Blood and Guts - Left for Dead: A Romantic Suspense

by Gabi Moore

  “Are they going to pull that cleaning crew stunt again?” Lilly asked. “Because I don’t want to deal with it again. Our friend Emily will never come back to this mall and I think she may be scared for life.”

  “They’ll try something else this time and they may be very direct how they do it. I would watch out because you have no idea where they will strike. And, rest assured, the security guards will be nowhere to be found if you need their help.”

  Dion looked at the doors and took Lilly by the hand. “Okay,” he said to them both. “I can do this. It looks like I’m the only one who can get my parents back, and prevent even worse things from happening.”

  Edward raised a hand. “You can’t even conceive what you are up against. I would tell you more, but they only let me share so much information. But I’m sure you’ll come through, dear boy. In fact, you must…”.

  Edward pulled out his pocket watch again and looked at it. “Oh, lovely, time is up. You two take care and I will see you again.”

  Then he vanished.

  Dion and Lilly walked through the glass doors into the entrance to the mall again. Once again they walked down the corridor lined with shops on each side and slowly approached their destination.

  For a few minutes, they thought it might be possible to go upstairs and find the pharmacy where the elemental grandmaster had her shop. Dion and Lilly strolled into the main concourse and saw nothing. There were no security guards, no ghouls, nothing that appeared out of the ordinary. Just a bunch of shoppers finishing their activities for the day. Mothers pushing children in strollers. Groups of kids walking down the main hall, looking in the windows of stores, and men in front of a TV display who drooled over the big game on the latest twenty-five inch console.

  It was the picture of domestic tranquility.

  They walked toward the escalator with every intention to take it to the second floor where the pharmacy was located.

  Lilly had never liked escalators and was happy using the stairs. She’d heard a story about a kid who got his foot caught in one and the ambulance company had to be called out to free him. From that day on, she’d avoided them. As a young kid, she froze when trying to go down one and had to have someone help her get on the track. There was something unnerving about escalators that worried her. It was as if by climbing on one you placed your future in the hands of an inhuman machine. It wasn’t something she wanted to do and couldn’t understand why anyone would do it. She felt the same way about elevators, although for some reason they didn’t bother her quite as much.

  Just as they walked up to the escalator, two of Karanzen’s guards blocked their path. Dion and Lilly turned to the other sides only to see them blocked by his men as well. They turned to walk back when they found Officer Karanzen approaching with two more.

  “Just couldn’t take my warning could you?” he said to them. “I thought I made it clear you weren’t supposed to be back in the mall.”

  “What have I done to be banned from it?” Dion asked. “You never did spell out any charges.”

  “First of all,” Karanzen snarled. “There is the matter of the floor polisher you took without authorization. Then there are the other items, which have mysteriously disappeared while you’ve been in the mall. I won’t get into the disruption of you being here creates. I don’t need it and I don’t want it in my mall.”

  “You keep saying ‘my mall’,” a voice said to their right. “You seem to think this mall is your property.”

  It was Dion’s grandparents.

  They had, once again, appeared from nowhere and were right next to Officer Karanzen. The look of shock on his face told Dion all he needed. Even the security guards backed up a bit. His grandfather and grandmother had a presence that made it not wise to cross them. Lilly had felt it a bit when they’d appeared outside the mall, but now it was on full display.

  “Major Auriel Bach?” Karanzen said to him. “I know you. What are you doing here? I thought you were--”

  “Gone very far away?” Dion’s grandfather said. “Gone further than you could ever fathom? I’m the young man’s grandfather and I understand you have some issue with him.”

  “He’s causing a problem in the mall. I’m hired to make sure the mall remains safe. I don’t need anyone here who causes problems.”

  “Problems?” Dion’s grandfather said. “The way you handled the problems at the Chosin Reservoir? You’re lucky I let you keep your command after that happened.”

  The faces of Dion’s grandfather and Karanzen faded into a cloud as Dion saw the security chief in a distant land in a military uniform. A soldier was leaning on a tank in a snow-covered landscape as he poured over a map. Karanzen was on a radio in a desperate attempt to communicate with someone.

  “I said we’re lost!” Karanzen yelled into the apparatus. “Can you give me the coordinates we’re supposed to have? I have five men with a tank and me. We need to get back to the main column. Look, I know Chinese troops are in these hills. They’d love to find someone like us who don’t know where they are. Hello? Hello?”

  He slammed the radio telephone receiver down on the tank’s side and swore. Karanzen, wearing a captain’s uniform, looked at the hills around him. It was getting dark. On top of the tank, an enlisted man held a pair of binoculars and scanned the horizon.

  “Can’t see a thing, sir,” he told him. “No movement anywhere. If there are Chinese Army in these hills they are doing the best job of concealment anyone could….”

  The man with binoculars fell away from the tank as the air filled with bullets. The bounced off the tank and kicked up dirt from the ground. Karanzen dropped the radio and ran behind the tank, as he tried to take cover from the rifle fire. Two other men were with him.

