by Scott Baker
‘There’s definitely something inside this lining,’ she said as she handled the animal skin. ‘Several things, by the feel of it.’
After one more glance at Shaun, she began to peel away the layers.
In the chill night, the big Chevron sped through the hills, taking the turns with determined speed. Somewhere far behind, another vehicle pulled to a stop. It was a dull matte black, and if not for the headlights it would have been invisible in the darkness. The passenger door opened, and a pair of shiny black shoes stepped out onto the asphalt. They paused a moment, then spun, walking to the front of the car to stop at a large stain of blood. Their owner crouched to look closely, before standing and returning to the open door. With a satisfied spin of the tyres, the car leaped forward, followed closely by three identical dull black vehicles. They seemed to suck light into them and appeared as three holes in the night. In the darkness it was impossible to tell what they looked like, but it did not matter. For the cars’ drivers, all that mattered was that they were closing in.
As Lauren peeled back the outer layers of the bundle on her lap, she wrinkled her nose. A release of stale air exhaled from the package and filled the car. It even overpowered the smell of urine and grit coming off the man who was breathing steadily in the back seat. Layer upon layer. There seemed to be an outer coating of fresh animal skin surrounding an inner layer of old leather.
Eventually, Lauren peeled it all away to be confronted with a semi-transparent sack. Inside she could see a large pile of what looked like papers, books and parchments.
‘What the?’ Shaun started as he shot a glance over at the sack, then at the man in the back. He seemed to be breathing a little more easily now, and his head was gently rocking as the car bumped over the road. The blood that had been wet and flowing was slowly drying on his beard and face, creating yet another caked-up layer.
‘What is this thing?’ Lauren asked, holding up the translucent sack.
Shaun looked it over. ‘It looks like the stomach of some kind of animal.’
Lauren looked down and let out a short sound of disgust. ‘A stomach? Why would anyone put books inside an animal stomach?’
‘I don’t know, but I’m really not sure we should go any further.’
‘Oh no, I’m not getting my hands all grossed up for nothing. I’m opening this thing and finding out what’s in it.’ Then, digging her nails into the stomach sack, she punctured it.
The odours they had encountered before were mild in comparison to what now seeped out from the pile on Lauren’s lap. Air that had been trapped for longer than either of them could have dreamed raced out to fill the cabin.
Shaun gagged and pulled the car to a stop, quickly opening his door to get out. Lauren, however, had anticipated the smell and pulled her sweater up over her nose and mouth.
‘Oh, man!’ Shaun took a good lungful of the fresh night air before dropping back onto his seat. ‘And I thought they smelled bad, on the outside!’ Shaun mimicked in his best Han Solo voice. ‘That’s rank,’ he blurted.
‘No, rank is you after a high-fibre breakfast. This is interesting.’
Shaun stared at his wife, not wanting to believe that she was actually enjoying this.
‘Well, look who’s changed their tune. While we’re stopped, can you check the cell again?’ Shaun asked as he slipped the car into first and got them moving again. Lauren pulled out the phone and checked for the signal bars. Still nothing. She turned her attention back to the open bundle on her lap.
Sitting in a neat pile, protected for who knew how long from the elements by an airtight seal of animal and leather insulation, was a stack of documents. Books, papers, texts, all appearing impossibly old and delicate. Lauren carefully opened to the first page of the manuscript sitting on the top of the stack. It was a collection of symbols that she did not recognise, and she was certain she had never seen anything like it except maybe in one of the museums Shaun had taken her to. The writing looked a little like Arabic.
‘Oh my God,’ Lauren said as her head came up suddenly. ‘What if he stole these? What if this stuff is from a museum or something and he was running away from the police?’
Shaun did not argue. It seemed as plausible as anything. Lauren continued through the stack. There were single loose leafs of old parchment, three crude leather-bound books held together with thin leather strips and a multitude of tightly rolled scrolls. Some contained what looked like diagrams, while most were filled with different kinds of writing.
