Panic

SUNDAY, AUGUST 14

IT WAS ALREADY THE SECOND WEEK OF AUGUST. THE game was drawing to a close. Four players remained: Dodge, Heather, Nat, and Ray.

For the first time since the game began, people began to place bets that Heather would win, although Ray and Dodge were still evenly split for the favorite.

Heather heard that Ray passed his solo challenge: he’d broken into the county morgue in East Chatham and stayed locked up next to the corpses all night. Creepy, but not likely to kill him; Heather was still angry that her challenge had been the worst.

But then, of course, there was the fact that Dodge had ensured her challenge would be harmless too. Dodge, who had palmed a bullet while making a show of checking the gun for ammo.

Dodge, who now refused to pick up her phone calls. It was such a joke. Bishop called Heather incessantly. She called Dodge. Krista called Heather. No one picked up for anyone else. Like some mixed-up game of telephone.

Nat stayed out of it. She had still not been given her solo challenge. Every day, Nat grew paler and skinnier. For once, she wasn’t chattering endlessly about all the guys she was dating. She’d even announced, solemnly, that she thought she might try and stay away from guys for a while. Heather didn’t know if it was the game or whatever had happened on the night of Nat’s birthday, but Nat reminded Heather of a painting she’d once seen reproduced in a history textbook, of a noblewoman awaiting the guillotine.

A week after Heather’s challenge, the blade fell.

Heather and Nat had taken Lily to the mall to see a movie, mostly to get out of the heat—it had been a record ninety-five degrees for three straight days, and Heather felt as if she was moving through soup. The sky was a scorched, pale blue; the trees were motionless in the shimmering heat.

Afterward, they returned in Nat’s car to Anne’s house. Nat knew, at last, that Heather wasn’t living at home, and had offered to come sleep at Anne’s with her, even though she disliked the dogs and wouldn’t even get close to the tigers’ pen. But Anne had left town for the weekend to visit her sister-in-law on the coast, and Heather hated being in the big, old house without her. That was one good thing about the trailer: you always knew what was what, where the walls were, who was home. Anne’s house was different: full of wood that creaked and groaned, ghost sounds, mysterious thumps and scratching noises.

“Get it,” Nat said when her phone dinged between her legs.

“Ew. I’m not reaching for it,” Heather said.

Nat giggled and tossed the phone at her, taking her hand off the wheel only briefly. She swerved, and Lily yelped from the backseat.

“Sorry, Bill,” Nat said.

“Don’t call me that,” Lily said primly. Nat laughed. But Heather was sitting with the phone in her lap, ice running through her wrists, into her hands.

“What’s the matter?” Nat asked. Then her face got serious. “Is it—?” She cut herself off and glanced in the rearview at Lily, who was listening attentively.

Heather read the text again. Impossible. “Did you tell anyone you were sleeping over at Anne’s tonight?” she asked, in a low voice.

Nat shrugged. “My parents. And Bishop. I think I mentioned it to Joey, too.”

Heather slid Nat’s phone shut and chucked it into the glove compartment. Suddenly she wanted it as far from her as possible.

“What?” Nat asked.

“Someone knows that Anne’s gone,” Heather said. She turned the radio up so Lily couldn’t eavesdrop. “The judges know.” Who had Heather told? Dodge—she’d mentioned it to him in a text. Said he should come over so they could talk, so she could thank him. And of course, Anne had told some people, probably; it was Carp, and people talked because they had nothing else to do.

The implication of what Heather had just read—what Nat would have to do—sank in. She unrolled her window, but the blast of hot air gave her no relief. She shouldn’t have drunk so much soda at the movie theater. She was nauseous.

“What is it?” Nat said. She looked afraid. Unconsciously, she’d begun tapping out a rhythm on the steering wheel. “What do I have to do?”

Heather looked at her. Her mouth tasted like ash, and she found she could not even speak a complete sentence. “The tigers,” she said.

dodge

THE CHALLENGES WERE ALWAYS POPULAR, BUT THIS year, many spectators had been staying away. It was too risky. The police had threatened to haul in anyone associated with Panic, and everyone was worried about taking the rap for the fire at the Graybill house. Rumor was Sadowski wanted someone—anyone—to take the fall. The roads, usually so empty, were infested with police cars, some from other counties.

