This story was actually started LAST year, I believe, but we kinda jumped off the train and went back to our MixmasterRevolution series. I found this the other day and we decided Hey! Let's continue!
Anywho, yeah, female males and male females follow. Have fun.
*DISCLAIMER* RV makes no claim to own Tremors or its characters. They are the property of S.S. Wilson and ScyFy Entertainment. No profit is made from this writing.
The 'paranoid' survivalist gazed out over the town from a pair of binoculars. Perfection had yet to start to bustle with its miniscule morning activity, but the gun enthusiast had already began the usual rounds of the valley. Things in the desert were quiet and normal.
Berta Gummer was suspicious.
"Good Morning, B," a familiar voice floated through the radio in a sing-song manner. "Are you gonna sit up there spying on us all day or come down and get some breakfast? J.D.'s making his famous omelets."
Berta looked down in shock at her radio. "Skylar! How do you know where I am?" she asked, shifting her gaze towards the woman's Quonset hut and seeing her monster-hunting partner waving at her.
"Come on, B, you are way too predictable," Skylar laughed. "Hurry up before your eggs get cold!" She raised her radio and turned towards the general store.
Berta rolled her eyes underneath her dark sunglasses. She put her radio away and started back towards town.
She had to admit: she was looking forward to J.D.'s omelets.
J.D. flipped yet another jumble of eggs, onions, peppers, and other secret ingredients, making sure the omelet was fully cooked. Satisfied, he slid it onto a plate and set it down on the counter in front of Skylar.
"Finally!" Skylar squirted her usual amount of ketchup on (which was way too much in J.D.'s opinion) and dug in. "Mmm, I love your omelets, J.D.," she mumbled through a mouth full of food.
J.D. laughed as he started another one. "You say that every time, Sky."
"Well, it's true."
Berta pushed open the door, entering Chang's market. "Hey, J.D." she greeted the younger man. "I'll take a coffee and an omelet. You know how I like 'em."
"So, B," Skylar patted the stool next to her, eyes twinkling like they always did when she was extremely curious about something. "How was survival class yesterday?"
"About as good as expected," the woman mumbled, "when it's a class full of teenagers."
"And one older guy," Skylar reminded her. "Who was definitely nicer than any normal guy."
"Hey!" J.D. gave her a mock frown over his shoulder.
Skylar just grinned at him and turned back to Berta. "So, what'd you do to him?"
"Treated him like any other student," Berta replied calmly.
"Yeah right!" Skylar laughed. "With the lines he was givin' you?"
J.D. rolled his eyes as he gave Berta her omelet. "You take too much fun out of Berta torturing poor, defenseless guys," he accused.
Berta put on a wry grin. "Well, I'm sure that guy enjoyed cleaning up after the rest of the class. I mean, he did say he'd like to spend more time with me."
Skylar giggled as the doors to the store suddenly opened and a dark haired young woman entered, video camera in hand. "Hey, J.D.! I got more footage of the invisibat!" she said excitedly.
"Great," J.D. smiled, not quite hitting the enthusiastic mark.
The girl offered a goofy grin. "At least it didn't hit me in the head this time," she said, moving stuff around on the counter.
"Loretta," J.D. complained, shooing her away and placing everything back in their proper place.
"Is he-er, it, still at the old barn?" Skylar asked.
"Yeah," she nodded excitedly, "I've seen 'im flying around near there too."
"I wonder if there's any more of 'em," Skylar said thoughtfully. "It seems so tame so far, it'd be cool if we could actually keep one of the mutations as a pet."
Berta scrunched up her nose. "I don't think that would be the wisest idea," she said.
Skylar rolled her eyes. "Party pooper."
Berta rolled her eyes at Skylar.
Loretta leaned against the counter, towards the store owner. "J.D., I just got the final season of The Next Generation on DVD. Wanna watch some with me later?" she asked, tapping her toe on the floor behind her.
"That...sounds cool but, I promised Sky I'd help her move some things from her garage. Sorry, Lorry."
"Aw no that's cool," Skylar jumped in with her trademark here-comes-trouble smile. "I'll get Roberto to help me, or Casey. They're both free today, I think."
J.D. sent her a hidden glare of annoyance. "Great."
Lorry offered him an almost nervous smile. "So you'll watch?" she asked hopefully.
J.D. sighed. "Yeah, sure. Why not?"
Lorry grinned gratefully. "Awesome! Is there anything I can help you out with around here?" she offered.
"Just...go rearrange the merchandise or something," the Asian replied in a mumble.
Skylar giggled as the excited girl bounced away. "You two are so cute."
"Wha- we are not!" J.D. protested, his face going slightly pink.
The tour-guides' giggle turned into a full-blown laugh. "Are to. Even B thinks so, huh?" Skylar elbowed her friend.
Berta looked a bit taken aback at being included in the taunting, but her lips twisted into a grin. "I take pride in knowing everything that goes in this valley; even I can tell you enjoy spending time with Norvel."
"I put up with her," J.D. snapped adamantly before stalking back to his personal quarters.
Skylar exchanged a knowing grin with Berta. "Definitely perfect for each other."
Berta chuckled lightly. "So, Skylar, you have any tours today?" she asked.
