4

"How do you get goddam thing in!" shouted an elderly man, who was quite grumpy, while standing on a chair and fiddling with a light bulb.

"You twist it, you idiot!" shouted an elderly woman, who was just as grumpy as the man, while she held a knife and violently cut up some green vegetable.

"I know that, smart ass," the grumpy man shouted back at the grumpy woman.

"Well, Fred, you evidently don't," the woman said in a smart-ass tone.

"You know what, June?  Just shut your mouth.  I don't want to hear it."  Fred didn't want to hear it because he, like I have previously mentioned, is a bit grumpy.  It really didn't matter what it was, as long as he didn't hear it.

"I hope you fall on your ass," June hoped loud enough for grumpy Fred to hear.

"I'm already on my goddam ass, June."  Fred stepped down off the chair after he thought he thought he had done a good enough job on the light bulb.  The bulb fell to the floor and shattered, but Fred pretended he had done an excellent job and ignored it.  "I lost my goddam job.  That means I'm on my ass!"

"Fine another job, you fat fart!" June said while continuing her smart-ass attitude.

"Everything requires knowledge about computers.  How the hell would I know anything about computers?  And I have that worthless nephew to worry about, too.  Why doesn't he help with anything?  The goddam bum!"

Just then, Matt, while clutching his stomach, walked through the door.  The old folk's attitude turned complete around.

"Hi, Matt," June said in a cherry voice.  She obviously didn't notice her that her nephew was in excruciating pain.  "How was your day?"

"Sucked.  I'm going to sleep."  Matt proceeded directly to the stairs and went up to his room.

"See?" Fred said when Matt was out of earshot.  "Lazy and worthless.  The goddam bum.

"Oh, shut up," June said.

Up in his room, Matt flung his backpack down and collapsed on the floor.  He had just enough strength to reach up and pull his beloved blanket over him.  This would keep him warm when he had the terrible dream about having his flesh eaten by giant man-eating spiders taking over the world.

Over at the Borndum Corporation there is a checkup being conducted.  The auditor general's office was taking a look over things.

"Hello, gentlemen," Borndum said when he entered the room.  He actually despised these men, as you could imagine.  They came in and told Raymond how to do his job.  Raymond really hated these guys.  He hated auditors ever since his biking accident.  It really had nothing to do with auditors, it's just that he hit his head rather violently and he's hated anyone that works directly for the government ever since.

"We're just going to take a look around and make sure everything is safe.  We don't want any mutated spiders out biting kids on field trips or anything."  The leader of the auditing group was being as friendly as it was possible for him to be.  It was actually quite friendly, indeed.

"If a kid got bit by one of my animals, I'd know.  Everything's perfectly safe, trust me!"  Raymond Borndum gave his best smile, which turned out very hideous.

"Well, okay.  You seem like a good, straightforward fellow."  The leader turned towards the rest of the auditors and said, "Let's get the hell out of here.  We can get a few drinks before heading back to the office to make up some sort of a report."  Twisting back to Borndum, the man said, "Alcohol helps the imagination."

The auditors cleared out and Borndum was left alone with all the idiots that worked for him.  That was easy enough, Borndum thought.  I should invite them around for dinner more often.

Borndum walked into his lab and looked around.

"What should we mess with today, Strum?" Raymond asked his top scientist.  Strum was Raymond's right hand man and did all the work that Raymond needed done.

"You wanted to work with the green gas and…" Strum was cut off.

"Yes!  The green gas!  What does it do?"  Borndum was pretty clueless about his products.  That's mostly because he didn't create them.  Strum did.

"It gives you amazing power and makes you insane.  It also helps you with your balance, which means someone could control that glider we invented last week with much ease."  Strum always had to say "we invented," because Borndum never gave full credit to anyone.  He always had to have something to do with whatever was begin talked about.  He didn't care if it was the Berlin Wall.  He had a part in it!

"Did you get any volunteers to try out the gas?" Raymond asked his top scientist.

"No.  No one wanted to be turned into a monster."

"Fine.  I'll just have to do it my self.  Get the container ready!" Raymond ordered.

"What?!  Surly you can't be serious."

"I am serious!  And please don't steal lines from other movies.  That's plagiarism."

Despite the fact that Borndum thought using that line would be plagiarism, he also believed that he had a part in the making of that line.

While Strum set up the gas chamber, his boss sang various different songs that Raymond thought he played a part in writing.

"Okay, everything is ready," Strum informed.  "Just lie down on that uncomfortable metal bed over there and let's begin."

Raymond Borndum did just as he was directed.  He walked over and laid down on the uncomfortable metal bed.  Then cold metal restraints came down over his ribs.

"Cold," Raymond stated the obvious.

The bed moved backwards into the glass gas chamber.  The bed moved from vertical to horizontal and when everything was closed up the gas began to pour in.  It's hard to say where the gas was coming from.  It appeared to be coming from vents, but there was no gas on the other side of the tank.  Oh well.

Continuing on with more relevant information, Borndum started shaking violently and Strum turned off the gas more concerned about saving his own ass rather than his boss's.

Raymond was unconscious when Strum approached the glass.  When Strum got the glass, however, Raymond snapped awake, broke the glass with his fist, grabbed Strum's throat and threw Strum against a wall that happened to have many glass containers by it.

"Umm…  My bad… Sorry about that…" Raymond took a quick look around the room to make sure nobody saw what happened.

Meanwhile, back at the Hallark residence, Matt woke up with an erection the size on Florida.  He had been dreaming about Sam again.  I won't go into details because it's quite disgusting and gross and… and… and disgusting.  Not that that's ever stopped me before.  But I think I should be considerate off all my readers and not just the males.

