PART THREE 10: 45 P.M. “Well according to my calculations, you shouldn’t shrink more than a few inches tonight.” Byers glanced at Langly. “Oh that’s SO comforting.” Langly grumbled. “I’m turning into a Hobbit, but at least it’s happening slowly.” “Hey, you should be happy. You could’ve disappeared.” Frohike grinned. Langly narrowed his eyes. “You should talk.” “Ahh, what do you know.” Frohike grumbled. “I know this is gonna get worse before it gets better.” “Langly, why don’t you rest?” Byers suggested. “It’ll slow down the, erm...” “Fine. I feel sorta tired anyway.” Langly yawned and slipped off the couch. “ ‘Night guy’s.” “ ‘Night.” Byers typed on the computer after Langly was in his room. “Well according to this, he won’t be in serious trouble for five day’s.” “Define serious trouble.” Frohike said. “Three feet tall.” Frohike winced. “Yikes.” “That is, if he shrinks at the rate of an inch every few hours. But I’m worried because it’s been fluctuating. There‘s really no way to tell how small he‘s going to get.” Byers said. “We’ll find out.” Frohike groaned. “Are we sure this won’t go away by itself?” Jimmy asked. “Fairly sure.” Byers sighed. “This is going from bad to worse. He has a possibly fatal condition, and we can’t even figure out how to treat it!” Frohike fumed. “I’m not about to let one of my best friend’s shrink into oblivion!” “We’ll figure something out.” Jimmy said hopefully. “And anyway, he won’t just disappear. More likely, he’ll become microscopic, if allowed to.” Byers became scientific. “And then possibly into the atomic level until-” “LA LA LA LA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU!” Jimmy covered his ears and began to chant. Byers sighed. “We won’t let that happen anyway. I was just saying-” “Well don’t.” Frohike said sharply. “You can come out now.” He added, and tapped Jimmy’s shoulder. “Did you find anything?” Jimmy asked. “No. Langly was right.” Byers heaved a sigh. “For once in his life.” Frohike said dryly. “The room the ray is in is impenetrable, except for that vent. So unless Langly gets real small real fast...” Byers trailed off. “Isn’t there ANYTHING we can do?” Jimmy asked. “Well, the pills are a start.” “How do we know that’ll help?” Frohike demanded. “It might make things worse!” “How could they? There a growth hormone.” Byers pointed out. Frohike took a deep breath. “Yeah, I guess your right.” “Why don’t you two go to bed? I want to finish up some stuff here.” Byers turned back to the computer. “No Byers. The last thing we need right now is for you to keel over from exhaustion.” The older Gunman said. Byers managed a weak grin. “Fine. Maybe things will look better in the morning.” “Oh great. Now we’re getting clichéd.” Frohike grumbled, and stumped off to his room. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 8:25 am “AAAAH!” “Huh? Wuzza?” Frohike woke with a start. He’d heard a scream come from...Langly’s room! The oldest Gunman threw himself out of bed and raced down the hall. Byers and Jimmy were also stumbling down the hallway. “What happened?” Byers yawned. “I don’t know!” Frohike tried Langly’s door. “Crap, it’s locked. Langly?” “Guys?” Langly’s voice sounded weak. “Can you let us in?” Byers called. “Umm...No.” “Why the hell not?” Frohike demanded. “You’ll see. There’s a key outside on the shelf.” Byers quickly found it. “Okay, Langly why did you-AH!” Byers entered the room and yelped. An extremely little Langly sat on the bed. “Wha-what happened to you?!” Jimmy gasped. “I just woke up like this!” Langly squeaked. “Jimmy get the tape measure. NOW.” Frohike ordered. Jimmy, still gaping at Langly, did as he was told. Langly scrambled off the bed, and looked up at his friends. “A few inches.” Langly rolled his eyes. “Remind me to double check your math from now on Byers.” “Okay I got it. Stand up strait.” Jimmy said. “I AM standing up strait.” Langly insisted. “Guys...” Jimmy sounded fearful. Langly heard Byers and Frohike gasp at whatever the tape measurer said. “What?” Langly began to tremble again. “Maybe it’s best if you don’t know.” Frohike gulped. “It can’t be that bad. Can it?” Langly shook as he spoke. “Three foot...umm...” “Three foot what?” “Just...Three feet.” Byers said, almost in a whisper. Langly’s legs lost their strength, and he collapsed. Again. