Grueberfest 2008 Round 4 – The Club (393 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.77 on 9 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Hornet (View user info) at 2008-10-21 17:17:23 EDT
Garrison had been messing around indoors, bored out of his mind, when his Gramma shooed him outside.
He was spending the summer at his Gramma's house because his mom and dad were 'working things out.'
His older sister Belinda said that their parents would probably get a divorce. She would get to live with mom in the home Belinda and Garrison had grown up in because she and mom were both girls. Garrison would have to live with dad and move out to a shitty bachelor pad even though mom was the one sleeping around.
Garrison didn't know what a bachelor was. He was fairly sure that sleeping around meant his mom was having sex with other people even if he didn't really know what sex was all about. He was almost completely convinced his life would be better if his older sister was dead since she had gotten even meaner and more obnoxious since she started getting tits. He was absolutely certain he did not want to move away from his home and friends.
"I'm just glad I won't have to live with a weirdo like you much longer, Gar," his sister had said. She sounded a little nervous when she said this. She really didn't like him.
Sometimes Garrison thought his parents didn't like him either.
Garrison was going to play some video games or watch some TV when his Gramma chased him outside.
"No boy should be indoors on a lovely Saturday morning," Gramma had said. "I know you have trouble making friends, but there are woods nearby and a big back yard right here. If you like playing in the street, you can play with this."
She rummaged in a cardboard box and took out a red rubber ball. It had an atom design stamped on it, the same kind of thing he had seen in old cartoons. Another smaller stamp said 1968.
"A ball, Gramma?" Garrison couldn't believe it. Maybe Belinda was right when she said there wasn't a single person in Ohio who knew the meaning of excitement. "You want me to play with a ball?"
His Gramma frowned. "This isn't any ball," she said, sounding offended. "This is a SuperBall."
Garrison raised his eyebrows.
Gramma threw the ball at the floor, at an angle. The ball rebounded from the floor and hit the living room wall near the ceiling. t rapped against the ceiling and missed Garrison's head by an inch as it repeated those bounces again, and again.
"If you throw it at the sidewalk hard enough you could bounce this ball over the house," Gramma said, after she picked up the red sphere.
Now Garrison was interested.
"Run along, Gar, and don't get into trouble," she said, almost shoving him out the front door.
Gramma had not been lying. Garrison threw the SuperBall at the ground and watched it shoot straight up, rising higher than the street lights on Maple Crescent. This stupid little red ball was the insane maniac of balls.
Garrison had spiked the ball at the ground again and again, until the last throw. He hit a tiny pebble in the street. Instead of going straight up in the air the ball went up and over the townhouse his Gramma lived in, dropping into the back yard. He ran after it as it vanished from sight, hoping it was not lost.
The back yard was actually a very large area bordered by four townhouse units. Each unit had four homes. Sixteen families shared the back yard. There was a picnic and barbeque area, a sandy lot, a small playground for little kids, and lots of high bushes and small trees. It was like a small park.
Garrison saw the ball bounce up from a picnic table. It came down and hit one of the concrete barbecue pits at an angle, and skittered across sand and grass toward the rear wall of a home across from Gramma's.
The basements of the townhouses were dark rooms holding water heaters and fat pipes and old padlocked cages securing musty cardboard boxes and forgotten furniture. The basements had narrow windows that were high inside and at ground level outside.
Garrison watched as the ball slowly rolled to the edge of a window and stopped.
He went to the window and grabbed the ball, and heard muffled laughter from inside the basement. The window was dusty, but he could see four boys in one of the big storage cages standing under a single light bulb hanging from a wire. The boys cheered.
Garrison cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the window.
The boys in the basement were older, thirteen, maybe fourteen. They were teenagers. The boys were throwing darts. After a moment Garrison realized they were throwing darts at toads.
There were a lot of toads in the woods nearby, brown warty things that little kids chased from time to time.
The boys in the basement had tied lengths of string to wooden rafters, making little nooses. They had trapped each toad by one rear leg and set them swinging. The skinny front legs of the toads moved around and their mouths opened and closed as if they were asking for help. The boys were throwing the darts at the toads.
One of the toads was dead, and covered in blood. One had a dart stuck in it and was hardly moving. Two other toads were thrashing around, trying to get free. A dart struck one of them in the head and the boys cheered again.
This is grotesque, Garrison thought. He had read that word in a comic book. He really liked the word and never thought he would ever use it, but it was the perfect word to describe what he was seeing.
Another toad was hit by a dart. A seam opened in its small belly and its innards were hanging out. It was still alive. The floor was covered in little spatters of toad piss and blood.
