"Yer fast. Yer smart. Yu'll make it." Tad's dad, Big Tad 2 slapped his son sharply across his shoulder protector. Brnduh, his mother, wiped a tear from her good eye. The other one had been lost when she had taken her run. But she'd made it to skul. The eye was a small price to pay.
"Doan ferget duh 'Helpin Hanz'," she said softly. "Yu make it and yu safe dere. Yu kin rest, ma'be. Get yer stren'th up and take nuther run."
Tad nodded. He stuck out his chest and struck it with his mesh-covered glove. "I gots duh smarts. I gots du heart. I'll pass. Yu'll see. Just watch."
Big Tad took a step back to admire his son. The training had been intense. The sprints, the long-distance runs every day and twice on week-ends, the weight training, the stamina workouts, the agility training, the martial arts. And the best damn equipment money could buy.
So what if he was only a maintenance clerk, thought Big Tad. Blue collar all the way. But he'd saved his money and got his second son absolutely the best of the best. This time his blood would survive. He sighed inwardly. If it didn't, then his line was done. He was too old to try again. This was the last chance.
"Just keep it tugether. You gots to be thinkin' and runnin' and it's gots to be right then and there when yu pass the gantlet. It's five miles yu gots to go. Yu can do it in your sleep. Yu know yu can. Yu gots to b'lieve!"
Lil Tad took his place at the Gauntlet. Next to him on his right stood Mark and to his left Leeza. He had grown up with them. But now it was cutting time. He knew they would be among the flunkers. Tad gave a tight smile of encouragement to Mark.
Mark was smart, Tad knew, smart like a geeker. But physically he just didn't make the cut. He'd get bashed for sure. And Leeza? Sure, she'd get a few gimme's but they wouldn't be enough. Like Mark she was a thinker not a doer. She'd be snuffed in the first quarter mile.
"It's okay. We'll be okay," he said to them and as much to himself. Inside he reminded himself to numb down the caring. He'd make new friends. At the skul. Maybe not like Mark and Leeza, but like his dad had said more than once "time to puts 'way childish stuff." He adjusted his mesh glove, shifted his shoulder pads and took a series of quick breaths.
Mark looked like some kind of armadillo. Reticulated plates, dull and battered (they'd been worn by his father and his father's father and they'd taken a beating) and then at Leeza. She could afford a lighter outfit. Gurlz had it alot easier. Leeza wore shoulder pads made of styrofoam and a biker's helmet. She hefted her truncheon but Tad could see by the way she gripped it she'd never be effective. If she had any kind of chance at all, it would rest on her speed. She was a pretty good runner, but how fast could you run for five full miles to the skul? She was a sprinter, not a long-distance runner. Once she winded, the graders would be on her like dogs on a stray cat.
Tad tried to appear confident, in control. He couldn't help taking in the rest of the milling crowd. The smell of fear was palpable, the eyes of the boyz and gurlz showing whites like horses going to the slaughter and knowing their time was coming to an end. It was like that. Some of the kidz sniffled. A couple cried uncontrollably. One boy fat and sloppy had passed out and lay sprawled on the ground. If he didn't come around, he'd be permanently disqualified. He'd be flunked right then and there.
Tad shifted his truncheon back and forth, nervously gripping and ungripping the pommel. It was a good truncheon. Perfectly weighted and balanced, lethal.
And then it came. Louder than he'd remembered when he'd watched his older brother take his turn a couple years ago. But then he was smaller and the significance of running the Gauntlet was unknown to him. Today it was meant for him.
He slapped his two friends on the shoulders and then moved inexorably toward the line with the rest of his cohort.
The Refs made certain it went smoothly. Just up ahead the refs lined up the next group of kidz and with the green light and the blaring of the start whistle sent them off. The kidz were meticulous in spacing themselves apart like their coaches had taught them as they moved out down the wide boulevard giving themselves plenty of running room. They all had to have an equal opportunity to make it to their first day of skul.
When their turn came, the three spread out, taking their places, claiming their space and and waiting to begin moving forward from the safe zone to the open field and the waiting graders.
It would be Boyz against boyz, gurlz against gurlz. At least for the first half of the run. At the halfway point graders could take out all the kidz--boyz and gurlz. This was the way and now the cutting time was at hand.
At best only a quarter of the kidz would make it to skul. Only the strongest, the smartest, the most fit would survive the cut.
Tad was ready. The green light flashed and the horn blared its strident herald. The wave of kidz surged tentatively forward jockying for position and slowly gained speed as they spread out and got space. By the time they crossed over the safe zone line they were running flat out.
"We'll be safer we stick tugether," shouted Mark at the other two.
"Yu gotta be faster," said Leza, "yu 'spect us tu stick. Yu with us, Tad?"
"Don' know. Keeper up we see. I ain't slowin' you doan keep up."
The scrapers loomed dark and foreboding over the crowd of kidz as they wended their way through the cement canyons. The streets, of course, had been cleared of the vehicles which normally clogged them.
