by Glenn Cooper
Ben nodded. “We have incontrovertible evidence that Woodbourne is dead yet now he seems quite alive. There’s little basis to doubt that the same is true for Duck. If we get bowled out at the British Library, it occurs to me that we could get a linguist to study Duck’s speech patterns to see if they’re compatible with the eighteenth century. Beyond that, I think we’ll have to stick with what we have: his firsthand account of this place he calls Down.”
“We’ve only scraped the surface with him,” Trevor said. “When he wakes up we’ll need to carry on with interviews and milk everything he knows about his world.”
“As you can see,” Ben said, “he’s unfocused, childlike and none too bright. It’s going to be a challenge to effectively milk him, as Trevor says, but it’s imperative we do it right. The more we know, the better chance we’ll have of understanding Brandon Woodbourne and what we’re dealing with.”
Trevor opened his laptop and clicked on the video feed of Duck’s bedroom. The duvet was pulled up to his neck and he was sleeping soundly with a look of pure pleasure on his young, clean face.
“The clock’s ticking,” Trevor said. “We’ve got six and a half days until we fire up the collider again. We’re going to do everything in our power to find Woodbourne in that time and I’ll bet anything that John is in that godforsaken place doing everything in his power to find Emily.”
Des and Adele Fraser, a couple in their sixties, returned to their Hillside Road home and began piling bulging suitcases on the walkway. Mr. Fraser paid the driver. They had taken a taxi from Gatwick to Crayford, just west of Dartford, because their son was away on business in Manchester. It was midday, the bright sun casting no shadows.
“Did you draw all the curtains when we left?” Des asked his wife.
She looked toward the windows of their modest semi-detached home and said, “I don’t think so but I really can’t recall. We left two weeks ago, didn’t we? Seems like forever.”
“You go on. I’ll shift the bags.”
Adele used her house keys and left the door open for her husband who carried the lighter bags through the threshold then struggled with the biggest one. In the hall he put the unwieldy bag down, grumbled about his back, and said they’d have to unpack it downstairs rather than lug the monster up to the bedroom. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that his wife hadn’t moved from a spot in the sitting room and hadn’t removed her coat.
“You all right, luv?”
A large man stepped into the hall, pointing a pistol at Des’s middle.
“Close the door,” he said. “And keep your trap shut.”
“Who are you?” Des asked indignantly.
“You haven’t done what I told you. Do you want me to kill her?” Woodbourne said.
Des closed the door and was herded into the front room. It was in a state. There were food tins, plates, and utensils strewn about, the contents of the cupboards scattered and broken on the floor.
“Sit there. Both of you. You, what’s your name? Cook me something. I’m sick of eating from tins.”
“My name is Adele.” Her voice was thready with fear.
“Right, Adele. Make us something tasty then. If you open the back door I’ll kill him straight off. I cut the telephone lines so don’t you bother with that neither.”
“I have to see what I’ve got,” she said. “We’ve been away a fortnight.”
She removed her coat, exchanged a desperate glance with her husband and went to the kitchen.
“That’s a tele, right?” Woodbourne asked, pointing the gun at the flatscreen.
“Of course it is,” Des said.
“Can’t see where the tubes go. Couldn’t figure how to switch it on neither. Do it for me.”
“You need to use both boxes.”
Woodbourne looked around. “I didn’t see no boxes.”
“These,” Des said, picking the remotes off the carpet. “One’s for the set, the other’s for the cable.”
“Just do it, all right?”
Des turned it on. “What channel?”
“Don’t be daft. The BBC.”
“One, two, three, or four?”
“Don’t be smart with me. There’s only the one BBC. I want the news to see if they’re saying anything about me.”
Des put it on the BBC news channel. Woodbourne looked startled and marveled about it being in color.
“What did you do to be on the news?” Des asked.
“The usual, I suppose. I came, I saw, I conquered. Who said that? Can’t never remember.”
“Julius Caesar.”
“Yeah, him. I looked all over for a wireless. You got one?”
Des was in his late sixties. He looked Woodbourne over curiously. He didn’t seem to be older than forty or so. He was heavy-set and muscular, Des’s own shirt and trousers, tight on his large frame. His black hair was slicked back. He smelled of a combination of rot and his wife’s soap.
“I haven’t heard a radio called a wireless for a very long while. We’ve got a clock radio by the bed.”
“Is that what that is? I couldn’t work it neither.”
“Why did you break into my house?”
Woodbourne limped across the room and rubbed at his thigh. “I used to have a mate who lived round here. Couldn’t find it. Must’ve been torn down. The house was empty so in I came. Had to go somewhere. My car’s in your lock-up. That yours in the drive?”
Des nodded.
“Didn’t need it for your hols?”
“We were in Australia, visiting our daughter.”
“Long way, that.”
“You’re limping. Are you hurt?”
“I’m all right. Just grazed.”
“Look, why don’t you leave after my wife feeds you? We won’t call the police.”
“That’s what they always say, don’t they?”
“Then you’ve done this sort of thing before.”
Woodbourne looked up. “I have done.”
It wasn’t long before a picture of Woodbourne appeared on the TV, an image grabbed from the MAAC cameras.
