Adam Levin - The Instructions

Seamus and the flautist had thrown Acer on those Israelites who’d gone to the gap to repel fleeing Shovers. Five of the six so dropped upon had crumpled, and just as the two least injured got up, the mob from the bleachers ran them back down. Now robots and kids tripped on robots and kids, and a hill of writhing bodies that was one, then two, then three feet high, grew wide in the gap til it was nearly impassable. Many in the gap continued pushing forward, and a few of them got out, however bruised, to flee the school through the pipeline. Others turned south to escape the bottleneck and go out the northeast- or the pushbar-door-exit, but pressing as they were against those who were northbound, this only caused the bottleneck to clog up more. It is true that some managed to keep reason intact, and they headed sideways, under the bleachers, to proceed toward either of the other two exits, but while many of those who went first escaped, the pushbar-door-exit itself soon bottlenecked. That exit was narrow as a classroom door, and runners on their way to it who didn’t get shot or smacked down by Western Portite kept stumbling on the B-teamers who the Flunky had clotheslined, seeding a pileup to rival the gap’s. The northeast exit was unobstructed and, despite all the blows Eastern Portite administered, the first hundred who’d initially fled there got out, but by the time that the runners who’d tried the other exits first (roughly four hundred) and could still ambulate (roughly three-hundred-fifty) realized they had to head to the northeast one, the powerdrunk bandkids had descended like berserkers and kids were hitting kids to get out of their way, and those hit hitting back, and robots too, and the throng pushed south toward the least resistance, slowly but steadily, creeping like a honeyspill across a tilted plane, the honey sipped by Samson from the lion’s tilted brainpan.

Benji sitting up, Benji holding his ribs. Slokum in a three-point stance, Slokum lunging. Blurring bodies colliding around them.

In a room full of people you’ve known for a while, when somebody’s elbow jams sharp in your sternum, it’s hard not to take that personally; it’s hard to believe that you could’ve been anyone. It’s harder yet, when you find yourself thrilled by the damage you’re bringing, to believe you don’t have your own good reasons. “Call me fat, slut? You ruined third grade.” “On the bus with your motherfucken jerkoff spitballs!” “You don’t tell girls they can’t go to the bathroom!” “Who’s crying now, huh? Who’s bleeding now?” “I don’t show my work cause I do it in my head!” The further south the throng went, the more reasons it discovered. Vendettas once sworn for half-forgotten offenses were remembered and invented with each passing blow. Everyone felt like a conduit of justice.

The Janitor, bashed in the orbit with a trumpet, got dragged from the mob by Mangey and Asparagus.

The Indians/Nakamook ruction had atomized. Mano-a-manos now thrived unimpeded: Baxter/Brooklyn (choking, clawing), Frungeon/Jelly (biting, pleading), Lonnie/Leevon (dukes up, boxing), Maholtz/Dingle (slapping, spitting). Fulton, Throop, and Salvador Curtis divided between them what remained of the B-team (pinning, leglocks, chicken-winging). And Slokum and Benji were tangled again: Benji’s thumbs, Slokum’s temples; Slokum’s forearm, Benji’s throat. A-teamer X extended a hand; the gym teacher pulled himself onto his feet.

“ Your family’s ugly.” “ Your brother’s gay.” “ Your juicebox, friendo — I’ll drink it!”

I found Brodsky’s keys and phone in his pockets, put them in mine. He said “Don’t” twice, but didn’t fight back. Berman, who knelt beside Boystar’s mother, was admiring the nib that he’d plucked from her cheek. The Israelites behind us stepped back and stepped back as Ally said my name, then said it again, and the riot of runners-cum-fighters encroached. I ordered the Israelites to move Brodsky south so he wouldn’t get trampled, and four came forward and lugged him by the limbs.

Berman, I said.

He didn’t seem to hear me, and again I laid hands on Berman to save him. We retreated two yards, got south of the scaffolding. More Israelites slicked through the chaos to join us. A bandkid popped out from the edge of the honeyspill, lunged in my direction, and, raising his sax to deliver his wallop — a wallop I would not have been able to dodge — fell at my feet, a nib in his earhole = June was still safe, her sightlines clear. The Israelites danced on the bandkid’s torso. Berman pulled the nib, shot the kid in the guts with it, pulled it again, re-reloaded.

Thirty feet west and ten or so south, Desormie, his back to me, tried to pry Benji off Slokum. I went.

“Teachers are bleeding,” a newsman said, “while budding popstar, Boystar, under his father, hasn’t moved an iota since this mayhem began.”

By the pushbar-door exit, Vincie ordered a retreat before the expanding disarrangement could engulf them. Both halves of Portite had abandoned their posts now, and both the alarms in the gym were accessable.

“A clown who rides to town in a coffin,” sang Main Man.

Desormie, on his knees, pulled Benji from Slokum and hurled him toward the throng, bounced him off a speaker. The scaffold trembled.

Eight steps away now, I reached for my sap and my sap wasn’t there, it had slipped from my belt during one of my falls, but the twenty-odd feet I’d travelled at topspeed gave me enough momentum, I thought, and the gym teacher, standing now, couldn’t see me coming.

Chin tucked low, right shoulder ahead of me, I cannoned at his neck… a step too late. My shoulder met his. The impact barely shook him, but its rebound floored me. I rolled like a pro and leapt back to my feet by the time he revolved, then I lunged again, this time for his throat. He sidestepped and chopped me down solid, mid-air. As I dropped, my arm hooked the megaphone’s thong. Its resistance slowed my fall and bent him forward. My shins smacked the floor, but the rest of me didn’t. I pulled on the thong to try to climb up him. The thong’s clasp snapped and I dropped once more. The megaphone landed just left of my head. He stepped on my wrist as I tried to grab it, and he bounced hard twice before Benji chaired his thighbacks. Slokum tackled Benji, and the two blurred behind me. By my side, on his knees again, Desormie gripped my face by the jaw and started squeezing. I bonked him with the megaphone. He squeezed unfazed. I got the bell to his ear and flipped on the siren. He threw himself backwards and I started getting up, but my hurt wrist kept folding beneath my weight and Desormie returned and he kicked me in the stomach. I came off the ground a little, then met it prone. My lip split wide and my chin felt chipped. My nose was intact. My tongue was intact. The sting that was meanest stabbed from deep in my gums as half of an incisor spilled from my mouth to plop in a puddle of my very own gore. I knew it was over. I had yet to feel the ache from the kick itself: my stomach was a ghost yet, a big bag of numb, my pain receptors still too busy with my facewounds to process its messages properly.

It’s over, I thought, and so I turned over, onto my side to see what came next, to see how the end looked, to see what he’d use, the blow that would pull me from out of my chest, if not for good, then forever.

No end was coming, though. No end came. Desormie was sitting. He was sitting right next to me, saying, “Oh no. Wait. Hold on.” For a breath I thought: heart-attack. Then: Adonai. And then I saw the blood. It founted in pulses from the nib in his carotid. One… two… three purple bursts, and he kept saying, “Wait now wait now wait,” and then the scaffolding was falling and the pain hit my stomach, and a runner running over me tripped on my neck. My trampling was on. It wasn’t my brothers. It wasn’t, rather, only my brothers. Another runner kicked me in the back of the head.