"Well, I was supposed to have one this morning," Skylar replied, her face drooping to a look of disappointment and coming boredom. "But the family's kids got sick so they canceled. What about you? Any classes or are you just wanderin' around the valley lookin' for somethin' to blow up?"
Berta gave the younger woman a glare. "I don't have any classes for two days," she informed.
"So you wanna do somethin'?"
"I've been planning to take a look at the seismos around the valley," the survivalist responded. "You could give me a hand," she offered.
"Cool!" Skylar jumped off her stool and headed for the door. "Can I drive?"
"Is it just me, or is suddenly hotter than it was two minutes ago?" Skylar asked, looking up from the seismo and glaring at the unforgiving sun.
Berta sighed. "Stop complaining. I let you drive so I could avoid that."
Skylar rolled her eyes good naturally but her voice was serious. "I mean it, B. The air temperature just jumped like, ten degrees. You can't say you didn't feel that."
"Well, yes, but I didn't think much of it," Berta said. "The desert's temperature does occasionally fluctuate."
"Ten degrees in two minutes?" Skylar asked doubtfully.
"You know, maybe it was just you," Berta offered.
"Whatdya mean?" Skylar asked, lost.
"Like a hot flash," Berta shrugged with the smallest grin.
Skylar looked at her with a teasing huff. "I'm not the old woman here."
Berta glared at Skylar over her sunglasses, scowling. Skylar just grinned.
Berta gently took a seismo out of the ground, turning it over to inspect it. It was the last one to check and Skylar had left Berta to check it herself, since she was absolutely convinced she'd seen something glinting a ways up the hill and wanted to check it out. Berta looked over the familiar device intently, going through her routine check before deciding it was satisfactory and returning it to the ground. She stood back up, glancing around to locate Skylar.
The adventurous woman was nowhere in sight, but before Berta had a chance to call her, the air was shattered by a sudden, familiar, and terrified scream.
"Skylar!" Berta cried, heading towards the cry.
Her friend was clear down the other side of the hill, at the bottom of a ravine.
Berta began skidding down the side of the ravine. "Skylar! Skylar, are you okay?"
"Something grabbed me!" Skylar said, scrambling to her feet and looking around quickly.
` Berta slid down next to the tour guide. "You're not hurt, are you?"
Skylar shook her head distractedly. "Did you see it?"
"Negative," Berta responded. "Did you?"
"Well," Skylar paused. "Not exactly. But I definitely felt something, something big."
"Well, let's get outta here," Berta said. "We don't want whatever it is coming back."
Loretta sat on the floor of the store, folding and rearranging various t-shirts. The young woman started at sudden noise at the back door. She slowly put the shirts back and stood up. Lorry walked to the back door, curious but cautious.
Looking outside, she couldn't see anything, but several empty boxes were lying on their sides a ways from their usual neat stacks. The sci-fi fan glanced around, still not seeing anything. She shrugged to herself, stepping outside to fix the boxes.
"Hey Lorry!" J.D.'s voice wafted out the door. "Have you seen my checkbook? I thought it was under the cash register but I can't find it."
"Uh, check the drawer underneath the register," Loretta suggested.
"Oh. Thanks!"
Smiling, Loretta turned back to her job; only to find that the box she had been about to pick up was moving seemingly by itself along the ground. She jumped back slightly, startled. The box kept moving away, inch by inch, and when she looked closer she could see that a small, indented path in the sand trailed behind it.
"J.D.!" she called, though trying not to be too loud, "Come look at this!"
"What?" J.D. poked his head out the back door.
"Look," Loretta said, pointing to the moving box.
J.D. followed her finger and frowned when he saw the self-moving box. "What the heck? Is that your invisibat?"
"I-I don't think so," she shook her head. "Those tracks aren't right. The invisibat has like, bird feet. That kinda looks like a snake."
"No offense, but I doubt a snake that could make such large tracks could fit inside such a small box," J.D. replied dubiously.
"And last time I checked, nothing else leaves tracks like that," Lorry responded, motioning to the straight marks in the sand.
"Yes, but that still doesn't explain where the snake is," J.D. pointed out again, beginning to think this was just an overreaction of Lorry's adventurous side again. He straightened up from the doorjamb and turned to head back in.
Lorry frowned to herself, disappointed. She wearily reached for the moving box, not knowing what to expect to find beneath it. As she lifted it away, she was shocked to find nothing, but dropped it when she felt something sharp sink painfully into her arm and she screamed.
J.D. jumped nearly three feet at the scream, whirling around and racing back outside to see Lorry being dragged across the ground by her arm, which was bleeding.
The young woman tried to wrench her arm from whatever was dragging arm, but it only seemed to make the grip stronger. "Help me!" she cried.
J.D. hurried over, grabbing her other arm and trying to kick at whatever was dragging her. He was surprised to find his foot actually connect with something.
Lorry wrenched her arm free the attacker as soon as its grip loosened and J.D. quickly pulled her back into the store, slamming the door behind them. He waited for a moment to make sure the...whatever it was...wouldn't try barging in before turning to inspect his friends' arm.
"Are you okay?" he asked, picking up the violated limb gingerly.
With her uninjured hand, she wiped the tears off her face. "I-I think so. Its teeth or whatever like hooked into my arm," she said, teeth gritted against the pain.
"Come on," J.D. helped to her feet. "We'll get you up to the lab, Casey'll have you fixed up in no time."
Interesting, eh?