Out of Time: A story of archaeology... sort of

by David LaVigne

  Campbell was carrying the pistol he had taken from one of the guards they had ambushed and he fired it at the officer, but the shot went wide to the left. The officer fired his own pistol and the ball hit the militiaman to Campbell’s right in the shoulder and the man’s pace slowed.

  The officer drew the saber at his belt and slashed at Campbell from a high position but Campbell used his pistol to shove the blade to the side and brought his elbow into the officer’s face as he stepped forward. He had enough momentum to force them both to the ground and the sword went flying out of the officer’s hand. Some of the colonials tried to stop and aid Campbell, but Richter yelled for them to push on and they rushed past.

  Campbell pushed himself off of the Redcoat, scrambled forward on all fours and grabbed the sword. The officer grabbed his leg and tried to pull him back. Campbell rolled over and kicked the officer in the face with his free foot just as Mary came up from behind the officer and hit him in the back of the head with the butt of a musket. The officer went limp.

  She helped Campbell up and they headed after the rest of the escape party. But as they came out the other end of the alley they were a good forty yards behind the others, who were packing themselves into two small fishing boats and pushing them towards the water.

  They started to run toward the boats but a volley of musket fire from their right forced them back into the alley and they turned and ran back the way they came. As they came out into the courtyard Mary saw Richter running south down the street. She took off after him and Campbell took off after her.

  Richter made a hard left and then another, then a right. Once he noticed Campbell and Mary were after him he tried everything he could to lose them, but they were catching up. After a few more turns, and half a dozen stops to dodge British troops, he ducked into a building.

  Campbell and Mary darted through the door right at Richter’s heels and they chased him up a flight of stairs. The first door on the second floor was a study and Richter ran in and slammed the door in Campbell’s face. There was the sound of a lock turning. Campbell tried the knob and hit the door with his fist but it was useless.

  “Where are we?” Campbell asked Mary after slamming his shoulder into the door.

  “His house,” she said and pointed at the door, “that’s the study.”

  Campbell looked around for anything he could use to try to get through the lock. He still had the sword in his hand, but he figured it wouldn’t do the trick. He looked at Mary and saw two pistols tucked into her belt, a musket in each of her hands and two more, one with a bayonet, slung on her back. A belt with a sword and a pistol attached hung on her right shoulder, and three powder horns were strapped to her left.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said. “Did you take every single weapon you could find?”

  “No,” she answered. “This was all I could carry.”

  He took one of the pistols out of her belt and checked to see if it was loaded. It was. He pointed it at the lock, turned his head, and pulled the trigger. There was a flash, a loud bang and some splinters of wood and metal flew into the air. Campbell tried to push the door open but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Goddamnit,” he muttered, “that always works in the movies.”

  “What?” Mary said.

  “Never mind.”

  He went to work on the hinges, using the pommel of the saber and the butt of the pistol as hammers and in a minute he had them off, but the lock still kept the door in place. They each got the same idea at the same time and took a few steps back to get a running start, then slammed themselves into the door. They pushed with all the force they could muster and when the door came down they fell into the room on top of it. They both looked up and saw Richter holding a metal cylinder, frantically spinning dials and twisting.

  Richter stared at the two lying on the door for a second and tried to jump over them and out the door, but Campbell reached up and caught his leg and he fell face first just behind them. He kicked Campbell’s hand with other foot, causing the hand it to let go, and he tried to get up and run. But Campbell scrambled up and jumped, trying to tackle him back to the floor but he was too far forward already. Campbell managed to grab Richter’s leg, which cause him to tumble down the stairs, pulling Campbell with him.

  The two of them rolled over each other again and again until they reached the bottom of the staircase, sprawled out on their backs in the entryway. Richter’s cylinder had flown out of his hand and landed against the front door. He rolled over on top of Campbell and punched him in the face, then reached down into the front of his pants.

  This was quite a sight for Mary at the top of the staircase as she looked down to see Campbell on his back and Richter on top of him, with his hand down Campbell’s pants.

  “Hans, I didn’t know you felt that way,” Campbell said. He grabbed Richter’s wrist, but Richter already had hold of the device. Richter punched Campbell again, pulled his hand free and ran out into the street with the time machine.

  Campbell scrambled to his feet and chased out after him. Mary ran down the stairs and saw the cylinder that Richter had been fiddling with and figured it must be of some importance so she grabbed it on her way out.

  Richter made it twenty yards or so to the middle of an intersection when he realized he was surrounded on three sides by at least a hundred Redcoats. Campbell was after him on the other side, with Mary close at his heels.

  He looked from one line of soldiers to the next, holding the disk tightly with both hands. He started frantically spinning dials. This device was different from his, and he wasn’t sure how this one worked. When he had examined it before, right after stealing it from Campbell, he figured the top row of dials must be the date and the bottom the time, so it must work the same way as his own.

