by Mark Tufo
“Fourth told me we would be having company. Sit.”
I did so, mouth agape.
“Do I know you?” she smiled a smile that had Yonts written all over it.
“You have a sister?” I managed to ask.
“Only child.”
“Then no, not really.”
“Told you, man.” Trip leaned in and stage-whispered.
Whatever the hell a redberry was, it was delicious, and for a couple of hours, we sat around and talked. I told Lacy about her “sister”; I met the children, Leah and Padmay.
“I suggested those names.” Trip said.
“He said they were famous people where he comes from,” Lacy said.
“They are, in a sense, I suppose. Are you sure you’re not called Fourth because of May Fourth? You know, May the Fourth be with you?” Nothing, I got nothing from him. I just smiled at Trip, who for some unfathomable reason gave me the Vulcan sign as he smiled. Science fiction geeks everywhere were rolling over in their graves.
I knew the feelings of normalcy were going to be short-lived. We were in an oasis, surrounded by a chaotic desert of death and destruction.
“What now?” Fourth asked as day dissolved into night and the children were laid to bed.
We all looked to Trip. No secret that I didn’t have the answers. Trip had a momentary look of sadness cross his face.
“In about a half an hour, you need to look out the window. I’m going downstairs to drown my sorrows in a sea of bud.”
“Trip?” I called after him, but he raised a hand. “I’ve seen this movie, I don’t like the way it plays out.”
Fourth looked at me and shrugged. Lacy had a look of concern on her face. “You mind if I bring the kids out onto the couch?” she asked her husband.
“Don’t mind at all; in fact, I was going to ask you.” The kids protested for a minute, but were back asleep in under five. There was an uneasy silence as we watched the seconds tick away.
The dark came on faster than it should have. As we looked down upon the main street sidewalk when the dawn of first light struck, I realized that not all was as it seemed. Time was moving faster than it should have. A drunk stumbling home from the local brew serving facility staggered at a pace that defied the laws of gravity. He bobbed and weaved like a prize fighter. That was when I saw the next drunk, like a fucked-up conga line, only—this wasn’t a drunk. Sure they stumbled and bumbled in nearly the same way, but this one had a grayish pallid color and a red-rimmed mouth indicating he either liked to drink sloe gin fizzes or blood. It was a zombie. We could hear the high-pitched screams that sounded like Chip and Dale were being crushed as the zombie took down the man.
“What?” Fourth stood.
Time seemed to zip forward as if we were watching surveillance footage, trying to get to the important parts. Cars raced by, police sirens tore through the silence, streets filled up with a panicked populace. Hundreds, thousands of zombies descended upon the impossibly tangled and stuck motorists. I didn’t watch, I’d seen enough of that for all the ages. Lacy watched for a minute or two before sitting with her children; she had a lost, vacant look in her eyes. It was Fourth who couldn’t tear himself away.
“Is this real?” He asked no one in particular, and at least four or five times.
From my angle, I could see the light fade; as it did, so did the screams and cries for mercy, and mothers, and help. There was the chatter of gunfire in the distance as night once again settled. Explosions rocked the building, then came the cries of night runners.
“Trip, is this real?” I sought him out.
“It’s real in that it has happened.” He was rolling a joint the size of a baby’s arm.
“So it’s not going on now?” I asked, because I really wanted my weapon.
“Soon, but not yet.”
“Trip, what the hell is going on here?”
“We measure time in a linear fashion because that is a concept we can grasp, though in reality, the passage of events happen very differently.”
“But I mean, how can we be immune to it in this building?” I was in way over my head.
“I chose this building because the material it was constructed of contains natural magnetic properties, and once it was wired right, I was able to remove it from the stream.”
“That’s possible?” I asked the question, but I was living the reality. “So now what?”
“Now we smoke, while we wait for the world to catch up.”
I took two hits off that gigantic joint. I am not sure what Fourth did for a job before he got mixed up in drugs, but if he wasn’t a farmer he’d certainly come into his calling now. I checked out for a good couple of hours, and let’s be real, that was completely fine with me.
When I finally circled back to a relative state of normalcy, Lacy had fallen asleep on the couch and Fourth was still glued to the window. I should have maybe taken another toke; when I got to the window, a stream of Harley riding whistlers drove past, dragging nightmares with them.
Fourth’s face looked a lot like what I’m sure Trip stumbled across all those years ago. I had to wonder if this man was ruing his decision to quit riding the dragon. I startled him when I placed my hand on his shoulder.
“I…I think I need a smoke.” He was fumbling in his pocket before he pulled out a cigar.
“I don’t think going outside right now would be advisable.”
“Right.” He slowly put it away.
“Come on, take a break.”
“You know all about this?”
“Been living it for about a week now, I guess.”
“My world, is it gone?”
“I don’t know for sure. I don’t even know why I’m here.”
The room was lightening and darkening at a quicker pace, the show outside was speeding up, and that could only mean one thing. We were going to be on deck again soon. As if on cue, Trip came back to the loft.
