Now free of the pickup’s weight, the bus lurched forward onto the bridge, completely out of control. It was perpendicular to the road by the time it crashed into the truss. Steel girders snapped and fell like dominoes for twenty yards before the bus screeched to a stop midway across the ravine.

Its front half hung in open air off the side of the bridge.

Another girder snapped, pitching the bus out even farther. The rear wheels came off the ground. Both halves of the vehicle hung suspended, balancing over the edge.

The engine sputtered and died. The wheels creaked to a stop.

Booker heard screams and ran onto the bridge, his heart racing.

It had happened so fast that he could hardly take it all in, but by all accounts, everything had gone off perfectly. The crash had been spectacular!

He stopped about seventy-five feet short of the bus to avoid being seen. Even at a distance, the damage to the vehicle was evident. Wheels were bent on twisted axles. The bus’s front end hemorrhaged fluid from a gaping wound of warped metal and loose hoses. Half of the rear bumper had peeled away and become twisted under the rear axle.

Arms waved out of broken windows. Upended seats had pinned players against the glass. Other windows were white webs of shattered glass, many of them marked with sprays of red. Through the wind Booker heard painful groans, frightened curses, and cries for help.

A smile tugged the corners of his mouth. He hoped one of the screams belonged to Cole Logan. With any luck, Logan had lost another finger or two, maybe even an arm.

Elray appeared beside him, the strip of Laffy Taffy in one hand and the smoking 12-gauge in the other. Booker felt so good about things, he decided to hold off asking why Elray had fired the fucking signal shot into his face instead of straight into the air as instructed. Booker reached up and touched his birdshot-riddled cheek. Fortunately he was so high on booze, adrenaline, and Hombre Muchacho that he couldn’t feel the pain yet.

There would be plenty of time to kick Elray’s ass later. Right now he just wanted to relish the moment.

Behind him, his teammates piled out of the pickup, hugging one another and jumping around in drunken elation.

Booker started toward them, but stopped when he heard metal creak again.

Turning back, he saw the bus pitch forward once more and fall nose-first into the raging water below.

Elray then spoke the first words Booker had ever heard him say: “I don’t think that was part of the plan.”

Mona looked up from her game program with a start.

Seated in the top row of the Stanton High football stadium, she had just been struck with a strange feeling—a sharp prickling at the base of her spine.

Something in the cosmos had changed.

Dark forces had awoken.

“Holy shit!”