Shards Read Online Free Page B

be
beautiful.
    Now, every guy who catches my
eye ignites with desire. The acrid smells of burnt flesh and the
agonised screams are seared into my memory.
    I just asked the genie for
smouldering eyes.
    * * *
    Shadow of Revenge
    "Fight me, you skinny little
fuck!"
    The muffled
thud of dance music, filtering from the nearby club, Drakken , adds rhythm to
Derek's step as he strides forward.
    "Go fuck y'self," the other guy
spits. Flecks of blood and saliva fly from his mouth, landing on
Derek's boots. Unintentional, but it pisses Derek off.
    "You're gonna pay for that,
shitbag."
    The weary expression on the
guy's face---he didn't catch his name---says everything that needs to
be said. The skinny runt is afraid yet defiant.
    The crowd, whipped into a
frenzy well before Derek's first blow struck, are practically
baying for blood. The rancid alley is packed with them---their faces
sway and blur in his vision. A wavering, surrealist canvas of white
skin against sodden brown brick. The chant flooding his ears is
muted and distant.
    "Fight. Fight!" they cry, a
bunch of dipshits carried on the fumes of schoolyard memories.
Derek knocked the crap outta the runts in school many times. So
many, the faces blur. His memory isn't that great. Still, these
nightclub dipshits gave him a crowd and he loves to please.
    With the baying of drug-fucked
teenagers and sex-starved metrosexuals droning in his ears, he
drives a fist into the skinny nerd's gut. The air is languid, his
punch slow to connect.
    The guy doubles over, bunched
around Derek's fist. Pulling his arm free of the flesh and bone
wrapping, he watches through bleary eyes as the skinny fucker drops
to his knees. The act takes forever, like the arsehole is milking
Father Time for every last second.
    "Ya like that, faggot?" Derek
screams into his face.
    The guy, huddled in a heap,
refuses to meet his eye. He's a bloody mess. Ragged cuts and
bruises cover his arms and face. His shirt is shredded, an early
victim of Derek's cyclonic assault.
    "It wasn't meant to be this
way," the runt mutters.
    "Look at me, dickhead!" Derek
screams, this time only an inch from the guy's pulped, downcast
face. Derek wrenches his head back by a fistful of hair, stares
into the lumpy remains of his face. The loser grimaces but still
refuses to meet Derek's eye.
    Leaning in closer, Derek runs a
deliberate tongue along the weeping cut on the runt's cheek.
Trapped by the hair, he tries squirming away but lacks the strength
to resist.
    "You look familiar, bitch,"
Derek savours the blood on his lips, before ramming an elbow into
the loser's head. This swing also takes a slow-motion eternity to
connect before it snaps the guy's head to the side.
    "Try this shit again and I'll
beat you to a smear. A fucking smear!"
    The fringes of the crowd drift
away, lured back to the club by the hypnotic thud of a techno beat.
Glancing around, Derek senses the bloodlust fade from his
audience.
    He slams a departing boot into
the fallen nerd's bony ribcage, enjoying the simultaneous grunt and
snap of bones, followed by the foetal collapse. This time, the
fucker stays down. A little baby curled up, bleeding, in the
filth.
    Derek drifts back to the club
with the last remnants of the crowd. Not even scratched and still
jacked up from his last hit. Cocksure, he reaches into his pocket
for another E. By the gleam in the eyes of some of the regulars,
he'll probably score a fuck or two.
    The back door soon slams
closed, its boom echoes through the alley, leaving Derek's victim
half conscious and curled up in a quivering ball.
    #
    The minutes stretch on, as he
slowly uncurls and pulls his tattered shirt across the broken
landscape of his torso. Inundated by the pain, he ignores the grit
and mud staining his left side. Like the rest of the alley, he now
smells of piss, vomit, and blood.
    Inch by agonised inch, he claws
his way from the alley to the carpark. A few of the club-goers flit
in and out of the front door, stepping around his crawl.