by Simon Rose
Whatever Max was going through it was clearly getting worse and he was no closer to finding the answer. He knew only one person that could help him. He picked up his phone and checked the time. It was just before nine o’clock. Max opened the contacts in his phone, found the number he needed, and made the call.
“Deanna, it’s Max. I need to see you. It’s very important.”
Chapter Thirteen
Rescue Mission
MAX STEPPED OFF the bus in the early morning sunshine in the older neighbourhood where Deanna lived. He quickly checked his pocket for the lock of his mother’s hair that he’d taken from the wooden box in his room. When he turned the corner, he saw Deanna’s car parked alongside the sidewalk. He hurried down the street until he reached the solid wood gate flanked by the high, thick hedge. He opened the gate and walked up to the door. As he approached, the door opened. Deanna was waiting for him.
“Hello, Max,” she said, smiling broadly, “how’ve you been?”
“Good, good,” Max replied, as he stepped inside the house.
“So what’s up?” she said, as she gently closed the door behind him.
“I wouldn’t have come here if it wasn’t important,” Max replied.
Deanna simply nodded.
“Let’s go and sit down. I was just having some tea. Would you like some?”
“No, thanks,” Max replied.
Deanna led him past the staircase and along the short hallway that led into the sitting room. She walked across to the window overlooking the rear of the house. She gestured for Max to take a seat in one of the easy chairs beside the coffee table, on which there was a teacup on a saucer. As Deanna closed the drapes, Max sat down and briefly glanced at the overflowing bookcases and the framed pictures on the walls. The antique grandfather clock ticked softly in the corner of the room. Deanna sat down on the couch on the opposite side of the coffee table, running her fingers through her hair.
“So,” she said, studying Max with her deep brown eyes. “What’s going on?”
“You know that I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t something important,” Max began.
“I know,” said Deanna, smiling, before taking a sip of her tea.
Max suspected that she probably already knew at least partially why he’d come to see her. He knew that it was useless to try and conceal things from Deanna but still decided not to tell her everything, at least not yet. He began by telling Deanna about his mother and how she’d died. He then explained that he’d been given the box containing his mother’s belongings on his birthday. Max didn’t mention Julia, Jesse’s website, or Connor and Drake visiting the school. He did, however, tell Deanna about his seeing his mother’s ghost in the hallway and on the sidewalk near his home, as well as the incident when the wooden box had fallen to the floor, scattering the contents in his bedroom. Max talked about the dreams he’d had featuring the tragic events at the train station, but didn’t reveal anything about the visions he’d had of the two laboratories. However, he did mention hearing what he firmly believed was the sound of his mother’s voice.
“And you think she’s trying to contact you, like David did?” Deanna asked.
“Yes,” replied Max. “She said that I had to go back to the beginning. I think she wants me to change things. I know what happened at the train station. I want you to help me to go back and save her. My mom’s voice told me to trust my new friend. I think she meant you.”
“I don’t know, Max,” said Deanna. “From what you’ve told me your mom clearly made her decision that day. It’s not really our role to change that.”
“What if she was murdered?”
“But she wasn’t,” said Deanna, frowning. “You said so yourself.”
Max took a deep breath.
“Because I was in her body, I saw what she saw. I remember a shadowy figure in the stairwell next to the track and I distinctly felt a push. You remember how I felt when David was injected with the needle?”
“Yes,” said Deanna, nodding. “I recall that. It was very unusual. So what are you suggesting? Just because you saw things through her eyes doesn’t mean that you can control her actions. It could just be a memory, perhaps something hereditary? I have to admit I’m guessing here.”
“But can we try? If I can just make her move at that crucial moment, before she fell, she’d still be alive today.”
Deanna shook her head.
“Anything could happen in a revised timeline between then and now. It could even affect who you are as a person. It’s too risky to alter the fates of people we’re connected to so closely.”
“But even if it does change events, surely it would be for the better? Look at what happened with David. I saved David’s life, and his parents’ and John Carrington’s.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the lock of his mother’s hair.
“This belonged to my mom. I thought this might help you to form a connection to her.”
“It might,” said Deanna. “But I’m really not sure about this. It could be very dangerous.”
“I know,” Max agreed. “But I’d really like to try, please. I really think we can do this.”
Deanna thought for a moment.
“Okay, Max,” she began. “Like I said, I’m really not sure about this, but let’s give it a try. You’re going to have to do a lot of the work this time. There was no family link to David when we did this before. It now appears that you can go into other people’s lives too. I’m not sure how you do that or if you can control it. I’ve never experienced anything like this before myself or heard of it happening to anyone else. There are rumours of people being able to enter the minds of living people and control them but I tend to think that’s a myth. Come over to the couch.”
