The Hike (part 3)

[Jaypat]

Chapter Links

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - Epilog



I aimed my flashlight at the guys. They were all staring slack jawed after Johnson.

“Another one down. Seven to go,” said Moorcroft. “I wonder who’ll be next.”

“I want to go home,” said Gezbecky.

Sodderberg pounded him again. “Shut up.”

“Jeeze, buddy,” said Becker to Sodderberg. “I hope for your sake, you grow first.”

Sodderberg stopped. He slowly backed off. He had obviously never considered that Gezbecky might become a giant before he did. Well, no one ever said Sodderberg was the sharpest knife in the drawer.

“That was weird,” I said.

“You think?” said Becker sarcastically.

“No, I mean that wasn’t like Johnson at all. I’ve known that kid for a year. He’s not the destructive type. Neither was Eric.”

“Becoming a ten-foot-tall behemoth might change your perspective on the world, don’t you think?” said Moorcroft.

“Or it could be some kind of personality change,” offered Gezbecky, “to go along with the physical change.”

Or it could be like sex. I didn’t share this thought with the others. While I was hardly Mr. Experience at eighteen, these kids were only fourteen, and most of them were probably still virgins. They’d never understand what I was talking about. But I had had a couple of encounters where my brain was telling me to stop, that going forward was a bad idea. But I was caught up in the moment and it felt so good that I kept going anyway.

I wondered if the destruction impulse was like that.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said, still hoping we could get help at a hospital before any of this became an issue.

“What’s the point,” said Moorcroft. “We’ll never get out of the forest—at least not like we are. We’re changing too fast.”

“Well, we’re at least going to try,” I said.

“Suit yourself.”

I shouldered my pack and the others—including Moorcroft—did the same. “Okay, I called. Use your flashlights; no one loose sight of any of the others.” This last command was greeted with silence. I think we had all started to wonder witch one of us would be next. It was little wonder that we all kept at a distance from each other. But I kept count of the flashlight beams. There was no way I was going to loose anyone unless… Well, there was no way I was going to loose anyone.

As the hike progressed, Gezbecky caught up with me.

“I was thinking,” he started.

“Yes?”

“Maybe it would be better if we all hiked with our shirts off. That way we could have some warning if one of us were to start changing.” I saw him cast a furtive glance over at Sodderberg. The kid was getting nervous. I couldn’t blame him. If Sodderberg were to change, none of us could stop him from using Gezbecky as a tooth pick.

“I guess we could do that,” I said. “But then what would we do if one of us started changing?”

“I don’t know. Run? Hide?”

“If anyone of us ran into the woods at night, we’d probably never find them again. They’d get lost, maybe die or… Well, we wouldn’t be able to help them.” I tried not to mention a potential cure for the change but I’m pretty sure Gezbecky got what I was talking about.

Suddenly Moorcroft was standing on my other side. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing important,” I said. I didn’t like this kid. His whole attitude about the change bugged me. “Tell me,” I asked, unable to help myself, “why are you so anxious to be ten-feet-tall?”

He laughed and looked at me like I was a moron. “Because I’ve got a shit list a mile long and payback is going to be sweet.”

“Are you thinking about killing someone?”

He eyes shifted back and forth a couple of times before he answered, “Maybe.” With a shock I realized he really was thinking about killing someone. Now the kid creeped me out even more.

“Oh come on,” he said. “Don’t tell me you don’t have a few people you’d like to see eat dirt.”

It was true. There were a couple of ass holes in my life, but no one I wanted to see dead.

“What about you?” Moorcroft asked Gezbecky. “I know you’ve got a list.”

Gezbecky kept silent.

“I was thinking about what you said earlier,” I told Gezbecky, trying to change the subject, “about how it affects everyone differently?”

“Yeah?”

“Isn’t it possible that some of us might be immune?”

“That would suck,” said Moorcroft.

Gezbecky pondered this for a moment. “I guess that could be. I mean that might be one of the reasons they’re testing it; to see how effective it is.”

“Right,” I said latching on to his reasoning. “So, it’s even possible that there won’t be anymore changes.”

“I guess.” Suddenly he stopped in his tracks.

“What?” I said, stopping with him.

“No,” he said, “You’re wrong.”

“What makes you say that?”

For an answer Gezbecky pulled up his shirt. On his small frame I could see his muscles undulating, as if they had a life of their own.

“Crap.”

He dropped his shirt and his eyes darted back and forth. He looked like a scared, trapped animal. He inhaled sharply as his body experienced a slight growth surge. He grew a couple of inches taller and a little wider.

“Oh my God, I’m mutating! What do I do? What do I do?” he asked, close to panic. He no longer looked puny, just small.

