Killing Time - A Time Travel Adventure Novel

by Jack Hunt

  If you have any further questions, I would be more than glad to answer them.

  Yours sincerely

  Rolf Aiken, Associate Dean

  They never dropped me because I dropped out before they could make it official. That’s right. I quit. Of course I didn’t just immediately give up. I tried. Really, I did. I took advantage of the counseling service but what I was dealing with went far beyond the help they could offer. How does anyone come back from witnessing murder? How could I explain that the man who murdered my father vanished into thin air? At the time, the police didn’t believe me, my mother didn’t and likewise neither did the counseling service. I couldn’t blame them. I barely believed what I had seen myself.

  There wasn’t a day that went by that I hadn’t pondered the strangeness of it all. It defied all logic and eventually ate away at my insides and affected everything I did. My grades dropped, my ability to concentrate waned and my drive that once spurred me on dissipated.

  The downward spiral was a combination of many things. Turning up late because I had been working the graveyard shift. Inability to focus because I would find myself thinking about the day I lost him. It soon caught up with me and when I wasn’t late to class, I was arriving late to work. It was a vicious circle.

  It didn’t matter though. Who was I kidding? I doubt I would have lasted.

  Heck, the fact that I’d managed to last as long as I had was a miracle in itself.

  I folded up the letter and slid it back into the envelope. I had been holding on to it for the past two months. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her. While on the surface it appeared as if I left every morning for university, I returned as soon as my mother’s vehicle was gone. That was the thing about the real estate business. She was always showing homes, closing deals and available to clients around the clock. On the few days she didn’t go in because of sickness, I just wandered around the campus.

  The way I saw it, I didn’t need a degree in law enforcement to apply for a position with the police. I justified it in my mind by telling myself that I was only doing it because of my father and now he was gone, it didn’t matter. Truthfully it was just meant to help with the process. It was all about looking good on paper and nothing looked better than a university degree and a reference from one of the faculty. That was also the reason why I took a position as a security guard at Wellington Mall. I wanted to gain experience. Experience I could use in an interview. Now I can’t say mall security was my first choice. I’d originally planned to be a community service officer at the campus but for that I would have had to maintain a GPA of over 2.0 and be enrolled in the university. I no longer met those requirements.

  After watching TV for most of the day, the sun was beginning to go down as I slipped back into my white and black uniform and mentally prepared myself for another shift with my dickhead supervisor, Richie Tomlin. He was an ex-military asshole who couldn’t get into the police after leaving the U.S. Army. Well, he said he left but rumor had it he was booted out for misconduct. Anyway, after failing to get into the police he managed to wrangle his way into a position at the mall as security guard supervisor. What that meant to him was shouting at us while we did all the work. I don’t know what was stuck up his ass but he had it in for me from day one. I think it was because he knew I was trying to get into the police and well, the very notion that I might just got under his skin.

  I scooped up the keys to my banged-up Toyota and locked the door on the way out. In the driveway as I was getting into my car, I glanced over at the house beside us. For the past ten years it had been home to a charming retired couple until their family decided to place them into a nursing home after Mr. Jacobs left his stove on and started a fire. Thankfully his granddaughter was there at the time and she managed to put it out.

  It had remained empty for close to eight months. Neighbors speculated and gossip spread. The price was too high, Mrs. Walsh said. It was haunted by the ghost of Mrs. Jacobs who had died in the nursing home, said another. When the sold sign finally went up, I was of course curious about who bought it. Back when I was only fifteen we used to have a dog and the Strasbergs who were our neighbors on the other side were always going on about getting our dog to shut up. The last thing I wanted was for someone to move in who was a pain in the ass like them. But that’s the thing about neighbors, you could never tell what they were going to be like.

  Would it be a family with kids? A single, hot brunette with an out-of-control sexual appetite? Or a retiree who’d spend their time mowing grass and tending to flowers?

  The blinds moved as if someone had been staring out at me. In the waning light of the day, I squinted trying to see if I could make out who it was but there was no silhouette behind the curtain or movement. I raised my eyebrows and hopped in. I turned over the ignition and it spluttered.

  I tried again and got the same result.

  “No. Not now.”

  I banged the steering column in frustration and laid my head against the wheel.

  Seriously? Give me a break!

  “Engine trouble?” Pete Danford, a local bus driver who lives three houses down, peered over the top of his spectacles while taking out the trash. He was the kind of man you didn’t engage with. Instead of being useful he would talk your ear off about useless information that had no bearing on whatever had started the conversation.

  “I’m fine. Thanks.”

  He stared for a few more seconds.

  “Go inside; please go inside,” I muttered under my breath. He turned and walked back up his driveway.

  I took a deep breath and willed the engine to start, as if that was going to help. Stupid! The third time it sounded even worse. I was flooding the engine. I glanced at the clock. It was seven-fifteen. I had to be at work by seven-thirty. Usually the night shift started at ten but Jamie had gone home ill and so Richie had called me in early. Had it been any other day, I might have told him where to stick it but being as I was going to have to negotiate some kind of shift change with him whereby I worked in the day instead of at night I decided not to rock the boat.

