After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

She let slip a shy, wonderful little smile at me. I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just cheered as Eric Kellerman landed a jump. I sucked at flirting, and my hacking skills weren’t going to get me girls anytime soon. But I kicked ass at BMX. I had a growing reputation in the school as “That A-track kid who bikes.” I preferred that to the previous year’s moniker of “That nerd who hangs out with Vinny.” And I thought if I tricked out a bit in front of Maeve, got some sick air, then maybe she’d be impressed; and if the afternoon went really well, we’d go behind the trees and…

My heart hammered. This was going to be a good year.

“I heard you were good,” Elsa said. She whipped out a pack of Marlboro lights from her pocket and lit the last one, the one turned around for good luck.

Maeve smiled and swayed restlessly, the tassels of her hat swinging back and forth against her head like a Tibetan drum. “Can you do a full twirl?” she said.

“You mean a three-sixty?” I blushed. “Sure.”

“Awesome,” she said. “I love that.”

I couldn’t believe she was paying this much attention to me, that both girls were. I had shed my nerdiness like I’d shed junior high. I couldn’t stop smiling.

Vinny poked me in the arm and said, “Dude, is that who I think it is?”

I turned to see a frazzled woman, dressed in green scrubs, walking between the kids and their bikes. Her presence here was impossible, and for a moment it didn’t register. Then I remembered the phone calls.

“Russell? Is Russell Broward here?” Everyone turned to look at her, then me.

“Oh, god!” I whispered. I turned my back, pretending not to hear, hoping she’d vanish.

“Russ-ell?” She sounded like she was calling for a lost dog. She spotted me, stormed right across the Track, and Eric Kellerman nearly clobbered her as he came around the turn.

“Is that your mom?” Maeve said. She squinted at me.

“My mom? Oh, uh…yeah.”

“You told her about the Track?”

Maeve pushed her glasses up her nose as if taking me in. I don’t think she liked what she saw. I couldn’t see her irises anymore, only the dull gray rectangles of reflected sky.

My mom strode up to us and put her hands on her hips. She took a long look at Elsa, who hid her cigarette behind her back. Then Mom turned to me. “Why didn’t you answer my calls? I thought I told you to come home after school!”

“What are you doing here?” I snapped.

Her hair was a mangled mess and her lipstick had missed her lips, fallen on her cheek. Ever since Dad had died two years back, she always had the appearance of going somewhere and never arriving. “They called me to cover a shift and I need you to babysit your sister.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now, Russell. And where’s your helmet?” She looked around. “All you kids should be wearing helmets.” She stared at Elsa, who had been trying not to giggle. “Does your mother know you smoke? You know teenage smoking increases your risk of breast cancer seventy percent?”

Oh, god. This wasn’t happening.

Elsa said, “My mom buys me all my packs.”

Maeve laughed, but quickly silenced herself when my mother glared at her.

“Come on, Russell!”

Humiliated, I muttered good-bye to them.

“Later, man,” Vinny said mournfully. Elsa seemed annoyed, and Maeve frowned. I heard Elsa mock, “‘Teenage smoking increases your risk of breast cancer seventy percent!’” Someone shouted, “Mommy says Russell can’t come out and play!” and a bunch of kids laughed.

I hung my head as I followed my mom through the trees and out onto the road, where her Honda CR-V idled. Jenna was sitting in the backseat, playing Derek Jeter’s World of Baseball on her pink pocket console as my mom opened the hatchback. I threw my bike in, got in the passenger seat, slammed the door.

“I don’t like your attitude, Russell!”

I was on the verge of tears. “You couldn’t call a stupid babysitter?”

“I’m sorry, Russell, but there was no one else.”

The tires screeched as we pulled away. I looked into the backseat, Jenna in her pink jacket playing her pink handheld game. She was humming happily to herself. I wanted to scream.

“I left money on the table. You can order a pizza. I want you in bed by eleven, your sister by nine. And no playing video games till your homework’s done.”

Jenna said, “Let’s play baseball when we get home! Mom bought me a new mitt.”

“I’m not playing with you, loser!”

“Hey! Don’t you dare talk to your sister that way!” Mom said. “You’ll play with her or no video games for a month.”

I crossed my arms and sulked, and Jenna returned her attention to her pocket game. “You’re not like him,” she said.

“What?”

“Dad would always play with me when I asked.”

Mom sighed deeply as she raced down Ocean Avenue toward home, speeding through a yellow light. Just ten minutes ago, my high school future had held so much promise. Now everyone would be talking about Russell Broward, the kid whose mom picks him up from the Track. I’d be a dork in their eyes forever.

“I hate you,” I whispered.

“What did you say?”

We zoomed past three kids popping wheelies, laughing as they raced toward the preserve. “I so hate you both.”

Jenna’s tears have run out, which is good because the white-skinned Creepy in left field has begun to dig up the grasses and vomit jewels into the holes. The others are fidgeting too. This game won’t last much longer. Jenna stands, wipes her cheeks, and with a jab to the ground, frees the bat of its doughnut. I straighten her hat, give her my best smile, and pat her backside as she steps up to the plate.

The catcher is some sort of shapeless ball of worms, which reminds me of the squirming things I once found in our cat Lucifer’s shit, but this Creepy is exceptionally good at catching the ball and returning it to the yellow-eyed pitcher on cue. It says to Jenna, “Your not-rot is repulsive to us,” which I assume is some sort of insult intended to upset her hitting ability.

(Yeah, these Creepies learn fast.)

Jenna steps into the batter’s box, and the many-toothed cat tosses three pitches—all balls, the umpire declares. Jenna takes them with the steadiness of a mountain.

The next pitch. Jenna swings. For a ten-year-old she’s got quite the upper-body strength. The ball makes a metallic ping as it connects with the bat, flies over my head to crash into the windshield of a car.

“Foul ball,” the umpire declares, and distantly, something not quite human screams.

“C’mon Jenna! You can hit the ball!” I cheer. “No pitcher! No pitcher!”

The pitcher’s eyes flicker like moonlit gold.

She takes the pitch. It’s clearly high and outside, but the umpire calls, “Strike two!”

“What?!” I storm toward him, cursing. “That was totally high and away!”

“Step away from me,” the fish-creature says. “Or I will devour your immortal self.” He spreads his batlike wings, and on his scaly hide I see dozens of tiny faces crying out in pain. I leap back, horrified.

“Don’t worry, Russell, I’ve got this,” Jenna says, and her defiance centers me. “These Creepies got nothing on me.”

“Who you calling creepy?” the worm-creature says.

I step back to my place beside the dugout as the pitcher lofts the next pitch. I hold my breath as Jenna swings…and connects! A line drive flies over the second baseman’s head, to land in right field. Jenna screams with joy and sprints to first. A Creepy made of a thousand hands with eyeballs in their palms fields the ball. It catapults it to the shortstop, covering second by rolling end over end. I tell Jenna to hold up at first.