Nightfall

by William Woodall

  Chapter Ten

  It was mid-afternoon when they finally arrived back in Tampa, and Philip went immediately to a hardware store to buy a metal detector and a shovel.

  “Now the next question is, how do we pull this off? I’m pretty sure whoever lives there now won’t like it much if we show up and start digging holes in their yard with no explanation,” Philip said.

  “Maybe we could dress up like we’re from the gas company or something like that,” Mike said.

  “Maybe, but let’s go see if anybody lives there first. It’s possible the place might be in between renters right now,” Philip said. They cruised by the house without stopping, and sure enough, there was an old car sitting in the driveway.

  “Scratch that idea, then,” Mike said.

  “Never mind. There’s a costume shop over on Forty-Second Street. I’m sure we can find something in there to make us look official,” Philip said.

  They ended up finding a couple of NADF uniforms, and that seemed like the ideal choice. People didn’t question the Defense Forces; not if they valued their lives.

  “You know we’re gonna strike terror into those poor souls, showing up on their doorstep dressed like this,” Mike said.

  “Yeah, but I can promise you they won’t mess with us,” Philip said.

  Nor did they. The residents turned out to be an elderly couple, and Mike thought one or both of them might literally have a heart attack on the spot while he and Philip explained that they needed to search the yard with a metal detector. It was all Mike could do not to try to comfort them. But that would have been completely out of character, so he kept his face cool and uninterested the whole time.

  “Where do you think we should start?” he asked Philip in a low voice when they got outside.

  “There’s no telling, really. We’ll just have to go along slow and easy and make sure we cover the whole yard. It might take a while,” Philip said.

  They methodically searched the entire lot, being careful not to overlook even the flower beds or the front walkway. In short order they located eighty-six cents worth of loose change, three bottle caps, and a rusty set of fingernail clippers, along with several other unidentifiable bits of scrap metal. It was time-consuming work, but they were rewarded at last with a strong signal near the exact center of the back yard.

  “There’s something substantial down there, not just a dime or a quarter that fell out of somebody’s pocket,” Philip said.

  Mike grabbed the shovel to start digging, and about a foot down he struck something solid.

  “What did I hit?” Mike asked, and Philip knelt down to brush away the sandy soil.

  “It looks like a block of concrete,” he said, sounding puzzled.

  “How could that be? Concrete wouldn’t set off a metal detector,” Mike said.

  “No, there’s got to be some metal down here somewhere. Keep digging,” Philip said.

  It turned out to be a cinder block; one which someone had filled up with concrete to make it solid. They pulled it out of the ground, but there didn’t seem to be anything under it except dirt.

  “Wait a minute. Look here,” Philip said, brushing away the last of the sand. Mike leaned over to see what he was talking about, and saw that someone had carved his initials in the concrete while it was still wet, as people were apt to do sometimes. They were old and worn, but there was no mistaking what they were. J.J.W.

  “Josiah James Wilder,” Philip said, giving voice to Mike’s own thought.

  “Could be just a coincidence,” Mike said, hardly daring to hope.

  “Do you really believe that?” Philip asked.

  “No,” Mike finally admitted.

  “There you go. Jo-jo was here at some point and left his initials in this block. I’ll bet you anything you like,” Philip said.

  “Jo-jo?” Mike asked skeptically, and Philip laughed.

  “Sorry. We used to call him that when he was a baby,” he said.

  “Seems like an awfully cryptic message,” Mike said.

  “Maybe it was the only thing he could think of that he knew would last long enough. But it might not be all he left. According to the detector there’s something metallic inside this block,” Philip said.

  “So, what then? You’re gonna bust up the concrete to find out?” Mike asked.

  “The thought did cross my mind,” Philip said.

  “Go for it,” Mike said, shrugging. Philip went to the car to fetch a hammer from the trunk, and then went to work on the block. It didn’t take long before the whole thing was smashed to bits.

