Sand Glass

by A M Russell

  ‘Take Janey out.’ I said to Marcia again. This time she obtained compliance from Janey by grabbing her round the waist, and lifting her bodily through the gap into the tunnel. They were still in earshot. I could hear a mewling sound. It was like an animal in pain. Tiny and helpless. But I had a more immediate concern for Jared. He gasped once, and then coughed.

  ‘Davey….’ He was still leaning against me, ‘I….’ he coughed again. This time there was blood in it.

  ‘It’s okay. I’m here.’ I took a hanky from my pocket and held it to his mouth. I slowly lowered myself to the floor. We sat there as he leaned against me and carried on coughing like a hiccup every moment or so.

  Eventually it stopped. He looked at me. So close, and now so near.

  ‘Forgive me…. Please.’ He looked like one who knows they are doomed and only wants to lessen the limit of that doom.

  ‘Jared, I do.’

  I found the water bottle and another clean square of cotton. I wiped the blood away from his face. He had gone deathly pale as that wild insane strength drained away. It left behind a failing creature who was weak and sick. He faded before my eyes into a lonely young man longing for help to come out of the darkness. Seeing the stars scarring the night above him, as he and his sister lay there waiting….

  ‘Oh no! No….dear God what Have I done? I tried to hurt you…. I was thinking such terrible things. I don’t know what is happening Davey.’ He shivered and bent forward looking sick, ‘forgive me!’

  ‘Come now…. I forgive you. I am your friend, and I won’t leave you.’ I wanted to stay calm, but I thought I was beginning to lose my grip on what was real. Jared needed me to be strong, and I jolly well gritted my teeth and decided to keep being that. He mumbled something I could barely make out, then clearer, but hoarsely: ‘It was like my mind was inside out and the darkness was in here with me.’ He slid further down into a half curled and crumpled position. I put my hand to his forehead, it was clammy. ‘You told us what this place did to us; you know, the last time we were here.’ I tried to keep it light and matter of fact; the opposite of what I was actually feeling, ‘All sorts of things can happen in this place.’

  ‘Yes. I know.’ Jared pushed himself up and looked at me steadily, those eyes were dark and wide in the dim light and seemed filled again with that old kindness that made me forget my own weakness, then he spoke and sounded like the man I had always known, with that half smile resting there; ‘I said that, and it is so true… a question David. What do you want to do with me? What do you want to do now? I will do as you wish. I cannot trust myself today.’ The smile started to fade and he pressed his hands together then.

  ‘We need to get home.’ I said firmly, ‘We must go back to where we started to go wrong. I mean all of us.’

  ‘Davey…. I’m afraid…’ he clutched me and bowed his head into my lap where we sat sprawled on the floor.

  ‘Jared?.... Jared?’ I took his left hand. His grip was suddenly tight and painful. He tensed and clung on to me, making a sound in his throat that was eerily like the one I heard from the tunnel a moment ago.

  He spoke then in barely a whisper ‘I hurt….’

  I saw to my horror a dark bruising on his arms and on his shoulder where the neck of the shirt had fallen open as he struggled with me. He turned his head slightly and looked up at me. ‘Help me.’ He said. His eyes closed in a faint or something similar. Marcia was at the entrance with Janey. She carried her now limp body to where our packs lay, and curled Janey round so her head was resting on one of them. Marcia turned to me. ‘It has started.’ she said, and burrowed in the nearest pack for the microfibre blankets, and the compact airbeds.

  A little while later, we had made them both as comfortable as we could manage. Marcia was admirable in her practicality. I was still shocked from what happened to Jared right in front of me. But she immediately got out the med kit and looked for something to help. She gave them both a shot of one of George’s famous concoctions. We then checked them both every few minutes. There wasn’t much else to be done. We couldn’t go anywhere. And if we could get back out there somehow, it couldn’t change what was happening.

