ONE YEAR AGO…

  “FUCKING SON OF A BITCH!!!” cursed out Fort Madison High’s starting Senior Quarterback Brett Langstrom after he had been driven into the muddy Forty Yard Line of Keokuk Senior High’s Football Field in Calvert Stadium by none other than High School Football playing all-star John Hale Junior.

  Having been in the eleventh grade back then (and sporting a buzz-cut), John was the leading tackler in the whole Tristate Area known as ‘THE HALESTORM’.

  Averaging about twenty sacks per game that season, John ‘Halestorm’ was making quite the name for himself all over the great state of Iowa.

  After sacking Langstrom for the SEVENTH CONSECUTIVE TIME that evening (with it only being the Second Quarter, I mind you), John was just getting started.

  Bringing himself back up to his feet, John had a smirk on his face as Langstrom also darted back up to his feet.

  “FUCK YOU, HALE!” Langstrom spouted at John. He then foolishly proceeded to shove him in the chest with both of his mud covered hands.

  Not moving a single inch, John glared at the Barrington Starting QB as he threatened, “Keep on pushin’ me, Langstrom, and I’ll hit you so hard that they’re gonna have to carry your ass off this field ON A STRETCHER!”

  Before tensions flared anymore between the two bitter rivals, both teams’ sides held them back.

  As Langstrom and the rest of Barrington’s Starting Offense went back into a huddle, John was being reeled in by his fellow teammate and best friend, Josh Russell.

  Aside from being the Starting Varsity Running Back that year, Josh also played as a Cornerback on the Starting Defense.

  John had a very furious look on his sweat-drenched and mud-splattered face as Josh called out, “J! HEY, J!!!”

  “What, Josh?!” John asked with fires in his eyes.

  “What was all that shit about back there between you and Langstrom, man?”

  “Langstrom was bein’ a bitch and runnin’ his mouth, so I threatened to send’em outta here… PERMANENTLY.”

  “In a body bag, perhaps? Heh, heh...”

  “You and your lame-ass movie references and can BOTH go eat a dick, Russell.”

  Josh then playfully slapped John’s left shoulder pad with his right as Fort Madison’s Offense broke away from their huddle.

  With Langstrom starring John down like a Lion eyeing fresh prey, Josh said, “ALRIGHT, JOHN… It’s FOURTH DOWN and it looks like those ‘Bloodhound-Bitches’ are gonna try to go for it. Just do your thing and get us the ball back… GOT IT, HALESTORM???”

  “GOT IT,” John nodded as he let his ‘Halestorm’ persona take over once more.

  “Fuck yeah,” Josh smirked before running off to get back in his position.

  “RED 52! RED 52!” Langstrom cried out as John locked eyes with him.

  Gritting his teeth, the star Middle Linebacker hunched over in his position while Langstrom still continued to glare at him.

  With the tension between the two football players rising at an all time high, it seemed as if everything around John and Langstrom had faded away.

  “SET!!! HIKE!” Langstrom shouted a few seconds later.

  BURSTING OUT of his stance like a raging bull, John ran through an open hole in the Defensive and Offensive Lines.

  Breaking through Fort Madison’s right guard and right tackle, John darted straight towards Langstrom.

  Then, half a second after Langstrom had launched the ball down the field in a ‘Hail Mary’ pass, John lowered his left shoulder and dug it into his abdomen.

  John then wrapped his arms around the back of the cocky Quarterback’s knees and picked him up with all of his strength.

  The ‘Halestorm’ then SLAMMED Langstrom down HARD in the mud once again, causing his back to pop and heart to briefly skip a beat.

  Mud and water splashed all around the two football players as Langstrom’s desperate throwaway pass was intercepted by Josh.

  Jumping up in the air, the Starting Cornerback caught the football with grace in the center of his padded chest.

  Landing on his feet nimbly, Josh immediately started running down the field towards Fort Madison's end zone.

  As the Cornerback juked and dipped past Fort Madison’s aloof Offensive Players, John was still on top of Langstrom.

  “GET OFF OF ME! GET THE FUCK OFF OF ME!!!” Langstrom cried as he punched and kicked at John.

  Rising back to his feet, John shook out his arms as Langstrom got back up as well.

  Filled with nothing but PURE, HOT RAGE, Langstrom went at John to get in the face of the TWO HUNDRED AND TEN POUND middle linebacker.

  “Fuck you, Hale!” Langstrom shouted in John’s face. “You piece of fucking GUTTER TRASH!!!”

  “Keep talkin’, Brett,” John smirked. “While you’re having ANOTHER ‘bitch fit’ my team’s getting ANOTHER touchdown.”

