I Hate It When That Happens by cmsix

Chapter 2

They didn't work me all day, only two hours in fact, but then coach told me to get in the whirlpool, relax, take a three-hour nap and we'd start the next session. Like hell we would.

Of course we started the next session right on coach's schedule. I found that I didn't have to help at all unless I just wanted to. I could kick my brain in neutral and go along for the ride. The rub was, I still felt every damned bit of it, so when he ran me til my legs felt on fire they really felt like they were on fire to me.

It wasn't all that much fun just being a mental passenger in my body while someone else made it work, so after an hour or so of pouting I took control again. I must have been an awfully bad boy at some point in my life because someone was sure as hell punishing me for it now.

When coach finally let me go back to my room I was too tired to even turn the fucking TV on. Besides, I was afraid I'd cry right along with Mike Matasow this time and I hadn't even lost any damned money.

Yesterday, while I was working out, I'd only thought I'd been in pain . When I had to get up the next morning, to take a piss, it took me fifteen minutes to work my sore way to the bathroom. Things I didn't even have were hurting. They'd worked me so hard yesterday that even my dick was sore and I know for sure it never ran the first step.

The little greenie came along after I'd managed to shower and change into the new set of workout clothes they'd put in during the night.

He led me to breakfast, trying to spread encouragement and good cheer the whole way while I wished he would just shut the fuck up. What a delightful bowl of oatmeal they had waiting for me. I was surprised again that it didn't seem to run out before I felt full.

"Are you doing something to me to keep me from being hungry?" I asked, after the idea bugged me for a few minutes.

"Of course. When we let you go we'll teach you to do it too," he said, and that was all the explanation I could get out of him on that subject.

Today was even worse than yesterday. In the first place I was very sore from previous abuse, and in the second place coach didn't give one shit about that. I didn't realize that there was any way I could be even more tired at the end of the day, but coach showed me it was not only possible, but easy.

The next day was a shocker. After breakfast, when I appeared for my workouts, coach sent me to the whirlpool and then a semi-attractive unnamed female gave me a thorough massage and sent me back to my room for a day of rest and recuperation.

Of course I paid for it in spades the next day, but after that we alternated. One day of work and one day of rest. I asked the greenie about it and he told me that the first two days work in a row were just to get me going good, and that I'd actually progress faster with a day off between workouts.

By now I didn't give a shit about much of it. I'd come to understand that I needed it and that I was going to get it and that I might as well just shut my mouth about the whole thing. I was going to get into excellent physical shape... or I was going to get into excellent physical shape. There was no alternative.

After ten workout days I was feeling pretty damned good. I wasn't there yet but I was well on my way, so it surprised me when greenie led me past breakfast on a workout day and took me into what seemed to look like a clinic of some sort.

"What's on the program today?" I asked, as we entered.

"We are going to make some modifications to your body," he said.

"What? What kind of modifications?"

"One of the reasons for your lack of speed as a linebacker was that you have the trunk of a man who should be six foot six and the legs of a man who should be six feet even. Another glaring mismatch is your enormous feet. You do not need size sixteen quintuple e feet to carry your size. The fact that they are also flat as a flitter is not helping matters either."

"Well hell, it isn't as if I could have done anything about it," I said.

"Oh, I know that, but we can do something about it, and we intend to."

"But...

"Just save it. They need to prep you now."

I saved it and the massage female led me away down a hospital looking hall.

I don't know how they did it, but they prepped every hair off my body below my chin, every single one as far as I could tell just fell off. After they were done they had me lay on a gurney, put a mask over my mouth and nose and I don't have any fucking idea what came after that.

I don't even know how long I stayed out but I do know when I woke I was in my normal bed. At first I didn't feel any different and so I thought they might have changed their minds.

When I threw off the covers and got a look at my feet I could tell that they hadn't changed their minds at all. In the first place even my legs didn't look the same. I couldn't put my finger on the difference right away, but a guy grows accustomed to what his legs look like, and these didn't look exactly like mine. They were similar all right, but not exactly the same ones I'd had when I went to sleep.

My feet were definitely not the same ones I'd walked into the hospital's hall on. I guessed that they might be a little over half the size they had been before, and they were no longer the classic flat feet I'd always had.

Moving wasn't painful or anything and though walking was an adventure for the first few steps, it got better as I made my way to the pisser to bleed my lizard. At least it still looked the same.

Changes had been made in my bathroom too. I now had a full length mirror panel type thing and I could pretty well tell that my legs were longer than they had been and that from waist to shoulders I wasn't quite as long as before. Funny though, I appeared to be the same height as always.

Greenie showed up as soon as I was dressed and led me away for breakfast. Breakfast hadn't changed.

"That's the damnedest operation I've ever had. I can plainly see that you've made changes to my body, but there isn't even one cut or stitch," I said.

"We have much better ways of helping flesh mend than stitches."

"Maybe so, but I don't even seem to have been cut on," I said.

"You've been unconscious for sixty-two days while you healed completely. There was no point in letting you come out of it since you couldn't do anything useful anyway."

"Sixty-two days. I should be all shriveled up after that long, shouldn't I?" I asked.

"We exercised you every day. We did avoid the muscles and bones that had been changed until they healed significantly, but we gave you serious workouts otherwise, every other day. You are nearly in fighting trim now. Most of the rest of your workouts will be to let you gain full control and confidence in your new body, especially the feet."

He wasn't shittin' me a pound either. During peewee, high school, and college football I thought I'd done every agility drill that God's got. Maybe, but I sure as hell hadn't done all the ones this coach knew about. He introduced me to every one I'd missed out on before.

In some ways this was even worse than before, when I was so out of shape. Since I was in pretty good shape now, he could work me longer and harder. Believe me, someone had mentioned it to him.

