Blood Magik: A Cold Day in Hell (Book One)

Chapter 9: Dead Beat Friends

1

The Coach of the Los Angeles Priests would never sit during a game. He'd stand throughout the warmups, stand during play, and pace back and forth all through the intermissions regardless of his team's performance. He'd post behind his men on the bench with his arms crossed over his chest and the clock ticking down, never irresolute or dithering from his stance. He'd saunter to and fro in the locker room between the big blue hamper with the pile of sweaty towels and the entrance in the front corner of the room. After games, he'd smack all his players on the back with a firm and heavy hand whether they'd win or lose, and he'd always leave them with a coach to look up to at the outcome of every competition.

Today...the Coach was sitting down.

He had his head planted in his palms and his elbows on his knees, counting the little dimples in the cement between his shoes. His team had lost the day's contest to the Anaheim Hell Hounds 8-0. A brutal and humbling defeat. Foreboding and droll. He would have guessed it'd be a cold day in Hell before his team would ever have suffered such a loss...

The Priests sluggishly removed their equipment, the decibels in the locker room at an all-time low. Mac (an abbreviation stemming from his sir name, Harold Mackenzie) stood nearest his coach where he'd slumped at the end of the bench by the towels. He removed his helmet to uncover his orange hair and wiped sweat from his brow. After deliberating the future of his career, he decided to tackle the deafening silence that hung in the air like a pungent musk, although his voice failed to confidently support such a gallant advance...

"Uhh...Coach? ...D'you think—?"

"Shut!" The Coach cut him off with only half a response, head heavy in his hands.

Mac looked to his good friend Donny who occupied the locker next to his. He offered an expression that asked, "What do I say?" and Donny shot him an answer in a glance that warned, "Don't say anything if you know what's good for you." But Mac refused to leave well enough unmolested, so primed his bravado for another crack at finishing what he'd started.

"Coach...should we take—?"

"SHUT!!" This time, his half an answer said a whole mouthful in its tone, and he slightly lifted his face from his palms to emphasize the severity of his mood. "...The fuck!" While he was being communicative, he figured he'd add a few more syllables to his retort, clarifying any misunderstanding there may've been the first time. But in between words, he picked up a puzzling sound under the silence of his players that resonated from behind the wall separating their team from the Hounds. He raised his head a few inches more, cocked to the side. "Did any of you just hear that?"

Mac figured he'd be the one to respond since it may have been his persistence that finally pushed his dear coach over the edge, spiraling him into some sort of paranoid, delusional recoil.

"Uhhhh...hear what, Coach?"

The Coach stood silent, listening more closely for what he thought was a chilling, familiar bellow of a laugh...but didn't hear it again. "...Jesus, I'm fucking losing it..." He put his head back in his palms. "You assholes have finally done it..." (Mac had never noticed before, but the top of the Coach's head was like a scene from a dire, warzone massacre with hardly a surviving morsel left standing.) "You've turned me into a fucking lunatic..."

"No...wait..." Carl, rooted at the other end of the lockers, closer to the wall between rooms, spoke up with his head tilted toward the barrier and ear on full alert. "I heard it too..."

Everyone stopped.

They all paused together, and the quiet uncovered crashing sounds, thumps against the walls, screams...and...laughing...