by Logan Jacobs
Tommy Lee Clones started to scream over the whine of the panel, but I couldn’t make out his words over the noise. He gestured at his other spook friends, and then he aimed his gun at me.
I was definitely going to die. I’d just activated some fucked-up invention of my uncle’s that probably wasn’t a bomb but might be, and that might explode anyway even if he didn’t mean it to. I was trapped in a ring of Men in Black who were so scared of whatever was in the car that they were aiming all their firepower at me.
There was absolutely no way I was getting out of this.
I heard the guns go off all at once like murderous fireworks, but just because I had to hear the sound of my own death didn’t mean I wanted to see the bullets coming at me, so I buried my face in my hands. I waited for the pain to come, or for my world to shut off, but it never did.
The whine stopped. The screaming stopped. The only noise in my ears was the rustling of leaves in the breeze and the steady beep of the panel behind me.
I let myself peek out from behind my fingers just a little to see what had happened to the Men in Black. All I saw was a strip of blurry green with no penguin-suited agents, so I widened my fingers and finally dropped my hands.
The Men in Black spook assholes had disappeared, and all I saw now was the forest that surrounded Uncle Sol’s property.
I had no idea how they had disappeared, but I knew it had something to do with the device in the car.
And that device was now beeping.
Chapter 2
I stared at the blinking, beeping machine under the hood for a terrified second before I tore my eyes away to check on my surroundings.
The Men in Black were still gone, and as soon as my brain finished processing that for a second time, I noticed that a ring of pine trees surrounded me where they’d been standing. The garage lab was gone, the other cars were gone, the Airstream was gone, and even the weeds that had grown over the grass in the clearing were gone.
It was just me and the car.
A bare patch of dark brown dirt extended out a few yards from the toes of my boots in a neat circle. The forest past the dirt circle was a sea of dark green points. Thick, towering firs, pines, and what looked like wild versions of the neatly trimmed bushes in front of my condo filled the woods as far as the eye could see and scraped up against the clear blue sky.
“What the fuck, Sol?” I muttered as I started to pace around the circle. My patrol didn’t take long, since the circle was only about twenty feet wide. It had even cut the trunk off the Lincoln.
“Did you invent a teleportation device? Where the fuck are we?” I bent down to look at the metal where the trunk had been cut. It didn’t look like a blade or torch had done the hacking. The cut on the metal was unbelievably clean, as if the end part of the trunk had just ceased to exist. I stepped away from the trunk a bit and then let my eyes trace the line up and down. The cut was almost perfectly vertical, but I didn’t know what to do with that piece of information right now.
I hoped the machine could give me some clues about where--or maybe when--I was, so I went back to check on the panel.
The red numbers on the top read 56306 now. The numbers had definitely changed, although I hadn’t memorized the combination from before, so I wasn’t sure exactly how much they’d changed by. Then again, the meaning of the numbers was still a mystery to me. The yellow numbers on the middle display read 001:17:57:21, and the 21 counted down with the seconds as I watched it. The green numbers on the bottom just read 6.
“Okay, that’s helpful,” I said. “I guess we’ve got a little less than two days before the next time we… teleport? Time travel? Whatever you just did, Honest Abe.”
I was talking to the Lincoln like it was a person. Well, I’d seen Tom Hanks make friends with a volleyball, and cars tended to have a lot more of a personality than any piece of sporting equipment I’d ever dodged during gym class.
Of course, Tom’s character had been going crazy by then, and I’d only been here, wherever here was, for less than five minutes.
I didn’t want to mess up whatever delicate wiring was undoubtedly under the stainless steel panel, so I closed the car’s hood gently and leaned against the metal so I could look again at the forest surrounding me.
I’d been transported from southern Michigan during the spring to somewhere a little more northern, judging by the trees. I didn’t feel much chillier than I had before, so maybe I wasn’t that much farther north. I wondered if the red numbers at the top displayed a latitude and longitude measurement, although I couldn’t remember quite how to read those since I didn’t exactly use that setting on my GPS. I vaguely remembered that one of the important parallels was supposed to pass through Michigan--the 45th, or the 55th, or something like that. I decided to start writing the numbers down if I could find anything in Honest Abe to write with.