But the word—tigers—was too much to resist. It had its own lift and momentum: it flitted through the woods, stole its way into houses barred up against the heat, spun into the rhythm of fans that cycled in bedrooms across Carp. By afternoon, all the players and ex-players and spectators and bettors and welshers and squealers—everyone who cared even remotely about the game and its outcome—had heard about the tigers of Mansfield Road.

Dodge was lying naked on his bed with two fans going at once when the text came in from Heather. For a second he wasn’t sure whether he was sleeping or awake. His room was dark and as hot as a mouth. He didn’t want to open the door, though. Ricky was over again and he’d brought food for Dayna, stuff he’d cooked himself at the diner, rice and beans and shrimp that smelled like burned garlic. They were watching a movie, and occasionally, despite the noise of the ancient fans and the closed door, he could hear the muffled sound of laughter.

The effort of sitting up made Dodge begin to sweat. He punched in Bishop’s number.

“What the hell?” he said, when Bishop picked up. No preamble. No bullshit. “How could you do it? How could you make her do it?”

Bishop sighed. “Rules of the game, Dodge. I’m not the only one in control of this shit.” He sounded exhausted. “If I don’t make it hard enough, I’ll get replaced. And then I won’t be able to help at all.”

Dodge ignored him. “She’ll never go through with it. She shouldn’t.”

“She doesn’t have to.”

Dodge felt like throwing his phone against the wall, even though he knew what Bishop said was true. In order for Dodge’s plan to succeed, Nat would have to drop out anyway, and soon. Still, it felt unfair. Too hard, too dangerous, like Heather’s challenge. But at least there, Bishop—and Dodge—had made sure she wouldn’t be in any real danger.

“Heather will find a way to help her,” Bishop said, as though he could read Dodge’s thoughts.

“You don’t know that,” Dodge said, and hung up. He didn’t know why he was so angry. He’d known the rules of Panic from the start. But somehow everything had gotten out of control. He wondered whether Bishop would show tonight, whether he could face it.

Poor Natalie. He thought about calling her and trying to convince her to drop out, to leave it, but then he thought about how she’d returned the necklace to him, and what he’d said to her that night—about opening her legs. It made him hot with shame. She had a right not to speak to him. She had a right to hate him, even.

But he would go tonight. And even if she did hate him, even if she ignored him completely, he wanted her to know that he was there. That he was sorry, too, for what he had said.

Time, for him, was running out.

heather

ONE OF HEATHER’S PROBLEMS—OUT OF ABOUT A HUNDRED big problems—was what to do about Lily. Anne had left them food for the weekend—mac ’n’ cheese, not from a box, but made with real cheese and milk and little spiral pasta, and tomato soup. Just heating it up made Heather feel like a criminal: Anne had invited them into her home, was taking care of them, and Heather was plotting behind her back.

Heather watched Lily polish off three portions. She didn’t know how Lily could eat in this heat. All the fans were going, all the windows were open, but it was still sweltering. She couldn’t have taken even a bite. She was sick with guilt and nerves. Outside, the sky was turning to milk, the shadows were yawning long on the ground. It wouldn’t be long before sundown, and game time. Heather wondered what Natalie was doing. She’d been locked in upstairs for the past three hours. Heather had heard the shuddering of pipes, the gush of water in the shower, three times.

After Lily ate, Heather brought her into the den: a big, dark room that still bore the mark of Anne’s late husband—beat-up leather couches and mohair blankets and carpet that smelled a little like wet dog. Here it was a little cooler, although the leather stuck uncomfortably to Heather’s thighs when she sat down.

“I need you to promise me that you won’t come outside,” Heather said. “There will be people. And you might hear noises. But you have to stay right here, where it’s safe. Promise me.”

Lily frowned. “Does Anne know?” she asked.

That guilty feeling rode a wave up into Heather’s throat. She shook her head. “And she won’t,” she said.

Lily picked at a bit of stuffing that had begun to poke out of the couch. She was silent for a second. Heather wished, suddenly, she could take Lily into her arms and squeeze her, tell her everything—how scared she was, how she didn’t know what would happen to either of them.

“This is about Panic, isn’t it?” Lily said. She looked up. Her face was expressionless, her eyes flat. They reminded Heather of the tigers’ eyes: ancient, all-seeing.

Heather knew there was no point in lying. So she said, “It’s almost over.”

Lily didn’t move when Heather kissed her head, which smelled like grass and sweat. The leather released Heather’s skin with a sharp sucking sound. She put on a DVD about a zoo, which Lily had requested—another gift from Anne.

Anne, Heather knew, was a good person. The best person Heather had ever met. So what did that make Heather?

