by Fred Alvrez
“I do, but I’ll explain later. I really want to get out of Auckland and away from those soldiers right now.”
Wiremu looked at the dashboard. “We’re low on gas. We should stop at the next gas station and get some.”
“Good idea. Kev, hopefully you can talk forever now, after going through that big-ass portal twice?”
“I hope so, Nate. I really do. And I’m sorry you couldn’t go home.”
Nathan rubbed Kevin’s head. “Me, too, buddy, but no point worrying about it. We’re here, and we’ll make the best of it.”
A JET gas station appeared on the left in the early morning light, and Wiremu pulled into it.
“Nathan? Can I use your credit card to fill up?”
Nathan got his Visa out and handed it over. “Don’t go buying any lollies and soft drinks, though,” he said, smiling.
Wiremu beamed. “I hadn’t thought of that! I am pretty hungry.” He got out and started to fill up the ambulance.
Nathan looked to the back of the ambulance to see Casey strapping up Amy’s ankle.
“Nate?”
“Yes, Kev?”
“There’s a car coming.”
Nathan listened. He could hear the faint whine of an engine.
“What do we do?” Amy called out from the back.
“Nothing,” Nathan said. “Sit tight and make sure the lights are all out in there.”
Nathan could see Wiremu hiding against the wall of the gas station, waiting for the car. He pressed the holster under his jacket to check it was still there. It might be needed if the soldiers stopped.
He slid down in his seat, but stuck his head up enough to see a Mini go past, almost riding on the ground with four soldiers inside, with what looked like a union jack painted all over the car.
The car went past, and Wiremu returned to fueling up the ambulance. That done, he got back in and sat there.
Casey poked her head through from the back.
“What’s up, Wiremu?”
“Those soldiers that went past. That’s it. We’re here for good. Once that portal’s shut down, it’s all over. Not that any of us can go through it anyway, but you know. It’s final now. The four of us—”
Kevin put his paw up. “Five.”
“Sorry, Kevin, the five of us are here for the long haul.”
Wiremu started the engine. After ten seconds, he turned it off again.
“What’s up now?” Amy asked.
“Where the hell are we going? I have no idea.”
A voice called from the back. “Ahipara, in the Far North. To my dad’s place.”
“Why there, Casey?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know really, but it’s a gut feeling I’ve had since day one.”
Wiremu put the ambulance into gear. “If there’s no other suggestions, the Far North it is. I’ve always loved the weather up there anyway. Nathan, do you surf?”
“Nope, but I’ve always wanted to try.”
Wiremu nodded. “I’ll teach you, mate, no worries.”
“Deal. And I’ll teach you about men’s fashion. You really need to get out of those disco clothes. We might also need to talk about your personal hygiene. Just saying.”
Wiremu grinned as he drove out of the gas station and headed to the motorway.
The Far North, and a new life called them all.
While there was no actual rush, Wiremu and Nathan took turns at driving. It was an unspoken feeling that they needed to get away from Auckland and the other soldiers.
Nathan could hear Casey snoring in the back of the ambulance after she had crashed out on one of the stretchers. He looked over at Wiremu, who was taking his turn to drive. “What are your thoughts on what it’s going to be like? We’re stuck here, probably until we die.”
“I’m trying not to think about it, Nathan.”
“Nate.”
“Nate. Yeah, I guess if we’re all together in this, we can keep it casual. Part of me is sort of excited. We’re leaving behind all the crap in the world. The starvation, the crime, the greed. But then the other part of me wonders what happens if one of us gets sick. We’ve got no doctors, no hospital, no surgeon, no pharmacists to find the right pills. It’s scary, mate.”
Nathan sat there absorbing this. He had had the same thoughts—worse ones—and was glad it wasn’t only him who was afraid. Even this big scary soldier was worried.
Nathan opened his eyes. Light had arrived outside as Wiremu drove on.
“Must have fallen asleep,” Nathan said.
