by Jack Ketchum
***
Thursday July 5th
It wasn't the pineapple. Everything we sent back a day or more was the same, even the coffee bean. Everything organic, that is. The metal pins we attached with the date on them looked a bit burnt, but stayed intact. Whatever we pinned them to came back ruined.
Marie has become increasingly sullen over the past couple of weeks, but today she was worse than ever. She's banned me from her office, told me off for being late today—I slept in with Craig—and even threatened to fire me. She looked beaten. She couldn't even bring herself to look at me. She is usually so well put together, yet today her hair was a mess and there was a stain on her lab coat. God only knows what was up with her, but she cheered a bit when I made a suggestion.
So, we set the date into the future this time, and sent our brave (fresh) pineapple into tomorrow. It disappeared and didn't come back for the rest of the day. Fingers crossed.
***
Friday July 6th
It arrived! The pineapple arrived! And...wait for it...it wasn't rotten. It was as fresh as if it had been bought that day. I was over the moon about this. Marie merely smiled. She did perk up a bit. She even offered a theory. Yesterday is already written, she said. There are no alternatives to established history, so it's harder to insert an object from today into the fixed past. Like trying to crush another CD into a box full of them—some are going to get their cases cracked.
But tomorrow, well that's a different story. Anything could happen tomorrow. There's much more room to wiggle in a little pineapple goodness.
So today we sent three pineapples forward, five minutes apart. Tomorrow, if they arrive okay, we'll send something two days forward, and then we upgrade from pineapples to Misty. She's not a stripper, she's a mouse. If that works, we go shopping for a new cat.
***
Wednesday July 18th
Misty made it just fine! Craig was here to see her arrive, healthy and happy on the launch pad, exactly one day after we sent her. We took a blood sample and tested it, and yes, she is a day younger than anything else on the planet.
Craig was seriously impressed. Then I told him I love him. Not in the lab, later, at dinner. All these dinners are playing hell with my waistline, but Craig seems to be into me for more than just my figure. He asks me about my hopes and my dreams, and seems to be taking note of what I say. Maybe I will get to go to Hawaii and swim with dolphins! Can't wait! He bought me the most beautiful necklace. It has my name on it; in fact it calls me his love! It's covered in diamonds. It's beautiful. It took my breath away. It still does, every time I hold it up and watch it sparkle.
Marie is still sullen, despite our successes. She seemed to be talking to someone in her office today, but with the blinds down I couldn't be sure. She might have been on the phone, but I saw someone stumble against the blinds at one point. She came out looking even more upset and wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I didn't see anyone come out of her office before I left for the day.
I told Craig how worried I am about Marie. He told me she's always been given to mood swings. Some weeks she'll be upbeat and happy, then suddenly she'll be withdrawn and unhappy—for no reason. He's known her longer than me, but I've never seen her so pissed off before.
***
Monday August 6th
Tomorrow is the big day. Craig's here and he hates the idea, but this is why I joined the project in the first place. Marie can't go in case something goes wrong. Craig's way too important to lose in the time vortex. But me, I've always wanted to time travel. I'd be the first human on the planet to do it. The Doctor (that's the cat—I named him, my little joke) travelled a whole week forward in time with no ill effects. So now it's my turn.
Today I became the first human in history to travel in time. It was only a minute, and I felt nothing but a weird tingle all over, but here I am, one minute younger than everything else on Earth. Except the cat.
Craig hugged and kissed me when I materialized—so already I know I'm going to love the future.
Even Marie seemed a little happier. This is a major fucking breakthrough—pardon my French—after all.
I actually travelled in time! And you know what, I feel younger too!
Tomorrow I'll go for an hour. On Wednesday I'll go a whole day. We've planned to have me go forward an entire week on August 15th! I cannot wait. How amazing will that be? Better make sure my DVR is set to record my shows while I'm away!
***
Tuesday August 14th
11.49pm: I can hardly type. I'm in shock. Will write more later.
***
Wednesday August 15th
1.00am: I have to write this down. If I don't, I'll forget the details and they're important. Tonight, Craig and I sneaked back into the lab after Marie had gone home. It was my idea. I said I wanted to have sex there. We did, it was great, but that wasn't the real reason for the visit. When we were leaving, I said I had to go back and get my purse.
Once I was alone, I went straight to Marie's office. I had to know what was going on in there.
She locked the door of course. I had to spring the lock with a screwdriver. It was dark inside, and the light switch didn't work.
There was a shape in the corner of the room. I fought the urge to flee and stepped inside. There was a desk lamp and I headed towards it, but froze when I heard the noise.
It was a wheezing sound, like an asthmatic struggling to breathe. The shape in the corner was stirring. I reached out with a trembling hand, my eyes never leaving the dark mass huddled behind the desk. My fingers fumbled with the lamp, searching for the switch. When I found it, I hardly dared turn it on. My hair stood on end, my heartbeat hammered in my ears and every rational thought in my head told me to run the fuck away...
I had to know.
