“I’m sorry, Daddy D,” came out in a soft voice, his mouth pointed toward his chest.
Delbert Sanderson pulled off his black, horn-rimmed glasses. “Don’t be.” He waved. “Come on, son. Let me show you what I’m doing.”
Dave took a deep breath and went down the rest of the steps. No one was supposed to interrupt Delbert Sanderson when he worked in the basement. His project was secret, so secret not Momma C, Susan nor Tommy knew what he did there at night, except drink a lot. But Delbert hadn’t had too much to drink tonight, at least not yet. The smile on his face was kind.
“I guess you want to know what I do down here.” Delbert laughed and stood from a barstool in front of his work bench. He grabbed a glass half-filled with an amber liquid and walked toward a pile of machinery and wires in the middle of the basement that looked like the robot from Lost in Space inside out.
Little Dave shuffled toward him. “Is it some kind of experiment?”
Delbert lifted the glass to his mouth and took a long drink before bringing it back down and setting it on a stack of crates. “I’m a physicist. That means I deal with gravity and how it reacts to other things.” His smile faded for a moment, only a moment, before it returned. “I also try to find out what gravity can do. Things we don’t know yet.”
Dave stared into Daddy D’s tired eyes. “Like time travel?”
It took a few seconds for the words to catch in Delbert’s mind, but when they did, he reached out and mussed Dave’s hair. “Exactly. You read that book I gave you, right?”
Dave nodded. “Yes, sir. But is that stuff real? Really real?”
Delbert didn’t hear Dave’s words; his eyes were fixed on the vertical ring he’d built in the middle of the basement floor. Wires hung from it like jungle vines. “I’ve wanted to travel in time all my life, kiddo,” he said, voice near yet as far away as his eyes. “Ever since I read the book I gave you.”
The book was H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine. Dave winced at the weight of Delbert’s hand coming down on his shoulder.
“The answer’s out there,” Delbert said, pointing to a pin board filled with papers, mathematical equations scribbled across them. His voice was starting to scare Dave. “I can reach out and grab it. I know how. I’m going to go back in time and rid the world of the likes of Ray, Hitler, Judas, Oswald, Sirhan. There’s so much evil out there.” His wide eyes bore into Dave’s as the pain from his grip bit into Dave’s arms. “Then I need to travel forward and bring home cures for diabetes, cancer, all addictions.”
Dave didn’t remember whatever else Delbert might have said. He had fled upstairs as soon as his foster father let go of him. Now, his hand went to the light switch at the bottom of the stairs and hesitated before flipping it up and flooding the basement in a yellow glow. The machine was there; the big ring still sat in the middle of the floor, more complete than Dave remembered. Tight loops of insulated wire wrapped tightly around its metal body. A control panel next to the workbench looked operational, but the lights and gauges were dead, the machine empty of power.
“Whoa,” Brick whispered from behind him. “What’s this? Coffee maker?”
Dave stepped onto the floor, the concrete cold under his sock feet. “Delbert Sanderson was trying to build a time machine.”
“This makes better sense,” Skid said, stepping next to him. “This is all his fault.”
No. Not even close. Dave stepped to the pin board, still covered in Delbert’s equations. “His math was wrong. All this machine would have done is waste electricity.”
“Then what—?”
Dave cut her off. “Delbert Sanderson was a civilian in charge of a top-secret military project; this was his way of working on it after hours.” He brushed his hand over the pinned-in equations. “By the time he went crazy and—” Dave paused and swallowed. “You know the rest. Before that, he’d already hired my boss, Karl. Delbert was nowhere close to doing what Karl and our team did. This is Karl’s fault.”
“What do we do?” Cord asked from his seat on the fourth step.
They all looked at Dave.
“We have to stop this. Karl’s experiment could rip apart the foundation of every conceivable universe and—” He stopped, mulling over his next words.
“And what?” Skid asked. “Come on.”
