by Baron Sord
Arnold parked around the corner from the strip mall on a nearby side street in a business park. This part of Miramar was essentially dead at this hour. Lots of street parking.
“Wait in the car,” I grumbled as I hopped out.
“Dude, you need back up!” Arnold protested.
“Not at a bar without you wearing a mask.”
He groaned, “I ordered one with the vest!”
“But you don’t have it yet. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
“Fine.”
Off Base Bar had a gloomy roadhouse feel with lots of pool tables and neon beer signs hanging on the walls. Although it was Saturday night and the bar was plenty crowded, it was easy to find the problem.
In the center of the bar, a group of angry men stood around a pool table while shouting drunkenly at each other about who had hustled who at pool. The other customers had cleared a circle around the men. As I worked my way through the crowd, I could see several phones out already, all of them pointed at the action. No doubt people were recording video in hopes they would end up with something to post on YouTube that would garner millions of views. The upside was they didn’t notice me in my ninja mask and wearing all black — not the best look to avoid attention in this day and age of random shootings in public places.
As I said, everyone’s attention was on the eight angry men.
Three big bikers held pool cues like baseball bats. A fourth held a tactical knife open at his side, trying to hide it.
Four burly marines faced them with their fists up, ready to fight.
No matter how strong I was, the odds of me stopping things before anyone got seriously hurt were not good. Too many people attacking at the same time, and too many unpredictable vectors. Worse, I didn’t know the exact moment when the fatal stabbing would happen. I didn’t even know if the biker holding the knife was the one who would do it. Maybe one of the Marines would disarm him and use the knife on the biker. Or maybe another biker had a second knife. Maybe an innocent bystander would get stabbed.
I just didn’t know the details.
What I needed to do was stop the fight before it started.
“Hey!” I shouted at the eight shouting men. “HEY! YOU FUCKING NITWITS! YOU PUSSY-ASS MARINES! AND YOU BIKER BITCHES! GET YOUR DICKS OUT OF EACH OTHER’S ASSES AND LOOK AT ME!”
Their arguing ceased. There was no sound of a record needle scratching or the band going silent. The digital jukebox continued playing the song Saturday Night’s All Right For Fighting by Elton John.
Yeah, this fight was clearly Elton’s fault. I’ll admit, it was in fact Saturday night, but in my book, Saturday night was never all right for fighting — not when someone was going to get fatally stabbed.
That said, after what I’d just shouted, a fight seemed inevitable.
As one, the heads of eight scary men turned slowly and they glared death at me like a pack of prehistoric warlords.
Oops.
Normally, this was the part when someone like me turned and ran and the killers gave chase. Although I had put on some height and muscle in the past few days, all of these guys were bigger, taller, and broader than I was. They weren’t scared of me.
That was understandable.
They didn’t know the facts.
Fact #1: I had slain a Rhino yesterday.
Okay, that thug with the FwCK tattoo wasn’t a rhinoceros, but he was as big as one. And no, I hadn’t slain him, but I had kicked his ass, and his two friends Pencil Kicker and Blackjack, and today, Jimmy the Pimp. That was four asses officially kicked by me and me alone.
Fact #2: I was stronger than all eight of these guys, possibly combined. I had lifted a fricking car yesterday.
Yeah, I wasn’t going anywhere.
But I needed to stop a fight, not start one.
What to do?
I leaned over the pool table and picked up a billiard ball with the intention of crushing it in my hand as an intimidation tactic.
I squeezed it hard.
It didn’t crush into powder like those prop balls in some 70s TV show like The Incredible Hulk. Probably because those balls were made of something like a thin plastic shell around white flour or plaster powder. Real billiard balls were made of incredibly dense and chip-resistant plastics like phenolic resin, polyester, or acrylic. And they were solid all the way through. No soft powder center. Not even a young Lou Ferrigno was strong enough to crush a real billiard ball in his hand.
Undeterred, I squeezed harder.
Nothing was happening.
Had I suddenly lost my super strength? Or was I simply not strong enough to crush a real billiard ball?
“Wait,” I chuckled and gave the billiard ball one last squeeze.
Still no shattering.
The eight men started to grumble. One smirked and chuckled.
“Just a sec,” I muttered.
I realized the problem immediately. The flesh of my hand was too soft. If I was going to crush the ball to the breaking point, I needed to use hard surfaces. A hydraulic press with a metal wedge tip would work perfectly. But I didn’t have one handy.
What about my fingernails?
If they were as resilient as I was…
I adjusted my grip until I held the ball in the claws of my nails.
Then I squeezed hard and hoped the ball didn’t pop out of my fingers and go bouncing across the bar floor. It was actually difficult to position it just right. This might not work.
“Who’s this fuck?” one of the bikers chuckled.
Maybe I needed to use two hands? No, that would look wimpy.
I squeezed as hard as I could and—
CRACK!
The ball split into a dozen large shards, which I let tumble onto the green felt of the pool table.
“Did he do that?” one of the Marines said, somewhat impressed.
I picked up another ball from the table and shattered it with more skill than the first. Then another and another. While I crushed billiard balls, I started talking, “I don’t know who the fuck you pussies are, but nobody is fighting in my bar.”
