Time Spent

by J. David Clarke

  A shock passed through his body, and his hands jerked open and closed involuntarily. Simon fell to his knees.

  The towers. The dungeon walls.

  Climbing the towers and howling into the sky, asserting his dominance, celebrating his freedom.

  Chains hanging from the dark stone walls in the dungeon, where there was no escape.

  Questing through the endless jungle, in search of the object at its center.

  Parting the leaves of the trees, he saw it. HE SAW IT.

  Simon's eyes fluttered upward. His jaw clenched. On the rooftop, the swirling lights surrounded him.

  ______________________

  Simon opened the front door to find Aaron standing on the porch.

  "Hey," Aaron said. "How's it going?"

  Simon shrugged.

  Aaron came in. "Okay, well let's see what you've gotten done."

  Simon closed the door behind him and led him to his father's study, where they had set out the materials for his science fair experiment on a table.

  "Um, okay." Aaron cast a puzzled look at him. "It doesn't look like you've gotten much done."

  "I put together the model train." Simon pointed at it.

  Aaron nodded. "Yeah, but you didn't set out the track or mount it, and the wires haven't been set."

  "I couldn't figure that part out."

  "We went over all that," Aaron said.

  "I know," Simon slumped. He knew that when the switch was flipped, the train was supposed to levitate and run around the track. He knew it had something to do with electricity and magnets, or electromagnets, or something. But he was fuzzy on the details of how it was all supposed to go together.

  Aaron took off his glasses and wiped them on the bottom of his shirt, replacing them. "Okay, well we'll just go over it again."

  Aaron began to explain again how the wires were laid out, how the train track should be mounted, how the whole thing was supposed to work, but Simon's eyes kept straying to the window. It was a nice day outside, and he knew kids would be out at the park, playing baseball.

  While Aaron spoke, he imagined the feel of the bat, his muscles singing as he swung it, the thrill of the crack as the ball went flying.

  "Simon," his father's voice called from the door. "Are you paying attention?"

  "Yes, sir," he lied.

  ______________________

  "You...you're inside them? Inside all of them?" Simon looked around at the woman, the chimp, the monkeys. All were looking back at him with curious eyes.

  "Inside all of who?" the woman asked.

  "I don't know what you mean," the chimp said.

  Simon ran his tongue over his teeth, trying to figure out how to explain it. "You're not here. There's a woman, and some monkeys in cages. You're speaking through them."

  "I followed you here from the base," the chimp said.

  "Oh God, you're right," the woman said, looking around.

  "This isn't me," finished the monkey.

  Simon struggled but couldn't get free of the straps. "Can you take these off me?"

  The chimp extended an arm. "I can't reach them."

  "Use the woman standing here."

  The woman frowned. "I don't know how to do that."

  "You just did!"

  The monkey banged against its cage door. "I don't know how!"

  Simon let out an exasperated sound. "Look, you fixed it so I can talk again, how did you do that?"

  The chimp pondered.

  "I could see where they hurt you," the woman said.

  "And I fixed it," finished the chimp.

  "It's just neuroscience," said the monkey.

  The woman smiled. "I'm good at science."

  I remember, Simon thought bitterly. "Can you fix the rest? Can you bring back my power?"

  The chimp considered.

  "I see it," said the monkey. "But this is..."

  "GOING TO HURT A LITTLE," finished all three.

  A bomb went off in Simon's skull. "Ahhhhh!!" He writhed on the table, his arms and legs thrashing helplessly against the straps.

  Finally, the pain subsided. Simon's muscles relaxed, but his breath came in ragged gasps.

  "Are you all right?" asked the chimp.

  Simon nodded. "I think so." He tried to reach out with the invisible hand, grasp the first strap. The material tugged upward. Simon concentrated.

