by Sean McMahon
‘Because I’m not emotionally equipped to deal with freakin’ aliens right now, that’s what,’ said Kara, her exhaustion at odds with the adrenaline coursing through her body. ‘How far away did you park, anyway?!’ she added, deciding to focus on something far more manageable than the possibility of an unexpected alien invasion, not entirely convinced she had much running left in her.
‘It’s a Saturday Kara, I parked at work!’
‘That’s miles away!’
‘Don’t be so dramatic. It’s…under a mile away. Besides, I refuse to pay for parking when I can park at work for free.’
She was about to lay into him for being too tight to pay the ten-pence for weekend parking in the town centre, when they were both suddenly overcome with another crippling bout of nausea, which quickly evolved into yet another agonising migraine, forcing them to press their palms to their temples in the hopes of forcing away the pain, or at least to keep it at bay.
Forgotten memories of a past that had, up until now, been kept from them flooded into their minds, the pain clearly being caused by their brains receiving fragments of what felt like a year’s worth of data all in one go. The recollections they were left with were jumbled and made absolutely zero sense to their frazzled cerebra. It felt like someone shouting information at them in another language they weren’t even remotely fluent in.
The pain subsided, and they were once again able to communicate.
‘Did you feel that?’ asked Hal, causing Kara to shoot him a look of incredulity.
‘No Hal, I just thought I’d copy you so I didn’t feel left out,’ she said with over-cooked sarcasm.
‘Felt like we were back at…’
‘Fir Lodge?’
‘Yeah…’ Suddenly he felt more desperate than ever to reach his car. He had merely thought he needed what was inside it, but now he knew it. ‘We need to keep moving, we don’t have much–’
The brickwork of the archway above them began to shake, and one by one, the bricks of the wall they were resting against were plucked from existence, reduced to tiny blue shards, a white fog filling the gaps where they once resided. A wisp of whiteness coiled around Hal’s wrist and he felt an agonising burning sensation, causing him to snap his hand back quickly.
‘Go!’ shouted Kara, as their temporary safe haven was obliterated by an unseen force, revealing a tornado of mist above them that was pulling everything from cars, to shopfronts, to actual people into its ravenous epicentre. Despite having no way of knowing that they were actually in the heart of a global restart, they knew enough to know they needed to put as much distance between them and the relentless phenomenon.
*
They continued onwards, relying on their memory of the town’s layout to get where they needed to go, as the landmarks around them were sucked into the vortex that was thundering above them. Or rather, towards them.
Their journey was made slightly easier, as entire buildings simply ceased to be, allowing them to run as the crow flew, rather than having to follow pedestrianised walkways. It was a hard habit to break, not having to be careful as they ran across the roads, but they quickly retaught themselves how to negotiate traffic in a timeless environment; namely, they didn’t have to worry about it at all.
After running for far longer than would have been required, had Hal simply parked his car closer to the coffee shop like any normal human being would have, they finally hit the jackpot.
There was Hal’s black car; its inanimate existence exuding heroic modesty, considering the vehicle was literally their ticket out of a storm that even Thor would’ve cashed in a sick day to avoid. Though, under the current lighting, it looked more like a midnight blue thanks to the crackling blue lightning that ricocheted throughout the clouds above them, giving their entire environment a terrifyingly oppressive blue hue.
Hal checked his pocket for his car keys, then cursed loudly, remembering he’d given them to Kara.
‘Keys, keys, KEYS!’ he shouted, as a thunderous gust of wind blasted across them.
Kara reached into the pocket of her jeans, her jacket flapping wildly, as she searched frantically for the jagged objects, her heart sinking.
‘Tell me you have the keys, Kara?’
‘I…must have dropped them.’
Hal groaned as they reached the car and leant against it, catching his breath, seriously fighting the urge to tell her this was the exact reason why they weren’t allowed to have nice things.
‘It’s okay. Not your fault. Not your fault. Brick!’ he shouted, pointing behind her.
