In Time I Dream About You

by Gene Gant

  “Dad, are you okay?” I shouted as he rolled off me. He looked down at me, his face steady, emotionless, wondering. It was obvious he was unhurt, and the sense of relief was stark, like snow melting inside me. From the expression on Dad’s face, I knew what he wanted and said, “I’m all right.” Assured of that, Dad turned his attention to the situation around us. There was more shouting behind me. I looked back and saw an Asian man in a brown suit sprawled on the sidewalk a short distance away. His eyes were half-closed, his mouth hanging open. There was a big dark bloody pit where his midsection should have been.

  Dad rushed to the man and knelt beside him. He took off his jacket and firmly put it to the man’s bleeding abdomen. “Here, put pressure on this,” he called to a hovering frightened bystander. The woman got to her knees and pressed both hands against Dad’s jacket. A man got down and lifted the Asian guy’s head into his lap. Dad pulled out his cell phone to call for help.

  With Dad and many of the bystanders focused either on the injured man or on the subdued but struggling Stone, I saw my chance. I got to my feet, snagged the trench coat, and ran. Once I was around the corner, I stopped long enough to pull on the coat. The right pocket was heavy. I stuck in my hand and felt the handle of a gun. You had to give it to that bastard Stone; he came prepared. There were sirens now, the wailings steadily growing louder as they closed in. I hurried along the street, trying to blend in with the other pedestrians.

  My dad would always be in danger as long as Apache was alive. After getting arrested and charged, I told the police everything—that it was Apache who killed Crazy E, who led the Cold Bloods and conducted a major drug operation through the gang. That cost Apache absolutely nothing. The police never even brought him in for questioning because they couldn’t find any evidence against him that would stick. But I was a snitch, and snitches always paid.

  I was going to make sure my dad was safe.

  I was going to take out Apache.

  APACHE LIVED on the east side of Detroit, where plenty of empty overgrown lots and abandoned houses dotted the neighborhoods like the huge decaying hulks in an elephant graveyard. His house was one in a row of seven carefully tended structures on his street, sporting a fairly fresh coat of white paint. The lawn was beautifully landscaped (something his parents had done before they died, and which Apache had professionally maintained now that he’d inherited the place), with still-green shrubs cut artfully into spirals and balls. Crazy E had brought me by the place once when he was summoned for a face-to-face consultation with his dangerous cousin.

  Apache was home. The red Grand Prix was parked in the driveway. There was one abandoned house on the street, two lots down. I sat down in the yard there with my back to the trunk of a tree. The tree trunk would block any view of me from the direction of Apache’s house, and I could watch over my shoulder for him to come out. Even through the ball of hatred in my heart, I was still afraid of the man, so I wanted to avoid a direct confrontation if possible. But I figured I couldn’t sit around in that yard too long without some neighbor getting suspicious and calling the police. If Apache didn’t come out of his home soon, I was going to knock on the door, duck around the corner of the house, and blow him away when he answered.

  My heart was beating so hard it made my chest hurt. Sweat streaked down my face and neck. I was overheating in the trench coat, but I didn’t dare take it off. I kept my hand in the right pocket, wrapped around the handle of the gun. I was about to kill a man, and the reality of that weighed heavily on me. Last year, I wouldn’t have thought myself capable of taking another person’s life under any circumstances. I didn’t want to be a murderer, but I had to protect my dad.

  Another thought struck me, and I laughed uneasily, though there was no humor in it. I’d have a built-in alibi for killing Apache. Even if someone were to see me do it—hell, even if they filmed it—no jury would ever convict me for it. At this very moment, I was in a cell in Escanaba, and the dayshift CO in solitary would attest to seeing me there. The prosecutor would have to prove that I managed to be in two places at once, or at the very least, he or she would have to come up with a plausible explanation as to how I managed to travel over 400 miles round trip, from Escanaba to Detroit and back again, in a matter of minutes. I’d get a free pass on killing Apache just as he did on killing Crazy E, a guy I liked and missed very much. Sometimes life is fair.

