The Time Travelling Taxman Series Box Set

by Rachel Ford

  She’d taken out the citronella torches too, and most of the mosquitos had fled the area. He sympathized, every time the wind changed and he got a lung full of fumes. But, on the other hand, he wasn’t keen on being a walking foreign food buffet, either.

  “You hungry?” she asked.

  “Starved.”

  This, apparently, was a good answer, because Nancy smiled broadly. “Good. What should we make?”

  Here we go. “I don’t know.”

  “Let me consult my spreadsheet.”

  “Or we could wing it…”

  She shook her head disapprovingly at him. “Our rations are carefully planned, babe. You know that.”

  “Don’t I ever,” he groaned.

  “My point is, if we just wing it, we may end up running out of food before the two weeks are up.”

  “There’s a store not ten miles down the road.”

  “Yeah, but no civilization, remember? We’re roughing it.”

  “With an airbed and a camp stove and spreadsheets?”

  She grinned at him. “Well, not too rough. Still, we can’t just run to the store. That’s cheating.”

  “Cheating?”

  “You heard me,” she nodded, sifting through a stack of papers.

  “It’s not a test, babe.”

  “It is. Think of it like, I donno…preparing for the zombie apocalypse.” He felt an eyebrow arching on his forehead, and she shrugged. “You know, can we make it for a little while without running to the store, without relying on other people at all: just you and me in the middle of nowhere.”

  “With an SUV packed full of supplies.”

  “With an SUV packed full of supplies,” she laughed. “That’s the only way to face the zombie apocalypse, isn’t it?”

  He considered for a moment, then shook his head. “I’m voting ‘no.’ The zombies win. Let’s just give up, fail the test, and have fun.”

  She dismissed this, though, with a wave of her hand. “But seriously, what do you think? Personally, I could go for grilled pizza.”

  “The favorite food of all apocalypse heroes. We are so roughing it.”

  “And, anyway, we can cross the cheese off the list: one less perishable to keep track of.”

  Alfred groaned. “Fine. Pizza it is then.”

  “Great. You want to get started on the dough?”

  “Wait, you mean…we have to make the dough?”

  “Of course. We’re roughing it, remember?” He frowned at her, and she laughed. “Don’t worry. It’s a mix. All you got to do is add water.”

  “Oh. Okay, I guess I’ll live through that.”

  “See? The zombies won’t stand a chance.”

  Chapter Two

  Alfred slept soundly that night. Once camp was set up, Nancy had dragged them to one of the longer hiking trails. He’d applied so much bug spray and sunscreen he nearly asphyxiated himself at one point. Still, though the hike was arduous and the chemical cocktail lethal, it had been a good workout. They’d finished the day up with a swim. The promise of a shower afterward had been sufficient to keep the thoughts of how many people must have urinated in that public lake from his mind, and the taxman positively enjoyed himself.

  Then they had showered and got a campfire started. He’d read aloud and Nance prepared dinner. He felt a little bad about leaving the cooking to her, but the fact was, he didn’t dare intervene. She’d been planning every meal with such gusto for so long, and she seized on the opportunity at the slightest provocation, that it seemed wrong to get in the way.

  This time, she’d bypassed the propane cook stove and went straight to the campfire. The food was smokier and a little more charred than he would have preferred, but she beamed with delight the whole time. “I love cooking on a real fire.”

  He didn’t understand, but, then, he didn’t really understand the appeal of camping either. Nature was all well and good when observed from a distance, but to deliberately inject oneself into its midst, into the swarms of bugs and dirt and general unpleasantness? It didn’t make sense.

  Then again, it didn’t matter much either. Nancy’s eyes sparkled, as if every mundane aspect of life was somehow rendered magical by the added inconvenience and unsanitariness. And that was the appeal to him.

