“Thelma!” a man’s voice yelled from the kitchen.
The waitress froze like a deer in the headlights.
“Order up!” the cook yelled.
Thelma turned and left without a word.
“Interesting, Grayson said, watching her leave. “Sounds like a lot of people are going into the Hi-Ho, but not all of them are coming out.”
“What you think’s the culprit causing it?” Earl asked.
I picked up greasy fork and grimaced. “I can’t speak for the rest, but I’ve got an idea.”
Grayson locked eyes with me. “Fluctuations in electromagnetic frequencies?”
I wiped the fork with a napkin. “Nope. Botulism.”
Chapter Fourteen
“Ugh,” Earl groaned and rubbed his belly. “I done et me so many tacos I think I sprung a gut.”
“Crapulence,” Grayson said.
“You think it’ll help?” Earl asked, reaching for his Dr Pepper.
Grayson’s eyebrows inched a little closer together. “Crapulence is the term for that sick feeling you get after eating or drinking too much.”
“Oh,” Earl said, patting his swollen belly. “Well, lemme tell you, Mr. G., I got me a crap-load of crapulence goin’ on in here.”
“Thanks for that imagery,” I said, and tossed my paper napkin over my half-eaten taco.
“Speakin’ a crap, where’s the john around here?” Earl asked.
“By the front door,” Grayson said.
Earl wiggled his bear-sized body out of the booth. “I’ll be back.”
I sneered up at him. “Thanks for the warning.”
As Earl waddled in the direction of the men’s room, Grayson called out, “Be sure to do a courtesy flush.”
I snorted. “In his case it’s more like a mercy flush.”
“Why do you say that?”
I smirked. “Because otherwise, it’s not survivable.”
Grayson’s brow furrowed. He pushed away his empty plate and studied me with his mesmerizing green peepers. “A lot of things survive being flushed, Drex. Rats. Alligators. Aquarium fish. It’s not the flush, but the toxic sewer fumes that kill.”
“My point exactly,” I said. “Anyway, while numb-nuts is in the can, tell me something. What did you mean when you said fluctuating electronic magnet thingies could be the cause of people disappearing around here?”
“Electromagnetic fluctuations,” Grayson said. “It’s one of the theories being put forth by a former police detective named Dave Paulides.”
“What’s he got to do with this?”
“Well, for the past twenty years, Paulides has been investigating cases involving thousands of people who’ve vanished from state parks around the US.”
I choked on my Dr Pepper. “Thousands? Vanished?”
Grayson nodded. “Yes. Without a trace.”
“But anything could’ve happened,” I argued. “Bears. Serial killers. Dumb luck.”
“Paulides only takes a case after thorough conventional investigations have ruled out every possible explanation, including murder, suicide, natural disaster, and animal attacks. Drex, these people disappeared without leaving a single trace. Not a shoe, a cellphone, a body part, nothing.”
“Oh.” I slumped back into the booth. “So what does that leave?”
“Nothing we know currently,” Grayson said. “Paulides proposes that the only answers remaining must be unconventional ones.”
I locked eyes with Grayson. “Like these electromagnetic fluctuations you’re talking about?”
“Yes. Their called EMFs, for short.”
“So, tell me,” I said. “How’s this EMF theory work?”
Grayson opened his mouth. I grabbed his arm. “The non-geekified version, please.”
Grayson nodded. “To start, EMFs themselves aren’t responsible for the disappearances. They’re just a remnant—a fingerprint, if you will—left behind by an Einstein-Rosen Bridge.”
I stopped slurping my Dr Pepper. “I said the non-geek version.”
Grayson drummed his fingers on the table. “I’ll try. How about this? Many physicists agree with the premise that strong fluctuations in electromagnetic fields may create areas where conventional physics breaks down, thus allowing for unexplained phenomena to occur.”
“So where there’s fluctuations, there’s funky stuff going on?”
Grayson sighed. “Yes.”
I shrugged. “Like what?”
“Bends in time and space. Wormholes, if you will.”
My eyebrow met my hairline. “I thought you were kidding. Are you saying that glowing microwave thing we saw out there last night really is a wormhole? And that people are getting sucked into it?”
“In a nutshell, yes.”
“Grayson, that’s insane!”
Grayson sighed and shook his head. “The thing about smart people is they seem like crazy people to dumb people.”
My face puckered. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Grayson locked eyes with me. “Tell it to Steven Hawking. He’s the one who said it. A direct quote, I might add.”
Crap. I couldn’t argue with Hawking, for crying out loud. But I didn’t have to be happy about it. “Fine,” I said, grinding my molars. “How would this wormhole thing suck people up?”
“It’s elegantly simple,” Grayson said. “The wormhole itself is merely a portal where time is passing differently in one spot versus another. Those who enter it simply step into another time or dimension.”
My jaw dropped open. “That’s impossible.”
Grayson shrugged. “Your disbelief is irrelevant, Drex. The theory that time and space can be folded to meet in other dimensions of time and space stands up to scientific scrutiny.”
I stared sullenly at Grayson. I still didn’t get what he was yammering about. If that made me stupid, so be it. But it also made me as surly as a gal with no prom date.
“Whatever,” I grumbled.
“Look,” Grayson said. “Take this taco shell, for instance.” He picked up a soft flour tortilla. “The distance from this edge to the other is what? Five inches?”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “More or less.”
“Okay. But if I fold it in half, like this, those same edges are now touching. There’s no space between them. Right?”
I perked up a little. “Yeah.”
“That’s kind of how a portal works, Drex. You bend time and space, creating a shortcut from one point to another. That’s an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, or wormhole.”
I sat up. “So, what happens when the tortilla—I mean the wormhole—bends back?”
Grayson’s cheek dimpled. “It takes with it whatever’s crossed to the other side.”
My nose crinkled. “I’d be lying to say I totally get it, Grayson. But let’s say it’s possible. Is there any way to tell when it’s gonna happen? You know, before it’s too late?”
“As far as I know,
