by Eddie Patin
He looked down and saw an old, steel dog bowl turned over in the snow. It was empty.
"Where’d that come from...?"
Continuing around the front of the house, Jason passed the bushes, stepped onto his snow-covered concrete walk, and stumbled numbly past the patio furniture. He looked down at the one chair that had been moved to block his path days ago. That’s where he had found the weird piezoelectric crystal that most likely had a lot to do with this portal mess...
Jason stuck his key into the front door’s deadbolt after finding it in the dark. He tried to open the lock, but it wouldn’t turn.
"Oh, come on!"
Throwing off his backpack, Jason felt a sudden freeze as the wind hit the wet shirt between his skin and the bag. He gasped then dug into the front pouch to get his flashlight. Jason turned it on and looked at his key.
"Normal," he said, then shined the light at the deadbolt lock, peering into the keyhole, trying to divine whatever the hell was going wrong there—
Jason gasped again when the lock suddenly clicked.
He stood and took a step back as the door handle turned.
The door opened...
In the dim light inside—lit up by the small lamp next to his couch—was a tall and broad man, answering the door dressed in a grey t-shirt and sweats with a blue robe on, undone around the waist and hanging loosely on a fit body. The man was middle-aged with a bold chin and dark eyebrows, grey stubble on a manly face, and piercing blue eyes that were currently bathed in confusion. The strong face was framed with iron-grey, short and neat hair...
It was...
"Dad...?" Jason breathed. He forgot all about the freezing cold.
The man’s face twisted in recognition, horror, and wonder. One beefy hand came out from behind the door holding a shotgun, which was promptly forgotten and propped up against the wall. He flicked on the porch light and Jason was half-blinded by the yellowish bulb to his left.
"Jason?" his father asked.
It was his dad. Jason's father stood before him ... alive. He was older than he was when he died, but it was absolutely him.
Dad seemed just as confused as Jason was, but not as if he was staring at a ghost—not like Jason felt, looking at the most important person in his life; his father who'd died fifteen years ago...
"Oh my God..." Jason muttered. "Dad!"
"Jason, what are you doing here?" his father asked, suddenly jumping to action. "Come in, son. It’s cold!" He moved aside and reached out, grasping Jason’s raptor-shredded shoulder with one strong hand, pulling him in. The older man's touch felt like a shock of electricity to Jason—he didn’t even notice the pain of his cuts—it had been over a decade since his parents had died in the plane crash, and now his Dad touched him...
Jason stumbled into the house, his cane clacking on the door frame.
"What’s going on, Dan?"
It was Jason's mother’s voice, calling out from the master bedroom. He never really went into that room anymore; hardly ever. Jason felt compelled to keep his old, smaller room. Now Mom and Dad were back in their own bedroom. Their bedroom...
There was a drone of shock closing in around Jason's ears. He heard a jingling sound, then the click of a switch. The hall that led to the bedrooms and bathroom lit up with a warm light. Jason looked back up to his dad and saw the big man staring at him—slightly taller than Jason was—still with his hand on his shoulder.
Dad looked back toward the light and Jason took in the lines of his face, the muscles in his neck. He was real! It felt like a dream, but this was really happening ... wasn’t it?
"It’s Jason, honey," his father replied. "Jason’s here." He looked back again, concern playing through his eyes. "What are you doing here, Jason?" Dad looked down Jason's body and peered intently into his face with a wince. "What happened to you?"
Motion caught Jason’s eye and the shocked man stiffened and yelped when a dark shape the size of a small raptor flashed out from the hall, followed by ... Mom! She was wrapped in a red sleeping robe, lined and older, dark hair streaked with grey, which she was currently tying into a bun. Something touched Jason’s leg and he looked down in terror. His stomach flushed cold with fear, and his frazzled brain thought that it would be a big, black spider, or a small raptor with dark feathers. Instead, he saw a big black Labrador squirming around below him, stabbing him repeatedly with its nose, wagging its black tail furiously. He looked back to Dad, then over to Mom, who was hurrying over, her face pale and eyes wide as she looked him over.
