I told her everything that had happened since I took my first trip through time. She took it all in and amazed me with her constant calm. She winced when I talked about Helena’s murder. “Oh, Daniel,” she said, “I’m so sorry. That’s…that’s horrible.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Suze?” I asked, using her nickname out of an old habit that wasn’t really old at all to me. “You’re in danger. This guy…this version of me who killed Helena, he wants to see me dead and he wants the life that Danny had. He won’t let you live knowing all that you know.”
“So what do I do? Go into hiding? I have a job…” she opened her mouth to say more, perhaps to say that she had a life in addition to employment, but it was all too clear that she didn’t have much beyond her job. I had seen to that.
“I know that. I don’t really have an answer. I just felt that you should know what’s going on.” There was an awkward pause. “You still look great, Suze.” It was a weird thing to say under the circumstances, and I didn’t feel particularly romantic with the image of Helena bleeding onto her apartment floor still clear in my mind. Still, something had compelled me to give Suzy a compliment.
I think I felt bad for her, which I guess is a pretty shitty thing to say, but that’s how it was. I felt guilty for her lonely life, even though I didn’t know how she would have turned out otherwise. I felt bad for how much older she looked, though that certainly wasn’t my fault. Aging happens to everyone. Even going back to 1993 hadn’t made me younger. Getting old is inescapable…for those of us who are fortunate enough to keep on living.
She smiled and for a moment it was as if I had found a new way to travel through time. There we were, Justin and Suzy, just like in that long ago summer. I put out my hand and she took it.
“Do you think…” she started but stopped herself.
“What? What is it?”
“Forget it. I’m horrible to even be thinking what I’m thinking after what you went through tonight…your wife…”
“Suzy, don’t you ever worry about being horrible to me after what I’ve done to you. Just tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Well, I know this… other you wants you dead, right? So he can pretend to be you?”
“Well,” I interrupted, “he technically wants to be the guy we knew as little Danny, not me.”
She gave me a look that I remembered well. “Whatever. I’m having enough trouble processing all this, you can let me slide on some of the details.”
“Yeah, I hear you. I’m sorry.” The little bit of banter between us was breaking through the shock of the evening. I was still terrified, still horrified, but I was with my Suzy again, and not a doppelgänger like poor Helena or even Daniel. She was my Suzy, the same one I’d dated all those years earlier.
“Good, okay. Well, couldn’t you just give that life to him and make a new one for yourself?” She paused without adding that she hoped that new life could be with her. I got the point.
“Suze, I don’t technically exist here. I have no identification, no money, no job… I don’t think it’s possible.”
“Okay, point taken.” We sat quietly for a while, and it was nothing like the uncomfortable silence that had blanketed us in the car years earlier. Despite the stress of knowing the other Daniel was out there plotting, this silence was nice. Peaceful.
“Here’s an idea,” Suzy said. “You’re the Daniel who belongs in this world. That other guy is apparently a long lost twin you didn’t know existed. We tell the police he’s crazypants, talking about time travel and other universes and all that, and we get him arrested. Then you can stay!”
The hope and optimism in her beautiful eyes broke my heart. “Maybe, Suze,” I said. “There are so many possible hiccups in there, but maybe…”
“Is it me?” she asked, looking wounded. “Am I too old?”
I didn’t think I could take much more of this. Everything about it was perplexing and overwhelming. I was in a world that wasn’t mine, and I had seen the murder of a woman who wasn’t my version of my wife, and now I sat with my girlfriend who was actually the same person I had dated in 1993 but was now ten years older than me instead of ten years younger. It was too much, and the situation continued to gnaw at the edges of my sanity, fraying the fabric of sense and reason.
“You aren’t too old,” I said to Suzy. “You could never be too old for me. I told you years ago that I loved you… that was only a few days ago for me. Those feelings are as strong as ever.”
“I never stopped, you know.” She said. “Loving you, I mean. Even after what happened, I just thought… I don’t know. I blamed myself.”
“It’s all my fault, Suzy. Mine. You weren’t responsible for any of this.”
“Do you think maybe we could try, Daniel? To make a life for us here?”
“Yes,” I said. “We can try.” I really meant it too. At the time it seemed like the only approach that made any sense.
Just then I heard the sound of a door opening from somewhere in the house. Suzy and I both turned in the direction of the noise. “Did you hear that?” I asked.
She nodded. I could see the concern on her face. “It’s the back door. Goes into the kitchen.”
“It wasn’t locked?” I asked with a tone of consternation in my voice. I got to my feet.
“I…I don’t know…” she stammered. “Maybe…maybe I forgot.”
“Damn it!” I yelled. “We need to hide.”
We ran to the stairs. The house was a split level and there were not many steps between the floors. She led me to what appeared to be a guest bedroom or a storage room, maybe a combination of both.
“We can hide here,” she said, slinking under the double bed. I tried to follow and with significant difficulty somehow managed to slide in after her. We waited in the silence, hearing footsteps from downstairs. Then the muffled steps of someone climbing to the second floor.