The newsreader said, “There continue to be no apparent further developments in the case of the unnamed man who broke into the Massive Anglo-American Collider in Dartford, interrupting a key scientific experiment. This man later kidnapped and killed journalist Pricilla Knowles who was on site covering the event. Despite the largest manhunt in Kent history, the perpetrator remains at large. Once again the public is encouraged to report any sightings of this man, who is considered armed and extremely dangerous, to the number appearing at the bottom of your screen.”
Woodbourne seemed quite pleased and said, “You hadn’t heard about me then?”
Des’s hands had started shaking during the newscast. “We heard something about this in Adelaide.”
“There’s a bit more to the story,” Woodbourne said with a queer smile.
“I don’t need to know anything more. I have to use the loo. Can I, please?”
“Use the one down here.”
The downstairs lav was near the kitchen and Des was able to give his distraught wife a soothing word.
Inside, the door had no lock and the best he could do was lean against it while he reached for his mobile phone in his pocket. He was about to hit 999 when the handle turned and Woodbourne pushed in.
“I don’t like you closing doors on me. What’s that in your hand?”
“My mobile,” Des mumbled.
“The only thing I want to see in your hand is your cock. Give it here.” He inspected the phone. “What’s it do?”
“You don’t know?”
Woodbourne grabbed Des by the collar and hauled him back to the sitting room where he roughly pushed him onto the sofa.
“If I knew I wouldn’t ask, would I, sunny Jim?”
Des was shaking all over now. “You don’t know what a mobile phone is. You don’t know how to operate the tele. You’ve never seen it in color. You call radio the wireless. Yet you’re a young eno
ugh man. What are you, some kind of a Rip Van Winkle?”
“He was in a fairy tale. I wasn’t in no fairy tale. I was in fucking Hell.”
“I’m sure you’ve had a rough time of it, but please don’t hurt my wife and I. We haven’t done a thing to harm you and we won’t.”
Woodbourne sniffed at the aroma of bacon and eggs wafting from the kitchen. “You haven’t done a bit of listening. I was in Hell. Do you know what happened on the eighth day of April in 1949?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“I was taken at dawn to the yard of HMS Dartford Prison. They built a gallows there, just for me. I can still smell the sawdust. There was a young, pimply minister there with a Bible but I told him to sod off. After that, the rest of it happened so fast I hardly had a chance to think on it. This bloke put a hood over my head and a thick noose round my neck and pulled the lever. I dropped. It was like flying but it didn’t last long, I’ll tell you that.”
“Are you telling me you were put to death in 1949?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And next thing I knew I was smack in the middle of Hell, most miserable place you can ever imagine. Thought I’d be like the rest of ’em, there forever and a day, but not long ago I was walking down a road, up to me ankles in mud and all of a sudden I’m back on the right side of things. Sixty-five years later. I still can’t believe none of it.”
“You’re mad,” Des said, shaking his head.
Woodbourne laughed loudly at that, stopping Adele in her tracks as she entered with a plate of food.
“Let me tell you something,” Woodbourne said. “If I could trade what I’ve gone through for madness I’d do so in a tick of the clock.”
7
John had ridden horses before but he was hardly expert. The saddle of his brown mare was thin with a high pommel and low cantle, and iron stirrups strapped too high for his long legs. The mare was placid and allowed him to dismount and adjust the stirrup leathers.
“Can you manage?” Dirk asked, comfortably astride his own black horse.
“We’ll just have to see. I’d do better with a western saddle. Or better yet, a car.”
“The new ‘uns are always on about what they ‘ad and we don’t. Advice I give ‘em is don’t be nattering about all manner of fancy things what’s not ’ere. We’re lucky we don’t ’ave to walk.”
They started down the muddy road at a slow trot, John’s still-bloody sword bouncing against his thigh in a scabbard scavenged from one of his victims. The flintlock pistol was too large and heavy for his pocket so he put it in a cloth saddle bag along with the pouches of powder horn and shot. He talked to his horse in a soothing voice and patted her neck, asking her not to do anything crazy, and with a flick of the bridle, she smoothly accelerated to keep pace with Dirk. His shoulder wound throbbed with every set of hoof beats, his head ached, but he clenched his jaw and dealt with it.
The small village quickly gave way to untamed land. Under a lifeless sky, they made their way through a vast expanse of tall grass and bulrushes, forging their own path. John pulled astride of Dirk.
“What do you call this place?”
“Dartford.”
“Same as we call it.”
“No point in calling it something else, is there?”
“What’ll happen to the soldiers?”
“Village fowk. They’ve already dealt with ’em, I expect. Probably use the ’orses for meat, one at a time to keep it fresh. Maybe they’ll keep one for plowing.”
“What do you mean the soldiers will be dealt with?”
“You’ll find that out soon enough.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Greenwich.”
“Is the geography here similar to Earth?”
“What’s geography?”
“The position of rivers, hills, mountains.”
“I only know ’ere to London. It’s the same as I remember from me live days.”
“Who’s the man we’re going to see?”
“Like I told you, someone who can ’elp find your lady.”