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 9:06 am “Guys, this can not keep happening.” Langly held an icepack to his head. “I’ll end up with a concussion.” “You’ll end up with more than that, if we can’t slow this down.” Frohike said grimly. “I don’t understand it.” Byers said frustratedly, “There’s no reason that it should have accelerated this much, then died down.” “What about the pills?” Jimmy interrupted. “They were supposed to help!” Langly pointed out. “Apparently they helped the invading cells.” Frohike looked at the new blood sample. “Somehow it strengthened them.” “Well, this just gets better all the time.” Langly groaned. “If it’s accelerated this much in one night, we have a real problem.” Byers said worriedly. “This was a fake problem before?” Langly asked. “It wasn’t as severe.” Byers explained.“ And if my new calculation is right, your minimum height should be achieved in only a few days.” “Define minimum height.” “You don‘t want to know.” Langly was visibly shaken. “I could be wrong.” Byers added hastily. “And we’ll have an antidote by then.” “Maybe.” Frohike muttered darkly, but Langly didn’t hear him. “I’m still to big to fit in that vent. An who KNOWS what a few day’s of this’ll do to me!” Langly moaned. “At least, we know not to give you any more pills.” Jimmy said brightly. "Yeah. I should probably stop taking those." He said sarcastically. “Wow, you’re smarter than you look.” Frohike marveled. “Of course, it’d be hard for you not to be.” “Oh you’re a real riot.” Langly grumbled. “Frohike be nice.” Byers scolded. "He's having a hard time." “Yeah if you were in his place he wouldn’t--On second thought, why don’t you try to be the bigger man?” Jimmy grinned, then thought about what he’d said. “No pun intended.” He said apologetically. Langly sighed, and sat down at the computer. Then he stood up, to see the screen. “I really hate this.” ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 7:38 PM Langly was trying to concentrate on anything but shrinking, but it wasn’t easy. He was sitting on Several D&D manuals just to see the monitor, and his tiny hands could barely fit around the mouse. Sighing, he began to play hearts. “Must you do that every hour?!” He snapped when Jimmy tried to measure him. “Well, so far you’ve shrunk two inches.” Jimmy said. “And I just wanted to get the data for Frohike.” “Frohike!” Langly scowled. “That jerk just wants to gloat. He’s finally taller than someone.” “I’m taller than LOT’S of people.” Frohike said indignantly. “Yeah, like Fairies and Leprechauns...” “Shut-up short stack.” Frohike growled. “Hey, I’m gonna grow. You’re stuck like that.” Langly smirked. “You might grow. Remember what Scully said?” Frohike reminded him. “You could be like that for life.” “I won’t be.” Langly said confidently, but the look on his face was something else. “Will you two give it a rest?” Byers asked. “I will when he does.” Frohike muttered. “Langly would you just-” “No Jimmy!” Langly scrambled onto the couch. “You CAN NOT measure me again.” “I just want to check. You can’t be too sure.” Jimmy pleaded. “You measured me fifteen minutes ago. I’m 2’10.” Langly ducked away. “Yeah but-” “No buts. I’m the same.” Langly snatched the tape measurer from his hand. “Just let him measure you, you knob.” Frohike groaned. “I don’t feel like it okay?” Langly sighed. “Langly we have to keep records of this.” Byers said. “It’ll make a excellent story for The Magic Bullet.” “But in the meantime, I’ve got to deal with him.” Langly motioned to Jimmy. “I can’t be that bad.” Jimmy joked. “Yeah you can. Byers, how long until I can fit into the vent?” “By my calculations, two day’s at least.” “Wonderful.” Langly groaned.