by Jason Ayres
“You’re looking remarkably well under the circumstances,” said Josh.
“It wasn’t the same version of me,” replied Henry. “I’m not from your universe. I’m from another one that’s extremely similar to this one. In that parallel world, you and I are good friends and I’m pretty sure that was the case here, too, before Vanessa went on the rampage wiping people out left, right and centre.”
“And she didn’t do that in your universe?” asked Josh.
“Apparently not. It seems that she tried to mow me down with a car but failed, crashed the car and was arrested at the scene. It seems that she succeeded here, and that is where the timeline deviates.”
“Assuming all this is true, why have you come here now and how do you even know about it? It seems a lot of risk if Vanessa is as dangerous as you say. You could have just stayed in the safety of your own universe.”
“That’s the thing. It’s not safe,” replied Henry. “She’s more dangerous than you can possible believe.”
“Perhaps you should explain why,” suggested Josh.
“OK. I was monitoring the multiverse from my own universe when I noticed something extremely disturbing. Dozens and dozens of parallel universes were disappearing. As you can imagine, this was extremely disconcerting because if my own had vanished, that would have been the end of my existence.”
“Disconcerting is probably an understatement,” said Josh.
“Indeed,” said Henry. “When I investigated further, I discovered that all the deletions were originating from your universe, and specifically from this time and place.”
“The island?” asked Josh. “Which is where exactly? Vanessa skirted around that subject whenever I asked her. Not only have I lost my memory, I don’t even know where I am.”
“You’re on one of a chain of small islands south of Saint Vincent that make up the Grenadines,” replied Henry. “Once I tracked down the source, it was a relatively simple task to nip across from my universe to find out what was going on. I had to travel to the island first, though, which was quite a challenge. This place is somewhat remote.”
“You make it sound like you were just hopping on a bus,” said Josh. “The technology to do that must be amazing.”
“You should know,” replied Henry. “You invented it.”
“Really?” said Josh, feeling quite proud of himself. “I must be a pretty clever chap!”
“You are,” said Henry, “and you’re generally not shy about reminding people of that.”
“I wish I could remember,” said Josh ruefully. “But like I said before, I’ve lost my memory, a side effect of the plague.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” said Henry. “Your memory loss will be down to her, mark my words.”
“I’d like to believe you,” said Josh. “You seem genuine enough, but it’s hard to know what to think really. She’s told me one thing and you’ve told me another. My gut feel tells me you’re telling the truth, but how can I be sure?”
“Quite a predicament for you, I’m sure,” replied Henry. “You probably want proof. I can’t give it you right now, but I can tell you how to get it. Like I said before, your memory loss is almost certainly nothing to do with the virus. Vanessa will be behind it. This is just her latest way of trying to seduce you. She would have known there was no way you would ever have agreed to be with her knowing the things she’s done. Killing your wife, for a start.”
“My wife?” said Josh. “She said she was my wife.”
“No, she was mine,” said Henry. “Confusing, isn’t it? Now, listen. Memory wiping was another thing the secret service had us working on. If that’s what she’s done to you, then there’s a simple way to restore your memory. Tell me, does she make you take a little yellow pill at breakfast each morning?”
“She does,” replied Josh.
“I thought as much. Those pills are all that’s keeping your memory suppressed. The solution is simple – just stop taking them. In a few days it will all come back to you.”
“She said they were keeping me alive by stopping the virus from mutating.”
“That’s her way of making sure you take them,” said Henry. “Stop and see what happens. If you get sick, then I’m the one that’s lying, but why would I go to all this trouble? And she’s hardly going to let you die, is she? What have you got to lose?”
Josh mulled it over. Everything he was saying made perfect sense.
“I’m going to have to leave now,” said Henry. “She’s going to be getting out of the shower soon and she could start listening in on you at any moment. She can’t hear me, but she’ll wonder who you’re talking to.”
“I’m really not sure what to do,” said Josh.
“Seriously, stop taking the pills,” said Henry. “In a couple of days everything will become a lot clearer.”
“And then what?” asked Josh.
“I’ll be back in three days – at the same time. Vanessa’s a creature of habit, she always takes her shower at the same time each morning,” said Henry. “Then we can talk about what needs to be done.”
“Sounds ominous,” replied Josh.
“It is, but let’s leave that until we meet next,” said Henry. “By then, your memories should have returned and you’ll understand everything. In the meantime, it’s vital she doesn’t suspect anything. Play along with her until then.”
“I’m not sure I can keep it up for another three days,” said Josh. “She’s been coming on really strong. She’s made it really clear she wants to sleep with me.”
“Stall her,” said Henry. “It’s just three more days. Now I really must go. See you on Saturday.”
“Ah, so today’s Wednesday,” said Josh. “Shocking, isn’t it? I don’t even know what day it is. Come to that, I don’t know what month it is, either.”
“It’s June,” replied Henry. “And now I must fly.”
Henry held out the tachyometer in front of him, a device which was currently unfamiliar to Josh, even though he had created it. Quickly he stepped forward and vanished.