“Stop squealing, runt,” came Sodderberg’s voice as he strode up and knocked Gezbecky to the ground.

“Dude, I wouldn’t do that,” I said.

“I’m getting a little fucking sick and tired of you telling me what to do,” he said as the rest of the guys crowded around to see what the commotion was.

“No, Sodderberg,” I said, “he’s changing.”

It took a second for what I said to penetrate his thick skull. Then he looked down at Gezbecky and laughed. “I don’t care how big he gets. He’s always going to be a punching bag. It’s in his head. He can’t be anything else. He may get a couple of hours off, but after I have my growth spurt things will go right back to the way they were. Believe it. Once a punching bag, always a punching bag.”

Then Gezbecky yelled with fury. Now, Gezbecky was still mostly Gezbecky, and his yell of fury sounded more like a wounded bird, then anything threatening. But he shed his pack and lunged at Sodderberg. Gezbecky may have grown a couple inches and gained about twenty pounds but he was still no match for the bulky Sodderberg. He was pounding on the guy with everything he had and Sodderberg just stood there shaking his head. “Truly pathetic,” he said.

At this point, Gezbecky shuttered again and we all saw him have another little growth spurt, making about the same gains as last time. But now Jacob and Josh stepped forward and pulled Gezbecky off of Sodderberg. Poor Gezbecky, he was about four inches taller than he had been and maybe forty pounds heavier, but he was still a light weight compared to everyone else.

Josh and Jacob kept telling Gezbecky to calm down and eventually he stopped struggling against them and just stared hard at Sodderberg.

Sodderberg strode up to Gezbecky and at first I thought he was going to start pounding on him while the twins held him, but no. He reached out and ripped open Gezbecky’s shirt. I think we all expected to see the same kind of lithe muscular build Johnson had first displayed but we were completely taken by surprise. The guy was all skin and bones.

Now Gezbecky used to have thin, very fine bones and now the bones protruding out from under his skin were anything but fine. They were thick and heavy, but he still looked like a famine victim.

“You’re all bones,” laughed Sodderberg. “I can’t believe I was actually scared of you.” Sodderberg reached out and shoved Gezbecky. He would have fallen if the twins hadn’t held him up.

The twins released Gezbecky as he shuttered and began another growth spurt. This time he grew six inches taller and his shirt began to split at the shoulders. He pulled it off and tossed it to the ground. His frame looked wide and solid now, inhumanly so; his bones looked like they belonged on a horse. But big bones were pretty much all he had.

Gezbecky and Sodderberg were now pretty much eye-to-eye. But if they were going to go at it, my money would still be on Sodderberg. Not only did the bully still out weigh Gezbecky, he was vicious and cruel and that was almost always an advantage in any fight.

“I’m going to kill you,” said Gezbecky and something in his tone made me take a step back.

“Oh, I’m scared now. Here comes the walking skeleton to kill me. Guess I’d better say my prayers.” He hauled back and hit Gezbecky right in the jaw, sending him stumbling back against a tree, where he slumped to the ground. “Figures you’d become a wimpy giant.”

“Dude, I don’t think he’s done yet,” said Becker.

“Sodderberg!” I shouted. “Touch him again and I will personally put your lights out!”

Sodderberg looked at me and smirked. “When I’m a giant,” he said, “right after I finish with him, I’m coming for you.”

Okay, he’d gone too far. I was about to lay into Sodderberg right then and there when Gezbecky gasped, “Don’t do it.” And, for some reason I stopped.

We all looked down at Gezbecky, still lying against the tree. Suddenly, we saw the sinews begin to thicken under his skin. It was almost like a time lapse movie of vines growing,

Slowly he stood up and faced Sodderberg again. He looked furious. Sodderberg stepped back. Gezbecky had grown about another foot. He was now taller and heavier than the bully.

“Run,” he said hoarsely.

“We’re not leaving you,” I responded.

“Not you,” he said, a new resonance sounding in his voice. “Just him.” He said, indicating Sodderberg.

Sodderberg didn’t move. Again, not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

We could see the vine-like sinews begin to thicken and weave together around Gezbecky’s monstrous bones, forming familiar muscle groups. Biceps, triceps, pectorals, abdominals; all were developing with frightening speed. Gezbecky, now well over six feet tall, was looking down at his thickening body and smiling. He no longer looked just solid; he was starting to look powerful. His back expanded outward, muscles rippling and undulating beneath his skin. His forearms swelled like overfilled inner tubes. There was nothing skinny about this kid now. “Funny,” he said, “I’m not scared anymore.”

