by Shawn Inmon
Pherigo took two steps toward Scott, but stayed out of easy lunging distance.
Scott took a mental inventory. His karambit was sheathed at his waist. The jo was leaning against a tree a few feet away. His Taser and mace were both in his backpack, which was a few feet away.
If I die here, I deserve it. I’ve lost my edge.
Pherigo kept the shotgun leveled at Scott’s chest. The twin barrels looked huge and glinted softly in the moonlight that filtered through the trees.
An honestly puzzled look sat on Pherigo’s face. “Why do you guys keep killing me?”
That set Scott back on his heels. “Wha—what are you talking about?”
“I keep living the same freaking day over and over. I wake up, go about my day, and every night somebody different shows up and kills me. Sometimes it’s the same guy, but usually somebody different. You’re different. I’ve never seen you before.”
Scott’s head was swimming so fast, he almost forgot he was pinned at the end of a shotgun.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Seriously.”
Pherigo waved the barrel at Scott. “Well, you’re gonna danged well figure it out, or I’m gonna have to call the Sheriff and tell him I caught a man sneaking around my back yard, and I had to shoot and kill him.”
“Hold on. Let’s figure this out together. I’ll tell you why I came here to kill you. Then maybe we can figure out how and why you keep getting started over. Fair?”
“It’s hard for me to trust the motives of a man who starts a sentence with ‘I’ll tell you why I came here to kill you,’ but go ahead. Shoot.”
Bad choice of words, I hope.
“I came here because in my previous life, you chose this night to set a fire on your back porch that killed your wife and kids. This is what I do. I stop people from doing horrible, cowardly things like what you were about to do.”
Pherigo shook his head. “So you keep living your life over and over, too? How many of us are there?”
“Until about two minutes ago, I thought I was the only one.”
“Okay, I admit, I might have done something stupid, but I was punished for it. I got arrested, sent to prison, and things weren’t pleasant for me. I found a way to kill myself, but I woke up right back here, and everything was fine. I thought I had a chance to make everything right. A chance to not kill my family. Right then, I knew I could figure everything out. I could find a way to put the money back I’d embezzled from the company. Or, even if I couldn’t, what’s the worst that would happen? Maybe I go to some country club prison for a couple of years and my wife divorces me? That’s a lot better than the way things had worked out before.”
“So what happened?”
“What keeps happening is, I wake up on the same darned day I set the fire in the life before. That’s all fine and good, but that night, someone breaks into our house, slips into our bedroom, and cuts my throat. I bleed out, right there in my bed, with my wife screaming her head off.”
“It’s not me.” Scott’s head was spinning. It felt like everything he knew was shifting like loose sand.
“Yes, I know it wasn’t you. I already told you, I’ve never seen you before. Are you slow or something?”
Scott very much wished their weapons situation was reversed.
“Anyway, it happened that way again and again. I wake up and it’s the same day. Sometimes, it happens a different way. Once, someone showed up when I was out watering the yard and killed me. Sometimes they do it early in the day, sometimes they seem to be waiting for me to do something, but in the end, they kill me every damn time, and I’m tired of it.”
Scott, hands still raised, weighed his options.
He’s too far to rush. He’ll blow a hole clean through me and I’ll wake up back in 1972. If I make a move for my jo, same thing. I am well and truly screwed.
Pherigo went on. “After a few dozen times getting killed, I decided to do something about it. This time, I’ve taken this shotgun with me everywhere I’ve gone, but nobody showed up. Then, I am standing in my kitchen having a glass of milk with the lights off and I see you standing out here, thinking you’re clever and hidden. So I take ole Bessie here and sneak around behind you. Now. We’re all caught up. Your turn.”
Scott opened his mouth to speak, but he caught a flash of movement behind Pherigo. Scott’s eyes widened as he realized there was a man standing behind Pherigo with a gun pointed at the other man’s head.
Scott instinctively ducked as a loud gunshot came from behind Pherigo. The man holding the shotgun pitched forward, dead before he hit the ground.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
From the frying pan, into the fire. This isn’t my night.
A man who appeared to be in his late forties stood behind where Pherigo had been. He wore camo fatigues, had a rifle strapped over his shoulder, and held the pistol in front of him in a comfortable shooter’s stance. It was aimed steadily at Scott’s chest.
“I had to kill him. You’d told him too much already.”
“A couple of things here. First, I was just talking, trying to not get my ass shot off, and second, who the hell are you?”
“I’m Joey Ramone.”
In a night of weird happenings, that was just one more.
“You don’t look like Joey Ramone. Joey was taller, and he looked like he’d never been outside in his entire life. You look more like some army dude.”
“Joey Ramone is my team name. We all pick rock ‘n roll names because the guy who founded the group liked the music.” He lowered the pistol. “So what’s your name? We’ve been seeing you off and on for years, but have no idea what your name is.”
Scott hesitated. “Scott McKenzie.”
“Come on now, you’re having me on. Is that the best you can do?”
“Can’t help it, that’s my name.
“Couldn’t you have picked a cooler cover name? You had to pick the ‘be sure to wear some flowers in your hair’ guy? He only ever had that one song!”
