The Traveler: A Time Travel Thriller

by Fredric Shernoff

  “Hey, Nate and I got confidence to spare and look at us.”

  I laughed. “You guys aren’t so bad.”

  Nate chuckled and handed me back the soda in a plastic bag. “Here you go, man. I’m sure you’ve got places to be. Thanks for the pep talk. Appreciate you hanging out for a little bit. Gets lonely only having this dumb lunk to talk to.”

  Will hit him on the arm. I got the impression they were very close friends.

  “Don’t mention it,” I said. “You know, you can always get a GED, go to college and all that.”

  “Nah,” said Will. “It’s like you said. What’s in the past is in the past. This is who I am now and it’s fucking okay, you know? I work with cars. I like cars. It’s fine with me.”

  I thanked them and left the store. I drank the soda as I walked and I thought about the strange conversation. The mechanic’s words stuck with me. The past is in the past. And yet, there I was, creating new memories in a world that for me had already come and gone.

  Chapter 8

  1

  My first thought upon arriving at Tookany Middle School was that the building hadn’t changed at all from how I remembered it. Then the ridiculousness of that statement hit me. Even then, I was shocked when I realized that I recognized every one of the handful of children milling about, waiting for parents to pick them up. I didn’t see any of my friends but I had at least a passing familiarity with everyone and several of the kids had been in my classes. None of them seemed to take notice of me. I was considerably younger than most of their parents, yet I think to them I didn’t appear all that different. Just another adult from the foreign world of “Grown Up.”

  I was already exhausted from the several blocks I’d walked to get to the school from the gas station. I had been right about my shoes. Definitely the wrong choice for any serious amount of hiking. I could feel chaffing around my heels on both feet. No blisters yet, but I knew I’d be smart to take it easy.

  I took my time moving down the hill on the sidewalk that traced the route through the parking lot. The school actually consisted of two buildings. In my eighth grade year, following an invasive and interruptive construction process, they were connected by a semi-enclosed walkway. In 1993 there was just a simple path. I walked around the first building, reserved for the oldest students, and passed a view of the sports fields. The main building was ahead of me, its slightly orange bricks increasing in definition as I approached.

  I decided to enter the building through the main door. I could have done things a sneaky way, popping up through the lower level by the sixth grade classrooms, but I wanted to seem like I was there for a reason and not like I had something to hide. The lobby looked as I remembered it. The bulletin boards were freshly papered, awaiting the artwork and other projects that would be tacked up as the school year progressed. A few had notices or other decorations and titles explaining which class was responsible for that particular board.

  It all looked so right. I don’t know if it’s possible I actually remembered those particular bulletin board displays in those specific color combinations and patterns, but maybe on some level I did. The familiarity was in a way as shocking as the differences like the door chime in the bank. I wondered if I should check in at the office, but decided that it probably wasn’t necessary and might serve to catch me up in something I could otherwise avoid.

  Again I recognized the few students who I saw wandering the halls. So bizarre. I had to keep reminding myself not to stare at them too much. I was getting a few odd looks and that would not lead me anywhere positive. I crossed the library and walked toward the hall leading to the auditorium. I hadn’t done much in the theater in my time as a student in that school, but I was in a show in sixth grade, and I did choir in either seventh or eighth. Funny, I really can’t say for sure which it was. In between I sat through many, many assemblies in that auditorium. Most weren’t memorable at all, but I recalled two specifically:

  In one, we were all brought in following an incident where a black girl and her friends—mostly white guys, if I remember correctly—beat and hospitalized a boy who had talked some kind of shit to her. His parents pulled him out and they sued the school. He returned sometime in my high school years, pretty strung out on drugs. I don’t know if there’s a correlation or not. Either way, the assembly was short on details, not that we needed them— the rumor mill took care of that. It just served to remind everyone that beating the crap out of people was not considered acceptable behavior.

