Million Eyes

by C. R. Berry

  Shit, they’d tapped her phone. They were tracking her with it. “I need to dump this phone – now.”

  “Jennifer, calm down. You’re not making any sense.”

  Was he trying to keep her on the phone? So that Katie could find her?

  “Adam, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go.”

  “Jen – wait –”

  She hung up.

  She was about to chuck the phone and carry on through the woods when it vibrated. She’d turned it on silent earlier so she could try and sleep. Thank fuck she did that.

  She looked at her phone. A text message from Adam. Running and hiding is pointless.

  What! She took a fast intake of breath and it wedged in her throat.

  She typed back, OMG, please don’t tell me you’re in on this!

  She waited, mashed her trembling bottom lip between her teeth.

  A few seconds later, Adam replied, WTF?

  The text you just sent!

  I didn’t send a text!

  Jennifer couldn’t believe that Adam had anything to do with this. She just couldn’t. The guy wasn’t that good an actor.

  She replied, Then they must’ve hacked your phone too. I’ve gotta go. Don’t trust anyone.

  The phone vibrated again. Another text from Adam. Hahahahahaha! No, don’t trust anyone Jen – especially not your best mate! Fooled you again. This is fun.

  Her stomach lurched. She couldn’t breathe. When she tried, her lungs burned.

  Fuck this shit.

  The light from her phone’s screen reached into the thick darkness for a metre or so, faintly marking out the contours of the oak tree’s large, sprawling roots. Jennifer set her phone down on a flattish section of the roots, picked up a stray rock and smashed the phone to pieces. Smash, smash, smash. Each hard swing of her arm jarred her chest and made her cracked ribs cry out, but she smashed through the pain.

  After all, the pain in her body was nothing compared to the thought that Adam had betrayed her.

  But had he? She left the remnants of her phone in the dirt and carried on weaving through the trees. Perhaps those texts were a ploy by Katie and her cohorts to keep her on the phone, so they could track her.

  Yes. It must’ve been a trick. Adam wouldn’t do that to her. He wouldn’t. It was that fucking bitch Katie.

  Jennifer hoped that by dumping the phone, she’d thwarted her.

  But these woods… they seemed to be never-ending… Where the fuck was civilisation?

  A twig snapped loudly some distance behind her.

  No. God, no.

  She froze, stopped breathing. She moved her head slowly but nothing else. She looked behind her and saw heavy darkness relieved only by a trace of moonlight.

  Bushes rustled lightly. Something was moving nearby.

  She was partly shielded by another fat oak tree, but if someone was coming, she wouldn’t be for long.

  Please be a fox.

  The rustling continued, closer now. Louder.

  Torchlight glanced off nearby foliage. Seconds later, Jennifer saw the dark shape of the torch’s owner.

  Katie.

  Shit, shit, shit.

  Katie had her back to her, but they were only metres from each other. Before long, Katie would turn in Jennifer’s direction and she’d be exposed.

  But these woods were so dense with vegetation that there was no way Jennifer could make a run for it without causing a bush-rustling, leaf-crunching, twig-snapping racket.

  Only one option.

  Without thinking, Jennifer charged at Katie while she still had her back to her.

  The crunch of Jennifer’s footsteps alerted Katie immediately. She swung round, gun and torch poised, but Jennifer slammed into her left side before she even saw her coming.

  Katie hurtled to the ground. This time both the torch and gun went flying out of her hands, but the darkness was so thick Jennifer didn’t see where they landed.

  Hopefully neither did she.

  Jennifer turned and ran.

  A hand clasped her left ankle and yanked. Jennifer yielded to gravity, plunging into shrubbery. Her head spun towards Katie, still gripping her ankle. With all the might that was left in her broken body, she slammed her right Ugg boot into Katie’s face.

  Ankle free, Jennifer launched to her feet and took off through the trees as fast as she could without colliding with them.

  Yes!

  The rev of a car, a short distance away. Civilisation at last. Gradually orange streetlamp light began scoring through the darkness. Within minutes, she was out of the park and on a pavement in a residential road.

