Excerpt - Chapter Three

Here's a snippet to whet your appetite:

Sheer brute mass steamrolled me. I was face-to-face with a stocky guy with no neck. Half his face was covered in blood.

He straddled me, pinning me to the ground with his knees. His long scummy hair brushed my forehead as drools of stringy saliva hung from his gaping mouth and plopped onto my face. For a second I thought of reasoning with him – maybe apologising, but I soon sussed he looked too mad for rational thought - crazy fucker sprung to mind.

I needed help but Adam was out for the count. And even if he did come to my rescue I wasn’t sure whether he’d make good back-up material. But at that moment, I didn’t give a toss; I would’ve settled for Big Bird.

‘What’s your fucking problem?’ I tried breaking free. ‘Let me go!’ I kicked my legs and struggled to arch my back.

He went to work on me; his hammer fists pounded my face, knocking my head from side-to-side. Then - the punches stopped... and the throttling started. I gasped for breath as the ugly fucker leered at me with controlled madness.

Screaming with rage, I wrestled my arms out of the knee pin and prised his big hands from my neck. I snapped one of his fingers. He screamed. It was a good, spine tingling scream; so good in fact, that if you really wanted, you could put it in a box and let it loose at Halloween - or even sell it to a Hollywood producer.

As he snapped his finger back into place, I connected with a succession of left and right hooks. Anyone else would’ve gone down, but not this prick; he didn’t flinch - at one stage he even smiled. I got the impression he was letting me hit him – maybe for kicks - maybe to tire me out.

Swapping punches for face grabs, I clawed his cheeks and yanked down. I felt his skin gather under my fingernails. Then I tried pushing his eyes into his head, but I kept missing as his bobbing and weaving avoided my thumb jabbing.

I caught a glimpse of a loose bumper lying just within reach. I stretched for it. Got a firm grip - then…WALLOP!

He briefly looked dazed and a bit surprised but then his face turned to fury. I sensed he was getting tired because his blows were as weak as mum slaps.

He grabbed my hair and double-slammed my head onto the ground. My brain shuddered.

I whacked his face with the base of my palm. His nose exploded and his head rocked just as Adam jumped onto his back, wrapping his legs around him, yanking his hair with one hand and throwing awkward looking punches with the other.

‘Go on Ads. Do him!’ I screamed.

Adam’s bitch slapping heroics distracted our attacker, giving me some welcome respite from my pounding - so I punched like the clappers; facebodyfacebodyfacebodyfacebody...

For the first time, I felt like we were making headway - we could win this ruck! But that went to pot when Adam was thrown to the ground.

The weight on my chest eased. He was standing over me now, drooling - wiping blood from his scumbag face. Smiling with red stained teeth, he clutched my ankle and dragged me as he walked backwards across the road towards a bank of trees. I jerked and skewed only for the pressure on my ankle to tighten. I tried to slow myself by digging my elbows into the ground.

Skin peeled.

‘Let go of me, you prick! Ads! Ads! Somebody help!’

Adam answered my call. ‘Let him go!’ he said, before letting loose a volley of punches topped off with a crazy roundhouse that floored our attacker.

I wish. Actually, ‘let him go,’ was as far as Adam got before he was knocked out - again. Still, his brief cameo was enough for my ankle to be freed.

I scrambled to my feet. I was poised, ready for the knockout blow – but it never happened because I was caught with an iron backhand that almost lopped my head off. I swivelled and slammed the ground.

This time he dragged me face down. His Neanderthal grunts billowed over me as the left side of my face grated. I was eating dirt, spitting grit. My number was up! I was on the way to becoming another stat; another drug fuelled youth who got into a fight and managed to get himself killed – a wasted life.

I desperately clawed the ground with so much force I thought my fingers were going to snap and crumble into my white knuckles. My fingertips sizzled as a trail of horror film claw marks embossed the road, almost confirming my doom.

Then, I thought I caught a glimpse of what looked like a flapping cape – but I’m pretty sure it didn’t belong to Batman. Could it have been Adam? I couldn’t tell. I didn’t care.

And so I lay on the ground, panting and listening as a scuffle unfolded until eventually our attacker collapsed next to me. I wanted to finish him but I was spent. Instead, we shared a moment. I looked at him, called him a wanker, and then passed out.