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“You’re a persistent little shit, aren’t you?”
Ford froze when he heard a voice behind him. He knew who it was already. He turned to look over his shoulder and caught sight of the speaker, a dirty blonde who he’d encountered too many times before.
Ford’s eyes flickered this way and that, analyzing his surroundings. He was on the edge of Backupsmore’s “main square”, a poorly-maintained, rectangular tract of grass where students frequently gathered. He focused on the brick buildings surrounding the area. The student dorms were all the way at the other end of the square, so he couldn’t make a run for it. The science and social studies halls were on his left, but class was in session, so using those as a means of escape would only cause a scene. A group of students were sitting around the tree in the middle of the square to his right, smoking. They wouldn’t care. They wouldn’t do anything to stop what was about to happen. They never did. Nobody ever came to his aid when things like this happened. The one person who would have was gone now.
Ford accepted his defeat as the boy took a few threatening steps towards him. Ford began to back into the alley between the social studies and science halls. Better to be bested in private than to show everyone how weak he was. The boy drew out a switchblade, gleaming in the daylight. There were five of them. Jack Benson, the blonde with the switchblade, was the head of the posse.
In the beginning, he’d considered using magic to defend himself, but the potential repercussions were far too dangerous. They’d surely tell everyone he was even more of freak. He couldn’t fight them with his fists, either. Jack’s family had connections with Backupsmore’s higher-ups and could easily get him expelled if he did anything to try and stop him. He couldn’t do anything.
“You just won’t back the fuck off, huh?” Jack spoke, shaking his head mockingly as he continued to advance towards Ford, pointing the blade at him. Ford pressed himself back against the wall. “How many times we gotta teach you this lesson, Pines?”
“I’m not dropping out,” Ford replied flatly, his stare even with Jack’s. “You don’t scare me.” He needed to win this contest. He needed the scholarship, the recognition. With a few simple tweaks to his design from back in high school, his perpetual motion machine was easily the most advanced project in the Science Showcase. His only competition came from the girl he now knew to be Jack’s girlfriend. He’d lost track of the number of bruises and black eyes and bloodied noses he’d received from Jack and his posse in an attempt to intimidate him into pulling his project from the competition, so really, what was one more beating?
With the Science Showcase approaching fast and Ford’s name still in the running, he found himself face-to-face with Jack once more. He wouldn’t back down just so this idiot’s girlfriend could win. Ford narrowed his eyes as Jack spoke up again. “I’ll give you one more chance. Are you gonna pull your project or not?”
“No.”
“Guess we’ll just have to take you out ourselves, then.”
In no time flat, hands were ripping off his backpack and shoving him to the ground. Feet were kicking at him, hitting his legs, stomach, and head. Punches were delivered to his face and shoulder. Blow after blow landed everywhere on his body until he couldn’t process anything beyond his swimming vision and cracked glasses and pain and the smell of blood and the sound of his own screaming. He felt a hand wrap around his own. In one quick motion, his fingers were snapped backward. A hand clamped over his mouth. He couldn’t even scream. His legs and arms were pinned to the ground. He could hear Jack’s voice as he leaned down and split his navy blue sweater open with the switchblade.
“We warned you, freak.”
There was nothing but pain as Jack sliced the knife across his chest again and again. Ford struggled, but couldn’t free himself. His skin was on fire, his body was burning. Pain was all he could feel or sense or even think about, the worst he’d ever felt in his life. All the punches he’d taken during boxing practice were nothing like this. All the beatings he’d taken from schoolyard bullies paled in comparison. Even when his dad would hit him with his belt, it never hurt this badly.
He was dimly aware of the group of boys moving away after a while, leaving him lying on the concrete. His breath came in shallow gasps as he tried to focus on his injuries. There was blood everywhere, staining his pants and shoes and what remained of his sweater. He tried to place his hand on his chest to gauge how seriously he was injured, but he was shaking and everything hurt so much and his fingers weren’t supposed to bend that way and his vision was blurring and hot tears were pouring down his face and his strangled screams and sobs echoed back to him in the empty alleyway and it was all too much and he was going to die here and no one except Fiddleford would even notice he was gone.
