Jack's Revenge

Clark Kirkpatrick Mrs. Draus pd. 7 English comp. 8 12/9/08

Kirkpatrick1

Jack’s Revenge Jack approached Samneric swiftly, walking toward them with a purposeful stride, threehunters at his side. Samneric knew he had seen,knew that he knew that they had been fraternizing with the enemy. It seemed to take him an eternity to get to their post on the hill, Samneric becoming tenser with each of Jack’s fateful strides. As Jack closed in on them, Samneric exchanged fearful glances. Jack addressed his hunters without regarding Samneric: “Tie one of them up. Tie him to that tree, the one over there, and hold the other one.” The hunters complied without hesitation. Two grabbed Samneric, while the third dragged two long, thin, sturdycreepers from the woods. Screeching protests, they bound Sam by his feet, waist and neck to the tree Jack had indicated, while a hunter secured Eric and threw him against a nearby boulder. “Hold him tight,” Jack ordered quietly. “I’ve got something special for this traitor.” Again, the hunter obeyed immediately. “Now, tell me there, Eric,” said Jack sneered quietly. “What did he say?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Eric replied tersely. “Is that so?” inquired Jack casually, a faint smile playing across his bony face. “Well then, maybe this will help loosen your tongue.” Bending down, Jack picked up a softball-sized rock and heldit in his right hand. Straightened up, Jack grasped Eric’s right wrist with his free hand. Smacking it roughly against the rock which the hunter was holding him to, he spread Eric’s fingers against the rock. Eric had enough time only for a fleeting look of terror before Jack brought the rock smashing down against Eric’s pinky finger, grinding it vigorously between his rock and the boulder with a sickening crunch.

Kirkpatrick2 “AHHHHH” Eric let out an earsplitting squeal of agony as an excruciating jet of pain shot up his arm, dropping to his knees at the foot of the rock, mumbling and sputtering in shock and anguish. “No!” Sam shrieked involuntarily from behind them. “So tell me, Eric,” Jack continued in the same casual monotone he had used previously. “Would you care to fill me in on what that wretched traitor Ralph had to say for himself?” Eric looked up at Jack with a look of supreme grief etched into his face. “H-hhe s-said,” he began to sputter, “H-he was j-just asking for m-m-meat. That’s all Jack, I swear. Only for m-meat.” “I,” proclaimed Jack, “Don’t believe you.” And with anotherquick, fluid motion, he placed Eric’s hand back on the rock and smashed it again, clipping Eric’s ring finger as well as his pinky, and this time Jack continued to hold Eric’s hand down. Eric yelped again, this time louder, a bone chilling utterance of absolute suffering. Tears streamed down his face as he gagged and drooled and cried. “Okay! Okay!” shrieked Eric. “I’ll t-tell you! Please just… just stop, just s-sstop it!” As Eric cried on, Jack let the rock fall limply in his handby his side. “Well then,” he said, a full out smile crossing his face, “What was it?” “He told us where he was hiding. He said he was going to be in the thicket, the one over there,” he pointed with his free hand, “When we come for him tomorrow. And we told him, we… we told him we were coming and… and the sound we would make and… and everything.”

Kirkpatrick3 “You blasted idiot!” exploded Jack. “Bloody traitor! This will have to be punished! I will not tolerate traitors among my hunters. You blasted fool, you will suffer for your treason!” With that, Jack brought the rock down on Eric’s fingers with all his might. A resounding smack and another horrible, bloodcurdling cry of utter dismay, as three of the fingers on Eric’s right hand were crushed and mangled, a bloody ball of gore and shreds of fingernail and bone, with light-colored tendons poking through the disarray. “That’ll teach you to bloody lie,” spat Jack. Turning to glare at Sam, he hurled the stone in his hand, which smashed into Sam’s exposed stomach with a dull thump, and a fainter crack. Sam’s knees buckled, but the rope that bound his skull to the rough tree bark held him upright, his face turning bright red, gasping for breath, unable to clutch his stomach, from which trickles of dark red blood had begun to ooze slowly, creating rivulets of gore that slowly trickled their way toward his feet. “And you’re lucky this time. If you ever pull something like that again, I’ll see that both of you get it worse than this. You ain’t seen nothing yet.” And with that, Jack strode off. The hunter who had held Eric the whole time released him and turned to the side, vomiting violently before looking around as if he had lost his bearings and then scamperingoff behind Jack. The other two hunters followed him, leaving Sam bound to the tree and Eric on the ground next to the now gruesome rock, what was left of his hand an unusable mass of a sickening appearance, with blood and tears and drool mixed with shards of unrecognizable bodily matter, all ground together with fragments of dust and dirt and broken rock.