Quiet As A Mouse (Outsiders Fanfic)

Chapter 15- Late

         On Monday morning I reluctantly dragged my butt out of bed, surprised by how quiet it was in the house.  I glanced at the clock to see it was nine twenty in the morning. 9:20!  I was so late for school, I thought as I rushed around to get ready.  Those antidepressants must have really worked last night.

        I was supposed to take them every night before I went to bed.  They were supposed to help me sleep because they made me really drowsy, and supposedly get rid of my nightmares.  And they worked, at least somewhat, because I didn't remember being woken up at all from nightmares during the night, but I also obviously didn't remember being woken up this morning  which is why I was now over an hour late for school.

        I rushed down the stairs, pulling my jacket on with one hand and clutching my books in the other, and just as I was about to run out the door, I spotted a note on the kitchen table.  i snatched it up but then stopped short as I read it.

        'Mickey, you can stay home from school today.  I hope you're feeling better, because we couldn't even wake you up this morning.  If you do feel well enough to go to school though, don't worry about being late because I already called the school to let them know.  Sorry I couldn't stay home with you, but I couldn't get anyone to take my shift at work on such short notice.  Feel better.  Love, Aunt Kat.'

        Well, I didn't feel sick, I had just overslept.  And I would have to make up all the classes I was missing right now, so I'd better get to school.  I was thinking of leaving my aunt a note back, but she wouldn't get home from work until after I had gotten home from school so there wasnt' a need for it.  I double checked to make sure I had all my school stuff now that I knew I had an excuse to be late, but then I was out the door, walking down the street.

        I didn't even know if Two-Bit had gone to school today, he did skip on occasion, but it didn't bother me anyways.  I was absent-mindedly wondering what he would be doing if he had skipped school today though when all the sudden some idiot drove up onto the curb in front of me.  I had to jump back to not get hit by the green Mustang, and if I could have talked, I would have sworn under my breath.

        I would have sworn out loud so they could hear me, too, as I noticed four preppies--Socs is what everyone around here called them--getting out of the car. Looks like my cousin and I weren't the only ones skipping school today.

        I backed up, planning on turning and running in the other direction because no way could someone as small as me fight four nearly full-grown guys who were probably on the football team.  Of course two of them closed in behind me though.  I turned, trying to keep them in my line of vision, but I was still backing away until I hit the wall of the building that was now behind me. 

        I was boxed in, a solid brick wall behind me, a car parked haphazardly on the curb to my left, and two menacing Socs in front of me with two more to my right, closing in like a wolf pack on injured prey, ready to devour it.  I was shaking I was so scared, cold sweat prickling on my back and neck, and I dropped my armful of books on the concrete because my limbs were turning to jelly and I couldn't hold anything, barely being able to stay on my feet. 

        I had seen some kids after they'd gotten beaten up, by hoods and preppies alike, back in Chicago.  It was never a pretty sight, and now it was about to happen to me.  People had been killed because of this.  These guys could kill me.

        In a flash one or two of them had my arms pinned behind my back, and the other two--or was it three?--were ramming their fists into my stomach and smashing me in the side of the head with their knuckles.  It was either the blows to the head or that it all happened so quickly that I couldn't keep track of who of the four of them were where, but I did know that it felt like I was going to puke up my actual stomach, and my brain was turning to a sludge.  In seconds that felt like hours, I was on the ground, and everything was blurry and unfocused, moving where it shouldn't have been because it appeared as if one of them was floating and another was walking up a wall.

        I heard a click, and my muddled brain somehow connected that to one clear image in front of me that my eyes focused on.  One of them had flipped open a switchblade, that's what the click was, and they were drawing deathly nearer to me.

        I know I can't talk, or make any noise with my mouth, so I must have been dreaming as a scratchy raw scream echoed through my ears, reminding me of a dying animal's last tortured cry for help. It was abruptly cut off as a moving wall of black merged into the blur of colors in front of me, and then it took up all of my vision.

        But I did recognize a distinct rough raspy voice drifting into my subconscious.

        "Damn, Mickey.  Your cousin's gonna kill me."