Issue #129
Less than an hour. She would walk right through those doors, the one, the queen bitch of them all. The one everyone was afraid of.
Everyone, except for Jordan. She didn’t have anything left to lose. She also couldn’t afford to be afraid of the Rage. She knew how important the task at hand was, but also because her own anger was still so potent.
The memory was still vivid in her mind, as time had failed to rub it completely from her consciousness. She remembered coming around the bend, feeling something sharp cut across her ankle, and then the sight of the floor rushing up at her. That was what it seemed like, not the experience of falling, but that the floor had actually taken wing and somehow attacked her. The void of darkness had been gradually dispelled, within the cocoon of a hospital bed with monitors and nurses all around her.
She didn’t know how the bitch had done it, just that it had been her.
Of course, it had been the Rage.
Rikki the Rage. The worst part was that the Rage didn’t even roll for a specific team, it was more like she toured the countryside, acting as a headhunter for her own best interests, winning happiness and satisfaction through the pain of others. She would move into town and attach herself to a local team that she wanted to hang with for a short period of time. Inevitably, there would come the time when her “teammates” would grow tired of her, and then it was off to try and find a new set of suckers to take a chance with her. Sometimes teams would bring her in just to sell tickets. Come on down and see what crazy shit the Rage was up to this time. Other times, the team just didn’t know any better. Regardless, the end result was generally the same. She wore a blood-red bandanna with the words, “The Rage” scrawled across in giant, purple letters.
Jordan had been in rehab for months. And part of her knew that there was no way that the Rage could have predicted that. She would have no way of knowing about the re-injury that would happen shortly after, or the mild addiction to the pain meds that had been over-prescribed, or the fact that Jordan would eventually lose her job from being in a constantly foul, and dismissive mood with everyone. She blamed the mood swings on the accident. None of this would have happened or been an issue, until she was knocked to the ground from behind. When that bitch took her out, and knocked her down.
There was no way she could really blame the Rage for what had happened, but she was going to do it anyway. And that bitch was going to pay for as many things as Jordan could stick her with.
Jordan had been unable to come back to play because of her ankle never fully recovering, but she had managed to get herself a position as team mascot/equipment manager/pity-party planner. As such, she was able to peek at the schedule and see who they had coming up, the team that the Rage just happened to be rolling with at the moment. And tonight was the night she would be walking out of that locker room and down this hall.
This would be the night she was made right again.
She could hear the sound of the music system in the hallway, distorted and tinny as it made its way in through the walls. She was crouched in between a set of lockers and the wall, and she looked up at the sound of the locker door and at the bitch as she strolled past, not bothering to pay attention to anything around her. Why would she? It wasn’t like there was anyone else out there to concern herself with. Just another hallway in another faceless building, leading, more than likely, to another bloodbath at her own hands. She didn’t bother herself with other people because, as far as she concerned, they were all just lining up to be her next victim. The tiger didn’t concern herself that much with the food, she just ate it.
Tonight would be different. Tonight, Jordan would get to know what it felt like to be the hunter.
* * *
The Rage laced up her boots and sat there, waiting for the rest of her team to start heading for the track. She couldn’t stand being associated with the likes of them, and part of her wished that she could be going out there to hurt them. One day, she could come back here as a part of another team and she would do just that. In the meantime, she would go through the motions and get what satisfaction there was to be had for her.
When the sound of the flock of idiots faded away, she peeked out through the door and saw that the hall was empty. Reaching up, she pulled the knot on her bandanna as tight as she could get it, kicked the door open, and stepped out and into the hall.
Before she was halfway to the entrance to the ramp, she detected the feel and sound of glass crunching under her feet. She stopped and glared down at the floor, shocked that places like this were able to keep their doors open. She would have some choice words for the owner of this dump. Or maybe she’d take the liberty to wreak the locker room, or lob some flaming comments from a safe distance away, via social media.
She was still engrossed in the glass scattered across the hallway and didn’t hear the sound of the wheels rolling up on her.until the crunching of more glass made her jump. The Rage looked up in time to see the vending machine, almost on top of her. She yelled as she jumped out of the way, feet sliding on the glass, causing her to fall against the wall, feet extended awkwardly out in each direction. The machine missed one foot and rolled over the other. She heard the dry snapping from her leg before her head filled with the intensity of her own scream. Light exploded around her and she felt her awareness slide, as her jaw clamped down, teeth biting into and through her tongue. Her foot lolled lifelessly at the end of her leg, now stuck at a sickeningly unnatural angle.
The Rage fell back onto the floor, staring up at the ceiling as her breathing started to go shallow. She heard footsteps, as someone walked up and leaned over her. Her hopes of help from a stranger rapidly dwindled at the familiar face that loomed in, one of many pathetic faces she had sent on their way to an emergency room.
“Please…” she tried to talk, but the sentence soon collapsed into a volley of heaving coughs and her mouth began to fill with blood.
“No,” the girl said as she hobbled closer on that bad ankle. “I don’t think so.”
“You can’t…get—”
“I think I can. You see…” She reached behind her and produced a long, thin baton and waved it over her. “Here’s what just happened. You came after me with this. I barely got away in time. It was just my luck that that vending machine broke loose and came rolling down here, just as I was trying to run away.”
The Rage shook her head, biting her lip to try and focus. “…didn’t … happen.”
The girl laughed at her. “I think I did. I think that’s what happened because that’s what I say happened. And they’re all going to back me up.”
She nodded over her shoulder and this time, The Rage saw the others, surely this crazy bitch’s teammates, lined up and glaring at her, nodding their agreement. The girl smiled again, an unhinged smile that made The Rage shudder all the way down to what was left of her heart. The girl’s hands tightened on the baton, held it out and, before The Rage could fully comprehend what was happening, she began to strike herself in the face, shattering her nose and lacerating her cheeks. It was at least six strikes before she stopped, stooped over and placed the baton in The Rage’s open palm. She bent down over the Rage and smiled at her through bloodied and broken teeth. “Now they’ll have to believe my story. No sane person would ever do something like this to themselves. They’ll be here any minute and they’ll find us here like this,” she said as she stood up, giggling hysterically. Her laughing cut off as the sound of the doors at the end of the hall came to them and the Rage heard two of the officials, shouting out to find out what was going on. Before they got close enough to hear her, the girl grinned one last time as she looked down at the Rage and spoke in a sarcastic, mocking voice, “Wait, I need to practice for them before they get here.”
She cleared her throat and put on an expression of an exaggerated parody of fear and spoke, barely above a whisper.
“Please help me, I think she was trying to kill me!”
