Glassford Girl: Boxed Set (Complete Series) (Time Jumper Series)

by Jay J. Falconer

  “I love you, Derek,” she whispered, without thinking.

  He hesitated, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. She already knew.

  A moment later, a trio of gunshots rang out. Two bangs in rapid-fire succession, then another one a split-second later.

  Derek stood from behind the BBQ and ran square into a punch. He flew backwards and landed on his back.

  Emily cocked the pool cue and rose up to attack.

  “Easy, Em. It’s me,” Jim Miller said when he made eye contact with her. He was standing on the other side of the island with a pistol in one hand and a ready fist in the other.

  Derek got up from the ground, rubbing his chin.

  “Sorry, kid,” Jim said. “Didn’t know it was you.”

  Beyond Miller, Emily saw the Orange Man lying motionless in a patch of dirt. Blood had pooled around a single gunshot wound to his forehead and two in his chest. His handheld weapon and the briefcase were lying next to him.

  “In the Marines, we called that a Mozambique. Two to the chest and one to the head,” Jim told her with pride in his voice.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Oh, yeah. Dead like week-old road kill.”

  “Then why is he moving?” she asked with fear in her voice, pointing at the intruder.

  Miller took two steps closer to the perpetrator and fired, emptying the remaining rounds from his magazine into the area just under his nose. He then swung around and kicked the assailant’s gun away.

  Derek joined Miller, standing watch over the man, holding the shovel in a ready position.

  “What about now?” she asked with attitude in her voice.

  “Let’s hope so. I’m out of ammo, and the rest of my mags are inside.”

  Derek picked up the strange-looking weapon, bouncing it in his hand. “It hardly weighs anything. Not sure what it’s made out of.” He gave it to Jim.

  They heard a loud banging coming from the front of the house. Thump! Thump! Thump!

  “Miller! You in there? Talk to me!” a man at the front door said.

  Jim cocked his head and his face went blank, as if he was searching an internal voice recognition system. His expression changed, indicating a match, but he didn’t seem too happy about it.

  “Alice, is that you?”

  “Yeah, Millsy, it’s me! Where are you?”

  “I’m out back.”

  “We’re coming to you.”

  Jim looked at Derek and Emily. “You need to be empty-handed when they arrive. We don’t want them getting the wrong impression.”

  Derek and Emily dropped their implements.

  The latch on the side gate rattled, then the hinges squealed. Footsteps raced closer, pounding at the dirt and grass along the side of the house.

  Emily slid her hand inside Derek’s, wrapping her fingers around his.

  She whispered into his ear. “It’s happening.”

  “You mean?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “Can’t you stop it like before?”

  “It’s too late.”

  “How long?”

  “Couple minutes, tops.”

  “Everyone freeze!” Alison commanded, as he came around the corner with his gun drawn. His partner swung around and took a flanking position, weapon in a firing position, too.

  “Easy there, Alice,” Jim said, holding both guns over his head. He nodded in the direction of the Orange Man. “Threat’s been neutralized.”

  “Who is he?” Alison asked while his partner moved to cover the stranger.

  “No clue. He was armed and preparing to breech my home. I took him out. It’s a legal shoot.”

  “It’s glowing!” Emily screamed at Jim, seeing the advanced weapon pulsate a red color from its center. It began to sizzle and crackle with blue flashes of light along its frame.

  Miller flinched, dropping it to the ground.

  “Back away!” he told everyone. They did.

  The group watched the gun melt into a blob of white goo. Then it hardened, cracked, and disintegrated into a plume of dust.

  “Not dead! Not dead!” Emily yelled, seeing Orange Man roll to his side. His face was a bloody hunk of shredded meat, but somehow he was still alive.

  “How the hell?” Jim snapped.

  Orange Man groped blindly for the briefcase and managed to slap his palm flat against the bright chrome surface before Alison and his partner emptied their weapons, pumping round after round into the man’s chest. Eventually, Orange Man stopped moving.

  The briefcase began to hum, then it sizzled and cracked before a bolt of blue energy leapt from the chrome surface and connected with Orange Man’s arm.

  Emily’s mouth dropped open. She knew what was about to happen.

  In less than a second, Orange Man was completely covered in a lattice of blue lightning bolts, crisscrossing his skin from the center out. He arched his back, then curled into a fetal position. There was a flash of light and a crack—then he was gone, leaving only a body-shaped patch of scorched earth.

  “Oh my God!” Emily screamed, feeling the jump process moving into its last stage. “That’s what happens to me. That’s what I saw happen to my mom, over and over and over again.”

  The briefcase was still humming and crackling with the blue energy.

  She moved away from the group, wanting to protect them when it was her turn to be consumed by the blue fire.

  “What the hell is going on here?” Alison’s partner asked Emily.

  Emily had no words. All she could do was point, and try to remain in the present long enough to see what was going to happen.