We both kept our breathing as quiet as possible. My pulse was jackhammering, and the thought occurred to me that I could not escape into the past with my heart working the way it was at that moment. Wouldn’t have mattered anyway, not with a predator on my trail who could also travel through time. Besides, I wouldn’t have left Suzy alone and in danger even if I had the option to leave.
The steps passed our room, but quickly returned. I heard the intruder enter. “Come out, come out wherever you are,” said the mocking voice, confirming that our home invader was the other Daniel Wells.
I knew he was looking around the room. He had probably already checked every other possible space in the little house and had decided that Suzy must be in the guest room. I wondered if he knew I was with her. I assumed he did. “Druggy Daniel” had made many bad choices but I knew he had my brain and it was honed by street smarts that I did not possess.
I felt Suzy nudging me with her elbow. When I turned toward her, she passed a large knife into my hand. She must have brought it out when she served the tea. In the middle of everything going on I had not noticed. The knife made me think of Helena and my stomach rolled and threatened to expel its contents. I fought hard and reined it in.
The silence seemed to stretch out forever, but when Daniel made his move everything happened all too fast. A hand reached down under the bed and clasped Suzy around the calf. She screamed as she was dragged out into the open. I army-crawled through the space where she had been and rolled out, bursting to my feet with as explosive a force as my weary body could muster.
It wasn’t enough. Daniel was on top of Suzy, stabbing her over and over again. My Suzy…her screams tore through me. I took the knife she had handed me, grateful that my twin was facing away from me. I came up behind him and slit his throat as he had done to Helena. He gurgled and toppled forward. I shoved him to the side so he wouldn’t fall on top of Suzy.
I knelt by Suzy’s side. Her pajamas were soaked in blood. I had witnessed three stabbing motions and assumed there may have been at least one more I didn’t see. She was dying.
>
“I’m so sorry, Suzy, I’m so, so sorry,” I droned on and on. I could feel tears flowing down my cheeks and I felt embarrassed. She looked at me with a pained expression. Her breathing was harsh and shallow.
“Don’t be sorry.” She closed her eyes.
I fished out the cellphone in my pocket and called 911.
“911, what’s your emergency?” the voice on the other line asked.
“A woman’s been stabbed! Please send help.” I barely recognized my voice. I struggled to remember Suzy’s address and somehow managed to relay the information to the operator.
I dropped the phone to the floor. Suzy’s eyelids flickered open from the sound. She said something that sounded like “imnocery.”
“What? Suze, babe, talk to me, what did you say?”
“I’m…not…sorry.” She worked hard to get those words out.
“You weren’t supposed to have this life,” I said. “I don’t know who or what you should have become, but you weren’t supposed to meet me that summer and I changed everything and now look what’s happened to you.”
Her eyes opened wide and clear. This time when she spoke I understood every word. “No. I wouldn’t trade what we had for anything.”
The tears continued to stream from my eyes. I couldn’t stop them. “Me neither,” I said. I grabbed her hand. It was so cold. She fell unconscious shortly after. I stayed with her, waiting for the ambulance. I didn’t know if they would be able to save her. I doubted it greatly. I wondered what they would make of the body lying just a few feet over who looked exactly like me.
I closed me eyes, and kissed Suzy on her cool lips. As soon as I made contact, whatever dam I had built up to protect me exploded. I burst into thick sobs. My head was pounding. It felt like it was in a vice and someone was turning the screws tighter and tighter. My vision became blotchy and spotted. I thought of Suzy. I thought of our summer together. I let go of consciousness and passed out.
Chapter 22
1
When I came to, I smelled mothballs. I was in a bed, all tucked in under the blankets. I sat up, the covers falling down around me. It took me a second to get my bearings, and when I did the realization hit me hard. I was in the same room where I had seen Suzy die, and where I had murdered the awful version of myself whose creation was as much my responsibility as his death.
The room looked very different. Under Suzy’s ownership the room had been painted a simple cream shade. Now I saw wallpaper with bold vertical stripes alternating between red and white, like a giant candy cane. I was positive that I knew where I was, but as to when? I had no clue, and I didn’t care. I was tired of everything. Each effort I had made in the months since I had started traveling had resulted in disaster. I had seen more horror, felt more anguish and remorse and fear than I had ever thought a human being could handle and not end up ranting in the looney bin.
I put my head back down on the two soft pillows and closed my eyes. It didn’t matter what time period I had found myself in. I was staying put for the time being. A return to the present in that room wouldn’t be good in either the horrid timeline I’d just escaped or the original. I wasn’t ready to get out of bed and face the world. I wasn’t sure at that moment that I’d ever be ready. Daniel Wells was poisonous and the world and all its many timestreams would be better off without me.
I wondered if I could find the will to kill myself, and what that might mean to the worlds I’d created, or opened, or whatever it was I’d done. I laughed bitterly. I’d been able to murder my other self with the justification that he was evil, and yet I couldn’t, wouldn’t dare harm the “real” Daniel, even though my meddling had been responsible for that Daniel and everything he had wrought. I was too weak.
I was startled by a voice. “Oh, good, you’re awake!”
