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The Shasta Caper, Chapter Forty-Nine, Part One

Chapter Forty-Nine, Part One

"Is that where we had..."

Samuel cut her off. "Exactly."

Jimbo shook his head. "I don't know how you do it, Sammie, but you've pulled our butts out of the fire yet again."

Samuel smiled. "I have friends in high places."

Al and Marilyn waved at him from his right and he waved back.

Nanny turned to look. "How come I can't see them anymore?"

Samuel shrugged. "This world doesn't go by the same laws as our old one. It's pure energy."

"Doesn't feel so pure to me." Jimbo said.

"Nothing you can see, feel or touch, Jimbo. Once you enter this realm, as we did when we tumbled into it, your physical body is translated into a higher vibration."

"Now that sounds like just plain horse crap to me." Jimbo argued.

"It's how I was able to withstand the bullets and the knife." Samuel pointed out.

"About that?" Nanny began.

Samuel shook his head. "Not now. We gotta keep moving. They won't take long to discover our tracks."

Jimbo chuckled. "No rest for the wicked."

Samuel grinned. "Got it, old friend."

Nanny sighed. "You two old married hens have really got to stop doing that."

They both gave her scowls.

She held her hands up. "Okay. All right. Just teasing."

"Gotta be careful here, Nanny. Your thoughts are more powerful than you think."

Jimbo laughed. "And I don't want to be turned into a wife to this character." He pointed out.

Nanny's face creased with laugh lines. "You two..."

"Uh-uh!" Jimbo and Samuel warned at the same time.

They repacked their gear and headed onto the path again, which had grown more faint as they traveled. It became less and less frequently obvious, yet somehow Samuel kept them to it.

Nanny was about to ask, then skipped it, she knew Sam would just say a little birdie told him. One with bushy white hair and one with golden. She sniffed. 

"I think I'm coming down with a cold." She finally  had to say, breaking the silence of their walk.

"Samuel?" Jimbo asked.

Samuel stopped and lifted a hand towards Nanny. She backed up.

"Not going to hurt one bit." Samuel said with a grin.

"Better keep that hand above the water and off the waves, buster, or I'm kicking your shins and then your bony..."

Samuel touched her right shoulder.

She practically leapt out of her skin when his hand turned a bright green. Green energies spilled out and coursed around her body, like water seeking its own level, until her entire body was overflowing with green energy.

"What is that stuff?"

"You can see it?" 

Jimbo scowled. "I can't!"

Nanny nodded. "First thing I've been able to see for days now."

Samuel pulled his hand away from her and she reached out to grab his hand to thank  him.

A huge burst of energy exploded between them, sending Samuel off his feet and onto his back, and Fanny into Jimbo's arms.

WHAM!

Anchored, a sweet, heart felt animation about love and longing.

Love this one a lot. It shows what many of us go through when we miss or long for someone.

The Shasta Caper, Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Eight

It started with a kind of ticklish feeling on his eyelashs, then moved to his cheek, then to his sideburns, then his hair. Very ethereal. Light. Like an angel's touch.

He opened his eyes. 

Marily was looking into his eyes from only inches away. She held a finger to her lips and he said nothing. She drew back and he could see Al's glowing body near the back wall. He gestured at the wall.

Samuel felt like a truck had landed on him. It was so hard to get up, but finally he managed. Jimbo and Nanny were sleeping back to back, both unware of the other's closeness. He smiled. It reminded him of how children slept. Then he turned back to Al, who brushes his long mustache briskly, then pointed to the wall again.

Samuel stepped over his friends and to the back wall. He looked at Al who touched a point on the wall. Samuel couldn't see anything, or feel anything. Usually he could sense when something was hidden, but this was different. 

He put his palm to the wall where Al had his finger and the wall rose silently, like a curtain being drawn. As it did, it revealed a kind of cockpit. There were advanced monitors of some kind of soft plastic that stripped across the walls of the revealed room. Each monitor showed a different perspective of the land about them. 

One monitor, which Al went to straight off, showed the floating city. It was hovering over a very rugged area. As he watched he saw the flying ships that had attacked them before, drift into view and land in the rugged area. Ornately dressed soldiers climbed out and began marching into openings that were not visible to Samuel through the monitor. It was the only explanation why they disappeared completely from view.

A monitor to his right caught his attention and he almost gasped. Lady Marantha was seated on a bench carved from highly polished rock. Her room was barren and cold looking, except for the warm colors of the bench. She had a bed of sorts against one wall. Compiled of cushions and thick covers. A pillow of some kind of reflective purple material.

She was crying.

