Never Again
A story of revenge by Chip Masterson
At first it looked like an ordinary fender bender. The kid
in the ancient Plymouth station wagon stopped short, I didn’t
see why. Probably stalled, I thought. Looked like he inherited
the car his daddy traded in the musclecar for when the brats
arrived. The guy behind slammed into him, knocking the wagon
a good five feet forward. That guy - driving a shiny black
Beemer with spoked 20s and glass so dark you couldn’t tell
where the body left off and the windshield started, was on
the phone and swore. The hood tented and headlamp glass sprayed
everywhere, plus some red plastic from the Plymouth. I was on
my way to grab a sandwich for the half-hour a day they let me
out of my lawfirm cell but being a good citizen, I crossed the
street to be a witness if they needed one.
The kid got out, wearing a nylon tank and shorts and rubbing
his thick neck with a thicker arm. I thought Oh boy, if that
kid’s the starting quarter at Mater Dei and has whiplash, this
guy’s looking at twelve kinds of Jesuit pain no matter who was
at fault. But the kid smiled and, looking at the non-existent
traffic, suggested they move into this blind alley to “exchange
information” and keep out of folks’ way. He seemed nice enough
but I smelled a set-up so I hung around. Waving the guy’s
exasperated rush off, the kid gets back into his car, rakes
the motor but nothing happens. He gets out and, steering with
one hand, pushes the big station wagon twenty feet and then up
over the sidewalk and down into the alley like he was returning
a shopping cart.
Guy must’ve thought the kid would be winded. I did. He
followed, and I hung back near the sidewalk, in case I needed
to yell for help.
They went through all the motions of I’m-not-saying-it’s-my-fault-but
for awhile and then I heard the older guy say, “Do I know you?”
My ears pricked up and I sidestepped closer.
“We have met,” the kid says, voice deep and resonant in his
chest. “Last year, in fact. We were at the pier, and I dropped
a memory chip for the camera between the pilings so I ducked
down to hunt through the sand, and you were there,” the kid
said, eyes firm and shining, “waiting. You pretended to help
me look and then pointed at something and said, Is this it?
When I reached into the sand, you grabbed my arm above the elbow
breathed heavy into my hair. You squeezed just hard enough to
let me know who was in charge, but not hard enough to leave a
bruise, circling it with your fingers to show me, Look how
puny you are.”
The guy looked at him, completely puzzled. “What are you high on,
kid?” he said. “I’d be lucky to fit both hands around your
upper arm. You got me confused--”
“Uh-uh,” the kid said in a voice that made the man freeze cold
and my balls want to crawl up their sac. “It was just you
and me and I never felt so terrified in my life. Worse than
that, I never felt so weak and helpless, like a girl. I knew
you wanted to do sick things to me and I couldn’t stop you.
I could have yelled, but you would have stopped on your own.
I couldn’t make you stop. Then my mother came down and before
she saw much, you shouted There it is! and turned me around
to where it was sitting right on the sand. Where you knew it
was the whole time. You pushed me toward it and I grabbed
the chip up and fled into the sun, and I remember you saying
something more and my mother giving her standard Thank you
that says And never come near us again, and it was all over.
For you.”
The man was real quiet a minute, then he said, “That wasn’t you.
That was just a kid. Your brother? Is that his version? Or
did you just think you saw something and decided to stalk me
like some vigilante? No good deed goes unpunished.”
The kid took a step nearer. “Like I said, I never felt so
weak before in my life. So I set about correcting that.
Working out. And now here I am.”
“Fuck you!” The guy takes a step back, towards his car.
“That kid was twelve. You’re what, sixteen? Seventeen?
Are you even still in high school?”
That sounded about right to me. I’d go as high as twenty,
might not even get carded some spots.
“I’m thirteen,” the kid said. “I got good genes. Hit a
growth spurt. I haven’t even started high school but they’ve
already recruited me for their starting line. I can hit a
penny the length of the field, 10 times outa ten. That is,
when I decide to allow the ball to land inside the stadium
at all.”
Now the guy looked seriously scared, like this kid was on
some dangerous dope. I kinda thought that myself, if he
didn’t act so rock steady. Not a twitch he didn’t mean.
