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.
After a few minutes, Sven’s heartbeat had settled to a level just below panic, and he lifted his head out of his hands. He sat up on his knees, straightening up painfully, and looked down at his trembling body to assess the damage.
There was a deep red line where the bar had rested on his chest. The left side of his chest was turning purple already. Sven poked at it. It wasn’t tender yet. He got up to his feet. More pain. The basement spun. He couldn’t make the spinning stop, so he sat down again. After a few more minutes of ragged breathing, he got up.
The room had stilled enough for him to walk. He walked to the door to his storage room. It was more of a kitchen than a storage room. There was a sink, a refrigerator, two coolers, and shelves filled with non-perishable food supplies.
It was good to have a kitchen in the basement so that Sven could make himself a snack after working out. It was also good to have it there because Sven’s basement doubled as a home theater. When friends were over, the storage room was the beer locker.
He walked with a hunch in his back, not due to a lack of back training, but because it hurt too much to straighten out all the way. It hurt to breathe. Sven reached for the door handle and saw the door was slightly ajar.
“Lars,” Sven called. “Where the hell are you? I almost died in here.”
There was no answer.
Sven pushed the door all the way open and walked into the storage room.
“Lars?” On impulse, Sven spun around to look back into the basement’s main room. It was still empty.
“Lars?” he called again, this time it was a whisper.
Sven looked back into the storage room. The refrigerator was open. Not all the way, but enough that Sven could see the light peeking out of it.
So, Sven thought, Lars tries to kill me and jacks up my electric bill. Great. Where is that jerk?
Sven walked to the refrigerator. He took out a bottle of water and drank all of it. Water had never tasted so good. He closed the refrigerator, turning the storage room dark. He set the empty water bottle down on the counter, and his hand brushed up against something.
A sound came from deeper in the storage room where he kept the cat litter for Ivan. Ivan liked to play around in the storage room.
He reached for the light switch and flicked on the lights. A half-eaten sandwich sat on the counter next to the refrigerator. Sven picked it up with his thumb and forefinger. He sniffed it.
Nasty, Sven thought, I don’t know how Lars can eat that crap.
He peeked around the refrigerator and in and around the shelves. No Lars there. No Ivan either.
Then he got some ice out of the freezer for his chest and some Burt’s Bees’ muscle balm off a shelf. He flicked off the lights, walked out of the storage room, and closed the door.
The sandwich was left alone, on the counter, in the dark.
7
Milt grinned, and a half-chewed Snickers peanut toppled out of a fold behind his tongue, landing in the open Coca-Cola bottle sitting on his belly with a tiny plop. Milt nodded in approval when he heard the peanut’s magnificent, sugary splash. He loved it when his two favorite energy-givers gathered together.
After taking notice of the plop, Milt blocked out his surroundings. He turned his peripheral vision blank. He focused all of his brain power on the screen. There was nothing but the battle for him now.
The Twelve-Gemmed Hammer of Azrael was almost in his grasp. Milt was slobbering now, but he didn’t notice that either.
For
World of Warcraft
artifact collectors, the Twelve-Gemmed Hammer of Azrael was worth a lot of money. There was only one Twelve-Gemmed Hammer of Azrael in the whole
World of Warcraft,
and Milt was sure that if he got it, he could get at least $15,000.00 for it on eBay. It would be his greatest conquest yet. He had only to destroy the idiot dwarf that called himself Bane Brisgold the Dragon Slayer, and the almighty hammer would be his.
Bane Brisgold the Dragon Slayer was a stupid name for a dwarf. How many dwarves slew dragons? Milt didn’t know any. Milt had a real warrior name. He was Miltimore the Sword-Wielder, an expert fighter and sword handler.
Milt had spent almost the entire month tracking Bane and the hammer, and now he had both of them ensnared in the next game chamber on his screen. All that was left to do was to go into that chamber, annihilate Bane, and seize the hammer.