The blare of horns, the screech of tires, the cacophony that was every day Nu York on this one day per year gave way to this first day of skul for the kidz. To make room for the cutting. For the coming of age of the kidz and the blooding of the graders.
Ahead, around a corner still out of view came the first sounds that the Gauntlet had closed. The screams, the triumphant shouts mingled and blended into a maelstrom of violence that hit Tad like a fist to the stomach. The bile rose in his throat and his heart and head pounded like a piston.
Then they were into it. The graders were like wolves falling on sheep. The kidz tried to defend themselves, but most raised their truncheons in pathetic attempts to fend off the blows of the graders' weapons.
Tad desperately took in the scene, pausing on the outskirts like his dad taught him to look for the opening, the door from the trap. Then he saw it and made his move. He was vaguely aware that Mark and Leeza pounded desperately next to him.
Kidz' bodies littered the ground, sightless eyes gazing in frozen horror, many with heads bashed in, others with broken bones, some splintered and erupting like bloody white sticks from their ripped skins. Many wandered in shock holding the places where they hurt, others lay where they had slumped, crying and rocking, slipping and slidding in the puddles of blood that stained the streets and ran into the gutters. They had given up and they would be put down in due time.
Tad shrugged off one who reached out to him and grabbed his truncheon. He wrestled it free and in horror quickened his pace. It was as if he moved through a protected tunnel, all around him the graders and kidz struggled; the former to destroy, the latter to survive and escape to safety.
The three miraculously passed the first knot of combatants and soon, along with a handful of others fled down an alleyway and onto a wide avenue. Here and there graders pursued kidz who had broken free of the first trap. And so the chase was still playing out.
The scrapers receded behind them. Now the town homes, the old stoops of ancient brick homes built during the ancient times beckoned to them. Now they slowed, trying to catch their breath. Cautiously they walked down the street. The kidz had formed into groups and they walked, or jogged toward the distant skul.
The graders appeared from seemingly thin air. They were closest to a mixed group of six kidz up ahead. The kidz were cut down one by one. The lone survivor panicked and dropped her truncheon and attempted to make it toward the house with the helpin' hanz. But before she could gain the sanctuary, one of the gurlz threw her truncheon toward the kidz' legs. She caught the kid just right and she stumbled toward the ground, slid painfully on her stomach, her hands trying to break her fall.
Mark took a look at his friends, "We gots tuh help," he said.
"No!" shouted Tad. He reached out and grabbed his friend's arm. "It ain't our fate. We help her, we die, too. Yu go and yu go by yerself."
"This ain't right!" shouted Mark.
"Tad's right," said Leza softly. "She's fried. We gots tu get to the helpin' hand before it's too late. Help her and yer dead. C'mon." Leza gently took his arm and led him toward the house with the sanctuary logo of the red helpin' hand.
Inside, safe for the moment from the graders they could take twenty minutes. Not more, less if they liked. And less was the smart thing to do, Tad's dad had said. "Yu wait and duh graders'll be waitin' outside like jackals. Yul never make it. Best tu go in and out duh back way. Duh graders won't be able tu move that quick.
The sanctariun opened her door. "Would you kidz like some milk and cookies?" she asked, her voice low and sweet. She lived alone, her husband had died ten years before and none of her own children had survived the Gauntlet. The yearly cut was the only time she had children in her home and she wanted to make their ordeal as pleasant as possible. After all, most of the little dears would perish today.
"Do yu mind we just pass on through? Go out duh back way?" asked Tad.
She grasped the strategy immediately. Now this kid was using his head. And he looked to be up to the ordeal physically, too. She smiled and led them to the back door.
"You know, I'm not supposed to help, but if I was yu, I'd ma'be climb the fire escape to the roof. The houses are close enough to jump one to the other. Did it m'self when I ran the gantlet. The graders never even touched me."
Leza hugged the lady and then the three were out the door and climbing the fire escape.
Just as she said, with a running start they could easily leap across the expanse between the tightly packed buildings. In this way they travered an entire block. At the end, they descended the fire escape and carefully scanned the boulevard. The pickup crews were already cleaning up. They heaved bodies into the garbage trucks and the firemen hosed away the blood before the staining got too bad.
The graders were still about. They moved in loose packs, mostly. In two's and three's. There were a few loners, really big for graders. Probably they'd been held back a year. Some looked like maybe they'd been held back more than once. There were graders who lived for the gauntlet and stayed behind just to be able to do it again. The blood lust was strong in those.
Mark checked his timer. "We're fallin' behind. We gots only fifteen minutes tu get tu skul or we'll miss duh bell. Bein' tardy first day ain't no difrent then failin' the gantlet. They'll expel us and then the graders'll get us fer sure."
"Then we gots no choice," said Leeza. "We gots to go fer it. Straight and true."
"Yu gots duh strenth? I ain't holdin' back fer yu. None ah yuh. Unerstan?" asked Tad.
"Would it make a differce?" said Mark. He hitched up his chest protector and tucked his truncheon under his arm, craddling it like a football.
"Figer we gots a mile to duh skul. We gots tu go full out. Let's go." said Leeza.
