OMG, A CUL8R Time Travel Mystery

by Kat, Bob

  “Well, you know that Conner graduated, so I lost my favorite running back. But that should give me a lot more chances to pass the ball.”

  “That’s Coach Mead’s claim to fame, isn’t it? The passing game.”

  “Coach Mead?” Austin was momentarily confused. Dan knew the high school coach was named Decker. But then Austin remembered that because of their time travel trip, everything had changed. From what he, Kelly and Scott had discovered at the library this morning, Coach Decker had been sent to prison almost fifty years ago and was definitely not the current coach at South Beach High School. “Ahh yes. Coach Mead. Should be an interesting season.” Austin had no idea who Coach Mead was, but he would find out as soon as two-a-days started in August.

  “I still keep up with every game. The paper just gets delivered to my home a day late.” Dan smiled as he glanced over at the recycle container just as a man in a swimsuit, followed by two tired, sandy kids walked by and stuffed a newspaper into the opening as they headed toward the parking lot.

  “Well, lunch is getting cold. See you later Dan.”

  Dan reached down and picked up one of the shell necklaces. “Here, take this.”

  Juggling the bags of food, Austin started to raise his palms to decline the offer, but he sensed that was Dan’s way of paying him back for the food. He reached out and took the necklace. It was an attractive collection of local shells artistically strung on a fishing line. Dan probably was able to make a few bucks selling them to tourists who happened to walk by him on the beach.

  “This is awesome. I’ll bet you could commission these to the local shell shops.”

  “Why would I do that? I’ve got no overhead out here,” Dan remarked with a grin. “Thanks for the dogs. Nice meeting you Zoey. See you around.”

  Zoey had already turned and was walking away from Dan and didn’t respond.

  Austin walked briskly to catch up to her. “That was really rude.”

  “What was rude?” She seemed genuinely oblivious.

  “You didn’t even say goodbye to Dan. He was just trying to make small talk.”

  “Small talk?” She shrugged. “What could he possibly have to say that I’d want to hear?”

  “You’d be surprised . . . if you listened.”

  “I don’t see why you bother with him. What’s he ever done for you?”

  “Nothing. But then I don’t surround myself with people that only do things for me. I’d miss nearly 100% of the people in Fort Myers Beach if that was my criteria. Dan’s a really nice man. I like him.”

  “I don’t get it, Austin. He’s homeless, dirty and may even have diseases or something.” Trying to finalize her point she added, “He’s gross.”

  “He’s a human being. I’m sure it wasn’t his life’s goal to be homeless on the beach in Florida.”

  “My mother said that most people are homeless because they are too lazy, crazy or both to keep a job.”

  “Dan’s not lazy or crazy. I don’t really know why he’s homeless, but I know he went to college. I heard he was a doctor or something. But whatever his back story is, he’s a good guy. He helps keep the beach clean and doesn’t even get paid for it.”

  “Big deal. He doesn’t have anything else to do.”

  “And he keeps an eye on the kids.”

  “Sounds like a pervert.”

  Austin stopped and turned to face her. “The first time I met him was after he’d saved a little boy who was drowning. The lifeguard was too busy flirting with some girls and didn’t even notice until it was all over. I was out paddle boarding when I saw the kid go under, but Dan got to him before I could.”

  Zoey had the grace to look a little bit ashamed, but it was difficult to change a long-time opinion, even when she saw proof that it was wrong. “Whatever,” she added with a shrug, even though it was with a little less conviction than before.

  Austin accepted that this was the best he could hope for from her. What he had learned about Zoey was that she was more adaptable than she let on. She had gone through a terrifying ordeal of being kidnapped and nearly killed just yesterday, but had already bounced back, relatively unscathed. He resumed his trek across the beach until he found Kelly and Scott who were struggling to get the pole of the umbrella stuck deeply enough in the sand to make it stand upright.

  “It’s about time,” Scott stated. “I was about to call out for pizza.”

