CLIPPED_Another Time Travel Tale

by Angela R. Hart

  As they left the house, me and Chloe and Dad all sat down on the couch to watch the Screen do it's search. I wished that it moved faster, but Dad was right, it was a very extensive database. "Show us the feed, do you have it saved?" Chloe asked. "Yeah, I have it here, are you sure that you want to see? It's not pretty." I explained. "Show us, love." said Dad, looking really sad. I swiped away the app, so that it could do it's job in the background and then waved Chloe's Chip at the Screen to bring up the saved file. They watched in horror as Auntie was kidnapped. I couldn't watch it again, so I went and got a snack from the kitchen and cleaned stuff up. Auntie always cleaned when she was stressed so I figured that it couldn't hurt. It helped a little.

  Suddenly my Dad hollered from the other room. "ZOEY, GET IN HERE QUICK!" I ran as fast as I could into the living room to see what was wrong. "What? What happened?" I said, worried. "It's your Auntie, LOOK!" he said, excitedly. I looked at the Screen and saw that Auntie's Air-Mail was pulled up. "Why is that on there?" I asked. "We don't know, it just appeared!" said Chloe, excitedly. The Screen switched Screen again, into a folder that was in the Air-Mail. "Who is doing that?" I asked. I was seriously confused.

  "It has to be your Auntie! She's found a way to contact us!" said Dad, happily. The Screen changed again, opening a live feed. It was a dirty, empty room, nothing interesting about it at all, except how filthy it was. Nobody was in the room, it was completely empty, then suddenly, Auntie's voice screamed. "WE KNOW WHERE THIS HOUSE IS ASSHOLES!" "OH MY GOD!" we all screamed simultaneously. Nobody came into the room when she screamed. "She bought the Contacts! That has to be it! When she went to the closet in her room, she had to have been putting them in before the men got in there!" I said, excitedly.

  "The Contacts worked just like the Handhelds, except they could be controlled by blinks and gestures, kind of like the Screens. "She must've opened her Air-Mail to send us a feed of where she is, so that we would be able to find her!" said Dad, excitedly. "Aunt Allie is a freaking genius!" screamed Chloe. "Dad, we have to call Callie and Carson, right now, they need to know that she is there and that they might be walking into a trap." I said, whipping my Handheld out of my back pocket. I quickly called and informed them of the situation. They were ecstatic. "I told you that she would be prepared, Lovebug." said Aunt Callie. "We will be careful. Thank you for calling." said Carson. We hung up and continued watching the feed.

  Nobody came into the room and there were no other sounds outside of it that we could hear. Then Aunt Allie said quietly, "Harmons, if you are seeing this. They've brought me to that house, I woke up in this room, so I couldn't see anything around the inside of the house to get it snapped, but I am here and I am okay. I saw the trip here and we went to the same location, but I passed out again before they brought me inside. Be careful when you come, they are strong. I love you all to the moon." Me and Chloe started to cry, she wasn't on a call, so we couldn't talk back to her, we could just receive her outgoing feed, but it was enough for us, she was okay and we were glad. I hugged Chloe and said, she's going to be okay, they will find her.

  We waited and watched as Auntie looked all around the room, snapping as she went, so she could at least have snaps of that room. "She must have loaded the app into the Contacts too, because they were loading in with the rest of the files that we had been accumulating. "The Contacts must recognize your gestures from anywhere, because her hands aren't in front of her. That's pretty awesome, I think we will all need to get some after this." I said to Chloe and Dad and they both nodded. "This is because we found that man, the future is pushing us." I said. "It has to be, because none of this happened before, did it?" asked Dad. "No, not at all, just the phone calls and the following, then the gunshots." I explained. "Yeah, this is bullshit. I hate sitting here waiting for something and being out of control." he said. "I know, us too." I said, nodding to Chloe.

  Suddenly, we saw the door to the room creak open and Auntie sat up and looked. She started snapping furiously, but it wasn't the men. "Allie!" screamed Aunt Callie as she burst into the room. "Oh thank God! Get me loose! Hurry!" she yelled. Carson walked in right behind Callie and started to help untie her. "Are they here?" Aunt Allie asked, as Carson got the last of her bindings loose. "No, nobody was here when we came in. Carson kicked in the front door, he was like an alpha male bad ass." said Callie, laughing and punching him in the arm. "Thank you for coming. I wasn't sure if you would see my feed." said Allie, standing up and stretching. "Chloe, Zoey and Andrew saw it. We were already on our way here before it came through, they called and told us." explained Callie. "Good, let's get the hell out of here, before they come back." said Aunt Allie.

