Backtracker

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  Dave wanted to finish the ridiculous encounter before the night's freeze set in; he wanted to conclude the whole fiasco immediately and get home, get warm, get some sleep. There was no use in listening to more of Larry's maudlin blubbering; it was silly to linger any longer by that body which wasn't Billy's, which could never be never be Billy's.

  After several false starts, Larry finally managed to squeeze out a ragged dribble of words. He seemed to have more trouble speaking than ever before; the anguish in his voice exceeded all prior levels.

  "I...I was driving...from a bar...one night," he sobbed, mashing his hands together. "I was...drunk...like always...and I wrecked.

  "I...hit another car...head-on. There were...there were three...people in the...other car.

  "There was...a mother...and two kids...and they were all...all killed.

  "I was...smashed-up...but they were all...killed.

  "All...killed," gasped Larry. "All three."

  Dave wanted to shoot.

  Enough was enough.

  "I killed them," wailed Larry. "I killed them!"

  Enough was enough.

  Larry seemed about to again collapse in a sobbing heap, but he somehow kept wrenching out words.

  "They...threw me...in prison," he choked. "They put me away...and I deserved it. God...I deserved it.

  "I deserved...to be killed...for what I'd done. I kept wishing...that they'd kill me...but they just put me in prison.

  "I even...tried to...kill myself...since they wouldn't do it. I tried...over and over...but they wouldn't let me! They kept...stopping me. They wouldn't...even let me...die.

  "I found out...later...why I wasn't allowed...to die yet. God...wouldn't let me go...because he wasn't done...punishing me...for killing those people!

  "He was...saving up...to make me...truly suffer!"

  Enough was enough.

  Dave was going to shoot.

  He was going to shoot now.

  He wasn't going to listen to another ridiculous word.

  "I wasn't...done suffering," bleated Larry. "The best...the best was still to come!

  "Four years after...I was put away...my brother...my brother...was arrested for dealing drugs! Jeff...my brother, Jeff...was put away, too!

  "He'd been in deep. He'd started running with...that little bastard...I killed at the Rock today. The little fuck...was in with a bunch...who were the biggest dealers in this part of the state...and he pulled Jeff in...and they were all busted.

  "Jeff was put away...and I knew...as soon as I heard, I knew.

  "I knew...it was my fault!" wailed Larry, clawing at his scalp with both hands. "I hadn't...been there for him! I'd let him down! I'd failed him...and God was using him to pay me back...for what I'd done!

  "I'd taken...three lives," groaned Larry, "and God...ruined my brother's life...in return.

  "And God...wasn't done yet. He wouldn't stop...until we were even.

  "An eye for an eye," whimpered Larry. "Three lives...for three lives."

  Enough.

  Dave was going to shoot. He would listen to no more of Larry's nonsense; the prattle had lost even its humorous appeal, and Dave was thoroughly sick of it.

  He was going to shoot. He would fire the .38, and then he would get in his car and drive home. Larry was a pain in the ass and that wasn't Billy Bristol and Dave was freezing and drenched and enough was enough.

  Why did he keep listening?

  "Ten years...after I went to prison...God took the rest," sobbed Larry. "He took...the other two lives...I owed him.

  "He took...my parents."

  Why?

  If that wasn't Billy and Dave had seen nothing and all that Larry said was blatantly false, then why was Dave still listening?

  He wanted to shoot.

  "They were both killed," wailed Larry. "They were killed...while I was in prison.

  "A guy...broke into their house...and shot and killed them both.

  "He didn't...have to do it," cried Larry. "He was just there...to rob them...but he shot them for the hell of it. They were asleep...they didn't even know he was there...and he killed them anyway!

  "It was all my fault," gurgled Larry, whipping his head from side to side. "God was...paying me back...for killing those three in the car!"

  Dave wanted to shoot.

  He was going to shoot.

  "It was my fault!" wailed Larry. "Because of...what I'd done...I lost my family. It was all...because of me."