“Your bar?” one of the Marines laughed. “I’ve never seen your ass here before.”
I picked up the Eight Ball and crushed it right in front of his face. “It’s my bar now, Ace.” I picked up another ball and lobbed it in my hand a few times. “If any of you fucks wants to fight, you start with me first.”
One of the bikers had surreptitiously picked up the orange-striped Eleven Ball from the table and was trying to crush it in his hand, all the while checking to make sure no one was watching him too closely. His face knit together in confusion and frustration as he tried harder and harder to crack it. He couldn’t. Then he tried both hands. Still couldn’t crack it.
I smirked, “It’s not so easy, is it? I can do it. Hand it over.” I held out my palm.
The biker shrugged and handed the Eleven Ball to me.
I cracked it to pieces in one try. I smiled at the men, “Who’s first? Who wants to go outside with me so I can crush your skulls like these billiard balls?”
All eight men looked around nervously, none of them meeting my eyes. I was surprised none of them whistled like they were minding their own business.
“Nobody?” I pressed. “We can go one at a time or I’ll take all eight of you pussies at once. I don’t care. What’ll it be?”
Cha-CHAK!
A grizzled bartender stood behind me holding a pump shotgun, which he had just pumped. “I called 911. Cops are on the way.” He said to the bikers, “You boys better put those cues down and get outta here. You too,” he said to the Marines. “I called the MPs. Nobody is busting up my bar.”
The bikers and Marines did as ordered and started fading quietly into the woodwork.
Needless to say, there was no fight and no stabbing. Elton did not get his wish.
But I had to wonder, had someone in the crowd recorded the show on video? Possibly. At least I had my mask on.
The bartend
er glared at me. “What the hell you do to my pool balls, son? Those aren’t no Walmart knockoffs. Those are real Aramith balls. Cost me a hundred-fifty bucks a set, and that’s direct from Aramith.”
“Sorry.” I turned toward the door.
“Where you think you’re going?”
I ducked my head and ran.
“Get back here, son! You owe me for my balls!”
I didn’t stop to remind him I had saved his balls, and I wasn’t talking about the Aramiths.
I ran out of the strip mall parking lot back to the business park and jumped in Arnold’s car.
For the next several hours that night, we handled a number of other distress calls before driving home around 3:00am. Back at our house in Arnold’s living room, he sagged into the couch. “No more!” he groaned. “I’m too tired!”
I was tired too, but I was more hungry. I walked into the kitchen to get food. Even though I had barely done anything superhuman tonight, my stomach was shouting for calories. When I returned to the living room with a pile of sandwich fixings in my arms, Arnold was snoring softly on the couch.
I sat down on the leg of the L-shaped couch, made sandwiches from the fixings, and chowed down. After a half hour of continuous eating, something stabbed me in the head. A red hot steel spike of pure terror. All I got was a fragment of fear.
…Nuh!…
It wasn’t even a complete word. But it was a hundred times more intense than any distress I’d felt so far.
It was also farther away.
As quietly as possible, I crept out of the house so as not to wake Arnold, and went out one more time by myself in my Chevy Aveo.
Hopefully I wouldn’t be too late to make a difference.
—: Chapter 8 :—
When I got to the epicenter of where I believed the distress call would occur, I was driving east in my Aveo on the Martin Luther King Jr. freeway near Lemon Grove. The road was nearly empty this late at night. Nearly.
Ahead, a Toyota SUV suddenly swerved across the empty lanes and jumped the center divider for apparently no reason.
KOOM!
The corner of an 18-wheeler going the opposite direction slammed into the SUV while it was in the air.
“Oh shit!” I gasped and started breaking and swerving to the right.
Airborne, the SUV spun wildly, hovering at least 6 feet off the ground as it careened backward, glass spraying in a spiral. Metal shards flew off in every direction as it went around and around, coming right at me. Technically, I was rushing at it because it had lost most of its forward momentum during the impact, but the effect was the same — incoming SUV.
I cranked the wheel all the way over.
SLAM!
Something (probably another car) hit the right side of my Chevy, jolting me into a sideways slide.
CRUNCH!
A split second later, the SUV rammed into my driver door hard and my front airbag deployed in my face, blinding me. Not that I needed to see to take evasive action. The heavy SUV had crunched my Aveo like an accordion and was bracing it against the car on my right. As one, the tangled mass of our three vehicles skidded to a stop.
I was vaguely aware of the long-nosed 18-wheeler on the other side of the divider bucking loudly as it braked to a stop.
A few more screeching tires and the explosive noise of the crash was finally over.
BASH!
No it wasn’t.
More cars behind mine slammed into each other. Thankfully, none hit us.
Then, silence.
I couldn’t move.
All I could think was, how bad is it?
My front airbag had deflated enough for me to swivel my eyes around and scan the inside my dark car. I was sandwiched inside a cage of twisted metal. The nose of the broken SUV had punched halfway inside my car on the left. I was leaning on my side to the right, my driver’s seat having been pushed and folded over into the passenger seat. It was broken off at the bolts and crushed sideways against the right side door. The front end of the car that had hit me on the right had dented my passenger door deeply. I was pressed against the dent and the broken passenger seat like a pancake. The interior of my Aveo was now half as wide as it used to be, and I was trapped between all the broken car parts.
