by Jason Ayres
“Right in the centre of the tunnel”, replied Josh.
“Well, what are we waiting for then?” asked Peter, and he began walking into the tunnel.
“Stop”, said the boys in unison.
“You can’t risk it”, said Charlie. “Last time Josh went in, he was gone for twelve hours, and you remember what we said about it doubling each time. If you walk through there now, you could disappear for a whole day.”
“Nothing is going to happen”, replied Peter confidently. He may not be looking foolish but he was feeling it. This whole thing was ridiculous. The boys were clearly playing some sort of game. He should just get it over with as soon as possible. “I’m going through.”
“Don’t say we didn’t warn you”, said Josh.
Peter walked on through the tunnel. He felt a moment of trepidation as he reached the centre of the tunnel but carried on. When he got to the end he stopped and turned around. The boys were still standing at the far end. He began to walk back.
“You see!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “Nothing happened.”
“That’s because there must be somebody in there”, said Charlie. “Did I not mention that only one person can be in there at a time?”
“I don’t remember you saying that, no”, replied Peter.
Charlie thought for a moment. Perhaps in his excitement he had left that bit out of the explanation.
“It’s true. Look, after Josh came out last night someone else must have gone in and now they are in there for a whole day. They won’t reappear now until tonight at the earliest.”
“Give it up, boys” replied Peter. “If someone had gone missing for 24 hours surely we would have heard something about it on the news.”
“Not necessarily”, said Josh. “What if it was someone who lived alone who had a day off work today? No one would know.”
Without knowing it, Josh had hit the nail right on the head. Someone had indeed gone into the tunnel the previous evening, and it was exactly the sort of person who wouldn’t be missed.
“The only way we can prove it to you is to come back tonight and wait for whoever it is to come out”, added Charlie.
“Boys, I’ve got better things to do with my evening than stand around here in the freezing cold on the off chance that someone or something might appear from a mythical time vortex which you have invented for reasons known only to yourself. Now I am off home and I don’t want to hear any more about this – understood?”
There was no point arguing any further. “Understood”, said Charlie.
“Josh?”
“Understood, sir”, he replied.
“Good. Then I will see you both tomorrow.” Peter walked briskly back towards town feeling more than a little annoyed that he’d let himself be talked into this charade.
“Well, that didn’t go very well, did it?” remarked Josh.
“Did you really expect that it would?” replied Charlie. “How would you have reacted? I’m amazed he came in the first place, to be honest.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Perhaps what you said earlier. Stay away from the tunnel and try and forget about it. I don’t particularly want to hang around here in the cold all night just to see what happens either. We’ve spent enough time on this today already, and I have some rather more important things on my mind. Kaylee probably thinks I’m avoiding her.”
“To be honest, I don’t want to hang around here either”, agreed Josh. “I could do with catching up on some sleep.”
They turned and walked on through the tunnel towards home.
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Kaylee was sitting at the table in the corner of the lounge at home with her mother and sister having her tea.
Her mother had stayed at home to look after them since they were little. She prided herself on cooking them a proper meal every evening, unlike many parents she could mention. Cathy Thomas had just turned 40, and it wasn’t difficult to see where Kaylee got her looks from.
Her mother had taken care of herself and it showed. She knew a couple of the dads from school referred to her as a “milf” and, far from taking offence, she found it flattering.
She hadn’t been particularly impressed by Kaylee’s snap decision to miss her tea the previous evening to float off to Oxford on a whim. She had given her a bit of a telling-off before she’d gone to bed. Kaylee had seemed deliriously happy at the time and completely unfazed by it, but now she seemed down in the dumps.
Cathy had been feeling a little guilty about being so harsh on her the previous evening so had made spaghetti Bolognese, Kaylee’s favourite. It was clear though that Kaylee’s mind was on other things. She was playing with the spaghetti, lifting it onto her fork and twisting it one way and another.
Her mother was quite right. Kaylee did have a lot on her mind. She had hardly heard from Charlie all day and was beginning to get seriously worried. Perhaps she was expecting things to happen too quickly, but things had been so magical the previous evening and now it seemed like he wasn’t interested.
Her sister Olivia was two years younger and was the spitting image of Kaylee. They were almost the same height, and people often asked if they were twins. Olivia had also picked up on Kaylee’s withdrawn state and piped up, “What’s up with you, face-ache?”
“Nothing. Get off my case”, snapped Kaylee.
“Kaylee!” reprimanded her mother. “Don’t speak to your sister like that.”
“She started it”, retorted Kaylee.
Cathy sighed. Sometimes she wondered if they were sixteen and fourteen, or six and four. So often it seemed their sibling rivalry made them revert to how they were when they were toddlers, fighting over dolls.
“I know what’s wrong with her”, continued Olivia. “It’s because of Charlie.”
Kaylee really didn’t need this. She was feeling incredibly hormonal. Her emotions were all over the place as she worried about why Charlie hadn’t spoken to her. The last thing she needed was this little brat teasing her about it.