‘It looks like some sort of collection,’ Lauren began, ‘and there doesn’t really seem to be any order to it. The writing looks different from one page to the next on these loose sheets … and then there are these ones with pictures—’
Bleep! Lauren’s train of thought was lost. Bleep!
It was the sound of a message arriving on the cell phone, which meant they had a signal again. Lauren fished around for the phone in the centre console of the car, looked at the screen and then handed it on to Shaun.
‘Voice messages,’ Lauren said matter-of-factly. ‘Your brother and my dad.’
Shaun winced. Her father only ever called Shaun’s cell phone when he couldn’t get a hold of Lauren at home. As for Shaun’s brother Tim, why was he calling now? They hadn’t spoken in years.
‘Well, we’ll listen to those later,’ he said as he thumbed the disconnect key. He dialled 911 and waited. ‘Where are we?’ he whispered to Lauren, nodding towards the map in the open glove compartment.
She wrestled with the map for a second then handed it over. For all her wonderful traits, he thought as he flicked on the interior light, reading a map wasn’t one of them. He steered with his knees while holding the phone in one hand and spun the map in the other.
‘Ah,’ he told the operator when prompted, ‘we’re about twenty miles west of the Greensville junction on the old Southern Road …’
Bleep, bleep, bleep.
‘Shit!’
‘What?’ Lauren looked over as she saw him take the phone away from his ear. In disgust he flipped it closed and tossed it in her lap.
‘Signal dropped out. Keep an eye on it, would you, and if it comes back, hit redial. We’re … here … ish,’ he said pointing to a spot on the map as he handed it across to her.
Lauren turned her attention back to the bundle and continued to sift through as Shaun refocused on the road ahead. He soon noticed a sign, the first they had seen in miles. It was for a place called Motel 6, fifteen miles ahead. He smiled. At least they would have a landline and perhaps a shower. They might be able to leave the hobo there and still make the airport if they really pushed it.
‘Hey, do you still have that coupon book you were talking about before? That had something for accommodation, didn’t it? Maybe we can …’
Lauren wasn’t listening.
‘Lauren?’
She stared at her lap, her large green eyes wide.
‘You okay? What is it?’ Shaun asked, his heart starting to race.
Slowly and seriously, she looked up at Shaun. She then lifted what she had been looking at up to the dashboard in front of him so he could read it. It was a book like the others, although maybe not quite so crude, but just as old. It was bound with some kind of animal skin that still had the remnants of hair on it, and it was thick.
A peculiar symbol was imprinted on the book’s cover: a vertical line with a cross-bar, and two loops, a larger one, and a smaller one, hanging from it like teardrops. It was not the appearance of the book, however, that caused Shaun to slam on the brakes; it was the words written on the page:
‘This diary will be found on the 13th of June 2014AD, more than two thousand years from now. My name is Graeme Fontéyne, and I remember everything.’
CHAPTER 4
The motel wasn’t big; it only had twelve rooms, and Clive could not remember the last time they had all been full. Five-star it certainly was not. It wasn’t even a member of the Hotel 6 chain, the owners had simply used the name to so
und more reputable, and they relied on no one bothering to sue.
Clive rocked back on the legs of his wooden chair and stared at the small television on the counter. Twenty-six, overweight and balding, Clive thought he had it pretty good at the reception desk of Motel 6. There were only a couple of chores to do on the night shift, about an hour’s worth of work. Then for the rest of the night, he watched porn. Loads and loads of porn. He found it helped the time pass, and no one ever came in after midnight anyway. There was no rain tonight, and the stars were out. Yes, he liked tonight. He probably wouldn’t have changed a thing, which was fortunate, because this would be the last night of his life.
He had got the chores out of the way early and started to watch Indiana Bones in Her Temple of Poon when he heard tyres on the gravel outside. It was with mild surprise and irritation that he pushed his chair back and strained his neck to peep through the venetians at the bulky SUV outside.
With a groan, Clive returned all four legs of the chair to the ground and heaved his considerable bulk forward to flick the DVD off. He’d once left one of his discs in the ‘in-house movie’ player, just to see if anyone complained. No one did.
