The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy) (8 page)

For the first time in ages, the
fiend finally felt like he was completely back in control of the game.

Johnny locked eyes with Sarah.
"Truth or dare?" he asked with a sneer.

"This is so lame,"
Sarah said with a sigh.

"You chicken shit?"
Johnny asked.

"No, but I'm sure as hell
not taking a dare from you."

"Truth then?"

She nodded her head.

"I'll take it easy on you
this time," Johnny said, taking a long drink of this beer. "If you
had to make out with one guy here, who would it be?"

"Drew," she lied
without hesitation.

"What the hell?" Johnny
asked everyone present as Drew's jaw dropped and Jake slightly gritted his
teeth.

Jenny giggled. "You're going
to have to get in line, girl." She grabbed Drew and gave him a quick hug.
"I got first dibs on this fine young man." She turned to him.
"Right, stud?"

"Uh...ya-uh" stumbled
out of Drew's mouth as he quickly nodded his head, making everyone laugh.

"My turn," Sarah said,
looking at Jenny. "Truth or dare?"

Jenny smiled like a whore of
Babylon. "Dare."

Sarah smiled back. "Give
Johnny a long, hot, deep kiss."

"You bitch," Jenny's
smile melted.

Johnny's reply consisted of a
monster belch that he released to the moon like the howl of a wolf, making
everyone laugh but Drew and Jenny.

"You rinse that shit
out," Jenny said as she pointed at Johnny. "I'm not kissing exhaust
fumes."

"Oh come on baby,"
Johnny smiled. "You've let me put worse things in your mouth."

"You're such an
asshole," Jenny replied, walking up to him. "I'm serious, wash that
shit down."

"Yes, ma'am," he said,
downing the rest of his beer and then throwing the can up in the air, grabbing
her. She squealed like a caught rabbit for a moment and then the kiss began,
which lived up to everything that Sarah had said it had to.

The euphoric feeling Drew had
been gliding on just moments before came crashing to the rocks as he watched
the kiss. He crunched the empty beer can in his hand until the jagged sides cut
into his flesh, making him bleed.
"This is supposed to be my fucking
moment!"
he growled inside his head.

It made a strange viewing
triangle as Sarah watched Jake, wondering what he was thinking and Jake watched
Drew watching the kiss, knowing exactly what Drew was thinking.

"There is going to be a
shit-storm after all,"
Jake thought to himself, knowing something's just can't be helped. He took a
long drink of his beer, knowing full well that was the last thing he should be
doing, but being unable to suppress the urge for the wilding.

The kiss ended with both of them
smiling as they looked into each other's eyes.

He motioned off towards the
darkness. "Let's go."

"I'm not that easy,"
she whispered back.

"Really?" he asked.
"When did that lifestyle change happen?"

She pushed him away. "Fuck
off."

"Chill, baby, chill,"
Johnny said with raised hands.

"You're up," Drew said
to Jenny, trying to ignore everything. Trying to keep his focus on his vision
of how this was his night.

Jenny looked at Johnny, the last
thing Drew wanted, and asked:"Truth or dare?"

"What do you think?" he
asked with a smirk.

She nodded at him with cold eyes,
the heat between them quickly faded as they fell back into their old roles of
animosity. "I dare you to tell us one time when you did something for
somebody else, knowing full well you weren't going to get anything in
return."

"That's not a dare!"
Johnny threw his hands into the air. "I didn't say truth!"

"You didn't say shit,
dumbass," Drew said. "That makes it her call, now answer the
question."

Memories flowed through Johnny's
mind as he glared at Drew. The saddest thing about the truth was that Johnny
had  an answer that would have stopped them all in their tracks. It was when he
was eleven and he told his whore of a mother to get out of their house and out
of their lives, that his dad was too good for her.

His father had been there when he
had said it, saying nothing as she spit on his son, calling him a little prick
and walking out of their lives forever. As the screen door slammed shut with
her exit, father and son had looked at one another, with the older giving the
younger a slight nod of approval.

Johnny had felt like he had made
the right decision, even though it had hurt like hell to watch her leave,
spitting venom with her final words of hate. The nod from his father had proven
that, at least until a week later and she still hadn't came back.

"What the fuck did you
do?" his father screamed as he beat him with a belt. "She's not
coming back and it's your fault!"

That was the last time the
beating was one sided, but the blame never stopped. It was Johnny's fault she
had left, even though he was just trying to defend his dad. He didn't mean to
make her leave, he just wanted her to be nicer to his dad, as well as him. He
never wanted her to go away. He was just trying to help.

The answer to the question would
have more than satisfied everyone present that night, but some truths aren't
meant to be shared with others, so Johnny did what Johnny did best: he dodged.

"Fuck you!" he stabbed
his finger in Drew's face. "I don't gotta answer shit." He turned to
Jenny. "And fuck you, ya slut!"

Drew threw his smoke and drink to
the ground, pushing Johnny back with a hard shove. "You've got three
seconds to apologize to her, or I'm going to beat your ass."

"Why?" Johnny threw his
hands into the air. "What's the point? She ain't gonna give you any trim
either way." He got right in Drew's face. "It doesn't matter how
bloody you get your hands, chubby." He smiled. "She's never going to
love you."

If there was ever a straw that
broke the camel's back, this was it. Not just Johnny's words, but the evil grin
that followed, it was the final nail in the coffin of Drew's self-control.

Drew replied to Johnny's venomous
words with a right hook to his eye. Johnny stumbled back several steps, nearly
falling on his ass from the force of the hit.

"What the fuck?" Johnny
spit out the words in blood, trying to get his feet back under him.

