by Sam Herrera
“Do you happen to have a flare gun on you?” I smiled demurely.
“Yes, I do.” She did. She’d had it hidden in her rucksack all this time just like the phone.
“There,” I said pointing excitedly. She brought it out and fired. We both saw the shimmering in the air come to a smooth landing.
“Hi, Kyle,” she grinned, like they were old buddies, as the ramp lowered and he walked out, coming towards us.
“Chloe,” he nodded stiffly. He looked over our sunburned limbs and around at the dense jungle. “Are you enjoying your holiday?”
“Yes, thank you,” Chloe smiled, going back to sitting in the shade. “Do we have to leave now? I was just getting used to being here.”
“What is this place? What happened?”
“We ran into each other and just ended up here.” she shrugged.
“You just ended up here?” he squinted.“What does that mean?”
“What does that mean? Where have I come from? Who am I?” Chloe sighed. “It’s just so boring: being asked the same things over, and over, and over.”
“Alright,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Again, how did you two get here?” he asked, eyeing the mud huts and tribesmen. Freaked out.
“My special time-traveling powers,” she grinned.
“What?” he squinted.
“I can travel any place, any time, in a split second.”
“It’s true,” I told him. “It’s how I ended up here.”
“Yeah, unfortunately, as a side-effect, anyone who is touching me at the exact time I vanish goes with me wherever I end up.” All three of us stood awkwardly in silence, while he slowly digested this. “Um, your aunt wants to see you. We should be getting back. What. Is. That?!” he asked suddenly, eyes wide.
“Hey, Ethan,” Chloe smiled, waving at him as he emerged from the jungle, looking like a small dinosaur. Ohhhh, boy. Kyle backed away as “Ethan” crossed the square, coming towards us. The villagers seemed to take it in their stride that a dragon was just walking into their village. The few who were about, the kids playing football and a couple of old guys sitting in front of their houses, nodded at him as he passed. He apologized as he kicked a kid’s ball back, his footclaws bursting it.
“Whoops,” Chloe smiled. “I thought you didn’t want to be in civilization?”
“I don’t. I only come here to trade kills for water.” He indicated the small deer slung over his shoulder. I’d at first thought it was a scarf.
“Good kill,” she nodded.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t you use a spear?”
“I prefer my claws and teeth.” Kyle looked from one to the other, wondering if the world had gone mad. Maybe.
*
On the way back, I was very quiet and the trip was all the more awkward for it. Kyle kept glancing at Chloe, mystified. Chloe kept glancing around the Winter, looking not in the least bit surprised. I wondered, yet again, if anything surprised this woman. The way she smiled as she looked around, settling comfortably back in her seat, at all the twinkling lights and buttons, you’d have thought she was greeting an old friend.
SARAH
I stepped under the hot, cleansing, soothing spray with a sigh of relief. Oh, God, it felt so good! I rotated my head on my shoulders and ran my hands through my hair, inhaling the fresh, minty odor of Andy’s shower gel. Lynx, I thought it was.
“That you, Sarah?”
“Kyle?” I frowned, leaning slightly out of the spray. How’d you get here? He sounded way upbeat. He looked it as well I saw as he parted the curtain; he was smiling, and naked, and happy. And I thought, hoped, I knew why.
“I found her.”
“You did?” He nodded.
“She’s at my place. She’s fine.” We grinned at each other as his eyes began to rove over my own, equally naked body.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I told him, my grin becoming downright wicked as I leaned against the stall wall with one elbow, letting my other arm hang by my side. If my mother could see me now.
“I know,” he sighed, “but, I’m a naughty boy, what can I say?” I stepped out and kissed him hard.
“I don’t want to. I’m just too tired.”
I sighed, a little disappointed but understanding. I wrapped a towel around myself, threw him one and then checked the coast was clear before leading him into my room. Stepping away, he removed the towel. I let him remove my own wrap as well and pull me into bed. I lay in the crook of his arm, with my head on his chest, as we both stared up at the ceiling. I saw him close his eyes and sigh blissfully.
