Empty Planet

by Lynette Sloane

  It was Geoff’s turn to speak, “There’s one thing that’s always bothered me. Has anyone here ever told anyone else about their temporal jumping?”

  A few people said they hadn’t and the rest shook their heads. It was an interesting point. Considering the suggested number of Temporal Jumpers surely someone must have said something.

  Another woman, tall, blond, and probably in her mid-twenties, spoke up, “I’ve never wanted to tell anyone. It’s like there’s something deep inside my sub-consciousness that makes me want to keep this part of my life a secret. It feels too personal to speak of to people who don’t jump.” After she had finished speaking several other people admitted to feeling the same way.

  Carla said, “A few years ago I heard of a woman who spoke out about future jumping. She was adamant that she was telling the truth and described everything we have witnessed in great detail. She became so fixated with getting people to believe her that she spoke of nothing else. Eventually she was committed to a mental hospital. I think she had some sort of breakdown. It’s probably best that we don’t tell anyone about this—for the time being, anyway.”

  Carla told us her website address and went on to explain that we should make sure we were armed when we jumped. The older Jumpers were told to get hold of handguns, and the younger ones to buy slingshots, or anything else they could use to defend themselves from wild animal attacks. I got permission from Carla to pass on the web address to Graham and Gemma hoping that this would be the incentive Gemma needed to become computer literate.

  At that moment I felt a dull ache at the back of my neck. I raised my hand to rub it, noticing the older Jumpers were doing the same. The ache spread to the back of my head and my eyesight became slightly blurred. I shut my eyes for a moment, hoping to shake off the beginnings of a migraine, which was intensified by the sudden thunderous cheer of thousands of people.

  I opened my eyes, realising that normal time had been restored and everyone was back—and I’d left my jacket, hat and scarf somewhere in the future.

  Carla was walking over to me. As the cheer subsided she spoke into my ear in a raised voice, “Don’t forget to check out my website and send me the photos you took today.” I said I would.

  The view of the stadium was amazing—back to its original state and packed to capacity with eager football fans. The football pitch had also returned to its former pristine condition, all trees, shrubs, weeds and wildlife having disappeared. The other Jumpers were making their way through the crowds. It was a good thing we hadn’t had our barbecue on the pitch; that would have taken some explaining when natural time returned and we appeared in the middle of the game.

  A few Jumpers were trying to position themselves so they could watch the concluding minutes of the game, whilst others were making their way back to the turnstiles. I walked back to my seat as quickly as I could.

  As I sat down Charlie asked, “Where the heck ’ave you been? You just missed our goal.” I told him I’d been to the toilet. Dad asked if I was feeling all right.

  “I think I have a migraine starting,” I told him. He handed me a couple of white, unmarked tablets and a small bottle of mineral water.

  “Always be prepared son,” he told me. I swallowed the tablets and within minutes felt much better.

  Chapter 7

  The following summer, while awaiting my ‘A Level’ results, my parents took me to stay in a small guesthouse in Port Glasgow, Scotland for four weeks. The scenery was fantastic and I loved walking down to watch the sunsets over the River Clyde.

  Dad had several business meetings to attend leaving Mum and me free to see the sights and go for long walks in the country. On the third day she wanted to stay in the guesthouse and read her new book, ‘Displaced in Time’, so I went to the local library to use a computer.

  Apart from an elderly man sitting in the reading section, and a few staff members methodically replacing returned books back on the shelves, it was empty. I selected a computer where no one could oversee my monitor then checked my emails and logged onto Carla’s website. The home page had a ‘Correlation Factors’ tab. I clicked on it and a page opened up listing the things all Jumpers had in common:

  You will have made your first ‘jump’ at six years old. (This is the most commonly used term for the phenomenon, so I have decided to adopt it. Therefore, one who jumps is referred to as a Jumper).

  You have always been very healthy and have had no childhood ailments, including colds and flu.

