writing_shadows

He felt the blood trickle down his knuckles, the sting of the other man’s teeth, and was walking off before he even looked up. Generally, punching your own team mate was a straight red card.

The fans had been stunned into silence for once, so quiet he could hear the manager’s howls of anger and frustration compete with the shrill, bouncing pea of the referee’s whistle. Gizmo Scutari didn’t care. The fury had built up inside him all game, and now, under the light of the moon, in some shitty little ground that he’d never go back to, it had come spilling out. It was totally worth it.

He had, for the best part of 160 minutes, kept Fulham in the cup tie. He’d saved shot after shot, pulling balls destined for the back of the net away at the last moment, carving through his own defence’s inadequacies to grab the damn ball and stop the opposition from scoring. For one home tie and 70 minutes of this away replay, he had stopped Fulham – Premier League Fulham – crash out of the cup to Colchester fucking United.

He’d been the only player who’d turned up, practically. The forwards had continued their knack of falling over every time the ball came near them, the midfield’s creativity had dried up, and the defence was as leaky as a sieve. For some reason they were second best against a team they should have crushed.

Then Marcus Song , their talented right back who had already packed his bags for a January transfer, had the gall to criticise him. Every time he pulled Fulham out of the fire, Song was there, hurling abuse and laughing, lounging in his custom Nikes and sitting out his final matches, netting a cool £30,000 a week. Finally, fed up with it, Gizmo had walked over and floored him.

He continued his walk past the manager, out of the noise of the Community Stadium and down the dank player’s tunnel. He ripped his gloves off his hands, smashing a hairy fist into the wall. Somehow it went straight through the plaster. Gizmo shook his head. Colchester’s stadium was as shittily constructed as their 4-4-2.

He kicked the door to the dressing room open, watched it go flying off its hinges, and stormed to his locker. His ire was still up, his blood still coursing, his hatred of that fucker Song still fresh in his mind. It was already his second red of the season, so now, thanks to an overvalued ‘attacking’ halfback, Fulham would be without their first choice keeper for four matches. He twitched his chest, keeper’s shirt ripping off his body as muscles squirmed under thick flesh and hair burst through in howls of echoed agony.

A four match suspension. So he wouldn’t be picked for England. At least he had fucking dual nationality. He’d take a cap for Romania instead, teach the bastards. He was just as much his mother’s son than his fathers. He imagined his locker was Song’s grinning, stupid face, and buried his knuckles deep into it, metal creaking and collapsing with the hit.

The pain bit back again, and he felt his gums bleed and rip as fangs, large and dominant, burst from his jaw. Then he got really mad.

When he came to, he was naked and shivering in the shower. Around him, the room was little more than debris. Clothes were torn and shredded, lockers were hanging off hinges, pegs had been torn off walls. The sprinker system was pumping water out like a defective heart, one beat at a time. One of the tiled shower rooms was smeared with blood, almost all the faucets had been ripped off the walls. He hadn’t the first idea what had happened.

“What happened, Gizmo?” his manager asked, fear filling a voice that should have been little more than anger at the vandalism.

“I don’t remember,” he confessed. He didn’t remember any attackers, or the damage. His mind was a black haze, like a memory best forgotten. He tried, but no images came.

All he could remember was the howling.