by Michael Shaw
Most of the other people had left now, and I was a few rows behind the man. He sat staring forward. I opened my mouth to address him, but then I saw what he was looking at. I stopped abruptly.
Through the window of the door at the front of the car, I saw them. Jacob Richards, and behind him, David Kemp. They’d found me. David pointed at me, a hand on Jacob’s shoulder. Jacob nodded and opened the door. When I saw David’s face, our conversation on the phone played back in my mind. “I hope you’re ready to be hunted, Ashe.” He looked me dead in the eye. “Because I can’t wait to hunt you.”
I backed up; my leg hit an arm rest behind me, and I stumbled.
“Get him,” David ordered firmly.
Jacob came in swiftly, ignoring the man in the seat. He headed straight for me.
I turned and ran to the back of the car.
“Stop, Ashe!” Jacob called. He was gaining on me, but I kept running. I reached the back of the car.
“I will shoot.”
I passed the bathrooms and hit the back wall. Taking a look behind me, I saw Jacob bringing his pistol out.
I yanked the bathroom door open.
A loud clank resounded, and the door jerked in my grip. A small convex dent now sat in front of me.
I fell back with the kick of the bullet hitting the door, and my back banged against the wall.
Jacob’s footsteps grew louder and louder, but I couldn’t see him through the door. I turned to my right, and the automatic doors slid open. Going down the steps, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the watch.
Get out of here, I told myself. Pause time before anything else-
David Kemp tackled me the second I exited the train. The watch fell out of my hand and slid against the pavement.
I hit the floor, and David fell on top of me. He and I both grunted with the fall. The sun beat down on us from high in the sky. He reached behind his back for his pistol. I squinted under the light and shoved him off of me while his hands were subdued. He pulled the gun out; I grabbed his wrist and pushed up.
His finger tightened and a bullet released.
People around us screamed and ran.
David looked over at a woman as she cried out in terror.
I pulled myself up while he was distracted, and I struck his wrist. The gun fell out and slid into the crowd of fleeing pedestrians. That surprised me; I had just disarmed yet another guy that was out to get me.
He reacted to the blow with a punch to my face. I reeled back and hit the concrete again; it reminded me that I was still unequipped and inexperienced. Compared to these guys, I was still just a kid.
Craning my neck to the side, I saw it. The watch was near the ledge by the tracks. I scrambled to get it.
David had brought himself to his feet now.
I grabbed the watch and got up on one knee. When I looked back at him, he was running at me again.
To my left were nothing but two sets of train tracks, and on the other side, another station for people to board.
I had no time to brace for it. David ran into me, and we both fell several feet down, onto the tracks. It knocked the wind out of me. David rolled over. I gasped for air, and he began to stand up.
I grabbed my chest with one hand and pressed my other hand against the tracks.
The watch had fallen right next to me. I felt around for it. When I made contact with its cold metal, I gripped it tightly.
David coughed and held his stomach.
My breath was returning; I pulled myself up. “How did you find me?” I asked with difficulty.
He took deep breaths through his mouth. A pit of anger was within him, and he wore it on his face. It was the same anger that I had seen in the man sent for me the day before. I still didn’t understand it. It was the kind of face you see in a person who knows you. David Kemp looked at me as though he knew me, but I had only met him the day before. “I told you that you would be hunted.”
Who are you? I opened the pocket watch. Three percent. Would this be the last time I could pause time before it died? What if I couldn’t find a way to power it?
He spat to the side. “You’re asking how I found you. You should be asking why.”
I staggered back a step.
“I found you because that’s what I was sent here to do.”
I immediately wondered what had happened to Jacob Richards. He had been right behind me on the train. Where did he go?
Suddenly, I got my answer. Jacob burst out of the train with the unknown stranger on top of him. The man tackled him onto the ground and punched him in the face.
Who is that guy? I turned back toward David. “Why do you want the watch?” I asked. “You have everyone else fooled, but I know it’s not yours.”
“Stop acting like you know everything.” He took a step toward me. “Look at yourself,” he taunted. “You’re just a foolish little boy.” He held his hand toward me. “You need to come with me peacefully, or I will kill you.”
I backed up in response to his advance. My steps brought me from being in between the tracks to being on the next set of tracks, closest to the platform behind me. Everything that people had been saying made my head spin. David’s right, I realized. I can’t keep running like this. I don’t have the tools or ability to fight these people off. I looked at the watch. Without the pocket watch, I wouldn’t even be here.
“There’s nothing you can do, Jon! You’re nothing without that watch. Keep running, and eventually you’ll get yourself killed.” He kept his hand out, fingers stretched wide. “You’re way over your head with this, and you know it. This will be the only time I ask politely. Give me the watch.”
The train I had been on began to move. “You didn’t create it,” I yelled over the squeal of metal against metal.
David stepped off the tracks to the space in between. “And neither did you.”
