Blood Trail
Page 32
Then he checked her scanner for the animal and saw it was still on the far side of the pen and not moving. As Charles and Lisa entered the runoff Richards smiled, things were going just like he thought they would. He turned and started back to the van.
As they ducked under the fence, Lisa whispered, “Where are the alarms?”
Charles thought for a moment and replied, “Maybe Sharon had to do things in a different order. Or maybe we’re too early.”
“Maybe, but it’s too quiet.”
The night vision scopes allowed them to move quickly through the ravine back to the point where they had first jumped into it. Charles slowly climbed to the top of the ravine and cautiously looked around, still nothing. Lisa climbed up beside him and they slowly moved out into the open area of the pen. They were within a few feet of where the time machine would appear when suddenly somewhere back behind them a car horn started honking.
“Let’s go,” Charles said as he took a few steps forward. Then they heard a ‘whuff” and the heavy steps…and the Rex just appeared. They whirled around and ran back toward the ravine and the heavy steps followed.
Then Lisa shouted, “You have to live,” and pushed Charles into the ravine as she turned to the right and ran toward the gate. The Rex paused, confused for a few seconds, then began moving after Lisa. She found it hard to run as she held the night vision scope in front of an eye, but she couldn’t drop it without possibly missing a step and falling into the ravine. If that happened the Rex might still be able to stop Charles from getting to the time machine.
Then the alarms started blaring and the pen blazed with light. She threw down the night vision and ran as fast as she could. She remembered Ron telling her that a Rex ran at about twelve miles an hour and that a fast sprinting person could outrun one…over a short distance. She saw the gate ahead and ran even faster.
As Chief Richards opened the driver’s side door of the van and leaned in he saw the movement and was just able to get his arm up in time to stop the boot to his head. The force of the kick still knocked him into the front door post and he fell back onto the ground. But he had been in fights before and he was back on his feet before Sharon was out the door. He pushed her back inside the van and tried to punch her again but there was not enough room to hit her very hard. He started slamming her into the steering wheel and then he laid her on it as he tried to strangle her. He could hear the horn honking and hoped everyone would think it was part of the planned diversion.
Then it felt like his head had exploded and he was flying back out of the van again. Sharon fell out too and landed on her knees. On the ground in front of her she recognized her scanner and as she picked it up Doctor Blacke jumped over her and began hitting Richards with a tire iron. Sharon punched in the code for the alarms and gates and suddenly everything was lit up and loud.
She turned just in time to see Richards roll away from the doctor and draw his semiautomatic, not the stun gun he said everyone was supposed to carry. Sharon tried to warn Doctor Blacke as she ran toward Richards, but he fired twice before she could say anything and Doctor Blacke dropped to the ground.
But Sharon didn’t stop, she jumped straight into his right leg with both feet and hit his wrist with her arm. He dropped the gun as he yelled in pain and fell down. Sharon started to go in after him again when she saw Lisa run through the gate and when she saw what was behind her, she turned and ran with Lisa as she streaked past them.
“You can’t outrun a bullet,” Richards shouted as he stumbled toward his gun. Then a large shadow fell across him and he heard the heavy breathing. He turned slowly and instinctively brought up a hand to block the glare of the lights. He saw the teeth and turned to run. As they heard the screaming from behind them, Lisa and Sharon ran into the wooded area and knelt down and hid in the shadows.
Charles climbed out of the ravine and started after Lisa, then he stopped. She knew what she was doing, and he knew what he had to do. He checked his watch and it guided him to the time machine site. He activated the beacon and in a few seconds it arrived. He stepped in and paused for a moment as he looked in the direction Lisa had run. There was nothing there. He closed the door and pressed the button.
Charles was sure no one knew about the condos, so no one knew about the ranch house that the condos would replace in a few years. He was in it now. Still, he paused by the windows and watched for a few minutes. He checked his watch, it was about two in the morning. One day before it happened. Then he walked to the garage, lifted the keys off the hook, backed out and drove into the night. There was no one following him. He opened the sun roof and, using the night vision, checked overhead. No drones.
Charles took the long way around and stopped in a drive that ran into a field about a mile from his house. In the future it would be a fashionable gated community but now it was just waiting to be planted with crops. He stayed in the field and away from the road until he was about three hundred yards away from his house. Then he quietly walked through some thick brush he had planted to what looked like a drain pipe. He moved the pipe out of the way and exposed an opening that he quickly crawled into and then closed the pipe behind him. The small opening gave way to a large tunnel which lit up with a flick of a switch and Charles moved quickly along the passage to the entrance in the basement of his house.
He walked into his study and stayed there for a long while writing and then he went upstairs.
As he slowly woke up he had the feeling something wasn’t right. In fact, something felt very wrong. He sat up in his bed and peered around the room. It was night or early morning, so it was still dark. It took him a few seconds to realize it was too dark, there was no light at all. He wondered if there had been a power outage as he tried to turn the lamp on. Nothing.