“Rotten Tomatoes rated that one pretty low,” he said as he pointed to the window.
“Can either of you tell me what is going on?”
“Near as I can tell, it’s some sort of government experiment gone awry,” I started. “I don’t know if they created zombies and then tried to find a way to combat them by dragging night runners and whistlers into the mix.” I explained what those were before I continued. “Or if it’s a whistler invasion and they dragged zees and runners in to help—that would sort of explain how Trip, myself, and Jack came to be here.” I told him about Jack and his story. Tough to tell if any of this was sinking in or just bouncing off a full mind ready to burst. “All I know with a certainty is that this is not my world, and if it takes righting some wrongs to get back to mine, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
“Do you think it’s possible?”
“It had better be.” That was the only answer I could stomach giving.
“I…I need to help.”
I looked to Trip; obviously, somewhere in that addled mind, he knew why he saved Fourth—was this it?
“No,” was all the stoner said.
“That’s my family in the other room, I can’t sit back while all this is going on outside.”
I wanted to tell him that sitting back, watching, and keeping his family safe sounded like about the best thing ever. Would have been pretty cool to have a champion in my world that I could have sent to do all the dirty deeds. Sure, I thought the words; when push came to shove, though? I would have been right next to that happy idiot. So what does that make me? The knowing idiot? I wasn’t going to argue vehemently for Fourth to come with us, but the genuine look on his face merited that I try.
“We could use the help,” was what I offered up.
Trip’s demeanor turned so quickly I wasn’t even sure it was still him, like maybe he’d been possessed by an angry demon.
“I said no! There are things happening here that you aren’t capable of understanding!”
I stepped back. I felt like I should be more offended than I w
as. I knew when I was in over my head; there’s nothing wrong with admitting that. Could make your life much better if you realized that from time to time. In fact, there are times when you’re better off not understanding. Like when you stumble into the wrong room at your elder relative’s home and find a vast array of anal toys that make you wonder how they could ever use a normal sized toilet again. These are things better left off to the side, never to be touched upon again, much less discussed and understood.
“We need to find Yack, it is up to us. Tenth, this is your time stream; if you step into the flow of it, you will be swept away.”
“Do you mean Fourth?” I asked.
Trip was high-wire walking between sanity and Tripdom. It was unsettling to watch as he fought to hold on to control.
“Do you have what I asked for?” Trip’s eyes were darting around. It was like he knew to ask the question, but not what it pertained to. He’d started the query, but was looking at Fourth; by the time he finished, I can’t say his demeanor led me to believe if he knew that was right.
Fourth was wavering his damn self. He had whatever the fuck Trip was looking for, but was wondering if he could use it as a bargaining chip to get what he wanted. All I could really do was sit back and watch as the drama unfolded.
“I have it,” Fourth acquiesced.
He went over to a small desk with a file cabinet attached. Trip’s head hung low when Fourth walked away; I don’t think he’d meant for anyone to see. I would like to say I’d question him on it later, but who’s to say if there would be a later. Good chance we were going to meet our maker out there, and an even better one that Trip would lose the faculties he was struggling to hold on to.
“Trip, what’s going on?”
Some anger flashed quickly, but was replaced with sadness.
“Reset man, there’s a reset.”
“Terms that we lowly earth-dwellers can understand, Trip.”
“If we find Yack and we succeed, there is a better than average chance that this world resets—that it goes back to the way it was before the tampering began.”
“That’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“I found Fourth in an alley with a needle sticking out of his arm. He would have died.”
“I mean that sucks but can’t you just, you know ‘find’ him again?” I used air quotes.
“I don’t mean this to be insulting, though it will sound like that.”
“Lay it on me, I’ve been insulted once or twice, pretty sure I can handle it.”
“The reset, that’s not the right word.” He struggled for a moment. “Well it is and it isn’t, this world does, but the part we’re in becomes a loop, and when and if we complete our mission, it becomes pinched off from the rest.”
“Well, you’re right. I’m not following.”
“We’ll never be able to get back to Fourth’s continuing stream. What happens beyond that loop is forever lost to us.”
“Fuck.” I ran my hand through my hair. Fourth was looking through a stack of paper two reams thick, Lacy and the children were sleeping in a huddle on the couch. “Them?”
“Without him, they don’t exist.”
“The loop though, they exist here, right?”
“For a while. But what kind of existence is that? He’s doomed to become a junkie over and over again. His children never have a chance to expand their own lives, and it ends like this, with two strangers in their home and a world gone to a horrific end outside. That’s it, that’s it forever or until the loop stops spinning. Which will happen, and let me tell you, that will be no easy end for them either. Time begins to unravel, to drift off bit by bit. They won’t understand what is happening, and the pain…” He trailed off.
“What’s the alternative, Trip? We can’t stay here. I don’t want to sound like an ass. But this is their world, they made this mess, and then we got sucked up into it and are somehow supposed to find a solution for it. If we sit back and do nothing, nobody anywhere in this place is going to have a life, and that includes us, you, me and Jack—and that sure as shit ain’t fair to those we have left behind, or more likely, those who have moved on. Nope, scratch that, sounds too much like they died. Is there any way that the different Fourth, the one who’s destined to be back in this alley, will know anything about this clean and sober version?”
