by Mark Tufo
“Was Chris a boy? About eleven or twelve years old?” Peter wrote the names down as he spoke, wondering if the Chris she mentioned was him. “I'm sorry, Ally, forget that. Are you okay?”
“I think so,” she said. How’s Emma’s blood pressure?”
“Low. Take her pulse, will you? I didn’t do that. Never can find it.”
“That’s not good,” she said, placing her fingers on Emma’s wrist. After a few seconds she said, “Wow.”
“What?”
“Slow. It’s only fifty beats per minute.”
“I’ll bring her out.” Peter did the same thing with Emma as he had with Allyson. After removing almost all her fingers from the image, he called her name softly, telling her what he intended to do. Emma moaned a couple of times, then her eyes flickered into focus and she sighed heavily. The method had much the same result as with Allyson. Not so much trauma and far less shock.
As he put the picture on the table, Peter felt a slight tingle, but dropped it quickly. He steadied Emma and helped her lean back against the sofa. “How you doing, Em?”
Her face was flushed, but the next reading of the blood pressure monitor showed a decent level. In fact, it was a bit high now. “Better. Much better than last time.”
“We’re connected through time,” Allyson said, looking between them. “I feel that strongly. I don't have the slightest doubt.”
“Is this where I’m supposed to panic and say you’re moving too fast for me?” Peter asked.
Allyson said: “That first picture where Chris was a boy was taken much earlier than this one, right? There was a Chris in this one, too, but he was older. In his mid-twenties maybe.”
“She’s right, Web. You’re Chris Wickham, I’m Lilly Morris and she’s Ellen Carver. We were friends, and you two were poised to start seeing one another. If Lilly has anything to do with it, anyway.”
“Did you call Isabel yet?” Peter asked.
“Oh now I'm worried. Peter the level-headed is telling me to call my psychic.”
“I just asked—”
“She was visiting some friends in Seattle. She got back yesterday.”
“Ally, how do you feel about this?” Peter held his breath, knowing what he wanted the answer to be, but worried she would withdraw after the experience.
Allyson chewed her lip for a moment, then shook her head, shrugging. “I’m not sure. I’m scared, but not enough to kill my curiosity. Why us?”
“Good. I want you with us, but only if it doesn’t get dangerous. If that happens, we all stop.”
“This is unbelievable,” Allyson said.
“Danger is relevant, and before we decide what is and isn’t dangerous, I need to talk to Isabel.” Emma folded her arms across her chest defiantly.
“If we don’t agree to stop under those terms, I’ll back out now,” Peter said.
“What terms are there?” Em asked. “Web, I just want the terms clarified.”
“Who is Isabel?” Allyson asked.
“Some Gypsy friend of Emma's,” Peter said.
“Not a Gypsy, a medium.”
“Anyway, look. The mere act of visiting a former life could be hazardous. What if we create some sort of . . . paradox, like in the movies? Remember Back To The Future? Poof! We’re gone.”
“I know I’m new in this, but I agree with taking precautions like the monitors and always making sure one of us is out,” Allyson said. “Let’s just be careful.”
“Good,” Peter said. “And being new has nothing to do with it. If you're involved, you're in it and there's no changing that. Emma?” He knew the impact of using her full name. It was like her abandoning Web for Peter. It meant she was dead serious; as much as he was now.
“Fine. Isabel will be the last say, though.”
“Okay,” Peter said. “Now, as far as Ally’s question regarding why it’s happening to us, that’s one for the ages. In fact, we’re not sure it’s just us yet. Maybe it’s anybody.”
“What do you mean?” Allyson asked.
Emma looked at the two of them. “Peter’s right. We need to give a couple of these pictures to someone else. See what happens. Just hand them to a stranger and ask them to look at them for some fabricated reason. Like we’re looking for someone who looks like that.”
Peter nodded. “Yeah. We have to be sure this isn’t more to do with the images and less to do with us.”
