by Tim Lebbon
“First it was swirling and kind of springing up and down, and it looked goofy, and all of a sudden, in no more than a couple of seconds, it moved to where the girl was and” ⎯ he paused and shrugged ⎯ “it disappeared her. She just vanished inside it. A few seconds later ⎯ ten, maybe fifteen ⎯ it vanished itself. Gone, poof! Where it had been, and the girl had been, was a skeleton.”
They were silent.
Scully changed the subject. “So, what have we got, besides that kitchen blender thing? Three missing young people ⎯ that’s what the warden on the pier said.” She pulled the flyer out of her pocket and handed it to Gorman. “Are these the kids and, if so, can you tell us which one died?”
Gorman studied the pictures for a moment. “I think these are the kids, although they didn’t exactly pose for the security camera. Their relative heights are right, and the boy had black hair. It was the tallest one who got it and these were probably the other two.” He gave the document back to Scully. “I couldn’t get down that ladder again to follow them even if I tried. All I can say is they ran toward the civilian end of the island.”
“Okay,” Mulder said, “so we’ve got to recover a bone from the skeleton Ed says the kitchen blender left behind, if only to nail down biochemically whether it’s the girl.”
“The analysis might explain what killed her, too,” Scully said.
Mulder slapped the flyer he was holding with the back of his fingers. “In any event, we’ve got to find these kids before the same thing happens to them. If it hasn’t already.”
“And before the State Police and the Coast Guard are called in,” Scully said.
“Right. So there’s nobody else here to do it except,” Mulder stared at Scully, “you and me.”
“How are you going to accomplish that without having whatever happened to the girl, or to me, happen to you?” asked Gorman.
“Good question.” Mulder rose from his chair and went to the window on the right side of the room. “If I’ve got this correct, the three kids came in through this window here,” and he patted the windowsill.
“That’s what the tape shows,” Gorman said. “And they went out the left one.”
Scully joined Mulder at the window. “When’s high tide supposed to be?” she asked.
Gorman pulled a tide chart out of the drawer of the table by his elbow. “It ought to be about half tide now; it’ll be full in about three hours.”
“That’s a good approximation of the tide out this window,” she said. “But,” and she crossed to the left window, “it’s high tide out through this one, so this one must be doing the distorting.”
Mulder followed her to the left window and peered out. “I agree.” He studied the beach below. “So I’ve got a theory. Suppose I were to go out through the window on the right ⎯ to avoid any confusion, let’s call it the Good window, since it hasn’t hurt anyone. If I come back in through the same window, nothing’s going to change. At least, nothing happened to the kids when they came in that way. But if I go out the other one ⎯ call it the Bad window because it hurt Ed ⎯ I’d wind up in the same place but at a different time, or different era, or different something. Whatever weirdness is going on here, you have to be inside, and then either look through or go through the Bad window,” and he pointed to the left one, “to encounter it. And if you come back through the Bad window, you’re locked into the time, or era, of whatever’s out there. That’d explain what happened to you, Ed.”
Scully spoke up: “So you’re suggesting it’s a time warp? If so, the difference in time between in here, right now, and on the other side of the Bad window, is the same number of years that got added to Ed’s age when he came back through?”
“Yeah,” Mulder said. “You put it better than I could.”
“So, let’s guess that Ed aged about forty years when he came back through the window ⎯ sorry Ed, but that’s what it looks like. So it must be, what, 2035 out there,” she said as she pointed to the Bad window.
Mulder nodded. “I think so.”
“So your theory is that if we go out the Bad window after the kids, we can still get back in here safely, in our era, if we climb up the ladder and enter through the Good window.”
“Or through the door at the other end of the tunnel.”
“Neat theory, supported by dangerous assumptions,” Gorman said.
“Anyone have a better idea?” Mulder said.
There was an uneasy pause. Finally, Mulder rubbed his hands together. “So, time for an experiment. Any volunteers?”
