Uncharted Territory, Chapter 3

A friend of mine who works on old houses likes to say that you never know where a home renovation will lead. You start by knocking down a wall, and the next thing you know, you’re uncovering hidden plumbing or electrical issues that can be costly to fix. Things look simple—then pow-pow—it all gets out-of-hand.

A blog series can be just as unpredictable when different writers take turns telling the story. You never know what turn it will take. I find myself repeating the old carnival barker’s saying: “Round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows.”

Where will the story go?

My contribution to the Uncharted Territory Story picks up where Savio (Chapter 1) and Ortensia (Chapter 2) left off. I hope I’ve done their fun and creative story justice.

When We Last Heard from Sheila

Sheila had run away from her wedding to Michael, but what on earth had happened to Jason, her supposed “soulmate”? That was the mystery Savio and Ortensia left me when they tossed the storytelling baton my way. Well, I put on my detective hat, grabbed Sheila’s cheap burner phone, and went digging.

A real-life Runaway Bride on the run. Uh-oh. Here goes nothing.

. . .

Chapter Three – Sheila Goes On The Prowl

Sheila slammed her cheap, secondhand phone down on Magda’s kitchen counter. Where on Earth was Jason? She couldn’t keep her anger inside any longer. Yeah, yeah, she was supposed to marry Michael, but that was a lengthy story unto itself. Jason was her soulmate—the one she had pictured herself sipping exotic cocktails with on a romantic Caribbean island. And now he had gone missing.

They had made an impromptu plan in the heat of the moment. She was going to make a run for it, and he was supposed to meet up with her. So, where was he?

Sheila had been staying with Magda for a week since she made her Julia Roberts’ Runaway Bride flight. Seven days of calling his number endlessly, only to be tossed straight into the digital void of his generic voicemail: “Hey, leave a message.” No mention of his name, no promise to call back. Just a long, mocking beep.

Seven days of nothing.

The Runaway Goes Viral

Aside from her troubles with Jason, Sheila thought the worst of the Runaway Bride humiliation was behind her. She had left Michael a long, rambling message, apologizing for waiting until the last minute to tell him the truth and wishing him happiness and good luck. She wished she could have faced him in person. She really had loved him once, but the love had faded as her feelings for Jason grew stronger. Her momma had always taught her to face her challenges head-on, but with everything going on, a voicemail message was the best she could manage.

C’est la vie. She thought, “It is what it is.”

Unfortunately, the craziness was just getting started. Someone had posted footage of Sheila fleeing the wedding, running into the street, crossing the outdoor shopping plaza, and even entering the secondhand shop. It’s not every day you see a bride running through a shopping arcade with a long white veil and bridal train flying behind her.

To make things worse, the video had gone viral around the world. A mother in Italy called Sheila rude for leaving Michael at the altar. A young woman in Nova Scotia said that Michael was too controlling and Sheila had done the right thing. A guy in California wanted to know if Sheila would go on a date with him. He hinted that a marriage proposal wouldn’t be far behind.

It got better—or worse depending on your viewpoint. A passerby had captured her running into the street, and his TikTok video had gotten more than a million views. He had edited her into a slow-motion ping-pong: forward and backward, backward and forward set to MC Hammer’s song “U Can’t Touch This.”

“I don’t want to make you feel worse,” Magda told Sheila, “But there’s a contest to find you. Mark Halpern, who runs that huge AI firm, is offering $2 million to whoever provides a follow-up video of you. He even ran an interview with Michael. It’s awful.”

“That’s just what I need,” Sheila said.

When Magda was out getting diapers for her new baby, she drove by Sheila’s apartment complex and saw hordes of media and TikTok influencers camped out. They were all looking for their five minutes of fame and possibly $2 million in the bank. Going home was out of the question. Sheila would have to keep hiding out at Magdas. What she was going to do about work could remain a next-week problem; right now, her concern about Jason was growing.

Private Investigator Extraordinaire

But enough was enough. It was time to take back her life.

