A Long Time Until Now

by Michael Z. Williamson

  He said, “We are lost. We will take steps to get unlost. It may take a while. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.” “Roger.” “Hooah.”

  Specialist Dalton asked, “What do you mean by ‘lost’, sir?”

  Yeah, he had to have some kind of answer, and he didn’t know. He tensed as much as he could to avoid shivering in fear, while trying not to look stiff. But the commander had to be firm and sure, or the troops would panic.

  He said, “We don’t know where we are. We don’t know where anyone else is. Shit’s acting weird. We can receive radio in the immediate area, but have no contact with anyone else. GPS is down. There’s some damage to the terrain. I’d almost guess some kind of EMP device.”

  Dalton made an odd face. “Nuke? Seriously?”

  “It doesn’t have to be a nuke. The Air Force has conventional EMP weapons. So could anyone else. But it could have been an atmospheric nuke. We all saw that flash.”

  Caswell asked, “But what about the road, sir? And the convoy?” Her voice shivered a little.

  “Yeah, I have no idea about that. For right now, it’s quiet, and we see no hostiles, so we’ll set watch, eat lunch, and think over some strategies. If you have any ideas, let me know.”

  He watched while they glanced about, then took turns climbing into the vehicles and digging out MREs.

  He swung up into Charlie Eight and grabbed one of his own. At least it was spaghetti.

  Spencer sauntered around, had his pocket knife out faster than anyone, and sliced a couple of packages open for people. Then he walked over to the front of Eight, stood for a moment, and around to Elliott.

  Alongside, in a quiet mumble, he said, “You don’t think we’re going to find anyone, do you, sir?”

  “No,” he admitted. “I don’t know what kind of sci fi shit happened, but we’re not in A-stan anymore.”

  He had no idea where they were, and his legs were weak, his pulse hammering, and his head spinning.

  “Yes, we are.” Spencer pulled off his helmet and ran fingers through his cropped hair.

  “How do you figure?”

  “Those mountains to the south. They haven’t changed.”

  He looked. “Damn. You’re right. Shit.”

  “Or actually, they have.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “Do you see any roads? Any farms? Any cuts for power lines? Any indication of people at all?”

  He stared. He desperately wanted to find something, like that . . . no, that wasn’t anything. Spencer was right. There was nothing indicating any human presence.

  “We are so fucked,” he said, feeling a wash of tears that he blinked back. The nausea didn’t show, but he wasn’t hungry anymore.

  He rambled. “Parallel universe? Everyone magically transported away? Time travel? We missed the Rapture?”

  “I’d say every one of those is bullshit, and explain how,” Spencer said. “Except I can’t.”

  “When do we tell them?”

  “Bit by bit. We don’t have a panic yet. I don’t want one.” Spencer held up a hand and stared at it. He was trembling as if he had Parkinson’s. His hands were visibly damp.

  The need to stand watch and eat did keep them busy. And yes, it was a lot cooler than it had been. From the 90s or 100s, it was down to high 70s or low 80s. Quite comfortable. Wind blew from the west, very, very fresh. When it dropped he could smell the trucks.

  “Police up that trash, Dalton,” he ordered. “We don’t want to leave a calling card.”

  “Yes, sir.” The kid had been about to stuff all his plastic under a rock. That wasn’t a good idea tactically, and this place was so pristine he hated to spoil it.

  Alexander turned and said, “Sir, I was going to get some pictures . . .”

  “Sure. Go ahead.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said. “But I don’t see any landmarks except the mountains.”

  She’d figured it out.

  “Yes, that’s our next problem.”

  She raised her eyebrows. Her lip twitched.

  “Understood, sir,” she said with a slow nod and a cold face. She didn’t look reassured. She grabbed her weapon with one hand, nodded and slowly put the hand back on her camera.

  Ten minutes later, the grapevine had it.

