The Adventures of Campy Girlymann's Final Episodes

The sandwich was good, Campy thought but not tuna. The apple too was delicious but not exactly what apples taste like and what looked like a brownie, didn't taste like chocolate at all. It wasn't bad but different. And the air tasted cleaner, the sky brighter, and he felt much lighter, almost as if he was floating.

"Say, Vic."

"Yeah?"

"How do you feel?"

"Really great, Campy. Man what a great day."

"Yeah it is great." Campy had a smile as well and felt the best he had in years. 

Everything was fine until they passed someone on the dirt road talking on the phone. When he saw Campy and Vic pass by he yelled at them to stop. The boys didn't but the guy on the phone started to chase them on foot and once he saw there was no way to catch them, drew a pistol.

A shot rang out and bullet flew between Vic and Campy which spurred them on. Before the man could fire again they had rounded a curve and were soon on to the next one.


No one needed to say they had to watch their backs. Both men kept a look out for anything that moved and held close to the edge of the mountain as they climbed on. But all too soon they heard the whir of a helicopter coming up from behind and not long after that shots pumped the earth nearby.

"Zig-zag." Campy yelled and swerved his bike left and right, with Vic doing the maneuver in the opposite way.

It made it difficult for the helicopter to get a good aim but it slowed the two cyclists down. Campy looked ahead, there was a short drop before it started to climb again and in the drop was a grove of trees.

"Vic, follow me and when we get to that grove of trees pull up next to me, jump off your bike and climb that overhead cliff. You'll know what to do."

With that they dived into the grove, stopped and Vic got off his bike. Campy grabbed Vic's bike and kept riding further down in the gorge and then over the side with both bikes. He tried to  stay upright as best he could but not far from the road he took a fall with both bikes twisted  around him.

Vic, in the meantime,  ran to the other side of the road and quickly sprinted up the hillside, as he did, the helicopter dived down toward the gorge. Vic was equal to the helicopter from his vantage point and quickly realized what Campy meant.

Faster than he ran before, Vic climbed higher until the helicopter was now beneath him. It looked too that the copter had lowered itself  further looking to see who was in the wreckage of bikes and that was when Vic grabbed a good size rock and hurled the weight.

The large rock made a curve fall right into the blades of the copter. A blade broke and the copter became uncontrollable. It swirled and tipped before it suddenly crashed below where Campy was with the bikes.

As soon as Campy heard the copter crash he got up beneath the bikes and pulled them up back to the road just as Vic had ran down to greet him.

"Man, that was close." Vic said.

"There's  going to me more, I'm sure." Campy said, straightening his saddle.

Both men readied their bikes and began to climb when the noise of several cars could be heard from behind.

To be continued........

The Adventures of Campy Girlymann Final Episodes

Campy, gingerly, felt the lump in his back pocket. He touched it and the thing didn't move. He took that as a good sign. Vic though, tried to bend enough and pull his jersey enough to see what he could. It wasn't much. Girlymann slowly pushed his fingers into the pocket and felt one of the objects. He then grabbed it and pulled out a somewhat square object.

Holding it in his hand, he found, whatever it was, wrapped in a red and white checkered cloth. Carefully he unwrapped the package and beheld something like a sandwich with a tag laying across it. "For Endurance" it said. Campy then smelled the sandwich and was pleasantly surprised. He wrapped up the sandwich and felt for the next object which was round. An apple with a note tied to the stem. "For Strength.' The third was wrapped in blue and white checked cloth and looked like a brownie. "For Agility."

Once Vic saw Girlymann's gifts he too opened his and found the exact same thing. Each item with a note and wrapped the same way.

"You mean what I thought was a dream--wasn't?"

Girlymann looked at Vic in a puzzled way. "What dream?"

"The one with the troll and a witch with a talking rat."

"Dream?"

"Oh, well, huh. Shit, do you think this stuff is for real?"

Campy had placed his food back in the jersey and mounted his bike. Vic watching,  took to his bike and the both rode toward the hills ahead. Campy pulled out the sandwich, unwrapped it and took a bite.

"Kinda like tuna." He said to Vic with a smile.

Vic laughed and then bit into the apple. The two riding side by side on the dirt road covered over by giant limbs of oak on a beautiful French country day. 

The Adventures of Campy Girlymann Continue

"You two must be those bikers everyone is looking for."

Girlymann and Vic looked at each other before turning to the stranger. Campy stood up and brushed some leaves from the back of his pants.

