Forty Leap

by Turner, Ivan

  Breathing heavily, the driver made a slight affirmation with his head, wincing against the pain. I released him and his hand came up to survey the damage. I pulled the gun away from the woman and she eased up noticeably.

  “Good,” I said. “Good.”

  We rode the rest of the way without talking to each other. As it turns out, we were no longer in Colorado. Neville had flown us farther out than we thought. The first city we reached was Rapid City, North Dakota. I had been there once, as a child, on a trip to Mount Rushmore. The city was much larger than I remembered, with wide streets that were probably very busy in daylight. It was now approaching half past three. Neville was unconscious, but breathing. The driver of the car pulled off into an alleyway and got out. The woman got out, too. The man on my left wished me luck before getting out. By the time I had Neville laying securely on the seat and had put myself into the driver’s seat, they were all gone.

  There wasn’t much of a change in the way that cars were operated. I suppose it made sense. If you change the way a car works, you need to re-teach everyone how to drive. In a drivers’ nation, that probably wouldn’t work out so well. I drove slowly down each city street, looking at the names of the large buildings and looking or signs. Too much time had passed already, I knew. I needed to be quick if Neville was to have any chance at survival. That is, if he even still had a chance at survival. I saw an all-night diner and pulled the car into a spot. I kept telling myself that no one knew who we were and no one would be able to identify us. Of course, I was wearing a maintenance man’s uniform with blood on it.

  The hostess looked up with a smile on her face as I entered, but that smile quickly turned to a frown. I knew what I looked like.

  “My friend is hurt,” I said. “I need to get him to the hospital.”

  She looked at me blankly. A waitress in the background was edging toward the kitchen.

  “My friend is hurt,” I repeated. “He’s in the car. Do you know where the hospital is?”

  Her eyes went back into focus. Stepping away from the counter, she stuck herself out the door and began to point and rattle off directions. I memorized them as best I could, noting the names of the streets. She said they were all main roads and I shouldn’t have too much trouble. For Neville’s sake, I hoped not. I thanked her and left, getting into the stolen car and starting down the road in the direction she’d indicated.

  The trip seemed to take forever. Maybe I made a wrong turn. Who knows? It’s hard enough to follow directions when there’s no pressure. When someone’s life is on the line, it’s almost impossible. At least she steered me in the right direction. I happened upon signs that were big and blue, with a large white H printed on them. I followed the signs and found the hospital.

  By the time I got out of the car, I wasn’t even sure if Neville was still breathing. His skin was cold and his hair was damp with sweat. Like automobiles, hospitals didn’t seem to have changed much. Maybe there were new departments with new ways to save people’s lives, but there was still an entrance for visitors and still and entrance to the Emergency Room. That was where I went and that was where I ran through the doors. I tried to be calm as I explained to the charge nurse that my friend was in the car and he was bleeding to death from a gunshot wound. My story immediately grabbed the attention of the charge nurse who shouted out someone’s name. A burly man with a scraggly beard appeared at her summons and the two of them followed me out into the lot. I stood back while they took charge of Neville. He was alive. That was a blessing at least. He was covered in blood, much of it dried, but much of it still wet. The wound, when they uncovered it, was ugly. I had seen a lot of death in the ruins of New York City, but all of that had been so old and so removed. The wound on Neville’s shoulder affected me in a way I had not anticipated. I wondered if he would ever have proper use of his arm again.

  The doctor and nurse were soon joined by two men with a gurney. They lifted Neville carefully aboard and wheeled him into the hospital. The doctor glanced back once at the car, then once at me, and then rushed inside after his patient. Before following him, I looked into the car and saw what he saw. There was blood all over the seats and Neville’s rifle lying on the floor.

