Alright, here's the next chapter! I probably won't have another one out for a few weeks, but there's always hope…Remember to please review afterwards no matter what you think of the story so far!
Special shout-outs to CrazygurlBB, koty m, Noelia, Roswell-Riter1, Ruby, DarkAngelBurn, jennzabell, me, and CandyDreamer for reviewing so far. Thank you so much!
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Now that the group had been 'recharged,' as it were, it was generally agreed that they were in for a long drive, quite free of day-breaks like the one they had enjoyed of late. It was just as well, for they were in dire need of some momentum to carry them out of danger's grasp, though they could never be sure how far was far enough.
But naturally they could not head out onto the open road without provisions. Which was why they were pulling into a Quick-E-Mart at six-thirty in the morning in the hopes of avoiding being seen by other customers.
As early as it was, most of the rag-tag group of aliens, quasi-aliens, and humans were awake or had emerged at least into that hazy post-sleep stage of awakening. Liz had insisted on accompanying whoever went into the store, so as to assure herself that everything on her meticulously crafted shopping list was purchased. Max and Michael were each still exhausted from their hours of driving shifts, so Kyle, who had only just taken over at the wheel, volunteered to go with her.
The small jangle on the door-sill alerted an empty store to their entrance. Clearly they had rightly guessed that this would be an advantageous time of day to go shopping. Liz ripped off half the list for him to find and was about to start her own search when someone appeared from the storage area.
"Why hello there, young folk!" a white-haired man exclaimed, a pleasant smile upon his face. "What can I do for you today?"
Kyle spoke up. "Oh, we're just passing through on our way to that camp site in Castle Rock," he said, repeating their most recently conceived alibi. "Thought we'd load up on some supplies here."
"Ahh, well then, you've come to the right place! We've got everything from tents to bug spray to hot dogs! Anything you might need for a fine camping experience."
Liz smiled and thanked him warmly, saying, "Why, thank you very much, sir. My boyfriend and I will just have a look around the store, and we'll be sure to ask if we need any help."
And with that, the pair split up, each with a red basket and partial list in hand.
'Let's see,' Kyle thought to himself as he grabbed various items off the aisle's shelves, 'Crackers, chips, cereal. Ah, Coke, snack mix, napkins. Damn, almost passed the Tabasco sauce…They would have killed me.'
He also remembered to stop by the frozen food section. Though Maria had no alien powers with which to harm him, he would have incited her wrath just as greatly had he forgotten to pick up a fresh supply of Ben and Jerry's quarts to add to their cooler. Having been cooped up in the van long enough to have had the joy of experiencing each girl go through 'that time of month,' he well-understood what a difference a little ice cream could make.
When he had finished everything on his list, he approached Liz, who had found all but one of her items.
"Excuse me, sir?" she said to the man, who was busying himself with a display of fruit. "I was wondering if you had bags of ice, like for a cooler?"
"Oh, sure, sure. Let me find one for you," he replied, hurrying off to the back of the store.
She turned to Kyle. "You got the Tabasco sauce, right?"
He rolled his eyes and sighed. "Yes, Liz, how could I forget? I swear, if I ever start having cravings for it like you all, please just kill me, okay?" She giggled as he continued, "Did you remember the doughnuts? Last time Maria forgot them, Max and Michael were all pissed off for, like, a week."
She reassured him that she had not forgotten, patting the three packs of Krispy Kremes in her basket. As he peeked in, he commented, "Chocolate sauce, cherries, and whipped cream? What kind of sick things are you newlyweds doing? Geez, Liz, I can't even tell you to get your own room 'cause we can't afford it!"
She shrieked with laughter and swatted him on the arm. "They're for the ice cream, you perv!"
Before Kyle could reply, the man reappeared beside them, carrying a large bag of dripping ice. When Liz reached to take it from his hands, he said, "Well now, that's a might big rock you're wearing, missy. Thought you said he was just your boyfriend?" He surveyed Kyle's clenched fist. "Then again, I don't see any ring on his finger…"
Liz paled and cast a nervous glance towards Kyle. Neither of them could come up with an excuse fast enough, and he looked at them curiously. "Look, kids, it's nothing to get worked up over. Here let me just ring you all up, and you can get going on your camping trip."
As he turned to go Kyle saw Liz draw a huge sigh of relief. It probably wasn't a big deal, but it was just good to know he didn't consider their situation suspicious enough to, say, report it to any government agents who might someday question him.
The each placed their baskets on the counter, and he began to punch numbers into the cash register, placing the items in plastic bags as he did.
