Duel Of The Serpents

Ancient Gods stirred, their long slumber broken by an animosity as great as their own. K'uk'ulkan, the serpent deity of the Maya, and Quetzalcoatl, the feathered snake god of the Aztec, awakened as unquenched aggression and hatred called to them. Long they'd battled as Quetzalcoatl strove to usurp K'uk'ulkan as the true serpent God, their war as eternal as the heavens.

Their ancient struggle interrupted long ago by the arrival of the ships carrying the strange outsiders, they'd fallen into a battered and exhausted torpor, resting and regaining their strength as centuries passed. Now, eager to renew their war of hate, the Gods once again selected their vessels, vessels who would lead armies that would slaughter in the name of their God. Much had changed during their long sleep, the old rituals of blood offering and sacrifice were no longer practiced, but the loathing between men remained... as it always had, and always would.

K'uk'ulkan entered His vessel, the older man experienced, robustly built, and powerful, his detestation rich, thick, and satisfying. As K'uk'ulkan joined with His champion, so had Quetzalcoatl entered His, the man young, strong, and vibrant, the hatred of His vessel no less than that of His rival.

The resumption of their eternal battle near at hand... the Gods rejoiced.

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Jorge stood well back from the straining machines, watching with lips tightened and jaw clinched, as the three enormous dozers hauled mightily against their heavy chains. Clouds of thick black smoke poured into the atmosphere from four exhausts as the massive crawlers struggled to extract the hydraulic piledriver. The giant excavator, configured as a piledriver, was buried all the way to its house, it's undercarriage completely submerged in the thick, soupy mud. The crew had been trying to extract the machine from its quicksand like prison for more than two hours, but as it thrashed around like a trapped dinosaur, it only sank deeper into the mire.

Freshly graduated from the Technological University of Panama, he was one of the site engineers, responsible for overseeing the sinking of the piles for this section of the project. Fifteen different construction crews were pushing their way through the Panamanian and Columbian rainforest to extend the Pan America Highway. They were working south from Yavizan, Panama, and north from Apartadó, Columbia, to connect highway 1, to highway 62. Once completed, the project would finally bridge the Darién Gap, and join South America to Central and North America by road. This was his first assignment on his first job, he was going to prove he was up to the task, and he was going to put the duties he was responsible for back on schedule despite the incompetence of the machine operators.

The terrain made construction difficult, but he was also battling stupidity. In addition to the dense vegetation, rivers, swamps, mountains, seemingly constant rain, and flash floods, the stupid operators were continually getting the heavy equipment stuck. They were sinking piles to support a low, twenty-kilometer bridge over a floodplain, when the stupid fucking piledriver operator stuck his excavator for the third time in the past two weeks.

After many long moments of roaring effort, the equipment operators realized they were accomplishing nothing positive, and they stopped trying. As the three dozers backed up slightly to release the tension on the chains, Jorge stomped to Gael as he directed the efforts to extract the mired machine. Gael was the most experienced operator on site, and the SUNTRACS union representative, which meant he was the one to talk to if there was a problem with one of the operators.

"Dammit!" he raged as he approached the older man, his boots slipping and sliding in the mud despite the sole's heavy cleats. "How did this happen? Are your operators fucking stupid?"

Gael glared at the engineer. He considered most engineers little more than over educated idiots, and the young ones, like this asshole, were considerably worse. They thought because they had a college degree, they knew everything, when in fact, most didn't know shit about how the world

actually

worked.

"We warned you that the ground wouldn't support that machine, but you think you're so smart, you ordered it in anyway, so don't start trying to blame this fuckup on us! This is your fault!"

"Why didn't he back out when the soil began to liquify?" Jorge yelled.

"Are you that fucking stupid?" Gael barked in return. "Do you think he just kept pounding? Of course he tried to back out, but that machine weighs 70,000 kilos, and the bottom fell out, just like we told you it would!"

"Fuck!" Jorge raged. "We're already behind schedule, and your stupid fucking operator has made it worse! It's going to take the rest of today, maybe more, to dig out that fucking excavator! That's going to tie up another machine, and that's going to put us even farther behind... all because of your people's incompetence!"

