The Traveler: A Time Travel Thriller

by Fredric Shernoff

  Helena and I smiled at each other as we left the hospital. A fair amount of pressure had been removed from my chest now that I knew I wasn’t showing signs of an imminent demise. I felt a bit better about everything, to tell you the truth. Those brief moments with Helena when we were as close as we had once been, man, those moments could lift my spirits through any hardship. My only lingering concern was that I would have to be on constant watch for signs of something happening. I hadn’t noticed much of anything the previous times until it was underway. If I fell into one of those hallucinations again I would have a hell of a time trying to pop a pill. That meant I’d have to ride it out as long as it took, and I knew how well that had worked for me the last time.

  “Something on your mind?” Helena asked as we got in the car.

  “Just thinking that I don’t know how to anticipate what happens to me. I guess if we’re in the same room you could shove the pills down my throat.”

  “And miss you ranting about whatever it is you think you’re seeing?” she smiled. “My life’s not all that exciting. If you start rambling about being on the front lines in the Civil War, I’m going to grab a snack and watch the show.”

  “Oh, good,” I laughed. “Your support is overwhelming.”

  As we made our drive home, a funny thought occurred to me. When I was younger, I had held a brief fascination with the idea of lucid dreaming. That’s this weird state where the conscious mind exerts itself during dreams. With some practice, a person can choose to “become lucid” and direct the flow of events in the dream. I had some degree of success when I had practiced back in college. I hadn’t done it in a long time. Now, riding in the car, I wondered… could these visions, or hallucinations or whatever they were be anticipated? Could they be controlled? If they were projections of my distorted subconscious, what might I learn about myself by exploring just a little?

  Chapter 4

  1

  A little over a week later I travelled again. I was sitting at work, listening to the guy in the cubicle across from me go on and on about how much the boss loved everything he was doing. I felt a little woozy and got up to go to the bathroom.

  “Daniel, where you going?” Brendon called. “I was just getting to the best part, where Steve reviewed the recordings of my most recent calls and…hey! Whatever, man. You’re missing out.”

  By the time I made it to the bathroom I had nervous sweat breaking out on my forehead. Any thought of the fun of experimenting with my visions was far from my mind. All I could think was how stupid I’d been to forget to bring my pills to work. What if I was about to take off my clothes in front of the whole office? I pushed open the door, and rushed to the one stall in the room. Thankfully, it was empty. I sat on the closed toilet lid, fully clothed, and felt the sweat run down my face and settle in my crisply starched collar.

  I tried hard to focus on something…anything. I settled for the graffiti across the door that said, “Jesus loves me.” I always found myself staring at that message every time I used that bathroom. Personally, I couldn’t speak to Jesus’s feelings for me but I had stopped loving him years earlier. I guess when you have gay friends, black friends and several other minorities who don’t get their fair shake in life, especially from the bible-thumping Christians, it’s really hard to buy into all that stuff. Anyhow, I did think it was nice to see that somebody had felt so loved he just had to share his feelings with every guy who stopped to take a crap in the middle of the workday.

  Suddenly, I felt a strange shift, like I’d fallen a little bit. The closest thing I can come up with to explain it is that feeling you get when you drift off to sleep watching a lecture or something boring and then startle awake. In my case, though, I never closed my eyes. I was staring forward the whole time and in a fraction of a second the graffiti was gone. Not erased or faded, but really gone. Crisp, unblemished paint was all I could see in front of me. I looked down and noticed two things. One, my clothes had vanished. Two, the toilet lid and seat were both up and I was sitting on the bowl. I jumped up in disgust, and the graffiti reappeared. Like the flash of a strobe light, one instant it was gone, the next it had returned. I looked behind me. The seat was once again closed, and my work attire was draped over it. Buttons in place, tie looped and knotted.

  It was that same appearance of clothes left behind in a biblical rapture (Jesus loves me!) as I had found in my car outside the convenience store. But that was different. I had been gone a long period of time back then and the only thing strangely attached had been the snap of my jeans. This… unless I had lost track of time during my vision, there was just no explanation for the rebuttoning of my shirt and retying of my tie. I dressed as quickly as possible. My queasiness had dissipated but my anxiety was back. This was not a “normal” hallucination, as best I could tell.

  I rushed back into the office. “Hey, Daniel,” said Brendon, “you’re back just in time to hear the end of the story. Take a seat, buddy.”

  That settled it, then. I hadn’t been lost in my vision for any longer than I’d thought. There had not been enough time to have removed all my clothes and arranged them so neatly. I excused myself and decided it was time to take a sick day. Hell, I’d saved up plenty the past year.

  I left the office and wandered out into the bright sun of an unseasonably warm autumn day. The heat didn’t help clear my mind. I got in my car, drove to the opposite end of the office park and then got out and walked. I left my wallet and cellphone locked in the glove compartment, and I stashed the key under the driver’s seat. I don’t know to this day what inspired me to take a risk like that. I just had a feeling it was safer to leave all of that than to take it with me. I probably went about a quarter mile and then I stopped and sat in a spot where the bushes would hide me well enough but where I could still keep an eye on the road.

