by James Tayler
“You are in some serious trouble young man. I really don’t care why you did this and that is between you and the judge. I’m here to uphold the law.” I took a few steps closer to him and I had my hand on my hip ready to pull my weapon. I really didn’t want to and my best weapon of all that was my billy club. “You haven’t killed anybody and that will help you make a deal that will get you out of prison earlier than expected. You never know, you may even find yourself a lawyer that’ll be able to help you avoid prison altogether. There are all sorts of programs out there that help people like you get back on your feet.” His hands were in the air and I could see a Rolex watch that was not a fake.
I was slightly distracted and I didn’t see him kick out with his right foot. He made contact with my stomach and blew the wind right out of me. I did not fall to my knees, but I was slightly stunned and unable to amount any kind of defense for the moment. He turned and tried to strike me, but I used my training to avoid contact. He struck my billy club and I heard his grimace of pain, but it wasn’t nearly, as anguished as I thought it would be.
“You just assaulted an officer. I know that you’re not thinking straight, but that was the worst thing that you could have possibly done.” He looked determined and I really couldn’t see much of him other than his brilliant white teeth. The rest of him was obscured by the shadow that he was hiding within. I looked up for one moment and I noticed that the street lamp was either burned out or broken. I didn’t believe in coincidences or maybe he had just used that, as the best way to attack. It was a matter of convenience, or maybe he had planned this.
“I’ve already told you that you don’t want any part of this, but yet you still remain vigil. I have a job to do and I’m not going to allow you to interfere in my business.” He moved like I was some sort of prey. I didn’t want him to think that I was powerless. He came after me again and this time I moved the billy club around, so that I could strike him against the side of the head. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head and then he spun over the hood of the car. He landed on his hands and knees. He got up and made a run for it.
Chapter four
“Officer needs assistance. Suspect is wearing all black, about six feet and weighing approximately 190 pounds. He was seen running down Wilkinson Street. I have a victim on the ground bleeding. Send an ambulance, as soon as you can.” I heard the dispatch say that it was going to take about 20 minutes to reach my location. I saw people coming out of a nearby bar and they began to crowd around with me trying my best to keep them at bay. If there is a doctor here, then I would really like them to come forward.” Everybody looked around, but it didn’t appear that any doctors were going to be coming to the rescue anytime soon.
I had a bit of first aid training, so I was going to utilize that to the best of my advantage. I got down on the ground and I saw that the wound was deep. I reached for the knife, but not before I donned a pair of rubber gloves. I unzipped a baggie that I had on the inside of my jacket and I placed the knife gingerly inside to prevent contamination of the evidence. Any prints that would be found on it would be of the assailant.
There were murmurs within the crowd, but I could not bother myself with those that only wanted to take photos with their phones. I placed my hand over the wound using a piece of my torn uniform to push up against with pressure. The old man had long white stringy hair and he was wearing an off the rack suit with actual patches on the elbows. He kind of looked intellectual and beside him was a pair of glasses that had broken during the attack.
I could tell that he was still breathing, so at least I had that going for me. His breathing was a little irregular. Whoever had done this had known exactly what they were doing. He was bleeding profusely and the ripped piece of cloth that I had from my uniform had soaked through to the other side.
“If anybody has anything on them that I can use to stop this blood, then please come forward. Anybody with any medical training whatsoever would be greatly appreciated. The ambulance won’t be here for another 15 minutes and I don’t know if this man has that long to live. I know that most of you don’t want to get involved, but if you don’t, then this man is going to die. Can you really live with that on your conscience?” I saw somebody in the back that was standing there and staring with a blue hoodie over his head.
For some reason, that man got underneath my skin in a way that made me think that he was complicit in whatever this was. From every thing that I had seen, I was assuming that this was a robbery gone bad. It’s just that the man’s words were chilling and almost calculating to the degree of being more dangerous than a junkie on the street.
“I have a first aid kit in my purse. I don’t leave home without it.” It was a strange thing for her to be carrying with her, but I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. She came forward, a redheaded vixen with a very tight red dress that was meant to party in all night long. Her heels were almost 4 inches long and I was worried that she was going to stumble and fall and hurt herself. She moved with a sort of grace. She was soon kneeling there on the ground with her bare knees on the pavement. “You can use whatever you want from it. I don’t really have any training, but I was raised to be prepared for just about anything.” I took the small container and I knew that it was a travel kit. It wouldn’t have much, but maybe it would have enough.
“I really do appreciate this and I know that this man will probably want to thank you.” It looked like she was going to be sick. She wasn’t at all comfortable being around blood. Her face had turned this ash white in a matter of seconds. “I can take care of this. You don’t have to be here. This really isn’t something that is good for a woman with a queasy stomach.” She had her hand over her mouth and she made a mad dash for the alley, where she got rid of the contents of her stomach. It was probably mostly fluids. Those guys that had seen her in that dress had probably plied her with liquor all night long. It was still early and 10:00 PM was only the start of a night out with the girls.
