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“Everything is going to shit, Quarterback,” Rick said, again using one of his unlit cigarettes as a prop.

“You’re telling me,” I said, rubbing at some gnarling stubble that had developed on my chin.

Two days later, dried blood was still clumped in my hair. Didn’t have time to visit the river, and nobody was traveling anywhere in groups smaller than three.

What was left of the offensive line had whipped themselves into a frenzy and ran off through the white-bark rainforests looking for revenge. We would find bits and pieces of them here and there for a decade.

“Hear anything about Coach Murph?” I asked after a time.

Richard shrugged. “Hasn’t said a word since it happened that wasn’t a rant about hell or the devil.”

“Huh. Well, your dad’s a preacher right? Got a read on all that?”

“Dad wanted me on the team because Murph makes a point of loud public prayer before games. Leads the whole audience in one whenever they’re up against a team from Dallas or Houston. ‘Demonstrate proper southern godliness to the rapacious urban element’ I believe was their exact words.”

“Ah. Well, that sounds like Midfield,” I said.

“To think I wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for dad’s dumbass doomsday preaching,” Rick said, then spat into the chalk-white dirt. “Just change one thing or another. Move to Midfield a few months later, join the basketball team or newspaper club instead of the football team? Would not have been on the bus for sure. And maybe that would’ve changed enough to prevent any of this from ever happening. Butterfly effect, or whatever.”

Thinking about all the X-factors that brought us here has always hurt my brain. I tried not to think too much about it.

Didn’t have Rick’s parental hangups. My father was a subcontractor. Mom was big into Selena back in the day. Perfectly unassuming. Well to do for the region. Don’t even remember their faces. Should’ve kept their picture in my wallet or something. I could have at least shown them to you, Maat…

“Shouldn’t have killed those strangers,” I said.

“Their ears, their proportions. They clearly weren’t human. At least not Earth humans.” Richard noted.

We discussed the various similarities. Clearly, these strangers and Earth-humans could both eat the same fish. The ability to make and wear clothes pointed to certain levels of intelligence, as did the ability to speak, despite the language barrier. While there were troubles communicating in the short time we’d known the poor bastards, the ability to translate out some root words meant that communication was not impossible.

And yet we’d killed them. Well, the Coach and some toadies killed them, but whomever else was out there in the humid-as-hell rainforests couldn’t have known and didn’t differentiate. And we didn’t even have the slightest grasp of a language that could be used to explain the situation or beg for mercy.

“Now, it’s not that I wouldn’t agree to a violent posture towards outsiders, if the occasion called for it,” Rick began. “But if anyone lives here, they might have had something to do with our abduction. At the very least they might know something about a portal or whatever. At least we could, like, interrogate them or something.”

I nodded, generally amenable to Rick’s ideas.

“Ah, but your brother… I can’t even imagine. I mean, I’m an only child myself,” Richard began. “Didn’t want to head out with the offensive line?”

“Don’t…” I clenched my fist, held in my breath. “Don’t… talk about it. Please.”

“Hard to believe that’s the only contact in a month,” Richard added, changing the subject. “Forest is teeming with life. Ought to be able to maintain hundreds, maybe thousands, of people.”

“Yeah,” I struggled with whether to reveal the strange visions at the river temple. I didn’t truly believe that my eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on me.

Our musing was interrupted when Hector ran through the bushes without warning.

“Christ!” Rick said, dropping his cigarette. “Don’t sneak up on us like that.”

Hector panted, out of breath. His role on our team was never distance running, but more defensive. To hold the line.

“Guys. Guys.” Hector steadied himself with one deep breath. “It’s – just come quick. Coach. He’s. Cheerleaders. Oh, just come on.”

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“So, Coach Murphy had one of the guys on scouting duty hide the existence of this hollowed-out tree,” Hector began.

Rick and I were running behind Hector through a scarcely charted portion of the forest, our path lit only by a flashlight with a half-shattered lens Hector had brought from camp.

“One of the defensive linemen squealed before the, well, incident,” Hector said. “Now, he’s holed up in there. Got the two players who still listen to him standing watch. And he’s got the cheer squad up in there.”

“He’s had a viable shelter this entire time?” Rick asked, voice masking a growl unlike anything I’d seen from him prior.

“And what’s he doing with the cheerleaders?” I asked.

“Fuck do you think, dude? Want to walk up there and take a peek?” Hector scowled – also a side of him I hadn’t quite seen before.

