Where Did the Time Go? : Part XVI
Kim and Ron sat on the bus curled up together. They had taken a seat near the back for the thirty minute ride back to Wannaweep (they just couldn't make themselves call the place Gottagrin) and since it was quite dark outside, they were comfortable continuing their after dinner activities. Taking advantage of the night-skiing, they had ventured onto one of the side trails, breaking out two pairs of night-vision sunglasses so they could see their way. Ron still hit something and went down, taking Kim down with him as she plowed into his prone form. They both came up laughing, propping themselves up by their elbows in the snow.
Moments later, after a quick hunt for Ron's glasses, they found themselves making out beside the darkness enshrouded trail, not caring they were sitting in cold snow. Much of the day had been like that, despite the fact it was actually easier to find time for kissing at home.
After breakfast they took the long lift ride back up to the top of the cross-country run. This time, with daylight on their side, they actually did do a little exploring in DNAmy's abandoned lab. Just as Ron had suspected, it wasn't much more than a lot of broken rock and a little twisted metal. Whoever actually owned the property apparently had been up there to remove any valuable scrap.
Still, the main cavern was intact and it dawned on them that it was a quite private and secluded place and with the sun out that day, the temperature was quickly climbing into the low forties, making it very comfortable for the two of them to share some of their warmth by opening their jackets. Ron's hands on her waist sent the good kind of chills through her as they kissed.
After lunch they spent several hours at the lodge while she caught up on her reading assignment. Every so often she would give Ron a synopsis, explaining just how wrong the movie had actually been. "They left out major characters, went off on silly tangents and get this. Remember when I said there was no way they'd be able to get those jets to fly? Well, they didn't even use jets, they stole the bad guy's planes. Makes me wonder what the people who made that movie were smoking."
Ron just smiled and went back to contentedly kneading her shoulders.
Midway through their dinner of Fried Chicken (which Kim pronounced good, but that nobody, not even Ron could make it as good as her Nana could) they heard a sound they really didn't want to hear.
Beep-Beep-De-Beep.
Even though they had a table for two, enough of their classmates were close by and many sets of eyes were suddenly on them. Pulling her Kimmunicator from her leg pocket, Kim hit the answer key.
"Hey, Wade, what's the sitch?" It stuck her the moment the words left her mouth how little she got to ask that lately.
"Kim, it's the Seniors."
Her eyes rolled. "What are they up to now?" She picked up a half eaten drumstick, then let it fall back to her plate.
"So far they seem to be behaving themselves, but I just wanted to let you know they've bought some property outside of Mexico City and it appears they're building another home there."
"Okay. Any chance they might not be on the up and up with this one?" She asked.
"Doesn't look like it at the moment. Problem is, the Mexican Government doesn't have a gripe with him right now and he's spending so much money they don't want to cut into the tax revenue."
Kim raised an eyebrow. "So he's building a house and spending a lot of money. What's the big?"
"GJ is really antsy about it, that's what. I haven't been able to dig up what they're so concerned about, but it seems to focus on a Mexican Government warehouse that is fairly close to the Senior's new property."
"What's in it?"
"Near as I can tell, it's a seized property warehouse, specifically meant to house merchandise confiscated for copyright infringements."
"That doesn't sound like much to me." She said.
"It might not be. Doesn't sound like the Senior's style to try to make off with a bunch of fake Gucci handbags or something. They'd be more likely to steal the whole factory that makes the real thing."
Kim nodded. "Keep me posted if anything interesting shows up."
"Yeah, couldn't this have waited until we got home?" Ron griped, picking some meat off a thigh.
"Sorry, guys. I was just a little bored, and this was the first time today I wasn't getting elevated pressure and endorphin readings and such."
Kim's eyes narrowed. "Wade, are you telling me that you can tell when we're making out?"
"Uh, gotta go, see you guys when you get back." He said, killing the connection.
Kim growled slightly, picking up her fork and tweaking the tines.
"Does this mean no more kissing?" Ron said, frowning deeply.
She shook her head and rubbed her leg against his under the table. "No way, Ronnie. If Wade wants a show, we give him a show, though when we get home we're going over to his house and have a nice long conversation about certain things."
"You don't think he really knows when we…"
"More than likely." She said, finally taking another bite of her chicken. "Wade knows how to read the telemetry from out tracking chips, so he can probably tell the difference between, say, us out skiing and sitting up in that cavern making out."
