CHAPTER 4

  Now for the good stuff. Well, the good and evil stuff. An hour before the game tonight, men and boys all over the world suddenly started collapsing and cannot be revived. Here, too!

  But, this is for the State Championship and this is Oklahoma, and we’ll figure all that out later. It was only an hour ago. And, nobody has died yet anyway. A game would require replacing some collapsed starters, though.

  First the News says, “maybe.” Then, “definitely.” Game on! Us (the Spartans) against Chickasha, a mostly Kiowa tribal team.

  So, I’m at the basketball game not making any friends when suddenly a mob of men and boys come streaming into the gym and start assaulting everybody!

  As in: tossing people around like rag dolls! Using some kind of super-strength. As in: breaking bones, just pounding people. Until they are dead! I saw some of them rip out throats with their teeth. I’m serious.

  Read that again.

  And all this while not saying a word. Just snarling.

  People screaming, running, falling, trampling, and trying to get away. To somewhere safe. But, there’s nowhere safe and we’re all trapped in here.

  What do the doomsday preppers call it? The SHTF. But, I feel supernaturally calm as if given a drug or something.

  I make my way to the announcer’s area, grab the microphone, and start giving orders to a crowd desperately seeking order.

  “You there, Chickasha! Get that main door shut and locked. Spartans, fight your way there or more will keep coming. Football Team, get that other door shut and locked. Baseball Team, go get your bats. Hockey Team, go get your sticks. Conquistadors, kill them all!”

  I know I’m loud enough (with a sound system and all) but I don’t see any response to my commands, so I bellow like a coach: “Now! Move it! Fight or lay down and die!” That does it.

  The football players make the first mass move. And I must say, the Kiowa punch well above their weight. And get the main door shut.

  I crash into the nearest melee and start striking. Elbows, knees, feet, hands. I have never used the Shōrin-ryū ritualized movements (kata) to lethal effect before. But, I do now and wow! So easy.

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  I strike one hard in the chest and can feel his ribs break, see the blood immediately frothing at his mouth. Rib pierced a lung, I see. He doesn’t even slow down! Doesn’t even acknowledge the injury.

  I shove him away hard to deal with later and strike another one from the side, destroying his knee. He does acknowledge the injury (by falling down) but literally crawls to re-engage. I carefully dance around him, too (to deal with later), but I’m realizing: none of them will stop until they are dead. I do a quick scan of the room and that confirms it.

  Incapacitating injuries do not incapacitate.

  None of them are out of the fight while plenty of us are. They are tackling, grappling, tripping, pounding, and injuring. Their injured crawling to resume their attack.

  Lots of broken arms and separated shoulders on our side now. Fighters with arms hanging limply at their side, useless. (One-armed fighters are more than outnumbered, they’re outgunned. Get it?)

  When they injure us, we try to leave the fight. Like we can call a time-out. They, on the other hand, Charlie Mike (continue mission). Until we are dead. And many of us are.

  Blood everywhere. So much that they and we are both slipping in it. Most bloody injuries are to the face, neck, and hands (they bite and scratch). They, too, bleed from the face and especially their mouths.

  Note to self: punching someone in the mouth means you’ll cut your hand on their teeth.

  We totally outnumber them but it sure doesn’t seem like it. Because, not all of us are fighting. Many of us are hesitant to engage, dancing around but not striking, trying to not get hurt. Thinking: let someone else engage (then I’ll jump in, too…maybe).

  The parents who came to watch the game? Useless. They simply stay in the stands while the husband tries to look menacing, his body language saying “You better not come up here!” All defense, no offense.

  The coaches and school staff? Better. Our school resource officer? Great. Empties his gun but then he’s down. Still, most of us are not fighting. Of those who are, few fighters are fighting well.

  Most of our fighters strike then stop! As if looking for confirmation: Hey, I just whacked you pretty good. Fight over, right? Give up?

  And, our injured do give up: curling up into a ball or crawling away.

  While they, on the other hand, are all fighting. No matter what, no matter the injury. They just keep on coming: relentlessly. Their fighters outnumber ours even though we very much outnumber them.

  As for our injured? Well, in this kind of fight an incapacitating injury is a death sentence. Because, the attackers pursue until our injured join our dead.

  And they are super-strong. Just one of them thrashes just one of us.

  We are losing and we are in a world of shit.

  But, some hope! I see Juan and the Conquistadors fighting as, well, a gang. They gang up on one of them, attacking from multiple directions simultaneously. They knife that one like a sewing machine stitches: bam, bam, bam. Blood, blood, blood. Then they move on to their next target.

  I yell my conclusion, “Kill them all!”

  I go back to the one with only one good knee and proceed to demonstrate. Smack one hand to his jaw, tilt, then smack my other hand in the opposite direction. His neck cannot go both directions at once and instead his neck decides to simply snap in two with an audible crack! He’s dead on his feet and falls limply to the floor.

  I slam an elbow into one attacker, spinning so my entire body weight goes into the blow to his head. He drops like a rag doll, out. Another is coming fast right behind him, and I do a spinning back kick to his head. He joins his compadre on the floor.

  I take no chances and calmly snap both necks. Like I was the farmer and they were the chickens. (I must admit, the sound of their necks snapping creeps me out.)

  I’m doing a good job – killing by myself – but we are not doing so good. I decide I need to get my killing work done through others.

  Throughout this whole fight, I hear shouts and curses and sounds but little group communication. As I said, we are not fighting well.

  I shout, “Gang up on one! Surround one! Pick one and kill it!”

  The sports teams start doing just that. Fighting like a pack of wolves. And, so are their fans. And the Conquistadors, of course. And again: the Kiowa are badasses. And…well, we have more badasses than I first thought.

  When the badass baseball players returned from the locker room with their bats and the badass hockey players with their sticks, well, the tide turned.

  Pretty soon, we are bashing them and pinning them until everyone of them is on the ground. Bloodied, battered, but many still alive.

  The Conquistadors, kill them all.