The Hike (part 1)

[Jaypat]

Chapter Links

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - Epilog



“Come on, guys!” I shouted. “We want to get there before dark.” I remembered my first hike out to Spencer’s Field. I wasn’t much older than these guys but I was a hell of a lot more enthusiastic. I looked over at my best friend, Eric—he was an Eagle Scout, too—and I could see he was thinking the same thing I was: how did we get stuck with the loser patrol?

“There he goes again,” sighed Eric. I turned my head just in time to see the red headed kid bounding off away from the group and deeper into to the woods.

“Shutz!” I shouted. “Get back here!”

“I just want to see something,” he called back and he ran further away from us.

“I’ll go after him,” said Eric with resignation.

“No, you went last time. I’ll go,” I said. I took off after Shutz and quickly caught up with him. “Shutz, what are you doing? You know you can’t leave the group. This is not like a trail hike. We’re bushwhacking here. If you loose us, you’ll be lost for good. We’ll have to call out the National Guard to find you. Is that what you want?”

“No. But I wasn’t going far.”

“It doesn’t matter. The underbrush is so thick around here we could lose sight of you in a second. Now come on; let’s get back.”

“Okay, but I just want to get this one thing.” Before I could stop him, he jammed his hand into some undergrowth, and pulled out a flat rock. It was encrusted with quartz. Now I got it. He must have seen it sparkle; it was shiny.

“See,” he grinned, “now I’ve got my rock.”

All the kids were supposed to choose a rock from the trail to add to The Tower. In the center of Spencer’s Field was a rock tower—actually it was more like a rock pile, but we called it a tower. All the scouts who made the trip would write their names and the date on a stone and add it to the tower. Some of the rocks had been there fifty years or more.

“That’s a great rock, Shutz, but it won’t do you any good if you don’t make it to the field.”

“I’ll make it,” he said defensively.

“Only if you stick with the group I said. “Now, let’s get back.”

Eric had stopped the rest of the group to wait for us, and when we returned it looked like they had decided to take a rest break. There were nine of us all together: Eric, me and seven fourteen-year-olds. Most of them were either sitting under a tree or milling around aimlessly.

But not all of them. Becker had pulled out his guitar and had started playing a tune. The kid had some talent and I knew some decent campfire entertainment was pretty much guaranteed.

Gezbecky was three yards away, sitting under a tree, nose in a book. This kid was short, with a very slight build. He had very fine bones. I was actually afraid to touch him in case I accidentally broke him. His parents had made him join the scouts because they felt he needed to spend more time outdoors. So, here we were in the middle of a natural wonderland and he was reading. Someone was unclear on the concept.

“What are you reading, Gezbecky?” I asked.

“Chariots of the Gods,” he answered without looking up.

“Is it good?”

“Yeah, it’s great,” he said putting the book down. “It’s all about aliens and ancient Egypt and all kinds of stuff. I found it at my grandparent’s attic. They’ve got a lot of cool old books up there—”

“That’s great,” I said interrupting him. “But camping is all about being outdoors, making friends, and having adventures. If you spend the trip with a book, you’re going to miss all that.”

“Oh,” he said mechanically, putting the book away. “So, what should I do?”

“I don’t know. Try climbing a tree. Or why don’t you get Johnson to show you how to use the compass.”

“I know how to use a compass.”

“You haven’t found your rock yet, why don’t you look for that. Just don’t leave the area.”

“Okay.” Gezbecky got up and, with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man, began searching the ground.

Johnson was our only real scout. He was walking around the area taking different compass bearings and checking the position of the sun. He looked like he was raring to go. Oddly enough, he wasn’t even supposed to be on this trip. He got chicken pocks when his troop went, so now he was stuck going with us.

Josh Hickman was up in a tree and his identical twin brother, Jacob was standing at the base watching him. I only knew it was Josh in the tree because he was the more adventurous of the two. If they were both standing on the ground side-by-side, there’d be no way to tell who was who. And the identical scout uniforms didn’t help either. But since both boys answered to either name, it didn’t matter much. I’d guessed they were probably sick and tired of correcting people. Or maybe they just enjoyed the confusion they caused. “Don’t go too high,” I called up to Josh. He nodded back.

“Hey, give it back! That’s mine!” came Gezbecky’s voice, cutting through the air. I turned around and, surprise, surprise, Sodderberg was tormenting Gezbecky again. Sodderberg was one of those kids who were just naturally big and mean. He was holding a rock up, out of Gezbecky’s reach, and smiling cruelly. The poor little guy was jumping up, trying to get it from him.

“Sodderberg, give Gezbecky back his rock.” Sodderberg gave me a look as though he was sizing me up; trying to figure out if he could take me. I got that look from him a lot and I was beginning to get tired of it.