He had just finished filling the third bag when he froze suddenly, palms pressed heavily on the counter. After gasping for breath a moment or two, he shook himself, and gave them a strained smile.
"I'm okay. Sorry about that, just a little chest pain. It's passed."
Liz looked concerned for a moment, but soon went back to counting out the small amount of cash they had in their possession.
"Alrighty, folks, here's the total." Kyle allowed Liz to handle the transaction, trusting to her skills with money management.
"Thank you, missy. You wouldn't happen to have a penny on you, would y-AH!" Both Liz and Kyle looked on, horrified, as he began to convulse violently. His torso fell over the counter in pain before his legs gave out, his body crumpling to the floor.
They rushed around the other side of the counter, staring in shock as his blue-gray eyes rolled back sickeningly and a line of saliva made its way down his chin. The door dinged in the background but neither of them registered the sound--panic had taken control of their senses.
Kyle felt like his feet were chained to the ground. "What the hell?"
"He's having a heart attack," Liz yelled frantically. "Go get Max!"
"What? No, we can't-"
"Kyle, go!" When he still hesitated, she shouted, "Now!"
He half-stumbled, half-jogged out of the store and proceeded to bang violently upon the windows of the van.
Instantly everyone inside was alert. Max and Michael shoved their way out, anxiety written all over their faces.
"What happened??" Max addressed him fearfully, shaking his shoulders as he did. "Kyle, where's Liz? Is it the Special Unit?"
"No, no," Kyle sputtered, still out of breath, "Liz is…inside…with the guy...from the store...heart attack..-"
Now Michael was just plain confused. "What!?"
"The store employee is having a heart attack!" Kyle managed to spit out, "Liz wants Max to help."
As soon as he heard the words "Liz" and "help", Max pushed past Kyle and rushed towards the store.
Michael grabbed his elbow, "Maxwell, we've been through this before! What are you doing? You can't endanger us like that again!"
"Liz asked for me, Michael. At least I can check it out." And with that, Max pulled away and slammed open the swinging doors to the Mart.
Michael tried to follow, but Kyle blocked his path. "Wouldn't it be better for him to see as few of us as possible?" Nodding his reluctant agreement, Michael returned to the car, perched in the driver's seat and ready to go if a quick get-a-way was required.
Kyle turned and ran back into the store. He caught sight of the forms of Liz and Max behind the counter where they knelt beside the trembling man.
A teary-eyed Liz spoke to her husband. "Is it even possible to save him?" Max's hands were carefully examining his body, pressing into the different pulse-points and checking on his condition.
"I-I think so. I could at least calm the reaction, so that the shock itself won't kill his system."
"Max," Kyle interrupted, "Are you sure we should even be doing this?"
Their semi-leader turned to his wife, who replied, "When we left, we said we wanted to do good in the world, to help people with our…gifts. We can't just leave him here to die!"
Max nodded. "We'll figure out what to do later. I don't have that much time left to help him."
He placed his hands on the man's chest, staring into the whites of his eyes. Liz and Kyle could tell it was difficult for Max--the blood had quickly drained from his face and his arms looked like they were about to collapse.
Liz exhaled a sigh of relief when the man's eyes fluttered back to normal, then sucked it back in when she realized the implications. Rushing over to his figure, she cradled his head towards her, in a desperate attempt to distract him from what Max was doing.
Though he couldn't speak, the man could clearly sense that something was off. His eyes danced wildly to their three faces, extreme confusion clouding his features. Max had not stopped his work, however, and moments later the man shut his eyes once more as the healing force began to spread through his body.
"Get Isabel," the exhausted Max said curtly, before falling back on his hands to rest.
Moments later Kyle returned with her in tow, and while the man was still unconscious, she waved a hand over the his chest, removing the evidence of a silver handprint.
"Oh, God, what are we going to do?" She gasped frantically as the man stirred.
"You and Max get out of here," Liz urged. Isabel nodded and quickly exited after incapacitating the security camera above the cash register. But Max didn't follow.
"I can't leave until I know he's alright."
At that moment, the man's shoulders jerked, and he lifted himself to half-sitting position, his palms pressing into the floor. His voice was still hoarse as he said, "I-I-That was-"
Liz bent down and hushed him gently. "Shh, sir, you're delirious. Don't worry, we've called an ambulance."
"Delirious?" He replied incredulously, "I saw everything that happened! It was a miracle!"