“That’s a neat trick,” said Josh, before heading for the shower himself. Henry was right – he had nothing to lose and everything to gain. He had hated living like this, with no memory of who he was.
But that wouldn’t be for much longer. Soon, he would be himself again.
Chapter Twenty
July 2058
Josh didn’t take long mulling over the conversation with Henry. By the time he had taken a brief shower he had reached a firm decision.
He had felt genuine affinity with Henry. His warm and friendly nature made Vanessa’s portrayal of him as some sort of genocidal lunatic quite unbelievable.
On the other hand, everything Henry had told him about Vanessa supported the nagging doubts that he had felt about her ever since he had arrived on the island.
He was going to play along as if nothing had happened, as per Henry’s suggestions. All he had to do was make sure he avoided taking the little yellow pills and wait for his memory to return.
Over breakfast, he was polite and friendly, even allowing her to flirt a little with him without overly rebuffing her. If he hinted that he might be coming around to her way of thinking, she might ease off a little on him.
It seemed to work, and she was more relaxed than she had been on previous days. Usually she kept a close eye on him when he was taking his pill but today, he was able to distract her by asking for more coffee as he chatted happily about how much he was enjoying life on the island.
With her back turned, he was quickly able to palm the pill and slip it into his pocket. It had only been on his tongue a second or two which was thankfully not long enough for it to dissolve.
Later he was able to safely dispose of it by dropping it in the sea while he took a paddle during his daily walk around the shoreline.
He noticed some of the many tropical fish that swam around the shallow shores sniffing at the pill but didn’t think it would do them much harm. Josh had won a
goldfish at St Giles’ Fair when he was a kid and remembered being told by his father at the time that goldfish had memories that only lasted a few seconds.
He didn’t know if that applied to all fish, but whether it did or not, a little memory loss wasn’t going to adversely affect the lives of the colourful shoal swirling around his feet.
He was used to taking his morning walk alone because Vanessa was never around in the mornings, claiming she had work to do. She was deliberately vague about the nature of this work, which took place in her office, behind a door in the lounge of the villa. When she was in there, she had made it clear she did not want to be disturbed.
The door was heavy and made of metal, almost like an airlock on a spaceship, something that made him curious. He had tried to open it one day after he had called her name: there had been no response. But it was locked.
In the evening they enjoyed a couple of after-dinner drinks on the decking behind the villa. Maybe he was overdoing it on the friendliness because she again brought up the subject of their relationship. Aware that he couldn’t stall her forever, he knew he had to throw her a bone to keep her sweet until Henry returned in a few days.
It was warm, and they were lit up in the moonlight. It was like a scene from a romantic movie, and Josh knew he had to be careful. Encourage her too much and she might expect something to happen right now. Give away too little and her frustration might boil over, and then there was no knowing what she might do.
“Lovely drop of claret, this,” said Josh, swirling his drink around in his expensive crystal glass. “These replicators are amazing. I’d swear this was real. You must show me how they work sometime.”
He picked up the bottle and examined the label.
“Authentic, right down to the bottling date,” he added. “2028.”
“That was an amazing vintage. It was the last good year before the Black Winter,” replied Vanessa. “The French reds have never been as good since. And it didn’t come out of the replicator – this is the genuine article. You and I used to keep a well-stocked cellar and I brought as much as I could with us. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
Charlie would like this, he thought. But he didn’t know anyone called Charlie. He didn’t know anyone called anything so why had he thought that? Was his memory starting to return?
It was a good job he hadn’t said it out loud. He would have to choose his words carefully from now on if these random memories were going to start popping up.
“You know, I could get seriously used to this,” he said, as he reclined on the yellow seats of the swing chair he was rocking gently back and forwards in.
“Does that mean you’re happy now about the idea of living here, with me?” she asked, gazing adoringly at him with her puppy dog eyes.
“You know, I rather think it might.”
“Because I think it’s high time we started living together properly again, don’t you think? Like a proper man and wife?”
“I would like that,” said Josh. “But I think we need to make the moment special. How about we have a proper date night, say, this Saturday? We could go to that clearing in the centre of the island. I imagine it’s lovely up there in the moonlight. We could light a campfire, take some of this gorgeous wine with us, and perhaps even camp out under the stars?”
“Oh Josh, that would be heavenly,” she gushed. “I can’t begin to tell you how much I’ve dreamt of such a moment.”
It was hard to believe this was allegedly one of the most evil, callous killers in the history of the world. Right now, she was acting like someone who would rather be at home reading Mills & Boon novels than committing genocide with entire universes, but perhaps that was all part of the madness.
She leaned forward to kiss him, but he pulled back.
“Ah, ah, not until Saturday,” he said. “We don’t want to ruin our date night, do we?”
“You’re right,” she said. “I want it to be special, like you said.”
“That’s the idea,” he said, lifting his glass and draining the last of his wine, keen to get back to the sanctuary of his room. “And now, if you don’t mind, I think I need to get some beauty sleep. I want to be at my best for the weekend.”