  Before they left, all three of them walked around and snapped different areas of the house, Auntie used her Contacts and Callie and Carson had their Snaps in their pockets all the time. At least with them doing that we would know exactly what to look for, maybe we would find something else. It didn't look lived in, it was just a shanty, but it did look like people had been staying there from time to time. They rushed to get all of the snaps and then they walked out the front door, closing it behind them. "I don't think it's going to close, dude." said Callie, watching Carson struggle with it. "Probably not, oh well, fuck 'em. Assholes." he said as he flipped off the house and they made their way to the car. After that, Auntie's feed blinked off.

  "They're on their way back, thank God she's safe. Somebody is going to have to stay with her all the time from now on. We can't be by ourselves anymore. If they were brave enough to grab her from her house in the middle of the day, I guarantee you that they don't know that we are living here." I explained. They both nodded. "You're right, some of us will stay at your Auntie's from now on. Chloe, it's time you got off of your ass and moved into this house, no more living alone until this is all over and done with, you need to be nearby with your family." said Dad. "Okay Dad, that's fine, I'll move in today, I don't have a lot to pack." she said. "I guess we're roommates now. HEY TWIN!" I said to her. "HEY TWIN!" she said, shaking her head at me.

  They made it back in about 20 minutes and all came rushing into the house with Aunt Allie in tow. We all jumped up to hug her all at once. "Thank God Auntie, that thing with the Contacts was really smart!" I said, hugging her tightly. She looked horrible, her face was black and blue, but she seemed okay otherwise. "I bought them just in case, after you showed up. I didn't think that I would actually need to use them, but now I am glad that I did. I'll be ordering a pair for everybody else now. We don't need to have any more surprises." she said, hugging us all back. "I love you Auntie, I'm so glad you're alright!" cried Chloe, hugging her neck.

  "We are going to be moving around our living arrangements." said Andrew. "Callie, you stay with Allie for a while. Between the two of you, you should be able to hold your own if someone comes into the house, I'm bringing you a gun, you will both need to learn to use it, I won't take no for an answer. You two can sleep in shifts, one during the day and one at night." said Dad.

  "That sounds good to me, do you mind having your Aunt Callie as a housemate again?" Callie asked Auntie. "Of course not, that sounds good to me too, I'll enjoy the company, so will the cats. You can help me with the cat boxes! Poop or socks?" said Aunt Allie and they both started cracking up. They had a lot of inside jokes. "Carson, Zoey and Chloe, you three will be living in this house, you sleep in shifts too." he said. "What about you, Dad?" I asked. "I have your mother at home. She knows everything, so I won't be alone and she needs to have someone watching her back too, just in case." he explained. "That makes sense, Dad." said Chloe.

  Everybody discussed what to do and we all talked to Aunt Allie to make sure that she was okay, then Dad and Chloe left to go pack up her apartment. They would be back tonight with her things. Me and Callie walked Aunt Allie home. We were all going to sit with her until everybody got back, so she wouldn't be alone. She was acting like she was fine, but we knew that she was shaken up.

  We opened the door and all of the cats greeted us
in their usual manner. "Oh, thank God! They didn't hurt them did they? I was so scared that something happened to them!" cried Aunt Allie. "No Auntie, they were fine, we watched the security feed, the men didn't do anything to them, they didn't do anything to the men either though. They're too friendly." I explained. She got down and gave them all hugs and went to give them some treats. "Poor Auntie." I said to Aunt Callie. "She'll be alright, Lovebug, give her a day or two and she will be back to normal. It might have been a long time for her, but she has been through all of this shit before. She's resiliant." Callie explained, and I nodded.

  Aunt Allie came back into the room and we all went around cleaning everything up. Her house was a disaster and I knew that she didn't want to be reminded of what happened. Callie went and tidied her bedroom, so that she wouldn't have to go in there and see the place where it happened. She washed the sheets and changed everything for her and I cleaned the other rooms and put everything back where it belonged. Auntie passed out on the couch, snoring like a monster. "Poor Auntie, she's exhausted." I thought, as I went to pick up some more mess.