  As John and Langstrom battled it out, Josh had slid into Fort Madison's Endzone, ringing in SIX MORE points for the Keokuk Chiefs.

  While Josh slammed the football down in the mud victoriously, Langstrom was still flipping out on John.

  Ignoring the pissed off Quarterback, John ultimately just waved Langstrom off.

  As John went to run off the field back to his team’s sidelines, Langstrom called out, “I BET YOUR DAD HITS HARDER THAN YOU!!!”

  After hearing Langstrom’s personal remark about his abusive father, John IMMEDIATELY stopped in his tracks.

  “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?” John asked in a shaky voice after turning back around to face the Fort Madison QB.

  “You heard me, Hale! I SAID that I bet your DRUNK, ASSHOLE of a Father hits you harder than you hit on the field!”

  John’s eyes then dilated as Langstrom continued, “YEAH! I know all about you and him! Heh, heh… I heard he beats the shit outta you EVERY DAY after you come from practice and AFTER he gets done whoopin’ your BITCH-ASS he goes downtown with his METH-HEAD brother and drinks ALL THE DAMN BARS DRY in your SHITSVILLE of a town! HA-HA-HA!!!”

  John then clenched his hands into tight fists as Josh ran off the field to let the Starting Special Teams for Keokuk do their thing.

  Standing on the Chiefs’ Sideline, Josh looked back out on the torn up, mud-caked field to see his best friend standing directly across from Langstrom, which made his brow scrunch in confused curiosity.

  “You wanna know WHAT ELSE I’ve heard, Hale?!” Langstrom asked as John kept his lips sealed. “Heh, heh… I heard that when you were a kid, your old man beat on your DOPED OUT WHORE of a Mom instead! HA-HA! I heard that one day she just took her drugged-addicted ass out of this piece of shit town to go make some REAL CHEESE ON HER BACK up in West Des Moines! HA-HA-HA-HA!!!”

  As John’s whole body began to visibly shake, Langstrom cackled, “Now level with me, Hale! Is all of that FUCKED UP SHIT about your fucked up ‘Mommy and Daddy’ true or… OOMPH!!!”

  “RRRRRAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!” John mindlessly screamed after sprinting and SPEAR TACKLING Langstrom into the ground.

  “OH SHIT,” Josh gasped from the sidelines after he watched his friend spear Langstrom into the mud. “JOHN, STOP!!!”

  Pinning him down in the mud by sitting on top of his chest, John then started BEATING IN Langstrom’s head repeatedly with BOTH of his padded fists so hard that his helmet started to crack.

  With blood running down Langstrom’s face from his head, John continued to pummel him whilst screaming in rage.

  A John beat the living hell out of Fort Madison High’s Starting Varsity Quarterback, several players from both sidelines joined in on the action.

  Fighting each other, the Homecoming matchup between the two rivaling high school football programs turned into one big GLADIATORIAL BATTLE.

  Being pulled off of Langstrom by a few Fort Madison Players, John started beating on them too.

  Kicking one in the groin hitting another across the face with his own football helmet, a now helmetless ‘Halestorm’ went back in for a second BRUTAL ASSAULT on the bloodied and beaten Brett Langstrom.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  With his best friend continuing his beating on Fort Madison’s QB, Josh had finally entered the fray.

  “JOHN! JOHN, STOP IT!!!” Josh cried as he tackled the enraged Middle Linebacker in his left side.

  With Langstrom now driven unconscious by John’s brutal beating, the Star Middle Linebacker was left to contend with his ‘supposed’ best friend.

  “John, stop it, man! Calm down! CALM DOWN!!!” Josh desperately pleaded as he tried to stop his friend from causing anymore damage.

  As Josh tried to calm John down, one of the Fort Madison players came up from behind him and hit him in the back of his helmet covered head.

  With Josh now doubled-over from being struck in the back of his head, John quickly LAUNCHED HIMSELF over to his ally and TACKLED the Fort Madison Player down to the ground.

  Once he was on top of the ‘sneaky’ Fort Madison Player, John grabbed onto his face mask and started SLAMMING his head down repeatedly in the mud until he was knocked unconscious like Langstrom.

  With John now pummeling yet another Barrington Player after knocking out a second, the Referees and Coaches were JUST NOW getting involved in the brutal ‘free for all’ fight.

  Everyone else was being pulled away as John continued bashing in the face of another ‘poor’ Barrington athlete.

  Having gone ‘mindless with rage’, the blood-drunk Middle Linebacker showed NO MERCY in the ‘savage slaughter’.