We walked well out of camp, through land that was yet uncharted, until we reached a dead whitewood preserved forever at mid-size. A bright blue nylon tarp covered a gash in the bark running from ground level and reaching nine feet high.

Two guards – Kevin and Jesse, two guys I’d known since middle school – stood in front of the tarp.

Hiding behind the nearest living whitewood was Maria, our de facto nurse.

“Nobody has entered or left,” she told Hector.

“Thanks.”

“Where’s Claire?” I asked.

“Took everyone who managed to escape Murph. Currently hiding in some caves about a half-mile from here.”

The four of us peered at the Coach’s sanctum. The low light helped mask our position. Flashlights are like torches that let you douse the flame at will, perfect for stealth.

“We’re going to have to walk up there and ask to see the Coach,” I said.

Hector, Richard, and I did. Maria kept watch.

“Hey, Jess. We’re here for the party,” Hector lied.

“Ain’t no party,” Jesse said.

“Coach says nobody else gets to see the girls,” Kevin said.

“Can we speak with the coach?” I asked, stern but with a subtle tremor beneath it all.

The tarp was pushed open, and the coach’s torso appeared from a darkened interior. The jagged stump of his arm propping up the nylon.

“Stay back, sinner. The unclean were taken, and your kin among them. You lay with a harlot. Invite sin. Devil will take you too.”

Kevin grinned. “Yeah. You heard the man. No visitors. Might be the devil. Head back to camp.”

“May we just take a peek to see that everything’s okay in there?” Hector asked.

“Hell. This is hell. The unclean – sluts, sodomites, illegals – were taken by the devil first. I’m keeping the girls under careful watch. They’ll be clean here. Only the worthy may enter.”

“Yeah, safe and clean,” Jesse said, chest puffed out.

Hector tried to shine his flashlight into the tree real quick, but Coach Murph hissed and threw the tarp down, ranting about the light betraying them to the watchful eyes of the devils lurking in the trees.

“All started when they desegregated the schools,” Murph gibbered from within. “No moral foundation. Now the team’s full of illegals, with their strange rosaries and language and foreign religion. Godless. Let the devil is what sent us to Hell.”

Rick exhaled. He jabbed me on the shoulder.

“They’re talking like supervillains. Let’s regroup.”

Back behind a tree of our own, we went over what little we’d managed to discover.

“Okay, so he’s merely hording every young woman he could get his hands on like a dragon. At least for now.” Hector raised an eyebrow, skeptical.

“It’s going to keep getting worse,” Richard said.

Could be our motto at this point.

“Agreed,” said I.

Maria produced some makeshift medical scalpels. “After the attack, I took the liberty of filing these down to a point. May come in handy.”

Richard took the first one, I took the second. There were five in all, so Rick took another.

“You and Hector keep watch,” I told the two. “If we don’t leave the tent within an hour take anyone who doesn’t want to live like this and head to that water temple. It’s pretty defensible.”

Richard and I returned towards the hollowed-out tree. I leaned over and spoke at a whisper:

“We’ll deal with the Coach but depending on the situation – let’s not go in for the kill. Y’know, if it comes to that.”

“Eh?” Richard balanced one of the scalpels on his finger, testing its weight. “Was kind of looking forward to it.”

“I mean, let the ladies do as they wish. We’ll hand them the shanks.”

“Sure,” Rick said with a giddy laugh.

Richard approached Kevin, brandishing some of his cigarettes that were useless without a light.

“Hey, one more thing. ‘fore I go, want a smoke?” Rick held out a cigarette, then strategically dropped it at Kevin’s feet. “Whoops. You mind getting that?”

When Kevin knelt to grab the cigarette, Richard brought the medical shiv down on the base of his neck. Quick and silent, so much so that I nearly missed my cue, sticking the shiv right up into Jesse’s mouth before he could get out a scream of alarm.

“Jesse, buddy,” I said. “Your last chance. Run off into the forest and disappear. If you’re still kicking after a year we’ll consider letting you back into camp, with restrictions.”

Jesse’s eyes were wide. He gave no response. I took the shiv out from its delicate location. “Run.”

“Uh, Coach!” Jesse said immediately after being released. “Company!”

No time to get proper force for a stab with the meagre shiv. I socked Jesse with my right hand, sent him sprawling onto the bark and then onto the ground. Then, I punched him some more until his eyes went cross-eyed. Kept punching until, well, the offer to take him from an exile in after a year was duly rescinded anyway.

“Shame.” Richard brought out his second shiv. “Let’s rock.”

Rick rushed into the hollowed-out tree, and I had to scramble to catch up.

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