3
At the comic book store off Ellsworth Avenue, Stuart checked and rechecked his order at the counter. He loved his shop. Even with all the on-line shopping changing the personal shopping experience, he loved being able to meet new fans and share comic book and fantasy ideas. His place was covered in comic books, and memorabilia. While not as large as some of his company-run competitors, he did have his own loyal retinue of customers and comrades.
"Hey, Stuart…" Actor Wil Wheaton was a regular customer. He approached the register with a new batch of science fiction comics. "When's the next Warlords of Ka tournament?"
"I haven't decided yet." Stuart started writing down his purchase.
"Think Sheldon will play me again."
"Not unless you have another not-dead grandmother." The bell on the door rang and a figure in a dark suit entered. Narrow-eyed with a thin close-cut hairstyle, he panned the room once and approached the register. He did not looked like he was here to buy any comics.
"Stuart Weston?"
"Yes…"
"John Doggett, Federal agent…" He flashed his FBI badge. "I'm here to ask you a few questions about Dr. Sheldon Cooper."
Wheaton started chortling under breath to contain his laughter.
"What's this about?" Stuart asked.
"I'm doing a security analysis for NASA on Sheldon Cooper."
"Sheldon Cooper?" Wil asked.
"Yes."
"Doctor Sheldon Cooper?" Wil repeated.
"Yes."
Wheaton started laughing even harder and pounding the counter with his hysterical laughter.
"You want to know about Sheldon?" Stuart asked.
"Yes."
Wheaton had fallen on the floor laughing uncontrollably.
"You got a couple of hours?" Stuart responded.
Over on North Los Robles Avenue from the fifth floor over Leonard and Sheldon, they heard new noises building to a pitch. Raj heard it first and reared his head up to look around. At first, they ignored it, but the second time, they sounded a bit closer. Howard lifted his head a bit confused.
"Was that a train?'" He wondered out loud.
"Sounded like a train…" Raj confirmed it.
They heard it again a bit louder. Leonard scowled and went to look out the window, but Sheldon stood and cocked his head like a parrot to listen for the noise. On the third blast of steam, Howard cocked his head to the ceiling. It wasn't coming from near the building; it was coming from inside it!
"That sounds like a Baldwin 280 steam-driven six-wheel locomotive." Sheldon loved his trains. "It sounds as if it's practically upstairs!" He looked like an excited little boy before Leonard.
"I think that is right up stairs!"
The whistle was blowing. Rails were rattling, and the sound of wind rushing over a huge steel structure sounded as if it was coming closer. They felt the vibration through the floor. Their pots and pans started rattling. It sounded as if it was flying over the building. They heard the engine blowing steam, the bells and the clickety-clack of the rails hiding the wood beams. From just behind that, there were the sounds of yet another coming closer.
"And that sounds like the bell on a Heisenbach 10-80 rear-wheel locomotive!" Sheldon was both overjoyed and overwhelmed. "My father let me climb on one as a boy!" The sounds were getting louder. Things were vibrating off the counter and their shelves. The roar of both engines was rattling the building.
"What are they doing up stairs?!" Howard covered his ears as the noises got worse.
"What?!" Sheldon yelled back over the roar of wind, bells, speeding wheels and chugging engines filled the building. They smelled the oil and felt the vibration of the engines through the apartment. It felt like an earthquake!
"What are they doing up stairs?!" Leonard clung to the counter.
"If I'm not mistaken…." Sheldon screamed for the first time Leonard had known them over the deafening roar of steam engines at full blast turning pistons. "I think they're on the same track! What idiot would…" The noise and roar reached a crescendo as a huge deafening ear-splitting crash of mangled metal, several tons of tumbling box cars and the roar of train tracks being ripped out of the ground by the great upheaval. The explosion of noise knocked Sheldon to his feet and flung Leonard backward into the sink. Raj stumbled backward over Howard. Pots and pans hanging overhead fell to the floor, their laptops slid to the floor, their sofa and chairs moved a foot to a foot and a half and the refrigerator popped open as the milk carton slipped out. Even as things got quiet, the ringing of the huge cacophony of a million sounds echoed just a bit longer. The whole building seemed to lightly tremble. Leonard tried to pop his eardrums back into place. Raj sat on the floor as Howard clung to the entry to the hall. Permanently surprised for the minute, Sheldon crawled around on his feet a few minutes then pulled himself up at his spot on the sofa. He was still shaking as he looked disgustedly up to his ceiling.
"Why?" He asked. "Why?"
"That's it!" Leonard had had enough. Once on his feet, he marched out to confront Jesse upstairs. Raj followed him with Howard behind him. Out on the landing, they nearly collided with Penny coming out of her apartment.
"What the hell was that?" She asked. Her eyes were rounded in shock.
"You heard it too?"
"It knocked me off the couch!" They looked up in unison up to the fifth floor. Whatever it was had created smoke that filled the upstairs, and through those billowing clouds of steam and dust a shadow was coming down toward them. It was a shapely figure coming down toward them through the smoke. She resembled actress Christina Ricci with very light pale skin and long very dark black hair hanging down her back to her waist. She was actually exceedingly attractive in a Gothic and Edgar Allen Poe sort of way. Her left hand to her chest as she coughed, she was dressed in a very form-fitting black sweater framing her busty figure in shadow and a long dark floor-length skirt almost obscuring the slippers on her feet. Bracing on the wall outside Penny's apartment, she coughed and choked lightly on the smoke in her system, her chest rising her bosom up and down as she coughed a few more times.
"What the heck was that?" Leonard asked her.
"What?" Lizzie suddenly noticed Penny and the guys. Graciously and delicately rising her regal hands before herself, she glanced around as if she were listening for something then started adjusting her hair. "I'm sorry; I didn't hear anything."
"It sounded like you had a train up there." Sheldon responded. "A real one…"
"Oh, that…." Their darkly dressed enchantress grinned demurely with a light chuckle. "The girls are playing with their Cousin Freddie before he has to return to school. They sometimes get a little loud. Sorry…"
"A little?" Penny asked.
"Yes, yes…" Elizabeth Bathory-Vannacutt waved the smoke around her away. "Now, if you'll excuse me… I promised I'd make my nephew some Dracula's Pie… it is to die for." She turned back up the stairs. "Nikki! Samantha! Don't make me wake your father from his nap!" She lifted her skirt to keep from stumbling over it up the stairs.
"Dracula's pie?" Howard looked to Leonard. Raj was whispering in his ear. "No, I've never heard of it either!"
"I tell you, Leonard…" Sheldon stood outside the apartment. "I truly think the landlord doesn't even bother to screen these people any more."
Several blocks away in a security controlled apartment building, Federal Agent John Doggett counted the numbers on the apartments, turned the corner of the hall and found the one for which he was looking. His stop at the Comic Book Store had lasted a bit longer than usual. Once people learned he was doing a security check on Sheldon and that he was a Federal agent, it had turned into one long story seminar about the idiosyncrasies and weird observations of the man known as Sheldon Cooper. Adjusting his collar, he started wondering what he had got himself into on the job. He knocked at the door of the apartment. Moments later, a cute attractive brunette with a freckled face and glasses answered the knock.
"Yes?"
"Leslie Winkle?"
"Yes…"
"John Doggett, Federal agent…" He flashed his FBI badge. "I'm here to ask you a few questions about Dr. Sheldon Cooper."
"Sheldon Cooper?" Leslie broke a grin.
"Yes."
"Doctor Sheldon Cooper?" She asked again.
"Yes."
She stifled back an abrupt uncontained spurt of laughter.
"You got a couple of hours?" A large grin came across her face.
Doggett made a confused and perplexed look at her.