  From behind me came the sound of a door opening and shutting, footsteps scuffing over concrete, a voice speaking quietly. I looked over my shoulder and saw Apache standing on his front porch in a black and white tracksuit, his cell phone to his ear. My heart started pounding even harder. Go! Go! Do it! I shook my head at myself. Not yet.

  He kept his voice low. I could hear the anger in it. He was chewing somebody out, another gang member who’d probably get his ass kicked for making Apache mad. Well, not today and not ever again. Apache barked out a final word and shoved the phone in his pocket. He tugged the brim of the baseball cap he wore low over the mirror lenses of his shades, and then he stepped lightly off the porch, heading for the Grand Prix.

  Now.

  In the moments I’d hesitated, I became so detached it was as if someone else pulled the gun from the pocket of the trench coat, stood, and ran across the neighboring yard. Apache looked up, startled, as I leaped over a row of hedges. He fell back a step, reaching for his waist. This was it. If I didn’t shoot now, he’d draw his own gun and blast me to hell.

  I fired, pulling the trigger again and again in rapid succession. The Bang! Bang! Bang! seemed distant, echoing from somewhere on the other side of the world. I have no idea how many shots I actually fired. The first two missed completely, because Apache was able to bring his gun out, a huge silver thing that glittered in the sunlight. The sight would have terrified me if my mind had been more present. Then, before he could take aim, he jerked backward as if he’d been punched violently in the left shoulder. He stumbled, losing his balance just as he took another hit right in his chest, and seconds later he was sprawled on the ground.

  Swiftly I closed in until I was standing over him. Apache was still alive, his right hand groping uselessly for the gun that had dropped from his grip and lay at some distance beyond his reach. Great patches of red were spreading across his shoulder and chest. His shades and baseball cap had come off his head during his fall. He looked up at me with narrow brown eyes full of contempt and pain. He tried to speak, to spit some curse at me, and coughed up a gush of dark bubbly blood instead.

  Jesus. God. Fuck.

  I pointed the gun at his chest and fired until the clip was empty. When I looked in Apache’s eyes again, they were fixed and vacant, staring at eternity.

  Only vaguely did I register that someone had been standing behind Apache, someone who was now screaming shrilly, a song of horror cutting across the neighborhood. I looked directly at the screamer, small, vulnerable, completely traumatized. Gripping the gun tightly, I turned and ran.

  I ran aimlessly, unfocused, chased by the evil I’d done. Where should I go? What should I do? I had to get back to my present in Escanaba. The gun had my prints on it. I couldn’t just drop it, and I couldn’t keep it with me. I kept running, thankful that I’d put a few meals under my belt to build up my stamina. After what seemed like hours, I found myself on a crumbling pier that jutted into the Detroit River, its wood planks gray and weathered. Bent over, hands on knees, I looked around as I struggled to catch my breath. There were boats out on the river, cars crossing the bridge in the distance from one side to the other, but there was no one near me.

  I climbed down from the pier to the muddy bank below, giving myself some concealment. Next I took the gun by the barrel and threw it as far out into the river as I could, watching as it broke the surface with a tiny, nearly silent splash. Then I took off the trench coat and stuffed it between two rotting planks on the underside of the pier. It seemed the strength was draining rapidly from my muscles, leaving me weak and light-headed. That was the adrenalin
e flushing out of my system.

  Time to go. I raised the watch, programmed it to take me back to my present. Everything inside me seemed to go cold as I pressed the icon and space-time ripped open around me.

  I POPPED back into my cell on September 27, 2017 just a few seconds after I’d left. The watch was going crazy.

  It emitted a piercing buzz, the dial flashed red and yellow, and it vibrated against my skin so ferociously it felt as if I had a bag of pissed-off wasps strapped around my wrist. The sound woke Cato right away; he jerked as if he’d been slapped across the ears.

  I quickly got the watch off and threw it to the floor. “Shit!”

  Cato bolted up from the cot. He was terrified, his face going pale, his eyes wild, and his mouth hanging open. He looked from the buzzing, flashing watch to me and back again.

  “Gavin… no,” he said in a voice as hushed as death. His hand shook as he reached down and retrieved his watch. The buzz shot up the scale into a full-fledged wail like a siren. “Gavin, what did you do? What did you do?”

