Glassford Girl: Part 3 (The Emily Heart Time Jumper) Read online

  Contents

  Glassford Girl: Part 3

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  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  More Books and Free Stuff

  Emly Heart Time Jumper Series

  Narrows of Time Series

  American Prepper Series

  About the Author

  GLASSFORD GIRL: PART 3

  Emily Heart Time Jumper Series

  By Jay J. Falconer

  www.JayFalconer.com

  Published June 13, 2015

  by BEAR DOWN PUBLISHING

  ISBN-13: 978-1514275962

  ISBN-10: 1514275961

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or business establishments or organizations, actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Jay J. Falconer

  All Rights Reserved Worldwide. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the author (Jay J. Falconer) except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews, publicity mentions, book/author recommendations, or announcements.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Emily Heart wasn’t breathing when she arrived after her most recent time jump from the back yard of Jim Miller’s house. Moments later, billions of sleeping neurons began to fire, rebooting her bio-systems and bringing her closer to a conscious state.

  Her heart stirred with a single thump, then charged to full power when it sent the first rush of blood into her muscular system. A howl of post-jump pain hit her just as her waking senses realized there was a mounting pressure inside her ear canals. She also heard the rhythmic sound of swooshing, and her body felt weightless and carefree, making her think she was floating in air.

  Yet there was a searing-cold dampness smothering her skin. Then something brushed across her cheek, sending a panic alarm that hastened the revival process.

  Her respiratory system came alive, causing her lungs to expand in size. Her mouth opened, hoping to receive a gulp of air, but only a frigid liquid crossed her lips and landed on her tongue, tasting foul and disgusting. She gagged, expelling the thick, foreign matter from her body as her eyes flew open.

  A gray-colored fish looked back at her, floating a few inches in front of her nose with its pelvic fins flapping. Behind the creature were tassels of thin-leafed grass swaying in the current, their tips reaching for the sunlight beaming in from above.

  Emily realized she was underwater. Her arms and legs started to flail, sending the curious fish darting off in an instant. She grabbed and kicked at the green-tinted water, hoping to climb her way to the surface, but her body sank further and further with every stroke.

  A garbled scream was all she could muster, looking down through the murky water, past her bare feet in search of the bottom. It was there, only a few feet below, but covered with a blanket of golf balls. Most looked to be white, but a sprinkling of yellow and orange caught her eye, plus a few with red stripes painted across their centers.

  Her feet made contact with the uneven surface, allowing her to bend her knees and push off with a mighty thrust. Emily threw her arms up, hoping to propel the launch with even greater force. It seemed to work. She rose like a ballistic missile hell-bent on reaching a high orbit.

  The surface came to her hands first, and then her elbows and shoulders broke through with ease. Emily rejoiced when the warmth of sunshine hit her face and naked shoulders. She gasped a massive breath, letting the oxygen and salvation filter into her body.

  Someone was talking, but it didn’t sound like a live person. The voice had a scratchy, high-pitched artificial tone, as if it was coming from a radio. The announcer mentioned the Super Bowl in Phoenix and its kickoff next month, telling her it was January 2015. She must have arrived not long after the narrow escape from the briefcase explosion.

  “Help me!” she screamed into the chilly daytime air as gravity took over, sending her body below the waterline. She grabbed at the surface, but regretted now that she had never learned how to swim. Terror spread as the sunshine faded away, taking her into the abyss like a golf ball sliced off course by its careless owner.

  The bottom of the lake came fast, reaching the tips of her toes first. Once again, she used her legs to send herself to the surface, ignoring the pain and nausea swirling inside her belly. Her second jettison from the bottom wasn’t as effective as the first, barely taking her head out of the water.

  She managed to take another swig of air, but it was short and shallow. It was clear she couldn’t keep repeating this maneuver. Not with the dwindling supply of air and certainly not in near-freezing water with a weakened, post-jump body.

  Emily fought to keep herself above the water with furious hands and feet, but as before, she started to sink. She was ready to accept drowning, but something broke through the water and came at her. It was a metal pole with a golf-ball-sized scoop on the end. She grabbed at it, wrapping her numb fingers around it.

  Her body stopped its decent and changed course when the pole retracted, pulling her up to the light above. She broke through the water, gasping for air, while staring into the eyes of an elderly man and woman wearing colorful golf attire.

  The couple worked the pole in concert, dragging Emily across the surface and onto the grass-covered shoreline, face down.

  “Get my blanket from the cart, Clark,” the woman told the man. “She must be freezing. The poor thing!”

  Emily rolled to her side and wrapped her arms around her shivering body. “Thank you for saving me,” she mumbled in a weak voice.

  The old man draped a soft blanket over her legs and pulled it up to cover her shoulders. The smell of mold, dust and cigarettes was intense, but Emily was too tired and too cold to care.

