Strangers and Shadows

by John Kowalsky

  Dear Diary

  July 8

  — So here I am, writing. Writing about writing. What to write about? Wow, it’s a good thing we don’t talk in thoughts or people would never finish a conversation. Ok, let’s start with some facts... (just to get the ball rolling)

  My name is Frank Oberdeen, kids in high school called me Frankie “O”. Sometimes it was just “O”, or the Big “O.” I’m thirty-seven, have always wanted to be a writer, but never did anything about it. So, here I am, stuck in an office cubicle, sorting out insurance claims. I have two kids. My wife died three years ago in delivery of a third child, who died with her. I don’t like to talk about it with people, and I’ve just now gotten to the point where I can go to sleep without crying myself there. Anyway... the point of all this: my therapist told me to keep a journal. To just start writing, like it’s gonna solve all of the world’s problems, and mine included... my job, my dead wife, who I refuse to let go of, my house payments that I can’t afford, my church that tells me that it’s God’s will but secretly thinks I must have sinned badly for God to take my wife... So, I figured, what the hell, and here I am... writing.

  September 3

  — My boss wrote me up again today for being late. I told him there was an accident on the way to work and that it backed up traffic for three miles. So what if I did lie to him? There was an accident in the opposite lane going the other way and traffic was backed up for a mile or so.

  Jill couldn’t find her blue socks to wear this morning and she wouldn’t get on the bus without them. I threatened punishment if she didn’t just wear another pair and get on the school bus, but then she started bawling (is that how you spell it?) and told me that all the other girls had socks that matched their dresses and they laughed at her and she wasn’t going to school if nobody liked her and nobody would like her if she wasn’t wearing blue socks. I tried to explain to her that this was ridiculous. That kids would like her for who she was, not what she wore, and the way to get friends is to be a friend. She started crying all over again, and who was I kidding... I remembered what it was like in school growing up. It was all about who had what comic book or lunch box or PF Flyers. Wow, I’m getting old, kids haven’t worn those shoes for ages, although I have seen quite a few kids wearing the old All-Stars... anyway, maybe she had a valid point. Hell, most of my relationships are still based on income and family and appearance.

  So, she missed the bus, we finally found her blue socks, and I drove her to school. With all of the morning’s drama I was still only twenty minutes late to work. My boss, Steve, didn’t care. It was company time, he said. If I didn’t think it was worth my time then maybe I didn’t need to come back tomorrow, and blah, blah, blah.

  Son of a bitch... That’s what Steve is. I wish he had kids so he could see how hard it is, especially trying to raise them on your own.

  I told him that I’d work through lunch to make up for it, but he still grumbled on about it... a nice black eye... That’s what Steve needs, and I’d love to be the one to give it to him.

  I have another meeting with Jody later tonight. I haven’t really seen any progress in therapy yet, but it’s only been a couple of weeks, and Jody’s pretty cute. She’s around my age...who knows.

  God, I can’t even believe I’m thinking about this. The last thing I have time for in my life right now is a relationship, especially one with my shrink. Well, I guess I’ll talk to you tomorrow... you handsome devil, you.

  September 4

  — When I got into work today, everybody was talking about Steve. Apparently when he found out that his wife was pregnant with twins, he fainted and hit his eye on the corner of the sofa... so there is a God!!!

  September 8

  — Charlie told me the most wonderful tale today...at least I think it was a tale. I was getting breakfast ready when Charlie came running down the stairs yelling “Dad, Dad, Dad!”

  I asked him what was going on and he said, “Dad! Some people came out of my closet last night!”

  “Really?” I asked. Charlie has had an active imagination ever since his mom died when he was seven. Jody says that it’s normal behavior for grief and that it would go away in time, but some of the stories Charlie comes up with are straight out of Alice’s Wonderland. Maybe I should write them all down and publish a new kind of children’s book — tales told by children for adults and the mentally unstable…

  Anyway, Charlie swears that two people really did come out of his closet. I told him that he was probably just dreaming at the time, but he was insistent, more so than usual when he’s spinning one of his tales.