“Yep, you did, mate. All good. I got this.”
The ambulance came around a tight right-hand bend and Wiremu braked hard.
“Shit,” he said.
“What’s up?” Amy asked from the back.
“Road’s blocked. We’ll go take a look.”
Nathan, Wiremu, and Kevin got out of the ambulance, each of them stretching their legs on the way to see how to get past the crashed trucks.
“This looks like a doozy,” Wiremu said.
“Doozy? What are you, eighty?” Nathan asked.
Wiremu laughed, and Nathan and Kevin joined him in the moment.
The boys walked around the front of the first truck, right where it had crashed into another truck.
“Wiremu, this doesn’t look good. We’ll have to double back, surely?”
“Yeah, I guess…but this is weird.”
Kevin looked up at him. “What’s weird?”
“Look at this second truck. The way it’s crashed looks like it happened well after the first one.”
“Don’t move or I will shoot you!”
A man stood on a bank, his rifle aimed at the three of them.
They stood still.
Nathan squinted into the sunlight. In the haze of the morning sun, he saw the figure up high on the grassy bank.
“Put your hands in the air.”
Nathan and Wiremu put their hands up.
“Get anyone else out of that ambulance, right now!”
The back door of the ambulance opened, and Casey and Amy stepped out, their arms up.
“Walk toward the others and stand still.”
Amy and Casey walked over to the boys and stood with them, Amy hobbling with Casey’s help.
Casey squinted up at the man.
“Flynn? Is that you?” Casey asked.
“That’s Flynn?” Nathan said.
“Who’s Flynn?” Wiremu asked.
“Shut up, all of you, or I start shooting.”
Flynn carefully stepped down off the bank, the entire time keeping his rifle aimed at them. He stopped twenty feet away, far enough to be able to move his rifle and shoot quickly.
“So, Casey, we meet again, huh? Bet you didn’t think you’d see me again. Is it good to see me?”
“No, Flynn, it isn’t. I was hoping you might be dead by now.”
“Nope. In fact, my little fall as you left my house didn’t do much. I woke up later and was full of energy. I remembered you said you were driving to the Far North, so I took off and headed this way as fast as I could. It was easy to find a small part of the road where I could block it off. And then pick you off, if I needed to.”
Casey spoke between gritted teeth. “Well, you have us now.”
“Yes, I do, and if I’m not mistaken these are the two jerks who made me run down State Highway 1, that asshole and his dog. You two”—he pointed with his rifle to Wiremu and Amy—“I don’t know. What’s up with the disco suit, Rumpelstiltskin?”
“It shows off my fine ass, fuckwit.”
Flynn pointed his rifle more directly at Wiremu. “Whoa, whoa, whoa. I wouldn’t be calling the guy with the rifle a fuckwit, brown boy. Not when there’re no cops around anymore. It’s just us. And what to do? Kill you all now, or kill you two guys and take the girls with me. We could have some real fun times. The dog, that’s a no-brainer—he has to die.”
On his last word, Flynn aimed low and shot Kevin.
Kevin fell to the g
round, his blood quickly seeping out onto the road.
“No!” Nathan and Casey shouted, both moving to help Kevin. Casey ran over first between Nathan and Flynn.
“Stop! You don’t move unless I tell you to.”
Casey and Nathan stopped and looked at each other.
“Okay, brown boy, on your knees.”
“Sorry?” Wiremu asked.
“On your fucking knees or I shoot said knees. Do you understand?”
Wiremu went down on his knees, cursing under his breath.
“Nate. MLK,” Casey said.
“What?”
Flynn waved the rifle barrel at Casey and Nathan. “You two, stop talking. Brown boy, say your goodbyes.”
“Nate, MLK.”
“Stop talking, I said!”
Flynn pulled the rifle up to his shoulder, taking aim at Wiremu.
“Now, Nate!”
Casey dropped to her knees, clearing a line of sight to Flynn, as Nathan opened his jacket and grabbed his pistol, flicking the safety off.