  Her mind kept switching focus, showing visions of the briefcase explosion, Derek’s face, and then the fish staring at her. One after another they played, a split-second each, clouding her thought process and making her dizzy. A second later, she puked, sending a stream of bile into the grass.

  “We should call 9-1-1!” Clark screamed.

  “Get my cell phone. Hurry!”

  “No,” Emily answered with chattering teeth, trying to stop her rescuers from involving anyone else. Finally, the rapid-fire visions stopped playing in her head and she was able to concentrate.

  “Lay still, child. Save your energy. We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “I’ll be okay. Just . . . need . . . a minute,” she said, feeling more energy drain from her body. Her eyelids felt as though they weighed a hundred pounds each. She was exhausted, but couldn’t let herself sleep. Not yet.

  “Hurry, Clark! I think she’s going into shock.”

  “Beverly, which pouch is it in?”

  “Front one! With my extra tees!”

  “Okay, found it. What’s your damned unlock code?”

&
nbsp; “All ones, like I told you before.”

  “Got it. Dialing now . . . it’s ringing . . .”

  “I’m really worried, Clark. I think hyperthermia’s setting in.”

  “Why don’t you use your body heat to warm her up?”

  “Good idea,” Beverly said, crawling to the ground.

  Emily felt Beverly snuggle behind her with her arms and legs wrapped around her.

  Clark’s voice doubled in volume when he spoke again into the phone. “I’ve got a young girl here who we just pulled from the lake! We need paramedics, now!”

  “Tell them where we’re at!” Beverly snapped at him.

  “We’re at Stone Creek Golf Course in Paradise Valley near Cactus and Tatum Boulevard. We’re on the first hole. By the lake . . . Yes, she is, but we think she’s hypothermic . . . I’d say, maybe nineteen. Hard to tell. She’s covered in gunk from the lake and, well, she’s naked . . . I don’t know. That’s how we found her . . . Clark Grismond . . . Just my wife, Beverly . . . okay, we will. But they’ll need to hurry! She’s freezing to death.”

  Just as warmth began to flow into Emily from the old woman, something felt off. Her belly and chest were tingling, making it feel as though her skin was moving on its own. It was normal for her body to become hypersensitive after a jump, but this sensation was different. Something was wrong. She could sense it.

  Emily pushed at Beverly with her elbow. It worked. Beverly’s grasp weakened, allowing Emily to wriggle free. She turned onto her back while lifting the blanket to look at her breasts and tummy. Then she saw them, sticking to her skin and sucking blood.

  Leeches!

  Two of them were on her left breast—on opposing sides of the nipple—plus several attached to her abdomen in random locations. But there were more. A pair of bloodsuckers were feasting along the inside of her upper thigh, not far from her vagina.

  Emily screamed, feeling a rush of adrenaline kick in that came out of nowhere. She tossed the blanket aside and sat upright in an instant. “Get them off me!”

  Beverly moved to a crouching position but kept her hands out and away like Emily’s body was a toxic wasteland. “Clark? What do we do?”

  Before Clark could respond, the jump process ignited with the power and speed of a supernova. Emily spun on her backside and shoved the woman with both feet, sending Beverly flopping backward and landing at the feet of her husband.

  Emily knew she only had seconds before the blue fire would come. She was already exhausted from the last jump and didn’t know if she could survive another one so soon. She steeled herself, preparing for what would come next.

  The next instant, time froze, and the blue fire came to consume her, faster than it had done before. It transformed her body into pure energy, sweeping her away from the golf course, leaving Beverly and Clark behind with their expressions frozen in time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Emily felt someone shake her shoulders, bringing her out of her post-jump stasis. Two jumps in a handful of minutes had drained her body to a near-catatonic state. She heard a male voice and other sounds, but her ears weren’t functioning properly—everything was garbled and mixed together. She couldn’t make sense of it. She tried to open her eyes but they wouldn’t budge, at least not yet. She needed more time to recover from the successive jumps.

  “Emily, wake up,” a male voice said, becoming clearer with each word that landed on her eardrums. Whoever was talking to her continued to shake her, adding to her post-jump pain and nausea.

  “Come on, girl, talk to me. Em! Please! Wake up! I need you to breathe.”

  The unexpected last few words took root in her synapses, making her realize she wasn’t breathing. Her lungs fired, taking in a huge gulp of air that inflated her chest. She coughed and then took another series of breaths, adding a bit of energy to her body.

  “Oh, thank God. I thought I’d lost you there for a moment.”

  The voice was crystal-clear now. She recognized it. Her lips moved to speak, but only in a whisper. “Derek? Is that you?”

  “I’m here, babe. It’s good to hear your voice. Are you okay?”

  “Get them off of me.”

  “Them, what?”

  “Leeches.”

  “Leeches?”

  “They’re all over me,” she said, a little louder this time. She managed to move one hand, passing it over her nipple, chest, and stomach, trying to knock the creatures off. “Get them off, please!”

