"I've been going over an idea in my head. I think that we need to figure out who the men are, and to do that, we are going to need to go to the future, but not to 2045, we need to go to when you first started having the problems, with the calls and the cars following you? If we could go back to the beginning of it, maybe we could see the men and follow them instead. I'm sure that those fancy Screens from your time will be a big help to us too. They wouldn't suspect that we were trailing them because they would be too busy harassing the Others." she explained. "That's really good, Aunt Allie. I think we should try that, but I have another idea." I said.
"What if we went to 2044, which was when it all started, and we told the Others about what happened. Maybe they could lead the men toward us so that we could have a better look at them, to find out who they are. At least maybe we could discover how they know about everything." I said. "That sounds okay, but I bet something bad will happen once we start to talk. You have to be prepared for every eventuality when it comes to changing something, including telling the people that it is going to happen to. Believe me, I'll never get over those Doritos almost murdering me. I'm scarred for life." she explained, a slow smile spreading across her face. "I understand, Auntie, we will do our best." I said, nodding and smiling.
"There was one more thing that I was thinking about, something that I want to try. I don't know if it would work, but there would be no harm in a test at least." she started. "Okay, I'm scared, what is it?" I asked. "I want to try to take your Dad with us. This involves all three of us, and I think that it would be wise if all three of us did this together, if at all possible. I don't know how that clip works exactly, none of us do, but if he agrees, we could try to give it a go, right?" she said. I thought about it for a minute and agreed. If my Dad went too, then we could all split up and follow each of our Others if we needed to. Then we would know who was following whom. Those men wouldn't stand a chance against six of us, especially if we had a meeting with the Others first, to discuss it all, before the events actually occurred.
"It's the only plan I've come up with so far, Lovebug. I think we could do it." she said. "Well this plan is way better than no plan, Aunt Allie." I said, nodding. We talked a little bit longer about how to do it and where and then I decided that I would go chill in the bedroom for a while. I wanted to write everything down in the journal, to be sure that we didn't forget anything that we discussed. She said that it sounded good and she was going to stay up for a while and watch some show on the TV. I gave her a hug and made my way into the bedroom. It didn't take me long to write everything down and I put the journal in the top of the closet, away from prying eyes, just in case anybody came over to visit and decided to nose around.
I felt a lot better having something to look forward to and having some type of plan, no matter how weird or crazy it was. If that didn't work, then we would just have to return to this time and start over with a new one. She said that it got hard, and I was sure that it did, especially after I learned her whole story of her past experiences. I didn't know how long we were going to wait, but it wouldn't matter anyway, we could choose any time to leave and land exactly where we needed to. I was sure glad that I found that clip at PawPaw's house all of those years ago.
My mind started to wander after I finished writing in the journal, until finally, I could barely keep my eyes open anymore. I fought my sleep for a while, but I didn't sleep very well the night before, with the nightmares, so it eventually won and I fell into a deep and peaceful slumber. I needed it, rest was imperative to our success. My mind needed to be focused and prepared for what was waiting for us in the future. "Lord, knows what it could be." I thought, as I lost consciousness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
"WAKEY, WAKEY, EGGS AND BACEY!" hollered Aunt Allie as she jumped and bounced onto the bed to wake me up. "UNGH!" I growled. I was not ready to get up yet. That time traveling yesterday took a lot of my energy and I had finally gotten into a good sleep later in the evening. "Piss off, Auntie! I'm not ready, NO!" I hollered. "Come on Chloe, we have shit to do, let's eat and get ready and go over to PawPaw and Granny's." she said. It took me a while to finally get myself up but I struggled for a moment and then slowly made my way into the kitchen, dragging my feet.
She was making French Toast, I always loved French Toast and it smelled delectable. PawPaw made it really well too, and he used to make it anytime that me or Riley asked him to when we were little. It was the best, one of my favorite memories growing up. "So, cousin Zoey, we are going to go to Granny and PawPaw's today and I am going to call your family and tell them to come over. I think that it's time that you met your little Other. What do you think? We can all have dinner over there and then me and you and your Dad can sneak off and have our discussion about the group traveling. What do you think?" she said. "For real? Yeah I guess we could do that. Do you think Mom and Riley will come too?" I asked. "I don't see why not, we can call everyone and hang out and have a good time. Your Mom already knows about you and she's been dying to get a look at you, but the kids don't know anything, so you will just be Auntie Zoey, okay? Don't worry, they'll love you." she explained.