  He went on to describe how they smelled, what their voices sounded like, even the funny clothes they were wearing. He said that the woman’s voice reminded him of his mother’s.

  God, I miss Carol... but it’s getting better. Three years, and the pangs of grief finally aren’t there anymore whenever I’m reminded of her. Off track again... anyway... Charlie was convinced that it wasn’t a dream, and it was time for him and Jill to leave for school, so I told him to hurry up and finish eating while I grabbed his backpack.

  This is where I began to wonder if it was a tale after all. I still don’t know what to think of it. When I went up to Charlie’s room, I grabbed his backpack off the floor, and the closet was directly in front of me. I began to think again of how silly Charlie was to insist that he wasn’t dreaming, when I saw muddy footprints coming out of the closet. There were two sets, a larger one and a smaller one.

  I checked, just to be sure, but there were only foot prints coming out of the closet, not going in... It’s the strangest thing. Charlie must have staged the whole thing, but he’s never gone to such lengths before.

  I’ll have to ask Jody about it at our next session. Crazy...it still gives me chills to think about it.

  One Fare Day

  Jack Spade was stuck in traffic again. He couldn’t believe his luck, the first customer he’d had all day, and now he couldn’t drive him anywhere.

  “Hey, Mister,” the passenger said. “How long do you think we’ll be stuck here?”

  “Couldn’t tell ya buddy, construction’s been a bitch all week.” Jack was thinking about how nice it would be when the city of New York finally finished building the sky lanes. Of course, that would mean saying goodbye to his faithful taxi, with it’s ever-wobbling four wheels.

  Growing up, Jack would look out his windows at night in his family’s run down apartment on the lower levels of New York and watch the hovers fly by. He remembered thinking how one day, he was going to be a pilot and fly far away from there, maybe to go visit the upstarting colony on Mars. He couldn’t help but laugh now, as he considered where he’d ended up—in the past. He liked to think of it as the Wild, Wild West.

  On the plus side, being stranded in the world a thousand years before you were born, let you see all of the history first hand that you used to watch in the vids when you were a kid. So there was that.

  Traffic was going nowhere fast, and Jack decided he’d had enough. He turned off the engine, which was threatening to overheat, told the passenger to get out and walk, and settled in for a nice nap.

  He woke to the sound of screams and breaking glass. His heart immediately began to race and his breathing quickened as his body dumped a massive dose of adrenaline into his bloodstream.

  People were running down the street in a panic. Jack checked his rear view, and soon saw the reason why. His heart sank into his stomach as he realized what today was. How could he be so stupid? He’d known about this day since he was seven. It was the start of the Sky Lane Worker Riot, and, presently, a giant construction bot was bearing down on his car.

  Shit, shit, shit. The construction bots were used for both demolition and building. They needed to be mobile and durable at the same time. With six legs, cranes, wrecking balls, and powerful lasers capable of cutting through anything but diamond, the bots resembled something akin to an alien-insect-dinosaur, covered in armor.

 
Driving was not an option as the street was still grid-locked, so Jack quickly got out of the car and began to run. Instead of running away from the giant robot in a straight line, Jack ran perpendicular to the street. At first this made perfect sense, but then Jack remembered that the Riot was comprised of three construction bots, and he was most likely heading toward the other two.

  Cars were being crushed and flipped over all around him, smashing into buildings and lamp posts. If he remembered the vids correctly, there was a small group of people who survived the riot by getting into the old subway tunnels. Now, how the hell do I get down there?

  There was an entrance to the old subway on 43rd Street, and lucky for him, it was only a few blocks away. He made his way to 43rd, dodging flying debris as he went. Jack was about to take a right on 43rd when he saw the boy.

  The boy was young, maybe nine or ten, and he was standing in the middle of the intersection, staring up in awe at the impending doom just a block away.

