Empty Planet

by Lynette Sloane

  David was amazed at all I was saying. At his request I followed him inside the house and we sat down on some comfortable chairs in his living room.

  “Have you ever considered that the things you find out on your jumps could be of help to someone in your natural time? Maybe this is why you’ve been chosen for this task. I’ll tell you what happened in this house and maybe when you go back the information will help someone do something and all this will never have happened.”

  I agreed and added, “I could go back at any time; I don’t know how long we’ve got.”

  “Right, I’d better start then,” he said. “It was Christmas time. Anna had been into town to get a tree. As Dad dragged it into the house she told him how several people in town had very bad bouts of flu and all the electric was off. Dad and Anna set the tree up in the living room window and covered it with trimmings. They always did that together.”

  David paused, taking a deep breath and sighed. “Suddenly Anna started feeling ill, saying she was aching all over and must have caught the flu. Dad helped her upstairs. She felt so ill she needed his help to get onto her bed. Within a few minutes she became paralysed. We tried to call the Doctor but the phone line was dead. We were frantic by now and tried all our mobile phones, but couldn’t get a signal on any of them. Within the hour my little sister was dead.”

  I gasped. My adventure was beginning to become a nightmare. Nothing would ever be the same again.

  David continued, his voice cracking with emotion. “Dad and I were distraught. We didn’t know what to do. There seemed no point going into town when the virus was widespread, so we decided to wait until the next day and keep trying the phones.

  “That evening Dad started getting the same symptoms as Anna, so lay on his bed. I stayed with him even though he pleaded with me to leave so I didn’t catch whatever it was. He became very still. As he lay there unable to move I started to ache all over and felt very sick, so I climbed on the bed, lay beside him and waited. Soon Dad’s breathing stopped. I tried to reach over to him, but found I couldn’t move. I felt more ill than I’d ever felt before, and as the feelings subsided I slipped into unconsciousness, not expecting to wake up.

  “Sometime later I awoke, realising I was still alive. I fought to open my eyes. The room was dark. I didn’t know how long I’d lain there but slowly managed to get off the bed and carefully made my way down stairs holding onto the handrail. I was very unsteady on my feet. It felt like the worst bout of flu ever.

  “I spent the next few days lying downstairs on the sofa grieving my losses, occasionally dragging myself to the kitchen to get drinks of water and find food. The house was freezing, but I wasn’t well enough to set a fire in the grate and I couldn’t turn the heater on because by now our electric was off too. When I felt a little better I climbed the stairs and peeped into Dad’s room. The bed was as it had been left, but Dad’s body and clothing were gone and there was a large hole in the duvet where he’d been lying. It looked as if something like acid had eaten through it.

  “I felt sick. I ran into Anna’s room. She was gone too, and there was a large Anna-shaped whole in the duvet and sheets. I ran to the bathroom and threw up.

  “A few days later, when I felt a little stronger, I fed the animals and drove into town in the pick-up. There was no one around, only abandoned cars. I checked in a couple of shops and the library but they were empty. I drove to a few nearby towns but it was the same everywhere. Everywhere was deserted. I think everyone had caught that virus, and that it eats away its victim’s body.

  “A week later I drove into Glasgow but saw no moving traffic. I drove along street after street, sometimes having to mount curbs and drive down pedestrian precincts to avoid crashed and abandoned vehicles. I looked in a few shops desperately hoping to find someone … anyone, but the city was completely deserted. I’d seen this sort of thing on old movies and couldn’t believe it was happening to me. In anger and desperation I kicked out at a display of tins knocking them onto a supermarket floor, secretly hoping a security guard would stop me, but no one was around. In frustration, I picked up the nearest cash register and threw it through a window, this time hoping the police, or someone would come running to arrest me, but no one came.

  Several times over the first year I travelled as far as Kilmarnock, Perth and Dundee hoping I would meet another soul who had survived the virus, but it was always the same; I didn’t find anyone. I don’t mind admitting that realising I could be alone on the planet was a terrifying thought, and I wished I had perished too.

  I decided to tend the farm. I took care of the animals and in the springtime planted vegetables in the field near to the house. It was a contingency plan enabling me to feed myself if society didn’t eventually return to normal and I couldn’t get food from the supermarket. I always hoped there were pockets of civilisation that would eventually contact me … but no one ever did.

  “Over the next few weeks I took Dad’s lorry and trailer to nearby farms and gradually collected farm animals bringing them back here. I ‘expanded’ the farm using some of the fields from the neighbouring farms to keep my animals in. Over the first few years wild dogs appeared, bred from pets abandoned by their owners. These feral dogs became a great nuisance, killing the sheep and stealing the hens and chickens. As time passed they got braver and I sighted a few of them near the house. That’s when I decided to build that fence around the farmland perimeter. It was a huge undertaking and took me over a year to complete, but it was worth it. I collected materials from builder’s merchants, and used diesel from abandoned vehicles to run the lorry to transport the materials to the farm and over the fields. My livestock and I are now safe from wild animals. I check the fence regularly, except for in really bad weather. I’ve made it my life’s work to tend the animals and grow enough crops to feed them and myself. This little farm has supported me for thirty years, but it worries me that one day I will be too old and weak to tend it. I don’t know what will happen to the animals then. I think I may just let them go.”

