DANNY AND THE DEATHSHEAD POSSE
By Chip Masterson
I'm writing this down because no one will ever believe me. But I know
what I saw.
The log bobbed in the air as Danny carried it to the campsite. Gravity
sucked and clawed greedily at the hundreds of pounds of dead wood but
Danny's arms defied gravity and his legs marched as steadily as if the
laws of physics never existed. Sometimes I don't think they do for Danny.
I'm Floyd, Danny's cousin. I just turned fourteen and I'm a little heavy.
I think it's glandular. I know I don't eat nearly as much as Danny does,
and he's skinny. Well, not skinny, more lean, I guess. Certainly compared
to other six-year-olds. Heck, compared to most teenagers Danny's lean, and
full of muscles. Some of them I can't even find onanatomical maps.
Anyways, his old man likes to camp so we came up here to Big Bear Lake, over
on the Fawnskin side where you can really rough it. They have an undeveloped
parcel there. Course Danny's mom still wears dresses and sleeps on an army
cot, but Danny sleeps in a bag right out in the open, so naturally I have to
too. He sleeps all night but he's always up at first light and off gathering
stuff for the campsite.
We've already built half a log cabin for his mom to stay in. Danny just
finds the logs, no matter how big, and carries--not drags but carries--them
back to the campsite. He tears and breaks off the ends when they're too long
so it's not real pretty like in the Disney movies about Daniel Boone and
stuff, but it's pretty solid.
Still, Danny can get carried away. He put a big scratch and dent in the side
of their Chevy Suburban when he hurled a log into the campsite. Mrs.
Henderson was on him like holy terror. What have I told you about being
careful? You don't run with scissors and you don't throw things unless you
can see where they're going to land." She stood over him and waited.
Danny's face closed down a little. I'm sorry," he said, his brow wrinkled.
I just got all excited cause it was so big, and had worms and stuff in it."
He looked up a little under his curls to see if she was softening. Squiggly
worms." He wiggled his fingers.
Oh, ick," she said, and his face brightened up. I guess we can have the
car fixed but you're going to work it off around the house."
Yes, ma'am," he said, scampering off. He was the only six year-old I know
of who had chores in the suburbs, but they had to find a way to burn off all
his excess energy. They tried to get him to do calisthenics but after a
couple hundred push-ups he just got bored, started clapping between them and
getting ever more hyped up. I can sit on his shoulders while he pounds them
out, or hang from his waist while he does one-armed pull-ups. He just goes
faster. Only thing that seems to help is real work. They still wouldn't let
him work out with weights, on account of his bones still growing. I don't
think they really had any idea what was going on in this kid's body.
The morning everything happened Danny was carrying back a pretty big log. He
was kind of running with it, actually. He didn't know about the Deathshead
Posse. They were a biker gang based in the rundown Rubidoux part of
Riverside, where that Aryan church is. I remembered hearing about them soon
as they wandered into camp and kicked the Coleman stove over, spilling eggs
and bacon everywhere, and cut up the tent.
I'd seen saw the leader, Duke, once on TV. It was after they had one of
those Strongest Man competitions somewhere, and this gang had been passing
through. The winner, the so-called Strongest Man in the World or whatever,
was this giant Swede, and he was really happy. Duke came up to shake his hand
Duke made this guy look small. He must have weighed over four hundred pounds,
and none of it was fat. He was just as tall as the Swede but incredibly
thicker, with shoulders so wide you could sit on them and have room left over.
He wore this leather jacket as a vest, the sleeves were ripped off and his huge
tattooed shoulders stuck out, filling the hole. His tattoo-glistening arms
were bigger than the Swede's, the triceps sharp and defined and the biceps
bulging out the front like bricks even while hanging straight down. He shook
the Swede's hand. And didn't let go. At first the Swede kept grinning, then
he saw the contest was on and started squeezing back. Duke's forearm rippled
but his face remained cold and unemotional.
The Swede started to sweat, and really pumped all his weight into his grip.
Duke just kept increasing the pressure one, I don't know, one unit at a time,
a slow progression, until the Swede's left knee sagged a little bit. The
officials tried to get there but the bikers stood around them and they were
all big and strong enough to knock all the strongmen down on their asses and
send them back, bleeding and yelling. And still Duke shook that Swede's hand.
One of the bikers, a guy named Merle, guided the TV camera crew over to get
a close up of the contest and since it was live, we all saw the Swede's big
arm start to spasm as his muscles cramped all the way up to the shoulder.
Duke's biceps just bulged farther out. A few drops of blood came out between
his fingers and then Duke showed emotion: annoyance. The Swede went down his
knees, begging, and finally let out a curdling scream like a woman's as Duke
tightened his grip so no more blood could leak out. The Swede twisted around,
clawing at Duke with his free hand, clawing at his own face but Duke kept
tightening his fingers around what was left of the Swede's hand until he wet
himself. When the Swede's head began to jerk and his eyes stopped focusing,
Duke muttered Congratulations" and dropped the Swede's pulped hand. Blood
immediately began spurting all over the place and Duke back away so the medics
could save him. Every bone in his hand had been shattered, not just broken
but pulverized, and all the muscles tore loose in his forearm. He lost the
arm at the elbow.
