Jim sat up. He was in a field of tall grass. He looked down and saw he was wearing white shorts that were so short they showed nearly half his thighs. He was wearing a red polo, like the man in the visions, and white Adidas sneakers with athletic socks pulled high on his calves.
He stretched. Every muscle felt stiff. He thought of the story of Rip Van Winkle. As a child, he’d listened to that story on a Fisher Price cassette tape over and over, pondering the adventures of hapless Rip and Henry Hudson’s men.
That made him think of the dream, of the cassette tape in the car. Again the question came to him. Who am I?
On his most conscious, most high-functioning level, the answer was obvious. James Hamilton. Called Jim by most, and Jimmy by those who knew and loved him the best.
Beneath that, there was another name, and his mind spit it out at him repeatedly the more he considered the question of his identity. Martin Hyatt.
He knew that name went with the images of the man in the car, and with the clothes he was wearing. But how did that make any sense? How did he get to be in the middle of a field? He remembered looking for Clyde after they’d explored that crazy invisible store. After that, everything was fuzzy.
Turning his attention to the where and the how quieted the voice that wanted to dispute his idea of self. He got up and looked around. The field wasn’t as vast as he’d assumed. At one point, it probably had been, but it was being converted to a neighborhood piece by piece. Construction equipment moved in the distance like massive, lumbering beasts.
The houses looked quite a bit like the kind he and Liz lived in. How odd, that someone would be building such a dated style of home in 2017. He’d heard someone comment recently that everything old is new again. The comment was made in reference to clothing styles, but he supposed it applied to homes as well.
And what about his clothing? The shorts were too short for even the latest, retro-inspired trends. He started to dig in the pocket of the shorts, not certain what he would find, but hoping for something that would jog his brain. He felt his fingers close on something and started to pull them out.
Suddenly, he was back on the grass. His head swam from the disorientation. He got up quickly, and searched the pocket again. Inside was a brown leather wallet. Inside that was an extremely old Pennsylvania driver’s license. The man in the photo was definitely him, but the name was “Martin Hyatt.” Next to the wallet was a pocketknife. Not the one Clyde had given him, with its thick black handle and personalized engraving. This knife was a standard issue Swiss Army model in a bright red that matched his polo shirt.
He jogged toward the nearest house and had reached the driveway when the world rotated again, and he was back in the field.
“Fuck!” He pounded his fist on the ground in frustration and fear.
Several more times the world deposited Jim back where he’d started, on his back in the middle of the field. He began to expect it would happen before he could ever reach the house, and so he was shocked when he actually made it to the door of the building. The house looked like an exact mirror image of his own.
He knocked on the door. A woman opened it. “Can I help you?”
Jim was stunned. He recognized the face, though it was so much younger than it should have been. “Mrs. Cohen?”
The woman smiled. “Do I know you?”
“It’s Jim, Mrs. Cohen. Jim Hamilton.” As he said his name, that other name rose up in his mind.
“Jim… I’m sorry, how do we know each other?”
“I… well, you live in my neighborhood. I’m a little confused.”
“You live here?”
“Well not here… I really don’t know. I was hoping to use a phone to call my wife. I can’t find my cellphone.”
“Cellphone?” She laughed. “And here I thought my husband was the only one with one of those giant bricks.”
“Your husband?”
“Yes… are you okay?”
“I…I don’t know. I’m sorry. I should go.”
“Wait!” she called, but Jim was already headed down the lawn to the sidewalk.
What was happening to him? It had to be some kind of continuation of the strange dreams. Spinning around back to the same place he started each time, seeing a younger, married Mrs. Cohen in the same house but in a new neighborhood… it was all too clear that he was imagining things. But why? What had happened to him? Had he hit his head? He felt fine, other than the stiffness in his muscles, but that was loosening after so many jogs across the field.
Without warning, the world blinked and he was back on the field again. He looked up and saw the house belonging to the de-aged Mrs. Cohen. It was maybe fifty yards closer to him than it had been each previous reset. Well, that’s progress.
Where could he go? He couldn’t stay in place long enough to get anything done, and he felt that other name, that other identity, calling to him more each time he returned to the field. He got up again and wondered what had happened to him. Where was Liz?
He had the slightest hint of something terrifying that had happened. It was like knowing he’d had a nightmare but not being able to recall any of the details. He ran across the field in the opposite direction of the houses. He came to some kind of main road. Dated cars rolled by in both directions. That seemed familiar, somehow, and not just because of the image of the car with the tape deck.
A police cruiser passed by. “Mifflin Township” was printed on the side. Suddenly, Jim had a flash of memory. A police officer, torn in half in a doorway.
I remember.
The memories trickled in more and more, and soon it was a torrent. He remembered the store on Butler Avenue. He remembered the search for Clyde, and how he’d recruited Detective Magen to his cause. God. Magen. He had been torn apart by the door as the world ended. And Clyde… fighting memories of another life just as Jim himself was now experiencing. Where was Clyde now? What the hell had happened?
