by Jason Ayres
“I’ve no idea”, said Charlie. “We don’t know anything about this thing. Maybe there’s a weight limit like that lift in school with the sign in it that says “maximum weight eight persons or 500kg”. By the way, have you seen what someone has written underneath it?”
Charlie had noticed earlier that someone had written “Or Daniel Fisher” underneath it in black marker pen.
Josh giggled. “Yeah that was well funny. I should know. I wrote it”.
“I knew that was you. I recognised the writing. Dan was not happy”.
“Yeah, well he deserved it. Not for being fat, just for being an arrogant tosser”.
Charlie looked up and noticed a figure had entered the tunnel, coming from the direction of town, as they had originally done so.
“Look, someone’s coming”, he said.
The boys stood back against the tunnel wall, looking like they were loitering with intent, as a man proceeded down the tunnel, somewhat uneasy on his feet.
“Oh God, it’s Andy Green”, said Charlie. “He’s a complete pisshead who lives a few doors down from us. I’ve heard him a few times coming home in the evenings making a right racket”.
“He looks like he’s had a few today. Come on, let’s move along the tunnel a bit and see if he disappears. Get the stopwatch ready”.
The boys watched as Andy approached, swearing belligerently at no one in particular. He was unshaven and unkempt, with a thinning mop of greasy unwashed hair on top. He was dressed in a blue denim jacket which had gone out of fashion sometime towards the end of the last century, matching jeans, and some scuffed-up old trainers that had seen better days.
Just as he was about to reach the middle of the tunnel he stopped and pulled out a fag which he subsequently dropped. This led to him scrabbling around on the floor trying to pick it up, accompanied by another round of swearing.
“You’ve got some really nice neighbours, mate”, observed Josh.
“Well, we can’t all live on Magnolia Avenue, can we?” replied Charlie, in reference to his friend’s posh new house. “Hang on, looks like he’s got it sorted”.
Andy had managed to light his fag at about the eighth attempt and promptly staggered forward and disappeared.
“Well, if our theory is correct, he should appear after exactly 42 seconds”, said Josh.
“Quick, let’s move back down the tunnel so we’re behind him when he re-emerges. I don’t want to have to talk to him”, said Charlie.
“Won’t he notice we’ve gone?” asked Josh.
“He’s drunk, he won’t notice anything” replied Charlie.
Sure enough, after 42 seconds Andy reappeared and staggered on his way, completely oblivious to his little time travel adventure.
“Well, that confirms it then. It is doubling each time. What the hell is this thing?” asked Josh.
“It must be some sort of time portal. Somehow whoever goes through it is being transported forward in time by a margin that doubles each time. No one can see them and they don’t even know they are in there. From our perspective it is as if they are trapped in their own little Time Bubble until the correct amount of time has passed”.
“Do you think anyone else knows about it?” Josh was full of questions. Charlie was hardly an expert on the subject but tried to make the best sense of it that he could.
“I wouldn’t have thought so. After all, when we first saw it, the first person went through in about a second, possibly less. Before that, the time intervals were probably too small for anyone to notice”.
“So what are we going to do about it?” asked Josh. “Do you think we should tell anyone?”
“Who can we tell? And who would believe us? It just sounds like some sort of teenage sci-fi fantasy”. Charlie remembered a time when he’d tried to get Kaylee interested in Doctor Who and had failed miserably.
“But if it keeps doubling – well, there are all sorts of possibilities. We could keep going through and see the future. We could do anything”.
“You haven’t thought this through, Josh. For a start we don’t know if there is any way of getting back. And secondly if you start jumping forward days or weeks or even further in time, how are you going to explain to everyone where you’ve been? How are your mum and dad going to feel if you just disappear? No – we need to think about this carefully”.
“OK, that makes sense, I guess”, conceded Josh. His usual bravado had disappeared temporarily and he seemed intensely deep in thought as the implications of what they had discovered sank in.
“I think we should make a few more trial runs and see what happens”, suggested Charlie.
“OK – let’s go. I’m calling shotgun – me first”. Charlie started the stopwatch and Josh stepped in to the Bubble once again.
Chapter Four – 22nd October 2018 (7.00pm)
When the call came through from the CCTV monitoring centre about teenagers spraying graffiti on the entrance to the new railway tunnel, P.C. Hannah Benson was quite pleased.
It had been a rather uninspiring day to say the least. The most exciting thing to happen so far had been telling some kids off for riding their bikes in the pedestrian zone in the town centre. Whilst the graffiti was hardly the crime of the century, it was at least something to do to break up the monotony.
She was 27 years old and had been a police officer for five years. She was out now in a squad car with her colleague, P.C. Adrian Johnson, who was describing his master plan for apprehending the miscreants.
“I’ll drop you off at the town end of the tunnel”, he suggested, “so that you can walk through. I’ll take the car round the other side and catch them if they attempt to run for it”.
“So I get the dangerous bit then?” said Hannah.
“I don’t think you’re going to come to an enormous amount of harm from two teenagers aimed with spray cans, Hannah”, said her colleague.
“Come on then – let’s get a shift on before they go”, she said, eager to get on with it.