“Shut up, Liv. I mean it!” she shouted, with a warning look in her eye that would have done Lauren proud.
But Olivia didn’t shut up and began chanting childishly: “Kaylee loves Charlie, Kaylee loves Charlie.” And then for good measure, added, “She wants to have sex with him.”
This was the final straw. Kaylee jumped up, grabbed her coat and headed straight for the kitchen door, shouting “That’s it, I’m going out!” She slammed the door behind her before anyone could respond.
“What did you have to say that for?” demanded Cathy, angry at her younger daughter for ruining the family meal.
On the other side of the door Kaylee winced as she realised she’d caught her hand on the edge of the door as she’d slammed it. It was bleeding. Well, she wasn’t going back in now. She listened briefly and heard to her satisfaction that her mother was giving Liv a good telling-off. Then she grabbed her bike from the shed, wheeled it down the side of the grey pebble-dashed house, jumped on and pedalled for all she was worth towards Lauren’s house.
She tried to ignore the pain from her bleeding hand. She could get a plaster when she got to Lauren’s.
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Charlie was enjoying a night in front of the TV with his mother. It had become a bit of a Wednesday night tradition. He knew how lonely she’d been since the divorce, and he felt bad about being out nearly every other night with his friends.
So every Wednesday they ordered in a pizza and settled down to a Blu-ray or the TV depending what was on. Tonight they were planning to watch the first episode of ITV’s brand new blockbuster detective show Hathaway, set like its predecessors in Oxford.
Sarah Adams, at 45, was looking a little tired around the eyes and she certainly felt world-weary. Although the divorce settlement had enabled them to buy the house on the new estate, there were still plenty of bills to pay. She had taken a job at a huge DIY store on the new retail park to make ends meet.
She convinced herself that it was worth the sacrifice and that he was helping to build a better life for them. She hadn’t had to work. They’d holidayed all over the world and had a brand new car every year. Life had not been too bad.
Until he ran off with another woman from the office, that was.
He’d been so wrapped up in his career that they hadn’t got round to having more children. Now she had her new home, and Charlie was the most precious thing she had. There was no sign of any new man on the horizon and she didn’t know if there ever would be, but things could have been a lot worse.
Just before 8pm the doorbell rang and the pizza arrived. It was Charlie’s turn to choose and he’d gone for the Mighty Meaty. He had been thinking about Kaylee whilst they were waiting.
He knew he should have sent her a message, having been preoccupied with the Time Bubble all day, and suggested as much to Josh on their way home. However, Josh had laughed it off, and advised him not to. “Treat them mean, and keep them keen” was the phrase he had used.
Charlie hadn’t felt comfortable with that at all. That was Josh’s way of doing things, not his. He felt he really ought to send her a message, but before he could Sarah came back into the room, pizza in hand. It would have to wait a little longer.
“One Mighty Meaty it is!” she proclaimed. “And I got the garlic bread and bottle of Coke deal to go with it”!
“Good timing – the programme’s about to start”, replied Charlie.
She plonked herself down next to her son and opened up the pizza box. Charlie looked inside. It was top-notch as usual. Dripping with melted cheese and covered in bacon, salami and chicken. He grabbed himself a slice, and eagerly began to wolf it down. He would text Kaylee after.
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Kaylee had arrived at Lauren’s in tears, but after an hour’s consoling from her best friend, she was feeling a little better. The confrontation with her sister had been silly, she could see that now. Liv knew exactly how to push her buttons and had taken advantage in no uncertain terms to prey on her insecurity over Charlie.
Lauren had listened to it all, given her a hug and a shoulder to cry on, but felt more than a little annoyed. What the hell was Charlie doing? Playing hard to get? She didn’t think he was like that.
Perhaps he had been spending too much time with Josh. When Kaylee went to the bathroom she decided it was time to take action. She sent Charlie a message on Facebook which began with “What the hell are you playing at?” and ended with the instruction to “Text her!” with a lot of somewhat less polite terms in-between.
Charlie was just polishing off his last piece of pizza when his phone vibrated in his pocket. The ad break came on and his mother got up to take the pizza box out to the recycling. He flicked on his phone and read the less than complimentary message from Lauren.
She was right of course. What was he doing? He’d allowed this whole Time Bubble thing to preoccupy him and neglected the one thing that was truly important. He couldn’t afford to mess things up now. He’d ignore Josh and his “treat them mean” mentality, and be himself.
He could turn this around and he knew what to do. He typed out the following message on his phone:
“Hi, Kaylee. Sorry I haven’t had a chance to talk to you today but I didn’t want to appear overkeen after what happened last Saturday. I had a fantastic time last night and can’t wait to see you again x x.”
He thought about adding a few smileys and hearts but decided not to overdo it. He was happy with what he’d written and it was more or less the truth after all.
He placed his phone in front of him on the coffee table and waited for her reply.
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All had been quiet in the tunnel. It wasn’t used a great deal in the evening, and there had been nobody about for some time. It was raining quite heavily now and was not the sort of evening anyone would venture out into unless they had to.
