OMG, A CUL8R Time Travel Mystery (18 page)

Her ears were ringing and yet the silence
was deafening.

“Kelly, are you okay?” Scott asked
, his voice sounding muffled and far away.  But he must have been on top of her because she felt one of the bodies push away from her.

She couldn’t answer because her face was
still pressed into the sand.  The other body moved off her, and she sat up, sputtering sand out of her mouth and snorting it out of her nose.

“That was intense,” she said, trying to wipe the layer of sand off her
face.  She blinked several times and carefully opened her eyes.

“
I’ve got sand in places sand should never be,” Austin explained, spitting out sand.

“So do I.  What were you thinking to stan
d in the middle of that tornado?” a female voice that definitely wasn’t Kelly’s, said petulantly.

Kelly and Scott looked around and saw that Austin was sitting on the sand with Zoey on his lap.

“Holy crap!” Scott exclaimed.  “What are you doing here?”

CHAPTER TWELVE

“It’s my beach too, nerd,” Zoey said tartly as she stood up and brushed the sand off her shorts and bikini top.

Austin
also stood and reached down to help Kelly up from the ground.  “You okay?”

“Sure, just a little rattled.”  She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet.

“I’m fine, too.  Thanks for asking,” Zoey responded as she tried to tidy her tangled hair.

Scott dusted himself off and shook the
sand off his backpack.  “Oh no!”

“What?
” Kelly asked.

“Let me see your cell phones,” Scott said as he took first Kelly’s
, then Austin’s and looked at their screens.  “Next time we have to put these in baggies or those tough cases . . . the sand etched the plastic.  I can hardly see what it says.”

“
We can go to the mall tomorrow,” Austin said.  “But right now, I’m going home to clean up.”

Zoey was
still trying to shake the sand out of her hair and clothes.  “Well, you guys are no fun at all. I’m going home and taking a long, hot bubble bath.”  With a toss of her long blond hair, she tried to make a graceful exit, but the deep, drifted sand made it difficult to move without looking like a plow horse.

The other three followed her.  She stopped so abruptly that they all nearly ran into her.

“Where the heck is my car?” she asked.

“Where the heck is the parking lot?” Austin stood behind her and looked around for his truck.

All the concrete that had made up the sidewalks and boardwalk along the beach was gone.  It was all sand, from the beach to the street with only an asphalt path leading to the Fishing Pier.  An elderly man wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt and overalls who was carrying a tackle box and three long fishing poles was just leaving the pier and heading toward the street.  Zoey saw him first and stalked over to stand directly in front of him.  With her hands on her hips, she practically yelled at him.  “Where’s my car?”

“Your car’s missing, lady?” the man asked.

“No . . . I just made it up.  Yes, it’s missing.  It was right there.”  Zoey pointed to the empty sand.

“How long ago was that?”

“Ten minutes . . . max.”  Zoey looked at Austin and waved her hands in the air.  “They towed my car.  Can you believe that?”

“No one towed your car, lady.  I’ve been fishing out here all day long, and there were no cars getting towed.  What did your car look like?”

“It’s a 2010 Mini, white with pink stripes and a white convertible roof.  I want to file a police report.”

“2010?  Mini?”

“Are you deaf?  Yes, a 2010 Mini Cooper.  My parents got it for me for my sixteenth birthday.”

“Have you kids been drinking?”

“No way,” Austin said. 

“Holy crap . . . what year is it?”
Scott asked.

“You kids
need to go home and go to bed.”  The old man shook his head and frowned his disapproval.  “You’ve all got school tomorrow. You better get out of here before the cops come by and take you in.  Your parents won’t be too happy to get that phone call.”  He started walking toward Estero Boulevard.  “2010 Mini Cooper.  Very funny.  Trying to make me believe they don’t know it’s 1966.”

Stunned, Zoey, Austin and Kelly turned to Scott for an answer
.

“Epic.  We did it!”  A broad smile stretched across his face
, and he did a very uncharacteristic fist pump.  But it was clear he was as surprised as everyone else.

“We actually travelled?”  Kelly looked around them.  “Everything’s different.”

“Neptune Palace is gone,” Austin muttered, referring to the huge souvenir shop that was shaped like an undersea reef, complete with giant concrete seahorses and fiberglass seaweed.  It was where tourists went to buy boogie boards, swimsuits, t-shirts and beachy knickknacks.  In its place was a tacky shell shop advertising a sale on shark’s teeth necklaces.

“And
Citrola’s Pizza,” Kelly added looking at the bait shack that was next to the Fishing Pier.  Even that was different, made out of old, weathered wood and about half as long as the current fishing pier.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” Zoey screeched.

The other three turned and looked at her as if they had forgotten she was there.  But now that they remembered, it was obvious they were speechless.

“What’s happening?”  Zoey stomped her foot.

Scott thought for a minute then said, “First, shut your cell phones off so we can save the batteries.”

“Not me,” Zoey protested.  “I’
ve got to call my parents to come get me right now.”

“
Go ahead,” Scott challenged.

Zoey
took her cell phone out of the pocket of her shorts and flipped through to contacts.  She found “home” and punched the key, then held the phone to her ear.  After several seconds, she pulled it down and looked at the screen.  “Stupid phone.  There’s no signal.”  She held her phone out and moved it around, trying to find the elusive signal.

“
That’s because there’s not one.” Scott informed her.

“Of course there is.  I make calls from this beach all the time.”  She continued walking in circles, trying to get bars on her phone.  The screen remained blank.

“You made calls in 2013.  This is 1966.”  Scott watched for her response.

“1966?  Yeah, right.”

“You heard the man.”

“
Whatever!  He probably misunderstood the question.”