She pulled on her hat over her short blonde hair and stepped out of the car.
This conversation was all academic as 30 minutes had passed since the irate pensioner who had spotted the graffiti artists had phoned 101. This then had to be communicated to the CCTV monitoring centre, and then on to Hannah and Adrian who had been three miles away on the other side of town when they got the call.
By the time they had fought their way through the rush hour traffic the perpetrators had long since absconded.
Josh and Charlie were very much still in the tunnel, though. They had quite literally lost track of time. It was significantly later now than the times displayed on their phones and watches due to their numerous trips in the Time Bubble, and darkness had long since fallen.
They had made another interesting discovery after Charlie had attempted to go into the Bubble whilst Josh was already in there. He discovered that he couldn’t.
It seemed that the Time Bubble would allow only one person inside it at a time. Once someone was in transit, everyone else could pass freely through the tunnel without incident.
It was a little after 7pm when Josh emerged from the tunnel after his latest trip, the longest yet at 22½ minutes. His watch was now well over half an hour slow.
“I nearly died of boredom waiting for you”, remarked Charlie. “I can’t even get a decent mobile phone signal in here”.
“Perhaps we ought to call it a night”, replied Josh. “I’m certainly not hanging around for another 45 minutes waiting for you. And it’s getting cold”.
“But what are we going to do about the Bubble?” asked Charlie.
“What can we do? It’s not like we’ve got any control over it”, said Josh. “It’s not as if we can stick a big sign at the entrance to the tunnel telling people not to come in. Or tell the police or anything”.
“Speaking of which – look!” Charlie had spotted Hannah who had entered the tunnel and was now heading towards them.
“Perhaps we ought to go”, suggested Josh, an
d they started to walk back up the tunnel, away from the Time Bubble and towards home.
“Just a minute, you two”, called out Hannah. Having been sent to look for teenagers spraying graffiti in the tunnel and finding two teenage boys loitering around inside it, she had come to the not unreasonable deduction that these two were the most likely culprits.
“Just keep walking”, whispered Josh.
“Hey…” shouted Hannah – and promptly vanished as she entered the Time Bubble.
“Right that’s it – I am definitely getting out of here”, said Charlie. “This is too weird for words. Let’s go back to mine. My mum’s working late, so there won’t be anyone there. We need to figure out what to do about all of this”.
“No need to rush”, replied Josh. ”By my calculations we’ve got a good 45 minutes’ head start on that policewoman”.
They had reckoned without her colleague, though. As they emerged from the end of the tunnel, there was a squad car waiting. Inside sat P.C. Johnson, who was trying to contact Hannah on his radio.
“P.C. Benson, come in please. Do you read me?” He spotted the boys leaving the tunnel and got out of the car.
“Excuse me, boys. Can I have a word, please?”
“What is it, officer?” Charlie tried to sound as innocent as possible, a strong feeling of guilt coming over him even though he hadn’t done anything.
“We’ve had some reports of teenagers spraying graffiti on the entrance of this tunnel”. He gestured at the wall, where the initials OUFC had been daubed in large yellow paint along with an extremely crude drawing of the male anatomy.
“Nothing to do with us, officer”, said Josh. “I did see some other lads hanging around here earlier, though”.
“You won’t mind if I look in your bags then” said Adrian. “Just so I can check you’re not carrying any cans of yellow spray paint or anything”.
“Be my guest”, said Josh, knowing they were on safe ground.
Adrian had a quick look through the bags and didn’t find what he was looking for. He did notice all of the doodles on the back of Charlie’s folder, though, including a large heart with two names written in it.
“Quite the artist, aren’t we, sir? Who’s Kaylee?”
“His girlfriend”, said Josh, “in his dreams”.
Adrian’s experienced eye could see the two boys probably weren’t the graffiti artists. They weren’t the type. He decided to send them on their way.
“Right, you two had better get yourselves home. Don’t let me see you hanging around this tunnel again. Oh – and there is just one more thing. You didn’t happen to see my colleague P.C. Benson in the tunnel, did you?”
“No. We haven’t seen anyone – have we, Charlie?”
“Not a soul”.
“Right, off you go then”. As Charlie and Josh headed on into the new estate, Adrian ventured into the tunnel.
“Hannah?” he called out.
But the tunnel was deserted.
=============================
Hannah blinked. And the boys vanished. Of course from her perspective she had not disappeared at all – they had.
“What the …?” she mouthed, but there was no one there to hear her. Now this was seriously confusing. One minute the boys were there and the next they just weren’t. She walked on alongside the strip yellow lighting set into the walls of the tunnel until she emerged into the darkness at the far end.
There was no sign of the squad car either. She decided to radio her colleague.
“P.C. Johnson, come in please. What is your location?”
“Hannah, is that you?” came the reply. “I’ve been trying to radio you. Where have you been?”
“What do you mean, where have I been?”, retorted Hannah, feeling more than a little bit irked. “You were meant to be waiting for me at the end of the tunnel”.
“I was waiting! You never came out. I’m back at the station now – I had to report your disappearance. You’d better get back here right now – Kent is not happy!”