It wasn’t a matter of money anymore. Milt didn’t need any money. He had been a well-compensated computer game developer in his previous life, and along with his savings from that job, he had stashed away close to a hundred thousand dollars from selling
World of Warcraft
artifacts on eBay. He had enough savings now that he didn’t have to worry about money or actually selling anything from his store. That was especially true because Milt was smart enough to live in the basement beneath his store, so he didn’t waste money on a house, above ground apartment, or anything stupid like that.
Milt was going to capture the hammer not for the money that it could bring him at auction, but for the glory of it. Milt was the best
World of Warcraft
player in the world—no, Milt was the best
World of Warcraft
player that had ever graced the planet with his wisdom. He was going to get hold of the hammer, play with it for a while, sell it, then win it back, and repeat the praiseworthy cycle.
A viscous slobber droplet fell from Milt’s lower lip and landed on top of his protruding belly, next to his Coca-Cola bottle. Because the droplet didn’t land at the regular droplet destination that was Milt’s left nipple, Milt noticed, and realized that it was time for one last refueling before he entered the next chamber. Refueling before a battle was of the utmost importance, and Milt made sure that his brain was infused with all the sugar and fat it needed to function. That was why it was so unreservedly imperative to eat at regular intervals. Milt was no novice.
Milt felt around on his desk for two more miniature Snickers bars, grabbed them, and popped them out of their wrappers and into his mouth. He grinned as he bit into their chewy insides, remarking at his own incredible skill with the miniature candy bars. After his conquest came to fruition, he would reward himself with several Snickers ice cream bars.
He made himself stop thinking about that, there would be time for that later, and now was the time to be focused. Milt’s grin widened as he thought about the hammer, but it could only widen so far, because the thick, sticky caramel, nougat, peanut, and chocolate paste in his mouth kept his grin from reaching its full magnificence.
He picked the Coca-Cola bottle up off his belly and gulped down the rest of its contents. That helped to clear his mouth of the goo. As he drank, the peanut that had gotten into the fizzy drink made its way through the mess in his mouth and lodged, most uncomfortably, in his throat.
Milt gagged and coughed and sprayed chewed Snickers bar fluid and Coca-Cola in a wide arc that covered all of his battle station. He sprayed and spun from left to right and back again in his chair until the evil peanut shot out of his mouth and plinked into his monitor. It didn’t bounce off, but stuck by virtue of some caramel and chocolate on it. Milt watched, red-faced and still gagging a little, as the peanut began to slide its way down his screen, leaving a trail of candy bar goo behind it.
“You evil-doing ruffian!” Milt yelled at the peanut. “You, no doubt, are in league with that damned hooligan Bane the dragon-loving dwarf. I know what to do with treacherous scum such as you.”
Milt waggled a pudgy finger at the peanut, wobbled some of his bulk in his chair to bend forward an inch or two, picked the peanut from the screen, and popped it into his mouth.
“Now I’ve got you where I want you,” Milt said with the peanut lodged in a fold in his left cheek. “Do you have any last words?”
The peanut didn’t respond.
“I thought not,” Milt said, and crunched the peanut in a rage-filled chew. Then he opened another bottle of Coca-Cola and washed down the peanut particles with the delicious beverage. The Coca-Cola took care of the scratchy feeling in the back of his throat. The debacle staged by the treacherous peanut was over.
Milt gave his desk a quick survey to assess the damage to his battle station. There were fresh masticated candy bar and Coca-Cola spots all over. Some of the spots were little bubbling puddles with small bits of caramel and peanut scattered in them. Milt nodded. This was how a real battle station should look, one that was well-used and inhabited by a true warrior.
He turned back to the screen, and was relieved to see that Bane and the hammer were still in his ingenious trap. Now it was time to poke at his moronic dwarf quarry.
Milt focused hard on the screen as he probed around inside the folds of his right cheek with his tongue. He found a chunk of nougat, flipped it out of its fold with his tongue, and began to suck on it.
Then it all began to go wrong.
8
Back in the basement’s main room, Sven thought that something seemed off. Everything looked normal, but there was a strange, unnerving smell in the air. Sven couldn’t place it, suddenly feeling confused at his own surroundings. Carrying the ice and muscle balm, he turned his back on the storage room and went upstairs. The air cleared, and the confusion left Sven’s mind, leaving no trace that it had been there.