  I was shocked to hear David’s story, especially the part about Anna’s death. That really upset me, as it did him.

  “How old was Anna?” I asked, not wanting to cause more upset but really needing to know. This would tell me how long humanity had left before the disaster struck.

  “She was only twenty two,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes again. “I wonder if anyone else survived the virus.”

  “I hope so.”

  Anna was sixteen in natural time: this gave humanity six years.

  I stayed in this timeframe for two days and helped David on the farm. This was my longest temporal jump so far. We spent the best part of a day checking the perimeter fence was intact, and that no dogs or other animals had burrowed under it in search of an easy kill—and for a short while David had the company he’d missed for so long.

  The following day promised to be hot and dry, so we strolled outside and sat on the front wall. David passed me a bottle of water. I took a sip; it was lovely and cold. For years he had collected the days spring water every morning, but had recently piped it into a tank near the house, so now had the advantage of fresh running spring water in the kitchen and downstairs bathroom. The original tap water had stopped flowing only a few days after the virus struck.

  At that moment I felt the first sign of a temporal migraine.

  “I’m going back.” I said, rubbing the back of my neck. My vision started to blur and I heard David shout, “Come again, next time you jump, I …” His voice trailed off and I found myself back in natural time facing a much younger David.

  “You all right mate?” he asked,

  “Sorry, I feel a little dizzy and have a migraine coming on,” I told him.

  I realised I was still holding the bottle of water his older self had passed me in the future time frame. “I need this to take my tablets,” I explained, taking a couple of migraine tablets out of my pocket and swallowing them with the water. I shut my eyes for a m
oment, glad that Dad had given me the tablets before we left for Scotland. He’d said these were the very latest migraine tablets. They had been tested, but weren’t yet available in the shops.

  I didn’t really know what Dad did for a living, I only knew that it was very secret and involved some sort of scientific research.

  “You ok Steve?” I opened my eyes. Anna was standing in front of me wearing a white lacy top, a short, gathered cream skirt and matching high heal sandals.

  “Yes, my tablets will work in a couple of minutes.”

  “Come and sit inside,” she said, taking my hand and leading me into the hallway, through a doorway on the left and into a comfortable living room. I sat down on a sofa in the bay window. Seeing Anna and knowing that she and the rest of mankind would be dead in just six years gave me a very strange feeling. She stroked my left temple with her fingertips and kissed my cheek. I could get used to his I thought, but I mustn’t. I mustn’t fall in love with her.

  The tablets were kicking in and my migraine was starting to subside. “You must have the magic touch. I feel a little better,” I said to her.

  She smiled, leaned forward and whispered, “It’s a gift.”

  The living room was quite large and extended to the back of the house. I was sitting on one of two sofas set facing each other. A large, oak coffee table had been placed in between them, with a vase of yellow carnations in the centre. The curtains on the bay windows were full length and tied back at the sides. Everything about the room said quality, from the silver candlesticks on the white, marble mantelshelf to the flock wallpaper and polished grand piano at the far end of the room, behind which was a large window allowing a view over the back fields.

  “Who plays the piano?” I asked.

  “It’s was Mum’s,” said David entering the room, “Dad said she was brilliant, but Anna’s quite good too.”

  No one had mentioned Anna’s mother before, and I didn’t feel it would be right to ask about her now, so turning to Anna I asked, “Can you play something for me? My head feels a lot better now.”

  “Ok, do you have a favourite piece?” I shook my head. Anna took her place at the piano and said, “This is Clair de Lune by Debussy. It’s my favourite.” She played the whole piece note perfect.

  “I said she was good didn’t I,” grinned David.

  Just then a deep voice called through from the kitchen, “Dinner’s ready, take your places.”

  “Come on,” said Anna, once more taking my hand and leading me into the dining room. Slightly smaller than the living room, the dining room had another bay window with full-length lemon curtains. A large, polished, dark wood dining table stood near the centre of the room with silver cutlery set out for four people, and unlit candles in silver candlesticks placed in the centre of the table. Anna’s father was an excellent cook and presented us with beef, scalloped potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, vegetables and rich gravy in a gravy boat. This was followed by lemon meringue pie.

  “The beef was home-grown here on the farm, but I’m afraid the meringue came out of a box from the supermarket,” he said with a smile.

  __________

  That night I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, my mind fully active and plagued with thoughts of Anna. I’d only known her for a month, but in that time she’d become very special to me. She was the woman I wanted to spend my life with, and I was distraught, knowing that this was impossible. I wanted things to be different; I wanted Anna and I to have a future together. I imagined us living with our children somewhere on the banks of the River Clyde, but each time I nearly dropped off to sleep I’d picture the older version of David telling me how she had died of a virus.

  Next my thoughts drifted to Mum, Dad and Charlie. They too would probably perish within six years, and what would happen to me and the other Jumpers? Would we die too, or would we jump into the future and live without the rest of humanity? Maybe the older version of David whom I’d met on my jump was right; maybe something I told someone in the natural time frame could help avert this disaster. This posed another question. Who should I tell?

