Tale #56: Enter the Mush-Room

Tale #56: Enter the Mush-Room (The final part to 'Field Tripped') (Content Tags: Messy Pull-Ups, messy and wet pants, messy diapers, humiliation, revenge, seat sniffing, major brain drain) Paranoia pervaded the entirety of his life now and it dictated his every anxious action. Dalton couldn't take a single step without worrying about what might happen to him for what he'd seen. He hadn't said a word about it to anyone, but he sometimes felt that he was being watched. His friend Kieran had suffered some setbacks since that afternoon; while Kieran had clearly been bladder-troubled before, that'd regressed to fairly frequent lapses in bowel control too. The hyperactive boy also seemed a little more juvenile and slower on the uptake, but that'd been gradually improving throughout the week, even if quite sluggishly. Kieran still didn't really know what had happened to him. His memory of the event was beyond fuzzy, and Dalton had been too frightened to tell him the full account of things. So as far as he knew right now, he'd had some brief fugue state after school and as a result was pooping in his Pull-Ups. Dalton didn't tease him for that, obviously, and he was patient with his recovering friend. It was reassuring to see that whatever had happened to him, it didn't seem completely permanent. He had only gotten a small look at what had happened himself, so he had little to go on; from what it appeared, Garrett had put something on top of Kieran's head, and it looked sort of like a large mushroom? But how could a mushroom do something like this? And how bad could have things become if Dalton hadn't intervened? Garrett's threatening words still lingered in his mind, and they directed him toward the special ed hall. If he had any hope of keeping himself safe, then he needed a better idea of what he was facing. There were two students in there who had only become occupants this year; all the other kids in the infantile room had always been dumb, but two of them had been otherwise normal students just a matter of months ago. Murphy and Vince. It was hard to believe now, since they drooled all over their shirts and loaded big crinkly diapers on the hour, but some level of intellect had once prospered behind those glassy eyes. Inquiring more about them, while also having to keep his little investigation a secret, he found that Murphy had initially just suffered similar problems as Kieran did now. It wasn't until some time after those incontinence issues began that he seemingly lost the rest of his mental faculties too. He'd just been stumbling down the hall one day, without any pants to hide his heavily soiled diaper, and with nary a thought in his ginger head. Vince, the dopey looking blond, hadn't even had that transition period. He'd been completely normal one day, and then been found in the locker room, drooling and pooping. These sudden onset maladies were an enigma, and in absence of any fruitful answers, all that could be done was to stick them away in a classroom more fitting for their enfeebled minds. The two of them were pretty much cold cases by now. A little more poking around, which involved having to talk to kids in their grade who had formerly known them, and Dalton was able to deduce that Murphy's first symptoms hadn't started until after a field trip to 'Vilestone Park'. It was during that trip where Murphy had first messed his pants, and it was afterwards that diapers became his new normal. It was time for Dalton to go on a field trip of his own. He conscripted Kieran to come with him, and convinced his dad to take the two of them camping there. He couldn't tell either of them what his real motives were, and not just because his story would likely sound a tad farfetched. Dalton was hoping to harness the same power in these woods that Garrett had seemingly found, and he couldn't have anyone trying to talk him out of using them. The camping trip was fun, though things did get rather smelly when he had to share a tent with Kieran for the night. It was genuinely the type of escape that Dalton had needed too; back home, he was perpetually having to look over his shoulder, but the chances that he'd have to worry about Garrett following him all the way out here were practically nil. As much fun as he was having, he was still here on a mission. He'd looked up online about what variety of flora grew here in the woods, and while the mystery mushroom wasn't properly listed, that resource at least helped him identify things that he *wouldn't* be looking for. What *was* listed, though on a much less reputable site, was an old native folktale about a mushroom that was said to devour the intelligence of anyone who had the misfortune to come across it. Of course the legend also recounted that the mushroom had feet and were essentially piloted by trickster sprites, but that didn't discredit the primary takeaway. More interestingly, while looking into that piece of local mythology, he came across what was alleged to be a reversal of the mushroom's effect. With a special purple flower that was told to bloom in the middle of a fairy circle, and a few more common ingredients, a cure to the 'mind sickness' was a more esoteric addition to the tale. The second day they were at the park, Dalton took Kieran on a hike and promised his dad that they'd follow the labeled trails. This too had been something that he'd had to do some research on; with a map of the park paths, he'd gotten Murphy's teacher to point out which one the class had taken. When asked why he needed to know, Kieran had slyly fibbed about being in the man's class next year and wanting to avoid a repeat trail after his camping trip. It was three miles of enchantment and beauty, not that Dalton could appreciate any of it, even with Kieran taking plenty of pictures and blathering on about whatever topic popped into his head. Dalton didn't typically mind his friend's endless talking, but with how serious the matter at hand was, he almost wished he had a pacifier to match Kieran's diaper. "..And the crazy part is, that he resurrects Shendu to get his fire power and-- Are those...Shorts?" Dalton perked his ear upon hearing his friend's sudden divergence and tilted his head to match his eyes with whatever the boy was pointing out. Squinting and following Kieran's finger, he could indeed see that a little pair of vibrant green shorts were halfway down a nearby slope; with how they looked, worn by nature, they'd been out here for a while. Bingo. In the case of Murphy's field trip here, his classmates had mentioned that he'd returned in just his shirt and messy undies. That meant there was a good chance that those shorts belonged to him, and if they were here, then this must be where it all went down. "Let's get a closer look." As they cautiously scaled down the side of the slope, Dalton realized that he'd need to search the area in secret, since he wanted to spare Kieran from