Leapholes (2006) (6 page)

"Fine. If that be your choice. Sir, it's your turn."

The Sling Man moved closer to the five remaining piles. Without a moment's hesitation, he chose the fifth pile from the left. It was pure sugar. "How sweet it is!" he shouted, raising two fists in the air.

The Flu Lady was next, and she chose sugar. Just three piles remained. One of them concealed a bottle cap.

The doctor's voice tightened. "Ryan, it's your turn."

Ryan shook his head. "No. I feel the same as Kaylee. I don't like this game."

"Well, one of you is going to have to choose."

"I'll choose," said Kaylee. "But I'm choosing for Coach Jenkins."

"What?"

"I can't bring myself to choose for myself. So the pile I choose will be the coach's fate. Can you accept that, sir?"

The coach swallowed hard. The suggestion seemed to have taken him by surprise, but he was eager to get this over with. "I accept," he said. "Choose one for me."

The girl stared at the three remaining piles of sugar. Her eyes opened wider, but she was otherwise still. Not a muscle moved. She didn't even blink. Ryan wondered if she was even breathing. Finally, her arm stretched forward. Her fingers shook as they approached the pile. She placed her hand over the middle one, then raked it clean off the board with her fingers.

There was only sugar.

The coach let out a nervous chuckle of relief. Then he looked at Ryan and said, "I guess it's down to you two."

Ryan stared at the two remaining piles. He looked at the four players who would live, and then he looked at Kaylee. The four looked smug. Kaylee looked terrified. He realized that he, too, must have looked frightened. Who wouldn't have been scared? He had his whole life ahead of him. Whether h
e w
ould live or die came down to this: two piles on a tray. One was pure sugar, the other was hiding a bottle cap. One was life; the other, death. It all seemed so unfair.

"Come on, Ryan," said Dr. Watkins. "Choose:'

His heart was thumping in his chest. He swallowed the lump in his throat and picked the one on the right.

"That one," he said.

"Sift through it," said the doctor. "It's your lot."

He drew a deep breath, then dragged his fingers through the pile.

All eyes turned toward Kaylee. She was stunned, silent. The doctor tilted up one end of the tray. Slowly, the last
-
remaining pile of sugar dissolved, and the bottle cap rolled onto the table. It landed in front of Kaylee.

The doctor looked at her and said, "I'm sorry, young lady."

Her body began to tremble, and then she let out a scream. "No, not me!"

"It's what we agreed," said Coach.

"No, it's not fair! It's not fair at all."

"It is as fair as we can be."

"Why should it be me? Why should I die? I'm just fourteen!"

Fourteen, thought Ryan. She was actually younger than he had guessed. Ryan could hardly stand to listen. It could have been him. It had come down to just two piles of sugar. He could have chosen the wrong one. He'd chosen the right one, but it didn't feel right.

For this, I deserve to live ?

Ryan said, "There has to be another way."

"There is no other way," said Coach.

Kaylee screamed even louder. Then she sprang like a cat toward the box of glass vials on the table. The men in the hazmat suits grabbed her.

"Take her away!" Dr. Watkins ordered.

The men tried to restrain her, but Kaylee was kicking and screaming at the top of her lungs. She refused to go without a fight. The guards wrestled her to the floor, but she kicked one man in the shins. He cried out in pain, and Kaylee wiggled free. The doctor jumped into the fracas and tried to subdue her, but Kaylee was twisting in every direction. The coach pounced on her and slapped her across the face.

"Please!" she cried. "Somebody help me!"

Ryan had no time to think, but his instincts took over. He grabbed the box of vials and jumped atop the table.

"He's got the vaccine!" the coach shouted.

"Stop right there!" said Ryan. "Or I'll smash the vials against the wall."

The others stopped dead in their tracks.

The doctor said, "Put the box down gently, boy. There's no need for this. You're one of the winners."

"A winner?" he said, scoffing. "Is that what you think this is? Some kind of game?"

"It's the best we can do," said Coach.

Ryan shook his head, disgusted by such a lame response. "No, it's not the best we can do. We're in this together. We'll all make it out of this mess. Or none of us will."

The coach glared. "You're talking nonsense. Give us the box."

Ryan took a half-step backward. He nearly stepped on the Flu Lady's cup of water--and suddenly he had an idea. He grabbed the cup and pitched the water onto the floor. Then he reached inside the box of vials.

"What are you doing?" the coach asked nervously.

"Just stay back, or all five of these vaccines will be sprayed across the wall." Ryan kept one eye on the lookout, and on
e e
ye on the cup. He opened one vial and poured some of the vaccine into the empty cup.

"Don't be a fool," said the doctor.

Ryan said, "We have five vaccines. If each of us takes a little less, we can make six."

"We'll all die!" said the Sling Man.

"Or maybe we'll all live," said Ryan.

The guard took a step toward him, but Ryan raised the box over his head once again, threatening to smash the vials to bits. The guard backed away. Ryan opened the remaining vials. "Don't do it!" the doctor shouted.

Ryan ignored him. One after the other, he emptied a small amount of liquid from each vial and poured it into the cup. When he finished, he had six vaccines. The others looked on, angry and astonished. To Ryan, however, it felt completely right. He looked at the coach and said, "Bring Kaylee here. She should drink first."

Nobody moved. Ryan and the coach were locked in a stare
-
down, but the others were watching the cup, the concoction that contained some of the vaccine from each of the five vials. Ryan smelled something strange. He, too, glanced down at the cup.

"It's bubbling," said the guard.

"It's about to boil," said the other.