"Oh my goodness—Jason!" she exclaimed. "What’s the matter? What’s wrong?"
"Where’d you come from, Jason?" Dad asked, patting at his chest, touching his hair. "What happened to you?"
"Why are you dressed like a homeless man?" Mom stammered. "What’s going on—why are you here and not in—oh God, and you’re so skinny! And what happened to your face?!"
"What happened, son?"
They felt at him over and over again, looking over his battered body and filthy clothes while Jason stood stunned, shaken around in a storm of his parents examining him and demanding why he was in such rough shape and not in Dallas...
"What happened?" Dad asked again and again. "Did you get mugged? You’re hurt—do we need to take you to the hospital? Where else are you hurt, Jason?"
"Oh God, he so cold! He’s delirious!" Mom cried. "I’m going to go and make some warm tea..."
"It looked like you've been beat up! What's going on?!"
Mom shuffled off making noises of concern and Jason stared across the living room after her—his living room or his parents’—past the hall where his painting of the Dreadwraith still hung on the wall. The kitchen was dark and she turned on the light.
Suddenly, Dad was hugging him. Bruises on his back and face panged as his father pulled him in tightly, and the cuts on his shoulder stung. Jason felt the dog pressing in against him, hitting him again and again with his nose, panting loudly...
"Dad..." Jason said, and hugged him back. Within moments, he felt tears welling up in his eyes.
He felt like he was in a dream. Perhaps Jason was passed on the floor among bones and rotten remains, imagining all of this. Maybe he was hallucinating.
Or maybe it was real, and somehow his parents were back. Or maybe the past had changed somehow, and they were never killed.
Jason hugged his father firmly and sobbed into the man's neck until his brain started to catch up. He wanted to live in the delusion for just a little longer—he wanted his parents back.
But it was all starting to make sense to him.
The wild land with the dinosaurs wasn't quite right. Jason could have just been stuck back in time, sure, but if that was the case, there wouldn't be reptilian cannibals, the wyvern, and a freaking Ettercap. He'd seen his house through that portal in different seasons—not to mention the weirder shit...
This place wasn’t Jason’s home.
He was in some sort of alternate universe where his parents had never died. They had lived through that plane crash in British Columbia—or the three of them had never crashed in the first place—and now Mom and Dad were somewhere around sixty years old. This was their house. There was another Jason here too, apparently living in Dallas, Texas.
This wasn't Earth. Yeah—it was Earth, but it wasn't his Earth...
"What’s wrong, son?" Dad asked, pulling away, almost crying himself. He stared painfully at the tears in Jason’s eyes. "Why aren’t you at home? What happened to you, boy? You look like you’ve been homeless and fighting, and—for God’s sake, boy, you’re starving by the look of it."
"I just..." Jason started, his mind whirling. He stared around the room. It was his living room, but things were different. The couches were the same—Jason had never replaced his parents’ old sofas when the house became his even after all these years, and apparently these parents of another Jason never had either. On Sunday morning, he'd left his Xbox controller out on the floor in front of the TV. This TV had
no Xbox. His painting of the Dreadwraith was still on the wall. His favorite armchair was still in its place, but it was probably Dad's favorite armchair in this world. Looking down the hall toward the kitchen, he could see that the dining table was different. There were other paintings on the wall that he didn't recognize...
What could he say about this? He would sound crazy...
Mom suddenly rushed back from the kitchen.
"Water’s set to boil," she said frantically, approaching Jason and pulling him in for a hug. Being engulfed in her robed arms made Jason sob again suddenly—he didn’t even see it coming—and he hugged her back. "Oh—what’s the matter?" she asked. "What’s going on with you, Jason? Are you on drugs?!"
"No," he replied, pulling himself together and standing away from her hug. "I’m ... I’ll tell you that..." He stammered and paused. It felt like the walls were closing in. Mom and Dad both stared into Jason's face, the fear and worry playing all over their features. This is what they would have looked like if they just kept getting older and... "Bathroom first!" Jason said, then, "no, it’s not drugs. It’s okay, Mom and Dad. Just ... just give me a minute!"
