Johnny Henzel does not vanish. Instead, his body falls backward in the center circle. His head smacks against the floor. The brickers, seemingly all three hundred of them, gasp together in the echo of the bang. Some yell, “No! No!” as I lift the revolver to shoot again, this time pointing at Johnny’s head. A bricker flings a brick and hits me in the thigh just as the gun goes off. The bullet misses Johnny and ricochets off the floor. Reginald is running toward me. He stumbles, falls, and rolls, the pillowcase slipping off his head. “I’ve been shot!” he yells, even though he has not been. Another brick hits the court, breaks in two, and tumbles toward Reginald. He sits up and grabs the whistle from around his neck. His cheeks puff cartoonishly as he blows. The shrillness needles through my brain.

On the overhead track, there is movement and noise and cursing, but I do not glance up. I stare at Johnny. At the red bull’s-eye in the center of his chest.

I want to unlock the cuffs from around his ankles and wrists. It must hurt him to lie in such an awkward position. “Do you have the keys to the cuffs?” I call to Reginald, who grasps his ankle, which he twisted in his fall.

“What did you do!?” Reginald whines, his face distorted.

“I killed Johnny,” I reply.

“You didn’t, you idiot! He’s still alive! He’s still here!”

I put down the revolver, crawl to Johnny, and lean over him. His eyes are closed. His face is relaxed. There is no tension left. He is as peaceful as an angel. The wound in his chest is the size of a nickel, and the blood looks oddly fake, like the zombie ketchup we townies squirt on ourselves on Halloween.

I place my ear to his chest as dozens of brickers descend into the gymnasium, pulling their pillowcases from their heads. They surround Johnny and me, a few with bricks in their hands as though they may still beat Johnny’s brains out, or maybe even mine. Benny Baggarly is here. He picks up the revolver and points it at the ceiling. He pulls the trigger again and again, but of course the gun does not shoot.

The brickers jabber. Reginald groans. Johnny stays silent.

“Please quiet down,” I say to the brickers. A few kneel beside Johnny and me as I listen to Johnny’s chest.

I sit back up. “There is no heartbeat,” I say. “He is redead.”

“He’s not redead!” Reginald cries out, exasperated. He drags himself toward me through the crowd of brickers. He thinks me mad. I see it in his mean, angry, splotchy face.

At that moment, the death’s head scurries out from underneath Johnny and climbs atop his shoulder. A few brickers gasp. Rover sits for a second or two, the death mask on its pronotum seeming to pulsate. And then—poof!—the roach disappears into thin air.