  In an instant he seemed to go from terror to pure panic. He clasped a hand to his head as he looked at the dial on his watch, which I now saw was displaying a series of symbols on its screen like some kind of code. Groaning, he paced quickly across the cell before getting back in my face.

  He groaned again, and tears spilled down his face. “Oh God, Gavin—”

  He never finished what he started to say. Red light flared from the watch, and Cato was gone.

  Chapter 9

  MY DINNER tray was on the small table beside the cot, untouched, the food rapidly growing cold. I lay on my back on the cot, staring at the ceiling. I couldn’t get the image of Cato’s crying face out of my mind.

  Dad was the most important person in the world to me. I’d kept him from getting shot and made sure he would be safe. But I killed a man in the process. And I did something to Cato, who’d become my only friend after I was imprisoned. He’d done more for me in the short time I’d known him than any friend I ever had. And how did I repay him for that? Cato wasn’t just afraid when he vanished from my cell. His heart was broken.

  Damn.

  I didn’t regret saving Dad from Stone, but guilt was eating up my insides, a fire burning on and on. I wanted to run as fast and as far as I could. I wanted to run and never stop.

  Dad. If I could just talk to him. He always seemed to know what to do. He always helped me figure out how to fix a situation when I really screwed up. No, talking to Dad wouldn’t help this time. Cato was gone and Apache was dead. There was no fixing that.

  A memory rose suddenly in my head, a memory of September 20, 2017. I was sitting on my cot late that afternoon with my back against the wall, eyes closed as I daydreamed about being back in school, hanging out with my friends. The outer door to solitary clanked open, forcing me to open my eyes. Then I heard the measured, unhurried approach of footsteps. Two correctional officers stopped outside my cell. One of them was the guard posted to solitary. The other I didn’t recognize. They both peered in at me as if studying a particularly odd growth of fungus.

  “Inmate E-4462, Gavin Jeremiah Goode,” said the guard I didn’t know. “Is that you?”

  What the hell? I sat up. “Yeah.”

  “Just making sure.” The CO chuckled. “We got a call from your old man. He swears up and down you waltzed into the bank where he works an hour ago, in your little orange baby bumper there no less. Can you fly, Inmate Goode?”

  “What?”

  “I said, can you fucking fly?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t see how you could get from here to Detroit and back in an hour, unless you flew.” He laughed again. “Whatever your old man’s smoking, I want some of it.”

  The other CO laughed too. “Call that man back, Jonesy, and tell him to get his fucking eyes checked.”

  Lying now on the cot, I shook my head and wondered how the hell I could have a memory of something that never occurred. The part about daydreaming of being in school did happen on September 20, but no guards ever came to my cell to confirm I was in it because of a worried phone call from Dad. Or maybe they did. Maybe that was the result of changing the past. The sudden memory of the guards’ visit confirmed my trip back in time worked. Dad was definitely okay.

  It was the cost of saving him that I couldn’t get out of my mind.

  Tomorrow I’d be returned to gen pop, to cell block E. There, at least, I wouldn’t have so much time to think once the Cold Blood torture machine cranked up again.

  “LIGHTS OUT!” the guard called, and seconds later the hall outside my cell dimmed. The guard walked past my cell as usual to make sure I was in compliance, a required part of his duties that was pointless in my case. There was a small lamp mounted over my cot, but I hadn’t turned it on even once since I’d been in solitary. I listened as his footsteps retreated and the outer door banged shut behind him. My shoulders were stiff from being propped against the wall. I lay down and curled on my side. I wasn’t sleepy, thank God. I knew if I slept, I’d dream of Apache lying on the ground, coughing up blood. I closed my eyes, wondering what Dad was doing right now, hoping Cato was okay.

  “Gavin.”

  I opened my eyes, surprised and disbelieving. “Cato?”

  He was standing inside the cell, by the door. He looked subdued, guilty, and hurt, like a dog that had been chewed out by its master.

  I got up and hugged him. “Cato,” I said again and kissed his cheek. My own guilt surged like a fountain, along with a swell of relief, making my eyes water. As I stepped back from him, I wiped a hand across my face to clear my vision. I was so glad to have him back. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

  Cato sniffed. “You almost didn’t.” The watch on his right wrist looked the same, but his clothes were different from what he’d worn earlier. He had on a black twill jumpsuit and black sneakers. His hair was longer, curlier, and there was stubble on his face. Oh my God. He’d aged at least a few months since he left my cell.