“But my father did.” I held the watch more tightly, standing on top of the opposite set of tracks. We were practically in a ditch; there was no way to get out except for a ladder right behind David.
“Your father.” He smirked. “Yes, I know about your father.”
I raised the watch. My finger rested on the button. Could I risk it? Is this what I have to do? Could this be my last chance to pause time?
“Your father… Good riddance.” David Kemp bolted toward me. As he did, a train’s horn blared from far in the distance.
I didn’t act quickly enough. Caught in an indecision of whether to press the button or not, I gave David enough time to strike me again.
He knocked me back, and I fell onto the tracks. He pinned me down and yanked the watch out of my hand.
I reached out in desperation.
David put one hand around my neck and pushed me against the tracks.
I clawed at his fingers.
He put his foot on my chest and released my neck.
I squirmed and kicked, but he had me now. He reached into his pocket and pulled out some contraption that I had never seen before. It looked to be made of gun metal, and it fit in the palm of David’s hand. The device had prongs, making it look like a larger, thicker version of a staple remover. He fastened it to the back of the watch.
What is he doing?
He pressed a button on the device and opened the back of the watch with ease. It opened on a hinge just like the front cover.
As soon as he opened the watch, something fell out of the back and onto my chest. David didn’t notice; he was more concerned with the watch itself. I lifted my head just enough to see what it was.
A small piece of card stock. Circular, to fit in the watch.
I looked around for a way to get up. Whatever David had, I needed it. It would enable me to figure out a means to powering the watch. But I couldn’t let him dissemble the time machine here; if he did, it would ruin my one chance at saving my family. My hands ran across the ground next to me. One of my fingers found a rock.
I grabbed it and swung up at David’s face, making impact w
ith his cheek.
He fell to the side, dropping the watch. It closed back up. Now was my chance to act. I grabbed the card that had fallen on my chest and put it in my pocket.
David started to get up.
I grabbed the watch and pulled it out of David’s strange claw device.
Another horn blared from behind me. I turned around. Several hundred feet away, a train was coming.
I started to step off of the tracks, but David tackled me from behind. I accidentally lost my grip on the claw, but I wouldn’t let go of the watch. Not again.
I turned over, and I heard the claw fall onto the tracks a few feet from my head.
David came down on top of me again. The side of his head smeared with dirt and a bit of blood.
This was just like what had happened last night. But I couldn’t let it happen a second time. I couldn’t let David move the dial like Daniel Pruitt had done.
The train quickly approached.
He grabbed the watch. But I had it this time. I wouldn’t let it slip.
I grasped and pulled, struggling against David’s grip.
The train blared its horn again. Now, it was loud and up close. We were going to be hit. There was no time.
Neither of us quit; David and I fought for the pocket watch, even with a train running toward us. Our fingers brushed against each other, and I realized that David Kemp had very calloused hands.
We were going to die, so I used the only method of escape that had worked before. I did the only thing I could do, causing me to realize just how dependent upon the watch I had become.
I pressed the button.
Chapter 13
Memories overcame me. The odd part was that this time, they were not my own.
I saw it through a fog. A haze that forced my mind’s eye to strain. I saw a dark road, cracks running along its empty surface. Illuminated only by lonely street lights. Tall buildings, just as gray as the sky that hung over them.
This was not a memory of mine. My mind did not even recognize where I was. The person whose eyes I saw through walked along a dark street, toward another individual. This other man had a heavy coat and kept his head lowered, covered by a dark cap. He stood underneath a street light.
“Twenty minutes,” the man said.
I came to a stop in front of him.
He lifted his face. His right eye was black and swollen. “I’ll pay you whatever you want, David.” He shivered, the breath from his mouth visible to the eye.
David? David Kemp? Was I seeing a memory of David Kemp’s?
“Just charge it up twenty more minutes. Name your price.”
David’s feet, which I perceived as my feet, crunched the gravel underneath him as he shifted his balance to one side. He bent over and picked up a small rock. “Fifty,” he said.
“Fifty hundred?”
“Fifty thousand.” He turned and tossed the rock across the street, as though skipping it on water.
“I - I can’t do that, man.”
David watched the rock bounce on the asphalt, dry and lifeless as the ground it skidded along. “Do you know what you’re asking of me?”
The man took a step toward David, shivering, almost cowering, in his presence. “Of course I do, I-”
“My brother encountered a poor man once.” He peered at him. “A man similar to you, Alan.” He looked back at the street and sighed. “My brother charged him up five minutes upon hearing his sad tale. The guy was late for work. Couldn’t afford to lose another job.” He spoke it deliberately, with drawn out syllables, yet he maintained a consistent tone of calm.
Alan smiled, a growing hope in his eyes.
“Do you know what that man did with the time that he was given, Alan?”
He shrugged. “No, what?”
David took in a long breath of dust and held it. Turning to Alan, he let it out and spoke bluntly. “He stabbed my brother to death and hid his body. Took all the money he had on him.”