And he was here, now, having ripped off Mrs. Henderson's dress and chained
all three of us to the half-finished log cabin. One of the brutes was
taunting Mrs. Henderson by grabbing his crotch and I was tied up backwards
so they could rape me too. Mr. Henderson had been knocked unconscious and
blood dripped down his face. Mrs. Henderson was whimpering when we heard
the thump of the log dropping and saw Danny race into the campsite.
What have we here?" growled Duke as little Danny, wearing only cut-offs and
a t-shirt, jumped in the middle of everything. Craning my neck I could see
Danny was confused and hurt by the situation.
M-mom? D-Dad?" He looked like he was about to cry.
Hush, Danny, just do what the man says and we'll be fine," said his mother.
The man taunting her, Big Jim, slapped her hard for it and she cried out.
We'll do the talking, you cow."
Leave her alone!" Danny shouted, his face turning red. I saw his little fist
clench and I knew there would be lots of trouble; I was afraid we'd all be
killed.
What are you gonna do about it, little man?" grumbled Duke, picking bacon
out of the dirt and eating it. Down on his knees, he was still taller than
Danny, and Danny walked over to him. He had a look on his face of curiosity,
but the fear seemed to have left; it was replaced by something else.
Whaddya say," drawled Danny, looking over the scarred, rock-hard muscle, we
do a Trial of Strength like on wrestling, and whoever wins gets to do whatever
they want?"
Duke sat for a minute, then burst out laughing. He pumped up the biggest
biceps I'd ever seen: first there was a big ball like a grapefruit, striated
and bumpy, and the peak rose straight up off it like some sort of warhead.
The whole arm was squiggly with thick veins feeding the muscle. The triceps
below it were mammoth, defined and blue with tattoos and more snaky veins,
bulging in funny ways. Solid fucking muscle. Then he held up the other one.
Danny's face fell a little bit in awe. I've never seen em that big before.
Sure look hard, mister." Duke chucked his chin at Danny, so Danny pulled back
his sleeve and made a muscle.
Duke looked impressed at the defined hardness of Danny's six-year-old muscle,
which not only rose up from his arm but filled the sleeve. Danny pumped a little
and the blood made the biceps red at the peak, the splits forming in a fan
from his armpit up around the bulbous muscle. His forearm filled with cables
too, connected together with thick tendons and throbbing veins. He even had
triceps hanging down below like saucers, hovering above the deep pits where
his lats spread out beneath his pecs, which swept off his torso a little too
thick for an ordinary child's. The t-shirt showed everything, not being cut
to contain that much muscle in a child. Danny held both hands up and wiggled
his fingers.
Duke gazed at him. Alright, kid, but once I lay a hand on you, your tender
asshole is mine and there ain't nothing heaven or hell can do about it.
Ready to meet your daddy, kid?"
Danny just smiled. And wiggled his fingers. Duke laced his thick, filthy
digits around Danny's and clamped down. He tried to move Danny's hands down
toward his sides in one smooth move but Danny's arms didn't budge. Duke's
eyes narrowed and he tried to bend Danny's hands back at the wrists, but Danny's
eyes narrowed too and he bent Duke's hands backwards instead. Duke gasped.
The other guys were standing around laughing. Whatsamatter, Duke, kid got
the best of ya already?" Duke set his jaw and flared his lats; his jacket-vest
spread out at the waist, revealing a dirty but incredibly marble-like midsection.
His hairy chest deepened and with a grunt, he forced Danny's arms down--an
inch. Danny forced back, and Duke's midsection began to bend back as his arms
trembled to hold their position against this boy.
Danny greedily eyed the right biceps and he said, Gee, mister, this ought to
be tougher. Maybe that muscle isn't as hard as it could be." Like lightning
Danny squeezed those big hands and a stomach-turning crackling filled the air
and Duke gasped, letting go. Danny dug his fingers into Duke's right biceps.
The muscle was so big Danny's hand barely capped the peak, while the other
cupped the bulbous belly. Duke yelled as Danny's grip tightened, distorting
the peak and sinking into the iron-hard belly, crushing and bursting purple
muscle fibers. Duke flexed to save his life but Danny squeezed and the dense
muscle actually made a sickening popping sound. Blood seeped out around Danny's
fingers where the skin tore open and Danny's legs forced Duke backward, stretching
the big man's quads out until his blue jeans ripped along the seams. Duke
began hitting Danny in the head with his free hand, his fingers bent all
funny, but Danny's head barely moved from the blows. He tried to pry Danny
off but Danny moved closer. Still Danny massacred that biceps, compacting
the already dense muscle. Merle took a board and smacked Danny across the
back with it: the board cracked and angled, but Danny's back didn't move.
Merle reached down and tore the t-shirt off and saw the red welt from the
board across the working muscles of Danny's tanned back. Then he grabbed
Danny's shoulders.
Danny ignored him, and Merle couldn't budge him. Duke was bent nearly to the
ground and now Danny grabbed the triceps and started pulling. One hand ripped
upward while the other hand grabbed and dented the brick-hard triceps and
stressed the tendons past their breaking points. Other hands came to try to
pry Danny loose but all they gripped was steel-hard muscle and cold determination
as Danny squashed those muscles and tore the muscle off the bone. Duke's eyes
rolled back in his head and his free arm went limp. Suddenly Danny lashed
out, twisting and throwing half a dozen enormous bikers off him like Tarzan.
