Watchers

Friend or Enemy?

Panic rose in me. I hated not knowing what was going on. There was somebody else in our playing field, and I hadn't a clue where he was! Or had I? I looked back over at Dylan, who was trying to feel for the blue blob on his back. He hadn't moved much, so I quickly calculated the angle the shooter would've had to hit him at. If Dylan was shot in the back and he'd been facing Corey, then the shooter who got him was in front of us both. Or behind me, when I'd been aiming for Corey. There was no time to help out Dylan. He'd be fine. I wanted to win. Both he and Corey were out of the game, now, and I was suddenly in a new one with someone I didn't even know.

I listened over my brother's and Dylan's complaining and thought I heard footfalls moving away from us. The shooter was running. This was my chance. Leaving my team member and sibling behind, I took off in the direction I thought I'd heard the steps. Whoever this trespasser was, he wasn't going to make it out of the woods without my green mark on his gray suit. What kind of a jerk would sneak up on us like that? It was cheating, if you asked me. We didn't even know there was a fourth person in the area. At the same time I was getting angry, I felt my blood rushing through me with excitement. Even if his sneaking up had been illegal, it made things a lot more interesting. Or it did for me, anyway, because I wasn't out yet. I was still in the game, still hunting. And hunting for an unknown enemy was more fun than hunting for my beginner little brother.

I tried to keep my eyes open for a moving figure, but I didn't see one. I was pretty much in the open, but I was fairly sure that the enemy was still ahead of me. If he'd stopped, I would've probably caught up to him by then. When I started to slow my speed, I began to recognize the area I was in. It was where the large boulders started popping up here and there. The boulders that people used as mini-fortresses to hide behind while shooting. And the enemy could be behind any one of them. If he was someone who knew Sloppy Soldiers and came often, he'd know the area, and that could be dangerous for me. Of course, I knew the area too, so we were probably on the same level.

Becoming more cautious, I started to move from stone to stone, edging my way around each one to check out the area beyond before I ran to the next. The deeper I got, the more boulders there were. I knew that if I kept on, I'd reach the place where all the rocks stood on their ends like a mini Stonehenge. Something told me that was where the enemy had gone.

I was there soon enough. The stones were bigger than me by nearly three feet. It was very quiet—too quiet, I thought. I knew that the person was around; I could feel it. He was probably watching me, waiting for the perfect moment to attack. But I wasn't going down easily. My goal was to get to the very farthest boulder. That way, I'd know he had to be behind me. Then I could start moving between them, looking for a footprint or smushed plant where a shoe could've stepped. I'd be strategic, not impulsive, like I usually was. Adam always told me that I needed to put more strategy into my game. So I would this time, but first I had to guess the basic location of my enemy. That was the tricky part.

I made it to the second-to-last boulder with no trouble at all. Sweat dripped down my arms and legs inside the suit I wore, and the hair around my ears and on my forehead was damp too. I was so hot I thought I'd burst if I didn't move faster. Moving slowly made me more hot than running. My heart was beating so loud that I was sure somebody would hear it. Now was the time when things were getting serious. Once I made it to the last boulder, I'd have to start back and check all the way around each rock. I wished I could see them from above; that would've given my enemy's position away real quick.

The last boulder was in sight. I'd start out slow, then move faster. I'd make it before even the birds could see me.

Step . . . step . . . step step step.

I was just crossing the ten-foot gap that would get me to the last stone when somebody jumped out from behind the trees to my right and stuck his paintball gun right up against my side. It happened so fast that I stopped dead in my tracks and actually dropped my own semi-auto. I'd been caught.