  The other was this thing with giant screens all across the stage and multiple projectors showing images and videos spreading an anti-drug message. It was all set to some great early ’90s songs. Not sure why that assembly stuck with me. I guess I liked the music.

  I entered the auditorium and sat in one of the uncomfortable seats near the back. The seats had these wooden things that could come up and fold over to provide a writing surface, like a makeshift desk. I pulled mine up and realized the hinge was broken. I fiddled with it a little and put it back down. I’d never seen them used in my time as a student. I wondered if they had been utilized in an earlier decade. Again, I made a mental note about a possible future time travel adventure, and again I wished I had my phone so I could write my notes down.

  I sat and reflected for a few minutes, catching my breath and letting my feet rest. Then I got up and left the auditorium. I walked back toward the main lobby, and popped into my seventh grade math class on the right. The room was empty. I stood near the front of the class and looked out over all the desks. I realized that my younger self had been sitting in that very room earlier in the day, not knowing how much he was going to come to hate that Pre-Algebra course.

  The sound of a man clearing his throat nearly made me jump through the ceiling. “Are you looking for someone?”

  I spun around. There, in the doorway, was Mr. Tolos. Looking, of course, just as I remembered him. He had the look of a man who had once been in the military but had let himself go considerably in the years since he had rejoined civilian life. My mind once again kicked into overdrive, gears spinning away as I contrived my talking points.

  “No, sorry,” I said, “I was just doing a little reminiscing.”

  He seemed to buy the story. “Were you a student here?”

  I did the math in my head. “Yes, way back. Mid ‘70s. Place hasn’t changed all that much.”

  Mr. Tolos smiled. His smile had always looked a bit sneaky to me. Maybe it was the small mustache above that made him look a little nasty, but I had always thought that even as a teacher in his forties or fifties or whatever age he was, he was not far removed from being a teenager who had probably bullied kids like me.

  “Really? I was just starting out here back then. Were you in my class, Mr…”

  This time my mouth produced a contrived answer before I had time to consider it. “Bieber. Justin Bieber. No, Mr. Tolos, I had the other math teacher…”

  “Mr. Smith?” he offered.

  “Yes, yes. Mr. Smith. I totally forgot his name. I’m getting old.”

  He laughed. “If you’re getting old, I hate to think what that makes me. So what brings you back to your old stomping grounds, Mr. Bieber?”

  “I’m in town for the computer convention going on at the Expo Center. Thought I’d swing by and see this place. Lot of memories.”

  “Well, it’s good to know that some of the students remember their time here.”

  Oh yeah, I remember your class in particular, asshole, I thought.

  “Yup,” I said, “I’ll never forget it.”

  We said goodbye and I left Mr. Tolos to his classroom and to a school year in which he would see me struggling with both the material and my twelve-year-old self esteem and would embarrass me in front of the class for it over and over again. I wished that I had hit him with some kind of real zinger to put him in his place. Maybe I could have made some profound statement that would change his outlook on teaching forever.

  Instead I had shied
away and had left the classroom as quickly as possible. It was easy to blame it on fear of disrupting the timestream. I knew from my time visiting Levi Berm that my actions could and would change things. Even this brief chat with Mr. Tolos might have altered something, but I certainly didn’t want to make a huge impact, even if it could have made my seventh grade year easier. I wasn’t yet convinced that interfering like that in my own life wouldn’t cause some kind of paradox that would blow up the universe.

  Yes, all of that was very true, but the truth is the man still intimidated me a little bit, in the way he had intimidated me when I was a shy pre-teen. It’s one thing to see an old teacher twenty years later when he’s become a senior citizen and you’re an adult in the prime of life. Quite another to see the guy looking exactly how you remember him, let me tell you.

  I wanted to spend some time in the library, but I just didn’t have a good story to cover myself if and when the librarian found me. I could use the same lines about being an old student come back to visit, but I just knew that trying to pass the same lies repeatedly would catch me eventually. Better to keep moving.

