by Shawn Inmon
Holy cow, that’s got to be her family. He stared at the back of the head of the woman.
Scott’s eyes flitted to the two other Jenkins children that sat with her.
Seeing them there, hair combed, dressed in their Sunday best to celebrate their sister’s accomplishment, brought a tightness to Scott’s throat.
Brenda Jenkins was not the most naturally gifted speaker, but she was sincere. Her speech was titled “The Gifts We Are Given,” and it focused on finding blessings everywhere. It was a standard-issue graduation speech, with homely homilies and lessons well-earned.
Scott sat on the edge of his seat anyway, absorbing every word.
At the end of her speech, she paused, and looked up from her notes.
“I think most people know that my father was killed the summer before I went into sixth grade. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever lived through.”
Scott leaned back slightly, glancing slightly to his left and right, wanting to see if anyone was looking at him. They weren’t.
“Out of our greatest pain,” Brenda continued, “can come new gifts. A few years after my father was killed, a new man came into our family and helped to heal us all. He has been a gift to all of us. I love you, Dad.”
The man who sat next to the woman Scott guessed was Sylvia Jenkins took out a handkerchief and blew his nose loudly. People around him chuckled.
Brenda paused for a moment, then added, “You too, Mom.”
A ripple of laughter spread through the gym.
The ceremony went on.
Scott would have liked to get up and make an escape before it was complete, but he didn’t want to draw attention to himself, so he sat quietly.
Finally, it came time to hand out the diplomas. When each student’s name was called, their own personal rooting section would stand for a few seconds and shout encouragement for them.
When Brenda Jenkins was once again called to the stage, the people two rows in front of Scott stood, applauded, and shouted her name.
Immediately, the next name was called and the two children and the man sat back down. The woman who had once been Sylvia Jenkins did not. She remained standing and slowly turned around until she was looking directly at Scott.
She held eye contact with him for several seconds.
Scott wanted to look away, but could not break her gaze.
She didn’t look alarmed, or angry, or surprised he was there. It was as though she had simply sensed him.
Finally, she gave him the slightest of nods, then turned back around and sat with her family.
Scott’s heart took a few seconds to start beating again. Again, no one around him seemed to notice anything.
That’s impossible. How would she know I was here? She hadn’t so much as looked this way all night, but she turned and looked directly at me.
Scott wiped a sudden burst of perspiration off his forehead.
But then, it didn’t seem like she cared.
When the graduation ended with one last prayer, the families all drew together into tight bunches for photos taken with Kodak Instamatics or Polaroids.
Scott did an end around into the least-crowded area he could find, smiling and saying, “Excuse me,” time and again.
He saw an opening and stepped toward it when he saw that the younger Jenkins children were surrounding Brenda right in front of him. They were smiling with excitement and happiness. Scott veered to the right and escaped into the cool night air.
Chapter Fifty-Two
Emerging from that high school gym in Waterville, Scott felt a bit like a new man. Seeing the reality of what he had made happen buoyed him.
I can’t always assume that the ends justify the means, no matter what. But, seeing that family in there, alive and flourishing, at least this time, it feels like it did.
Scott never came to enjoy the mission he had set for himself in this lifetime. The work was too grim for a fundamentally gentle soul to find happiness in it. He did find satisfaction, though. In his travels through the country from that point forward, he did his best to look up people who would have been victims of horrible crimes. They lived normal lives, never knowing the fate they narrowly missed.
For the next four years, he crisscrossed the United States, eliminating those who would have killed innocent people whenever possible.
Right after meeting Joe Hart in New York, Scott had intended to pay him a visit in Middle Falls, Oregon. Four years later, he decided it was time.
He was in Arizona, having just dispatched a man who had been about to break into a family’s home in Flagstaff and kill everyone inside. His plan, not to mention his life, was ended by Scott in an efficient fashion. The family slept inside, unaware they had been minutes away from death.
There was a gap in Scott’s schedule, although he was feeling guilty that he hadn’t managed to get to the Pacific Northwest to deal with the Green River Killer yet. He planned to stop and say hello to Joe, then travel north to stop Gary Ridgway from killing again.
He was in no terrible hurry, though, so he walked, hitchhiked, and caught rides on freight trains north. Oregon had the most liberal hitchhiking laws in the USA. It was the only state that allowed pedestrians and hitchers to walk on freeways, instead of having to congregate at entrance ramps.
If there was a long line of hitchers in one spot, Scott could simply walk on the side of the freeway, thumb out, until he got to a more agreeable spot.
It was odd for Scott to return to Middle Falls again. The infrastructure of the city hadn’t changed that much since he had last seen it. A few new businesses and a new bridge, but it still matched the memories he carried with him.
He contemplated looking for the house where his father had shot his mother in 1958, but after so long, he couldn’t even remember the name of the street. Instead, he found a phone booth, looked up Joe Hart’s address and asked at a service station how to find it.
An hour later, he stood on the sidewalk in front of an impeccably well-maintained cottage in a quiet neighborhood.
