Chapter 7

It was snowing in Scottsbluff. Winter had definitely arrived and set her cold hooks into the land. The wind was blowing, as usual, and it was cold, but not that cold. Whenever it snowed, it was the best time to go jogging, Shannon knew from experience.

Her light foot falls made a muffled sound as she padded along through the back street neighborhoods, landing on the balls of her feet. It was the best way, she'd found through the years, to keep from slipping on snow and ice.

She wasn't going all out, that was hard to do on a slippery surface, but she was pushing herself enough to get an excellent work out. Riding her bikes was doable, in this stuff, she'd done it before and probably would again, in this kind of weather, but today she just felt like running.

She was on her way back home and had a thought; She'd run past Terry's place before doing the last two miles home, from there. She just wanted to say hello. They didn't see a whole lot of each other these days.

When Shannon stopped running she put her hands on her hips, expanding her chest with deep inhales, as she walked past the shop a couple of times before going in, catching her breath. She felt strong and healthy and the cool air and snow on her steaming face was soothing.

Stepping into the store, Shannow was greeted by four comically staring and smiling faces. Terry was one of them, the clown. They'd obviously been watching her cool down, but more likely, staring at her trim and fit, but very developed body, even though it was covered by several running layers of clothes. She knew what she looked like and it was common enough with men to stare, but these four nerds were just plain funny to see, he and his gaming friends. They were all nerds and looked the part by the way they dressed, but the situation made her laugh.

"Seen enough there, boys, or do you want me to pose for some pictures?" It was rhetorical, but one of them took out his smart phone and snapped off a couple pictures.

"Put that away Raymond. She was just kidding."

"Oh," he said, now looking a bit self conscious. "Sorry."

"Hey!" Shannon said, addressing Terry, taking him by the arm and escorting him deeper into the shop and away from the others. The other three dispersed into the sofa area with all the controllers and the huge screen T.V. up on the wall where customers could try out a game. There, they resumed playing some military thing, trying to kill each other off, on screen.

"Hey girl. What's cookin'?" he replied.

"Just thought I'd come by and see how you were doing. I'm going to see a movie tonight and wanted to know if you were free?"

"The new Alien movie?"

"Yeah."

"Sure, if you don't mind tagging along with a bunch of gamer-trash. We're going, too."

"Oh!"

She quickly considered if she wanted to be around those other guys. She had kept her circle of friends, in town, tight and down to one so far. Terry. But maybe it was ridiculous to, anymore. They obviously knew about Terry and her, as friends, and it wasn't exactly a secret, was it, these days.

"Sure. That would be fun."

"Really? You don't mind if they know you?"

"No. I guess not. We're not exactly a secret anymore, are we? Why don't you introduce me," she said, pulling him towards the other guys. "It's about time I met your buddies."

Terry hesitated but said, "Okay."

"Hey! Hey you guys," he half shouted over the game and comments. Everyone looked. "This is Shannon, my friend. Shannon, that's Raymond, John, and Brett," he said, pointing left to right. "Looks like we got another companion for tonight's movie."

They all started grinning like Cheshire cats and looking at each other while saying 'hi', 'hello', and 'hey'. Raymond was the tallest, and he was a curly blond kid, dressed in old style black and white basketball shoes, jeans and several bright layers of clothes beneath his button down shirt. John was short and good looking, with longish black hair and a black jacket, jeans and white buck shoes. Weird! He wore a dark shirt, too, buttoned to the very top button at the collar, science nerd style. Brett was the most normal looking but his pants were skin tight and she thought he looked like an old Beatles groupie she'd seen in pictures, with heeled boots and a mop hairdo. All in all, they were fairly colorful but seemed nice, in a backward sort of nerd-way.

"Hi guys. Glad to meet you," she said.

"What time you meeting at the show?" she asked.

"At six," everyone chorused.

"But we're meeting here, first," Terry said, looking at the other three. "And anyone that isn't here at six gets left behind. The show starts at six forty-five, but we want to find good seats. It's probably going to be a little crowded."

