayed quiet, a determined quiet. They were racing through their drills, not with undisciplined rush, but mechanically. They weren't wearing the right shoes, and their clothes were suffocating them, but they didn't care. No human team had lost in the years after the treaty. The odds were on their side. All of the Americas were on their side.

  "Alright," said a soldier behind the table. "Ten minutes up. Lay down your basketballs immediately. Go directly to the locker room. We will bring you out when fifteen minutes has elapsed." A salute. "Good luck."

  The locker room surpassed the austerity of the court to new levels. There were no showers, no benches, and not even titular lockers. There were a pair of sinks in the corner of the space, but no mirrors, and the pipes were leaking onto the floor. The lighting was a flickering fluorescent fixture glowing golden from all the dust that had collected on the bulb. There were wet spots on the floor, the source of their dampness unknown.

  Each player quietly assigned himself or herself a territory to change into. The boys gave Emma a wide berth in the corner and made sure to stay turned away from her as she transitioned into her uniform. Deandre held up his shorts and sniffed them before wrinkling his nose and muttering something about a needed second washing. Daequan hummed as he pulled his jersey over his head.

  Jacob pulled his clothes out of his bag. They were smeared with red. At first, he stared at the smudges uncomprehendingly until the horror struck him. The blood he spat onto his shot kit. In his hurry to rejoin the team, he must have forgotten to wash the box before slinging it back into his bag. He rushed to the sink, franticly trying to rinse out the stains. The room's water pressure was nil, coming out only in a trickle, and the smell. His clothes smelled of... the blood... that smelled....

  "Urm-gaaaah!" With a shudder, he released the jersey into the sink. His teammates spun around to face him. With a flop, he hit the floor, his entire body quivering with violent abandon. "Nooo!" He shook off the attack, scrambled back to the bag, his teammates backpedaling away from him. "Urgggh!" In his ears, he sounded even more inhuman now, as if the existence of witnesses accentuated his condition. The attack wasn't coming on as quickly, as if the earlier shot was taking the edge off, but as he ripped open his bag, he could see the telltale signs again. Blotchy skin. Pustules blooming on his arm. The fatness of his tongue.

  Bottle. Uncapping. Spitting up blood. Extraction. Sinking in the needle, this time into the upper arm. Sight graying. Then panting. Collapsing to the ground. Pigment returning.

  The moment of silence.

  "Oh no," whispered Emma.

  Eric sprung with a roar at Jacob, but Carlos wrapped his arms around the smaller teen and held him back. Dewayne and Deandre stepped away, looking at each other with bewildered glances.

  "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" hollered Daequan, who was sidestepping in circles around Carlos and Eric and Jacob as if looking for a better view. "What just happened here? My boy Deandre, what just happened here?"

  Eric's struggle against Carlos was still full force. "He's a zombie! Jacob's a zombie! All this time, we were friends with, we were playing with, and we were palling around with a zombie!"

  Jacob stayed huddled on the floor. "Eric, I'm so sorry."

  "You're sorry? Oh man!" Eric blasted out of Carlos grip and landed a kick into Jacob. "Yeah, you keeping secrets from us, that's like a blown layup or something, you..." and the curses swarmed out his mouth with each punt into Jacob's side.

  "Stop," pleaded Emma. "Eric, stop, please."

  "We've got ten minutes left until the game," Carlos said.

  Eric walked away from his target, and his face blushed as he hyperventilated.

  "How?" the twins asked simultaneously.

  "Like the colonel said," Jacob managed out. "I was found in one of the battle zones. I never knew which one. The government gave me the shots, put me in a home, and that's been my life for eight years." He looked up at Eric, who turned away. "I want to defeat the demons just as much as you, Eric. I promise."

  Eric stayed facing the wall.

  "I believe you," said Carlos. "But you know you can't play this game."

  Jacob said nothing.

  "What?" Daequan poked a finger in Carlos's chest. "Don't be stupid, man. Jacob's the team captain. The team captain!"

  "He may mean the absolute best, but if he gets on that court and the demons find a way to re-control him, then game over."

  "But the government had to know!" said Emma. "They had to know the risk involved with him on the team. So, if they think it's okay, can't he play?"

  "Is the government going to be trusting Jacob to ball screen for them so they can get to the hoop?"

  All feel silent. Jacob shivered, but he was certain it wasn't because of any zombification going on.

  His teammates went back to their changing spots. They finished lacing up their shoes, adjusting their shorts just right. Jacob remained on the ground, blinking back the tears in his eyes. He'd figured it out. Stress. His mother always warned him to stay calm, stay serene. Stress kept the antidote from working. His resilience was what got him the captain position. That cool-headedness had fractured in the past week. He had kept thinking that the team wasn't progressing enough, was blocking out too infrequently, and was passing too softly. Now he knew it had been him the entire time. The demon's last scraps of control on him drained his spirit with each play.

  He didn't even register when the soldier came to escort the team out. All he knew was that he was alone in the locker room, when his team needed him most. He could picture the team entering the arena, facing down the demons, which Jacob imagined in generic terms, with red skin and glistening fangs and sharp horns. Carlos would win the tip-off. Eric would take the first shot. It would slide through the net. The demons would counter with a t
hunderous alley-oop that would leave the backboard still rattling as the humans rushed back down the court to set up a play.

  As the minutes passed, so did the game in Jacob's mind. Carlos would grow frustrated with being shut out of the paint, but when Emma would start cutting to the basket more, the demons would leave Carlos open at the top of the key. The real star would be Eric, though, swooshing regardless of lacking a three-point line, holding a triumphant finger up grinning, as he would backtrack away from his field goal. Deandre and Dewayne would double team regularly, and at first, the demons would take advantage and find the open shooter, but eventually, the traps would close in too fast, the defending hands would tap away the ball too easily. It would be a shooting clinic. The chains would grow weak from the constant brush of the ball.

  A minute before halftime started. Jacob could see it. Humanity up by two. Eric would walk up the court, not sprint, but walk. The demons would growl something in ancient Mayan. Eric, the best friend Jacob ever had, the best friend Jacob never deserved, would stare down the monsters and laugh. A scornful sound, a call to arms. Then a burst of speed, the defender unable to catch up. Eric would line up his shot, fling it up. Boom. The team cheers. Eric pounds his chest. They all were thinking, Jacob knows for a fact, of how Eric always should have been captain. How little they ever needed Jacob. Jacob the monster. Jacob the