"Campy. Campy Girlymann and you?"

"Better left unsaid in case the Du Claudes skin you alive asking questions."

Campy's blood pressure rose. "We wouldn't want that."  He remembered what the witch and troll had said, about a price on their head.

Vic stood as well and offered his hand to the stranger. But the stranger didn't take the offer. Instead, he looked Vic and Campy over from head to foot with what looked like a bit of disgust.

"Don't worry none. The Du Claudes are not my friends. They steal my truffles each year and leave me with less than half  of what my pigs find. They are as worthless as cyclists."  Then he spit on the ground and raised his stick toward the horizon where the dirt road disappeared among the foothills and oak groves.

"Your best chance is to take this dirt road, stay off the side roads. They all dead end at some point. Once you hit pavement the road becomes a wicked winding descent into the next valley. If you should reach that valley, the Du Claudes can't touch you.  The house of Du Claude are mortal enemies of that region going back centuries."

The stranger then lowered his walking stick, "Best get back to my pigs before they eat what little I'll have after the Du Claudes take their fill."

With that the stranger turned his back on the two men and walked on toward the sound of grunts coming not far away.

Campy and Vic watched him disappear among the oaks and laurel. Then they turned to each other and started to laugh. "Guess there's only one thing to do," Campy said as he picked up his bike from the grass and began to inspect it.

"Ride out of Dodge?" Vic asked.

"Hell yeah, and get our asses to this valley pronto." Campy's eye was caught by a bulge in the back pocket of Vic's jersey. "Say Vic?"

"Yeah?"

"What's in your pocket?"

Vic looked a bit astonished, "I was going to ask you the same thing."

To be continued.....

The Adventures of Campy Girlymann in the Land of Trolls

 At first, Campy began to laugh. He looked at Vic who also was on the verge of laughter. Their bellies were full and their heads heady from bottles of good wine.  Then the music began to play from here and there in the room and before either knew it, they stood from their chairs and started to dance.

Raccoons played flute, pixies on harps, badgers beat drums with a whole troop of hares playing bagpipes. The whole room filled with music as the witch danced with the troll, Campy with Vic and the rat did a rumba with a duck. They changed partners and danced some more and then they danced in groups until they danced out into the night and frolicked under the moon. Trails of fireflies flitted about in the air as the party danced and danced. It was a whirling, swirling, twirling shindig. But at sometime, in a no-time place, Vic and Campy woke on a grassy mound beside their bikes next to the dirt road that they had left to follow the trial.

They looked around in a daze when the first rays of dawn's light struck. There was no path that led to the forest, only the dirt road and their bikes next to the mound of grass and the oak trees that shaded them. There was no music, no laughter and no magic.

"What the hell happened?" Campy asked.

"I think I was dreaming, I...." Vic looked around and he looked confused. He felt like he had  a hangover.

"Jesus, I have hangover." Campy barked and then laid back in the grass.

"How can we have a hangover?" Vic asked.

"It must be, I had a hell of a night. Didn't you?"

Vic shook his head to clear cobwebs but nothing came back in order. He too laid back and watched the light play on the leaves overhead. Birds sang and the grass rustled in the breeze while they laid there getting their bearings. It was so peaceful and quiet before a stranger poked their legs with a stick.

To be continued....

The Adventures of Campy Girlymann in the Land of Trolls

Vic and Campy waited.  They took a nap and woke hungry and still waited before they heard noise coming from the interior of the cave. First the rat appeared then the troll and witch talking the whole way. When they saw Campy and Vic standing by the door none to pleased they stopped. The rat had a smirk.

"Couldn't you get in?" The troll asked.

"Eh, no we couldn't. Any idea how?" Camyp's teeth stayed clutched so tight the words were hard to get out.

"Didn't the rat tell you? Blow out the candle."

With that the witch did just that to the torch on the side of the wall. The door swung open immediately.

"Little trick of mine when I left the candle burning once to many times. Works well wouldn't you say?" The witch said with a cackle.

Campy and Vic were so glad to see the door open they didn't care any longer and went quickly inside the troll's cottage.

"Hungry?" Boogabob said.

"Famished," Campy answered with thirty-two teeth gleaming.

The witch and troll went to the kitchen, while the rat went to the dining room beckoning Campy and Vic to follow. They did, with a bit of hesitation.

"You guys look like you can take a joke." The rat said extending his paw out to shake the hand of each man.