  A blazing red light appeared in the center of the case’s control surface, then swarmed its exterior with rapidly shifting lines of energy. The red glow became more intense as the sizzling, crackling, popping, and humming grew. The case began to shake violently, skipping on the ground like a jumping bean.

  Just then, time began to slow down for Emily. She knew the time jump was only seconds away.

  The briefcase detonated in slow motion for a two-second count, then everything around her stopped moving in mid-event.

  She could see the effects of the blast’s shockwave spiraling outward, lifting dirt and debris into the air. The back of Jim’s house was being compressed by the compression wave and it was about to hit the men.

  But that wasn’t the worst part.

  Shrapnel from the metal briefcase was also traveling in all directions, as if it had been propelled from a fragmentation grenade. Dozens of jagged pieces were on a collision course with Derek, Jim, and the cops.

  Emily only had seconds to make changes to the scene before she vanished. There wasn’t time to move anyone far enough away to be safe from the explosion. They were all going to feel it one way or the other.

  She ran through the debris field, touching the metal shards to alter their course. Emily started with those headed for Derek then Jim, working quickly to protect them. But there were too many pieces remaining and not enough time. The cops were going to be torn to shreds unless she came up with another plan.

  Emily zipped to Alison and his partner, hitting them both with a powerful straight arm to the chest. Her super strength while time was slow would surely leave a deep bruise or possibly a slew of broken ribs, but she didn’t care. It felt amazing to unleash her fury on the men chasing her even though she was actually trying to save their lives.

  The blue fire came, and so did the pre-jump pain, sending her to the ground in a ball. She rolled across the yard to get far away from the men as she could before it was too late.

  “Derek!” she screamed, stopping her roll and looking at his beautiful face through the fiery cloud of blue that was engulfing her.

  A second later, she jumped.

  TO BE CONTINUED

  in Glassford Girl: Part 3

  (available now)

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  Glassford Girl: Part 3

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Emily Heart wasn’t breathing when she arrived after her most recent time jump from the back yard of Jim Miller’s house. Moments later, billions of sleeping neurons began to fire, rebooting her bio-systems and bringing her closer to a conscious state.

  Her heart stirred with a single thump, then charged to full power when it sent the first rush of blood into her muscular system. A howl of post-jump pain hit her just as her waking senses realized there was a mounting pressure inside her ear canals. She also heard the rhythmic sound of swooshing, and her body felt weightless and carefree, making her think she was floating in air.

  Yet there was a searing-cold dampness smothering her skin. Then something brushed across her cheek, sending a panic alarm that hastened the revival process.

  Her respiratory system came alive, causing her lungs to expand in size. Her mouth opened, hoping to receive a gulp of air, but only a frigid liquid crossed her lips and landed on her tongue, tasting foul and disgusting. She gagged, expelling the thick, foreign matter from her body as her eyes flew open.

  A gray-colored fish looked back at her, floating a few inches in front of her nose with its pelvic fins flapping. Behind the creature were tassels of thin-leafed grass swaying in the current, their tips reaching for the sunlight beaming in from above.

  Emily realized she was underwater. Her arms and legs started to flail, sending the curious fish darting off in an instant. She grabbed and kicked at the green-tinted water, hoping to climb her way to the surface, but her body sank further and further with every stroke.

  A garbled scream was all she could muster, looking down through the murky water, past her bare feet in search of the bottom. It was there, only a few feet below, but covered with a blanket of golf balls. Most looked to be white, but a sprinkling of yellow and orange caught her eye, plus a few with red stripes painted across their centers.

  Her feet made contact with the uneven surface, allowing her to bend her knees and push off with a mighty thrust. Emily threw her arms up, hoping to propel the launch with even greater force. It seemed to work. She rose like a ballistic missile hell-bent on reaching a high orbit.

  The surface came to her hands first, and then her elbows and shoulders broke through with ease. Emily rejoiced when the warmth of sunshine hit her face and naked shoulders. She gasped a massive breath, letting the oxygen and salvation filter into her body.

  Someone was talking, but it didn’t sound like a live person. The voice had a scratchy, high-pitched artificial tone, as if it was coming from a radio. The announcer mentioned the Super Bowl in Phoenix and its kickoff next month, telling her it was January 2015. She must have arrived not long after the narrow escape from the briefcase explosion.

  “Help me!” she screamed into the chilly daytime air as gravity took over, sending her body below the waterline. She grabbed at the surface, but regretted now that she had never learned how to swim. Terror spread as the sunshine faded away, taking her into the abyss like a golf ball sliced off course by its careless owner.

  The bottom of the lake came fast, reaching the tips of her toes first. Once again, she used her legs to send herself to the surface, ignoring the pain and nausea swirling inside her belly. Her second jettison from the bottom wasn’t as effective as the first, barely taking her head out of the water.

  She managed to take another swig of air, but it was short and shallow. It was clear she couldn’t keep repeating this maneuver. Not with the dwindling supply of air and certainly not in near-freezing water with a weakened, post-jump body.

