Doomed

by Josh Anderson

  The pillar hung in the air as Kyle cruised around, bobbing up and down a little bit with the wind. He pressed on the touchscreen map above his head and was able to set the autopilot to the next-to-last address in the history tab: Two twenty-five West Thirty-fifth Street. The pillar smoothly descended a few feet, turned and cruised ahead on its own.

  As he let the autopilot fly him through the night sky, Kyle wondered whether he was in a one-of-a-kind vehicle, or whether seeing pillars flying through the sky was commonplace in the future, at least until whatever happened to drive everyone away, leaving New York City eerie and empty.

  He thought about Allaire’s motivations and felt sad and confused. As genuine as her love for Kyle had felt, she and Everett were married and she’d conveniently left this fact out of all of their conversations. For all he knew, the two of them planned the charade with the video of Kyle and the tattoo in advance and hired an actor to play him. Plus, this was 2060. They had all sorts of technology he couldn’t understand. He wondered what was more logical: staying young forever, or Allaire and Everett trying to trick him into thinking he was someone special so they could use him to get to this Ayers character? She lied once, he thought. She’ll keep lying.

  A few minutes later, the pillar stopped and hovered a few feet above a building. Kyle undid his seat belt and leaned his chair back so he could access the back of the seat next to him. He flipped open the glove compartment where Allaire had left her silk blot and reached inside. He moved his hand around, but didn’t feel anything. He got out of his seat to look. When had she taken the silk blot out? he wondered. Kyle felt himself start to panic.

  He eyed the console of the pillar, looking for something. A button. An extra storage area. Some kind of answer to his problem. He climbed over the second row of seats, where he’d sat earlier, and made his way to the pillar’s tail.

  The aircraft got thinner the further back he went, with mostly cargo storage in the back. “Dammit!” he screamed, pounding his fist against the ceiling of the pillar in frustration. He nearly hit one of the little red fire alarm boxes.

  He flipped open the other glove compartment, on the back of the pilot’s seat and looked through all of the rest of the storage areas on the pillar. The very real possibility of being stuck was staring him in the face. Whether he went back to Everett and Allaire, or tried to go it alone here in 2060, he would never get to live in his own time again, and worse, never get another chance to save those kids.

  It was the third time he looked at them that Kyle paid enough attention to read the little print on one of the little red fire alarm boxes. “EMERGENCY ONLY. SINGLE USE. USE WITHIN FIVE MINUTES.”

  It seemed strange to Kyle that four fire alarm boxes would be within a few feet of each other on a ship like the pillar, and what did “USE WITHIN FIVE MINUTES” mean? He took the metal hammer clipped to the side of one of the little boxes and broke the plastic cover. He reached his fingers inside, careful to avoid cutting himself on the sharp plastic, and pulled out the object inside which was rolled up like a taquito. When he unfurled it, he knew immediately that it was a small silk blot.

  Relieved, Kyle was about to duck inside when he thought about the pillar. Allaire’s silo was so isolated, so closed off from the rest of 2060 New York. She’d mentioned that it was too dangerous to leave. He wondered if she and Everett would have any safe way to even get outside without the vehicle.

  Kyle went to the history menu on the auto pilot, and again keyed in the next-to-last address—the silo. He pressed “DEPLOY” to send the pillar back home, and immediately felt the thrusters kick in. He saw the door begin to slide shut, but Kyle raced to the opening and stuck his foot inside to block it, barely making it in time to prevent the door from closing. The pillar was about ten feet off the ground and rising. Kyle braced himself and jumped.

  He stuck the landing like a gymnast, except for the fact that he came down only inches from the edge of the building’s roof. He hit the ground and skidded forward. He needed to brace himself against the short lip rising up from the edge of the roof to avoid tumbling over. His right hand bent further backward than it was supposed to and pain shot up Kyle’s arm.