  Cursing his mostly good nature, and thinking that this might be the deed that finally did him in, Jack ran into the intersection and scooped the boy up. “Come on, kid, we gotta get out of here,” Jack said.

  “Did you see the robots?” the kid asked, slowly coming out of his daydream.

  “Yeah, I saw them,” Jack said. “Did you notice how they’re killing everybody in their way?” He shook his head in amazement. Still though, the kid had balls.

  Jack and the boy reached the old subway entrance less than half a block in front of the construction bot closest to them. The entrance was cemented over. “Fucking great, just my luck,” he muttered. Then, remembering he had a kid with him, he added, “Sorry, kid. We gotta find a way underground, and now.” He glanced back at what used to be apartment buildings on 43rd Street, and saw a glimpse of what the Apocalypse must look like. Panicked people continued to stream past them, like ants running from the beam of a magnifying glass. Giant clouds of dust filled the air and threatened to blot out the sunlight.

  “I live right over there,” the kid said, pointing to an apartment building that hadn’t been demolished yet.

  “That’s fantastic, kid, how does that help us?” Jack asked, beginning to wonder if this kid was all there. Maybe he was one of those “special” kids that he’d read about in the history books.

  “Oh, right, sorry. Me and Bobby used to sneak down into the old tunnels whenever we could get out of the apartment.”

  Jack realized he was still holding the kid in his arms, so he set him down. Gesturing before them, he said, “Lead the way, and let’s make it snappy.”

  The boy took off running, but not away from the bots. He was running right toward them. Jack was about to ask what the hell the kid was doing, when a flying car hood nearly took his head off. Killed because of a kid. Not how I saw myself going. He followed after the boy who was running straight for the robot, and tried to catch up before disaster struck.

  Just before the construction bot was literally on top of them, the kid darted to his left down an alleyway. Jack followed just in time to see the kid climbing down a ladder through a hole in the building wall. The kid’s fast, I’ll give him that.

  Jack was barely down the ladder when the construction bot leveled the building above them, sealing them in the shaft they were climbing down, and plunging them into complete darkness. Fortunately, the shaft was narrow enough to provide them protection from any damaging debris that might have fallen on them.

  Down below him, Jack could hear the kid’s feet pinging off the rusty ladder. “Did you and Bobby spend a lot of time down here?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah, I guess so,” the boy replied. “Our moms never really paid attent—” The kid broke off in mid-sentence. For the first time since this whole thing began, he thought of his family up above them now, and their apartment building that was surely lying in ruins.

  Jack was about to ask the kid if he was alright, when he heard the sound of a foot slipping on the ladder below. That sound was followed by another one, a sickening thud.

  “Shit! Are you okay?” Jack called out, hurrying down the ladder. The kid must have fallen.

  When Jack reached the bottom, he found the boy lying nearby, out cold, but still breathing. Jack walked over to him and wondered if it was safe to move him, when the kid moaned. “Hey, you alright?” Jack asked. “Took quite a spill…”

  “Ughh... my head...”

  “Here, let me have a look.” Jack could barely see his hand in front of his face, let alone the kid’s head. He gently examined his head and found a huge bump on the back of it. His hands came away wet and slick. Blood, most likely. “How do you feel? You’ve got a nasty little bump on your head, there.”

  “It hurts all over,” the kid moaned.

  “Can you move all your limbs?” Jack asked, helping the boy extend his arms and legs, checking for any breaks or fractures.

  “I think so.”

  “That’s a good sign. What’s your name?”

  There was a long pause. “Ummm... It’s ah... “ the kid was struggling. “I can’t remember.”

  “Okay, that’s alright. Kid it is, then,” Jack said, trying to keep the boy calm. “What city do you live in?”

  “New York,” the kid answered quickly, without thinking. “Why can’t I remember my name?”