  I knew I should run. I had done what I could to save Neville’s life, but now we were in danger of arrest. There was nothing to be done for Neville. Even if they could save his life, he would be unable to leave the hospital. I don’t know how long the recuperation period is for a wound of that magnitude. They were pumping unit after unit of blood into him. I saw them use the shock paddles once. All those years gone by and they were still using the very same defibrillators. All it took was one shock and his pulse evened out. I guess they did it time after time on television for dramatic effect. Or maybe Neville was just lucky. Everyone worked so fast and there were so many people. Different faces moved in and out of view and there was so much talking. I couldn’t follow any of it.

  Finally, in what seemed like an abrupt conclusion, a doctor declared that Neville was stable. They began to move him out of the room, no one paying attention to me.

  “Wait,” I said. “Where are you taking him?”

  “ICU, Mr. Goldberg,” someone said to me.

  Goldberg? That had been the name on the fake GEI badge given to me by Wil Lowenburg. I looked down to see that it was still clipped to my maintenance man’s shirt.

  I started to follow them, but found myself grabbed about the arm by a strong hand. Someone whispered something in my ear. This way. I was led off without any real ability to assume control of my own fate. We moved quickly through the bustling hallways of the Emergency Room. The person leading me was a man in his mid twenties. At least, that was my guess. He wore a white coat over a stylish pair of pants and a shirt and tie. The style of the shirt was a bit odd. The collar was very narrow and the seams around the sleeves were decorative. His tie was shoe-string thin and yet still retained the familiar shape of a tie. He peeked into a few rooms and behind a few curtains, frowning at each. I didn’t know it at the time but he was looking for someplace private. When he met with utter failure, he led me out the doors of the hospital and into the parking lot.

  I was beginning to get agitated when he finally pulled up short next to a car and punched the key code into the handle. The door unlocked. We got in.

  “My name is Lewis Kung,” he said. “I’m an intern here at Rapid City Memorial and I know who you are, Mr. Cristian.”

  I tried to keep my expression neutral and imagine I failed miserably.

  “Don’t worry about your identity; it’s safe with me. But we don’t have a lot of time because all gunshot wounds are reported to the police.”

  “How do you know who I am?” I asked.

  He waved me off. “I’ve been studying you since I was a child. My father worked for GEI. He was, fortunately, on leave from the Rocky Mountain facility when the government took it over. He used to talk about the work that went on there and I was always fascinated by it. When I was a kid, I would pretend to jump through time. I was always Mathew Cristian.”

  Again, I started. I didn’t know whether to be flattered or saddened. As a boy, this young man had been captivated by my grand adventure. But how could a child ever realize all that I had given up because of my leaping. I looked into his eyes, wondering suddenly if he still had that child-like captivation with the concept. Had he grown out of it?

  “I’ve studied time leaping for as long as I can remember. Yours is the most complete case, although the time you spent in United Arab Occupied territory has some gaps in it. Mr. Grundel, the man who ran GEI, filled in some of those gaps, but nothing was ever fully completed. Anyway, I’m here at this hospital because of its close proximity to the Rockies. There are others of us who’ve placed themselves at other nearby facilities. We had always hoped to be able to act on your behalf, but your presence here tells me that you managed to escape.”

  I shook my head, burying my eyes into the tips of my fingers. What was he telling me? W
as this some sort of revolution?

  “I have friends inside as well,” he continued. “We know what goes on in there. How many people escaped?”

  “Forty,” I mumbled. “There were forty of us.”

  “Forty? That’s almost everyone.”

  I shook my head again. “Most of them are dead. Some of them leaped. The place is destroyed. So many people died.”

  “Is there somewhere you can go?”

  I looked up at him. “Where would I go?”

  “You can’t stay here. I’ll try to protect your friend, but I can’t guarantee anything. Here.” He handed me a set of keys. “Take this car and get as far away as you can.”

  I looked down at the keys he offered me. Again, they were different from the kinds of keys I was used to. How long had it been since I’d eaten? How long had it been since I’d slept? I was thirsty. I told him so. I told him I had nowhere to go and that I couldn’t leave Neville. He argued and I didn’t have the strength to argue back. The rapidity with which events were taking place was too much for my frazzled mind to overcome. I couldn’t question. I couldn’t debate. I could only take the keys and ask him the way to Wisconsin.