“That’s not a cover name. That’s my real name.”
Joey looked skeptical, but decided not to argue further. “Look, we’ve still got to deal with Pherigo here. Somebody heard my gunshot and will be along eventually to check it out. I’d just as soon not have his wife or kids find him like this in the morning. Give me a hand with him, will ya? I’m parked over yonder, right behind your rig.”
Scott felt a little dizzy, as though he was standing on uncertain ground, but he picked up Pherigo’s feet.
“Sure, sure. Leave the messy end for me, why dontcha?” Joey picked up the other end and they carried him to his pickup truck, which already had the tailgate down and a tarp waiting.
“Whoever you are, you’re a lot more organized than I am, I’d say.”
“It’s not just me. It’s the team. We’re time traveling vigilantes, trying to fix things before they happen. We call ourselves the Time Operatives.”
“I feel like I stepped into a Dean Koontz novel.”
“Listen. It’s late. Why don’t you go get some sleep? I’ll meet you tomorrow and tell you as much as I can. You know that little restaurant by the railroad tracks in town? Katie Bee’s, I think it’s called? I’ll meet you there at noon tomorrow. If you don’t show up, I’ll figure you aren’t interested in finding out what we’re doing.”
Scott nodded, a little numbly, and climbed into the little pickup he had bought a few weeks before. He drove to the inexpensive motel he had checked into that afternoon and soon fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.
SCOTT PULLED INTO KATIE Bee’s at 11:45 the next morning. He found Joey Ramone waiting for him in the parking lot. Scott parked his pickup beside Joey’s and hopped out.
“Hey, Joey.”
“Scott,” Joey said, and actually made the parentheses marks with his hands, as if he still didn’t believe that was really Scott’s name.
Did people even do that in 1979? I don’t think so. He doesn’t seem too worried about keeping the fac
t he is a time traveler a big secret.
“You want to talk out here, or you want to go in?”
“Are you kidding? They have an incredible French dip here. That’s why I wanted to meet you here,” Joey said. “Come on.”
He seems friendly enough, even if he is a smart ass. He obviously doesn’t want to kill me or I’d have been wrapped up in the tarp with Pherigo.
Joey pushed through the door, ringing a little bell above it. The attractive young waitress glanced at the door, then called back to the kitchen, “Hey, Hank, we still got French dips?”
A pause, then a man’s voice answered, “Yep, just a couple more.”
The waitress turned to Joey and Scott and fixed them with a look. “You’re lucky. I thought we were out.”
Scott slid into a booth across from Joey. “I take it you’ve been here for a while?”
“About a week. Which means a week’s worth of their French dips. Wait’ll you try one. Worth the trip all by themselves.”
The waitress, who Scott noticed had a name tag on that read “Stacey,” approached the table. She looked at Scott. “I already know what he’s having. How ‘bout you?”
“Who am I to say no to a French dip?”
Stacey nodded as though that was the answer she had expected. She took their drink orders and disappeared into the kitchen.
Joey leaned forward and lowered his voice somewhat. “So, you’ve never come across one of us before? As much as we’ve been tracking you, I figured you had made us a time or two.”
“Nope. I must not be as aware of my surroundings as I thought I was, if both of you guys managed to sneak up behind me last night.”
“Here’s the thing. I called in to Peter, our group leader, last night. He told me it’s time to invite you to join. I told him you already had your rock ‘n roll name, but he’d never heard of Scott McKenzie, so I think you might want to make a better choice.”
Scott started to correct him, but gave it up as a bad bit of business. Instead, he said, “Peter?”
“Yeah. Peter Frampton.”
“Of course. I thought it might be Peter Cetera.”
“I don’t know if we can let you in. I think you like wimp rock too much.”
“Are you guys ever serious?”
“The rest of the guys are more serious than me, but believe me, when the action goes down, the joking around stops in a hurry. Or, maybe you didn’t notice when I spattered a bit of Pherigo’s brains on you last night.”
“I don’t understand what you guys are all about.”
“I’ll try to explain. Peter started the group about ten years ago. He was a spook who did some wet work for the good old U S of A back in the sixties and seventies. I don’t know when or how he met his demise—we never ask that question—but whenever he did, he woke up back in 1970. He started doing a little bit of revenge business, settling old scores and such, but he kept getting killed and starting over in 1970 again and again. He got tired of that.”
“I can understand how that would lose its charm,” Scott said.
“You, too, huh? Join the party. We’re all members of a pretty small club, as far as I can tell. Anyway, it occurred to him that if he was in that situation, there must be others who are too.”
Yep. Pretty logical, why didn’t that ever occur to me?
“The man is a highly-trained observer of people and the human condition. When he focused his training on that, he was able to pick up on others who were started over. Slowly but surely, he built a micro-army of us. He trains us, he sets the rules, and we carry out the work.” Joey shrugged. “I suppose I could decide to work on making myself rich and lay around by the pool all day, but that’s not for me. I like the work.” He formed his thumb and forefinger into a gun and sighted it at Scott. He pulled the pretend trigger and mouthed, “Boom.”