The time for waiting by the phone was over. Sheila, private investigator extraordinaire, was going on the prowl. She pictured Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and even Jessica Fletcher of Murder, She Wrote fame solving the puzzle.

Yes, she thought, she would make them proud.

She borrowed a long, dark reddish wig, a blue baseball hat, and aviator glasses from Magda. She tucked the wig beneath the hat, pulled the brim low, and slipped on the glasses. She looked stylish but nothing like herself. Who would ever recognize her? It was the perfect disguise.

Ten minutes later, she pulled up in Magda’s car outside the small house Jason rented from a friend. She watched for signs of movement. Nothing. It looked safe. She marched up the front steps and knocked. Nothing again.

Breaking and Entering (Sort Of)

Walking briskly around to the side of the house, Sheila let her inner detective take full control. She ventured into the backyard, ducked past a tangled hedge, and checked the back windows. Bingo. The kitchen window was propped open a couple of inches.

Grumbling about the sheer lack of security awareness in adult men, Sheila unlatched the screen, shoved the window up, hoisted herself up onto the sill, and swung her legs through. Which was precisely when her left sneaker caught the edge of the kitchen counter. Sheila went down in a flurry of flailing limbs, landing squarely on top of an overstuffed, unemptied recycling bin. Plastic water bottles, crushed aluminum cans, and empty frozen meal trays exploded across the linoleum like a noisy ticker-tape parade.

“Ow,” she muttered, pulling a plastic salad fork off her elbow.

Fortunately, the house was dead silent. No angry roommate, no barking dog. In fact, as she stood up and brushed off her jeans, Sheila noticed a stack of unopened mail on the floor beneath the door’s letter slot. Had nobody set foot in the house all week? She flipped through it quickly. Electric bill, past-due notice for a gym membership, and a brightly colored postcard announcing a sale on night vision goggles.

“Why would Jason need them,” Sheila thought to herself.

Her eye caught a picture of Jason and Michael. They had been best of friends when they were young classmates in school. In fact, Michael was the one who introduced her to Jason. “Oh, you two troublemakers, you’re going to be the death of me,” Sheila said out loud.

The Conspiracy Board

With no one there, Sheila looked around the house. In a back room, she found the strangest thing yet. Jason had photos pasted on a bulletin board of her apartment complex, Michael’s house, a local warehouse, the courthouse, and two other properties that she couldn’t identify. There were pieces of red string tied to push pins going from one image to the other. There were yellow sticky notes with questions like “Time?” “When?” and “Why?” Sheila felt a chill. What was Jason trying to piece together? Was he stalking her? What was this all about?

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a large wall calendar hanging from a thumbtack, open to June. Every date was blank except today’s. Circled in thick red Sharpie was the name Luigi’s Restaurant. Right beneath it, bold and double-underlined: 12:00 p.m.

Was Jason a stalker or her soulmate? She wasn’t sure anymore, but she was going to find out. It was 10:05 a.m. She had plenty of time to get to Luigi’s early and to stake out Jason’s entrance. One way or another, she was going to find out what was going on.

Sheila used the time before Luigi’s to make a rapid search of Jason’s makeshift home office. The romantic illusion was unraveling fast. At noon, would she find her soulmate—or someone she barely knew?

…

And The Story Continues

I nominate Beth to take Chapter 4! There are still so many questions. What’s going on with Jason? Where does Michael fit into all of this? Sheila still has an engagement ring and a quarter-tank of gas. Will she get her life back or will she forever be on the run?

Simple rules: Read the previous chapter, add your own continuation, nominate the next blogger, and link them up so the story can keep rolling! No overthinking and no resetting the story. Just pick up where the last blogger left off and let your imagination take over. If for some reason the nominated person cannot follow through, feel free to choose another.

Beth, I can’t wait to see where you take the story. I hope I’ve given you a few threads to pull.

Your Thoughts

Readers, drop your theories in the comments: Is Jason a secret agent, a stalker, or just wildly misunderstood?

Go, Sheila, go!

Picking up the baton! If you missed how this journey started, check out Chapter 1 by Ortensia
and Chapter 2 by Savio
first.