One or two people had been through it earlier in the evening but nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
As Charlie and Josh had rightly surmised, someone had indeed been caught up in the bubble the previous evening. After his little spat with Kent in the pub, Andy had done his daily stagger home through the tunnel.
Just as on the previous evening, he had entered the bubble. Whereas that time he’d been gone for 42 seconds, watched by Charlie and Josh, this time no one saw him and he was gone considerably longer, a whole 24 hours.
He hadn’t been reported missing, because there was nobody to miss him, unless you included the barmaid at Ye Olde Chapel. She had enjoyed a remarkably stress- free day in his absence and had been glad to see the back of him. Now he emerged, wandering onwards in a zigzag fashion as if nothing had happened, which of course for him, it hadn’t.
The only unusual thing his booze-addled mind registered as he exited the tunnel was that suddenly it was pouring with rain. It had been completely dry when he’d gone in.
That was England for you, though, he thought. A few years ago when he thought he was going to be a star, he had hoped to leave the country behind him for a glittering career in Hollywood. He could have been sunning himself by a pool in L.A. by now if it had worked out, rather than getting drenched like this.
He carried on walking, quickly getting soaked to the skin. Even with ten pints of lager inside him he felt cold. Muttering something about “bloody weather” under his alcoholic breath, he stumbled on towards home.
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Kaylee was overjoyed to get Charlie’s text. In seconds she went from a devastating low to a euphoric high, in a way that only someone in the first flush of love can. She quickly showed her phone to Lauren.
“He’s texted me. See, he does want to see me!” She could scarcely conceal her excitement.
Lauren felt secretly pleased with herself. Not for the first time this week she’d given Cupid’s arrow a helping hand. She hadn’t told Kaylee about the message she’d sent to Charlie. Hopefully he wouldn’t either.
“Careful, girl – you’ll wet yourself if you get any more excited”, said Lauren.
“Cheeky”, replied Kaylee. “God, I so want to see him. Not sure if I can wait until tomorrow.”
Lauren looked out of the window. The rain seemed to be stopping. “Why wait then? Strike while the iron’s hot, that’s my advice.”
“You mean, go round there? His mum will be in. He told me last night.”
“That’s alright. You get on with her, don’t you? I’m sure she won’t mind you popping round. Just say you’ve got some homework or something you want to go over with him.”
Kaylee thought about it. She didn’t feel much like going home after the earlier exchange of “pleasantries” and ached to see Charlie so much it hurt. Yes, why not?
“I’ll text him back”, she said.
“What are you doing now x x”, she texted.
“Just watching TV. Why? x x”, came the reply.
“Don’t tell him you’re coming”, said Lauren as Kaylee was about to write another text. “Keep him guessing a bit. Here, let me do it.”
Lauren grabbed the phone from Kaylee and tapped in a message.
“Hey, what are you putting!” demanded Kaylee, worried that Lauren was going to drop her in it.
“Just this!” said Lauren, hitting send and passing it back to her. Kaylee read the message.
“You’ll find out in a bit”, she had written. Without any kisses, but they weren’t Lauren’s style.
“It’s a bit suggestive, isn�
�t it?” asked Kaylee.
“Depends how you interpret it”, replied Lauren. “Still, you want to sleep with him, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so, but probably not yet. I want us to take our time. Besides, nothing is going to happen tonight. His mum’s there!”
“Best you get a shift on. Look the rain’s stopped now. Come on, there’s no time like the present.”
They headed back downstairs. Lauren gave Kaylee a brief hug at the door and wished her good luck. Kaylee grabbed her bike and headed out into the night.
Charlie was intrigued by Kaylee’s last message. What was she getting at? He pondered for a few minutes about how to respond. In the end he settled on texting back a rather lame “What do you mean? x x” and then sat back and waited for a reply.
But the reply never came, because Kaylee never received his message.
In the centre of the tunnel, Kaylee’s bike lay upended where it had fallen. The front wheel was spinning aimlessly in the air and the lights were still on, shining back down the tunnel. But of Kaylee there was no sign.
Chapter Twelve
Lauren was lying on her bed watching the TV when she heard the landline go downstairs. It was a rare occurrence to hear it ring these days and even less so at this time of night.
Her mother would be fretting no doubt that some elderly relative had been taken ill due to the lateness of the call, and she heard her answer the phone after only two rings.
She turned the volume down on the TV and listened.
“No – she left here about two hours ago”, she heard her mother saying.
“Shit!” she exclaimed. If Kaylee wasn’t home yet, that meant she must still be at Charlie’s house. And if she was still at Charlie’s house that meant they might be doing something. If Kaylee got caught in a compromising position now, it could mess things up. She might even be forbidden to see Charlie.
She raced downstairs hoping to come up with a convincing story to cover for her best friend, but it was too late. There was no point saying she was staying the night here now as Kaylee had done for her the previous evening. She’d have to think of something else.