  Derek grabbed her hand and held it to his chest. “Em, I can see just about every inch of you. There’s nothing there. I need you to stay calm and rest. You’re safe. Just breathe, and save your energy.”

  Then it hit her. The jump. Nakedness. Nothing goes through the transformation process except her body. The blue fire must have consumed the bloodsucking organisms, ridding her body of the threat.

  “I jumped. Back now. So tired,” she muttered, trying to keep her thoughts straight.

  Derek’s gentle hands rolled her on her side. Somehow he must have known what was about to come next. Right on cue, the nausea came and she vomited—twice. She didn’t know if any of it landed on him, her eyelids were still too heavy to open.

  “Someone get her a blanket!” Derek yelled, his voice sounding like it was aimed away from her.

  Emily heard the whoop of sirens and they were getting louder. Nearby, she heard people moving about in what sounded like dirt and grass. Then more sensory input started to register: the crunch of glass. Flames crackling. The smell of smoke and burnt wood. People talking. A cell phone’s ringtone and someone answering it in Spanish. A woman crying. Two car doors. A dragging sound. A powerful sneeze. Tape squeaking while being pulled from a dispenser. The clatter of metal on metal.

  Her mind continued to clear, allowing her sixth sense to function. Several people must have been focused on her because all their thoughts and emotions poured into her at the same time.

  One man, elderly by his mental tone and imagery, thought she reminded him of his granddaughter, Amber, in Oklahoma. Something about cheesecake and autism.

  Another person—a young girl, who was having a sleepover at her cousin’s house, wanted the neighborhood men to drag Derek away, thinking he might be the person responsible for what happened. The girl was afraid for Emily, wanting someone to protect her and cover her up.

  “Here, this will help,” Derek whispered in her ear. A moment later, a blanket draped across her body. She grabbed it and curled up, tucking it tightly under her chin to warm up.

  “It’s time to get you out of here. Right now.”

  Emily felt his powerful arms slide under her ribcage and cradle her legs, and then she rose from the ground. His touch was both electrifying and soothing at the same time, cutting through the pain and nausea. She knew she was safe with Derek watching over her.

  She wanted to talk to him, to look at him, to kiss him, but she was too tired. Sleep was the most important thing right now. Her mind drifted off and she passed out.

  * * *

  Jim Miller stood on sore knees with a bandage wrapped around his head, watching the ambulance pull away from his house with its lights flashing and siren roaring. Alison’s partner was in the back—he was badly injured.

  Jim remembered him as being the person closest to the intruder’s briefcase when it exploded. Dozens of shards of metal must have hit him before his body went crashing through a solid fence post. One of his eyes had been obliterated and his face looked like someone had run it through a wood chipper. But his injuries didn’t stop there. His shoulder looked to be dislocated and his arm had suffered a compound fracture just above the wrist joint. The paramedics thought the fluid expansion in his chest was due to a massive blow, possibly internal bleeding, but they could not be sure.

  Everyone standing near the briefcase had gone crashing through the fence and landed in his neighbor’s yard. However, when he came to, Emily and Derek weren’t there. He could only assume the kids woke up first and made a run for it.


  Can’t blame them, Miller thought. Emily—who’d disappeared months earlier—didn’t need to get involved with the police, and Derek wasn’t a fan, either. He hadn’t seen the girl since the night Emily vanished, until they’d both shown up in his back yard that afternoon—right after Miller had caught a strange-looking man with orange skin skulking around his property and brandishing a weapon straight out of Star Trek.

  Miller had disarmed him, and that’s when things took an unexpected turn: the gun self-destructed, and then the prowler disappeared with a loud bang and a flash of light after being covered in a cocoon of static blue energy. To top it all off, the Orange Man’s briefcase sizzled, crackled, and jumped around before it exploded. The damage to his home was extensive, indicating the blast was massive. It was a miracle everyone wasn’t killed, a fact he couldn’t reconcile.

  Jim turned to Alison, who was standing with him when the ambulance pulled away. “Okay, Alice. Cut the shit. Why were you parked out front of my house—on a stakeout? I’ve told you repeatedly that I don’t know anything about the Glassford Girl, as you call her.”

  “If that’s true, then how do you explain her presence in your back yard when all hell broke loose?”

  “All I know is I saved her from being raped by a bunch of gangbangers the night she and I first met.”

  “Yeah, you keep saying that.”

  “Look, I just got out of the hospital, for fuck’s sake, because I got shot that night by members of your force. Or have you forgotten about that little tidbit?”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten, but you still haven’t answered my question. Why were they on your property?”

  “It’s pretty damn simple. I heard a noise and went out back to investigate when bam! I ran into her and the kid from the hospital. Your guess is as good as mine as to why they were here.”

  “Jesus, you must think me a fool.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Detective Alison looked at his feet and sighed with a look of disappointment. He made eye contact again with Jim. “I might be old, but I’m not stupid. You do know something. I can feel it in my bones.”