The Curiosity Killers

by K W Taylor

  “What is it?” Cob whispered. He craned to get a better look. “I don’t see anything.”

  “That’s just it,” Ben said. He was no longer whispering. “I don’t see anything, either, except the buildings. I don’t think anyone is actually down there.”

  Cob gaped at him. “Did we get here too late?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Ben moved past the tree line and descended the side of the hill.

  “Whoa, whoa, hang on.” Cob scrambled after him. “What happened to observe and be careful and reconnaissance and shit?”

  “Honestly, I think we’re too late, man. Look, it’s getting dark, right? There should be candles in the windows, smoke in the chimneys. But there’s nothing. There’s no guard at the gate. There’s a little post for ’em, see? But do you see guards?”

  “No.”

  “No guards, no colonists,” Ben said.

  “You think the doc screwed up?”

  “No, this is an imprecise science and even my estimates about when the colony disappeared could have been off.” Ben walked forward again. “We can safely get in there and find some clues, though, clues that are probably fresher than what John White found when he got back here from England. That was three years past when they went missing. All kinds of stuff could’ve been damaged or destroyed in that time.”

  The gates loomed over them now, and Ben turned to Cob, who trailed him by a few feet.

  “So we go inside and look for some clues,” Ben said, “but we leave whatever we find untouched.”

  ~

  Thomas Warner heard the men before seeing them. He tried to speak but his words came out in a cough. It was enough to draw the strangers deeper into his house. He’d been curled onto his cot for months, barely moving, as his food supply dwindled down to nil.

  The first man who entered was dark-haired, with round, friendly features and sunburned skin. He gestured back to the outer room before entering. “Oh, my God, I found somebody.” He turned back to Warner. “Are you okay? You don’t look so good.”

  Before Warner could reply, the second man entered. He was lean, with much darker skin and hair than the first man. Taller and more slender than his companion, he looked uncertain and nervous. Both of them were the pictures of robust, good health compared to Warner.

  “Who are you?” he croaked.

  “I’m Cob,” the first man said, “and this is Ben,” he said, nodding back to his companion. “We were trading with the natives nearby. Thought we would stop by your camp and meet you, but didn’t find anybody.”

  “We’re down from Nova Scotia,” Ben added, casting an annoyed look at Cob. “From the colony there.”

  Warner nodded. “Aye, I met a woman from there once.” He coughed again, and a spattering of blood dusted his hand. “I am not long for this world, gentlemen. Perhaps I could implore you to bury me, when the time comes.” He struggled to sit up a little. “I’m Thomas Warner, soon to be the late Thomas Warner.”

  “Where is everyone else?” Ben asked. “This was Raleigh and White’s settlement, wasn’t it?”

  “Aye.” Warner’s lungs rattled, but he kept the cough in and swallowed a mouthful of bloody saliva. “White’s been gone for some time. The others…oh, my word, it was terrible.”

  He recounted a tale of an elderly man—bent-backed and silver-haired—entering the settlement on a pretense of trading one night months earlier. “I was standing sentry that eve,” he said. Cob and Ben drew closer to him, leaning in to listen to his parched, thin voice. “You mightn’t believe it to look at me now,” Warner said, “but I was strong once, young and capable. Not as I am now.”

  Cob nodded. “Things can happen suddenly, man. I get that.”

  Warner frowned. The men’s speech was odd, but perhaps it was his delirium.

  “Who was this man?” Ben asked.

  “He told us his name was Caleb French and that he was a fur trapper who’d become lost.”

  Cob described the man, in almost perfect detail. “Does that sound like him?”

  “Yes, completely, though he was quite near the end of his years,” Warner said.

  Cob and Ben looked at one another. “Claudio,” Ben said.

  “Sounds like,” Cob said. “Go on, Mister Warner. What did this guy do?”