  Emily fought to keep herself above the water with furious hands and feet, but as before, she started to sink. She was ready to accept drowning, but something broke through the water and came at her. It was a metal pole with a golf-ball-sized scoop on the end. She grabbed at it, wrapping her numb fingers around it.

  Her body stopped its decent and changed course when the pole retracted, pulling her up to the light above. She broke through the water, gasping for air, while staring into the eyes of an elderly man and woman wearing colorful golf attire.

  The couple worked the pole in concert, dragging Emily across the surface and onto the grass-covered shoreline, face down.

  “Get my blanket from the cart, Clark,” the woman told the man. “She must be freezing. The poor thing!”

  Emily rolled to her side and wrapped her arms around her shivering body. “Thank you for saving me,” she mumbled in a weak voice.

  The old man draped a soft blanket over her legs and pulled it up to cover her shoulders. The smell of mold, dust and cigarettes was intense, but Emily was too tired and too cold to care.

  Her mind kept switching focus, showing visions of the briefcase explosion, Derek’s face, and then the fish staring at her. One after another they played, a split-second each, clouding her thought process and making her dizzy. A second later, she puked, sending a stream of bile into the grass.

  “We should call 9-1-1!” Clark screamed.

  “Get my cell phone. Hurry!”

  “No,” Emily answered with chattering teeth, trying to stop her rescuers from involving anyone else. Finally, the rapid-fire visions stopped playing in her head and she was able to concentrate.

  “Lay still, child. Save your energy. We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “I’ll be okay. Just . . . need . . . a minute,” she said, feeling more energy drain from her body. Her eyelids felt as though they weighed a hundred pounds each. She was exhausted, but couldn’t let herself sleep. Not yet.

  “Hurry, Clark! I think she’s going into shock.”

  “Beverly, which pouch is it in?”

  “Front one! With my extra tees!”

  “Okay, found it. What’s your damned unlock code?”

  “All ones, like I told you before.”

  “Got it. Dialing now . . . it’s ringing . . .”

  “I’m really worried, Clark. I think hyperthermia’s setting in.”

  “Why don’t you use your body heat to warm her up?”

  “Good idea,” Beverly said, crawling to the ground.

  Emily felt Beverly snuggle behind her with her arms and legs wrapped around her.

  Clark’s voice doubled in volume when he spoke again into the phone. “I’ve got a young girl here who we just pulled from the lake! We need paramedics, now!”

  “Tell them where we’re at!” Beverly snapped at him.

  “We’re at Stone Creek Golf Course in Paradise Valley near Cactus and Tatum Boulevard. We’re on the first hole. By the lake . . . Yes, she is, but we think she’s hypothermic . . . I’d say, maybe nineteen. Hard to tell. She’s covered in gunk from the lake and, well, she’s naked . . . I don’t know. That’s how we found her . . . Clark Grismond . . . Just my wife, Beverly . . . okay, we will. But they’ll need to hurry! She’s freezing to death.”

  Just as warmth began to flow into Emily from the old woman, something felt off. Her belly and ch
est were tingling, making it feel as though her skin was moving on its own. It was normal for her body to become hypersensitive after a jump, but this sensation was different. Something was wrong. She could sense it.

  Emily pushed at Beverly with her elbow. It worked. Beverly’s grasp weakened, allowing Emily to wriggle free. She turned onto her back while lifting the blanket to look at her breasts and tummy. Then she saw them, sticking to her skin and sucking blood.

  Leeches!

  Two of them were on her left breast—on opposing sides of the nipple—plus several attached to her abdomen in random locations. But there were more. A pair of bloodsuckers were feasting along the inside of her upper thigh, not far from her vagina.

  Emily screamed, feeling a rush of adrenaline kick in that came out of nowhere. She tossed the blanket aside and sat upright in an instant. “Get them off me!”

  Beverly moved to a crouching position but kept her hands out and away like Emily’s body was a toxic wasteland. “Clark? What do we do?”

  Before Clark could respond, the jump process ignited with the power and speed of a supernova. Emily spun on her backside and shoved the woman with both feet, sending Beverly flopping backward and landing at the feet of her husband.

  Emily knew she only had seconds before the blue fire would come. She was already exhausted from the last jump and didn’t know if she could survive another one so soon. She steeled herself, preparing for what would come next.

  The next instant, time froze, and the blue fire came to consume her, faster than it had done before. It transformed her body into pure energy, sweeping her away from the golf course, leaving Beverly and Clark behind with their expressions frozen in time.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Emily felt someone shake her shoulders, bringing her out of her post-jump stasis. Two jumps in a handful of minutes had drained her body to a near-catatonic state. She heard a male voice and other sounds, but her ears weren’t functioning properly—everything was garbled and mixed together. She couldn’t make sense of it. She tried to open her eyes but they wouldn’t budge, at least not yet. She needed more time to recover from the successive jumps.