Her eyes followed the trajectory of where he was pointing, landing on the dislodged brick a few metres away. As she ran towards it, an arc of blue lightning flew up from the ground in front of her, surging into the sky and into the apex of the storm above. They had never heard a lightning strike happening in reverse before, and the backwards rumble that followed felt incredibly otherworldly.
‘Okay, backwards lightning,’ said Hal, laughing uncomfortably. ‘That’s a thing now.’
Kara continued onwards, grabbed the brick and lobbed it at Hal’s rear windscreen like an Olympic shot-putter.
It bounced off the glass feebly, landing on the floor with a comical clickety-clack.
They looked at each other, and rolled their eyes in unison, incredibly disappointed that real life clearly wasn’t bound by the same rules as it was in the movies.
To make matters worse, the whiteness had them surrounded, now rolling in from all corners of the car park. One by one, cars were either sucked up into the oncoming storm, cut unceremoniously in half by reverse lightning strikes or, in an additional display of what the actual fuck, were simply atomised at the molecular level into billions of tiny azure crystals.
There didn’t appear to be any method or order in which the world dismantled itself around them, and for the first time in his life Hal began to perceive reality itself as little more than a stroppy teenager being subjected to a revoked WIFI password.
‘They kinda look like tractor-beams don’t they?’ shouted Hal, referring to the lights around the levitating cars.
‘Okay, fine,’ conceded Kara. ‘We won’t rule out aliens.
Hal picked up the brick from the ground and began smashing it into the rear windscreen, until the glass finally buckled under the pressure, albeit it only slightly.
‘Maybe try the passenger windows?’ suggested Kara.
Hal grimaced, realising that made more sense, and set about implanting the fresh tactic.
The glass of the rear passenger window shattered with little effort, and Hal reached over into the door to unlock it.
The tsunami of time seemed to become antagonised by this, speeding up its implementation of vehicular annihilation, the cars around them flipping and deconstructing themselves with an increased vigour, as if there was a giant prehistoric Megalodon swimming beneath the concrete of the car park, making a beeline towards the frantically beating hearts of the only two people it had left to devour.
‘We are so gonna die,’ said Kara nervously, as Hal continued to struggle with lowering the back seats to gain access to the boot of his car.
‘You maybe wanna get in and give me a hand here, Negative Nancy?’ said Hal, who hadn’t seen the cars flipping behind his back, the path of destruction heading directly towards them.
‘Oh for– you just push the button and pull the seats down Hal, stop making a meal of it!’
Kara opened the right-hand-side passenger door now that the central locking had been engaged, and did just that.
And there it was, in all its glory; a medium sized black backpack which, judging by Hal’s smile, must have contained a harpoon specifically designed to take out the tarmac-churning Megalodon that Kara had created in her mind in such terrifying detail that she had even given it a name. She looked over her shoulder, past the front seats, through the front windscreen and out towards “Mr Waffles.”
Hal crawled deeper into the recesses of the car boot, seemingly wrestling with something
that had been snagged, as the car shook violently.
‘Erm, Hal?’
Kara stared in horror, as the front of his car began to break down into a blue sand-like substance, and she was once again reminded of the grains of an hour glass, pouring upwards in defiance of gravity.
Hal pulled his head back out from the boot, a small metal safe in his hands, as the sound of churning metal erupted within the cabin, the bonnet of the car being pulled at awkward angles by an unseen force, and flying off into the sky.
Hal and Kara shot each other a look, telepathically relaying a word that rhymed with “cluck”, as the roof of the car peeled away like tin foil.
They both rolled backwards out of the car, landing hard on their backs, as the remainder of Hal’s trusty vehicle finally gave up the ghost and surged up into the sky in hot pursuit of its roof.
‘You think my insurance will cover that?’ asked Hal, genuinely curious. ‘Open this will you?’ he added, throwing her the black lockbox as he buckled up what appeared to be a holster around his waist.
