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Jaci's Story

Jaci had been putting it off all summer and was finally about to do it. Swimming was a traditional part of her summer and Tanya was usually willing to accompany her, if she asked. After a considerable amount of delays due to each of their personal schedules, it seemed a miracle that they would even get a chance to do this at all during the summer. Between baby-sitting and volunteering, they had little time to go swimming.
They met at the entrance hall to the pool, glad to see each other again, for the first time since Terri’s party. The swim shop had a small line up and the snack shop had changed, yet again. Now it was a Java Hut. They were quick to pay their admission, get the annoying wristbands, and make their way to the pool.
They talked considerably as they danced through the waters of the four sections of the pool, wondering how each other’s life was going and other things that made the time pass more swiftly than they may have otherwise hoped. Most of it ended up in idle chit-chat and Jaci skipping half of the story with an ‘Abajaka,’ or ‘Wooshg.’
“Have you written that story for me yet?” Jaci asked her.
Tanya had sometime ago offered to make a story for her about David Wildman, the pathetic looser at her school who had developed a crush on Jaci a while back. All of her friends had supported her and made sure she never said yes to him, despite the fact that she had, in turn, developed a crush on him as well. Now Tanya was to write of him as though some hideous creature that she would destroy for everyone’s benefit. “I began it, but it’s not finished yet,” Tanya replied. “But I’m really gonna enjoy writing the death of that cowslug!”
“Ha, ha! He’s going down!” Jaci joked as they broke down into laughter and began to swim once more. In truth, she believed that no such thing could ever come to pass, especially to her.
Half an hour later, after they had retired to the hot tub for a break and a chance get a closer look at a hot guy, Tanya decided to go and practice a few dives in the deep end rather than watch the little kids splash them from the mock river. “Come join me whenever,” Tanya offered as she departed.
Then a most disturbing thing occurred. Wildman seemed to appear out of nowhere directly across from her, his eyes haunted for some unknown reason, and on the point of desperation. “Jaclyn, we need to talk,” he said, more as a demand than a request.
“What do you want?” she asked with a trace of disdain.
“What do you think?” he retorted, as though the answer should be obvious. He began to get out of the hot tub, and Jaci followed. They began to wander around the edges of the pool.
“I dunno,” she said. “Why don’t you tell me? Afraid it’s something so stupid that I might laugh in your face?”
“You never laugh in my face, it’s always the other way around.”
“Sure it is,” she said, knowing quite well that his words were true. “Whatever you say.”
“Fine, whatever,” he started, trying to change the subject. “I just came over to ask if you wanted to go with me to the movies Friday night.”
Jaci’s heart wrenched as the turmoil within her began to rage. She had begun to like him once more, pending her desire to ‘wooshg’, and feel pity for him after all those things she had said to him on MSN messenger lately. Where her friends now to protect her from saying the wrong thing?
“Fine,” she said finally, giving in. “I’ll go out with you.”
“You will?” David asked, surprised. He felt like laughing. The time had finally come to return to his true form, now that he had been genuinely accepted by one of his peers.
The change occurred rapidly, but it nevertheless chilled Jaci to the bone. He began to transform from the tall, brown haired guy she once knew, to the creature created partially by her and manipulated by Tanya’s imagination, a cowslug.
The hideous monster was, true to it’s name, part cow and part slug. The main body was that of a slug, standing upon the legs of a cow and with a mane made of a cow’s utters. Where the mouth should have been was a gaping maw lined with layer upon layer of jagged teeth.
Had Jaci been a scholar, she would have doubted it’s existence because the proportions were those reminiscent of those found in sci-fi horror movies. She, however, wasn’t. all she knew was that she was in deep trouble. Why wasn’t anyone coming to save her?
And then she noticed something. Not a soul in the building was moving. No one on or off the decks was swimming or walking or moving so much as a muscle. The waves did not so much as splash against the walls, or ripple.
