Uncoiled

With normal spring-stilts, expert jumpers can leap to nine feet or so, but with my newly invented prototypes, I can get to just under thirty-five.

I know what you are thinking, why would someone want to?

Revenge seems like as good a motive as any.

The wicked don't deserve a life; twelve years ago, I devised the perfect plan to eliminate them.

Have you ever heard the legend of Spring-Heeled Jack?

In the mid eighteen-hundreds, he terrorized Britain by leaping over entire buildings to tear unsuspecting citizens asunder with his long devilish claws.

For over twelve years I've secretly toiled to metamorphose into this mythical boogeyman; the only exception being that in lieu of claws, I've created razor-sharp stiletto-blades which affix to my wrists.

I forged each blade from a lone splinter of Rosewood, encased in thick resin, I even crafted a disposable oilskin boiler-suit, all highly flammable, and disposable.

Tonight is my final spring test, and to say that I am nervous is an understatement.

Before I leave my house, I etch out a note for if I fail, detailing how ruffians drove me to this rebirth.

First stop, Brixton Circuit, or as I like to call it Sycophant Circuit, as the residents mainly consist of my old high-school's football team, each of whom trail after their former captain, Derek Cowan, like a swarm of flies chasing a rolling fecal log.

The ease with which I weightlessly bounce from rooftop to rooftop surprises me; I feel like a swift leaping shadow obscured by the embrace of night's velvet curtain.

Peering through handcrafted night-vision goggles, I wait from my tiled perch for one of these delinquents to return to their cozy domicile.

Saturday night means they'll all be returning from a long night at the Rattle-Head bar.

A lone taxi approaches.

Its customer doesn't have time to close their door before I'm upon them.

My resin spikes puncture his thick neck.

I stare into Gareth Holbrook's fearful eyes, and remember the pain that he and his athletic chums caused me.

Before I can stop myself, I am hopping mad, my hands move of their own accord, maniacally skewering his muscle-bound flesh in a primal frenzy.

The taxi speeds down the road as I leap back to a nearby rooftop.

Holbrook's mutilated remains fill my sight, almost making me lose sight of the next car as it teeters haphazardly up the road, its driver obviously heavily inebriated.

It passes me and comes to a stop outside Derek's house.

Could I really be so lucky?

Foul memories come flooding into my mind.

All those times he'd forced his cronies to hold me so that he could beat me, every time he held my head in a puddle and made me lose consciousness, every sickening hell that this bastard caused me.

Rage overtakes me, and I black-out.

When I come to, I am in my garage covered in viscera; a misshapen eyeball stares lifeless on my floor.

My spring training is complete.