  He sat on the roof grimacing and holding his wrist, thinking it might be broken. The building was tall, and he could see several blocks to his right and left. He took in this dark version of the city and wondered again what had happened to make it feel so isolated. Kyle squeezed his wrist with his hand, hoping the pain would pass, but he could already feel it swelling.

  From what he gathered from the tidbits Allaire was willing to share, someone named Ayers was using the time tunnel in ways he was not supposed to. Perhaps there were others. Perhaps it was Allaire herself, or Everett, who was doing things to upset the timestream. All Kyle could do was add each of the remarkable things he observed to a list of parts which didn’t yet add up to a whole.

  He winced from the pain shooting through his wrist as he pulled the silk blot open. The emergency blot was more rigid and smaller than the ones he’d used before. Kyle felt both a sense of guilt and relief as he squeezed himself through and entered the time tunnel, leaving 2060 behind.

  CHAPTER 16

  March 12, 2014

  * * *

  The day before the bus crash

  Kyle was tired of his own inner monologue after his trip through the time tunnel. It felt like it had been close to a half-day of climbing, with only his amazingly confused thoughts to keep him company. Incredibly, within minutes of entering the silk blot, his wrist felt completely healed. He had no idea if the injury had been less severe than he originally thought it was, or whether the time tunnel had somehow healed him.

  He exited the tunnel and shielded his eyes from the morning sunlight. He was on top of the same building he’d stood on in 2060. He walked to a half-sized door jutting up from the roof and pulled it, but it was locked. The door was wooden, not especially sturdy and only came up to about Kyle’s stomach. In no mood for any further obstacles, Kyle lifted his leg and then jabbed with the bottom of his shoe right near the knob. Four kicks later, the flimsy door swung open and Kyle ducked into a dark staircase.

  A hum filled the air and got louder and louder as Kyle walked down the stairs. He found himself in a large room with at least ten industrial HVAC fans roaring around him.

  He walked past the deafening fans and through a short hallway, unremarkable except for the fact that it was incredibly hot. It led to another large room, with smaller rooms off to the side. In the large room were three pieces of machinery that looked unfamiliar to Kyle.

  One machine was some kind of textile contraption spinning a flat piece of material in a circle over and over again. Kyle moved closer to get a better look and he could see the material almost bubbling from the heat created as it spun faster and faster. The machine itself looked like a relic of an old factory with discolored metal, and steampunk-style levers and dials. And the heat coming off it made it almost impossible to stand near it for very long.

  Kyle noticed the back of a man’s bald head in one of the small rooms to the side. The rooms had a glass partition between them, and Kyle could see that the man was writing something down in a notebook.

  When the man turned around, Kyle ducked behind the big spinning machine, careful not to touch the hot metal. After a few minutes Kyle stood up and peeked toward the other room, checking to see if his path to the stairwell was clear.

  Kyle almost jumped out of his shoes when he saw the man standing right on the other side of the machine looking at him. The short, older man barely even flinched. “Hello,” he said. He wore a three-piece brown suit and had deep olive skin and a dark goatee.

  “Uh . . . Hi,” Kyle answered.

  The man walked around the machine toward Kyle. “I’m Yalé.”

  “I’m just trying to leave. I’m very sorry,” Kyle said, even though the man didn’t look particularly annoyed by his presence.

  “It’s quite alright,” Yalé said. He had piercing eyes,
but kept on a warm smile. “The elevator’s just over there. Yalé pointed past the large room they were standing in to a small alcove just outside.

  Kyle looked at the big metal machine, and the piece of fabric spinning on it. “Is that a silk blot?”

  Yalé looked at Kyle and smiled again. “I wish you a good day.”

  Kyle headed off, but looked back once before entering the tiny elevator. He saw Yalé standing in the same place, next to the largest of the three machines, boring his eyes into Kyle. Without ever letting the smile drop off of his face, Kyle felt like Yalé had made it clear that he shouldn’t come back here.