Then he giggled. Everyone stood still.
You guys wanted to play with us. Well, I won and I want to play my way."
Standing over Duke, he reached down with one hand and grabbed Duke's left pec,
picking his torso off the ground and then holding him there with his legs.
He contracted his thighs and a loud popping came out of that chest: Duke's
sternum, buckling beneath its armor plating. Who wants to play next?"
Merle pulled out a gun and pointed it at Mrs. Henderson. Dropping Duke,
Danny leapt like a cat and grabbed the barrel of the magnum, and the heavy-gauge
steel bore collapsed as he bent it upward against his palm. His other hand
closed around Merle's wrist--and shattered it. Merle screamed and dropped
the contorted gun, clutching his wrist. Mom doesn't let me play with guns.
Someone might get hurt." And Danny punched his bodybuilder's chest and
sent him staggering back, gasping for air.
The other ten closed in with clubs and motorcycle chains and rocks, surrounding
Danny with swinging violence. Danny moved faster than their eyes could focus,
ripping the chains out of their hands and whipping their faces, dancing in
and out so they hit each other, and never seeming to feel a thing when someone
did contact his hard boy-muscled body. Dust rose from the scuffle and the
men's cries and groans rose with it as Danny outmaneuvered and outmuscled
ten huge bikers, yanking them toward each other and punching them so hard
they reeled. Finally one of them backed away, toward the bikes.
Danny lit out in pursuit and tripped him up as he started to run. He took the
man's head and bashed it on the ground to knock him out, but then four more reached
the bikes and piled two together on two bikes. Three others lit out on foot
and three, including Merle, started rifling through our stuff to find the
keys to the Suburban. Danny glanced briefly at his mother, humiliated and
naked and bloody from the motorcycle chain lashing her to the cabin. She
nodded and said, Get them."
Danny raced to the motorcycles as they started, and grabbed the back tires.
Two big Harleys engines snarled and roared and pumped out blue smoke and Danny
held his breath. His chest expanded, revealing the rows of iron serratus
ranged like railroad spikes down the sweep of his lats, his wasp-like waist
bending backward. The bikes jerked forward about an inch, engines revving
and coughing. What's wrong, why aren't we goin'?" shouted one of the dudes
as he cranked on the accelerator. Two powerful engines shook ferociously with
frustration because Danny's hands compelled them to idle. Gears gnashed and
the chain jerked but the tires couldn't spin so long as Danny's arms gripped
them, stopped them, met their hundreds of horsepower with his kid muscle power.
The men actually tried to rock the bikes loose as veins stood out all over
Danny's arms and back, his pecs thickening between his heart-shaped shoulders.
Then Danny straightened up.
His swelling back rose and he muscled those bikes straight up off the ground:
four wheels rising, held by the locked rear gears and Danny's tightening fingers.
The pressure overloaded the tires and each one blew open like a shotgun as
Danny squeezed them. Danny held them a moment, then rattled them, shaking the
men off like ants off a log. The men fell and groveled on their backs away
from Danny as he then raised the Harleys straight up in the air, his peaked
biceps engorged with blood, the front wheels flopping back and forth. Danny
extended his arms and then clapped the bikes together over his head, again and
again and again until the steel began to mangle and the impacts cracked the
motors. Gasoline started leaking from a ruptured tank as Danny bashed hundreds
of pounds of motorcycle into useless scrap, the metal locking and tearing apart,
then twisting together again as Danny's arms clapped them together again. The
three guys searching for the keys stopped in awe and horror, then dashed for
the truck to hotwire it.
Danny threw the twisted wreckage away and flexed his pecs and arms in a crab
pose against the grovelling bikers, telling them to wait. The sharp scent of
urine and feces came after the fading motorcycle smoke, mixed with the spilt fuel.
Danny raced to the truck and his mother called out Danny! It's not paid for!"
I don't know if Danny could have taken on the full force of the big ugly
Suburban; he was only six years old, and weighed about ninety pounds. But he
knew what he could do. The bikers got the truck started just as Danny reached
the rear so he slid beneath it, braced his back and grunted. The big rear
wheels spun a fine spray of dirt before they lifted clear off the ground, and
Danny stood there, breathing heavily and keeping the tires from contacting the
earth. But the driver engaged the front wheel drive and the Suburban almost
jerked off Danny's shoulders.
Reaching up, Danny grabbed hold of the chassis and braced his legs. The truck's
front wheels dug in and turned, dragging Danny like a plough through the earth.
The engine revved to stop your heart, the driver pumped the gas, cursed and beat
the dashboard but the truck only inched forward, jerking and bucking against
Danny's leg power. The bikers argued who would go back and try to take the
boy out: no one wanted to do it. Besides which, even if they could dislodge
him, the truck would roar away and leave them behind to face Danny. They cursed
and spat at each other.