As the screen door swung open, Clive got to his feet. The man who entered appeared to be about Clive’s age, perhaps a little older. He seemed agitated and rushed. Clive caught a whiff of foul human stench as the man leaned towards him, his eyes wide and desperate.
‘I’ve got to use your phone, there’s been an accident,’ the man said.
‘Cost of a local call is thirty-five cents,’ Clive stated in a drawn-out Southern accent. ‘Unless ’course you wanna get a room, then I just puts it on your bill.’ The man fished around in his pockets, pulling out a handful of change and dumping it on the counter. Clive slid the green rotary-dial phone across the counter, eyeing the man suspiciously as he hurriedly dialled.
‘Operator, yes, there’s been an accident. We’re at Motel 6 …’ Clive listened to the man relay his story to the emergency call centre, and noticed the blood covering his hands and clothes. The agitated man hung up. Only now looking into the face of the unsympathetic receptionist, he asked, ‘You got somewhere we can get cleaned up?’
‘Only thing I got is this board right here with a whole lotta keys on it. If you wants one of them keys, you gotta pay eighty-two dollars for the night.’ The rooms only cost forty-five, but Clive knew a sucker when he saw one.
The man frowned, clearly irritated. ‘I don’t need a room, I just need to get cleaned up. There’s an ambulance on its way and we’ve got to get to the airport.’
‘Not tonight, you don’t. You didn’t hear on the radio? There was that big blackout at the airport. Closed the whole thing down till morning.’
‘What?’ The man said exasperated. ‘Are you sure?’
‘It’s been on the TV every five minutes. You’re welcome to stay and watch it for a while if you want.’ Clive spun the television around on the counter. Almost on cue the programming went to a commercial break and a news bulletin flashed up:
‘… half the city. There’s no explanation as yet as to what caused the massive blackout, but authorities haven’t ruled out a terrorist attack. According to Charlotte’s chief of police, major public services will resume in the early hours of the morning and she urges everybody to stay calm. Just repeating once again: a massive blackout has hit the city of Charlotte, causing power loss to over thirty thousand homes and major transport services. The central railway station and the airport have both been closed until further notice.’
‘Oh no, no, no! You’ve got to be kidding me!’ Shaun cried as he stared at the screen.
The night was spiralling out of control. Suddenly his biggest concern had gone from getting his page numbering right, to having a half-dead, bloodied hobo in the back of his car. Now it looked like his flight had been cancelled, or at least postponed, until the morning. Of course there was a terrorist attack on the airport tonight, he thought – in case their plans hadn’t been derailed enough. Shaun rubbed his neck anxiously, then thought of Lauren sitting in the cold car with the half-dead man. He knew she needed a rest, and it looked like this was it.
‘Okay, fine, I’ll take a room, but tell the ambulance where we are when it arrives, okay?’
Clive reached up to the top corner of his key rack and grabbed a key. ‘There you go, room twelve, all the way down the end. That ambulance is gonna be a while, ain’t no hospital for at least an hour. Oh, and payment’s in advance.’
‘You’re kidding,’ Shaun said.
‘You don’t get this key till I get paid. It’s motel policy.’ Clive pulled the key back.
‘Yeah, when it suits you, no doubt,’ Shaun said, only half under his breath. He pulled out his wallet, found two fifties and threw them across at the counter.
‘Oh, we ain’t got no change. Correct change only. Or you can see Heather in the morning to see if she’s got some change for ya.’
‘Forget it,’ Shaun growled. ‘We’re gonna be making a whole bunch of phone calls from the room – keep the change to cover those.’ Shaun snatched the key from Clive’s raised hand and rushed back out the door. Clive smiled and slid the cash into his pocket.
‘Did you get through?’ Lauren asked as Shaun jumped back into the driver’s seat and gunned the gas, obviously irritated.
‘Jackass!’
‘Shaun?’