  “Look what I found,” Philip said in satisfaction, pushing aside rubble and powdered concrete. Underneath was a metal box about the size and shape of a wallet. It was made of red aluminum, and Mike recognized it immediately.

  “That’s Joey’s wallet. He always liked the metal kind because he said they didn’t rub the bar codes off his credit cards like the other kind did,” he said, and was rewarded with a memory of teasing Joey that he’d end up with a permanent dent on his butt from sitting on that hard chunk of aluminum for too long. It seemed like ages ago.

  “Come on, then. There’s nothing else in there, so let’s leave these poor people alone,” Philip said, and Mike nodded. They quickly refilled the hole, and then drove across town to a supermarket parking lot.

  “We really need to get these uniforms off as soon as we can. They attract a lot of attention,” Mike said. The car itself had one-way glass, of course, but he knew they’d be the object of immediate scrutiny the instant they stepped outside. They quickly changed clothes in the car, putting the uniforms back inside their boxes to be returned to the costume store.

  “Okay, let’s see what’s in that wallet,” Philip said.

  Mike had trouble getting it open and finally had to break the latch, but once he did it opened easily. Inside was a brass key and a single sheet of paper. It was only slightly yellowed with age, and this is what it said:

  Hey buddy,

  If you’re reading this then I guess you figured out I’m back home. I didn’t know any other way to get you a message, and I thought you’d probably figure out how to find this one sooner or later. We left another one buried at my mom and dad’s house next to the front steps just in case you didn’t find this one, but since you did I guess it’s all good.

  There are some things I need to tell you. When I disappeared from the parking garage I popped up in Rockport, exactly two days after you discharged the capacitor. Things were a mess. There’s a huge crater right now where the middle of Arkadelphia used to be, and everything for about ten miles outside of that was frozen like the North Pole. Worse than that, even; trees and wooden houses shattered from the cold, and so did people and animals, even. They say the temperature must have dropped close to absolute zero there for a while. The Army has the whole place roped off and they’re not giving out much information, but I do know that much.

  Matthieu still had copies of Dr. Garza’s original lab manuals, so we took them to several physicists to see if we could figure out what’s going on. This is what we came up with; We think the bubble ring is shrinking slowly from the outside in, and reappearing back where it came from. We think that’s what happened to me, and that it hurt so much because I had to leave behind all the molecules I picked up in the future from breathing and drinking water and all that. They got ripped out of my body when I went back to the past. We’re not totally sure about that part, but I know I was sick as a dog for almost a week after I got back. We think I reverted back when the edge of the ring reached the place where I was sitting when you discharged the capacitor. I was really close to the edge, so it didn’t take long to yank me back. You were at the very center so you’re in a much different situation than I was.

  We think the ring will stabilize at whatever maximum size is possible and then everything inside that point will never revert. That seems to be what six out of ten of the physicists believe. T
hree others think the reversion will keep slowing down but never quite stop, but by the time it gets really close to the center it’ll take so long to finish that it might as well be permanent; several hundred years at the very least. And then the last one thinks we’re all crazy. So take your pick, Mikey, but the general opinion seems to be that you’re permanently stuck in 2136. I’m sorry to be so blunt about it, but I felt like you needed to know, if you don’t already.

  We also figured out a way to send you some things. Take the key and go to the Horizon Bank of Tampa, or whatever the place might be called by then. It fits safety deposit box 3299, and the rent is paid up for a hundred and fifty years. They thought we were nutty, but they accepted it. There are some things for Cam in there, too.

  I talked to your mom and dad, so they know where you are and what happened. They said to send you their love, and then a couple of things in the box are from them.

  I really don’t know what else to say, bubba; seems like anything I come up with sounds lame. I hope we’ll get to see each other again someday, but if not then I hope you’ll think of me now and then and maybe laugh a little for old times’ sake.