  “What happened to you?” I asked.

  “‘Failure to secure a temporal communication device, and precipitating a temporal anomaly.’” He looked at me squarely, but then his gaze wavered. “That’s what they charged me with. That’s what they convicted me of. I was kicked out of TIA and sentenced to life in prison.”

  My guilt sharpened in a spasm, a knife stabbing deep into my gut.

  “In my present, 2127,” Cato went on, leaving me no time to respond, “I’ve been an inmate for six months. I’m about to turn eighteen, and they’re getting ready to move me to an adult prison.”

  “Cato…. Cato, I’m so sorry—”

  “Don’t say it, Gavin. Come here. I have to show you something.”

  He took me by the arm and tugged me back to the cot, where we both sat. He raised his watch and touched the center of the dial. Light shot up from the dial and a square image formed in the air before us.

  It showed a small sturdy sharp-faced guy in a pale yellow jumpsuit who probably wasn’t much older than me. He was sitting in a small room at a table with his hands clasped together in front of him, his gaze cast down in a way that said he didn’t give a damn about anything. Seated across from him was a man in a gray pinstriped suit, old enough to be my grandfather, who was reviewing notes on an electronic tablet while he talked to the kid. I recognized the room the old man and the kid were in. I’d been in it myself. It was the interview room on the first floor of A wing at Escanaba where inmates were grilled by lawyers, detectives, social workers, doctors, and prison staff. When I was there, the walls were gray, but in this image they were painted tan. I didn’t know the sullen kid, but he looked familiar somehow.

  Just as I wondered what the hell I was watching, Cato started to explain. “You’re looking at an intake evaluation in Escanaba. The year is 2026. The man is a psychiatrist who specializes in adolescent personality disorders. The boy is Louis Fielding. He’s serving the first day of his twenty-five-year sente
nce for second degree murder.”

  “Who did he kill?”

  “A guy at his high school. Got into a fight with him and shot him in the face. He’s about to solve the missing person cases of four teenage guys. He’s going to confess to the doctor that he shot those guys in the face and buried their bodies.”

  “Oh damn. He’s a serial killer?”

  “Yeah. A fifteen-year-old serial killer.”

  A sudden chill hit me. I leaned forward, focusing on the boy’s image. “It seems that I know him.”

  Cato nodded. “You met him before, when he was a lot younger. He was there the day you shot Apache.”

  The chill turned into dread, closing around my throat and making me feel choked.

  “Apache,” Cato went on, “aka Theo Fielding. Louis was crazy about his father. He was five when he saw you kill his dad. In a few minutes, he’s going to tell the doctor how he’s been haunted for ten years by the face of his dad’s murderer. He became a serial killer trying to wipe that face out of his mind.”

  My face. My face became some poor kid’s nightmare. My face turned a little boy into a monster. I could see that boy, eyes wide, face pale with anguish, screaming his head off as he watched his father bleeding to death on the ground in front of him. I could see him look up at me, his face twisting as if I were every awful nightmare he’d ever dreamed rolled into one, and his high-pitched heartbroken screams followed me when I ran off. The memories brought more jabs of guilt to my gut.

  Cato touched the dial and the image changed, presenting a snapshot of the teenaged Louis, along with five other teenaged boys. “Louis Fielding,” Cato said, naming off each boy. “Sherman James. Lander Creed. Xanadu Marshall. Kaamil Alexander. Eamon Wilson. Before the timeline changed, each of them grew up, started lives of their own, got married, had children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. With Louis in jail until he was almost an old man and the other guys murdered, there are 317 people who never got to be born as of the year 2126, and the thousands of events that came from their lives never happened. Also in the unaltered timeline, Apache walked away from the Cold Bloods for the sake of his son and started mentoring boys and girls to keep them in school and out of gangs. He helped more than a hundred kids avoid getting sucked into trouble. But with him dead, a lot of those kids wound up in gangs, in jail, in coffins….”