Alex (Delirium #1.1)(8)
She banged her knee, hard, against a sharp elbow of rock. When she looked down, she could see a bit of dark blood streaking her kneecap. Weirdly, she didn’t feel any pain. And though everyone was still cheering and shouting, it sounded distant.
Matt’s words drowned out all the voices.
Look, it’s just not working.
There’s something about her.
We can still be friends.
The air was cool. The wind had picked up, singing through the old trees, sending deep groans up from the woods—but she wasn’t cold anymore. Her heart was beating hard in her throat. She found another handhold in the rock, braced her legs on the slick moss, lifted and levered, as she had watched the gamers do, every summer since eighth grade.
Dimly, she was aware of Diggin’s voice, distorted by the megaphone.
“Late in the game . . . a new competitor . . .”
But half his words got whipped away by the wind.
Up, up, up, ignoring the ache in her fingers and legs, trying to stick to the left side of the ridge, where the rocks, driven hard at angles into one another, formed a wide and jutting lip of stone, easy to navigate.
Suddenly a dark shape, a person, rocketed past her. She almost slipped. At the last second, she worked her feet more firmly onto the narrow ledge, dug hard with her fingers to steady herself. A huge cheer went up, and Heather’s first thought was: Natalie.
But then Diggin boomed out, “And he’s in, ladies and gentlemen! Merl Tracey, our thirty-second gamer, is in!”
Almost at the top now. She risked a glance behind her and saw a steep slope of jagged rock, the dark water breaking at the base of the ridge. It suddenly seemed a million miles away.
For a second the fog cleared from her head, the anger and the hurt were blown away, and she wanted to crawl back down the rock, back to the safety of the beach, where Bishop was waiting. They could go to Dot’s for late-night waffles, extra butter, extra whipped cream. They could drive around with all the windows open, listening to the rising hum of the crickets, or sit together on the hood of his car and talk about nothing.
But it was too late. Matt’s voice came whispering back, and she kept climbing.
No one knows who invented Panic, or when it first began.
There are different theories. Some blame the shuttering of the paper factory, which overnight placed 40 percent of the adult population of Carp, New York, on unemployment. Mike Dickinson, who infamously got arrested for dealing on the very same night he was named prom king, and now changes brake pads at the Jiffy Lube on Route 22, likes to take credit; that’s why he still goes to Opening Jump, seven years after graduating.
None of these stories is correct, however. Panic began as so many things do in Carp, a poor town of twelve thousand people in the middle of nowhere: because it was summer, and there was nothing else to do.
The rules are simple. The day after graduation is Opening Jump, and the game goes all through summer. After the final challenge, the winner takes the pot.
Everyone at Carp High pays into the pot, no exceptions. Fees are a dollar a day, for every day that school is in session, from September through June. People who refuse to pony up the cash receive reminders that go from gentle to persuasive: vandalized locker, shattered windows, shattered face.
It’s only fair. Anyone who wants to play has a chance to win. That’s another rule: all seniors, but only seniors, are eligible, and must announce their intention to compete by participating in the Jump, the first of the challenges. Sometimes as many as forty kids enter.
There is only ever one winner.
Two judges plan the game, name the challenges, deliver instructions, award and deduct points. They are selected by the judges of the previous year, in strict secrecy. No one, in the whole history of Panic, has ever confessed to being one.
There have been suspicions, of course—rumors and speculation. Carp is a small town, and judges get paid. How did Myra Campbell, who always stole lunch from the school cafeteria because there was no food at home, suddenly afford her used Honda? She said an uncle had died. But no one had ever heard of Myra’s uncle—no one, really, had ever thought about Myra, until she came rolling in with the windows down, smoking a cigarette, with the sun so bright on the windshield, it almost completely obscured the smile on her face.
Two judges, picked in secret, sworn to secrecy, working together. It must be this way. Otherwise they’d be subject to bribes, and possibly to threats. That’s why there are two—to make sure that things stay balanced, to reduce the possibility that one will cheat, and give out information, leak hints.
If the players know what to expect, then they can prepare. And that isn’t fair at all.
It’s partly the unexpectedness, the never-knowing, that starts to get to them, and weeds them out, one by one.
The pot usually amounts to just over $50,000, after fees are deducted and the judges—whoever they are—take their cut. Four years ago, Tommy O’Hare took his winnings, bought two items out of hock, one of them a lemon-yellow Ford, drove straight to Vegas, and bet it all on black.
The next year, Lauren Davis bought herself new teeth and a new pair of tits and moved to New York City. She returned to Carp two Christmases later, stayed just long enough to show off a new purse and an even newer nose, and then blew back to the city. Rumors floated back: she was dating the ex-producer of some reality TV weight-loss show; she was becoming a Victoria’s Secret model, though no one has ever seen her in a catalog. (And many of the boys have looked.)