  You have a very high Intelligence Quotient.

  Your mother will have received IVF treatment to initiate her pregnancy with you. Sorry if you didn’t know this and I’ve betrayed a family secret.

  Please note: not all IVF people will be Jumpers. However, I believe all Jumpers to be genetically modified IVF babies.

  I clicked on another tab entitled Observations:

  To date, no Jumpers have become pregnant or fathered children: a fact for which medical science can offer no explanation.

  Headache and nausea follow each return jump, increasing in intensity with each succeeding jump. To alleviate this, take a headache pill and try to have a nap as soon as possible after your return to the natural time frame. This will make you feel much better. Lately you will find that the back of your neck starts to ache immediately before your return to natural time. Take this as an indication of your imminent return to normality.

  Each successive jump appears to take us further into a future without other people. Apart from a few exceptions, we all seem to have been taken into temporal jumps simultaneously. Delays have only occurred when people have been in situations where temporal jumping could endanger theirs or another person’s life. For example, last year Geoff and I were out for a drive. I was at the wheel overtaking a large lorry when Geoff disappeared. He had been drawn into a jump, but I didn’t join him until after I’d stopped the car. If it wasn’t for this delay the car might have crashed and other road users could have been badly injured. After each jump we are returned to the same point in time from which we were taken, or very soon afterwards if our return would put us in imminent physical danger.

  As yet it isn’t known if someone or something is eliciting the jumps or if they are a natural phenomenon.

  Clothing worn at the time of jump is not affected by the time difference, nor is anything within about a metre of the Jumper.

  Jumpers have been reported on every continent and from every ethnic group.

  Special Instructions:

  Every Jumper I have spoken to has told me they feel very hungry on the commencement of each jump so I suggest you keep a ‘temporal kit’ near to you at all times. Mine consists of a packed lunch, a drink, a handgun, and ammunition. In addition, as a precaution to there being a night jump, I keep day clothes and footwear next to me on my bed every night.

  I knew most of this so I left that web page and read a few testimonials.

  A woman working in London said she’d seen the Albert Memorial, the huge lions at the base of Nelson’s Column, and the Marble Arch swallowed up in greenery. She also reported that Saint James Park and Hyde Park had become forests covered with young saplings and mature trees.

  Similar reports had been added from countries all around the globe. Every testimonial reported that nature was in full force; bird numbers were much higher, and deer, foxes, and wildcats had moved into town. Another woman said that with no one to operate the Thames Barrier, tidal surges had flooded London many times, destroying buildings and rendering them uninhabitable. She had moved out of the Capital as she was fed up of being flooded out during jumps. A Dutch man reported that other lowlying cities, including Amsterdam had suffered the same fate.

  I looked up for a moment, taking in the information. A very pretty, blond girl was smiling at me from across the room. I hadn’t noticed her before. I smiled back. She stood up and walked over to me holding a book entitled, Make up, Prosthetics and the Film Industry. I quickly clicked the ‘X’ button to close the web page
I had been reading and looked back up at her. The Jumpers’ web site had been set up in such a way that it wouldn’t be listed in the Internet history; there was no danger of anyone else tracing it.

  “So you don’t want anyone to see what you’re looking at,” she teased. I blushed, trying to think of something to say.

  I blurted out, “I wasn’t looking at porn.” My answer made me feel even more embarrassed. Why did I say that?

  “It’s ok, I believe you, porn sites are blocked from library computers. I’m Anna.”

  “Hi, I’m Steve,” I said, willing my face not to look so red.

  “Your accent isn’t from around here. Are you visiting?”

  Glad she’d changed the subject I answered, “Kind of. I’m staying in town for about a month ’cause my father’s here on business.” I paused. Why did pretty girls make me feel embarrassed? I didn’t want to give the impression of being a total idiot, so I tried to sound mature and continued the conversation. “You’re not from ’round here either, are you. Your accent is more Shropshire, with maybe a hint of welsh?” I wasn’t an expert on accents, but Anna’s accent sounded very similar to Mark’s mother who came from Market Drayton, a few miles from Shrewsbury. I concluded that Anna probably came from around the same area.

