by Kat, Bob
Scott took control of their mission. “Press the CUL8R icon. Now depress and hold the top icon. Ready?”
Austin and Kelly both said, “Yes.”
“Okay, don’t let up, on my count press the lower icon. Ready? Three . . . two . . . one.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The sand and wind began to rotate clockwise around their feet forming a dust devil that grew taller and taller until it towered over them. They all shut their mouths and eyes as the sand swirled faster and more densely with every passing second. The wind roared in their ears, then it all went silent as if even the sound was sucked into the wormhole.
This time Kelly forced herself not to scream. She ducked her head and felt her long hair whipping against her skin. She kept her fingers on the icons until she felt the sand give way under her feet, and she tumbled to the ground. Someone was beneath her and someone else fell on top of her, but until the sand and wind slowed and then stopped, she had no idea who it was.
“You guys okay?” Scott asked, getting up first. He pulled Kelly up, then reached down to help Austin and Zoey. They all stood and tried to clear the sand from their eyes and noses, eager to look around to see if they had succeeded.
“Hey, you kids okay over there?”
They turned in unison and saw the elderly Dan Denucci, standing nearby with his metal detector. He was looking at them with concern.
“Sure,” Kelly said. “Just a little dusty.”
“That was weird . . . that dirt devil just sprung up out of nowhere and you guys disappeared . . . for a minute. I’ve never seen anything like it. Well, I’m glad you’re okay.” The man started to walk away, then paused. “You kids look familiar.” He shook his head. “Oh, you probably hang out here at the beach all the time.” He squinted at them again, then wandered down the beach, still searching for his pot of gold.
“That was him, wasn’t it?” Zoey asked. “Oh my God!”
“That was odd,” Kelly said. “Poor man.”
“But you know what that means?” Scott was practically jumping up and down with excitement.
“We’re back!” Austin exclaimed.
“Just like we never left. I knew it would work.” Scott took off his backpack and shook the sand off.
“Yeah, right,” Austin said skeptically, but very proud of his friend. They had just had the adventure of a lifetime, and they couldn’t tell anyone about it . . . ever.
Scott must have been reading his mind because he added, “Remember, this cannot be talked about outside of our circle.” He pinned Zoey with his gaze. “And that means you, too, Zoey. We’re trusting you on this.”
“I can keep a secret,” she said, lifting her chin defiantly. Normally, she would have added a derogatory name like nerd or dork, but somehow she didn’t feel comfortable with that any more. Somewhere along the way, Scott had become a real person, and she liked him. She had shared so much with these kids that all of her other relationships seemed so silly and shallow. It was no longer a question of whether or not she wanted to hang with them . . . now, it was up to them if they wanted to hang with her. And somehow she suspected they didn’t.
Zoey looked over at the parking lot and was delighted to see her beloved Mini Cooper was in the parking lot just where she had left it. “I guess I’d better get home. I can’t wait to wash my hair with my own shampoo and use my flatiron again.” She gave them a casual wave and headed toward her car.
“How are your ribs?” Kelly asked Austin.
Austin moved his arms and tried some toe-touches and torso twists, but he grabbed his ribs. “Ouch . . . wow, that hurts.”
“Lesson learned,” Scott said.
“About what? That injuries stick with us or that I shouldn’t have played football?”
“Both, actually. I have no idea what long-term consequences there will be from you helping the team to win that game.”
“Not to mention whether or not Coach Decker will be there in the fall.”
“It’ll be interesting to find out,” Scott said. “Listen, I think we all need a good night’s sleep. Let’s meet tomorrow to debrief. You know all scientists and inventors do a post mortem.
“But in this case, it’s sort of a post non-mortem,” Kelly pointed out.
Austin smiled at her joke, but Scott was in his serious scientist mode.
“Could we make it about noon?” Kelly started the bidding.
“I agree,” Austin said in support.