  Marcia instructed me to make strong tea for us both. She went out for a minute to the place assigned for the girl’s bathroom.

  She came in and sat by me; ‘This is all going to hell.’ She said.

  ‘Is Janey bruised as well?’ I asked.

  ‘It seems so, from what I can see.’ Marcia took the cup from me with a firm and steady hand, ‘we are in the middle of something. And we need to make some decisions soon before we end up sitting here with a couple of dead people.’

  ‘I won’t leave them again.’ I said shocked by her forthrightness.

  ‘No. Of course not. Not now.’ Marcia paused, ‘I would hazard a guess that using your silver blade would not solve the problem either.’

  ‘No. They are not in a stable state. There is no knowing where they might end up.’ I took my own cup, with not such a steady grip I realised, ‘I think that there is something we could do….’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘One of us could go back. And one could stay. We are the only ones who can do it.’ I looked to her to see what she would say.

  ‘What about our meet with Elland?’ she reminded me.

  ‘That could still happen,’ I said, ‘that person, on their return; they would have to make the meeting. And then after that find who has stayed here with the twins.’

  ‘You don’t say it normally.’ Marcia was very serious, ‘why now acknowledge their fraternity?’

  ‘Because that is the connection that cannot be broken.’ They are trouble for this “Mad Man” Alexander, or Rimmington as he is otherwise known. And Jared knew him. He recognised him from long ago… don’t you see. This goes back before the experiment. It goes back to the beginning.’

  ‘You mean when they were born?’

  ‘When we all were born.’ I reminded her.

  ‘Yes. Yes of course. The birthday…. So how is it possible to stop something that started at a point before you had any power to do anything?’

  ‘We don’t. We chose the track. And we make history jump to that track.’

  ‘What?’ Marcia seemed torn between hope and fear, ‘Tell me how we do this.’

  ‘We need Jules to go in and change the Modulator. Change the settings. Or you do. Somewhere inside your mind, there could be the passcodes for the place it’s kept in. It cannot be something that changes or they wouldn’t be able to do a “reset” and wipe… or think they wipe everyone’s timeline clean again. You must know what it is! Do you think you can find it?’

  ‘Yes. Yes I think so. My mind is like a jumble sale though. It may take a little time. But tell me what I need to do when I go back to Base?’

  ‘I’m working on it.’ I said.

  After an hour we had both completed our notes. I tried to keep it simple. That way it wouldn’t be difficult to explain to any of the others in a hurry.

  I checked Jared again. There seemed to be no change. He was just asleep. The bruising was still visible. On Janey too.

  ‘The accident.’ said Marcia, ‘Can we stop it from ever happening?’

  ‘I’m not sure if we can. You could have done…. maybe. But Jared is stubborn. And we can’t perhaps stop the outcome that way.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘I have three suggestions,’ I held out the paper.

  ‘Just say it.’ Marcia waved the paper away.

  ‘The first: We change the start point, to the day we started the expedition. That might take some of the people out of the situation…. Therefore simplify it. Second: we put it back to what it should have been this year for the start date, instead of our actual birthday….’

  ‘And?’ Marcia was waiting.

  ‘’You might think me crazy.’ I said.

  ‘I’ve thought that for a long time already,’ said Marcia with the first light hint of humour I’d felt in a
while, ‘and it won’t change the validity or lack thereof of the idea you’ve come up with.’

  ‘Alright then; Third: we switch the end and start points.’

  ‘What? Are you crazy?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘Yes but I didn’t think you’d suggest something like that!’ she went quiet for several minutes.

  ‘I get it,’ she said at last, ‘I think I get it. But I’m not sure exactly. We start at the end; and we end at the beginning?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But it’s not possible.’

  ‘Is any of this?’

  ‘You’re right. I’m not too good on the science bit of it all. Are you?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘So how can the crazy flipping idea be expected to work?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You don’t know.’

  ‘Have you got a better idea?’