Emma crinkled her eyebrows and stared at the pictures on the table. “So far everyone who’s touched them has gone inside. The odds of that are a little out there.”
“If you need an appointment with the psychic, you better make it,” Peter said.
“Count me in,” Allyson said. She looked nervously at Peter for a moment, then added, “If seeing me again was in your plans, otherwise – ”
“Hey, we’re bound through time, Ally,” Peter interrupted, touching her hand. “Can’t fight that.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it,” Emma said. “I’ll call Isabel first thing tomorrow.”
“Okay,” Peter said. “For now, let’s write down every name you two remember.”
* * * * *
That night, as though his past had been cultivated by the experience, Peter dreamt of his childhood—mostly good things. He dreamed of the tree house his father built for him and his brothers. The sandbox they used to play in. The love he felt when he was lucky enough to grab the much revered spot where he could snuggle between his parents on the couch.
The night was not perfect, though. As sure and easily as a snake, a dark memory slithered in to sink its venomous fangs into his fonder ones. And it didn’t remain in just his past, but morphed into the situation they now faced. In the final nightmare, Peter was four years old again:
His grandma sat in the station wagon. The car had run out of gas and he was waiting for his grandpa to come back with the gasoline can. Peter had watched him walking away until he was a tiny dot. The car was parked on the side of a dusty, unpaved road, and Peter passed the time by throwing rocks into the tall grassy field beside it. He finally saw the hunched over figure of his grandpa approaching after what seemed like hours.
“Grandpa! You were gone for a year!”
“Hi, Petey. Want to help me fix the car?”
“Yes sir! Can I pour some gasleen in?”
“No, but you can open the gas cap and hold on to it.” Peter reached up, opened the cover, and unscrewed the cap. He gripped the cap and looked at his beloved grandpa. Peter would hang on to that cap even if Frankenstein tried to take it away from him. He loved his grandpa.
“The car’s thirsty, Petey. Why, I’ll bet it will drink this whole—”
Peter inspected the gas cap—smelling it, touching the insides and sniffing his fingers, and keeping an eye out for Frankenstein—when his grandpa stopped talking in the middle of what he was telling him. Then Peter heard the gas splashing on the ground.
As he looked up, his grandpa staggered back from the car. Peter saw the nozzle of the can had pulled out of the tank and the reddish liquid was pouring onto his grandpa’s shoes.
“Whatcha doin', grandpa?” Peter asked, but his grandpa didn’t answer—he just teetered, then fell backward.
Peter heard screaming, and looked inside the car at his grandma. Her hands were pressed against her head, and she screamed . . . and screamed . . . and screamed.
When Peter turned back to look at his grandpa, Allyson stood next to him. While his grandpa still lay on the ground, foam bubbling from his mouth, Peter realized he was no longer a boy. He was a full-grown man.
“He’s dying, Peter. Isn’t that what he’s doing?”
“Yes, I believe he is . . . dying,” Peter said.
“You’re not dying, Peter. You should have been there to save me.”
“What do you mean, save you?”
“I was standing, and then I was flying, Peter,” said Allyson. “Down, down, into the rocks. Bones breaking. Sea water in my lungs, impossible . . . to breathe. As she said
this, a gash opened on her face, and blood began to pour from it in cascading sheets. “My face shattered . . . my neck, my body broken. I tried to call you but you were back there.” She pointed behind her, her bloody sleeve blowing in the gentle, warm breeze.
“It wasn’t me, Ally. It wasn't you, either! How could I save you?” He took a step back, but Allyson stepped toward him at the same time. Something draped across her shoulder.
Seaweed?
“No Ally!” Peter screamed. “I love you!” Allyson stepped toward him again, and he stumbled away. Another cut had opened on her right breast beneath the lavender dress, and crimson stains began soaking through the thin material. Then suddenly the dress was soaking wet, the blood and water blending, running onto the ground beneath her feet.
“Don’t do this to me, Ally. I can’t stand to see you bleed . . .”