She was at the door when Lily spoke up. “Are you going to win?”

Heather turned around to her. She’d left the lights off, so it would stay cool, and Lily’s face was in shadow.

Heather tried to smile. “I’m already winning,” she lied, and closed the door behind her.

The haze of the sky, milk white and scorched, at last turned to dark; and the trees impaled the sun, and all the light broke apart. Then they came: quietly, tires moving almost soundlessly on the dirt, headlights bouncing like overgrown fireflies through the woods.

There was no thudding music, no shouting. Everyone was on alert for cops.

Heather stood outside, waiting. The dogs were going crazy; she kept feeding them treats, trying to get them to shut up. She knew there were no neighbors around for miles, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone would hear—that Anne would know, somehow, be summoned back to the house by the barking.

Nat had still not come down.

Heather had fed the tigers more than double their normal amount. Now, as the last light drained from the sky, and the stars began to pulse through the liquid haze of heat, they were lying on their sides, seemingly asleep and indifferent to all the cars. Heather prayed they would stay that way—that Nat could do whatever she needed to do, and get out.

Car after car: Diggin, Ray Hanrahan, even some of the players who’d been eliminated early, like Cory Walsh and Ellie Hayes; Mindy Kramer and a bunch of her dance team friends, still dressed in bikinis and cutoffs and bare feet, like they’d just come from the beach; Zev Keller, eyes red-rimmed and liquid, obviously drunk, with two friends Heather didn’t recognize; people she hadn’t seen since the challenge at the water tower. Matt Hepley, too, and Delaney. He walked right by Heather, pretending she didn’t exist. She found she didn’t care.

They drifted across the yard and gathered around the tigers’ pen, silent, disbelieving. Flashlights clicked on as it got darker; the floodlights on the barn, motion-detected, came on too, illuminating the tigers, sleeping almost side by side, so still they might have been statues, held in a flat palm of earth.

“I don’t believe it,” someone whispered.

“No fucking way.”

But there they were: no matter how many times you blinked or looked away. Tigers. A bit of a miracle, a circus-wonder, right there on the grass under the Carp trees and the Carp sky.

Heather was relieved to see Dodge arrive on his bicycle. She still hadn’t had a chance to thank him in person for what he’d done.

Almost immediately, he asked, “Is Bishop here?”

She shook her head. He made a face.

“Dodge,” she said. “I wanted to say—”

“Don’t.” He put a hand on her arm, and squeezed gently. “Not yet.”

She didn’t know exactly what he meant. She wondered, for the first time, what Dodge was planning to do this fall, and whether he would remain in Carp, or whether he had plans for a job somewhere—or even college. She’d never paid any attention to how he did in school.

Suddenly the thought of Dodge leaving made her sad. They were friends, or something like it that was close enough.

It struck her how sad it was that all of them—the kids standing here, her classmates and friends and even the people she’d hated—had grown up on top of one another like small animals in a too-small cage, and now would simply scatter. And that would be the end of that. Everything that had happened—those stupid school dances and basement after-parties, football games, days of rain that lulled them all to sleep in math class, summers swimming at the creek and stealing sodas from the coolers at the back of the 7-Eleven, even now, this, Panic—would be sucked away into memory and vapor, as though it hadn’t even happened at all.

“Where’s Natalie?” That was Diggin. He was speaking softly, as if afraid to wake the tigers. Hardly anyone made a sound. They were all still transfixed by the sight of those dreamlike creatures, stretched long on the ground like shadows.

“I’ll get her,” Heather said. She was grateful to have an excuse to go into the house, even for a moment. What she was doing, what she was helping Nat do, was too horrible. She thought of Anne’s face, her smile pulling her eyes into a squint. She’d never felt so much like a criminal, not even when she’d taken her mom’s car and run away.

Another car was arriving, and she knew from the spitting and hissing of its engine that it was Bishop. She was right. Just as she reached the front door, he climbed out of his car and spotted her.

“Heather!” Even though he wasn’t shouting, his voice seemed to her like a slap in the silence.

She ignored him. She stepped into the kitchen and found Natalie sitting at the table, eyes red. There was a shot glass in front of her, and a bottle of whiskey.

“Where’d you get that?” Heather asked.

“In the pantry.” Nat didn’t even look up. “I’m sorry. I only had a sip, though.” She made a face. “It’s awful.”

“It’s time,” Heather said.

