Now came the moment she dreaded every morning—leaving for work. Jane liked her job well enough, and the hours weren’t terrible, but it all just seemed so pointless. Sometimes she wished a big pile of money would drop out of the sky and land in her front yard. She would collect the heaven-sent loot, count it, quit her job, and do some traveling.
It’s alright Jane, she told herself, there must be a few more corners to cut so that I can save up for a real vacation. Sighing, she reached for—
A pained moan came from the living room, interrupting Jane’s morning self-pity self-talk.
Jane walked out of the kitchen, through the foyer, and into the living room. Vicky was in the exact position that Jane had left her in before she went to fix breakfast—sprawled out on the couch, under two large, heavy blankets. There were two boxes of tissues on the floor next to the couch, surrounded by used, crumpled up tissues in various stages of sogginess. One of the boxes was empty and lying on its side.
Jane was beginning to worry. Vicky did get sick a lot, but her colds never progressed so rapidly, and they never appeared so suddenly. Vicky had started coughing at five in the morning, and now, only a few hours later, she was completely indisposed, burning up with fever and getting paler by the minute.
Jane picked up the glass of water on the floor next to the couch. It was cloudy and had nasty looking particles floating in it—probably backwash. She took the glass to the kitchen, dumped out the water with its host of floaters, rinsed the glass out, and refilled it at her Brita faucet filter. Jane brought the glass back out to Vicky, and leaned over her prostrate roommate.
“You have to drink this, really.”
Vicky moaned and turned away, trying to hide in the brown, woolen blanket around her shoulders.
“I’m serious, you’re not gonna get any better if you don’t drink your liquids.”
Vicky didn’t respond.
“Will you take it?”
Vicky still didn’t respond.
Jane sighed, frustrated. “I’m going to put some of that fizzy vitamin C in it—you know, the kind that you like—and set it by you. Just promise me you’ll drink it.”
When Vicky didn’t say anything, Jane said, “Okay, if you don’t say anything then you promise.”
Then Jane waited a moment for an answer, and when no answer came, she said, “There it is, you’ve promised to drink the water I bring out to you.”
She went back into the kitchen, smiling to herself and thinking how clever she had just been. But the smile faded quickly as her thoughts turned to her sick roommate. Vicky looked like she was getting worse, and Jane was beginning to think she should consider staying home to look after her.
Jane set the glass down on the kitchen counter and opened the cupboard. She took a raspberry vitamin C packet out of a box in the cupboard, then closed the cupboard.
She was about to rip the packet open when a noise from outside made her jump. It was a simple scraping sound, probably nothing more than a squirrel scratching at a screen door, but the way it broke through the quiet startled Jane. Then the scraping stopped. Jane went to the window over the sink and looked outside. The street looked serene, empty. Must have been a squirrel.
Jane went back to the counter, ripped the vitamin C packet open, and tipped it into the glass.
Chapter 4
Sven could feel the droplets of sweat running off his forehead and down the sides of his angular face. It was an odd thing to notice, considering the circumstances. He couldn’t take a full breath, and the bar was squeezing the remaining air out of his already-burning lungs. He was pushing as hard as he could, but the bar wasn’t going back up, and he knew it wouldn’t. Sven was only keeping it from crushing the life out of him, and he only had a minute or two at the most until his muscles failed and the bar made him very, very dead.
I need Lars, Sven thought in desperation. Where the hell is he?
With the bar’s weight on him, Sven could only turn his head an inch or two in any direction, and there was a sharp, stabbing pain in the left side of his neck when he tried. Where was Lars? Why would he have walked away in the middle of the set?
Lars had been acting a little strange that day, sure, but he had just lost out to his arch-nemesis in the Virginia Beach Bodybuilding Pose-Off, so Sven hadn’t thought much of it. But leaving Sven in the bench like that? That was more than strange.
Trying to avoid the stabbing pain in his neck, Sven took in his surroundings by moving only his eyes. He turned his eyes up, to the left, and to the right.
