Andrew Klavan - The last thing I remember

A wavering line of cold nausea went up through the center of me, like a tendril of smoke drifting toward the ceiling. The second the thought of failure occurred to me, I knew I should’ve changed course and abandoned the grand finale. Without confidence, you can’t put your fist through concrete-it just isn’t possible. And with a thought like mine in your head, how could you have any confidence at all?

I told myself to force the thought away. I did force the thought away, but I knew it was still there, just below the surface. And there was no way I was changing course, no way I was going to quit now. Not with everyone watching. Not with Beth watching.

I hung there poised one more second. I let the breath flood out of my body, hoping it would carry the thought of failure away with it. Then I launched the final sequence.

It all seemed to happen fast and slow at once. I could sense and see that I was moving with unstoppable speed, but my mind was so focused on every moment that it felt like slow motion somehow, like a slow-motion movie unfolding frame by graceful frame. Every kick and blow and step carried me farther and farther across the stage, closer and closer to the cinder blocks. Then I pushed off the floor and was airborne, sailing across the final few yards with my right fist drawing back and back, pressed tight to my side, ready to explode downward as I dropped back to Earth, dropped back to the cinder block.

I was screaming before I thought to scream, the roaring keeyai tearing out of the center of me, bursting from me like a tiger bursting out of a cage. I saw the gray of the concrete block rushing up toward me. My mind went down to meet it, went through it. And at the same moment my knee touched the floor, my fist drove out from my side, corkscrewing to where my focus was, on the other side of the cinder block, on the other side of all that concrete.

I don’t remember the meeting of flesh and stone. It was as if I had become so much a part of the moment that I could no longer see it. The next thing I knew, shards of concrete were flying up around my face, and the cinder block, smashed into two pieces, was dropping heavily to the floor on either side of my extended arm.

Only slowly did the rest of the world make its way back into my consciousness. By then, I was already drawing myself up, drawing myself out of that last punch and into the movements of my final salutation. I gathered myself again into the front position, my feet together, my arms up in front of me, my right fist covered by my left hand just beneath my chin. Power through self-discipline. I was done.

That was when I heard them, saw them: the students and teachers in the auditorium. They were on their feet, all of them. They were clapping as hard as they could. Some of the guys were hammering the air with their fists. Some of the girls had covered their mouths with their hands. And then all of them were clapping and screaming and cheering as I stood in front of them, bringing my breath under control.

I let my eyes shift to the right, just a little, just enough to get a glimpse of her. Beth had covered her open mouth with both hands. For another second or two, her eyes remained wide with fear and horror, as if she were still waiting to see what would happen when I struck the block. But now she let the hands fall. She took a deep breath of relief. She laughed. The fear and horror went out of her eyes and something else came into them, something I can’t describe but could feel flowing through me like a warm river.

Then Beth was applauding too, shaking her head with amazement and laughing and applauding, taking her eyes from me to look at Marissa and Tracy and shaking her head at them in amazement just as they were shaking their heads at her right back.

Slowly, I let my hands drop from front position to hang at my sides. I nodded my head sheepishly to acknowledge the cheers.

Nice going, Harley-Charlie, I thought to myself.

The audience went on clapping and cheering, and Beth went on clapping and cheering for a good long time, it seemed like.

It was just a day, you know. Just another ordinary September day. But I remembered now-it flashed through my mind: that moment-that moment standing on the stage while Beth and everybody clapped and cheered-which was, I have to admit, one of the coolest moments of my life so far.

The Black Square Now that moment seemed a lifetime ago-an impossible lifetime that had somehow vanished into nothingness- there in a flash and just as suddenly gone. Beth was gone and my friends and my school and Principal Woodman and my moment of glory-all of it, the whole world I knew, the only world I knew, was gone, and the only cinder blocks around were in the walls of this prison hallway. There was nothing else-nothing I could make sense of- except the pain racking my body and the stampede of footsteps as the guards closed in on me-and that black square, that one black square of hope, coming closer up ahead.

I ran for the black square. I told myself again it was a window that had been painted over. It had to be a window. What else could it be?

It didn’t matter. I had to believe there was a way out. I had no other choice. The footsteps behind me were getting louder and louder, closer and closer, and I could hear shouts and curses now and a deep growl of a voice giving the order to “Go, go, go, get him, go, go, go!”

I ran as hard as I could, drove toward the black square, stretching my legs, pumping my arms, putting aside the pain that burned like fire in every part of my body. That black square: It was just like the cinder block at school, I told myself. It was no different from the cinder block. I just had to drive my mind through it, drive my mind straight through to the other side of it. Then my body would follow. At least I hoped it would.

The square kept looming larger as I kept getting closer, but still-still-I couldn’t see-couldn’t be sure- if it was a window or just some black paint slopped onto the surface of the concrete.

I was almost there, just a few strides away. I glanced back over my shoulder. For another half second the hall was empty-empty except for the big lump of chunky thug still lying unconscious on the floor where I had dropped him.

Then the guards came careering around the corner. I caught a glimpse of the first two-two men-dark, Middle Eastern-looking-both dressed the same, dressed the same as I was in black pants and a white shirt. They were carrying those machine guns, those automatic rifles you see on TV all the time: Kalashnikovs, they’re called-AK-47s. They were carrying them in their hands with the straps around their shoulders. As they spotted me, those first two guards dropped to their knees. They brought the rifles to bear. Two more men had already come around the corner behind them. They leveled their rifles also, pointing them at me above the heads of the first two. Four guns were trained on my back.

There was no more time to watch. I faced forward. The black square was now only a half step away. I threw myself at it headlong, full force.

The guards opened fire. Terror flashed through me. The stuttering coughs of the AKs seemed to drown out everything, every hope of survival, every thought of anything but death. Chips of concrete flew everywhere. My heart seized up at the stinging whine of ricochets. And then part of the black square shattered-a glass pane: it was a window after all!

The very next instant my body hit it. My arms were crossed over my face, my head was turned away. I hit the black square with my shoulder, struck the window’s sash with jarring violence. The sash snapped and gave way.

There was a long, tumbling moment of fear and singing bullets and the coughing Kalashnikovs and the breaking wood and glass.