🚀 go-pugleaf

     Creating Caddman
     Part 4:  "Ch...Ch...Ch...Changes"
     Jeff Pruitt


     Through the deepest brush and tangle of weeds a lone man crawled.  His
ragged clothes hung loosely on his overweight frame, flapping in the heavy
winds that came out of the west, and exposing his unattractive skin to any of
the world that cared to look.  Fortunately, up til now, no one had cared.
     He'd been crawling for what seemed like days.  In fact, it had been
three.  The tangle of briars and brush grew all about here, forcing him to
slither through them at their base.  At first the crawling had been a
blessing from the constant wading through the Murky Swamps of Utaree.  He
had slept for days on its banks, and after, beginning the crawl into these
Brambles of Cohd.  Only his predecessors knew what lay beyond.  They had gone
there, had seen and learned, and had never returned.
     These many acres of land had now been passed on to the man.  He had heard
tales of what lay at its heart; had heard stories of the great power that lay
hidden.  And that power was what drove him onward to that central place,
sacrificing personal safety, life and limb, and even a little sanity.  (Not
that he'd had a whole lot to begin with, after all, he did take on the journey
across the Utaree Swamps.  Few people returned with their wits intact when
they traveled *that* route.)
     He would find the treasure buried there.  He would find it and use it to
take control; first of the surrounding towns, turning the populace into
mindless subjects, then on to the country.
     Someday the entire world would bow down in respect of the man called
Ontario Ron.

                              *** Secret ***

     Jen Gradelli sat on the shoulder of the town road, gravel biting into the
underside of her legs.  This was the least of her concerns.  A man lay dead
not ten feet away, killed by the neighborhood dogs.  Somehow they had known of
the danger that had faced her.
     She sat, shaking.  The reality of what had just happened finally settling
into her mind.  She had gone out for her daily two-mile run.  Not a half-mile
into it, however, she had begun to notice a stillness in the air about her.
The birds had fallen silent.  The crickets were not cricking.  Even the air
had grown calm.  The very silence seemed to be a warning; of what though she
couldn't have known.
     Dogs had begun to bark from far behind her.  Bicyclers, Jen had though.
She continued to run.
     The barking dogs were growing closer.  'So they are chasing the cyclers'
her mind explained.
     She was running down an incline in the road.  Without warning, she found
herself running into the clawing hands of a ragged, evil man.  His left hand
grabbed round her, his right clamping tightly over her mouth.  She tried to
scream but could not.  Jen found herself being forced into the grasses on the
side of the road.
     The dogs continued to bark.  They were very close now.
     Jen wrestled about with the attacker.  His left hand had found its way to
her hair, pulling her down to the ground.
     Then there was a sharp crack, and Jen's head flew back.  She twisted
about, the hands no longer holding her.
     The dogs, four of them, had all attacked the scruffled man.  She crawled
away from the fight, back toward the road.  Anything to be away from here!

     Tosha, Willie, Jack, and Bear had bitten the attacker in several vital
place, and many other non-lethal parts.  He lay in the high grasses near the
place where the forest met the highway, the life gone from his body.  Tosha
spoke to the other dogs about the good job they had done, and what needed to
be done with the body.  Jack, Bear, and Willie immediately left, running off
into the forest to find the coyotes.
     Tosha walked slowly up to Jen, cautiously, waiting to see if her face
would express approval or not.  Seeing nothing on the girl's face, Tosha sat
at her side, looking intently into her face.
     Jen wrapped her arms around the dog, crying into the black, well-groomed
hair of Tosha's neck.
     'You're welcome.' Tosha thought.

                              *** message: ***

     'Dan.'
     Nothing.
     'Dan Salzman!'
     "Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...."
     'Well," Destiny thought, at least he isn't *dead*.  She *had* told him to
put the plastic bag over his head.  It could have killed him.  As much as she
wanted to torture him, Destiny had no desire to kill Dan.  'Maybe the
experience has left him without a memory.' she thought.  Then she would
REALLY have some fun with him.
     But she needed to bring him around first.
     "DAN SALZMAN, YOU WORTHLESS, ZIMA-SLURPING, STYROFOAM-SUCKING, MORON!
BURNED OUT LIGHTBULBS ARE BRIGHTER THAN YOU ARE!!!"  Destiny shouted into his
oxygen-deprived brain.
     "Dezzzzzzzzzny?"
     Getting there.  Destiny screamed into his mind even louder:  "YOU ARE A
BANANA-YOGURT SWILLING LUNKHEAD!  YOU'RE ONLY THE SECOND GENERATION OF YOUR
FAMILY TO WALK UPRIGHT!!  YOU HAVE MORE NOSEHAIR THAN BRAINS!!!"
     Dan scrambled about in the chilling water of the pit.  All was still
dark about him and the plastic bag was still over his head.  He jumped up in
air, raising himself far enough to lift his head from the water.  The static
electricity in the packing peanuts made them cling to the plastic bag.
     A small amount of water seeped into the bag as Dan dropped back into it
once more.  The water itself was quite cold, and stank of the sewage that the
Ludlowvillians (Ludlow-villains?) were dumping into it.  It did, however,
make Dan realize his extreme thirst.  How long had it been since he had last
eaten or drunk?  Far too long, his mind told him.
     In the life he had known before the abduction, Dan had made it a point
to eat at least three bananas each day, and some sort of nourishment on the
hour, usually a fruit-yogurt, in addition to his normal meals.
     All this thought of food was making him hungry.  Again he jumped up.
This time loosening the plastic bag, so that water could enter, giving him a
bit to drink.  Dan, being Dan, hadn't counted on the packing peanuts floating
into the bag as well, and managed to get a mouthful of them along with a
small amount of the fetid water.
     Back on the bottom of the pit, safe for the moment within his plastic
bag's air bubble, Dan rolled the peanuts around in his mouth.  'Hmmm.  Tastes
like chicken' he thought, chewed them to gritty bits, and enjoyed his dinner.

