store part 5

Time…10:45. Day, June 16, 2010. We are still trapped in the store but with a new plan we try to break free…

I was walking down the isles looking for the stuff rob had said to get for him to make the time machine. I no it seems impossible but rob knew what he was talking about. All those years of playing video games really paid off for him. “Battery acid, check.” I picked up the battery acid and put it in the cart nix was pushing. This was a long list of items but it the store supplied everything we needed. Even an mudometer conduit…whatever the hell that was. It looked like a spark plug with a wire on both ends. ‘nix doesn’t it seem weird that this store has everything we need?’ ‘I noticed It too. How did he know all this stuff was here?’ ‘he’s rob. He has his moments. Haha’ ‘hehe’ ’I HEARD THAT!!’ me and nix burst out laughing as hard as possible. It was too funny. I tried to stop laughing and pick up a dousing fuser. I finally got enough strength to put it in the cart. The last item on the list rob needed. I pushed the cart back toward rob and nix held onto my arm following me. The sun was high in the sky. It was 11:30 after all. Almost noon.

I felt my stomach cringe with hunger. I hadn’t eaten anything since last night. I stopped and turned toward the food isles. ‘jes what r u doing?’ ‘im hungry’ ‘oh. Haha so am I.’ I smiled at her and she smiled back. She was still holding my arm. I liked that. I was still not wearing a shirt but I was wearing nix’s pants. I saw she was wearing my pants still. They looked pretty good on her. “no don’t think about it. don’t think about it” I tried my hardest to think of what was really important. But I couldn’t help the feeling. She was so beautiful. I stared at her and almost ran into a register. ‘damn it’ she giggled. I could feel my self turn a deeper red than before. I turned the cart around and tried walking to the food isle…again.

I found some blueberries still fresh. A sobe to quench my thirst. I felt refreshed. Nix and rob both had a sobe but rob was chewing on a piece of celery and nix was licking an ice cream cone. Rob was putting the stuff together and asked me for some pliers. I reached in nix’s pants(which were really mine) and pulled out a pair of pliers. Nix just stared at me. I shrugged and said, ‘I never leave home without the ten essentials’ she laughed. I gave the pliers to rob and he started working on the time machine again. He kept murmuring to himself. It scared me sometimes but I knew he was working so settled down. He hasn’t been this focused on something since he got an A in science class. He loves working but he never says it. Hes told me once.

I sat there holding nix while watching rob. She was watching him too. ‘what are you two guys doing?’ ‘nothing’ we said that together and automatically backed away from each other. She was blushing and I could feel myself blushing as well. ‘nix?’ ‘yes jes.’ I wanted to ask her out so bad but I could never get the courage. Especially when rob was there listening. ‘….never mind I’ll tell u later.’ ‘..o…k..’ ‘are you two gonna just stare at each other or are u going to give me a hand please?’ ‘well since u said please.’ me and nix walked over to rob and waited for him to say something. ‘on second thought I don’t need u guys. I almost done anyway. I just need to figure out how to tie this……’ I stopped listening and had gotten focused one nix’s hair again. It was so beautiful and blonde. A bright blonde. I tried to look away but then id hear rob say something like ‘connect this wire to this one and cringe the threads here….’ so I stayed watching her. Until she looked at me which I promptly looked away. “dammit. I’m too young to be thinking like this.” but I was and there was nothing I could do to help it. ‘nix can we talk?’ ‘ok sure’ ‘u two are going to have to wait for your talk because I’m finished.’ ‘no way’ I stared at rob and then looked at his time machine. ‘I’ve seen movies with time machines and that is a pretty small one.’ ‘I agree it is small’ ’what r u two worrying about? Just cause its small doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. The only thing bad thing is that we have to hold hands whenever we use It. Ill then push the button and we will be sucked back in time or into the future with the machine and whatever is touching us. But the store wont go thru its much to large of an object.’ ‘rob this isn’t just some fairytale where everything we want to happen happens. There a thing in life called irony.’ ‘jes its gonna work trust me.’ ‘ok dude I trust u’ ‘nix are you ready to go?’ ‘no. what are we gonna take for food? Money we need money. And water and supplies and what are we gonna do when we go back in time anyway?’ ‘that’s the fun part. Were going to have jes make a plan for us.’ ’you want me to make a plan?’ ‘yeah dude your plans always work. And nix can get us backpacks and supplies and ill stay here and mke sure the machine woks properly and when im done ill go with you and check out the plans.’ ‘ok but are you sure?’ ‘yes im sure we don’t have much time so hurry!’

I walked over to the area in the store where they sold drawing boards chalks and erasers. I picked one up and placed it on a stand and started writing what popped in my head. “first we figure out how the chip got in my house. Then we trail it backwards and try to find how it goes into the store administrators hands. We try to get back at a time where none of this happened and no one remembers how they got where they are…..’ I kept writing and writing and then I figured it out. The thought popped in my head and I wrote it out in the corner of the board. Just as I finished writing it I heard a crash.