“If we ever want a chance at things going back to normal,” he said, “we have to destroy Delbert’s work, Karl’s work, and everything I’ve done in my whole career.”
3
Skid followed Cord as he made his pre-ghost tour rounds. Hidden stereo system, on. Upstairs murder closet refrigeration unit, on. Pulling a nail from the wall so a family picture of the smiling Sanderson family on a beach vacation hung precariously enough vibrations from foot traffic would drop it to the floor, done. They walked in silence. It was like they hadn’t just heard a potentially-mad scientist talk about black holes and dimensional shifts.
Skid sighed. She knew this game. She thought about Constantinople Phargus, the operator of the Polar Ring Toss on The Roe Bros. Traveling Circus midway. “What are you doing?” she’d asked when he dropped a set of metal rings into a blue Coleman cooler decorated with icebergs and shaky lettering that read sub-zero. She was ten years old and had long suspected Constantinople Phargus was really Gary Schmidt because that was the name on his checks. She also suspected Gary Schmidt was hiding from something, but she couldn’t think of what. She was just a kid.
“Metal expands in the cold,” he told her.
Her thoughts ground against each other. “If it’s supposed to be hard for the people to toss the rings onto the jugs, why are you making it easier for them?”
Constantinople smiled. Skid liked to see him smile. His beard was gray, his fingers and mustache yellowed from cigarettes, and when he smiled his wrinkles made him look like a pug dog. His voice was deep like Darth Vader’s, but way friendlier. “You got your dad’s smarts, that’s for sure.”
She’d heard that more than once. “That still doesn’t tell me why.”
Constantinople looked down the midway, but no one was near. It was still too early in the day for the teenagers to be milling around thinking their parents didn’t know what they were doing, and most of the young families had already worked their way inside the big tent for the first show. He lifted the cooler lid and pulled out a cold ring. “You see this?”
Skid nodded, pigtails flopping everywhere.
Constantinople leaned forward in his metal folding chair and picked a ring from the ground. He held it against the cold one. “See the difference?”
She didn’t. “No, but Daddy said—”
The smile came back, the lines forming a topographical map on his face. “And your daddy’s right. Cold makes metal get bigger, but here the difference is so small it don’t matter.” He tapped his forehead. “It’s what people think that matters.” Constantinople waved his hand over the five-foot square table of wide-mouth jugs. “The warm rings barely fit over the rim,” he said, pausing to turn his head back down the row of games that made up the midway. A twenty-something father and his wife stood four booths down at the card game, their baby son in a stroller. The father tossed a dart toward the cards tacked to the back wall and moaned when he missed the Queen. They always missed the Queen.
Constantinople lowered his voice. “The people know the rings are too small. They also know cold makes metal grow. What they don’t know is how much.”
Skid’s eyes grew wide. “Are you cheating people?”
Constantinople laughed, the sound as low and comforting as a wise Disney character. “No, honey. This game is just giving them what they expect. They know the cold don’t make a damn bit of difference, but it gives them hope. Life is about believing in something, and if you give the people something to believe in, they’ll keep on hoping.”
He tossed one of the rings toward the table of jugs. It bounced off a jug on the first row and ca
me to rest on a thick jug neck on the third. “Hey. Would you look at that. Everybody gets lucky once in a while.”
Skid followed Cord into the master bedroom, where he turned off lights that were on a dimmer switch. The 1980s decor went nearly black as the dimmer clicked. A small sliver of sunlight sliced from between the thick maroon drapes and seemed to cut the bed in half.
“You’re a thief.” Skid stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame.
Cord stood his ground by the light switch and Spocked an eyebrow. “Interesting accusation,” he said. “How do you figure?”
“The stereo, the cold closet, the falling picture and whatever else I didn’t see—”
“There’s a step I keep loose on the way to the basement. It creaks something fierce.”
She nodded. “Impressive grift. You’ve designed the game so you always win.”