He had just decided there wasn’t much he could do about it and he should just go back to sleep when a voice spoke out of the darkness, “I disabled the electrical system for this part of the house.” He started and shrunk back against the bed’s wooden headboard, staring in the direction the voice had come from. After a few seconds the voice asked, “Do you have any questions, Charles?”
“Who are you and how do you know my name?”
“That’s two questions and they will be answered in a few minutes. Try again.”
“How did you disable the electrical system for this part of the house? In fact, for any part of the house. I – ”
“You,” the voice cut in, “are the only one who can disable anything in this house, or control anything, period. Yes, I know. Again, you started to ask two questions. They will also be answered in a few minutes when I allow the lights to come back on. Try again.”
“Okay, let me think for a second,” he said as he slowly scooted to his left across the bed. “Let me see if – ”
He was cut short again, this time by quiet laughter. Then the voice continued, “Do you think I can’t see you?” There was a tapping sound and the voice continued, “I have the baseball bat and what were you going to swing it at?”
“Now you’re asking two questions.”
The voice laughed again and replied, “That’s better. I’m not here to play twenty questions, I need to know if we can talk, if you are as smart as I remember. Ask me another question.”
Charles was silent then asked, “Why are you here?”
“That’s a good question. I’m here because of your work in – ”
“I thought you were going to turn the lights on.”
“Patience, Charles, patience. I need to explain a few things then I will turn on the lights. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Now then, you are working on a way to travel through time. You’re close, you can feel it. Several things have gone right for you recently, but something is still missing. Something elusive, vague, but you know it’s there. But that’s okay because you only sleep for four or five hours each night and you know it’s just a matter of time before you figure out what is wrong. You feel it in your bones.”
“So, your every waking hour is consumed with searching, testing, thinking, cursing, throwing one idea out as another takes its place. There are sudden periods of elation when you think you have the answer followed by ever deepening periods of despair and frustration when you realize that once again you are wrong, and you are no closer to time travel now than you were when you first started. But no matter how many times you fail, there is still that spark, no a fire now, that burns within you driving you on. You don’t know why, but it’s there. You will keep searching until you find the answer.”
Charles ran a hand through his hair and said, “Let’s say you’re right. That I am obsessed with time travel and I do think I am close to finding an answer. What does that have to do with you? Are you here to help?” A sudden thought came to Charles, “Do you time travel?”
“I do.”
Charles tensed his fists tight with white knuckles. “Are you here to help?”
“No, I’m here to explain why you have to stop.”
“Stop?” Charles asked angrily. “Am I stepping on your toes? Are you the only one who should be allowed to travel? Why should I stop?”
“Because you are going to succeed, Charles. Not through diligence and brilliance like you envision, but through the benevolence of chance. Tomorrow there will be an accident in your lab. At first it will seem like a complete catastrophe but then you will realize its significance. Within a week you will be sending items through time and then one day it will be you that steps through to the other side. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?”
“And yet you’re telling me to stop?”
“Yes. Because with all of your success will come more pain and suffering than you can possibly know. Because of you, people will die in horrible ways that will keep you from sleeping at night. In the end, you will gain nothing and lose everything, including friends you don’t know yet. You will be the catalyst for the greatest event in world history and you will pay for it dearly. You will wish you were dead until you realize you already are.”
“How do you know these things? Are you one of these new friends?”
The voice said coldly, “No, Charles, because I’m you.” Then the lights suddenly came back on and Charles stared in disbelief at the man sitting just a few feet from him.
“How – ”
“I know, it seems impossible. But I’m only twenty years older than you, that is, we, are now. So, you can see that I am you. But I have to admit being reminded of how young I used to be made me pause. The joy of youth, I see it in your face.”
“Just like I see there is no joy in yours. Tell me what happens.”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
He told himself about the first three jumps. How he, Lauren, Ron, Lisa and Danny developed a complex relationship with Pete, Marilyn, Jimmy and Mitch. And Taggit. Couldn’t forget him. “Wait, I’ve got a question,” young Charles said.
Old Charles nodded and said, “I know. All of that doesn’t seem too bad does it? The good guys won, and the bad guys lost. I married Lauren, Ron and Lisa ran all over the place having the time of their lives and Danny wrote a best-selling book. We stayed close, like family. But we always talked about the family that didn’t make it back. That we were lucky. Because in the end, all of the bad guys weren’t that bad and the things that happened to us, well, like I said, I just don’t sleep that well.” He paused for a moment then continued, “And then we had to do it again. All of us.”
“What?”
“And this time we weren’t so lucky.”
“Tell me,” young Charles said.
“I will, if I can finish before they get here.”
“They?”
