The Grim Creeper (Part Two)

The following is a continuation from my previous post. If you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do, because you won't know what the heck I'm talking about.

-----

He stands and straightens his dark coat he's wearing over his NIN t-shirt (I swear to God, a new supervillain wearing a Nine Inch Nails shirt), and says, in his best Bela Lugosi impersonation, I'm sure, "They call me... The Grim Creeper."

Daintily, he wipes a spot of chewed meat off his lip with his thumb...

I wait for him to laugh, and he doesn't.

"You're... you're serious?"

"Serious?"

"You call yourself the Grim Creeper?"

"What's wrong with that?"

I laugh, "What comic books do you read?"

"None."

"It's obvious! You realize if I were Spider-Man, I'd have some pun about that, right?"

"You're not Spider-Man," he says.

"You're right," He barely has enough time to look surprised before I close the 15 feet between us and my fist collides with his sternum, "I'm the Punchernaut!"

His ribcage bends like a plastic coat hanger and he seems to spring off of my fist, flying back with his arms and legs flapping in front of him like little pale flags with black fingernail polish on them. He smashes through a concrete wall and into the slaughterhouse refrigeration room. I follow him, taking my time. He's going to need a minute to stand up.

Two bare lightbulbs hang from thick black cables in the cooler. They're swinging from the building shaking as the Creeper broke through the wall. Huge sides of beef hang from hooks, all of them swinging. It's almost too late for me to throw a punch when I realize one of the swinging cows is flying at me.

My fist hits it just below the ribcage. It vibrates like a drum before exploding into hamburger. I've got beef juices all over my shirt. Why do I have to wear white?

On the other side of the beef, I see no creeper. Shadows of cow carcasses dance on the walls and then I hear a single footstep behind me. I spin around just in time to feel those black fingernails rip into my cheek. I curse and pull back to throw a punch, but he's not there anymore.

Behind me again. I don't have time to spin around. Clawed fingers rake down my back, ripping my shirts, tearing into my flesh. The claws go in deep, all the way to his fingers. Then I'm not being cut. My flesh is just being ripped. After a confused yalp, I'm stumbling away, swinging my fists in any direction, looking around, hoping I hit something.

That's when I notice a shadow that shouldn't be there, slipping around on the walls and along the floors.

The bastard can move in shadows.

Again, he's behind me. I spin around with my arm out and luckily for me, I catch him in the shoulder, just as he makes a swipe at my neck. He spins on his heels so he's facing away from me. I give him a stiff kick right in the ass and he sails through the door to the cooler and into the other room. Before he hits the floor, he flattens out and melts into the shadows, vanishing again.

That's when the lights go out.

"KHSSSS," he says, "I'm not just strong and fast," he's whispering, but it's loud enough to hurt my ears. I make my way out of the cooler and I feel the gashes in my back scabbing over. Gotta love that healing factor.

"Not just strong and fast..." He's repeating himself.

"I control shadows!" He says.

I've seen a lot in my time as a super hero. I've faced a lot of scary stuff. Giant dogs, Frankensteins, loved ones in big trouble, madmen in robotic suits. That kinda stuff turns blood to steel. Not a lot scares you.

But when a man made of shadows is talking to you in an ear-splittingly loud whisper in a dark room, I dare you to tell me you're not shivering a little.

I'm about to tell him to shut up when something dreadful happens. I'm sure you've been punched in the face before, dear reader. Imagine that happening, suddenly, over every square inch of your body. Now imagine it's Superman doing it.

I squish.

I SQUISH.

It lets up and something bubbles up my throat and out of my mouth. I hope I just threw up.

"Brute strength..."

SQUISH - I fall to my knees. I'm trying to get up.

"Might work with those thugs you usually deal with..."

SQUISH - I'm on my hands and knees and more hot liquid falls out of my mouth. It tastes and smells like old pennies.

"But tell me..."

SQUISH - My arms give out and I'm face-down on the floor. My legs fall under me and I'm gasping for air. I try to inhale.

"You can't punch a shadow..."

SQUISH - The wind is knocked out of me again. If it wasn't already dark, things would be getting that way.

"Can you, Punchernaut!?"

SQUISH - That's enough.

Kids, here's some advice from your old pal, the Punchernaut. When things are as bad as they can be, with death being the only thing worse (Like say, you're in a slaughterhouse covered in beef juices and your own blood as a living shadow crushes the life out of you), things can only get better if you just try. That's right, kids, never get up.

SQUISH - I get up to one knee. I wait.