  Dave's finger quivered against the trigger of the .38. His arms were beginning to ache; he'd been holding the gun rigidly before him for too long.

  There was no reason to hesitate for another second.

  "Because of me," whimpered Larry. "I'd...killed them.

  "They'd died...to punish me. Hell...wouldn't be enough...for me. God had to make sure...I suffered...for the rest of my life."

  Dave was going to shoot.

  Enough was enough.

  That wasn't that wasn't that wasn't Billy Bristol in the sand and enough was enough and Dave's patience was gone.

  "God," whimpered Larry. "God...I suffered."

  With that, Larry dumped his face in his hands and lapsed into a wild burst of sobbing.

  Enough.

  Thunder rumbled overhead and Dave blinked, double-checked his bead on Larry. The jig was up; the killer had made his pitch and Dave had listened-for whatever odd reason-but it was time to call it a night.

  Larry had told his last lie. He'd tried to talk himself out of a bullet, and he'd failed. His attempt hadn't even been respectable; his melodramatic gibberish had been pitifully unconvincing, hadn't affected Dave in the least.

  'I'm...you,' Larry had said.

  Ridiculous.

  He deserved to be shot. That wasn't and couldn't could never be Billy Bristol's body, Billy's dead body...

  (Dave glanced at the corpse.)

  ...couldn't could never be of course, but Larry still deserved to be shot, if for no other reason than because he'd been so ridiculous.

  Dave was going to shoot. Whatever had been restraining him, he felt it flicker away; he knew that he was finally ready, truly ready to close the book on Larry Smith.

  Dave adjusted his grip on the gun.

  'I'm...you,' Larry had said.

  Dave sighted the killer's bobbing skull.

  'I'm...you.'

  Dave stretched his cramping finger, then curled it back around the trigger.

  That wasn't Billy Bristol in the sand.

  Nothing had happened.

  Enough was enough.

  Dave took a deep breath, and his trigger-finger twitched.

  Suddenly, Larry's head swung up.

  "I really suffered," said Larry, and his voice was surprisingly steady. "I tried to kill myself...and I almost finished the job twice.

  "I really suffered," nodded Larry, "but then, something wonderful happened.

  "I got another chance. I got a chance to make everything right.

  "I got to come back. I got to come back.

  "I got to come back here...now...twenty-one years ago...to make my life the way it should have been. I got to come back and undo all my mistakes."

  Larry smiled weakly. "All it cost me was my soul," he said. "I'd say I got the better end of the deal."

  Dave didn't shoot.

  *****

  Chapter 73

  "One morning," said Larry, his voice trembling only faintly, "a few days after I'd tried to kill myself again, I was sent to the prison psychiatrist.

  "The shrink was a new guy," said Larry, folding his hands neatly in his lap. "He didn't seem like much of anything at first. He was chubby and bald, somewhere in his forties I thought. He was kind of strange...quiet strange. Didn't talk much. He hardly ever looked at me. Mostly, he just stared at his desk.

  "Anyway, I sat down in the office and he asked me a couple questions...and then, he clammed up all of a sudden. He just sat there and didn't say a word, didn't even look at me.

  "I kept wai
ting for the guy to say something, but he just sat there. He must've stayed like that for fifteen or twenty minutes.

  "Finally, I started to say something. I couldn't sit there anymore like that. I figured either this was some kind of weird psychiatrist's trick, or the guy was asleep with his eyes open.

  "Before I could get a word out, the guy started talking. He still wouldn't look at me, but he talked.

  "He said 'You've had a pretty bad life, haven't you?'

  "'Yeah,' I told him. 'Big deal.'

  "'If you could, would you go back and change it?' he asked me.

  "I told him sure, I would. I just wanted to get out of there and go back to my cell and try to kill myself again.

  "He said 'You can, you know. You can go back and change everything. I can set it up if you want.'