I should’ve been dead.
I wasn’t.
I was shaken up, half in shock.
But I didn’t feel any pain. Not a good sign if it meant my spine was broken. I could see my legs were trapped under the dash and my arms were pinned to my sides. I couldn’t move them either. I was effectively trapped between the SUV and the car on my right by the intervening metal.
Panic swept over me.
I had to get out of my car!
Now!
I flared my elbows out as hard as I could.
I felt all the muscles contract in response.
I grit my teeth and roared.
The metal maw around me shrieked. As I pressed against the dent where the car to my right — an old Honda Accord — had struck, it inched outward in response, metal screaming.
Once I had some wiggle room, I was able to twist and brace my feet against the floorboards. Knocked the broken passenger seat aside and placed both hands on the dented passenger door where the Accord was still jammed into it. Pressed outward again. Another piercing squeal as I roared and pushed, moving the Accord another few inches on the asphalt. A third primal push, and my mangled passenger door fell off the frame, banging against the ground. It came to rest leaning against the Accord.
With a final roar I forced the damaged dashboard up off my legs using my forearms. My legs free, I lay back to relax for a moment. My heart hammered in my head as I gasped for air from the effort.
A few moments later, I was able to collect myself. I crawled out of the open passenger doorframe and squeezed over the front end of the Accord.
Its airbags were inflated behind the cracked windshield and obscured my view of whoever was inside. Hopefully they had survived and were okay.
There was already a line of cars stopped behind the wreckage on my side of the road, their headlights shining on me like spotlights.
How many people had seen me do the impossible?
I didn’t want to think about it.
Some woman ran up to me, holding a phone to her ear. “Are you okay?” The concern on her face was overwhelming. “I’m talking to 911.”
“Uhhhhh… yeah. Yeah.”
“Maybe you should sit down?”
“I’m okay. We need to help them.” I pointed at the SUV, which looked like it was destined for the wrecking yard. It was destroyed, broken and battered and barely recognizable. All around it, paint and panels were torn away like flesh from bone. The front corner was a mangled mess, jammed halfway into the passenger compartment. I couldn’t even see the engine, but it was in there somewhere.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Phone Woman said. “You look like you’re in shock.”
I probably was. I nodded silently and walked over to the SUV. Miraculously, the airbags inside had deployed.
I wasn’t sure what I could do at this point.
More and more people on the freeway behind us were getting out of their cars. Most hadn’t been in any of the other collisions, except for possibly one — a man with an American Trucker baseball cap on his head. He was directing traffic on the other side of the center divider, waving a flare in his hand as the cars crept past in the other direction.
Had he been the one driving the 18-wheeler that had hit the SUV?
I glanced at the 18-wheeler and saw the driver door was wide open and the cab empty. There were red glowing road flares laid out behind the truck’s trailer.
If American Trucker was indeed the driver of the 18-wheeler, it meant he wasn’t injured. That was good news.
I wasn’t injured either, as far as I could tell.
That meant I should be helping too.
I walked around the mangled SUV to inspect the damage. Whenever Fire & Rescue got her
e, they would need the Jaws Of Life to get the victims out.
I couldn’t tell if the people inside the SUV were dead or what.
“Maybe you should get out of the road,” Phone Woman said to me. “Go sit down where it’s safe.”
I nodded at her before ignoring her. Focused on the mangled SUV. Assuming no one had been thrown clear, the only people inside were the driver and front passenger. A man and woman. Probably out for a Saturday night of fun. So much for their evening.
Both were unconscious. Both looked as crumpled up as their SUV. I peeled the shattered driver door window off with my fingers and peered inside. It was hard to see with the airbags in the way.
Reaching through the window frame, I tore the driver’s bag off the steering column with a violent ripping and popping sound and threw the bag on the asphalt like it was a big stiff pillow case. Then I opened the door.
The man’s pants were soaked with blood.
Not good.
I tore the door off and dropped it.
It banged against the road.
A sharp corner of the engine block had punctured the firewall and slammed a separate shard of torn sheet metal into the guy’s inner thigh.
If his femoral artery was punctured, he could bleed out within minutes, if he hadn’t already.
I grabbed his slacks in both hands and pulled. The threads popped until a hole tore in the fabric. I ripped it all the way open.
Blood leaked from the wound around the metal shard.
I waited to see if the bleeding continued or stopped. It was possible I had jarred the wound while tearing his slacks, causing the wound to leak. If so, it might stop on its own, in which case it was best to leave it be. The shard might now be in a position to restrict blood loss, which was a plus. I didn’t want to make things worse.
Blood burbled out.
Nope.
I tried to apply direct pressure with the palms of my hands, but it was useless. No matter how I placed them, more blood came out around the shard. It was a ragged piece of sheet metal at least six inches wide. The wrinkled deformations in the metal were acting like blood gutters on a sword blade, creating open channels for the blood to flow out more easily.
I had to pull the shard out or this guy was DOA.