"Sick and wrong." He muttered, letting the bony remains of his chicken fall to his plate. Apparently the revelation didn't have any effect on his appetite, as he quickly started buttering another biscuit.
Later, during their night skiing, they made sure to put on a pretty good show for their tech guru, though they correctly assumed he was too embarrassed to continue that evening and had shut down everything but the locator.
The kissing on the bus was light and tender, brief little pecks giving them an excuse for their faces to linger so close together without drawing the attention of their classmates around them. Not that it mattered, two of the other couples were following their lead snuggling in the back of the darkened vehicle.
"Do you know what this reminds me of?" Kim asked.
"What's that, KP?" His hand found the edge of her sweater under her jacket, gripping her bare waist underneath, making her snuggle even closer to him.
"Mmmm, that's nice. Your hands are sooooo warm." She said, closing her eyes. "This feels like when we were in Fort Summerdell last summer, out on the boardwalk."
"Yeah it does, though I also remember what we almost did then." They had decided on that warm night that the 'time' was right, though after three aborted attempts following that romantic evening, they realized it really wasn't.
Six months later, considering what the two of them had been through together during that time, Kim found herself re-evaluating that whole idea again.
"Like I said, Ronnie. It feels the same." She said, barely whispering.
"What are you saying, Kim?" He whispered back.
She kissed him, briefly, tenderly. "Only that I love you so much." She kissed him again. "And I don't want to spend tonight in a cabin with Bonnie, Bonnie Junior and a little girl." Kim really liked Marie, but had to face the fact the girl was barely fourteen and looked even younger. Some of the talk before bed time the night before made her a little embarrassed for the girl, who seemed a little lost, especially since sixteen year old Danika seemed to be more worldly than the other three girls combined, though Kim suspected the skinny girl was particularly full of something.
"O…kay." He said, holding her a little tighter around the waist.
"I think, after bed-check we should see how good they taught you at ninja-school and maybe go down to the boathouse or something…and play it by ear." For emphasis she reached up and traced the edge of the aforementioned body part.
Ron laughed softly. "It seems to me the last time we planned something like that, we both fell asleep and missed out." He thought it was pretty funny that they'd even thought about the very thing that morning and Kim admitted this would be so much easier to do at home, but there was something romantic about finding time to be alone on a trip like this.
Kim chuckled a bit herself. "Then the following night, Wade beeped in at exactly the wrong moment." They had been right on the verge, literally in the process of undressing each other.
"Good old Wade…hey, do you think he knew what we were doing?" He shook slightly, realizing if Wade knew when they were just kissing, if he had been watching the readouts as they prepared to go further…
She frowned. "I hope not." She thought furiously for a moment, trying to remember past the frustrating interruption. "It was a real call from GJ. I don't think he's going to have them send a hoverjet just to protect our virtue or something. Besides, he didn't do anything the next night. It was us chickening out."
The girl in the seat in front of them extricated herself from her boyfriend's arms and turned around. "You know what it sounds like when you two start whispering like that?" She asked, grinning from ear to ear.
Kim sunk down in her seat, hiding her eyes behind her hand, glad that it was too dark to see how red she was getting.
The girl shook her head slightly. "We call dibs on the boat house." She said, turning back to her now-mortified boyfriend.
Five or so minutes went by until Ron finally whispered. "You think we're ready this time? Think we're not going to chicken out?"
She ran a hand down his cheek. Apparently he hadn't shaved that morning and it was a little rough. "There's one way to find out, Baby." She purred slightly as his hand squeezed her waist. "Right here, right now if we were alone…" She reached up and kissed him tenderly on his cheek.
Giving his thigh a squeeze she went on. "We've both got some rough memories of this place and considering how it's changed hands, it's probably the last time we'll ever be here, so I want to make happy memories about this place. Think about it." She whispered as softly as she could. "After all of the evil that's come out of this place, it would become where we had our first time."
The bus trundled to a stop as it pulled through the gates of the camp, their driver having an even worse time than Barkin did with the tight turn into the lot.
Both of them sat up in their seat, their tender connection broken as the hairs on the backs of their necks stood up. They exchanged a look, knowing what the other was thinking. This was something beyond nerves, beyond past bad experiences here.
Something was most def wrong.
Thoughts of sneaking off to do much more than simply make out were instantly shoved to the back burner.
