Rick slowly turned towards his small home, gradually bringing his face to bear towards Brenden’s window, now just bellow his eye level. “Look what you’ve done to me, Brenden.”
Brenden’s lingering tent, in his pants, immediately dropped. “Rick?!”
“Couldn’t listen to me.” Rick walked closer to Brenden, as he slowly, methodically, worked out his anger. “You couldn’t respect what I wanted… needed. I told you a thousand times,” with sudden fury, his voice blew like a storm through the drapes, “TURN OFF THE FUCKING MUSIC!”
Brenden clamored back away from the window, which was filled with the visage of his angry stepfather. Tripping over his own feet, he landed flat and frightened in the middle of his room.
“Always clumsy, weren’t you? So clumsy it rubbed off on me, and now look at me.” Waving his hand towards the fascinated neighborhood, he furrowed his, now, Neanderthal like brow angrily. “I’m a fucking freak!”
“What happened, Rick? I don’t understand.” He stuttered. Rick’s head grew only the angrier. “You wouldn’t hurt me, Rick? Would you?”
With a voice thundering and reverberating through the whole neighborhood, Rick laid his condemnation, “Brenden, there is no possible future for me, any longer. I feel I should return the favor!”
Rick’s hand broke through the window, sending shards of glass over Brenden and most he possessed. Four long digits reached for Brenden, luckily the fifth couldn’t fit through the standard sized window. Plaster cracked, two-by-fours splintered, but the wall didn’t give. Rick angrily grabbed at the sides of the windows, and, with his massive build, began pulling the walls apart.
All around Brenden the house shook and shattered. Too scared to move, he sat paralyzed waiting for his stepfather to tear open the home and crush him. A peculiarity of the houses design, the floor began to separate from the walls around it, the walls it had been suspended from. Brenden felt the floor slant then twist.
Rick Split the house from roof peak to living room floor. Plaster, plastic, pipes, water, and insulation rained down throughout the house. He paused and laughed at his own strength, better then superhuman, he was a god. After marveling at his own body, he turned his attention back to Brenden, still huddle waiting in his shit hole. His hand went back through the now luxuriously wide window. His hand moved over Brenden, open ready to swat or grab. His fingers began to bend closed. There was a crack of wood, and the giving of nails, and, from between Rick’s fingers, Brenden, and his whole room fell to the first floor.
Plastic platters, multicolored CDs, shoes, socks, shirts, pants, magazines, electronics, and assorted videos were thrown into the air, like confetti at a carnival. Brenden’s paralysis broke as his entire life came crashing to floor. Before he could think what to do, he was buried in the clutter he kept.
Rick screamed in anger. Reaching down into the mess, he grabbed and squeezed at anything that might be his stepson. From his neighbor’s balcony, it almost looked like a child reaching down into a cage to find a gerbil in its bedding.
The cover of Brenden’s mattress was suddenly swept away by the murderous ten foot long hand of his stepfather. Brenden rolled onto his stomach and crawled for the next room, thinking he might hide beneath a counter or by the stove. Four fingers landed before him and drug like a rake towards him, piles of clothes and debris pooled around each digit as it approached. Brenden covered his head and prayed. Nails drug closer to him, a rolling thunder nearly deafening. They came nearly upon him then swept past him on both sides; Brenden had literally slipped through his stepfathers fingers.
Rick combed through the crap, so much clothes and cloth all colored in the same tones as his stepson. He tossed the mattresses around several times. Scrapped his fingers through the piles, but Brenden seemed to have just disappeared. Rick started pulling all things away from the center, hoping to crush each pile when they were finished. As his fingers passed through the wad of clothes, he saw one black wriggling mass. Laughing loudly, he told himself, “Got ya!”
The booming voice over his head suddenly announced that his position was made. Brenden scrambled to his legs and jumped over the nearest couch. A flat open hand swatted across the room at him, but narrowly missed him, though not the couch. A wide leather living room piece suddenly rocketed out the front window, crashing into the neighbors across the road. Brenden looked at the opening but knew if he tried to run away that way his stepfather would catch him. A black shadow moved over him and a hand three times his width towered above him. Brenden leapt to his side to avoid being crushed by the palm as it came crashing down. Landing flat to his stomach, he looked up and saw his one hope, open even. Jumping to his feet, he ran for the opening. Things began hurdling past him on both sides. Lamps, scraps of carpet, his mother knickknacks and furniture were flung by him each with force enough to crush a man’s body. The roar of something scouring the floor behind him taunted him to look, but he knew that it was Rick’s hand coming to crush him, and, if he looked, he’d likely lose what little speed he desperately needed. As he took his last steps, his heel bumped against his stepfather’s palm, but he was in and through, launched full speed into the darkness and safety of the basement.