‘What’s the code?’ asked Kara, suddenly realising she somehow had a pretty good idea what it would be, spinning the numbers to form a numeric code that inexplicably held significance within her subconscious.
‘Zero, one–’
‘–six, five. One hundred and sixty-five,’ she repeated. “How do I know that?” she wondered, opening the lid of the box to reveal the contents within.
She raised an eyebrow, as her eyes were met with the sight of menacing metallic. Kara surveyed the gun, having never seen one up close before; knowing the chrome barrel would’ve sparkled under the sun, were it not for the natural sunlight being absorbed into the ever-expanding void above them, saturating their surroundings in a now dismal greyish monotone.
The weapon was beautifully crafted, the smooth metal sleekly connecting with the dark brown grip, flashes of gold revealing themselves from the side of a chamber that she assumed could be rotated. In its entirety, the bullet dispenser looked more than capable of messing someone’s shit well and truly up.
‘Who are you?’ she asked, wondering how she was only just discovering her friend was the sort of person that kept a gun in the boot of his car.
He reached around the lid and retrieved the gun from the small lockbox.
‘Batman,’ said Hal, unable to resist, his voice full of gravel and his left eye full of wink.
‘More like a crazy doomsday prepper,’ she countered.
The sound of reverse thunder echoed above them, and they realised that the only thing more disconcerting than the sound of thunder working backwards was the sound of an echo retreating back to its point of origin. They stood back to back, as Hal brought the gun up in his left hand and unclicked the safety.
It was then that they realised that amidst their faffing, everything around them had been obliterated; the trees, the cars, the people…Hal couldn’t help but shrug, noting that his office building had also been consumed by whatever this was. He smiled and gave a mini-salute, his way of saying goodbye to his over-flowing in-tray and trusty desk. It felt oddly cathartic.
‘So long, old friend,’ said Hal.
‘So long,’ said Kara.
‘I was talking to my desk,’ said Hal, cocking his head towards her and shooting her a wry smile.
The thunder-strikes became more prominent, as the white fog swirled around them from every angle, until they were fully submerged within the mist.
They closed their eyes, knowing it was over.
Except, rather awkwardly, it wasn’t.
They stood there for a moment, a wave of unbearable quietness enveloping them. Hal let out a half-hearted cough, the sort one usually reserved for when the small-talk had well and truly dried up and you needed to fill the void with literally anything.
The sound of a gentle fart filled the silence.
‘Sorry,’ said Hal.
‘I hate you,’ replied Kara, her chuckle betraying sincerity.
The deafening silence was replaced once more with the sound of rushing air. A sound that sent a chill down their spines, in the same way a war-time siren innately evoked an uncomfortable response to all those that heard it.
On that unfortunate note, Hal and Kara were mercilessly annihilated from the present, their respective futures stolen from them, like off-brand prizes being snatched up by the arcade claw-machine of the universe.
CHAPTER TWELVE
There’s No Place like Home
166th Restart – Friday, August 24th, 12:02pm
The thunderous sound of air vacating an infinite echo-chamber, a blinding whiteness in every direction indicating that they were standing on the precipice of infinity, all of which ceasing suddenly, like someone pressing the mute-button on reality itself, the personification of eternal nothingness replaced with the blindingly vibrant light from the afternoon sun. A younger sun, being orbited by an equally younger version of the Earth.
A thousand tiny needles plucked at the synapses within their brains, bringing them to their knees, as the already-full cup of their memories overflowed with a lifetime of experiences, causing their short-term recollections to trickle over the edges of the metaphoric container that was their increasingly waning sanity.
Images, conversations and dark deeds all rearranging themselves in their minds to form a coherent narrative of the past. At least, coherent in a way that was like reading a book in reverse and reaching the first word after knowing everything that came after.
Each and every one of these sensations coalesced to form a singular, terrifying truth; Hal and Kara were back on the clock.