     Within half an hour, Dan's legs were tiring from jumping out of the
water, and nearly all of the packing peanuts were gone from the surface.
Their remains were someplace near Dan's stomach, padding him from undue
shock.
     The peanuts gone, and his stomach full, Dan set his mind to the task of
finding a way out of the pit.  He made a few mental notes:  he was standing
in water that was above his head;  the water level was slowly rising; he was
surviving in an air bubble; and he had just eaten about a pound of chicken-
flavored packing peanuts.  He was considering the depth of the pit when he
began to feel light-headed.
     No, the term light-bodied was more fitting.
     Dan had plenty of air left in the bag, as long as he didn't plan on
living more than another four minutes.  He realized with some shock that he
was very slowly rising upward; his feet were no longer in contact with the
floor of the pit.
     Packing peanuts.

                               *** Corn Chowder ***

     Destiny awoke early the next morning, a feeling deep within her that
something was *very* wrong, not with herself, but with the world.  No, that
was too broad.  It wasn't the country.  It was partially New York - that the
governorship might be passed on to Howard Stern!  She got a mental picture of
the citizens of New York slapping their hands to their faces and "Ahhhhh"ing
like McCauley Culkin.  But the problem was more than this and more specific
to her own life.
     Dan!
     Dan had changed.  In her own mind, his presence to her telepathy had
always been weak and subdued.  Now she could sense him fully, as if he had
become ...
     Destiny fainted from the thought.  Waking again moments later, she
focused on those thoughts.  Could it have happened?  Was Dan really a ...
     She fainted again.
     Destiny woke an hour later as her alarm began clucking her awake.  For
Christmas her parents had given her several gifts, including the usual gag-
gift.  This past year it had been the clucking alarm clock.  Normally Destiny
didnt use alarms; she tended to sleep right through the ringing.  But the
clucking of the Rooster-clock was so annoying she couldn't sleep through it.
     She began again, slower and more in control of her thoughts this time.
     "Dan isn't *Dan* any more."  Speaking the words seemed to help.  "He is
more intelligent."  A little difficult to accept, but, okay.  "Dan has
abilities."  She could accept that.  She rose from the bed, wrapped herself
in the Victoria's Secret robe that Dan had given her for the first (and only)
Christmas that they had been together, and headed for the kitchen.
     "Dan is quite possibly a superguy."  Destiny grabbed the back of a
chair for stability as waves of dizziness and nausea surged through her.
'Nausea' her mind intoned, 'Why not just puke and get it over with?  You'll
feel much better, trust me.'  Destiny ignored this alternate side.  According
to her mother, unless you were a complete drunkard from either Northampton or
Liverpool, vomiting was *not* the answer to your problems.
     Since waking, his presence in her mind had grown stronger still.  She
felt a little better, though she couldn't yet make it to the kitchen.
     The minutes passed by and Destiny Joy Fate began considering the
situation.  She wanted to contact Dan, telepathically, to find out just what
the *Hell* (tm) was going on in the oversized coconut he refered to as his
head.  But she didn't dare.
     What would happen if he were phase-aligning, as she had done sixteen
years ago, after the seesaw accident?  Would he develop strange, twisted
abilities?  Was this to be expected, considering who it was happening to?
Was idiocy to be a major part of Dan's life, as it had been?
     Destiny was finally beginning to accept the likelihood that Dan was a
superguy.  She made her way to the kitchen.
     She fell to the floor only moments later, however.  This time consumed
by fits of laughter.  A thought was passing through her mind over and over:
Does he even know he's a superguy?


DOES DAN SUSPECT THE CHANGES?
OR DOES HE SUSPECT INDIGESTION?
WILL THE DEVOL BE BACK?
WILL ONTARIO RON TAKE OVER THE WORLD?
WHO WILL BE THERE TO OPPOSE HIM?
HOW DOES DESTINY KNOW SO MUCH ABOUT SUPERGUYS? AND WHAT'S THE SEESAW INCIDENT?
IS 'ACRONYM' ACTUALLY A REALLY LONG PHRASE FOR METHODS OF SHORTENING WORDS?

Comprehension sold separately, see your local Superguy dealer for details!