Sunday, July 18, 2010

Death Scene Blogfest

For Tessa, a death scene:

Mandy screamed, "Stop it!" to the brothers and their hecklers. For some reason, Mandy threw her book at Luke and Lionel, but she missed and hit Hector in the thigh. Hector kept chanting without looking up at Mandy.

Lionel hit Luke in a steady cadence of fleshy smacks. Smack. Smack. Lionel's boots kicked over desks as he fought for footing, forcing Hector and the other boys to step back, out of the way as they chanted, "Fight! Fight!"

Constance and Locos stuck their heads into the room, and behind them a throng of other kids formed from the emptiness of the hallway, coalesced by the chanting. Ms. Kennedy, Mandy saw, was behind the crowd, standing like a shocked student and not at all like a teacher.

There was blood on Luke's face and Lionel's fist. The smacks sounded wetter as the boys huffed and grunted on the floor.

Mandy turned to the teacher behind her. "Mr. Beaks!"

He didn't look up. Mr. Beaks's mouth moved as he read to himself. He licked his lips. The top of his scalp looked wet.

Suddenly the screaming stopped and Mandy turned back to the fight. Huffing, Luke stood and leaned on the front of Hector's desk for balance. Luke's face was torn from cheek to lip, and his eye already looked swollen. His nose was either bleeding or bloody from the other cuts on his face. Breathing hard, Luke hunched above his brother dripping blood on Hector's desk.

Lionel lay on his back, having let Luke out of the headlock, looking up at his older brother. Though he hadn't been hit, Lionel's face was a deep bruised purple. He was crying. "I'm sorry," Lionel said.

Then Luke lifted Hector's desk by the front. Pencils and a notebook slid off as Luke raised the desk above his head. Luke yelled, "You fucker!" and dropped the desk onto Lionel, hammering the metal leg of the desk through Lionel's sternum like a two-inch spike.

- Eric

(PS: This is based on an actual fight between me and my little brother. He beat the hell out of me. So I threw a stereo on his head and then hit him with the top drawer of my dresser.)

18 comments:

Unknown said...

Woha that was unexpected! Very cool death scene, thank you Eric!

Is there a back story to this? Is it part of your wip?

Do tell!

Tessa.xxx

Eric W. Trant said...

This is an excerpt from a short story. A rather long short story at that.

- Eric

Unknown said...

LOL my short stories are never all that short, either!

Lovy Boheme said...

PWND!

Raquel Byrnes said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Raquel Byrnes said...

That was such a crazy scene. First the rush of watching a fight and then the sudden, 'oh crap' when things get terribly out of hand. Loved it...wish you'd posted more.

Jemi Fraser said...

Yikes! Intense scene - very well done!

Stephanie Lorée said...

Yeep! I didn't think it could go down like that. Surprising is good! I think my only critique is that there were so many characters introduced so rapidly I didn't have time to assimilate them, so I got a bit confused. It's pieces like this that make me feel as if I need to read from the beginning, and your writing is good, so I suspect I would enjoy the whole thing if it were a novel. Well done!

Scribbler to Scribe

RaShelle Workman said...

Ugh, school fights can get scary. Powerful. Full of emotion. I'd hate to deal with that aftermath.

dolorah said...

Brotherly love? Dang, glad my kids mostly ignore each other.

What a fight though. Bloody and intense. And shocking.

Wow; well done.

.......dhole

Andrew Rosenberg said...

Kinda didn't like it (sorry...happens)
But thanks for posting it.

Nighfala said...

As a former middle school teacher, I find this more than a little disturbing. There is a clear cut lawsuit, with complete negligence on the part of the teachers and failure to intervene. There should have been a call to the police immediately, and an attempt to separate the boys.

It is tough, though, as you are not permitted to actually touch a student unless they touch you first. I was told to get in between them if a fight broke out, so that if one hit me I was then able to restrain them because they touched me first.

Very tricky. I assume your brother, um, lived?

Tara said...

Awesome pacing and voice on this piece, Eric.

My cousins used to fight like this, too. Never got it. Must be boy thing...

Lola Sharp said...

Boys.
I assume your brother still lives.

I think death by table leg is fun stuff. ;)

Have a wonderful week.
Love,
Lola

Eric W. Trant said...

Yes, my brother lives! He did beat me so bad that night, though, that my schoolmates believed me when I said a gang got me in the mall parking lot.

I wore glasses for a week. Later, in another fight, I broke his ribs.

My folks had a nasty divorce. Go figger.

Christine: As for the school teachers not getting involved, I set that up in the story. You are right, of course, a good teacher would have broken it up, but that was my point, that the boys were beyond control.

- Eric

Unknown said...

Thank goodness I'm no longer teaching - I'd never have survived! :0)

Roland D. Yeomans said...

Hope the fight with your brother turned out less lethal!

You pulled us in quickly. The teacher reminded me of too many of my fellow teacher who said they didn't get paid enough to be injuried.

I got my nose broken by not being one of them. Luckily, my customary kindness to a hulking boy/man paid off in an unexpected way.

As I was trying to clear my head from a roundhouse from a student tough, the giant burst into my room where he had seen the fight from the hallway.

He grabbed a fistful of the boy's face and squeezed as if the head were a baseball. The boy's features were never the same.

And I never had trouble in that school again either.

Glad you liked my entry. Come check out Monday's post for another one-liner and an experiment on my part, Roland

Phoenix said...

Yikes... um...

The violence in this is a little too close to home for me so I'll keep this comment short. Nice writing, very effective. Well done, Eric.