  Dalton asked, “So where the hell are we, sir? If it’s okay to ask. If we know.”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re still on Earth,” he said. He was confident of that. Mostly. The gravity, air and sun seemed right. In fact, yes, there was a quarter moon . . . and . . . it had been near full the night before. He wasn’t going to say anything yet. And what the fuck had happened to the sun? They rolled at 0923. That was an afternoon sun.

  What the fuck had happened?

  Had they been knocked out for days? Because if not, then, no, he wasn’t going to think about that, because . . .

  “Where, then?”

  Everyone had gathered around, and this time they were much closer, not wanting to stray from the safety of the vehicle.

  “Sergeant Spencer and I were discussing that. Everyone knows we’re really lost, right?”

  “Yeah. As in, no signs of any people at all. Like we’re suddenly in the middle of Siberia.”

  He sighed. “Well, at this point, we can’t rule that out.”

  “What did it?”

  Dalton said, “God is testing us.”

  Alexander snapped, “Oh, please fucking spare me . . . argh. Dammit.”

  “No religion, no politics,” he ordered. “We have no idea. Divine power is one idea. So is some kind of space warp to a parallel world. Or we may be back in time. Or somewhere remote like Siberia.” He wasn’t going to mention the familiar skyline to anyone who hadn’t caught it. Slowly on the discovery. And anyway, he didn’t know what happened.

  “Really?” Caswell said. “What is this bullshit?”

  “Do you see any sign of people? Powerlines, roads, villages on the hillsides, cleared areas for agriculture, anything?”

  “No, but lots of this country is vacant.”

  “Not around here. Sparse, but not vacant. And not this green.”

  He was amazed there wasn’t more panic. Though Trinidad was reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Devereaux and Ortiz went to join him, holding hands.

  Dalton asked, “What the fuck do we do?”

  “For right now, we stay right here, where we landed.” He pointed for emphasis. “We have good visibility downslope, some cover from that outcropping, and working vehicles. We bivouac here.”

  “That’s it?” Dalton sounded irritated.

  “What else would you do?”

  “You travel downhill until you find a watercourse, and follow it downstream until you find people.”

  Spencer nodded. “Per the book, that is a guaranteed way to find people. But it assumes there are people to find. Look at that hill,” he said.

  Dalton argued, “And people around here might stick to the valleys.”

  “Do you recognize that hill line, Corporal?”

  And that was it.

  “We’re still here,” Ortiz said.

  “Close enough, yes. Within a few kilometers of where we were when whatever it was happened.”

  “Shit.”

  “So we bivouac,” he said at once. “And gather intel, and then plot a course of action. We have the ammo, food, water and fuel at hand, and that’s it. So we don’t use it until we’re sure.”

  Alexander said, “Sir? Latrine break?”

  “Yeah, around that rock,” he pointed east. “Take a buddy.”

  “I’d rather take two. Sergeant Spencer, will you cover us?” She indicated herself and Caswell.

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  Elliott nodded. “Yeah, we need to stay in close proximity. We don’t know if it will happen again.”

  Spencer and the two females headed around the rock, but not far. He could see their heads as they squatted. He was glad they were within sight. What would happen if or when they jumped back . . .
or elsewhere?

  And thank God for sci fi movies. Whatever had happened fit concepts they all knew about. Fifty years previous, he would have had a panic on his hands. As it was, they were too shocked to panic. He’d need to keep them busy.

  Oglesby lit a smoke, after a half dozen attempts with trembling hands. Elliott decided to let it slide.

  Except he was panicking himself. He didn’t know where they were, or what happened. There was the sound of wind soughing through long grass and shrubs, and the occasional chirp of a bird. Otherwise, it was silent. He’d never been anywhere this quiet in his life.

  When Spencer and the females returned, he said, “Okay, watch in alphabetical order by last name, one hour each, starting now. Use the cupola. After dark, we’ll overlap two hours, with two people up. I don’t want anyone falling asleep or panicking. This is some serious shit, but we’re U.S. Army Soldiers and will deal with it.”