Samuel felt his heart go out to her. The moment he felt that emotion she looked up and began looking around the room. Finally, her eyes fixed on his own. 

She tried to touch him, but she couldn't.

She mouthed three words, he didn't need to know. "Please help me!"

"Mother!" Nanny's voice cried out from behind Samuel.

Then Nanny threw herself into the room and went to the screen. She began crying. Lady Marantha on the other side became horrified, then she also began crying.

Jimbo staggered into the room. "A little  hidey hole control room hidden behind us, hey?"

"Evidently some kind of lookout. But for who?" Samuel pondered, unsure of whether to be afraid, worried or none of the above.

A door slid open in the cave like room and a horribly twisted giant stalked into the room, his knuckles almost brushing the floor. He had none of the elegance of the Ancients. This giant was something different, a throwback, stunted in more ways than were visible. 

Samuel could tell that by the eyes in the creature. They were devoid of intelligence. 

Lady Marantha tried to evade the giant, but it deftly captured her and slung her over its shoulder. It stopped for a moment, surveying the room, as if sensing it were being watched, but then it shook its ugly head and exited.

They sat in the room for a time longer, hoping for another glimpse of her, but it didn't happen. And mysteriously, all the monitors flickered brightly once, then went black.

"This smells wrong, Sammie."

Samuel looked over at Jimbo. "Someone knows we're here."

In a matter of moments they were reassembling their backpacks, then fled the shelter into a bright lit day, that was still filled with a blustery wind, but this time there were snowflakes falling. Gigantic ones. The size of small cars. They had to dodge through them.

One struck Jimbo on his right arm and he screeched in pain.

From that moment, they became even more careful. Whatever made the snowflakes, it wasn't user friendly. And they were sharp as knives.

All of them had cuts and scrapes by the time they found more shelter. This time they used giant leaves again as before, but they just scooted them closer together, so that it wouldn't look like a tent and give them away. Once they had done that Samuel and Jimbo planted some brush in front of the closest in view from any outsiders passing by, then they all crawled under the leaves.

Nanny was shivering violently. "None of this makes any sense. It shouldn't be snowing without clouds in the sky. And where does the wind come from?"

"Little angel." Jimbo told her gently. "Some questions just don't have any easy anwers."

They huddled close together, using their bodies to add warmth to their sleeping bags. It helped. In a matter of minutes they were all sound asleep again, but this time it wasn't peaceful.

Nanny dreamt of a mother she had never known running away from her, and the closer she got, the faster her mother ran.

Jimbo dreamed about a huge steak and potato dinner that he just couldn't get his fork into.

Samuel dreamed about a being so tall that it could have been a god. It looked at him and smiled. It needed his help, but he didn't know how to start doing that. It smiled and faded away.

What was the equivalent of the next morning, Jimbo and Samuel awoke to the smell of beans and rice. They rolled over and found Nanny warming them over a carefully managed fire that threw off no smoke.

"I managed to bag some of this from the fridge we found in that shelter."

Samuel didn't care where she bagged them from. His stomach was roaring like Godzilla and Jimbo, well, his never stopped roaring.

They dug into the warm breakfast food and talked about little things they all liked, mostly about food. Because as filling as the rice and beans were, they were beginning to miss regular meals and tables to eat them on.

Then an explosion sounded from the direction they had come from. They looked up and a small mushroom cloud was rising into the air.

A little nostalgia. The Green Hornet with Bruce Lee as Kato.

I remember seeing Bruce Lee for the first time in Return of the Dragon. It was almight rocking!

I loved it.

Saw every Bruce Lee movie I could after that.

Unfortunately, he never got to realize his full potential as Jackie Chan and Jet Li have, but  he still rocked our world for a time.

--John--

The Shasta Caper, Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Seven

A southerly wind began to blow, at first faintly, like the wist of a faint perfume, and then it grew so strong that they had to lean into it. Small shrubbery and trees were bending almost backwards from it.

"Quite a wind." Nanny noted.

Jimbo pulled out a snow cap and pulled it on over his ears.

Nanny did the same.

Samuel didn't.

Jimbo looked at  him.

"I need my ears free to hear things." Samuel said mysteriously.

Jimbo didn't ask. He'd learned by now that Sam ran by rules most other men did not.

Nanny saw a flat of rocks that leaned into a grove of trees. "There!" She pointed.

They made their way into the grove and the wind died down, though it still blew noisily through the tops of the trees, causing the golden brown leaves to toss and turn like bubbles in a washing machines, sending sprays of a light dust downwards and streaming into the breeze created by their tossing.

Finally, then threw their backpacks against the rocks and huddled together. 