  So, as the temperature fell to a comfortable coolness, he wrapped an arm around her, and they slept. How many hours ticked by, he wasn’t sure. Now and then, he’d stir as she moved and the air mattress wobbled underneath them both. Now and then, vague, faraway sounds would reach his thoughts: the wailing of wind, or the splashing of water. He dreamed of being at sea, on a pirate ship in one of the video games Nance played. In his mind, sea shanties carried on a brisk sea breeze, and the ship underfoot rose and fell on rolling waves.

  But it was the splash of something cold and wet on his face that drew him from this happy reverie. He started upright. “What the-?”

  Nancy stirred at his side. “Alfred?”

  He rubbed at the cold liquid on his face, trailing down his forehead and cheek. “What is that?” he wondered, of no one in particular.

  “Sweetheart?” she said beside him, her voice still heavy with sleep. “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know.” He reached for the flashlight Nance had given him. “There’s something wet.”

  “Hmm,” she said, her tone a little wearier than before. “Really?”

  He stretched his hand blindly in the direction of the light. For a moment, it moved unobstructed through empty air. He leaned over the edge of their bed, dipping closer to the tent bottom. He was vaguely aware of noise outside their tent, steady and loud, like the drip of a faucet.

  Then, his hand touched something cold and wet, and he yelped out loud. This time, Nancy woke too. The bed wobbled and shook as she sat upright, and a moment later a beam of bluish light cut through the darkness. She’d turned on her flashlight, and the light darted around their tent. “Babe, what’s going on?”

  The illumination was sufficient for him to see the dim outline of his own flashlight, and he grabbed it and shined it on the cold liquid. It was clear, and glimmered in the light. “There’s…water in our tent,” he declared in a minute, mystified by the revelation.

  Nancy’s flashlight pointed toward the tent now, its light tracing lines up and down the corner seams. “Dammit,” she said. “It’s the rain. The tent’s leaking.”

  “Rain?” That, at least, he could deal with. Fear receded, and Alfred’s reason returned. The noise made sense. It wasn’t a faucet outside; it was a downpour. And, apparently, tents leaked. That was an aspect of camping he’d never had the dubious pleasure of dealing with before.

  “I wish I’d re-applied silicone spray,” she was saying, meanwhile. “But the weather said the rain had passed.”

  “Well, the clouds didn’t get the memo,” he declared, wrinkling his nose at the sight of the puddles across the bottom of their tent. “What a mess.”

  She nodded glumly. “Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. We’ll just have to wait until morning, and sort it out then.”

  This, of course, was easier said than done. No sooner than had they switched their flashlights off, did another icy droplet of rain splatter onto Alfred’s face. He knew exactly what it was, but he still started at the temperature. “Oh, that’s cold.”

  After the third droplet hit him, following a much shorter interval than before, he sat up again. “Nance, I’m getting rained on. I can’t sleep like this.”

  “Can you shift a little? So you’re out of the rain?”

  “Shift?” The question seemed preposterous to him. “There’s rain coming into our tent. Like, actual water, Nancy.”

  “I know, babe…but I don’t know what to do about it. I mean, I waterproofed the thing once before we left. Obviously, that wasn’t enough. But it’s too late to fix it now. We’re just going to have to wait out the storm, and then dry everything tomorrow.”

  “What if it’s raining tomorrow too?”

&nb
sp; She sighed. “Well, that’d suck.”

  Another droplet splattered down on him, and he shivered. “And in the meantime, I’m going to be soaked.”

  The interior of the tent was suddenly filled with a bluish light, and he blinked. She was holding her flashlight again. “You want to wait it out in the car?”

  He considered. The idea of sleeping in a vehicle didn’t appeal much, but, then, it appealed more than being rained on. “Okay,” he said at length.

  “Alright. We’ll have to make a dash for it. It’s raining cats and dogs out there.”

  He nodded, ignoring the urge to consider the origins of that phrase. Perhaps there was some cryptic linguistic history there. But as it stood, it was downright mortifying. “Anyway,” he said aloud, “I agree. I don’t want to get soaked.”

  “We should grab anything we think we’ll need in the car. So, flashlights for sure.”

  Alfred nodded, grabbing his own. “And keys.”