"Okay. We'll meet here at six, then. Cool."

"Great," all of them chorused, again, in unison. She smiled, but inside, Shannon was laughing. They were funny.

Terry grinned. "You'll have to forgive them. They're not used to being around a real woman. If it isn't programmed into a game or on a screen, or something they can blow up from a porn shop, they don't know how to act."

"Look who's talking, Mister Smoothie," John said. A lot of 'Yeah's', soon followed.

"I'm good at relationships, aren't I?" Terry said, looking for support from Shannon, but she didn't say anything.

She smiled and shook her head at the silliness of it all and said bye to them. "See ya tonight." She gave Terry a squeeze on the arm, pressing her boob into it, then left the gaming shop and their wide eyed and now constant stares, she noticed, looking back and waving.

She jogged home, slowly, thinking about the four of them and how short the visit was, but enjoying the idea of getting together with everyone. She was loving the run, too, with the winter air on her face. They were certainly nerds, though, as Terry had always described himself and his friends, but they seemed cute to her, just now, as she easily muffled through the snow like an Olympian. Shannon thought it would be fun, really, being around those guys for a couple of three hours or so, and with Terry to run interference for her, in case anyone started to ask stupid, embarrassing, or too intimate of questions, the evening would probably turn out just fine.

When she got home, Shannon removed her shoes before entering the house and took them to the rear heated room, beyond the kitchen. It had a tiled concrete floor and would take a few drops of miscellaneous water. She slapped the water off them over a big stainless steel sink and hung them upside down on some hooks overhead. Her Asics running shoes were her favorites and she took good care of them. They'd dry out over night and be fresh and as clean as was possible tomorrow, if she decided to run, again. The snow was getting pretty deep out there, a bit too deep to ride comfortably, so Shannon thought she might run in the morning, again.

She went into the room where her boxing/marshal arts bag hung from the ceiling and started beating the bag with gloved hands and bare feet. She went at it intensely for twenty minutes and then lifted some light free weights for another ten, just to tone her upper body.

After all that exercise, Shannon ended up in the kitchen swallowing bottle after bottle of store bought water and eating a green pear and some dried apricots, then slicing off pieces of roast beef leftovers, using only a little salt to flavor it. She felt stronger for it all then went to shower and clean up.

Shannon finished fairly quickly and got dressed in warm polar fleece house clothes. She collapsed onto the brown leather sofa in the living room, lengthwise, and lay there for a few minutes calming herself and letting the peace of her big warm home envelope her. She closed her eyes and rolled over, sleeping for two and a half hours.

When she awoke, Shannon went to the bathroom and then made herself a nice snack of warm micro waved corn tortillas with butter and a side of cut-up fruit, pouring a tall glass of orange juice.

Eating on the sofa, she read for hours, sipping water, finishing one book and starting another. She didn't know what time it was and finally got up to look at the clock on the stove. It was thirteen till six. She was going to be late. Shannon scramble to her bedroom, dressed quickly in black jeans and a long sleeved snap closed blouse, slipped into some low-top pumps and grabbed her overcoat then flew out the door.

She just got to Terry's store, in her truck, as everyone was leaving it, barely making the cut off.

"I can take two people," she called out, rolling down the passenger window. Two of the new acquaintances looked at each other and got in. Terry and Jeff got in his new/old pickup, his dad had given him, since starting up the store.

They all met at the movie and Shannon was between Terry and one of the other guys, with the other two on the far side of Brett. They all seemed so uncomfortably shy around her. It would probably take some time for them to loosen up. Shannon realized she could have read their minds, but she didn't want to. As long as they behaved themselves, there was no need. She wanted to like these other three. If Terry liked them, they must be okay, even if they were from the school of awkward & social misfits. But she had no room to talk or judge. She was always in trouble, growing up, and a complete loner and misfit, herself. Who was she to criticize?

The movie was a lot of fun, except for all the swearing, which she hated, and it even had some real scary spots to it.