Lars was supposed to be there, spotting! That was his function when Sven was benching, and one of the reasons the duo worked out together, for exactly this situation.
Spinning his eyeballs around had gained Sven nothing. Lars was nowhere in sight. Sven turned his eyes up again, looking behind the bench now. That was where Lars was supposed to be, doing his spotting duty.
A bead of sweat rolled off Sven’s forehead and into his right eye. He flinched at the sting, involuntarily relaxing his grip on the bar. The bar took the opportunity to sag further into his body, evoking a ragged, spluttering cough from the compressed strongman.
He managed a low rasp. “Lars…”
There was no answer.
“Lars…” He rasped again, a little louder this time.
Still no answer.
Each time Sven had called for Lars some air was let loose from Sven’s lungs, and the bar had sunk lower, deeper into Sven’s chest. His strength was failing, and his ragged gulps of air weren’t finding their way home. He was suffocating.
Dead bench-pressers flashed in Sven’s mind—the ones who died benching alone in their basements without spotters.
But that’s not me, Sven told himself. I have a spotter! That’s not my story. Where is Lars? Sven didn’t want to be remembered that way, as an idiot bodybuilder that crushed himself in his basement, all the people judging and offering their opinions on his stupidity. It was better not to be remembered at all.
Sven’s burning face pulsed, like his heart was beating out of his face, instead of out of his chest, as the expression properly went. Sven pleaded with the bar, pushing against it with all of his strength, but it went nowhere.
Then, as Sven continued to push, the bar began to move upwards. But it was only for a moment, and the bar immediately settled on Sven’s chest again.
He would not be racking the bar. There were only two options left—roll, or tilt.
If Sven could roll the bar down his body, he would avoid suffocation. Now accepting that he was alone and had to save himself, Sven pushed his chest into the bar as hard as he could. He loosened his grip on the bar and tried to roll it forward. It didn’t budge. Sven curled his back and tried to roll the bar again. This time, the bar rolled forward an inch, shooting pain through Sven’s body as it shifted. His chest burned, and it felt as if his ribs were about to break.
The bar was stopped, stuck after its too-short journey. Sven couldn’t roll it any farther. The weight was too heavy. If there were 200 fewer pounds on the bar, Sven could have done it with ease, if only...damn you Lars!
Stars entered Sven’s field of vision, popping and crackling about as a searing pain began to ripple up and down his body. He would have to try to tilt the bar off. That was it. The last option.
Chapter 5
Milt sat comfortably at his custom-built battle station. He had designed it himself, so that he could sit behind it for hours at a time without having to get up. There was a time when Milt would have used the word bespoke to refer to the battle station of which he was so proud, until that rapper had ruined the word in that song…that song about dandy American lads prancing about. It made Milt shudder to think of it.
There were four bags of miniature Snickers candy bars on the desk next to his oversized monitor. A cooler filled with Coca-Cola bottles sat next to Milt’s furry-slipper-clad feet. They were the good kind of bottles, the old-fashioned, glass kind. Plastic bottles were not suitable fo
r a warrior of Milt’s caliber. Those were for crass, stupid people—the losers. The only problem with the glass bottles was that they required a bottle opener, so Milt had three scattered about his desk. One of the bottle openers—the one he had used most recently—lay next to the unceremoniously torn Snickers bags.
The bottle opener’s most recent victim stood balanced atop Milt’s belly, which, over the years, had formed to become the most perfect of cup holders. The top of his belly became a stable, flat surface when he positioned himself in his battle station. Sometimes he had two Coca-Cola bottles set on top of his belly at the same time, and it could easily hold more. Right now, there was just the one bottle.
The front of Milt’s comic book and video game store was curtained and had no displays, so that most passersby wouldn’t dare to walk into the uncertain lair to disturb whatever inhabited it. For those that were adventurous enough to venture in, a huge neon sign greeted them as soon as they walked their unintelligent bodies through the door.