They fanned out and quickly shifted into a steady, swift jog. They were on one of the less travelled boulevards. Dimmly they could hear the sounds of the runners on parallel streets. Some called encouragment to their running companions. Then there were the sounds of carnage when graders intercepted their quarry.
But for now their way was clear. Only a few bodies still littered the street and these they quickly passed with only cursory glimpses. There was little time to slow and their success was ticking away.
"I can see it," Tad gasped. "The skul zone. We're almost dere."
Mark whooped exultantly and waved his truncheon above his head in triumph.
Leeza came to an abrupt halt. "Hold'er up, kidz. Looky dere."
The two boys drew up short and shifted their gaze toward the dark alley Leeza indicated with the end of her truncheon.
They strode into the light. Graders. Five of them. Even from fifty feet away their grins were clearly visible.
"Well will yuh looky here, graders," said the scruffy leader. His knuckles and forearms were brown with dried blood. He had stripped his face to look like war paint. "We gots us some fresh meat. So close, huh, kidz? Guess yer luck done ran out. Too bad. But somebody's gotta flunk."
He motioned to his four buddies to spread out and begin a flanking movement.
"We gots no choice. We gots tu go thru'em," said Tad. "Let's do it."
They kept Leeza in the middle. Tad was on the left, Mark on the right. They ran as hard and as fast as they could straight for the graders.
The leader crouched down waiting, his truncheon resting ready across his bent thighs. "Take'm from the side!" he shouted.
They closed their circle around the three. Tad reached the leader first, raised his truncheon and smashed hard against the truncheon of the leader. The blow numbed his arm but he kept hold of his weapon. The grader's grip failed and his truncheon flew from his hands and skipped and skittered away across the road.
Mark followed up the attack on the leader. His truncheon caught the grader across his shoulder blades as he turned to retrieve his weapon. The blow unbalanced the leader, sending him flailing head over heels into the cement.
Leeza tried to fend off one of the others, but he was too powerful for her. His truncheon smashed across her forearm shattering it. Her truncheon fell to the ground. She tried to retrieve it with her good hand, but he was already on her.
Tad came to her aid. His response to the attack was automatic, ingrained from years of training. He leapt into the air while bringing his truncheon down in the classic Flying Woodcutter's Crunch. The hapless grader received the full force of the blow square upon his unprotected head. He crumpled soundlessly.
Not losing a beat he shifted seamlessly into the Honey Badgers Revenge parrying the blow of another of the graders coming at him from behind. He swiveled and ducked down away from the descending truncheon, gave it a glancing blow with his own weapon and then counter attacked with a blow at the grader's crotch. The cry of pain was primal in its agony and the grader bent over dropping his weapon and clutching at his privates.
Mark yelled a warning and tried to block the remaining two graders from ganging up on Tad. Too far to aid his friend, he hurled his weapon at them. It missed and flew passed the head of the one closest to Tad. But the miss had unnerved the assailant just enough to give Tad time to recover.
His move was desperate and potentially fatal, but he knew he had no alternative. He dropped his truncheon and rushed the grader closest to him. He grabbed him roughly by his chest protector and waited a split second hoping his timing was right then swung the grader around with all his strength right into the path of the truncheon wielded by his companion. The momentum of the blow was too great to stop. Too late the truncheon crashed into the head of his companion. His shaved skull caved in like a ripe fruit. Blood, splintered bone and brain matter splattered in a spray.
Tad recovered his truncheon and swung it into the shocked grader's side. He died gasping desperately for the air his ruined lungs could not inhale.
Mark had Leeza and was hobbling toward the skul. Tad joined them, grabbed Leeza on the other side and together they crossed the skul zone and entered the grounds. Less than a minute after they had crossed over the skul bell sounded. They'd passed. They made the grade.
"Oh dear me, will you look at this. Poor dear, let me get that taken care of for you. The doctors are in the gym. Come with me."
The skul nurse took Leeza by her good arm and escorted her toward the gym and medical attention. Mark and Tad watched her go.
Mark shook Tad's hand. "We woulda been flunked without yu. Thanks," he said.
Tad smiled feeling the tension drain away. "Ma'be. I kinda think we needed each other. Yu did okay. We all did. Hey, we made it! We gradjated. How 'bout dat?"
The two kidz looked around them. Not many of the kidz had survived. And many of them had been hurt badly.
"Welcome to your skul," said the pretty lady walking up to them. "You passed your first test. Now it's time to begin your education. I'll be your teacher. My name is Miss Warlock. If you boyz will please follow me we can get started."
Tad liked the way her skirt swished as she walked and the smell of her perfume. She smelled like fresh flowers. He'd seen pictures of them and though he'd never actually seen real flowers, he imagined they smelled like his teacher. He was going to like going to skul.
"I am a Vice President-Investments with a major brokerage firm in Houston, TX. To paraphrase the immortal character from the novel "Scaramouche": I was born with a gift for laughter and a sense that the world was insane. Though my main interest is writing detective thrillers, Science Fiction is my first love. It allows me to play a minor god and create my own worlds. And so for now I'll rest."
E-mail: RGray80533@aol.com
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