by Anthology
“This better pass quickly!” she shouted above the din of the rain, scowling from beneath her pack. “I’m not wearing panties on my head!”
Up ahead of them the road curved to the right but a trail led up into the hills. Eric dropped his pack, seemingly oblivious to the downpour, and ran ahead, shouting back that he was going to check the trail and see if they could save some time.
Within five minutes he came splashing back towards them giving a double thumbs-up as he ran. When he reached the miserably wet threesome sheltering beneath their luggage he grabbed his own backpack and told them to come on, there was a small river just ahead and a handy-dandy boat waiting for them. He didn’t seem bothered by the storm at all.
“We can shelter under the boat until the rain stops!” he said, grinning. “You can thank me later!” He jogged back towards the hills, the others following behind at a slower trot.
Jason and the girls reached the peak of the hill and looked down on the sad, dirty river below. It didn’t look like it would be a difficult crossing at all. Eric was already crouched by an upturned row-boat on the bank and waved as he saw the others appear. He reached both hands under the boats lip that sat up on a small rock then fell back onto his butt with a curse. He scrambled backwards, away from the boat and examined his right wrist, still cursing. The others rushed down the hill towards him, unsure what had happened.
“Stay away from the boat!” shouted Eric, “I just got bit.”
Eric became sick that night on the other side of the river; Jason and Jenna tended to him the best they could with limited provisions, the sounds of the river water still audible behind them. The three friends continued their journey in the darkness, half carrying, half dragging a feverish, barely-conscious Eric on a shoddily-made sling constructed from back-pack frames and clothing, Jason doing the bulk of the work. They needed to get to Centralia fast and find medical help, before he died. There was no time to rest and they were moving at a snail’s pace. Thank God, they were relatively young and strong.
The Last Trip, Day 6
The four friends moved through the dead city at a decent clip, their final destination just a few blocks away now. Jenna pushed Jason along the sidewalk as Eric sauntered ahead and shooed away dogs that were gnawing on bodies in the street, waving Jason’s stick at them. Even after all this time, even with every sight around every corner permanently stamped into their minds in ridiculous detail, entering the city produced a feeling that surpassed creepiness. Just one time, thought Jenna, something unexpected is going to happen. Someone new is going to appear, leaning on a wall or out of a window. Maybe they’d hear a voice, or a piece of music, or a bird.
After just a few minutes they arrived at a squat, windowless building with a small metal door set centrally along the front wall.
“Where is he?” yelled Eric, banging on the metal. “No balloons and streamers this time? I am starving for some beef stew!”
“Just use the key,” said Molly. “He’s probably cooking.”
Eric pulled a small brass key on a big steel ring from his pants pocket and slid aside a metal disc on the door, revealing a keyhole. With a twist and a jiggle the door clicked open and the four moved inside, pulling the wheelchair over the rubber threshold then closing the door behind them.
They moved down a narrow, featureless hallway and emerged into a wide, white-walled room with four camp beds draped in blankets set up along the right side. In the center of the room, a rectangular, plastic table dominated the eye surrounded by five chairs. Eric and Jenna moved Jason onto one of the beds and lay him down with a blanket pulled up to his neck. Molly headed across the room and through a door on the opposite side, calling out as she went.
“Howard? It’s us, on time as usual. Howard, you back here?”
Jenna folded back the blanket that covered Jason and removed his boots. He was sleeping already, his face expressionless and pale. Molly re-appeared across the room, her face tight, and beckoned to Eric. He followed her, past a tiny kitchen which was quiet and clean. Past a collection of closed white doors and then a big red door marked NO ENTRY in bold black letters. At the end of the corridor, down a passage to the right, was a small room, door wide open, with a small sink and a single bed in it. On the bed lay the body of an elderly man dressed in a dark suit and wearing a green cook’s apron, his grey beard and moustache glaring white beneath the harsh ceiling light. His face was sunken, indicating he’d been dead a little while. On his chest his hands were clasped, a pair of spectacles clenched between his rigid fingers.
“Oh, Howard,” said Eric, genuine sadness in his voice. “What the Hell will we do now?”
Next to him, Molly started to cry. He put his arm around her and realized that this was it. He was surprised at how much relief he felt.
The First Trip, Day 6
The city seemed deserted. Beyond that, it seemed dead. No lights shone in windows, no cross-walk signs flashed little green men. There were signs everywhere of massive looting. Some bodies lay in the streets, chewed on by stray dogs and cats. The four travelers made their way cautiously through the centre of Centralia looking for any sign of the great evacuation that was supposed to be happening tomorrow. They had expected crowds of people, noise and fear and excitement, but there was nothing. Eric was doing better but was still extremely weak and in dire need of medical attention. Jason suggested they make straight for the hospital. Deserted or not, they’d get Eric some medicine. They were just a couple of blocks away when they saw a bespectacled, bearded man in a dark suit standing outside a low building with no windows in it. As they approached, Eric stumbling along, holding onto the shoulders of his friend. The bearded man ran towards them with a look of genuine concern on his face. He helped them get Eric inside the windowless building, promising he had a full medical lab inside, and the travelers believed him; there was sincerity in his voice and a kindly tilt to his face.