The trees rustled in front of me.
My body snapped straight up in shock, my heart skipped a beat, and my breath froze in my lungs. I was in the middle of an unfamiliar forest, and I didn’t know what kind of wildlife might live around here, but the idea that I might have attracted a bear or a pack of wolves wasn’t as disturbing as the idea that one of the Men in Black Cars had managed to follow me here. Even if I had a Tommy Lee Clones with a ray gun after me, I needed to get the fuck away from him and figure out what to do after I was safely locked inside Honest Abe. I had an internal debate with myself for a split second about backing away so I could see what was after me, versus just turning and getting inside the car as fast as possible, but speed won out as my heart started slamming against my ribcage in triple-time. I turned on my heels, pushed off of the warm metal of the car with my hands, and scrambled toward Honest Abe’s driver’s-side door.
Branches cracked behind me as I ran around the car, and I could hear the dull thud of something heavy connecting with the ground.
Whatever was coming after me was big.
My vision tunneled as fear prickled up and down my spine like electricity, and all I could see was the silver handle of the Lincoln’s door against the patchy dark blue paint of the car’s chassis. I yanked on the handle and swung the door open, then launched myself head-first into Honest Abe’s cavernous interior.
My stomach hit the seats, and I clawed at the far side of the passenger seat cushion for leverage while I pulled my legs all the way into the car. I glanced backward just in time to see a three-fingered hand covered in matted brown hair and with long white claws on each end reaching down over the open car door toward my leg.
“Oh! No! No!” I muttered as I hooked the toe of my boots into the inside door handle and yanked my leg forward to pull it closed.
The door swung in with the power of my leg, but the creature’s arm was still in the way, and the metal bounced off with a thud that echoed through the inside of the car. The monster growled and hissed as it shook its damaged arm, but the force of the impact had freed my foot from the loop in the door, so I had to hook my toe in again and then yank it back toward me.
This time, I managed to keep my toe in position, and the creature pulled its arm back from the pain, so when I tucked my leg in the door slammed shut behind me with a satisfying click. I hammered the toe of my boot down on the metallic lock button just as I saw the arm reach down again to claw at me, and then I propped myself up on my elbows and started to push myself up on my shaking arms.
I could hear the beast’s claws scraping against the window from behind me as I got up. My lungs still felt like they were packed with broken glass, and my stomach was flipping upside down, but I managed to lever myself upright in the driver’s seat so that I could see what had actually been chasing me.
The beast that had come to stand outside my door looked like a huge sloth, and it was at least two feet taller than I was. Its shaggy brown fur hung down in matted locks from its pear-shaped body, and its black-rimmed eyes peered down at me from its pale, wide-mouthed face as it stooped down to look through Honest Abe’s driver’s
-side window. The sloth raised its long arms up, spread its hairy fingers across the glass, then pressed its black nose against the glass.
I took a deep breath and sat back against the car seat. I was pretty sure that most sloths were vegetarians who hung out in trees all day eating leaves, and that their big claws just helped them cling to branches more easily, but I also was pretty sure that most sloths weren’t ten feet tall and didn’t live in pine forests.
Where the fuck was I?
“What’s up with you, buddy?” I muttered at the sloth. “You move pretty fast for a sloth. You just curious, or what?”
The sloth drew its long arms back, then lunged forward and slammed its hands against the window. It stretched back its thin black lips to show a red mouth full of pointed yellow teeth, then threw its head back and roared.
Not a vegetarian.
“Fuck!” I exclaimed as the car rocked a little. I wasn’t sure what a sloth’s mouth was supposed to look like, but I was pretty sure that leaf-eaters didn’t have a mouth full of sharp fangs like that.
This big, fast sloth wanted to eat me.
Holy fucking shit.