He twitched his triceps though, on purpose, making the fabric
stretch.
“Look, if you got a problem with me, take it to the cops,”
he dared the kid. “Otherwise scram. I’ve had enough of
your meth-head bullshit.”
“You don’t understand,” the kid said. “I’m not interested
in the cops. I swore to myself I’d never feel that puny
again. But every few nights I have the same dream. You’re
always there, bigger and stronger and more vicious, and no
matter how much time I’ve spent in the gym, no matter how many
tons of protein I’ve choked down, you’re always older and
bigger and stronger, and you can do anything you want to me
and I’m helpless to resist.”
“Fuck you and fuck your dreams!” the guy shouted, sensing an
opportunity to be cruel with that unerring radar predators have.
“’Cause you know what? I WILL always be older AND bigger AND
stronger than you and you know why? ‘Cause I’m a man you’ll
never be nothin’ but a sniveling little girl running to hide
behind her mommy! All these muscles are just show, like some
faggot’s, to hide the weak little sissyboy who’ll never, ever
be good enough, no matter how many big deal fantasies he makes
up about how everyone wants him on their team. You’ve got you
some roids to puff you up and a month off the juice your arms
will shrivel up to match your nuts and you’ll be lucky to lift
your asthma inhaler.”
Wow. That was harsh. But the kid – he just looked at him with
his head cocked, like a dog hearing TV for the first time. His
eyes narrowed and he said, “Ya wanna see a show?”
He walked over to one of those thick posts you see places to
keep cars from running into buildings – a 3-inch pipe three
feet high filled with concrete. This one listed back a bit
from all the trucks that hit it. Accretions of concrete pooled
around the base where people shored it up. The kid put one
hand – one hand only – across the top of it, the rounded cap
of cement cupped in his palm. He gritted his teeth and his
square jaw shot out a bit on either side, but he never took his
eyes off the guy or lost his smile. Then the show started.
Veins and cords jumped out through the kid’s skin, quivering,
thickening. His mouth twitched a couple of times and his neck
broadened, his trap rising like Quasimodo. The guy started to
say, “Look kid, I can make a muscle too, without going to all "
CRRRUUNK. We all heard it. Something deep under the pavement
cracked. The post began to straighten up. The kid’s tense face
stretched slowly from a smile to a sneer of contempt. His wrist
and shoulder began to twist, his forearm rippled with braided ropy
muscle straining to dislodge the heavy weight set in generations
of concrete which even trucks couldn’t knock over. An cable eye
welded to the side rotated into view and surface concrete cracked
off in thin sheets and sudden chunks. The post made a chunky
grinding sound that set my teeth on edge. The kid’s forearm
now looked thicker than my leg and the swollen biceps shoved
up the sleeve of his jersey. My mouth hung open and I didn’t
see the drool stains on my tie until later.
Then, sneer fading to a worse, serious look, his muscles jumped
and ripped it out of the pavement. Black rocks shot out from
the fractured asphalt and a cloud of dirt flew out sideways,
and he just stood there, muscling out this post four feet long,
the bottom caked in a thick tapering plug of concrete, gripped
in the palm of his hand. The fingers spread and it fell like a
dead thing and rolled on the pavement.
I looked at the guy and he was nodding. “Cute trick,” he said.
“I guess you had it all planned, the short stop by this alley
where that little setup was waiting, but I don’t frighten like
some pansy boy too afraid of what’s in his pants to know what
balls even are. I’m outa here.”
I realized then they were both crazy. But not the sort that
deserve each other. Not that sort at all.
The kid’s face finally broke into rage and he said, “You think
this was faked, asshole? How’s this?” He twisted his body and
slammed his fist into the brick wall. The bricks sank in and
shattered against some obstruction on the other side. “Does this
look fake to you?” He slammed his fist against the bricks against,
cracking and crushing them to red dust. Something started hissing
ominously inside the wall. I moved to get a better view.