  "I think we have it all back to normal, what do you think, Lovebug?" said Aunt Callie, going to sit down and pet all of the kitties on the opposite couch. "Looks perfect, Auntie. You washed her sheets? There was blood." I said. "Yes, and I put some new ones on and re-made the bed for her, just the way she likes it made. Everything is clean and ready for her to go to bed, why don't you wake her up and tell her to go lie down." she said. "Okay, thanks for the help Aunt Callie." I said, as I got up and gently woke up Aunt Allie. "Come on, we got everything clean, go on to bed Auntie, you've had a rough day." I said, helping her up. "Goodnight, my loves, I'll see you both in the morning." she said, as she stumbled into her freshly cleaned bedroom. "She got real sweet in her old age, didn't she?" said Callie, smiling. "Always sweet, Auntie." I said, closing my eyes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The next day, Chloe and Aunt Callie did all of their moving around. Chloe came to our house and Aunt Callie moved into the spare bedroom at Auntie's house. Technically it was already her house, but still, she moved in, she didn't have much to take with her. We gave Chloe the master bedroom, since it would continue being her house once we left to go back to our own times, and we continued staying in our other rooms. It all worked out well enough, although it was an adjustment for everybody.

  We all met up after we finished our moving around to check on the app to see if it had found anything on the man's face. Still, nothing had come up, so we decided to try something else. We had already run the car's plates through the database but it didn't pull up that particular car. They came up as stolen plates off of another car from Houston, so that was no good, but we also had a snap of the tags, so we hoped that they would give us some kind of answers. Later that day, we finally had a hit on the tags. "The idiots changed the plates but not the tags. What kind of stupid ass criminals are we dealing with here?" said Carson. "Real stupid ones, if we figured it all out." said Chloe. She was right, we weren't professionals and we found the car without a hitch. "Dumbasses." said Callie.

  Aunt Allie gestured through the Screens until it pulled up the owners information. "The car is registered to a Lonnie A. Sanderson from Victoria, Texas. Same make and model as our friends." said Aunt Allie. "Who in the fuckety fuck is Lonnie fucking Sanderson? What kind of pussy ass name is that? Search that bitch in the database, let's see what this fucker looks like." said Carson. "Really dude, how many times can you say fuck in one sentence?" said Callie, shaking her head. "A lot fucking more." he said. We all rolled our eyes at him.

  "So, this is Lonnie fucking Sanderson." said Aunt Allie, sarcastically, pulling up the hologram of our man in question. "He doesn't look familiar to me. Look at his height and weight, 5'6" 145 lbs." she said, shaking her head. "No way, that little pipsqueak wouldn't have been able to pull off anything like they did with Allie. Allie would've killed that little dude right there." said Carson. "Yeah, those men were definitely bigger than this little fella." said Aunt Allie, flipping through his file.

  "Look, it's flagged, pull it all up Auntie." I said, pointing to the little flag in the corner of the Screen. She did and it said that his car was stolen at the beginning of the year, case is still open. "Shit, dead end. This little midget had his car stolen. This is not our guy. Son of a bitch." said Carson. "Son of a biscuit." said Callie. "Well, looks like we still have to wait for the fucking app to finish it's search. It shouldn't be long now." said Carson. "Right, not long at all, it's been running for a while." said Aunt Allie. "Any day now." said Chloe, nodding along with everybody else.

  We all went our separate ways, we couldn't do anything until we found the dude. "I'm sure that they've dumped the car now, and that they've evacuated that old house too, after I got away." said Aunt Allie. "You're right. Dad and Callie made their rounds the other day and the house is completely empty, door still hanging wide open. Nobody has been there since Callie and Carson came and got you. We are back to square one." I said. "We will find something soon, Lovebug." she said, rubbing my shoulder.

  Eventually, December 31st came rolling around. It was the date that we had to get out of there so that we wouldn't catch the sickness. I didn't know how it worked with the clip and going to different dates and times, but I did know that we only got a year to do what we needed to do and that we had to return to our proper times and then come back, otherwise we would get deathly ill, and PawPaw Matt always swore that it was horrible. I didn't want to be the one to test that one out.