I should have known you would live somewhere like this, Joe Hart. Surprised it’s not made out of gingerbread.
Scott walked up the walk and knocked on the door. Immediately, barks and growls came from inside the house. A few seconds later, Joe Hart stood uncertainly in the doorway, a question on his face.
“Yo, Middle Falls boy.”
Joe recognized Scott and his expression changed to surprise and delight. Joe stepped onto the steps and wrapped Scott up in a brother’s hug.
A medium-sized dog with reddish fur and an infectious smile jumped up and down, wanting in on the action.
“Oh my God! The mysterious Scott McKenzie! The invisible man! I thought you were in the wind forever!”
In the wind. Well said, Joe. That’s exactly what I have been.
“Hey, it takes a while to hitchhike to Oregon.”
Joe tilted his head, which only served to highlight the terrible birthmark on the left side of his face.
“Four years?”
“Well, I may have had a couple of detours.”
Joe nodded, opened the door wide and swept his hand into the house. “Come in, man, set your bedroll over there in the corner.” Joe shook his head in disbelief. “I swear, I thought I’d never see you again.”
“Ah, I thought I would make it here sooner, but as always, things pop up. I stopped in Indiana and saw my sister, and I had some business to attend to.”
Joe looked interested, but didn’t ask what that business was, exactly.
“The years slip away, that’s for sure. I was so bummed when I woke up in the hospital, and you weren’t there. I never got a chance to thank you for saving my life. And John’s.”
I think it’s time to let him know I’m onto him. It’ll be good to have another person to talk with about these things.
“I couldn’t believe I almost missed it, when I got back. I am such a dummy.”
“Yeah, you were definitely there in the nick of—wai
t, what? What do you mean ‘missed it?’ Did you know that was going to happen?”
You’re quick, Joe. Don’t miss a thing.
“Of course. And so did you. I could tell that right away. I’ve met a few others of us, though. I’m guessing maybe you haven’t?”
Joe opened his mouth to speak, thought better of it and shut it. A moment later, he repeated that process.
“From the expression on your face,” Scott said, “I’m guessing you haven’t run into many, or maybe even any other people like us.”
“I met one lady. In a library. Her name was Veronica. I was searching for anyone else who was going through this. She was about to reset her life, though, and she wouldn’t stay and talk to me. That’s been more than five years, so I thought I was never going to meet anyone else going through the same thing. So, you were in New York just to save John’s life then?”
You and I weren’t the only ones there to do that, but no need to complicate things any more.
“Just like you, brother. It’s what I do. Or, at least, what I’ve done.”
Scott took off the cap he was wearing and showed Joe his hair, which had already begun to turn gray.
“I’m getting old. I’ve decided to do my best to ride this life though to the end. There’s only so many things I can change, but I’m getting to as many as I can.”
Joe looked thoughtful and Scott recognized a familiar sadness in him.
“I wanted to do the same—do things that changed the world and made it better. I have a hard time remembering what events happened when, though. I can never be sure when and where I need to show up. Do you have some kind of super memory or something?”
“No, not at all. I spent quite a few lives indulging myself. When you find out there’s no real consequence to your actions, it can make you into a bit of a prick. It certainly did me.”
Scott smiled ruefully at the memory of so many wasted lives.
“Eventually, I got all that out of my system and figured out that maybe the best way to help myself was to help others. I spent an entire life reading through newspapers and magazines, looking for things I wanted to change. A mother drowning her children in Tennessee. A father murdering his whole family in Maine. Serial killers. That sort of thing. Then, I memorized the list and started over.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
“By ‘started over,’ you mean...” Joe mimicked cutting his own throat.
“Yep. Exactly. I’ve done that so often, it didn’t bother me. It’s not suicide, it’s just starting over. Or, resetting, as the woman you met in the library called it.” He paused, thoughtfully, staring at his shoes. “I was pretty messed up when I got back from the war. I challenge anyone to live in a VA hospital, in the conditions we did, and not end up a little crazy. If the war didn’t do it to you, that place sure did. Also, living a couple of dozen lifetimes helps a lot. It took me a long time to get some distance from all that, but I’ve got my feet under me now.”
Joe sat down suddenly on the sofa. “Holy buckets, Scott. You are rocking my world. Two dozen lives? I’m on my third, and I lose track of things. I have so many questions! How old are you when you start over each time? Don’t you ever get confused about what’s happened before, and what’s happening in this life?”
Scott held his hand up, looking for a pause in the rapid-fire questions.
“I wake up not long after I got my honorable discharge and I was out of that hell hole of a hospital. If I woke up further back, and I had to spend that year there again, I don’t think I would have ever done it a second time. Of course, if I went a little further back, I could have chosen to head for Canada and saved myself the trauma of the war. The hell of it is, I wake up on the day after my grandmother dies. For my sister and my Gramps, it’s like she’s just died, but for me, she’s been gone for lifetimes.”
