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The moment Jeannie placed her silvered hand in his, he felt their minds link. He stopped and looked at her as she gazed back at him in wonder. “I truly never knew how much you loved me until this moment,” he whispered in awe. She gasped and pulled him to her to kiss him fiercely. He was a foot taller than she was, so he had to bend down to do it, but he’d kneel at her feet for the rest of his days if she asked.
She pulled back from him and looked into his reflective eyes. She saw herself there and him in her reflection. A convergent series of smaller and smaller images were inside each reflection. It was breathtaking and dizzying. “More kissing later!”
They rushed from the bedroom, slipped on their shoes, and left the trailer. Sam looked at the truck. “Drive?”
“Run!” she grinned, and he nodded happily. She’d never been a runner as her chunky body was just too fleshy and heavy to make it enjoyable. Now? It felt like nothing was holding her back.
They released hands and started off relatively slow. Jeannie was elated to discover nothing hurt as her silver covered body shook and quaked. Giggles burst from her again.
“Faster!” she gasped, and it was Sam’s turn to laugh with delight. They picked up the pace, and their shoes flew off. They didn’t even slow down. Their feet felt no pain running on the asphalt, and they had excellent traction, so they pushed harder to go faster. Jake’s place was only a fifteen-minute drive down the highway. They let themselves accelerate again.
“Whoa! We almost passed the house!” Sam called out as he grabbed Jeannie’s hand once more to pull her onto the dirt lane to Jake’s parent’s old farmhouse. They stopped on the front porch and grinned at each other.
“Our clothes! Jeannie shrieked as she saw she was only wearing the tattered remains of the track pants’ waistband and strips of the sweater.
Sam had a little more on his lower half, but his jeans were shredded, and the t-shirt was gone. He still had his wallet and keys in his pocket, but he didn’t think they’d survive another run. Strangely, he didn’t really care. He shrugged and tapped his chest. “Just think of this as a suit of shiny knight’s armor… or body paint.” He thumped on the door as she ducked behind him. “Jake! It’s Sam and Jeannie!”
Jake opened the door and stared at them in surprise. He was covered in silver too.
“Ah, you touched the silver strip too,” Sam sighed. Jake nodded with a frown. “Brenda?” Sam asked.
“Naw. She got pissed off when I hugged her and got her all wet. Now she’s mad at me cuz she can’t dry off, and I can’t get the silver off.”
“Did she touch the yellow stones?” Jeannie asked.
Jake looked at her, then looked away. “No. Are you naked?”
Jeannie squeaked in embarrassment and hid behind Sam once again.
Sam just looked down at his ripped clothes. “Our clothes didn’t survive the run over here.”
Jake looked past them to the driveway bit Sam’s truck wasn’t there. “You ran here? Jeannie ran here too?”
The petite but plump woman moved out to face Jake. “What’s that supposed to mean?!?” she said indignantly.
Jake raised his hands in surrender. “Nothin’! I meant no disrespect! I– uh…” He looked closer. “Have you lost weight?”
Sam and Jeannie looked at her body, and she did look a little slimmer. “Maybe it was the running. We were running pretty fast! Got here in just five minutes!” she said.
“Geezus! That is fast!” Jake exclaimed.
“Let me talk to Brenda. You fellas wait here,” Jeannie insisted and pushed past Jake. She smiled back at Sam then disappeared inside.
Jake and Sam moved to the railing and looked out into the darkness. “I can see everything as clear as if it was day. It’s just not so brightly colored.” Jake sighed. “What happened to us? Should we be telling someone?”
Sam thought about that and shook his head. “Naw. I think we’d get in trouble if we did. End up with scientist pokin’ things into us. I don’t want that for Jeannie and me.”
Jake just nodded in agreement. He didn’t like the sounds of that either. “What do we do then?”
Sam thought about that for a bit, then nodded to himself. “I want to go back to that field and collect the rest of that silver stuff. It’s too dangerous to leave it.”
“Dangerous? It’s all over us! What do you mean dangerous?” Jake exclaimed nervously.
Sam tried to calm his friend. “I mean dangerous in the wrong hands. Can you imagine criminals being able to move this fast?”
Jake frowned. “I don’t think it was the silver stuff that made us fast. Coulda been the weird rain or, more likely, the flash from the stones. Still, I agree we should keep this stuff out of anyone’s hands but ours for now. What’re we gonna do with it?”
Sam just smiled. “Not sure yet. For now? We’ll just collect it and run?” he shrugged.
There was a loud crash from inside the house. Jake rushed inside with Sam at his heels. Brenda’s tall and lean frame was laying back against the far wall in the living room. The piece of mesh was on the floor, the light no longer emanating from it. Jeannie was picking herself up from where she landed against the opposite wall. She used Sam’s lunch bag to pick up the silver foil and dropped it on Brenda’s head. It immediately began to melt and spread as it had with Jeannie.