  “I don’t know, but you hit your head pretty hard. Sometimes your memory gets a little fuzzy when you hit your head like that. It’s nothing to worry about, though, I’m sure it’ll come back to you.” Jack was, in fact, sure of no such thing, but the last thing he needed was the boy to start panicking. Fortunately, the kid seemed to be good to go. Jack was impressed. He couldn’t remember if he had been that tough as a kid, but he was pretty sure, if he was honest, that he hadn’t been.

  On the streets above, Jack could hear other buildings as they tumbled down, shaking the tunnel walls. Dust filtered down through unseen cracks.

  “Stay here. I wanna check something out.” Jack climbed back up the ladder and found the entrance was sealed tightly with debris. “We’ll have to find another way out. Do you think you can walk?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  “Alright then, let’s get a move on. Unless having rats for dinner is okay with you.”

  “Eckth! Rats?”

  Jack smiled in the darkness. “Well, yeah… unless we find a Dunkin’ Donuts down here. We’ll have to find a way to the street above. Any idea how far to the next station?”

  “It’s only a couple a blocks, but me and Bobby never went that far, he was always too scared. So I don’t know if there’s a way out at the next station.”

  “Great,” Jack muttered.

  The boy flinched at the edge in Jack’s voice.

  “Sorry, Kid… I’m just a little stressed right now.” He softened his voice, trying to reassure the boy. “Now, what’s this about not being able to get out at the next station?”

  “They filled in most of the old subway stations, that’s all. The next one down might be one of the ones they filled in,” Kid said as they plodded along. Suddenly the boy gasped, clutching his chest. “My mom and dad… do you… think… are they gonna be okay?”

  Jack looked down at the boy in the dim emergency lights of the old subway tunnel, and saw him trying to hold back tears that couldn’t and shouldn’t be held back. “I don’t know, Kid. A lot of people died in the riot.” Jack winced as he realized the words he’d just used.

  At first, all the boy heard was that a lot of people died, and he started crying, but when he realized what Jack had said, he instantly turned suspicious. “What do you mean, in the riot?”

  Jack could have swallowed his own fist, he was so angry at the slip of his tongue. He couldn’t think of anything to say.

  “Did you know about the construction bots?” the boy pressed, his anger rising rapidly. He pushed Jack in the chest. “Are you responsible for it?”

  “No! It’s not my fault. I forgot the riot was today, that’s all.” Jack realized he
wasn’t helping the situation or making a whole lot of sense.

  The boy began wailing on Jack, swinging his fists wildly, occasionally connecting to the chest or stomach.

  “Stop it! Wait, wait!” Jack protested. “Let me explain.” He grabbed hold of the boy’s arms and restrained him until he stopped fighting. “What I was trying to tell you, Kid, is that I’m not exactly, from around here.” He twirled his finger in the air.

  Kid took a deep breath, trying to process the conversation. “Like you’re from Jersey or something?”

  “No, it’s… let me… okay… This is going to sound ridiculous, but, here goes—I’m… from the future,” Jack said. He watched the look of disbelief on Kid’s face.

  “Yeah, heard that one when I was six!” Kid raised his fists again to start swinging.

  “No, really, Kid, I am from the future. Well, your future at least.”

  “My future?”

  This was much harder than Jack thought it was going to be. The boy was the first person Jack had ever told, and as far as Jack knew, he was the only person who had ever time traveled, so he started from the beginning. “Just before the agency sent me back four years ago, we thought we’d discovered parallel universes. Do you know what those are?”

  “I saw an old vid about it. It’s like there’s a whole bunch of different earths with different versions, right?”

  “Yeah, well, pretty much… Anyway, our scientists had seen what they thought was the possibility of parallel universes for years, but they could never prove they existed. Two weeks before I was sent here, a group of scientists said that they had a way to prove it.”

  “What does that have to do with my future?” Kid asked.

  “Well, your scientists haven’t developed proof or a way to travel to parallel universes, so obviously, I must be from your future and my present, right?” Jack was beginning to confuse himself. “Anyway, it’s not very important why, just that I’m here now.”