A thick iron pipe sat inside the wall – probably what the post
was there to protect. “How about this?” the kid sneered, grabbing
the piped with his hand like he wanted to choke it. He growled,
face furious, and as his knuckles went white and those crazy spider
veins jumped up from the tectonic shifts in his forearm. For a
minute, his arm looked like an anaconda swallowing a deer. Then the
inch-thick iron caved beneath his fingers and thumb and hot steam
jetted out, blasting his skin bright red. “How about this?” he said,
oblivious to the scalding heat we could feel. He curled his fingers
and flexed his palm and broke off a thick hunk of iron from the
hole, twisting it out and hurling it at the opposite wall. “Go
ahead, pick it up and bend it yourself!”
Blisters formed on the shiny skin of his arm but he stood there
as a siren sounded deep inside the building. After a few minutes
the steam died down and the guy looked like he might piss himself.
But he still struggled to remain cool and superior, and backing
toward his door, he said, “You’re a lunatic, is what you are. I’ve
got nothing more to say to you. I’m outa here.”
The kid started walking toward him but for the first time looked at
me. I shook my head hard and waved my hand to say, I don’t know him.
But the kid said, as if explaining to me, the TV audience, “I realized
each time I woke up in a cold sweat, there’s only one way to stop the
nightmares, only one way to prove to myself I’ll never be that weak
and helpless again. Only one way to make sure he’s never stronger
than me. I’ve got to kill him.”
I gulped. “Kid, if you’re only thirteen, there’s still time to work
this out,” I said. “Don’t do anything you’ll spend a lifetime in
prison regretting.”
“I don’t think they’ve built a prison for what I am,” the kid said.
The Beemer started up and I looked at it briefly, then back – but
the kid was gone. I looked around, then heard a THUMP and looked
back at the car. The kid was there. He’d jumped over our heads.
Over the car. What did I get stuck in the middle of?
The guy didn’t look behind him, he just put the car in reverse
and scanned the alley for where the kid went. The car jumped
back a couple feet then jolted to a stop, stalling the engine.
Now the guy turned around to see what he ran into – and there’s
the kid in his rear window, sneering, with his hands pressed
against the trunk. Curling his lip, the kid shoved the car
forward, deeper into the alley.
The guy started the car again and revved it, shouting “I’ll run
you down!” as the kid walked up to the rear end. He reached out
and slammed his hands into the trunk again, triceps jutting out
like new limbs. The gears caught, the big wheels started to turn,
but the kid’s big wheels strained the elastic limits of his nylon
shorts as he leaned in and met their power with their own that
rippled with brawn, forcing the 20s to spin like toys. White
smoke from the rubber billowed out with the angry squeal of it,
and the kid leaned forward and ruthlessly enjoyed feeling all
that power break against his immovable arms.
His big chest rose fast a couple of times, and then he did
something I never thought I’d see: he started shoving the
car forward even as its wheels skidded the to drive it the
other way! The wheels bucked and bounced furiously as their
friction increased exponentially, yet only trapped them
instead of giving them the means to escape. The kid’s arms
quivered and his body expanded in huge leaps of heaving breath,
but he refused to let the car gain traction. He drove his
elephantine legs forward, building momentum even as those
five-hundred-odd horses frenzied back into him, whining and
screaming and roaring their deep-throated impotence. My heart
raced and I flattened myself against the brick again as they
passed me, the heat coming of the boy rivaling that from the
bucking Beemer.
The guy had to think he could wear this freak kid down because
he kept it floored even as his engine threw off smoke and burning
odors. I couldn’t believe such a burst of superhuman strength
could last, surely not as long as a car engine. But those legs
split the stretch nylon like sequoias growing in time lapse –
even just the backs of his thighs looked thicker than my whole
leg, with calves shaped like the pecs of bodybuilders – and nearly
as big. In just over a minute, he’d arrested the fleeing
vehicle and muscled it up to the rear end of his station wagon.
I’d heard the kid crank the parking brake on the Plymouth when
he got out – but I thought it was one of those automatic things
you always do without thinking. I knew now this kid wanted to
show how much power he had at his command in those arms, those
pecs, those quads: the big wagon stuttered forward, surprised,
locked wheels grinding the loose asphalt. Seeing this, the guy
began to loose it and beat the steering wheel with his fists,
shouting No No No! But this made the BMW fishtail as its
frustrated fury exploded sideways against the kidmuscle tsunami
sweeping over it.