Gorman gave his head a firm shake: “No way! Once is enough.”
Scully stared at Mulder. “Yeah, I’m looking at him.”
Mulder shrugged, unsurprised. “Okay. Give me a hand, Scully.”
They pulled the ladder into the room. The ladder didn’t appear to change. Then they slid it out the Good window and lowered it. Giving Scully a fingers-crossed sign, Mulder climbed over the sill and onto the ladder.
He looked back at Scully and grinned. “Made it.” Then he climbed back onto the sill and jumped down to the floor of the bunker, where he stood, poking himself with his fingers. “See anything different?” he asked Scully.
“Well, your looks haven’t improved, if that’s what you mean,” she said with a straight face. “Otherwise, no.”
“Right.” Mulder returned to the Good window. “Chapter Two. Watch for me out the Bad window.” He went out onto the ladder, climbed down, picked it up and moved it to the other one. He climbed it and peered inside, and there was Scully.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“The tide’s high, the sky isn’t as clear, and your looks still haven’t improved,” she said.
Mulder nodded and, pivoting on the ladder, gazed down at the water. “From my point of view, right now, it’s not high tide. And there are no skeletons.”
“You’re not coming in through that window!” Gorman was the army major again, giving a command.
Mulder shook his head and mouthed “no.” Then he descended the ladder and returned it to the Good window. Walking out onto the exposed seabed flats, he waited to see whether the blender, as Gorman had called it, would appear. After a full minute nothing happened, so he climbed back up into the bunker through the Good window. Facing Scully and Gorman, he raised his arms, palms up, like a preacher giving them a blessing. “Presto, nooo change-o.”
“Congratulations, Houdini. What’s next?” Scully asked.
“We go get the two kids.”
“Wrong, Houdini. You go out the Bad window and come back in the Good one and we see what happens.”
Mulder paused, pondering, and then said, “No, if we go out the Good window we’ll never locate them ⎯ we know that. If we go out the other one we can ⎯ or at least we have a chance. If we find them, we’ll be able to help them thereafter, even if none of us can get back to now. So we find the kids first. After that we test my theory.”
“Terrific,” Scully said. “You better be right.”
“So help me with the ladder again, please.”
They repeated the ladder process in reverse and slid it out the Bad window.
Once it was in place Mulder gazed at Scully and then tilted his head toward the ladder. “Dare ya.”
She pointed at Mulder and then swept her finger in the same direction. “Age before beauty.”
*****
THURSDAY, 5:10 a.m.
As dawn began to break, Carole and Allen sat leaning against each other, back-to-back, in the middle of the cabin’s main room. They’d assumed that position the night before: By watching in opposite directions, their mutually dependent back support placed each on immediate notice if the other fell asleep and slumped over. Not that either had felt like sleeping, but the tactic had worked a couple of times.
The evening before, Allen had flipped on the front porch light and the spotlights that illuminated the four outside corners of the cabin so Carole and he could keep their enemy in view. Barton, as they had name
d it, continued to patrol the circumference of the cabin, appearing at one window, then withdrawing from the light, then reappearing at another. Because none of the windows rattled, it apparently did not attempt to enter. But it wanted them; it would wait.
Now in the morning light, Barton had apparently picked up more leaves because it looked less like a soup than a stew, but at least it was no larger.
Since they couldn’t go anywhere, Allen and Carole ate canned fruit they found in the cupboard. Once they’d finished, they both chose books from the bedroom, but soon found they couldn’t concentrate. So they rummaged around until they found a checkerboard set, set it in the middle of the rug, and started playing. They didn’t speak, and after a short while the checkers ceased to distract them, too. Without a word, they simply stopped playing.
After a while Carole bent her neck back and said to the ceiling, “How long is this gonna take?”
“How long can we take this, is what you mean,” Allen answered.