  It wasn’t until a recovered Josh and a few of the other Keokuk Players got involved when John TRULY ended his violent fit.

  With Josh and a whole slew of others trying to keep John from beating anyone else senseless, one of the Refs blew his whistle.

  “THAT’S IT, HALE! YOU’RE OUTTA HERE!!!” the Ref yelled at John.

  Signaling that he had been ‘thrown out’ of the game due to his ‘fit’, the very angry Middle Linebacker tried to go at the Ref, but a still half-dazed Josh thankfully held him back.

  Josh then pulled John away and started walking back up towards the Varsity Boys Locker Room back inside of the school.

  _

  “JUST WHAT IN THE HELL IS YOUR MALFUNCTION, HALE?!” cried out K.H.S.’s HEAD Varsity Football Coach, Dwayne Dodds, to a now more ‘calm’ John Hale Jr.

  Sitting on a pine wooden bench alongside Josh and the rest of the mud and blood-covered Keokuk Chief, John had still had a pissed off look on his own dirtied, blood-stained face.

  With his face reddened with rage, Coach Dodds demanded, “What the hell got into you out there, Hale?! You just went out and started BEATING FORT MADISON’S QUARTERBACK like some damned PSYCHOPATH!!!”

  John kept silent on ‘the matter’.

  “And now, your little ‘HISSY FIT’ has caused us to POSTPONE the BIGGEST GAME OF THE SEASON against Fort Madison ‘til next week!” Coach Dodds continued. “WE WERE WINNING TOO, BUT YOU SCREWED US, HALE! YOU SCREWED ALL OF US!!!”

  John kept his dark, lifeless eyes looking downward as Coach Dodds edged closer towards him.

  “LOOK ME IN THE EYE WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU, BOY!” Coach Dodds flared as he pulled John’s head upwards.

  Thinking that his Football Coach was his father for a brief moment, John looked up at him with rage burning in his eyes.

  SHOOTING UP from his seat on the wooden bench like a raging rocket, John grabbed Dodds by the front of his purple and white windbreaker and SLAMMED HIM up against a white, dry-erase board in the Varsity Boys Locker Room.

  Pinning his Coach against the whiteboard, John was about to strike Dodds in the face with his balled up left fist until Josh and a few of the other players luckily pulled him away at the last possibly second.

  “YOU FUCKER! YOU MOTHERFUCKER!!!” John raged madly as Josh and others pulled him off of their Coach. “I’LL KILL YOU! URGH! AGH! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!!!!”

  “That’s it, Hale! YOU’RE DONE!!!” Coach Dodds cried out as Second-String QB Brent Fuller, Sean Greenberg, Dirk Shaw, and a few of the other guys on the team tended to him.

  Josh and two others continued to hold John back so he wouldn’t go off and ‘kill’ their angry Head Coach.

  “GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF OF ME!!!!” John shouted as he shook away Josh and the others.

  Unstrapping the straps on his shoulder pads, John ripped them off violently along with his mud and blood-stained Home Jersey.

  “FUCK YOU! FUCK ALL OF YOU!!! I QUIT!!!” John shouted as he threw his pads and jersey down at Coach Dodds’s feet.

  The troubled, now EX-High School Sports Star then stormed out of the locker room, leaving everyone else to tend to Dodds.

  Josh, on the other hand, was the only other player to go out and see if John was TRULY alright.

  Outside of the Locker Room, Josh caught sight of John who was walking down the hallway with his football pants and cleats still on.

  “JOHN, STOP! WAIT!!!” Josh cried as his best friend begrudgingly stopped in his tracks.

  Sighing, John spun around and shouted, “URGH… FUCK OFF, JOSH!”

  Not listening to John’s harsh order, Josh ran up to him.

  Grabbing onto his arm, Josh breathlessly said, “John… Huff… Huff… Juh-Just hold up a minute, man.”

  “DON’T FUCKING TOUCH ME,” John sternly ordered after shaking off Josh’s hold on him. “Leave me alone!”

  John then started walking away again.

  Gritting his teeth, Josh shook his head and spouted, “No! You don’t get to just ‘walk away’, John! Not after all of that CRAZY-ASS SHIT that just happened down on the field… AND BACK IN THE LOCKER ROOM!”

  He then went after his best friend again.

  Taking hold of John’s arm once more, Josh said, “Just stop and we can talk about this, J.”

  Filled with rage, John whipped around and slammed Josh up against a cement wall.

  “I TOLD YOU NOT TO FUCKING TOUCH ME!!!” John raged in Josh’s terrified looking face. “You’re just like all the others! YOU’RE JUST LIKE MY FUCKING DAD!!!”