I sat up again. An elderly woman stood in the doorway. Despite her apparent age she stood straight and tall. She had a kind, gentle look to her. She spoke at a rapid clip that also didn’t match her short, grey hair. “I was nervous you might not wake up, that you might die in the night. I said to myself, Dorothy, you’re pretty silly not calling the police or an ambulance or something, but you know what I thought? I thought they might take me away instead of you. I’m the one who saw a sleeping man appear out of nowhere, after all.”
“You…saw me appear?” I asked.
“Oh yes, I was just walking down the hall, coming back from the kitchen with a glass of water. I do get so thirsty in the nighttime and I try to remember to bring water with me when I first turn in for the night but I often forget. Senility, they call it. Anyway, I was walking down the hall and I heard a crackle like when a bulb burns out. I thought maybe a fuse had blown, and I looked in and you just appeared a second later, naked as the day you were born. If I’d been any slower I might have missed your arrival but I’m pretty quick for a gal my age.” She said that last with a smile that seemed strangely familiar.
“And you’re not…I don’t know, concerned?” For a moment my grief was put aside, at least a little. This was all just too strange and curious.
“Well, I’ve never been a very religious woman, but on the outside chance you might be an angel, I thought I should probably take care of you. Getting you into bed wasn’t so easy, you know.”
“Thank you for that. Your kindness means a lot.”
She smiled again. “So tell me, young man, are you an angel?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m just a plain human being like you.”
She laughed. “Well I suppose we’ll agree to disagree. It begs the question though, how exactly did you appear in my guest room?”
“I don’t really know the specifics of it.” I felt very comfortable, very familiar with this woman and I spoke freely. After all, she had seen me do my trick and hadn’t panicked. She’d taken care of me and the least I could do was give her a form of honesty. “I just pop from place to place. Sometimes I can control it, sometimes not.” I shrugged. “Guess this was one of the ‘not’ times.”
She stayed surprisingly quiet as she thought about what I’d said. I thought she might decide to kick me out or that it would be good to call the authorities after all. Instead, she gave that same grin and said, “How about some breakfast?”
2
Dorothy gave me clothes to wear that she said had belonged to her husband, who had passed away years earlier. Something about her made me overcome my desire to stay in bed and never leave. In spite of myself I dressed and met her in the hallway. She led me down to the kitchen. Seeing the downstairs made me think of Suzy and I felt my emotions threatening to betray me again. She and I had reconnected and a strange world of possibilities had opened in front of me. All that had been stolen away.
I forced my sadness back down in the dark hole from which it had emerged and I joined Dorothy at the table. To my surprise, she had already set a place for me and had eggs ready to go. She had known that I would decide to join her for breakfast. This woman had strong intuition.
I glanced at the newspaper sitting on the edge of the table. I was not at all surprised to see the date: May 28, 1993. In the stress of everything that had happened, my unconscious mind had sent me back again. I wondered if that part of my brain had wanted me to fix things or if it just saw 1993 as a safe refuge. It didn’t matter. I could wait out the few days until the earlier version of me arrived. I’d tell him what happens if he gets involved, and get him back on the original plan, to wait until September and prevent the attack on Jeff Berger.
By the time I was halfway through my eggs I had developed seven distinct theories as to why this plan was bound to fail. I was working on the eighth when Dorothy spoke. “Do you have a name?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m Daniel Wells.”
She stuck out her hand. “Very pleased to officially meet you, Daniel Wells. I’m Dorothy Bailey.”
I almost choked on my food. “Bailey?” I asked. “Do you know a Suzy Bailey?”
She looked surprised and beamed with pride. “
You know my Suzy? She’s my granddaughter! The most wonderful girl. How in the world do you know her?”
“Well…we met on one of my random trips.”
“She saw you appear like I did?” she was looking at me with fascination.
“No, no, we just met in passing.” Sadly, I concluded, “she wouldn’t remember me at all.”
“Well that’s just a small world, isn’t it?” Dorothy stated.
“I suppose you’re right.” I stared down at my eggs.
“Are you alright, dear?” Dorothy asked.
“I…yes…I mean, I’m going to be. Thanks to your kindness.”
She looked a little confused but moved on quickly. “Where will you go, Daniel, if you don’t mind my asking? And don’t hesitate to tell an old woman to stop her prying. God’s will is not for all of us to know, that much I remember from my school days.”
I shook my head. “You’re not prying, Dorothy. Not at all. And listen, I’m not an angel. I’m telling you, I’m just a guy who can somehow do something very weird.”
She rolled her eyes. “You can deny it all you want, Daniel. I’ll let you have your ruse.”
“Okay…well, the truth is I don’t really know where I will go. I didn’t expect to find myself here and I don’t exactly know how to get home.”
I expected her to inquire about that, to push me down a path where I’d have to talk about time travel, but she didn’t. “Well, you are welcome to stay a few days if you need. Until you figure things out.”
I smiled. “I don’t know if that will be necessary, but thank you. I think you’re the angel here, Dorothy. Your granddaughter takes after you.” My voice broke at the end of that sentence and I felt fresh tears wet the surface of my eyes.
“Well that’s kind of you to say. Are you sure you’re okay, Daniel?”
The Traveler: A Time Travel Thriller Page 17