But an hour later, after she had successfully slipped back into the house without rousing her aunt and taken a good, long bath, Kelly found herself lying wide awake in her comfortable bed. All the things that had happened over the last few days kept running through her mind. She tossed and turned for awhile before she finally gave up. She wondered if anyone else was having a hard time letting it all go.
Finally, she got up and retrieved her phone from the dresser where she had it plugged in, recharging, and sent out a text to Scott and Austin to see if they were having trouble sleeping, too. RU asleep?
Only a few seconds later, her phone pinged and Austin replied, No.
Another ping, and Scott’s text, Me either. Meet at lab?
BRT, Austin messenged.
N 5, Kelly texted. She dressed quickly in shorts and a t-shirt and slipped out the front door, locking it behind her.
Austin was already there, so she took an empty stool, and they sat in a loose circle.
“I can’t believe we actually did it,” Austin marveled.
“I won’t feel comfortable until we go to the library and check the papers,” Kelly said. “I’ll ask Aunt Jane about Decker. I doubt that she’ll remember the case, but maybe she’ll look it up.”
What reason will you give for wanting to know?” Scott asked.
“I’ll tell her I heard a rumor about a coach from the Sixties being a serial killer, and that I was wondering if it was true.”
“That should work.” Scott nodded his approval.
The sound of the gate leading into Scott’s backyard creaked, drawing their attention.
“Who could that be?” Kelly asked, worried it might be her aunt. Not that anything inappropriate was going on. But she didn’t want to get into trouble for sneaking out in the middle of the night.
“I don’t know,” Scott said.
They peered into the darkness, not knowing who to expect.
Zoey stepped forward into the pool of light. She wasn’t her usual self-confident self. Instead, she approached a little meekly.
“Hi, guys. Mind if I join you?”
Austin and Kelly looked at Scott who didn’t appear to be thrilled to see her.
“Can you give us a minute?” he asked.
“Sure. I’ll just . . . wait over by the fence?” Zoey seemed hesitant, but she moved out of the light and out of earshot.
“What do you guys think?” he asked Austin and Kelly.
“A week ago, I would have said no, but . . .” Austin shrugged, “she put up with a lot and was cool about it.”
“Yeah, she really saved the day for Wendy. If she hadn’t been there, things would have turned out very differently,” Kelly chimed in.
“But do we want her in our group?” Scott persisted.
“She started out kind of as a mean girl,” Kelly admitted, “but she got better. I don’t know how she’ll act once we’re actually in school and she’s around her other friends, but she and I got along fine after a couple of days.”
“She is a Trekkie,” Austin pointed out with a crooked grin.
“Trekker,” Scott corrected. “Then you two are okay with it?”
“I am, as long as she doesn’t get all diva on us,” Austin said.
“And if she agrees to the rules,” Kelly added.
Scott thought about it for a moment. “Then let’s do it.”
Kelly jumped off her stool and called out, “Zoey, come on in.” She picked up a stool out of the corner and added it to the group.
Zoey returned to the shop and stepped inside.
“I had a feeling you would all be here. I drove by and saw the lights . . . and I thought I’d take a chance.”
“Okay,” Scott led off the meeting. “Zoey, we have to have your promise that you’ll never share what you’ve done and what you’re about to hear.”
She nodded. “Sure . . . I understand and agree.”
“This is a dangerous thing to have access to or even to know about. It would change the history of the world if it was in the wrong hands. I’m not even sure we should have messed with history as much as we did . . . but it is what it is. I can’t feel bad that we saved Wendy’s life.” Scott hit a key on his computer and printed out a copy of the contract which he handed to her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“Our expectations of each other,” Austin said.
“Okay,” Zoey quickly read through it, then reached out and took Scott’s pen. She signed with a flourish, then gave the pledge and the pen back to Scott. “Now show me how you found out about Wendy.”
Scott pulled a cloth off of the Spirit Radio. “We don’t have to take the time tonight to demonstrate it, but her voice came through to us on this. She actually answered our questions and asked us to help her. The problem is, it’s not always clear and there are a lot of people out there, trying to get our attention.”
