by Greg Ahlgren
“Quick, the woods,” Ginter hissed. “Crawl! And keep down. Pamela, just shut up and trust us.”
Pamela and Amanda began squirming along the ground to their right toward the tree line. Paul deVere grabbed the duffle bag. He and Ginter crawled along behind. When the two women reached the trees they crawled past into the forest underbrush before turning and rising to their knees. Ginter and deVere scrambled past them and did the same.
All four watched the cruiser that had now stopped. A man in a blue uniform emerged and began searching the edge of the clearing.
“What’s happening?” deVere asked. “Why are we hiding? We haven’t done anything.”
Ginter leaned back against a tree trunk but kept his eyes on the officer.
“Well, let’s see. This is supposedly 1963 and by the look of that cruiser I’d say we hit it pretty close. We’ve got two white women and one white male and a black guy–and we’re rolling around in the grass in a park with no explanation as to why. When that cop asks for some ID, which one of you innocent geniuses is going to show him your Northeast District driver’s license with a birth date of nineteen seventy something? You, Paul? Or maybe you could show him your MIT faculty ID? Heck, he can call down to the school to check you out and well, just who would he ask for down there?”
Paul also slumped back. “Point taken.” He glanced at the cruiser. “But what’s he doing?”
“I don’t know, but he has company,” Amanda offered. A second cruiser was pulling into the parking lot. The first officer walked over and stood at the driver’s door speaking with the second officer. After about thirty seconds the second uniformed police officer exited his cruiser and the two walked along the edge of the parking lot peering at the ground.
“What are they doing?” Pamela whispered.
“Searching,” Ginter answered.
“For what?”
“For us,” Ginter replied.
“How can that be?” Amanda asked anxiously.
“That’s impossible,” deVere protested.
“Yeah, well, impossible or not they’re going to head up this way pretty soon.” Ginter turned to deVere. “You said you’ve been here. How do we get out of here?”
“That was thirty-seven years ago.” DeVere frowned. He pointed across the clearing.
“Over there behind those woods is the access road those cops just drove up. It winds down to the open area of the park. The park’s pretty big but once we get to the bottom of this hill it’s all open. Anyone could see us crossing it.
“Behind us the other way is The Ledge, an old granite quarry that filled in with water around the turn of the last century–or this century. Now it’s a swimming hole for kids. Has a big ledge you can dive off. Beyond that is a residential neighborhood.”
“We can’t cross any clearing,” Ginter said. “The cops will see us.” He pointed to the opposite tree line. “Is that the only road?”
“The only road up and down this hill,” deVere answered. “There are two reservoirs along that road. Water is pumped up from a local lake and gravity feeds the city.”
Ginter did not appear to be listening. He squatted, studying the two officers 100 yards away. They had stopped searching and were again conferring at the edge of the parking lot.
“What the hell is that?” Pamela asked.
Her three companions turned to look behind them up the hill. About 150 feet above them stood a solitary granite tower. At its base hung a rusted iron door. Graffiti was sprayed around the base. At the top was an open roofed observation platform covered with green boards. Over the door “Weston” was etched in the granite.
“An old observation tower,” deVere answered.
“We have to get rid of our IDs,” Ginter said.
“What?” deVere asked.
“If we get caught we can’t say who we are,” Ginter continued. “It will do us no good. They’ll lock us up.”
Amanda nodded. “They had what they called insane asylums back then. State Hospitals where they put just about anyone who was ‘crazy.’ Diagnosis didn’t matter. They’ll put us there.”
“I think they’re leaving,” Pamela said. The two officers had gotten back into their cruisers and turned their cars around. They proceeded slowly out of the parking lot.
“Could be a trap,” Ginter theorized. “They might be waiting for us down the road.”
“Why were they here?” Amanda asked. “Why would they be looking for us? How could they know? And if so why didn’t they come up the hill to look for us? If they knew we were here they’d know where.”
“You mean you guys weren’t shitting me?” Pamela asked. Her face betrayed terror. She gestured around her. “This is all fucking real, isn’t it? You have some sort of time machine, don’t you? This is really nineteen whatever?”
“Actually,” deVere began, slumping back down on the ground, “I can’t confirm the date. It’s supposed to be 1963 but who knows.”
“Why are we here?” Pamela asked. “Do you guys have some sort of plan or do you just travel through time to avoid CA agents?”
Ginter studied Pamela. “Actually, babe, our plan had been to bring back all kinds of stuff and convince President Kennedy to invade Cuba during the missile crisis by showing a bunch of newspaper editors the foolishness of not invading. But someone screwed up and we left early and weren’t able to get to 1962 and so it’s too late and now we don’t have anything to prove who we are.”