"You motherfucker," Gael growled, his voice low and threatening. "You're the one that's incompetent, and if you try to blame your fucking mistakes on my guys one more time, I'm going to kick your ass."

"Are you threatening me?" Jorge snarled in reply.

"You bet your ass I am. You and your little fucking computer don't know shit about how stuff actually gets done, and every time you fuck something up, you try to blame it on us," he rumbled as he poked Jorge's well-muscled chest with a thick finger.

Jorge shoved Gael hard. Gael was a big, thick man, well-muscled from years of hard labor, but Jorge didn't care. He was tired of this incompetent bastard, and his equally inept crew, fucking up everything he did to try to get the job back on schedule.

"You're about to fuck up again, junior," Gael growled as he roughly shoved Jorge in return.

Jorge was slightly taller, and noticeably slimmer than Gael, but with thicker arms and a more sharply defined chest. Like most in his native land, he had thick black hair and dark eyes, but now his normally pleasant face was twisted and ugly. With a snarl of the purest hate and rage, Jorge lunged.

Gael's strength was less obvious than Jorge's, but no less impressive. Though he wasn't overweight, the cut of his heavily muscled body had been softened by age and a thin layer of fat. Like his young opponent, he had dark hair and eyes, the sprinkling of grey interwoven in his otherwise black hair speaking of his worldly experience.

The two men slammed together, their powerful arms going around each other's shoulders and ribs as they staggered under the impact, their booted feet skidding and slipping in the well churned earth. Grunting and snarling, evenly matched in size and strength, their thick muscles twisted and bulged as they strained against each other to drive their opponent to the ground.

"Hey! Knock it the fuck off!" the site foreman bellowed as he ran toward the brawlers, his own footing unsure on the rutted and slippery ground. As the foreman arrived, the two men thudded hard to the slippery, clinging earth. Gael, landing on top, drew his thick fist back, but before he could deliver the blow, the foreman grabbed his arm, hauled him off the younger man, and flung him to the soft ground. "I said, knock it off!" the foreman roared. Jorge lept to his feet and began to charge as Gael scrambled up from the ground, both men heavily smeared with grime.

The foreman whirled to face Jorge before shoving him away. "I said, knock it off! Both of you!" he roared again. The three men stood panting, Jorge and Gael ignoring their covering of muck, glaring at each other as the foreman stood with his hands on the chests of the two men. "What the fuck is wrong with you two?" he bellowed as his glare alternated between the two men.

"This asshole pushed me," Gael growled.

"I don't give a shit! You're done for the day... both of you! Now get the fuck out of my sight!"

-oOo-

The leading construction crew, being so far from support, depended on food, water, fuel, and construction supplies to be delivered using the muddy, rutted track they were creating as they battered their way through the jungle. Because it'd take more than four hours to transport the men to and from the nearest hotel to the construction site each day, as the construction crept along, a mobile camp moved with them. Trailers, dragged on sleds pulled by bulldozers, were positioned well behind the active construction area to provide the men with small offices, a kitchen and dining room, a small emergency medical suite, and sleeping quarters.

Well behind the first crew, a second construction crew followed in their wake. Building on the work done by the leading crew, the second crew performed final grading, laid bitumen, installed guard rails, completed bridges, and striped the completed road. The crew at the front was twice the size of the one following, and every week, the following crew arrived with the supplies to relieve half the men working at the lead site, giving the crew at the sharp end a break from the relentless, grinding, toil.

The engineers and foremen slept in one group of trailers, four to a room with a small bathroom for each suite, and two suites in each trailer. The rest of the crew, the men doing the actual construction, along with the support staff, slept in another set of trailers, the bunks triple stacked twelve to a side in a single open room, with an open, communal, shower and a small bathroom at the end. The dining and kitchen trailer, however, was different. All the men working the site, foremen, engineers, operators, and support staff, ate together in four trailers that were joined together.

Everyone had heard about the site foreman breaking up Gael and Jorge's fight, and to the surprise of no one, the construction crew backed Gael, while the engineers tended to support Jorge. The older, more experienced, engineers acknowledged that Jorge had made a mistake by ignoring the recommendations of the operators, but they couldn't condone violence, and thought that both men, at the very least, should be reprimanded.

