Jerry August stared outside the window looking across the grass and trees to watch the sunrise. A collage of colors coursed there way out in pink, red, and violet. It was morning like any other and to Jerry it was going to be like any other day. He scratched his scruffy chin with his finger. His gray eyes revealed that he was strung out and angry and that he hadn’t gotten any sleep. His dirty, black, hair drooped over his eyes and ears as he noticed that it was beginning to snow in his secluded domain.

It was mid January and not a day sooner to spring. Tears rose in his eyes as he heard the enchantment of his class mates ridiculing and beating him up. He would have been sixteen this February if they wouldn’t have changed him into the angry carnage, which brought wind to his life. Jerry took another breath from his cigarette as the window fogged up. He remembered every morning being the same. Every step of the way to Ever Grove High the never ending rape of being in school was always the same.

“I didn’t deserve the crap that I got. I never caused anyone harm nor did I tease anyone,” his voice rough with rage as his hands shook. Just because I’m different doesn’t give anyone the right to persecute me I have the right to exist and to learn,” his lips trembled as the words caught fire and thought back to the days of innocence.

His cold empty hand reached for the combination lock as he twisted and turned it. He turned his head to see the girl of his dreams, Jakki. He loved the way she parted he long brown hair and the way her brown eyes said hello with out her saying a word. When she did speak they served as music in itself. The way her thin lips flexed and gestured each syllable.

Jerry walked over to her, his heart pumping faster with each step as he smiled. She turned her eyes as he moved in on her. Their eyes locked in to the other like a threat of yarn wrapped around their waist. “Hi!” he grinned. “Ohh hi Jerry,” she answered as her hands grip the Algebra book. Jerry had heard that she broke up with her boy friend and was interested in asking her out. “I was wondering if you wern’t doing anything this weekend if you would like to do something?” “I can’t.” “Can’t,” he repeated as she left and let his heart ceased to beat, thus it suddenly turned cold. Jerry watched her trail into the arms of her new man Mark Jailure.

“You ruined my life! You spread rumors in school that I was gay. Every women in school believed them and it ruined me. How dare you come this far as to say you didn’t mean it and that it was just a joke”. He twisted back his arm and lunged it forward as hard as he could releasing his anger. He broke a whole in the glass and drew it back slowly as he stared at the spider legs spread across. It remind him that there was more to surface in his shattered life.

Jerry was on the bench press, lifting ten sets of 150 pounds. It seemed to get his mind of from his battles at school and was recreational to his arms. Jerry walked over to do leg squats when Mark Jailure walked in with his four jock friends. “No fairies aloud!” yelled one of the smaller jocks. With all of the weight lifting that Jerry had done he felt confident to stick up for himself. “Kiss off.”

The sound of footsteps were aloof and came closer like storm until they stopped behind him. “So I hear you said something about my mom” The voice was dark and deep like a growling wolf about to strike. Jerry stopped lifting and turned around to see Mark a few inches away from his face. “I never said anything about your mom and if I did I would say it to your face!” “You want to fight!” Mark challenged as he suddenly took a swing and rammed Jerry’s head up against the mirror. It shattered in many pieces just as mark picked up the boy and threw him up on the bench press and had his friends hold him their as he loaded the bar to 500 pounds and lifted it up with Jerry’s own arms. “Don’t choke on it,” Mark laughed as they left. Jerry lifted with all his might to keep the bar above his neck before a couple of fellow weight lifters helped him lift it up out of harms way.

“Pieces of shattered glass. That is what seems to be left of my life!” Jerry chuckled as he turned his head to the bath tub filled with gasoline with Mark tied up, laying in it. “But I’m not going to let you or anyone tell me that High School life is normal. Not compared to the life I had to endure with you.” Mark looked around with terror in his eyes. “What’s going on?” “I’m going to show you how you made me feel for the course of my high school life,” Jerry lit his cigarette and held the match up right in front of Mark. “No don’t do this! I’m sorry I was only having a little fun. I was only messing around!” “Well I’m sick of being messed around with and now this is my way of ending it.”

Jerry dropped the match in the pool of gasoline and watched as it busted into fire. It massed around Mark’s face like a swarm of bees. Mark howled for minutes and moved his head back in forth like he was in a seizure. His skin began peeling off his face revealing muscle and bone. As the minutes veered on Jerry watched his victim’s body disintegrate leaving the stale taste of death in the air. In his mind he was no longer Jerry August he was the Fire Starter and it was one last class mate that haunted his memories. To read more short stories go to http://thetwistedfirestarter.blogspot.com

Fire Starter: Twisted Fire Starter
Ryan Keith Johnson
© Copy Right 2009 All Rights Reserved.