“A lot of people?” Zoey repeated. “Does that mean that you’re going to go on more travels?”
Scott, Kelly and Austin exchanged quizzical looks. The subject had not actually come up between them, but now that they had actually completed a successful trip, it was time to consider that possibility. They all nodded.
“I guess if someone comes through, and we can figure out what we can do to help them, then I’d be willing to go again,” Scott said.
“So would I,” Kelly agreed and Austin nodded his approval.
“But we need to plan the next one a little better. There were some things that didn’t go well.”
“Some things that almost killed me,” Zoey said.
“We’re going to always have to play it by ear and learn to adapt.” Scott carefully covered the Spirit Radio back up so it would stay clean and dry.
“Things like no transportation,” Austin volunteered.
“A regular schedule for food, sleep, clothes . . . you know, life’s basics,” Kelly offered.
Scott erased everything off his white board and began to write down the list of all the suggestions and issues brought up by the team.
“Even though it was dangerous, what we did was good and important, and we can’t quit . . . can we?” Zoey asked with surprising passion. “Wendy was a person worth saving. I’d love to know what she did with her life.”
“Is that Zoey getting soft on people?” Austin asked.
“Yeah . . . so what?”
“Just asking. Whatever.” Austin’s grin told her he was just teasing her.
“Whatever,” Zoey echoed with a smile, actually mocking herself.
“What we’ll never know is how many girls Decker would have raped and killed had we not stopped him,” Kelly commented. “Hopefully, a lot more parents aren’t wondering what happened to their daughters.”
“We’ll see what we can find out at the library tomorrow,” Scott promised.
“The library again? Twice in one week? My dad will think I’m sick,” Austin said as he pressed the back of his hand against his forehead as if checking for a temperature.
“I have one more question,” Kelly said, looking around the room at her new friends. “When and where are we going next?”
COMING SOON
B R B – April, 2013
http://www.cul8rseries.com/Book__3_BRB.html
B I O N – July, 2013
Check out the O M G Video on YouTube
http://youtu.be/T4dlWmUi9hM
If you enjoyed the award-winning OMG, don’t miss BRB, Book #2 in the CUL8R Time Travel Mystery Series, released on April 5, 2013. Please enjoy the following preview chapters.
BRB
(Be Right Back)
CUL8RTM SERIES BOOK #2 By BobKat
CHAPTER ONE
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 2013
Austin Burke was standing in line beside a canopy-covered hot dog cart when he heard someone calling his name.
“You didn’t wait for me.” A very pretty teenage girl with long straight golden blond hair and huge pink sunglasses hiding her brown eyes slid into line with him. The ridiculously large brim of a white straw hat cast her cotton-candy pink bikini-clad body into its own portable shade. Possessively, she looped her arm through his as she gave him a flirtatious pout. “I wanted to go to the library with you guys.”
“We called, but your mom said you were still asleep.” Austin moved forward in line as the customer ahead of him stepped up to the cart.
“I didn’t think early was that early. Weren’t you exhausted?”
“Yeah, but we wanted to check things out.”
She leaned closer and whispered. “I still can’t believe we actually did it, can you? I mean, that was cray-cray, wasn’t it?”
He looked down at her and smiled. Zoey had a habit of over dramatizing everything. That was an advantage when she was leading the cheer squad at a football game, but it was exhausting to spend a lot of time around her. No one had planned for her to tag along on their first time travel adventure, but she had been a surprisingly good sport once it became clear that if she didn’t cooperate she would be stuck in 1966.
A thirty-something mother who was standing behind them in line gave Austin a censuring look, and he suddenly realized she had probably overheard the interchange and assumed that the “it” Zoey was talking about was something way different than what it actually was.
“She didn’t really mean it as in…uh…we didn’t do anything...we just...uh...sort of went on a trip...,” Austin stammered.