  Your best friend,

  Josiah

  Mike put the letter down, his heart full. However apologetic Joey might have been for telling him he was stuck forever in the future, Mike treasured those words. It was the best news his friend could possibly have given him, and the second best news was that Joey himself was alive and well, back in his own time. Mike smiled to himself, and then put the letter and the key back inside the aluminum wallet before stuffing it in his front pocket.

  “The power supply must have been set on enthalpy, if it sucked all the heat out of everything like that,” he said, thinking aloud.

  “I remember there was a setting on the tachometer for ENTH, but nobody knew what it meant,” Philip said.

  “Well, that’s what it means. Latent heat of molecular motion. Not normally usable for anything; I wonder how Dr. Garza pulled that one off,” Mike said, and Philip could only shrug.

  “No idea. But I’m awfully glad to hear what they said about the bubble ring stabilizing at some point,” Philip said.

  “Yeah, me too. I’m pretty sure now that I won’t disappear like Joey did, at least. Or if I do then it’ll be so far in the future that it won’t matter anymore,” Mike said.

  “Oh, I dunno, Mikey; you might startle some poor soul a thousand years from now, if they see your bones vanish into thin air,” Philip said.

  “Ha. If anybody’s messing with my skeleton a thousand years from now then they deserve to get startled,” Mike said, smiling a little in spite of himself.

  “Good point,” Philip agreed.

  “I don’t think it’ll happen, though,” Mike said.

  “Why not?” Philip asked.

  “Because of what Joey said about not being able to take molecules from this time back into the past. People don’t keep the same molecules in their bodies all the time, you know; stuff is always getting replaced. Our bodies are kind of like a curve in a waterfall; we keep the same shape all the time but it’s always different water. It takes about eleven years to completely replace every molecule in your body. So if I’m here longer than eleven years then I’ll be made up completely of new molecules from this time and I wouldn’t disappear no matter what. All the molecules that used to be part of me when I first got here might disappear, but they’d be so scattered throughout the world by then that nobody, including me, would notice even if they did vanish,” Mike explained.

  It was comforting in a way to remember that he’d be completely safe after eleven years, but in another way it was kind of scary, because it meant that in the meantime he’d be very unsafe. Suppose Joey were wrong and he reverted to the past after only five years, when his body would be made up of about half old and half new matter? He’d end up getting torn apart like a moth-eaten rug, without a prayer of survival. The thought was gruesome.

  “So if we’re only like the curve in a waterfall, and there’s not a shred of matter that we could ever put a finger on and say that that’s really us, then what are we?” Philip asked.

  “That’s an awfully deep question, Philip, and one which I don’t have the slightest idea how to answer,” Mike said dryly, and Philip laughed.

  “Well, it can wait. Just curious, that’s all,” he said.

  “No doubt. But I guess we better quit jawing and go see what’s at the Horizon Bank before they close. Do you know where it is?” Mike asked.

  “Yeah, I think so,” Philip agreed.

  Philip did know where the place was, and apparently it hadn’t changed names in the past hundred years. No one seemed to blink an eye when they went inside and asked for Deposit Box 3299, but then Mike supposed there was no reason why they should. The bank might have thought it was strange a hundred years ago for someone to want to pay his fees so far in advance, but on this end there was no reason for them even to notice. The box rent was paid up and Philip had a valid key, and that was all they cared about.

  A bored-looking bank employee fetched the box from the vault, and then escorted them to a small windowless room so they could examine the contents in privacy. It was about the size of a shoe box, and that could have left room for many different things.

  “What do you think’s in there?” Mike asked, as Philip fitted the key in the lock.

  “No idea. I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Philip murmured. Mike heard the lock snick open, and then Philip gingerly lifted the lid. The first thing they saw was a piece of white cloth, which turned out to be a t-shirt with matching holes in the front and back. Philip laughed.

  “What is it?” Mike asked, mystified.

  “I never thought I’d see that again,” Philip said, turning the shirt over in his hands and still laughing a little.

  “What’s so special about a holey t-shirt?” Mike asked, and Philip sobered a bit.