I looked up and saw two people jump don into the store. ‘who is it and what do want?’ ‘jes?? Nix?? Rob?? Are you here?? We came to rescue you!’ ‘what??’ I had heard that voice before. I couldn’t remember off the top of my head but then I thought about It and it couldn’t have been… ‘scott?’ ‘yes dude where are you?’ ‘im over here!’ he walked right up to me and hugged me. ‘oh man I have been so worried about you and rob. I even brought your girlfriend anna along. Even though I heard shes not your girlfriend anymore.’ ‘no shes not’ ‘ok but dude you guys had me worried sick and your parents are mad at me for not knowing where you are!’ ‘im sorry dude but have you heard about the store?’ ’yeah I know I saw it on the news. I couldn’t believe it either. All this for a missing chip.’ ‘bro…we have the chip.’ ‘what??????!!??’ (hes not really my brother but we are close enough friends we should have been born brothers.) ‘look I know it sounds crazy but listen to me. Nix got the chip from anna.’ ‘yeah but I got the chip from your house jes. You had it before.’ ‘why did u come to my house anyway?’ ‘I was going to remind you not to be late for our date but I knocked on the door and no one answered. I picked up a letter and it was pretty heavy. So I decided to look inside and there the chip was. Im sorry I didn’t believe you before but wow. I never thought you and your friends would do something as crazy as this’ ‘do you have the envelope it came in?’ ‘no it should be still on your doorstep’ ‘what was the address?? Tell me!’ ‘ I cant remember. Wait I do remember, there was no address. All it said was to owner of this house.’ I was mad anna had looked through my mail but I wasn’t concerned about that at the moment. ‘NIX, ROB, GET OVER HERE!’ I yelled as hard as I could in the store. Rob walked over and saw scott. ‘scott I thought you would still be sleeping’ nix walked over and saw them there and nearly fainted but rob caught her. I shivered. ‘rob what are we gonna do now? Now we have 5 people. Will the machine take all of us?’ ‘it should’ ‘ok good…’ he let go of nix and she folded her arms. ‘what machine jes?’ ‘scott, rob built us a time machine and were going to go back in time and return the chip’ ‘this isn’t like the matrix jes this is real life. It doesn’t sound possible.’ ‘well first tell us how you got in here!’ ‘we jumped on the roof’ ‘jumped??’ ‘yes me and anna got a ladder and jumped our way onto the roof. The ladder fell and broke as we jumped off it.’ ‘….ok but still. We have to go and do this plan! Or else we’ll never be able to go store and buy video games. And next year when your old enough, you wont be able to buy cancer sticks.’ ‘..fine but what exactly is the plan’.

I showed them the plan. They memorized it, every detail. I explained everything. Nix remembered everything first and went to get stuff for anna and scott. Scott had brought a couple of his jack knifes with him. And anna had a can of mace and a taser. It was enough for us to protect ourselves with but…we needed more. I took all five of them to the area in the store where they sold their firearms.. ‘they always keep the key right…around here somewhere…..’ I felt under the counter and felt the key on my fingertips. I grabbed it. ‘got it’ I unlocked the door case to the guns. ‘do you all know how t shoot a gun?’ they all nodded. Scott owns like 5 of them and rob has held on of mine before. I didn’t know about nix and anna though. Anna needed practice on her aim. And nix always flew a couple inches back when she shot a colt. Ive had enough practice with a 9mm that I could hit the target without looking. Scott always preferred a heavy 12-gauge because hes strong and can lift basically anything. Rob like repeating revolvers and took the fist one he saw. I don’t know why anna picked up an ak-47. Maybe because it’s the only gun shes ever shot before. But now we were armed and prepared. Nix handed us our bags and listed us twelve rounds of ammunition. Meaning we could reload only twelve times. But for rob that would take a long time. I strapped the bag over me and so did everyone else. I put my gun on my belt and rob put his in its holder. Scotts threw his over his back. Anna did the same as scott. Nix put heres on the side of her bag. scott handed us our knives. One for him, one for me and one for rob. Anna gave the taser o nix. I saw nix smile when she got it. And I held back my laugh. The pack was medium-sized. Very light actually. We handed rob the chip as it was part of the plan. Finally we were prepared to defend ourselves if we had too and able to complete whatever we needed. ‘ok rob show us how the machine works.’ ‘u got it’ we circled around the time machine and held hands. Nix held mine and I could feel myself turn red. ‘Now when I say so take a deep breathe. The trip will take a few seconds and there will be no air to breathe. When you can breathe again you can let go of who your holding hands with.’ I was holding robs hand in my left. Nix was on my right. On nixs right was anna and on anna’s right was scott. Rob counted down three, two, one and he leaned over and grabbed the machine and inputted june 13, 2010. Time: 000. Meaning midnight. He pushed a blue button and then a red one. I wondered what the blue one was but before I could ask I felt my body lift up and my stomach swirl. I squeezed rob and nix’s hands.

Did we make it? the thought raced through my head.