Jake looked upset, so Sam patted his friend’s arm and strongly picked up the man’s emotions. Jake spun to look at him in surprise. “Oh! Sorry! I should have realized it would work with you as well as Jeannie,” Sam apologized.
“Is that some mind to mind shit?” Jake asked in a quiet voice, and Sam nodded.
“Freaky, ain’t it,” Sam said with a smile.
“What!?! Oh! What’s happened?” Brenda gasped as she woke.
Jake knelt next to her. “Hey, how ya feelin’?” he asked gently.
“I-I feel… different! In a good way!” she said.
He took her hand, and she gasped. “Oh! Oh, Jake! I love you too!”
He kissed her tenderly then helped her stand. Jeannie was grinning at her friend. “What?” Brenda asked.
“Feel like doing a little running?” Jeannie asked.
Brenda’s smile widened. She’d never been athletic, but as a girl, she’d used her long legs to run all over her parent’s farm. She nodded to her friend as something in her was eager to re-experience that thrill.
“Can you get your big thermos?” Sam asked his friend. He nodded and zipped away to return from the kitchen a second later with it in his hand. Brenda’s eyes flew wide in surprise.
“Yes, we’re much faster now!” Jeannie gushed. She looked at her husband. “Where are we goin’?”
“To the field to get the rest of the silver stuff. Then… I don’t know. We can decide later,” he said. His wife nodded to him with a smile.
They left the farmhouse and grinned at each other excitedly.
Sam looked down at their shoes. “You won’t need those as they just fall off anyway.”
“We might as well lose the clothes as they won’t survive the run either,” Jeannie said, shucking the remnants of her sweatpants and sweater as Sam grinned at her, undressing as well. He glanced at his wallet and keys and realized he wasn’t going to need them anymore. They just didn’t seem important now.
“Naked? You want me to go streaking?” Brenda squealed.
Jake nodded with a big grin.
Giggling nervously, Brenda dropped her clothes in a pile on the front lawn as Jake followed suit. Soon, four naked silver figures stood together in the grass. Sam took Jeannie’s hand and felt her joy. She reached out and took Jake’s hand. He was startled and dropped the thermos but smiled at the woman. He then took Brenda’s hand, and she reached for Sam’s other hand.NôvelDrama.Org holds © this.
“Oh!” they said simultaneously as the intense sense of joy passed through them all. Reluctantly, they released hands.
“Let’s go runnin’!” Sam said, and they were gone.
A few minutes later, they turned off the highway towards the field and stopped next to the big harvesters. Brenda was all smiles as she looked at Jeannie. Then her eyes went wide. “You’re slimming down!” she gasped.
“We’re all getting slimmer!” Sam said, poking his flat tummy, which had been soft earlier in the day.
Jake smiled at his own improved physique then realized he’d left the thermos on his front lawn. He looked to the highway and saw a convoy of black SUVs led by one of those big army personnel carriers turning off onto the dirt road.
“Shit! We got company!” he said.
Sam noticed the missing thermos and the approaching cars. The first vehicle accelerated. They’d been spotted. “Come on! Let’s get what we can get and run!” He tugged Jeannie’s hand as Jake ran into the field with Brenda.
They instantly felt a rush from the magic saturating the wheat around them.
“Ooo! What feels so good?” Jeannie purred as they went deeper into the field.
“I think it’s the energy from the lightning that struck the field,” Jake offered, and Sam grinned at him. Jake was becoming a regular Mr. Science! It was as good an explanation as anything he could come up with.
They found the last scraps of the foil and tried collecting it, but it just soaked into their existing coating. They each grabbed some until it was gone.
“FREEZE!” a voice yelled out over a loudspeaker, and an intense spotlight shone in their direction.
“What do you think?” Jake asked.
A shot rang out, and a high-pitched whiz screamed off Sam’s shoulder, deflected upwards. He looked down where the bullet struck, but there wasn’t so much as a scratch.
“Now I know what the silver stuff is good for. That didn’t even hurt,” Sam mumbled.
“They answered the question. Full speed away,” Jeannie said.
“Agreed,” Sam concurred. “Follow me to the gate.”
He shot away through the field, and the others followed in single file. The wheat brushed past them, sliding off their frictionless mirror-smooth surfaces. They suddenly reached the edge, and Sam blew through the gate like it was tissue paper, stopping on the dirt road just beyond.
“What happened?!?” Jake gasped.
“Are you okay?” Jeannie asked in concern.
Sam examined his body but found no injuries, not even a scratch, from bursting through the metal pipe gate. “I’m good. I was going too fast to stop to open it for you guys,” he said with a grin.