  “I got shot one time in Tennessee, wearing this. Bullet went right through here,” he said, poking his finger through one of the holes.

  “Oh. I guess I never heard that story before,” Mike said.

  “I’m surprised Zach never told you. Matter of fact, here’s the very slug that did it,” Philip went on, pulling a spent bullet on a string out of the box.

  “It’s a wonder it didn’t kill you,” Mike said, staring at the shirt. Those bullet holes were uncomfortably close to the chest.

  “It was a true miracle it didn’t,” Philip said, and then put the shirt and the bullet necklace aside on the table before rummaging around some more.

  “What else is in there?” Mike asked, trying to look over his shoulder.

  “Well, there’s this,” Philip said absently, pulling out another necklace of a different kind. It had a metal chain, with a clear crystal the size of a peach pit for a setting. Mike recognized it as something Zach had worn occasionally.

  There were several other things in the box, including a wooden music box that had belonged to Joey’s mother Eileen. Philip gingerly turned the key and opened the lid, silently listening while it played part of Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.

  “I’m surprised it still works after all this time,” Mike finally said.

  “Yeah, me too. I’ll have it checked over at a music shop, though, just in case. Eileen always knew I liked it,” Philip murmured.

  There were pictures and knick-knacks of various kinds, including a heavy dagger made of truesilver, which Mike recognized as another one of Zach’s possessions.

  “Here’s something for you for a change, Mike,” Philip said, handing him a ring.

  “That’s my father’s class ring,” he said, turning it over in his hand. It was gold, with a dark red garnet. On one of the side panels was a cowboy holding the reins of a horse while he knelt in front of a cross, and on the other side was a Texas flag and a Confederate flag with the poles crossed, and below them the caption Texas Rebel. Mike wryly put
it down after a minute; that was his father, all right. Country boy to the core.

  There were other things he knew were for him, too. A solid glass ball about the size of an apple from Zion National Park, with a sprig of preserved wildflowers inside and a caption that read In Beauty be it finished. It had been collecting dust on his parents’ trinket shelf for as long as he could remember. There was also a carved wooden bear cub his uncle Marcus had made for him at Christmas one year.

  “Seems like mostly trinkets and keepsakes,” he finally said, kind of disappointed. Nostalgia was nice, but not all that helpful in any practical way.

  “What were you expecting?” Philip asked.

  “I don’t know; something a little more useful, maybe,” Mike said.

  “Don’t look down on the past, Mikey. A man is only the sum of his memories,” Philip said mildly.

  “I guess so,” Mike said. He didn’t know if he entirely agreed with that statement, but he didn’t want to argue about it either.

  “Here’s something a little more practical for you,” Philip said. Down at the very bottom of the box were two hard-bound books of the kind you write in, and across the front was written Lab Manual – Andrew Garza, Ph.D.

  “Cool!” Mike said, reaching for the manuals eagerly.

  “Matthieu never let the last copy of anything leave the library,” Philip said, but Mike was barely paying attention. He was too busy flipping through the pages of research notes, and before long he was so engrossed that he wouldn’t have heard a fire alarm even if it had gone off in the very room where he was standing. Philip let him read for a little while, and then finally broke the silence.

  “Well, I think I’ll leave most of this stuff in here, just for safety’s sake. There’s no reason to take it home where it might get lost,” he said at last, and Mike nodded absently.

  Philip did take the music box and the dagger with him, for whatever reason. The music box to have it checked over, no doubt, but Mike neither knew nor cared why he took the knife. Mike himself took all the items he’d been given, and then everything else went back to its place in the vault.

  He had answers now, or at least some of them. Joey was safely back home, Mike himself wasn’t going anywhere, and the tachometer had serious limitations he’d never suspected before. All very good things to know.

  But most importantly of all, he now had the keys to help fill in the gaps in his tachometer research, thanks to Dr. Garza’s lab manuals. In spite of his uneasy relationship with the NADF, he couldn’t help feeling just a twinge of excitement about that.

  He couldn’t wait to get started.