  “Guy?” Warner chuckled, but it became a hacking so great he sat up and pounded his chest with his fist. “My, you certainly speak strangely,” he murmured when at last the coughing subsided. “This man—this French or whomsoever you recognize him to be—he was taken in by one of our founding families, the Dares.” He shook his head. “Poor Ananias and Eleanor, they had their only child spirited away in the night, likely by a wild dog. They never found a scrap of the babe. At least they were able to baptize her before she went missing. So I’m certain they found the idea of a guest, someone to take care of, rather appealing, even if only for a night or two. An old man is a poor substitute for an infant daughter, though.” Warner felt a tugging at the corner of his eyes, and he squeezed them shut tight. “They never came to services that Sunday, so I went looking for them. Dead, the both of them, pulled to pieces in the night. I discovered Goodman French hiding in a cupboard, forced him out, and called for support. My fellow sentryman, Goodman Cage, came at once, and in the struggle French was killed.”

  Ben gasped. “Wait, you killed him?” He looked at his friend. “Claudio dies here? Now?”

  “Last spring, it were,” Warner clarified. “Not now. I’ve been ill for some time. This didn’t happen recently.” He studied the men. “Who was this murderer? Was he from your colony?”

  “We were sent to track him, bring him to justice,” Cob said.

  “You needn’t worry on that,” Warner said. “He’s likely been dealt holy justice in the bowels of hell.”

  “So what happened to the other colonists?” Ben asked.

  Warner couldn’t stop the tears now. “Myself and Goodman Cage, we were sentenced to isolation here. The rest of our party were angered that we were unable to hold a trial for French. Since we were innocent of which of us dealt the deadly blow, they left both of us here while they joined the Croatan tribe, for better food and shelter.” He coughed, weakly this time, and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Cage wandered out into the wilderness, and I expect the wolves got him. I was about to strike out on my own when the illness struck. My hope was to last until White’s return, but alas, I fear I shall not.”

  Panic seized Warner at a sudden thought, and he pulled at Cob’s shirt, leaving a bloody handprint on the rough green cloth. “You must bury me, gentlemen. You must leave a sign for our governor so he can find the others amongst the natives.”

  “I think we can do that,” Ben said. He looked on the verge of tears himself. “We’ll leave a note carved into a tree directing the way.”

  Warner relaxed and fell back against his pillow. “Perfect, sir.” He drifted to sleep and dreamt of this man taking a knife to bark.

  Tuesday, August 31, 2100, Avon, Vermont, NBE

  These people were strangers, arcane-looking woodcuts on a page in a dusty textbook. And yet the words “your parents were murdered” still caused Violet’s blood to run cold.

  “But they got him, these guards,” Cob said, his words tumbling out in a rush of reassurance. “They got him. He died back there, stuck in the past.”

  “Not for years,” Violet murmured. “You said he looked very old. How many others is he going to kill between now and somewhere in his future lifetime?”

  “It’s impossible to tell,” Ben said. “No recording, no way of even totally proving it was him.”

  “Oh, come on, it was him,” Cob said. “Who else would do that? To them, specifically? It was revenge for them letting Virginia slip through their fingers.” He let out a bitter laugh. “Plus he’s just a psycho. I think we’ve established that.”

  “The others, they went off with the tribe?” Violet asked. “They got away safe?”

  “They ran away, leavin
g two men to die,” Cob replied. “That was cold, you guys. That was some messed up frontier justice right there.”

  “Technically, the frontier period is classified as being many centuries later and much farther west,” Ben said. “The entire zeitgeist was different then, and lawlessness was necessary because—”

  “Okay,” Cob said, throwing up his hands. “Okay, that is super interesting, but now is not the time.”

  “I kind of sense it’s not super interesting,” Ben muttered. He sat down and stayed silent.

  Violet gave him a sad smile. “It’s hard staying quiet when someone’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  Ben leaned forward and nodded. “You know, it really is. So hard.”

  “Well, try to be brave and see if you can manage to ignore it, man,” Cob said. “Just until we get done saving the day, all right?”

  “You’re asking a lot of my bravery.”