"It's actually getting colder."

"Think it snows here?" Jimbo asked.

Samuel looked over at Al, who made as if he were freezing, then grinned. 

"I think we better prepare for the worst and hope for the..."

"Warmth!" Jimbo said, catching a small pile of twigs and grass on fire with his bic flick.

"Good old Bic when you need one." He grinned.

They moved the fire closer to the rocks,  and that's when Samuel pressed his hand against the rocks. There was a kind of grinding sound, then the rocks levered upwards, to reveal an interior complete with bunks and some strange looking boxes.

"Some kind of way station." Nanny guessed. "We do that on the mountain. Lay up supplies in various strategic places in case we get caught out when it's freezing and can't make it back."

They lifted the fire, using a flat rock, and then Samuel went straight to a box on the right, and pressed his hand against it. It opened to reveal a kind of fireplace, with wood already inside. They dumped their fire into it and it caught the larger bundles of wood on fire almost immediately.

Samuel went to the interior wall near the entrance and pressed his palm against a section and the rocks swung shut, closing them in.

It because quite quiet then, almost too quiet.

Jimbo looked around in  the dim light of the fire from the box. "Well, at least we won't freeze to death."

Samuel nodded and went to the another box. He palmed it and its top flipped open. A rush of cold air struck his face and light.

Nanny ran over and clapped her hands. "Dinner is served!"

Jimbo came over and saw cartons of rice and beans lightly frosted and various breads and pastries. 

Some frozen fruit that was a cross between raspberries and apples as well."

Jimbo pulled on out and tossed it hand to hand. "Imagine what kind of vine this thing grew on."

"Couldn't possibly." Nancy said with mouthfuls of cold rice in her mouth.

Samuel grinned at her, amused by her childisness and simplicity, then went to the last box. He palmed it and it revealed pans and eating implements, as well as an assortment of condiments.

In about half an hour they had a pot of rice, veggies and  herbs mixed together and boiling. The fragrance from it caused them their mouths to water. By the time the food was done, they were practically rushing to gobble it down.

Samuel was the last to finish. He wiped his mouth on the back of his sleeve, then sat back against the wall near the stove.

"We've got to come up with some kind of plan."

Jimbo belched.

Nanny punched him.

He belched again.

"You're a pig!"

Jimbo grinned. "Oink! Oink!"

She raised her fist, then lowered it. "Forget it. You're not worth the effort. I'm stuck with you big dummies until we can get out of this place."

"That's just the thing." Samuel said thoughtfully. "What if there isn't?"

"Isn't what?" Jimbo asked, cleaning the pot with the last piece of bread they'd found, and munching it down slowly, his eyes watering with pleasure.

"A way out."

Jimbo yawned, then lay down on the floor, putting his head on his arm. "So when hasn't there been?"

Samuel thought that over. "Almost every time."

"And yet here we lay inside the earth, stuck inside a hollow set of boulders, eating giant food and trekking blindly after this young woman's mother with Nazi's chasing us, and giants sending us off in voodoo clouds of smoke and light."

"Yeah. Not bad for a week's worth of hiking." Samuel agreed, then yawned himself.

"Look, we gotta come up with a plan." Nanny said, also yawning.

She lay down. The warmth of the stove, and the food in her tummy was stealing her consciousness and lulling her off into the world of dreams. "We'll talk about it...in the....morning."

No one disagreed. No one was awake.

As they slept a radiance grew inside the room and Methusaleh and Darrell appeared for a few moments. 

"Will they get out, grand father?" Darrell asked.

"They may be mortal, but their hearts are pure."

Methusaleh laughed. "Well. Mostly."

"Yes, the gruff one is kind of edgy, isn't he?"

"Oh, yes. Sort of like I was once upon a time. A long, long, long time ago." Methusaleh said softly, like a mother discussing her son. "I have seen a vision."

"And was he in it?"

"All of us were."

"And?"

Methusaleh looked at Darrell. "You always did want to know the end of the book, before you read the way to it, my son."

"Take after my fathers."

Methusaleh laughed and Darrell grinned, then both vanished, but a soft radiance remained in the room. It spread until every corner of the room had a kind of gentle radiance to it.

The people sleeping there went into a deeper sleep, a restful one. One that none of them had had in quite some time.

All, except Samuel. Samuel had a vision.

He saw a gigantic hammer falling through the sky into his hands and he caught it, then looked down at the world beneath him. He towered over it like a god.

"What shall I do with this world?" He asked himself.

Then his vision shattered into a thousand sparkles and he was lost in the euphoria of sleep and dreams of gentler times.