  She hastened up the sleepy road, crossing several interconnecting residential streets and cul-de-sacs, all unfamiliar. She kept looking back – no Katie. Her run soon slackened to a fast, painful stagger, two separate inflictions of car-related injuries taking their toll. But at this point, if she didn’t keep going, she knew she’d stop for good.

  Eventually she stumbled onto a main road and small bells of recognition chimed.

  Yes. Station Road. She knew where she was: about fifteen minutes from Deepwater train station.

  She hurried to the station, arriving just as the heavens opened. The rain quickly seeped through her hoody, wetting her bare skin. But it wasn’t cold or unpleasant. Her wounded body had been in overdrive and overheat mode for ages, making her forget that it was October. The rain was soothing.

  She used the cash in her purse to purchase a ticket from one of the machines. The last train of the night was ten minutes away. She would arrive in Brighton at nearly 1am.

  Hers was the furthermost platform – four. She crossed the bridge over the railway track and hid in the waiting room between platforms three and four. When the train was a minute away, she emerged.

  She stared down the track for the first sign of lights. Then the tracks and adjacent trees in the distance glowed, and two glaring lights crept around the bend and speared into her eyes, making her squint. Metal roared and brakes squealed as the train pulled into the station – empty – and ground to a stop. She leapt through the doors the moment they opened.

  Oh my fucking God.

  Sitting down, she saw through the window Katie hurtling down the stairs from the bridge, face covered in blood.

  Her hands were empty – she obviously hadn’t found her gun – but that didn’t make Jennifer feel any better.

  If Katie were to get on the train, it would be a fight to the death – and Jennifer wasn’t strong enough.

  Go, train, please.

  GO!

  Katie charged onto the platform. Her eyes connected with Jennifer and her bloody face hardened with fury. She sprang for the train doors.

  YES!

  The train rumbled forwards. Jennifer saw Katie rebound off the doors. She was too late.

  Jennifer kept her eyes on Katie’s bloodied face as the train pulled away from the station. She looked pumped with rage – eyes wide and bulging, lips pursed, hands balled into fists. She looked ready to take on a whole army singlehandedly.

  Fortunately Jennifer didn’t have to look at the bitch for long.

  17

  As Jennifer sat on the train, entire body throbbing, she couldn’t shake Katie’s crazed face from her mind. What would she do next? This train had a handful of stops before Brighton – would she try and get to the next one before Jennifer got there? What if she had a dozen operatives waiting to ambush her at each station?

  She should’ve killed her in those woods.

  What was she saying? Killed her? A few hours ago Jennifer hadn’t known anyone who’d died, let alone killed anyone.

  This was all too much. How the fuck did she get into this?

  She tucked her hair into the neck of her hoody and pulled the hood up to hide her face. She decided to get off at the first stop, Crossmore, a tiny village in the South Downs. She’d then get a taxi to Brighton. Safest thing to do.

  With only darkness outside, for most of the journey she saw nothing through the w
indow but her own reflection and that of the well-lit train. Nothing to take her mind off the night’s events, so she just kept replaying them over and over.

  Thirty minutes later, the train pulled into Crossmore. Jennifer hadn’t moved for that long, so everything twinged unbearably as she dragged herself to her feet and hobbled off the train.

  The station was quiet and empty. Good. Her body really couldn’t take any more Hollywood chase scenes tonight.

  She limped from the station onto a road lined with old country houses. At the end of the road was a pub – the Coach House – and on the corner was one of those famous red telephone boxes you barely see anymore.

  Please be working.

  It was, and as was customary in telephone boxes, had a board of useful numbers (and ads for phone sex lines). Jennifer dropped a bunch of 20ps into the coin slot – something she’d never done in her life having grown up in an age of smartphones – and called one of the taxi companies on the board.

  She waited by the phone box and, fifteen minutes later, a taxi pulled up next to the Coach House. Hood still up, she avoided looking at the driver and got straight in the back, keeping her head low.