  “And keys,” she agreed. “And cell phones.”

  “Right. Anything else?”

  They considered, then she shook her head. “I think that’s everything.”

  “We shouldn’t need any bug spray, right?”

  “I hope not,” she laughed. “Oh, grab a jacket. It’ll at least help keep you dry.”

  “Okay. You ready then?”

  Nodding, she pushed onto her feet. For a moment, they stood there, half hunched over to avoid contact with the sodden tent overhead. Then, she reached for the zipper. “Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  With a quick arcing motion, she unzipped the tent flap. He darted out, his jacket propped over his head like a makeshift umbrella. She followed a moment later, pausing long enough to zip it back up.

  The downfall was torrential. Streams of water rushed passed his feet, and freezing droplets pelted him. Still, he held his sweatshirt over Nancy as she secured their tent, absorbing the full fury of the storm for a few wretched moments to spare her.

  Then, she stood, adjusting her own jacket, and they ran toward the SUV. A moment later, far wetter and colder than he had been in the tent, Alfred settled into the driver’s seat. “Oh God,” he said, his teeth chattering, “I’m cold.”

  Perversely, it didn’t get better from there. It should have. Warm should have been preferable to cold, but warm and soggy somehow was worse.

  Nancy didn’t seem to have much trouble getting back to sleep. Before long, her breathing slowed and she stopped responding to his complaints. So Alfred fidgeted in place quietly, shifting his weight one way and then the other, and wondering how he let her talk him into things like this.

  Of course two weeks in the wild was a disaster waiting to happen. In his mind, the carefully manicured campsite, with its trails and picnic areas, its information station and hot water showers, might as well have been the Australian outback, or the Alaskan wilderness. He wanted a heated room and a soft bed. He wanted a roof that didn’t leak, and a breakfast they didn’t have to prepare at all, much less over a fire.

  Not for the first time, he wondered why Nance couldn’t have rented a hotel near the park. She still could have dragged him out onto the mosquito-infested hiking trails. She could have insisted they take a dip in the lake, where generations of campers had no doubt peed. They would have risked exposure to ticks and flies and everything else. But at least, when the day was done, they could have escaped to a proper room with a proper bed, and a continental breakfast waiting the next morning.

  What was it about making their time off more difficult that appealed to her? That seemed, to him, the opposite of how things should be done. Vacation should be simpler, easier, more relaxing. There should be less meal prep, less aggravation – and, for the love of God, fewer spreadsheets – than in normal life.

  And yet, somehow, her idea of a vacation was living like a hobo in the woods. It didn’t make sense.

  Oh Nance. I love you, darling, but I’m not sure I always understand you.

  Chapter Three

  Alfred rose tired and, if he was being entirely honest with himself, a little grumpy. He was still soggy, and he’d missed too much sleep.

  Nancy, though, was cheerful and chipper. “Well, it stopped raining. That’s good at least.”

  He harrumphed by way of response, and she leaned over to hug him.

  “Come on, babe. Let’s get to work: the sooner we’re done cleaning the mess, the sooner we can forget about it.”

  “Fine, fine. But let’s get some coffee going first.”

  “Copy that,” she said. Stepping out of the vehicle, she added with a mock salute, “Abbot, over and out.”

  He rolled his eyes, but found himself grinning anyway. He wasn’t sure how, but Nancy Abbot could always wrest him from his worst moods. He almost resented her ability to steal away a good sulk, and turn him into a happy, simpering fool.

  Almost, but not quite. His last image of her, her dark hair wound in tight curls from air drying after the rain, her blue eyes sparkling with mischief, and that impish little smile on her lips, stirred his heart like few things could. And, sighing at his own foolishness, he dragged himself out of his seat and out to join her.

  She’d already set up the propane cookstove, and was filling the coffee press with water and grounds. She smiled as he emerged. “Hey you.”

  “Hey.”

  “You want to grab some chairs from the car? The benches are soaked.”