Standing, he went to the window. Barton was still there. He noticed clouds gathering in the western sky. “I think we might get a thunderstorm. Maybe the son of a bitch will get hit by lightning.”
Carole stared at him, shaking her head. “I need something to do ⎯ something other than sit here and wait for I don’t know what.”
Allen threw up his hands. He had no answer. They were trapped, frustrated, and frightened. The menace outside was as patient and pitiless as a tiger lurking in the jungle.
*****
When Mulder reached the bottom of the ladder, he turned to the ocean, scanning for whatever it was that had consumed the one girl and chased Gorman back up to the bunker. Nothing had appeared by the time Scully made it to the bottom.
“Wait here,” he told her. He walked toward the ocean, pushed through the bushes, and stood with the water lapping over his Pumas.
“What are you doing?” Scully called.
“Just want to see if anything happens.” He stood there a while longer. “I’m guessing I’m not close enough to a skeleton, or maybe the blender thing doesn’t like water.” He beckoned Scully to follow him in the direction Gorman said the surviving kids had run.
Because the tide was high, they had to work their way along the rocks that lined the shoreline until they were able to climb up to the woods above. Sunlight filtered down through the tall oaks. From there they kept the ocean to their right and headed off. A half-mile later, they emerged onto a grassy hilltop that sloped gradually down to a couple of cabins and, ultimately, to the western end of the island. Beyond was Casco Bay and, beyond that, the City of Portland. A light breeze ruffled their hair and the sun was still out, but dark clouds were building above the city.
They stopped, surveying the pleasant view.
After a few moments, Scully asked, “What do you notice, Mulder?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s right, nothing. No boats, no voices, no artificial sounds of any sort, none of the activity we saw when we were on the ferry, or on the island after we got here.”
“Eerie,” he acknowledged.
They watched and listened ⎯ in vain.
After a while, Mulder said, “Let’s head down there.” He pointed in the direction of a cabin that sat in the fork of a road. “Maybe we’ll find someone.”
When they reached the cabin, they mounted the porch. Mulder knocked on the door. No response.
“Hello!” he called. “Anyone home?”
Again, silence.
There was another building a short way up the road’s right fork. As they walked toward it, they spotted a human rib cage lying in a bush.
Mulder stuck his arm out to stop Scully. “Damn,” he said.
They nervously glanced around. The breeze turned leaves in the surrounding trees, but nothing else moved.
“Maybe the reason we haven’t seen anyone is because no one’s left alive,” Scully said. “You’re thinking the same thing, aren’t you?”
Mulder nodded. “Remember what Ed told us. It was when he and the kids stood over a skeleton that the blender thing arose. Let’s move away.”
They hurried to the far side of the road and were continuing toward another home when they heard a low rumble of thunder.
“Storm’s coming,” Scully observed.
At the next cabin, the front door was ajar.
Scully climbed the steps and pushed it open. “Hello!”
Receiving no answer, she stepped into a kitchen. Through a side window she noticed an outside light shining from a nearby camp. She went to the window, and saw more than the light. There was a commotion, a windy disturbance of some sort.
“Mulder, come in here,” she called in a low voice. As he joined her, she asked, “Think that’s one of those blender things?”
“Gotta be,” he replied. As they watched, the thing spun, narrowing as it rose and expanding as it fell. “I’d guess it’s hovering over a skeleton.”
“Maybe, but remember, it’s predatory,” Scully said, “so there could be someone inside that building.”
Lightning flashed across the darkening sky, followed shortly by thunder, louder than before. Moments later the wind gusted. The spinning thing stayed where it was, apparently unaffected by the wind.
“This’ll be a test of my theory,” said Mulder.
Scully looked at him. “What theory?”
“That it dislikes water. Remember after we climbed down the ladder and I stood at the ocean’s edge, but nothing appeared?”
“Yeah, but maybe that’s because there’s only one of them, and it was busy here.”
