“Why?” Cole looked at the rocking bus. “What’s going to happen to them?”

“Two days, Cole. You must lead your team to victory … because only victory can save their souls now . . .”

Her voice faded. Her eyes closed, and her arms fell to the sand.

Cole put his ear to her mouth. Nothing. “Mona! Goddamnit, don’t do this!” He lifted her flaccid body off the sand and shook her again. “Mona, you can’t do this!”

Savannah’s hand fell on his shoulder.

“She’s gone, Cole. She’s gone.”

An explosion of broken metal split the air behind them. Cole turned to see the bus’s accordion door sailing through the night like a fluttering bat wing. It flew some fifty yards before splashing into the river.

Then the first muddy cleat stepped slowly down onto the sand.

They watched in silence as the players filed down the steps and proceeded to line up shoulder-to-shoulder alongside the bus.

When the last man was in place, Cole scanned the line of blood-smeared faces. He saw eyes that were sunken and hollow, and tongues hanging limply from bloodless lips. He saw shanks of steel embedded in pruned flesh, and mangled limbs contorted into positions that could be achieved only with pulverized bones.

O’Dell Lamar stood at the end of the row. Cole hardly recognized the boy who had clung so tightly to him in his final moments the night before.

Cole left Savannah’s side and approached the tailback with timid steps. When he was within arm’s reach, he stopped, steeled himself, then took the final step. O’Dell remained like stone, his clouded eyes showing no semblance of cognition.

There was no rise and fall to the man’s chest, no puffs of vapor escaping his lips. Cole placed his fingers at O’Dell’s neck. The skin felt like refrigerated meat.

There was no pulse.

Cole stepped away. He looked back at Savannah, who had moved nearer to the water’s edge. She was shivering, her arms wrapped around her chest.

“It’s okay,” he said. “Don’t be afraid.”

Bringing his eyes back to the players, he swallowed hard and cleared his throat. “Do any of you remember what happened to you last night? Do any of you know how you got here?”

He got nothing but the same empty stares in response.

He walked up to Shane Butler. The wide receiver held a football in his hands—hands that had once seemingly been created by God Himself for the sole purpose of snagging catches from heights that other less gifted receivers could only dream of. Cole studied those hands now. The skin appeared slick and pale. The fingers were gnarled and twisted into grotesque angles at every knuckle. Shane offered no protest as Cole slipped the ball from the receiver’s palms. The ball was waterlogged but had maintained its integrity. Cole stepped back, shifting it from hand to hand.