After about an hour an attitude adjustment seemed to settle on me. Why was I bitching so, in my mind anyway? I was fucking around flying to Washington to buy an old car I didn't need and I would have been killed in a plane crash if it weren't for greenie and his pals.

I was also going to fat and well on my way to a cardiac incident, as they'd called it, and I wasn't doing a damned thing about that on my own either. I had a job and made good money but I hated the son of a bitch. I liked to get out in the woods for hunting or fishing or even horseback riding, but I never had time for any of that and I was too damned fat and out of shape for it anyway.

It wasn't like I was leaving a good woman on her own either. My X had gotten sick of my fat ass five years ago and sent me packing. Hell, she was already married again and with the way my job kept me going, if I wanted some pussy I had to buy the use of it somewhere, cause I sure as hell didn't have time for a * meaningful relationship * with anyone, especially a woman. Hell, they expected you to do things with them besides fucking, and I hadn't had any time for that.

Greenie and his pals had done me a lot of favors; then again, I couldn't see any good reason to let them know I knew.

It was probably two more weeks of workouts, still mostly agility drills, and then I woke up one morning in a cave. I don't guess I'd have known where I was if they hadn't left some kind of eternal light bulb up in the ceiling.

Man, what a rude awakening. I mean it wasn't like greenie and I were close friends or anything like that. But dropping me off in my sleep without even a kiss my ass was a little bit on the rude side, even to a good old boy from Texas, like me. He could have mentioned it.

The first thing I noticed when I woke was that it was dark outside the cave. The next thing I noticed was that it was cold as a witches' titty in a brass brassiere in here. Of course I slept naked.

They hadn't put my complete bed in the cave but they had put the mattress, sheets, blanket, coverlet, and pillows here with me. It was like they somehow lifted the mattress off the bed, my sleeping dumb ass, covers, and all, and set it down in here. I don't guess that was really such a trick for them, probably nothing to it, compared to snatching me out of thin air as I fell from a plane moving a few hundred miles per hour at thirty-five thousand feet.

I got out of the bed to look around. That wasn't much of a trick because the damned mattress was right on the floor of the cave. The next thing I noticed as I rolled out was that the floor was dirt, and I guess that made sense. Still, I was going to be mad as hell at greenie if he hadn't left me a pair of shoes and some socks somewhere.

Shoes and socks hell, I needed some clothes. My never-dark light wasn't what you'd call a hundred-watter but it did let me see around fairly well, especially since they seemed to have improved my night vision along with fixing my myopia, and everything else for that matter. It was only a moment before I spotted the supplies they'd left for me.

The clothes were an adventure on their own. I found a good stock of fairly normal looking boxers but the trousers and tunic things were definitely made of animal skin. Hell the overcoat hickey still had the hair on the outside.

There were no shoes as I'd known them, but I did have a few pairs of moccasins, some were low top things and two pair continued up to make a pair of leggings. The socks looked more familiar, they were normal white athletic models.

After finding enough clothes to get dressed and doing the job, I decided that I'd better look through the rest of the stuff so I'd know what I had to work with.

I found the rifle, pistol, and ammunition right away. I'd never seen a rifle exactly like it and I am pretty familiar with firearms. From its ammunition I could see that it was a thirty ought six. It resembled an M1 a little but its military looking stock was similar to one for an M16 and it had a removable clip setup. There were ten clips and I guessed they would hold about thirty shots each.

The pistol was a Glock or a copy of one at least. There were several clips for it also, and even some of those that extended well down out of the grip to hold more shells, probably as many as thirty. I couldn't think of any reason I'd need a clip with that many shots. If greenie hadn't been lying I would be the only one on the whole planet that was armed.

I found plenty of clothes, underwear, socks, moccasins, and even several dozen large white bath towels. That had me shaking my head. I even had a large stack of tanned animal skins, both with and without hair, and plenty of sewing things and thread to put them together. Too damned bad I didn't know the first thing about sewing.

Another thing that seemed even odder than the towels was the bow, and the arrows. I mean, what in the hell did I need with a bow and arrows when I had the thirty-ought-six and the Glock? Prowling around more I found several spears too, that was just silly.

There were a couple of axes and hatchets, a round point and square point shovel and even a set of posthole diggers. I had three handsaws and what I thought of as an old fashioned cross cut saw, and even a two man model.

The fishing equipment they'd left me was rudimentary at best. Several large spools of line and a few dozen hooks and sinkers must have been all they thought I needed. At least they'd had the decency to leave me about fifty Bic lighters. With all that firewood cutting equipment I didn't even want to think about having to learn to start a fire by rubbing two sticks together, if that was even really possible.

The food they'd left me was a big disappointment. Fifty three-pound round boxes of Quaker oatmeal just didn't seem like a generous diet. I knew it would keep me going but I guess they thought it would get me moving around among the locals a lot more quickly.

Greenie's note was the last thing I found, but when I did I sat right down to read it.

Of all the fucking nerve. He encouraged me to acclimate for a day or two and then start exploring. He informed me that the cave I was in could not be entered, or even seen, by any men, women, or animals here, unless I specifically showed them. I wondered how this little trick worked but was at least happy that I wouldn't have to worry about someone commandeering my things.

It was suggested that one of my first moves should be to capture a wild horse and train it. Just like that he wanted me to become the ancient horseman for these Neanderthals - wait a second - that's right, he'd told me they were Cro-Magnons. Well pardon the fuck out of me.

The last thing he told me was that I could use the little gadget that I'd found to signal them if they were still within this solar system. If they got the signal we could communicate if I felt I needed to. They were supposed to be here for a few more weeks and then someone would be around every year or so.