It was boiling. As it boiled, the yellow liquid inside began to expand. The cup was half full, then two-thirds full. The sixth share that Ryan had created was boiling and growing right before their eyes.

Then they heard a noise. It was a deep rumbling that sounded like a distant earthquake. It was coming from inside the cup.

"What is that?" asked Kaylee.

"I don't know," said Ryan.

The cup started to rattle. The boiling yellow liquid was bubbling over the sides like a science project gone bad.

"I think it's going to explode!" said Coach.

The rumbling grew louder. The rattling spread to the table. The legs were tapping on the floor. Then the floor, itself, began to shake. At first, it was a vibration beneath their feet. Soon, the whole room was in motion. Ryan could barely stay on his feet.

"Run for it!" the doctor shouted.

One of the guards flung the door open. Ryan tried to run, but the floor was shaking too violently. He fell to his knees and dropped the box containing their vaccine. He heard the glass vials shatter. He saw the others running. He heard himself screaming as the cup exploded and released a bright flash of light. The colors were more intense than any fireworks display he had ever seen.

And then there was only darkness.

Chapter
9

The bright light of interrogation was shining in Ryan's eyes.

The blast in the Infectious Disease Control Cente
r h
ad knocked him out, cold. Apart from that, he was unhurt. He didn't know how long he had been unconscious. Even more disconcerting, he had no idea where he was.

"You are in a tremendous amount of trouble, young man." The deep voice filled the room, but Ryan's interrogator was a dark silhouette in the shadows, standing behind a bright spotlight. It was like staring into the headlights of an oncoming car in the dead of night and trying to identify the driver. Somehow, however, Ryan could feel the weight of the stranger's stare.

"Who are you?" asked Ryan.

"I'm Detective Frank Malone. And 77/ be the one asking the questions from here on out, thank you."

Ryan couldn't look into that white light another minute. As he averted his eyes, he noticed that he was no longer wearing his jeans and sweatshirt. His basketball jersey was gone, too. Someone had removed his street clothes. He was clad in a jumpsuit. An orange jumpsuit--the same kind of orange jumpsuit that his father wore whenever Ryan visited him at the state penitentiary.

"Am I in prison?"

"No more questions," said the detective. "It's time for you to cough up some answers, Mr. Coolidge."

Coolidge! They knew his name. But how? It must have been the missing person's report that the ER physician had mentioned. His mother had probably filed it, and the police figured out that Ryan LNU was Ryan Coolidge. "Sir, I know what you must be thinking. But I'm not like my father. I didn't do anything wrong."

"We'll see about that. Right now, I'd venture to say that you're in far more trouble than your father ever got himself into."

Ryan couldn't imagine why the detective would say such a thing. Then it came to him. They must think I started thatfire. "It wasn't me. I didn't start that hospital on fire."

"I'm not talking about that. Don't play dumb. Your friend Kaylee confirmed everything that Dr. Watkins told us."

"Kaylee?" he said aloud, and the wheels began to turn in his head. So far, he hadn't been thinking too clearly. He suddenly remembered that he had been exposed to a deadly and contagious disease. "Is Kaylee all right? She should be ... I should be ..."

"Dead?"

"Yes. We were all infected by that virus. BODS."

"Both you and Kaylee are fine."

Ryan sighed with relief, but his concern quickly returned. "What about the others?"

"Oh, you're worried about them, are you?" he said, his voice dripping with skepticism. "Funny, you weren't quite so concerned when you took away their vaccines."

"I wasn't trying to take anything away from anyone. There were six of us and only five vaccines. I was trying to make enough for everyone."

"No, you were trying to save Kaylee, at the expense of everyone else."

"That's not true."

"You agreed to cast lots, did you not?"

"Yes, but--"

"The five winners were supposed to get the vaccine. The loser would not."

"Yes, but it didn't have to be that way."

"But you agreed to the system," the detective said.

"The others wanted it. I never agreed. It wasn't right."

The detective chuckled. "You mean it wasn't right because you didn't like the result."

"No. It just wasn't right."

"So when Kaylee lost, you went berserk."

"I did what I had to do. That's all."

"You took the vials. You tried to stretch five vaccines into six."

"Yes."

"Which was foolish, of course. There was only enough vaccine for five. If you try to stretch it into six, none of them would be any good."

"We had to try. We couldn't just let Kaylee die."

"So you admit that you broke the agreement to cast lots?"

Ryan hesitated. It sounded bad, the way the detective said it. "Yes, sir."

"You had a better idea. Mix up the vials and blow everythin
g u
p."

"I had no idea that mixing up the vaccines would cause an explosion."

The detective leaned closer, his eyes narrowing. "Like I said before, son. You are in a lot of trouble."

"Why?"

"You and Kaylee were the only survivors. Four people died."

The detective's words hit him like a punch in the chest. "Coach, Flu Lady, Sling Man, Head Case. All dead?" he said, his voice quaking.

"That's right. Thanks to you."

Ryan's mouth went dry. He'd never hurt anyone in his entire life, and now four people were dead. "This can't be. I didn't mean for this to turn out this way."

"It is a rather interesting result, isn't it," said the detective.

"I wouldn't call it interesting at all. It's terrible. I'm sick over this."

"Actually, you're not sick. That's what is so interesting. You see, the BODS virus had never been tested on children before. Turns out it's lethal only in adults. Dr. Watkins believes that it has something to do with lower levels of certain hormones in children."

"So Kaylee and I are safe?"

"Yes. But we know all too well that BODS is fatal to adults. Without the vaccine, none of them survived."