  “And tomorrow?” Dalton asked.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll widen our search and go from there. Also, as of right now, I want everyone to have weapon loaded, chamber empty. It only takes a second to charge a weapon, and we don’t need any accidents because of nerves.”

  There was a rattle of charging handles and magazines, as everyone cycled their chambers empty and reinserted magazines.

  Barker asked, “Can’t we run the vehicle?”

  “That falls under the category of wasting resources, and breaching noise discipline. No.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  “Yeah, Barker, you were Navy before you joined the Reserves?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The ‘aye aye’ gave it away.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Well, what do we do until dark, sir?”

  “Hasty positions, and I want another patrol farther uphill, tracking back the line we took downhill.”

  “To find what?”

  “Whatever there is to find.”

  Spencer didn’t seem too sure, but he said, “Yes, sir.”

  Alexander had her camera up, with a big telephoto on. He was about to say something when she said, “S-small herd of animals, sir. Y-you want to see this.”

  She lowered the camera and stepped over. He reached for it, she pulled it away, looped the sling around his neck, then handed it to him. Yes, he could understand why she’d be protective of her very expensive equipment.

  He held it up, looked through the viewfinder, and aimed it where she pointed. Yes, a small herd. They were hairy, brown and tan, and had big heads and long horns on their noses.

  They were shaggy rhinos. About a dozen of them.

  He took a long, ragged breath and tried not to panic. It was completely impossible. He looked again. One of them galloped a couple of steps, and reached out a long horn toward its mother, who was cropping thick, green grass.

  He stared at Alexander. He looked around at the others.

  Caswell raised a hand to shield her eyes and squinted. Then she asked, “Are they . . . ?”

  “Yes. They are rhinos,” he said. There was nothing to be gained by stalling.

  “What the fuck are rhinos doing in A-stan?”

  Alexander said, “Woolly rhinos. From when it was cold.”

  Caswell got it, and shouted, “We’re in the fucking Stone Age?”

  He felt it himself. His entire body shook, there were splotches in front of his eyes, and he couldn’t talk.

  No one else said a word, but they were all obviously shocked. Lips trembled, then whole bodies. “Lost” could be frightening. Knowing they were . . . this . . . was terrifying. Then he felt himself flush and shake.

  Devereaux ran for the rock, tugging at his fly. Dalton dithered a moment, then followed.

  “We see rhinos,” he said. “Presumably we’re in the Stone Age. It could be a recreation, some kind of image, or I could be having a drugged-out dream in ICU.” He hoped so. Please, let it be a messed-up dream. They’d been hit by an IED and he was hospitalized, recovering. Missing limbs would be better than this.

  Barker sounded surprisingly calm.

  “How did we get in the fucking Stone Age? That bang we heard?” He was smoking, too. Oglesby was chain lighting another and almost brushed the coal off as his hands shook.

  Spencer said, “That had to be it. I have no idea how, but that’s when everything went bugnuts.” He was crying.

  Barker’s voice was much softer as he asked, “And how do we get back?”

  Elliott saw they were all shaky, and he needed to keep discipline. He started talking, slowly and with measure, as he’d been taught by one of his mentors.

  “Listen up. Leak if you need to, then get back over here. I’m going to keep talking.

  “First, we’re going to deal with the immediate situation. We are a small unit, but we are large enough to support ourselves, and God willing, we’ll make this work.

  “I don’t have an answer on getting back. First we have to find out where and when we are. Then we need to survive and thrive. Then we focus on finding our way back.

  “I need fifteen minutes to make some notes. Then I’ll dictate our plan of attack.”

  Hopefully he could silently scream it all out in fifteen minutes. Or maybe he’d throw up.

  Martin Spencer was surprised he wasn’t more shocky. Woolly rhino, cool weather, lusher growth, no people. Time travel. There wasn’t any other explanation. Time travel was impossible, except in sci fi and movies, but it had obviously happened.