“What’s his name?”
“You’re full of questions, know that?”
“Believe me, I’m just getting started.”
“Solomon Wisdom.”
John snorted a laugh. “A real wise guy, eh?”
Dirk nodded solemnly. “’E’s plenty wise, ’e is. And rich too.”
In a short while, the river he’d seen from the house came into clear view. It was broad with a mighty current. As far as John was able to see, the banks were unpopulated but in the distance to the east—if the compass coordinates were the same—there was a single-masted sailing boat heading away from them.
“The Thames?” John asked.
Dirk nodded. “We’ll follow it to Greenwich. It’s not the shortest way but it’s the safest. There’s a filthy lot in Bexley, we’ll be missing.”
Across the river John saw a row of evenly spaced poles, resembling telephone poles, which stretched as far as he could see to the east and west.
“What are those?” he asked, pointing.
“I’ve no idea,” Dirk said. “They weren’t always there, but they are now. Let’s get up to a gallop, all right? If we want to keep our ’eads fixed upon our necks we’ll want to get to Greenwich by nightfall.”
“Why’s that?”
“Worst sorts roam the night.”
They rode for about an hour in silence, the horses pounding the grassy verge, throwing up clods of turf, until Dirk pulled up and dismounted.
“There’s no telling when they was last watered.”
At the bank, the horses drank thirstily. John watched a hawk tighten its circle and drop like a stone into the bulrushes then emerge with something in its talons.
“How about them?” John asked.
“Who?”
“The animals. Do they die?”
“They’re the lucky ones. They’ve a way out of ’ere.”
“What a place,” John said.
Dirk grunted his agreement, plucked a handful of grass and offered it to his horse. When the beast took to it aggressively, John fed his mare fistfuls too then went to the river, scooped up some water and sniffed at it. “Safe to drink?”
Dirk smirked.
“Probably a stupid question,” John said. He sipped at it. It seemed fine so he drank his fill then pointed at the sky. “Is this a typical day?”
“Typical how?”
“The weather.”
“Depends on the season, I’d say. Sometimes it’s boiling hot, sometimes it’s bitter cold. It’s in the middle right now which is better I s’pose.”
“Same as Earth.”
“No, not the same. You never get the sun ’ere. There’s always a gloom. At first you miss the yellow sunshine. Then you forget what it was like.”
“Without the sun how do you keep the time?”
“There’s no need to do so, far as I can see. It gets dark then it gets light. What more d’you need?”
In seven days from the moment he arrived, MAAC was going to fire up again. He needed better time-keeping than night turning to day.
“Do you have clocks? Or watches?”
“I know what they are but I never seen them ’ere. Come on, let’s get along.”
They rode on. In time John saw a few more fields that looked freshly tilled for planting. It was spring on Earth and appeared to be spring here too. Yet as John gazed upon the land it struck him that spring back home was a hopeful time, full of promise. Promise seemed in short supply here.
There was chimney smoke along the river and a group of small rowing boats plying the dark waters. Dirk slowed his horse.
“That’s Thamesmead ahead,” Dirk said. “There’s no easy way of missing it out without going way around. It’s a reasonable size town but we’ll ride straight through, keeping our ’eads down. If there’s trouble, at least you can fight, can’t you, John Camp?”
“What about my clothes? I stick out.”
“That’s not our problem. Fowks arrive nowadays wearing costumes much like yours. The problem’s your smell.”
“What about it?”
“You don’t smell like us. It’s different, like nice, fresh meat. She was like that too.”
“A few days without a bath should fix me.”
“We’ll see ’bout that.”
“Was she scared?” John asked.
“The lady?”
“Her name is Emily.”
“Ladies are scarce ’ere, so I ’aven’t seen many of ’em when they first come. So I’d say your Emily was scared, ’course she was, but she seemed like a tough one, more like a man in that regard. She put up a holy fight when the sweepers picked ’er up, I’ll tell you that. Bloodied a nose or two.”
“I’ll bet she did.”
On the outskirts of Thamesmead they overtook an old man on a mule-drawn cart heading into the town with a load of sewn marsh grasses. The cart driver turned his head in alarm at the sound of their approaching horses then glowered as they passed.
The town was bifurcated by a rutted dirt road. On the river side the dwellings were tiny mud huts with reed roofs, many with small, rough boats pulled up onto the land next to heaps of nets. There was a powerful odor of rotting fish. The buildings on the land side were more substantial, the smallest of which were much like the thatched cottages in Dartford, the largest, two-story unpainted timber-framed structures with cracking plaster. Hens pecked about some of the houses and there were a few tethered goats. Behind some of the dwellings were horse barns with bony beasts peeking out, looking less well fed than the soldier’s horses. Most of the shutters were closed. A man emerged from one of the thatched cottages, caught sight of the riders, and retreated inside like a startled mouse. There was a loud clanging coming from an open-fronted hut. A blacksmith, a man with big glistening arms was beating down on an anvil. He stopped his hammering at mid-stroke to stare as they passed.
“I don’t see a church,” John said to Dirk. “All towns have churches.”
“No need for those ’ere,” Dirk snorted.