“O.K., stop the bickering,” Paul commanded. “We’re here, and that’s it. The damn thing worked, apparently. You didn’t happen to notice when the return wormhole is, did you?”
“Of course,” Lewis said. “I didn’t screw up. December 8, 1963, 3:15 p.m. Train’s leaving from right here in Derryfield Park. The park with the ‘y’ in the middle,” he added, looking at deVere. “From right over there.” Ginter pointed out at the clearing from whence they had just crawled. “If anyone would want to go back.”
“What do you mean ‘want to go back?” Pamela asked. “Why the hell wouldn’t someone want to go back from 19 fucking whatever you said it was?”
“In case you all forgot,” Lewis answered, “when we were last in 2026 we were standing in a room with a very angry Russian with obviously no sense of humor who had recently had possession of what I saw to be an Iver-Johnson .38 pointed at us. If we go back through the wormhole we’ll arrive at the same time we left–just in time to catch four bullets I’d say.”
“But I knocked him down,” Pamela said. “He was on the floor. He may have been knocked out. He was at least groggy.”
“Groggy?” Ginter asked. He nodded. “Yeah, he was groggy. Do any of you have any idea how long we lay collapsed out in that clearing before we revived?”
When the other three looked at him blankly he continued. “Neither do I. But in the experiment we ran with a rat it was passed out for several minutes before it revived. Much as I suspect we were. If we go back the Russkie will probably come to before we do. And in case you also forgot our intern, Miss Nikitin, apparently pulled the fire alarm so not only is she lurking about, but the fire department, and also the District cops, are on their way. And who knows, there may actually be a fire so we may revive in time to burn to death.”
Amanda cleared her throat. “Couldn’t we, I mean couldn’t you, get a gun, then when we go back couldn’t we, you know, shoot first?”
Lewis shook his head. “There are two problems with that. One, while we’re still on the floor out cold I bet the Russkie revives and uses our bodies for target practice. The second problem is that without another Accelechron here we can only go back through the return wormhole and all that can go through the contrapositive”-he looked at Pamela-“that means ‘return’ wormhole, is whatever DNA and other material came through the first time. And unless one of you thoughtfully brought a gun…”
When no one responded he continued, “I didn’t think so. So, until we come up with a better idea I think that we’re here for awhile.”
>
“What’s to prevent that goon from jumping into the machine and appearing here?” Amanda finally asked.
“Can’t,” Lewis answered. “The vortex was closing when we jumped through. Even if he had jumped in a millisecond after us he would have appeared by now. Obviously, he hasn’t.”
“What do we all have?” Paul asked. He opened the duffle bag at his feet and rifled through it. “Money, money belts, the fake IDs, New York State paper driver’s licenses for us three, that’s it,” he said.
Ginter swore. “No computers, no laptops, no printers, no newspaper printouts, no radios, no nothing.”
DeVere turned to Amanda. “Anything from your end?”
She shook her head. “The laptops were in my office on the other side of campus. I didn’t have time to get them.”
She opened her purse. She reached in and carefully pulled out the sheaf of loose papers she had shoved in at the lab.
”I had printed out Kennedy’s daily itinerary and was studying it at home. I brought it with me to the lab.” She rifled through them quickly.
“I lost all of 1961 and much of 1962 but I seem to have all of 1963 with me.”
“Well,” Pamela said shakily, “at least we’re all alive. Right?”
Amanda got to her feet, still groggy. She looked around. “I’m sorry,” she sobbed.
“Don’t worry about it,” Paul said soothingly. “We all made it.”
DeVere scrambled to his feet and stood next to Ginter. Lewis put his arms on his hips and looked around.
“Is it really…1963?” Amanda asked.
“Looks like it to me,” Ginter said. “Those cruisers sure looked right.
“Look,” he continued, “we still don’t know where those cops went, or why they were here. We have to get inside. Get out of sight. We need to come up with a new plan. Or at least a survival plan. If we stay outside wandering around with a hundred fifty thousand dollars in a duffle bag and these IDs we’re not going to last long.”
“A hundred fifty thousand?” Pamela asked. “Noams?”
“American dollars. Money seems to be one of the few things that made it,” Paul said. He turned to Lewis. “What do we do now?”
Ginter took a deep breath, reached into his pants pocket and pulled out his wallet. He flipped through it.
“First, I’d say we stash our identifications,” Ginter said. “Anything at all. Driver’s licenses, birth certificates, social identity cards, credit cards, employee identification, all of it.
“Next, we divide up the cash in case one or more of us get busted.” Ginter gestured at the others. “A hundred fifty grand in twenties in this duffle bag is more than we can carry in our summer clothing. Good thing we have money belts. We’ll take what we can and bury the rest here. Then we have to get out of this park. We should try to check in to a hotel.”