  Chapter VI

  I drove out of Rapid City, still clinging to wakefulness but knowing that I wouldn’t get very far. At the first small town, I pulled into a service station. I can’t really call it a gas station because they didn’t sell gas. But they sold water and they’d charge your car’s battery for a fee. But I didn’t have any money. I just needed to use the bathroom. The attendant pointed me around to the side and I went in. I locked the door and looked at myself in the mirror. I’m not sure which was worse. My reflection in the mirror or the real me. I was unshaven and pale. My features were drawn and my eyes were shot with red lines. I splashed some water onto my face and more into my mouth. It’s uncanny what a real thirst will do to a person. There was a time in my life when the notion of drinking from the tap of a public bathroom was well beyond my comprehension. At that moment, I would have taken water from a puddle. There was little I could do about my outfit, unfortunately. It was frayed and dirty. There were blood stains on the shoulder and chest where I had supported Neville, but they had dried and set so they were a much darker brown than red. They could have passed for chocolate syrup stains. At any rate, no one asked about them.

  Before leaving, I went to see what was in Dr. Kung’s trunk. I’m not crazy and I’m not stupid. It seemed too easy to have found a man who wanted to help me so badly that he would give me his car, but I was without options at the time. I thought of Neville and how I’d stuck with him when the others hadn’t. But in the end, I had done the same thing. I’d left him behind to die. After all, what would the authorities do when they had him in custody?

  Dr. Kung carried a few things in his trunk, not the least of which was a clean suit. I guess, being a doctor, you never know when something’s going to splatter all over your shirt. I took the suit out of the trunk and measured it up to my body. Too big. That was fine. Too small would have been bad. There was a rack with a spare tire, what looked like a battery, and some bottles of fluid, but nothing else of much use. I desperately wished for some money or a box of cookies.

  After returning to the washroom to put on the suit, I threw away my old clothes and got on the road again. I was travelling north, knowing that Wisconsin was north and east. I had only an inkling of the geography, but was determined to stick to the main roads. I didn’t know how long cars could drive without a recharge of the battery and a change of whatever fluids were necessary. The gauges on the dashboard were no help. The battery looked like it had a full charge. There wasn’t anything I could do about it regardless so I just drove. Eventually, I would have to get rid of the car anyway. It wasn’t mine and it wouldn’t be safe to drive it.

  The land stretched out in front of me, going from wooded to flat to metropolitan. I had only a vague idea of where my brothers had lived, but it was all I had. I was reasonably sure that I could find my way to Wisconsin. From there I might be able to pick up a map or some information. I wondered if I could trade the car in for some food and a bus ticket.

  So I drove. The forests turned into plains and the plains turned back into forests. I headed north and east, keeping my eyes open for signs bearing familiar names. When I was tired I would pull off to the side of the road and sleep, but never for too long. My greatest fear was that someone would stop, maybe a police officer. I needed to remain inconspicuous.

  The battery died in the one afternoon on some desolate highway and I wound up emptying the glove box in a frantic search for the user’s manual. It had instructions on changing the battery so I installed the spare. It wasn’t quick and it wasn’t easy. I was without tools and without knowledge. But it did get done. The gauge showed full again and off I went.

  Ultimately, as I knew I would, I found Wisconsin. I crossed over the western border exhausted and hungry. It had been three days since I’d set out from the hospital and I’d had little to eat. Water was plentiful enough in public restrooms, but I had been forced to dig through garbage to find something that was remotely edible. In truth, the issue was more than a lack of money. I couldn’t even be sure that money was still used. If it was, I couldn’t be sure that it came in the form of paper and coins. I hoped that Neville was faring better than I was. I thought of Neville often. I guessed that I would never know what happened to him. It was a big world and even bigger when measured over the span of years, soon to be decades and then centuries. His leaps and my leaps might take us lifetimes from each other. If he survived.