‘We’re going to have to stay here for a while,’ he started. ‘The ambulance is on its way but could be about an hour, and there was a goddamned blackout at the airport.’
‘What? A blackout?’
‘Took out half the city, apparently. It was on the news. No planes are flying till the morning.’ Shaun set his jaw and shrugged, grinding the gear stick into reverse and spinning quickly on the gravel.
Lauren grabbed the sides of her seat, alarmed. Trying to soothe Shaun, she offered: ‘At least we’ll get a chance to freshen up.’
Shaun looked over to her and relaxed just a little. Always a positive. They drove slowly past rooms eight, nine and ten, which were fronted by hillbilly trucks and beaten-up station wagons. As they approached numbers eleven and twelve they saw a large metal dumpster out the front, so Shaun eased the car into the free space outside number seven.
He gave Lauren the key and climbed out, debating whether to move the unconscious man or leave him peacefully breathing in the back. He decided that he did not want the guy waking up in his car, so he hoisted him over his shoulder, the man’s arms dangling down Shaun’s back, then closed the back door with his foot and headed for the room.
It was modest, to say the least. A double bed, one small counter with an old rusted metal chair pushed up under it, and a phone. There was a television, but a large hand-written sign gave notice as to its state of disrepair. One thing it did have, though, was a shower.
Shaun carried the ragged man on his shoulders over to the bed and laid him down as gently as he could. They agreed that Lauren take the first shower, but not before she ducked back out to the car and returned with the bundle that had been sitting on the front seat.
‘I really don’t know if we should,’ Shaun said, but he knew it was futile. They had both seen what piqued Lauren’s interest: one of the books, as old as the rest, was written in perfect English. They knew that it was impossible, that either the whole bundle was a fake or … or what? Shaun racked his mind for a logical explanation.
Lauren carefully placed the bundle on the floor and took out the animal-skin-covered book. It was remarkably well preserved – or not as old as it appeared to be. But then Shaun looked at the figure still unconscious on the bed. He was definitely not fake.
Lauren perched on the rusty chair and opened the book to the first page. It was the thickest of the books, and it could have been centuries since it had seen the light of day, but then there was that first line: ‘This diary will be found on the 13th of June 2014AD, more than two thousand years from now.’ That was today. Shaun glanced over at the bed again, the
n moved behind Lauren, leaning over her shoulder to read.
CHAPTER 5
My name is Graeme Fontéyne, and I remember everything. I am writing this book as much for my own sanity as to complete what I have started.
The first thing I will say and the most important is this: the human mind is not designed to live in two places in time. I tell you this so they might know what happened to the others, if they are not found.
The first thing I remembered was pain. Unbelievable pain, as if the weight of the entire universe were trying to crush me from all sides, and there was no reprieve. I woke up naked, freezing and thirsty. I was so very thirsty. It’s hard now to even think about it. It felt like every nerve ending in my body was screaming. In all human existence, there is no pain like it.
Then it was gone.
Then came the thirst. I’m not sure how long I was lying out there before I could move, but it must have been several hours.
No part of me was broken. I had no cuts, no injuries – just thirst. I finally stood up and looked around. It was dark, cold, and I was naked – funny how the facts stated themselves so clearly. The moon was large and full, and lit the grass-covered hills surrounding me. The place was dry, and the grass was arranged sparsely in tufts and tangles against the dust. A breeze tunnelled through the dirt and whipped particles lightly against my bare feet.
I walked. There was nothing else I could do. I walked aimlessly all night, with nothing in my mind but the thirst. After hours of trudging through unwavering terrain, I saw a light. As I moved closer, I heard voices, I heard laughter and I saw three men seated around a fire. I approached them slowly, and their laughter stopped, as one after the other they turned and looked at me. After a pause, they burst into laughter again, and this time, it was at my expense. One of the men said something.
I remained silent.
All at once they roared with a fresh peal of laughter. It was the strangest thing: I knew that the man was not speaking my language, and yet I understood exactly what he said. I will write it here for you in English, but know that that was not the language we were speaking.