  Austin set the food down on the colorful Mexican rug that Kelly had spread out on the sand. He took the pole from them and with a powerful downward thrust buried it several inches deeper than they had been able to manage.

  “Thanks,” Scott told him. “I can already feel my skin sizzling.” He slid the umbrella open and stuck the pin into the pole to hold it up, then flopped down in the darkest corner of shade. Kelly moved to the sunny side of the blanket and sat.

  Austin shrugged it off. “No worries.” He knelt down on the rug, opened the bags and started handing out the food and drinks. “Long line, and I had to stop by and say hi to Dan.”

  “Old Dan?” Scott asked.

  “Yeah, he was making some shell necklaces.” He pulled the one Dan had given him out of the pocket of his baggy cargo shorts and tossed it toward Kelly who reacted instinctively and caught it.

  “This is really pretty.” Kelly examined the tiny conch-shaped shells, the twisty pointed ones that looked like unicorn horns, round pearly snail-like shells and fan-shaped clam shells. This area was known for its abundance of different kinds of seashells, and Dan had clearly taken his time to select the ones that were beautifully shaped, uniformly sized and colorful with all shades of pinks and purples on their interior curves. They either already had small holes that he’d used to string onto the fishing line or he had found a way to drill one in each.

  “Keep it,” Austin said.

  “No, I’m sure you have someone else . . .”

  “It’s my welcome-to-Florida gift to you. Actually, it’s more from Dan than me.”

  Kelly hesitated, but she really liked it, and Austin seemed to be sincere. “Thanks.” She slipped it over her head and admired how it looked against her tanned skin. She knew there were no hidden meanings in Austin’s gift, but she was touched by the gesture anyway. Distracted, she didn’t notice the flaming barbs that were shooting from Zoey’s eyes.

  Neither did Austin nor Scott who were busy unwrapping their hot dogs and not giving the necklace or its implied significance a second thought. Zoey sank gracefully to the rug, choosing a spot between the two boys and with her back to Kelly.

  The next few minutes were spent with all of them passing around the ketchup and mustard packets and napkins and gobbling down their hot dogs and chips.

  “I thought you hated the beach,” Zoey said to Scott.

  Scott was a little surprised that Zoey had remembered such a small detail about him. “It’s the sunburn and the sand that I hate. I actually like the water.”

  Zoey shivered. “Sea water kind of creeps me out. There are creatures down there that I can’t see. I stepped on a crab once, and he nearly bit off my toe.”

  “Really?” Austin challenged.

  “It bled like crazy, and I almost lost my toenail,” she defended her claim.

  Kelly wadded up her paper and stuffed it into one of the bags. “Paper trash in this bag, cans in the other.” She passed them around, and everyone obediently divided their garbage accordingly.

  “So what did you guys find out this morning at the library? Is Wendy alive?” Zoey asked, referring to the sixteen year old girl they had travelled back to help.

  “There wasn’t a lot about Wendy other than what we read in the newspaper saying that she was rescued and was doing well,” Scott told her, referring to the article they had read in the coffee shop yesterday morning . . . in 1966.

  “I think the most important thing was that there was no obituary,” Kelly interrupted enthusiastically. “And then we looked in that old yearbook we found in my aunt’s garage. There wasn’t
an In Memoriam page, and there were pictures of her graduating with her class.”

  “We tried to find her in the phone book and on the internet, but she must have gotten married and changed her last name,” Scott added.

  “But what about her parents? Were they still there?” Zoey had spent several hours at Wendy’s house and the two girls had bonded over their cheerleading experience and, of course, boys. Zoey was truly concerned about her new friend’s well-being.

  “We drove by her parents’ house, but they must have moved long ago because that whole neighborhood has been redeveloped into a community center,” Scott explained.

  “What about Coach Decker?” she asked.

  “You mean Inmate Decker,” Kelly corrected. “They found out Wendy was almost victim number ten for him. He had been kidnapping and killing girls since he was a teenager. They sent him to Starke Prison, but he didn’t make it but a couple of months after his conviction. Prisoners don’t treat pedophiles very well.”