The kid snarled angrily as the trunk slid sidways out of his
grip. The car slammed into the wall and swerved back at him
and the entire thing looked completely out of control. I
edged farther away until I saw his elbow blur and BBBOW! The
kid slammed his hand against the side of the rear and it crimpled
up into his palm. The Beemer kicked and jerked like a wild bull
but BLLLAWWWWW his other hand slapped the other side and
crunched the panel down around the frame like foil. His
forearms jumped and swelled and his back thickened into writhing
humps, like a pack of bears fucking
The kid held on and yanked hard, bringing the rear end under
HIS control, but the front end skittered and popped up and
down. The kid snarled his impatience and with his elbows
flung out, snatched the rear completely off the ground in
time with front end bouncing and SLAMMED the entire vehicle
down so hard the shocks blew out. The windows shattered
and the front and rear shields cracked, and the roof collapsed
half a foot. The perv screamed and started to blubber
hysterically but airbags didn’t blow because no one at BMW
ever dreamed the car would be bitchslapped by a thirteen year
old Hercules. The engine lugged and kept going, making an
awful sick grinding sound and pumping out black smoke.
It looked like most of the panels had been knocked loose and
the doors were jammed – even kicking them, the guy couldn’t get
‘em open. He strained against the edge of the roof, trying to
bend it up far enough to squeeze through the window but it was
no use, he didn’t have the muscle. The kid did though, and with
a kick he sent both vehicles careening down the alley. In a
blind frenzy, the guy floored the accelerator again, vainly
hoping to wear the kid out.
The kid reached around the back end in a bearhug and crunched
a deathgrip on the car. I heard things crinkle and crack but
nothing fell; his pecs made loud THUNKS where they flexed into
the dented metal. The kid’s arm looked like it had more muscles
than my entire body, all of it deforming machined steel and
driving that engine to its death.
But now the wagon ran skewed into the wall. The kid kept
coming. The wagon hit the wall and the Beemer pushed its ass
into the other wall. The kid kept coming. The guy began to
hope. The wagon began to shiver. All the glass started to
crack, shatter, and with a screech the wagon’s door dented
inward. The kid growled, a sound lower and deeper and more
dangerous than the guttural chugs of the dying engine. All
movement stopped – the wagon held – the Beemer’s engine coughed
tendrils of rancid smoke – the kid’s face curdled in fury and
he threw his head back in a scream of rage.
His body rippled and bulged, forcing similar ripples to
appear in the body of the BMW. The trunk collapsed in three
successive waves and the doors pinged and folded like paper.
The kid’s lats expanded like volcanic clouds and a harsh
scrunch filled the alley as the wagon’s frame bent in on
itself – and still with the Beemer still trying to peel away
from it. I covered my head as rubber shredded loose from
the 20s but the kid dropped his head down and all I saw were
his steer-sized shoulders encasing a deep crevice, tapering
down to his tight waist and grinding glutes.
The wagon shook hard as it buckled. Its bench seats and
bed lining bowed and flexed. It groaned and begged and as
its interior corkscrewed out of place, the ends scraped
into the brick but also toward each other. On the verge
of a tantrum, the kid raged, his shoulders and hips driving
into the BMW like a rape. Looked to me like it was only
getting more stuck when a course of brickwork gave way and
the fantastic steel bung moved. His howling rage became
triumph and the guy’s last hope shredded like the edges of
his sanity. His seat thrust suddenly toward the steering
wheel and he began beating on the roof, even as it bulged out,
as if trying to match the shape of the biceps destroying it.
I felt dizzy – I’d never seen such a display of pure masculine brawn in my life,
and this was just a teenager – no kid has lats that thick, that commanding – it
made me feel hot and sweaty. Heedless of the parts ejecting out of the havoc,
I followed along, mesmerized.
The station wagon kept V-ing and gouging the bricks, upholstery
exploding in tufts, chrome peeling and curling, glass pulverizing.