The sloth’s claws scraped against the glass of Honest Abe’s window with a “screeeee” that stabbed at my eardrums like needles. When its claws reached the bottom of the window, the horrible screech got even higher and more metallic.
I winced hard as I imagined Honest Abe’s chassis crumpling like a tin can under the giant beast’s claws. I had to figure out what to do about the sloth, since I was pretty sure the sloth would undoubtedly be able to break into the car within an hour or two. But how was I supposed to take out a giant carnivorous sloth with a car that didn’t work? I needed a weapon.
I pulled my keychain out of my pocket and gave it a once-over. My car key was sturdy but not very sharp, my mailbox key was sharp but not sturdy, and my condo keys were neither. I had a combination bottle and can opener that I’d gotten from a promo night at the Atwater Brewery in Detroit on there, but that was it for trinkets. I didn’t trust any of them not to get snagged by the sloth before I could even take a swipe at the beast.
“Weapons, weapons...” I muttered as I started looking around the car.
Surely my uncle would have stashed a gun or a taser or something inside his prized invention in case something like this happened. I ducked down as the sloth raised its claws and started its long scrape down the window again. I could see the white lines the sloth’s claws were making on the glass, and I assumed it was only a matter of time before the thing got bored and decided to take a serious swing, so I really needed to hurry.
I shoved my hand under the car seat and felt a plastic packet that had a sharply sealed edge. It didn’t seem like a weapon to me, so I lunged to the right and stuck my hand under the passenger’s side seat--nothing but dirt and crumbs on the floor mat. My shoulder bumped against the glove compartment as I straightened up, and I realized that, duh, this was where Sol would have stashed anything important he’d wanted to keep in the car.
I yanked the glove compartment down and then let out a gasp of relief.
The glove compartment opened to reveal a square black pistol next to three magazines, all of which sat next to a six-sided black metal box.
I grabbed the pistol, which I knew was a Glock 19 from the many times Sol had shown me his gun collection, and took a long, shaky breath to clear my head. I checked to see if the gun was loaded, and of course it was, and I could almost hear Uncle Sol’s voice in my head asking me, “What kind of idiot leaves an empty gun in the glove box? You need to be able to grab that thing and shoot the shit out of whatever fucking pig pulled you over. Fuck the man, kiddo.”
“Okay, okay,” I muttered. “I can do this. Shoot the giant sloth-monster. Come on, Dave. You can do this.”
The sloth raised its claws to the window again, and then began to scrabble against the glass. I could feel the car shake a little under the force of its efforts, and the sloth’s black eyes peered at me through the very top of the window as its wide mouth yawned open again to show off its sharp, dripping teeth. Its long red tongue rolled out and started to slobber sloth spit all over the window.
Fuck this guy.
“So gross,” I groaned as I raised the pistol.
My stomach flipped hard, and I couldn’t tell whether it was from fear, disgust, or a combination of both. I put my left hand on the manual window crank as I pressed the barrel of the pistol to the top of the window, and then I took another deep breath and cranked the window down.
The window sank down less than a quarter of an inch, and then it creaked to a rusty stop.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” I yanked the crank up and down to loosen it, but the window barely moved.
The sloth had stopped scraping as the glass panel jerked down under its fingers, and now it raised its huge curved claws to the crack in the top of the window and started to wiggle the sharp tips through.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I gasped as I ducked down to avoid the sloth’s waggling claws, I leaned on the crank with all my weight. “Come on, you stupid rusty piece of shit, open up!”
The sloth’s claws stopped wiggling, and then its arms lowered as its fingers pressed against the glass. It started to jerk its arms up and down, and I realized that it was trying to push the window down so it could get at me. Maybe the sloth wasn’t as dumb as I’d thought.
“Come onnnnnnn!” My finger hovered over the trigger of the pistol as I pushed down on the crank.
The window screeched as it jerked down by an inch. It was just wide enough to let the sloth shove its huge claws a couple more inches through the window, but it was also wide enough to let me shove the barrel of the pistol against the sloth’s face.