He stared intently at Scott. “We’ve watched you for a while now. You’re not the lay around the pool kind of guy either, are you? Peter wants me to bring you back to meet him and enlist you. Whaddya say?”
Chapter Forty
Just then, Stacey appeared with their French dips. Scott’s eyes bulged a little and Joey enjoyed a little “I told ya so” moment. These were French dips in the same way Antarctica gets a little cold in the winter. They consisted of a big hunk of French bread sliced in half with rare roast beef thin-cut and piled at least three inches thick.
Stacey said, “Don’t worry. The first time, everyone says, ‘I can never eat all that.’ We don’t have to make up many doggy bags, though. Eat up, boys.”
Scott still shook his head a little and poked at the mountain of beef and bread on his plate. The au jus sauce was served in a soup bowl, filled to the top. “That’s more food than I eat in two days, usually.”
“I know, ain’t it great?” Joey said, speaking around his first mouthful.
While they ate, Scott lined up his questions.
Joey seemed happily lost in devouring his sandwich. By the time Scott was half done, Joey’s plate was empty and he was dabbing at the corner of his mouth with his napkin.
“I’m afraid I’m going to be a disappointment to Stacey.”
“I could polish it off for you.”
“What, do you have a hollow leg? Where are you putting it all?”
Joey shrugged. “Suit yourself. Break Stacey’s heart a little.”
Scott pushed his plate away. “I’ve got questions.”
“I would expect no less. I’m no recruiter, but I’ll do what I can.”
At the mention of a recruiter, Scott’s mind returned to the sergeant who had recruited him into the army by promising him MP training.
“This just occurred to me. How do you guys communicate with each other? Ring each other up on the phone? Drop a letter in the mail?”
“Sometimes, sure. Those methods aren’t as secure as Peter likes, though, so most often, we use classified ads.”
That brought Scott up short. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. You ever look at the classifieds?”
Scott thought of the endless hours he had spent poring over newspapers looking for info on killers and buying temporary automobiles. “Yeah, of course.”
“You ever see an ad that didn’t make any sense? Real mysterious like? Maybe a reference to an odd place, or time, or a phone number that didn’t look like any phone number you’ve ever seen?”
Scott had to stop and think, but then he snapped his fingers. “Yeah. Yeah, I have. I just figured somebody was drunk when they typeset those.”
“That’s what we count on. We have a small team that spends their days placing those ads all over the country, wherever one of our agents is.”
“And that’s a signal to call in?”
“Nope. It’s a code. A simple code, but you’ve got to know what book it’s keyed on, or it doesn’t do you any good. And guess what? I ain’t telling you what it is. You’re not part of the team.”
“I don’t blame you. This Peter seems to be pretty bright.”
Joey nodded. “No doubt.”
“So, has he figured out what we’re all doing? Why we’re repeating? Why we keep starting over at the same point? Because I haven’t figured any of it out.”
“That’s not exactly his bailiwick. That falls more under Bob’s auspices.”
I’m afraid to ask, but I feel compelled.
“Bob?”
“Bob Dylan.”
“I should have guessed. What does Bob Dylan have to say, then?”
“Bob’s not an operative, like the rest of us. He’s a deep thinker. He has come to the conclusion that the world’s religions have got it wrong—all of them. He says the only conclusion you can draw is that this is what he calls a multiverse, or multiple-dimension universe.”
“I’m a high school graduate. Definitely not a deep thinker. What’s that mean in single syllable words?”
“Bob says that he thinks each time one of us dies, another reality is created, an exact copy of this reality, but
starting back in time at whatever point we have reset to.”
Scott considered that. “That’s a lot of worlds. Or, dimensions, or whatever you want to call them.”
“Bob also says that the universe, and time itself, are infinite, but that the human mind can’t understand the concept of infinity or eternity in a real way.” Joey took a drink of his Coke. “Me? I’m a foot soldier, parroting what he says. I’m no deep thinker, either. If you join us, you can likely sit down with him and ask him these questions yourself. I say ‘likely’ because Peter values Bob over everyone else, so he doesn’t let anyone close to him until they’ve been vetted.”
“That’s a whole bunch to absorb. I can’t argue with it because that’s more than I’ve managed to figure out in twenty-four lives.”
Joey closed his eyes and nodded. At that moment, he looked twenty years older than he had. “It gets old, doesn’t it—not getting old, I mean.”
“I’d like to figure a way out of the loop, that’s for sure. Weird to think that I’ve managed to start twenty-four separate worlds all on my own. It doesn’t make any sense, you know? Here’s a question I’d ask your resident genius. If the world starts when I wake up, what happened to all those worlds when I die? Do they wink out of existence because I’m not there?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve known a lot of travelers. This is a dangerous business, so I know a lot of travelers who have died. But,” he spread his hands out in front of him, showing there was nothing up his sleeves, “here I still am. And, there you still are.”
“But, it would only matter if the prime person died, right? Like, if this world started when I woke up here, but if Pherigo had killed me, would you still be here?”
Joey chewed on his cheek. “Hmmph. You’re right. Those others who have died might have been part of the copy. Which is a short way of saying, I am easily stumped by all this stuff, and it’s why I don’t dwell on it. I do the best I can with the situation in front of me.”