  “Can I go to Somerfield Street in Brighton, please?” she murmured.

  “Somerfield Street? No problem.”

  Jennifer realised as they drove to Brighton that she probably looked really suspicious. Lots of people thought ill of young people in hoodies, particularly folk from nice villages in the English countryside. Ones who deliberately tried to obscure their faces looked even dodgier. Jennifer engaged in small talk to put the driver at ease.

  Before long a valley of lights swept across the pitch-black expanse of the South Downs. Brighton, the seaside city of exuberance, diversity and hopefully refuge for Jennifer, beckoned.

  The driver took her into the city centre. Students filled the streets. Music boomed from clubs and pubs, a blur of noise. The roads seemed as busy with cars and taxis now – just gone 1am – as they probably were by day. The route to Somerfield Street took her past the Royal Pavilion, its ornate, onion-shaped Indian domes and minarets lit up and looking beautiful; and briefly onto the bustling seafront, where the illuminated Brighton Pier made its way out to sea, painting the waters around it a shimmering orange; then onto streets full of cute cafes, lively-looking bars, and shops selling comics, sci-fi merchandise and sex toys. It surprised Jennifer that she’d only been to Brighton once, given that it was the UK’s gay – and geek – capital. It was just her kind of place.

  Her taxi arrived on Somerfield Street. She paid the driver and got out. As the taxi drove away, she approached number twenty-three, which she hoped was still the home of Becks Shayes, the last place in the world anyone would expect her to go.

  She rang the doorbell. It was 1.15am – Becks was probably in bed. She rang it again and knocked. A couple of minutes passed. Then Jennifer heard movement inside. Somebody switched on a light. It shone through the two frosted glass panels in the front door.

  Becks would’ve checked who it was through the security peephole. Chains and locks rattled. First good sign. At least Becks had seen it was her and was still opening the door.

  “Hi Becks,” said Jennifer awkwardly.

  Becks was obviously still an enormous Disney fan. Her pyjamas were covered in Pascals, the chameleon from Tangled. But her expression as she greeted Jennifer wasn’t as cheerful as her attire.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she said, top lip curling in disgust. “And what the hell happened to your face?” Jennifer could tell from her voice that she was asking out of curiosity, not because she cared. But that was to be expected.

  “I’m so sorry to come here like this,” Jennifer said. “But you’re the only person who can help me.”

  Her hackles went up. “I’m sorry – help you? You expect me to help you?”

  “No, I don’t expect anything. I’m just hoping. Hoping that you might.”

  “Really?”

  “There are people after me. People who are trying to kill me. Last night I was hit by a car – deliberately. Left for dead. Then one of them tried to finish the job at the hospital, but I got away and came here.”

  “Are you high?”

  “No. I’m being serious.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why would I lie?” Jen, what a stupid thing to say.

  Becks didn’t need to answer anyway. Her expression of did you seriously just ask that? was enough.

  “Okay, you’re right,” Jennifer conceded. “There’s no reason why you should believe me. No reason why you should help me. Particularly after what I did to you. All I can say is, I think these people will keep looking for me and I came here because this is the last place anyone would expect to find me.”

  Jennifer met Becks at the University of York, one of the top universities for history. Their chemistry was immediate but Becks was, on paper, straight. It soon turned out Becks just thought she was straight when Jennifer, aided by some tequila slammers, coaxed her into bed. They were a couple for a few months but eventually Jennifer realised that they were on different pages of different books. Becks was talking marriage and babies and Jennifer wasn’t interested in any of that – not with her, anyway.

  The nice, decent thing to do would’ve been to break up with Becks there and then. But Jennifer took a far more cunt-ish option and got drunk and slept with a hot, tattoo-covered goth whose name she couldn’t even remember. Overcome with shame, she kept it from Becks – till a mutual friend admitted to Becks that he’d seen Jennifer making out with Goth Girl on the dance floor, forcing Jennifer to come clean. In the heat of the moment Jennifer made it worse by blaming Becks for pressuring her into a commitment too soon and pushing her to cheat.