The woman’s eyebrows lifted, clearly indicating that he wasn’t helping his case. Because he couldn’t actually tell her anything close to the truth, he gave up. The person ahead of him finished paying and walked away, so Austin gave the woman a rueful smile, carefully disentangled his arm from Zoey’s and stepped forward.
“What can I get you kids?” the portly middle-aged man asked.
“One plain hotdog, five chili-cheese dogs and four bags of chips.” He turned to Zoey. “Did you want anything?”
“Just a hotdog, no bun and a Diet Coke,” she replied.
“Coming right up…need any more drinks?”
“Oh yeah…four more Cokes. Wait, make one of those a Diet.”
The man took six buns out of the warmer and laid them out in a row on the counter. He dipped into the steaming water, plucked out seven hotdogs and settled one in each of the buns and the final bare one on a piece of butcher paper. He dropped a ladle of chili on five of them and sprinkled cheese on top. He wrapped them each in a piece of paper and placed them in a bag, along with the chips. “Anything else?”
“Some packets of mustard and ketchup, please.”
The vendor added a handful of packets to the bag and fished five cans of soda out of the ice in the cooler and put them in another bag. He clicked in some numbers on a small calculator. “All totaled, that’ll be $21.45.”
Austin handed the vendor five five-dollar bills. “Go ahead and keep it.”
“Thanks son. Have a nice day.”
“You too,” Austin returned the pleasantry. He picked up the two bags and headed back toward the beach.
“That can’t all be for you. I assume Scott and Kelly are here,” Zoey commented. “They must really be hungry.”
“Yeah, they’re down the beach, but I’m heading this way first,” Austin nodded toward the pier.
“Why?”
Austin didn’t answer but simply led the way until they reached a darkly tanned old man who was sitting cross-legged on the sand in the shade under the pier next to a large pile of seashells which he was threading onto a piece of clear fishing line. Several completed necklaces were dis
played in front of him. The man looked up and smiled broadly when he saw Austin approaching.
“Haven’t seen you around here for a long time, Austin.”
“Hey, Dan. How’ve you been?”
“Can’t complain. Best time of the year to be homeless. And the best place to be.” Dan smiled and spread his arms wide, encompassing the whole beach scene and balmy weather. The old man stood with surprising grace for a man of his age. His long gray hair was pulled back into a frizzy ponytail. Baggy cargo shorts hung off his hips, precariously held up only by his prominent hip bones.
“Trying something new with the beard?” Austin asked.
Dan’s long, tanned fingers moved over the collection of small shells he had braided into his scraggly beard. “I got one tangled in and sorta liked the look, so I added more.”
“It’s very Captain Jack Sparrow-ish.”
Dan frowned. “Who?”
“Johnny Depp from Pirates of the Caribbean,” Austin said.
“Oh yeah. I saw that movie through the window of the Castaway Bar a few months ago. I didn’t catch all the dialogue though.”
Austin reached into one of the bags and pulled out two chili-cheese dogs and a bag of chips. “I brought you something to eat. Hot dogs, chips and a Coke.”
“All American meal.” Dan gratefully took the food. “Will you and the young lady join me for lunch?”
“Nah, we’ve got a couple friends that are waiting for me to deliver the rest of these.” As Austin held up the bag, he noticed that Zoey had hung back as if Dan was contagious. “Have you ever met Zoey?”
“I saw her with you the other day. She yours?”
“Just a friend,” Austin hurried to explain, then glanced over to see her frown.
Dan wiped his right hand off on his shorts and held it out toward her. Zoey reluctantly took it in a very loose grip and quickly released it. The expression on her face made it clear how uncomfortable she was.
Dan noticed, but his wry smile said that he didn’t take it personally. He tried not to hurry, but his fingers shook as he carefully peeled back the paper to reveal one of the hotdogs. Eagerly he lifted it to his lips. In between excessively generous bites he turned back to Austin. “How’s the team look this year?”