  “You are,” Violet said, her smile now a little less sad. “Look, okay, I think the best thing to do here is worry about saving my family, at the very least. If this is the timeline, they die, right? So we send them somewhere they won’t die.” She felt a fluttery nervous feeling in her chest. “I want to go this time. I want to see them.”

  “I’ll have to go with you, if we’re taking them to the Mothman dimension,” Cob said.

  Violet nodded. “Yeah, that’s good.”

  “What about the others?” Ben asked. “They probably made it to the Croatan tribe, and if so they were probably okay, but if we change this one thing, save the Dare family, the rest of the colony won’t necessarily feel the need to abandon it as punishment for Warner and Cage. They might try to make it through one more winter waiting for White to come back with supplies.”

  “Well, if it’s life or death, we’ll get ’em over to the other dimension, too,” Cob said.

  “Yeah, but that’s gonna mess up a lot,” Ben said. “I’ve explained this. People might never be born. Entire generations might not be born.”

  “We have to play this by ear,” Violet said. “Ben, look, I know you’re worried about ripple effects, but time travel means everyone we know of can be saved. Everyone. So if some people are going to die horrible deaths and we have a way to prevent that? Then, I’m sorry, I’m going to do that. I’m an officer of the law. I can’t let people suffer.”

  I can’t let my parents get murdered. To hell with everyone else.

  Ben nodded. “Well, I guess this doesn’t necessarily affect me too much. I’m not descended from anyone from that region, not even a little bit. But still. I have no idea if someone descended from them traveled to India, perhaps, met my ancestors, had some impact on their lives. How do you know you’re not going to be similarly affected?” he asked, gesturing toward Cob.

  Cob shrugged. “I don’t.”

  “We agonized over what might happen if Violet ceased to exist,” Ben said. “What if you do?”

  “Guys, I’m not well,” Cob admitted. “I think we can all let go of the illusion that I’m not in some massive pain a lot of the time, and I think there might not be much of me left no matter what. If I disappear from history…well, then, I do. I think if there’s gonna be a paradox, though…” he paused, frowning. “Call me crazy, but I feel like the universe won’t let that be, that if there’s a paradox likely, it might self-correct.” He looked from Ben to Violet. “Is that nuts? I feel like that’s nuts.”

  “No,” Ben said. “Eddy explained this to me once. There are logical theories behind that. Some MIT researchers applied a rule to the Novikov self-consistency principle that would support that. Basically, if there’s gonna be a paradox, something happens to prevent it.”

  Cob held up his hands in surrender. “Whoa, whoa,” he said, “watch it with the big words. Some of us only went to Harvard.”

  “I can’t correct you, and I can’t use multi-syllabic words,” Ben said. “Got it.”

  “Last plea of a dying man,” Cob said, clasping his hands together as if in prayer.

  “You’re not dying,” Violet said. “I don’t care what anybody else says, even you. We’ll get this done and then we’ll get you back to Doctor Vere’s friend and get you all fixed up.”

  “We could do that now,” Ben suggested. “There’s no particular reason to do this immediately.”

  “Yeah, there is,” Cob said. “What if that guy does fix me up but it makes it so I can’t access that other dimension? Face it, Ben. We need me a little bit broken to make this plan work.”

  Ben threw up his hands. “Fine. Go.” He looked at Violet, his eyes wide and worried. “Please be careful.”

  “You both forget I chase bad guys around as my job. You know, that, right?” Violet asked. “I get paid to be in danger, and I’m damn good at getting myself out of it.”

  Wednesday, September 1, 2100, Avon, Vermont, NBE

  Cob sat on the bed in Ben’s guest room as he waited for Violet to finish dressing and being briefed on the trip. He’d gone up here to rest, but no rest was available to him. His head pounded, and his vision grew dim around the edges.

  It won’t be long. You’ve got to prepare yourself.

  Rupert Cob was thirty years old. He’d seen centuries pass, learned the depths of long-buried secrets and mysteries, and now he was about to die.

  He took a long, deep breath through his nose and released it through his mouth, willing the pain to subside.

  I don’t care if I die, so long as it doesn’t hurt much more than this.