We had a brief stare down until Sodderberg finally dropped the rock and backed off. “Take your damn rock,” he said.

I looked around and saw Eric lounging under a tree, just watching the show.

“You know I could use a little help with these guys,” I said.

“From me?” he grinned. “You’re the responsible one. I’m the wild one, remember?”

It was true. Eric and I had known each other since grade school and every stupid thing we had ever done had been his idea. But then I usually went along with it, so what did that make me?

But now we were eighteen, and in the fall we going off to colleges in different parts of the country. We knew that after this summer we wouldn’t be seeing much of each other—maybe for the rest of our lives. This hike was kind of our last hurrah. Too bad we had to share it with a bunch of clueless fourteen-year-olds.

“We’d better get going if we’re going to make it to Spencer’s field before dark,” I said. “Do you want to get Moorcroft or should I?”

The final kid in our group was Moorcroft. He didn’t talk much, just kept to the edge of the group, keeping his eyes on the ground. His hair was dyed black and I had a feeling that if he wasn’t in uniform his clothes would be black too. He was sitting on the ground a few yards away, just at the edge of sight.

“I’ll go,” said Eric, and he sauntered off toward the glowering kid. Couldn’t help but wonder how a kid like him wound up in the scouts.

“Okay, guys, rest’s over. Time to get going,” I called.

The rest of the hike went smoothly, with only one slight hiccup. During Shutz’s turn on compass duty he took a wrong reading and we spent about twenty minutes heading in the wrong direction. Fortunately, Eric thought to check on him and caught the mistake. We had to do a little back tracking but eventually we got back on the right heading, loosing less than an hour.

We had wanted to make it to our destination before dark and we stepped into the clearing just as the sun was disappearing behind the trees. Eric and I had our tents up in nothing flat and then started helping the other kids with theirs. We didn’t want to help too much; after all, the point of the exercise was for them to learn to do it themselves. Most of the kids did okay, but as for Gezbecky and Shutz, we pretty much had to do theirs for them.

We had just started gathering firewood when we saw it. Shutz spotted it first streaking through the air leaving a trail of fire behind it.

“Meteor!” he cried. And sure enough that’s exactly what it appeared to be. We watched it shoot through the air and heard a loud whomp as it hit the ground nearby. Like a shot, Shutz was off toward it.

“Come back,” I yelled but it was no use. I took off after him and before I knew it the rest of the guys were right behind me.

“Eric, take these guys back to the camp, I’ll get Shutz.”

“What for?” he replied, “We all want to see it. I mean how often does a meteor hit the ground? Most of them burn up in the atmosphere.”

“It’s getting dark,” I said.

“You worry too much. It’ll be fun.”

I couldn’t really argue with him. The truth was I wanted to see it, too. So, all nine of us plowed through the underbrush in the direction of the impact.

We came upon Shutz standing at the edge of a new clearing. The meteor had obviously blasted every tree and bush in the immediate area as it came crashing to the ground and there was a 20 foot diameter circle of scorched earth all around it. The thing, itself, sat in the middle of a small crater, maybe three feet deep. About the size of a beach ball, it was round and glowing as though it was made from molten rock. But the more I looked at it, the less like rock it seemed. In fact it almost appeared to be a metal sphere partially melted and squashed.

“I think it’s a satellite,” said Eric.

“Cool,” said Shutz, as he walked towards it.

“Get back!” I shouted. “You don’t know—” but that was all I had time to say. That idiot Shutz reached out for it and as soon as he did there was a whump and a flash of blinding light and then everything went dark.

When I woke up, I was lying at the edge of the clearing. I felt awful like I’d spent an entire day sitting in the sun. At first I didn’t want to move but I tried anyway. Everything was kind of fuzzy. I thought I could hear a huge commotion nearby, like something huge moving through the forest. It was like one of those dreams where there’s something horrible coming, but you can’t move. I shook myself fully awake and the feeling passed quickly. The sound disappeared and soon I was pulling myself to my feet.

It was dark; full night had fallen and I couldn’t see a thing. Fortunately, I had my pocket flashlight with me. I looked around. The rest of the kids seemed to have been knocked out, too. Gezbecky and Moorcroft were stirring. I rushed over to them; they seemed okay and were soon rubbing their eyes and looking around just as I had done. I checked on Eric. A couple of light slaps on his cheek and he was awake. The other guys revived just as easily. Thank God, no one appeared to be hurt. A couple of the kids had their flashlights, too, and soon were shining them around.

“Hey, where’d it go?” called Johnson. And suddenly all flashlight beams were trained on the crater. There was no sign of the meteor at all.