The light wasn't strong, but it was enough to illuminate the pitiful creature in the corner. It struggled to lift its head. Its eyes spoke of pain and desperation. It was human-shaped, more or less. Its skin was grey and crumbled like ashes. One arm was half missing, broken off at the elbow. Its head was misshapen and its body warped. The facial features were so damaged, its identity was a mystery. It struggled for every breath. As it raised its eyes towards me, it seemed to have trouble focusing. When it did manage to make out my face, a pitiful wail escaped its crumbling lips, a cry for help.
I don't think I moved for well over a minute. My hand was still on the lamp. I tried to speak but no words came out. I stared into those eyes and a terrible realization gripped me.
This poor wretch had travelled back in time. So that's what Marie had been hiding! Without my knowledge, she had sent some unsuspecting victim back to last week, or perhaps even further. Why? We all knew what happened to the pineapples. Why would Marie risk sending a person back? Why would this poor husk ever consent to such a journey?
I tore my eyes from the pitiful horror on the floor, to something that had caught my eye on the desk. It was a metal pin, like the ones we attached to everything we put through the time machine. I picked it up, feeling sick at the blackened state of it. Clearly it had been put through the machine and sent back in time. I could still read the date on it though.
Wednesday, August 15th
This creature would step into the machine tomorrow—now today!—and be sent back in time. Why would anyone choose to do that? Perhaps they were tricked. Perhaps they thought they would be travelling into the future...
Underneath the pin was a photograph. It was in color but clearly a couple of decades old. A wedding photo. The bride was Marie. The groom? I could hardly believe it. Craig.
Shit. I knew they were old friends. I didn't know they were once married! My imagination seized this revelation and ran with it. Did this explain Marie's coldness towards me? Had Greg left her and she wanted him back? Did she hate me enough to...?
Slowly, with mounting dread, I turned to find the creature had locked its bloodshot eyes on me. It probably hadn't looked away since I turned on the lamp. That crimson
gaze bored into my soul with such startling familiarity, it left me struggling to breathe.
Only one way to be sure.
I took a step nearer. The thing on the floor tried to back away but was too weak to move more than a few inches. The effort caused its right foot to disintegrate. It whimpered in distress. I crouched down to its eye-level. Still I drew closer.
I reached out, hesitating before I touched its delicate skin. Its eyes implored me. Its moaning rose to a desperate high-pitched whine as it tried to recoil. I saw it then, a slight glint of metal beneath its withered chin. My fingers made contact. It was like touching broken eggshells. The surface crumbled at the slightest movement of my hand. I hooked a finger around the metal chain.
I jumped back as the creature's neck imploded, the weight of its head too much for its shoulders to support. The head crashed through the creature's collarbone and kept falling, opening a dreadful gorge through the chest cavity and into its abdomen. Its pelvis shattered and its legs crumbled. The skull hit the floor and exploded into tiny pieces. Chunks of grey flesh skittered across the floor and broke apart.
I was left holding the gold chain in my trembling fingers, crouching over a mess of shattered bones and dust. The diamond-encrusted pendant looked as though it had been in a fire, but I could still read the inscription on the back. As I read it, my free hand went to its twin fastened around my own neck.
To Harriet, my love.
—F. Paul Wilson
F. Paul Wilson is the award-winning, bestselling author of forty-plus books and nearly one hundred short stories spanning science fiction, horror, adventure, medical thrillers, and virtually everything between. His novels regularly appear on the New York Times Bestsellers List. The Tomb received the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books; Wheels Within Wheels won the first Prometheus Award. His novella Aftershock won a Stoker Award. He was voted Grand Master by the World Horror Convention and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writers of America. He also received the prestigious San Diego ComiCon Inkpot Award and is listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who's Who in America.
In 1983, Paramount rendered his novel The Keep into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie with screenplay and direction by Michael Mann.
The Tomb has spent 17 years in development hell at Beacon Films (Air Force One, Thirteen Days, etc.) as Repairman Jack. The plan is to make Repairman Jack a franchise character. Godot might arrive sooner.
Over nine million copies of his books are in print in the US and his work has been translated into twenty-four languages. He also has written for the stage, screen, and interactive media. His latest thrillers, The Dark at the End and Nightworld star his urban mercenary, Repairman Jack. Jack: Secret Vengeance is the last of his YA trilogy about Repairman Jack as a teen. Paul resides at the Jersey Shore and can be found on the Web at www.repairmanjack.com
—Please Don't Hurt Me
By F. Paul Wilson
"Real nice place you've got here."
"It's a dump. You can say it—it's okay. Sure you don't want a beer or something?"
"Honey, all I want is you. C'mon and sit next to me. Right over here on the couch."
"Okay. But you won't hurt me, will you?"
"Now, honey—Tammy's your name, isn't it?"
"Tammy Johnson. I told you that at least three times in the bar."
"That's right. Tammy. I don't remember things too good after I've had a few."
"I've had a few too and I remember your name. Bob. Right?"
"Right, right. Bob. But now why would someone want to hurt a sweet young thing like you, Tammy? I told you back there in the bar you look just like that actress with the funny name. The one in Ghost."
"Whoopi Goldberg."
"Oh, I swear, you're a funny one. Funny and beautiful. No, the other one."