Anyway, when Matt woke up, he got up off the ground and happened to catch a glimpse of himself in a mirror on his closet door.  Matt was so shocked at what he saw he passed out.

While passed out Matt was able to prepare himself for what he was going to see when he woke up so he would be in a continuous loop of passing out and waking up.  When Matt woke up, once again, he got up and looked at the mirror.

Matt still had a hard time coming to grips with what he saw, despite all that preparing he did while he was passed out on the floor.  Matt now had muscles the size of Texas, but, comparatively, a head the size of Road Island.

Matt then had his attention drawn to the left where he could see out his window into Sam's.  Matt loved living next door to Sam.  At the moment she was getting dressed, and, once again, I won't give out much detail.  I will say that she was dancing around nude in her room.  And I'm not talking about your average, clean, 1950's dancing, either.  Matt was amusing himself by calculating the volume of her breasts, for about the 5022 time in the past month.  He always came up with about 452.16 cubed inches.

Matt's aunt's voice distracted his attention from the window.  "Are you up, Matt?  Time for school," June was saying in her extra sweet voice.

"Yeah, I'm up," Matt said through his door.  He took another look at the mirror and smiled.  "I am hot, if I do say so myself."

"What was that?" June asked.

"N-nothing, Aunt June."

Matt lunged down the stairs and then jumped up putting his sneakers against the wall to pretend he walk on the wall or something absurdly stupid like that.  Unfortunately, he found it hard to pretend after he fell to floor.

When his aunt and uncle heard the loud thump they turned around to see what happened.  Matt was already back on his feet and running out the front door.

"Wait a sec, Matt," Fred said.  "You gonna help me paint the kitchen after school?"

"I wasn't planning on it, why?" Matt asked.

"Oh, well… I thought you might want to spend some uncle nephew quality time by painting the kitchen."  Uncle Fred looked at Matt waiting for his reply.

"I wish I could, but I have this… Well there's going to be a… a…" Matt paused, shifted his eyes, and thought for moment.  "There's an exhibit on radiation and I'm going to see an experiment there after school."

"Oh, well… You know I just want to spend some good quality time with my nephew and all…"

"You just want me to paint the kitchen," Matt shot back.  It wasn't in an insulting manner.  He merely stated it as the fact that it was.

"So, ummm…  Meet me here at three-thirty?" Fred asked as Matt grabbed his backpack and rushed out the door.

"Why is he in such a hurry?" June wondered.

"He probably wants to catch up with that red-headed slut who lives next door," Fred told June.  "You know them raging hormones kids have.  I sure remember.  Viagra just isn't the same, I tell you."

When Matt got out the front door he saw Sam walking out her front door as well.  There was loud shouting coming from inside that door going something like this:

"Fine!  Go out dressed like that; see if I care!  You're just making a statement.  A statement that you're a slut!  Slut, slut, slut!"

Sam's father was yelling at her for the billionth time that week.  There was never a quiet moment at the Wantsum house.

Matt followed Sam to the bus stop and then started practicing things to say to her and fair distance away.  Matt didn't want to go up to her without anything to say to her.

"So, are you a screamer or a moaner?"  Matt didn't think that was quite what he wanted to start out with, so he continued.  "How about the Mets?  They lost again last night?  That's unbelievable.  Why do I have to root for such a crappy team?  I know I could root for the Yankees, but they always win.  Want a team with some excitement, you know?  You don't?  Don't you watch baseball?  You should.  The way it works is…"

Matt was so enwrapped in the conversation he was having with himself that he didn't notice the bus was there until it started to pull away from the stop.

When Matt noticed the bus leaving he abruptly stopped talking to himself and raced after the yellow vehicle.  Just like the previous day Matt was beating on the back of the bus.  Except instead of stopping the bus just sped up.

Surprisingly enough, Matt was able to keep up.  This wasn't because of his amazing running speed.  As a matter of fact, Matt wasn't running at all.  Matt's hand was caught on the back of the bus.  He didn't know how or why, he just knew he was stuck and was being dragged across the street pavement.  Matt didn't get his hand off the bus until he arrived at school.  By then he was all bruised and scratched up.

Henry was racing through the house to find his father.  Henry really didn't feel like being late for school for the fifteenth time in the first month.  He shot past an open door when he realized his father was in that room.  Henry quickly backed up and walked into the room where his father was lying on the floor and moaning like someone experiencing his first hangover.

"Dad, what happened?  Where were you last night?" Henry inquired.  Henry tried to seem as concerned as possible, but he really just wanted to get to school.

"Last night I was…" While Raymond tried to remember what had happened the previous night, he saw shots of himself dancing with a bunch of scantily clad women in his eye's view.  "No, that was my bachelor party," Raymond decided aloud.  "I don't remember what I was doing last night."

"That's all fine and good, but I have to get to school.  Will you get off your lazy ass and…"

Henry's thought was left incomplete when two Borndum corporation employees walked in.  One was a slightly attractive woman with brown hair.  Raymond had had an affair with that woman when Henry's mother was still alive.  Henry's mother committed suicide soon after because of the lack of love she felt in her family.  The other person was a hideous looking man with no interesting history at all.

"Borndum…" the woman began when Henry returned the favor she had done him by cutting her off.

"My father is sick!  Piss off!  I need to get to school!"

Henry was ignored while the lady continued.  "The glider and the greed armored suit that looks like a goblin are stolen!  Oh yeah, and Strum is dead."

"I'm sorry, what?" Strum said when he came out of his trance-like state.  He had still been thinking about his bachelor party.