  Becks broke it off and apart from seeing each other in passing on campus, they never spoke again. She’d heard that Becks had gone back to live with her parents in Brighton after uni. And here she was.

  “So what do you want from me?” Becks snapped.

  “A place to stay. Just temporarily, while I sort myself a job and somewhere else to live. Then I promise you’ll never have to see me again. And once I’ve got money, I’ll pay you some rent. Please, I’m begging you.”

  She shook her head and sighed with exasperation. “You bitch. I don’t believe or care what you say but you’re obviously beaten up. And if I turn you away and you wind up dead, I’m going to be the one saddled with guilt, aren’t I? Guilt over you. So I don’t really have a fucking choice.”

  Later that night, Jennifer lay in bed in Becks’s parents’ spare room, staring at the ceiling and tracing the creases in the artex, listening to the distant whir of voices, music, traffic and seagulls that was occasionally sliced into by blaring sirens.

  She kept imagining her mum and Jamie reacting to her disappearance. Jennifer and Jamie weren’t as close as they used to be, not since Jamie had been revolving her life around Tom, so she’d probably be nonchalant about Jennifer’s vanishing act at first. Still, they were sisters and they loved each other. As soon as the reality hit that Jennifer wasn’t coming back, she knew Jamie would be upset.

  Not as upset as Mum though. Neither Jennifer nor her mum were hearts-on-their-sleeves sorts of people, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close. Their bond was a deep, unspoken, unchanging one – which was why Jennifer now felt like vomiting at having left her. She was doing this to protect her and Jamie from Million Eyes, too, but she just kept picturing her mum raging because she didn’t know where her daughter was, blaming the police for doing such a shit job finding her, but secretly crying herself to sleep each night.

  And what about Adam? When she last spoke to him, she was being chased, telling him that her pursuer might be tracking her. Now that she was running away, would Adam think that Katie found her – and killed her? Would he tell her mum and sister that?

  Assuming Adam really was the friend she thought he was. Those texts had really screwed with her head.

  Jen, sto
p it. It was a trick. It had to be. Adam was her best mate.

  And she was leaving him too.

  She couldn’t let Mum and Jamie and Adam think she was dead. What could she do? She couldn’t call them. Million Eyes would see that coming. They’d probably tapped their phones as well.

  A letter. She could send them a letter. Million Eyes were a computer company. They could tap phones and trace bank cards – anything technological. But they probably didn’t monitor the Post Office as well.

  Probably.

  Yes, that’s what she’d do. She’d write to them – soon – and let them know she was safe, but that she needed to stay hidden, at least till she’d worked out a plan.

  The question now was simple, yet harder to answer than ever before.

  What the hell was she going to do next?

  18

  August 30th 1888

  James Rawling would never openly question Miss Morgan’s decisions, but he was convinced that sending Robert Skinner to retrieve the book and restore the timeline was the wrong call. He understood that this gargantuan shitstorm was Skinner’s fault and Skinner’s responsibility to fix, but he’d not travelled in time before and, more to the point, he’d already proved himself incompetent – why put the future in his hands?

  What’s done was done. Skinner had failed again, this time by getting himself killed by a medieval king, and Rawling, who would’ve been a more sensible choice to begin with, had taken his place in the hunt for the book. It was time to get history back on track.

  A while ago the small, round spectacles Rawling was wearing – not for seeing better but for extracting information – picked up trace chronoton particles, which was strange. Chronoton particles meant time travellers. He himself would’ve been emitting them, but he should’ve been the only one doing so.

  The mystery was solved quickly. Having tracked the particles to a spot in what would one day be the Tower Hamlets area of East London, Rawling now stood across the road from a man called John Snider and, of all people, the Princes in the Tower. He double-checked the facial recognition software in his spectacles and yes, it really was them. Edward V and Richard, Duke of York, to be exact. They were the time travellers.