The Hike (part 2)

Jaypat · #1 July 30th, 2007, 06:05 PM

Chapter Links

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - Epilog

For several minutes I could hear the sounds of destruction as Eric apparently continued tearing apart anything that caught his eye. After the sounds faded into the distance, I continued to stand there, not knowing quite what to do.

“Okay, what the hell just happened?” asked Sodderberg.

“Eric turned into a monster,” said Gezbecky.

“Shut up,” said Sodderberg and he punched Gezbecky in the stomach, hard. The poor kid doubled up and then lost his dinner.

“Lay off him, Sodderberg,” I said. “We have enough trouble.”

“He didn’t look like a monster to me,” said Moorcroft, “More like a giant.”

“That’s enough,” I said. “I don’t know what happened to Eric but it’s something we can deal with once we get out of here tomorrow. Let’s get back to the fire.” We all turned and headed back toward our camp fire.

“What if he comes back?” asked Gezbecky. Everyone went silent.

“I think we’ll hear him first,” I said. “And besides, it’s just Eric. No matter how big he is, he’s still just Eric.” I think I was trying to reassure myself even more than the kids. Watching your best friend turn into a two-thousand pound behemoth was a little disturbing and I was still processing it. If I hadn’t had the kids to worry about I think I might have lost it.

“Oh yeah?” said Moorcroft. “Did just-Eric run around tearing trees apart with his bare hands before he changed?”

He had a point.

“I don’t get it,” said Johnson. “What could do that?”

“How about a weird object falling from the sky?” said Becker.

“But why would it effect just him?” asked Johnson.

“Who said it effected just him?” asked Moorcroft. Suddenly everyone was looking around at each other like they might change at any second.

I suddenly remembered Shutz’s shredded uniform and I wanted to sit down. Could the same thing have happened to that hyperactive red head that happened to Eric? Right when I came to, I heard something huge moving in the forest. Could that have been Shutz? I was unsure if I should say anything. I didn’t want to worry the other guys, but Moorcroft saved me the trouble of deciding.

“Remember Shutz?” he said. “It must have happened to him, too.”

“And if Shutz was effected, maybe we all are,” said Becker.

“What do we do?” gasped Gezbecky.

“Why should we do anything?” asked Moorcroft, echoing Eric a little too closely for my comfort. “This is going to be awesome. Did you see the muscles on that guy? We’re all going to get huge.” He flexed his arm. He had pale, pipe cleaner arms.

“The ladies will love it,” said Josh/Jacob as one elbowed the other. The other guys had all started posing for each other, asking their friends if they looked bigger, feeling their biceps, trying to find a sign that they were changing. The only ones not participating were Gezbecky and Becker.

“We should really think about this,” said Gezbecky. “I mean what was that satellite-meteor-thing?”

“Who cares,” grinned Sodderberg. “Soon I’m going to be big enough to rip you in half with my bare hands.” Sodderberg looked down at his hands as though he expected them to start growing immediately. Gezbecky moved away from him.

“Maybe it was some kind of government experiment gone wrong?” said Josh/Jacob.

“Our government can’t do anything like that,” replied Johnson, whose dad was in the military.

“I think it’s an experiment,” said Gezbecky, “but not a government one.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I think it’s an alien invasion.” We all burst out laughing.

“No, seriously,” he said. “Think about it. We’re in an isolated area. We’d be perfect test subjects.”

“Are you saying that thing was aimed at us?”

Gezbecky nodded. “Think about Eric. What was the first thing he did after he changed?”

“He started tearing things apart,” I said after a pause.

“Exactly. Now imagine if that satellite-thing had hit somewhere in a city.”

“You’d have hundreds of giants running around tearing things apart.”

“Right. Chaos. Perfect first move for an invasion.”

“So why didn’t they just launch it at a city?”

“As I said, I think they’re testing it.”

I hated to admit it but the guy made sense, a freakishly strange dorky kind of sense, but sense. And the idea of some alien fucking with my body and turning me into an engine of destruction, really creeped me out. I think the other guys thought so too because they weren’t quite so excited anymore. They’d stopped their posing and become quiet.

“Okay, Genius,” said Becker, “how do we stop it?”

Gezbecky seemed stumped.

“Stop it? Why stop it? You guys are crazy!” cried Moorcroft. “I can’t wait to be huge.”

“You want to run around, busting up everything in your path, becoming a human WOMD?” asked Johnson.

“Fuck yeah!”

“Well, technically, we’d be some kind of mutation,” said Gezbecky. “We wouldn’t really be human anymore,”

“Even better!”

“What happened to make you so sick and twisted?” I had to ask.

“I have my reasons.” He said it with such venom and conviction that I decided I didn’t want to know what was behind it after all.

“There’s got to be a cure, right?” said Johnson. I noticed he was rubbing his stomach as he was talking. It might just be a nervous habit, but maybe not. It was a little too close to what Eric had been doing while we were collecting wood.

“I doubt it,” said Gezbecky. “I mean the aliens might have one, but down here—no way.”

“So, were doomed?” said Johnson. He sounded like he was about to lose it. That was the last thing we needed.

“We’ll break camp now,” I said. I knew it was risky to hike back at night but suddenly staying had its own dangers. “Once we get out of the Forest, we’ll make a beeline for the nearest hospital. They might be able to help.” Relief washed across Johnson’s face. He started rubbing his left pec. Okay, that was it.

“Johnson,” I said, “take off your shirt.”

“What? Why?”

