Escaping Relativity
Chapter 7

Going further into the mall, she went from open store to open store. A few things always caught her eye, but in that moment, she needed a different kind of therapy; retail therapy wasn’t even going to cover it.

Halfway through the last store, she found herself singing along with Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

What the hell? It wasn’t even Halloween yet!

Did she wake up in the Twilight Zone?

There was some crazy shit going on tonight. Stopping in the middle of the store, Charlie turned around slowly, looking over the merchandise. Sweaters, and wool coats were hanging on mannequins in stylish poses, while Christmas trees and decorations were everywhere, and the season’s music was piped through the speaker system.

Something else was off, but Charlie couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Taking a lesson from her daddy’s book, she walked to a nearby corner. Halfway hidden behind two racks of wool skirts, she took a deep breath, and closed her eyes. Charlie pulled her entire consciousness within, it was similar to sucking the air from a full balloon into her mouth; it felt as though every one of her senses came back home to roost. She always enjoyed the feeling of being inside herself; deliberately padded and inaccessible from the outside world.

Then, letting her breath out slowly, she opened her eyes and sent her senses out on a bit of a recon journey, letting everything talk to her––reporting back, like good little soldiers. Everything was wrong. The clothes were timeless pieces, exactly what she’d expect to find in an expensive clothing store. However, the colors and decorations weren’t. The songs, although, yet again, timeless, were musically constructed in a different way. The perfumes she could ferret out reminded her in vivid detail of her grandmother. The hairstyles on the mannequins, and the accessories around the store, not to mention the dress of the other shoppers told her what she’d been missing.

Everything had somehow gone back at least four decades. At least.

Charlie knew style recycled, and each decade brought another one back into popularity, but this was too fast, and way too ridiculous. She’d had front row tickets to the strange and crazy of the world in her lifetime, so she refused to say anything was impossible; but this took the cake.

Cake. Maybe she was hungry. Maybe her glucose levels had dropped and between the stressful situation with Chad, and needing something to eat she was hallucinating. Stranger things had happened...it was possible. Wasn’t it?

However, none of this made up for Christmas mysteriously showing up in August. Charlie still had an itch in the back of her throat for maybe a double shot of whisky, now.

Continuing through the strangely dressed and oddly building crowd, she aimed for the inner courtyard. Every step built the need within her to escape. She felt the walls closing in on her, the overwhelming scent of the many different perfumes as she walked through in the crush of crowds shopping for Christmas gifts; and Charlie was almost smothered by a fur coat as she tried harder to move forward.

Finally she broke through the smells, and the crowd, and the heavy fabrics. Finally she could breathe. Finally, she could see the inner courtyard. But, no... no, no, no, no. NO!

It was day? How could it be day?

Charlie stopped right before the wall of glass holding the double doors leading outside into the inner courtyard.

But it was still day!

Taking deep breaths, Charlie backed up a step or two, just to replay the events of the evening in her mind. Was it the whisky? Had it been drugged? It was possible. Shit, anything was possible.

Okay, she was going to close her eyes, and count to three, then open them and everything will be back to normal. One...two...too late; too impatient, and damn! Nothing had changed from earlier. It was still middle of the day Christmas-palooza.

Rubbing her temples with her fingers, she blinked, she must have blinked, because one minute she was relatively alone, and the next, some spec-ops looking guy was standing in front of her.

Training kicked in before she was cognizant of it.

Initial Assessment––durable pants with multiple pockets, similar to yesteryear’s cargo pants, combat boots of some kind, a durable, potentially Kevlar vest, with enough weapons on him in all the right places telling her, he knew what he was doing, an AR hanging around his neck with at least one hunting knife she could visibly see. So, regardless of everything else around her going back in time somehow, he was from her time, his weaponry was from her now...not yesteryear’s now.

Secondary Assessment. HOT. Damn, but his arms looked like he could carry her without even breaking a sweat. He was tall, six six if Charlie had to guess, because even in her heels, she had to look up an inch to stare into the darkest chocolate-brown eyes she’d ever seen. His hair, was a typical buzz cut, gone too long without the buzz, and his five o’clock shadow was working on seven.

“Finally!” The strange man said. “I just pray you’re everything they think you are,” he finished seemingly talking to himself.

“Who are you, and what in the hell are you talking about?” Charlie asked. “I mean, I’m pretty sure you’ve got the wrong girl.”

“Can’t be. This is where the Wizard sent me. The question now is, will you help me, kill me, or get me killed trying to help me?”

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