Brad, Tuck, and Jenny picked an empty table to sit at in Tremorton City Park. The entire area of the park itself was usually unoccupied. This was mainly because whoever wanted to go to that area would have to travel about a mile from the entrance to get there. Since Brad, Tuck, and Jenny didn't mind walking there, they had the entire area to their selves. Jenny would normally pick a more populated area, but after the media hounding her for a while, she didn't want that much company for the time being.
"I see you're glad you finally got away from those reporters," Tuck said as he picked up a chili dog that had chili dripping from it.
"Tuck, you know that's way too much chili for one hot dog," Brad commented.
Tuck started speaking with a mouth full of his lunch trying to explain why he ordered the excess amount of chili.
"That's gross Tuck. Can you please swallow that before you try talking?" Jenny asked while trying to avoid looking into his food filled maw.
Tuck practically choked the food down, and then said "Well, if you must know, I decided to get as much chili as I could without being charged extra. It's called getting what you paid for. You should try it sometimes."
"That's more like taking advantage of someone's kindness. Those condiments aren't meant for just one person," Brad explained.
"I say it's his fault for not charging the appropriate amount for them. Besides, there was plenty of chili left for everyone else when we left," Tuck said.
"Anyway, I wouldn't mind being a superhero myself, but I wouldn't want to have to deal with the media," Brad said.
"Unfortunately, that comes with the package. There's virtually no way to avoid that," Jenny explained.
"You could always point a laser at them so they'll avoid you, but then you'd be considered more of a villain than a hero," Tuck said.
"I really wish it was that simple sometimes. So, what was it you wanted to talk to me about anyway Brad?" Jenny asked.
"Oh yeah, about the new girl. I have faint memories about that last name of hers. I'm not sure if what I remember is about her specifically, but the name Harnell is starting to bring back strange faint memories about something that used to scare me when I was young. I'm talking young as six or seven years old. Remember when I told you a while ago that I used to have nightmares a lot when I was younger, but now I don't really remember what those nightmares were about or what could've caused them?" Brad asked.
"Now you're starting to scare me," Tuck said.
"I do remember you saying something about that," Jenny replied.
"The thing about it is that it could just be my imagination, but for some reason, that name keeps ringing in my head. It might just be too many scary movies or something," Brad explained.
"I will admit that girl does look kind of scary sometimes. You might have seen somebody that looked sort of like her in some old movie when you were a kid," Jenny said.
"What does this girl look like anyway?" Tuck asked.
"This'll be easier than explaining it over and over again," Jenny said as she printed out a color picture of Grace from her mouth and handed it to Tuck.
Tuck stared at the picture for about a minute with a puzzled expression on his face then lay the picture down on the table and said "Wow. She does look kinda weird. For some strange reason, she looks oddly familiar. I can almost swear I've seen her from somewhere before, but I can't quite put my finger on it."
"I don't remember her at all, I just remember Harnell," Brad said.
"Maybe one of us should tell her about this," Jenny suggested.
"Not me," Tuck said.
"I wasn't talking about you Tuck. You don't exactly go to our school," Jenny said.
"I guess we could, but I don't really want to," Brad said.
"Why not?" Jenny asked.
"I talked to mom about this yesterday, about my childhood nightmares, and she acted as if she didn't remember that time. I know she remembers them because I remember her coming in my room at night to calm me down. This wasn't a short one or two week period. This was more like a few months. There's no way she could've forgotten all of that," Brad explained.
"Mom pretty much remembers everything too. But what does this have to do with you not wanting to talk the new girl about it?" Tuck asked.
"Her name is Grace," Jenny confirmed.
"Well, let's just say I have a bad feeling about it all. Something tells me that if I bring up the subject to Grace, the conversation won't be too pretty after that point. If mom really is hiding something, then it's probably for a good reason. The two don't seem to connect very well just by explanation alone, but they somehow seem to connect to me. I can't really explain why for now because I just don't remember enough," Brad explained.
"I can sort of see what you're trying to say, but this could all be mere coincidence. Maybe you have been watching too many movies," Jenny said.
"Oh yeah, I also found out that Grace is actually living in the orphanage. Turns out she doesn't have any parents," Brad explained.
"I didn't know that. What happened to her parents?" Jenny asked.
"That I don't know," Brad answered.
"Right, you probably didn't ask. It probably isn't appropriate to ask either," Jenny said.
"So, what you been readin' over there, Tuck?" Brad asked as eyed the book sitting beside Tuck's lunch.
"I didn't know you liked reading," Jenny said.
"I don't. However, this is one exception. My teacher told the class to find a book and do a report on it. I found this one in that book store mom took me to a few days ago," Tuck explained.
"So, what's it called?" Jenny asked.
"Forgotten Myths and Legends: Volume 1. Turns out they started collecting a bunch of old scrolls and incomplete stories and made it into a book. They'd been collecting them for over 50 years, and are just now making them into books. I read this really cool, but kinda scary story about a town in Japan that was wiped out in only a couple of hours. The only survivors were the ones that were away from the town at the time of the attack. They were on their way back to town when they heard explosions and screams coming from the town; huge explosions that no weapon that they knew of could possibly make," Tuck explained.
"That's a little scary, but I've seen worse on TV," Brad commented.
"Oh, but it get's weirder. They didn't see an army anywhere in sight, so they couldn't tell what was causing the explosions. When they listened more closely, they could hear some of the people screaming the word demon. At first they thought they were talking about the group of ninja who called themselves The Demon, a group of ninja who worked as a team, but made a really big effort to make it seem like there was only one member. When all the screaming stopped, they heard a loud insane sounding laugh come from the village. Then the entire town exploded all at once. The witnesses were really lucky to have been away from the town when this happened. They looked into the flames and saw what looked like a man, but he wasn't being burned alive. The man laughed again then took off flying into the air and into the distance with his body surrounded in fire. That's when they realized it was a real demon. Since then, the same demon has been seen in three other places around the world. The most recent one was in 1902 in Russia. The book says it will continue with this story in later volumes because there is supposed to be more to it," Tuck explained.
"Wow, that is kind of scary?" Jenny said with a somewhat concerned expression on her face.
"Yeah, it almost sounds like it really happened. Not that I really believe it, but are you sure those are legends in that book or real life events?" Brad asked.
"The book says that some of the stories may sound pretty convincing, but there's not enough evidence to back up any of them," Tuck replied.
"Just imagine it though. What if that demon was real? You think you could take somebody like that down Jenny?" Brad asked.
"First of all, it's only a story. That whole incident most likely never happened, just like most other outrageous sounding stories. To answer your question though, I'm not sure. I'd have to see him in action first before I can make that judgment. The story said that he blew up an entire town in a single blast, and that's difficult even for me to do, even if it is a small Japanese town from hundreds of years ago. If he did ever show up, I'd have to at least try to beat him though," Jenny explained.
"I'm pretty sure you'd win. You won every other battle, well, besides the one with Misty. No offense," Brad said.
"None taken. Oh yeah, and Tuck, I don't think it would be a good idea to focus too much on that story when you give your report. You might scare the other kids," Jenny suggested.
"I understand. There are plenty of other stories in here that aren't that bad," Tuck said.
"Okay then, when we're done here, you guys wanna go see a movie? The Saturday matinee is at 3:00 pm instead of 2:00 pm this time," Brad suggested.
"As long as it's not another zombie movie. We just saw like ten of those this week already. I like them, but more than ten in a week is a little too much," Tuck said.
"Yeah, I might as well go. I don't have anything else scheduled for today," Jenny said.
"All right then, it's settled. Three o'clock it is. And no, I didn't plan on seeing another zombie movie," Brad said.