The engine labored, dragging the huge truck by fits and starts toward the road,
each instant the front wheels threatening to spin but somehow holding traction
against Danny's restraint. Danny began pumping his legs, his thighs blowing
out of the cut-offs from the pressure of holding back a ton of raging Detroit
steel. Each dig at the ground jerked the truck to a halt and its engine whined
higher and higher, trying to maintain forward motion against Danny's insane
resistance. The chassis groaned in his grip as opposing and nearly equal forces
strained its welds and rivets. The sweating bikers bailed just as smoke began
seeping out of the hood. Two of them grabbed bikes and roared off into the forest
while the other took off on foot. The truck now idling, Danny shoved its nose
against a tree. Setting it down, he raced around and fumbled with the wires to
shut the engine off. Then he stared around the clearing.
Five bikers still lay where he left them, the one just coming back around after
Danny knocked his head against the ground. Duke had managed to push himself
with his legs out of the campsite, leaving a dark smear of blood. Danny's
fingers quickly snapped the links of the chains that bound us.
His mom held him to her naked body and he told her to get dressed and take
his dad to the hospital. He wanted me to go too but we all thought it best
if I stay behind, to watch Danny's back. I wasn't afraid of what they could
do to me so long as Danny was there. Danny wanted to take care of all of them
but his mom was resistant.
You don't know what that sort of violence will do to your soul," she said
as he carried his dad to the truck. It could turn you bad, scar you worse
than these men ever could."
But mom," he said, a little petulantly. They'll only do this stuff to other
people, and eventually they'll get out of prison and come to get you and Dad
when I'm not there. They're bad men." They argued for awhile but finally Danny
prevailed. I promise I'll be good the rest of the month," he said, crossing
his heart and poking his finger at his eye. He waited until they were gone,
then he said to me, Keep out of the way and stay close to me."
Danny, do you know what you're doing?" I asked, a little fearful.
He nodded. This is just cops and robbers. And these are the cops." He
flexed those biceps no six-year-old should own, and walked toward the five
grovelling men. Standing before them, he took a step and they crawled backward.
Then he jumped at the them and roared like a lion and they screamed. Gotcha!"
he said, straightening up. Then his face went blank. You're not gonna be
mean to anyone else ever again."
Listen, kid, please--" one of them started when Danny walked over and picked
him up by his jacket and tossed him about five feet to a large rock. Each
one was the size of a bodybuilder but a few had big guts too, and he picked
each one off the ground and threw him up against the rock.
Now you're lined up like my family was." They huddled together and Danny
rushed them, arms outstretched. They put their hands out but it only forced
them back against the stone, elbows jammed against the stone as Danny's
juggernaut caught them. Hands grabbed his steely arms and pushed back but
Danny pressed on, his quads and rippling hamstrings and split calves digging
into the soil. He drove them back against the rock and his fists forced them
all into a single file line: and he pressed into them some more. Each man
struggled with steel-tipped boots and wide tattooed arms to hold Danny back
but he mounted more pressure and shoved them into the stone face. Crackling
started to fill the air and he back man started to gurgle, his face turning
purple and his arms flailing. Danny's legs shoved his chest against the pile
of men and his hands reached up and met each arm with a bone-shattering squeeze.
The front man, his big distended around Danny's chest, tried to push Danny's
head but his neck held until his hands could grab the man's wrists and pull
sharply down, yanking the bones out of the shoulder socket. The man shrieked
and Danny started pumping his legs faster, and faster still. And faster yet.
In a series of jerks the men flattened, struggling, flailing. Jackets and
pants bulged where bone shot out of the deforming bodies, and each thrust of
Danny's quads brought new cracking and snapping sounds. Blood spurted and
dripped as bodies burst open from Danny's pressure, and the back two men
coughed streams of blood as their heads flopped. Danny kept charging, snarling
and grimacing as he brought his force to bear until his fingertips could
touch the stone. The quivering belly against his chest suddenly deflated and
foulness poured out of the legs of the front man's jeans as he started to
twitch. The middle man too spasmodically caved in and only the second man
was still alive: a gruff man with a thick moustache and spiderwebs all over
his now bloody body. His lips formed the word please" but only blew a bubble
of blood as Danny's hands grabbed the rock and his arms pulled his body
towards its. The man's eye's opened in complete vulnerability as his body was
pulped and mashed; then his eyes popped out completely. With one final grind
Danny crushed the five men until his arms could parallel the rock. When he
stood back, the five were no more than a foot thick, and stuck together in a
mass of flesh of jagged bone. Danny himself was spattered with blood.
He walked away and the men remained there, smashed against the rock like a
monstrous bug. Danny followed the blood trail. Du-uke, oh DU-UUUUKE," he
called out. We saw ferns quivering and found Duke there: with a perfect
sight-line to what Danny did at the rock. His mangled arm hung limply at his
side, the muscles like tattered rags, and his eyes registered shock and dull
terror. He'd lost a good deal of blood but not too much to still put up a
fight. There you are, Dukey. I never got to give you a good-sportsmanship
hug." And Danny was on him.
Duke's powerful legs tried to buck him off but Danny reach under his arms and
grabbed hold of the wide lats that spread out like wings from the man's back.
Danny picked him up and hugged him chest to chest; Duke's legs splayed out
beneath him and they kicked up dirt and leaves trying to get away but Danny
held him tight. Duke even kicked over one of the big fern trees. Danny
just held him, even rocked him a little. Sshhh. Sssshhhh," Danny hummed.