"I can't wait. This will be interesting!" I said, excitedly. "So Mom knows? I didn't know if anyone was going to tell her or not. I knew that she knew about the links because she was there whenever you gave them to me for my birthday and you told me that she knew all along. That's good, I didn't want to have to lie to her too." I said. "Yeah, I was happy that my Mom knew too. When I got there the first time, in 1984, I wasn't sure if she was going to know anything, but she walked out and your PawPaw introduced me as their daughter, so I was really happy about that. I didn't want to have to lie to her, although, I didn't mind lying to the kids, they would never have understood. I was surprised that they accepted it when I finally did tell them." she explained.
We finished breakfast and went to get dressed. Since I just popped back to this time with no preparation, I didn't have anything but the clothes on my back, so I always just wore Auntie's stuff. It was cute, I was worried that the clothes were going to be ugly in this time, but they weren't and luckily we were the same size. She told me that she had lost a lot of weight during all of the resets. I couldn't even imagine her being bigger, it would look really weird.
I grabbed some jeans and a nice shirt from her closet and rushed to the shower, then she did the same thing after I was done. I didn't want to look like a homeless person when I met my Other and my sister and my Mom, so I threw on a little bit of makeup and did my hair. I have really long hair like Aunt Allie, both of us have hair down to our waist, so she had all of the good products for our particular hair type. "I need to find some shit like this in my time, if I ever get everything back to how it should be." I thought, as I put the finishing touches on my hair.
I made my way out of my bathroom just as she was making her way out of hers. We looked at each other and laughed. Our outfits were very similar, jeans and green shirts, and we had done our hair the exact same way. I could really see the resemblance now, it was striking. Aunt Allie has bright blonde hair though and mine is a little bit darker blonde, probably what her natural hair color was. My eyes are pretty close to hers, she has a little bit more green in hers, but they are very, very similar. It was weird seeing how much we looked alike and I was taken aback for a moment. In my time, she was 63, so I didn't notice, but today, she's 40 and I'm 33. Seven years is not much of a difference. "Wow, we look like quite a pair, don't we, Lovebug?" she laughed. "Oh my God, we look just alike. The kids will notice. At least I am saying that I am your cousin though, right?" I asked. "Right, it always worked when people noticed me and little Allie's resemblance." she explained.
"Alright, I grabbed the links and the clip from the safe and I have them here in my pocket. I figure that after we eat, then me and you and your Dad can sneak off and maybe we could test it. I'll bring the Dramamine and nausea pills too, I'll stick them in this bag and we can have them for if we actually do decide to try i
t out. I definitely don't want to be cleaning up three people's vomit messes, and I'm sure that you don't either. So, you ready to go meet your family?" she said, excitedly. I took a breath and said, "Yep, let's do it, Allie!" It still felt really freaking weird just calling her Allie, but I had to make myself get used to it. "Okeedokee, Zoey!" she hollered, and danced her way out of the front door. She was so weird and funny, she was always dancing spastically.
We walked into PawPaw and Granny's house without knocking. They always knew that we liked to pop in so we never had to knock. They were sitting in their places, Granny on the couch and PawPaw in his recliner, watching something on the TV and PawPaw had his little computer in his lap like always. He had a shopping problem and was always buying random shit online. "Hello, ladies!" said PawPaw. "Why do you two look so spiffy? Hot dates?" he said, jokingly. "No, Dad, Lord, we are going to be having family dinner here tonight, with the WHOLE family, so you better get shit picked up and get ready. I'm going to text Andrew and tell him when to come. Alyssa and the kids are coming too. I figured that it was time for Chloe to get a taste of what I went through." she said. "Ooh, sounds fun and intriguing!" said Granny, as she got up and started cleaning up things that weren't dirty. Granny always had a touch of the O.C.D.
While Granny tidied and PawPaw shopped, I sat down on the couch with the cats. Leo and Kabuki had passed away when I was about 10, but I remembered them fondly and I was happy to see them. They came and crawled into my lap and I gave them lots of pets and scratchies. Leo was a long-haired ginger and Kabuki was grey, with huge eyes and the softest fur I had ever felt before. I always loved kitties too, just like the rest of the family. Aunt Allie went into the kitchen and started whipping up some kind of delicious smelling meat, I had no idea what we were eating but I had a feeling that it was going to be Mexican food, that was always her favorite. I didn't think she could survive an entire day without putting sour cream on something.
