Mary Christmas 2: Christmas in July - Ch 42

Read the original story Mary Christmas and the sequel Mary Christmas 2 on DeviantArt or find it where it was originally published on AgeArts. More to come soon!

The gap in the red painted line fizzled with arcane energy. Justin lifted the egg out of the cooler, taking care to keep from accidentally breaking it. Tapping the egg on the asphalt in the gap, he created a crack in the shell and split it open, letting the yolk fall. Like soldering an electrical connection, there was a sense that the fizzling energy had been sealed up, completing a magical circuit.

“That one’s done,” he announced to Bill who was examining the magic map the elf had given him.

“Looks like there's just one more break left to fill,” he pointed at a glowing green dot on the map. "Just down the road and around the corner."

Justin frowned as he checked the map. “The next one definitely wasn't there when we started.”

“Those soldiers must have made it while we were working through the first three.” Bill made sure the eggs were secure and led the way forward.

“What do we do if we run into them?” Justin asked, following close behind.

“We'll figure something out,” Bill said. “Either that, or we let the world end.”

“Right,” Justin said, feeling himself starting to sweat despite the snowflakes that fell around them.

They hurried along, reaching the cross street and going around the corner.

“Stop!” Bill whispered, putting his arm out to halt Justin and pointed ahead of them.

Justin saw the military vehicle and the three uniformed soldiers carrying a machine with a grinding wheel on the end of it. Bill hid behind a car and Justin followed him. Peeking around the car, they watched as the soldiers put the grinder away in the back of their vehicle.

“Time to figure something out,” Justin said.

“Let's get closer,” Bill said, and they crept forward, crouching behind parked cars as they went. When they were within earshot of the soldiers, they stopped to listen.

“Put that toy down,” said one of the soldiers, the tallest, to another one, the shortest, who was fiddling with a rifle-like device.

The short soldier replied, “Come on. Aren't you itching to try it out?”

“Now way. That thing looks like it'll give you a brain tumor.”

The third soldier, more heavy-set and barrel-chested than the other two, just lit a cigarette and shook his head as if he were annoyed by the whole situation.

Justin nudged Bill and they exchanged an uncertain look. Bill nodded and whispered, “Let me handle this.”

Justin nodded.

Bill stood up and raised his hands in the air. “Hey, guys!” he shouted toward the soldiers. “We need to talk about what you're doing!”

The soldiers' training kicked in, and they snapped into a ready position.

“Don't move!” shouted the tall soldier, holding an actual rifle, now pointed at Bill.

“Don't shoot!” Bill replied. “I just want to talk. I have information about what's going on. You guys can help us fix things. If you'd just listen…”

“Listen to this,” shouted the short soldier with the ray gun.

Seeing the soldier aim his weapon, several things happened at once: Bill dropped face first to the ground to dodge the shot, the heavy-set soldier shouted, “Don't!” and the gap in the paint line beneath the soldiers sparked purple.

The short soldier pulled the trigger and a flash of white light enveloped the three of them in a bright dome 20 feet wide.

Bill and Justin smelled ozone. As their eyes recovered from the flash, Justin said, “Did they hit you?”

“I don't think so,” Bill replied as he scrambled to hide behind the car next to Justin.

“What was that flash?”

“No idea. A backfire, maybe?”

The two peeked around the side of the car to see what was happening with the soldiers.

“I told you to put that thing down!” shouted the tall soldier, yanking the sparking ray gun out of the short soldier's hands.

The short one seemed dazed. “I don't feel so good,” he said, looking down at his hands. “Something’s wrong.”

“What's wrong is you don't listen,” he said and coughed, his voice having cracked higher like a boy going through puberty.

“My uniform,” said the short one in a boyish voice, having noticed that he was getting shorter and everything he was wearing was getting baggier.

“My balls,” said the third soldier, speaking up at last as he grasped his crotch with a pained look on his face. “They went up inside. Ow.” The other boys winced in turn, either feeling the same pain or sympathizing.

Seeing that the barrel-chested soldier was looking more like a pudgy boy than a soldier now, the formerly tall soldier declared, “We're getting younger!”

“I didn't do it!” whined the now prepubescent shorter one.