Them man pushed through his parents to the bathroom, half-tripping over the heavy dog. He struggled to control his cane and fell once against the corner of the hall before making a bee-line to his bathroom—their bathroom. He closed the door behind him.
Jason hung his cane on the shower rod and stormed to the sink and mirror, throwing on the faucet. Water poured hard and heavy, but the moment before Jason dove in with both hands to splash his face and drink, he was captured by his reflection in the mirror.
He stared at himself. Though his blue eyes were the same, his dark-blonde hair was a tattered mop, littered with pine needles and chunks of tree bark and other unidentifiable plant matter, pieces of bugs, and God-knows what else. His face was dreadfully gaunt, grimy, and tan. He could see exactly where his face had collided with stone back when he was dragged by the Ettercap into the spider cave.
Jason laughed, once. The thought of being dragged through the night to be eaten by arachnid monsters in a savage dinosaur world seemed utterly ridiculous while standing in a pretty, warm-colored room surrounded by hung pastel towels, bath soaps, and a mauve shower curtain.
His face was bruised to a spectacular degree, exhibiting something like a black eye and a sickeningly dark cheekbone with all sorts of purple and yellow colors seeping through his skin like storm clouds all around the wound.
Jason was filthy and really looked like shit. Homeless indeed, he thought. At some point when he initially encountered his dad at the door, he had put his backpack back on without realizing it. He quickly checked the pack to make sure that he still had his flashlight and keys. He did.
"Huh..." he muttered, slipping the straps back on.
Jason looked down at the running, clean water and plunged his hands into the flow, washing them immediately. He cupped his palms and leaned down to splash his face. He did, and felt a constellation of pain as his fingers brushed across his skin. He could hear his parents talking on the other side of the door.
He shut the water off, grabbing a pastel green towel to gently pat his painful face and dry his hands.
His father said something that Jason couldn’t make out—the big man’s voice was low and deep.
"I still think it’s drugs," his mom replied, her voice quiet but easier to understand through the wooden door. "He looks like a junkie for crying out loud! He’s got to be on drugs..."
"It doesn't matter, Ellen!" his dad said. "He needs our help." He said more, but with a lower tone that Jason's couldn't interpret.
Jason knew that he couldn’t stay. This wasn’t his home. There was another Jason out there somewhere—one that never lost his parents, and maybe never hurt his leg. That Jason probably stayed in college and is living a normal life working as an engineer or a physicist or something in Dallas. If he’s thirty-three as well, he might own his own house too. Maybe he has a young family...
Jason put the towel back, retrieved his cane, and opened the door, revealing his parents standing in the hall on the other side.
"Jason?" Mom asked immediately. "What’s going on? Where’s Kelly?"
"Kelly?" Jason asked, moving through them back into the living room. More lights were on now and he could see pictures all over the walls.
"Oh goodness, Dan," Mom said quietly to his dad. "He doesn’t remember Kelly. Maybe it’s amnesia..."
"I don’t have amnesia, Mom," Jason replied with a smirk, looking back at them. They followed him into the living room, holding each other, and the sight of them made his heart swell.
"He’s injured, honey," Dad said. "Maybe he has a concussion. Look at his face. What happened, son? Why are you so dirty? How’d you get hurt?"
His parents asked questions and speculated loudly as Jason gazed at them and looked around the house. There was a photo on the wall in the hall where he was dressed in a graduation gown and hat at CU. There was another photo of him with a bunch of other young people standing in sunshine and holding a white banner that said ‘Peace Corps Belize’. There were several other picture of him as well—somewhere in his twenties—posing with Mom and Dad in front of various buildings and monuments. One of them showed Jason crouched in front of a huge, dead gazelle in what must have been Africa, posing with his father, both of them holding big rifles. He recognized his dad's Rigby .416 Magnum Mauser, but didn't recognize the rifle that he held himself. There were two photos of all of them posing together on a sailboat.