  When the elevator opened on the ground floor, Kyle burst out of the building into the overcast air and headed toward the Port Authority Bus Terminal. He could be in Flemming less than six hours from now if he caught the ten a.m. bus. If there was any hope of stopping the bus crash tomorrow once and for all, he would need to set his plan in motion this evening. He kept thinking about the man in the factory, though. Who was he? Was he the person Allaire worked for?

  CHAPTER 17

  March 12 & 13, 2014

  * * *

  A few hours later

  Just as he had the first time he’d time weaved, Kyle was able to steal the Revolutionary War era pistol from a display case above the entrance to the Flemming Central Library.

  By the time Kyle had stolen the gun and gotten all of the supplies he needed, it was nearly ten in the evening on the night before the bus crash. Kyle got some restless sleep in the field behind Silverman High School and headed toward the bus driver’s house at about four in the morning. The quiet street was eerily calm, and Kyle found Bus #17 parked in front of a small blue house.

  For all of its massive influence on his life, Kyle had never actually seen the bus up close before. It was dredged up from Banditt Bay in the aftermath of the crash, but Kyle was in police custody by then. He walked around the bus, tracing the black ribbing in the metal along its side with his finger. He second guessed his plan for a moment. What if I just steal the bus and hide it until tomorrow? he wondered. But that would leave everyone’s fate out of his hands. This time, if the universe was going to come to demand the lives of these twelve kids, it was going to have to go through Kyle to do it.

  He glanced at the driver’s house and saw that the lights were off. The street was clear, so he walked up to the back door of the bus and, quietly as he could, pulled the black handle downward, hoping Bruno had left it unlocked. Kyle pulled on the door, but it didn’t budge. Then, he tiptoed around to the driver’s side door, tried that, and it was also locked.

  Walking back around to the rear of the vehicle, Kyle took off his backpack and unzipped it. Moments later, he jammed a crowbar into the back door and applied pressure, pulling the handle down with his other hand. He leaned into it trying to get the door to budge.

  When the crowbar started to bend, Kyle became worried that the lock was too strong. He heard the metal of the door straining against the leverage he applied with the crowbar, but it held firm over a few minutes during which Kyle tried a few different angles, and a few different pivot points on the door.

  Just as he was about to give up and move to Plan B, breaking a window, he got the door to lurch open. Kyle tossed his backpack inside and climbed in. He jammed himself between the back seat and the seatback in front of it in order to stay hidden for as long as possible. If Kyle had his way, Bruno would make all of his morning pickups before anyone even knew he was on the bus. Unlikely, but the longer he stayed hidden, the better.

  Kyle opened his eyes and lifted his head off of the green plastic seat of the bus when he heard the back door slam closed. He jumped as the door swung against the frame, and then bounced open again.

  “Who’re you?” Bruno yelled at him from outside the bus, making eye contact. “Get outta my bus!”

  Kyle quickly opened his backpack and put on his ski mask. He pointed the pistol at Bruno. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, but I need to come with you today on your pickups.”

  Bruno stepped back, putting his hands up. He looked toward his house.

  “Don’t get your wife involved, Mr. Pasquale,” Kyle said. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

  “You broke my bus,” Bruno said.

  Kyle could see now that the latch where the lock was supposed to catch was a mess of bent metal. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “How am I gonna drive?” Bruno asked.

  “I’ll hold it for now, and then one of the kids can help,” Kyle answered.

  “You wanna someone tumble out the back?” Bruno asked, getting agitated now.

  Kyle waved his pistol toward the front of the bus. “I don’t want anybody to get hurt, Mr. Pasquale. I promise. I just need you to treat today like any other morning pickup.”

  Bruno talked animatedly with his hands now. “Treat it like every other morning? I don’t have a guy with a gun on my bus most mornings—”

  “No, you don’t,” Kyle said. “But, like I said, I need you to trust me. If you do, nobody will get hurt. Now, please, let’s go start the pickups.”