Some trashcans fell over and got caught under the wagon, flattening
and spewing out their garbage. Next the flotilla picked up a dumpster,
out of which scrambled some hobo who thought it must be trash day:
seeing what he saw, he lit off for the end of the alley, where the
buildings are about a foot apart, and squeezed himself through to the
street on the other side. I bet the pervert in the Beemer wished he
was that thin. Though I had a feeling this kid might just shove the
buildings apart to get his prey.
But his strength was reaching its end – his shoves came in bursts
as the dumpster turned and tilted, and a stack of pallets clattered
over and jammed the works. I think I saw a concrete door stoop
disappear under everything as well. The sweat and heat coming off
the kid, it was like a furnace. I thought I also detected the strain
in his breathing, and the way his muscles quivered at the peak
contraction that shoved tons of bending, twisting metal down a narrow
alleyway. The wagon started riding up over the collected crap as
one front tire got caught and wedged against that stoop I’d seen,
and the dumpster turned and snagged on some window bars. Everything
ground again to a halt.
Incredibly, the kid didn’t pause to catch his breath. Gritting his teeth
but not making a sound, his silence somehow more terrifying than even his
roar, he gave a tremendous shove. The Beemer accordioned but the blockage
didn’t release. The guy’s screaming rose high and womanish but it was
drowned out the by symphony of folder and creasing metal, steel
flattening and bending and puncturing, fluids bursting and gushing
out of ruptured tanks and pans. The two cars compressed under kid
bulldozer arms but everything merely compacted. The dumpster
caved in and boxes and bags of garbage bulged out and burst open.
But he’d lost the momentum and it was hopelessly stuck. The perv
began wrenching at the steering wheel trapping his leg. The kid
pressed again but now the density fought back against his muscles
and punched out and up instead of forward. Something in me snapped,
seeing the kid work so hard and this guy never once so much as
apologized – still only cared about himself, still trying to escape.
So I got as close as I dared to the kid – and I don’t know what came
over me – and said, “Hey kid – he’s getting’ hard over this. You’re
just turning him on. And he’s gonna get away.”
The kid’s face turned crimson. His throat thickened and a hoarse
bellow of pain and fury rattled windows in their frames. He threw
his chest into the jagged rear of the sports car, extending his
arms to grab hold of the ends of the station wagon, and pumped his
legs. Immediately the Beemer buckled further, forcing the steering
wheel down into the pervert’s leg and making him scream. I heard
something pop wetly. Everything shuddered to withstand the teen
muscle storm - until the outer edge of the window security bars burst
out of their brick and concrete anchors and began scrolling backwards.
I heard a tortured squeal as the trapped wheel tore off - but then
something deep boomed and cracked and everything scraped forward anew.
The bars peeled out of the wall. Deep gouges scored both sides
of the alley as everything rode relentlessly forward, impelled
by teen macho and vitality. I looked over and saw the outline
where the concrete stoop and stood – he’d broken it off and it
was lost somewhere in the roiling metalstorm, cracking and
breaking apart. Unable to withstand him. The dumpster fell,
its heavy steel trapped and destroyed. The wrapped window bars
caught the end of a fire-escape and was dragged that along,
making it twist and bend until it jammed and sheared off, pulling
the bottom platform half out of the wall.
I could barely recognize the BMW as the remnant of a car. The
man inside had twisted around, trying to tear off his broken leg,
but now the seats were turning away and driving him into dashboard.
His screaming stopped and only hoarse wheezes punctuated with the
kid’s ragged grunts. But the kid now seemed almost to be crying,
even with his face screwed up with an angry – or anguished – sneer.
Nothing was going to stop him until he was finished.
The guy gurgled as his ride flattened lengthwise into a fig newton
with him as the fig. We’d reached the end of the alley, the debris
piled and crunching into the wall. The dumpster, with its tail of
tangled steel bars and ladders, began distending into the foot-wide
crack as the kid reared back and cram-cram-crammed the metal
flatter … and flatter … and flatter still. The perv-pulp burst
open, the pressure splattering blood and gore against the wall.
I saw half a bloody thigh bone shoot like a rocket into the metal
wall with a sickening crack – and then a crunching pink spray
that must have been his brains rose like a crest above the wrenched
carcass of all his power.