Allyson knelt down next to his grandpa and lowered her head near his mouth. The blood and water poured off of her face and onto the dying man’s motionless body.
“I sent the dress to Isabel as I fell, Peter. To torture you. You didn’t save either of us. You let us both die. Didn’t you love us? Didn’t you ever love either one of us?”
Her whole face was a bloody mass now, and her dress sagged down from the weight of what had to be gallons of blood and water.
“Why would you let us die . . . let us die . . . let us die . . . let us—”
Peter sat bolt upright in bed, breathing hard. His tee shirt was soaked completely through with sweat, and his hands trembled, even when he pressed them against the mattress. When he reached up to wipe away the remnants of sleep from his eyes, he realized he had been crying in his sleep.
The rest of the night, Peter watched the numbers on his clock flick from :01 through :00, then start all over again. The dream had to be a harbinger of terrible things yet to come.
He would call Emma at first light. It had to be over for him. But some of Ally’s last words in the dream bothered him.
I sent the dress to Isabel. To torture you.
* * * * *
Emma sat before Isabel in the tiny front room of her ramshackle house buried at the base of a hill, deep within Laguna Canyon. Isabel’s home had been filled with mud several times over the last few years, but somehow it remained standing. Her legions of close friends helped her scoop it out, and she got on with her life.
The exterior paint curled in a vast array of multi-shaped flakes wherever the eye fell, and the composition shingles lay scattered around the weed-filled yard. What prevented the house from simply falling apart Emma did not know, but she sometimes mused it may just be all the mud from dozens of old swallows nests packed under the eaves, along with mud from the slides filling every external crack. A modern Adobe.
Inside, the air smelled of years of incense, and the plaster walls were covered with Middle Eastern tapestries. The floor was bare wood now, the exact type concealed by years of abuse and the elements. It was the kind of floor you could sweep all day and still get a dust cloud when you hit it with a broom again.
Isabel was not afraid of looking like a cliché of her profession, hair wrapped in a bandanna, her gold hoop earrings dangling down. She reached across the small round table and took Emma’s hands in hers, smiling.
“I’m glad you’re all right after your accident, dear. I’m so sorry I was gone that long,” she said. Her voice sounded like an old hippie who might believe in the power of simple crystals. “You were in my thoughts many times over the month I was away,” she said. “I knew in my heart that you were in distress. I even thought of Peter.”
“You’ve never met him,” Emma said. “How did you know—”
“I felt him there with you, Emma. I sensed his depth of feeling for you.”
Emma smiled. Web did love her, but not the way she once hoped. He was her best friend and always would be. It would have to be enough. “Web stayed with me, and he does care. I thought about you a lot, too. Mostly because of what happened to cause the accident.”
“The pictures you spoke of on the phone.”
Emma nodded. “I’m not sure why we were chosen, or if we’re really experiencing what we think we are.”
Isabel stood and walked to the front of the room where she looked out the small window, void of glass, through which several vines of wild ivy crawled. “In my years I’ve seen many things, child. Everything has a meaning in our lives, everything helps us to understand who we are and what we want from this life. You brought the pictures?”
“Old photographs, yes.” Emma laughed and said nervously, “It’s weird . . . we think when we touch them . . . well, it seems like we’re taken back to a former life. Three of us so far.”
“Are you the only three to have touched them?”
Emma nodded.
“Is it like being out of your body? Do you feel a strong vibration as you return to the present?”
“I’ve never had an out of body experience, but there’s no vibration that I remember.”
Isabel turned from the window and laughed, her sandy voice filling the room. “You’ve had them, you’re just not aware of it, my dear. How are the three of you connected? Tell me everything.”
Emma told Isabel how she met Allyson at the trauma center, and how she introduced her to Web. She explained how, after Web’s date with her, they all got together at her house and Allyson became a piece of the puzzle.
“Give me a photograph,” Isabel said. “We’ll see if your theory is correct or not.”