  I decided right then and there that I was going to get a handle on this thing, whatever it was. If the doctor was right, it was just my oversized brain sending me goofy messages. Well, I was going to interpret those messages one way or another. I unbuttoned my shirt and my pants and took off my tie. I tried to let my mind go blank. Tried to stare out at the road and the passing cars the way I’d stared at the graffiti in the bathroom stall. Let it come, I thought. Come to me, visions. Let’s see what you’ve got.

  My peripheral vision caught site of a big Honda SUV working its way down the street. I felt pressure build behind my eyes and the earliest twinge of a headache. The big vehicle came close enough for me to make out the face of a middle-aged woman behind the wheel. Then, suddenly, the woman and the car vanished. Blinked out of existence. My heart started to race, fear and excitement mingling in one adrenaline-inducing mix. The car reappeared, about where I’d last seen it. It travelled on and I turned to follow its path with my eyes. I willed myself to calm down. I concentrated on my breathing, counting eight long seconds for each inhalation. On the third breath the SUV, now small in the distance, disappeared again. I felt a shocking shift in temperature. I looked around and saw a grey sky and bare skeletons of trees. Along the corners of the parking lots I could see bordering the street were small piles of dirty snow. The remnants of a large snowstorm now melting away. I held my arms to my bare chest and shivered.

  There were no cars anywhere. No people, either. I laughed at the strange illusion I had created. Other than that one time with the screaming, naked woman, I hadn’t seen people in any of my visions. I thought maybe my brain just didn’t have the capacity to flesh out the fake world, but then… I looked down at the ground that was chilling its way through my ass. The resolution and detail of the earth was just too real to be an illusion. I wanted to explore more but was concerned I’d get hit by a car that my brain was not letting me see at the moment. Instead, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of the icy air. I exhaled and felt the temperature rise again. When I opened my eyes, it seemed I was back in the real world. I was sitting on a pile of my clothes, all unbuttoned as I’d left them.

  I pulled m
y underwear and pants back on and tried to plan my next move. I knew something unusual was happening, something that could not be explained the way the doctor had presented it. What it was, I wasn’t entirely sure. I think the possibility that I was actually time traveling had started to cross my mind but what I was experiencing just didn’t fit with any kind of time travel I’d ever seen in the movies or read about in books. It’s not like I had a time machine to whisk me away on an adventure. This was just me, drifting from one moment to the next and losing my clothes in the process.

  And that was what struck me as particularly odd. Why were my clothes not coming with me in these visions? Was that my unconscious mind telling me something? If so, I had no idea what it was saying. I wondered if the process could be influenced, like the lucid dreams I had studied. If so, keeping my clothes on might be a good place to start, especially if I was truly removing my attire in an elaborate sleep-stripping each time a vision took hold.

  I closed my eyes again, and visualized myself in the attire I was actually wearing. I tried to imagine the details of my grey pants down to the direction of the individual fibers in the fabric. At the same time, I allowed my mind to go to that place it wanted to go, piercing through the invisible veil of uncomfortable pressure.

  I had the sense through my closed eyelids that the light had diminished. The temperature actually seemed to increase this time, and the air became thicker and more humid. I opened my eyes and found myself in the middle of a field, corn growing all around me. Then I remembered what I had wanted to test. I stood up and looked at my legs. My pants and underwear were still on, though the other clothes I had neglected to put back on were nowhere to be found.

  I debated if it would be safe to explore. If this was a vision and I was taking my real body with me, I ran a serious risk of falling into the street, being hit by a car, walking into a tree… I kept coming up with possible dangers I might face. But then I considered the other, more remote possibility. If I had travelled somewhere else, then what I saw was all there was. I wouldn’t have to deal with the threats of the real world until I returned.

  I walked a few cautious paces, brushing against the tall cornstalks as I went. I could see the phenomenal level of detail in the corn. I saw insects crawling around the stalks and along the ground. I walked faster, gaining confidence. I wanted to see how far the cornfield went and I wanted to know how deep this experience, whatever it was, could go.

  I moved more quickly through the corn, reaching a brisk jogging pace. I zigzagged around the stalks and looked for a sign of anything different. Any end to the rows and rows of corn. I began to think that what I was seeing was akin to a very limited virtual reality simulator. Turn the setting to “cornfield” and go have fun.

  Suddenly, I saw a large shape in the distance. I quickly identified it as a farm house, and I realized it sat several paces beyond where the corn finally came to an end. I ran through the last rows of cornstalks and emerged on a dusty path that separated the field from the grass surrounding the house. An old style tractor sat off to the side. I had seen vehicles that looked something like that before, but they were always rusted and long-used. This one was bright and clean, like it had been newly purchased. It was also different, somehow, than others I had seen. Primitive.

  Curiosity had completely overridden any common sense or sense of self-preservation. I was in too deep. I approached the house and climbed the sturdy wood steps. The porch had two empty rocking chairs with a table between. I could see the craftsmanship that had gone into each piece of furniture. The door was simple, but inlaid with one square of glass. Through it, I could see a hallway stretching the full depth of the house and a staircase.