  Something happened then. It was as if a door opened in his mind, and one hand after another poured out. Simon could see them, a swarm of hands reaching out to do his bidding. The invisible hands wrapped their fingers around all the straps at once and gave a mighty pull, tearing them free. Simon leapt from the table and gave a howl of triumph, the invisible hands beating his chest.

  "You did it," the woman said.

  "Thanks to you." Simon looked around at all of them. "How did you do that? Make even more of them?"

  The chimp cocked its head. "I just fixed what the doctors did."

  "The rest was in you," the woman added.

  Simon caught a look at himself in one of the mirrors mounted on the wall. "Can you...make me human again?"

  "Human?" the monkey asked.

  "What do you mean?" asked the woman.

  "Look at me!" Simon shouted. "I'm not human anymore. Whatever happened on the school bus, it changed me!"

  The woman peered closely. The chimp and monkeys did the same.

  "I don't see anything," the woman said, finally.

  "You're just...you," the chimp added.

  "NO!" Simon brought the invisible hands down on the table, breaking it in half. "This isn't me! Look at me! I want to change back!"

  The woman and animals just stared for a time, saying nothing.

  After a time, the woman spoke. "Then do it."

  Simon brought a fist up and hammered the mirror, shattering it and splintering his reflection. "I can't!"

  There was no answer.

  Finally, Simon turned away from the mirror. "I'm getting out of here. I'm going home. Will you help me?"

  "Of course," answered the chimp.

  Simon grinned. "There's something we have to do first."

  ______________________

  The swirling lights held Simon, prevented him from moving. His body seized.

  Struggling against the dungeon chains, he tried to pull them free of the stone, but it was useless. Torchlight loomed in the darkness. Someone was coming.

  His howls echoed through the forest. Simon looked down on the city of wood, and the others there who named him King. There was no bat, no baseball, but this was his home, and everyone chanted his name.

  "Simon," he heard Heather's voice call, "It's happening again. It's happening againnnn!"

  At the center of the aperture in the sky, another light formed, this one blood red.

  A figure stepped forth.

  ______________________

  "What's this?"

  Simon looked up. A very muscular kid had walked up while he was waiting for the bus. Tommy, Simon thought his name was. Next to him was a pimply-faced boy with greasy brown hair.

  "I asked you a question," Tommy whipped his arm from behind his back. In his hand was a baseball bat. He pointed the bat in the direction of the covered object next to Simon. "What is that?"

  "My science fair experiment." It had taken Simon weeks to finish, almost right up to the deadline, but he had finally done it.

  "Ohh. What did you make, Science Guy?"

  "I'm not a science guy." Simon stood up. "Don't call me that."

  Tommy laughed in the direction of his friend, who gave a high-pitched titter.

  "What did you make?" Tommy whipped off the sheet covering the experiment. "SCIENCE GUY."

  Simon gave the big kid a shove, knocking him back. He was no scrawny kid to be pushed around. He didn't have Tommy's muscular frame, but he was taller than either of the other two and, as he had discovered, had powerful arms and shoulders.

  The pimple-face kid rushed him, wrapping his arms around Simon
's waist and trying to knock him off his feet. Simon twisted, throwing the kid past him and on to the ground. As the kid scrambled to his feet, Simon wound up and brought one fist forward, putting his shoulder behind it and driving it into the kids jaw. The kid went down like a sack of flour.

  He turned in time to see Tommy bring the baseball bat down on the model train. The plastic splintered under the impact, sending bits of debris into the street.

  "How do you like that, Science Guy?" Tommy raised the bat again.

  Simon lifted his fists, but stopped, transfixed.

  Tommy brought the bat down again, knocking a section of metal track from the board.

  Simon's felt a thrill in his chest.

  As Tommy brought the bat back up, a hand closed on it. Simon wrested the bat from his grasp easily, twisting it against the grip of Tommy's hands.

  "Hey!" Tommy cried, as Simon lifted the bat up in both hands.

  To the kid's surprise, though, Simon didn't aim the bat at him, but brought it down on the board with savage force, blowing pieces of track and wire far and wide.