In a smooth and efficient action, he pulled the pistol up, aimed, breathed out, and pulled the trigger.
A shot rang out, and Flynn fell to the ground.
Casey and Nathan ran to Kevin as Wiremu went over to Flynn and picked up his rifle. Blood was rushing out of his abdomen. It looked like Nathan had landed a perfect shot. He could see Flynn was still alive and bent down to him.
In between labored breaths, Flynn said only one word. “Fuck.”
His eyes shut and he stopped breathing.
“Kevin!” Casey said. “Kevin!”
Nathan held his paw. “Buddy, come on, open those doggy eyes.”
Kevin didn’t move.
Amy hobbled over to them.
“He’s still breathing but it’s shallow. I don’t think he’s going to make it. He’s lost a lot of blood. Sorry, Casey. Sorry, Nate.”
“No,” Nathan said. “He’s my best friend.”
The four of them sat with Kevin as his breathing got more strained.
“Wiremu!” Casey said. “Go to the ambulance and get a photo—anything. Just something with a photo. Do it now!”
“But why, Casey? What good will it do?”
“Just fucking do it!”
Wiremu got up and ran to the ambulance.
Nathan took one of Casey’s hands. “You can’t do this. Remember what happened last time—you nearly didn’t come back. And you don’t even know if it will work on Kevin. It’s only worked on you.”
“I know all that, Nate, but I’ve got to try. It’s Kevin.”
“But I’m not sure I can lose you as well. This could be the last I see of both of you.”
“What else can we do? I can’t let him die.”
Nathan squeezed her hand. “What if you can’t come back?”
“I have to try. We can’t sit here when we have a chance of saving him.”
“But your power might not even work anymore.”
“I know, but it might work. He’s my friend, too.”
Wiremu returned with a travel brochure for a beach resort in Bali.
Casey took it from him. “That’s perfect, Wiremu. Thanks. Sorry I yelled at you. Nate, it’s your call. I won’t go if you don’t want me to.”
Nathan held Kevin’s head with one hand and Casey’s hand with his other. He could see both the fear and sadness in her eyes.
If she left, she might never come back. If she stayed, Kevin would die and they would both live their lives never knowing if they could have saved him or not.
“You have to go. I love you.”
Casey leaned over and kissed him. “I know.”
She took her hand away from his and sat on the road as Nathan lifted Kevin onto her lap.
“There’s no time to waste,” she said.
She took the brochure from Wiremu and touched a beach photo with her palm.
In front of their eyes, Casey and Kevin disappeared.
Wiremu stepped back, his eyes wide open. “Okay, Nate, you’re gonna have to explain what the fuck just happened and where they went.”
“It’s a long story, but we have time. Hours. When Casey put her head in a portal, she found she could touch a photo and be transported to the time and place of that photo. She also found that the cut she got the last time healed when she was in this other place. That place she went was to Memphis in 1968.”
Wiremu’s mouth dropped open. “No way!”
“Yup. She witnessed the whole Martin Luther King Junior assassination, which is why she called out MLK to me. She told me that she always wondered why James Earl Ray didn’t shoot earlier, until she was there at the time and saw his line of sight was blocked by other people.”
Amy touched his shoulder. “Then what was all the drama about, Nate? Why didn’t you want to let her go?”
Nathan sighed heavily. “Because the last time she did it, she nearly didn’t come back. It took her hours to get back and she didn’t even know what worked to be able to get back. So I’m not sure she’ll ever return now. She doesn’t even know if Kevin will be healed. We may never see either of them again.”
The trio sat in silence for a few minutes.
Wiremu got up. “I can’t sit here and wait, it’s too much. I’m going to go past the trucks while we’re waiting and see if I can find some wheels. There’s no way we’ll drive past this crash.”
He walked off toward the crashed trucks.
Nathan stayed sitting on the road. He wasn’t moving until she got back.