“Even if the thing had exploded, there’d be some debris, wouldn’t there?” asked Johnson.

“Where’s Shutz?” asked Eric.

We looked around for Shutz but he was nowhere to be seen.

“Shutz!” we called into the dark. “Shutz!”

But there was no answer.

“Maybe he woke up first and went back to the camp?” Johnson suggested.

“Maybe,” I said but I didn’t really believe it. He had been the closest one to the meteor-thing; somehow I couldn’t see him waking up first.

“Holly Shit!” cried Sodderberg. “Check this out!” The kid was standing over by the crater poking something with his foot. I went to see. It was a uniform, or rather what was left of a uniform. It had to be Shutz’s, but it was shredded, completely torn to pieces. Continuous prodding with my foot, uncovered the poor kids underwear, also shredded. And close by we found his hiking boots; they had been torn apart. But the odd thing was there was no sign of any blood.

The obvious conclusion was so terrifying that I had to keep it to myself. Someone must have come along while we were unconscious, torn the clothes off Shutz and carried him away. That meant somewhere out there in the night was a dangerous raging lunatic. My first instinct was to try and hike out of the forest that night, but that would be stupid. There was no moon and it was pitch black. We’d never make it out without at least one of us getting lost. I had a cell phone with me but there was no signal.

“Let’s get back to camp,” I said.

“But what about Shutz?” asked Gezbecky.

“We can’t go looking for him at night,” I answered. “More of us would just get lost.”

“What do you think happened to him?” asked Jacob or Josh.

“I don’t know. We might be able to see more in the morning. He might have thought we were all dead or something and gone for help.”

“Naked?” asked Jacob/Josh.

I didn’t want to panic anyone so I decided to leave the matter of the dangerous maniac alone for the moment.

I hated the idea that one of the kids was missing and more than a little worried about what might have been his fate. I was supposed to be looking out for them. I knew better then to let Shutz chase that meteor and yet I allowed it anyway. Shutz might even be dead because of me. Part of me wanted to roll up and die. But I still had six kids to watch out for so I didn’t really have that choice. “Let’s get back to camp.”

It didn’t take much more prodding from Eric and me, to get the guys turned around and headed back for the camp. Thanks to the tramping we made on the way to the crater, finding our way back was easy, even with only flashlights to show the route.

As soon as we got back to the camp, we began to gather firewood. I made sure we moved around as a group, to keep us as safe as possible. There’s safety in numbers might be a clich? but it also was pretty much true.

It was about then that Eric began acting kind of weird. He kept stopping and staring at his hands and rubbing his stomach. At one point I think I even saw him flexing his arm and cupping his bicep. I knew he worked out and I just figured he must have pulled something.

Sodderberg was tripping Gezbecky and dropping his branches on him. I had to separate them without sending Sodderberg away which meant I kept the two kids on either side of me.

“I feel weird,” said Gezbecky. “My hands and feet are all tingly.”

Now that he mentioned it, I could feel a little tingling in my fingers and toes as well. But there was no need to panic anyone.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “As soon as we get out of here tomorrow we’ll all go to the doctor and get checked out, okay?”

That seemed to satisfy him and we continued to gather wood. But the other kids complained of similar sensations and I had to believe it was not a coincidence.

Once the wood was gathered, we were supposed to let the kids start the fire using the old two-stick method so they could earn a merit badge. But due to the circumstances, I decided to just use my matches and soon we had a brightly burning blaze. It seemed to cheer everybody up a little. We’d brought along hot dogs to roast on sticks and it wasn’t long before the smell of roasting meat was wafting through the air.

After we ate, Becker pulled out his guitar and started strumming some random cords. No one called for a tune. Most of us were just staring into the fire, lost in our own individual thoughts about what might have happened to Shutz.

Eric put his hand on my shoulder and cocked his head toward the edge of the clearing. “I gotta talk to you, dude. A little Eagle Scout conference.”

I looked at the guys. I didn’t like leaving them alone with a maniac potentially on the loose. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.”

“Dude, seriously, I have to talk to you.”

“Okay,” I said and stood up. “We’ll be right back, you guys. Don’t kill each other.” Eric led me to the edge of the forest, well outside the glow of the fire.

Eric was acting weird. He kept shifting from foot to foot, rolling his shoulders and wringing his hands.

“Dude, what is up with you?”

“That tingling the guys were talking about?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you feel it?”

“A little. In my fingers and toes.”

“Well, I feel it all over my fuckin’ body.”

“Are you sick?” I asked, suddenly worried.

“Hell no! I feel fucking fantastic!” He started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Dude, what are you doing?”

