The Trophy in the Floorboards
Dex woke up on the cold tile of the storage room with the taste of copper in his mouth and the 1984 championship trophy pressed against his chest like a dead weight. The metal was cold, impossibly cold, and when he looked down at his hands, he saw rust-colored smears that hadn't been there before. The dried blood flaked off his fingers when he moved, falling onto the cot like dark snow.
He didn't scream. He'd stopped screaming three blackouts ago.
The trophy was real. He knew that much. The weight of it was wrong—too heavy for a piece of hollow metal, like it was filled with something that shouldn't be inside. The figure on top was a basketball player in a shooting pose, arm extended, fingers frozen in a follow-through that had never been completed. The plaque at the base read: *1984 State Champions—Meridian Flats Vipers*. The year was right. The team was right. But the trophy had been missing for forty years, and now it was in his cot, covered in blood that wasn't his.
He wrapped it in his jacket and shoved it under the mattress. Then he washed his hands in the sink until the water ran clear, but the smell wouldn't leave. Cigar smoke. Sweat. That old-gym smell of varnish and dust and something else, something that had been sealed under the floorboards for four decades.
The door banged open.
Rio stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, her practice jersey hanging off one shoulder, her eyes doing that thing where they saw right through him. Behind her, the other five girls crowded in—Yolanda, the one who'd hit the game-winner, still wearing her lucky headband. Tamika, the center who couldn't jump but could box out like her life depended on it. The twins, Shonda and Sharla, who finished each other's sentences and played defense like they shared a brain. And little Maya, the freshman who barely came up to Rio's shoulder but had the meanest crossover in the county.
"You've been in here for two hours," Rio said. "Practice started at four."
Dex looked at the clock. It was six-fifteen. He'd lost two hours. He didn't remember coming back to the storage room. He didn't remember anything after the blackout hit—just the crowd noise, the cigar smoke, and the sound of a trophy hitting the tile floor.
"Sorry," he said. His voice came out rough, like he'd been screaming. "Lost track of time."
Rio stepped inside. The other girls followed, filling the tiny room until there was barely space to breathe. Yolanda closed the door behind them.
"We saw you," Rio said. "When you went down. You were holding something."
Dex's stomach dropped. "What are you talking about?"
"After the game," Tamika said. "You were on the floor, and you had this—this thing in your hands. We tried to get it away from you, but you wouldn't let go. You were talking to someone."
"Who?" Dex asked, though he already knew.
"Marcus," Rio said. "You kept saying his name. Over and over. 'Marcus, I've got it. Marcus, I've got it.'"
The room went quiet. The girls looked at each other, then back at Dex. They knew. Rio had told them some of it—not everything, but enough. They knew about the blackouts. They knew about the ghost. They knew about the game that had never ended.
But they didn't know about the trophy.
Dex sat down on the cot. The springs groaned under his weight. He could feel the trophy under the mattress, pressing against his spine like a reminder.
"There's something I need to show you," he said.
He reached under the mattress and pulled out the jacket-wrapped bundle. The girls watched as he unwrapped it, layer by layer, until the trophy sat in his lap, gleaming under the fluorescent light. The blood had dried to a dark brown crust along the base, flaking off in places where the jacket had rubbed against it.
Yolanda took a step back. "Is that—"
"The 1984 championship trophy," Dex said. "The one that went missing the night Marcus Webb disappeared."
Rio moved closer. She didn't flinch at the blood. She reached out and touched the plaque, tracing the letters with her finger.
"Where did you find it?" she asked.
"I didn't find it," Dex said. "I woke up with it."
The girls exchanged looks. Shonda and Sharla whispered something to each other. Maya hugged her arms around herself like she was cold.
"You woke up with a forty-year-old trophy covered in blood," Rio said slowly. "And you don't know how it got there."
"I know how it got there," Dex said. "I just don't know how it got into my hands."
He told them everything. Not the sanitized version he'd given Rio before—the full story, the whole ugly truth. He told them about the blackouts, about the 1984 game that had never ended, about Marcus Webb and the locker-room brawl and the trophy that had been used as a weapon. He told them about the janitor, found dead in the boiler room with a game program clutched in his hand. He told them about the roster that counted thirteen players when it should have counted twelve.
And he told them about the loop.
"The ghost is stuck," he said. "He's been stuck for forty years, replaying the same moment over and over. The fight. The trophy. The fall. He can't move on because the game was never finished."
"What game?" Tamika asked. "The championship?"
Dex nodded. "The 1984 state championship. Marcus's team was down by three with eleven seconds left. He had the ball. He was going to take the shot. But then the fight happened, and the game never ended. The trophy was never awarded. The team was never declared champion."
