Radiation Face

By Phil Skaggs Jr.

Abe Jennings’ parents finally got him out of the zone and into Keystone. A decent town where everyone looks normal and the streets aren’t filled with sludge. The best part is the lack of giant monsters destroying the place. That’s all fine and dandy for his parents, but Abe has no interest in staying there.

The kids treat him like a second class citizen. And thanks to the radiation back home, he was born with a face only a mother could love. But Abe tries his best to make it through school everyday. Which isn’t easy until he finds his true calling: fighting. Now that’s all he can think about which doesn’t make his straight-laced parents too happy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phil Skaggs Jr.
• Release date: Mar 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301638840

Phil Skaggs Jr.

Phil Skaggs Jr was born in lovely and flat Indiana. He has been writing stories since elementary school, mostly in comic form. Recently, however, he's been dedicated to telling his strange and wonderful stories in prose, essays, and occasionally poetry. With little money and mostly passion, he writes, edits, and designs all of his work which gives him great satisfaction when he finally presses that publish button. Runs Mutant Times blog. Supports the Creative Commons and all works are DRM free.

Book preview

Radiation Face

By Phil Skaggs Jr

Copyright 2013 Phil Skaggs Jr

Smashwords Edition

Dammit. I thought about suicide again. The idea of taking a knife out of the cafeteria and grinding it down onto my wrists hit me like a flash. I hate when that happens. It makes me queasy and the veins in my forearms throb then burn and shrivel up. Trying to hide from my horrible mind.

I’ve been trying to get those thoughts out of my head. It ain’t easy. I go about my business. I don’t bother anyone then all of a sudden someone decides it’s open season on me. Then I start feeling bad for myself even though I know I shouldn’t. I can’t help it. The thing is, it’s like they’re reminding me I’m fucked up. I know I have a bulbous head. With two bulging and twisted eyes and my chin is super weak. Like nearly non-existent. My hair is thinning on top. My nose is too big for my head which seems like it should be impossible and my ears look like someone was trying origami on them. I am not a good looking man. Oh well, just another child born in the radiation belt thanks to that giant space egg and the giant radiation spewing lizard that came out of it. Followed by many more.

Still hurts to be called troll face. Or blender face. Or garbage face. Pretty much anything negative followed by face. Radiation face has always been my favorite since it is the layman’s medical description of my physical deformities. I wouldn’t worry too much about me. I’m not going anywhere. At least, not by my hand. I got better things to do then find out that everyone’s a big a prick on the other side as here. Now, that would be fucking depressing.

I don’t think it would be such a problem but my parents decided to move out of the radiation belt aka the zone while they try to have another kid. Down there I was just another face in the crowd. Not too bad compared to a few others there. But here. In the ritzy part of the country, I’m something that they only see on TV when a token freak is needed to preach some shitty after school message about kindness to others.

One good thing about being a freak though is all these mutant chasers around here. I never thought I’d come across any of that. Thought it was a myth to be honest, but it’s real. I got one of my own. Melanie Goodwin the hot cheerleader is banging Abe Jennings the mutant freak. I have to keep it secret, of course, but that’s fine with me. I’ve never been one for girlfriends. Tried back at my old school. No good. They all seem pretty boring to be honest.

Nice to have someone to get worked up over though. Speaking of the devil, the alarm sounds across the school. A loud, blaring sound that rumbles down my ears. It means that there’s a monster fight near my old hometown so everyone heads up to the roof to watch. The monsters are big enough that you can see them quite a few towns over. Melanie always finds me during these shows and takes me to the theatre’s backroom and someone always ends up against the wall before we get through the door.

I sit and wait for her to find me in the usual spot. She does. She has a nice wide grin across her face and that look in her eyes that let’s me know I’m in for it today. We don’t really say anything to each other. We tried it once or twice. Didn’t really work out. Pretty lackluster. Sucked the fun out of the room real quick. Now, we know better.

She takes me to the backroom and holds my face in her small hands. I’m drooling a bit. I got a small mouth and get a little extra saliva going when I’m horny which is often being a teenager. My twisted face just gets her excited.

