Batter up/Hand check
by Harbinger of Death

Calamity-jcck and ShouLao picked out bats, swinging them and testing their weight and feel. The baseball tournament would be next spring and they wanted to condition themselves. It was a little early, sure, but they wanted to cheat--uh, that is, simply take advantage of the situation, by hitting the batting cages while everyone else was away.

“You guys about ready?” called Exalis from behind the pitching machine.

“Yeah, I think so,” said CJ. “You?”

“Just say the word.”

“The word,” said ShouLao, trying to be funny.

“Heh. Heh.” CJ rolled her eyes and took her stance at the plate. “Okay, go ahead.”

Exalis turned on the machine. It hummed, but no balls came out. She smacked it. Still nothing.

“What’s the hold-up?” called ShouLao.

“I don’t know,” said Exalis. “It’s on, but nothing’s coming out.”

“You sure there are enough balls in there?” asked CJ.

“I just filled it.” She walked around to the front of the machine, checking it out. Just then a ball shot out at super speed, hitting her directly in the face and jamming the bridge of her nose into her brain. She was knocked dead on the spot.

“Holy cow!” gasped CJ.

“I better shut that thing off!” said ShouLao, but as he made his way out there, it started spitting out balls at that same lightning speed, pelting them left and right with baseballs. In minutes they were bruised and battered (no pun intended) to a fatal extent. They with their broken bones lay over the plate, black and blue with the blood that seeped underneath their skin.

Elsewhere, Cleya was peeling apples. Not that this was a normal task for her, mind you. She was just bored out of her mind and seeing if she could get the peel off in one big corkscrew. A pile of shorn apples sat on the kitchen counter with failed peel attempts heaped in the sink. She sighed, and decided maybe she’d have better luck with oranges.

She stuffed the peels down the sink and clicked on the garbage disposal. It crunched and made an unusual grinding noise. Glancing at her wrist, she realized her charm bracelet was gone. Oh no! It must have come off in the apple peels!

Quickly she turned the switch off and reached down inside, feeling for the bracelet. Wait a minute, that felt like the Joxer charm...was it...yes! She grabbed hold of it and pulled it gently from the shavings. But when she tried to get her hand out of the sink hole, she could not. It was surrounded thickly by apple peels and she was stuck tight.

Cleya ran the water, but it didn’t help. It only filled the sink up a little, so she turned it off. What to do?

The garbage disposal grumbled. What’s this? she wondered. It did it again, and then for some odd reason it turned itself back on. Cleya screamed as the blades mutilated her hand. After some time, it stopped, but she was in bad shape, and bleeding terribly from her hand. And she was still stuck.

She could not reach the phone, nor the window, and so could not call for help. There was no one left alive to help her. So her blood ran red with the skins of the fruit, and she lost her strength, lost consciousness, lost her life.

Posted on Oct 29 1999, 04:52 PM

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