Duke calmed a little bit. Ssshhh. It'll be alright mister. In just
a-- minute." And Danny dug his fingers into those lats and squeezed.
Duke roared and flexed his back, kicking his legs wildly. Danny shook and
twisted to control him, forcing him lower to the ground. Still Duke bucked
and struggled and Danny strained to shove Duke's knees into the soil, then
move his own legs around them, wrapping around so his knees were above Duke's
crotch and his shins held Duke's shins in tight. Then, with a flick of his
legs Duke shrieked and I heard those huge legs pop out of their hip sockets.
Now be a good little badman, and take" (shake and squeeze) your" (shake and
squeeze) MEDICINE!" (rattle and SQUEEZE!)
Duke's head bashed back and forth as Danny's hands clamped onto those thick
lats. Slowly the road-hardened muscle crumbled beneath Danny's fingers.
Danny worked his arms, drawing them together, his pecs bulging out against
Duke's. Duke still resisted with all the desperate strength he could muster,
his one good arm swinging feebly at Danny, but even his pecs bruised and
dented beneath Danny's hard kid muscle. Danny's stamina continued unabated
and I shouted This is for what you did to that Swede, you big bully!" Danny
looked over and grinned at me.
Danny set his teeth and started walking his fingers across the rippling
muscles of Duke's back. The jacket was still on so I went over and yanked
it down so I could watch. It caught on the ragged flesh of Duke's arm but
I could see the damage Danny inflicted on that broad, manly back. Dark black
hair sprouted out of the king-sized shoulders and all down the shoulder
blades, which still tried to stretch outward, though Danny forced them
back in. Duke wheezed, his lats bulged out sickeningly around Danny's wrists.
Danny's fingers found the man's ribs just as spasms racked those huge
upper-back muscles.
Danny began to squeeze in earnest. Duke roared and Danny grunted as his arms
sought to constrict Duke's torso. His legs still leveraged out against Duke's
thighs and pressed inward, bending Duke back again and straining the biker's
pelvis and hip bones. Things popped and creaked all over Duke's body. The
kid let loose a series of jolting contractions, bending the iron ribs inward,
curling them toward the inner organs, trapping the man between irresistible
hands and unforgiving pecs. Danny's biceps bruised the man's body as his arms
reached farther and farther around and still Duke sought to flex and inflate
his chest. But Danny got bored with the struggle and moved in for the kill.
He paused for a deep, deep breath. Then, holding himself rigid, he scrunched
his eyes together and CRAAACK! Duke went rigid as something in his back caved
in beneath Danny's muscle. Danny pulled up and bent Duke back and CRAACCK!
Like a rifle shot blood spurted out of Duke's mouth. CRAAAACCKK! and Danny
joined his hands impossibly behind that huge torso. He pulled upward with his
feet hooked under Duke's ankles and that huge, solid back bowed impossibly.
Hips and pelvis shattered and CRAAACCCKKs echoed as rib after rib snapped
within Danny's bearhug. Organs were pierced and Duke's eyes glazed over as his
body finally went limp in the arms of one far, far stronger, and Danny
continued to grind and wring his chest cavity like a rag. Grabbing his own
forearms, Danny strained--and the man's sternum crushed inward as ribs shot
out through the skin on the opposite side of the body. When Danny let go,
his body flopped to the ground, wide shoulders like football pads above a chest
narrower than the waist beneath it, and two legs looking like they'd been stuck
on the sides as a joke.
So nobody watching would miss it, Danny raised the hulk up in one hand, and
tossed it up into a tree where it caught on a limb and hung there, dripping,
like a ghoulish trophy. He turned to me, wiping blood off his face: Six
down, six to go."
I climbed on piggy-back and Danny ran quickly back to camp, to follow tire
tracks. Two bikes, riding stupidly in the same direction. Danny took off
on legs that could rival a Harley's horsepower.
His arms and legs churned up the speed as he instinctively dodged the branches
and trees. I held on to his neck, the muscles strong enough to hold me without
choking him. Huge divots flew up behind us as he followed the tracks until
we could hear distant roaring. Danny pummeled the earth and the roaring got
louder. And louder. We closed in parallel to a road and let them catch a
glimpse of us through the trees.
One of them started pointing and the other gaped. Then they sped up, pulling
ahead a notch or two. Danny giggled deep his chest and my feet dug into his
rippling sides as the warm muscle turned to pure speed beneath me. We cut
ahead of them over the road and I could hear one of them shout ...and he's
got the fat one on his..."
Danny turned and danced back behind them. Their bikes surged ahead and Danny
ran up between them. Each steered away and Danny blasted past them, his legs
a blur. Then we left them in our dust.
Danny drove on ahead and I clung for dear life as he left the ground and hit
a redwood feet first. The shock drove the tree over, cracking roots up out
of the ground behind us in a huge mossy mound and the left the towering bole
listing at a forty-five degree angle to the earth. I tumbled into the brush
but Danny landed on his feet in a spume of soil. He reached up and grabbed
a big branch--and pulled. The tree crackled and groaned beneath the load
Danny's arms exerted on it; shivering, shaking, its roots continued to break
ground and Danny twisted it toward the road. Cannon-like cracks split out of
it and thick red bark exploded past us, one chunk hitting me in the forehead
and knocking me down. Sorry, bro!" he shouted as he strained that huge tree
across the roadway just in time for the bikers to roar into it.