  “That’s very perceptive; we moved up here from Shrewsbury ’cause my father wanted to escape the city and get back to nature. I think he watched too much of ‘The Good Life’ on television.”

  I remembered my Mum watching the re-runs. The Good Life was a situation comedy, based around a married couple and their neighbours. The husband had given up a well-paid executive career to live off the land and become self-sufficient.

  “You want to go for a coffee?” I asked. I had the whole day to fill and at that moment wanted to spend it with Anna. She wasn’t a tomboy like Gemma, who inevitably wore jeans and Tshirts; Anna wore a fitted blue dress, with a waistband and a full, knee length skirt. It really flattered her trim figure and complimented her shoulder-length hair, which she wore tied back in a ponytail.

  “Sure, but I’ll have to watch for my brother,” she answered. “He’s picking me up in a bit. We live near Finlaystone about fifteen minutes drive from here.”

  We left the library and Anna showed me the way to a small, family-run café. The owner knew her and her family and asked who her new boyfriend was.

  “This is Steve, he’s up here on business,” she said, not correcting the portly man’s assumption. I wasn’t sure how to respond so I just smiled.

  Anna leaned towards me and spoke quietly, “That’ll get them talking. Some people are really nosey.” As she finished speaking her mobile bleeped so she took it out of her pocket. “Just a text,” she said. “David … my brother, will be here in twenty minutes.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling very disappointed. We chatted for a while, sipping our coffees, then stepped out of the café onto the warm sunny street. Almost immediately a smart, dark blue pick-up van pulled up besides us. It was Anna’s brother. A couple of years older than me, he wore well-worn overalls over his solidly built, yet well toned frame. I supposed that girls would find his dark curly hair and rugged features very attractive.

  Anna and I quickly swapped mobile numbers, then she climbed into the pick-up, smiled and waved as the vehicle drove up the road.

  As I sat eating my meal with my parents later that evening I received a text message from Anna. It said, ‘cn U meet me 4 cofE 2moz @11?’

  Mum immediately smiled and said, “Oh, so you’ve got a girl texting you. What’s her name?”

  “How did you know it was from a girl,” I asked, deciding Mum watched too much Sherlock.

  “I’m, your mother, it’s my job to know.”

  Choosing to concede the point I answered, “Her name’s Anna, she wants to meet me tomorrow for coffee at eleven.”

  Mum seemed very pleased to hear that, “That’s nice, are we going to meet her?”

  “Not yet, we’re only going for coffee Mum, not moving in together.”

  __________

  I met Anna a few times that week, and nearly every day over the remainder of the holiday. I also made good friends with her brother. Although we came from different backgrounds we seemed to hit it off straight away.

  Anna and David Franklin lived with their father on a smallholding. David and his father farmed the land and kept cows and sheep. Anna was nearly two years younger than me and was due to start college after the holidays. She was studying to become a makeup artist in the film industry.

  On the last day of our holiday David picked me up to meet his father and to see where he and Anna lived. I enjoyed the drive to the smallholding. After a few miles we turned off the narrow ‘B’ road onto a rough, stony lane. David drove the pick-up very quickly, expertly steering around the many tight corners, laughing as I grabbed hold of my armrest to stop myself being flung into the passenger door.

  The lane had taken us miles from anywhere and just as I was wondering how far we were going, we rounded another sharp corner and a very picturesque stone-built house came into view. Lemon curtains hung in the bay windows on each side of the front door, and roses of various colours grew in the flowerbeds, framing a well-trimmed lawn. This was fronted by a low stonewall with a black metal gate set in the middle.