The sign read:
DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, NO MATTER HOW EXTENUATING YOU MAY INTERPRET SAID CIRCUMSTANCES TO BE, DISTURB THE OWNER AT HIS DESK—IN THE EVENT THAT YOU DO NOT HAVE ON YOUR PERSON THE EXACT CHANGE WITH WHICH TO PAY FOR THE ITEM YOU DESIRE, IT IS REQUESTED THAT YOU KINDLY AND HASTILY VACATE THE PREMISES.
There was a place at the counter where customers could drop off their money to pay for an item. Milt despised customers, but he was exceedingly proud of his store, so he submitted himself to the compromise of allowing the common people entry so that they may see—and covet—his collection, while prohibiting them from accosting him with their stupidity, which he believed to be contagious and transmittable through conversation.
Should a customer ignore the sign and attempt to confront Milt directly, Milt had two cans of pepper spray with which to remedy the situation. In the event of a confrontation, he could give the meddling customer a quick spray and get back to business without losing too much time dealing with the intruder. He had sprayed customers before, and it always got them to leave. Once, a sprayed customer had had the nerve to sue Milt for assault, or battery, or some such nonsense. The idiot judge had made Milt pay a fine, and that made Milt question whether he should keep his store open at all, but keep it open he did, figuring that all the other sprayings he had committed solved the problem without further incident of lawsuit, therefore future sprayings should, in all likelihood, not result in another dim-witted, though apparently legal, tongue-lashing.
Should nature call when Milt was engaged at his battle station, Milt had a way of dealing with that too. He had a way of dealing with everything, of improvising, innovating, and coming up with ingenious solutions to all kinds of problems. At his feet, in its own cooler, was an empty, liter bottle of Coca-Cola, with its top cut off. It made for the perfect urinary receptacle, and the ice in the cooler helped reduce the smell. There was also some raspberry potpourri in the cooler, and that helped the smell too. Notwithstanding all of these precautions, customers did sometimes ask about the smell. “Do you smell that?” the ninnies would ask. “Do you smell pee?” Milt always sprayed the urine-questioners, and got back to business. It was true that the store didn’t always smell like a magical fairy tale, but that was war, and Milt, when he was engaged at his battle station, was at war.
Milt was fully engaged at his battle station now. The war was on, and he was so close.
Milt smiled, picked up the half-full Coca-Cola bottle on his belly and gulped down its contents greedily. Then, without taking his eyes off the screen, he felt around on his desk until his pudgy hand found one of the Snickers bags. He smiled again as he reached into it, remembering how smart he always was to tear the bags open before his grand work began. His well-cushioned palm and fingers closed loosely around two miniature Snickers candy bars. Milt pulled the bars out of the bag, and in a single, deft motion of his fingers, he popped the bars out of their wrappers, launching them on a brief flight through the air and into his mouth.
He gave the bars a sloppy chew. Some of his chocolate and caramel-infused saliva dribbled out over his bottom lip, collecting at the left corner of his mouth, like it always did. It dripped now and then, staining the shirt he was now wearing at the left nipple. Each of Milt’s plain, white XXXL shirts was stained brown in the same place, at the left nipple. Milt knew this gave him character. The dribbling gave his mouth character and the staining gave his shirts character. Dried Snickers splotches of yesteryear decorated most of Milt’s clothing, his store, and his living space, underneath the store.
The fragrance of the Snickers splotches, mixed with the fragrance of flat Coca-Cola, urine, and raspberry potpourri gave the place a distinctive air—it was the way the lair of a deadly warrior would smell. Milt was this deadly warrior, and he relished all that came with it. With great power, Milt knew, came great responsibility, and of course there were what some of the unenlightened would call drawbacks, but Milt knew better. Milt refocused his strained eyes, fumbled around for a fresh bottle of carbonated refreshment, opened it, and stood it up in its rightful spot on his belly.
Then he returned to clicking his mouse in furious fits, reaching up every now and again to feel for pimples on his scalp.