  "What the..." Tommy looked on in bewilderment.

  Simon brought the bat down on the board again, cracking it with abandon.

  "RRRAAAHHHHHHH!" Simon howled as he lifted the bat and hammered the board again.

  Tommy gathered his friend up off the ground. "Come on, let's get out of here."

  Again and again, Simon swung the baseball bat. Up, and down. Up, and down.

  Pieces shattered and flew away. The satisfying sounds of destruction filled his ears. Up, and down. Up, and down. He smashed and smashed, and howled his rage.

  He was free.

  ______________________

  Invisible hands, dozens of them, reached from Simon's mind to grasp the cage doors. There was resistance at first, but he sent forth more and more hands until first one, then another, then another of the doors bent and cracked under the pressure.

  The gorillas came out of their cages to join the armada of chimps and monkeys Simon had already freed.

  Simon turned and ran, the simian army following behind.

  People ran from all sides, some bearing tranquilizer guns, but once Aaron was in their minds all they did was stop, drop their arms and stare.

  Once in the Gorilla Enclosure, Simon reached up with his invisible hands and grappled the wall. A groaning sound of metal filled the enclosure as bolts ripped free of their housings, metal bent and twisted, and the entire wall was brought down. To Simon's delight, children dropped their popcorn as their parents scooped them up and ran.

  Simon planted the top of the wall into the earth at the bottom of the Enclosure with a crash and clambered up it. There was now a direct climbing path to the top and escape.

  "FREEDOM!" Simon howled, running for the top, every gorilla, ape, and monkey following in his wake.

  People screamed and ran as the armada of apes hit the zoo walkways running and scattered in every direction.

  Simon could barely contain his glee as he ran in the direction of home.

  The zoo breakout served as a fantastic distraction for Simon's trek across town to his home. There seemed to be other things happening in town, too, because several times patrol cars drove right by without stopping.

  Aaron was a help too. Whenever crowds gathered around Simon, alarmed at what they perceived as an escaped gorilla, Aaron entered their minds until Simon was past.

  Finally, he arrived at his house. As he approached, however, Simon saw a woman standing at his front door. He ducked behind the bushes, watching.

  "Mrs. Chu?" asked the woman. She was slender, brown haired, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She might have been pretty once, but she looked like life had worn her down, her face aged prematurely and her cheeks sunken and hollow looking.

  "Yes," his mother's voice said tersely.

  "My name is Sarah McDonnell. Heather is my daughter."

  Simon's mother did not reply.

  "I'm looking for her," Sarah said. "I can't find her anywhere. There was some damage at my house, and she's..." She choked up and couldn't speak for a moment. "She's gone. I thought she might be here with Simon."

  "Your daughter is not here," Mrs. Chu said, and began to close the door.

  "Wait! Is Simon here? Does he know where she is."

  And before the door slammed in Sarah’s face, he heard his mother's voice say, "Simon doesn't live here anymore."

  Simon wandered for a time, lost, all the energy and joy he had felt earlier vanished, spent. Aaron was with him, he knew, for anyone who approached stopped and stared, slack jawed, but said nothing.

  Finally, a boy on a skateboard rode up and stopped next to him. The boy stepped off the board and kicked it away, letting it casually roll up against the curb.

  "Simon, are you all right?" the boy asked. "I thought you wanted to go home."

  It was Aaron, of course. "You heard her. That's not my home anymore."

  The boy frowned. "I don't think I have a home anymore. I think I'm dead, Simon."

  Simon scratched his head. "I don't know. We could go back to the base and find you and see?"

  "She told me I'd have all the answers," the boy said. "She said I'd finally know everything."

  "Who told you that?"

  "The lady on the bus."

  "Lady? What lady?"

  The boy pointed. "I think she's there."

  Simon looked in the direction he pointed. A dark cloud had gathered over the city, funneling down in one spot.