The silence on the bus as it came to a halt was a clear indication that the others could feel it too.
"This place is way creepy." They heard Bonnie say in the darkness. For once she had to agree with her rival, though given the choice between fight and flight, Kim was generally pre-disposed to fight.
Then it hit Kim. There were three streetlights illuminating that part of the camp, yet none of them were on. With the moon not expected until some time in the morning it was pitch black outside. Even the stars were shrouded behind clouds bringing fresh flurries.
"Is the power off?" She asked, reaching into her bag for her night-vision glasses.
"Looks that way." Barkin said. Kim was wondering if it really was a good thing for Director and Snyder to be following in their car. They'd lost them somewhere during the winding ride, leaving Barkin and their driver the only full adults on hand, and somehow she figured the driver really didn't count himself.
The assistant principal had known her long enough that he didn't say anything when Kim was the first one off the bus. He'd gone into the toolbox under the driver's seat and had come up with a weak-beamed flashlight, the plastic kind you had to rap on your hand a couple times for the thing to actually work. The kind that actually cost less than the batteries inside it.
Touching a control on the temple, Kim switched her glasses from ambient light to thermal imaging, though with all the snow that didn't help much. It was too dark for one and too cold for the other.
Ron already had the solution. Rufus was up on his shoulder holding a military style tactical light. It may have cost almost a hundred times more than Barkin's pitiful little light, but at that moment it was worth every penny.
Taking his lead, Kim pulled out her Kimmunicator. The screen could be used for illumination for short periods. In fact, it was bright enough it had once been used to simulate the headlight of an oncoming subway train.
What she saw chilled her far more than the rapidly dropping temperature.
Several of the cabins lay in ruins, including both Cabin 4 and Cabin 9. With a sharp intake of breath, she sprinted toward her ruined temporary home.
"Possible, stay together." Barkin shouted after her.
"I'm with her, Mr. B." Ron said, taking off after her, his light bobbing in the darkness.
She had already reached her cabin, propping the Kimmunicator against the ruin so she could see. Frantically she started digging through the rubble, tossing splinted bits of log and chunks of newer gypsum board aside.
"Oh my God." He heard her say in the darkness.
"What is it, KP?" Ron asked, taking his light and shining it a little more directly where she was.
Kim was on her knees. Right in front of her was her lavender colored bag. She'd pulled the contents out around her, scattering her remaining clean clothes and underthings around her. "It's gone." She said with a small voice.
"What is, KP? We didn't bring that much with us."
"Don't you remember? I brought one of my super-suits with us. Dammit, how could I be so stupid." She started grabbing handfuls of her belongings, stuffing them roughly back into the bag. "Damn fool stupid woman…girl." She growled, sitting down heavily.
"Kim, you've got another one, and it won't take Wade any time to whip up a new one for you."
"Ron, don't you get it? There's a reason those things are kept in a locked vault in the back of my closet. Stupid me, bringing it along just to stay warm. Six million dollars worth of suit and I treat it like long underwear."
"Six…million…dollars?"
"That's what Wade told me it would have cost to develop it if he hadn't built it himself. It still cost him a bunch of money."
"How? What?...eep." Ron finally said.
"Yeah, eep. Wade's worth a lot of money, with all his research work and patents. All this stuff he builds for us, it's not free by any means." She said, putting her chin down on her fists.
There was a low moaning sound and it wasn't coming from the bus where the rest of the students had remained. Ron spun around, trying to place the source.
Kim was instantly on her feet, realizing that whatever had done this much damage to the thick logs of the cabin might still be close by.
"You said Gill was still accounted for, right?" She said, switching her glasses from mode to mode, trying to make out anything around them.
"Yeah, he's still stuck halfway between one L and two L forms. Doctor Lurkin said he wouldn't be a problem."
Then it's something else.
The moaning sound reached them again, closer this time. There was another sound, like something large walking around.
Something crashed. Cabin six started tumbling down as something large and dark tore its way through it like it was made of popsicle sticks instead of eighteen inch thick logs.
At first all they could see was a dark shadow and two perfectly round glowing eyes some fifteen feet above the ground. Then Ron swung his tactical light around, bringing it to bear on the apparition.
Standing on two legs, the stylized animal it had been carved into seemingly coming to life, stood the totem pole that had once sat on the shore of Lake Wannaweep, it's eyes glowing softly in the darkness.
Ron, naturally, screamed.
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