BACK TO SCHOOL BLOGFEST_THEATRE OF BLOOD/LESSONS OF PAIN

{"Wisdom is nothing but healed pain."
- Robert Gary Lee.}

{Ghost of Samuel Clemens here.

Roland had entered this "Back To School" Blogfest :

http://www.rohmorgon.com/blog/?p=696

So I will submit for him this excerpt from his YA fantasy, CAPTAIN OUTRAGEOUS,

detailing the adventures of the 13 year old street orphan, Victor Standish,

who's spent his entire life on the streets of seven different cities due to an unstable mother.

While the undead Texas Ranger, Captain Sam McCord, has been distracted by rioting in the Katrina-ravaged streets of New Orleans,

Victor has been knocked unconscious and carried away from the "safety" of the jazz club, Meilori's.

and he's about to learn there's a price to education :


THEATRE OF BLOOD/LESSONS OF PAIN

The black in my head was deeper than sleep but not so deep as death. I slowly woke up. I hurt all over.

My head the worst. My wrists were second. I looked up.

Oh, crap.

I was hanging from my bleeding wrists, slowly swaying, the ball bearings in my pockets softly jiggling from it. A spotlight stabbed down upon me.

There was applause.

I was hanging from handcuffs attached to chains from a stage's ceiling. I blinked my eyes to clear my throbbing head.

Hard footsteps to my left. Boots. As black as the Nazi S.S. uniform of the man heading towards me.

Seeing the man sent an ice pick stabbing into my chest.

Captain Sam had pointed this guy out to me last week. He'd warned me to stay away from this madman with the strange stitching all around his neck.

Major Strasser.

He stopped a foot away. He ignored me. My feelings weren't hurt.

He turned to the slowly swaying people in the front row of the theater. I fought down a shiver.

They were swaying to the beating of my heart.

He spoke loud. "You are new to the Hunger. I will begin your orientation with a lesson on Blood Bags."

Their swaying got faster as my heart became a jackhammer trying to punch its way out of my chest. My mouth was desert dry. I was more scared than I had ever been.

But I was Victor Standish. And I wasn't about to knuckle under to any bully.

"Can I skip class, Teach?," I smirked.

He slashed open my face with his riding crop. "Blood Bags are to be silent!"

"What about dirt bags?," I snorted.

Again with the riding crop. "Silence!"

The stage's light gleamed from his bald head, and he muttered under his breath. "The next slash will take out an eye, Standish."

I could take a hint. I shut up.

He turned to the new revenants (that's what Captain Sam called vampires; me, I called them creepy sons of ... the South.)

"Blood Bags are slow."

He hit me in the cheek with the crop.

"Blood Bags are weak." Again with the crop. I was getting real tired of that thing.

He was getting worked up. I was going to lose an eye no matter how quiet I kept.

Lucky that Captain Sam had me doing my own "home schooling" taught me by an undead vaudevillian magician.

Weisz Erik.

Who is he, you ask. You probably know him as Harry Houdini. You really didn't think a live human could get out of all those traps, now, did you?

I had already used the trick he showed me to work my right hand free from its cuff. It had only cost me some blood and skin.

I swallowed hard. The left one was on too tight. I was going to have to break my thumb to get loose.

My heart hammered even harder at the thought of breaking it. I sneered at myself. What was a little more pain? Pain was the only thing I could count on in my life.

"Blood Bags," roared Strasser, " are ...."

He swept down in the same arc. Cocky bastard. I ducked and snatched his crop from his hand with my teeth and spit it out onto the stage.

"... unpredictable, Fritz."

Strasser roared in anger. Just like every thug I'd ever met on the streets, he swept up his arm to backfist me.

Ulysses was my hero. So was Bruce Lee.

I had read every book on acupuncture I could lay my hands on. I knew all the points ... and a few new ones thanks to Captain Sam's library.

I angled my chin just right as the back of Strasser's fist snapped my head back. The point of my chin caught the back of his hand just where I wanted.

He screamed in pain. Yep. That particular point was a bitch.

I used the momentum of his blow to break my left thumb. Damn! That hurt! I dropped like Strasser's jaw. I hit the stage in a roll, popping to my wobbly feet.

"We also read, Cue Ball."

He walked slowly towards me. I made him frown by walking towards him. I smiled thinly.

"Cue Ball, you ever wonder why you can think without a beating heart pumping oxygen to the old noggin? Nah, of course, you didn't. You'd have to be smart to do that."

I turned to the startled revenants on the front row, jerking my unbroken thumb to Strasser. "Who ordered the honey-dew melon?"

He drew a nasty-looking dagger.

I reached into my pocket and came out with my ace in the hole. "Meet my bestest buddy, Mr. Ball Bearing."

Nobody cares if you carry ball bearings in your pockets. They might think you're weird. But on my best day, I'm borderline, so no skin off my nose.

And I've practiced and practiced and practiced with them until I could thumb a ball bearing into a wooden wall so hard it would stick in the hole it made.

"You are dead, swine."

"You first."

I thumbed the ball bearing into the hand he backfisted me with. He screeched. Yeah, the 364th fabled lost acupuncture point. It wasn't just a bitch. It was THE bitch.

Strasser's eyes rolled up, and he reeled like a wet sack of flour to the stage. Yeah, who needed a stake through the heart when you could sever the flow of his chi?

"Does this mean I get an F, Fritz?"

All the revenants on the two rows rose as one, hunched over, their fangs growing. Oh, crap. I couldn't ball bearing them all.

Thunder rumbled angry overhead, and it seemed to become a voice.

"Mighty big compliment they're giving you, Victor."

The revenants froze like deer in the headlights. I flicked my eyes to the voice. The weight flew off my chest.

Ramrod straight, Redwood tall, Captain Sam McCord loped like a prehistoric wolf out onto the stage. All in black, from his Stetson to his boots, he had a Walsh Navy Colt in each hand.

And his eyes were windows into Hell.

"They're saying it takes all of them to make just one of you. But I'll take the edge off that compliment if you don't mind."

"N-No, Captain Sam. I-It'd be greedy of me to hog all the f-fun."

He angled so only I could see him wink. My eyes stung with hot tears. After being scared so, so long on the streets, I wasn't alone anymore.

I didn't even mind the headache from the thundering Colts.
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