  Bruno shook his head and muttered to himself, but eventually, he walked around to the driver’s side door. He opened it and pulled himself up onto the seat. He looked at Kyle angrily through the huge rear-view mirror. “What you want anyway?”

  “Would you believe I’m here to keep you and the children safe?” Kyle asked. But the older man just waved at the air and started the ignition. Kyle knelt in the aisle and held the back door closed by its handle.

  Bruno didn’t say another word until just before they got to the first house on the route. They were on the outskirts of Flemming. He continued to hold tightly onto the door, making sure it didn’t fly open as Bruno drove.

  “Why don’t we leave the kids outta this? I take you wherever you need,” Bruno said, as he pulled up in front of Marlon Peters’ house.

  “Honk the horn, Mr. Pasquale,” Kyle said, raising the antique pistol into the air to remind him one last time who was in charge here.

  Moments later, Marlon Peters lumbered up the steps and onto the bus. Marlon stood in the center aisle and looked at Kyle, still wearing a ski mask. Kyle could see the mixture of curiosity and alarm in the kid’s expression.

  “Come here, kid,” Kyle said. He had to stop himself from calling Marlon by his name.

  Marlon looked back at Bruno, who was watching through the rear view as he drove. Then, he stepped toward Kyle, still keeping a few feet between them.

  “Can you do me a favor?” Kyle asked. “My name is Frank, and I need some help with this door. Can you sit back here and hold it shut for me?”

  Marlon cautiously sat in the back seat and put his hand on the door handle, pulling it completely closed. “It’s not my seat,” he mumbled.

  “Today it is, kid,” Kyle answered.

  The story Kyle told each of the kids as they boarded the bus was that he worked for the bus company and was observing the run so he could substitute for Bruno if necessary. To a man, each kid questioned him about the ski mask, and after several bad excuses, Kyle told all of them that he’d been burned badly in an accident and preferred wearing a mask to scaring people.

  The final pickup was Serg Sidorov. After he bounded up the stairs and took his seat, Bruno closed the front door of the bus and looked back through the rearview. He gave the universal “what now?” gesture to Kyle.

  Kyle looked at his watch. “Sixteen Thirty-two Wolkoff Parkway,” he called up to him.

  Marlon had lost hold of the door a few times, meaning they had to stop the bus and someone had to get out and close it. Now that all of the kids were on the bus, and sooner or later they’d realize that they weren’t headed to school. Kyle needed someone back there he could trust.

  The morning conversations between the kids were loud. Marlon had been right, Etan Rachnowitz was none too thrilled to see a sixth grader in his back row seat. It was surreal to Kyle to be amongst these kids who he only knew through
newspaper clippings.

  He knew, for instance, that Tiffany Preston and Lisa Cartigliani were not the demure, quiet types, but seeing them bark out disses like they were on a construction crew was more than Kyle could process. He looked around at all of them—these living, breathing kids—and felt a surge of happiness. Sitting here with these children who had only been ghosts to him made Kyle feel, for the first time since the original crash, like his slate was clean. Even if this only lasted a few more minutes, Kyle could barely contain his giddiness. They’re all alive, he thought.

  He thought about the possibility of the bus crashing this morning with him on it. It would be a poetic ending for him, especially since these last moments were giving him such joy.

  A few minutes later, the bus pulled up in front of Kyle’s house. So he could avoid getting out so close to his 2014 self, he asked Bruno to pull up on the lawn. Kyle had him drive around the side of the house, damaging his mother’s plants in the process. He scanned the yard and after a few minutes, he saw a pair of shoes sticking out from a hedge.

  Kyle slid down one of the windows on the bus. “Sillow!” he yell-whispered to his father, who was at his house fulfilling a promise he’d made to Kyle in 1998 to try to stop the original crash.

  Sillow peeked above the bushes with a confused look. Kyle lifted the mask for a quick second, and waved him toward the bus. “Let him in please, Bruno.”