[LNHY/ACRA] The Daily Super Short-Short Story #20

[Saxon Brenton]

The Daily Super Short-Short Story #20
 
A Devil Came Down to Georgia 2
 
Last Time: Damian the nightsider wondersock was heading towards town 
using a possessed human as his vehicle, intent on doing evil.
 
     As he got closer to town Damian reached out with his mind and 
began scanning the area for appropriate victims. On the one foot this 
was easy, because Damian made his human mount take off his shoes while 
driving; but on the other foot it was harder because Damian was still 
down near the pedals, surrounded by the cold steel of the truck cabin. 
The situation would reverse itself when they stopped and Murdock got 
out, swapping Damian's confinement in the cabin for confinement in 
boot leather.
     Anticipation gripped Damian. If the sock could have breathed in 
with a sigh of delight, he would have.  .oO( Choices, choices, so 
many wonderful choices. )
     The rig pulled up at a truckers stop and Murdock pulled on his 
boots. Damian hated the fact that God's curse meant that, except 
under rather special circumstances, the socks could only totally mind 
control their victims while on their feet. Influence, make suggests, 
or put strange ideas into the meat-sacks' minds was okay from a 
distance, but properly *controlling* their victim... Nup; had to be on 
their stinky monkey-boy feet. But if that's what it meant to travel 
around and scout out a proper victim...
     Damian let Murdock eat a meal as part of his cover, then took 
the man for a walk around and about. There was one fleeting impression 
in particular that the sock was interested in finding, but along the 
way he took note of other enticing possibilities.
     Like the teenager in a drug pushing syndicate who needed just a 
*bit* more cash to maintain the lifestyle that he was using to impress 
his girlfriend, and who Damian was sure could be manipulated into 
doing something *really* stupid...
     Or like the senator's wife who was growing bored with being the 
decorative-spouse-from-a-wholesome-family, and might just be lead 
into an ultimately embarrassing extra-marital fling...
     Or like the hospital manager who was taking short cuts with 
supplies that, if exacerbated, could lead to a quite a number of 
deaths.
     Damian was so engrossed with these possibilities that he was 
letting Murdock run on automatic. This was a mistake, because when he 
was being directed by Damian, Murdock didn't have much of what could 
be called analytic functions, and so neither of them reacted until too 
late to the mugger that grabbed Murdock's shoulder, swung him around, 
and smashed a fist into Murdock's face.
 
Tomorrow: A fight scene
 
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Saxon Brenton    University of Technology, city library, Sydney Australia
     saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au 
The Eyrie Archives of Russ Allbery which collect the online superhero 
fiction of the rec.arts.comics.creative newsgroup can be found at:
     http://archives.eyrie.org/racc/