He was back in the 1980’s, that much was certain. He was on the verge of his own neighborhood, as if his mind, while struggling to confirm who he was, had tried to wish him home. Was that cursed store still out there? He thought it probably was, but there was only one sure way to find out. He took off in the direction of Ambler, and made it nearly a half mile down the road before he was reset back to the field.
“Goddamn it!”
He got up again. He held his goal in his mind, imagining every detail of the store that had stolen so much. Several more times the world sucked him in and spat him back out, but each time he only lost a little progress. Slowly, painstakingly, he began to cover the miles toward Butler Avenue and what he hoped would be answers to his questions.
On one reset he arrived at the north end of the road, before it dipped into the downtown Main Street area. That had been almost a quarter mile farther than he’d walked, which meant the resets were now moving him closer to his destination rather than farther away. He looked up to the sky feeling a sense of satisfaction, and felt a chill go through him. The sky had the slightest tinge of purple.
The resets continued, sending him ping-ponging closer to his goal, then farther away. The purple continued to grow as it had before. Several more resets later, the rainless storms began again. Jim appeared in the middle of the street and would have been run down were it not that the drivers had all pulled to the side of the road to observe the encroaching darkness.
He stumbled to the sidewalk, the world doing somersaults around him, and vomited into the grass. He curled into a ball, shaking and nauseated, as the roar of the storm became all-encompassing.
In an eternity neither bound by time nor organized by it, Jim woke over and over again. Each time, he fumbled through the resets, vomiting up what had to be the same stomach contents over and over again. Some of the sequences were longer than others, allowing him to maneuver along the side of the road in his chaotic teleporting locomotion, but eventually the purple always returned and put him back in the field.
Each time he awoke to
a clear sky, holding on to the reality of who he was became more of a struggle. That other self asserted itself more and more, pushing the memories of his “Jim Hamilton” identity away. He felt as if his brain were ripping in two.
One of those times, he found himself on the edge of the field. It was a fresh reset, following the purple darkness, but a light hint of the purple remained on the fringes of the sky.
Jim moved as quickly as he could down the street. He didn’t know how events had progressed so fast. How could the darkness be invading again? What would that do to his brain? The part of him that was still James Hamilton needed to be preserved at all cost. He had seen what was happening to Clyde. Was that already happening to him? He didn’t know where on that absurd scale he ranked, nor how he had held on to himself as long as he had, but he was positive that another cycle through the darkness would push him too far.
Another reset caught him and flung him back to the top of the street in the middle of the intersection. He narrowly avoided a car as it cut across Butler. He crested the hill and began down the other side. The sky was much darker, and he heard the winds pick up. The thunder rumbled, signaling an end to all things.
He moved up and over the next, smaller hill. From there he could see straight down almost as far as the train station. In the distance, he saw people gathering. He recognized the parked cars and knew the people were in front of the pharmacy. He ran as fast as he could. His body seemed to be reset every time the world planted him in a new location, and he felt like he had limitless stores of energy. He seemed to almost float as he traversed the distance between him and the gathering at the store.
A giant thunderclap sounded, and Jim pushed himself faster. His reset and restored lungs were not superhuman, after all, and they burned as he forced himself beyond his limits. He felt his Achilles tendons strain as his feet slammed the pavement over and over again in sneakers that provided little cushion or support.
The people came into view as another boom echoed. He saw Clyde, looking just as he had before in the homeless man’s rags, and in front of him were two younger people. Teenagers, most likely. They were having an animated conversation, arms gesturing wildly.
“Clyde!” Jim hollered. The sound was lost to the winds, and he regretted having wasted his air. He tasted copper at the back of his throat. There wasn’t going to be enough time. He hoped Clyde would have the sense to warn those kids. Maybe they could escape the fate that had befallen Bruce Magen, even if that would damn them to the fate he was currently experiencing.
He saw the teens grab Clyde and push him toward the store. To Jim’s shock, they all seemed to disappear into the store. Were they entering the old version or the new? In seconds, the sky was as dark as night, and growing darker still. Jim stopped, leaning against a newspaper bin and sucking in deep breaths of air that reeked of ozone.
He had failed to reach his goal. Who knew what would happen next? Still, Clyde was alive, and maybe some miracle had saved him from the darkness. Jim knew that if Clyde was lucky enough to get out of all this, he would do for Jim as Jim had done for him. I wish you wouldn’t, he thought. Live your life. Forget about me. Then he thought of Liz. He thought of her smile. And he hoped for salvation as the darkness once again swept him away.
Chapter Fifteen
Dylan stirred. He had a moment of confusion and then the memories came. He remembered the world fading away as he stood inside the abandoned store. I’m alive! He felt a rough surface against his cheek. He opened his eyes and saw concrete. He pushed up to his knees and looked at the sky. Bright, pure sunlight temporarily blinded him.
