Betty, it’s… uh… it’s me Bruce. There’s going to be some… some things you’re going to hear about me. I don’t know much they covered up in the red tapes but… but…
Look, they say he was created now, created by the explosion or whatever but he was there. He was always there. Even when I was a kid the bastard never stopped bothering me and…
I sound crazy huh? Look I have to go. I don’t know how far away your father is but he’s coming and… and… he really stresses me out. I just want to let you know I love you and… I’m sorry I never told you everything. It… it’s hard… it’s really hard. Goodbye Betty.
…
The Crystal Goose was a small little bar in Arizona. It didn’t have many customers but on the rare occasion it did, it was usually military men.
Men in green from Stark Industries and Ferris Aircraft made themselves comfortable in the little bar. The bar was rarely full but when it was, the nights were anything but boring.
What made it all the more entertaining, at least for the bartender Maylene was the stories all the men in green told.
Colonel Casper over at Stark Industries talked about Doctor Will Magnus and his robots, people over at Ferris talked about this man in green over at Coast City who could make giant hammers pop out from a small little ring on his finger (a story which Maylene thought was a load of baloney) and the kids talked about their shitty lieutenants. Stories were all different and exciting but there was always one story, one story that stayed the same.
Stanley Jackson had had a lot of odd jobs and one of those jobs was at the Los Diablos Military Base.
And while Maylene didn’t believe in stories about men with green rings that could make anything, she did believe in the Hulk.
Because the destruction he left was real.
“All this fancy talk about Metal Men and men with rings,” Stanley said. “But have any of you seen the Hulk and lived to tell the tale?”
There was an audible groan from everybody in the bar. They’ve heard this story a thousand times before but despite that everybody entertained old Jackson because there was something entertaining about the Hulk, something entertaining about the timid man turned monster that caught everybody’s attention.
“I was the first one to see the Hulk. The first
…
one I tell you. There was this scientist, Doctor Banner. Him and the old Thunderbolt were working together on this gamma bomb. I don’t know why they wanted to build it; all I knew was that my job wasn’t to ask questions.
Now, Banner, Banner was a peculiar case. He didn’t seem like much of a man to me. He heard insults but ignored them, some of the men on the base used to steal his food, play pranks on him, basically make the man’s life a living hell but Banner didn’t pay them no mind.
But then there were his eyes.
I decided to join in on the fun, made a joke about his fiancée Betty.
Jackson chuckled.
Yeah get this, the doctor was engaged to Thunderbolt’s daughter. Can you believe it? Hunched out nerd like him engaged to a girl with legs that dangerous? Anyhow, I made a joke and the man grabbed my palm and this Banner, this milksop grabbed my arm. His grip was tight as hell, I swear he was about to break my wrist but the look on his eyes… the look on his eyes…
I could swear they were green.
He let go, apologised but needless to say I was a little creeped out.
I was there when they were testing the bomb. Buncha scientists hunched over these machines, the beeping and all those flashing lights of was enough to give a man a headache. Old Thunderbolt Ross was being the angry jackass he always is but I couldn’t keep my eyes off Banner. That incident had me all shaken up.
The bomb was scheduled for testing at some empty patch of desert. It was just around fifteen minutes before launch when sweet Betty Ross found out about the lightshow and…
Jackson chuckled.
Oh, you should’ve seen Thunderbolt’s face as his daughter ate his head up. The boys and I were trying our hardest not to laugh.
It was then the alarms decided to light up, the big blaring red lights. Some stupid ass kid crashed through the fence and was driving his car around the test area. The bomb had already launched by then and there was nothing any of us could do.
Or so we thought.
Brucie boy rushed through the desert in a jeep. He crashed into the kid’s car. Nobody could do anything, there were panicked calls and desperate attempts but we were dealing with a gamma bomb, there was no way we just stop it.
We don’t know what happened to Banner, all we know is that the bomb went off with Banner and the kid caught in the middle.
And then a few folks in special suits went out to look for him, for what remained. Imagine our surprise when we found Banner alive and well without a single scratch on him and the kid knocked out in a ditch, curled up like he was fast asleep.
“Can I get another glass?” Stanley asked, tapping the counter.
“Coming right up,” Maylene said heading over to the beer rack and filling up a glass.
“What happened next?” asked a private, a young kid with wisps of a beard and moustache.
“What do you mean?”
“You said you saw the Hulk,” the private said. “How’d you see him?”
“Kid have some patience,” Stanley said. “Can’t you see I’m drinking here.”
The bar chuckled. A filled glass was by Stanley’s shoulder, he took a sip. “So
The boys and I found a small town. I hesitate to call it a town, it was barely big enough to be a village. Thunderbolt put out an order to evacuate the town and those people agreed. We couldn’t use the base cause of ‘contaminants’ and all of us had to wear these hazmat looking suits.
Banner and the kid were sent to the big town house for some testing. Two scientists were sent in to carry out some tests, you know. The rest of us watched the perimeter.
Ms. Ross or should I say Mrs. Banner wanted to get in but Thunderbolt and some of the boys stopped her. Y’know how emotional women get.
Now I don’t know what happened inside, what I know about Banner’s transformation is from the reports and I’m not sure I should be divulging what was in those files so I won’t. I’ll just tell you what I heard.
Sunny, one of the scientists over at the house told us that those machines, the ones they use to track radiation, didn’t register anything. You’d think two men caught in the midst of a gamma bomb but there was nothing, it was just blank.
They were just about to call it quits, to give up trying to make sense of the whole situation when suddenly the radiation machine started going off.
Banner was stumbling around like a man possessed, knocking shit over. He was complaining about a noise or something, the details are hazy. Scientists tried to calm him down but he ignored them, his teenage boyfriend tried to do something but Banner ignored him. Sunny’s assistant George tried injecting him with a needle but and I swear to god this is true, the needle broke and Bruce threw the man out of the window like he was a toy.
And Bruce, he wasn’t there anymore. There was just this green thing, tearing through cars and trucks and houses like they were nothing. Bullets bounced off of him like they were paper balls, he knocked everybody around.
I didn’t see much; it was all a blur of explosions. His roar was louder than the gunfire. But I do remember, I do remember one thing. I caught a glimpse of his eyes, those green eyes of his. I realised Banner wasn’t there anymore, it was only the Hulk.
And in those green eyes, the only thing I saw was rage.
The ice was starting to swirl around the brown liquid.
“I realised something when I saw the Hulk,” Stanley said. “Those monsters, cryptids, whatever you want to call them. The Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, part of what fuels the hunt is the mystery, the search, the fact that they might exist. Hell, I don’t know if they do exist or not but after seeing the Hulk, maybe just maybe… we’re better off not finding them.”
Comments (0)
See all