The Children Who Time Lost

by Marvin Amazon

“Okay?”

  “No,” I said. “That’s not okay. Why are you expendable and not me? Why can’t I be the one who saves you?”

  He grabbed my other wrist. “Because your son needs you. You’re the one from the future. You’re the story the world needs to know about, not me.” He released my hands. “Besides, I don’t think they’ll kill me till they get you back. Keeping me alive might come in handy.”

  “How so?”

  “Bargaining chip; my life for your surrender.”

  We heard footsteps again, except this time there were lots of them. It sounded like at least three people. Then we heard a woman’s voice, although I couldn’t make out what she said. They drew closer and closer to where we sat.

  Michael looked into my eyes. “Are you ready?”

  I raised my head but didn’t speak.

  “Rachel!”

  I nodded. “Okay, I’m ready.”

  He smiled and stood partway. Then he kicked a locker, and I could hear scampering as our pursuers shifted direction. Michael gave me another smile and bolted west. I heard a gun explode but couldn’t see where. Seconds later, all I could hear were gunfire and shouting. I stood up to run for the entrance but stopped myself when more gunshots rang out. I had only a very limited window and I had to take it. I bolted toward the entrance, weaving back and forth as I cleared the lockers all around me. When I reached the entrance, no one was there. I headed for the sauna room but saw Sergeant Briggs leaping into the air for me. I crashed to the floor with a thump. She yelled like a woman possessed and wrapped her hands around my neck, choking the life out of me.

  My eyes rolled upward. I thought I’d die. Somewhere, however, I found the energy to swing my clenched fist and strike her in the face. She reeled back. I kicked her in the chest and she fell to the ground. I stood and ran through the sauna room and down the corridor. A gunshot flew past me and took out part of the wall. I crouched and saw a shadow sprinting down the corridor. I continued running. Another bullet came but missed me again. When I reached the swimming pool, my mind went blank. Which direction had we entered from?

  Just then, a sea of the organisms that surrounded the Shriniks’ bodies emerged from the corridor I had just cleared. They charged at me. I screamed and dived into the water, but they leaped in after me. I heard shrieks. I looked back to see them shriveling and dying in the water.

  As I continued swimming, the snarls returned. Some of the organisms must not have jumped into the water. When I reached the other end of the pool, I started to climb out, but an organism slithered onto my hands. I screamed and leaped back into the water. It shuddered and flew from my hand before shriveling to its death.

  There were at least thirty of them by the poolside. I heard faint laughter behind me. I turned and saw a Shrinik at the other end of the pool. It stood still, the organisms all over its body. In its right hand was a large gun. It had to be Lorenzo.

  I heard an explosion behind me, and then another. I turned and saw Doug shooting at the organisms on the floor, killing them.

  He stopped and extended his hands to me. “Hurry.”

  I grabbed them and he pulled me out. I checked my pocket and sighed when I felt my medication. I heard Lorenzo growl. When I got out of the water, he was halfway across the pool, sprinting like an Olympic 100-meter runner. Doug raised his gun and fired. It hit Lorenzo in the middle of the chest and he went flying back, landing on his back. I stared at Doug’s future gun for a moment. It packed a potent punch. The gun I’d taken from Williams didn’t even do that.

  But it didn’t hold Lorenzo back for long. He stood up and flicked the dead organisms off his body, thick green liquid dripping from his wounds. He grinned at us and picked up his gun.

  I tugged at Doug’s shoulder. “Come on.” Doug just stood there with his gun still raised. I tugged harder. “Now.”

  Lorenzo fired. I dropped to the floor with Doug. I looked at the wall Lorenzo’s bullet had struck. It looked as if a bomb had hit it. He was using different bullets now. He must have been angry.

  Doug and I ran down the corridor to our left, but the bullets kept coming, causing catastrophic damage each time. We ran past weight-lifting equipment in a large room and reached another set of lockers, again in an enormous room. What is it with this gym and its giant locker rooms?