“Just do it.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Come on. I think we all need to know why you keep rubbing yourself.”

“I think it might be poison oak.”

“Then all we’ll see is a rash.”

“Yeah, Johnson, let’s see,” said Moorcroft. The other kids joined in. Slowly Johnson unbuttoned his shirt. I’d seen Johnson’s type before; just out of their growth spurt, on the skinny side. But when Johnson pulled off his shirt we all gasped. Every muscle in that kid’s skinny body was sharply defined under his skin, not that they were unnaturally large but they were toned beyond belief.

“Please tell me your some kind of fitness freak,” said Gezbecky.

Johnson slowly shook his head. “Are you happy now? Can I put it back on?”

I nodded and Johnson pulled his shirt back on and buttoned it up. “How long have I got?” he asked Gezbecky.

“I… I don’t know. I mean, it won’t be the same for everybody. Some of us are obviously changing faster than others.”

“Why are you guys acting like this is some kind of cancer?” cried Moorcroft. “Johnson, you rock. I mean look at that body. And you’re just going to get bigger and stronger. What is your problem?”

“What’s yours?” he asked back.

Moorcroft just threw up his hands and walked away.

“Let’s break camp,” I said, “We need to get Johnson to a hospital as quickly as possible.”

I was certain that if we could get to a hospital they would somehow be able to fix us. I have to admit there was something strangely compelling about becoming that big—in a deviant kind of way. But I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be ten feet tall. After all, most places only had eight foot ceilings. And I’d never be able to fly in an airplane or even take a bus—add the fact that I was pretty used to being human and I really didn’t want to be turned into some kind of alien weapon. “Come on, we need to get going guys!”

Moorcroft shrugged indifferently, but the other guys took to the task with great energy. Using only the campfire light and our flashlights we began to break camp and pack our stuff away.

After I had broken down my tent, I was about to take care of the fire when I stopped by to check on Johnson. Even with his shirt on, you could see the change. His chest had swelled out. The upper buttons of his uniform shirt were just starting to show a slight strain. But this was partially because his shoulders were broader, thicker and rounder, and his back, wider. His pants were also growing tight in the thighs and now seemed to be too short for him. The other guys were nervously steeling glances his way.

“How you doing?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” he said.

“What do you mean?

“Well, before I was pretty freaked, but now… Well, check this out.” He flexed his arm and a baseball sized bicep swelled up in front of me, pulling the shirt tight around it. He had a scary looking arm. “Pretty cool, hunh?”

“Yeah, great,” I said, my mouth going dry.

“And then there’s this,” he said.

The Boy Scout fire pit had a series of logs placed around it. We used them for benches; they must have weighed about five hundred pounds each. Johnson started to lift one.

“Whoa, you’re going to hurt yourself,” I warned him.

“I don’t think so,” he said and proceeded to lift the bench off the ground, hardly straining at all. I was floored. I couldn’t even have budged it. He let it fall again with a crash.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“I… I don’t know. Are you saying you want to change?”

He thought about it for a minute before answering. “Let me put it this way: I don’t want to become an alien weapon,” he said. “But if you can’t get me to a doctor on time, the consolation prize ain’t all that bad.” He began flexing again, running his fingers over his bulging arm and I left him like that.

When I was done with the fire, I broke down Eric’s tent and Shutz’s. I don’t know why but I felt we ought to take their stuff with us. I could handle Eric’s pack but I would need someone to take Shutz’s. I instantly thought about Johnson. He was obviously the strongest one.

“Johnson,” I said as I walked up on him. He was knelling over his pack. “Do you think you could carry Shutz’s pack?”

“Sure,” he said loudly. There was something about his voice. “I can take Eric’s too if you want.” Without waiting for a response he stood up and ripped both packs out of my hands. Those packs weren’t light and he was holding them like they were nothing. I noticed his uniform had begun bunching up in some places and pulling tight in others. His muscles were getting larger and he was about six inches taller than he was last time I spoke to him.

“Crap.”

“What’s the matter,” he asked. “You want me to take yours, too?” He reached over and grabbed my pack and lifted it into the air. Of course I happened to be wearing it at the time so I went with it. Johnson laughed and set me back down. “Whoops,” he said. I heard the sound of ripping of fabric as Johnson’s expanding lats split open the back of his shirt. He grunted as if with relief. Through the rip I could see his back was now a wide, solid configuration of bulging muscles.

“These uniforms are so damn uncomfortable,” he said. “There’s so little room in them.” He tore off his sleeves. His arms had become enormous. Thick veined biceps, at least 25 inches around, ran into his cannonball shoulders and his veined forearms were about as thick as my neck. I looked up into his face. He used to be three inches shorter than me. Not any more. Not even close.

In one startling surge, his chest burst out of his shirt front and huge thighs exploded from his pant legs. He looked down at his powerful limbs as his body continued to bulk up and grow taller. “This is so awesome,” he cried, flexing his mammoth arms. “What was so I worried about?” In a moment he had reached ten feet. Like Eric before him, he was a heaving tower of solid muscle. It was scary just looking up at him. So I tried looking straight ahead I was staring at his abs and they looked like a fucking mountain range.

Of course the other guys heard him bellowing and came running. When their flashlights hit him they stopped in their tracks.

“You guys have got nothing to worry about,” he bellowed. “Absolutely nothing.” He flexed for us and then turned and thundered into the forest. Once again I heard the sounds of woodland destruction as Johnson made his way deeper into the woods.