  “Come on, you bastard!” I balled my fist and gave it another smack.

  It was to be expected. The car was over twelve years old and badly needed to be traded in but I didn’t have the money. I laid my head against the steering wheel one final time in frustration and then grabbed my bag before exiting it.

  Before grabbing my bicycle out of the garage, I gave the car a few swift kicks out of frustration. The noise must have aroused the neighbors as Mrs. Walsh opened her door and asked if everything was okay.

  Which meant, I was interrupting her TV show with all that noise.

  I smiled back and waved. “Perfectly fine, I just have a lemon.”

  If it wasn’t a lemon before it was now. I looked down at the large dent in the side. I ran a hand over my head and sighed. As I turned to open the garage and get my bike I noticed the curtain shift again over at my new neighbor’s house. It was beginning to creep me out. I had watched one too many Hitchcock movies and was prone to a wild imagination. In fact, I’m sure that’s why my mother didn’t believe me when I told her about my father’s killer.

  Anyway as it moved again, I imagined he was just as curious about us as we were about him.

  Please don’t be a pervert. I pushed the thought from my mind, grabbed my bike and yanked it out from among my mother’s and my father’s bikes. I glanced at my dad’s and felt a twinge of sadness. He’d bought the bikes as a means to get us out as a family. He was always going on about using the time we had to do something productive. In the early days when he wasn’t working he liked to get out on the trails. It was probably the only time I saw him relax. I truly think it was therapeutic. An escape from his work. Not that I knew exactly what it was that he did. It’s sales and software, he would mutter. It had no bearing on my day so I never probed any deeper.

  I pushed my bike out and jumped on it. What should have taken fifteen minutes by car took me close to
twenty by bike. By the time I arrived, my body was dripping with sweat and my uniform was soaked through. I groaned at the thought of spending the next ten hours in damp, sticky clothing.

  I shoved the front wheel into the metal rack, locked it and made a mad dash into the mall. Wellington Mall was a two-level regional shopping mall that had over one hundred and seventy stores and covered over a million square feet of retail space. The sound of elevator music played over the speakers as I ran to the far end. Richie was already waiting for me. He stood there like a prick glancing down at his watch.

  With sweat pouring off me I placed my hands on my knees and willed my heart to slow down. “Hey Richie, I’m sorry I’m late, man.”

  “Again?”

  “I’ll explain.”

  I panted hard.

  “Forget it. What time did I tell you to be here?”

  He knew the time but this was all part of the act that he loved to put on. I could tell by the look on his face that he was enjoying every moment of this.

  I brushed past him and tossed my bag into the office and grabbed up my radio.

  “What?” I replied. “I’m not even meant to be in until ten. I’m doing you a favor by coming in early.”

  “Doing me a favor?”

  “Look, I’m going to do the rounds and…”

  He stood in front of me. “No, actually your services aren’t needed now, Alex,” he said in his most condescending tone.

  “What?” I replied. Half the time he would say things to get me wound up and then he’d burst out laughing. But he wasn’t laughing this time.

  “This is the third time you have been late. I warned you.”

  I could see where he was going with this. I tried backpedaling fast.

  “Look, Richie, you know I need this job.”

  He came in real close. “If you needed it, you would show up on time.”

  “But my car wouldn’t start.”

  “And you waited until the last minute to check that?”

  “I assumed.”

  He nodded. “You assumed? Do you think they will pay you to assume in the police?”

  I waited for him to rub it in even more but he didn’t. That’s because he had no idea himself. The number of times he had shown up late was countless. But the same principles didn’t apply to him. Oh no, he was above the law.

  “Richie…”

  “Don’t Richie me. You’re the one who wants to be the cop. Do you think they are going to let someone who is consistently late become a police officer?”

  It was always the same.

  I stared back at him blankly. He’d been waiting for this moment from the day I started working. He relished enforcing his false power over others and watching them squirm. I wasn’t the only one. There were three of us on any given night. I glanced into the office. Ben, the other security guard, was drinking a coffee and trying to look as if he wasn’t eavesdropping on the conversation.

  “Ben?” I asked, hoping that he might say something but he knew better. Richie held out his hand and I reluctantly handed the radio over.

  “Drop off the uniform tomorrow. The next guy might need it.”

  I snorted. Typical.

  I began to walk away and I had made it probably about five feet when I turned back.

  I wagged my finger at him. “You know, Richie…” I was about to unleash a torrent of words that would have made me feel good in the moment but instead I gritted my teeth and walked away.

  That night as I rode back home I honestly didn’t think things could get any worse.

  I was wrong.

  Chapter 2

  It took me five days to tell my mother what had happened. At first I thought I could land another job with a different security company but fate had different plans. I even phoned the university and pleaded with the dean to give me another chance at the insistence of my mother. I told him that I was under a lot of stress and struggling to cope with my father’s death but that only compounded the problem. Now he felt I was unstable in mind and that perhaps law enforcement wasn’t the best career choice for me.