  “Can’t say I’m sorry to hear that,” Zoey snorted.

  “Who knows how many more girls would have died if we hadn’t stopped him,” Scott pointed out.

  “As a coach, he had almost unlimited access to the students.” Austin shook his head. “I’ve spent a lot of time with him, and I never would have guessed. It just goes to show that people aren’t always who they seem.”

  “You’re lucky he didn’t like boys,” Kelly teased. “I’m sure a hunky guy like you would have been his first choice.”

  Scott laughed and Austin tossed his empty drink can at him. Scott managed to catch it and immediately threw it back. Austin dodged it, rolled over and stretched out his tall frame on the rug between Kelly and Zoey.

  Zoey extended her long legs out so they would catch the afternoon sun, intentionally brushing them against Austin’s. She frowned when he didn’t seem to notice. “I still can’t believe what happened. Yeah, I know . . . I was there. But it all seems like a weird dream, you know?”

  Kelly nodded. “It does. When I woke up in my own bed this morning, it took me several minutes to convince myself that just hours before, we’d been in 1966. If it wasn’t for all the sand in my clothes . . . well, and the clothes themselves, I might have thought I was making it all up.”

  “I’ve got the broken ribs to prove it happened.” Austin pulled off his t-shirt and revealed a darkly bruised area that covered much of his right side.

  Zoey gasped. “They’re broken?”

  “Maybe just badly bruised,” Austin admitted. “Their middle linebacker was all-state, and he spent more time in our backfield than I did. Of course, being dropped on the sand like a bag of rocks didn’t help.”

  “What did your dad say when he took you to the doctor?”

  “Didn’t go to the doctor and didn’t tell my dad.” Austin tossed his shirt aside. “How could I explain it?”

  Zoey rolled her eyes. “How can anyone explain it? I was there, and I don’t understand anything that happened. I know you told me how it all works, but it doesn’t make any sense. You said you heard Wendy’s voice on that Thomas Edison radio…?”

  “Edison called it a Telephone to the Dead,” Scott explained. “It was one of his inventions that never quite made it to the mainstream. He was determined to find a way to talk to the dead, but for whatever reason, he passed it off to one of his muckers ...”

  “Muckers?” Zoey interrupted.

  “College graduates who worked on Edison’s inventions so he could keep developing new ideas,” Scott explained. “Kelly’s great-great grandfather was a mucker, and he must have believed in the project so much that Edison gave the machine to him.”

  “We found it in my aunt’s garage when we were cleaning it out for the garage sale we’re having on Saturday,” Kelly spoke up. “My aunt’s house originally belonged to my great-great grandparents and has passed down through the years to her.”

  Zoey leaned back and tried to process what she had been told. “So then Scott invented a time travel thingy for his phone so we could go help Wendy?”

  “I’d been working on the app for a few months, but I hadn’t tried it out until this all came up,” Scott explained.

  “Yeah, poor Violet was our first volunteer.” Austin laughed.

  “Violet, the turtle with all the jewels glued to her shell that we picked up on the beach in 1966 and brought back with us . . . that Violet?” Zoey asked.

  “How many Violets do you know?” Austin laughed.

  “She’s my sister’s pet.” Scott grimaced. “Lily was really upset when Violet went missing. And I didn’t dare tell her we sort of lost her.”

  Austin yawned. “Luckily, it all worked out.” He lifted his arm and laid it across his eyes.

  All four teens were silent, each deep in thought about their recent time travel trip, how different things had been in the Sixties, and yet how many things were very similar to life today. The high school had been in the same place, although the building had undergone several renovations and expansions since, and the kids had dressed much more formally and had very different hair styles. But, when it came right down to it, those kids had worried about the same things such as acceptance, grades, parents, dates and college as the kids in 2013.