  Simon's lips tightened. "This lady, she appeared to you on the bus? She told you this?"

  "Yes."

  "All right then. Let's go!"

  ______________________

  The strange figure stepped down as if walking down a flight of stairs, only there were no stairs. Its legs moved gracefully downward until it stood on the roof.

  At first, Simon thought it was a woman, but as she descended Simon beheld a strange sight: the woman became a she-ape, a gorilla with deep red fur and burning red eyes.

  The she-ape approached Simon. She looked at him for a moment, as if considering what to do about him.

  She leaned in close to him, and a gravelly voice whispered in his ear. "LEAVE THIS PLACE. JOIN THE LOST, AND YOU WILL FIND YOUR HOME."

  Then she reached out a hand, and touched his forehead.

  Red light exploded in Simon's mind, and he lost consciousness.

  ______________________

  "I have to take them back. I have to take them all back, or this could happen again."

  Kevin's voice floated down to Simon from somewhere, somewhere above and beyond. He opened his eyes, and saw the others gathered on the rooftop. The wind had died down, but there was the sound of sirens.

  "No, wait," Mia said angrily, "you can't take Amber away!"

  "And Marcus!" Tyler said, putting his hand around the caramel-skinned young man standing next to him.

  "She's not your Amber," Kevin said. "She doesn't belong here. None of them do. They're from an alternate reality, a second version of the bus that came through the same rift we drove through."

  "There's one more," Simon said.

  "Simon!" Heather leaned over him. "You're awake!"

  "Yeah," Simon scrabbled to his feet, clutching his head. "I think so."

  "What one more?" Kevin asked.

  "His name's Aaron. His body's back at the base. In the lab where they operated on me, I think."

  "Okay, I'll get him too."

  "Take me with you," Simon said.

  "What?" Heather wrapped her arms around his. "What do you mean?"

  Simon looked into her eyes. "I don't belong here. This isn't my home anymore. I think my home's somewhere out there, where they come from."

  "We have to go now." The other kids from the alternate world gathered around Kevin. "If you're coming, come on."

  "Simon, don't go!" Tears were slipping from Heather's cheeks.

  "I have to. I can't stay here anymore."

  "What ab
out your parents?"

  Simon looked down for a moment, then back at her. "Tell them Simon doesn't live here anymore. Tell them I'm free."

  Kevin vanished, taking Simon and the others with him.

  ______________________

  "She's killing us." Simon turned to Heather, ignoring her accusation that he had left her. There was no time for recriminations. Not now. "On the rooftop, you said 'she's killing us'. Who were you talking about?"

  Heather blinked. "I'm not sure. I can't see it now, but when I touched you, and took your power, I saw something."

  Simon nodded. "I get visions, of the future I think. On the school bus, I saw men operating on me. I thought I was seeing what had happened to us all, but it happened later, here on this base."

  "What I saw happened here too, I think. We were all here, and so was this woman, this glowing, red woman."

  "And she was killing us."

  Heather nodded.

  "Who was she?"

  "I don't know."

  Simon closed his eyes. "I keep thinking, if I have this power, this power to see the future, I should be able to use it. But it's hard." He concentrated. "The future is...slippery. I get flashes, but that's all."

  "Always in motion is the future," Brandon said. "The truth is, even flashes would help us at this point."

  Heather put a hand on his shoulder. "Try."

  Simon. "Okay."

  The dungeon, the stone walls, the chains.

  "I see...a dungeon. It's dark. I'm chained to the wall."

  Prisoners, chained to the walls. Heavy, metal chains, impossible to break.

  "There are others here. I'm trying to break free, but I can't."

  Torchlight in the darkness.

  "Someone's coming. Someone's coming from outside the cells."

  The torchlight approaches, a key turns in the lock.

  "They're opening the door."

  A woman's face illuminated in the torchlight.

  "It's a woman, the person in the door. There's guards holding torches, but I can see her face..." He turned. "It's you!"