  ‘No…..’ Marcia considered it for only a moment longer then shook herself, ‘I think we need to do this. Anything else is just a waste of time.’

  ‘You mean option three?’ I checked I’d heard her right.

  ‘Third time Lucky!’ she said, ‘let’s do it!’

  ‘Do you have the passcodes here?’

  ‘I wrote them all down for you. Train. Base. Modulator. Central control access point.’

  ‘Is the last one at Base too?’

  ‘Yes. Oh and one last thing.’ Marcia took the pen and wrote on the paper another six digit number.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘That is the tag code override key. Only use it if you really need to. And if we don’t see each other, or it all goes wrong then….. Davey, Thanks.’

  I was kind of stuck for anything to say. So I go the silver knife out.

  ‘Are you sure you aren’t able to do this by jumping?’ I said.

  ‘No. I need to be falling.’ She held out her arm, ‘I say do it. And don’t worry. I can handle the pain.’

  ‘I doesn’t hurt. Heelio said.’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about the knife point on my skin.’ She looked at Jared, then back at me.

  ‘Hold it steady,’ I said as she held her left forearm out to me.’

  ‘I’m ready.’ She said.

  I pressed the tip of the knife lightly along her arm just to the right of the tattoo. It was barely a graze. I looked up at her. She smiled, and then quite suddenly, she simply wasn’t there.

  I was alone with my two charges. I sat back on my heels. I wondered how long it would take. How long it would be before I succumbed in the darkness and the silence to some strange madness. I carefully put the small silvery blade away, and prepared myself for a long wait.

  *****

  Twelve

  There is a place that everyone reaches sooner or later. The outer limit of endurance; whether that is physical, mental, or any other thing. After about six hours my mind ground to a halt on the shore of this particular sea. I wanted to see some action. I lusted after it; like a drunk wants another drink. I saw my objectivity begin to erode with the hours that had passed in this underground place. We had arrived here at what would be on the outside two o’clock in the afternoon, and even not taking into account my and Marcia’s hour out with Elland’s tribe, the time had now ground round to about eight in the evening. I checked on Janey and Jared every fifteen minutes. In a way I wished I could sleep, but I was strung out in a way that made rest quite out of the question. Jared was the worse of the two. Janey’s breathing had slowed and become regular and even. She slept perhaps for the first time, in a silence and without disturbance since maybe the night the science dome experiments were wreaked. That was weeks… or was it months ago. In sleep the pale complexion assumed an ethereal beauty; and her body’s tension was relieved. George’s mixture had done its good office. I carefully turned back the edge of her blouse and examined the bruises that had flowered on her skin, banding it with a pattern of the obdurate inner furniture of the car that Jared had been driving. It was turning to every colour. As hours were like days, and something swayed in the balance between living and thinking of dying. She was a fragment of another soul. But perhaps she was the most precious part. If determination could bring back one from the greatest limit of enduring all things, then surely she could not be defeated. But I did not touch her, except to examine the state of the progress of this injury pouring out of the port of some time span.

  As for Jared himself, I listened to his ragged breath, and came close to trying to wake him several times, so afraid was I that another expiration of breath might take him with it for good. It was getting towards eight thirty when he groaned once and moved slightly. I was by his side in a moment. his eyes were flickering. And then he lifted his hand to his face, perhaps a movement half in sleep. I waited a few more minutes. He moved slightly again, and stirred as if about to turn over. I touched his hand. There was a flicker of eye lashes; then a tiny reflection of light. The lamp was behind and to my left.

  ‘David…..’ it was barely a whisper. It was pronounced in an odd way. I waited then Jared suddenly breathed in and rolling towards me and tried to push himself up onto one elbow.