“Hang in there old timer. The ambulance is coming and I want you to hold on for as long as you can.” I’d used a pressure bandage from the kit and it was better than my ripped clothing. The pressure that I had on him was keeping him from bleeding out. I didn’t see any car keys on him. I had to assume that he was walking to whatever destination he was on his way to. It was possible that he was meeting this man and things took a terrible turn.
I glanced back to see that the man that was making my skin crawl was still there. It really did appear to me that he had a vested interest in whether this man survived or not. I wanted to question him, but there was no way that I could do that, until the ambulance arrived and took this man’s life out of my hands. I heard the sirens in the distance and I estimated maybe another 10 minutes before they would arrive on the scene. The best thing that I could do was talk to the old man.
“I don’t know if you can hear me. You’re going to be perfectly fine.” I didn’t know if that was true. Maybe I could find some kind of identification. With my one hand free, I searched his pockets and found no discernible wallet to indicate what this man’s name might’ve been. It seemed awfully strange that he would be out in the middle of the night with no wallet or any money to speak of. I did find a match book for a very seedy motel that usually catered to a less than savory clientele.
His eyes fluttered open and he said a few words in a language that I really didn’t understand. Taking my phone out, I recorded it and hopefully I would be able to translate what he said into the English form. I didn’t have time to do that right now, but I could definitely make time later on. His eyes rolled up into the back of his head and there were only the whites that remained. He began to seize and his body began to move like that of somebody that was having an epileptic fit.
The last breath out of his body came in a gasp. His eyes stayed open, as he slumped back onto the ground. His hand opened up and a very distinctive ring with a blood red center in the middle came into focus. It lay there on his fingertips and
I could see the indentation in his palm like he was holding onto it for dear life. It almost gave me the impression that maybe this ring was a cause for his misfortune.
THE END
ROMANCE:
TOWER OF LOVE
(FREE BOOK)
Tower of love
Caroline Anderson has always been the adventurous one in her family. Her sister Kayla was always the pessimist, where Caroline was mostly optimistic about the future. Her work in psychology had made her infinitely qualified to assist on what could possibly be a groundbreaking experiment into time travel. She knows that it’s only a one way trip and that the unpredictable nature of where she will land makes it all that much more interesting to her. When she does finally get to where she’s going, she finds one man vying for her attention. What will she do to protect him and will she be able to live with yourself after?
Chapter one
“Samantha, I know what you’re saying, but I don’t really understand why you are being so defensive about this. You’ve already done what you want to do and so has hope and why doesn’t that same courtesy go to the rest of us? We all know it’s dangerous and that we can’t play god, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t enjoy the ride. Nobody in history has been able to do this and for us to be able to break through that kind of barrier is unheard of. I’ve seen the way that you all worked tirelessly together and I have been instrumental in making sure that you stay sane during this process.” I was glad to see my sister sitting at the table, but her mind didn’t seem to be on what was most important.
“I’m only saying that I’ve seen the other side and I’m not sure that everybody here is capable of making those hard decisions. You’ve already heard what hope had to go through concerning the tsunami and it was only by sheer gall that she made sure that the love of her life did not perish. Who’s to know that he was supposed to live or die? There are no set rules, but what Hope did was unconscionable. I could’ve saved one of my ancestors, but I decided against it for the betterment of mankind.” Samantha was trying to make a case to shut down the experiment, but I don’t think that it was going to be met favorably.
“I’m not denying that Hope made a drastic error in judgment, but it was her mistake to make. I don’t know what would have been had she allowed that man to perish. I don’t think any of us will ever know, but we can be assured that something did change. Let’s go on the premise that we are embarking in unknown waters and that we need to take things slowly. I don’t know what’s going to happen on my journey, but I can assuage your fears by telling you that I would never do what Hope did.” I could see that Hope was embarrassed, but she was also elated that the man of her dreams was coming here shortly. Even though she had done something colossally wrong, it didn’t mean that she couldn’t find the happiness that she deserved.
“I’m not sure that I like the way that everybody is talking about me. I’m not sure that everybody here understands that love is a commodity that is very rare indeed. We’ve all gone down that road several times with men that have turned out to be absolutely the worst thing that we could have in our lives. I don’t know, but I believe that this is our one chance to find the man that is going to make us happy.” Hope got up and she left the room, giving us a look that would probably kill most people.
“Samantha, you’re not exactly immune to all of this and you just finished telling us by your own admission that you were this close to saving an ancestor. The only person that would’ve known how that would have affected the future would’ve been you. I’m going on my journey and I think that I deserve the same kind of respect that everybody else has.” I was watching Kayla very closely and I could tell that she was not in any kind of mindset to listen to any of this. The divorce was taking its toll and I could see that there were a lot of sleepless nights in her future. “We started this together and we end it the same way. If this is truly one chance, then we need to make the most of it.”