The rain started with a few heavy drops, and then fell steadily. Still the thing bounced and spun, but it was more transparent now ⎯ it contained less detritus.
“Is the thing diminishing, or is the rain just obscuring it?” Scully wondered.
“A little of both, I think,” replied Mulder.
The rain increased and fell in sheets; frequent bursts of wind drove it laterally. The spinning thing faded, and faded more, and finally disappeared.
“It’s now or never,” Mulder said. “If we’re going to find out who’s in that cabin, it better be now.”
Scully nodded. “Whatcha waiting for?”
They ran out the door, up the short hill to the camp with the light on, and jumped onto the porch. Both were drenched.
“I’ll watch for our blender friend,” Mulder said.
Scully banged on the door. “Anyone here?”
A teenage girl came to the window in the door.
“Open up, the thing’s gone!” Scully said.
*****
Mulder and Scully ran to the kitchen area, where they shook their arms and stamped water out of their clothes onto the linoleum.
“Who are you?” Allen asked.
“Tell you in a minute,” Scully said, still stomping.
“Well, whoever you are, we’re real glad to see you,” Carole added.
When the agents finished de-soaking themselves, Scully pulled the soggy flyer out of her pocket and handed it to Carole. “This you?”
Carole and Allen peered at the paper.
“Yeah. Where did you get this?” Carole asked.
“How’d you find us?” Allen wanted to know.
Mulder ignored the questions. “Is there anyone else around here?”
“Not that we’ve found,” Allen said.
“Unless you count Mr. Barton as a person,” added Carole, feeling relieved enough to attempt humor.
“Who’s Mr. Barton?” Scully asked.
“Some weird cyclone thing that wants to eat us,” Allen answered.
Scully nodded. “We saw it from the cabin over there,” pointing to where they’d come.
“But who are—” A brilliant flash and an immediate crack of thunder interrupted her. “—are you, and how’d you get here?” Carole asked, stammering.
“We’ll fill you in about everything, but first we’ve got to get out of here before your Mr. Barton comes
back.” Mulder headed for the door.
“What about the lightning? Will it be safe?” Carole worried.
“I think the risk’s worth it, given the alternative,” Scully answered.
Allen grabbed Carole’s hand. “Baby, we’re going.”
“Hold on a minute.” Mulder opened the door and checked outside. Then he headed left, circling the cabin. The rain continued heavily, and the wind continued to gust. Back at the door, and dripping wet again, he said, “We’re okay for the moment. Show us the quickest way back to that bunker you were in yesterday.”
With Allen in the lead, they moved quickly to another dirt road. In places, it was a slippery paste of sand and mud.
As they passed through the forest, Scully explained who she and Mulder were, the bunker and the window, their interest in the kids, and how they proposed to return to the “present.” Mulder stayed behind them and kept watch to the rear.
This was the same road the agents had used when they’d first come to the island, but now they were rushing so fast that they covered the distance between the civilian end and the fort in half the time. It was a tiring pace. When they reached the fort’s gate, they paused to rest. Lightning still flashed and thunder boomed, but the rain was slackening.
It was then that Mulder noticed the gate was no longer rusty. It glistened ⎯ not only from the rain, but also from new black paint. He looked up the road. The first thing that caught his eye was a white window box bearing bright red flowers on one of the barracks buildings.
He pointed to the window box, and asked Carole and Allen, “Have you ever seen that before?”
They were as surprised as he was. “That place doesn’t have flowers ⎯ it’s a dump,” said Carole.
Mulder urged them on, and they hurried into the fort.
When they reached the parade ground, no workmen were present and none of the buildings was boarded up ⎯ all were in immaculate condition. Golf carts and bicycles stood here and there. But there were no people.
“Look at this place!” Carole exclaimed, gesturing around. “This is crazy!”
“What should it look like?” Mulder asked.
“A bunch of rundown buildings,” she answered.
“It’s like at my house, everything has changed,” Allen said.