Jason didn’t know what to do. It would be nice to stay in a world where his mom and dad were still alive. The plane crash had changed everything. Jason had dropped out of college after only one semester. He was injured forever. His mom and dad were dead...
Here, they weren’t dead.
They were still questioning him frantically.
Jason interrupted them, reaching out for a hug, pulling in against both of them.
"Oh God, Mom and Dad. I’m just ... so happy to see you!"
He hugged them, letting himself cry for a while, and they both hugged him back. When Jason felt the dog’s tail whacking him repeatedly in the leg, he let up.
"It’s Tuesday, hon," Mom said. "What are you doing away from work?"
"Why do you have a cane, Jason?" Dad asked.
He wanted to stay. Jason wanted to slip into a life here and have some more time with his parents. What could he possibly say? Whoever that Jason was in those pictures, he was off living his life somewhere. How could life possibly work with two Jasons? But here he was, and he wanted like hell to stay...
"It’s my leg, Dad," Jason replied. "I hurt it in the plane crash. The crash where you guys..." He trailed off, thinking better of completing that sentence.
"What plane crash?" Dad asked.
"I don’t remember you hurting your leg in a plane crash," Mom added.
"Do you guys remember when we flew up to Alaska to spend Christmas with Burt?"
Dad and Mom exchanged confused, concerned glances, then smiled.
"Oh yeah," his father said, eyes welling with tears as he stared at Jason. "That was a nice Christmas." Jason knew that his dad had to be almost freaking out inside with worry. The man was humoring him.
A whistle started in the kitchen. The water was starting to boil.
"That’s when we gave you your first car!" Mom added, wiping a tear out of her eye. She looked overwhelmed from all of the hugging and confusion. "Do you remember? Well—we didn’t give you the car itself. We were in Alaska! But we gave you a picture of it. What's the matter, Jason? What happened to you, honey?"
They must have thought that he was out of his mind.
The black dog squirmed around their legs, beating them with its tail. It panted loudly, its large, hissing breaths in and out, echoing in Jason's head...
"But I..." Jason started then stopped. Of course he didn’t remember that. He never made it to Alaska that day. But he did remember the old
Plymouth car, which he had never seen before sitting inside the garage until Jason finally returned home from the hospital afterwards. When the lawyer had given him his dad’s will and he took possession of the house and all of his parents' assets, the car wasn’t included. It was in their name, however, so it became Jason's just the same.
So that’s where that Plymouth car had come from...
The growing boil of the kettle in the kitchen had turned into a loud keening sound that ground at Jason’s skull like knives slicing at a stone. His parents reminisced more, and resumed asking questions, but their voices were drowned out in a growing din of crushing noise and blackness coming in around the edges of Jason's senses. The walls were closing in around him again. He was warm, but felt cold and hot at the same time. His knee was throbbing and his head joined in. As the tea kettle screamed, Jason stared at his Mom and Dad’s troubled faces. A growing sense of dizziness made their faces wobble. He felt overwhelming love and loss as well as fear and disappointment in himself. When the edges of his vision started pulsing with shadowy fingers, clawing further and further inward, Jason realized that he was going to faint...
"I’ve got to—" he stammered, pushing through his parents, "I need some air..."
Jason stumbled through the hall toward the kitchen and the back door, his vision darkening around the edges and the roar of the sea of unconsciousness swallowing his senses. He heard the jingling of the dog’s collar, and felt the creature’s furry body tumbling around his legs, clumsily crashing into him. The screaming tea kettle was threatening to pop his skull...
"Let Lexi out, will you?" his mom called after him. "I’ll make you some tea, dear!"
Jason fumbled at the lock on the knob then let himself out. He was hit with a cold blast of freezing wind. Stepping out into the backyard, his boots crunching in the snow, Jason felt the feeling of fainting quickly sap away as his skin turned cold.
The black Lab rushed out past him, plunging through the snow, running a large circle through the yard until slowing down to sniff, squat, and pee.