Alan’s smile vanished. He swallowed.
“I’ve been in this situation too many times,” David sighed with unnerving sobriety. He folded his hands in front of him and tightened his jaw. “So I would suggest you drop the knife that’s in your left hand now.”
Alan’s eyes widened.
He grit his teeth. “Before I do to you what I did to the man who killed my brother.”
Alan suddenly swung his left hand up at David, a knife gripped in his fingers.
David sidestepped, grabbed Alan’s arm, and drove the blade back into his stomach.
Alan opened his mouth and squinted.
David dug the blade in deep. Alan hunched over. He pulled the man’s neck toward himself, keeping his head against his shoulder.
They both stood there. David forced the blade in further. Alan unsuccessfully tried to pull his arms away. After another second, he jerked back, trying to pull free. This only brought him down to the ground with David on top of him.
David now kneeled on top of him, holding knife in his stomach, and a hand around his neck. And he just stared forward, lips tightly pressed together as the man gagged and convulsed.
“People wonder how I’ve done some of the things I’ve done.” David dug his fingernails into the skin of his neck. “The thing is I’m not a trained man. No self defense, no formal instruction. I have none of that.”
“Please,” Alan croaked.
“I make many mistakes. I lose fights. I get caught off guard. And sometimes, I’ve been made a fool of.”
Alan kicked his legs.
“But I’m never taken advantage of. There’s a difference.” He pushed air out through his nostrils. “And regardless of the circumstance, I always come out on top.” David leaned in, speaking right into Alan’s ear. “Because there’s one thing I hate more than anything else.”
Alan squirmed and sobbed.
“It’s people like you, Alan. People like the man who killed my brother.”
I wished it would stop. I wanted this torture running through my mind to cease immediately.
“And you know, I haven’t even told you about the man who killed my wife.” He squeezed the knife and cut across to the side. And then he let go of Alan, letting him fall to the ground, hands over his stomach, blood and water spilling without hindrance.
Alan stopped writhing, and everything became silent. David wiped the knife on his jeans. “It was another man like you. Only he was much, much more powerful… Unfortunately, there’s far too many people like you and him. The ones who only care about themselves.” He put his hands on his knees. “The ones who think that their selfish actions don’t affect others.” He ran his finger along the blade, and he looked over at Alan’s wide open eyes.
“A selfish man caused all this, Alan,” David continued. “A selfish man killed my wife. Another selfish man killed my brother. And we can’t have anymore of that type of person in this world.”
Alan gasped for one of his last breaths of air, and he let his hands fall off of his stomach.
David put the knife in his pocket. “You remember him, don’t you Alan? The man who started all this?”
Peter opened his mouth. “A - A…” His eyes rolled up into their sockets.
David nodded. He stood and zipped up his coat.
∞
Everything became clouded. Was I returning from the memory? In front of me, I saw him. Howard Miller. No, it’s still happening.
David, whose eyes I was still seeing through, paced back and forth within a dimly lit office. A single desk lamp illuminated the small room. David’s black shoes echoed on the smooth floor tiles, and his tie hung loose around the neck of his white button-down shirt. “This is a disaster,” he said while he paced.
Howard sat at the desk, legs crossed, his suit jacket slung over the back of his chair. “It will be all right.”
“We’re not even where we’re supposed to be!” David exclaimed.
“There was a malfunction-”
“Our plan is ruined.” David�
�s fingers curled into fists.
“Our plan?” Howard asked, raising his voice, “Or just your chance for revenge?”
David stopped and bit his tongue, holding back any more objections.
Howard glared at him, unwilling to entertain any insubordination. “You agreed to do this job under my direction, David,” he asserted with a stern face.
David did not respond. The only movement was the rising and falling of his chest. Deep breaths. He held back his frustration.
“When something unexpected like this happens, we adapt. We’ll make the best of what we’re given. I attained connections with Luna, didn’t I?”
David exhaled through his nose. “Yes,” he muttered. “That will prove useful.”
“Thankfully the CEO, Patrick Corley, is one of the few people that is aware of our… situation.” Howard uncrossed his legs. “We have full liberty to do what we need while acting out our cover-role as Luna personnel.”
“Then we better do it soon,” David crossed his arms. “Jacob’s growing restless.”
“Is Jacob really the one that’s growing-”
“And so am I.”
Howard put his hands on the table.
David bit his tongue once more.
Howard exhaled, staring him down. “We will go through with the new plan,” he insructed.
“How do you know that he has what we need?”
“Trust me, he does.” Howard’s fingers pressed down on the wood. “And we will work under our cover. Understood?”
David nodded. “But why wait? Why can’t we kill him now? That was the plan from the beginning-”
“We can’t kill him now. Not until we obtain what we need from him. I told you, we have to adapt. The original plan will have to wait.” Howard stood up and grabbed his coat.
David turned and walked out the door, tightening his tie.