  "I laughed at him. I really got wise with the guy." Larry smirked and nodded; his face was darker than ever, black as a coal seam, wrinkled like jerky. "I thought he had a few screws loose, or he was playing some shrink game with me, so I figured I'd have some fun with him.

  "Nothing I said fazed him, though. He just sat there and stared at his desk. He was the weirdest little bastard.

  "He told me again that he could 'set it up' for me, and I just laughed. I asked him who the hell he thought he was, that he could pull off something like that.

  "He told me he was a travel agent. A travel agent!"

  Larry snickered and shook his head. "Anyway, next, the guy asked me if I knew what I'd do if I went back, if I had any ideas about how I'd change things. 'It's best to have an itinerary on a trip of this nature,' he said.

  "Did I have any 'ideas,'" snorted Larry. "Of course I did! It was all I'd thought about for years--if only I hadn't done this, if only I hadn't done that. I'd spent day after day, night after night just wishing I could go back and change it all around!

  "I didn't tell him all this, of course. I still figured he was trying to bait me, get me into some goofy shrink game. I just laughed and said 'Yeah, I got a couple ideas.'

  "He said 'Well, if you went back, you could only stay for a limited time...and you couldn't relive your own life.'

  "I asked him what the hell he was talking about.

  "'You couldn't go back to being you at that age,' the guy said. 'I can't make you younger, and you can't replace the younger you.'

  "I still didn't understand what he was getting at. He didn't seem to be making a whole lot of sense.

  "'You could meet yourself,' he told me. 'You could go back to a certain time, and you could meet your younger self. You could change things for him, change what had been your life...but you wouldn't live that life yourself.

  "'Do you know what you would do if those were the conditions of the trip?' the guy asked me.

  "I told him I didn't know. I hadn't thought about it that way before.

  "'Think about it, then,' he told me. 'If you come up with any ideas, and you still want to go, we'll set it up at your next appointment.'

  "That was it," shrugged Larry. "That was the end of the session. The guard took me back to my cell.

  "I'll tell you, that was the most bizarre meeting I ever had with a shrink. I thought the guy was a whacko, y'know?

  "Still, he did get me thinking. Matter of fact, I thought a lot about what he'd said. I didn't have much else to do except think.

  "It took my mind off trying to kill myself, anyway," said Larry, reaching up with one hand to stroke his creased, blackened chin. Most of his goatee was gone; the bristles which hadn't fallen out had turned from sandy brown to silver, as had the hairs of his mustache and eyebrows and crew-cut.

  "I kept going over the set-up the guy had described. Even though it had to be some stupid hypothetical situation that was supposed to put me in touch with my feelings or some such crap, I couldn't help wondering what I would do if it really happened.

  "Eventually, I figured out exactly what I'd do. I planned it all out, every detail.

  "It got to be like a game with me. I went back over my life, pinpointed each thing that'd gone wrong, then figured all the angles on how I would change it.

  "The whole thing fascinated me. I fantasized about it, dreamed about it at night...even drew charts. I just couldn't get it out of my head.

  "I didn't do any of this because I wanted to tell that whacko shrink how I felt. I didn't really plan on telling him a single thing about my little fantasies.

  "Anyway, he was out of the picture for a long while. I didn't see him for a long time.

  "I didn't see him for another year," snorted Larry, wagging his head.

  "It was a year till I had another appointment with the guy. Usually, I'd be sent to the shrink three or four times a month, but this guy didn't bring me back in for a whole year.

  "I asked him why it had been so long, and he just told me I'd needed the time to think. He said special trips needed a lot of special planning.

  "He hadn't changed a bit since the last time I'd seen him. Still didn't talk much, still wouldn't look at me. Seemed like he even had the same clothes on that he'd worn the year before.

  "He asked me if I'd come up with any ideas for the trip. I said I had, and then I ended up telling him my ideas...just for the hell of it, y'know, kind of kidding around. I still wasn't taking him seriously, but I figured why not tell him? If he was pulling a shrink trick, then more power to him. I didn't care.