-oOo-

Gael glared at Jorge over his tray as rain roared on the thin metal roof of the trailer. "They need to get rid of that incompetent prick," Ravi rumbled softly. "Everyone of us knew what was going to happen when I drove the machine in there without the mats, but he was in such a fucking hurry, he couldn't wait for us to place them." He paused a moment. "So fuck him if it takes a couple of days to dig the machine out."

Gael grunted but said nothing, slowly eating his feijoada as he glared across the room at Jorge, the man returning his gaze with equal hardness and animosity. If the foreman hadn't broken them up, he'd have solved the problem three hours ago.

-oOo-

"The reason we're behind is because Gael and his crew are so fucking incompetent," Jorge rumbled as he held Gael's hard stare.

"Yes... but what can we do?" another young engineer agreed. "The last job I was on, the operators were the same way. You'd tell them to do something a certain way, and half the time, they'd do it differently, just to fuck stuff up."

"Yeah," Jorge growled in agreement.

"At least they'll be rotating out in a couple of days. Is Gael in this rotation?"

Jorge grunted. "I think so."

"Good. Maybe he'll decide he doesn't want to come back."

Jorge grunted again but said nothing. The crew coming in was just as bad as the ones here now, but at least he'd have a break from that asshole Gael for a couple of weeks. He was rotating to the finishing crew on the same rotation that Gael was returning on. He simply couldn't stand that arrogant bastard, and he wondered if he could have him fired... or at least have him assigned to another crew so he didn't have to deal with him anymore.

-oOo-

Gael woke slowly, his flesh damp with perspiration despite the open windows and wearing only his boxers. There was something, something about the stuck excavator that scratched gently at his mind, something drawing him to the machine. It had come to him in a dream, a dream he couldn't remember, but the feeling that there was something at the machine, something he had to do, remained. He rolled over and tried to ignore the tickle in his brain as he waited to go back to sleep, but the urge to go to the machine became ever stronger. After tossing in his bunk for what felt like hours, he growled silently as he quietly crawled out of his cot. He considered dressing, but changed his mind, the desire to see the stuck machine urgent and overpowering. It was late, and the camp was well away from the active construction site, so he was unlikely to be seen. Even if he was, he was wearing his boxers, and it wasn't like all the men hadn't seen everyone else's dick as least once. He'd just slip out of the trailer, walk the thousand or so meters to the machine, and have a look. Maybe when he saw the machine, he'd remember what it was he wanted to do from the dream. In any case, he'd take a look, and after he quieted the small voice nagging him, he'd return to the trailer, quickly wash any mud off his feet in the shower, and return to bed.

-oOo-

Jorge jerked into wakefulness. He lay still, his bare chest damp with sweat, listening to the night sounds of the jungle through the room's open window. What had woken him? He listened to the darkness again. He heard nothing except the churring of insects and the occasional cry of something larger, the large generator that supplied the camp's power during the day switched off at night to conserve fuel. On silent feet to not wake his three roommates, he rose and looked out of the trailer's window, the jungle beyond brightly lit by the full moon. He wanted to return to bed, but something beyond the screened window beckoned him, and he couldn't turn away. Then he saw it. Movement. Something... someone, was moving slowly, stealthily, away from the camp. The man was too far away, and the light too dim to recognize the man's face, but with the way the man moved, and his size, it had to be Gael. Rooted at the window, he watched for a moment. Gael seemed to be heading toward the construction site. Jorge ground his teeth. Gael was probably going to sabotage the piledriver in some way, putting the job even further behind in an attempt to make him look bad. With a snap decision, he quickly, and quietly, left the trailer, determined to catch Gael in the act, and then use that to have the man terminated.

-oOo-

Gael approached the buried excavator. It'd rained after the crew had stopped work for the day, and now the ground around the excavator was even softer and more slippery than before. He wanted a closer look at the giant yellow machine, but he stopped approaching as he sank into the clinging mud to above his ankles. Even before the rain, the ground near the machine was so soft that Ravi had difficulty moving around, and hooking up the chains, because he sank almost to his balls with every step.

He stood for a long moment as he stared at the machine in the bright moonlight. "No," he whispered to himself. The excavator wasn't why he was here. He needed to be here, and the reason was important, but it wasn't because of the machine.