  Campbell was getting closer. The Brits were yelling for him to get on his knees or they’d shoot. He was out of time. The Soldiers started firing just as Campbell tackled him to the ground. Mary was half a step behind and she tripped when Campbell went down. The device turned and there was a bright flash.

  Chapter 7

  When the lightning died down Mary was on top of Campbell, who was lying face down on top of Richter who was lying on his back in the middle of a paved street in the dead of night. She had a musket outstretched in one hand and the cylinder held close to her chest in the other. They were surrounded by brick buildings.

  She rolled off of the pile as Richter pushed Campbell off of him. Campbell fell to the other side and Richter got up and sprinted off down the street, switching the year dial on the device. When he was twenty yards or so away from the others he twisted and the flash started again.

  Campbell scrambled to his feet and chased after but it was too late. Richter was gone and he and Mary were stuck. He looked around him and saw tall boxy cars with thin rubber tires on wooden wheels parked along the sides of the street. There were street lamps dimly lighting up the road and all the buildings around him were tall, multi-story apartments.

  Mary got up and walked over to him.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “Boston, the same spot we were standing in a moment ago,” he replied.

  “Obviously not,” she said, waving a hand around.

  “It is, just not the same time,” he said, looking around. It seemed like he was trying to find something.

  “But, wait, did we just time travel?” she asked, a little excited, a little scared.

  “Yes,” he answered. “That was that flash, Richter took us to the future.”

  “When?”

  “By the look of it I’d say the nineteen twenties. When he stole my machine he had changed the destination to 1936, the year we first met.”

  “Your time machine.”

  “Right.”

  “I think I might faint.”

  “He must have set the date back a few years when he was fiddling with it. I don’t think it operates quite the same as the one he used, that’s why he didn’t leave sooner.” He turned and
looked at her. Her face had turned white, it was full of excitement but there was something else there as well. “And now he’s gone to some other time with it and left us stranded here.”

  “What’s this, then?” she said, lifting up the metal cylinder in her hand.

  He laughed and grabbed the cylinder out of her hand and twisted around in the street.

  “It’s his time machine,” he said with a big smile on his face. But as he looked at it his grin turned slowly to a deep frown.

  “What is it?” she said.

  At that moment there was a sound of sirens in the distance, but getting closer fast. Campbell grabbed Mary by the arm and pulled her into a close alley.

  “We need to move,” he said as they ran between the buildings.

  “What’s going on?”

  “There’s a reason why I never use the machine anywhere that people might see it. That sound means cops. A hundred people must have seen that light when we arrived.”

  “Cops?”

  “Police,” he said, trying to find a word she’d recognize. “Constables.”

  She understood that one, and her recent experience with imprisonment led her to pick up the pace. Now she was pulling him along. They rounded a corner onto a less well-lit street and he stopped them. All this running was taxing and he’d barely had time to catch his breath since all that running through 1776.

  “We need to ditch those weapons,” he said, pointing to the arsenal she was carrying with her.

  “And leave ourselves indefensible?” she said, astonished that he would suggest such a thing.

  “Our clothes stand out enough here,” he insisted, “walking around armed to the teeth with hundred and fifty year old weapons is the last thing we want to do.”

  She could see the logic in that. She looked around for some place to hide the muskets and pistols and powder. That’s when she saw that the end of the musket she was carrying was gone. It seemed to have just cut off halfway down the barrel.

  “What’s the meaning of this?” she held the gun up to Campbell.

  “It must have stuck out of the field,” he said. “Anything that touches that ball of lightning gets cut through. The rest of your barrel is probably still in 1776.”

  She looked at the barrel of the musket closely for a moment.

  “Oh,” she said, “I see.” Then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell.

  Campbell reached out and caught her and set her carefully on the ground. He took off all of her weapons and set them up against the building in the shadows, keeping two of the pistols with him which he tucked into the back of his pants. Then he picked her up and held her by the waist against him, trying to prop her on her feet but failing.

  A man walking on the other side of the street looked over and stared at them for a moment. He looked like he was about to say something but Campbell cut him off.

  “Costume party,” he said a little loud. “She had a bit much to drink.”

  “Wouldn’t be saying that so loud round here my friend,” the stranger yelled back across the street. It sounded like he may have had a bit himself tonight.

  “Right,” Campbell said, still a bit loud but lowered. “Could I trouble you for a smoke sir?”

  The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of Camels and walked across the street. He handed Campbell a cigarette, which he maneuvered into his mouth with his right hand while keeping the arm tucked tight under Mary’s shoulder. The stranger lit it for him, and he coughed a bit on the first drag. He hadn’t had a smoke in a hundred and fifty years.

  “Now this might sound a bit weirder than I look at the moment,” Campbell said through a puff of smoke, “But could you tell me the date?”

  “December fifth,” the man said, and started to turn away.

  “Sorry sir, but could tell me the year as well?”

  “1928 of course, have you been living under a rock?”

  “Well sir,” Campbell said, looking around to see if anyone else was out and finding the street deserted, “yes.”