They each tried to skid under the tree, their bikes sliding down the road but
their jackets catching on the branches. Danny gave a final shove and brought
the tree down with a horrible ripping sound like the whole earth tearing open,
trapping the bikers' legs beneath it. He then walked up to the idling hogs and
shook them until their engines died.
One he grabbed by the fuel tank and squeezed. The metal held its shape,
then with soft thunks dimpled in under his fingers. He pressed his thumb in
and the steel stretched beneath it until Danny's strength maxed it out and it
tore open. The other one he simultaneously pressed down on. The bike's
shocks absorbed the pressure until the hog started to quiver; one by one the
shocks blew out and Danny's flat hand still crammed the bike down further
into the dust until the wheels started to warp and the gears cracked with a
quick ching-ching-ching. At last the body bent in a sharpening V as the
wheels tore off and Danny reduced it to midget-sized.
Danny walked around to the bikers and they pleaded with him. He hated an
unfair fight so he kicked the tree and it rocked off them, his foot leaving
a crushed spot on the bark. The men tried to get up but Danny quickly
grabbed them each in a headlock.
The combined weight of the two men must have been close to five hundred pounds
and Danny had to rise onto his tip-toes but his bizarre strength quickly
mastered the bikers and each knee strained, then buckled as Danny forced
downward. Danny's arms caught each head between forearm and biceps and his
elbows stretched across their broad backs. They kept trying to get up but
Danny's back thickened with muscle and his shoulders stood up like crowns;
he ground grinding his biceps against their faces in febrile rotations. He
let them struggle awhile, toying with them, letting one almost get his footing
before flaring his lats and driving him down onto the rough dirt road. Their
hands tried to pull on the tree branches and tug at Danny's hair but he was
a living, flexible statue, immovable except by his own power. He looked down
into their harried faces and said Time's up. You lose."
He flexed his biceps to draw his forearms inward; a natural motion. The men's
arms shot out as the pressure on their skulls increased. Danny's bulging
biceps met cheekbones: and the bones fissured, spreading apart before the
burgeoning, harder brawn of Danny's upper arm. The forearm contraction started
cracking the other side of the skulls and the men shrieked and flailed with
all their adrenaline-fueled panic. Danny's back writhed to control the men
and his biceps' peaks started driving shards of bone inward as eye-sockets
collapsed and a jaw unhinged. I tried to hold it down but had to vomit
with the sickening fracture of each skull creasing and caving in under Danny's
horrifying flexion. His fists trembled and shook; their skulls split again
and again after they were dead, flattened to pulp until he could touch his
fingers to his shoulders. Pulverized bone, brain matter and the rest of the
skull filled in the gaps and hung off his arms between those gory peaks and
his bowling-pin forearm.
He walked over to me as I wiped my chin. Don't you want to get cleaned up a
little?" I asked.
Naw, this'll let em know what they're in for. They may fight harder that
way."
How ya gonna find em? They went off on foot, different directions."
Shhh," Danny said, and it chilled me to the core. Just like with Duke. If
we listen, we can hear them."
Danny totally freaked me out when he did stuff like that. But I climbed back
onto his gore-streaked body and tried to hold my gorge down as we raced back
the way we came, leaving the log and corpses across the road for law
enforcement to worry about. And worry they would. Halfway back to camp, he
stopped and smiled. I could feel his heart beating in his chest, not very
fast at all. I know where old Merle is," he smiled. And I want to save
him for last."
We got back to camp and followed the footprints of the three who scrambled
out on foot. After chasing down two Harleys at full gallop we'd have no trouble
finding these stooges. The footprints got harder to read but Danny was going on
hearing now, and I think even scent. We soon came to large outcropping of rock
in which a narrow cave descended. Danny again motioned for silence and I stood
way back as he circled the rock formation. Soft earth fell away from the stone
face and Danny moved past the cave entrance to where the dirt had worn away
from the underside of the stone. Then he put his hands underneath he and
strained.
The tonnage of solid rock sat heavy and firm in its bed against the might of a
six-year-old wonder named Danny. Proud, deep, this rock had stood there for
geological eons. It had taken the force of colliding continental plates to
force it up out of the shallow ocean bed into this prominence. Millennia had
worn away the weaker parts that covered it, exposing this backbone to scoff
at weather, earthquake, an insignificant little tangle of bone and muscle.
But Danny was only six. He didn't understand much about geology, or weather.
Sure, he could read the newspaper by the time he was two and say his
multiplication tables (up to ninety-nine times ninety-nine) by the time he
was four, but that was stuff you learned. It wasn't what you know. What
Danny knew, about the only thing Danny knew, was the feel of his straining
muscles. And he really, really liked that feeling.
They stood there, rock and boy, for minutes. Boy started to resemble rock:
hard knotted muscle bulged, hardened further, creating a coruscated surface
like the weathered rock. Only boy breathed and rock didn't. Boy breathed
deeply and his stone-like surface increased while rock stayed put. Boy
breathed again, and power drove up from splitting calves through iron quads,
up rigid back to peak at horn-like traps, then fanning out and down bristling
arms to white fingers. And between the fingers and the feet, boy contracted
a little further.