  The fact that Wendy had been inappropriately involved with a teacher was all too common now. The older man had manipulated the emotions of the younger, more vulnerable girl, convincing her he really cared about her when all he had actually wanted was another plaything he could abuse and discard.

  Kelly was still trying to process that she had, unintentionally, come face-to-face with her own grandmother who had been only sixteen at the time. It had been weird and wonderful, even though her grandmother had had no idea of the magnitude of the moment. Kelly smiled at the memory of seeing her grandmother riding bareback on a big black horse. It certainly had taken away the mystery of from whom Kelly had inherited her love of horses.

  For Scott, it had been a geek’s proudest moment. The phone app he had conceived had worked perfectly. To be honest, even he had been shocked when they were swirled into that dust cloud on this beach in 2013 and shook the sand off in the same spot in 1966. But even though he had meticulously planned the trip, there had been many surprises along the way, the first of which was having Zoey push her way into their triangle just as they were transcending. Then the whole school experience had created crises that had caused spur-of-the-moment changes in the plan, not the least of which was when they realized they were chasing a serial killer and not investigating a suicide as everyone had assumed.

  Austin, too, was thinking about their trip. He had been a last minute replacement for the injured quarterback, and ultimately the star of the homecoming game even though his aggressive play had resulted in his painful ribs. He had discovered that girls in the Sixties threw themselves at jocks with as much enthusiasm as girls today. And, he had to admit, it had been fun to blow up Coach Decker’s truck, even though it had sort of been an accident. Ever since Kelly Welch had moved in next door to Scott a couple weeks ago, life had gotten a lot more exciting. He slid a covert sideways glance at her. She was sitting, looking out at the water, letting the afternoon sun wash over her. Zoey was more classically beautiful, but there was something compelling about Kelly. She was smart and funny and always enthusiastic about everything they did. Her full lips smiled easily and her greenish-brown eyes sparkled with life. Austin couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt a connection to her. She was the first and only person with whom he had talked about losing his mother. He hadn’t even shared his feelings of loss and loneliness with Scott, who had been his best friend since they were in diapers.

  Unfortunately, Scott had met her first.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “I just don’t understand the whole time travel thing,” Zoey said with a frown. “How could we be here one minute, then flash back to several centuries ago, then jump back here without losing a minute?”

  Scott dug his bare toes into the soft whi
te beach sand, trying to think of ways to explain to Zoey something so complicated as time travel… especially when geniuses much smarter than he such as Einstein and Edison hadn’t been able to. “Some people believe in something like the grandfather paradox. You know, if you were to travel back and kill your grandfather that you would never be born so how do you exist? Theories like that are the reasons some people give for why time travel to the past is impossible.”

  “Now you’re just making stuff up,” Zoey challenged.

  Without lifting his arm off his eyes, Austin spoke emphatically. “Scott never makes stuff up. His brain is plugged directly into Google.”

  Scott ignored the off-handed compliment that could have been interpreted as a jab, but he knew his friend meant it to be positive. “It’s well documented. The grandfather paradox is pretty linear thinking first postulated in 1943. What I did was exploit dimensional time-space with a wormhole of sorts.”

  “Is it a parallel universe kind of thing?” Kelly asked.

  “No, because if it was a parallel universe none of the changes we caused would affect the universe we’re in now. It’s more like multiple time lines. That allowed us to end up in a different branch of history than the one we departed from originally. There’s a whole element of quantum mechanics that gets into things like quantum suicide and immortality. Got it?”

  “So the yearbook, the sheriff department press release and the newspaper articles are still out there somewhere, but just not in our universe?” Kelly tried to phrase the question so she didn’t sound as confused as she felt.

  “Exactly,” Scott agreed with enthusiasm.

  Zoey yawned. The explanation had gone past her span of attention. “It’s all too Big Bang Theory for me. I’m feeling pale. I lost several days of my tan when we were back in 1966.” She lay down next to Austin and pulled the brim of her hat forward to cover her face.