Deanna finished her tea as Max walked around to the couch to lie down.
“Just like we did last time,” she said, “I’ll wake you up right away at the first sign of trouble, okay?”
Max nodded. Yet although he’d experienced this before he still couldn’t help feeling slightly uneasy.
“I want you to hold the lock of hair,” said Deanna, as Max lay down on the couch. “I also want you to focus on those things in the box that belonged to your mom. Now relax. Close your eyes and breathe deeply.”
Max did as she instructed.
“Okay,” Deanna said, softly. “Keep breathing deeply. Just relax, deep breaths.”
Max slowly drifted into a hypnotic state as Deanna’s voice gradually faded away then vanished completely.
MAX FOUND HIMSELF standing in the sunshine beside the kiosk on the train platform. Glancing in the kiosk’s window he saw his mother’s face. His dad was standing beside the stroller containing the infant Max. Then Max once again heard himself speak in his mother’s voice.
“Is he okay?”
“Yeah, just a little hungry, I think,” his dad replied. “Let’s hope he can wait until we get home.”
Max bent down and leaned into the stroller to kiss the baby on the cheek.
“Okay. Just drive him up and down the platform a little. I’ll see if the train’s nearly here.”
Max desperately wanted to prevent his mother from walking toward the tracks but was powerless to stop her progress. As he approached the tracks, he looked over his shoulder and saw his dad begin pushing the stroller along the platform. Max continued to struggle to control his mother’s movement but stopped at the edge of the empty section of the platform next to the underpass entrance. He couldn’t prevent his mother from leaning over the edge of the platform to peer along the track as the train approached the station. He was about to turn back toward the kiosk when someone suddenly pushed him in the back. He heard the terrified screams of the onlookers and caught a fleeting glimpse of a figure retreating into the shadows of the underpass as he fell into the path of the onrushing train. Max then felt the thud of the impact and was instantly pulled under the train.
Chapter Fourteen
Full Disclosure
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“MAX! MAX!”
He was back on the couch. Max could barely breathe and his heart was hammering in his chest. He felt like he was going to vomit and his mouth was covered in blood. Deanna helped him to sit up.
“What the hell happened?” she asked, handing him some tissues to wipe his face.
“I was there. I felt them push me. I really felt it. I even saw someone in the darkness at the top of the steps to the underpass, but I couldn’t make out their features clearly.”
He grabbed her wrist.
“I even felt the train hit me and being pulled underneath it.”
Deanna looked very alarmed but quickly regained her composure.
“You were having some kind of seizure, far worse than when I first sent you back into David’s life. I thought you were going to die. It looked like you were having a heart attack. There was a stream of blood pouring out of your nose and seeping from the corners of your mouth.”
“We have to try again,” said Max, regaining his composure. “I just have to try harder to control her actions, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry, Max, it’s too dangerous. It’s not possible to get past the trauma of your mother’s death. The next time may even kill you.”
“What about going further back, to before the accident?” Max asked. “David’s death was too traumatic as well so we had to go back earlier, remember? Maybe we can try an earlier period, perhaps before the zoo trip so that she never even went to the station. Maybe that’s what she meant when she told me to go back to the beginning?”
“I don’t know, Max. You could seriously derail your own timeline. It’s far too risky.”
Max thought for a moment as he finished wiping the blood from his face.
“Could you send me back into my dad’s past, into his body?”
“What?”
“Well, we tried to do it with my mom but that didn’t work because of the horror of her death. What about him? He was there too.”
Deanna shook her head.
“It’s too dangerous. It could alter things for the worse.”
“It worked with David.”
“But he was already dead at that time.”
“Like my mom,” said Max.
“Yes,” replied Deanna, calmly, “but your dad isn’t. Anything you do back there, whether you’re altering events or just affecting his thoughts and opinions, could be disastrous and there’s no way of knowing that. David was murdered but he was able to connect with you to alter his fate.”
“What if it’s the same with my mom? I know there’s a connection to Kovac.”
Max quickly explained about the visions he’d had of the two laboratories and seeing his mother’s face in the mirror.
“That’s very odd,” said Deanna. “And you say that you recognized a younger Kovac in the vision where people were speaking a foreign language?”
“Yes, and I recognized the lab from the waterfront in the other vision.”
“That could just be part of the memories you have from being there as David. It may not mean anything at all, even if you felt that you were in your mother’s body.”
Max swallowed hard. He knew that it was time to tell Deanna everything.
“I saw my mom’s photograph on a website called SecretConspiracyXpose. There are pictures of missing people on one page, all linked to the cover up at the waterfront. Jesse doesn’t know all the details but—”
“Who’s Jesse?” Deanna interrupted.