  “Can you see how many?” he asked the man to his right. They were strapping on their helmets as fast as they could. At least one of them carried a carbine.

  “Could be four, could be five,” the man said. “Hard to tell and they’re shooting out of the sun to make it difficult to spot. For all we know it could be the entire Red Chinese Army out there.”

  Then the fog faded again and Dion saw his grandfather facing Officer Karanzen. But the security chief had lost his composure. No longer was he the fearsome defender of the mall but a man who’d just had a secret he fought to suppress revealed to people. Dion looked around and wondered how many of them had the same vision he’d just seen. Lilly looked at him with confusion, which meant she’d seen it too. The rest of the guards just stood there, as if nothing had changed. But the tension between Dion’s grandparents and the rough security officer was now finished.

  “So long as he doesn’t cause any more trouble,” Karanzen said to Dion’s grandfather and walked off. He stopped three steps away and turned to his security guards.

  Dion’s grandparents turned and walked back the way they came. Soon, they were gone, vanished as they had done before.

  “Be sure to keep an eye on him. I don’t want those two out of your sight.” Karanzen moved away toward the rear of the mall in the direction of his office. Whatever had transpired between him and Dion’s grandfather left a powerful impression.

  The other security guards began to move away and head toward their posts. All except for the ones who were stationed in this part of the mall. They walked back and kept their gaze on Dion and Lilly.

  “We need to find someplace to get away from them,” Dion said to Lilly. “Is there some restaurant or store we can duck into for the time being?”

  “I’m not sure what is around this part of the mall. There are a few places I can think of, but not many. Wait, what’s that?”

  A small store with a modest front proclaimed itself to be “The Time Shop”. A large watch swung from the bracket over it and another sign talked about daily specials. At first, she thought it was a restaurant, but then Lilly thought it might be a place that sold watches. It didn’t look too big from the outside and she speculated it might only be a thousand square feet on the ins
ide. Nerveless, it looked to be a good way to get out from the watchful eyes of Karanzen’s men.

  “Let’s go here,” she said, pointing to the store. “They won’t follow us inside and they can’t wait outside forever. Eventually, they’ll have to move elsewhere.”

  “Yes, at least it will give us a chance to plan on what to do next,” Dion said and followed her into the store. They pushed the door open and went inside.

  A lady behind the counter greeted them the moment they were beyond the door. “Hello,” she said, “thank you for coming into The Time Shop. Did you have a year in mind?”

  “A year?” Dion said and turned to look at the inside of the store. As far as he could see, there was only the one counter and another glass door on the other side. Nothing was on display at the counter and all he could see was the lady, who appeared to be in her thirties, a cash register and the glass top. There were no calendars, small items for sale, or anything else.

  “I’d like to know the future,” he joked to her.

  “That is a little bit expensive. We can’t send you directly to your future as our insurance won’t cover it. I can send you to another future if that’s what you want.”

  Dion looked at Lilly and shrugged. “Did you have any one in mind, Lilly?”

  “Haha, thirty years sounds good to me,” she said. “Exactly what do you sell here?”

  “Time,” the lady told her. “Most people want the past, but some need to know the future. How much money did you want to spend?’

  Dion laid some bills on the counter. She looked at them and shook her head. “I can’t give you much for that little amount. Is thirty minutes fine?”

  “Sure,” Dion said, still uncertain what they’d been told and agreed to today.

  “Please sign these forms,” the lady behind the counter said and handed both of them clipboards with papers on them. They looked at the forms and found them to be in a foreign writing neither one could read. Dion hesitated to get the seer stone out of his pocket. It had to rest on top of the document for it to work the first time. But to bring it out would reveal that he had one.

  “How can I sign something I can’t read?” Lilly asked her.

  “Look, do you want the thirty minutes or not? I have someone buzzing to come back. Make up your mind because there are paying customers we have to take care of first. I don’t have time for this.”

  Lilly and Dion quickly signed the papers and handed them back to the worked up lady.

  “Portal is good for thirty minutes,” she informed them. “You have that much time on the other side and then you have to come back. Don’t miss your portal time because if you do it’s not our fault if you’re stuck where I send you. There is a penalty on people who miss their portal time and neither of you two looks like the kind who can rack up a lot of temporal debt. I’m just giving you a fair warning.”

  “Okay,” Dion said. “Now what?”

  “What you came in here for.” The lady sighed. “I wish they’d find me a better post. This year doesn’t cut it.”

  She reached down under the counter and clicked a switch. The glass door on the other side opened to reveal a man walking into the room with a briefcase. He was dressed in loud clothes. He let out a huge sigh and turned to the woman.

  “That was a little bit longer than I wanted to be there,” he told her. “Next time I’ll pick someplace familiar for the trip.”

  “Just schedule it in advance if you want to go more than five hundred years in either direction,” she said. “Now please step aside, sir, as I have more people who need to use the door.”

  She turned to Dion and Lilly.

  “Your turn,” the woman announced. “Remember, you only have thirty minutes so don’t wander too far. Time is of the essence.”

