The Grinding Read Free

wore these striped, knee-high stockings and Doc Martin boots that
weighed as much as she did. Everywhere she walked, her footsteps boomed, but
she made it look graceful. When she walked into a room, you knew she was there.
    And when she ran toward her cousin that night,
when everything was still contained within the roller derby arena, everyone
turned to watch her run. That’s just how it was with Nif. She moved, people
noticed.
    I screamed for her to stop.
    She didn’t.
    She got to the main scrum of girls, and she
grabbed the back of a girl’s jersey, as if she planned to throw her aside to
get to Cece. But as special as Nif was, she, like everyone else, wasn’t immune
to whatever this was.
    She froze, hands fixed to the back of the girl.
    I continued to scream, only it changed from Stop! to No!
    What could I do? That feeling of helpless horror, hardly
ten feet in front of me, was unlike anything I had ever felt. I wanted to run
up and help her. I almost did, too. I took a few steps forward. Someone grabbed
my shoulders, and if he hadn’t, I would’ve charged right down there. But as
much as it pained me to stop, I controlled myself after that first second. I
couldn’t help her if I was trapped, too.
    I didn’t run. I couldn’t leave her. I fell to my
knees on the metal bleachers, crying out in frustration, almost falling
forward. Nif stood there, paralyzed. I couldn’t see her eyes, but I could see
the eyes of some of the others, and they held nothing. They remained frozen,
like mannequins.
    More people stood around me, equally horrified. I
recognized some of them as friends and boyfriends of the roller derby girls.
One man cried out and rushed down the last of the bleachers, and he grabbed at
the group just as someone else tried to pull him back. Both of them became
stuck, covering up Nif so I couldn’t see anything but her cherry-red Doc
Martins.
    The group of afflicted came too close, and if it
grew any more, I’d be trapped. Crying and yelling, I ran across and down the
stands so I’d have an exit at my back.
    The group of paralyzed people continued to grow,
but more slowly now that the arena had cleared. As I watched, helpless, a cop
ran in, a big, barrel-chested guy with a mustache. I’d seen him before. While
the folks in the local roller derby scene were a friendly bunch, fights did break
out from time to time that required a police presence. I didn’t know his real
name, but once the announcer had called him “Officer Beefycakes” over the PA as
he entered the arena, and the name stuck. Whenever he came around now, the
crowd would chant, “Beefycakes! Beefycakes!” and he’d wave. He stopped at the
sight of the group, looking around in surprise.
    “What…?”
    “Don’t touch them,” I said, frantic. “If you touch
one, you’ll get stuck, too. You have to do something. My wife is in there.”
    He talked into the radio on his shoulder. He backed
up, taking me with him. “How…how long?”
    “It just started a minute ago. It happened so
fast.” I told him what I saw, with the pink thing on Cece’s face, but I said it
so quickly, I’m not sure he understood. I’m not sure he believed me.
    “Everybody outside,” he called. He tried to pull
me with him, but I shouldered away, numb with fear. For her. For myself. But I
wasn’t going to leave her. Several of us remained in the arena, surrounding the
group, just out of reach, all of us calling out names.
    It happened so fast.
    At one moment, the cluster was just that. A
cluster of people.
    It all changed in an instant. The long, tail-end
line of people started to move. At first, it was a twitch, like a single snake
or tentacle, attached to the large, unmoving mass where Nif was.
    Then the line of people, fifteen deep, rose
impossibly into the air. It swung up into the stands, slamming through the
onlookers. A guy got smacked in the face with the body of the guitar still
clutched in the hands of the trapped musician. He flew across the