knowing anything that might make him a target once more for Garrett. Halfway down, Dalton faked a slip and dramatically told his friend that he'd sprained his ankle. With enough steady convincing, he got Kieran to head off back to the campsite alone to get Dalton's dad; it was only a mile, so that meant that Dalton only had about twenty minutes or so to find what he was looking for. He waited until Kieran was out of sight and proceeded down to the bottom. He didn't have to look too hard to start seeing mushrooms, and unfamiliar ones at that. It was a good sign, since they didn't match any of the ones he'd seen in the flora guide. Dalton opened up his backpack and got out a large ziplock bag and a pair of dish gloves. There were so very many, and while he wasn't sure how many he might need in total, he decided to err on the side of caution. In contrast to the multitude of mushrooms, it took him quite some time to find even one fairy circle of them, and it was only by luck that the flower he sought was blooming in the center. This little flower held the key to helping his friend, and perhaps even to helping the kid that Garrett had first destroyed. From what he could tell, Murphy was an innocent victim, while Vince had been Garrett's closest 'friend', so he wasn't sure that the blond would be receiving any of this elusive cure. With everything gathered, and with Kieran none the wiser, it was time for Dalton to settle things with the boy that haunted him. Next time that the two would meet face to face, it would be ending in one of their destruction. To do that though, Dalton would have to stalk the stalker, so that he could rig the perfect opportunity... Two weeks. It probably only needed one week to draw all the conclusions he needed, but Dalton had needed the other week to build up his nerve. He'd quietly followed Garrett around, at school and outside of it, and he'd decided how he'd give the psycho a taste of his own medicine. It was a Tuesday when it happened. Garrett had gone to afterschool tutoring for math, and Dalton had taken advantage of that to set things up; it'd taken the better part of a week to figure out Garrett's locker combination, since he had to watch from afar, and he'd ended up paying a kid that was stationed next to Garrett in trading cards to peek for him, to get the definitive numbers. He'd also spent the time since the camping trip to brew the alleged antidote to the malevolent mushrooms. Kieran's minor symptoms had cleared almost immediately, except for fully fixing his messy accidents. For Murphy, he'd had to secretly dose the dope; Dalton had volunteered in the special ed room to get close to the afflicted boy, and little by little did he give him the antidote. Murphy was on the mend. Again, the incontinence wasn't totally remedied, but the gamer had gone from mushbrained to relatively normal. Normal enough to leave the humiliation of special ed, which would be happening tomorrow. That spot wouldn't stay empty for very long though. Dalton watched from the corner, and it was finally happening. Tutoring was over, and Garrett was ready to leave the mostly empty school behind him for the day. He had his math textbook in hand, and he was going to put it back in his locker. The anticipation of the trap to be sprung was palpable. The locker opened, and a bucket of mushrooms overturned and spilled all over the bully. Dozens of the mycological monsters clung onto Garrett's scalp before he even had time to react. Dalton wasted no time in walking over to the boy standing in a daze; the sheer quantity of the fungi dwarfed what Murphy and Vince had been dealt combined. Drool was already beginning to trickle from his lips, and his eyes gazed down in horror at the mushrooms around his feet. "I went camping. Decided I should pick some mushrooms for you, since you seem to like them so much. I even left them in your locker, just for you." Dalton's boldness was a sharp contrast to the meek lad in pissy pants that he'd been a couple of weeks ago. This had become about survival and revenge, and those sorts of tribulations had a way of changing someone. The old Dalton would have stayed in his lane and hoped for the best, but that wasn't who he was going to be anymore. "Nngh...nnooo...t-take dem' off...hurry...!" Garrett pleaded, fighting desperately to retain his mind as his reality twisted before him. "No can do, Garrett. You went after my friend and then said you'd come after me; this is just some self-defense. As luck would have it though, a desk opened up for you in the mushbrain room!" Garrett didn't seem to understand the implication and also didn't seem to notice that he was hosing his pants. Dalton watched in amusement as the jeans became fully soaked, a puddle forming on the floor underneath him. "You'll be taking Murphy's spot. He's going back to normal classes now." There was a more bug-eyed reaction to that and Dalton smirked, before holding up a little glass bottle with a blue liquid inside. "When I went mushroom hunting, I also went antidote hunting. Cured Kieran and Murphy, but I left Vince, so you could reunite with your friend..." Garrett sloppily jutted forward in an attempt to snatch the vial, but he was too uncoordinated now and slipped on his own puddle. He fell onto the floor, butt-first right into it, helping to soak the rest of his pants. "G-gimmme! Gimme now! Gimme or--" **BBRRRAAAAAP! PHHBBBBBTTT!** The last flicker of his IQ went out with that massive mound of poop in his pants. Garrett was left babbling about poo and eating his own boogers, while Dalton plucked the mushrooms from his head and got the rest off the floor. He'd dispose of them responsibly, so this wouldn't happen to anyone else. He left Garrett there, to be discovered by some poor teacher or faculty member. The last that he'd see of the monster that'd threatened him, was when he went to help out in the special ed room one last time. Garrett was the newest and dumbest of the students in there, and his absolutely massive diaper was a testament to that. The other testament to that was the sheer amount of loads that he dropped in them on a daily basis. He made the other students look like Rhode scholars! Even Vince seemed to have a small slice of justice against Garrett; the last thing that Dalton saw, before leaving for the day, was Vince sticking his padded rump up to his former friend's face and noisily filling the puffy garment with a firehose of flatulent filth. Garrett had let go of his own bowels simultaneously, and if anything, he seemed to enjoy where he was at. Drooly smile, vacant eyes, snot bubbles in nostrils, nose pressed to poopy diaper getting poopier, and happily pushing out turds in his tardpants, each one punctuated by a juicy fart. Garrett looked as ugly and vile on the outside as he did on the inside. Him and Vince were in the 'mush room' now, with mushy brains and mushy diapers, and without Dalton's mercy, they wouldn't ever be leaving.