Hammerston Heroes: Part Six

As promised, Casey woke us up bright and early, and piled us into her truck to go to the sheriff. Now we were in the back of her truck, making our way through town. Dale, Tim, and I had sorted out our story last night, so I feel pretty good about this.

I look out the window, and watch the people go by. I’m surprised by just how many people I don’t know. I guess I’ve been making fewer outings into town these days, but I wasn’t expecting it to get so big overnight.

After a few minutes, we pull up outside of the sheriff’s office, and step out of the truck. I take a deep breath and nod to Dale.

“Don’t worry Tim, the sheriff knows me.” I smile as reassuringly as I can, and lead the way into the sheriff’s office.

There’s a man standing behind the reception desk, messing with a pile of paper. Bobby Brown. He’s been a deputy here for a while. He turns to us as we walk in. “What can I do for ya?”

“Howdy, Bobby, I’m Jimmy Miller, and I gotta talk to the sheriff.” I nod my head.

“Oh, hey Jimmy.” He nodded back. “He’s busy right now, but I’ll…” He looked to the door and his eyes opened wide.

I turn around and see that Tim just walked in behind me. I can’t quite decide whichone of these poor boys looks more terrified.

“That’s… Uh.” Bobby stammers. “Yeah, I’ll get him for you.” He runs off into the back.

I wait until he’s gone, and turn to Tim. “Don’t worry, fella. We go way back, so there won’t be no trouble here.”

Tim nods nervously, and clearly doesn’t believe me. Oh well, I tried.

After a few moments, an older man stepped out from the back, and made his way over to us. He nodded as he saw the tentacle man for himself.

“Jimmy, what exactly is going on here?” He looked behind them and saw Casey. “And what’s the metal girl doing with you?”

“Well, it’s a long story, so do you mind if we sit down somewhere and I can explain the situation?” I gesture towards where he came from.

“Alright, come with me. Let me grab a pen.” He made a stop by the desk and went back.

It took a couple of hours, and a lot of coffee, but I eventually ran the man through everything that had happened. Casey, Tim, and Dale all backed me up on the parts of the story they’d seen.

“Alright.” He nods slowly and looks down at his notepad. “So, tell me if this sounds about right… Dale saw some suits doing something shady, you went to check it out, and got ran off the road. You only lived because you can control plants. You then stole some of O’Reilly’s dirt bikes, and almost ran him over. You heard a cry for help, and made your way over to the tent, and you shot a couple of guys along the way. That’s where you found Tim. He said he was being tortured by the suits, specifically ‘Vertech’, and you took him into town to get a hotel. That’s where Casey found ya, while doing vigilante justice, and offered you a place to sleep, and now you’re here?”

I think about it for a moment. He hit all of the highlights, and I don’t think he missed anything important. “Yeah, Will, that sounds about right, yes.”

He clicks his pen and puts it and the pad on the table. “Good lord, Jimmy.” He shakes his head, and puts his face in his hands. “Alright. I’m gonna make a couple of phone calls. I don’t really know what the hell to do here, so just wait for me. Bobby is doing a lunch run now, and I told him to get us something. I think I just need to call the governor.” He shakes his head and heads towards his office.

I wait until he shuts the door to say anything. “Certainly could’ve gone worse.”

“Yeah, I guess I never thought about who you’d need to call here.” Dale nods. “I think it’ll turn out fine.”

After a while, Will walks out of his office. He looks exasperated. “Alright, so I called the governor, and got bounced around a lot. They’re working on a solution for problems like this, but for now they just want the both of you to stay in town and check in with me.” He gestures to me and Tim. “So I guess you’re good… Oh wait, yeah, the dirt bikes. Give O’Reilly fifty bucks for using ‘em, and give ‘em back to him.”

“That sounds fair enough.” Dale nods. “Jimmy and I will take ‘em back.”

“Alright, as for you Tim, stay with one of these folks, and whoever you stay with, let me know. I don’t care which. Give me a couple of days to get the word out about you, so you don’t get run off the streets for having tentacles.”

“Thank you.” Tim nods.

“Alright, now get out of here. I got papers to fill out.” Will groans.

We all make our way out, and pile into Casey’s truck. We sit in silence for a moment, before Dale and I high-five.

“Alright! I told you that’d work out.” I nod. “So, Tim. Who do you wanna stay with. Might be best to pick me or Dale so you can stay out of town.”

He stares down for a moment. “No offense Dale, but I think I’ll stay with Jimmy. He’s got weird powers too, so we might be able to figure this out together.”

“Works for me.” Casey nods. “Alright, I’ll take you back to pick up the dirt bikes, and then you can go give ‘em back to O’Reilly. First, though…” She reaches into her pocket, and pulls out three business cards. “Give me a call some time. Who knows, we might need to work together at some point.”

“Alright…?” I look down at the card. It reads ‘Casey Sullivan, Mechatronics Engineer’ I chuckle. It looks like my life is about to stay interesting for a little while longer. I hope my wife will be okay with me having a stranger live with us.

My heart sinks. Shit. I didn’t call my wife, she’s gonna kill me.