by Susan May
What a fascinating story it would make to explore the concept of meeting your ancestors with the backdrop and mystery of the unsolved murders. Plus it would give me an excuse to research and imagine my distant relatives’ lives. Writing sometimes feels very much like time travel. You truly feel as though you’re there. I fancied a trip to a real past that was personal.
The story lay filed away, unnoticed, on my laptop for three years. I didn’t give it a second thought, until I decided to dust it off for this collection. To my surprise, as I went through what I thought would be a quick edit, I became engrossed in the story and the characters. The original 1,700 word short became 3,100 odd words. If I wasn’t in the middle of edits for my next book The Troubles Keeper (out hopefully March 2016) and prepped to go on the book after that, The Invasion Forums, I think I would have started writing the novel immediately.
My mind now spins occasionally with the possibilities and questions about the characters and the mysteries raised in this short passage. The Henry character who initially had about three lines in the original story, decided he would become very involved. He even demanded to be referenced to as Mr. Darcy from one of my favorite stories and films Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.
Now, I’m not saying absolutely, but don’t be surprised if Where We Once Were turns up as a novel somewhere toward the end of 2016 or early 2017. Something tells me Tamara, Henry, and the fictional world I’ve begun to build in Gatton, and back in our traveler’s home time won’t be satisfied with a short story. Where We Once Were might actually be, for me, where I’m going in the very near future. Ain’t imagination a wonderful thing?
If you would like to read the novel of this short story, do drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know. Just for writing to me, I will include you in my early readers’ mailing list for a free e-copy when I write it. So don’t be shy. I always reply to my emails. After all, you are the person I am writing for and where you would like to travel next is important to me.
Desperate
Two agitated women, inexplicably, run out into oncoming freeway traffic. One is run over by a lorry; the other flung in the air by a car. They should be dead. Not only do they survive, despite horrific injuries and police intervention, they seem determined to continue to the other side of the roadway. Are they insane or is their desperation due to stakes so high, they’re prepared to give their lives?
It happened so suddenly Peter Millpole didn’t have time to react. One minute he was happily driving in the outside lane of the highway, listening to Coldplay’s Clocks. Next, it was as though an enormous tree trunk was dropped from the sky onto his Volkswagen Polo.
Just before the impact, he’d noticed a yellow flash streak from the shoulder. He’d had only a moment to curse litterbugs for leaving trash to blow onto the freeway. Then, a huge bang, the implosion of his windshield, followed by a sound he never wanted to hear again. A shredding, popping explosion, as a thousand cracks and fractures blinded his view of the world.
The shock caused his leg muscles to twitch and his foot to slip from the accelerator. This movement and the force of the collision slowed the car sufficiently he’d almost stopped before realizing he needed to use the brake. Every extremity of his body tingled with the fire of adrenaline.
His grip on the steering wheel felt super-human. Sitting there, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, just knowing something terrible had happened, he took a moment to call on a retired police officers experience. Inhaling and exhaling three deep calming breaths, he slowed his racing heart.
What the hell had he hit? And how?
Shoving open the door, Peter heard multiple voices from all directions.
A man’s voice: “Stop.”
A woman’s voice: “What the hell?”
Another man’s voice: “Oh, my God, what?”
Even before he’d stepped out of his car, a god-awful sound of screeching brakes caused him to brace, even though if he were hit, bracing probably wouldn’t save him.
The next second, he saw an articulated-lorry in the next lane slam into something— another horrific, sickening thud—and come to a screaming halt twenty feet or so ahead.
What the hell was happening? Was it war? Terrorists?
A policeman bolted past the front of his car toward the lorry.
Another ran by him in the opposite direction, waving his hands. As he passed, he called, “You right, buddy?”
Peter nodded, but he didn’t think the man saw, his full attention now seemed focused on stopping the traffic behind.
Making his way around his car, Peter wondered how the police had arrived so quickly. Less than a minute had elapsed, and he now counted four officers.
He saw now, two people had been hit.
Several yards along the road, a policewoman crouched over the prostrate body of a young woman, her long, straight hair strewn in a blonde tangle, covered her face. An arm, bent at a grotesque angle, was only one of her serious injuries. If she didn’t have some kind of spinal injury, she’d be lucky. Her body lay deathly still, hinged at the waist twisted in an unnatural way, while a policewoman—obviously the owner of the what-the-hell voice—tended to her.
Peter made his way to the pair, crouching next to them. Suddenly, the woman became conscious, moaning, then crying. Seconds later, droplets of bloodied spit erupted from her mouth as she attempted to speak.
“Leeese,” she said. Please, Peter figured minus the P. Blood trickled down the side of her face from a split on her temple, already raised to a nasty, white lump that would, no doubt, turn black in hours.
Glancing back at his crumpled hood and imploded windshield, Peter wondered how she’d even survived. Without diverting her attention from the woman, the policewoman spoke to him.
“You the driver?”
“Yes. But, I … she ran out in front of me. There was no time.”
“I know. We saw everything.”