“I’ve heard just about enough of this and I’m having a hard time concentrating as it is. My sister is right and we all have that chance to make things that were wrong right again. We knew the Hope was going there primarily to stop her husband from cheating on her with somebody else. We accepted that for what it was, knowing full well that it would change the fabric of time, as we knew it.” I curled my red hair with my hand, feeling like I was living for the first time. It was a drastic transformation, but one that I thought that I needed to do for myself. I was always a natural redhead underneath it all, but there were times that I just didn’t feel that kind of redheaded vixen coming to the surface.
“That’s the first real thing that anybody has said from the moment that we sat down and began discussing this. Of course, this is all conjecture and there’s not even any way to know where I’m going to land. I know where I want to go and I’m going to try to concentrate and use the same technique that Hope used. We’ve all been practicing yoga and meditation to make our minds, as clear as possible, but sometimes that isn’t going to be enough. I think that the only person that really knows what’s going to happen from this point on is god himself. He works in mysterious ways and my catholic upbringing has made it possible for me to look past my misconceptions about time travel. I’m sure that my sister has those same feelings. Playing god is not something that I went into this thinking that I was going to do, but here we are.”
Who’s to say that we were not meant to go down this road together any way? God had a plan for all of us and for us to come together like this in an undertaking that would make most scientists green with envy was unheard of. There was no way that I could take a change of clothes, so I was going to have to try and limit my exposure to a time that would not make my fashion look obsolete or even nonexistent.
“We can talk about this to death, but nothing is going to change. We’ve all made contributions to this project and I would never take anything away from each and every one of you. All I’m trying to convey is that we should make an effort to stay away from those things that will change the course of history. Once again, we don’t really know how this is going to affect anybody, because the only person that would know is the person that actually left in the first place. I didn’t change anything. The only thing that I did was make a certain someone pine for me after I was gone. I was lucky that I didn’t get killed by Jack the ripper himself. To be honest, I think dying at his hands would’ve been something, but I’m glad that I’m alive.”
“That was certainly a close call and one that I don’t think any of us would like to duplicate. I would suggest that my sister go next, but she is dealing with an unfortunate situation. The divorce is getting ugly and they are throwing accusations around about impropriety in the marriage. My sister and I tell each other everything and I know for fact that she would never cheat on him. It’s not in her DNA and besides she is a good catholic girl that doesn’t walk away from the path of the marriage bed.” I was glad the Kayla was taking a step back to reevaluate her life with the man that she supposedly loved at one time. That love to turned into bitterness and now they were fighting to see who was going to take the most from the other.
When they first started the proceedings, it was amicable, but that didn’t remain for very much longer. With cutthroat lawyers at their disposal, they were watching their lives being played out for everybody in the courtroom. They were using every trick in the book to get what they wanted. They weren’t going to let anybody stand in their way. If it wasn’t for those damn lawyers, they might’ve been able to work it out together. As it was, the lawyers were making things difficult. Their main concern was what kind of commission they were going to get and the best way to get that was to make sure that the other lawyer was left in the dust.
“We all know what your sister is going through. I walked into this with my eyes wide open and I hope to god that all of you do the same. It’s not an easy thing to mess with the natural order of things. Keep vigil and watch and listen to everything around you to determine what you’re g
oing to do next.” I took a deep breath, slammed my hands down onto the table. I got up and walked over to the device in question. It was still a little strange seeing it as some kind of platform with dials and colors in the center and around the surface. The main component was still a mystery and we didn’t wanna talk about the elephant in the room, but someday we were going to have to.
We came in one day to find a power source unlike anything that we’ve ever had before. Once it was attached to the device that we had made with our own two hands, it began a sequence of events that we couldn’t walk away from. “This is all nice and I’m glad that everybody has an opinion. The only problem that I foresee is that I will not be able to stop myself from falling in love with a man that probably will never see the light of day again. I’ve noticed and I think that all of you can agree that the device is sending us to various points in history that are cataclysmic. I think that it was by design, but there’s really no way to know for sure.” I stood on the device and I nodded to Samantha to make the correct calculations. I’d taken the shots and I was now mellow and calm with the use of a sedative to keep my mind from over thinking things.
I saw the lights and they flashed in front of my eyes and then suddenly I had this feeling of weightlessness. That was not something that happened to either Hope or Samantha and I had to believe that everybody was different. I wondered what I was going to find and if returning would change things.
Chapter two
The first thing I noticed was that I was falling in the air. I had materialized in midair. It was terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. It was also something that I would never want to do again. I was still trying to compose myself, when something snagged onto my shoulder and left me hanging precariously 100 feet off the ground. I struggled in vain and then I looked up to see that my jacket had gotten caught on a steel bar. Any closer and it would have impaled me. I was lucky that I wasn’t dead on arrival.
