Michael Koryta - The Prophet

“First down,” Kent shouted to Lorell. “That’s all we need right now. Play patient.”

Lorell played patient. Handed the ball off to Justin Payne for six, then picked up five with a pass to the slot receiver. Payne again, four more, and then Lorell got loose on the outside but was tackled short of the first down and couldn’t get out of bounds to stop the clock. Now time was an issue; the clock was under a minute and still rolling.

“Get a yard,” Kent said. “Just get one.”

Lorell got two before being knocked out of bounds. First down, clock stopped. Twenty-one seconds left. Ball on the Saint Anthony’s forty-two.

Lorell came to the sidelines, looking for a play call, and Kent told him the formation and then said, “Take what they give you, son.”

What they gave him was Mears. Colin exploded on the same hitch route he’d run to start the game, when he’d caught the ball but fumbled. Lorell looked right, saw him, and drew his arm back. Then tucked the ball and ran. Darted upfield, gained twelve yards, and called the team’s last timeout. On the five-yard line, where he’d ended up uncovered, Colin turned and stared at his quarterback with hands on hips.

“Bring it in here!” Kent shouted. There were only eleven seconds left, they were out of timeouts, and they needed a touchdown. Had to put the football in the air, because an incomplete pass would stop the clock and give them another chance, but a run would not. The offense came over, huddled, and before Kent could get a word out, Colin Mears said, “I’ll catch the ball.”

For a moment, nobody answered. Colin had been looking at Lorell, but now he turned to Kent. “I’ll make the catch. I’m telling you, I will make the catch.”

Kent squinted into the rain. Nodded once. “I know you will. What play do you want?”

“Slant. He takes my outside hip every time. I can kill him on a slant.”

“All right,” Kent told his team. “You heard the man.”

They broke the huddle, and Colin led the way out onto the field, clapping his gloved hands. Kent hesitated for a split second, then ran two steps out and snagged Lorell’s arm.

“Check down to Justin,” he said.

“Coach?” Lorell’s dark eyes were confused but focused, ready to listen, ready to execute as instructed. Kent grabbed the back of his helmet and pulled their faces together.

“Play action to Justin, stay out of trouble, and then hit him going up the seam. They’ll lose him after the fake. They’ll pursue the ball, and he’ll be open. Got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kent slapped him on the back and returned to the sideline. His team lined up, Lorell barked the count, took the snap, turned, and faked the handoff. Nobody was fooled, they knew Chambers wouldn’t run in this situation. They chased after Lorell, pursuing the ball, and Payne slipped up the middle. Colin had executed a perfect route, digging hard, right to left, wide open on the slant just as he’d predicted. Wide open. Lorell glanced at him as he slid backwards, away from the defenders, and then he brought the ball back and fired it away.

Payne up the seam. Justin caught it, secured it, barreled forward. Took a hard shot on the one-yard line but it wasn’t enough, he was across and through.

Touchdown.

Ball game.

Kent raised his arms, signaling the score, and then Byers was screaming in his ear— We finally got the bastards!— and the band was playing and the crowd was roaring.

Final score, 30–28. Saint Anthony’s vanquished, Scott Bless finally beaten. Two games left to play, and then the trophy was in the case.

In the end zone, where he’d found himself free and clear, running the route he’d guaranteed would work, Colin Mears walked first to Justin Payne, then to Lorell McCoy, and hugged them both.

Chelsea was screaming like one of the kids. When she spun to face Adam, her eyes were bright, her smile wide.

“They won!” She put her hands on his shoulders and shook him. “They won! You aren’t even going to smile? ”

“Two games left to play,” Adam said. “Don’t rush the smile.”

“You can let yourself be a little happy, can’t you?”

“A little.” He knew that he should be happy. This was a huge win for his brother, this was the win he needed most. Or wanted most, at least. He’d called it perfectly, too. That route to Justin Payne was brilliant. It had surprised everyone, even Adam. Maybe Adam more than most, in fact, because Adam had watched Colin Mears blow clear on the slant, had seen him crossing the end zone with nobody in reach, and had been certain that Kent would put the ball in his hands, to win or to lose. Foolish football, with the way Mears had been playing, but even so Adam had been sure Kent would give him the chance.

He couldn’t figure out why he felt so strangely sad that Kent had gone the other way.

44

KENT DID NOT LIKE parties after games. He let his staff have them, he could not and would not attempt to control that, but he almost never attended. Tonight, though, when Matt Byers told him there was barbecue and beer waiting at his house, he said he’d be there.

“What if we’d lost?” he asked on the noisy, elated bus.

Byers grinned. “You can always freeze barbecue,” he said. “But, Coach? We didn’t lose.”

Kent couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “No, we sure didn’t.”

He called Beth from the bus and asked her to join him.

“It’ll be a late night for the kids,” she said.

“They can survive one late night.”

And so it was, because of the party and the late night, that it was just past one in the morning when they returned to their home and found the photographs of Rachel Bond’s corpse taped to their front door. Beth was driving—Kent almost never drank, but he’d indulged in three beers tonight, and three beers to a non-drinker felt like a lot—and she saw them first. Kent had his head down, looking at his iPad, where video of the next opponent was already available, when she said, “There’s something on our door.”

He looked up with only idle interest, expecting some sort of banner or congratulatory note. That happened, sometimes. Once, after a rare string of three losses, a FOR SALE sign had also appeared in the yard, a favorite trick of fans who wanted a coach removed, but nobody was going to want to relocate Kent Austin after tonight’s come-from-behind win.

When he saw the odd collection of papers scattered over the door and realized that they were printed-out photographs, though, a sense of alarm that had been absent since Clayton Sipes was found dead by Lake Erie returned.

“Stop the car,” he said. He kept his voice low; both kids were asleep in the backseat. He wanted them to stay that way until he had a look.

“What are those?” Beth said.

“I’m not sure. Stay here, I’ll check.” When he got out of the car, he punched the lock button before he swung the door shut. The rain had stopped but the temperature was still falling, down into the low thirties now, and his breath fogged as he made his way to the porch. He was suddenly wishing he had not returned the gun to Adam.

The porch light was off, so the door was illuminated only by the glow of the headlights, but it was enough. He stopped on the steps, didn’t need to get any closer and didn’t want to.

He was looking at photographs of Rachel Bond, taken after life had left her.

There were longer shots and close-ups, pictures of her body and one of only her eyes shown through the haze of a plastic bag, and they registered in rapid fire because his eyes were already drawn to others in the mix. Lisa. Andrew. Beth. Pictures of them in the yard, in the bleachers, and one of Beth dropping Lisa off at school. He recognized the outfit—it was what she had on today. It had been taken that morning.