“What did you have to tell him for?” asked Hannah, now annoyed that she was going to have to explain herself to her boss. Not that she even knew what or how she was going to explain. “And how did you get back to the station so quickly?”
“Just get back here and we’ll sort it out when you get here”.
“I’m on my way now. You had better get the kettle on. I think I need a caffeine injection”.
Hannah was feeling more than a little confused. First there was the disappearance of the boys and now this. She walked slowly back through the tunnel, looking around carefully but she could see nothing untoward. There was nowhere the boys could have hidden or any other way out.
It was a mystery but not one she was able to come up with any sort of plausible theory about.
She mused over various possibilities in her head, rejecting each one in turn. Perhaps she passed out? But then she would have fallen over.
Then another thought struck her – she hoped it was not narcolepsy. She had seen a programme about it on TV a while back where some guy had kept falling asleep standing up. She wouldn’t be able to do her job with that.
By the time she reached the station and headed for Kent’s office she was still none the wiser. She’d just have to bluff it out.
D.I. Richard Kent was a veteran police officer who had more than a hint of “old school” about him. He had a brash, abrasive, no-nonsense approach to dealing with matters, but stopped short of doing anything against the rules, unlike his colleagues of a generation ago.
He was in his early forties but looked older with his thinning hair and middle-aged spread, brought on by a quarter of a century of exceeding his 21 units of alcohol a week. He justified this to himself and to anyone who would listen as being down to the stress of the job.
It showed on his face, too, which had a slightly ruddy complexion and rapidly reddening nose. He was also developing a double chin.
He had been looking forward to getting down to the pub for a couple of pints on the way home, so was not in the best of moods when he heard that P.C. Benson had gone missing – albeit temporarily. The clock in his office was now showing 8.20pm, by which time he would normally expect to be on his first pint in The Red Lion.
There was a somewhat timid knock on the door from a rather subdued Hannah, to which he bellowed “Come in!” belligerently enough to unsettle her even more than she was already. She turned the handle and entered.
“Where the bloody hell have you been?” he demanded.
“I was out on a job with P.C. Johnson – we got sent to investigate some kids spraying graffiti in…”
He cut her short: “Yes, yes, I know all that! What I want to know is where you went after that. P.C. Johnson couldn’t find you anywhere!”
“That is because I didn’t go anywhere”. Hannah was feeling flustered. “It is less than an hour since we got the call”.
“It’s twenty-five past eight. Johnson says you went into the tunnel about quarter past seven”.
Only then did she notice the clock. Surely it wasn’t that late? She glanced at her wristwatch. It read 19.40. She pulled out her mobile phone which showed the same.
“Excuse me – do you mind not messing about with your phone while I’m telling you off?” blustered Kent, his face growing redder by the second. “If you want to get on in this force you might start showing some respect to your superiors”.
“But look, sir”, said Hannah, showing her phone to her boss – “Your clock must be wrong”.
“There’s nothing wrong with that clock. Look, I’ve got a watch, too – 8.26pm – see?”
“But this can’t be right”, said Hannah.
“Do you know what I think is going on here?” asked Kent.
“What?” said Hannah, abruptly.
“How about adding a ‘sir’ to that?”
“Sorry. What, sir?” asked Hannah, sarcastically.
Kent ignored the sarcasm and continued.
“I think you and Johnson are in this together. I think you are deliberately trying to wind me up and this is all some big prank. Do you think I was born yesterday? I was out solving crimes when you and Johnson were still in reception class”.
The more he went on, the more convinced Kent became. He also couldn’t stop thinking about the lovely pint of bitter waiting for him at The Red Lion.
“It’s not a prank, sir”.
“Get out of my sight, Benson. And when you see Johnson, tell him he’s in my bad books as well. I am not happy”. He put excessive emphasis on the word “not”.
Hannah realised there was no point in arguing any further and decided to admit defeat. “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir”.
“Off you go then”, he said, ushering her towards the door. “And no more pranks, do you hear?”
Hannah made a swift exit, her tail between her legs. He gave her a few seconds to get clear and then grabbed his coat and headed for the door. He’d soon be with his pals at the pub, bemoaning the lack of respect of young officers these days. Not addressing him properly and playing stupid practical jokes. Yes, he could feel a good rant coming on.
The week had not started well. He hoped the rest of the week would be quiet and easy so he could play boss and then relax down the pub in the evenings. He had no inkling of just how busy he was going to be in a few days’ time.
Chapter Five – 23rd October 2018 (8.00am)
The next three people to fall into the Time Bubble all got into varying degrees of trouble and were all equally unable to explain themselves.
A teenager in the year below Charlie and Josh was an hour and a half late home from football training later that evening and got grounded for a week.
An errant husband, only recently forgiven by his wife for an affair with a work colleague, got the third degree when he arrived home at nearly 2am after a Monday night pool match, three hours later than usual.
And an overnight postal worker, due in to help sort the overnight mail at 2am, was the most confused of all when he emerged into the early morning sunshine at the other end of the tunnel. He was home an hour later complete with a written warning that if it happened again he’d be out of a job.