"What are we eating, Aunt Allie?" I asked. "I'm making fajitas, I texted your Dad and he's going to bring all of the shit for his tacos, you know he makes them from scratch." she answered. I knew that it was going to be Mexican and smiled to myself, because I was right. They might be 25 years younger, but nothing much had changed with them. I was starting to get the nervous sweats again, not as bad as Aunt Allie did though. Our old house wasn't very far away and they were going to be there soon. I wondered how my sister was going to react. "She's like, 14 right now, and she's never been dumb." I thought, nervously. Maybe she wouldn't notice that I looked just like her little sister.
Finally, the door creaked open and I held my breath. "Oh my God, here we go." I thought. I started petting the cats really hard as my Dad stepped into the room, holding my Other's hand. "OH MY GOD, LOOK AT HER! She's so tall and cute!" I thought, as I saw my sister and my Mom following behind them. "HOLY SHIT! MY MOM! She was SO pretty and young and skinnier than me! Her makeup was perfect and her hair was perfect. It was so strange! She looks better than me!" I thought, excitedly as I looked at Riley. "She's so tall and skinny too! She looks just like our Mom!" I thought, smiling. Riley was always really quiet at first, until she got comfortable, but then she would talk your ear off. She was being very quiet right now, because there was a stranger in the house, and she kept looking at me weird. I stood up immediately and said, "HEY!" a little too over-exuberantly. "I am a freaking loser." I thought, to myself, shaking my head.
I could see Aunt Allie in the kitchen, watching the whole show, giving me a thumbs up behind everybody's back. Granny and PawPaw were sitting there with weird grins on their faces, interested to see how everything was going to go down. "HEY!" said my Dad, sarcastically. I turned about 15 different shades of red. I was never a shy child, and I always talked to everybody that I could find to talk to, so I wasn't surprised when little Chloe walked right up to me and said, "HEY! WHAT'S YOUR NAME!" I started to laugh and I said, "Hey Chloe, I'm your Auntie Zoey! It's awesome to finally get to see you! "We don't have an Auntie Zoey." she said, matter of factly. "Smartass child." I thought. That's when my Mom made her way over to us and told her, "You do have an Auntie Zoey, that's her right there, Chloe. She lives far away so she doesn't get to come here very often, but she made a special trip to see everybody. Be nice and watch your mouth." I just stared at her with my mouth hanging.
"Hey Zoey, it's awesome to finally see you." she said, and leaned over and hugged me. "You're so tall and beautiful!" she whispered in my ear. "You too, Mom! It's great to see you." I whispered back. I told myself not to cry and I got myself under control before we all sat down. "So where do you live, Auntie Zoey?" said Riley. "I live in Austin." I said. Conversation proceeded as it normally would after that. Riley quit staring at me weird and Chloe took me all around the house and showed me the cats and shit. She was awfully cute and chatty. She even came and brought my Dad's phone with her and sat down and showed me some kind of candy cooking shows that she liked to watch on YouTube. I remembered those little shows, I used to love them.
We sat down to eat and everything seemed good. I really liked hanging out with everyone and I was really excited to get to try out the links with Dad later on. I hoped that it was going to work. Through the whole meal, I had the hardest time remembering to call my Dad, Andrew and my Mom, Alyssa, but I finally got the hang of it, no matter how weird it felt coming out of my mouth. The kids never noticed when I started to stumble, I almost said Dad and Mom a couple of times, but I caught myself. My Mom kept staring at me out of the corner of her eye. I was sure that it was weird for her to be sitting here with her daughter that was almost the same age as she was. I knew that I would think that it was weird, and I didn't have any kids.
Chloe and Riley LOVED having a new Auntie. They were excited to know that their Dad had another family member. "You look like Chloe! I've been trying to figure it out, but that's what it is. You look just like Aunt Allie and Chloe." said Riley. We all looked at each other and then laughed. "Yeah, we always had a strong family resemblance." said PawPaw Matt. "It's the nose." "DAD! What did I tell you about the nose thing!" hollered Aunt Allie. "SORRY! It's true though!" he answered back, chuckling. "Yeah, I think you're right, Riley." I answered, and that was that.
