Part 22 (1/2)

But Delores was still trying to tell him something.

That's when Frankie launched into another verse about if he hit his head Roger would be dead but he doesn't care if he flops so that's why he was the tops. By the time the crowd had gotten around to shouting ”Hey!” he had made his decision.

He wouldn't have a chance for the Cowabunga-munga again.

”Frzzm!” his challenger insisted as the leather-suited muscleman ran out into the waves.

A giant wave, hundreds of feet high. One man against the force of countless tons of water, with enough destructive force to annihilate this beach and everyone on it. How could he refuse an adventure like that? Roger would never forgive himself if he backed down from the ultimate surfing challenge.

Maybe, though, he might want to say a final word to Delores.

He looked around for the beautiful young woman, but, right where he thought she should be, there stood a new pair of surfers, even stranger looking than Dreaddy and his crew. One of them was entirely covered in s.h.i.+ning silver, as if his skin were made of metal, while the other's face and body were completely covered by coa.r.s.e brown hair.

”Who are those guys?” Roger asked uncertainly.

”Nothing to worry about,” the Prof a.s.sured him. ”That's just Mort the Killer-uh- Surfer, and Diablo, the-er- Surfer with the Mind of a Man. They're here to make sure no one interferes with your facing the Cowabunga-munga.”

Oh. He had heard those names somewhere before. Or maybe something like those names. There was something about those names-why was everything making him uneasy?

Brian started another verse: ”Now Roger he is on his own, If he wipes out, he's blood and bone-”

That was it. Roger didn't need any more coaxing. As soon as the song resumed, all his doubts were gone. He pulled off his socks and sneakers, balanced the board atop his head and ran down the beach.Brian kept on singing: ”Yeah, he may just be smashed to bits But with us he'll always be a hit.”

Roger fully agreed. It was time to catch a wave. He jumped atop his board and quickly paddled out into the sea. It was difficult to concentrate, though, and the pad- dling seemed to get harder as the music grew fainter. Soon, it was difficult to do anything much except listen to that ever-increasing roar in his ears. From the sound, it was going to be the biggest wave Roger had ever seen.

He redoubled his efforts, paddling as fast as he could. The roar was so loud now that it drowned out any traces of the surf guitar behind him. It was harder still to paddle when there was no music at all.

His challenger paddled by Roger, the other's motorcycle-trained muscles pus.h.i.+ng the water out of his way. But Roger had to win this surfing duel! The honor of the beach was at stake! And he wasn't going to do it staring at the other guy's back. If there was no music to urge him on, he would have to urge himself. He would have to make his own music. Roger tried singing a verse off the top of his head: ”Here it comes, the Cowabunga; Gotta get there, ain't gettin' younga.

Gotta paddle, can't be a fool.

Gotta finish this surfin' duel!”

It may have been a little rough around the edges, but he thought the verse was pretty good for a first effort.

”Hey!” he shouted, wis.h.i.+ng he could somehow hear the surfers back on sh.o.r.e shouting along with him. He knew the music had helped his paddling-he had pulled alongside his opponent by the end of the second couplet. He glanced over his shoulder, and was startled to see how far he had come from the sh.o.r.e in one short verse-the people back there looked like nothing more than tiny specks on an endless strip of sand.

He realized he must have discovered a Law of the Beach-things happened when you sang. It was only logical, considering all the rules he'd confronted elsewhere in the Cineverse. He thought of singing another verse to really get ahead in this surfing duel, but stopped as he listened to the wave-the roar was so loud now, he'd have to shout to be heard.

That's when he looked up and saw the Cowabunga-munga, and all thoughts of surfing duels left his head.

It was not a wave-it was much too large for that. It was more like someone had taken a five-hundred-foot-long knife and cut the ocean in half, and then stuck one piece on top of the other-and the top piece was coming straight for Roger! It was a wall of water, looking as solid as a mile of gla.s.s, its very top hidden in a mist that nudged the undersides of the clouds.The Cowabunga-munga; it certainly lived up to its name. Roger guessed the legendary wave was still over a mile away, but it stretched the length of the horizon, as if it had already conquered the ocean and everything within it, and was coining to take him next.

Roger blinked. What was he doing here? He didn't know how to surf. Even if he did, there was a wall of water out there so huge that it was probably unsurfable. Delores had tried to warn him away. Why hadn't he listened to her? But he knew why-it was that infernal surfing music! That beach party beat had kept him under its spell until he had woken up to the reality of the Cowabunga-munga!

Roger glanced down at the surfboard that he sat upon, and his disquiet turned to despair. It was even worse than he feared. He remembered how Doctor Dread had described this board as ”customized,” but Roger had been too far gone under the surfing spell to realize the true meaning of Dread's additions!