They both did, and Vic said, " It's all so unfamiliar I feel like I' m in one of the fairy tales my dad read to me as kid.

"Fairies get way too much credit if you ask me." the rat said looking over the selection of wines in a rack next to the china cabinet.

"How about we start with a Pinot Noir, " he said holding up a bottle. "Then we'll slip into Cab and go for the Merlot with the cheese."

Both men started to salivate like Pavlov's dog.  "Can we help." Vic asked.

"Naw, I fucked with you two enough. Sit down and I'll get this open.  So tell me, what the hell brought you here?"

Campy thought for a minute and then said, " I guess chance."

"Oh, well there goes my bet, I was sure the muggins did it."

"Never met them." Campy answered.

The rat used his tail for a cork screw and had the bottles open and poured in no time. He brought everyone a glass before he sat down himself. In the meantime, the witch and troll brought in dates, nuts, cheese, crackers, grapes and apples. They had finished the Pinot and were ready for the next bottle when the rat saw they would need more and began to open the next bottle followed by the next. Soon, good cheer began to grow as the sun sat in the window of the dining room. Candles were lit and more food brought out, potted meat and crackers, sardines and bread with a dip of olive oil infused with garlic and herbs, and as they drank and ate, they laughed and sang until the moon came up and then they began to dance.


to be continued....

The Adventures of Campy Girlymann in the Land of Trolls

As Campy paced back and forth, he would turn once in a while and stare at the the iron gremlin. Sometimes catching the gremlin with a new face, sometimes not but that didn't matter anymore, it was how to open the door that mattered.

With a snap of his fingers, Girlymann announced, "Got it." He walked to the door and with his arms folded across his chest said, "Boo."

Nothing happened. The iron gremlin held the iron ring in stone silence and the door stayed fast when Campy tried to pull it open.

"Shit, I was sure that was it."

"Maybe it's some witch curse, some kind of spell. How would you know what to do then?" Vic asked and got up to dust the dirt off his butt.

"Could be, I wouldn't doubt it. I guess the only thing is to wait and hope they come back soon."

And wait they did. They told stories of bike rides and bike people. Vic said he missed his girlfriend and Campy his boyfriend back in Italy. They talked of riding in storms and days made as if in heaven. Vic's gal always had champagne for him at the end of the tour, and told him how clever he was and how important to the team.

"She makes feel like a million, even though I carry water to the winners."

"Donatello, he was once a great racer, but an accident ended his career. Yet he is not bitter and if you didn't know him, you would think he was just another bike mechanic. He's much more than that though, and I sit in awe of him yet he treats me like a king."

Vic sat back down with his back leaned against the wall of the cave. "Do you think we'll ever get home, Campy?"

"We'll get out of this. I don't know how but we will. "

To be continued.....

The Adventures of Campy Girlymann in the Land of Trolls

Vic looked at the clasp to see where he cut his finger and noticed that the gremlin no longer had a smirk on its face but bared what looked like a sharp little teeth, only they were iron.

"Campy, I'm sure that clasp was grinning when I last saw it, now it bares teeth."

Girlymann looked at the clasp but noticed it wasn't teeth but a pouting face with the lips sourly closed.
"Take another look."

Vic turned and saw what Campy saw.  "I'll be damned. That clasp is alive Campy." Vic then used his knuckles to knock on the gremlin's head. Nothing happened.

The two men stared at the clasp, waiting to catch the moment it changed but the clasp simply stared back with its pouty face like an iron clasp would.

"This is the queerest damn place. Queerer than a sultan's harem." Campy said while he looked around.

Vic didn't look around. He stared right back but when he blinked, the gremlin changed to a sly smile across his iron face.

"Look." Vic said.

Campy turned and did look but shrugged it off. "I'd be surprise if we weren't inside a dragon at this point. He turned to the gremlin and with his hand, gave a slight tug to the iron ring. The door didn't budge.

"We know you can hear us. Why won't you let us in?" Campy asked.

The gremlin stayed fast. Not a change in his expression.

"Maybe it's a secret word." Vic said.

"Makes sense. Now all we need is to know what the word is. That shouldn't be too difficult."

Vic stared at Campy to see if he was joking but it didn't look like he was and asked, "Any idea what it might be?

Campy studied the gremlin and the door. He paced for a while in thought. Vic sat down on his haunches and doodled on the earthen floor with his finger.

To be continued.......