Milt was dimly aware of someone wandering around the back of the store—a stupid customer, probably. But as long as whoever it was didn’t try to bother Milt by asking questions or trying to purchase something without the exact change to pay for it, Milt could ignore the wanderer.
Chapter 6
Sven’s mind was frantic, and filling with thoughts of death. He tried to stay focused, but the tears that rolled from his eyes weren’t just tears of physical pain. They were tears of anguish. He didn’t want to die, and he was horrified that this was it—the end.
Sven closed his eyes and pushed his chest into the bar again. The bar had sunk lower, and it was in an even worse position. Though every movement hurt like hell, he kept pushing. He tightened the grip of his right hand, then slid his left hand around the bar, turning the grip to face him. Now his right hand was facing away from him and his left hand was facing toward him.
He pushed with his right hand and pulled with his left.
The bar began to tilt down to Sven’s left, the left side of his chest taking more of the weight. The pain became worse, more focused. The bar tilted some more, and, at last, the plates began to shift. Sven told himself not to get ahead of himself. He wasn’t out of harm’s way yet, and he couldn’t let himself get overexcited at the prospect of survival. There was still a lot of hard physical work to be done to get out from under the bar, and he knew he wouldn’t be able to do it if he let his mind think the struggle was over, or even halfway through. Mental pacing and preparedness were key.
Sven was able to take a shallow, uncomfortable breath now that some of the weight was off his right side. He knew that if he could shake a few plates off the left side of the bar, he could get out from under it. He kept pulling and pushing, imagining that as he did so, he distanced himself from becoming the subject of a humiliating headline: “Greased-Up Bodybuilder Lifts Too Much, Crushed In Own Basement.”
There were six plates on each side of the bar. Four of the plates were forty-five pounds, one was ten pounds, and one was five pounds. The heaviest were on the inside, and the smallest were on the outside. The two outer plates on the left side—the ten and the five—were the first to shift. They clanked to the edge of the bar and fell off. The sound of metal on metal bolstered Sven, but the four forty-five pound plates had only moved a few inches toward the left edge of the bar. Sven kept the bar on its tilt and wiggled it this way and that, moving it only a few inches in any direction, though his effort was enormous.
After one slow minute, one of the forty-five pound plates fell off. It clanked against the smaller plates. Sven didn’t notice. All of his focus was on shaking the next plate off.
Seconds later, after the second forty-five pound plate fell, the remaining weight on the right side of
the bar finished the job. The right side of the bar was now 105 pounds heavier than the left, and Sven supported the bar as it was pulled around his torso to the right. The plates on the right side came off in a jumble, and Sven pushed the bar, with the two plates still on its left side, off him with a weak, grating roar.
He rolled off the bench to his right, almost knocking his head against the plates. Now that the bar was off his chest, the pain was much worse. His left side felt destroyed. The skin and muscle burned where the bar had been, and there was a dull ache deep inside his ribcage. That wasn’t counting all the muscles that had been pulled and strained in the struggle. But that was alright, because Sven had made it. The injuries would heal. He was going to live.
Sven’s vision was blurry, his ears were ringing, and he was ready to throw up. He put his face in his shaking, battered hands, then pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes.
And that is why, he told himself, you never, ever, use clips when you bench. If he had, he would be dead. He never used clips at the gym, and there were none in his basement.
Benching doesn’t kill people, Sven thought, clips kill people. He almost laughed hysterically, but anticipated the pain and stopped himself.
Crouched next to the bench, Sven was breathing in shallow gasps. He still couldn’t breathe all the way in, and he considered sitting up to help the air get in—and to remedy his painfully dry throat—but it was too soon to be straightening up. He still needed a minute or two to recover, to appreciate the fact that he was alive.
Suddenly, a sound came from the back room of the basement, like a box falling. Sven’s ears perked up. Maybe that’s where Lars is, Sven thought, messing around with the supplies in there. But why would he be doing that? Growing angrier, Sven listened for more sounds, but none came. If he hadn’t been in so much pain, he would have called out to try to find out what was going on in the back room.