When the toads were dead the boys talked for a while as one of them took down the toads and threw them on the floor. One of the boys left the basement. The other three talked, and smoked cigarettes.
Four empty strings hung from the rafters.
Garrison was getting cramped from squatting and looking through the window. He was going to leave when the boy who had left came back with a big cardboard box. There was a big bath towel inside, and when the boy lifted part of the towel the other boys cheered louder than ever.
There was a litter of puppies in the box.
Garrison felt his heart speed up.
He went around to the side of the townhouse where one of the basement doors was. It was unlocked. He opened it and went inside, following the sound of distant laughter past hissing pipes and locked storage cages.
+
Craig was trying to get a loop of string around a squirming puppy's leg and telling the guys to fuck off and stop heckling him when he saw the kid with the brush cut standing at the door of the storage cage. He whistled and heard the other guys go quiet.
The kid was staring at them with big eyes the color of a green turd. The kid's eyes were as shiny as glass, and Craig kept waiting for the kid to blink.
Bryan said, "What's your deal, fuckhead?"
"Yeah," Craig said. "Go hang around someone your own age. You aren't joining our Darts Club."
The kid stuck a hand in his pocket and it looked like he was playing with a skinny hard-on.
Pete and Andy laughed. Craig laughed too, but stopped when the kid took a step into the storage cage, pulled a big jackknife out of his pocket, and moved under the dangling light bulb.
Holy crap, Craig thought. Look at the scars on that kid's fucking head. It's like he had brain surgery or something. "Hey guys," he said, "Check out Fr—"
Before Craig could say 'Frankenstein' the kid took another step and cut through Craig's t-shirt, opening him from sternum to groin. At the same time the kid plucked the puppy from Craig's hand. Craig felt as if he had been wearing a tight belt that had suddenly snapped. Blood splashed onto his sneakers. He fell on his knees. When he looked down he saw his own pink and purple guts coming out of him.
Andy saw Craig sprawl on his back and shouted, "Jesus FUCKING Christ!" He went at the kid and then looked like he was dancing away. The knife was stuck in his throat and blood was rushing out of him like water from a garden hose. Andy hit the concrete floor face first.
Pete took a swing and hit the kid in the back of the head. The kid stumbled and fell over Craig and when he got up he was holding a dart in each hand. The kid rammed the darts into Pete's eyes. Pete screamed, "MY EYES!" The kid laughed, and carefully set the puppy in the box with the others.
Pete tried to run away but hit one wall of the storage cage. The kid grabbed him. Pete couldn't see how sharp the kid's thick, yellow fingernails were, but he felt them shredding his cock and balls after the kid yanked his pants down. Bleeding from the eyes and groin, Pete settled into a corner of the room to die.
Bryan jumped up, grabbed the cobwebbed rafters overhead, and kicked the kid in the face. The kid's nose and mouth were bleeding, but the kid was still standing, and smiling. Fuck this, Bryan thought. He tried to run past the kid but felt small hands grab his shirt and scrawny arms swing him into the basement wall under the window. His head smacked the wall and he landed in a sitting position. He felt dizzy and started to cry as the kid with the brush cut and the crazy scars on his head came closer.
The kid took his time with Bryan, patiently stuffing one dead toad after another down the teenager's throat until the boy suffocated, thrashing just like the hanging toads.
+
Garrison looked down at the helpless puppies in the cardboard box. He made sure there was enough of the towel under them and over them to keep them warm and safe. He decided he would bring them home.
The puppies were yelping and squirming against each other. They had round pink bellies and tiny tails like the ends of the paint brushes in a paint-by-numbers kit. "You little guys are so cute," Garrison said with a grin.
He picked up the box and switched off the single overhead light. As he left the storage area with the box under one arm he looked over his shoulder at the four dead teenagers.
"I didn't want to join your stupid club anyway," he said.
User Reviews
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2008-10-23 17:00:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by i_can_get_you_a_toe (user info) at 2008-10-23 09:10:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2008-10-23 04:00:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Enjoyed it thoroughly.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2008-10-22 11:55:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i enjoyed it.
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2008-10-22 11:20:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I dont get it, he was Gar all along then he was "the Kid" then Gar again. It felt like you were talking about another person.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-10-21 21:36:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-10-21 20:24:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
a brutal answer to animal cruelty? Forward it to PETA!
Submitted by Badlands (user info) at 2008-10-21 19:40:03 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This story had a lot a of problems. But +1 because it was structured well and followed a nice arc. With a little work it could be decent.
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2008-10-21 17:25:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment