One Helluva Bad Time- The Complete Bad Times Series

by Chuck Dixon

  Charles Pierce Raleigh and James Smalls. Both had personal histories that suddenly ended within days of each other six months before.

  But no one, no one, drops out completely. They maintain some kind of association somewhere. Girlfriends, family, favorite places. Everyone circles back to re-cross their own path at some time.

  “What destination have we plotted for?” the man asked the steward.

  “We’re scheduled for Las Vegas, sir. Landing by five o’clock.”

  “We’ll need to enter a new flight plan. Tell the pilot to find the county airstrip nearest Dothan, Alabama.”

  26

  The Island

  THE OCEAN RAJ sat at anchor two miles off the coast of the tiny island of Niso Anaxos. Small as it was, it was the largest natural body in that part of the Cyclades. Smaller islets, too tiny to have names, ranged away north in an arc of rocky points that were little more than perches for birds. The sea was shallow along this archipelago, and the Raj rested at the deepest anchorage Boats could find in proximity to their destination.

  There were no other vessels in sight. The only other ships they spotted on the way here were container ships similar, to the Raj and one cruise ship. In each case, the other ships were only visible as tiny white shapes against the horizon and only in sight for moments. The fishing season for pickerel, anchovy and horse mackerel in this part of the Aegean would not open for months.

  The island was six miles across at its widest point with about twenty miles of coastline. It was rocky to the south with narrow sandy beaches along the north. A rocky point jutted into the Aegean off the northern shoreline forming a curved promontory that sheltered a shallow harborage. The rest of the island was mostly flat and rocky with wild fig and mastic trees growing in dense clumps here and there.

  There was no permanent population. The only manmade structures were a wooden jetty with some frame shacks walled with rusted corrugated sheets. There were ruins of some kind, of shrine or burial cairn built from set stone and partly buried in dunes.

  Boats was at the tiller of the Raj’s own inflatable. It was a Chinese model with twelve hard seats and twin outboards. The four passengers held on white-knuckled as Boats opened the throttle and skimmed the fifteen-foot craft over the white caps and around the horn for the calmer waters of the sheltered cove.

  He pulled the boat up onto the shallows of a broad white sand beach. Jimbo and Dwayne helped him pull the boat up onto dry sand while Morris and Caroline waded ashore. Boats secured a line from the inflatable to a shell-encrusted concrete mooring post set in the sand for that purpose. A faded old fishing smack lay overturned and half buried in drifts. Curious sea birds approached and retreated toward and away from the newcomers like a feathered tide. Boats skimmed a clamshell their way, and they took to the air in a squawking mass to settle on the rocks above.

  “So, this is your treasure island,” Boats said. “Looks like someone’s been here before you.”

  He was right. There were signs of recent excavation all over the beach. Even the wind and tides had not erased all, of the holes dug and the heaps of sand dotting the beach. There were rusted shovels discarded by disappointed fortune hunters. Jimbo found a metal detector with a bent shaft lying in some seagrass.

  “This is considered to be the most likely place for the Phoenician crew to have hidden their goodies,” Caroline said. “It’s out of sight from the sea, and the rock peak makes for a good landmark. The other popular spot is a rock cairn a way inland. It’s been dug up over, and over again for centuries. I think it postdates the Phoenicians’ arrival here.”

  “A cairn? That’s like a grave, right?” Dwayne said.

  “No one’s buried there. No remains have ever been found,” Jimbo said.

  Dwayne glanced at him.

  “What? The fobbits aren’t the only ones who can Google,” Jimbo said.

  “It was probably built to set a lamp or signal fire atop of,” Caroline said.

  “Fobbits?” Morris said.

  They spent the afternoon getting familiar with the island’s geography. The beach was about ten miles in length, and they walked half of it before turning inland. The sun was hot, and they found shade under some mastic trees and split a lunch of sandwiches and warm beers.

  Afterward, Boats went back down to the beach to take a swim and a nap under a tarp he’d slung over the inflatable. The other four made their way up the rocks to the top of the promontory. It was only fifty feet high at its tallest but provided concealment between rough black boulders spackled with an eon of bird shit. More importantly, it was a platform that provided a view of the entire sheltered cove and the chain of islets that sat in the turquoise shallows that spun away north from Nisos Anaxos.

  “This is our spot,” Dwayne said. “This is where we set up our OP. We can see any approach from the sea and probably have a front row seat to watch them bury their loot.”

  “How much would this topography have changed?” Jimbo said.

  “There’ll be differences,” Caroline said. “But nothing as dramatic as we saw in Nevada. I mean, geologically, we’re going back five minutes. These rocks have been here since forever. They’ll be there then. Maybe some changes in plant life. Maybe not.”

  “It’s the best place for a hide on the island. Full lines of sight all around and no one is likely to climb up here,” Dwayne said. “A couple of dark camouflaged tarps and some netting and it’ll be like home.”

  “We’re going to have to hump a shitload of supplies up here for a thirty-day hide,” Jimbo said.

  “Thirty days is an outside estimate, right?” Dwayne said, turning to Morris.

  “Oh yeah. Thirty days. Outside,” Morris said, nodding.

  27

  The Maelstrom

  “FOR THE LAST time, I am not wearing a fucking toga,” Jimbo said.

  “Technically, it’s a singlet,” Caroline said.

  The two-man team was in the passenger stateroom that they’d converted to a ready room. Dwayne and Jimbo were gearing up for insertion back to the target date. They were dressed in BDUs and sneakers. Their observation gear, weapons, rations, and other gear was packed in buoyant containers and already strapped down on the Zodiac waiting in the Tube chamber.

  “I’m not wearing it,” Jimbo said. “It’s more in period,” Caroline said.

  “Like my Winchester and our MREs?”

  Caroline was all business, and Dwayne knew why. She still wanted to go along but knew she’d get voted down by everyone. Her disappointment was taking the form of detached professionalism.

  “Do not interact with anyone. Do not be seen. Do not leave anything behind. You are only going back to observe and report,” she recited for the umpteenth time.

  “Roger that,” Dwayne said.

  “We’ll try to keep the field open as long and as often as possible. You each have a transmitter, and Morris has made some tweaks that should increase its range. Keep us posted on your progress.”

  “Roger.”

  “When you arrive, take a star reading as soon as you can and transmit it back to us so that we can confirm the date of your manifestation. Your transmitter has the capability to send back images now like a smartphone might. But watch your range.”

  “Will do.”

  “You have the relevant text from the Praxus codex. You have a rough description of the Phoenician bireme you’ll be looking out for. Don’t get too close. Even an approximate location of the burial site is enough.”

  “Anything else?” Dwayne asked.

  “I can’t think of anything,” she said and met his eyes.

  “That’s it, then.”

  “Guess it is.”

  He let her have the last word, and they made it down to Tube chamber below decks where Morris waited. Jimbo glanced to the sky above the bow where the balloon floated dark; a black hole in the star field.

  The Tube chamber was bone-chilling cold and painfully dry. The floor around the Tube itself was hidden under a cloud of vapo
r. The rings dripped ice in steaming clumps. Every surface of the room thrummed with the power contained within the Tube field. Morris stood layered in sweaters and a parka.

  “We’re powered for manifestation,” Morris said. “You need to go now, to take full advantage of the thirty-minute window. After that, regrets only.”

  “I like it better that way. No time to think about it,” Jimbo said.

  Dwayne was startled by Caroline’s arms around his neck and her mouth on his. She was pulling his face down to hers. She broke it off and stood silent as he joined Jimbo at the Zodiac resting on the modified platform.

  The Tube platform was modified into a rolling conveyor like the one used by loadmasters on cargo jets. The pair of Rangers shoved the Zodiac into the tube from behind like toboggan riders. They leapt aboard as the rollers took over. Their forward momentum carried them into the freezing fog and away.