A sense of dread made unnecessarily more surreal on account of a wireless, vintage-looking radio sitting directly in front of them on the impossibly-bright shingle, belting out the 1955 classic “Mister Sandman” by a band Hal knew to be The Four Aces.
It felt odd to him that he could remember that, but not what he had ordered at the coffee shop thirty-or-so minutes ago. Which actually equated to six weeks from now. He shook his head, already pissed off by how much of a headache being a part of that conversation was going to be later down the line.
As the music continued to play out, Hal pulled himself up from the ground, and dusted himself down, before catching himself and sighing over the pointlessness of the habit. He turned to face Kara, who had done the same and was staring at the monolith of the past that loomed over them like an oppressive manifestation of literal, inescapable inevitability.
Fir Lodge.
Hal holstered his gun, which he had been gripping tightly before being pulled through the vivacious vortex, and took several steps forward, taking up position to Kara’s left, and joined her in staring up at the building.
‘How is this possible?’ said Kara, her voice consumed by a terrified quiver that caused the last word to waver with an understandable mixture of both horror and awe.
‘We planned for everything,’ said Hal, his memories now fully-formed and his mind firing on all cylinders, now armed with the knowledge of all 165 of their previous restarts.
Will’s red car pulled up on the driveway, as events of their stay began to play out from scratch. They watched, as Rachel and Jon came out to greet them, the retro-looking radio drowning out the music coming from the speakers of Will’s vehicle.
‘Radio’s new?’ added Hal helpfully.
‘Where’d it come from?’ her question becoming somewhat moot as Jasmine pulled up in her white car and drove into the radio, shunting it across the drive towards Hal and Kara's Restarter-selves and causing the music to end abruptly, interrupting whatever the hell it was that was powering it in the first place.
Hal squatted down and picked up the now-silent radio, turning it over in his hands. ‘It’s in phase with us…’ said Hal, matter-of-factly.
They both knew what that meant.
‘Which means someone put it there,’ said Kara. ‘You sure it’s not just because you’re so close to past-you?’ she theorised, as Hal’s past-self
stepped out from Jasmine’s car.
Hal shrugged, stood up, lifting the radio above his head as if trying to win over a girl’s heart like the scene from an 80’s movie he barely remembered, and casually threw the radio towards his more-corporeal self, sniffing absently as it passed through his target without much of a to-do, before colliding soundlessly with the ground. The contraption’s journey was brought to a halt as it struck Will’s car.
‘Nope, it’s legit in our timeline,’ said Hal.
‘Huh. Which means–’
‘We’re not alone in this restart. Someone’s trying to let us know they’re here.’
‘That could complicate things,’ she said, with rightful concern.
‘Bench?’
‘Bench,’ seconded Kara, and they made their way to what they fondly remembered as being their makeshift brainstorming war room.
As they made their way around the side of the lodge, and into the back garden, they were greeted by a confusing sight.
Peter and Fearne were occupying their bench, having an animated disagreement about something.
‘Someone must have changed something,’ said Hal. ‘They shouldn’t be out here yet.’
Kara nodded in agreement. ‘Everything feels off Hal, can you feel it?’
He knew what she meant, assuming she was referring to an unexplainable anxiousness that was brewing deep inside his stomach.
‘I mean, we’re wearing what we were wearing in the–’ Kara stopped. Where were they last? Was it a coffee shop? She was struggling to remember, as if that particular future was being erased entirely from the cannon of their actual lives.
‘Give me your hand,’ said Hal, and she dutifully obliged.
Blue sparks fizzled between them, and Hal relaxed a little. ‘Okay, we’ve still got juice, at least our hoverboards will work on water.’
‘What?’
Hal closed his eyes and inhaled a gentle breath, then exhaled through pursed lips, which helped to keep his unreasonable frustration at bay.
He was about to mention his backpack of swag, when he was startled by Peter, who had spun around on the bench and was seemingly addressing them directly.