  He let go of Mary, letting her fall to the ground, and pulled one of the pistols out from behind him and hit the man hard in the jaw with the butt, knocking him out cold. He had judged the man was roughly his same build and he needed desperately to get out of his colonial getup before whoever called the cops on the next street over gave them a description of the people that climbed out of a lightning ball. Not that the cops would believe their story, they’d probably just search the house for booze. But if they were to drive a street over and see someone matching the same description, it would probably raise eyebrows.

  He took one last long drag of the cigarette and flicked into the street. Then he dragged the two unconscious people at his feet, one at a time, into the darkest part of the alleyway. He switched clothes with the man, who wore a grey suit, double breasted, with a white shirt and a grey fedora that was just a tad tight on Campbell’s head. He also had on a thick wool overcoat which Campbell used to cover Mary.

  When she regained consciousness a moment later he was going through the man’s wallet and counting the eighteen dollars he had. Plenty, he thought.

  “You ok?” he asked her.

  “Just peachy,” she said sarcastically, something she had picked up from him.

  “We need to move,” he said.

  “Ok,” she said as she propped herself up and stretched a hand out to him.

  He helped her stand and made sure the coat was tied tightly around her. They headed out of the alley and down the street, passing the weapons stacked against that building. That’ll be an interesting find in the morning, he thought to himself.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “A friend’s,” he answered.

  “John, back so soon?” Mickey said from behind the bar in the little speakeasy hidden at the back of the pet store.

  “I need a drink,” Campbell said with a smile. He walked up and gave the bartender a handshake over the counter.

  “Who’s the broad?” Mickey asked.

  “This is Mary,” Campbell introduced her.

  “Nice catch,” Mickey said. “The usual?”

  “Two,” Campbell replied, “and make ‘em stiff.”

  The bartender poured two tall glasses of watered down whiskey and set one in front of each of them. Mary was a bit overwhelmed by everything but she downed the drink in one sip and it made her feel a little better. She slammed the glass back on the table which gave Mickey a little smile and he poured her another.

  “I gotta ask you a little favor, Mickey,” Campbell said quietly, leaning closer on the bar.

  “You ain’t in no trouble, are ya John?” Mickey replied, the word ‘coppers’ running through his mind.

  “No, nothing like that,” Campbell said, waving off the question. “We just need to use your back room, to nod off for a couple hours.”

  “Ah,” Mickey said with a wink. “You know I charge for that.”

  Campbell slid two five dollar bills from the stolen wallet onto the counter.

  “You workin’?” Mickey asked Mary.

  “Just a friend,” Campbell answered for her.

  “Alright, John,” Mickey said as he pulled a small key out of his pocket and handed it to Campbell. “I’m closin’ up around four, I’ll wake you up then.” He made little quote marks with his fingers when he said wake.

  There was a door at the back of the storage area that led to a little room with no windows, just a lamp and a bed and nothing else. Mickey would let his more loyal customers use this room when they needed some alone time with a girl but didn’t have a place they could go. Of course, half the girls in the bar were working girls and Mickey always got a cut.

  Mary and Campbell lay down on the bed and tried to get some sleep. Mary passed out but she could only manage an hour or so, there was far too much running through her head. She had been courted by a man who turned out to be a time traveler for the past two years, one she was engaged to marry. Then another m
an from the future comes along and turns everything upside down. Now she’s a hundred and fifty years in the future, lying on a bed with a man she barely knows and probably can’t trust, but he’s all she has because she’s stranded out of her time.

  She opened her eyes and looked over to see Campbell sitting on the edge of the bed fiddling with the cylinder she had taken from Richter. It had sections with numbers, similar to his disk, but they stretched around the whole circumference of the cylinder. He was moving them back and forth, trying to figure out where the separation would be between date and time.

  “How does it work?” she said, a little groggy, as she looked up at him from the pillow.

  “Similar to mine,” he said, still staring at the device. “You align these numbers to set your date and time, and then twist the smooth half around. Then it should turn on and send you to the time you want to go.”

  “Then can you take me home?” she asked, propping her head up a bit, her eyes getting a little glint of hope.

  “No,” he said. “It’s broken. I think that’s why he was in your time for so long, and why he was so quick to get his hands on mine.”

  The hope left her eyes and she fell back on the bed. She lay there staring at him for a few more minutes as he kept fiddling with the device. Then she rolled over and stared at the ceiling. She watched the blades of an electric fan spinning around. It intrigued her, such a simple thing but how could it be happening? There weren’t any slaves to spin it, no one pulling a rope, nothing. It just spun all on its own and kept going. She thought of the street lamps outside, they shined with light but there were no flames, just a dull glow. And those carriages out front, they moved along with no horses. There was nothing to pull them, just an obnoxious loud noise. It all just worked.

  “How?” she said, still staring at the fan.

  “What?” Campbell turned to look at her. She didn’t take her eyes off the fan.