The soldier holding the ray gun fiddled with the controls as his pants dropped to his ankles. “How does this stupid thing work?” he cried, his voice rising to a squeak.

All three of them were shedding gear now, setting down heavy guns that they had become too young and weak to hold. They were young boys, playing dress up in soldier uniforms, and still they continued to shrink into early childhood.

The pudgy boy tried to operate a radio, looking desperate to call for help, but the radio seemed to be dead.

Now a preschooler, the taller boy dropped the ray gun in frustration and pointed at the shorter boy. “This is all your fault!” he shouted, sounding furious and scared.

“I'm sorry!” cried the short boy, tears pouring from his eyes.

The boys became toddlers, each face filled with fear as they watched their bodies dissolve into babyhood.

All three cried like helpless babies as their legs gave out and they collapsed into the oversized pile of clothes they’d just been wearing, becoming babies and then infants and then newborns and then…

There was a sudden bright light, like a camera flash. The world seemed to lurch suddenly, not like an earthquake but like a sudden breeze had ruffled the fabric of reality like a flag.

The three soldiers were standing there, all adults, in the exact same position and pose they had been in the moment the first flash had gone off.

“We're back?” said the short soldier, his once more deep voice sounding confused and hopeful.

“Wait,” said the tall soldier, realizing that he was getting shorter again. “It's still happening?”

“What do we do?” asked the short soldier as he dropped lower into his teens.”

“Give me that, again,” the taller soldier demanded, grabbing the ray gun. He examined it even more closely, noting how it was sparking. “You broke it! Idiot!”

“What do we do?” the short soldier repeated.

By then, the three of them looked like they belonged in middle school again, just boys in baggy uniforms.

“My balls,” said the third one, wincing and grasping his crotch. “Again.” His voice sounded squeakier as he reversed through puberty.

“What do we do?!” squealed the short one as they descended into early childhood.

The taller one seemed to be looking around for an escape or some kind of solution.

“I-I don't know,” he stammered, his squeaky voice sounding more babyish as the seconds passed.

The three confused boys again seemed to be swallowed up by their uniforms, becoming toddlers then babies. Then, as they entered infancy, the flash happened once more. Reality vibrated and reset again, sending the three soldiers back to their original ages and positions once more.

“What do we do?” asked the shorter soldier, his man voice catching them off guard again, the panic in his tone sounding distinctly childish, however. “What do we do? What do we do?”

“Shut up!” shouted the tall one. “I'm trying to think.”

Meanwhile, the barrel-chested soldier discarded his rifle and took off running, desperately trying to escape what was happening, heading down the road toward where Bill and Justin were hiding and watching in dumbfound amazement as the third cycle of regression began.

The soldier made it about thirty feet before he tripped and fell due to his boots becoming too large to fit his shrinking feet. Panicked, he kicked off his boots and continued forward on his bare little feet, stepping out of his pants as they became too cumbersome. As he approached Bill and Justin, he was struggling to walk on his toddler legs.

“Hewlp me!” he begged as he reached the two of them. 

Bill and Justin exchanged a worried uncertain look.

“We don't know how,” Justin admitted.

The baby soldier began sobbing as he fell to his butt and regressed into infancy again.

Then, in a flash, he disappeared. As with the previous cycles, he immediately reappeared right where he had been standing before, once more an adult soldier, lit cigarette in hand.

The three soldiers were now in a full-on panic. While they bickered and shouted as they descended into childhood again in their endless regression loop, Bill and Justin watched in dumbfounded confusion.

“So,” Justin said. “What do we do?”

Bill replied, “We've got to close up the breach.”

“I'm not going over there.” Justin said. “Might get stuck in the same loop.”

“We have to get there.”

“No way.”

Bill thought about the situation for a few seconds. “You used to be a pitcher, right?”

“Minor league. I didn't even make it to single-A. I’d choke when the pressure was on.”

“You can throw, though.”

“Yeah?” Justin said. He did not like where this was going.

Bill opened their bag and handed him the container with the eggs. “Try to hit the gap, but don’t get too close. Just stand at a safe distance. Filling the gap might repair whatever it is that’s going on over there. Probably.”