“Where?” Amanda asked.
Lewis gestured to Paul. “You’re the native.”
“I left here when I was 18 and never returned,” deVere said. “I won’t be born in this area for another nine years.”
“When you were here, what do you remember?” Pamela asked. “Any good hotels?”
“We’re not talking about the ones you used on prom night,” Ginter said.
DeVere grimaced. “There was an old hotel downtown. Was supposedly elegant at one time. My parents talked about it. The Carpenter. It was still there in the 1980s.”
“Where is it?” Ginter asked.
DeVere pointed to the skyline. “Downtown Manchester.”
Ginter nodded. “O.K., here’s what we’ll do. We’ll work our way out of the park and take side streets. Get to this old hotel and check in using cash and our real names. Then we’ll meet in a room.”
As the others began emptying their wallets Paul reached into his back pocket. It was empty. “I don’t have my wallet,” he stammered. “It’s in my jacket back at the lab.”
“All right,” Ginter said. “Just the rest of us then.”
Pamela tossed her wallet to Ginter. Amanda opened her pocketbook, removed her wallet, and handed it to him. Lewis grabbed a fallen tree branch and broke off the side branches with his foot. He jabbed an end in the ground and dug a small hole in the topsoil. He tossed three wallets into the hole and covered them over.
When he was finished he opened the duffle bag and distributed wads of cash among the four of them without counting it out. Amanda shoved several packs into her shoulder bag. Paul and Lewis slipped wads into the money belts they took from the duffle bag. Ginter distributed the driver’s licenses.
“Sorry,” he said to Pamela, “we don’t have any ID for you.”
She shrugged. “I guess I’ll be a non-person.”
“We should split up,” Lewis said. “Paul, you and Amanda head out first and get yourselves to this Carpenter Hotel. Pamela and I will follow about half an hour later. Two separate couples might be less suspicious. We’ll meet in your room and develop a strategy.”
DeVere nodded slowly. “O.K. If I remember it right just follow this path past the quarry and then down to the street and then head down a couple of blocks to the bottom of the hill. Turn left and walk to Bridge Street. That’s a main thoroughfare. Turn right on Bridge and walk all the way to the downtown area and then turn left on Elm Street, which will lead to Merrimack Street. Right onto Merrimack Street one block to the main entrance.”
Ginter repeated the directions.
“See you later,” deVere said as he and Amanda headed down the path.
Ginter waited exactly 30 minutes before standing and slinging the duffle bag over his shoulder.
“Time to go,” he announced.
Pamela stood up and brushed off her clothes. “You really think it’s safer to travel separately?”
Lewis peered out between the tree limbs. “Absolutely.”
He stepped out of the woods and walked along the tree line down to the parking lot with Pamela at his side. They turned right at the lot’s edge and followed a path that led back into the woods. The path twisted left and headed down an incline. When it narrowed Pamela let Ginter get ahead of her. To their right lay a stone quarry filled with water. Two young boys were jumping off some rocks into the clear water.
At the bottom of the trail Lewis looked back up at a high cliff face. “I can see why they call it ‘The Ledge,” he mused.
“Tell me something,” he asked as he ducked under a tree limb, “do you remember that meeting at Lorrie Maddox’ house in Newton?”
“You mean in the rain storm?” Pamela asked.
“That’s the one. Duck your head.” With a final shove Lewis stepped out onto pavement and Pamela stumbled up against him. Lewis looked around and pointed.
“That way,” he said, and started off across the pavement, again heading down a steep hill.
“What about it?” Pamela asked, hurrying to keep up. She trotted a few steps and came abreast of him.
Lewis did not look at her. “Why was Eckleburg so suspicious?” he asked. “He seemed to think that we were crooked and that maybe Paul was funneling off money. Do you know why?”
Pamela shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t know that Dr. Eckleburg was suspicious of anyone. I thought that he just wanted to make sure that your weapon would work.” She glanced around. “Wouldn’t he love to know.”
“What about before?” Ginter asked. “What did he say before the meeting about his suspicions?”
“Dr. Eckleburg? I have no idea. I had only seen him twice before.”
Lewis started to turn to his companion but then abruptly turned back and continued walking downhill.
“Only twice before?” he asked cautiously. “How well do you know the doctor?”
“I hardly know him at all.”
Lewis walked on. Around him were an array of single-family homes with bikes and toys scattered across well manicured lawns. Most of the front doors stood open behind their screens.
“Was it Arthur then who knew Eckleburg?” Ginter as
ked. “Was he his main contact?”
“I guess so.”
“What was Arthur’s plan for that op in Portland?” Ginter asked. “What was that all about?”
“Op?” Pamela asked.
“The barge. Wasn’t he going to blow a barge coming into Portland Harbor, or something like that?”