Synopsis:

Scott was on his way west to meet up with his friends to start a new life in L A. What he came across in the desert after his car broke down would change him forever. He wondered if his friends would recognise him once they finally met again. He didn’t think this was what his friend’s intended when they said, "start a new life."

Chapter Fifty-Four

"It's okay Richard, we are still here," Kim's disembodied voice answered.

"But I can't see you, just a pile of strangers," Richard shot back, before noticing that he was wearing some sort of uniform, including a peaked hat. He realised that he'd been given a bus drivers uniform, complete with identification, which told him, he was now Jason Potter, judging by the photo ID clipped to the sun visor.

"Jenna, can you walk to the back of the bus?" Kim's voice asked calmly.

Jenna stood up and turned towards the altered rear of the bus, seeing an aisle just like any normal bus. She moved towards the rear, suddenly disappearing from Richard's sight. One second Jenna could see the many strangers on the bus, the next, she saw only her new friends, seated on a few of the many empty seats.

To Richard, who was watching his wife move away, it seemed as if she walked through an invisible wall of water, before disappearing. There had been a ripple as she penetrated the illusion, much like that TV show, Stargate, when the actors walked through it to other worlds.

Richard laughed in relief, when Jenna stuck her head back though the illusion, giving her the look of a floating disembodied head.

"I think you should quit that while you're ahead," Richard then cracked up.

Richard poked his own head back though the illusion to check for himself. The illusion appeared to be only one way, as the view forward was unobstructed.

Kim had everyone file out of the bus so she could demonstrate one last feature. She stopped Richard from leaving, at least until he reversed the bus back into a van, thereby giving him his original body back. With Richard outside, Kim closed the door and the van became the bus again. Everyone could see that the bus looked full from the outside, with what seemed like normal passengers, doing what they would normally do on a bus.

Kim then opened the door, and told them to climb aboard. Kim looked cute in her bus driver's uniform, although she had kept her own body, unlike when Richard had changed.

Expecting to see the illusion of the nonexistent passengers, they were shocked to see what looked like the inside of an RV, kitted out with beds and kitchen and bathroom. Everyone was suitable impressed, especially Richard and Jenna.

"This has been just too much to take in," Jenna sighed looking overwhelmed by it all. "Don't show me anything else or I'll- I'll-" she staggered, her exhaustion catching up with her, preventing her finishing.

"Look I'll take her home for a rest," Richard said, taking her arm for support. "We'll catch up with you later to thank you properly." Richard suddenly remembered Cathleen. "Cathleen?"

"Will be happy with us," Sara finished for him. "Don't worry; I'll see she gets a rest in the afternoon, when I put Maggie down. Oh! Don't do anything for dinner; you're dinning with us tonight, so just relax."

"Thanks very much," Richard offered with Jenna following suit.

Richard walked Jenna home. Home, that had a nice ring to it, thought Richard, as he guided his wife into their new place. Jenna resisted his pressure to head for the bedroom to look once again though her home. She wandered slowly through each room with Richard on her arm, as she committed to memory, everything she saw. She allowed Richard to put her to bed, while her mind drifted over the day's events. Richards comforting warmth as he lay beside her, was all she needed to drift off into slumber.

Jenna woke feeling somewhat better, although she still felt a little flushed. Slipping off the bed, she headed towards the bathroom, thinking a shower would freshen her up. She discarded her travel worn clothes into the laundry chute, and turned on the shower. She made a note to thank her new neighbours for the soaps and shampoos that had been supplied.

Richard wandered in just as she was finishing, so he handed her a towel, while asking her how she was.

"I'm feeling a little bit odd, and the light seems rather brighter than normal, "she answered worriedly.

She had thought that the last few days of weird feelings had been due to stress, but now she wasn't so sure.

"It's not a migraine, is it?" Richard asked, stepping into the shower.

"No, it feels different, I feel as if something's building up inside."

"You're not pregnant, are you?" Richard asked half hopefully, half wistfully.

"Not that kind of building up, you ninny," laughed Jenna.

"Well, ouch!" yelped Richard, as the water turned cold, as Jenna turned on the hot water tap at the basin deliberately.

Jenna dressed in a silk robe, grinned at Richard's reaction, before she left him to finish his shower. Looking in her walk in closet, she was surprised, when she saw several dresses hanging there. Checking, she saw they were her size. Going to the dresser, she discovered several changes of underwear, nighties, and stockings all in her size. 'This was Kim's doing, obviously,' she thought. Trust the Shelke to know the exact size of the body they had given her. Richard hadn't been left out either, as further investigation revealed.

She dressed in her gifted clothes, selecting a strapless sky blue sundress that gathered just above her breasts needing no other support. She found some matching strappy sandals with a comfortable heel to go with it.

While waiting for Richard, she dried and styled her hair and put on her minimal 'face.'

Richard took a while to get ready, dressing casually, but neat. Jenna took advantage of the delay to further investigate the pantry and the refrigerator. She also discovered the mini bar tucked into an alcove in the lounge.

Sara saw the pair coming back through the gate in the fence, and hurried out to greet them. Jenna's nose twitched, smelling something delicious cooking, as they where ushered into the condo, by an anxious Sara.

Cathleen broke off playing with Maggie and the animals, as soon as she saw her parent's arrive. She hugged Jenna's leg like some sort of human Koala bear. She bent down and lifted Cathleen up in her arms, smiling at her daughter, before a wave of dizziness made her relinquish her grip, handing her daughter to Richard.