"So the ghost is—what?" Yolanda said. "Waiting for someone to finish the game for him?"
"Something like that," Dex said. "Every time I black out, I see a little more. The fight. The argument. The trophy falling. But I never see the end. Because there is no end. The game is still going."
Rio sat down on the floor across from him. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them.
"You said the only way to break the loop is to win a game that was never finished," she said. "What does that mean? We can't play a game from 1984."
"I don't know yet," Dex admitted. "But I know the ghost is using me. Every game we play, I get pulled deeper into the loop. And every loss—" He stopped. The words caught in his throat.
"Every loss what?" Rio pressed.
Dex looked at her. "Every loss costs me a piece of my memory. The doctor said my brain scans show activity in regions that don't exist in a living person. The ghost is using me as a vessel. And if we keep losing, there's not going to be anything left of me."
The room went silent. The only sound was the hum of the fluorescent light and the distant thump of a basketball somewhere in the gym.
Maya was the first to speak. "So we have to win."
"Every game," Dex said. "Every single game. Because every win buys me a little more time. Every win pushes the loop back. But one loss—" He shook his head. "One loss, and I lose another piece of myself. And eventually, there's not going to be enough left to finish the game."
Rio stood up. She walked over to the trophy and picked it up, holding it in both hands. The dried blood flaked off onto her fingers, but she didn't seem to care.
"This is the trophy," she said. "The one that was never awarded. The one that was used to kill Marcus Webb."
"We don't know that for sure," Dex said.
"Bullshit," Rio said. "You saw it. In your blackouts. You saw Harlan swing it. You saw Marcus fall. You saw the blood."
"I saw a fight," Dex said. "I saw a trophy fall. I didn't see—"
"You didn't see the body," Rio finished. "Because you haven't gotten that far yet. But you will. Every game, you get a little closer. And when you finally see it—when you finally see what happened in that locker room—you're going to have to decide what to do with it."
She set the trophy down on the cot. The metal clinked against the frame.
"We're not just playing for wins anymore," she said. "We're playing for Marcus. We're playing to finish a game that's been going on for forty years."
Yolanda stepped forward. "Marcus's Girls," she said.
Everyone looked at her.
"That's what we are," she said. "We're not the Lady Vipers. We're Marcus's Girls. We're playing for the kid who never got to finish his game."
Tamika nodded. "I like it."
Shonda and Sharla exchanged a look, then nodded in unison. Maya pumped her fist.
Rio looked at Dex. "You got a problem with that?"
Dex shook his head. "No problem."
"Good," Rio said. "Because we're not just a team anymore. We're a mission."
She picked up the trophy again and held it out to Dex.
"Hide it somewhere better," she said. "Somewhere no one's going to find it. And then get your ass out to the court. We've got a game to win."
Dex took the trophy. It felt heavier than before, like it was carrying the weight of forty years of secrets.
"One more thing," Rio said, pausing at the door. "Harlan Briggs. He's going to find out about this. He's going to find out we have the trophy. And when he does, he's going to come for it."
"I know," Dex said.
"Are you ready for that?"
Dex looked down at the trophy in his hands. The blood had dried into the crevices of the engraving, dark and permanent. He thought about the janitor, dead in the boiler room. He thought about the roster that counted thirteen. He thought about the ghost of Marcus Webb, trapped in an endless loop, waiting for someone to finish what he'd started.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "But I don't think I have a choice."
Rio nodded. "None of us do."
She walked out, and the other girls followed. The door swung shut behind them, leaving Dex alone with the trophy and the smell of cigar smoke that lingered in the air like a ghost.
He wrapped the trophy back in his jacket and shoved it deep under the cot, in the corner where the shadows pooled. Then he stood up, straightened his shirt, and walked out to the gym.
The girls were already running drills. Rio was at the free-throw line, sinking shot after shot with mechanical precision. Yolanda was working on her corner three. The twins were running a two-man weave. Maya was dribbling between her legs, her eyes fixed on the ball like it was the most important thing in the world.
They were Marcus's Girls now. And they were playing for something bigger than a state championship.
Dex picked up a ball and walked to the center of the court. He could feel the ghost watching him—not in a creepy way, but in a way that felt like a presence at the edge of his vision, a shadow that moved when he wasn't looking.
"Alright," he called out. "Let's run the ghost press."
The girls looked at him. Rio smiled.
"Now you're talking," she said.