  __________

  As soon as I arrived home I logged onto Carla’s website, quickly sending her a message telling her what I’d found out. She must have been monitoring the new updates from the other Jumpers because she answered my message within minutes, opening a live chat window. She was clearly shocked to hear about the virus, and how imminent all this was, but was intrigued to hear of a survivor.

  “Don’t tell any other Jumpers about this yet,” she warned me. “It would spread panic and someone might go to the authorities. That would do no one any good. I have to decide what I should do with this new information. I’ll get back to you.”

  Carla texted me within the hour, asking me to go back on line and speak to her via chat window on her secure site.

  She told me she’d met a tall, slim built man in Leeds during the last temporal jump. He was in his early twenties, said his name was John and he worked in medical research. They spent quite a lot of time together during the two-day jump, and he seemed very interested in our correlation list. Carla invited him to use her website and to become a member of the leadership team she was putting together. There were going to be twelve members, each from different parts of the country, who would try to meet every Jumper in their area and build up a fuller picture of our mysterious temporal jumps.

  “I’m going to pass this information to the other members of the leadership team,” she told me. “Remember, I don’t want the other Jumpers finding out yet. You seem to be a key person in all this so I’d like you to join the team.” Given my age, I was surprised at this invitation but eagerly agreed. “Incidentally Steve, you remember the photos you sent me from your mobile?”

  “Yea.”

  “I viewed them but they degraded within minutes.”

  “Mine did too. I sent them to you as soon as I got home. When I checked them later I found they were all blank … the ones on my phone, my computer, and the ones I’d printed out.

  “I mentioned this to John via the website. He has a theory he calls temporal adjustment. He thinks the jumps only take us to a possible future and when we get home we, and other people, do things that change that future just by ordinary living. When the future changes the photos are no longer accurate so the images disappear.”

  I was intrigued, “So if I brought a puppy back from a jump, and then in natural time someone ran over its great, great, great, grandmother before she’d had any puppies, my puppy would never have existed.”

  “Yes, I suppose that would be so,” she replied.

  “Then even killing a fly could change something.”

  “Do give me an example,” said Carla, messing with me a little.

  “Well”, I said, frantically trying to think of something. I didn’t want Carla to think of me as a silly kid. “In my scenario I kill a fly, thereby taking away a spider’s meal. The spider gets hungry and crawls out into the kitchen causing a woman to jump and drop her mixing bowl. It smashes, and so she has to go out in the car to buy another bowl. On the way to the supermarket she runs a man over who dies before he has had the children he would otherwise have lived to father. One of those children would have been Prime Minister, but he is never born. The person who becomes Prime Minister in their ‘place’ is ruthless and causes a world war and millions of people are killed.”

  Carla laughed, “That sounds very far fetched but I get your point. I’d better not swat any flies today. Seriously though, for the time being you mustn’t tell anyone where that survivor lives, not even me.”

  I agreed. Young David had to be protected. If someone was to find out his identity they could stop him from telling me about the virus that would one day wipe out the human race, although I couldn’t think of a reason why anyone would want to do that.

  Chapter 8

  As a child, I considered my secret temporal excursions a curse. I hated them and was justifiably terrified of their reoccurrence, but as
I grew up and matured they became a very welcome diversion from normality. I had always felt I was different to other people, but meeting lots of other Jumpers online, and quite a few in natural time, showed me I wasn’t alone or a freak. We were all members of an exclusive alliance.

  At eighteen I left home to study at Bristol University Law School. I experienced a few jumps while I was there, but nothing extraordinary.

  A couple of these jumps lasted almost an hour, while several others occurred during the night while I was sleeping, each only lasting a few minutes at the most. I only found out about these when I visited Carla’s website.

  However, one night I was sleeping peacefully in my digs when I jumped forward several years. The floor of my room had become rotten, and so, no longer able to support the weight of the furniture and myself, the floorboards gave way. My bed and I fell through the hole. Quickly awaking, I yelled out in shock and fear as I landed on top of the bed in the studio flat below, still cocooned in my duvet and pinned to the remains of my mattress. The landing caused me to push down hard on both mattresses, and the corresponding force propelled me off the edge of the bed and out of my bedding. Fortunately I landed on a pile of damp, rotten dresses, jeans and Tshirts. I lay there in shock for few moments looking at the rubble scattered all around the floor.

  I was glad the flat owner was untidy or I could have really hurt myself. It’s a good thing this is the ground floor, I thought. I dreaded to think what might have happened to me if I had lived on the fifth floor and had crashed all the way down.

  It was early morning and I could hear the dawn chorus. I hoped the student living in this flat wasn’t a Jumper or I could have crushed her in my fall. The room smelt very damp and pieces of rotten floorboards, plaster, and thick, black spider webs hung down from what was left of the ceiling. On my right, covered in bird droppings and lichen, were the rotten remains of a wooden dressing table and wardrobe. I gazed up at the clear blue sky now visible through the large hole directly above me and watched a small bird fly in through it and land on a nest high up on a ledge.