  Dad said that he was going to stay with Chloe and Aunt Allie the night that we left, so that they wouldn't be by themselves when we disappeared, just in case we weren't able to get right back. They decided to all stay at Auntie's house since that was the house that the men knew about. We decided to leave out from our house. First we were going to go out to the shed and I was going to drop off Callie and Carson in 2023 and then I was going to hit the links to return to my original time in 2045. Once I got there, I was going to pop back to 2023, pick them back up and then we were going to use the clip to return to January 1, 2045 at 12:00 AM. Just thinking about it all sounded exhausting, but it had to be done.

  We all said our goodbyes and promised that we would be here in the morning, bright and early to start fresh. It was going to be a busy day of time traveling and I knew that we were going to get back to January 1st exhausted, but we had to do it, no matter how tough it was on all of us. We dropped our meds and made our way out to the old rickety shed. It had been years since it had been used, since me and Riley were kids, so it had fallen into disrepair. I knew how much the Auntie's loved it now though, so once I got all of this resolved, I made a plan to fix it back up and get it looking good again. It would make them happy.

  All three of us stood in the middle of the busted up wood floor in the shed, where we knew that there was no furniture sitting in 2023 and we all looked at each other. "Okay guys, I'm dropping you off and I will be back to get you, let's pick a time for meet up, so that nobody is lost or waiting for anybody else. We left your time last on April 6th at 11:05 AM. I checked my journal just to make sure of the date and time.

  "Why don't you give us a couple of hours to take care of some things and then come back and get us from here at around 1:00 PM, April 6, 2023." said Aunt Callie. "Sounds good, I'll write it down when I land in 2045, I have the journal with me just in case." I said. "Okay, Zoey, then let's do this shit." said Carson. Aunt Callie set the clip for April 6th at 11:15 AM and I set the 'BACK' link for 2023. "Ready?" I said. "Ready." they replied, as I clicked the link to send us back in time once again.

  We all crash landed in the middle of the shed floor. At least there was a rug there to somewhat soften our fall. "ARGH!" We all screamed, as we crawled around trying to get back up off of the floor. "This is why I tried to always find furniture when I did this shit! One time I landed face first in a freezing mud puddle. It sucked." said Aunt Callie as she twisted and cracked her neck. "Okay Zoey, you reme
mber how to actually return right?" said Carson. "Yes FATHER CARSON." I said, sarcastically. That made Aunt Callie laugh. "What? She got you that time." she said, still chuckling. "I think I'm going to go use PawPaw and Granny's bathroom and then disappear from there, at least I will land on the toilet, right?" I said. They both shrugged. "Whatever, Lovebug, just be careful. We will see you at 1:00 PM, here in the shed." said Aunt Callie, handing me the clip that was on her shirt. I attached it to my own shirt, hugged them both and then we all made our way out.

  As I walked toward PawPaw and Granny's front door I saw Callie and Carson making their way to Aunt Callie's house. "I guess she wants to check on her kitties." I thought, as I tapped on PawPaw's door. "PAWPAW! IT'S CHLOE!" I yelled as I walked in. "Hey Chloe Bear, come on in!" said PawPaw, with that damn laptop still in his lap. "I just need to use the bathroom, Auntie and Dad went somewhere and I forgot the code." I said, lying through my teeth. "Okay, ENJOY!" he said. He was weird too. "Thanks PawPaw, it'll be a blast." I said, closing the bathroom door.

  "I hope PawPaw didn't spot the links and clip." I thought, scared for a moment, because I forgot about them when I came inside. I didn't think he saw them though, he had a big mouth and would've definitely said something, he couldn't help himself usually. I sat down on the toilet and took a couple of breaths. It would be okay, I wasn't going for that long, just for a little while and then I would be right back in the bathroom again. "If I do it right, PawPaw won't even notice that I'm gone." I thought, as I twisted both links to 2025. I checked my watch to make sure that I had the correct time, and it was now 11:30 AM, April 6th. I said it a few times in my head to remember, and then closed my eyes. I wanted to get this over and done with. I took a breath and then clicked the two links together, disappearing from PawPaw's toilet without a sound.