Casey sat on the beach, legs out in front of her, with Kevin in her lap. She could see the waves lapping at the shoreline and heard them as well, the rhythmic sound helping calm her. Sunlight sparkled on the water as the small waves lightly crashed onto the shore.
There were no people anywhere, but she didn’t care. This was perfect.
If Kevin died in her lap, so be it. He’d be in a nice place.
She looked down to see his chest still slowly rising and falling.
In the distance, the sun looked like it had a few hours to go before sunset. It would be hours before she would even know if he was getting better or not.
Many hours.
Not to mention knowing if she’d ever return to New Zealand and Nate.
Nathan waited.
Wiremu had returned, and Amy sat at his side, the three of them facing the spot where Casey and Kevin had left from.
“Will she come back to the same spot?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“How long does it take?”
“Hours, I think. But that was for a cut on her arm, not someone dying. Wiremu, can you move that piece of shit Flynn somewhere else? I don’t want him drawing flies around us.”
“You got it.” Wiremu rose and walked to Flynn’s body.
Minutes passed as Amy and Nathan sat in silence, both simply staring at the same spot.
Amy gave him the side-eye. “So. You love her.”
“Yup. Totally.”
She smiled. “Excellent.”
“Amy, Casey never said how you knew her. You were in Australia? What happened there? How did you get back?”
“We were best friends in high school, but I left for Melbourne with my parents in my last year. We’ve always been close and kept in touch. I met Wiremu at a JET—Casey told me to go to one. He’d been there three freaking years, waiting for a portal to appear. One did, and we walked through it. We ended up in Kaitaia and drove down in that ambulance.”
“Check out my new threads, guys!” Wiremu said.
The pair turned around to see that he had found an ambulance uniform and had dumped the disco suit.
“Looking hot, bro!” Amy said. “So hot.”
Wiremu grinned. “Hey, steady on there, Amy. We have company.”
“Are you still going commando?”
“Yup of course, mate. Free and easy.”
“TMI, guys!” Nathan said, smiling. “Too early in the morning to hear th
at.”
Wiremu returned to the road, sat, and passed Nathan a bottle of water from the ambulance.
“Drink up, Nate,” he said with a serious tone. “Could be a while.”
After nearly two hours, Casey’s hand was aching. She didn’t want move it, or any other part of her body. She feared any movement might see her returning to New Zealand too quickly, or without Kevin.
Then her bladder started complaining.
Why didn’t I go before I did this?”
Casey’s mind went back to Nate.
He said he loved me.
And she had kissed him.
That was unexpected.
Casey smiled. As she was kissing him, she saw his future—holding a baby. Her baby. Their baby.
They actually had a future in this world.
But she didn’t see Kevin in his future.
She continued to sit, Kevin on her lap.
He hadn’t seemed to have changed at all.
“I think I know why this has happened,” Nathan said.
“You mean how you lot got here without having your DNA matched?” Wiremu asked.
“No, I mean Kevin being shot and all that. It’s because we left Han Solo behind.”
Amy and Wiremu shot glances at each other behind Nathan’s back. Both shrugged.
Nathan sighed. “We left him in Casey’s SUV. He was on the dashboard and got us this far. He got us past the soldiers at the lake, and we left him behind. This is my fault.”
“Nate,” Wiremu said. “That’s bullshit. Yeah, we don’t know how you lot got here, but having some toy doesn’t make a difference. You know that.”
Nathan put his water bottle down on the road. “Maybe. But it doesn’t make it any easier. I wish we were all back in our normal world, living our boring lives. Well, me anyway. Mine was boring. But it didn’t hurt as much.”
“You’re not the only one,” Amy said. “I’ll never see my folks again. Or my friends.”
Wiremu put his hand up. “Harder for me even. I’m able to go back but can’t. I’d kill to see my folks again, too.”
Nathan laughed. “Look at us. We’re like that Monty Python skit where all the old guys try to outdo each other with how hard their lives were. I’d kill just to get Casey and Kevin back.”