  THE DISORIENTING PHYSICAL effects of moving back to The Then overwhelmed Dwayne once again. Hammering headache. Pounding heart. Crushing vertigo. Sense of falling.

  The sense of falling was real. The cold and wet shocked him into recovery. He was thrown hard on the deck of the Zodiac and then airborne, only to crash down on the aluminum plates again. All around was dark and wet. It was raining hard, a dense rain. He fought to hold onto the raft as it lifted and fell. Dwayne looked around for Jimbo in the downfall and could not see him.

  Dwayne crawled to the edge of the raft and could see nothing but a trough of churning water with walls of sea on either side. The trough closed like a pair of giant hands, and he was submerged, raft and all. He came up gasping as the tough little raft resurfaced at the top of a swell. Off the bow, he looked down from a dizzying height to a canyon of raging sea water falling away far below. Over the shriek of the wind, he could just hear the sound of a shouting voice. He turned to the stern and could see, for only a second, a dark shape against the foam of a following swell.

  Lightning revealed the sea in painful white and deep black, but the human figure was gone. Dwayne called. There was no answer.

  He broke out an oar and stuck it in the rushing water off the starboard side as Boats had taught them. He held the oar fast, and the raft stopped its progress and turned atop the swell. He called Jimbo’s name. He dove for the tiller and fought to keep the bow pointed perpendicular down the back of the swell as it steepened rapidly.

  No Jimbo. No more calls from the dark.

  Dwayne leaned back over the stern with his full weight to prevent it flipping as the declining slope of the sea went near vertical. He gripped the tiller in both hands as the raft slid down the roiling mountain of water and turned side on in a new trench growing deeper by the second. He looked up to see a sliver of angry clouds visible between the closing walls of the dark valley. He righted his attitude to point to the oncoming cliff of green that seemed to drop away before him even as it lifted him into the sky. White water screamed back from the bow as invisible currents dragged him along to the next growing swell. There was no horizon to be seen. He fought to determine up from down as he was dragged across the marching seas.

  The raft tilted and warped. The bow slewed, and Dwayne sensed the progress of the raft slowing as if he were snagged on something.

  A hand came over the rounded body of the Zodiac, followed by an arm and another hand. Jimbo rolled aboard, sputtering and coughing. His sneakers were gone.

  “Grab an oar!” Dwayne called over the howl of the wind.

  Jimbo paddled and Dwayne steered, and the raft climbed another rising swell. From the top of the immense hill of water, they could see the countless ranks of an endless range of angry seas under a roiling sky.

  THE SKY GREW lighter. The rain ended. The sun was somewhere above a low ceiling of clouds making the sea gleam like cold iron. They spelled one another at the oar, but both men were spent after hours of rowing. The Rangers hurt everywhere from being battered against the deck and hull by the rough seas.

  A rhythmic pounding reached them from over the crest of the peak before them.

  “Breakers,” Dwayne said. He risked standing on the uncertain surface, steadying himself with a fist on the tiller handle. There was a stationary point ahead before the bow of the Zodiac. A brow of white rippled below it.

  “It’s an island,” Dwayne said and fell back into the stern and turned the tiller.

  Jimbo found a burst of new strength and pulled the oar through the water. The swells lifted and dropped them with greater rapidity as the strip of land filled more and more of the horizon before them. Waves were carrying them toward the island even as an undertow fought to drag them further away. Dwayne abandoned the tiller now and grabbed the second oar. Both men paddled furiously and saw a tree line growing closer and closer at a maddeningly slow pace. The riptides pull increased, as the water grew more, shallow. Dwayne looked behind to see a big roller coming up on their stern.

  “Lean into it!” he called.

  Both men paddled hard for shore. The roller lifted them high. They struggled to stay atop the peak as the edge of white foam curled before them. The wave crashed to shore, and both men leapt out to plant their feet in the sand and hold the raft against the powerful pull of the returning sea. They held the lines in their gloved fists and hauled for the shore with their legs pumping and feet fighting for purchase in sucking sand.