Drew surged forward, following
after him as Johnny stumbled back, replying to him once again with a swing,
this time with a left hook. Johnny went down flat on his back this time.

"Come on,
mother-fucker," Drew said, taking a few steps back, giving Johnny some
breathing room. "Get up."

Johnny spit blood out of his
mouth. "Shouldn't have let up when you had the drop on me, fat-ass."
He started to get up. "Now I'm really gonna fuck you up."

Drew nodded his head, saying
nothing as he got his fists up in front of his face and waited for the fight.
Not a trace of fear was in his face, only rage. 

 Sarah spun to Jake. "Aren't
you going to do something? Someone is going to get hurt!"

Jake shook his head. "Naw,
this thunderhead has been brewing for some time. It's probably best to just let
this play out, so they can get it out of their systems."

Sarah was about to reply but was
interrupted as Johnny rushed Drew, slamming into him like a runaway train. Drew
took the impact pretty well, but they both went to the ground, immediately
grappling for leverage as they hit the earth, trying to get the best of one
another.

"Got you now, fat boy,"
Johnny said, who was on top, bringing down his fist on Drew's jaw.  

Drew took the hit with a grunt,
tasting blood as it filled his mouth, dirt getting into his eye as his head
bounced off the earth.

"You just bit off more than even
you can chew, chubby!" Johnny cackled, rearing back his fist for another
swing, bringing it down hard on the side of Drew's face.

His head bounced back off the
ground like a pinball bouncing off a bumper. More dirt got in his left eye, as
his right eye started to swell shut. Consciousness started to sway in and out
like a distant buzzing insect.

"Not going to be able to
see,"
his mind
screamed.
"Going to black out!"
Panic started to replace rage.

"So," Johnny gave Drew
a little shake, "Was the slut worth getting your ass kicked?

Leave it to Johnny to refocus
Drew's anger. He punched out, focusing more on the sound of Johnny's voice than
anything, making contact with Johnny's throat.

Suddenly unable to breath, Johnny
started to gasp and choke. Drew easily knocked him to the right, then rolling
to the left, getting back on his feet, rubbing the dirt from his good eye.

Johnny slowly got his breath
back, while Drew blinked the rest of the dirt from his eye, finally clearing
his vision.

Johnny stumbled to his feet,
letting out a slow but finally controlled breath.

"So," Jake said from
the sidelines. "We got this all out of our system now, boys?"

"Fuck no!" they said in
near unison.

"Twinkie joke isn't going
to work this time,"
Jake thought to himself as the two combatants moved in towards one another.

There were no pit-bull charges
this time as they slowly moved forward, fists up in front, like they actually
knew what they were doing.

"Come on guys," Sarah
said. "This is such stupid shit."

"Fuck him up, Drew!"
Jenny added.

Sarah turned to her friend.
"That's real helpful."

"Johnny's got this shit
coming," Jenny replied. "And Drew is just the guy to give it to
him."

Her words got Drew moving. He
threw two quick jabs at Johnny as he moved forward, which Johnny easily dodged.

Johnny replied with a wild Haymaker
that came in wide and hard. Drew threw up his arm, blocking it cold. He then
grabbed Johnny's arm with both hands, spun around so Johnny was behind him and
then pushed forward, taking Johnny with him and flipping him over his back.

Johnny's feet flew up and over
Drew as he shot through the air, crashing down on the ground in front of Drew.

"Shit," was all Johnny
was able to say before Drew started kicking him.

Sarah looked at Jake. "Are
you going to do anything?"

Jake shook his head. "This
is pretty much over, Johnny ain't getting up after that." Jake took
another drink of his beer. "If it was the other way around right now, I
would definitely be pulling Johnny off of Drew, but since its Drew, no worries.
He'll kick him a couple more times and then he'll be done."

"Apologize!" Drew said
after the third kick.

"Fuck you!" Johnny
replied, trying to crawl away.

This time Drew kicked him in the
face.

"Whoa, Drew-man!" Jake
was finally concerned. "You've proved your point. Johnny's ass is
kicked." He had almost reached Drew.

"Not until he says he's
sorry!" Drew stabbed his finger at Jake.

Johnny coughed up blood. It was
quite apparent that Drew's last kick had broke Johnny's nose.

Jake looked down at Johnny as
blood flowed from his nose like a faucet. "Tell her you're sorry,
bro."

Johnny's eyes were filled with
malice as he looked back at Jake and then at Drew. The steel he saw in Drew's
eyes told him there was only one way to end this.

"I'm sorry," Johnny
said, looking at the ground.

"Look her in the eye and say
it!" Blood spit from Drew's mouth as he talked.

"That's good," Jenny
ran up to Drew, never looking at Johnny. "That's enough. I never should
have let it go this far." She touched the side of his face, looking at his
wounds. "Man, that looks like it hurts."

"I'm alright," he
whispered, all the pain was gone, now that she was touching him.

Sarah felt sick to her stomach
about everything that had just happened, she looked at her watch and lied.
"It's getting late, I need to go home."

"Okay, yeah," Jenny
replied. She looked back at Drew. "See you at work tomorrow?"

"Yeah, bright and
early," he tried to give her a smile, but it was too painful.

Jake stepped up to Sarah as they
walked back to the car. "Sorry about all this..."

"Don't," she said,
pushing him away. "You could have stopped this way before it got out of
hand."

He watched them leave, saying
nothing more.
"Sheltered people just don't get how the real world
works."
he thought to himself.

Walking back to his friends, he
noticed how they separated themselves from one another. Johnny was at the edge
of the pond, washing the blood from his face. Drew sat on the hood of his car,
smoking a cigarette, an easy twenty yards away.