No one was going to help him. He knew this. He sat up and choked on the blood in his throat. Ford coughed and stumbled as he tried to stand and fell to his knees again. He heaved a few breaths, blood dripping from his face as he sat there on his hands and knees for a moment. He had to get up. He had no one to rely on but himself, his will, and his battered body. So he stood up and leaned against the wall until the world started spinning just a little less.
Every movement sent fresh waves of pain rippling through his body, but he kept moving anyway. He looked around briefly for his backpack, but it was nowhere in sight. With each step he took out of the alleyway, he could feel the blood dripping from his body. He stopped to look at the group of students who were still smoking under the tree. He stared at them, silently hoping, pleading.
They looked the other way, just like he knew they would.
He wanted to scream at them. He wanted to march over there and shove himself in their faces and beat them as badly as the boys had beaten him. He wanted to make it so they couldn’t ignore him anymore.
All that came out was a choked whimper.
He turned in the direction of the dorms. They seemed so far away now. He didn’t know if he could walk any further. He was choking on his own blood, drowning in it. A fractured shape was approaching him, a thousand split images in the vague shape of a person. Fiddleford. The one person left on this planet who actually gave a damn about him.
“Stanford!” a shrill voice cried. “What happened to you!?” When Ford tried to reply, he only produced a garbled cry. “Nevermind. We gotta get you to a hospital. Christ.” Ford leaned on his friend and allowed Fiddleford to bear most of his weight as he gently guided him in the direction of the parking lot. As each limping step slowed to a drag and every shuddering breath came slower and slower, Ford’s consciousness began to fade. He felt bad for leaving Fiddleford with the job of transporting him to the hospital, but he was happy to leave the pain behind for a little while. The last thing he heard before he passed out was a soft murmur from Fiddleford.
“I got you, buddy.”
When Ford woke in the hospital bed, the first thing he did was lift up his hospital gown and look down at his chest. He stared at the lines of stitches there. Now that the blood had been cleaned from his skin, he could see the message carved there.
FREAK.
“Hey,” a soft voice spoke. Ford turned to see Fiddleford sitting in a chair beside the bed, his blue eyes searching his.
“Hey,” Ford echoed, letting out a sigh. The pain was less than it had been, but it was still there. He looked over his body. His right hand was wrapped in a sturdy cast and his legs and arms were decorated with bright purple bruises. Not having his glasses didn’t help with the fact that he already had to squint to see Fiddleford through his black eye.
“Was it Benson again?”
“Yeah.” Ford sat up and stared silently at the wall for a while. He curled his left hand into a fist, digging his fingers into the sheets. “It’s not fair.” He spoke through gritted teeth. Fiddleford raised his eyebrows as he continued. “Everywhere I go, that’s all I am. A freak . No matter what I do.” Ford spat. “No matter how much I work, no matter how hard I try. The universe just screws me over like I’m the butt of some cosmic joke .” Tears were dripping down his face as he spoke. “I’ve been treated like shit by everyone my whole life and I just have to sit there and take it. It's not fair !” He slammed his fists down on the bed.
A few seconds of uncomfortable silence passed. “S-sorry,” Ford stammered out.
“You know what? Let’s get out of here.”
“ Here? ”
“Out of Backupsmore.” Fiddleford clarified. “We’re smarter than this whole school combined. We don’t need to put up with this shit anymore.”
“What are you saying?”
“How do you feel about this school, Ford?”
“I want to blow it to fucking bits.”
“Then why don’t we?”
Ford laughed at the absurdity of the question. His smile turned to a confused frown as he watched Fiddleford stand and begin to pace back and forth at the foot of the bed. “Are you serious?” Ford shook his head in disbelief. “We can’t just up and leave our lives behind. It doesn’t work like that.” It was a nice concept, sure, but the real world didn’t work that way.
“Think about it. No one can stop us. Even if the authorities find out it was us, we can feasibly outwit them. I got my technical know-how ‘n you got your spellbook.”
“Even so, we’d be homeless.”
“We can take your car.”
“That’s an awfully small space to live out of.” Ford said. An image of his brother sitting alone in his car flashed in his mind. He pushed it away.
“Well, I did see a roached-out van by the side of the road yesterday… I could probably hotwire that.”
“How would we sustain ourselves? Neither of us have the money for food.”
“It wouldn’t be hard to rob a grocery store every once in awhile.”
“You’re crazy.”