Peter released a breath, as though he’d just been underwater for long seconds.
“In fact, this one, and the other one—we think they’re twins—have been playing dodgems. We’d stopped them. Then, this one …” She nodded down at the groaning woman, “took off.”
I stared down at the woman. Her mouth moved, but the words were too inaudible to understand.
The policewoman continued as though she needed to get the events off her chest.
“Mike grabbed her, but her jacket came away in his hands. Thank fucking Christ it did or you may have hit him, too. When you hit her, the other one made a break, and—” She angled her head toward the stopped truck in the next lane, “—the truck got her.”
On the force thirty-three years, Peter had never seen such a thing. Neither had this officer by the wild look in her eyes.
“Is the other one okay?”
“Dunno. One of us is with her. Insanity.”
She shook her head.
The blonde stirred, suddenly more alive, more coherent. Her accent was strange. Guttural. To Peter, it sounded harsh, Germanic. Maybe Swedish. Something Nordic, at least.
“Leease. Help me. I need to be up. Please. Must go.”
Placing her palm on the blonde’s head and gently stroking her hair, the officer soothed, “Ma’am, you’re not going anywhere. You’re badly injured. Help is on its way.”
Around them, passengers and drivers from the other stopped cars—the lucky ones, who wouldn’t have to live with the memory of a shattering windshield and the terrible sound and the resultant horror of colliding with a human being—began to gather. The crowd stood apparently mesmerized, gaping and whispering as though this were a television soap opera. Wondering at human voyeurism, Peter felt grateful and satisfied to see another officer herd them to the shoulder.
Good thinking. Who knew what would happen if following traffic didn’t stop in time. It would only take one going too fast.
Their attention diverted by the crowd, Peter and the policewoman were unprepared to find the woman suddenly sit up a
nd climb to her feet. Before they could react, she’d gained a few yards of separation. She glanced back at them, and then ran toward the center of the highway.
Was she actually heading for the other side? Was she going to run out into more traffic? What the—?
Echoing his own thoughts, the officer muttered, “What the—?” Then: “How in hell?”
Exactly, how? Peter thought.
At least one of her arms was shattered, and her hip looked dislocated.
In fact, double, triple how?
It was instinct that had Peter on his feet and after her. So many years on the force, instinct never left you. Move quickly, or die quickly.
She was already over the highway barrier and running along the busy lanes filled with traffic traveling at speed in the opposite direction.
Suicidal, that’s all he could think.
“Stop,” Peter shouted, as cars slowed and drove around her. Ahead of Peter, another officer came from the other side of the road along the shoulder. If Peter continued from the inside and the officer from there, they could trap her in the middle. The officer motioned the maneuver to him, twirling a hand in the air to signal
The blonde’s head whiplashed between Peter, the officer and the vacant forested area beyond the highway. With them both closing in on her, she seemed to panic, freeze, and become uncertain of her next move. Peter and the officer accelerated, and they were suddenly upon her.
“No, no, no,” she screamed, as Peter reached for her, her attention now fully on him. She waved her arms in the air as though trying to create a distraction. This gave the officer a chance to come from behind.
The officer clamped a firm hand on her arm. When she whirled to look at her captor, Peter seized her other arm. It was as though they’d unleashed a demon. She kicked and twisted violently. It felt as though they were struggling with a hundred kilo boxer and not a slender, young woman.
How could she fight with at least one broken limb?
She flailed so crazily Peter feared they’d lose their grip. His wrist felt as though it could break any minute. After chasing her, his breath came in short, sharp gasps, and he desperately wanted to let go. If he did, though, she could be killed, or even worse, kill some poor driver or hapless passenger.
“Nooo, fuck you,” she screamed, spitting. “Let go. Police! Police!”
“We’re police. Stop. Stop … it. Calm … down,” the man beside him said, in halting words, he, too, out of breath.
Suddenly, there were two more men-in-blue and a civilian beside them. Between the five, they managed to lift her, spread-eagled, from the ground. Now she kicked and bucked as though she were being carried to her death. Even with five strong men, they struggled to transfer her from the road.
“Police. Help! I need police.”
“We’re the police. Calm down,” one of the new officers said.
“No, I don’t believe yooou.”
The men wrestled the thrashing woman to the ground. The civilian—young, jeans, trendy t-shirt—braced his forearm to her chest, while the rest pinned her legs and arms.
“Fuck man,” said the civilian. “I’ve never felt such incredible strength. She’s on some fucking trip.”
Peter stood back, as two police zip-tied her legs, then her arms. The protruding bone in her arm waved as she fought her bindings. Despite her serious injuries, it took five of them to get her under control.
Freakish, sprung to mind, as Peter watched the police trying to calm her, to no avail. His breath came in ragged, halting mouthfuls as he tried to assess what had actually happened.
Then he saw the other girl.
Lying deathly still behind the truck’s back wheels was an identical blonde. Just like her sister, her hair fanned out around her, as though she were lying on a beach and not in the middle of a black asphalt roadway. This twin wasn’t putting up a fight. Bending over her was the policewoman he’d first met. A squawking voice erupted from her two-way. “What’s happening, over?”