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I found an exit. It’s at the far end of this locker room.”

  We passed so many lockers that I grew confused. I stopped and crouched, struggling to catch my breath. My wet clothes stuck to my body, causing extreme irritation.

  Doug ran back to me. “Are you all right?”

  “I need my medication. I need water.”

  “I promise you’ll have it soon. I just need you to go a bit farther for me.”

  We heard someone clatter against a locker a few feet from us. Doug tensed his face and urged me up. I stood up, and we heard more clattering and stopped to listen. It was growing closer. Doug pointed his gun in the direction we’d come from and fired. The explosion sent a row of lockers flying to the floor. We continued charging forward. I saw the entrance Doug had spoken about. It was a large red door with a padlock on it. Nothing this crazy gun of his can’t handle.

  I nearly wept with joy when we were a few feet away, but then Doug pushed me to the ground and turned around. I spun to see Willie leap onto him. They wrestled on the ground, exchanging punches. Willie rammed Doug against a set of lockers and gave him a few punches in the midsection. Doug howled in pain. Willie seemed to have superhuman strength. Blood trickled from Doug’s mouth. A few more minutes of this and Willie would have killed him. I saw Doug’s gun on the floor a few yards away and picked it up. Then I pointed it at Willie’s head.

  “Let him go,” I said. “Now.”

  Willie didn’t stop pounding against Doug’s chest. He looked like he would kill him.

  “Shoot him,” Doug said. “Don’t worry about me. Just find your son.”

  I knew shooting with this future gun would kill both Willie and Doug. I grimaced and inched my finger toward the trigger, but I stopped myself. This can’t be happening again. No one else is dying for me. I ran forward and smashed the gun against the back of Willie’s head. He grunted and fell to his knees. Doug staggered over to me and reached for the gun, but I jerked my hands away and kept it trained on Willie. Doug stood beside me as the officer turned to face us. All I saw was confusion on his face.

  “Rachel … Rachel Harris? What’s going on? Where are we?”

  I lowered the gun and stepped forward.

  Doug held on to my waist. “What’re you doing?”

  I held my hand up and faced Willie again. “You don’t know where you are?”

  Willie looked at the lockers around him and shook his head. “No idea. All I remember was the fire alarm going off at the station when you left. Next, the mayor and your lawyer called all of us into a room. I don’t really remember much after that. And now I’m here.”

  I looked at Doug. “They’ve done something to all of them. He wasn’t himself.”

  A cell rang. I looked at Willie. He checked his pockets and shrugged. Then I turned to Doug. He didn’t react at first, but then he pulled a cell from his back pocket. The one Michael had given him.

  “Hello,” he said. “Michael!”

  I ran forward. “Where is he? Is he all right?”

  Doug held his hand up. “Okay, sure. We can be there. Oh, and we have someone with—”

  Willie screamed in pain and dropped to the floor. A mass of the organisms were pressed against his chest, sucking the life out of him. Some slithered toward us, but Doug kicked them away. Willie’s eyes turned red and he shuddered. Doug grabbed the gun from me and pointed it at Willie. But then he hesitated.

  “What are you doing?” I shouted.

  Doug didn’t respond. He just stared at Willie with the gun still raised. Willie continued screaming. The creatures now had their teeth buried in his chest.

  “The
y’re killing him,” I said. “Shoot him.”

  A loud explosion filled my ears. Doug and I looked up and saw a gaping hole in Willie’s chest. Sergeant Briggs held a gun in the air, smoke rising from the chamber. Lorenzo stood beside her, his lizard snout grinning. The other man was also there. They must have both been under Lorenzo’s control.

  Doug fired at the door and it flew off its hinges. “Go,” he said.

  I ran through with him, but explosions followed us, striking the ground and everything around us. We took a left and ran down the street.

  “Where are we going now?” I shouted.

  “Michael’s around the corner.”

  Shards of glass exploded beside us. Doug screamed in pain when they pierced his left arm. He dropped to the ground. I pulled him up, but he kept screaming. I looked back to see all three of our assailants giving chase. Lorenzo had changed back to human form.