“No,” Cord said shaking his head. “Not at all. I’ve designed the game so everybody wins. My customers get what they want, and I get what I want. It’s not just a win, it’s a win-win.”
She stood straight and crossed her arms. “Then you’re a conman.”
“That’s the nicest thing you’ve said to me so far,” Cord said, stepping a foot closer. Only a foot. He was still out of her reach. “I can live with that. I’m giving the customer what they want to believe. I’m giving them entertainment. What’s the difference between this and a movie?”
“The people paying for the movie know it’s a movie.” Skid’s eyes moved to the ceiling before dropping back down to Cord. She was with him alone. Brick had gone to check on Manic Muffins, and Dave had crawled onto a couch. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait for Brick to get back.”
Cord’s car salesman smile grew effortlessly on his face. He moved a thumb to point at the bed. “You know, he’ll probably be gone at least an hour and the science guy is asleep downstairs.”
“It’s been a while,” she said. “But I have ex-boyfriend issues. I’d hate to kill you out of spite.” Skid grinned and patted his cheek before she turned and walked from the room.
A breath slowly escaped Cord’s lungs as he watched her leave. “Hey, can I at least have my phone back?”
4
The keys were in the ignition. Of course, because this was farm country. No one would steal Farmer Jim’s pickup, and if they happened by his field and drove off in it, they must need the vehicle and would bring it back when they were finished. The windows were rolled down, too, because in the country, who needs a working air conditioner?
David winced as he pulled his injured leg into position under the dash, thanking God or whomever was responsible for the rarity of standard transmissions in today’s world; he didn’t have enough working legs for a clutch. The farmer’s T-shirt he’d wrapped around the wound had stopped the bleeding somewhat, the constant throb from the pressure better than bleeding out. The whisky didn’t do anything for the pain, but he took another swig before starting the engine just to be sure.
Nope. His leg still hurt. He pulled the door shut, dust kicking up at the motion.
“Moo.”
A cow, about 1,200 pounds of between-two-slices-of-bread goodness, stood near the open driver’s side window and regarded David with soft brown eyes. He turned the key and started the engine. Bossie would just have to move.
“Moo.”
The cow took a clumsy step closer, her face now less than two feet from David’s.
“Sorry, Bossie,” he said. “I—”
The great, lowing beast opened its slobbery mouth and a foot-long belt-like black tongue shot toward David’s face, the forked ends crawled over each other as they fought to get close enough to touch him.
The fall, the knife, the truck he was stealing all shot from his brain. He’d traveled too far. He was no longer on his Earth.
A scream caught in David’s throat as he lurched to the right and threw the transmission into drive. He didn’t look back.
5
Brick never intended to return to the murder house. He was with Skid when they went to question Cord. He was with Skid when they questioned the guy who wasn’t the guy he’d seen in the bar; but Manic Muffins had been closed for hours and it was almost time for the after-work crowd. At least he’d get to talk to Tanner about Dungeon and Dragons; the boy’s mother, Serenity, usually stopped by for an afternoon coffee. Skid could take care of herself.
Walking up Gerry Avenue toward Binnall Whatever felt good. The sun shone, the day was not too hot, the cars that drove past looked normal, and there were no velociraptors hiding in the tall grass. Each step left behind the nightmare of vanishing people and brought him closer to a slightly less frightening nightmare of ceilings that changed from copper to tin and back again.
He turned onto Binnall. Back to Boulevard now. Nice. Maybe this thing fixed itself. Tanner and Serenity already stood in front of his store. There was something wrong with Manic Muffins, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Serenity’s; they blazed with anger. He shoved a fist into his right front pocket and pulled out his keys. Tanner saw him and waved.
“Brick,” he shouted, swinging an arm over his head. “Hey, Brick.” His mother looked at Brick coming toward them and dropped a hand on Tanner’s shoulder, drawing him closer to her.
“Hey, Tanner,” Brick said, walking toward them. “Sorry I’m late. I—”
“What is going on here?” Serenity’s voice was cold, harsh. “And how do you know my son?”