  Without giving myself time to weigh pros and cons I knocked on the door. As soon as I did it I laughed at myself. Did I really think there were people living in this elaborate construct I saw all around me? Then I heard footsteps and everything changed.

  2

  A man with slightly greying hair and a trimmed, very grey beard walked up to the door from inside the house. He eyed me with suspicion, and I couldn’t blame him. Remember, I wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  He opened the door with a confidence that surprised me. This was a man who was not used to trouble showing up at his doorstep and who did not anticipate a problem from strangers, even from one as strangely attired as me. “Good day, friend.” he said. “Do I know you?”

  “No, sir,” I said, trying to be on my best behavior. “My name is Daniel. I’m… new around here and I seem to have become lost in your field.”

  He laughed, a warm sound that put me at ease. “Well, Daniel, I’m Levi. Tell me, what happened to your clothes?”

  “I took them off in all the heat. Thought I could come back around and pick them up but I have no clue where they are.”

  Something about my style of speech or maybe my accent gave Levi pause. Then he gave his head a slight shake as if he was dismissing the stray thoughts that had crept into his mind. “Come in and sit a spell. We’ll set you back on your proper path soon enough.”

  I followed him into the house. I was debating two courses of action. One, I could indeed sit with this man and have a conversation. Two, I could decide that this particular experiment had gone on long enough and I should stop and study my findings. Though I thought the second choice was the more prudent way to go, I found myself following the man into his kitchen.

  “You say you’re new to these parts?” Levi called over his shoulder.

  “Yes, I came looking for work.” Where did that come from?

  “Ah. I’m sorry to say that work is not any more plentiful here than in other parts of the country, if the newspaper is to be believed.”

  “Perhaps I could help you on the farm.”

  Levi smiled. “Kind of you to offer. Very kind. We have all the help we need here. I have three sons and they take care of most of the chores.” He looked off, wistfully. “There was a time I’d do much of the work on the farm myself but the years have passed all too quickly.”

  “I’m slowly coming to understand that myself,” I said.

  Levi laughed as he pointed to a dark wooden chair and I took a seat. “Oh, you must be at least a decade or two younger than me. Young enough to not fully appreciate both how wonderful and how difficult we have it now compared to when I was born. Post-war reconstruction was a difficult time, at least the way my pa told it.” He paused in thought. “He passed many a year ago.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” I stopped to consider what he was telling me. I judged him to be a man in his fifties, though hard labor and the sun can age a man before his time. Still, I thought, if I was right and the war he referenced was the Civil War—Helena’s tease from outside the hospital came back to me at that moment—that meant this environment I found myself in was supposed to be what? The 1930’s? Seemed to fit. Levi’s talk about people trying to find labor across the country… I’ve never been a historian but it just made sense to me.

  A knock at the front door interrupted my thoughts. “Excuse me,” said Levi. He jumped up from his seat and left the kitchen. I looked around the room. There were no appliances to speak of. Other than the tractor, everything I saw was dated, even by 1930 standards. This was a family that did not keep up with the times. Luddites, I suppose.

  This was all becoming a little too much for me. Intricate fantasy or no, I had overstayed my welcome. I didn’t want Levi’s line of questioning to get to a point where I couldn’t answer. Even though I wasn’t convinced he was anything more than a figment of my imagination, I liked the guy. I didn’t want to disappoint him. Sounds weird, I know.

  I closed my eyes and let my mind work the trick that was already becoming second nature. This time I felt the chair disappear from under me, and I fell down again. So stupid! I yelled at myself. Sit on the floor next time!

  I opened my eyes. I was in a parking lot in the office complex. I recognized the building. It was far from where I’d left my car and even farther from whe
re I’d left the remainder of my clothes. I’d wandered a great distance through all that corn. Had I been sleep-walking after all? If so I was lucky to be alive. Something about that just didn’t work for me, though. It was more than my mind that had been in that other place. I knew it on a deep level.

  I worked my way back to my car, staying out of sight as best I could. It was later in the work day but not as late as it should have been. Not enough time had passed to account for my journey to the farm and the brief time I spent chatting with Levi. I drove to where I’d hidden my clothes. They were just as I’d left them. I got dressed and drove home as fast as I could. I had an idea and I needed to sit down and do some research.

  Helena was not home from work yet. That gave me the opportunity I needed. I sat down in front of my laptop and opened a web browser. I Googled for a few minutes until I found what I was looking for. There was a 1930 census record for a Levi Berm who was born in 1876 and lived exactly where the farmhouse was in my little trip. I wished more than anything that I could see a photo, but there was none. There was something else, though. Something maybe even more shocking.

  An article from the 1970’s came up in my search that described the construction of the earliest part of the office park. It said that the construction was taking place on a plot of farm land known to the locals as “Levi’s Confusion.” The article went on to explain, “The land was named after its owner in the early part of the 20th century. Levi Berm, a farmer, claimed to have been visited by a stranger in 1931. When he left the room, the stranger ‘disappeared.’ The story became widely known throughout Mifflin Township. Locals thought that Levi had been ‘confused’ by what he thought he had experienced. Levi, who must have been a good sport, renamed his land after the jokes.”