  “Whu-What?”

  “You never gave a shit about me, Josh! NO ONE EVER FUCKIN’ HAS!”

  “John… WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! DUDE, you’re not thinking clearly. Just… Just ‘calm down’ and we can...”

  “STOP TELLING ME TO FUCKING CALM DOWN!!! I’m done, Josh! I’M FUCKING DONE WITH ALL OF IT!!! I’m fucking done with football, Dodds, this fucking school… AND WITH YOU!!!!!!!!!”

  “Juh-John,” Josh fumbled as he stared at his ‘former’ best friend in total disbelief. “Are… Are you SERIOUS right now???”

  John nodded with his eyes starting to water because he was so mad (and angry at himself for what he had done and how he was currently acting).

  “What about the offers?” Josh continued to ask. “ALL OF THE OFFERS that you’ve gotten to play football in College? Did you forget about all that while you were POUNDING IN Langstrom’s face out there?”

  “I don’t FUCKING CARE about the offers,” John gritted.

  “BULLSHIT! That’s fucking bullshit, John… AND YOU KNOW IT! That’s your dad talking! NOT YOU!”

  “DON’T TALK ABOUT MY DAD!!!”

  Tears started to run down John’s cheeks now as he kept Josh pinned against the wall.

  “And what if I don’t? What’s gonna happen?” Josh asked as John balled up his left hand into a tightened fist, to which he took immediate note of.

  Looking his best friend STRAIGHT in his bloodshot, tear-filled eyes now, Josh asked, “John… ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS RIGHT NOW??? You’re gonna hit me? ACTUALLY HIT ME???”

  John then hauled back his left fist, causing Josh to narrow his eyes at him.

  “Alright… ALRIGHT. I see how it’s gonna be,” Josh nodded whilst now lowering his brow. “Well, go on then… DO IT.”

  John scrunched his brow in confusion as Josh continued to goad, “Do it. COME ON, JOHN. You wanna be a ‘tough guy’ then go on ahead… AND HIT ME. I won’t fight back though.”

  “WHY NOT?” John gritted as his left fist started to shake irritably. “‘Cause you’re too much of a FUCKIN’ PUSSY, Russell?”

  “No. Because I don’t fight my friends.”

  John’s eyes then widened as he looked back at his cocked, left fist whilst Josh waited for him to pummel him.

  Growling, John wanted to break Josh’s pearly white teeth… But he couldn’t. He just couldn’t.

  Friendship and loyalty intervened as John suddenly lowered his left fist back down to his side, uncrumpling it as he did so.

  Letting go of Josh now, the troubled FORMER All-State and All-American Middle Linebacker backed away.

  “Good decision,” Josh remarked as he then held out his open right hand towards John in hopes to let ‘bygones be bygones’.

  Knowing what this gesture meant, John was so caught up in his angry ways still that he did not take his best friend’s hand.

  No, instead, John just looked down at Josh’s hand and then back up at his face… And shook his head at him from side to side.

  The EX-football player then turned away and started walking down the hallway again.

  Staying behind, Josh looked down at his opened palm.

  Not believing all that had just happened, the all-star athlete just shook his head in disbelief. Sighing, Josh looked at John one final time as he turned around a corner at the end of the hallway.

  Lowering his brow and gritting his teeth, Josh sadly just turned away and walked back into the locker room all by his lonesome.

  _

  “JUNIOR! HEY, DUMBASS!!! Where the hell did you run off to, boy?!” cried out Big John, who had just walked outside of the General Store of the Gas and Auto-Body Repair Shop.

  Hearing his abusive father’s harsh calls from around front, John just shook his head.

  “Shit,” John gritted to himself as he pulled his half-smoked cigarette and threw it down on the ground.

  CRUSHING the cigarette butt into the asphalt underneath his right foot, John put his regular ‘scowling’ expression back on dirtied face as his father continued to call out for him.

  “JUNIOR, YOU BETTER GET YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASS BACK TO WORK IF Y’KNOW WHAT’S GOOD FOR YA!!!” Big John shouted before he headed back inside of the General Store.

  Looking up to the darkening skies above as the sun was setting on the horizon in the west, John just shook his head as he thought of the better life he could’ve had if things were different… BUT THAT WAS THE WRETCHED THING ABOUT IT.

  Things weren’t different for John… AND THEY NEVER WOULD BE.

  So, John just sighed as he stuck his hands back down in his pants pockets whilst headed back to work inside of the General Store, full of ANGER, RAGE, and of course… BITTER REGRET.