Rick’s hand slapped against the door frame, creating a shattering clap that popped Brenden’s ears, as the pressure fluxed several dozen PSI above normal. Brenden could hardly care, he was safe. He was safe and falling into an unlit basement at full running speed. One foot came crashing down on a thin step, causing Brenden to suddenly begin hurdling forward. He fell into a ball and rolled down the decline, somehow missing the railing around the bend in the stairs and falling flat and deep in the cement room. Things bled, and muscles felt deeply bruised, but he was down where Rick couldn’t reach him now, meaning he might live.
Rick shrieked out a, “SHIT!” breaking a few windows in neighboring yards. He feebly tried to reach across the house and down the hole, but he knew he’d have to pull apart the whole house before he could, so he began. He tore at the north façade, pulling off shingles, then plywood, followed by the tearing through dozens of wood columns and insulation.
“Rick,” a neighbor called.
Rick turned his head, looked down at a miniscule withered man barely as high as his knee. The man was holding a small revolver, pointed shakily at the giant.
“Rick, you need to calm down.” Rick stopped pulling apart the wall. “You’re not yourself. The police are on their way, and I’m sure they can find someone to help you.” Rick turned to address the threat. “Now stop what you’re doing, and leave Brenden out of this.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” The old man asked confused. “Why leave Brenden out of this?” The old man looked at Rick with disbelief. Rick slowly wrapped his toe around a bush. “You should leave him alone, because he’s just a kid. All kids are unruly when their young, trust me, I have six.”
“No…”
The man paused. “No? What are you talking about?”
Rick kicked the bush towards the man. The plant landed dead mass, causing him to fall back several feet, releasing a rogue shot off into the sky as he fell.”
Rick walked over his neighbor. Overshadowing the man’s whole garden, he boomed, “Why should I need help?”
The neighbor fumbled with his handgun, but dropped it as Rick picked up his frail body.
“Why should I go back? I feel powerful. For the first time in my life, I feel I have the power to change things, maybe clean up a few of you feebleminded myopic roaches from the earth. You… You all lack the scope to see what’s over the next hill.” Rick raised the man, showing him the entire small city with one spin. “I can see over all this now. I have always seen the overpopulation, famine, diseases and wars caused by so many of you, but now,” wrinkling his nose over the small man, “as I look at how small, insignificant, each of you are, I can see over my past moral hold ups.”
“You’ve gone mad!”
“No, Mr. Cutter, I’m perfectly sane. I think you just need a higher vantage to see my point.” Rick lowered the man beside his hip, then twirled his body and launched his neighbor skyward, to the lamenting screams of his wife.
Rick turned, without a moment’s thought, and began tearing at supports of his former home. Something red flashed across his arm, then something blue. Looking over the short end of the house, he saw as several police vehicles swerved onto his street. Leaning back and looking to the other side, he saw several more cars coming from the other direction. Angrily, he gave up crushing Brenden, for today. Instead he decided to just bury him. Heaving his weight against the structure, pulling and pushing until every pillar snapped. The whole house collapsed to dust. Through the grey smoke, red and blue streams of light neared, then white bright ones searched the rubble.
Rick was already over his fifth fence, bounding for the city limits. He had crushed several yard ornaments without feeling a ping of pain on either of his feet. He wondered how thick his skin had become. He then also wondered how much larger he may still get. Crossing into a larger yard, he caught a glimpse of a man with a rifle. Suddenly a shot was fired and burning erupted in his shoulder, a burning sting. Pausing, he looked at the wound. There was no blood, the bullet still laid only on the surface. He laughed loudly, so everyone could hear. Kneeling in front of the man, he screamed his thanks. “Had you not done that, I’d probably have been hiding from guns for the rest of my life. Thank you!”