  I left by the downstairs entrance. I planned to circle around the building and walk back out to the street the same way I had entered the school grounds. Outside the building I walked a few paces, trying to rouse my legs for the hike back to the hotel. The thought of ordering a pizza directly to my room and watching some shitty television sounded just about perfect. Then, I heard the sound of boys laughing.

  I came around the corner of the building and saw in the distance a tall boy with dark hair in a hideous mushroom cut stalking diagonally behind a smaller boy with his head down, backpack drawn high up on his shoulders. Two other boys, all with the same stupid haircuts followed further back. The tall boy was taunting the smaller one, and his friends were laughing along.

  “What did you think, that you could hang out with us?” the tall boy shouted. “Did you think we’d be your friends?”

  I was too far away to hear the smaller kid’s mumbled response. I drew closer. Alarms were sounding in my head to stay away, but my feet were carrying me forward just the same.

  “We’re not your friends, Danny boy,” the tall boy said. I felt lightheaded and thought I might faint. The boy with the pack was me. I knew the other kids too. The tall boy was Jeff Berger, and his friends were George and Victor. Just like the bulletin boards had seemed familiar even if I didn’t remember them specifically, I had no recollection of this particular encounter but it reminded me of many others I did remember.

  Jeff gave the younger me a shove and all the boys laughed. Though I knew I shouldn’t intervene, I couldn’t help myself. “Yo, kids, knock it off,” I yelled out, making my voice sound as deep and serious as I could.

  Jeff stopped in his tracks. “We’re just playin’ with our friend, man, why don’t you mind your own business?”

  I walked closer, faster than before. They were just ten feet away from me. “When I see someone getting bullied by a bunch of assholes, it becomes my business.” I knew from personal experience that they weren’t really a “bunch of assholes.” George and Victor were pretty harmless. Away from their group of buddies, neither had ever caused me any grief. Jeff was the problem. There are few people in the world I hate, and none as much as him. My dislike of him had started in middle school and had wormed its way deep into my heart and never left. Forgive and forget did not apply for me when it came to Jeff Berger.

  “Who you calling an asshole, old man?” he said.

  “I believe I was referring to you, son.” I responded. My heart was beginning to race as adrenaline flooded my system. As I drew near, I turned to my younger self and despite my misgivings about the fate of the universe decided to give some advice.

  “Kid, these guys are losers. This one especially.” I jerked my thumb toward Jeff. “Not gonna amount to anything in the world. Just walk away.”

  Jeff truly hadn’t amounted to anything in the years after school, at least for a while. It seems to me that one of the flaws in that whole campaign to tell bullied kids that it all gets better is that the bullies, many of whom don’t have great career prospects, often join the military or the police force, creating a situation where we, the victims, have to consider them heroes. Jeff was one of those bullies, joining the marines a few years out of college.

  “Yeah, Danny, just walk away,” said Jeff, and gave my young version a hard shove. I saw myself fall to the ground, and all thought and reason went away. I don’t know how to explain it. Maybe parents protecting their kids could relate to similar feelings. All I know is that I lost control.

  I lunged at Jeff, pulled both his legs forward into the air and drove him hard into the grass. He was probably about my height, maybe even a tiny bit taller, but he was lanky as hell. On the other hand, I picked up my first real weights at thirteen and now had the muscle of all those years of progress. I probably outweighed him by a good thirty pounds. Also, I had been watching mixed martial arts for years and knew the simplest basics about fighting. I don’t even know if the sport had appeared in the states yet in 1993.

  I moved over Jeff’s scrambling legs and sat down low on his stomach. He had little chance of moving me off but I wasn’t wasting time anyway. I unloaded angry punch after brutal elbow to his face, his torso, his arms, anything I could reach to hit. Looking back, I’m amazed his friends didn’t jump me but they must have been scared to death. Nobody intervened. I wailed away, letting go of years of pent up aggression and resentment. My hands were hurting but still I slammed down on him. Finally, as the rage began to subside, I realized Jeff was unconscious. His bloody face was unrecognizable. I stumbled to my feet.