“You got your flashlight?”

I pulled it out from my pocket, turned it on and stepped back in shock. Eric had his shirt open; his upper torso was ripped! He had a raging six pack and bulging, rock solid pecs. “Whoa,” I cried, “you’ve really been hitting the weights.” Eric looked down at himself and seemed almost as surprised as I was.

“No,” he shook his head. “I haven’t been to the gym in a month.”

“I don’t get it,” I said.

“Neither do I,” he replied “But ever since we came to by the crater I’ve been feeling weird. There was the tingling and then I felt my body just start to change, get thicker and harder. And I’m a helluva lot stronger, too.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know, but dude, it feels fucking fantastic!” Eric did a double bicep pose and his upper arms filled his sleeves almost to bursting. “I’ve been working out for years and never had results even close to this.” I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He relaxed his arms but they still seemed to be straining his shirt.

“What the fuck happened to you?”

He shook his head grinning. “It’s not what happened but what’s happening ’cause I’m still getting bigger. And the more I change, the faster I seem to grow. It’s coming faster now, much faster.”


I took a step back, gave Eric a second look, and gasped. At first I thought it was a trick of the light, but no. I could actually see him bulking up in front of me. His chest was swelling further out past his shirt front and his stomach muscles seemed to be doubling up in size… and holy shit! He was getting taller, too!

“What do we do?” I asked, my voice cracking like a thirteen-year-old.

“Do?” he asked. His voice was dropping lower. “Why should we do anything? I want to see how far this will go, how big I’ll get.” I heard the sound of tearing fabric as his shoulders grew broader than his shirt could handle. “I am going to be a serious monster when this is done!” I couldn’t argue there. He had to be getting close to seven feet tall.

“You’re freaking me out, dude,” I squawked. He laughed at that and did another double bicep pose. This one disintegrated his sleeves revealing enormous peeked biceps, huge, bulky triceps and massive forearms. “Holy shit!”

“Isn’t it awesome?” he cried, mistaking my fear for enthusiasm. Eric grabbed the remainder of his shirt and tore it from his body. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Every inch of him was solid muscle; the guy was huge. And he was nearing eight feet tall and still growing.

“Dude, there’s something wrong here. This isn’t natural. We have to do something,” I burbled.

But Eric just looked at me, grinning like a kid on Christmas morning, as his shoulders blew up like beach balls—that is beach balls that weighed about eighty pounds each! His biceps started swelling up to match. They quickly caught up with his shoulders and then passed them becoming the dominant feature on his insanely powerful arms. I heard a rapid popping as the seams in his pants gave way to a pair of unbelievably massive thighs and he shed the rest of his pants like sunburned skin. Shit! He had to be almost nine feet tall. And he just kept laughing and flexing his huge muscles and laughing some more as his titanic body grew larger and more muscular by the second. I was frozen with fear but he didn’t seem scared at all, in fact he really seemed to be enjoying the ride. When he reached about ten feet tall he finally stopped growing.

The kids must have heard us shouting because suddenly they were there, their flashlights playing all over Eric’s massive body. Their voices were a chorus of “What the fucks?”, “Holy shits!” and even a scream—I’m guessing Gezbecky.

To say he was intimidating would be the understatement of the decade. I was standing next to him and I was fucking terrified. He was a juggernaut, an unstoppable mass of muscle and I had never seen or even conceived of anything like him.

“I am so fuckin’ strong,” he hollered, flexing his biceps. It was like watching two mountains grow up on his upper arms. “I can do anything.”

Eric ran over to a tree, wrapped his bulging arms around it and proceeded to rip the thing out of the ground, roots and all. Now, I’m not talking about a baby tree here. This thing was at least forty feet tall. And after he pulled it out, he hefted it over his head and threw the tree off into the night. How far it went, I couldn’t say. It was too dark to see. Then Eric spied a boulder. The thing was as tall as he was, and just as wide. He walked over to it and picked it up, raising it up over his head! In a second he had thrown that out into the night as well. He gave an almost animalistic yell of joy and thundered out into the woods, quickly disappearing from sight.

[iceman75]

Great start man, I love when geeks grow super huge and super strong, can't wait to see what else he can do, so please continue!

[Speaker]

Nice beginning... promising too. Cant wait to see what happens to the rest of the happy campers .

[skumbum]

Nice work

[chocomus]

Originally Posted by Speaker

Nice beginning... promising too. Cant wait to see what happens to the rest of the happy campers .

Me too. I hope Gezbecky gets bigger than Sodderberg.

[mlbjock]

Definitely a great start!

[built_spill]

Wow- I have to say, this pushes so many of my buttons... I can't wait to see where it goes.