They ran the drill until the lights went out. And when Dex finally collapsed on the bench, exhausted and aching, he dreamed of a locker room in 1984, a shattered trophy on the tile floor, and a young man named Marcus Webb standing at the free-throw line, waiting for a shot that would never come.
He didn't scream. He'd stopped screaming three blackouts ago.
The trophy was real. He knew that much. The weight of it was wrong—too heavy for a piece of hollow metal, like it was filled with something that shouldn't be inside. The figure on top was a basketball player in a shooting pose, arm extended, fingers frozen in a follow-through that had never been completed. The plaque at the base read: *1984 State Champions—Meridian Flats Vipers*. The year was right. The team was right. But the trophy had been missing for forty years, and now it was in his cot, covered in blood that wasn't his.
He wrapped it in his jacket and shoved it under the mattress. Then he washed his hands in the sink until the water ran clear, but the smell wouldn't leave. Cigar smoke. Sweat. That old-gym smell of varnish and dust and something else, something that had been sealed under the floorboards for four decades.
The door banged open.
Rio stood in the doorway with her arms crossed, her practice jersey hanging off one shoulder, her eyes doing that thing where they saw right through him. Behind her, the other five girls crowded in—Yolanda, the one who'd hit the game-winner, still wearing her lucky headband. Tamika, the center who couldn't jump but could box out like her life depended on it. The twins, Shonda and Sharla, who finished each other's sentences and played defense like they shared a brain. And little Maya, the freshman who barely came up to Rio's shoulder but had the meanest crossover in the county.
"You've been in here for two hours," Rio said. "Practice started at four."
Dex looked at the clock. It was six-fifteen. He'd lost two hours. He didn't remember coming back to the storage room. He didn't remember anything after the blackout hit—just the crowd noise, the cigar smoke, and the sound of a trophy hitting the tile floor.
"Sorry," he said. His voice came out rough, like he'd been screaming. "Lost track of time."
Rio stepped inside. The other girls followed, filling the tiny room until there was barely space to breathe. Yolanda closed the door behind them.
"We saw you," Rio said. "When you went down. You were holding something."
Dex's stomach dropped. "What are you talking about?"
"After the game," Tamika said. "You were on the floor, and you had this—this thing in your hands. We tried to get it away from you, but you wouldn't let go. You were talking to someone."
"Who?" Dex asked, though he already knew.
"Marcus," Rio said. "You kept saying his name. Over and over. 'Marcus, I've got it. Marcus, I've got it.'"
The room went quiet. The girls looked at each other, then back at Dex. They knew. Rio had told them some of it—not everything, but enough. They knew about the blackouts. They knew about the ghost. They knew about the game that had never ended.
But they didn't know about the trophy.
Dex sat down on the cot. The springs groaned under his weight. He could feel the trophy under the mattress, pressing against his spine like a reminder.
"There's something I need to show you," he said.
He reached under the mattress and pulled out the jacket-wrapped bundle. The girls watched as he unwrapped it, layer by layer, until the trophy sat in his lap, gleaming under the fluorescent light. The blood had dried to a dark brown crust along the base, flaking off in places where the jacket had rubbed against it.
Yolanda took a step back. "Is that—"
"The 1984 championship trophy," Dex said. "The one that went missing the night Marcus Webb disappeared."
Rio moved closer. She didn't flinch at the blood. She reached out and touched the plaque, tracing the letters with her finger.
"Where did you find it?" she asked.
"I didn't find it," Dex said. "I woke up with it."
The girls exchanged looks. Shonda and Sharla whispered something to each other. Maya hugged her arms around herself like she was cold.
"You woke up with a forty-year-old trophy covered in blood," Rio said slowly. "And you don't know how it got there."
"I know how it got there," Dex said. "I just don't know how it got into my hands."
He told them everything. Not the sanitized version he'd given Rio before—the full story, the whole ugly truth. He told them about the blackouts, about the 1984 game that had never ended, about Marcus Webb and the locker-room brawl and the trophy that had been used as a weapon. He told them about the janitor, found dead in the boiler room with a game program clutched in his hand. He told them about the roster that counted thirteen players when it should have counted twelve.
And he told them about the loop.
"The ghost is stuck," he said. "He's been stuck for forty years, replaying the same moment over and over. The fight. The trophy. The fall. He can't move on because the game was never finished."
"What game?" Tamika asked. "The championship?"
Dex nodded. "The 1984 state championship. Marcus's team was down by three with eleven seconds left. He had the ball. He was going to take the shot. But then the fight happened, and the game never ended. The trophy was never awarded. The team was never declared champion."
"So the ghost is—what?" Yolanda said. "Waiting for someone to finish the game for him?"
