by Tim O'Rourke
His dark eyes met Annora. “Bitch,” he breathed, as he stumbled toward the open door and her.
Annora faced front. She glanced back along the passageway in the direction of the partygoers. Thinking better of it, she fled in the opposite direction to them. Still clutching the umbrella, she ran along the passageway, not knowing where she was going. She raced around a bend at the end of the passageway. There was a door with the words FIRE EXIT written above it. Looking back, she saw Nik Seth stumble around the bend in the passageway. To her horror, he was not alone. Several of the night diners had joined him. And although Nik looked human, those who had joined in the hunt for her didn’t. They walked upright, but they looked wolfish like Nik had appeared in the cloakroom. Some were male, others female. Despite their unnatural appearance, Annora couldn’t help but think they still looked kind of beautiful in some strange way.
“Don’t leave,” Nik called out.
The boom and thud of music was not as loud in the back passageway, and Annora thought Nik no longer sounded angry, but kind of desperate.
“Stay with us in the Night Diner,” he called out to her again. “Become one of us.”
“Never,” Annora whispered under her breath before throwing open the fire exit door and running for her life.
Chapter Eighteen
The year 2067…
He stepped around the steaming pile of vomit and the two drunks, and entered into the Night Diner. It was dingy inside. The only real light came from two holographic strippers, one male and the other female, that gyrated back and forth atop of two nearby tables. Music bled at a deafening level. The heavy bass of the music made the entire building shake. As Karl made his way toward the bar area, he could feel the floor beneath his feet vibrating in time to the music. He feared that his chances of getting any sleep in such a place would be something close to zero.
After reaching the bar, he set his case down between his feet. Men and women of all ages jostled all about him as they fought for the attention of the bartender to refill their glasses. The air was thick with smoke and the smell of alcohol. Karl glanced to his left and right and could see that those gathered about the bar swayed on the dance floor or stood marvelling wide-eyed at the holographic strippers. They all looked weathered and worn down by hard times. Although they all appeared to look as if they were having a good time, he could see little hope in their eyes. It was as if the drink, the loud music, and strippers afforded them some kind of escape from their poverty-stricken lives. Perhaps Sergeant Shaw had been right and Lucy May had killed herself on a cocktail of drugs. Perhaps she had wanted to escape a life where she lived in a fucking crate like a caged animal. Perhaps she believed that she was like those rats that had scurried out of the dark to feed on her like Shaw believed they had. Although the bar echoed with drunken laughter, Karl couldn’t see any true happiness in the faces of those surrounding him. This wasn’t just another place he had been sent to, it was another world. It was a world forgotten by those who lived safe and secure behind the walls that surrounded the cities.
“What are you drinking?” someone shouted at him over the roar of music and drunken laughter.
Karl looked at the bartender who had spoken to him. The guy was in his mid-thirties and had more facial piercings than Karl could count. One side of his head had been shaved to reveal an intricate web of tattoos. “I understand a room has been booked for me,” Karl shouted over the thunderous roar of music.
“Name?” the bartender hollered back.
“Potter! Karl Potter!”
As if he had been expecting him, and without another word, the bartender reached beneath the alcohol-soaked bar and produced a key. He slid it across the bar at Karl. “Room number four.”
“Thanks,” Karl said, snatching up the key into his fist. “Is there any chance of getting any food sent up to my room?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” the bartender shouted. “Can’t you see how busy I am? There’s a vending machine at the foot of the stairs.” He pointed in the direction of a narrow staircase that led up into the dark.
“Thanks,” Karl shouted back, but the bartender had already moved onto the next drunken customer.
Snatching up his case, Karl then forced his way through the jostling crowd. As he drew near to the table where the holographic male stripper was wind-milling his dick, an old guy with bloodshot eyes and a white whiskered chin gripped Karl by the jacket. Staring bleary-eyed at Karl, but pointing to the stripper, he wheezed whisky laden fumes into his face.