We talked for a while after dinner and finally I spotted Aunt Allie across the room, eyeballing me. I started to get nervous again, because I knew that it was time to talk to my Dad. I nodded to her and she nodded back. "Andrew, me and Zoey need to talk to you about something. It's very important. Come here." said Aunt Allie. "SECRETS DON'T MAKE FRIENDS!" hollered Riley, annoyingly. "Oh you're fine, chill out." said my Mom. "Go ahead guys, we are good right here." she said. The three of us made our way into Aunt Allie's old bedroom, which was now the guest bedroom, and we all sat down on the bed. It was time to get this show on the road.
CHAPTER NINE
After we all sat down, my Dad was confused. "Well, what's up?" he asked. "We have a proposition for you. We've come up with a plan but we wanted to get your input." said Aunt Allie. "Yeah, we need some help, Dad." I said, nodding. "Okay, well shit, stop beating around the bush and spit it out already. What's the plan?" he asked. "Well, that's the thing, we wanted to ask you something." Aunt Allie started. "We were wondering if you would come with us, to the future." she said.
"What do you mean, come with you to the future? Can three people even go together?" he asked. "Well, that was our proposition, Dad, we wanted to do a test run tonight and see if it was possible. Auntie has the links and the clip in her pocket and we were wondering if you'd like to try it with us. We just thought that we would go back 5 minutes or so, to see if it was even possible, and then if it is, maybe you could help us with all of this shit." I explained. "5 minutes?" he asked. "Yeah, that way, we will be able to hear our Other's in the other room. Technically I would have two Other's in the living room, and that would be even weirder, but it would only be for a couple of minutes, until we all made our way back here again." I explained.
"Hell yeah, I'll try. Allie said
that I wanted to go with her one time in the past and we weren't able to do it, and I was sort of disappointed to find that out. I always thought it would've been really cool to do what she did, even though it was scary and people kept dying in horrible ways. Let's test this shit." he said, excitedly. "Okay, sweet, here, everybody take these." said Aunt Allie, passing out the Dramamine and nausea pills. "We will tell you what our whole plan is and that will give the medicine enough time to kick in. Believe me, you don't want to feel the full effects of the time travel, Dad." I said, as we all took our pills.
It took us about 30 minutes to explain our plan to him. He said that it sounded like a really good plan and he hoped that we would all be able to go together. "You'll need a new name too, if we are going to go, because there will be two of each of us, and if we actually do meet you, they'll need to refer to us as something different, so we don't all get confused. I'm Zoey Larson, and Aunt Allie is Callie Sawyer so you are..." I said. "Carson, how's that? It's all I can think up off the top of my head, and it starts with a 'C' like Callie." he said. "Okay, Carson Sawyer." said Aunt Allie. "You're still my brother, so same last name." she explained and he nodded.
I think we need something to wear that matches too, like a bracelet maybe, that way we can identify each other. I know that our Others are much older than us, but Chloe will be about the same age, so we want to make sure that the proper people return." said Aunt Allie. "I'll go pick something up from Target, something that we can all wear without looking ridiculous. I won't be wearing any girly ass shit." said Dad. "No shit, dumbass!" said Aunt Allie, punching him in the arm. "Bitch!" he said, laughing and rubbing his arm dramatically. "Stop your whining, Carson!" said Aunt Allie. I laughed pretty hard at that, they really hadn't changed a damn bit.
It was time to do the test. We had been talking for about 45 minutes and that should've been ample time for the medication to get through our systems. "Okay, look at the clock." said Aunt Allie. "It's 7:35 PM on March 21, 2023." I said. Aunt Allie grabbed the stuff out of her pocket and handed me the links. "Here, set the date to 2023, Chloe." I rushed and set it. She rushed and set the date to 7:25 PM, March 21st, on the clip. We looked them over and everything was correct. "What the hell do I do?" said my Dad, he was starting to tick. He always had a little bit of a nervous tick. "Don't worry, Dad, you'll be alright, I swear." I said, reassuring him. "Grab onto my left arm." I said, and he did. Aunt Allie hooked up to my right arm and we all sat up real straight. "Ready?" I said. "DO IT!" hollered my Dad as he squinched up his eyes. I raised my left arm and clicked the 'BACK' link, and amazingly, all three of us disappeared from the room. "HOLY SHITBALLS!" I thought, as we popped away.
CLIPPED: Another Time Travel Tale (The Harmon Family Adventure Series Book 2) Page 5