  I picked up Doug’s gun and fired in their direction, but then I flew to the ground. The gun’s recoil was harsher than that of the other future guns I’d fired. I got back up and fired again and again, keeping my footing this time. They took cover and stayed hidden. I ran back to Doug, who had stopped screaming. His wounds looked bad but could be treated. A black Mercedes sedan came screeching down the road.

  “Get in,” Michael shouted through the open back window.

  I flung Doug’s arm over mine and helped him in. Something thumped against the car, causing it to judder.

  “Manuel, go,” Michael shouted.

  Manuel spun the car around. I heard more screeching, and we were off.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Doug groaned for the sixth time in three minutes. I caressed his head, but nothing I did seemed to ease his pain. The car had returned to a normal cruising speed, and the sudden and violent turns had ceased. I gave Michael a firm stare. He was still typing on his phone like he’d been doing ever since we escaped our pursuers. He stopped whenever his phone rang, which happened almost every ten seconds.

  “We need to get him to a hospital,” I said. “I can’t get all the glass out.”

  Michael dropped his phone and leaned closer to Doug and me. “We can’t go to a hospital. That’s out of the question.” He returned to his cell. “Don’t worry, I’ll have a doctor waiting for him when we get where we’re going.”

  “And where is that?”

  “Somewhere safe.” He grunted in frustration when his phone rang again. After it stopped, he continued typing on it. Then he pressed a button beside him and the screen between Manuel and us came down.

  “Everything all right, sir?” Manuel said.

  “How’s it looking?” Michael said.

  “So far so good. No chatter on the police bands just yet. And no one’s following us.”

  Michael ran his fingers through his hair. “What about the tracker on the car?”

  “Disabled, sir. The GPS, too. The only thing anyone can track you by is your phone.”

  Michael nodded. He typed some more on his cell, wound the window down and threw it out. “Okay, we’re good. Let me know if you hear anything.”

  “Yes, sir.” Manuel raised the screen again.

  Michael interlocked his fingers and stared out the window, his expression blank. After ten minutes of silence, Doug groaned again, but not as loud this time. His pain seemed to be subsiding. I rocked his head.

  “He’ll be just fine,” Michael said.

  I nodded.

  “You did great back there, by the way.”

  “Not really. I just ran for my life.”

  “No, you were brilliant,” Doug said.

  I looked at him in surprise. Some of the pain seemed to have left his face. “You think?”

  “Sure. The way you were firing that gun—even I couldn’t handle it like that the first time.”

  I smiled and relaxed in the chair. Trust them to come up with that assumption. Men. “Who said it was my first time?”

  Michael gave me an approving nod and turned his gaze out the window. Silence returned to the limo. We were safe for the time being.

  I hadn’t heard other cars for a while. Only birds and the sound of rough terrain filled my ears. We were heading somewhere off the beaten track. Many times I’d wanted to ask Michael where we were going, but the scowl on his face told me he didn’t want to talk about anything. Manuel pulled to a stop after over four hours of driving. The doors opened, and he helped Doug out and I followed.

  We were surrounded by about four acres of green grass, with a small lake a few yards away, to our right. I saw cows and sheep in the distance, but my eyes rested on the house in front of us. It was a large bungalow with a barn and trees everywhere. A black Cadillac was parked just outside it. Worried, I looked at Michael, but he didn’t seem concerned. An older man with a round face and glasses stepped out of the car and approached us. I took a step back and grabbed Michael’s wrist.

  “Relax,” Michael said. “That’s the doctor.”

  The man walked up to us and took Doug’s arm and studied his wounds. “I’ll get him inside,” he said to Michael.

  Michael nodded, and the doctor started helping Doug into the house.

  “Will he be all right?” I asked.

  The doctor turned and smiled. “He’ll be just fine.”

  Manuel got in the car and started the engine.

  “Where’s he going?” I asked Michael.