‘You know I heard some things about you people.’ She told me once a few weeks before anything happened between us.

‘Oh yeah?’ I asked. I’d heard that opener before. It was usually followed by shit.

‘Yeah, I heard you guys were wild. That the radiation did something to your mind. You know?’

‘Oh yeah, I’m wild. Just completely nuts.’ I replied.

‘No, like in bed. There’s stuff that’s different about you.’ She gave me a sideways glance.

‘Oh...yeah...’ I had heard about this stuff. Never came across it, but then again I never got out of my hometown until I moved here. Now, I’m surrounded by weird stereotypes that just sound , well, stupid.

‘Is your cock all weird shaped and stuff?’ She scooted in closer. We were sitting on some bleachers during a music appreciation class. Not many kids show up for it so we were nearly alone there. The teacher was occupied trying to impress some kids with his days as a punk rocker.

‘No, not really.’ What the fuck kind of question was that? I tried to stay normal. ‘Don’t know, never really compared it.’

She cooled off after that, and I thought that was the end of it, but I was wrong. She did some online research and shit and figured I just had a fucked up face with a fucked up mind and a sex drive in overdrive. These were all true. The first from radiation. The last two more from being a teenager who’s hormones were hitting their stride.

I wipe my chin and get off my knees. Melanie’s up against the wall this time and her face is flushed. She takes me by the hand and leads me to a chair and I take a seat. She gives me what I want.

#

School gets out early. Some kind of holiday or the teachers needed a break. I really don’t pay attention. I just go through the motions until someone tells me to stop. Just a few more years and I’m set to go for real.

See, I’ve got plans. I’m a fighter. Getting punched is one of my strong suits. Hitting is something I’m even better at. When I was back in my old hometown, there wasn’t much for any of us freaks to do except hit each other. Which was a good thing since that’s one of the few profitable sports left out there for us. There’s all these rumors that we radiation guys are super strong and super fast and super everything. Like the radiation decided to give us twisted faces and bodies on the outside but make us into some kind of genetic superiors on the inside. This just ain’t the case. I know plenty of kids with nonstop tumors popping up on their bodies. They get them drained on the regular. I know kids with chronic radiation burns. I know kids with no arms. The only thing different between us and the poor souls that get hit with high doses of radiation is that we live. For some reason the weird radioactive foam that those monsters spew is different from every other radiation out there.

My parents were exposed to it, but they look normal. Nothing wrong with them. But everyone born there is pretty much lucky if they don’t have a second stomach coming out of their shoulder. It’s not normal back home. I was kinda freaked out when I first showed up in this place. Everyone so pretty and sweet looking. It was bizarre to say the least. But you get over that fast. After the second kid asks you if you’ve got a sister that’s half dog or if my brain works right before they shove you into a locker, well, you kinda see that people can be asses just about everywhere you go.

I get home and Mom and Dad are on the couch. Mom’s going through all the little baby clothes she picked up at the store. She still has a ways to go before she’s ready to push one out, but she’s getting ready. They didn’t waste anytime on getting pregnant once they moved here. I’m not going to lie to you, the fact that they moved my ass across the state just to have a normal looking kid kinda pulls at my guts. But when I think about it I can’t blame them. They want someone that looks like them not like some busted up cantaloupe. Besides, I’m sure I’ll love the kid no matter what he looks like.

‘Hey, honey. How was school?’ Mom asks then holds up a small green onesie. ‘Isn’t this cute?’ She asks me before I can answer with ‘Fine.’ followed quickly by ‘Sure.’

‘You look into jobs?’ My dad asks.

‘No, Dad. I didn’t ask anyone if they knew about any jobs.’ I answer.

‘Well, you need to start looking into it. You need to start saving for college. The sooner the better.’ Dad adds. ‘You might even want some gas money now that you got your license.’

‘Yeah, Dad. I’ll look into it again.’ I won’t I’m too worried about starting my training back up. I’ve been out of it too long. I used to trained for fights with my friends at Luther’s Fight Room. But since I’ve moved here I kinda put that on the back burner. Really, I just haven’t felt motivated. Nothing really driving to get out