I pushed the tip of the Glock toward the sloth’s eye and pulled the trigger.
The sloth’s eye disappeared in a faint red mist of blood, and a ragged red hole appeared in its skull. The beast’s jaw dropped open to expose its long red tongue, and then its matted head tipped backward to expose its hairy throat as its body slumped. Its claws click-clacked over the window’s edge as its arms dropped, and then those claws scraped down the window one last time before the huge body toppled down onto the dirt. It landed with a dull thud.
The gun’s report was impossibly loud inside the car, and I winced as my ears started to ring.
“I think that should have done it, right?” I asked myself, but I couldn’t even hear the words coming out of my mouth because of my ringing ears. I just pressed my forehead to the part of the window that didn’t have blood sprayed all over it and peered down to check on the sloth.
The giant sloth’s body laid crumpled in a furry heap on the ground, and blood dripped out of the red ruin of its eye socket and trickled down its matted brown fur before it pooled on the ground.
I took a few slow, deep breaths and then placed the pistol on the dashboard with a shaking hand. I was pretty sure that most sloths liked to hang out in jungles growing moss on their fur instead of running around in a northern pine forest trying to eat people. If I was still in Michigan, I was in some fucked-up version of Michigan where slow, gentle creatures had grown huge and hungry for meat.
I really didn’t want to stay here for another second, but I was kind of stunned from the gunshot explosion, too, so I closed my eyes and leaned back into the seat until the ringing in my ears stopped.
As soon as I had collected myself, I looked at the open glove compartment and then reached for the six sided metal box. It took me a few seconds to figure out how to open the thing, but as soon as I did I saw that there was a watch wrapped around a plastic cylinder inside.
The watch looked like one of those beefy Casio G-Shock contraptions that could survive getting hit by a hammer or shot with a gun. It was mostly black metal and rubber and about an inch thick at the body, but the face had a completely digital display, and I didn’t see anything that indicated the brand anywhere on the piece of jewelry.
Except for a small sticker that appear
ed to be attached to the largest button on the right side of the body.
“What?” I said out loud as I leaned in closer to read the words carefully written on the note.
Dave, press this button first.
“Ugh, Sol,” I sighed as I peeled off the sticker.
Then I pressed the button and the watch lit up like a christmas tree.
The face glowed a deep blue, with green, red, and yellow letters that matched the display on the Lincoln’s new engine. At the top of the display, a digital black arrow pointed toward the front of the car, and as I twisted the watch around, the arrow pointed in the same direction as it turned.
Then I heard a beep, and Sol’s voice came from the device.
“Dave, you really fucked up, kiddo,” my uncle sighed.
“No shit,” I groaned.
“I told you not to mess with the Lincoln.”
“Yeah,” I sighed.
“But you did anyway,” he said.
“Look,” I started, “I just saw the light, and--”
“This is a recorded message, by the way,” my uncle snickered. “I know you are probably responding to it, but don’t bother. Look, kiddo. If you are listening to this, then I’m dead, and I probably told you to blow up my shit, but you probably got curious and fucked with my machine, and now I bet you are somewhere crazy and a dinosaur or giant mammal or some other fucked up shit just tried to attack you. But hey, you found the Glock and fucking killed it, and are probably trying to figure out what to do next. I’m gonna help you.”
“Thanks, Sol,” I muttered.
“The machine under the hood of this car is something I designed to move me around in multi-dimensional time,” Sol said. “I’m calling it my ‘Dimension Engine, Patent Pending,’ because it’s in the engine compartment of the Lincoln, and it goes to different dimensions. I know, I’m super clever. The ‘Patent Pending’ part is important. You have to say that shit along with the name so you can both annoy the fuck out of people and let them know you are going to sic your lawyers on them if they try to take your shit. However, I also hate the government, so of course I didn’t pay their stupid filing fees. They can suck it, bitches. Anyways, you remember my theory on time and space axes--plural of axis, not something you cut wood with. I’ll spare you the math, I know you’re not gonna fucking get it. What?”