“He runs the site, and he has lots of theories but doesn’t know everything, and I haven’t told him what I know. He’d probably never believe how I found out anyway. He just thinks I’m interested in my mom’s death. Most of the people on the site don’t mean anything to me, but not only was my mom on there but so is that guy that Kane experimented on when you were at the waterfront. They dumped him in the woods. His disappearance was still logged, and he recovered, but a few years later he was killed in a hit and run accident. They never caught the driver.”
“That doesn’t mean he was murdered, Max,” said Deanna. “And these conspiracy people are usually a little crazy. Surely you know that?”
“Normally I’d think that too, but Jesse also has proof that my mom was pushed. He’s seen security camera footage from the station.”
“Have you seen this footage?”
“No,” Max admitted.
“So it might not even exist.”
“Yes,” said Max. “I know that, but I believe him and so does Julia, my friend at school. She’s spoken to Jesse before as well and she’s been helping me.”
Deanna frowned.
“You never mentioned her before,” said Deanna.
“I didn’t know her before but she told me she’s seen my mom’s ghost with me sometimes.”
“And you believe her?”
“I do,” Max replied. “She sees ghosts and she seems to know what I’m thinking sometimes. We also shared a memory recently.”
“What sort of memory?
“It was just random, about two boys at the playground. It could have been a memory of my mom’s or one of Julia’s and our experiences together were somehow linked.”
“Did you recognize anything in the vision?” asked Deanna.
“No, nothing.”
“Well, it sounds as if she could be a psychic. The gift is often slightly different each time for those that have it. I’d like to meet this new friend of yours.”
“I don’t know where she is,” Max admitted. “We had an argument last night. I think she was just scared about everything. Two men came to the school, saying they were from the police. They asked Julia some questions the other day. They talked to me in the principal’s office yesterday as well. Deanna, it was Connor and Drake.”
Deanna gasped.
“The guys that worked for Kovac? But they wouldn’t even know you now. The timeline was changed.”
“I think it’s about our connections to Jesse’s website,” Max continued. “Julia’s mom is on there too. She mysteriously disappeared for a few days when she was a teenager. A few years later she died when she froze to death in a winter storm. Julia was only around a year old. Her mom was said to have had mental health issues, which probably didn’t exist.”
“So?” said Deanna. “None of this proves anything.”
“Maybe, but all the others on the site died in accidents or suicides, including my mom. Jesse doesn’t think he’s identified all the people who were experimented on either and expects more unexplained deaths in the future.”
“Max, it could still be some crazy guy putting two and two together to make five and . . .”
“We have proof,” said Max. “Julia and I compared a lot of the faces and their details with their death certificates.”
“Their death certificates?”
Max paused before continuing.
“Julia and I broke into the Records department at the hospital.”
“You did what?” said Deanna, in astonishment.
“Well, it wasn’t really breaking in. Jeff’s mom works there and they’re on vacation, so I used her pass to get access.”
“You broke into your friend’s house too?”
“No, I just know where the spare key’s kept. We used the pass to get into the office at the hospital. We checked all the records and they matched.”
“I’m sorry, Max,” said Deanna, standing up from the couch. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”
“But it proves everything,” Max insisted. “I know I can save my mom.”
“No, Max, you can’t, at least not with my help. She’s been gone a long time and you can’t bring her back. Your dad accepts it and so did you until recently. And now you’re telling me that the people attached to Kovac’s operation are active again and might be killing people associated with the operation. If they’re interested in you and your friend for some reason, they might even be coming after me. You said yourself that this guy Jesse thinks there are other victims and
we both know that means I’m a likely target. I’m sorry, but I can’t get involved in all this, not again.”
“But you have to help me,” Max pleaded.
“I’d like you to leave.”
She marched out of the room and toward the front door, with Max following closely behind.
“But Deanna . . .”
She opened the front door and stood beside it.
“I’m sorry, Max,” she said. “I can’t help you any longer.”
Max was about to protest again but knew he’d be wasting his time. Deanna had clearly made up her mind. Max stepped outside. Deanna closed the door and Max heard her replace the chain. He knew that if he was ever going to put things right, he was now entirely on his own.
Chapter Fifteen
Charting a New Course
MAX HURRIED HOME. He was determined to put things right, despite the risks that he and Deanna had discussed. It appeared that he couldn’t save his mother by altering her actions and wasn’t prepared to risk trying it again. Yet he was convinced that he could go back into his dad’s younger life. Although Max hadn’t really been aware of his ability in the summer he’d been able to become David and alter his fate. Max had also been inside both his mother’s body and that of April Taylor, if only briefly. He appreciated everything Deanna had said about them already being dead and the risks to his dad if Max attempted what he had in mind but Max knew that he had to try. His dad had admitted that he thought about whether he could have saved Max’s mother. Now Max had the opportunity to do just that.