“Don’t he look preeety.” The old guy grinned at Karl. “You look real preeety, too. Do you wanna go out back?”
Karl pulled the man’s hand free of his jacket. “Sorry, grandad, you’re not my type.”
“Asssshole!” the man screeched as Karl walked away.
At the foot of the stairs, Karl saw the vending machines the bartender had pointed out. They stood next to an ancient jukebox. A sign had been attached to the front of it, which read Out of Order!
Karl peered through the glass front of the vending machine at the pre-packaged food. None of it looked particularly appetizing. The corners of the sandwiches had curled up and appeared to be stale. Maybe the drunks outside hadn’t been drunk at all, but had had one too many sandwiches from the vending machine. Passing on the sandwiches, Karl slotted some credits into the machine and dispensed himself a packet of cookies and a bottle of milk. As he was tucking them into his jacket pocket, he was approached by the first working Bot he had seen since arriving in Outpost 71.
“What is your pleasure?” the Bot asked him.
That one simple question told Karl what kind of Bot it was. It had been designed and programmed to perform just one function, and that was to pleasure humans. Karl remembered how his father, Sean, had said that Sexbots were little more than glorified dildos that could talk and walk. But as Karl stood and looked at the Sexbot in the pulsating lights of the bar, he thought that it looked eerily human-like. Its chrome face was nondescript—ageless and sexless. Its huge, dark eyes took up almost half of its face. The robot’s chrome body was sleek and gleaming. It didn’t have breasts or sexual organs of any kind.
“What is your pleasure?” the Sexbot asked again, its voice neither male nor female.
“Follow me and I’ll tell you,” Karl said, turning and heading up the stairs to his room.
Without question, the robot followed.
Chapter Nineteen
The year 2067…
While Karl’s back had been turned and his attention focused on the two drunks that had staggered from the Night Diner, Officer Lisa Scott had taken her chance to slip away. She darted into the shadows of a nearby derelict building. Crouched low behind a pile of rubble, she watched Karl Potter look back in search of her. She ducked low once more. When she heard the thump-thump of the music fade as the bar door swung closed, she dared to take another tentative peek over the mound of bricks she hid behind. Karl was no longer standing outside the front of the bar. The only people she could see were the two drunks. One stood laughing to himself like a maniac, while the other swayed from side to side, wiping away the vomit that hung from his chin.
Knowing that the two males were blind drunk and totally unware of her nearby presence, Lisa stepped from her hiding place. Keeping to the shadows, she put on her helmet, pulling the visor down over her face. She reached round and pulled open the back of the black ballistic vest she wore. She twisted slightly at the waist and bent forward as a pair of wings sprang from her back. They arched high above her like black sheets of leather. The wings were webbed, and at the tip of each was a three-fingered claw that opened and closed as if snatching at the night air. With her wings beating and thrumming on either side of her, Lisa tilted back her head before launching herself at speed up into the night sky. The drunks believed the deafening boom Lisa left in her wake was nothing more than the thunderclap of an approaching storm.
With her arms tucked into her sides, and wings rippling on either side of
her, Lisa Scott raced back toward the heart of Outpost 71 and the apartments where she had left Sergeant Clio Shaw and Officer Selina Riley. What had taken nearly half an hour or more in Karl’s beat-up old car passed in a matter of moments as Lisa flew through the night high above the outpost. Spying the flashing emergency lights of the patrol car that continued to hover high in the air outside the apartment block, Lisa dropped out of the night sky. With her wings withdrawing into her back, hidden from view once more, she slid over the rain-drenched hood of the patrol car. With cat-like grace, she leapt over the scaffolding that surrounded the makeshift apartments and landed on the upper walkway. She made her way along it toward the large shipping crate that Lucy May had once called home. Sergeant Shaw and Officer Riley were still inside.
On seeing Lisa, Shaw flicked away the cigarette she had been smoking. She blew a stream of smoke from the corner of her mouth before speaking. “Did you get Potter to the Night Diner as planned?”
“Yes,” Lisa said, pulling the helmet from her head.
