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