“Feels great,” he murmured as he kissed my forehead.
“What?”
“This. Just lying here with you.” We smiled at each other. I kept my head on his warm, wiry chest, going up and down with his breathing and listening to the slow thudding of his heart, with a feeling the booze could never give me: desired..
*
I kept glaring suspicious daggers at this woman, Chloe, as we met her and Mara at the place we’d arranged: the entrance of Thompkins Park. Who the hell are you? What have you been doing with my niece? She looked back at me with a maddeningly cool little smile before she leaned her head back to catch some rays, my glares making no impression on her whatsoever.
“So, what’s your story?” I asked, keeping a protective hand on Mara’s shoulder as the four of us began to walk along the path.
“Don’t worry about it,” she replied in a posh British accent. Don’t worry about it? She looked like some sort of hardcore war survivor with her matted hair, hideously scarred face, tanned limbs, sweat- and dirt-spotted tank top and filthy jeans. What the hell was that at her belt, some sort of flask?
We made an odd bunch as we walked along: the tall blonde in the expensive coat, the muscular bouncer, the small albino kid and the explorer. We took a lot of shit for it. “Keep it in the carnival, freaks!” some jerk on a bike yelled as he wheeled around us. Chloe lashed out with her foot and sent his bike, and him, flying. Maybe I was judging her too harshly. Kyle smiled at the kid as he leapt up, murder in his eyes, and raised one brow. He vanished and Kyle offered us some benches. There followed an awkward silence. He seemed as puzzled by this woman as I was, but he listened to Mara’s story without interrupting, even when it got too bizarre for words. Suddenly appearing in Borneo with dragons? Give me a break.
“Mara,” I sighed, “can we come back to the real world now?” She scowled and let Chloe take over. Her version was just as incredible, only more long-winded and more detailed. She spoke of time travel, different countries, different times, extreme survival, all that. She was a good story-teller, but she told it in the same detached tone she always used as if what we thought didn’t make a blind bit of difference to her. She concluded her fairy tale with some kind of Omen-esque epilogue, about the war with the Antichrist or something.
“Mara,” I snapped, finally having had enough, “we’re leaving.”
“Go if you want,” she shrugged. Strangely she and Kyle had seemed very interested in the part about spaceships being made for the army.
“C’mon, this is mad,” I protested.
“No,” Kyle stated, “it’s not.”
*
I gazed in awe and stunned astonishment at the twinkling lights, huge armory and steel interior. “The Rage of Winter,” Chloe said, smiling as she seated herself on the pilot’s chair and began slowly turning from side to side.
“What is it?” I whispered.
“It’s my ship. When I was in the future, I was a star pilot.” she smirked. “Some considered me the best pilot of all the Outcasts.”Outcasts? “Believe me, my future is coming,” she said, her smirk vanishing. I shivered as I remembered what she’d said: war, genocide, worldwide religious fanaticism and the Antichrist. I looked around again; I was standing in the pr
oof of it. “These ships were made to hunt us down and destroy us. It was only by pure chance that this one is here, in this time. While I was flying it, I suddenly ended up in a cave beneath New York where there was no use for it. So I just left it where it was.”
“And then we found it,” Kyle murmured, nodding.
“Again, by chance.” Chloe’s eyes grew distant and fearful. “It took me so long to dig myself out of there. I nearly died twice from suffocation. Since then, I lived on the street, stealing what I could, and then I saw the YouTube clip: ‘Couple walks on the Statue of Liberty’,” she smirked. “Of course, it could be nothing else.”
“How did you know where I went to school?” Mara asked, leaning against the wall.
“I didn’t so I looked through every school in the area for the albino. Running into you was just a lucky chance.” Mara raised a brow. Clearly she didn’t think hacking through miles of dense jungle was lucky. Wait, was I actually swallowing this: time travel and shit? I needed a minute here. I turned around, put my hand on the handprint and quickly leapt off while the ramp was still lowering.