Selina came out of the shadows at the back of the container. “Does he suspect anything?”
“I don’t think so,” Lisa said, glancing down at Lucy May’s corpse that still lay sprawled on the floor. The sight of the maggots turned Lisa’s stomach, and she looked away.
“It’s unfortunate that he stumbled across this mess before we intercepted him,” Shaw said. “But that can’t be undone now.”
“Does Potter believe that the girl overdosed?” Selina asked, her eyes set on Lisa.
“I’m not sure,” Lisa said. “I think he did see something…”
“Do you think he has his mother’s gift of seeing?” Sergeant Shaw asked, before lighting another cigarette. The tip of it winked on and off in the gloom.
Lisa shook her head. “I’m not sure about that, either.”
“So what did he say in the time that you were with him?” Selina asked, sounding a little impatient.
“He spoke about his parents,” Lisa said.
“What did he say, exactly?” Shaw asked, eyes narrowing as she peered through the smoke that streamed from the corner of her mouth.
“Just that they were both dead,” Lisa explained. “Karl didn’t say anything we don’t already know.”
“Karl, huh?” Selina said with a knowing smile. “It didn’t take you long to get on first-name terms with him.”
“What am I meant to call him? Potter?” Lisa smiled back.
“That’s what people called his father,” Shaw said. “No one ever used his first name. But to be honest, I don’t care what you call him. I just need you to get close to him. Befriend him. Get him to trust you, Lisa.”
“I wouldn’t mind taking on that role,” Selina said. “He’s kind of hot.”
Shaw shot her a glance. “So why were you being such a bitch to him?”
“It was you who kicked him in the ribs when he was on the floor,” Selina reminded the Sergeant. “Then you went and slapped him in the face.”
“I was trying to wake him up,” Shaw said, flicking the smouldering end of the cigarette through the open doorway and out into the night where it had started to rain again. She turned to look at Lisa and Selina. “I want Lisa to befriend him. But just friends, okay? No funny stuff. I don’t want you getting too close. Let’s keep this whole thing business-like and professional. We have a job to do. Let’s not forget that.”
“Okay, I’ll do it,” Lisa said.
“How did I know you would agree so easily?” Selina cut in.
Was that a look of jealousy she could see in Selina’s eyes? Lisa smiled back at her. “Because like you said, he’s pretty hot.” Then, turning to look at Shaw, she added, “So what do you want me to find out?”
“What he thinks he saw take place in this slum tonight and how he came to see it,” Shaw said. Then, looking down at the corpse, she added, “Now let’s clean this mess up and get the fuck out of here.”
Chapter Twenty
The year 1973…
With the umbrella raised above her head against the driving snow, Annora raced toward the beat-up Capri. It sat exactly where she had left it. But as she neared the vehicle, she could see that beneath the snow, it no longer looked battered and rusty. The car’s bright yellow bodywork gleamed in the light that came from the neon sign above the Night Diner. The car now looked so new, it might have just been driven off the production line. As she reached the car, she went to pat her coat pockets in search of the car key. But she was no longer wearing the clothes she’d had on when she’d first arrived at the Night Diner. She glanced down at the black leather boots, short, flared denim skirt, and floral patterned blouse she now wore. Annora noticed that the blouse was still open where Nik Seth had ripped it. She pulled the front of it closed with one hand and glanced back over her shoulder in the direction of the Night Diner. Nik Seth, followed by several of the other wolfish diners, came racing forward. But it wasn’t only the sight of Nik and the others that caused her to draw breath. The Night Diner no longer looked like a giant-sized silver bullet. It was a tall, brick building, with what looked like some kind of car workshop adjacent to it. The diner was no longer surrounded by trees, but tall, rundown apartment blocks.
Feeling more confused than ever, Annora looked at Nik. Whatever injury she had caused Nik with the pointed end of the umbrella he was fast recovering from. He no longer had his hand to his shoulder, nor was he stumbling, but running at speed toward her.