He covered his face with his right arm and fumbled with his left hand for something to press against. He couldn’t feel anything, though his shoulder throbbed as he moved his arm around. He stood up and slowly lowered his arm. His eyes were adapting quickly to the light.
“Dylan!” Emma called from behind him. He turned to face her and realized where he was.
“We’re in the alley! We’re home!”
She smiled. “Yes! I realized it as soon as I woke up.”
“Where’s Clyde?”
Emma looked around. “Shit. I hadn’t even thought to look for him. He’s not in the alley.”
“He was in the store when we closed the door, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah. He definitely was. Damn it! I thought we’d helped him.”
Dylan shrugged. “We did something. I just don’t know what.”
“Why didn’t he come back with us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he appeared somewhere else?”
Emma walked to the edge of the alley. “Maybe. We’re definitely back in the present, though. I don’t like the idea of leaving Clyde trapped. And he had that friend, Jim, who he wanted to save.”
Dylan came up behind Emma and wrapped his arms around her. “I know. But we don’t know if there really was anyone else. He was pretty damned confused. And we can’t help him. If we’re right and that crazy shit with the purple sky had to do with the end of the full moon, then there’s no access to the past anyway.”
“I wish we could check,” she said. “But our phones are dead.”
“What good would that do anyway?” Dylan asked. “Would you really risk going back?”
“I don’t know. I just want to do the right thing.”
“Emma, right now the right thing to do is go the fuck home. We have families that have got to be going crazy looking for us.”
She chewed her lip while she considered. “You’re right. We need to get home. What’s our story going to be?”
“Shit. I really have no idea.”
“Maybe that’s the best thing…”
“What?”
“We just have no idea. Like amnesia or something. We were in the alley, something happened to us and made us black out, and then next thing we knew we were back in the alley and we went home. How does that sound?”
Dylan thought it over. “It sounds like complete and utter bullshit.”
“Yeah. It really does.”
“But…it’s really all we’ve got. The truth sounds so much worse.”
Emma nodded. “As long as we’re consistent. Though I think my parents are going to ground me for the rest of my life.”
“I hope not,” he said. “I’d miss you.”
He kissed her, and when her tongue slipped into his mouth he pulled himself closer to her. When he finally let her go, he looked at her beautiful big eyes and smiled. “For everything that happened, this was one of the best times I’ve ever had.”
“It was for me too. I guess now that we know we got out and lived to tell the tale, it’s easier to just think of all the good. There’s so much good about being with you, Dyl.”
“Do you… do you want to be with me?”
She laughed. “Of course I do. After all our hookup sessions on the floor you still have some doubts?”
“Well…it’s just… I don’t know. I thought maybe it’s the stress of the situation that made you like me.”
“I liked you from the moment I saw you, dummy. Do you think I chat up every cute boy in Rite Aid?”
“I crashed into you.”
She chewed her lip again. “I mayyy have arranged that a little bit.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No…hey, I’m new in town. I wanted to break the ice and talk with someone. And you seemed like a really good someone.”
“You’re really something,” he said. They kissed again, then held hands and began walking up the street.
“We need to find a phone to use. We can’t walk the whole way and even with my bike it would—”
“Oh shit, your bike! How are you going to explain that to your parents?”
“Um… time ate my bike?”
“Works for me.”
They entered Galaxi’s Collectibles. Dylan half-expected Roland to be working in the store, but a young man not much older than them was behind the counter.
“Can I help you guys with
something?” the teenager asked.
“Do you have a phone charger?” Dylan asked.
“Of course, buddy. If I didn’t keep my phone plugged in it would be dead by the time I leave work. Battery can’t get through that many hours of YouTube videos. And I don’t know if you’ve realized this, but Snapchat is a huge drain. Here, you can plug in over in the corner and just leave it on that stool.”
He pointed to a wooden stool behind the counter. Dylan started over there, then turned back.
“Should I plug mine in or do you want to do yours?” he asked Emma.
“Go ahead with yours. We’ll make our calls and then I’ll plug in while we wait to get picked up.”
“Okay, thanks.” He walked behind the counter and picked up the white cord that was dangling over the stool. He fished in his pants pocket for his phone and brought it out.
“Hey, this is odd,” he said while pushing the lightning plug into the port on the bottom of his phone.
“What?” Emma asked.
“I could have sworn that right next to my phone was a bunch of napkins from the café.”
“You had napkins in your pocket?”
“Yeah, I grabbed a lot of them the last time. I know I had them.”
She rolled her eyes. “Try your other pocket, if it’s so important to you.”
“I did. Nothing there. And it’s not that it’s important to me. It’s that it seems a lot like Clyde.”
“What do you— oh. I get it.”
“Mmhmm. Nothing from that time came back with us.”
The store employee was looking at them with mild curiosity. “You guys okay?” he asked.
“Fine, thanks,” Emma said. “We’ll just charge up and be out of your hair.”
Vacancy Page 14