Double Life - Book 1 of the Vaiya Series (22 page)

He really needed to calm down. Nothing was
going to happen--was it? It was just a normal storm. Besides, a
part of him told him that being snatched away to another world was
just nonsense anyway and that it could never happen in the first
place. Not that he believed that voice but...

“Ready to get some food, guys?” Jimmy’s voice
smashed Ian’s thoughts, shattering them like a mirror.

He was quick to recover. “Yeah.” He heard a
distant crackle of thunder and tried to ignore it. “Let’s go.”

Jimmy slid off the booth and stood up, plate
in hand. William slurped down some strawberry lemonade, and then
scuttled off the booth like a bug. Ian casually slipped off the
booth and took a plate off the table, his breathing steady and
relaxed, his thoughts dwelling in the realm of positive
thinking.

Heading to the back of the buffet line,
amidst the crowd, Ian plopped a thick piece of spicy meatloaf on
his plate, drizzled some honey barbecue sauce onto it, and grabbed
the last slice of cheese pizza with his other hand, the delightful
aroma of food locking his fear behind another layer of bars.

Walking over to the salad bar near the
entrance of the restaurant, he scooped some diced onions onto his
meatloaf, some bacon bits and black olives on his pizza, and, after
waiting for a rather overweight man to fill up four cups of soup
and leave, he ladled himself a cup of potato soup and grabbed three
cracker packages. Right as he was about to head back, the two
teenage girls who’d kept on peering back at them earlier stopped
him.

“Hey, man,” greeted the taller and thinner of
the two, a woman with dark braided hair, and the face of a
botanist, not that he knew what one looked like, she just reminded
him of one. Perhaps it was the glasses or her intelligent
smile.

“Um … hi.”
Now why were they talking to
him?
“This place has some amazing food,” he muttered, just to
make conversation. “It’s definitely not your average
restaurant.”

“No, it’s not,” she replied with slight humor
in her voice. After a brief bout of silence, she continued, a
chuckle on her face. “By the way, I couldn’t help overhearing some
of your conversation.”

“Some?” he asked in shock, trying to make
sure he didn’t spill anything. “Now you’re just being generous.
With my friends yammering and shouting, I’d be surprised if you
didn’t hear everything.”

She laughed. “Ok, you caught us. We heard
most of it, especially the part about your costume.”

With that segue, the other girl stepped in,
her straight blonde hair, business-like smile, and athletic build,
a great contrast to her friend’s appearance. She got straight to
the point: “So, where’d you get those awesome elven garments, man?
My youngest sister Michelle really wants to dress up as an elf this
year, but she’s having some wicked trouble finding a nice
costume.”

Just perfect. Two girls asking him for
fashion advice. He smiled sarcastically, somehow remembering the
elven residence from Lord of the Rings. Maybe Jimmy had brought it
up in a conversation a short while ago--he didn’t know. Anyway, it
was worth a shot. “Well, if you want real elven clothes, I hear
there’s a sale going on at Rivendell. If you go right now, you can
pick up a decent cloak and dress for under fifty.”

“Rivendell.” She just shook her head
confused, oblivious to his Lord of the Ring’s reference. “Never
heard of it. Is that some new online store?”

This was bad. She didn’t even catch the joke.
Now perhaps he knew a little of what Jimmy had to go through on an
average day. Trying not to sound defeated, he quickly moved past
his mistake. “Actually, no. I was thinking of Amazon. If you go
there, I think you can find a decent one.”

“Is that where you got yours?” Her voice
couldn’t hide her enthusiasm. She adjusted the fork on her heaping
plate of vegetables before it fell off.

“Yeah, definitely, but I’m not sure how I
found it.” Then, finding this rather weak, he added, “I’m sure
you’ll have no troubles though.”

She grinned. “And it’s less than fifty?”

“Absolutely, unless the deal’s expired.”

“Thanks, um …”

“Ian,” he replied.

“Thanks, Ian,” she said, her eyes twinkling.
“I’m Rachel Sandler. My friend’s Eden Lane.” She smiled cunningly,
as she gave him one last look before walking back to her booth: “I
think we go to the same school.”