Annora held the umbrella out. “Keep away from me!”
The sight of her brandishing the umbrella caused Nik and the others to come to a stop.
“Come back into the Night Diner,” Nik said as Annora peered around the umbrella at him. “We were having fun, weren’t we?”
“You tricked me!” Annora yelled at him. “You put me under some kind of spell. That wasn’t me in there—”
Nik spoke over her. “We can’t just let you walk away from here.”
While Nik spoke, Annora, hidden behind the open umbrella, glanced back into the car. To her relief, she saw the key swinging from the ignition. Wanting to keep Nik and the others distracted, she said, “Why should I come back with you? Give me one good reason.”
“Because people like us won’t always have to hide away—live in secret,” Nik said, as Annora carefully reached behind her and took hold of the car door handle. “One day, we will rise up against people like you—against the humans. We will become your equals. So why not join us instead of being against us?”
Annora eased the door open, and with the umbrella still open and held out in front, she dropped down into the driver’s seat. With her free hand, she hurriedly turned the key. She stifled the urge to scream with joy on hearing the car start at once. Realising that Annora was about to escape, Nik and the other wolves shot forward.
Annora lunged at them through the open car door with the umbrella. “Get away from me!”
One of the wolf-like men who had left the Night Diner with Nik scraped against the umbrella with his claws as he tried to reach for Annora and prevent her escape. As Annora hung out of the open door, she pushed her foot down onto the accelerator. The back wheels span, sending up a flurry of snow and slush into the night. As the car shot forward, the door swung shut, slamming against Annora’s arm. She cried out in pain, but refused to let go of the umbrella. As the car zigzagged across the road and away from the Night Diner, Annora glanced into the rearview mirror. She was relieved, yet surprised, to see Nik and the others standing in the middle of the road. Their eyes shone bright in the red glare of the car’s taillights. They didn’t pursue her. Perhaps to do so would only draw attention to themselves. From what Nik had said to Annora, he and his people wanted to live in secret. For now.
With her heart racing in her chest, Annora slowed the car to a crawl. She closed the umbrella before pulling it into the car. She dropped it onto the passenger seat. Her chest hitched up and down as she sped up again, heading back in the direction of Rock Shore. Annora’s mi
nd was spinning with confusion. She had no way of making any sense of anything that had happened since she had left Mr. Parker’s house where she had rented a room. As she headed into Rock Shore and across the town square, she glanced through the windscreen as the wipers fought back the driving snow. Although it was dark and the weather made visibility difficult, the town of Rock Shore didn’t look any different than when she had last seen it. The Christmas tree, with its brightly shining lights, still swayed back and forth in the wind. The town was deserted now, but that was to be expected due to the lateness of the hour.
But what about the Night Diner? she asked herself. That had looked different. Her clothes were different. Her mobile phone had seemingly vanished into thin air. What of Nik Seth—the wolf-man and the others like him? Had she imagined everything? Perhaps someone had spiked her drink in the bar. Perhaps everything she had seen and experienced had been nothing more than a drug-induced fantasy.
But there was a part of Annora that wasn’t buying such a theory.
She had seen too much—experienced too much for it to have been some kind of hallucination. So if that were true, what had really happened? Had she really travelled backward through time to the year 1973? And if so, why?
As Annora steered the car into the street where she had rented a room, she couldn’t believe she was even entertaining the thought that perhaps she had time-travelled. Shit like that only happened in movies and books. This was real life. It was her life. Perhaps after a good night’s sleep, she would wake to find that everything had just been a dream. But didn’t that kind of shit only happen in movies, too?
Annora parked the car at the kerb outside Mr. Parker’s house. She grabbed the umbrella and climbed from the car. After pushing open the front gate, and with snow blowing hard all about her, she went to the front door. For the second time that night, she instinctively went to put her hand into her coat pocket to reach for the door key that Mr. Parker had given to her. But she was no longer wearing the coat she had been wearing earlier that night. She pulled on the doorbell and stood shivering in the cold.