“Sarah, wait,” Kyle called out, running to catch up with me.
“She can’t be for real. It’s just not possible.”
“Kinda like a ship that can travel across oceans in a split second and turn invisible isn’t?”
“My God,” I breathed. I collapsed on a bench, dropping my face in my hands. We were in the same park, where this had all started apparently, in the dead of night. I could see the hole Mara and he had fallen in, surrounded by police tape. It was a normal park, in a normal city, in the normal world. Yet beside us, invisible and silent, was a spaceship from the future, piloted by a time traveler. I could see the square of pale light from the cockpit. A door in thin air.
“So, you two were flying this thing, keeping it secret, all this time?”
“Pretty much,” he nodded.
“Where’d you go?”
“Everywhere,” he smiled warmly. “Iceland, Tokyo, Australia. You may have noticed the ribbony scar on her wrist?”
I had and I’d been very curious about it for some time. “What happened?”
“A jellyfish. It was a stupid mistake. I should never have let her go paddling. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“A jellyfish?” Of course.
“She nearly died.” I looked at him and saw how this troubled him. The thought was just as painful for the both of us. You really do love her, don’t you? He smiled and shrugged when I asked this. “We have been through a lot together. Look, I don’t know about the end of the world or whatever. All I do know is the ship’s real and that I did have to pick them up in Borneo”
“Great. So, now what?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.” I knew we weren’t talking about the ship or Chloe’s stories.
“I don’t know, Kyle. You’ve been lying to me all this time.”
“No, I’ve been keeping a secret. It’s not the same.”
“What’s the difference?”
He sighed. “We should get out of here. Someone will soon notice a door in thin air.” We walked back onboard to find a wide-eyed Mara sitting on one of the couches, utterly alone.
“Where is she? Mara, where is she?”
“I don’t know,” she replied in a small, stunned whisper. “She just vanished, disappeared right in front of me.” All three of us stared at the chair opposite her. I could see the dip where Chloe’s ass had been parked and her shoes were still there, one upright, the other lying on its side. But the woman herself was gone. She must have slipped out while Kyle and I were arguing. But that didn’t make any sense either. I’d been facing him with this Winter thing’s doorway over his shoulder. I would have noticed her coming through the door and slipping off…wouldn’t I?
MARA
I couldn’t stop staring at the chair. How could someone just vanish into thin air like that? I had no idea, but then I’d had no idea how two people could be in America one minute, Borneo the next either.
“What are we going to do?” I asked Kyle as we were flying back to my house.
“About?”
“Well, everything she just told us. If she can…” I pursed my lips, “teleport?” Aunt Sarah snorted and I felt stupid saying it. “If that’s true, the rest of it might be as well, all the end-of-the world-shit.”
“Mara! Watch your language.”
“Yes, Auntie,” I smiled, fluttering my lashes. Kyle smirked and Aunt Sarah had to suppress a giggle. My good humor faded as I remembered we were going home and, from there, goddamn England.
*
I stood on the kerb, a day later, sadly looking up at the school gates across the road. I already missed Scout. I’d missed her when I was in the jungle, wondering if I would ever see her again. I missed her now, wondering if, two weeks on, we would ever speak again except on a Skype screen. So much so it was like a lump in my throat. How am I gonna tell her? I sighed and began crossing the road. The entire world turned on its axis in the split-second before everything went black.
*
The moment I opened my eyes, I screwed them shut against the bright glare. Once they’d adjusted, I saw I was lying in a hospital bed. I tried to sit up and fell back, my head feeling like it had a rock band playing at full volume in it. I put my hand up and felt the bandages wrapped all around my forehead. Out of the corner of my eye, I could actually see the white hem..
“Hey.” I turned my head to see Andy, sitting on a chair beside the bed.
“Andy? What happened to me?”