“Just listen.” And old Charles told him about the second time. Tears were running down his face as he finished with, “And I’ll never know what happened to Lisa. But I do know what happened to everyone else, and why. The only thing you want to do is jump. The adventure, the excitement will be your reward.
“But that’s not what it will mean to everyone else. Riches beyond measure, infinite power to change the world to their own personal vision, that’s what will drive everyone else. It can’t be controlled or kept secret. Someone will learn about it and no matter who it is, eventually that other person, the bad one, will find out about it. That one person who will kill everyone without regard to satisfy their own perverse needs.”
Old Charles stood up and continued, “Look at me. I created monsters but I’m actually the biggest monster of them all. I have betrayed the world and when I look at my hands I see there’s blood on them.”
He sat down on the bed and said, “In a minute I want you to call 911 and report that someone is outside of your house. I bet a squad car just happens to be in the area. I’ll run, and I won’t be caught, at least not by the officer who shows up. I’ll be caught down the road by the people who want to control destiny.
“They’ll talk to you. Tell them you couldn’t sleep and that when you went downstairs for something to eat you saw the person outside trying to get in. You ran upstairs and called from here, so you don’t know if he got in or not. They’ll check, but not for me, they will just want to make sure I didn’t interfere with your experiments.
“Then they will leave and seem to leave you alone. But they will be watching, making sure you are still going to the lab tomorrow, moving closer to your discovery. When it happens, you’ll know it and you will be elated. You did it. You finally did it. Then destroy it.”
“But now that you’ve told me _ ”
“It still won’t be safe. Remember what I told you. You’ll be used by someone else and maybe you won’t make it back from a jump next time. Remember, there will always be someone who will want to use your invention and will kill to do it.”
Old Charles turned and then stopped and picked up the framed photo from the desk. “Mom and Dad…and me,” he said. He took a deep breath as he set the picture down and then said, “Oh, I’m wearing a pair of your shoes. Now call 911. After you have talked with everyone and they are gone, look in the study. There’s two pairs of boots downstairs and I’ve left you a note of some things you have to do, and also get ready to do, before and after you destroy your experiment. The after-part timing is crucial, you’ll meet them all at just the right time I hope.” Then old Charles left.
“Stop, don’t move,” the man shouted, and Charles did as he was told. Standing in the middle of the field there really wasn’t anyplace else to go. He put his hands up and walked toward the group of people that were waiting for him.
Charles held out his hands and as Officer Cesar handcuffed him he was surprised when Jack Barman said, “Do you have to do that?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, just standard procedure.”
“Okay, but don’t hurt him, we still can use him,” Rachel Sims spoke up.
Charles was surprised, “How’s that?” he asked.
“We’ll talk when we get back,” Barman said. “I have a feeling we can come to some sort of an agreement about things.”
They walked him through the field to where he had parked his car. Now there was a small square building next to it. Barman said, “I have to hand it to you, we have no idea where your time machine is and if you hadn’t alarmed your past self we still wouldn’t know you were here.”
Charles shook his head, “I used to sleep hard. Never woke up. What was the difference tonight?”
“You couldn’t sleep, or you were hungry or something.”
“Of all the nights.”
They filed into a small square building and Officer Cesar said, “Let’s go.”
“On the way back?” Charles asked.
Barman answered, “Yes. By the way, what were you going to do?”
“At first I was just going to destroy all the work, all the notes, everything even remotely connected to time travel. Make me start all over. But then I realized I would just invent it again.”
“So, what was the plan then?”
“I was going to kill me.”
”I’m surprised,” Barman said. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
“That’s because you don’t know me, and you don’t have a clue as to what the last week has done to me. You should have asked during our meeting.”
“I don’t need you to tell me - ”
“You also needed to ask about this time machine. Not me, but someone. Do you know where it came from?”
“From the old EXENCO files,” Barman replied. “Why?”
“From Steve Weston, right?”
“Yes.”
“And you know where he got all of his information from?” Charles asked.
“Of course, you. We know he stole everything from you.”
Charles looked down at his watch and asked, “Do you know what time it is?”
“Why?” Sims asked. “We can make it anytime we want.”
“Because you control time, don’t you?”
She laughed and said, “That’s right.”
Charles smiled and replied, “Not anymore.”
Barman caught something in his voice and asked Charles, “What do you mean?”
“I mean I have become a very suspicious and cautious man because of people like you. And one day I understood that I might be standing inside my own creation watching something being done that I didn’t agree with. And that I might have to shut it down. So deep in one of the programs I - ”
“Grab him, stop him,” Barman shouted.
As everyone rushed toward Charles, he crossed his arms in front his body and closed his eyes. Barman saw that his watch was counting down, and the number had already reached zero.
No one heard Charles say, “Lauren.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
QUE SERÁ, SERÁ