This stopped Brick like he’d walked into a wall.
“I’m sorry?” he said, looking at the two closely. The boy was definitely Tanner and the woman his mother. “You come into my shop all the time. You came in this morning.”
“This muffin shop Tanner keeps talking about? This muffin shop that doesn’t exist?” There was no confusion in her face.
“I had a chocolate muffin Brick,” Tanner said, his face pinched in uncertainty. “Tell her. Tell her I had a chocolate muffin.”
What the hell is going on?
“Here,” he said, holding up the key. A vehicle pulled to a slow stop on the street behind them, but Brick’s eyes never left Serenity. She was serious.
“Stop it,” she said, anger now in her voice. “We came down here because Tanner wouldn’t stop talking about you and muffins and that stupid dragons game all morning.” She took a step backward, pulling Tanner with her. “I had to show him there was no muffin shop.”
No shop? “I’m sorry, but I’ve owned Manic Muffins for the past five years.” He jiggled the keys. “Let me show you.”
Brick turned toward his store front. Amy’s bright hand-painted Muffin Monday All Week Long! was gone. The awning, the tables and chairs on the sidewalk, gone. The words Tammy’s Tanning Oasis peeked through the thick dust on the window, and a Closed sign hung in the door. His knees threatened to buckle.
“This is wrong,” he mumbled.
“You bet your ass it’s wrong, Brick.” The Brick came out thick with spite. “I need your real name, Brick, so I can do a sex offender search on you.”
This isn’t happening. “Chauncey,” he said, his voice weak. “Chauncey Hall.” He stepped forward and leaned into the dirty front window. A lone desk and posters of bikini models on beaches he’d never been to dotted the interior of the front room he’d torn down five years ago along with the drop ceiling and black and white floor tiles.
“I just want you to know, I’m alerting the police,” she said as she pulled Tanner away, but her words barely registered. Tanner’s did.
“Mom. Mom,” he screamed although she pinned him tightly to her side and pulled him toward a silver Toyota across the street from a dusty pickup that hadn’t been there when Brick walked up. “You know him. It’s Brick, the muffin man.”
6
The young mother and little boy left Brick standing alone and slump-shouldered on the sidewalk, staring at a long-closed
storefront. It would have made a touching scene in a movie, David thought, if the mother hadn’t accused Brick of being a child molester.
The farm of the devil cows where David fell from the sky had only been about twenty miles east of Kansas City, at least the part of Kansas City where Brick told him he worked, although David didn’t remember if Brick had told him that yesterday or tomorrow; some part of him didn’t even remember knowing Brick, but that was crazy. David didn’t expect to find Brick quickly, or even alone. Seeing him standing on the street talking with a kid and a young mom in yoga pants meant one thing; the strength of the waves must be increasing.
How else could you explain the cow? It wasn’t because of time travel, or it wasn’t just because of time travel. Karl’s experiment smashed dimensions into each other. It was the waves. Karl’s Miller waves were getting bigger and David’s reality was getting weirder. What kind of hell place did that thing come from?
But the cow was twenty miles behind him, and so was the farmer who might one day get a call from police reporting they’d found his truck with an empty whisky bottle and David Collison, Ph.D’s blood all over the place.
“Hey, Muffin Man,” David shouted out the open passenger window of the borrowed pickup, and then gritted his teeth at the sudden movement. A person doesn’t know how much strain yelling puts on the entire body until they’ve been stabbed with a throwing knife.
Brick’s shoulders rolled back at the sound and he turned around slowly. “Holy shit,” he said, closing the gap from the storefront to the truck in a couple of steps.
“You’re not Dave.” Brick pointed a thick finger at the open window. “You’re the guy I saw in the bathroom hallway at Slap Happy’s. You’re David Collison.”
Something was happening here, something David wasn’t in control of, and he had to be in control. He had to. “Yes. I’m David Collison.”
So You Had to Build a Time Machine Page 9