Now his mass-packed thighs stood still and his bulgeous upper body
undulated like a planet being born. His orbed pecs worked like
twin moons trying to break free while his arms pumped in and out,
mashing the conglomeration of cars and alley detritus into a single,
coagulated knot of metal, garbage of human flesh. Each time his
rippling left arm crushed crumpled steel back in on itself, he
whispered “Never….” And each time his right hand crippled and
squeezed a once-powerful auto into scrap, he whispered, “Again.”
Squeeeeerreeerr Never krunkunkunkunkunk Again. EEEEeeeeyyyyraaaaak
Never wrraaaarrrrrp Again. When he’d compacted it as thin as he
could, he reared back and slugged it with his right fist.
His muscle punched an impossible inch into the steel, leaving the
impression of his knuckles in the mangled mass. A tiny spurt of
blood jacked out of the two-foot-long Beemer. He walloped it
again with a hard left, sending another thin jet of blood sideways,
the force of his impact denting the tightly-packed carnage even
further. He smiled, a crazy, exhausted smile, but his back swelled
and his ass clenched and he pummeled the remains of the two cars
and other crap, each blow driving another eruption of what looked
like blood-tinged liquefied flesh from the last remaining crevices.
Each blow accompanied by his repeated liturgy. Whuummp! Never
Booooomph! Again. The condensed steel began to ripple, his power
now forcing it back outward. The bricks in the wall shuddered and
kicked out mortar as cracks snaked up to the second story and a window,
losing its support, shattered. But he didn’t stop, even when the
cracks widened and a pipe burst, fountaining water into the alley.
Sweating and breathing hard, aching gulps, he didn’t stop until the
blood did, until he’d completely entombed the perv in the craziest,
thinnest steel coffin anyone could imagine.
He stood back, surveying his hand’s work, the bloated muscles of
his incredible teen body quivering on the verge of collapse. It
took him a couple minutes to be satisfied with it, and I thought
of Jackson Pollock deciding whether the latest splatter was done
yet or not.
“Dude, you need therapy,” I said, my throat raw in my cottonmouth.
He smiled and all of a sudden, he looked thirteen again – at least,
in the face. Just a kid who can’t control his impulses or make
the right decision, but is proud of everything his new, growing
body can accomplish.
“Just had it,” he said. Then his smile changed to a smirk and
set his shoulders back so his chest stood up and out, and he added,
“Looks like you could use some therapy yourself. Which part
did you like best?” He idly flexed his forearm, which cramped
and made him wince and laugh and spin away, his hulking back
incredibly agile.
I looked down and saw a wet stain in my crotch – I didn’t even
know when it happened. Or what happened. Ashamed yet strangely
high, I said, “Uh, I didn’t know – you got nothing to fear from
me, kid, I ain’t like that.”
“Oh, I know,” he said, turning around and nodding. “I’m not
afraid of anything.”
“How you gonna explain the car to your folks?”
He smirked again. “Not our car.”
We heard sirens, and he got a look on his face that made me glad I wasn’t
a cop. “You oughta consider the best way out and quick.” He walked over
the wrecked fire escape, crouched and leaped I swear fifteen feet straight
up, grabbing the rail of the loose bottom platform with one hand and
pulling himself up with it. The structure groaned and swayed but held
as he climbed straight up the outside, platform to platform like King Kong,
until he got to the room. He did another one-arm pull-up to get up and
over, and the last thing he said was, “Not that anybody’d believe you.”
He popped his bicep at me one last time before disappearing across the roof.
Hearing the sirens all verging on the end of the alley, I climbed
up onto the hot, steaming metal. My stomach rolled with the slick
gore coating its surface and I knew I’d leave tracks, but somehow I
squeezed myself into that opening and propelled myself down the
litter-strewn passage. By the time I emerged on the far sidewalk,
I looked so torn up and filthy I could have been any of the homeless
guys wandering around, and for once I was grateful for the anonymity.
It would be a long walk back to the office.
THE END
chipmasterson@yahoo.com
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geocities.com/westhollywood/park) (
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