Aftermath Excerpt III

Regret.

Adara and I were running to my car.

I saw a white light.

“Why did you do that?” Adara screamed at me in anguish.

“He wanted a fight so I fought,” I said coldly.

“You were going to kill him! He was unconscious and you didn’t look like you were going to stop,” the fear in her eyes was heart wrenching but I didn’t notice it.

I heard sirens.

“Take me home,” she crossed the car to the passenger side door.

“Fine. I was just defending myself,” I scowled.

I felt the cold wet pavement.

“Defending yourself ended when you broke that guys arm.”

My grumbles were drowned out by the sound of me starting the car.

We drove in silence for a while, my rage still boiling and Adara’s fearful anger floating in the air.

“I don’t know where that came from. I never thought you’d do something like that, Beck,” she said stoically.

I smelled gasoline.

“You know what, Adara, I was fighting him to make sure he didn’t hurt you too. I was defending both of us.”

“He didn’t even look at me,” she screeched. “The only time I got close to getting hurt was when you kept coming back over to me, bringing the fight closer.”

My grip tightened on the wheel, my teeth clenched, and we sped up.

I tasted blood.

“Well, I was just trying to make sure I stayed between you and them,” my eyes were locked on the road but it was an empty stare.

“You were being brutish and stupid! How in the hell do you expect me to feel about that!” my antagonizing attitude wasn’t helping quell her anger.

“Fine! Next time someone comes at you I’ll let you fight for yourself,” I said with a scowl.

People were running.

“You’re an ass, Beck. Stop being a dick and be considerate of me,” she crossed her arms and I knew she was done talking.

But I wasn’t. I spun my head around to face her. “You know, I hate it when you do this shit. You twist what I do into something horrible and then tell me to do the very thing I was trying to do in the first place. Be considerate? I was being fucking considerate! I was trying to make sure you didn’t get hurt. Callum almost hit you with that bottle too! But I’m the ass cause I fought him and tried to protect you?” I was on a tirade.

“Beck,” she said calmly.

“No, shut-up, Adara. You have this shit double-standard that always puts me in the wrong. I can’t ever do the right thing and you can’t ever do wrong. How can you do that? Do you not see yourself doing it?”

“Beck,” she spoke in an elevated tone.

“You’ve talked, Adara, now it’s my turn. I’m tired of this!” my eyes were locked on her face to see how she reacted to each of my verbal blows. “Is this how it’s always going to be?”

“BECK!” she screamed and braced herself against the dash.

The impact jolted me.

I never saw what it was.

We were twisting in the blackness; it was a silent and horrible dance. In one fleeting moment I could see Adara’s face—teeth clenched and eyes closed. The next moment, she was bloodied and screaming.

I felt the unforgiving ground crush my body with the help of gravity after I was launched from the rolling car.

Adara was stuck inside the catastrophe that had been my vehicle. It continued to flip into the nearby field and eventually landed on its roof in a peaceful twist of metal and mud.

I saw a white light.

I heard sirens.

I felt the cold, wet pavement.

I smelled gasoline.

I tasted blood.

People were running.

I was in a haze. Quickly, I put a delay on my injuries to keep the damage from advancing more. I even managed to pull back some of the more minor wounds making them disappear for the moment.

Limping as I ran, I approached the wrecked car. I stooped down to see Adara suspended upside down in her seat, held there by her safety belt. The paramedics were screaming but their voices were dull and inaudible. They grabbed me, trying to gently lay me down to examine my injuries.

Shrugging them off, I ran over to Adara’s side of the car.

“Baby, are you okay? I’m gonna get you out,” she was silent, unconscious; a large cut ran across the top of her scalp and blood was pouring out quickly.

My hands held tightly to the crushed passenger side door and I pulled. With adrenaline aiding my already unnatural strength, I was able to bend and twist the door open enough to get to Adara.

I was woozy and tired from such a large delay being put in place but I still ripped her seatbelt off and lightly carried her out of the wreckage. After I laid her down in the field I was overwhelmed and lost hold of my delay and collapsed beside her, unconscious.

Aftermath excerpt II

So I sat in the locker room, steaming from frustration, boiling from a lack of control. And Mertin walked in at the wrong time.

“Hey, do you need a towel?” Mertin held out the towel, seemingly offering it to me as if I were a peasant begging for alms.

“What?” I scowled at him, bitterness dripping off my words.

“I accidentally grabbed two so do you want the extra one?”

He was a cocky sonofabitch.

“Why, cause I’m too tired to get one myself?”

