Sam felt a bit strange as he and Jimbo sat in the park, watching the girls baseball team practicing. Not because he was watching the girls, but because he felt strange.
"What's eating you, Sammie?"
"Not sure."
"Try me."
Sam looked at Jimbo, his tall, rascally Texan friend with a
drawl a mile long and fists as big as hams. "All morning I've been feeling
as if at any moment I might go...boom!"
Jimbo jumped a bit when Sam emphasized the boom a bit
loudly.
"Don't have to go ballistic and emo on me."
"Sorry. Just feels like...boom!"
Jimbo plugged his ears. "Through?"
Sam nodded.
"Think it's another kind of power thing or other?"
"It's the other that's got me worried. Remember last
time I felt this?"
"Yeah. We got caught up in a fight with some kinds of
demons from the seventh level of hell. And it turned out to not be hell at all,
but some kind of projection by a misguided, miscreant..."
"Whoa, my Texan partner."
"Gotcha. Look, weird is weird after awhile. So how much
more weird can it get?"
Samuel was about to answer when one of the girls slugged the
ball so hard it spun overhead, and dropped towards his lap. He shot up to catch
it.
WHAM!
San Francisco was burning. People were screaming. Horses
were screaming. Men and women were running in every direction as the place was
shaken and torn by a huge earthquake that no one had ever expected.
Samuel found himself dodging falling brick and mortal,
leaping over sidewalks that sprouted broken water mains, and hissing gas that
exploded into searing flame throwers as he passed them. It was a race for his
life. He couldn't believe the horror of it all. One man ran towards him
screaming, his body on fire, his eyes burned out of their sockets, hair smoking
and flesh burning. He smelled like singed pork.
Samuel tried to help the men by extending his umbrella to
steer him towards a horse trough, but when the man struck the water, the trough
exploded as a huge piece of building smashed into it from the side, sliding it
and the man towards oblivion.
Samuel ran and ran, until he didn't think his high heels
would last any longer. He finally had to tear his long petticoat free as it was
catching on everything. He felt it tug free, revealing his legs, which in any
other time would have caused him great shame, but a woman had to do what a
woman does.
He finally reached the safety of the pier, but it was also
breaking up beneath the rips and tears of the earthquake. Fire was spreading
from the warehouses onto the dock, threatening to overwhelm all the ships
moored there.
He finally managed to reach his destination and ran up a
boarding ramp onto a large schooner that his father owned.
His father was already ordering his men to shove off from
the pier for fear of the flames and water damage. He knew a minor tidal wave
had to be coming as well, and they needed to draw as far as possible from any
structures that they could collide with.
"Darling, help the boys now, will ye?" Her father
said.
She tore off the rest of her petticoat, which again would
have driven the sailors mad with lust, but when they saw her flying across the
main deck to help raise the anchor, they ignored her, for their lives were at
stake. There might be hell to pay on the morrow, but today they were one family
determined to survive the Great Quake.
Finally, the ship began to pull free from its leads to the
dock, and the anchor groaned loudly on its chains as it rose, dripping from the
sea water.
Her father strode over and grabbed the anchor and with the
help of two men, they angled it to its berth.
She went immediately into the Captain's Cabin and threw off
her female clothing and put on regular sailor clothes. She stopped for a moment
to admire herself in one small mirror. Then she frowned.
"How can I be
me?"
WHAM!
"Is he going to be all right?" He heard a pretty
feminine voice ask with great care and concern.
His eyes fluttered open and the bright afternoon sun lanced
into his brain for a moment, until he put an arm across his face.
"Sammie?"
"I'm okay." He muttered, not feeling okay at all.
He gradually removed his arm from over his eyes and revealed
the most beautiful girl he would never know. For the moment he recognized who
it was he knew Jimbo was going to be out with her before he could say a word.
"You're one brave gal." Jimbo laid it on with
thick sweet honey Texan drool.
She looked at him and dimpled.
"I'm sure you helped cure whatever was ailing my friend
and partner here."
"Friend and partner?"
"Yeah. We have a detective agency."
"Really?" She asked, her eyes wide with
excitement.
As Samuel slowly got to his feet, the girl and Jimbo were
already heading in a different direction while the rest of the girl baseball
team gave Samuel a thumbs up, then went back to play.
"Whammy Sammy!" He muttered, feeling the slight
bruise on the back of his head where he had struck the ground. "I get the
wham and he gets the girl. For all I know he'll be doing that until I'm a
hundred and three."
He sighed, then tucked in his shirt and headed for home.
"Things could be worse."
"You betcha, Sam."
Samuel looked to his right and Albert, the scientist man
with a brain the size of a universe, was striding beside him.
"Why didn't you warn me?"
Albert shrugged. "What good would it have done? You'd
have still caught it."
Sam sighed. "Suppose you're right. My one shot at
making an impression on the girls and I blow it."
Albert smiled. "Not really."
Sam gave him a puzzled look.
"Hi, are you Jimbo's friend and partner?"
Samuel stopped to turn around and the most gorgeous redhead
he'd ever seen was standing behind him smiling.
"Does your head hurt? I know the perfect thing to fix
it."
"You do?" He asked dumbly, stumbling over his
words.
She took his arm and steered him away from the direction towards
his home. "I do."
Sam smiled. Maybe the day wasn't totally a loss, but what
had that whammy been about and why had he been a girl in it?
"You listening?" The redhead asked, when he didn't
reply right away.
"I'm sorry." He quickly recovered. "Still a
bit shook up."
She gave him a bright smile. "I'm going to fix that
too."
She laughed and the sun shone brighter still.