"Demi Moore."
"Yeah. Demi Moore. Why would I want to hurt someone who looks like Demi Moore? Especially after you were nice enough to invite me back to your place."
"I don't know why. I never know why. But it just seems that men always wind up hurting me."
"Not me, Tammy. No way. That's not my style at all. I'm a lover not a fighter."
"How come you're a sailor, then? Didn't you tell me you were in that Gulf War?"
"That's just the way things worked out. But don't let the uniform scare you. I'm really a lover at heart."
"Do you love me?"
"If you'll let me."
"My father used to say he loved me."
"Oh, I don't think I'm talking about that kinda love."
"Good. Because I didn't like that. He'd say he loved me and then he'd hurt me."
"Sometimes a kid needs a whack once in a while. I know my pop loved me, but every once in a while I'd get too far out of line, like a nail that starts working itself loose from a fence post, and then he'd have to come along every so often and whack me back into place. I don't think I'm any the worse for it."
"Ain't talking about getting 'whacked,' sailor man. If I'd wanted to talk about getting 'whacked' I woulda said so. I'm talking 'bout getting hurt. My daddy hurt me lotsa times. And he did it for a long, long time."
"Yeah? Like what he do to hurt you?"
"Things. And he was all the time making me do things."
"What sort of things?"
"Just...things. Doin' things to him. Things to make him feel good. Then he'd do things to me that he said would make me feel good but they never did. They made me feel crummy and rotten and dirty."
"Oh. Well, uh, didn't you tell your mom?"
"Sure I did. Plenty of times. But she never believed me. She always told me to stop talking dirty and then she'd whack me and wash my mouth out with soap."
"That's terrible. You poor thing. Here. Snuggle up against me now. How's that?"
"Fine, I guess, but what was worse, my momma'd tell Daddy and then he'd get mad and really hurt me. Sometimes it got so bad I thought about killing myself. But I didn't."
"I can see that. And I'm sure glad you didn't. What a waste that would've been."
"Anyway, I don't want to talk about Daddy. He's gone and I don't hardly think about him anymore."
"Ran off?"
"No. He's dead. And good riddance. He had an accident on our farm, oh, some seven years ago. Back when I was twelve or so."
"That's too bad...I think."
"People said it was the strangest thing. This big old tractor tire he had stored up in the barn for years just rolled out of the loft and landed right on his head. Broke his neck in three places."
"Imagine that. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"Yeah. My momma thought somebody musta pushed it, but I remember hearing the insurance man saying how there's so many accidents on farms. Bad accidents. Anyway, Daddy lived for a few weeks in the hospital, then he died."
"How about that. But about you and me. Why don't we—?"
"Nobody could explain it. The machine that was breathing for him somehow got shut off. The plug just worked its way out of the wall all by itself. I saw him when he was just fresh dead—first one in the room, in fact."
"That sounds pretty scary."
"It was. Here, let me unzip this. Yeah, his face was purple blue and his eyes were all red and bulgy from trying to suck wind. My momma was sad for awhile, but she got over it. Do you like it when I do you like this?"
"Oh, honey, that feels good."
"That's what Daddy used to say. Ooh, look how big and hard you got. My momma's Joe used to get big and hard like this."
"Joe?"
"Yeah. Pretty soon after Daddy died my momma made friends with this man named Joe and after a time they started living together. Like I said, I was twelve or so at the time and Joe used to make me do this to him. And then he'd hurt me with it."
"I'm sorry to hear that. Don't stop."
"I won't. Yours is a pretty one. Not like Joe's. His was crooked. Maybe that's why his hurt me even more than Dadd
y's."
"How'd you finally get away from him?"
"Oh, I didn't. He got hurt."
"Really? Another farm accident?"
"Nah. We weren't even on the farm no more. We was livin' in this dumpy old house up Lottery Canyon way. My momma still worked but all Joe did was fiddle on this big old Cadillac of his—you know, the kind with the fins?"
"Yeah. A fifty nine."
"Whatever. He was always fiddlin' with it. And he always made me help him—you know, stand around and watch what he was doin' and hand him tools and stuff when he asked for them. He taught me a lot about cars, but if I didn't do everything just right, he'd hurt me."
"And I'll bet you hardly ever did everything 'just right.'"
"Nope. Never. Not even once. How on earth did you know?"
"Lucky guess. What finally happened to him?"
"Those old brakes on that old Caddy just up and failed on him one night when he was making one of his trips down the canyon road to the liquor store. Went off the edge and dropped about a hundred feet."
"Killed?"
"Yeah, but not right away. He got tossed from the car and then the car rolled over on him. Broke his legs in about thirty places. Took awhile before anybody even realized he was missin' and took almost an hour for the rescue squad to get to him. And they say he was screamin' like a stuck pig the whole time."
"Oh."
"Something wrong?"
"Uh, no. Not really. I guess he deserved it."
"Damn right, he did. Never made it to the hospital though. Went into shock when they rolled the car off him and he saw what was left of his legs. Died in the ambulance. But here...let me do this to you. Hmmmmmmm. You like that?"