He grabbed Sodderberg, whipped him around and got him in a head lock. The bully struggled against him, but it did no good. I saw Gezbecky’s bicep start to swell up, hard and strong. Sodderberg saw it too—how could he miss it—and his eye bugged out as Gezbecky’s arm grew from large to massive. And as it got bigger it began squeezing Sodderberg’s throat, cutting off his air. Sodderberg was gasping clutching at Gezbecky’s mushrooming triceps, in a futile attempt to break free.

“Let him go, Gezbecky,” I hollered. “You’ll kill him.” I could see Gezbecky think about it for a minute before he released him. Sodderberg tumbled to the ground clutching his throat and gasping for air.

There was a tearing sound as Gezbecky’s pant legs gave way to massive hamstrings and enormous calves. A second later his pants went all together. He shot up and quickly hit the ten foot mark but continued to pile on the bulk for at least a full minute after he stopped getting taller. When the change finally stopped, the former runt stood there naked, chest heaving, impossibly large muscles bulging out all over him. I guessed his right arm now weighed three times as much as his entire body had only moments before.

Suddenly, with a speed I wouldn’t have believed possible for someone that large, he reached down with one arm and grabbed Sodderberg again, lifting him up so they were eye to eye.

“So, now you’re going to fuck me? Is that it, gay boy?” asked Sodderberg. I couldn’t believe how stupid that kid was.

“No,” replied Gezbecky in a voice so deep it was hardly human. “Just fuck you up.” Gezbecky curled up his thumb and forefinger and then flicked Sodderberg in the stomach. It knocked the wind out of him same as an ordinary punch would have. Gezbecky let him get his wind back and then did it again.

“Who’s the punching bag now?” yelled Gezbecky. Sodderberg wheezed as the air was once more forced from his lungs. He struggled to catch his breath but as soon as he did Gezbecky let fly again and once more the guy had the wind knocked from him. This time, however, he also lost the contents of his stomach.

I couldn’t help but notice Gezbecky was careful not to let Sodderberg pass out. He obviously wanted to deliver as much punishment to the guy as possible before letting him lose consciousness.

He hit Sodderberg one more time, and then, with a flick of his wrist, tossed him at a tree. Sodderberg hit the trunk and then slid down to the base where he lay still. I rushed to his side but Sodderberg was not dead, just stunned.

“Okay, Gezbecky,” I said. “I think you’ve made your point.”

“I doubt it,” he boomed. “Not with ass holes like him.”

Sodderberg must have heard because he gave a hoarse laugh. “Just you wait,” he said. “When I change, I’m going to be bigger than you, again. Then you’ll see. I’ll fucking kill you.”

Gezbecky’s eye darkened. You didn’t have to be psychic to tell what was going to happen next. “Don’t do it, Gezbecky.”

“And I don’t need any faggy Eagle Scout, sticking up for me either,” hissed Sodderberg.

Gezbecky bent over and grabbed Sodderberg. Gezbecky’s massive right hand went half way around Sodderberg’s waist. Sodderberg struggled, pounding on Gezbecky’s fingers, which were as long as Sodderberg’s forearm and slightly thicker.

Sodderberg didn’t have a snowball’s chance.

“Back at the camp, remember what you said you’d do to me?” asked Gezbecky, who grabbed Sodderberg around the legs with his other hand. “Normally I like to be original, but some ideas are just too good to ignore.”

I suddenly remembered what Sodderberg had said back at the camp. “No! Stop!” I yelled. But it was no good. Gezbecky had started to pull. First we heard snapping and popping. Sodderberg screamed. Then came the sound of flesh tearing. It’s not a sound like any other. But once you hear it, you never forget it. We all watched in horror as Sodderberg’s body tore across the stomach and then was separated into two different pieces. Blood splattered everywhere. Gezbecky took the top half of Sodderberg and threw it way over the treetops to the right. His bottom half went to the left.

“What did you do?” I asked, too stunned to be coherent.

“Nothing he didn’t ask for,” said Gezbecky. Then he turned and thundered away into the forest.

[built_spill]

Well- that took a bit of a turn, didn't it?

[gogothen]

dark but i like it
i can relate 2 it ( scary )

[omelissokomos]

It's all fun and games until someone gets frickin' ripped in half.

[chocomus]

Ok. This story is creeping me out (And warming me too )
It's like a horror movie that you close your eyes sometimes but you can't stop watching it. Now I have to read it all!!!!
I'm not fond of gore scenes but your story is so hot.
Besides, as Gezbecky said, Sodderberg was asking for it. And he didn't deserve the muscles. Hm!

And again... What the hell is out there in the forest??!!!
We'l have to wait till next part....MWAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

[gb123]

It felt good to read him getting his own bad, perhaps he went a bit far.. hmmm

[arpeejay]

Bleah.

As if we don't get enough of that every fuckin' day of the year.

rpj