Twenty minutes later, inside the building, Eric was in an actual med-lab being tended to by the bearded man, Jason assisting him with a slightly wary eye. He had introduced himself as Doctor Howard Rorke. The two girls sat at a table in the main room drinking freshly brewed coffee and soaking their ragged feet in tubs of hot, balmed water. It had taken them a while, overloaded with simple comforts, to realize that this was the first place they had seen in a week that actually had power.
Jason returned to the main room with Howard, letting the girls know that Eric was sleeping and would be just fine.
“Thank you, Howard, truly!” said Molly. “But can I ask you a question? What happened? Where is everybody? Do you know what’s going on?”
Howard sat down at the table and beckoned Jason to join him.
“It’s been a crazy week,” Howard answered. “And I know you’ve come a long, hard way to get here. Let me try and explain everything as quickly as I can. First, the evacuations ended on Tuesday, four days early.”
Everyone else around the table groaned.
“I know, I know. There was trouble with the crowds, the whole city was a mess and they decided to launch all the ships early in case the people got to and damaged them. Those that didn’t get on heard a rumor about another evac happening down in Clarksville and everyone headed that way. It’s a lie, though; there are no more evacs anywhere.”
“How do you know?” asked Jenna. “Do you work for the Government? And if so, why didn’t you get out when you could? And how do you have power?”
“More questions, Jenna,” said Eric sarcastically. “That wasn’t nearly enough in one go.”
“No no, ask away, all of you. Yes, I work for a particular government agency. I wasn’t here on evac day; I just got back from a trip the night after. This building is one of very few in the country that still has power. It’s run from a quite massive self-sufficient generator in the back, and all the equipment in here survived that EMP blast or whatever it was last week because this entire building is deliberately insulated and protected against such possibilities.”
“We could,” said Howard, smiling. “Or we could carry on living. Come, follow me!”
Confused and a little wary, the two girls quickly dried their feet and, along with Jason, followed Howard down the corridor past all the white doors to a red door with a large NO ENTRY sign on it. Howard typed a code into a keypad and opened the door, leading the others into a cool, dimly lit room. There was a large control console immediately ahead of them, then a transparent wall with a hatch in it, and on the other side a shiny, white room that appeared to be completely empty.
“This is our life-saver!” Howard proclaimed with a grin, raising his arms into the air.
“Welcome to Project Boomerang!”
For the next couple of hours Howard explained his work. Project Boomerang was a time travel experiment, headed by Howard, which had achieved some great success. They had managed to travel only backwards in time and the traveling worked on a pre-existing displacement principle. What this meant, Howard explained, was that the traveler could only jump to a time and place where they had previously existed. The traveling version of the person would take the place in the world of the old version, with all the knowledge they had gained since that time kept intact. That is, until the boomerang effect kicked in and the traveler was pulled back to the present, whereupon the original version of the person would resume back in the past.
Jason put forward the opinion that this seemed a quite pointless exercise. Howard, a little insulted, responded that it was the first step towards full time travel, and a massive achievement. He also pointed out that the boomerang effect could be, effectively, switched off and travelers could remain in the past reliving their lives any way they wanted to. This, he said, is where their salvation lay.
At this point Eric appeared, groggy but well, and the group spent a while getting him up to speed on what had happened.
“Tomorrow,” Eric said, “our world dies, for how long we don’t know. It may become hospitable again, it may not. We failed to make it onto the ark ships, so what do we do?”
“Travel back to Tuesday and board the ships!” suggested Jenna.
“A good idea in principle, but impossible. Remember what I said about pre-existing displacement? You’d all get sent back to where you were on evac day—still far, far out of the city. It wouldn’t help you.” Howard straightened his tie and looked at the floor. “Also, there was a problem with the transporter last month that still hasn’t been repaired. It is set at a travel distance of one week, and when I checked the machine upon my return from a certain excursion a few weeks ago I discovered that the—in layman’s terms—the timer had blown.”
Eric, his head clearing and with some strength coming back into his body, caught Howard’s attention with a raised hand, as if he was back in school.
“So we can only go back one week, as it stands? Is it something you can fix quickly?”
Howard shook his head slowly. “I don’t have the very, very specific parts needed to fix the, er, the timer. If I had time to scour certain government and military properties around the city I could possibly find what I needed.”
“But you don’t have time. None of us do!” cried Molly, frustration showing in her face.
“I can give us time, though, if you four agree to it.” Howard smiled, looking each of them in the eye one by one. “I have a plan—and honestly, it’s about the only plan we have.”