The rock remained, immobile. Boy's back reddened. The woods grew quiet. Boy's
shoulder blades moved together, then apart, like tectonic plates raising
ridges along the center of his back. Rock stood firm. Boy's triceps twitched,
boy's shoulder's split into claws, boy's neck widened, a little redder. Rock
sat heavy, tight, firm. Boy's back bowed.
A pebble. High up on the hillside a single pebble cascaded downward until it
bounced off boy's shoulder farther than it bounced off rock. Could have been
caused by an animal, or bird. Or the wind. Or, quite possibly, Danny.
Of course it was followed by another pebble. And another. A small stream of
rocks and dirt fell down around Danny and he scarcely looked as if he'd moved.
The hillside slowly shook. Rigid calves started to quiver a bit, the muscle
fibers firing faster and faster. Birds scattered from the trees higher up
and Danny grinned a little through gritted teeth. The steady flow of rocks
got larger and dust started puffing up around the hillside. In the cave
the men stirred, whispered about an earthquake. Suddenly, a deep-throated
groan from the bowels of the earth tore up in surprise and fury as tons of
earth slid downward, showering off the end of the high rock. A crack like a
the world splitting apart shook the ground and amidst the dirt flooding the
air, carrying with it bushes and trees, a huge blue mass rose up out of the
earth. Danny walked backward through the flowing dirt and dust and carried
the enormous time-worn cliff-face away in his fucking hands. He screamed as
he cleaned it to his shoulder, then pressed it overhead as the soil flew off
it. Three men cowered in a cut-away cave where the rock had been torn away
in hands of a relentless avenger.
Again the tang of urine filled the dusty air as the avalanche continued, dirt
pummeling the rock held over Danny's head and piling up around his legs. Danny
kept pressing over fifty feet of solid rock over his head until his arms shook
with exhaustion. With a look of supreme ecstasy Danny let it fall from his
fingers. Crashing down the hillside, cracking grown trees in half with its
thundering weight, the humiliated stone fled the arms of the boy who withstood
and conquered it.
He closed in on the men. Like all true cowards they pushed each other toward
him to try to delay their deaths. Danny's arms still trembled from the effort
but his legs were recovering faster. He ordered the men out onto flatter ground
and they obeyed.
He made them lay down on their bellies and kiss his bloody biceps. He made
them lick the blood away, eat the bits of brain that still clung, dust-covered,
to his cabled arms. They gagged and choked on the dirt, the gore, but they
kept licking and cleaning. Danny radiated joy until he saw me watching:
then he suddenly reddened, embarrassed. I was sad, seeing how triumph so
easily became a form of defeat. I wondered what his amazing mind would
recall of these traumatic events, even as he pressed emotional pleasures
no one should ever know deep into his psyche. I'm not such a dummy myself,
you know. I know stuff too.
Danny was all business then. He knocked each man unconscious with a single
blow, then lined them up. Laying on his side, he got one in a scissors hold
around his gut. Another he had me place with his head between Danny's feet.
The last one he flipped around in his arms, which barely fit around the man's
waist. He closed his eyes and trembled a moment.
The scissors guy woke up first and screamed as Danny's quads crushed his abs
and shattered his spine. His innards pressed out against the skin sickeningly
where his shirt rode up and Danny's legs kept squeezing. His feet met the
other man's head and woke him up, writhing within the vise as his hands pulled
and slapped. Danny kept his eyes closed as his arms crushed the guts of the
third man, who also awoke shrieking and flailing helplessly against Danny's
power. Danny winced as he drew his body together, quickly shattering ribs
and a skull that kept thrashing. He squeezed his arms and legs together
and a welt of blood and other stuff blew out of the orifices of the two men
dying in his embrace. Holding on for a moment until he could hear only his
own heartbeat, he threw the quickly defeated men away. Then he got up and
stalked off into the woods.
I started crying and ran after him. Danny, please, don't leave me here!" I
stumbled over a root.
Danny turned around, covered with new blood and filth, his chest rising and
falling faster than after any superhuman exertion I'd yet seen. He screamed
at me: You wanted me to do it! You and mom and dad wanted me to do it, and
so I'm doing it, and you can't make faces at me!" His body tensed in spectacular
fury as he spat blood at me.
I rose up, weeping. It's you, Danny, I'm sorry for you. I'm sorry you have
to do this, I wasn't making faces. I think this sucks!" My body shook with
the sobs and Danny came over and stood next to me. I could feel the heat coming
off his body like he was a reactor core on overload. He waited until I finished
and I looked at him.
A grisly mud covered his face from his own tears. Yeah," he said. This
sucks. Let's finish it." And he turned around and waited for me to climb
up on his back.
He tracked Merle down with an intensity I hadn't before witnessed. The trail
led to a summer cabin, its front door kicked in. Blood from a smashed wrist
splattered across the porch. Danny walked around the back of the cabin.
Through curtains we could see Merle leaning back against the wall. I could
smell the joint he was smoking but I don't think Danny knows what that smell
is yet.
Silently as a cat Danny crept up on the back porch and crouched just below
the window. Danny's fist rose and then slammed into the side of the cabin.