“You got run over, sis. A car was taking the bend far too fast. I tell ya, you’re lucky to be alive,” he added, shaking his head. “It took your legs right out from under you and ya cracked your head open on the windshield. What’s up with you? You’re usually so careful on the road.”Where I used to live there were no roads, Marty. I rubbed my wrapped head again, surprised that I had no memory of nearly dying. I raised myself up, slowly this time, and reached for the glass of water on the bedside table, my parched throat killing me.
“Do I really never talk to you?”
“No.”
“Well, I’m sorry.” In my opinion four small syllables were hardly enough to cover ten years of being ignored. I looked over at who was in the doorway. Father walked in, looking down at me. I waited for him to call the doctor over, to check my medical status, and then go back to his committee or something. It didn’t happen. He just stood there, hanging his head.
“Andy, would you give us a minute?”
“Okay,” he frowned, looking just as surprised as I felt. What’s going on? What does he want? He looked like hell, with his hair disheveled and his eyes sunken. Is he sick? Is that why he’s here? What a coincidence. We both watched my brother walk out and then he turned to me, taking Andy’s seat.
“Mara, I’m sorry.”
“What?” I asked, certain I’d heard wrong.
“I’m so sorry I’ve taken you for granted all these years.” Yes, he had. I looked at his face and it was the picture of misery and shame. Shit, he means it. He reached out to take my hand, running his finger gently over the knuckles.
“Well, you’re a busy ma—”
“Mara, shut up. That’s no excuse. Family should always come first. Always. I’ve cared about the wrong things in life: business, prestige, money. When I heard you’d disappeared and then nearly died… I… I’m sorry.”
“Pretty speech, Father.”
“Dad,” he smiled.
“Fine. Dad,” I conceded, hiding the warm, fuzzy feeling I felt calling him that for the first time since I was six. “But how do I know you won’t just go back to being Mr. Invisible? How do I know you actually ever have cared and aren’t, right now, putting on a show for P-goddamn-I?” That had come out a lot harsher than I’d intended, but I, deep down, had been sick
to death of that crap. He sighed and nodded then, seeing everyone in the ward staring at us because of my outburst, got up and drew the curtain.
“Alright, Mara, I deserved that,” he said, sitting back down. “How can I prove it?” he asked, spreading his arms.
“I fly with you to England. On your jet. No more chauffeurs.”
“Fine.”
“We talk about Mom?”
“Fine.”
“And about why you’ve been such a jerk all these years?”
“Fine,” he sighed.
“And you’ll drop this restraining order?”
“No.”Oh, well.
*
Rarely had I even been on Fath— Dad’s private jet. There had been one time, when I was a baby, when they took me to see a relative across the country. But obviously I didn’t remember that far back. Andy had been about five then. I looked across at him, opening my mouth to ask if he recalled that at all, and then just shut it again, seeing he was buried in his IPhone and that Dad was sleeping. Typical. I looked out the window at the clouds, grinning as I saw some of them had a shimmer to them. See ya in the UK, Kyle. The UK. I sighed, remembering saying goodbye to Scout from my hospital bed. She’d been very sad to hear it, but I’d promised to stay in touch via phones and Skype. I smiled, remembering her dirty jokes.
KYLE
I watched, hovering over the airport, as the flashy Learjet landed and the passengers disembarked: Ron Hale, Mara and a tall, blond kid I took to be her brother. Well, they’d landed safe.
“She’ll be alright.” I smiled as I turned my head to gaze upon the one Hale that had chosen to stay in the US. Sarah smiled as she held my hand in hers.
“I know.” I’d taken my girlfriend on a few flights around the country, enjoying all the more remote places. I’d really liked the cuisine in Taos; it had been rich and vibrant. And before I’d gone there I’d never seen a hacienda, never mind a multi-storey UN site. The Taos Pueblo had been like a sand-colored playdough set. Between us we’d taken some great snapshots, but I had something else in mind now. I turned the ship around and we began sailing back to New York.