Nat nodded and stood up. She was wearing denim shorts and no shoes; her hair was still wet from the shower. Heather knew that if Nat weren’t so afraid, she would have insisted on putting on makeup, on doing her hair. Heather thought Nat had never looked so beautiful. Her fierce and fearful friend—who loved country music and cherry Pop Tarts and singing in public and the color pink, who was terrified of germs and dogs and ladders.

“I love you, Nat,” Heather said on impulse.

Nat looked startled, as though she’d already forgotten Heather was there. “You, too, Heathbar,” she said. She managed a small smile. “I’m ready.”

Bishop was standing a little ways from the house, pacing, bringing his fingers up to his lips and down again as though he were smoking an invisible cigarette. As Nat moved into the crowd, he caught up with Heather.

“Please.” His voice was hoarse. “We need to talk.”

“This is kind of a bad time.” Her voice came out harsher, more sarcastic, than she’d intended. It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen Vivian, and she wondered whether Bishop had begged her not to come. Please, babe. Just until I can patch things up with Heather. She’s jealous, you know . . . she always had a thing for me. The thought made her throat knot up, and a part of her just wanted to tell Bishop to fuck off.

Then there was the part of her that wanted to put her arms around his neck and feel his laughter humming through his chest, feel the wild tangle of his hair on her face. Instead she crossed her arms, as if she could press the feeling down.

“I need to tell you something.” Bishop licked his lips. He looked awful. His face was sickly, different shades of yellow and green, and he was too skinny. “It’s important.”

“Later, okay?” Before he could protest, she moved past him. Natalie had reached the fence, closer to the tigers than she had ever allowed herself to go. Unconsciously, the crowd had backed off a little, so she was surrounded by a halo of negative space—like she was contaminated with something contagious.

Heather jogged over to her. Now the dogs started up again, shattering the stillness, and Heather hushed them sharply as she passed the kennel. She pushed easily through the crowd and stepped into Nat’s open circle, feeling as if she were trespassing.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’m here.” But Nat didn’t seem to hear her.

“The rules are simple,” Diggin said. Even though he was speaking at a normal volume, to Heather it sounded like he was shouting. She began praying the tigers wouldn’t wake up. They still hadn’t even lifted their heads. She noticed a bit of the steak she’d given them earlier was still untouched, buzzing with flies, and couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. “You go into the pen, you stand with the tigers for ten seconds, you get out.” He emphasized this last part just slightly.

“How close?” Nat said.

“What?”

“How close do I have to get?” she asked, turning to him.

Diggin shrugged. “Just inside, I guess.”

Nat pushed out a small breath. Heather smiled at her encouragingly, even though she felt like her skin was made of clay about to crack. But if the tigers slept, Nat would have no problem. They were a full forty feet away from the gate. Nat wouldn’t even have to go near them.

“I’ll time you,” Diggin said. Then: “Who has the key to the gate?”

“I do.” Heather stepped forward. She heard a slight rustle, as everyone turned to stare at her; she felt the heat of all those eyes on her skin. The air was leaden, totally still.

Heather fumbled in her pocket for the key to the padlock. Nat’s breathing was rapid and shallow, like an injured animal’s. For a second, Heather couldn’t feel the key and didn’t know whether to be relieved; then her fingers closed around metal.

In the silence and the stillness, the click of the padlock seemed as loud as a rifle report. She unlooped the heavy chain carefully and laid it on the ground, then slid the metal latches back, one by one, desperately trying to stall, trying to give Nat a few more seconds.

As the final latch clanged open, both tigers lifted their heads in unison, as though sensing that something was coming.

The whole group inhaled as one. Nat let out a whimper.

“It’s okay,” Heather told her, gripping Nat by the shoulders. She could feel Nat trembling under her hands. “Ten seconds. You just have to step inside the gate. It’ll be done before you know it.”

People had started buzzing, giggling nervously, shifting. Now the stillness was replaced with an electric energy. And as Nat took one halting step toward the gate, and then another, the tigers, too, stood up—twisting onto their feet, stretching, yawning their enormous jaws so their teeth glistened in the floodlight—as though they had decided to perform.

Nat paused with a hand on the gate. Then her other hand. Then both hands. Her mouth was moving, and Heather wondered if she was counting or praying, whether for Nat they were the same thing. Dwarfed by the gate, silhouetted against the sharp, unnatural light, she looked unreal, one-dimensional, like a cardboard cutout.

“You don’t have to do it.” Dodge’s voice was loud, and so unexpected that everyone turned to stare. Nat turned too, and Heather saw her frown.