  David stopped the pick-up on a gravel-covered lay-by at the side of the lane, then led the way to the front gate. He told me how one of his ewes had birthed a lamb in a few days previously, which was really out of season.

  “Spring lambs aren’t meant to be born in August,” he grinned. “The ewe died, so Dad and I have taken turns getting up to bottle-feed the lamb the last few nights. Even Anna has taken a turn. I’m worn out. If it had been born in the spring time I would have found a ewe who’d lost a lamb and tried to get her to accept the living lamb as her own.”

  While we stood chatting I heard someone tapping on an upstairs window. I looked up; Anna was smiling and waving at me. As she turned and walked away from the window I opened my mouth to say something to David, but he vanished.

  I took a few steps forward. The rough, stony roadway had disappeared under long grasses and other small weeds. Instead of hard ground I felt topsoil and moss under my shoes. Trees and bushes had replaced the grass verges making it hard to tell where the roadway ended and the woodland began. Nature had taken over the land, except that is, for David and Anna’s house and gardens. Here, the roses still grew in their well-kept flowerbeds, the front lawn was mown and I could see carrots, potatoes, onions and other vegetables growing in a patch of land to the right of the house.

  I walked up the roadway to a place of higher ground where I could see around the back of the farm buildings. Sheep and cows grazed in the fields, and chickens and ducks pecked and flapped around in smaller enclosures. A strong metal fence surrounded the fields. It passed behind a wooded area, and came back into sight on the far side of the trees, before disappearing over the camber of a small hill. The fence was covered in wire mesh and looked to be over four metres high. From my vantage point I concluded it probably enclosed the whole of the smallholding, including the house, and I was standing within its perimeter. None of this made any sense.

  As I walked back to the house the front door opened and a man stepped outside, his greying hair betraying his age. We stared at each other in disbelief; I’d never seen a Jumper much older than twenty-five before. This man had to be in his late forties. He grabbed a shotgun and pointed it at me, his voice revealing his trepidation and anxiety.

  “Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want? Why are you here?”

  “My name’s Steve. I don’t want anything. I used to have friends living here.”

  “No, you’re mistaken,” the man said, his voice a little shaky, “I’ve lived here since I was a lad.” He lowered his shotgun a little, still pointing it in my direction, and it struck me how much he resembled David. I concluded that the man must be his father.

  I spoke again. “I know David
and Anna. Are they your children?” The man looked physically shaken by my question. He leant his shotgun against a wall and looked at me more closely.

  “Come here and let me have a better look at you,” he said, “and remember that my gun is right here beside me.” I walked up the pathway stopping about three metres in front of him. “Tell me everything you know about David and Anna.”

  I told him how I’d met Anna in the library, how David had picked her up in the dark blue pick-up, and how she’d become my girlfriend. I described the blue dress she’d worn when I met her and how David and I were friends. All the time the man starred at me in silence. When I told him how David drove me to the smallholding on the last day of my holiday, and about the ewe having her lamb out of season, he dropped to his knees, his hands covering his face.

  “This can’t be. It can’t be. It doesn’t make sense,” he mumbled. I saw tears through his fingers. “I’m David Franklin,” he said, barely audibly, “and I haven’t seen another living soul for nearly thirty years.”

  This man, David, wasn’t a Jumper. Somehow he had survived whatever fate had befallen the rest of humanity and had lived through the successive years.

  “I don’t understand how you still look eighteen and I’m nearly fifty,” he said in little more than a whisper. I knew in that instant that I could trust him with the secret I’d never told any non-Jumper.

  “I’m a Temporal Jumper; I jump forward in time, and then back to a time before everyone vanished. I have no control over it. The last thing I remember is standing here with you. You were telling me about the lamb when you disappeared and I found myself here. I don’t know how long I’ll stay in this time frame, but in a few hours or maybe a day or so I’ll go back to my natural time and I’ll find myself with you and Anna as teenagers.” I told him about my other temporal jumps and how with each jump more time had elapsed.