Heading back to the table where his friends
were waiting for him with full plates of food, Ian tried to calm
his racing heart. Here he’d unknowingly given shopping advice to
the Coach’s oldest daughter and Jack Lane’s older sister. The
coach, he still wasn’t on good terms with, and Jack Lane … well, he
wished he’d never met the pestering brat. The guy just didn’t know
when to quit picking on people.

Though he was sort of like Eddy in that
sense, he was much worse as his targets ranged from the unpopular
to the lonely to anybody who got in his way, as opposed to Eddy’s
more singular Alan focus. Well, at least that was what he told
himself to stay sane. In reality, it didn’t seem Eddy was much
better, but it was best to not even go there.

Sliding onto the booth, Ian set his plate and
cup on the table and began to smash the crackers and unwrap the
packages, privately scolding himself for not recognizing the two
girls earlier. When he’d thought he’d never see them again, lying
wasn’t so bad, but now, knowing that he’d likely see them in school
and probably with fire coming out of their ears when they saw the
high prices of less-than-authentic elven garments, he just wanted
to run. Pitiful. He could have done better. Much better.

But William only smiled slyly at him,
ignorant of his internal drama, mistaking his silence for
contemplation, his shiftiness for embarrassment. “You just can’t
stop talking to the ladies, can you, Ian?”

He stuck the crackers in his soup, stirring
it around with his spoon. “Actually, they talked to me first.”

William’s eyes widened. “Wow, you must feel
really lucky,” he said, as he salted his steak and fried chicken.
“You
know
that’s not normal. Jimmy over here can’t even get
girls to look at him.” He winked. “Ok, that was a lie. They look at
him, but when they try to talk to him, he’s already flown away to
Mars.”

As William chuckled at his own quip, Jimmy
quietly dipped his carrot into his chili soup and attempted to eat
it, but instead burnt his tongue on the first bite and had to go
straight to his water.

William just laughed at this mishap, as it
seemed to prove his point. “See, Jimmy just doesn’t have it. He
gets embarrassed even thinking about girls.” Disappointment flashed
in his eyes for a second before being replaced with good-natured
humor. “He’s nothin’ like you, Ian.”

“Thanks.” He dug into his food and pretended
that nothing had happened.

An hour later, Jimmy pulled into his
driveway, all of them groaning under the weight of their full
bellies. Ian unfastened his seatbelt, and once the vehicle was
parked and turned off, opened the truck door. In spite of their
bloated stomachs, they dashed through the pouring rain surprisingly
fast, not caring to use the stone path, their feet trampling the
soggy grass. As Jimmy pulled open the door to the cottage house and
held it open for them, William and Ian darted inside.

Taking off his muddy shoes at the doormat,
Ian scanned around the house, noting the tall white pillars and
winding staircase, before looking back at Jimmy, who’d closed the
door behind him. “Nice place you got here. It feels sort of
medieval.”

“Yeah, that’s what everyone says,” Jimmy
replied nonchalantly, as he glanced down the staircase and then
back at Ian, William standing next to him. “So, you wanna watch the
first Lord of the Rings now?”

“Sure.” He’d watched Lord of the Rings before
but that was over two years ago. It would be great to refresh his
memory on it and learn some quotes from it so that he could better
understand his new friend Jimmy.

“Great. Let’s go downstairs--I’ll set it up.
Will, you know the drill.”

“Yes, sir,” replied William, grinning, as he
raced into the kitchen.

Smiling at his eagerness, Jimmy led the way
downstairs, Ian following. But they had only gone a few steps
before a flash of white lit up the stairway.

Moments later, a loud boom sounded, shaking
the house to its core. Goose bumps crawled up Ian’s arms; his head
swayed like a blade of grass. The atmosphere swooped down on him
like a raven, wrapping him tightly in its frozen embrace. This was
turning out just like last night. Forget what he’d thought earlier,
he could very well be making a return visit to the other world.

With the cautious steps of an adventurer
walking over a rope bridge above a torrential river, Ian, following
his tour guide, descended the stairs into the basement, his eyes
meeting a large crackling fireplace, whose lapping flames reminded
him of the fiery monster from Lord of the Rings. Moments later, he
made it to the bottom of the winding staircase, and, as Jimmy
hurried over to the TV to set up the movie, Ian studied the large
open basement.

