H.E.R.O. - Metamorphosis

by Kevin Rau

We almost reached the building when a squad car tore into the parking lot toward us. The top of the car had been dented upward severely ... from the inside. A struggle was going on inside it, and the vehicle showed no signs of slowing down. Tonight was a busy night at the emergency entrance, and there was no way the car would avoid plowing into people, from civilians to nurses to policemen.

  You're armored, and super strong. Now's as good a time to die trying to save people as any other. I sprinted out in front of people toward the car.

  I heard from behind me “Hey, you're under arrest!” A gunshot went off and I felt an impact in my right shoulder blade. It didn't even hurt. Kind of feels like someone just came up and poked me with their finger, actually. I ignored it.

  Something in the back seat of the car smashed through the safety barrier, and grabbed the neck of the officer driving the car. It pulled him back, halfway into the rear seat. The officer in the passenger seat unloaded his gun into the thing in the back seat.

  I shifted into a blocking position, right foot out behind me, left arm up and ready to shoulder block the car. This is going to hurt....

  Sure enough, the car skipped up over the curb and bounced toward me. I pushed my rear foot down hard for more pressure. The concrete crumbled underfoot, and my foot dug in. The squad car slammed into me, and the front of the car wrapped around me. Metal screeched horribly as the car hit, and it felt more like a running back plowed into me than a vehicle.

  The car came to a sudden stop, and I stumbled backward, falling on my backside, due to my rear foot being embedded into the sidewalk. I felt jolted, but nothing really felt damaged or broken. Hot dang!

  The left rear door of the squad car flung off the vehicle. It banged loudly as it bounced on the blacktop and into another vehicle. What the heck is that? Some kind of ... mutant ... crawled out of the car. It was a person gone horribly wrong. Big bug eyes, huge mandibles at the jaw, its skin was dark, and the arms ended in big pincers. Wasn't there a movie about this?

  He, or it, screamed, looked around, and leapt at the people all standing there staring at it open mouthed. Oh, crap, it's going to eat somebody. I scrambled to my feet, right when it grabbed a man, who was holding a woman with a bloody mouth and throat.

  She screamed. Oh. My. God. This is the mother of all screams. It felt like someone cranked up a rock band's huge speaker system, then let loose a bloodcurdling scream of terror meant to be in a horror flick at the microphone. I felt the vibration through my bone structure. My vision actually blurred. Glass shards flew everywhere as every window in the area shook apart.

  Bug man fell back, and all of us in the area dropped to the ground and clutched at our ears. My ears felt like they’d burst, and I now had a migraine headache.

  Hands at my ears, I looked around while grimacing. Half the people were unconscious. Screamer woman clutched at her man. I'm guessing that's her husband. Nice move lady, you took him out too. Bug man frothed at the mouth. He looked pissed off. Glass lay all over the ground and people.

  He's not going to flee, he's angry. He's going to hurt people here if someone doesn't knock him out, and if he doesn't hurt people, miss screamer will do it. I've got to take him out.

  I rolled to my feet, stumbling a bit. The eardrum damage threw off my sense of balance. Bug man noticed the movement, and must have figured I was a threat, because he stumbled toward me in a stance much like a drunken predator.

  I waited until he was almost on me, and then leapt upward at him as I tackled him. He grabbed at me with the pincers, and caught my right forearm with his left. As I smashed into him, he bit my right shoulder. Those must have been quite the mandibles, they tore into the shoulder, but my leap carried us much farther than I expected.

  We flew through the air. What the heck, does my super name have to be Jumping Jack or something? My angle took us toward the hospital, and we smashed into a window, handily going through it. Must have gone some distance, all the nearby windows were shattered.

  We landed on a TV, bounced to the floor, and banged into the bed frame before we stopped. That didn't hurt either; I'm beginning to enjoy this superhero stuff. An older lady on the room’s bed screamed at us ... about interrupting her TV show? Lady, we're in a super fight right now, step off....

  Bouncing around the room caused us to lose our grip on each other, and we both scrambled to our feet. My inner ear wasn't working with me, and I fell over. I grabbed for support and crushed a small chair as I landed. He dove at me, and I kicked up at him as he did. I landed the blow, but he grabbed hold of my foot, and tore off the shoe as my kick tossed him backward. I yelled, “Hey! That was a perfectly good, well, bloodied shoe you jerk!” It was a good kick. He went airborne, and rocked the door and frame from the impact against it.

  He stood there while stunned for a few seconds, and I successfully scrambled to my feet. I rushed him, using the extra force of the rush to add strength to a gut punch. The darn inner ear kept me from running straight, and I caught him on the right side of the abdomen.

  His body was armored; some kind of chitin covered his torso. My fist went through the chitin and into the meaty flesh behind it. It made a loud crunching sound as my fist went through. The door behind him exploded from the force, and he was propelled through it and the hallway beyond, into the wall on the far side. An orderly stopped in the hallway, just before he flew past her. I was positive she got a case of whiplash as she watched him fly across the hallway in front of her.

  My punch embedded him in the far wall at an odd angle, due to the spin the off center punch caused. The mandibles especially appeared to be giving him trouble in extricating himself.

  I climbed through the doorway, and noticed that my right arm wasn't working well. He worked at pulling his head out of the wall when I stumbled over to him. Nice for me, like most people he worked at getting his head out first.

  I grabbed his hair with my left hand, shoved his head down and plowed my knee upward into his head. I felt a mandible snap upon impact. His head jerked, but my arm strength was good enough to keep him pretty much where he was. His head absorbed almost all the concussive force of my leg. He slumped to the ground, and I was pretty sure I had broken something other than his mandible.

  He bled from his face, and one mandible now hung at an odd angle. I checked his pulse, and shook my own head as my vision blurred up.

  I stood up, blood pounded through my system. My entire right arm felt numb, as was my shoulder and part of my chest at this point. The corridor spun. It has to be poison.

  I looked at the orderly and asked, “Aaar yuu all riight?” The room blurred even more.

  “Poison, hee bit mee.” I pointed at my shoulder, and felt the room spin faster. Car doesn't kill me, but poison will? This sucks.

  I stumbled down the hallway, when the floor rushed up at my face. Everything went black.

  Chapter 6 – Time to Act

  Rael's Viewpoint