  ‘Davey! It was dark…it is so dark in here,’ he slowly rolled back down, and lay staring up at me. I reached over and turned the lamp up a little. Jared blinked a few times, and regarded me steadily. What he thought I did not know. He breathed out then, a long sigh. His eyes closed again. I waited a few minutes. His breathing was better, more regular. A few minutes later, I found him staring at me again. But this time his awareness was sliding into focus as he searched my face. He found his voice out of that place where sleep erases all worlds and floods the mind with forgetfulness.

  ‘Davey, how long has it been?’ He reached his hand out and grasped mine.

  ‘Just wait a moment,’ I said, ‘then sit up.’

  ‘Okay.’

  I brought the water carrier. Jared pushed himself up into a sitting position, swayed slightly and gripped my arm rather firmly.

  ‘Oh! Some night….Or something else. I feel like the jungle after a herd of elephants has charged through it.’ He let go of my arm. He sat up and rubbed his hands over his face; he accepted the water and sipped it a little at a time. He handed it back.

  ‘How is the head?’ I asked.

  ‘Really great….better than average for a Friday night.’ He tried to smile and looked pained, ‘So how long has it been?’

  ‘It was about six hours.’ I said.

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Eight thirty just gone.’

  ‘Janey?’

  ‘She’s still sleeping. She seems okay.’

  ‘Please wake her Davey. Please do it. She mustn’t keep sleeping.’

  ‘Uh…alright.’ I slid over to her. Jared put his head in his hands like he had a really vicious hangover.

  ‘Janey?’ said her name near to her ear. Nothing. I touched her hand. I picked it up and held it in my palm. I knelt down and spoke in her ear.

  ‘Janey, time to wake up now.’ She moved a tiny amount. He lips pursed and then relaxed.

  'Janey....' I touched her cheek. She breathed in, her eyes opened; but it was if she didn't see me.

  'Jared?' she called plaintively, 'Where are we? Talk to me Jared!'

  I felt for the briefest moment a choking sensation. Then I was dragged into what I thought to be a vision so strong I could not escape it.

  'Jared!' Janey was calling. The sound was different. Remote. I stepped nearer. There was the car, and the churned up tracks where it had left the road. There were the distant sounds of other voices. And of other cars stopping to help. I went forward.

  This time I saw her clearly. She struggled with the seat beat. I wanted to reach out. To help her. I tried to cry out. I heard my voice, which I had not expected. She was still struggling. Then she was out and round to the driver’s side faster than I thought possible. The window was already open. She reached inside and got the door open.

  'Jared!' sh
e checked him with the rush of panic that surges through your veins. She was panting, and talking to herself.

  She unclipped his seatbelt. Then I saw the broken windscreen. He was unconscious. I wanted to help her. But I couldn't. Somehow, I didn't see how she managed it, she dragged him out. On the grass banking she knelt in the mud and breathed into his mouth. She was doing it text book. Keeping the panic at bay, concentrating on what she was doing. I saw her blood on her leg. I saw the cuts across them both where the tree branches had whipped through narrowly missing Janey and I believed hitting Jared a glancing blow on the side of his head.

  Why wasn't anyone coming? But it was those moments stretched out. Those things that inside slow the clock of our internal landscape. Now I saw Janey....in all she was. In her strength fuelled by love, she had lifted her brother out. This slight little thing, in body only. Now I understood. I urged her with words of encouragement to keep going. I saw she was struggling, going into shock herself.

  'Janey! Don't give up!' I yelled it as loud as I could. At that moment people came running. And the sound of emergency vehicles rushing to the spot.

  In 30 seconds the paramedics were there. They took over seamlessly. Janey collapsed in the arms of one of them. The place was swarming it felt, with the people who could save them. The police were there doing their job. I saw the other car driver being also treated.

  A few minutes later the area was controlled by police, the ambulances having roared off into the night. The area around Janey and Jared's car was taped off. Witness statements were being taken. Other cars had to wait. They were made to turn back the way they had come. In the star strewn night, as the moon rose, I saw some curious onlookers who had gathered beyond a narrow bridge just before the point in the road that Jared had lost control of the car.