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Karen returned to her conversation with Derrick. I didn’t like that Kota was going alone. I tapped at Nathan, and when he met my eyes, I was pointing quietly at Kota.
He shook his head. He pointed at me and then at the stadium stands. We had to stay right here.
At least he was aware.
Again the crowd was in an uproar, and I directed my attention back to the game.
There was another pileup, with our team underneath the opposing team’s players. Referees were busy trying to pull each person up, and checking to make sure they were okay. North sat on the ground, clutching at his ankle and appeared to be shouting. Silas stood by. Guess they couldn’t get injured at the same time, either. That would look funny.
Over the commotion, I sensed something was off. Security couldn’t be seen at all now. I wondered what was taking so long. I quietly held onto Nathan to try to see what he thought.
Nathan’s attention had been caught, but not at the field.
I followed his gaze to the scoreboard. Underneath the score and the time, there was a big TV screen that usually displayed commercial logos and some pictures of the players. Some of the bulbs needed replacing, but it worked for the most part.
Now the scoreboard was displaying a wash of colors, and then static snow like the signal had been interrupted.
Then the lights of the screen changed, displaying a simple square in the middle. At first it was stationary. Then the perspective changed into a 3D box. It rotated again. The box started to shake on the screen.
Some of the other people started paying attention to it. People pointed toward it, redirecting attention from the game to the screen. Karen said something next to me about it, but I was dodging my head trying to see around someone. I stood up on the seat, trying to look over the sea of heads.
The announcer asked people to calm down and let everyone know that the game would continue shortly and that the injury didn’t appear to be bad. It didn’t seem as though the people in the booth had noticed anything else.
In bright flashes, the box on the screen blew up, a cartoon explosion with lots of blinking. There were bits of cartoon debris that fluttered around the box, scattering the pieces.
And then the box came back. It did it again, only this time the sequence was faster.
“Nathan,” I shouted. A panic was filling inside me. Somehow, I knew. This was it, whatever it was. “Something’s wrong.” I don’t know how I knew, but I did. That display board didn’t show anything but ads before and now suddenly the image of the explosion felt like a message.
Nathan gripped my arm, sitting on the edge of his seat. Caution was one thing. Giving into fear was another. If we started to move too quickly, it could escalate everyone else around us into panicking.
Karen stood next to me, her face trained toward the screen. “Who messed with the screen?” she asked. Derrick stood up next to her, checking it, too. Everyone around us was looking now.
“It’s got to be a joke,” Derrick said. “A bad one. After the week we had.”
A rumble started below the stands. At first, it sounded like everyone was stomping their feet and making noise that rattled the bleachers.
Then a thick, white cloud formed below the stands, filtering up through the spaces between the benches. When I turned, more of it billowed out of pipes hanging in every corner of the bleachers.
“Oh shit,” Karen said. She reached for my arm, clutching it like she needed to hang on. Nathan was on my other side, turning, looking where we were looking. His blue eyes wide, his mouth dropped open.
I’d never seen him in such a panic. I froze, not knowing what to do.
A fearful scream overtook the sounds of the rattling stands. Another joined it. There was a rush, and a swoop of people started running for the steps to get out of the path of the fog swirling up at our feet.
“We have to get out of here,” I said, my voice off pitch with the fear filling inside me. With the fog lifting and the smoke coming down from the corners, it started covering everything. It crept up my legs, licking across my skin, cool and thick.
A broad hand met my back. Smooth. Confident. Calm.
“Derrick,” Nathan called at him, loud in my ear behind me. “Grab Karen. We have to go. Now.” He clutched me closer around the waist, grabbing my hand and directing me to step long and down, stepping down the seats instead of the flooded walkways filled with people trying to get around and get out of the stands.
Derrick followed his lead. Karen held onto my other arm and we moved forward together. If one teetered, the other caught and stabilized.
But we weren’t fast enough. The fog overtook us until it was coating our faces, surrounding our bodies. We couldn’t see where we were stepping before, but now we couldn’t see in front of our faces. Karen and I gripped at each other to hang on. Nathan clutched me tighter.
“Keep moving!” Nathan called. “Don’t stop.”
“There’s too many people,” Derrick said. I could feel it. I was right behind Karen. She swayed at a rush of people going by. The stadium was shaking louder. Screams were louder down here. Voices, shouts, stomping feet, the rattling of the stands. It all consumed us as much as the fog.
“Jump the front of the stands,” Nathan said. “Go over that rail. Don’t worry about the stairs. We’ll run out into the field.”
My mouth filled with the fog, trying to catch my breath. Nathan’s hand moved, covering my mouth.
“Try not to breathe too much in,” he said.
It was hard to move forward with the whole stadium shaking, but we went as fast as we could.
At the base, the crowd of people trying to get out was pushing to the side to follow the ramp down. Derrick clamped onto the rail and jumped over, getting on the other side and lowering himself down. Nathan caught up and followed.
“Let’s go,” Karen said, squeezing my arm and urging me forward.
I grabbed the rail, throwing my leg over and lowering myself down. The moment Nathan had his arms around
my waist, I let go and he put me down next to him.
“Run!” he shouted.
I tried. For a moment, it was all white.
When we broke clear underneath the wall of fog folding down in front of the bleachers, the change was significant. I sucked down clean air. My lungs felt chilled and thick and I needed fresh air to squeeze out the fog, and the fresh air was cold and the cycle continued.
Nathan tugged my arm, not stopping. When I stumbled again on the uneven ground, he grabbed me around the waist and lifted.
I hugged him around the shoulders, watching behind us.
The stadium was swamped with the thick smoke, some areas thicker than others. The fog still billowed from the top corners of the bleachers. Other students had taken Nathan’s idea to jump the bleachers and run out into the field. Additional students and parents were trampling down the ramps, stampeding forward. Some teachers were trying to direct people out and to the parking lot.
Nathan slowed at the far end of the field by the fence. He put me down, turning to witness the ongoing chaos.
Karen and Derrick did, too. We were well away from the others. Most students that had followed by jumping gathered on the field with the football players and coaches, checking out what was going on.
North and Silas split away from them, helmets off. North waved to us and then started jogging. Silas ran after him. Nathan waved back, signaling and we waited.
“What was that?” I asked. “What happened?”
“Who rigged the fog machines?” Silas asked as he approached and stopped.
Nathan had his phone out and started punching at the numbers. “Calling Kota.”
“Sang,” North said, reaching for me. “Where’s your phone?”
I felt for it, and then held it out for him. He took it, punched at the screen.
It didn’t light up.
He punched at it again.
Nothing.
“Did the battery die?” he asked.
“It was fine earlier,” I said. Then I looked at my phone.
It had a pink cover.
The last time it had a pink cover was a few days ago when Luke borrowed it to make the swap. I was sure when I looked at it before, it wasn’t on there.
