Time Jacker by Aaron Crash (nonfiction book recommendations .TXT) 📕

The Mouth came to a stop and opened its mouth, and the tongue whipped at him.

Jack didn’t dodge it. But he did aim and fire, right into the thing’s uvula—that’s the punching-bag thing at the back of someone’s throat.

His bullet hit the uvula.

The tongue hit Jack. Not only did it smell like dumpster muck, but it was slimy, and Jack’s coat was drenched. His skin felt like it was on fire and his heart hurt. The piercing pain in his chest made him gasp.

He backed up, stripping off his coat, stripping off his shirt, and dropping them along with his shoulder holster onto the asphalt.

The piercing pain went from his chest up into his head. It was so bad he dropped to his knees, clutching his skull.

He’d taken a hit.

But the Mouth was dying. The diseased pink ball had turned black and was becoming sludge right on the parking lot asphalt. The tongue lashed out from the puddle of goo, but that too was liquefying. The Mouth screamed and screamed, but those cries got softer and softer, like someone yelling from a car window as it drove away.

Before long, the tongue was gone, and the teeth turned to dust in the puddle.

Jack felt the energy from the monster fill him. As it died, he was somehow drinking in its power. The pain from the tongue was gone, his headache was gone, and it was like his mind and soul were growing more powerful.

He was on his feet, arms back, his gun in his hand, nearly laughing from the power he felt. He felt not just great; he felt invincible. It was like the best bump of cocaine of his life...not that he did cocaine anymore. That shit was dangerous. But he’d had some wild times in his youth, and this was better. He’d quit the coke forever, though, because he’d been paranoid about dropping a hot UA in the police cadet program. Maybe that was part of why Tarrington’s coked-up face had pissed him off so much.

His mind felt clear, the pain was all gone, and he looked down. He’d had a rash on his chest from where the tongue had hit him, but that rash slowly turned back into pale skin.

Then Jack smelled the spicy musk of the lady in red. Her voice broke through the silence. “Do you generally stand shirtless in parking lots?”

He spun. She wasn’t there. No, she stood by the yellow bus in front of the Health Power gym.

“Hey!” he yelled. “I want to talk with you!”

She laughed and yelled back. “Then come and get me, mystery man. If you have the fucking balls.”

She turned and walked through the doors of the gym, shaking her ass and hips all the way.

Jack stuck his pistol into the back of his pants. He tossed on his shirt and coat and stuffed the holster and gun into a pocket. He hurried forward, crossing the parking lot and pushing his way through the doors.

The gym had a fair amount of people frozen in time. There were a few guys doing bench presses in the heavy weights section and a couple of women on the ellipticals. Some heavy guy was working up a sweat on a stationary bicycle. The teenager behind the counter was stuck with a bored expression on her face.

None of the tall women from the bus were in the main part of the gym.

The lady in red stood at the entrance to the women’s locker room. She had a smirk on her face. She laughed and walked into the women’s locker room.

Jack laughed as well. After all the shit his mom and aunt had given him, he was going into the women’s locker room for the most righteous reasons in the world. “Feels like fucking fate to me.”

He strode through the frozen gym and right into the entrance of the women’s bathroom—that had to be where the team of women was, probably all showering.

Well, Jack had to talk with the lady in red, and she’d just set the rules of engagement.

Chapter Seven

JACK WALKED INTO THE women’s locker room of the Health Power gym. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t thought about what went on in there, and, yeah, this was his gym, and it was surreal to go right in. At first, it was just like the men’s side, until he saw the vending machines on the wall selling feminine products. Okay, that was new. And there were no urinals.

Laughter echoed from the shower. “You didn’t think I’d be out there, did you, mystery man?”

“I’m the mystery?” Jack shook his head.

“You are, fucker,” the lady in red’s voice was full of smiles. “Or are you a fucker? I can’t read your shit, and I can read everyone’s shit. Come on, mystery man. Come into the shower where the action is.”

“Actually, my name is Jack.”

“Like I care about your name. Are you coming or not?”

Jack didn’t have a choice, though getting forced into the women’s showers seemed like a perk rather than a hardship. Unlike Mouth and Horns, the lady in red seemed like she wanted to talk to him. She might explain some of the whacked-out crap he’d been experiencing. Jack was ready with his gun, though. That just made good sense.

Jack walked into the women’s shower. It was full of the tall women he’d seen in the parking lot getting out of the bus.

The air was misty, but unlike in the normal flow of time, the mist didn’t swirl or disperse. It filled the air, each particle hanging suspended. The water droplets gushing out of the showerheads hung motionless, trapped in time.

A dozen or so women stood in the shower, some soapy, some washing their hair, some caught in mid-laugh or mid-sentence. He took in their faces first. Some were beautiful and wet and sculpted, and some were cute in a downhome way, and some had overly large noses, or acne scars, or weird ears, but