“‘Probably?’” Justin said, sighing. “All right. What’ve I got to lose? The world's going to end anyway if I don't.”

“Just don't miss. Or, you know, world ending and all that.”

Justin counted his eggs. “Nine pitches,” he said. “And, all I need is one strike.”

Bill shouted, “Guys, we're going to try to help you. Don't shoot us! Okay?”

“Please!” shouted one of the soldiers, but it was hard to say which one as they were all preschoolers at that moment. “Help us!”

Justin walked over towards the soldiers, feeling the air getting more charged as he approached. He stopped at the perimeter of where he saw the original flash reach, sensing that getting any closer would put him inside of the temporal weirdness. He stretched out his arm muscles, prepared to throw, took aim at the break in the paint line, and sent an egg flying.

The egg landed a good ten feet past his target.

“Aw, he sucks!” squealed one of the toddler soldiers.

“Focus,” Bill said. “You've got this.”

Justin sighed and picked up another egg. He tested the weight of it, trying to compare it to a baseball. He considered the difference in shape and how that might affect its trajectory. He wished he could have a whole bucket of eggs and an hour to practice. Instead, he had only 8 more and a ticking clock.

He went to throw again, but another flash happened, right in his face. Startled, he dropped the egg.

When his eyes recovered, Justin paused to check if he was getting younger. He felt normal. The adult soldiers had begun regressing again in front of him, though.

He picked up another egg and prepared to throw again. “You've got this,” he told himself. He threw and the egg fell well short.

“We’re fucked!” shouted one of the soldiers, his voice cracking like a young teen.

Justin threw again and again, getting closer and closer each time. He paused and shut his eyes as the soldiers became babies again. After the flash, he threw again, missing once more.

Bill said, “I believe in you.”

Justin took a deep breath and threw one more egg, deciding to lob it gently this time. It arched through the air towards its target. Time seemed to slow down as it descended. It landed, right in the gap, producing a satisfying fizzle as it reconnected the line.

“Aw, come on!” squealed the taller soldier. He no longer appeared to be regressing. However, his age had stabilized at about 4-years-old. He turned on the shorter soldier, shouting, “This is all your fault!”

The two began wrestling with each other, knocking over the third boy as they did, leaving them tangled up together in a pile of oversized clothes and skinny little boy limbs.

Bill ran up and collected the soldier boys’ weapons from the pavement. “These are for big boys only,” he said as he walked the gear over to their vehicle. He found the door was unlocked and the key was still in the ignition. “Come on,” he called to Justin. “Let's get back to them. They might need our help there.”

Justin hurried to the truck, passing the boys who were just coming to realize that their truck was being stolen.

“Wait,” shouted one boy. “Don't leave us like this.”

Justin got in the passenger seat, and Bill put the vehicle in gear and drove them away.

“Good work,” Bill said as he weaved through abandoned cars.

“Thanks,” Justin said. “For once, I didn't choke.”

 “You should have made the majors with an arm like that.”

Justin smiled and then his thoughts turned to the rest of their team. “I hope they're doing okay with Mary.”

Bill nodded and kept driving.

***

Mary laughed.

Candice sensed what had amused her. The spell, which had felt crushingly heavy, had lightened up. The green color faded white again as the flow of magic smoothed out.

“They did it,” Candice said, realizing that her friends had succeeded.

“Yes. The breaches are all closed,” Mary said.

Candice tried to loosen her hold on the spell, but she felt it start to unravel as soon as she did. It seemed that, even working as designed, the spell was dangerously unstable still. However, having been in contact with the spell this long, Candice had started to sense the shape and purpose of it better.

“This is a time-related spell,” Candice said. “Not too different from the Christmas spell Santa uses. There's more layers to it, though.”

“Maybe,” Mary said, smirking.

Candice reached out her senses to probe deeper. “It's almost like it’s… copying the timing of the Christmas spell.” After a moment of insight, she declared, “It’s setting up a yearly cycle!”

Mary glanced at Candice, genuine surprise on her face. “Clever,” she said.

“Tell me, what does the spell do?” Candice asked. “We can't stop it now. Just tell me what's going to happen to us every year.”

Mary chuckled. “It's my gift to the world, the greatest Christmas present ever,” she replied. “No peeking.”