  His brain suddenly remembered an old joke. You may get drafted or not. If not, no worries. But if so, there are two possibilities. You may deploy or not. If you don’t, no worries . . . his mind raced through to the ending. If you get wounded, you may survive or not. If you survive, no worries, if not . . . but there are usually two possibilities.

  It was either time travel, or time travel. He was alive. He had people, tools, skills. Either they could get back or not. Always two possibilities if you looked for them.

  The LT, though, was sick with shock and fear, and he couldn’t think, and he was angry, and he couldn’t think.

  “Sir, can I offer some suggestions?”

  “No,” Elliott replied, gripping his rifle, trembling, and staring at the horizon.

  “Understood, sir.”

  That was bad. The man was shaking, wasn’t making decisions, and wasn’t all there. He needed backup. If the man wasn’t in command, the troops would panic all over the landscape.

  But a few moments later, Elliott turned around and gave orders.

  He said, “It’s dry but going to be cool tonight. Dress as you need to for the weather, let’s hang some ponchos or tarps around the wheels like lean-tos, and we can sleep under there tonight. We don’t have much fuel, but I want a small fire in that crack in the rock. Two people on watch as I said, and keep feeding grass stalks to it if nothing else. The smoke will help with bugs.”

  The ponchos went up in a few minutes, but no one crawled into the shelter.

  Dalton said, “If it’s okay with you, sir, I’ll be first watch.”

  “You and me, then,” he agreed.

  It was pretty clear no one was going to sleep. Elliott could order it, but it wouldn’t work.

  Still, he was giving orders. That was good. Spencer added, “Keep the fire small. Light, a little heat, a little smoke.”

  “How about three on watch, sir?” Barker asked. “We can keep an eye out in three arcs at once.”

  If there were rhinos, there might be mammoths, bears and sabertooths, and he doubted M4 carbines would stop them, but they might have to try.

  Elliott said, “Yeah. There should be a good view from the ledge.”

  There wasn’t much talking. Spencer didn’t even know who’d lit the fire, and that bothered him. It was dusky. They’d been here for hours, and where had the time gone?

  Was time moving at a different rate, too? Or had they just completely zoned out in shock? He checked his watch. No, it had bee
n eight hours. How?

  He needed to piss again, badly. He went to the side of the outcropping and let loose. He kept looking over his shoulder to make sure everyone was still there.

  The fire was the only warmth he felt. He moved in as close as he thought safe, and felt a nervous itch in his exposed back. He closed his eyes and focused on leading by example, then opened them in fear. He realized he was shaking in stress, and nauseated.

  It’s like a firefight, he thought. But it’s been going on for eight hours, and there’s nothing I can do to take cover or evade, or call for support.

  He heard someone make a deep, shuddering sigh that turned into sobs, and in moments, they were all whimpering and gasping. They’d be panicking until they got through every stage of dealing with trauma, he expected.

  He thought about suggesting camp songs, cadences or even jokes, but . . . nothing felt right.

  I have to do something, if only to keep a perception of discipline, he thought. We have to stay together.

  Absolutely nothing came to mind.

  Devereaux said, “If you look up, you can see the constellations. We’re in late summer, early fall, and we’re about the same latitude we left, possibly a bit farther north. So we’re not terribly far away.”

  “Except in time.”

  Devereaux’s camo showed up better in the starlight than his dark skin. His outline was ghostly. He said, “There’s a fifteen billion light year universe we could be lost in, and eternity. We’re not far. Whatever screwed up is likely to happen again. We just need to watch for it.”

  He sounded confident. He needed it to be true, and Martin did, too.

  Someone asked, “Why? We couldn’t see this one.”

  “We weren’t looking.”

  Caswell said, “No pollution. Look how bright and clear they all are.”

  She was right. He’d never seen anything that bright in the remotest areas of A-stan, Alaska or even on the side of the Tetons. The stars were icy points, and there were billions of them. Except for the fire, it was completely, utterly black.

  That brought everyone silent for about ten seconds.

  Then the sobs started again.

  They stopped when a wolf howled. A big wolf. Then others.