She staggered, wondering why everything seemed to be going in slow motion.

To the others looking on concernedly, Jenna seemed to flicker and jerk as if on fast-forward. Suddenly Jenna disappeared completely, making Cathleen cry out in fear.

"Where did she go?" Richard managed to gasp out, as he looked everywhere for his missing love.

Nobody answered at first, all puzzled by the strange disappearance of Jenna. Maggie was looking around the room with a strange look on her face. Sara saw it and remembered that Maggie could see anyone wearing a bracelet.

"Can you see her?" she asked Maggie, crouching down to be on her level.

"She is here, but she's everywhere at once," Maggie stated, looking confused.

"How do you mean honey?" Sara asked, hugging Maggie close.

Maggie said that the aura representing Jenna was not in any one spot, but more like a streamer that was woven throughout the room.

"Like those overexposed pictures of traffic on the freeway at night. Where the headlights of cars look like a continuous streams of light," she whispered in Sara's ear, not wanting the others hear her reversion to an adult style of talking.

Knowing that Jenna was still somewhere in the room, Sara, opened her senses to see if she could detect Jenna's emotions. All she could get, that wasn't from the others, was a feeling of confusion and fear, which seemed to be coming from all around the room.

"Where's Kim? She might know what to do," Richard asked, not seeing her anywhere.

"She had to go see Cathy who has an emergency," Kevin told him.

"Well this is an emergency too," Richard fired back angrily.

"Calm yourself, I'm sure Jenna is okay," Amelia's soft voice, penetrated through Richard's anger.

Intuitively, Sara had a glimmer of an idea, and reached for a pad and pen off the table. She wrote something on the paper and set it back down, along with the pen. She stepped back for a second then took a look at the pad again. Sara then wrote something more and then turned to the others.

"She's okay, it's her new power, to her, it seems that time has stopped, or has been slowed to the point where everyone is a silent statue." Sara explained, showing them what had been written.

Jenna felt dizzy, she heard the others voice change pitch, lowering to an unintelligible growl. Everyone around her seemed to move in slow motion, and the light changed slightly. Sounds grew muffled, then ceased altogether, leaving her in deadly silence. Looking at the others, she was horrified to see them frozen like statues. She called to them, the sound of her voice sounding dead with no echoes as if muffled somehow. She ran outside to check something, as she couldn't hear the ocean pounding out its constant beat.

Jenna felt her heart stop, as she saw the frozen sea, stopped as if in a picture. Seeing a seagull over head, frozen in mid air, its wings stilled in mid beat, she knew that somehow that time had stopped for her. Something caught her eye, something that was moving in the sky far away.

It was a jet airliner, its contrails marking its passage high in the sky to the west. Checking closer, she could see movement on the ocean, about two miles away, it was a yacht moving gradually down the coast, but it was moving. Jenna was relieved to know that this effect had limits of around about 4 miles across.

Going back inside, she experimented a bit, seeing what she could do. She was reluctant to touch anyone; not knowing what effect her actions might have on living flesh. She looked at her wristwatch; surprised to see it was still running. She tried holding a wristwatch, which she found in one of the bedrooms to see if it would start up, once she had hold of it. Disappointingly, it stubbornly remained stopped. She had noticed while picking the watch up, that it had resisted her grasp, as if its inertia had increased tremendously, without having increased its weight.

Comparing it with her own, she tried to see if time really had stopped, or just slowed down. After about ten minutes of staring, she saw the second hand move. That single movement gave her hope that at least she wasn't in stasis, and that maybe there was someway to rejoin the main time stream.

Jenna was feeling hungry, and realised she'd been 'stuck,' for hours. She wandered into the kitchen knowing dinner had been cooking, before all this had happened. The oven door resisted her pull; making it an effort to open it, oddly there seemed to be no waft of heat escaping the oven, once she had it open. The lid of the casserole dish reacted in the same way. Experimenting, she let go the lid, after pulling it to one side. It hovered seemingly motionless in mid air, although she thought it was still moving ever so slightly.

Getting a spoon to sample the dish, took just as much effort, and sniffing the food, she was disappointed that it had no smell. Tasting it also proved a disappointment, although the longer she held it in her mouth the better it tasted.

Putting it back in the oven, Jenna went back to the others. Frustrated at seeing everyone still motionless, she went back to clock watching, trying to make that second hand move faster.

Jenna blinked, had the hand moved... "Yes!" She cried, seeing it move again. Concentrating, on it, she saw the second hand start to move every minute, increasing its speed. Jenna looked at the others in the room, seeing some slight differences in their positions. Jenna pushed her mind at the watch, not sure if that was the key, or just a way of focusing her mind on the problem. As the second hand sped up, Jenna turned to try and see if the others could see her. She yelled and waved her arms in front of everyone, hoping one might see her. She saw Sara moving slowly and picking up a writing pad. Sara wrote something, while Jenna waited impatiently for her to finish.

Jenna read Sara's message and wrote her observations down, of her current situation, before pacing up and down while Sara took ages to read her message. Time continued to speed up, until everyone seemed to be moving normally. Unfortunately Jenna was still in a zone of silence, and she started to panic.

How was she going to get back into the real world if she didn't find a solution soon? She saw Sara writing again on the note pad and went to read it.

To be continued.

  

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 © 2005 by Prudence Walker. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of the copyright holder.