  “He’s getting rid of the car. We can’t risk anyone finding us through it.”

  “But I thought he disabled the tracker.”

  “Anyone could have seen us on our way here.” He eased me toward the house. “Where are we?”

  “Hollister. San Benito.”

  The name meant nothing to me.

  “Don’t worry, we’re still in California.” He kept walking into the house, but I didn’t move an inch. I was still processing everything that had happened. The Shriniks could hypnotize people to do their bidding. Who could I really trust?

  Michael spun around and ushered me forward. “Come on inside. Let’s get you some food.”

  I nodded and followed him.

  “You can have my ex-wife’s room,” he said.

  I wondered why he told me that. I really didn’t need to know that.

  He stopped and seemed to study me. “You know, you kinda look like her. Same eyes.” He kept walking.

  I shrugged and kept going. Again, he was giving me information that didn’t seem important. I guessed he wasn’t completely over her. “What was her name?” I said.

  “Bethany.”

  “What happened?”

  He glanced back at me with a blank expression.

  “Your wife. What happened with your wife?”

  “Oh.” He smiled and shrugged. “I guess she just wanted more.” He stepped into the house.

  I stopped. What more could she have wanted? Michael seemed to have everything. I walked in.

  The first thing I did was have a shower. I used the fresh towels Michael had given me to dry off. The fresh smell of wood filled the whole house. I could hear the cows and the birds through the windows, which was nice. All I’d known for most of my life was the hustle and bustle of fast city life. This was different. At that moment, I felt as if I could live the rest of my life here. I dried myself off and opened the room’s massive closet, beside a king-size bed. I put on some faded jeans and a black top. There was no point thinking about visiting my hotel anymore. Anything I’d left there was gone. I was just happy that I still had my medication. My cash was almost completely gone, too.

  I went through each of the drawers on the table opposite the bed. It was obvious that Bethany had stayed in this room. There were at least ten bottles of perfume, most unopened. I looked at the picture of her on the wall, above the full-length mirror. How vain could she possibly be, to have a picture of herself in her own room? But then again, she was married to Michael. There was a passing resemblance. Our hair color and complexion were similar, but that was it as far as I
was concerned. I continued opening the drawers. When I reached the bottom right drawer, I saw numerous magazines with Bethany’s face plastered on the front. I pulled out one where she posed with only leaves covering her body. I flipped to the fifth page, where she was interviewed, and read the entire article. She was some sort of high-flying model and magazine editor as well as the goddaughter of Michael’s CFO, Barry Clark. Some of her answers made her sound obnoxious, such as when she said that money was the only definition of happiness. But she also seemed like a woman in love, even if for some of the wrong reasons. She said it had been love at first sight when she met Michael. I shook my head at the thought that even men like Michael had the same trouble as the rest of us with maintaining a relationship.

  I sprayed on some of Bethany’s Tom Ford perfume and counted my money. I had just over two thousand dollars left. I heard movement outside and pushed the door open. I saw Michael walking down the corridor toward the living room.

  I stepped out and saw a door opening at the end of the hall. The doctor stepped out and shut the door. Then he walked into the living room. I shut my door and ran after him. I stopped outside the room he’d walked out of and reached for the handle. But I didn’t open it. I stood there for a moment before hearing Michael speaking with the doctor. I walked into the living room.

  “That’s great news,” I heard Michael say.

  “What is?” I asked.

  Both men turned to me. They sat across from each other. The TV to their right was switched on, but the volume had been muted.

  “Ray was just telling me about Doug,” Michael said. “His injuries aren’t serious.”

  I sat on the couch beside Michael.

  “How are you holding up?” the doctor asked me.

  I just stared at him.

  “I mean after everything you’ve been through.”

  I frowned at Michael.

  “Relax, Rachel. He knows everything I do.”

  I nodded. “I’m okay, I think. I just want to take my son home.”

  Ray nodded. “And you will.” He smiled at Michael. “You have the right man on your side.”