With that, Howard led everyone back into the main living quarters and went off to the kitchen to cook a meal that, he promised, would not be their final one.
Over a wonderful hot dinner of beef stew, dumplings and corn bread, Howard laid out his vision to the group. The next morning he would use the Boomerang device to send them back in time the pre-determined and unchangeable distance of one week. They would be back in their rented cabin, the morning of the emergency broadcast, fully aware of what lay ahead and the journey they would need to undertake to reach Howard again. The Boomerang effect itself could still be turned off, so they wouldn’t have to worry about suddenly bouncing back to where they were now at some point. Howard would also send himself back that one week, and he promised he would not board the ark ships, as he could, but stay and try to help his new friends. In that week he would attempt to locate the parts he needed to fix the machine’s timing device. If he could fix the timer, he could keep working on the overall function of the traveling itself. They had been very close to being able to jump without relying on the pre-existing principle, which would mean not only further back in time, but also different locations not dependent on the traveler’s existing status at that point. With the machine operating properly and with these new tweaks to the science, all four of them could then jump back to the day the ships left and board them safely. He estimated six weeks of work at most.
Howard left the friends alone to discuss the idea and returned to the kitchen to wash dishes. After some heated discussion, the group finally, and somewhat inevitably, decided that it was their only viable chance at survival and another few weeks of trudging their way to Centralia wasn’t such a high price to pay for the chance at a full life.
“We’ll know what to expect from now on!” said Jason. “Eric won’t get bitten, we know which short-cuts work and which don’t, we know not to look into the crashed cars, and we have an absolute destination and plan now!”
“Also,” added Eric, “we’ll take some good supplies back with us. Rain gear, decent packed food, maybe a tent or sleeping bags if Howard has any around here somewhere. It’ll feel more like a camping trip . . .”
Molly nodded. “I don’t see we have a choice. Stay here tomorrow, and die, or try Howard’s plan and spend a few more weeks roughing it. Not even close really, is it?”
When Howard returned they told him their decision and he was delighted. He said that yes, they could take supplies, and he would furnish them with whatever rain-gear and camping equipment he could put his hands on before the next day. He also packed them a huge amount of food, split up into four separate containers. Eric and Jason helped him pull camp-beds from the vast supply room in the building and set them up against a wall in the living quarters with pillows and blankets. As everyone settled in for an attempt at a good night’s sleep, Eric took Howard to one side and quietly thanked him for his help, and for going through this with them instead of just leaving on the ships. Howard said it was the least he could do, as a decent human being, and told Eric to rest; he would wake them in the morning, early, with coffee and croissants, before sending them back.
As the four friends fell into a heavy sleep, Howard returned to the Boomerang Project room. Locking the door behind him, he sat at the console and brought the timer up on his display. It currently read Minus 24 hours; he manually changed it to Minus 7 days and locked in the setting.
“I could never leave you,” he whispered, looking into the stark, white room, “my whole life is here, in you. And now I have some good, new friends who will visit me every weekend for as long as I want them to.”
PHANTAS
Oliver Onions
For, barring all pother,
With this, or the other,
Still Britons arc Lords of the Main.
The Chapter of Admirals
1
As Abel Keeling lay on the Galleon’s Deck, held from rolling down it only by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the small ornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast. The bell was of cast bronze, with half-obliterated bosses upon it that had been the heads of cherubs; but wind and salt spray had given it a thick incrustation of bright, beautiful, lichenous green. It was this colour that Abel Keeling’s eyes liked.
For wherever else on the galleon his eyes rested they found only whiteness—the whiteness of extreme eld. There were s
lightly varying degrees in her whiteness; here she was of a white that glistened like salt-granules, there of a greyish chalky white, and again her whiteness had the yellowish cast of decay; but everywhere it was the mild, disquieting whiteness of materials out of which the life had departed. Her cordage was bleached as old straw is bleached, and half her ropes kept their shape little more firmly than the ash of a string keeps its shape after the fire has passed; her pallid timbers were white and clean as bones found in sand; and even the wild frankincense with which (for lack of tar, at her last touching of land) she had been pitched had dried to a pale hard gum that sparkled like quartz in her open seams. The sun was yet so pale a buckler of silver through the still white mists that not a cord or timber cast a shadow; and only Abel Keeling’s face and hands were black, carked and cinder-black from exposure to his pitiless rays.
The galleon was the Mary of the Tower, and she had a frightful list to starboard. So canted was she that her mainyard dipped one of its steel sickles into the glassy water, and, had her foremast remained, or more than the broken stump of her bonaventure mizzen, she must have turned over completely. Many days ago they had stripped the mainyard of its course, and had passed the sail under the Mary’s bottom, in the hope that it would stop the leak. This it had partly done as long as the galleon had continued to guide one way; then, without coming about, she had begun to glide the other, the ropes had parted, and she had dragged the sail after her, leaving a broad tamish on the silver sea.