Even half-gone into surf mania, Roger had noticed the board's special auxiliary pipes, and that odd lump of plastic over the rear fin. Now, though, looking at this customizing in the clear light of total panic, he realized that the ”pipes” weren't pipes at all; they were sticks of dynamite wrapped in waterproof tape. And that lump around the fin looked an awful lot like plastic explosive. And why hadn't Roger noticed the wires before? One red, one black, they led from the plastic lump to a small digital clock taped between the board and the dynamite, a clock that read eleven fifty- seven-three minutes to twelve!

Roger had seen enough movies to know what happened at twelve. Doctor Dread and his cronies had prepared for every contingency. The thing he sat on top of wasn't a surfboard; it was a bomb. He had three minutes to live.

Roger realized that this must have been what the Plot-master was warning him about.

He looked up again. The Cowabunga-munga was not only huge, it was fast, and it was coming straight toward him.

Roger swallowed, the salty taste of sea spray on his tongue. Maybe he didn't have three minutes to live after all.

^ ^ 17 ^ ^

”CAPTAIN CRUSADER'S SECRET!”.

Thoughts of Alina and Theresa filled Roger's head. Not to mention Phyllis and Sandra and Rebecca and- Roger stopped himself. He was acting like he was going to die. Well, he had been through a lot in the Cineverse- perhaps nothing quite as imposing as the Cowabunga-munga-but, still, he wasn't dead. Yet. And, now that he thought of it, he really didn't know if this was the incredibly horrible situation that the Plotmaster had meant to warn him about. The way things were going for Roger in the Cineverse lately, he had about four of these incredibly horrible situations in the average afternoon.

The wave-to-end-all-waves roared towards him.

Well, maybe this situation was marginally worse.

Still, he had gotten out of tough spots before by using his ring. And he had two rings now! True, one of them didn't work at all, unless it really did force people to tell the truth, especially whether or not they were Captain Crusader, as Dr. Dee Dee Davenport claimed. However, Roger didn't believe he could exact any worthwhile confessions from a rapidly approaching wall of water.

The other ring, now, did work, in a very limited way. It would send him to the surfing world. Where he already was. Which was also utterly useless. Unless, Roger remembered, you dropped the ring in exactly the right way-as Dee Dee had a couple of times to lead them to her world and the Inst.i.tute of Very Advanced Science. And Roger had managed to drop one of these rings once, and had landed back on Earth!

So he could escape. The ring would send him home, if he could handle it just so.

True, he had no particular desire to go back to Earth, but it was certainly better than death, wasn't it? Besides which, he would swear there was another Captain Crusader Decoder Ring somewhere in his mother's house, so it was possible-even if he managed to lose the gum-repaired ring in his escape-that he could still make it back to the Cineverse.

Now, the question was, could he remember how Dee Dee had saved them before?

Arid could he do it again? It had something to do with turning the dial and dropping the ring. As Roger recalled, saying ”Oops!” might be a required part of the procedure as well.

He looked up at the ever-approaching wave. It was certainly worth a try. At this point, anything was worth a try.

He pulled the ring-and-chewing gum combination from his pocket. He twisted the dial, then tossed the ring into the air.

”Oops!” he shouted hopefully as he tried to catch it. The ring slipped between his fingers, bounced off the board, and fell into the sea.

There was no blue smoke. There was only the Cowa-bunga-munga, roaring his way, ton upon ton of relentless, churning destruction. And he had just lost his only chance of escape.

Roger thought of Valerie and Vickie and Vanessa- No! He still wasn't ready to accept death. There had to be some way out of here. The Plotmaster had suggested that knowledge was the key. At least that's what Roger thought the Plotmaster had suggested. He simply had to think like a movie-more specifically, a surfing movie! If there was one thing he should have learned during his sojourn in the Cineverse, it was that things were not fixed in the same way they were on Earth. Here, the plots were mutable to a certain extent, depending on anything from the appearance of a new character on the scene to the decision of somebody to sing a song.

Sing a song? That sort of thing really seemed to work around here. It had certainly gotten Roger out on a surfboard. And, still under that surfing spell, when he had sung a verse all on his own, he had found himself even further at sea. He had already used this rule of the surfing world. And he could use it again.

Roger grinned up at the rapidly approaching Cowabunga-munga. The solution was obvious once he thought of it. If you didn't like what was happening to you, sing about it!

Water stretched before him as far as he could see. The Cowabunga-munga was almost on top of him. If he was going to do something about it, he'd better sing it now.

Roger had to sing so loud, it was more like screaming: ”The wave it thinks it's got me beat.

But this here surfer takes the heat!