“No, I just didn’t want to walk all the way to the back to put it up.”

“Fuck you, Mertin.”

“Dude, hold down the hostility.”

“Don’t caution me on how to act you squirmy little asshole.”

“Okay, whatever dude.” He turned to walk out of the locker room, dropping the extra towel at the end of bench I was sitting on.

That was it. The line had been crossed. How? I didn’t know but it triggered something in me, some cruelty bred deep in my soul leaped its way to the surface of my mind and it was decided that Mertin would be gifted no mercy that day.

I stood quickly and grabbed Mertin by the back of his shirt, jerking him to the ground. He fell hard and was disoriented for a moment. His eyes widened with bewilderment at the violence that was bearing down on him.

I raised my fist and struck him in square in the face as he lay there at my feet, still in shock. He gathered himself in a quick moment, wrestled me off the top of him and got to his feet.

I toppled onto the ground but managed to stand up just as his fist flew at my face. I took the shot directly in the nose. It was the most distinct pain I had ever felt. My eyes filled with tears immediately. I tried to shake the fog from my head and impulsively ducked to avoid a predictable second swing from Mertin. I dodged correctly and he missed with his second blow.

His third strike, however, landed deep into my gut and my breath was immediately gone. I plummeted to my knees and fought to recapture my breath. Mertin stood over me and I could only assume he was on the verge of continuing his attack so I countered by reaching out and punching him in the testicles. It stopped him from moving.

I got up and he fell down.

He was hunkered over his knees, heaving as if he were about to throw-up. I lifted his head as best I could and quickly threw my knee into his chin. I saw the blood bubbling in his mouth as he fell back on the floor. I picked him up once more and looked him directly in his shaky eyes.

“I don’t think you’ll be getting up after this,” I relished the fear that developed on his face; it was fuel for my assault.

I smashed his nose with my forearm and let him fall to the floor again. Circling my victim, I viciously threw kicks into his ribs whenever he made a move. I straddled over him after a few minutes of torturing him with kicks and raised my fist high into the air. Then I dropped it down onto his bloodied face over and over and over again.

I savored every moment of pain I inflicted onto his limp body. I never stopped to think about if he were dead from the numerous blows to his skull. I never noticed that it felt more like I was punching a bag of sand rather than a face. I never paid attention to when the bubbles of blood stopped forming in his mouth. I never heard the door to the locker room open and I never felt my head crack against the cold tile as I was ripped from atop Mertin.

I woke to what I thought were the white walls of a hospital emergency room. That idea was quickly dispelled by the fact that hospital policy doesn’t involve punching the patient repeatedly in the face.

There were murmured screams as the blunt fists bounced off my face again and again. Then I was dropped back to the ground. I rolled over to see someone hunkered over what I initially thought was their dog that had just been ran over by a car.

It was Mertin and Sander was quivering over his brother’s blood soaked body.

Sander noticed me sitting up after a few moments and stormed over tome, tears and anger flowing from his face. He screamed things I don’t remember and he threw more punches than I could count. I was like a zombie, in a haze and without feeling. Blow after blow struck my head and body but never once did I feel the impact.

He grabbed me and tossed my body up against the lockers. I slid to the floor where his swift feet blasted into me many times. Sander paused after our prolonged soccer lesson, out of breath but still full of so much wrath. He stepped over to his brother once more, lost in anger and confusion.

After several more minutes, I rose to my feet one more time, not having any clean thought about what I planned on doing. Was I going to leave? Was I going to fight back? I don’t know. At that moment, I was just standing up.

Being slammed against the concrete wall before I even had a chance to figure that out wasn’t what cleared my head; it was what Sander said as he held me there.

“I’m going to kill you so you can burn in hell with your father,” he snarled, mere inches from my face.

That’s what sparked the fiery rage that burned away the cobwebs.

It seemed to happen naturally and very silently. I saw Sander’s fist coming at me in slow motion so I tilted my head to the side. The numerous tiny bones in his hand shattered against the unforgiving wall beside my head. His grip loosened on me and I landed on my feet. He didn’t notice his shattered hand; adrenaline numbed him to that pain for the moment.

I thrust my fist quickly upward and caught him in his chin but Sander was so much larger than me that it didn’t have the stopping power I had hoped it would. Sander hobbled back for a quick second and charged me again. I ate several punches without response. I stood there, absorbing his blows as if he were a ghost swiping vainly at the living. I caught one of his punches, one from his crushed hand, and I squeezed it in hopes that shock had given way to the reality of broken bones. It had. Sander screamed in pain and I stepped up beside him with his hand still locked in my grasp. His arm was twisted in an unnatural way, and it might’ve broken. He was bent over from the pain and I rammed my elbow into the side of his jaw. He went limp but remained conscious.