The blow cracked the wooden siding inward and shook the whole house. The man
staggered forward, holding his side and wheezing. My ribs! I think it broke
my ribs!" he sputtered. Danny raised his foot to kick the whole wall in but
I yelled no, it was private property. So Danny scrambled down the foundation
and grabbed the edge of the house.
Lifting it easily in his arms he shook it. Pots and glasses and stuff clattered
onto the floor and smashed, the sink drain snapped and I winced. It was
enough, though, cause Merle stumbled out the front door with a badly made
splint on his arm. The joint was sticking through a crack in the top. Danny
stood before him as he fell off the porch.
It's you, you little shit! Looks like my posse gave you quite a beating, ha!"
He leaned back against the porch and, incredibly, toked up.
Danny stood his ground against the giant. They all died screaming like girls."
Merle's face fell as he realized the blood covering the boy wasn't his own;
there wasn't a scratch on him. He started quivering. What did you do with
Duke? Where's Duke?"
Duke's up a tree, Merle. Now, what do you want to go around hurting women
and kids for? We were just camping. It was fun. Til you showed up." And
Danny launched himself right into Merle's face.
Danny's legs clamped on either side of the biker's head and squeezed just
enough to make the man fall to the ground, screaming. Then he got off and
stood with his foot on Merle's chest. You know, my mom always tells me to
roll up my toothpaste tube so I won't waste any. She says waste not, want
not, which I don't get because if you didn't waste stuff, how does that keep
you from wanting more stuff?"
Whatever, dude," I said. Merle looked confused and horrified, his thick
moustache quivering. Still, guess I better practice," said Danny. And
started with Merle's feet.
It was quick work. Danny's forearms flared and bulged and his hands collapsed
the steel-toed boots in around Merle's feet. The man shrieked in agony.
Danny quickly moved up his shins, pulverizing the bone with simple squeezes.
Thick muscled calves burst apart as Danny forced them into themselves.
The blood surged out through the holes opened by the broken bones but Danny
pressed most of it back up into the man's legs. Merle kicked and bucked but
Danny's arm strength compelled those huge legs to stop thrashing.
The knees came apart easily in Danny's fingers. His jeans started to split
and Danny ripped them off to get a cleaner view. The man wasn't wearing underwear
and had shit all over himself. Danny's widening chest got into the action as
his elbows spread out on either side of the legs and massaged the muscle into
submission. Deftly he wound the pulverized legs around each other. Fingers
grabbed thick muscle and tore it loose, then pressed it inward until thick
bones cracked lengthwise. The man quivered as his body went into shock, but
his horrified eyes couldn't be torn from the masticated rope Danny was weaving
his body into. Thighs that could squat nearly half a ton were now masses of
shredded flesh and speckled bone as Danny wove them in and out. Danny ignored
his filthy privates and with a couple quick flexes of his pecs folded his
pelvis in half.
Danny then grabbed Merle's feet and holding Merle's chest with one hand, pulled
them back. Merle's broad, strong back bent around as his feet came up and his
fading eyes saw them whip around his body just as his spine cracked once,
twice, then twice again. Danny was tying him in a knot.
But his chest was still too big, too intact. The man's belly wasn't as
bloated as the others, being more muscular, like Duke's. Danny's fingers
dug into the abs and twisted against their hardness until the bigger man's
muscle failed. Putting his arms around the shivering waist he squeezed,
sending intestines in both directions. Merle shook and started breathing
heavily. His hands had stopped beating uselessly against Danny's back, and
now Danny grabbed those arms and pressed them to his side.
The boy put his whole body atop Merle's torso and started to twist. Twist
and squeeze. Rhythmically, in keeping with Merle's staggered heartbeat, he
torqued and cracked vertebra, bent and snapped ribs, crushed arms inward
until muscle separated and bones snapped. He stopped a minute and massaged
Merle's clenching fingers and hands into a soft mush; he wasn't leaving a
bone unbroken.
Danny's arms closed around Merle's chest and his elbows pressed inward while
his hands went back up behind to bend Merle's shoulders inward. Using his
head as a fulcrum he snapped the collarbone and caved the man's chest inward.
Black blood spurted from his nose and mouth but his heart still kept beating,
slower and slower, as its proud virile fortress collapsed under a child's
chilling brawn. Danny's legs continued to twist and the narrowing body obeyed.
Fingering the now flaccid biceps and triceps of the dying man, he winced a
little as he caved the chest in further sideways, beneath the pulped arms.
He reached around for the legs and bent Merle's head back under them, wrapping
them around the cord-like body and tying the knot just as his strained heart
burst open.
A mashed cable-like corpse little wider than the man's neck. Bent backward
into a granny knot. Delicately he reached back and pinched each neck vertebra
between his fingers until it popped. Placing his hands over Merle's ears, he
pressed inward sharply, enough to snap the jaw and shatter the skull across
every joint. Yet when he stood up, the skull looked almost intact, a little
eye-popped and blood-bulged. Only pausing a moment, he took the joint that
had fallen out of the splintered splint, and placed it on the man's gory
tongue-jutted lip.
Man, that is too gruesome," I said, wiping the last of the vomit off my chin.
Danny looked up and said, softly, Smoking will kill you." He smiled at his
joke and shivered in the sunlight. This time, I let him climb up on my fat
back and he rested while I carried him off to a stream where we could get
washed up.
The End (
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