  They reached the dry beach and collapsed on either side of the Zodiac, stable for the first time in hours.

  A moment’s break and they were up and moving, hauling the raft across a long sand beach and over dunes toward a line of evergreen trees. They pulled the raft into the shadows of low hanging branches and secured it in place with lines and pegs. They were concealed from sight with a view of the sand and water.

  “Give me just a minute here, okay?” Dwayne said and laid his head on his arms where they rested on the gunwale of the raft.

  Jimbo said nothing.

  The Rangers fell into a deep sleep beneath the sheltering branches.

  IT WAS NIGHT when they awoke. The sky was cloudless. A sliver of moon hung over the still water. The stars seemed to swirl above them.

  Dwayne stepped out atop a dune and lined the digital astrolabe on the horizon and took readings for the moon and on Polaris. He transmitted the readings without a responding signal. He set the Tauber Transmitter to repeat. It would continually send out the readings and a short text signal that they had arrived safely in the past. Morris or Caroline would ping them from The Now upon receipt.

  “See anything?” Jimbo joined him. He was munching on a Hooah! bar.

  “Like what? You think Spartacus is going to walk up to us tell us what day it is?”

  “The comet, dumbass.”

  The men stood atop the dune and scanned the sky above. No comet.

  “So, we don’t know when the hell we are,” Jimbo said.

  “Or where the hell we are.” Dwayne shook his head.

  They decided to wait until morning to scout their current area of operations. They ate and rehydrated and took Advil for muscles sore from the exertion and the punishment of their violent sea cruise. Then they lay back on the sand and napped until the black of night gave way to gray along the horizon.

  The Rangers awoke stiff with pain from their journey the day before. They stood facing the sun and stretching out the kinks in their muscles and joints. It was going to take a lot of PT to get back to optimal.

  “Yo,” Jimbo said and pointed.

  “Dwayne followed Jimbo’s finger.

  In the pink glow of the dawn light was a wavering smear of white just above the horizon line.

  A comet’s tail.

  28

  Day at the Beach B.C

  THE ASTROLABE MEASURED the angle of the sun and gave them an approximation of Greenwich Mean Time. Dwayne stuck a stick in the sand and took a picture of the shadow it made in the morning light. He time stamped the image taken of the stick and added it to the repeating message back to the Raj somewhere out there on the water
in the centuries ahead. Still no word back.

  “We have to be out of range,” Jimbo said. “Unless they moved the ship,” Dwayne said. “Why would they do that?”

  “Looking for us.”

  “They wouldn’t know about the storm. They wouldn’t know we were blown off-course.”

  “Needle in a haystack,” Dwayne said.

  “Needle in a haystack, and you don’t know where the haystack is,” Jimbo said.

  They explored the beach immediately before them. There was not a sign anywhere that there was anyone else alive on the planet. The sand was torn up by the storm the day before. Lots of debris littered the beach. Sea birds picked among it in flocks that rose and resettled as Dwayne and Jimbo approached.

  The debris was all shells and seaweed. No evidence of anything manmade. They walked up a trail to a hump of land that rose to the north of the beach. Dwayne glassed the scenery with a pair of binoculars.

  Jimbo used the 30x scope on his Winchester Model 70. From where they stood, they could see that the island was forested with pines over most of its surface. The forest rose to a high point to the north. There was no smoke from cook fires. The sea showed no sign of any kind of craft.

  “Maybe we went back too far,” Jimbo said.

  “The world was less populated then,” Dwayne said. “You said that last time,” Jimbo said.

  They decided that they’d row the raft around the island to reach the high point they saw. The Rangers policed the area so as not to leave any artifacts behind. Their meal containers were all soy based so they could be just covered with a layer of sand. Once the campsite was clean, they dragged the Zodiac to the surf and pushed into the deeper water.