If you go inside, we’ll have to assume anyone will,” Emma said. “Only so much coincidence, after all.” She reached into her purse and withdrew a baggie. She put it on the table.
Isabel picked it up and turned it upside-down. Three photos landed on the table. She plucked the top photo from the pile and put her tiny half-glasses on her nose, squinting at the black and white image.
“That’s—”
“I know who this is,” Isabel said. “It’s Lilly Morris.” In the photograph the actress stood in front of a movie theater marquis, a premier of one of her movies, probably. Security guards held back the crowd behind Lilly, and her smile was radiant. “She was a star when I was a child. She died too young.”
“I believe I was her once.”
Isabel picked the second picture up from the table. It was the image of the two boys on bicycles. As Isabel looked at it, she gasped and dropped it.
“Don’t tell me!” Emma said.
“No, dear. I’m not going where you have, but I feel death on that picture. I feel something dark, terrible.”
“Web says that boy,” she pointed at the image of Stanley Ross, “died just after this was taken. Hit by a car.”
“He was murdered.”
Emma’s face drooped. “Web said he thought the same thing. The other kid’s name is Chris Wickham, and we think it’s Web’s prior incarnation.”
“I can feel the malice in the image still,” Isabel said, picking up the final image. “Who is this? I sense a deep fear in her heart.”
“Fear? Of what?”
“I do not know. Is this your friend, Allyson?”
“Yes . . . well, no. Now it is, but we think her name was Ellen Carver.”
Isabel nodded and said nothing.
“Do you feel yourself being drawn into these images at all, Isabel?” asked Emma.
“Not in the way you do,” she said. “Would you do it for me? Now?”
“I haven’t done it . . . without Web. Without someone who could do it with me,” Emma said. “I’m not sure if—”
“Bring him, then,” interrupted Isabel. “Get him and come back tonight. It does not matter what time.”
* * * * *
Peter stared at the phone as it rang for the seventh time. He had forgotten to put on the answering machine. It had to be Emma. She was the only person he knew with the patience to wait for eight rings. The ring cut off in the middle of the ninth as he picked it up. “Hey, Em.”
“It’s not Em
ma, Peter. It’s me.”
Peter’s heartbeat increased, and he felt guilty. “Ally . . . hi, what’s up?”
“I could ask you the same, Peter.”
“I thought it was Web.”
“It was. I’m not sure what it is right now. Maybe Mr. Webster.”
“Let me see if I can explain this without making you think I’m gutless,” Peter said. “I’ve been having dreams since our experience the other night. Dreams that keep me awake at night.”
“Emma saw Isabel, Peter. It might help us all to see her.”
Peter paced around the room with the portable phone. “I’m worried, Ally. For you, for me. I think this is dangerous for all of us.”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line, then Allyson spoke again, her voice cautious. “Peter, this thing may play out into nothing. We may go through all those pictures and have it lead nowhere. Just a peek into our pasts. A big circle.”
“Life doesn’t work like that, Ally. In these dreams . . . shit, listen to me! I don’t even call them what they are, damnit! They’re nightmares like I’ve never had before. You’re in them, and you’re either already dead or you’re dying. I feel it—I see it— and it scares the shit out of me. It will go wrong if I don’t stop now.”
“What if I don’t stop?” she asked defiantly. “What if Emma and I keep going try to unravel this thing?”
Peter began to speak but Allyson was not finished.
“Peter, I care about you, but what then? Is it over between us if I keep digging?”
She looked embarrassed for a moment, and Peter kept his mouth shut for the moment until he was sure she was done.
Allyson shrugged. “I know we’ve just started getting to know one another, Peter, but it’s off to a good start I think.”
“Is that it?” Peter asked.
“Yes. For now.”
“Okay,” Peter said. “First of all, I don’t own you. I care about you, too, Ally, but it’s not my place. I can only tell you I’m worried and hope you’ll listen.”
“I think my mom would tell me to hang on to you.”
“I'm not sure about that.” Peter wasn’t sure what he’d said to elicit that response.