  Earlier that day my mother stared at the letter. Her lips moved but no words came out as she read through it. Her response was what I expected. Disbelief. That soon turned to anger when she realized how long I had been faking going to class.

  She placed one hand on her hip and I knew right then she meant business.

  “Are you telling me you have been here all day?”

  “Well, not all day. I did go to work in the evenings.”

  “But you don’t have that job anymore.”

  I immediately shot back, “It’s not my fault. That car is a piece of shit.”

  She laid the letter down and for a few seconds looked as if she was contemplating what kind of punishment a mother realistically could give to her twenty-one-year-old son. Of course, bad decisions and a lapse in judgment couldn’t be dealt with the way it had when I was sixteen. Back then she would have grounded me for a month, torn out whatever entertainment I had and tossed my phone in the trash.

  Instead she just burst into a rant.

  “I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me that you were struggling, Alex.”

  I glanced at her in astonishment. “You had enough on your plate.”

  “But I could have spoken to the dean, or made sure that you…”

  She trailed off realizing all the would-haves and should-haves meant very little now.

  She let out a heavy sigh. “What are you going to do now?”

  “Try to find a job.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. You’re going to find one. And quick. We are barely scraping by as it is. I work on commission, Alex.” She ran a hand through her hair and got up and started cleaning the mess that I had left all over the table from the previous day. There were no two ways around it. She was pissed and rightfully so.

  “Your father would have been really disappointed.” She said it in a low voice as if questioning whether she should have said it. I heard it and felt the wave of guilt that accompanied it. After stacking the dishwasher, she leaned against the counter finishing her cup of coffee before she once again got that panicked look of being late.

  “Don’t sit around all day, okay?”

  “I’m not. I’m going online right now and applying for some jobs.”

  With that said she grabbed up her bag, threw me one more disappointed expression and headed out. The echo of the door slamming left me feeling as empty as the day after the funeral. Three years ago and it was still clear in my memory. After family left, and friends gave their best wishes, my mother and I dealt with it in our own way. I had retreated to my room and she slept the days away, curled up in a ball.

  A lot had changed in three years.

  I lay back on the couch. The clock ticking was all that could be heard. Outside the sun was beating down, and a blue sky painted a very different picture to the way I felt inside.

  Five minutes, then ten, then an hour. Time just seemed to slip by so quickly. Before I knew it I had been staring at the ceiling for two hours.

  Okay, this wasn’t going to do.

  I jumped up and retrieved my laptop from the kitchen. I plunked it down on the coffee table and took a seat. The next hour I applied to every security job within a twenty-five-mile radius. When I was done with that I moved on to anything that I could pick up immediately. Landscaping, factory work, fast food joints, I wasn’t picky. I just needed a way to bring in some coin until I could think about what I really wanted to do with my life.

  I still had my eyes set on becoming a police officer despite the setbacks. The only trouble was, I would now need to be even more creative about what I shared with them in an interview.

  After I had exhausted my mind and filled out more online forms than I cared to see in one day, I retreated to my room, grabbed up my PS4 game controller and headset and went about joining a multiplayer game online to kill a few more hours.

  As I settled on a server and went about playin
g a game that gave me a false sense that I was in control in a world that didn’t rely on me finding a job or having some education to impress people with, I felt something shift.

  That’s the only way I could describe it.

  At first I thought I had experienced a mild earthquake. Sacramento had seen a couple over the past years and the last time one hit, I literally thought I was going to fall off my seat. But this wasn’t anything like that. It reminded me of when I was a kid in a swimming pool that had a wave machine. One moment you would be standing in water that was still, the next, you felt a wave hit you and push you sideways. That was exactly how it felt.

  Except there was no water or air.

  I yanked off my headset and paused for a second. I don’t know what I was hoping to hear but there was no sound. That was at ten o’clock that morning. By midday I had tired my eyes from running around with an assault rifle and pretending to save the galaxy from an alien invasion. I grabbed up a bite to eat down in the kitchen.

  It was always the same when I went to the fridge. I would tug it open and stand in the glare of the light scoping out what looked edible. At the beginning of the week food would look tidy, fresh and I had little problem finding something to munch on; however, by the end of the week, the insides of the fridge smelled like something after a nuclear holocaust.

  I pulled out a plate covered in foil, hoping that it might be the leftovers of the pizza I’d had the night before. Instead it looked like a high school science experiment gone wrong. I sniffed and winced at the putrid smell. Like any good son, I tossed it back in knowing that my mother would clean it out if it was no good. I knew it was lazy but countless times I had tossed out what looked off to me only to discover she had cooked it the night before.

  I grabbed up some cheese, mustard, tomato and juggled it across the room. Five minutes later I was munching down a monster-sized sandwich with chips and guzzling back orange juice. I flipped on the TV and some soap show was playing.