They talked like crazy when they went out to eat, afterwards, discussing scenes from the show, talking games, comic books, novels, staring at her, asking questions, while she sat quietly catching inklings of thoughts inadvertently from them. She didn't mean to, they just came to her. If she wasn't careful, her powers would pull in others thoughts all too easily. She was getting stronger with all her gifts. The more she used them, the more sensitive they and she became. But she got used to it and Terry's friends. They were kind of like children in grown boys bodies, emotionally. All of them seemed fairly smart, like Terry, but he seemed to have a slight edge to them in that department, but the guys were all truly likable and Shannon was relieved to find that out. She needed people in her life, she realized, and friends, instead of enemies, was so much nicer.

They had some laughs and a pleasant enough time, and then she said good night, thanking them all for letting her go with them. The other three begged her to stay, but not Terry. He knew her routine, to some degree, and knew she needed to rest, she worked out so much.

Back home, Shannon read some more, it was what she loved, getting into her latest novel again and read till about one a.m., two thirds finished with that book. She finally laid it aside and slowly went to bed, hoping she could sleep late.

When Shannon awoke, she started thinking about money. She had no commitments and it was a Sunday morning. It was kind of an obsession with her, money. She had grown up poor and wanted a good nest egg, for herself, for when she got older, she had always said, and was always wondering and scheming of where and how she could get more. She got the road atlas out, shelved next to her bed, and turned on the reading light.

Casper, Wyoming, was a big place, she could see from the map. She'd never been there, herself. Probably a lot of banks over there, but they wouldn't be open on Sunday. She didn't think she wanted to go, though, not today, not in this kind of weather. Even driving, with all that snow, she didn't think it would be safe. It was only in the next State over and just about a hundred and sixty to seventy miles away, to the west of Scottsbluff, but no, not in these conditions, she finally decided.

If only I could walk through walls, she thought, laughably. That would make it convenient for getting money on the weekends, or after hours, without anyone seeing me. That would be cool.

Shannon slid her legs out of bed, tossing the covers, aside and sat there trying to get enough energy up to go make breakfast. She hadn't slept as long as she would have liked to, it being only six-thirty five, and thought she might sleep some more after eating and reading.

With elbows on her knees, Shannon sat there, thinking about walls, vaguely, and that casual thought of walking through them. Without realizing it, she found she was looking into her hallway. Through the wall! A fuzzy outline of a perfectly formed hole lay in front of her, she sat upright, more than a little surprised. She was looking through the wall for crying out loud. Or was it even there, she wondered. How often did that happen?

She found the hole to be about six feet in diameter, when she stood up, and she was initially going to stick her hand in it but thought better of it. She grabbed a book off the top of a stack that she'd already finished, and held the hardback by one corner, pushing the opposite corner into the hole, beyond the surface of the wall. There was no resistance. Dare she put her hand into it?

Shannon tried it, barely. There was a feeling of cold, a very cold feeling, but it was doable, but she was still a bit afraid of it.

She willed the hole to close and it did, the bedroom wall turning back to its former solidity. Shannon touched the wall. It seemed to be the same temperature as the rest of the walls in her room.

So. It was only when the hole was open, that it was cold. She tried opening the wall again and it suddenly appeared as before. She closed it, and reopened it several more times. Each time getting a little bolder. She had stuck almost a whole finger through it, up till then. There were no ill effects except for the cold feeling.

Thinking it through, she knew that electricity, on the atomic level, kept things from passing through each other. If her ability was stopping matter from keeping electricity from vibrating, or at a lower level, or traveling through and or around it, and moved or condensed the mater aside, that would explain the cold feeling and the opening itself. It was like being in outer space or in another dimension. Maybe. She was certain that wasn't it, exactly, but no matter how she looked at it, it was very strange and wonderful to know she could do this and control it.