She could now recall another instance when this had happened. Back during school, when she was walking down the halls to her locker, and she suddenly bumped into an eighth grader. When he didn’t move, she began to look around and saw that no one else was moving either. They had been, as it was later explained to her, frozen in time.
That was also the day Tanya gave her special powers to defeat her science teacher, Mr. Sexton, who turned out to be some evil something-or-other. Sorcerer, she remembered. He had now been stripped of his powers and only a nuisance to his students. Now that she could remember the ordeal, she could now bring back that power to defeat this disgusting pathetic creature.
Come to think of it, he’s not much different now that he’s a cowslug, Jaci thought to herself with a smile. It was so true, he was a very pathetic person in real life. Now, how did Tanya say I get that sword?
David, even in his new form, seemed perplexed by the sudden time freeze, and daunted by the fact that Jaci was still moving. He was, however, quick to brush it off as irrelevant, as he now had her where he wanted her. “Now all I have to do is devour the one who accepted me and I can proceed to wreak vengeance on all those who have ever  turned me down in any way,” Wildman said in a strangely human voice. “I should make a list.”
As Wildman advanced on her, Jaci’s panic increased. Her memory refused to work, so she tried to escape into the water. It did not accept her, allowing her to land hard on it, and she ended up running across the strangely solid surface to the end of the pool, where the snack bar rested.
She found a saltshaker form a table on the other end of the pool and considered it. After she unscrewed the lid a touch she threw it with hopes that he would shrivel up like any other ordinary slug. Thanks to years of sports practices and games, she was able to hit him directly between the stalks he had for eyes, but to no avail. He shook the salt off as though it were nothing.
“Ha!” he laughed. “I’m impervious to that! I’m part cow, remember? Wait a second, what’s that thing on your neck?”
I remember how now!Jaci put her fingers to her throat and wished for her sword and skill back. Her hands came in front of her and a broadsword appeared into her outstretched palms. She took it up and beckoned Wildman to make the first move.
He grunted defiantly and charged, undaunted by the large sword she now held. He knew Jaci as a mere girl, a bit of a wimp really, with no knack for fighting. He soon found that he was very, very wrong.
Jaci began to skillfully cut, snip, chop and generally hack at him. He backed away and tried to charge.  She dodged and ran the blade along his slimy side. His pitiful attempts at attack were continuously quashed until the majority of him was strewn across the pools, coating them in a gooey blue blood. What was left, had no chance to protest Jaci’s decision, whatever it might be.
“Fine then,” he said, admitting defeat. “Kill me already.”
“I should, then you can’t come back anymore,” Jaci said, considering. “But I’m not evil like that. Just go away and never bug me ever again.”
“You’re going to regret this,” he declared as he began to fade from sight.
“Abajaka,” she said, not quite knowing what to say to that. “I’m so sure I will, after everything else that’s happened. Now where is Tanya? I have to talk to her.”
“Free at last!” she heard someone cry behind her. “Finally, I’m out of that stupid pool!”
“Tanya! Where were you? Do you know what I just had to do?”
“Defeat Wildman the cowslug?” Tanya inquired. “Yeah, I knew. It was in my story, remember. I had to help you through him though. Ugh! Never, ever make me have to go and do that ever again! Remember how to make the damn spell work next time. As for where I was, when I froze time, the water froze around me and I…” She hesitated for a moment and a slight flush developed in her cheeks. “I couldn’t get out.”
Jaci burst out into laughter. “Well, don’t worry. I kinda, yeah, wooshg and got rid of him.”
“Sure, let me finish my story and we’ll see the truth. Now, just ”give me a sec to unfreeze time, and everything’ll go back to normal.”
“Why did you even freeze it in the first place?”
“I am not about to let the whole world know that this kind of stuff happens. What if they linked them to me? Now, let’s just forget about all this and continue with our lives.”
As time resumed, Jaci tried to ask her something , but found she could no longer remember what she was going to ask. The events of the past time since David’s appearance swirled until they were no longer resting in her memory. “Wanna go on the slide?” she asked instead. “It’s a short line now.”