“Goodnight, my love,” she replied as he got up from the swing chair and made his way back inside, leaving her daydreaming like a teenage schoolgirl on the decking.
He felt a little cruel deceiving her like this, but if she really was as bad as Henry claimed then he really ought not to. Now he had to hope that he returned on Saturday morning as he had promised because there was no plausible way that he could back out of the plans he had just made with Vanessa.
The following morning, Josh felt different when he awoke. He hadn’t dreamt at night since he had found himself on the island, but this night was different, and several times he awoke after vivid dreams of people in other places and other times. The trouble was, as soon as he awoke, they faded, not allowing him to remember anything tangible.
Now, as the morning sun flooded through the windows into his room, little bits and pieces kept popping into his mind.
The fragments were disjointed, as if someone had picked up all his memories, thrown them into a kaleidoscope and got him to look inside. There were tantalising images of a woman he couldn’t name but who he instinctively knew was important to him.
Other things he remembered were more fantastical and it was hard to believe they could be real. One memory was of a dinosaur rampaging through a familiar park that he couldn’t place. Another was of working on a railway line in what seemed like Victorian times. None of it made any sense. He could only hope that in time it would.
Vanessa was still acting like a teenage girl with a crush over breakfast, making it easy for him to distract her and avoid taking the pill again doing his bit to give the local fish a bout of amnesia on his morning walk around the island.
Before he returned to the villa, he headed up to the centre of the island, to where Vanessa was expecting her dreams to come true on Saturday evening on a date that Josh was hoping would never come to pass.
He never stopped marvelling at how beautiful the island was, and part of him wished that he could stay here forever, but not with Vanessa. If only Alice were here.
Alice! Of course! How could he have ever forgotten her? She was the woman he had been seeing in his flashes of memory. Now a clear image of her walking down the aisle towards him in her wedding dress filled his mind.
That memory was the equivalent of a dam burst as now a torrent of memories of Alice came flooding into his mind faster than he could process them. The memories were chaotic and disorganised, but at least he was making progress.
He felt like he was sitting down doing a large jigsaw puzzle. He had built the outer frame but now he needed to fill in all the middle bits.
The memories of Alice had filled him with joy, but then, like being hit by a Taser, he remembered what had happened to her. Of course, she would never be able to share this beautiful place with him, because just like everyone else on Earth, she was dead.
And not just dead, murdered – by the very woman who had been trying to steal her place in his affections. Everything Henry had said was true. Vanessa was evil.
The more Josh remembered, the more his heart and soul filled with rage. Every instinct in his body was urging him to march back to the villa and have it out with her right now. He was so angry that he could quite easily kill her.
But he knew he couldn’t do that, not yet anyway. He couldn’t risk taking her on by himself. Yes, he was undoubtedly physically stronger than her, but who knows what contingency plans she might have put in place in case this exact scenario occurred? Someone who was as evil and cunning as to have engineered everything she had done was hardly going to be easily overpowered.
He had no choice but to wait for Henry who would surely have a plan. Keeping up the pretence until then was going to be increasingly hard now he knew the truth, but he would have to knuckle down and s
ee it through.
He got through the rest of the day and evening with her by talking excitedly about their plans for Saturday night. He went out of his way to build up her expectations. The more she was looking forward to it, the more disappointed she would be when it didn’t happen.
He was well aware that if Henry didn’t show on Saturday and the date had to go ahead, he had no plan B. In that eventuality he would have to come up with something himself. Either way, things were going to come to a head that night.
By Friday morning most of his memories had returned. Now he could recall his knowledge of time travel and the role it had played in all this. Perhaps all was not lost. If he could recover the tachyometer and incapacitate Vanessa, perhaps there was some way to reverse the damage she had done.
Trying to hide his loathing from her was taking a monumental effort, so he came up with a plan to keep her out of his way until the following evening. He broached his idea over breakfast in a way he knew she wouldn’t be able to resist.
“Listen,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about tomorrow. This is a very special day for us, and I think we ought to do things properly.”
“Oh yes, Josh,” she said, besotted and as soppy as ever.
“I think we should make it like a second wedding, and then a second honeymoon,” he said. “Tomorrow night, in the centre of the island, we’ll renew our wedding vows and then make love beneath the stars.”
Just saying those sickly words made him want to vomit. It sounded totally insincere, but she still bought it.
“Oh, Josh, you don’t know how much I’ve longed to hear you say those words,” she replied, dreamily.
“Like I say,” he added, “we must do this properly. As you know, it’s bad luck for the bride to see the groom the night before the wedding, so after breakfast, I think we should spend the rest of today and tomorrow apart. Then we’ll meet at the clearing tomorrow night, at sunset. What do you think?”
“That sounds so romantic!” she exclaimed. “But that’s a long time to be apart.”
“After tomorrow night we’ll never be apart again,” said Josh. He felt no guilt whatsoever about the lies pouring out of his mouth. She deserved everything she got.