To his left sat a soft-looking velvet couch
facing a wide-screen TV and a bookshelf full of games and movies;
to his right was a ping pong table and a dart set on the wall
further down. Straight ahead of him were three halfway opened
doors, one of which led to a bathroom.

Turning around, Ian stared at the western
side of the basement, his eyes latching onto a black curtain that
stretched from one side of the room to the other. Curious, seeing
Jimmy too busy with the TV to notice what he was doing, he
stealthily crept towards it and upon reaching it, parted the
curtain in the middle. What he saw astounded him.

Beautiful sheathed swords on the walls fitted
neatly into brass heraldic crest sword hangers; longbows, composite
bows, recurve bows, and wood, aluminum, fiberglass, and
aluminum-carbon arrows hung on wooden bow racks. The shelves were
filled with pointed helmets, backplate armor, plate mail armor,
bracers, gorgets, arm guards, chest guards, finger tabs, stringers,
arrow pullers, and many other kinds of armor pieces and archery
equipment.

Fear somewhat lessened by this encounter,
Ian, amused by Jimmy’s medieval obsession, closed the curtain and
secretly walked back to the TV just as William came down with a bag
of barbeque potato chips, a half-opened sack of pretzels, and six
pop cans in his arms, which he soon deposited gently on the ground.
Task complete, William opened the potato chip sack, and, after
flinging a few chips into his mouth, flopped down onto the velvet
couch, automatically pulling out the leg rest with his free
hand.

Ian sat down on the couch beside William, as
Jimmy flipped off the lights, apparently oblivious to him spying
out his medieval collection. As Ian watched the pitch-black screen,
he heard a haunting woman’s voice break through the silence:

“The world is changing. I feel it in the
water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air.”

Not hearing her next set of words, as these
had already infiltrated his mind, poisoning him with dark thoughts,
Ian watched as Jimmy threw a couple logs in the fireplace, the
devilish fire now swirling into grotesque shapes resembling Greek
mythological monsters, Cerberus, Chimera, and Manticore, among
others. Already he was regretting staying awake for that Ancient
History lecture.

“Creepy, isn’t it?” asked Jimmy, as he
plopped down into a rocking chair, folded a gray blanket around
him, and donned a black wizard’s hat, making him seem an ancient
sorcerer, as troubling minor music took center stage.

A cold shiver ran through Ian’s body, his
angst returning. For some reason, he didn’t remember this movie
being this creepy before, and he’d barely watched half a minute of
it. This couldn’t bode well. Right now, there was no way he could
handle seeing those ghost-like grim reapers go after the hobbits.
“Yeah,” he finally replied. “You wanna turn on the lights?”

Jimmy just chuckled. “No way, man. That’d
ruin the atmosphere.”

Not wanting to appear like a child afraid of
the dark, he refrained from saying any more. But all it took was
another clap of thunder to send him back into a panic. His body
heated up. His breathing grew heavy. It took no stretch of the
imagination to envision himself being executed by Master Thargon.
He could already see the white doctor’s garb of the sorcerer and a
long syringe, oozing with green poison, as the mad scientist
prepared to give him a lethal injection.

Thinking this, suddenly, as if in tune with
his horror-filled thoughts, Ian’s mouth went dry, leaving him as
parched as a Saharan nomad. Whether it were from all the steak
fries he’d eaten or from barely touching his water at the
restaurant, he found it terribly unsettling. He tried swallowing,
but it didn’t work. He began to fidget.

“Hey, is something wrong, man?” asked Jimmy,
while he lowered the TV’s volume and faced Ian, concern widening
his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m real thirsty all the sudden,” he
forced out painfully in a croaky voice. “Do you mind if I get a
drink?”

“Not at all.” Jimmy paused the movie and lay
back on his rocking chair, his face showing none of Ian’s
agitation.

Getting off the couch and running up the
winding staircase, Ian heard Jimmy quote from the Lord of the Rings
again:

“I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish
none of this had happened,” moaned his friend in a sorrowful
despairing voice that sent shivers down Ian’s spine--he didn’t care
if it were only a movie quote: it didn’t feel right; it seemed to
fit his life perfectly. Was Jimmy trying to make him miserable?

As he reached the kitchen, he frantically
searched through the cupboards for a drinking cup and quickly found
one. Wasting no time, he filled it up with tap water from the
faucet, not even bothering that he turned it on hot.