Chapter 1: The Curse of the Swelling Prize
The locker room was a cathedral of sweat and echoes. The clang of a metal door shutting, the hiss of a shower, the low hum of voices bouncing off concrete and tile. John ‘The Hammer’ Harrison stood in front of his open locker, grinning at his own reflection in the smudged mirror hanging inside the door. He adjusted the towel around his waist, then dropped it.
He flexed, the muscles in his back and shoulders rolling under his skin. The tight white briefs left little to the imagination, and that was the point. He knew the look—the casual dominance of a body that could throw a football seventy yards. He turned slightly, admiring the cut of his quad. The faded posters of old sports heroes on the walls around him felt like ancestors paying homage.
“Hey, Hammer! You gonna stare at yourself all night or you coming?” Mikey’s voice echoed from the showers.
“In a minute,” John called back, not taking his eyes off himself. He ran a hand through his damp hair. His gaze dropped to the small, tarnished silver coin he’d found on the field after last week’s game. It was cool and oddly heavy. He’d strung it on a cheap chain and hung it from his locker knob for luck. He picked it up now, feeling the familiar, unnatural warmth that seemed to seep from the metal into his palm.
The air in front of him shimmered, like heat rising off asphalt. Then it crackled, a sharp, static sound that made the hair on his arms stand up. A smell of ozone and wet earth flooded the space.
John stumbled back a step, the coin clutched tight. “What the—”
Green light, the vile color of rotting moss, coalesced into a form. It was a man, but not. Three feet tall, maybe, clad in a suit that might have been fine centuries ago but was now moth-eaten and stained. His skin was like old leather stretched over stone, and his eyes were black, beady pits that held no light. He stood on the bench with an impossible stillness, his gaze locked on the coin in John’s fist.
“Mine,” the creature rasped. The voice was the sound of gravel grinding under a boot.
“Whoa, what is this?” John barked, a nervous laugh escaping him. He glanced toward the showers. “Mikey, this isn’t funny, man.”
“He can’t hear us,” the little man said, his lips peeling back from yellowed, needle-like teeth. “The space between here and there is mine for the moment, John Harrison. Finnegan O’Malley’s the name. And you’re holding what’s mine.”
A leprechaun. The word bounced around John’s stunned brain. No. Hell no.
“Finders keepers,” John said, the old childhood taunt slipping out automatically, fueled by a lifetime of cockiness. He squared his shoulders, looming over the small figure. “Now get lost, before I squash you.”
Finnegan’s beady eyes didn’t leave the coin. They flicked downward, taking in John’s near-nakedness, his posed physique. A smirk twisted his ancient face. “Ye like attention, do ye, boyo? Admiring the temple. I can see that.”
John felt a flush of embarrassment, quickly drowned by anger. “Get out of my head, you little freak.”
“Freak, is it?” Finnegan’s voice dropped to a poisonous whisper. “Let’s see how much admiration ye get now.”
He flicked his gnarled fingers.
A sensation, hot and sudden, bloomed at the base of John’s spine. It wasn’t pain, not exactly. It was a profound, deep pressure, a spreading fullness that made his breath hitch. He looked down.
The white cotton of his briefs was straining. The fabric, stretched taut across his backside, began to creak. He felt a relentless expansion, a swelling that pushed outward and backward, the muscles and fat morphing under some unnatural directive. The soft pop of a stitching thread sounded like a gunshot in the silent locker room.
“What are you doing?” John gasped. He dropped the coin, which clattered on the linoleum, and reached back with both hands. He could feel it happening under his palms, the firm curve growing larger, rounder, heavier. The fabric dug cruelly into his newfound flesh.
“Giving ye something to truly be proud of,” Finnegan crooned, watching with clinical interest. “A monument to your vanity.”
John stumbled backward, his balance thrown off by the new, unasked-for weight pulling on his center. His shoulders hit the lockers with a deafening bang. The metal dented. He pawed at the back of his underwear, but it was like trying to hold back the tide. Another seam gave way with a pathetic rip.
He was trapped, pinned against the cold metal by the sheer, absurd volume of his own transformed body. He could feel every inch of it, a hyper-aware, grotesque burden. Humiliation, hot and acidic, rose in his throat, sharper than any fear.
“Stop it,” he demanded, but his voice was a strangled plea.
Finnegan hopped down from the bench, landing without a sound. He picked up his coin, kissed it, and tucked it inside his filthy coat. He looked up at John, who was now breathing in ragged, panicked gusts.
“This?” Finnegan said, gesturing vaguely at John’s predicament. “This is just the opening note, boyo. Ye took what’s mine. I take what’s yours. Your balance. Your pride. That pretty form you’re so fond of.” He took a step closer, the menace in his small form radiating like a fever. “I’ll be seeing you. We’re not even started.”
The green light began to swirl around him again, the air buzzing.
“Wait!” John shouted, pushing futilely against the lockers.
Finnegan’s grin was the last thing to dissolve. “Enjoy the attention.”
The crackle vanished. The smell faded. John was alone, slumped against the lockers, the only sound the frantic hammering of his own heart and the shallow tear of overstretched cotton with every slight, terrified shift he made.