Never Again (Monday Writing Essential)

Today's challenge has two parts:

1) Write an action scene. Take us on a roller-coaster ride. Take us into the belly of the beast.  Take us to a place where our hearts pound and time slows down.  Take us to where we can mainline adrenalin.

2) Talk about it in the comment section. Remind us what the stakes are. Talk about the sequence, the descriptions, the dialogue.  Tell us why you wrote what you wrote.

Pain.

Great pain filled his head, more pain than he remembered ever feeling. It proved he was not dead, but was irritating on some level just the same. He felt darkness come for him

Again the pain, this time accompanied by flashes of memory. A girl. A bat. What happened? Lights out.

He struggled awake, trying to remember the why and what he was doing when the pain began. The Louisville Slugger kept slamming into his memory, over and over again. Each time it did there was a surge of pain and his consciousness wavered. It was getting easier to stay conscious but the taste of blood distracted him.

He opened an eye to see cobbled pavement. The dandelion was in front of his eye and was all he could see. Struggling to move, to even wiggle a toe set his mind on fire. The bat swung again in his head and he flinched, sending waves of nausea through him. He struggled to stay awake and won this time. Movement began to return to his limbs and he moved his fingers to see if they worked. Satisfied with that he began to explore whether other parts worked as well as the fingers seemed to be. There was a sharp pain in his shoulder, and he succumbed again to the liquid black.

Eye opened again, remember not to move the right arm. Bat hitting him, over and over again. Loud voices screaming in another language. Why were they doing this? They were killing him. Why were they killing him? He awoke in a panic, sweating and retching. The pain was too much but he did not pass blissfully out this time. Screaming he tried desperately to move to a position that relieved some it, finally finding a place that the top of his head felt like it could stay connected and he could breath without making to much noise. It was dark now he noticed. There were lights around him, the yellow glow of sodium street lamps. He gasped as the memory hit him...as the bat hit him again and again in his head. He couldn't get past the bat. He struggled again to remember something else, anything that would lead him away from the repeated concussions of wood against bone. There was a girl...a flash of her and he almost laughed in delight! It was her he began to concentrate on...it was a path to nowhere but it was not the bat. He flinched in pain as it hit again and he turned his mind back to her. She wore pants...red denim. What else? Dammit he had to remember! She wore a blouse...red, silk...red lips, stark against white skin...

He awoke to a droning sound, buzzing loudly against the pain in his head. The bat swung again and he heard the crack of the bone in his right arm. Flinching in pain he turned to face the man who swung the deadly stick. It was the face of the crazed man he remembered the most...the face of desperate horror that left him feeling like there was nowhere to run. The sound intruded on his fleeting memories and he tried to open his eyes again. His left eye would not respond but his right opened a crack and the light seared his retina momentarily. Forcing it open again he saw the plane flying low in the distance against the blue blue sky. Blue like her eyes...

He awoke with memory fully formed.They met online, she was recently divorced. He had been widowed for nearly a decade and had never taken the chance again, till now. She had suggested the desert ghost town as a place to meet for the first time. He thought it quaint, and never considered danger of being out in the desert alone. Or the danger of an ex husband newly released from prison. The crunch of gravel under rubber brought his head up, muffled shouting in the distance. Salvation was here for him, but things would never be the same. He flinched as the bat hit him again.