-oOo-

Jorge paused. Gael had walked directly to the stuck excavator, but then he'd stopped before he reached it. He watched as the big man stood, unmoving as he stared at the machine, but then Gael turned.

"What are you doing here, Gael?" Jorge asked as the man caught sight of him standing a dozen meters behind him. "Planning on fucking something else up when nobody's watching?"

Gael saw Jorge standing behind him, froze for a moment, and then relaxed. "I might ask you the same question. Why are you following me?"

"What are you doing here?" Jorge demanded again, ignoring Gael's question.

Gael considered a moment. Why had he come to the excavator? He had no answer, but fell back to what he'd originally thought was his reason for being there. "I had an idea to get the excavator unstuck. I came to see if it'd work."

"What is it?" Jorge asked, his tone sharp as he closed on the other man.

"I... don't know. It came to me in a dream, but now I can't remember what it was."

Jorge sneered. "A dream? You want me to believe you came out here because of a dream? I think you came out here to sabotage the machine."

Gael glared at the younger man, his blood beginning to run hot. "Fuck you, Jorge. I'm out here up to my knees in the fucking mud, in the middle of the fucking night, trying to fix your screwup, and you accuse me of sabotage? If anything is sabotaging this project, it's your stupidity."

Jorge stopped before the man, his rage growing with Gael's accusation. "Fuck you! It's you and your incompetent operators that are the real problem."

Gael glared at the insufferable prick. "I told you what I was going to do if you tried to blame your fuckups on my people again, didn't I?" he growled, his voice low and dangerous.

Jorge spluttered. "You're not man enough for that," he continued, his tone challenging.

"If Ernesto hadn't shown up, you'd have found out the man I am."

"You want to finish it here, now?" Jorge challenged, his rage and hate so great, he'd gladly kill the stupid asshole with his bare hands and then bury him under the road they were building.

The rush of hatred and anger made Gael's head swim. He was a peaceful man, married with four children and two grandchildren. He'd never struck a woman or another man, but he wanted nothing more than to teach this arrogant little prick the lessons his parents should have taught him.

"Come on, junior, if you think you're man enough," Gael growled, his tone threatening.

Before Jorge could respond, both men screamed as they fell, first to their knees, and then to their sides, gripping their crotches as they writhed and rolled in agony. As intolerable pain from their manhoods coursed through their bodies, they thrashed in the shallow, slimy mud, wailing as their penises swelled. Both men had been impressively endowed by nature, but the growth didn't stop when they'd reached their normal size and full hardness. Howling their anguish into the night, their cocks continued to grow, lengthening and thickening beyond all human dimensions as they thrust uncontrollably to vigorously fuck mud or sky. Screaming, their hips still thrusting with frenetic speed and power, the two men tugged furiously at their underwear, ripping away the cloth in a desperate bid for any relief to their intolerable agony.

Their underwear removed, the men continued to thrash and jerk, crying out as their cocks continued to enlarge, growing to enormous dimensions as they drove their monstrous, stone-hard manhoods furiously into the soft, deep mud or the darkened sky. As they splashed and thrust in the greasy slurry of earth and water, their faces twisted with agony, their spasms caused them to gradually slip into the far deeper muck created by the stuck excavator. Their bodies covered in the clinging mud, the men wailed their pain, fear, and horror to the jungle as their rods continued growing ever longer and thicker.

Unnoticed by the wailing, thrashing, mud covered men, snakes of all types--from the small Red Coffee Snake at barely a half-meter, to the massive, near three-meter Central America Boa--slithered from the surrounding jungle to form a half-circle around the trapped piledriver. The ground became a writhing mass of scales and flesh as the snakes moved closer until, as if by some silent command, the reptiles stopped, their unblinking eyes staring as their muscular bodies continued to twist and curl over and around their neighbors. Even as the very ground seemed to move, more and more reptiles appeared, forcing their way between and over the serpents already there, only to stop in the same place as all the others to watch the men as they writhed and howled in agony. As more and more snakes appeared, the men's loud cries of pain slowly died and was replaced by guttural mutterings of languages long forgotten by most.