"Something like that," Dex said. "Every time I black out, I see a little more. The fight. The argument. The trophy falling. But I never see the end. Because there is no end. The game is still going."
Rio sat down on the floor across from him. She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them.
"You said the only way to break the loop is to win a game that was never finished," she said. "What does that mean? We can't play a game from 1984."
"I don't know yet," Dex admitted. "But I know the ghost is using me. Every game we play, I get pulled deeper into the loop. And every loss—" He stopped. The words caught in his throat.
"Every loss what?" Rio pressed.
Dex looked at her. "Every loss costs me a piece of my memory. The doctor said my brain scans show activity in regions that don't exist in a living person. The ghost is using me as a vessel. And if we keep losing, there's not going to be anything left of me."
The room went silent. The only sound was the hum of the fluorescent light and the distant thump of a basketball somewhere in the gym.
Maya was the first to speak. "So we have to win."
"Every game," Dex said. "Every single game. Because every win buys me a little more time. Every win pushes the loop back. But one loss—" He shook his head. "One loss, and I lose another piece of myself. And eventually, there's not going to be enough left to finish the game."
Rio stood up. She walked over to the trophy and picked it up, holding it in both hands. The dried blood flaked off onto her fingers, but she didn't seem to care.
"This is the trophy," she said. "The one that was never awarded. The one that was used to kill Marcus Webb."
"We don't know that for sure," Dex said.
"Bullshit," Rio said. "You saw it. In your blackouts. You saw Harlan swing it. You saw Marcus fall. You saw the blood."
"I saw a fight," Dex said. "I saw a trophy fall. I didn't see—"
"You didn't see the body," Rio finished. "Because you haven't gotten that far yet. But you will. Every game, you get a little closer. And when you finally see it—when you finally see what happened in that locker room—you're going to have to decide what to do with it."
She set the trophy down on the cot. The metal clinked against the frame.
"We're not just playing for wins anymore," she said. "We're playing for Marcus. We're playing to finish a game that's been going on for forty years."
Yolanda stepped forward. "Marcus's Girls," she said.
Everyone looked at her.
"That's what we are," she said. "We're not the Lady Vipers. We're Marcus's Girls. We're playing for the kid who never got to finish his game."
Tamika nodded. "I like it."
Shonda and Sharla exchanged a look, then nodded in unison. Maya pumped her fist.
Rio looked at Dex. "You got a problem with that?"
Dex shook his head. "No problem."
"Good," Rio said. "Because we're not just a team anymore. We're a mission."
She picked up the trophy again and held it out to Dex.
"Hide it somewhere better," she said. "Somewhere no one's going to find it. And then get your ass out to the court. We've got a game to win."
Dex took the trophy. It felt heavier than before, like it was carrying the weight of forty years of secrets.
"One more thing," Rio said, pausing at the door. "Harlan Briggs. He's going to find out about this. He's going to find out we have the trophy. And when he does, he's going to come for it."
"I know," Dex said.
"Are you ready for that?"
Dex looked down at the trophy in his hands. The blood had dried into the crevices of the engraving, dark and permanent. He thought about the janitor, dead in the boiler room. He thought about the roster that counted thirteen. He thought about the ghost of Marcus Webb, trapped in an endless loop, waiting for someone to finish what he'd started.
"I don't know," he said honestly. "But I don't think I have a choice."
Rio nodded. "None of us do."
She walked out, and the other girls followed. The door swung shut behind them, leaving Dex alone with the trophy and the smell of cigar smoke that lingered in the air like a ghost.
He wrapped the trophy back in his jacket and shoved it deep under the cot, in the corner where the shadows pooled. Then he stood up, straightened his shirt, and walked out to the gym.
The girls were already running drills. Rio was at the free-throw line, sinking shot after shot with mechanical precision. Yolanda was working on her corner three. The twins were running a two-man weave. Maya was dribbling between her legs, her eyes fixed on the ball like it was the most important thing in the world.
They were Marcus's Girls now. And they were playing for something bigger than a state championship.
Dex picked up a ball and walked to the center of the court. He could feel the ghost watching him—not in a creepy way, but in a way that felt like a presence at the edge of his vision, a shadow that moved when he wasn't looking.
"Alright," he called out. "Let's run the ghost press."
The girls looked at him. Rio smiled.
"Now you're talking," she said.
They ran the drill until the lights went out. And when Dex finally collapsed on the bench, exhausted and aching, he dreamed of a locker room in 1984, a shattered trophy on the tile floor, and a young man named Marcus Webb standing at the free-throw line, waiting for a shot that would never come.