  Chapter 10

  Dion and Lilly walked through the door and heard it shut behind them. Dion turned around to look at the door and discovered it had turned to a wooden one on the other side. While he tried to figure out where they were, Lilly stepped forward and glanced over their new surroundings.

  They were no longer in the mall. If this was the mall, it resembled nothing like one she’d ever seen before. She turned and saw a small double-paned window with sunlight streaming through it. The smell of bleach came from a bathroom to one side. The small room they were in was tastefully decorated in used furniture with pastel paintings on the walls. The only thing odd about their surroundings was the door, which they’d used to enter the room. Over the top of it, the words “Supplies” was written.

  Lilly smelled the intense scent of coffee through the air. This had to be some kind of eating establishment, but she had no idea what kind.

  She and Dion walked down the hall connecting the room to the front of the place and found another counter. Over the counter was a menu of sorts in chalk on a blackboard about all the different kinds of coffee you could purchase. The prices seemed outrageous to her, but it could be that the coffees were rare and not found in many restaurants.

  What kind of place was this?

  Dion walked up to the counter and looked at the woman behind it. She didn’t resemble the lady on the other side the least bit... This woman had glasses, was dark in complexion and had her hair tied in rows across her head.

  “You two are from The Time Shop,” the lady said to them. “Aren’t you?”

  “We were just in there a few minutes ago,” Lilly said. “I don’t know how we ended up here.”

  “I can always tell. It doesn’t matter which direction they come, always something that gives them away. How long are you here for?”

  “We paid for thirty minutes,” Dion told her.

  “Then you better stay close. That door you came through will only take you back a half hour after you came. Any other time and it takes you to the closet. I had it installed a few months ago when someone contacted me from the corporation. They pay me enough to keep it so that it cancels out my utility bill.”

  “So what kind of place is this?” Lilly asked.

  “It’s a coffee shop in Chicago.”

  “Chicago?” Dion said. “But we were in Ohio!”

  “The way it works is the door takes you somewhere other than where you are going to be or where you have been. I guess you’ll never be around Chicago for any length of time or you wouldn’t be here now. Did she ask you how many years you were paying her for?”

  “I told her thirty,” Lilly said, “but really, I had no idea…”

  “I keep telling those people they should make it clear what people are buying,” the lady behind the new counter grumbled. “Too many people end up here clueless, and it’s not my job to straighten them out. How much money do you have left?”

  Dion opened his wallet and showed her the bills.

  “The problem is the date on the currency,” she told him. “I can’t use the cash because my bank would contact the FBI about counterfeit bills. I don’t need those kinds of complaints. So do you drink coffee?”

  “Here,” the woman said before they could give their answer, sliding them two cups. “These are on the house. Milk and sugar is behind you. I recommend staying inside this place, as you don’t want to be trapped outside when the door activates.

  “Looks like we have another fifteen minutes,” Dion said as he looked at his watch. “Anything we need to know about where we are?”

  “Other than the fact that you’re in Chicago? Not really. We’re near the university, and no, they still don’t have a football team. So I get to avoid the booze-happy crowds that come with them. I’m slow today because it’s between terms, but the traffic should pick up next month.”

  “You take any cream in yours?” Lilly asked Dion as she poured milk into her coffee.

  “I like mine black, thank you,” he said.

  They went and sat down at a table.

  “Next time I walk into a store I don’t know,” he said to Lilly, “I will ask exactly what I’m paying money to have done or buy.”

  “Look o
n the bright side. It got us away from Karanzen’s goons for a while. I think you spent your money well.”

  “But it means less time to find the Elemental Grandmaster when we return.” Dion reached into his blue jean jacket and pulled a piece of paper out of one of the pockets. “I’ve been looking for this a long time.”

  “What do you have there?” she asked.

  “Nothing much, just what I have to tell the Grandmaster when I find her. She will know I’m genuine by what I say to her.”

  “I’d think you could make something happen and that would convince her.”

  “Doesn’t always work that way. All kinds of people can show her little tricks and try to deceive her into thinking they are elemental workers. If she grants full power on anyone who doesn’t deserve it, imagine the kind of ruckus it could cause. No, she has to know I’m someone who has spent years working toward the day when I can finally present myself to her.”

  Dion and Lilly chatted a bit longer, until he looked at his watch again. “Time to go.”

  They returned their mugs to the counter and thanked the woman. “No problem,” she said. “At least you speak standard English. You would be surprised at the kind of people who come through the door. No one has ever shown the least sign of violence; I think the corporation has a way to screen them out.”

  Dion and Lilly walked to the door and waited a few minutes. Finally, Dion looked at his watch and announced it was time. He reached down and opened the door.

  And discovered a closet on the other side.

  “You think something might have gone wrong?” Lilly asked him. “I’m sure this is the door we used when we came in here.”

  Dion shut the door. “I might be off a little bit with my watch. I set it this morning, but it has a tendency to run a little slow.” He reached over, grabbed the door handle again, and opened it. This time the room they had first used was visible on the other side. The same woman stared at them from the counter.