"No-no," Liz continued, "Nothing happened, but we called the-"
"What are you talking about, missy?" His voice grew stronger as he spoke. "It was a miracle. I don't know who that young man was with you, but it could only be called miraculous that he had a medical kit with him out here in the middle of nowhere!"
"Medical kit?" Kyle whispered. Maybe this guy really was hallucinating.
"Well, sure. He rushed in here with it, pulled out some new-fangled electrical contraption, and just zapped me back to the land of the living!" He paused. "You kids were here, didn't you see him?"
The trio was silent for a moment, not knowing what to say. Was this some kind of trick or, worse, a trap?
Just then, Kyle caught sight of something in the aisle behind them. Craning his neck, he realized that it was a figure crouched behind a large display. His stance remained casual, not wanting to alert whoever it was that he knew of their presence, but his mind was racing. Was this whole thing a government set-up? If so, they were beyond screwed.
As Max and Liz rushed to assure the man that there was indeed a medical kit involved, not knowing what else to say, Kyle stepped back cautiously. He snuck another peek at the figure, only to watch as it lifted a hand and waved at him! Kyle's first inclination was to duck, in case they were drawing a gun, but as he leaned closer, his jaw dropped.
A baseball cap was drawn down her forehead, and large black sunglasses masked half of her face, but he recognized the petite form. What the hell was she doing here?
But her gaze did not stop on his face. It was fixed past him intently, landing near the counter. Her head was rigidly still, and he saw her fingers were gripping the shelf tightly.
Suddenly everything fell into place. The hallucination, the medical kit…Ava had actually mind-warped the man! 'Oh, god,' Kyle thought to himself, 'She saved our skins.'
Turning back, he saw the man standing once more, with the help of Liz and Max. His face didn't look so sickly, and his breaths were coming evenly. The shaking had all but stopped. Max had been successful…He looked nearly as healthy as he had before.
Kyle approached them as he was saying, "I don't know how to thank you kids. I'll never be able to repay you for what you've done."
Max and Liz nodded, but still looked hopelessly confused and more than a little concerned. Kyle had an idea.
"Here's the deal, sir. We're glad to help you out, but my friend Joe here is just a med-school student, and he's--uh--not exactly authorized to use that medical kit on just anyone he likes. Don't get me wrong, he knows just how to use all that fancy equipment, but, like I said, it isn't exactly…smiled upon, if you catch my meaning."
Kyle could see his friends exchanging relieved looks behind him, and he mentally crossed his fingers, hoping that the man would buy what he said.
"Oh, sure, sure, I see. No, no, I won't say a word. It's the least I can do after all this."
Knowing they had to leave, the three gathered their forgotten bags of groceries and said good-bye. The guys departed with a hearty handshake each from the grateful man, and as Liz collected the last few bags, Kyle heard her giving him strict orders to get a health exam as soon as possible. The man agreed with a smile, and soon she followed the rest of them outside.
They pulled out of the parking lot in silence before questions exploded from everyone who hadn't been inside the store. Max and Liz themselves seemed nervous and perplexed. Kyle was the only one who was relatively calm.
In response to the general uproar, he and Liz first explained what had happened in the store as they were shopping and how the man had started his convulsions. Max picked up from there, describing how he had calmed the man's blood pressure, allowing more oxygen to reach his heart.
Everyone contemplated the story for a moment before Maria spoke up. "So, what about all the, you know, side effects? Handprint? Alien powers? Will I be reading about this guy in the Inquirer sometime soon?"
This had been on all of their minds, and the group turned to Max for answers. "Well, Isabel took away the handprint after I was done, so that won't be an issue. As for the changes…I don't think this will affect him. It's hard to explain, just a feeling I had. I have this theory-"
"Uh Max?" Michael interjected, "Can we skip the theories and go right to the facts?"
Max just gave him a withering look and continued. "As I was saying, when I saved Liz and Kyle, I was dealing with a foreign object that had entered their systems. So what I had to do was go in and take the bullet out, or at least disintegrate it. But when it dissolved, it left this…empty space inside them. Like, their organs didn't just heal themselves and go back to normal. I think some of my 'alien energy' remained in that space, gradually spreading through their blood systems til they were…changed. Since it's been so long since Liz's healing, these changes have started to manifest themselves externally, like with sparks and energy surges."
"Okay," Liz said slowly, catching on, "That makes sense…sort of. But how is that different than what you did in there? And what I'm wondering is why you were even able to do anything at all to help him? I thought maybe it was 'his time', like with my grandmother."
"Well, with George-"
"George?" came Kyle's reply. "He didn't have a nametag on."