I released his hand and it dropped to the floor beside him. He sat there, bleary-eyed and stunned, beside his barely gurgling brother. I took my time as I walked around behind him. The palm of my hand struck solidly at the base of his skull and the “thunk” of his head hitting the tile floor echoed amidst the locker room walls. He was hard to lift and was, surprisingly enough, still partially awake. I decided to let him come around a bit more before I continued further.

Holding his head up by his chin, I stared Sander in the face, waiting for his eyes to begin to dilate and focused on me. I wanted to be sure he could see and hear me.

“Tell my father I don’t plan on seeing him any time soon.”

It was then that I stepped up behind him for the final time. I wrapped my left arm around his throat and gripped my right bicep with my left hand. I placed my right hand on the back of his head and pushed forward while pulling back with my left arm. Sander gasped for the first few moments and soon began to struggle more violently as I squeezed my hold tighter. Eventually his death throes were getting unruly so I quickly twisted both my arms. He finally went still and lay on the ground next to his now silent brother. I stared for a while to make sure they both remained quite still. Once I was satisfied I went to the mirror to look at myself.

There wasn’t a mark on me. Not a bruise, not a scratch, not a single blemish could be found. I was confused but still high enough from the endorphins that I didn’t think much of it. Then I noticed something. I think I felt the pain before I really saw it in the mirror but my face began to ache terribly. It was like a migraine rushing all over my head. Bruises began to appear on my face. Blood first started to drip out of my mouth and then it began to come out in a steady stream. When I looked at the mirror again I saw the cuts appearing on my cheek and head. I saw more blood coming from my nose and mouth too. My eyes suddenly had burst blood vessels and then they began swelling up completely. Everything went dark from there, I don’t know if it was from the swelling or the pain in my head but I was lost in the black.

Excerpt from Aftermath

I stepped into the school where a sea of words dried up at my presence. Eyes fell on me without shame—some with awe and some with disgust. Who could blame them? Their hero had been slain by a popper of a man, a dangly, five-foot-ten popper without a shred of noticeable muscle. It was delightful to be a source of bane for those who had their loyalties set in conventional athleticism. Their poster-child had lost his glimmer and their core beliefs had been shaken.

I kept my smirk on and stepped through the black and white crowd toward my locker. I opened it only to have it slammed shut almost instantly. I knew who it was.

“Sander… How’s it going?” I said nonchalantly as I turned my eyes up to meet his six-foot-three gaze.

“It’s going down, like you will be.”

He wasn’t the cleverest poster-child.

“Why do you want me to go down? You know that’s not how I swing. I hear Chico Mandley likes that kind of stuff. His locker is number 1427,” I taunted.

The sounds of his cronies’ chuckles were instantly murdered by Sander’s gaze.

Sander puffed his chest out, “I don’t think you’re funny and I don’t think you’re as good as everyone thinks.”

“Well, people seem to think I’m better than you at the very least and if you say I’m not that good then that means you’re even lower than that on the preverbal totem pole.” I smiled at my own witty logic.

“You might be clever with your words, goon, but that’s not gonna save you if I decide to knock them out of your mouth,” his brandished fist punctuated the end of his sentence.

Write On

I'm gonna do Nanowrimo.. Yes, that's right.

I tried this once several years ago and I never finished. The story did end up becoming the fill-length movie script I currently am working on. I have some small things in mind for my novel. It will definitely involve a character I have used before and it has a superhero type them to it.


I don't know how blatantly that theme is going to play out but the main character will have supernatural powers and I plan on making him become a accidental hero; maybe an anti-hero. I've posted a short piece featuring this character on my blog before. It's the post entitled Battle Recouped. I will probably modify that piece to be the beginning of the novel. The character is based off of a superhero me and my brother made up when we were like 12 or 13. His powers are a bit complicated to explain and I don't know how we came up with such a complex sort of idea for a superhero. Anyway, I'm excited about writing it out.

I genuinely have been thinking about randomness to blog about all day today and yesterday and I really can't come up with much right now. I do think I've decided to use my Poem Post Friday's for excerpts from my Nanowrimo writings. My username on Nanowrimo.org is BooderMcDoo if anyone wants to add me on there. Ok, I'll check you guys later.