Freak Blood – FFftPP4

So I’ve been revising a novel, which is a slow, draining process for me. Anyway, I decided I needed to do some writing to keep myself from getting bogged down by revising. Rather than getting pulled into another big project, I went looking for some flash fiction inspiration. I found some great sites online with just the sort of prompts I needed.

What follows is a piece inspired by the prompt over at Flash Fiction for the Purposeful Practitioner. The key elements were the photo below, the opening “Enough is enough,” and no more than 200 words. My piece got rather dark, but I like the ambiguity of the ending. What will Ramsey do? What would I do?

Public Domain Archive: http://publicdomainarchive.com/public-domain-images-shoes-walking-feet-grey-gravel-blue-jeans/

Freak Blood – 193 words

“Enough is enough.” Ramsey strode across the parking lot, kicking up gravel like a bull pawing the ground before charging. He clenched and unclenched his fists, letting the tension build.

He’d watched when Bryan and Paul lit his brother Jed’s homework on fire in the boy’s bathroom. He’d turned the other way when they poured orange juice on Jed’s pizza at lunch and made him eat it. When their mom asked, he’d said he didn’t know why his brother came home from school crying.

It was easy pretending not to know the kid they called “the freak,” his brother with the eye patch and only one ear.

It was easy until the afternoon they grabbed Jed by the loop of his backpack and dragged him across the parking lot toward the trees behind the school.

Ramsey watched with his classmates, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans.

Paul was the idea man. “Whatcha got under that eye patch?”

Bryan held the pocket knife. “Let’s see what color his freak blood is!”

Ramsey caught them at the trees.

When he saw him, Bryan grinned and held out the knife. “You wanna cut him first?”