Then she pulled open the gate and stepped inside.

“Start the timer,” Heather cried out. She saw Diggin fumbling for his phone. “Now.”

“Okay, okay,” Diggin said. “Time!”

It was too late. The tigers had started to move. Slowly, their massive heads swinging between their shoulder blades like some awful clock pendulum . . . tick, tick, tick. But still they were too close, already too close; three strides and they covered five yards, mouths open, grinning.

“Three seconds!” Diggin announced.

Impossible. Surely Nat had been in the pen for ten minutes, for half an hour, forever. Heather’s heart was bursting out of her throat. No one spoke. No one moved. Everything was a black sea, dim and featureless: everything but the bright circle of white light, and the cardboard-cutout Nat, and the long shadow of the tigers. Nat was shaking now, and whimpering, too. Heather feared for a second that she would collapse.

Then what? Would the tigers pounce? Would she, Heather, be brave enough to try to stop them?

She knew she wouldn’t. Her legs were water, and she could hardly breathe.

“Seven seconds!” Diggin’s voice was shrill, like an alarm.

The tigers were less than eight feet from Nat. They would be on top of her in two more paces. Heather could hear them breathing, see their whiskers twitching, tasting the air. Nat had started to cry. But she still held herself there, rigid. Maybe she was too scared to move. Maybe their eyes, like deep black pools, had transfixed her.

“Eight seconds!”

Then one of the tigers twitched; a muscle flexed, and Heather knew it was getting ready to pounce, felt it, knew it would jump on Natalie and tear her apart and they would all stand, watching, helpless. And just as she was trying to scream Run but couldn’t, because her throat was too thick with terror, Nat did run. Maybe someone else screamed it. There was noise suddenly—people shouting—and Nat was out of the gate and slamming it shut, leaning back, crying.

Just as the tiger, the one Heather had been sure was moving to spring, lay down again.

“Nine seconds,” Diggin said above the sudden roar of sound. Heather registered a small burst of triumph—Nat was out of the game—and then a stronger pull of shame. She pushed over to Nat and drew her into a hug.

“You were amazing,” she said into the top of Nat’s hair.

“I didn’t make it,” Nat said. Her voice was muffled and her face sticky against Heather’s chest.

“You were still amazing,” Heather said.

Nat was the only one who wasn’t celebrating. She returned almost immediately to the house. But everyone else seemed to forget about the threat of cops, forget about what had happened at the Graybill house and about the body of Little Kelly, found charred and blackened in the basement—for a short while, it felt almost as it had at the beginning of the summer, when the players had first made the jump.

It took more than an hour for Heather to get everyone out, into their cars and off the property, and the whole time the dogs were going crazy and the tigers were still again, as though deliberately making a point. By the time the yard was almost empty of cars, exhaustion numbed Heather’s fingers and toes. But it was over, thank God. It was all over, and Anne would never have to know.

There were only three players left. And Heather was one of them.

“Heather,” Bishop tried again when almost everyone had gone. “We need to talk.”

“Not tonight, Bishop.”

There were a few people lingering, leaning up against their cars, hands down each other’s pants, probably. Strange how just a few months ago she had been one of them, hanging out at parties with Matt, her capital B Boyfriend, flaunting it however she could. Wearing his sweatshirts, his baseball hats, like a badge of something—that she was lovable, that she was fine and normal and just like everybody else. Already the old Heather seemed like someone she barely knew.

“You can’t avoid me forever,” Bishop said, deliberately moving in front of her as she stooped to collect a cigarette pack, half trampled into the grass.

She straightened up. His hair was poking out from every side of his hat, like something alive trying to get out. She resisted the urge to reach up and try and wrestle it into shape. The worst was that when she looked at him now, she still saw their kiss: the heat that had roared through her and the softness of his lips and the brief electric moment when his tongue had found hers.

“I’m not avoiding you,” she said, looking away so she wouldn’t have to remember. “I’m just tired.”

“When, then?” He looked lost. “It’s important, okay? I need you. I need you to listen.”

She was tempted to ask him why Vivian couldn’t listen, but she didn’t. He looked awful, and miserable, and she loved him even if he didn’t love her. The thought that he was upset, in pain, was a worse feeling than her own pain.

“Tomorrow,” she said. Impulsively, she reached out and squeezed his hand. He looked startled, and she dropped it quickly, as though it might burn her. “I promise, tomorrow.”