“Then where’s your car?  And the parking lot?  And the sidewalk?  And the shops and restaurants?”
 

For the first time, Zoey really paid attention to her surroundings.  Her eyes narrowed as she tried to find any of the familiar landmarks that had been there only an hour ago.  
“I don’t know.  Maybe that tornado blew us down the beach.”  With head held high, she stalked toward the street.  She looked both ways, hesitated, then turned right and started walking away.

Kelly, Austin and Scott exchanged confused looks.

“We can’t let her go.  She’s got to stay with us,” Kelly said.

“Yeah, she’ll die out there on her own,” Austin added.  “Or someone will kill her to shut her up.”

“She’s not supposed to be here,” Scott grumbled.  “She’s not part of the plan.”

“Maybe not, but she’s here.  And we’re responsible for her,” Kelly stated without enthusiasm.

Scott considered the options for a moment, then nodded.  “Yeah, we’ve got to go after her.  Somehow we’ve got to explain what has happened without her totally freaking out.”

“I don’t know about her, but I’m feeling a little weirded out myself,” Austin admitted.  “Are we really in 1966?”

Scott smiled again.  “It appears we are.”

“Holy crap!”

A man staggered out of the darkness and approached Zoey.  He tried to wrap his arm around her shoulders, and she tried to step away, but he held onto her.

“Help!” she yelled.

Austin had already crossed half the distance toward her.  He hit the man in a running tackle that took them both down.  Straddling the other guy, he pinned his arms.  “The lady said ‘no’.  That means you need to leave her alone.”

“Okay, man.  I was just asking.”  The guy’s voice was muffled by being face
down in the sand.

Kelly and Scott arrived just as Austin stood up and the man scrambled to his feet and hurried away.

“Are you okay, Zoey?” Kelly asked.

Zoey shivered.  “I didn’t see him until he had his arms all over me.  He reeked.”

Scott shook his head, not looking forward to trying to explain everything to Zoey. The beach area wasn’t as clean or well-developed as it was in 2013.  There was only a string of low-wattage bulbs along the pier.  The few shops were closed, and there were very few street lights.  It didn’t feel quite safe, and Scott was anxious to get to a more populated and brightly lit part of town. “Why don’t we head someplace where we can all sit and talk.”

“I could use something to drink.”  Kelly coughed.  “I think I swallowed half the beach.”

Zoey had been badly frightened by the stranger, so she quietly tagged along as they headed up the main street toward the more commercial area.

“Where the McDonald’s?” she asked as they passed the corner where it should be.  Instead, the entire block was two and three-story office buildings. 
There were Halloween decorations everywhere with pumpkins and cut-outs of black cats and ghosts in every window.

“We’ll tell you all about it when we stop,” Austin assured her.

“Look at the cool clothes,” Kelly exclaimed as she passed a small clothing store with mannequins dressed in color-blocked mini-dresses.  “They look just like Grandma’s.”

A
bright red Mustang drove by, its young, male occupants obviously eyeing Zoey and Kelly.

Man, that’s awesome,” Austin said.  “Mint condition . . . signal flare red . . . that was my favorite color that year.  My uncle has a ‘66 pony just like that.”

“They call it new, not mint,” Scott reminded him.

“
Oh, right.  Good point.”

They walked another couple of blocks and
came upon a Super 8 Motel.  It had a flashing “VACANCY” sign as well as one advertising rooms for $8 a night.

“Okay
, Kelly, you go check in like we planned,” Scott directed.  “We’ll wait out here, out of sight.”

Kelly tried to shake as much sand out of her ponytail as she could and gave her face another wipe before going to the office.  A sleepy-eyed clerk looked up from the crossword puzzle he was working on.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, our car broke down, and my parents wanted me to rent two rooms.  They’ll be along shortly.”  Kelly had never been very good at lying.  Actually, she had very little practice, but right now, she felt so disoriented that it didn’t feel like lying at all.  She gave him a sad smile.  “We got caught in a dus
t storm, and me and my brothers . . . and sister are exhausted.”

He looked at her suspiciously, raking her from the top of her
matted hair to the tip of her flip-flopped feet.  She certainly looked like she had been in an accident.

She tried looking even more pitiful by drooping her shoulders and looking up at him with pleading eyes.

He shrugged and reached around to the board behind him.  “You said you needed two rooms?”

“Yes, please.  Two double beds in each, if possible.”

He looked back at her sharply.  “Your parents want two double beds?”

“Uh . . . we’re going to split up with Mom sleeping with Zoey and me and Dad sleeping with the boys.”

“Oh, okay.”  The man plucked two keys off the board.  He shoved a small clipboard with a stack of registration forms on it toward her.  “Fill this out.  That’ll be $16.48 per night . . . in advance.”

Kelly filled out the form putting her old address from Texas and made up a make and model for their imaginary car, along with a random license plate number.  She pulled a twenty dollar bill out of her pocket and pushed it and the clipboard toward the man.

He glanced over it.  “From Texas, huh?”

“Yup,” she answered.

“I thought I heard a little drawl.  I used to live near Dallas.  Too darn hot.”

She nodded, anxious to get this over with.

“Okay, two rooms on the lower level, down that way.”  He jerked his head to the right toward a two-story wing of rooms.

She took the keys he held out.  “Thanks.”

“Get your parents to drop by the office some time tomorrow if you’re going to stay another night.”

“Will do.”  She would have agreed to almost anything to get out of that office before the lies choked in her throat.  She looked down at the keys that were numbered 14 and 15. 
She headed toward them, knowing the guys were watching and would follow her there.  She had barely opened the door to 15 when the others arrived.  Zoey looked like she was about to object, but Scott pushed her inside, then he and Austin entered and shut the door behind them.