  "So I told him the whole plan. I told him exactly what I'd do if I could go back in time and meet my younger self and change his life.

  "When I was done, he nodded his head. 'Good, good,' he said. 'You're ready. Do you want to go through with it?'

  "I told him yeah. I thought he was a kook, but I figured I'd play along. I laughed and told him it was an offer I couldn't pass up.

  "'I'll send you back,' he told me. 'I'll give you just enough time to finish your plan.'

  "I said that sounded good to me.

  "'There are only two more conditions,' he said. 'First, you have to carry out the last step of your plan at the place where I drop you off.'

  "I told him I didn't have any problem with that.

  "'Second, you have to give me your soul,' he said.

  "I still figured he was playing a game," shrugged Larry. "I kidded him some, and then I told him that was okay with me. I said my soul was pretty worthless by then, anyway, so what the hell?

  "He made me shake on it. He still wouldn't look me in the eye, and I was still laughing about the whole thing, but we shook hands on the deal.

  "After that, he asked me if I was ready, and I said 'You better believe it! Let 'er rip!'

  "Then," smiled Larry, "he snapped his fingers.

  "Just like that," said Larry, snapping his own fingers demonstratively. "I felt this little zap, like static electricity...and all of a sudden, I had different clothes on!

  "My prison uniform was gone! I had a shirt and jeans and boots...just like that, right outta' thin air!

  "Needless to say, I stopped laughing. I was completely blown away. It was...it was magic.

  "'Consider that a little bonus,' the guy said to me. 'I'm throwing it in for free. You don't want to show up looking like you just got out of jail, do you?'

  "I didn't know what to say." Larry paused and shook his head; his eyes were wide, and he looked a bit stunned.

  "It finally hit me that I was in over my head. All that time, I'd thought the guy was just some freak...and all of a sudden, I was standing there in new clothes that'd popped outta' nowhere.

  "I was flabbergasted. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open.

  "The guy asked me if the clothes were all right. I didn't say a word.

  "'Oh, I see,' he said to me. 'You're finally starting to catch on.'

  "I just stood there and stared at him. I didn't know what to do.

  "'You know who I am now, don't you?' he asked me. 'I don't have to spell it out for you, do I?'

  "I told him I knew who he was. It was pretty obvious by now, y'know? The selling my soul
bit was pretty much a dead giveaway.

  "He asked me if I wanted to back out of the deal. 'Contrary to popular belief, I try to be fair,' he said. 'If you want out, just say so, and that's the end of it. The handshake means nothing if we don't have mutual understanding and consent.'

  "I took a while to think things through. Once I got past the shock and all that, I started wondering if maybe the deal wasn't really so bad.

  "My first impulse was to back out, naturally...but then I came around to a different point of view. Okay, so I was thinking about selling my soul...but still, this was my big chance. This guy could really send me back.

  "I went over and over the proposition. Finally, I figured out there might be a loophole, a way for me to get out of my end of the deal.

  "The more I thought about it, the better it looked. There was no guarantee the loophole would work, but it seemed like it had a pretty good chance.

  "I decided to give it a shot. What did I have to lose?

  "I told him I didn't want to back out.

  "He told me 'Good luck. It's been a pleasure doing business with you.'

  "Then, he snapped his fingers."

  *****

  Chapter 74

  Larry smiled. His teeth stood out boldly in the blackness of his face and the gloom of the early evening.

  "He snapped his fingers," Larry said happily, "and I came back.

  "Just like that," said Larry, raising his right hand and snapping his own fingers. "Just like that, and I was here.

  "Right away, I started in on my plan.

  "I knew exactly what I had to do. The only way to really change things would be to kill some people." Larry shrugged and sniffed, turned his gaze from Dave to the lake. "I wish there was some other way, y'know...but there just wasn't. There wasn't any other way that I could see, anyhow.