  I looked around. George and Victor were white as ghosts and standing with arms at their sides and mouths agape. I made eye contact with little Dan, whom I had now certainly taught some kind of lesson, though I didn’t know what that was. He looked… amazed and somehow both pleased and terrified at the same time. I wasn’t sure if I liked that look or not. All I knew was that it was time to go. I looked at my younger self. “Run,” I said.

  He ran by my side, and I tried to keep my pace slow for him. We made it to the edge of the parking lot. We were both breathing heavily. “Listen to me, kid,” I said. “Don’t ever go to the lengths I just went to. That was wrong. But you don’t have to be bullied. If anyone asks what happened, tell the truth. A stranger saved you. Now, go. Wait for your parents away from where we just were, okay?”

  He nodded. I jogged away, then turned and looked back over my shoulder. He was still standing there staring at me. “Go!” I yelled. This time he got the message.

  I ran as fast as I could, stopping when I needed to. I guess I could have time travelled right then, or tried to ride out the week anyway. I was sure I could find a way to vanish, if I was caught. I had developed a whole gameplan before travelling. Even if I found myself in a secure prison, I would bounce back to the present day version of the prison and then immediately jump to the distant past before the building existed. Still, I was scared that I had done some serious damage, both to Jeff Berger and the timestream. I had to know what happened, and for that I had to return to 2013. I couldn’t risk screwing things up worse by being spotted either leaving 1993 or reappearing in 2013 so I made my way back to the parking lot on the side of the little store where I had first arrived. My weeklong adventure had lasted only a few hours, but I feared the impact of that visit would be catastrophic.

  By the time I made it to the parking lot I could barely stand, I was so winded. I sat down on the asphalt and closed my eyes. One quick pulse through my brain and I felt the temperature change back to the chill of winter. My leather jacket could barely keep out the cold. Well, I thought, at least I wasn’t being scorched by the fire of a nuclear holocaust. The universe lived on, and whatever my actions had wrought, I was home.

  Chapter 9

  1

  I got up off the cold ground, feeling relieved that I’d escaped 1993. Everything se
emed the same. Familiar buildings, familiar cars traveling up and down route 611. I reached into my pocket. My wallet was there, with the cash and lottery printout in their proper places. I hadn’t expected those items would have returned with me but I was getting better at transporting my belongings. This little bit of luck still didn’t offset the damage I’d done. To the contrary, it furthered the overwhelming feeling of guilt. The thought of what I’d done to the bully who had haunted my teenage years… I had gone too far.

  I needed to know what had happened to Jeff. I turned to go to my car and retrieve my cell phone. I stopped suddenly. The car was gone. I began to panic. I looked around, thinking I had mistaken where I’d left it. No luck. I looked at the time across the street. Barely an hour had passed since I’d left. Enough time for the car to be stolen, I guessed, but I knew that wasn’t what had happened. I knew that the car was gone because in the new reality it had never been there in the first place.

  How was that possible? I had been convinced that I’d cause one of those world-destroying paradoxes, but somehow I had avoided it. Somehow I found myself in a timeline in which I’d never made the trip back to 1993. But if I’d never made the trip back, how could I have caused this timeline? I had read and watched enough science fiction to be able to speculate. It seemed to me that I had splintered the timestream, creating a new timeline parallel to the one I called home. It was the only explanation that made sense to me.

  My heart was jackhammering in my chest. I closed my eyes, willing a return to the day before my previous arrival in 1993. I would go back and preempt myself. I didn’t even care if I lost my clothes in the travel. I thought about my destination, and thought about it, and thought about it. Nothing happened. No rush, no pressure in my brain, nothing. My panic was becoming overpowering. I took off running in the direction of my house. Maybe some sleep would help me, I thought.