“The memory will be there, stored in his brain but erased, like a file on a hard drive. It could be retrievable, but only by trained professionals, and even then it will seem more like a dream or a previous life experience. And he won’t be spending any extra money trying to find out what the empty spot in his head signifies, he’ll be trying to fill it up with drugs.”
“Note?”
Trip shook his head.
“Picture?”
Trip again shook his head. “And before you suggest something else with a physical property, I’m going to stop you. He can’t take anything with him.”
“But a memory?”
“Yes.” Trip had a condescending note in there like he was sick of trying to explain doctorate theories to a child.
“Isn’t a memory a physical property? Sure you can’t touch it, but it’s there. You’re saying he can’t take anything with him but a memory, not sure how the fuck that works because he’ll be back in time before any of this happens, but whatever. Can’t we somehow plant a thought into his head to find this memory?”
“Here it is.” Fourth had come back and dropped off the papers. He started spreading them out on the kitchen table. “Right after I got clean.” He looked up at us, all guilt and shame clearly displayed on his features. “The government started building a supercollider facility right outside of town. Tried to call it a Scripps pharmaceutical lab, but anyone actually looking knew better. Military brass nearly lived there. What was funny was once the newspaper reported on it, those same people, instead of showing up in military clothing and vehicles, started showing up in civilian clothes, but in cars with government plates. It was like they really didn’t give a shit if they were caught or not. Wonder why they used the ruse at all?”
“Because nobody, especially an affluent city like Indian Hill, wants a government facility right next door doing who knows what,” I said. “And now that I’m on that subject, why would they? Why not do it out in that vast expanse we had to traverse to get here? Seems like a much better way to keep your dirty underwear from being spotted, or that FreeTown you were talking about.”
“Ley lines,” Trip said.
“You talking about that New Ager crap, energy lines on the earth?” I asked.
“New Ager crap? Aren’t you of the belief you can astral project? Doesn’t your wife have a bunch of crystals? And I know you love hippie music.”
“Fine, fine, I’m busted. I believe in New Age crap, but I can’t imagine the military would.”
“I do not believe they would either. I would think that they were given these coordinates from which to build, but not the reason why,” Trip said. “This is not an ordinary place on a ley line, it is a vortex or a confluence of energy points
“This is getting weirder. So who is running this machine, who is making decisions on pseudo-science?”
Trip was studying the documents Fourth had supplied; he looked up from the paper. “Anything look weird about this supercollider to you?”
“Oh yeah, I’m definitely the one you want to be asking about energizing particles and making them collide.”
“Look at the shape.”
I did. I was about to shrug and tell him “so?” My basic maneuver when dealing with all things science. “Wait, I thought these things were circular, like a donut? This one is what? That infinity shape. The sideways eight.”
“Mike, I won’t be around soon. You’ve seen enough of me now to realize that my moments of lucidity are short-lived. When I ‘trip’ over to new worlds or I am near to these pulses, I get part of me back, at least for a little while. The drugs I do, a lot of them are for the holes I carry. You understan
d?”
“I’m with you.” I urged him on.
“I don’t think what is happening here was a total accident. An outside influence, whether alien, alternate dimension, or a time traveler, gave them the tech and these coordinates, and a brilliant cover-up story that convinced them to try this out.”
“Why are governments just naturally a stupid entity? They must have spent billions on this and had absolutely no clue as to what they were going to do. Brilliant, just fucking brilliant. So, they fired this machine up and started tearing holes in the fabric of their existence?”
“Doesn’t matter why, just that it happened, and now we need to get in there and stop it.”
I looked over suspiciously at Trip. “How did you know? I mean, how could you? That all this crap was going to go down. You don’t show up here just for the hell of it and help Fourth out, set him up in a Faraday cage, tell him what to look out for. What do you know that you’re not saying?”
“It’s not a conscious decision on my part to withhold information. This isn’t the only place where things like this are happening. It’s a concerted effort to break realities. To reshape perceived normalcy. I don’t know why, only that it’s happening. I know why it is that I’m aware, but that’s not relevant to what’s happening here and now.”
I was thinking it was very relevant, but John would fade to Trip soon enough, and Fourth deserved at least a chance to retain who he was now.
“Mike, you need to study these documents, find a weak spot; even now it will be heavily guarded, though I don’t know by whom. I am going to sit down with Fourth.”
“Plan? Are you fucking kidding me? Not only am I on the planning committee, I am the planning committee. Might as well just let me push the buttons at the collider now.”
It was maybe an hour later. My head had somehow sprouted a spike that was doing its best to cleave my noggin in half. Trip and Fourth were both asleep on the couch.
“Must be nice.” I went over and shook Trip awake.
“Shhh!” he said as loudly as one can say that word. “I hypnotized him.”
“Will that work?”
“Wasn’t like I could give him Zuzu’s petals. We should go.”