Joe found his feet again and wandered out into the kitchen. “Want something to drink?”
Scott waved him off and said, “No, I’m good.”
Joe came back into the living room with a glass of iced tea tinkling in his hand.
“So do you interfere in these bad things happening, then just disappear like you did in New York?”
“That’s the plan, but it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes, people get suspicious about how I happened to be in a particular place at a particular time. That scene at the Dakota was a little different. Most of the things I do aren’t high profile like that. I had intended to jump into action that night, when I realized you were there to do the same job. But, I was prepared just in case.”
Joe dropped his eyes to the floor. “After I blew it.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. The first time I tried to do something like that, I blew it. The guy killed me and I had to start over again. But you? You didn’t hesitate. You jumped right into the line of fire. I should have been there, then you wouldn’t have been shot.”
“But, do your changes stick? I mean, if you save someone, they get to live out their normal lives?”
“That’s the way it’s been every time I’ve been able to check, anyway—with the possible exception of John Lennon, that is. Why?”
“Because I changed two events. I saved John Lennon and two friends. Then, they all three died on the same day, less than a year later. I can’t figure out why the people that I saved died again right away, but the people you save don’t.”
That’s interesting. He’s right. He makes changes and the universe seems to push back. I make changes and people get to go on living. Why would that be? Unless...
“Maybe I’ve found my calling, and yours is to be something else. I think if God, or the universe, or whatever machine is out there, running things, didn’t want me doing this, the same thing would have happened to the people I saved.”
Scott watched Joe turn that over in his mind, find some truth in it. He abandoned that line of questioning. “So, what are you planning on doing next?”
“I’m not sure where I’m going next. I know who the Green River Killer is, and if I don’t do something about it, he’s going to keep going for a long time.”
“How you going to do that?”
How much do you want to know about what I do, Joe? You’re pretty innocent, and it’s best that you stay that way.
“Haven’t decided yet. I could hang out on his hunting grounds and hope to get lucky, or I could put together a few reasons why I know it’s him and take it to the King County Sheriff up there. He’s a tricky one though. He lived in the shadows, so it’s harder for me to catch him in the act. Ted Bundy was easier.”
“Ted Bundy? He’s one of the big ones.”
“You’ve heard of him, right?”
“Of course. Everyone’s heard of him. Mark Harmon played him in that made for TV movie, he’s famous.”
“Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we are well after the time he stopped killing in our other lives, right? He should be famous. But, ask anyone you know if they’ve ever heard of him. I guarantee you they haven’t.”
Scott saw understanding come over Joe. “I get it. No one has heard of him, because you stopped him before he became well-known, right?”
Scott nodded and smiled.
“What did you do?”
“Do you remember when he abducted and killed two women at Lake Sammamish?”
“Of course. Anyone who lives in the Pacific Northwest would remember that. He had his arm in a cast, asked women to help him, then killed them.”
“Right. Except this time, he didn’t. Before I reset, I memorized the date he did that. Young Mr. Bundy didn’t take anyone that day, but he got taken himself.”
“You killed him?”
“Do you think anyone would miss him?”
“Maybe his family, but the world at large? No. Certainly not me. I know what he was capable of. How did you do it?”
“Certain stories are better left unsaid. I don’t want to spoil your appetite.”
<
br /> “Speaking of which, it’s getting close to dinner time.” Joe walked into the kitchen again, pulled two steaks out of the freezer and set them to thaw. “Got time enough to hang around here for at least a couple of days? I’ve got a pretty nice little house in the backyard that you can stay in for as long as you want. It’s not the New York YMCA, but it’s not bad.”
Scott leaned back in the chair and said, “Yeah, I think I could take a little time off the road. I’ve got some laundry that needs doing.”
“Washer and dryer are right in the house. Come on, I’ll show you. You can get unpacked while I get the barbecue fired up.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Joe let Scott into a fully-furnished little house that was completely contained in his backyard. Joe had said it had once been for the mother of the couple who he bought the house from. He had lived in it before he bought the cottage in front.
However he had come to it, the little house was nice. It was newer, but somehow it reminded Scott of his little cabin on the woods in Vermont. Except here, every right angle was straight. Maybe it was the feeling of solitude it gave him, like he was tucked away from the rest of the world.
It was just one bedroom, a living room, a small kitchen and bathroom, but the bath had a stackable washer and dryer. What else did a single man need?
It never took Scott long to unpack. How could it, when his entire wardrobe consisted of three pairs of jeans, a few shirts, half a dozen pairs of socks and underwear and not much more? In fact, he rarely unpacked. He preferred to live out of the backpack, which made for quick getaways when needed. He did appreciate the fact that he could get his laundry clean, though.
Scott had been on the road for a few consecutive days, so he grabbed a hot shower and felt like a new man.
Eventually, Scott wandered out into his front yard, which also happened to be Joe’s backyard. Joe was already there, with a nice barbecue set up. He had something wrapped up in foil resting directly on the coals and two huge steaks sizzling.