Fiddleford stopped pacing and turned to stare directly into Ford’s eyes. “What’s crazier? Breaking out of this cycle of vilification and harassment to live our lives freely? Or wasting away in this dump, gettin’ knocked down at every turn, just putting up with being with being treated like we’re nothin’ because we have to?”
Looking into his eyes, Ford could see the same deep resentment for the world he sometimes saw when he looked in the mirror. The same sense of jaded anger that came from being being treated so poorly for so long. The same understanding that humanity was toxic, that society was flawed, that the world deserved to be punished for all it did to them.
“Wouldn’t doing all this now invalidate all the work we’ve done to get to this point?” Ford asked.
“You just said yourself that things aren’t ever gonna change, Stanford. People aren’t just gonna start miraculously respecting you one day. We’ve been sitting here idly for too long, and I ain’t gonna do it anymore. If the world only sees us as freaks and monsters, then that’s what we’ll be.” Fiddleford paused and Ford stared at him with wide eyes for a few seconds. “So whaddaya say?” He walked up beside the bed and stretched his hand out, a hopeful smile on his face. “‘Ya wanna get out of this place?”
Ford stared at the outstretched hand. He thought of all the times bullies had left him with bruises and black eyes. He thought of the Stan O’ War, a chance at escape that he’d let slip away. This could be his new Stan O’ War. He wasn’t going to miss the chance again.
He placed his hand in Fiddleford’s and gave it a firm shake. “Let’s run away.”
They drew their plans back in the dorm room, crouched over a map of campus. Fiddleford built the bomb while Ford flipped through his spellbooks, searching for an amplification spell. They packed Ford’s car with their clothes and belongings. When night fell, they slipped silently out of the dorm.
The sky was cloudless and the moon was bright. A beautiful night to begin their adventure, to change their lives. Under the starless void, they pried open the doors to the hall in the center of campus and hid the magically-amplified bomb.
Just as the first pinks streaks of dawn were appearing on the horizon, the pair pulled onto the side of the road near the city junkyard. Just outside the gates was parked the van Fiddleford claimed he’d noticed yesterday, a faded aqua VW covered in rust and dirt.
“This is it?” Ford asked as he stepped out of the car, raising a brow skeptically. The thing looked so beat-up that he was unsure it would even run. “It looks a bit out-of-shape.”
“It’s perfect.” Fiddleford grinned.
Ford transferred their belongings into the back of the van while Fiddleford started it up. Soon enough, the engine rumbled to life with a few shaky stutters. Ford smirked at his friend as they pulled onto the road in their new home.
When morning came, they were parked on a hill overlooking the city. Ford could see campus clearly from here. He could even make out the shapes of individual students walking to their classes, unaware of what was about to happen. It was getting close to being halfway through the first block. He should be in chemistry right now.
The bomb went off.
A deafening boom echoed outwards from the source as bits of buildings went flying away from the fiery plume that rose from the epicenter. Ford leaned forward in the passenger seat, his mouth hanging half-open in awe. Clouds of smoke billowed into the sky as the explosion leveled nearly all of campus, leaving disjointed pieces of scattered rubble in their wake. The red-orange hues of the raging fires dotted amidst the ruins made the whole scene look like a surreal painting. So much destruction in so little time, so many lives snuffed out in the space of a few seconds. Backupsmore was burning. It was beautiful.
“We just did that.” Ford whispered, turning to look at Fiddleford. Fiddleford only smirked and fired up the van again, backing out of the overlook and pulling back onto the road. Ford kept his eyes locked on the destruction in the rearview mirror as they sped out of town, his expression unchanging. “I can’t believe we did that. I can’t believe we just did that.” he repeated over and over again, still in a state of shock. He went silent for a while.
Fiddleford frowned and looked over at him. “You alri-”
“I can’t believe we just did that!” Ford yelled, throwing his arms in the air. Fiddleford gave an amused snort as he continued his excited screaming. “ I can’t believe we just did that! ” He stuck his head out the window and screamed into the breeze. “This is amazing! Backupsmore is gone , baby!” He flipped off the receding image of what had once been the school. Fiddleford laughed and cheered. “Fuck you, Backupsmore! Fuck you, Jack! How does it feel?” Ford grinned madly and ducked back into the vehicle. “We’re free, Fiddleford! We can do whatever we want, go wherever we want…” Something dark flickered across his gaze.
“Where to, buddy?”
“Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey.”