Shannon got dressed and dressed warm, as if she were going outside. She was going to try to go through that hole. It had disappeared as she dressed, but when she wanted it, she found she could simply think it into existence, and there it was, the opening again, that big hole. Shannon stuck her arm in it, feeling cold, but it wasn't so bad in her warmest outdoor coat and gloves. She had put on a balaclava, too, pulling it over her face. Hopping, bent over, she jumped through the hole and into the hallway, through the freaking wall. Shannon couldn't believe it. "Wow!"

She thought of banks and how much more money she could get, this way. No more managers or dealing with other people. She could just go into a vault, grab what she wanted, and leave. It would have to be fast, she knew. Banks had things in their vaults to alert police, like heat sensors, motion sensors, compression pads, stuff like that, all designed to alert the cops to unauthorized entry into something that was nearly impossible to break into, these days. And all too often, those alarms were silent.

Then Shannon realized, she was thinking about going through steel. She had merely gone through sheet rock and two by four bracing wood, in the wall. Metal and or brick might be something different.

She let the hole close and left the house, walking up town. The snow was half a foot deep on the sidewalks. She went into an alley way and found two commercial buildings that were built side by side, with just a narrow outside walkway between the two. She stopped midway through the walkway, where no one could see her, and opened the wall. The fuzzy edged hole appeared in the brick and she stepped through it. She was in a stationary store. She'd seen it before.

Okay, she thought. This worked on sheet rock, wood, and now brick walls. She then headed for one of the nearby banks. There were four in Scottsbluff.

One of the problems, she realized, approaching the bank was this; The building stood alone. There was nothing around it to hide her entry and exit. Passing cars could see her, as well as people in homes, in back of the commercial properties. She just wanted to test this out, going through metal. She didn't want to take any more money from the Scottsbluff banks, anyway. Shannon realized she had taken too much from them, already. She just wanted to try out this new and scary talent she'd discovered.

She passed the bank by. She'd try it out another day or at night and continued on in her walk.

She was getting a little hungry and headed for a restaurant on the next block up when it suddenly hit her. Stopping in her tracks, Shannon tried to fathom the depth of this new and scary ability. She could actually walk through walls for goodness sakes! That was fantastic and almost unbelievable. Sheeze! What other hidden talents had that blue lightning given her? She was constantly being shocked by what she could do.

Shannon took inventory, as she continued her stroll, and began to evaluate her skills. Okay. She could make people do things they normally wouldn't do, gather money for her, then forget about it, and have them walk away. She could make them hurt themselves, too, if she wanted to, and she could also make people forget anything and everything concerning their dealings with her, as well as, and that had 'really' surprised her, she could read their minds. Shannon also had some control over objects, making her bike go faster, was one, as she had learned accidentally after being struck by that strange blue lightning as she'd been, just outside of Scottsbluff that first day she'd come to be here. It was something she'd never fully explored, though, her telekinesis. She was a bit frightened of that skill, as well.

She thought of the two combined, now, the making of holes and her telekinesis, and wondered if she could make a hole or multiple holes, through any kind of wall. She might be able to retrieve money without even going into a building. If she could master the skills, sufficiently, that would be fantastic and so easy. She could make the money come to her through those holes. Now there was a great idea, she surmised.

Breakfast was leisurely. She sat at the counter of her favorite little diner and ate oatmeal and toast, some O.J. and a sausage paddy. It didn't satisfy, so she added a stack of pancakes.

She went back home to relax, enjoying the cold and the fluffy snow as she went. She figured she'd walked over five miles, already, and felt like taking it easy when she returned home.

She lay on the couch in her underwear and tank top, wearing dry wool socks and draping a comforter over herself. It was good to lay there without a care, the temperature of the house set at seventy-six degrees. It was wonderful to have a home like this, she thought, thinking back to the cold room she grew up in.

How often had the gas company, back home, living with her mother, turned off the fuel and they froze for several weeks because her mother had drank all the heating money. An alcoholic was no one to live with, she knew all to well, and Shannon hated the thought of never seeing her mother, again. She had no thoughts of visiting her, either, if she could help it, for now. Though secretly, she knew she should. It was the decent thing to do, but not yet. She'd only been away from her for a few months and her feelings were still pretty raw.