“Second woman, seriously injured. Still breathing.”
As he jogged toward the two, he noticed a man sitting on the side of the road. By his expressionless face and the way he kept looking at the girl, and then staring up at the sky, he figured it was the unfortunate lorry driver. Clearly, the poor schmuck was in shock.
What surprised Peter as he drew closer was this twin was actually conscious and talking. Just like the other girl, she suddenly sprung to life and attempted to get up. Her body, from her waist upward, contorted like a flapping fish out of water.
“Stay still. You must stay still. You’re badly hurt. Ma’am, do you hear me? You can’t get up.”
The policewoman spoke firmly, though her voice kept cracking. Stress, probably. By the look of this girl’s twisted body, she didn’t have much choice when it came to lying there. Still, her body continued to flex in a failed attempts to rise.
“Can I help?” Peter said.
The policewoman looked up. Her eyes filled with so many emotions. Fear, horror, disbelief. Her mouth, a thin line of anxiety, barely moved as she spoke.
“Can you stay with her? The ambulance. It’s four minutes out. I need to guide it in.”
Before Peter could answer, she was up and running toward a gathered group of people on the edge of the stopped cars.
Squatting next to the blonde, Peter couldn’t believe her injuries. A line of vivid red trickled from her mouth. One arm, black and swollen, moved back and forth up and down her body as though she were searching for something. Her legs must have been run over by the lorry. They were shattered to a pulp, as though they’d exploded. Blood splattered on the road about them as though a giant’s hand had swatted her like she was a mosquito. A patch of hair was gone, ripped from the side of her head, along with part of her scalp. Blood was everywhere.
Gruesome. That was the word.
Peter reached for her hand, trying to stop its violent movement. God knows how much damage had been done to her back. She needed to be still to minimize further injury. That’s if she survived.
The second he crouched beside her, she addressed him, even though she was facing away. She couldn’t turn her head toward him, but she started talking anyway. Her speech was surprisingly clear, but desperation enclosed her words. Immediately, Peter stood and moved around her to look in her eyes. He wanted her to see the concern in his face, understand someone was there who cared.
“Help me. I must go.”
Déjà Vu. Same words as her twin.
“Go where?”
“Please. They’re waiting.”
The strange halting accent, again. It wasn’t German. No, he was pretty certain now it was Swedish. Years ago, he’d had a thing for the redhead Frida from Abba. He’d watched several documentaries on the group. This was the same accent.
“Calm down” was all he could think to say, as he rested his hand on her cheek. The skin felt unusually cold. A vein on her right temple pulsed rhythmically. He wondered if that was normal or a result of the accident. Noticing a pool of blood, growing beneath the torn side of her head, Peter prayed the ambulance arrived soon or they would have made a pointless journey.
The blonde suddenly jerked her neck up off the ground, interrupting his thoughts. She craned sideways to look past him.
Again, how the hell was she moving like that?
“Must get to other side. They wait for me.”
She lowered her head back to the ground and looked into his eyes.
In the moment their eyes met a peculiar feeling shivered through Peter’s body. Something wasn’t right with her. Well, that was an understatement, but besides the extraordinary behavior, physically, she … she looked not human.
A strange golden color surrounded her irises, the color so bright it seemed to glow despite the full sunlight. He’d never seen eyes like these. Her tongue, too, it seemed too deep a red like she’d sucked on a raspberry-flavored water ice.
Could it be shock? Loss of blood?
Before he
had time to speak, she added, “On the other side. They wait.”
“Who’s there? Who’s waiting?”
She was out of her mind. The impact, her injuries, had to be.
“Others. My people.”
She made another pitiful effort to raise her body. The action reminded Peter of an injured, downed animal making a futile attempt to rise and escape from a predator. Considering the damage, her strength and determination were incredible.
Applying gentle pressure to her shoulders, Peter pushed her back down.
“You will help me?”
She stared hopefully at him, her strange, golden eyes, flashing.
“Get … to my people. Please. Otherwise—we die.”
Despite the intenseness of her voice, this one spoke more calmly than her twin.
Still it was curious. They both seemed desperate to get across the highway to the other shoulder
“Who will die?” Realizing, suddenly, she must mean her twin, he added, “Your sister’s alive.”
More than alive, crazy alive, superhuman alive, he thought to add. Instead: “Don’t worry. You’re the one we need to help.”
“Not my sister.”
“Oh, well, you sure look alike.”
“Clone, you call us. Specially selected. Me. One of us must return. We came for impregnation. Must return. Fertilized. Genetic failure continues with each generation. Two more cycles and we all die.”
Delirious. That was Peter’s immediate thought.
In an attempt to keep her calm and conscious, he asked, “Cycle?”
“Our world moves within two light years of yours every eight hundred and forty years. Close enough for portal. Last chance this time. One of us must get to portal before it closes.”