  I drove for a while in Wisconsin until I finally found a small suburb. These areas looked no different than they had in my time. Though the architecture of houses had changed, morphed into sloping panels and sharp angles, there were still groups of them together in communities. On the outskirts of those communities were shopping centers. I pulled into one of these, noting that it held several stores I’d never heard of and a gigantic Target. I couldn’t drive anymore and was so hungry that I was on the verge of passing out. I went into the Target, Dr. Kung’s suit hanging loosely about my frame. Some people gave me a look but most ignored me. People, by the way, were just people. Nothing had changed about them. Old couples walked slowly, hand in hand. Teenagers stayed in groups and giggled at things they saw. It was the summer so I guessed everyone was out of school. Of course, who could really tell?

  There were cash registers and people were buying things so I figured out that some form of currency was still in use. I tried to get a closer look but couldn’t do so without sticking out. The few customers I saw were purchasing with credit cards or something that looked like credit cards. No cash changed hands and, come to think of it, I never saw a register drawer open up. Well, I wasn’t in there to shop. I started looking for a telephone. I hoped, after all this time, that people still used telephones. It had been fourteen years since I had spent any time in regular society. With Jennie. With my brothers. Fourteen years didn’t seem like such a long time, but it was. When I was born in 1974, the things of my childhood didn’t even exist yet. VCRs. Video games. Later on, there were computers and from there everything just exploded. The years got shorter from the standpoint of technological advancement. Every year I skipped was a year that made me more incompetent in ways that small children were not. What machines had been invented that made the machines with which I was familiar obsolete?

  There were still telephones.

  In fact, there were still pay telephones.

  That didn’t help my money situation, but I could still make a call and reverse the charges. Leafing through my journal, I found the telephone number for Jeremy and Wyatt’s house. Who knew if they still had the same telephone number? Who knew if they still even lived there?

  “Hello?”

  “…you have a collect call from a Jennie Campbell…press or say one to accept the charges…”

  “What?”

  “Jeremy, it’s me,” I said into the pho
ne, afraid to give my name.

  I heard a beep and I guess he pressed one because the connection cleared up automatically.

  “Mathew?” He didn’t sound surprised to hear from me, just confused.

  “I’m in Wisconsin, Jeremy. I have no money and no idea where I am. I need help.”

  There was silence on the line for a minute. “Mathew?”

  “Jeremy, please.” I was on the verge of a breakdown.

  I heard some muttering in the background and then the phone was taken from Jeremy. The next voice I heard was Wyatt’s. “Mathew, what’s wrong?”

  “Wyatt? I need help. I have a car, but I don’t know if I can drive anymore.”

  “Oh, my God!” he shouted. “Oh, my God, Mathew.”

  I heard some questions from Jeremy in the background. Then Wyatt said to him, “It’s Mathew, you idiot. He’s escaped.” Jeremy made some sort of exclamation and seemed less confused now.

  “Where are you?” Wyatt asked.

  I looked around. “I’m in a Target.” I told him the highway I’d been on and the name of the exit I’d used.

  “Jesus, Mathew, that’s almost four hours from here. Can you hold out that long?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  He was coming right now. He gave me the number of his portable phone but I had no way to record it so I memorized it. He told me to wait four hours before calling the number and then he would find me. I thanked him and hung up. With four hours in which to do nothing, I went back to the car. Rooting through the glove compartment, I found a pen and wrote the mobile number in my notebook. I planned on sleeping and was sure that I wouldn’t remember the number upon waking. Exhausted, hungry, saddened by the events of my life, I settled down into the back seat and went to sleep.

  Someone knocking on the window awakened me much later. It was difficult to come out of my slumber, my body so weakened by my ordeal that I was closer to comatose than wakefulness. There was a strange woman standing there, looking in at me, knocking furiously now, jiggling the handle on the car door. The woman was older than I was, probably in her mid forties. She looked almost stricken as I roused myself and opened the door. It was nighttime out and I knew that I had overslept. I hoped I hadn’t missed Wyatt. Stepping out of the car, I balanced myself and managed to stand unaided.