  Pain was no stranger to him. Hangovers, sprains, and the effects of his trips…they clung to him now, like invisible scars. Pain was manageable, if he understood its source. Drink a bottle of whiskey, and the next day will be full of dehydration and nausea. Uncomfortable, but understandable, and he’d known the odds when he took the first sip of the night. But this, this incomprehensible pulsing from inside his brain, even if he let the neuroscientist explain it all to him again, it was still confusing and without direct, obvious source. Why should time travel do this to him? Was he already susceptible? Was he already at risk somehow, something to do with genetics? What if Violet went too many times, would this happen to her as well?

  I’m not coming back alive. I’m going to die back there, five hundred years ago. My body is even now probably buried in North Carolina, among the fields on the island. I’m probably deep beneath a national park on Rénartian soil.

  That last thought gripped him with sadness. It wasn’t the knowing he wasn’t coming back. It was that he wouldn’t be able to come back here, to Empire territory, to be laid to rest near family, however little they appeared to matter to him. It was his family’s money and legacy that let him live this life of adventure. Didn’t he owe it to them to end those adventures in the family plot, here in Vermont?

  If the end starts to come, I won’t make Violet bring me back, but maybe I’ll make her leave me over there, with Phalène and her kind. Or, hell, who knows what should happen to me?

  He smiled. The other side did seem a better place, a place of sunshine and imagination, where the Dares could bury him and he’d always be near the creatures who were the source of his last voluntary trip back in time. He’d paid Ben Jonson to let him find out whether Mothmen were real, and now he knew and could join them forever.

  Cob winced as he rose from the bed, walking to the small writing desk on the other side of the room. The top of the desk was hinged, and he pulled it down to reveal several slots filled with different colors of stationery. Attached to one of the stationery compartments were two U-shaped iron fittings, carved with scrollwork, in which rested a fountain pen. He pulled a chair over and sat down, withdrawing a sheet of pale blue paper from its small shelf.

  “I’m going to ask you to do something for me,” Cob’s pen scratched across the page. “I know, selfish to the very end, right? But, really, this is for you as much as it is for me.”

  He continued to write, pausing each time the pain in his head became too much for him. Breathing deeply was a help
, as was closing his eyes.

  Dammit, I don’t want to be weak, not now.

  They had to leave, and soon, while Cob was still strong enough. Above the writing desk was a window, overlooking the back garden and the roofs of the neighboring homes and businesses. Cob watched as a cardinal danced and fluttered on a branch, its bright red feathers standing out starkly against the pale blue of the midday sky.

  A hundred birds, a thousand, a hundred thousand…they’ve all sat on that branch as the branch grew from a sapling to a tree to this ancient, centuries-old thing out there now. How many pairs of feet have walked the boards of these floors? Did the wood come from another tree, hacked down with an axe in the days of Poe and Polk, Waterhouse and Whitman?

  Rupert Cob was shifting from life to history, and before the day was over, the transition would be complete.

  He saw Thomas Warner’s young, drawn face before him, the man’s eyes shadowed, his cheeks hollowed, consumption or influenza raging through his gaunt frame. “The late Thomas Warner,” he’d joked. Now Cob thought of himself that way, the relic, the vestige, the man whose last duty was to sacrifice and die. Where time was concerned, he was already gone.

  From downstairs, he heard voices, doors opening and closing, and urgent footsteps. One voice lilted high and sharp above some of the others; it sounded like Miss Moto was back in the building.

  “This isn’t a time for strife,” he wrote, “or mourning, either.” He paused, resting the cap of the pen against his lips. He grinned and then continued to write. “God, that sounds trite,” he wrote. “When somebody reaches this point, they start to sound really damn pretentious. Please remember me as I was, not as this sentimental idiot.”

  A gentle knock fell on the other side of the closed door. “Mister Cob? Are you awake?”

  “Come in,” Cob said. He hastily scratched a few last lines, folded the letter, and put it in an envelope. He wrote Violet’s name on the front and turned around just as Vere opened the door. “Doc, can you hang onto something for me?”