"Oh, I, uh, got some flashes when I connected with him. Yeah, his name's George Jameson, he's been married for 32 years, and he has some kids. I'm not sure how many."
"Well, is he…okay?" Kyle pressed. "Do you think he'll keep quiet? I'm not sure how much water that whole 'unauthorized equipment' excuse held."
"No, he's fine. Trust me, I don't think he'll tell."
Michael latched onto the brief uncertainty that had flashed in Max's eyes. "You think? We can't afford any mistakes here Maxwell."
"Look, I know he won't give us away, alright? I just…I could sense how close he was to his wife," he said, almost sheepishly, casting a warm glance at Liz. "If he tells anyone, it'll be her. No one else. Besides, the fact that we supposedly had a medical kit isn't that suspicious in the first place."
"Yeah, what was with that?" Maria exclaimed. "What if he was just bluffing about that whole thing, and he's off calling some tabloid right now?"
Kyle couldn't let this spin out of control. Hesitantly, he broke in, still unsure of how exactly he would cover Ava's tracks. "I-uh, I think I know what happened." They turned to him curiously. He was just thankful his ongoing alien experience had taught him how to think fast.
"There was a man who lived in my grandfather's nursing home, right down the hall. One time when I went to visit, I heard some of the nurses talking about him. Apparently he had had a heart attack and was convinced a gun-man threatening him on a train had panicked him to the point of cardiac arrest. The thing is, all of the witnesses on the car told police that there was never any hold-up. He had just completely fabricated the story, but not on purpose. He really thought he had seen it. It has something to do with the state your mind is in when you're going through something like that."
Kyle only prayed it sounded plausible, running his words back over in his mind before looking up to gauge their reactions. Liz was his biggest concern…If she had some fancy scientific reason why it couldn't be true, well then, his little anecdote didn't stand a chance.
But his fears were un-based. The group just nodded when he finished, and Michael said he guessed that made sense. The others agreed, though it was rather unnerving for them to think that someone out there held dangerous information about Max, no matter how deep it may have been buried in his psyche and no matter how many promises of secrecy he had sworn.
A few long minutes passed before Isabel repeated Liz's initial question. "So how could you save him Max? Why was it different than helping Liz's grandmother?"
"I honestly don't know, Iz," Max answered quietly, "It's not something logical that I can explain. All I know is I that there was no way I could have healed Claudia. It was just this feeling I had when I was near her, like her spirit was already slipping away. With George it was different. He was still fighting for life. I'm not saying that I can heal anyone who's dying and wants to live, but for some reason I could connect with him. To tell you the truth , I was a little surprised that I could. It's always something you have to take case by case."
"And what about the powers, Max?" Liz said, "What's the difference between him and me?"
"Well, I think it's that the damage that was being done to him was internal. The problems had to do with his own body malfunctioning. When I healed him, I only directed his blood differently, cleared out a few arteries, and then withdrew my powers. I didn't leave a part of myself behind. I don't even think there's any danger of him visiting a doctor or being examined. There's no evidence I was ever there, except for his good health."
A few long moments passed before Maria broke the tension, "Well, all this alien science mumbo-jumbo is making me hungry! Where's the Chunky Monkey at?"
Everyone laughed at this, even the weary-looking Max, who lay comfortably in the arms of his wife, stretched across the middle seat as Kyle drove. Soon paper bowls and plastic spoons were being passed around, along with various quarts of ice cream. Three members of their group heaped their sundaes with Tabasco, one combined the hot sauce with Hershey's chocolate, and the remaining two stuck to normal fare.
It had been an action-packed day already, even at the hour of eight AM. Still, they were determined not to get too off-schedule, despite the excitement, and continued on to drive a good nine hours before stopping at a motel. It had been the plan to forgo hotel stops for a few days, but Max was in desperate need of some recuperation time, so they agreed on one more night indoors. Since they had spent a good deal of their money on groceries, one room was, as usual, all they could handle.
As they trooped in and made the bed arrangements, Kyle let his thoughts drift to Ava and the events of that morning. Though he would have liked to speak to her that night, he was much too tired to attempt an elaborate escape from the room or to concoct any excuses of his absence. The last thing that crossed his mind before falling asleep was how much he wished he hadn't promised to keep her presence a secret…It was entirely too much pressure on his muddled brain and mixed-up heart.
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Okay, this chapter may have seemed a little random and odd, but it sets things up for lots of Kyle/Ava interaction next chapter! I think there are going to be two or three more chapters before this is finished. Please leave some feedback…It's extremely appreciated!