  He glanced at the picnic table, which was still dripping water, and nodded. “You got it.” They’d stashed the camp chairs in the SUV the night before, by some providential turn. Now, they at least had somewhere dry to sit and drink their coffees. “I’ll get the bug spray, too. And the sunscreen.” He’d prepared a knapsack with these critical supplies, and now he swung it over his back.

  “Thanks, babe,” Nancy said. “I’ll get breakfast started too. What do you want?”

  “You choose. I told you, you want to bring spreadsheets into breakfast…”

  “‘I have to deal with them,’” she finished.

  He nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Pancakes it is, then.”

  He wrinkled his nose. “Pancakes?”

  “Well, what would you prefer?”

  “I don’t know…just, not pancakes.”

  “Okay. Scrambled eggs and onions?”

  He pulled another face. “How about eggs in a nest?”

  “I thought you didn’t want to make the call?”

  “Well, you left me no option. You kept making all the wrong choices.”

  She laughed. “Alright, funny guy: eggs in a nest it is. Hey, what time do you have?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Five to…” Then, he froze. “Sugar cookies.”

  Nancy glanced up. “What’s wrong?”

  “Time.”

  She shook her head, confused. “What?”

  “Time.” Her use of the word had made him recall an altogether different use of it. “The time travel device. I left it in the tent. The flooded tent.”

  She blanched at the same moment he was on his feet. Of one volition, they sprinted for the little green and white dome.

  The time travel device – or, more accurately, the space-time field generator, for it could do more than move people through eras: it could move them through dimensions, to different universes in the multiverse – was a proprietary piece of tech created by Futureprise corporation. It was a prototype, and the last of its kind. Alfred had insisted they take it with them, because the last time they’d gone on vacation it had saved both of their lives. More than once.

  He’d stashed it in the bottom of one of the duffel bags for safekeeping.

  And now, that duffel bag was sitting in water. In, he saw as he unzipped the tent flap, about half an inch of water, to be exact. “Sugar cookies,” he repeated.

  Nancy, though, cut to the chase, and he cringed when she said, “Shit.”

  He darted inside, splashing through the water, to hoist the duffel bag off the floor
. Tossing it on the air mattress as she called, “Not the bed!” he rooted through the contents of the bag. It might have kept water out, he thought. The device would be completely dry, if they were lucky.

  They were not lucky. The further his hand probed into the bag, the more sodden the articles he encountered. By time he reached the bottom layer, where he’d left the time travel unit, everything was dripping.

  “Oh hell,” Nancy said as he drew it out of the bag, and great beads of water ran off the surface.

  Alfred felt his heart sink at the sight. He had no idea if the device was waterproof or not, but he rather doubted it. It was a prototype, after all. And it was soaked, with water filling every nook and cranny. He shook it rather vigorously, and droplets flew this way and that.

  Nancy seemed to be holding her breath beside him. “Do you think it’ll be okay?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so.” He turned it over now, studying the face. Its dials were blank, but that was expected: it had been sitting in the bag in standby. He considered for a moment booting it. If all was well, he’d know right away. But if it wasn’t waterproof, he didn’t want to risk damaging it further, either. “Maybe we should set it out to dry. Hey, you don’t have rice, do you?”

  “Rice? No.”

  “Too bad.” He’d seen a video, once, where someone had dried their wet cell phone in a bag of rice. He figured the trick would probably work on a time travel portal generator. It’s all tech and electronics, right?

  “Can I see it?” Nancy asked.

  “Sure,” he nodded, extending his hand and the generator. “I can’t see any-” A moment too late, he registered the feel of a button pressing, and a beep.

  Light swarmed around them, and Alfred blinked as a heady sensation washed over him.

  “What in the hell?” Nancy asked.

  This time, he didn’t even object to her language. He was as stunned as she was. He’d experienced that rush of light and white noise before when they’d travelled through time to the Cretaceous era. That had been an eternity ago it seemed, when they’d first worked the Futureprise case. Still, it was a sensation he was unlikely to forget. “What…just happened?”