"CAN YOU!?"

SQUISH - This guy's good at super villain banter. I'm on my feet. I pull up my right arm. I wait.

"TELL ME!"

SQUISH - Suck it up. You can take it, big guy. Let's do this.

It's time to turn on some lights.

Super strength was somethign I was born with. The circumstantial badass power was something I was born with. My fighting skills I had to learn.

You can learn karate, tai kwon do, and jujitsu from a dojo.

You can learn Jeet Kune Do from watching too many Bruce Lee movies.

You can learn Bushido by watching the Seven Samurai.

But you can only learn the Divine Art of the Punching Fist from Bijorik Baldursdóttir of Iceland (Not the one on Earth. Long story).

My right arm fires straight downward so fast that the friction from the air around it burns the hair right off my arm. There's a sound like a gunshot and the bloodstained concrete floor below me bends like pudding. I'm standing in a hole. I feel another SQUISH coming on, but it lets up. I'm pushing back now. The shockwave from my arm has a (very cool) delayed reaction. The walls around us quiver and shake, just as I was seconds ago, and then they crumble like dry brownies.

The glass in the windows shatters to dust.

The ceiling catches the wind and it's gone.

I'm now standing in a hole in a concrete floor in the middle of a field, next to a cow pasture. All around me are piles of sand and pebbles that were once walls and bits of ceiling. Various instruments of slaughter are laying about, most of them pushed about 20 yards away in a near perfect circle from where I'm standing.

10 yards away from me is a very confused goth kid with a stupid haircut.

50 yards around away, arranged in a neat semi-circle, are city and state police cars, blue and red lights still flashing. Behind each car are several very confused police officers.

Aside from the wind, the only sound is my angry panting, and the confused stuttering of the Grim Creeper.

Finally, he breaks the relative silence with "THE LIGHT!"

"THE LIGHT IT BURNS!"

He begins clawing at his face, looking for somewhere to hide. There's no smoke coming from his skin. He's play-acting. I march straight up to him, stepping out of the hole I've made for myself, every muscle in my body aching from strain, and from the desire to knock this kid's lights right out.

Which is what I do. He sails the distance between us and the police cars. He crashes into one of it and flips like a rag doll over the top, ripping the lights off with him.

He's incoherant now, babbling about light and burning. He's crawling along the grass now, hooting like an idiot.

Within seconds, I'm pushing my way through the throng of police officers crowding around the boy. I grab the kid by the back of his coat and haul him to his feet. I spin him around and look him in the eye before cold cocking him right in the jaw.

I hit him hard enough that he sails up over the heads of the surrounding officers and lands on the hood of a squad car. It buckles like wax paper and steam hisses out of the running engine. I shove through the cops again to see what I've done to the kid.

His eyes roll aimlessly in their sockets, opening and closing at different times. I might have caused brain damage. His head lolls to one side and he spits out two teeth, mottled with blood, before throwing up on the hood of the car. It rolls down the bent steel and gets all over his jacket. He looks at me lazily and his eyes widen.

"Remember this face, Grim Creeper," I say. "And when you get to prison," I grab his shirt and pull him up so we're nose-to-nose "Tell them the Punchernaut sent you."

I headbutt the kid for good measure, smashing his nose like it's made of Play Doh, and he's out like a light.

The police are now standing behind me, wide-eyed, open-mouthed.

One with a shinier badge and a big hat puts his hand on my shoulder from behind. "You better get out of here, son. We called for more backup."

I don't look at him. "I'm not under arrest?"

"You escaped in the confusion. Right boys?"

The other cops nod dumbly. I see them in the reflection of the squad car's windshield. One says, "Yeah, Captain. Escaped."

Another says, "Holy shit."

Without another word, I launch straight up, the Captain's hand still on my shoulder. He jerks it away and they all watch me as I expode across the sky.

I didn't even have to run to fly.

Awesome.

The wind is fast today, and I'm flying faster. The sun's bright. It's a little brisk, but I'm shaking with adrenaline, and I barely feel it. I feel alive. I throw my hands out in front of me, Superman style, and I let out a feral roar.

"HELL YES!"

I'm brought down from this high as I crash in my back yard, rolling ass over applecart along the grass, through some dog poop, and into the big tree in that stands in the middle of the yard. My dog comes over and curiously cocks his head to one side as he sits and licks my chin just once.

I pat him on the head as I get up.

I sneak through the back door and go to my room to clean up.

Mom and I are going to a movie in 20 minutes.