The Pocket Watch

by Michael Shaw

  ∞

  David Kemp fell off of me as soon as the flash was over. He caught himself and coughed up blood. I felt the ringing in my ears and throbbing in my arm. I touched the side of my face. Blood came out the left ear.

  I put the pocket watch back, rolled over onto my stomach, and put both hands on the tracks. With difficulty, I stood myself up.

  David wiped his mouth on his sleeve and rose to his feet. We both breathed heavily, our minds still stuck in what the watch had just shown us.

  I wiped my face. I just saw a memory. I just saw something from David Kemp’s past. I squinted, the images still moving around in my head. What were they talking about? What did he mean about getting more “minutes?” I squinted and hoped for the pain in my head to subside. Are there other people that can control time?

  I looked behind me. The train was paused in time; it stood just a few feet away. It would have killed both of us had I not pressed the button. Now, David and I were moving, and everything else was frozen. He had been touching the watch with me when I paused time, so it didn’t freeze either of us. I turned to face David. He was bent over with his hands on his knees.

  “That was your memory,” I thought aloud. “I saw part of your past.”

  He coughed up more blood; a gruesome sight. In fact, he was exhibiting symptoms I had never experienced in my own use of the watch.

  “This isn’t about Luna at all,” I continued to process.

  He lifted his head. “What kind of power source is that thing using, anyway?”

  “You - you’re not really a part of Luna Computers.”

  He spat onto the ground.

  “You. Jacob. Howard. You’re not doing a job,” I realized quietly, “you’re chasing your own vendetta.”

  He stood back up and held his hand out to me. “Trust me, Jon,” his voice crackled, “you don’t understand anything that’s happening. Now give me the watch, and I’ll let you run back to your quiet life in the suburbs.”

  I took a step back. “Who are you people? Who are you really?”

  “I won’t say it again,” he sneered. “I’m giving you a chance. Give me the watch, and I’ll let you live.” He kept his hand held out, eyes set on me.

  I hesitated. It seemed that behind the skin covering his mouth, David Kemp was grinding his teeth. “That man you sent, Daniel Pruitt. He said that you were after me, too, not just the pocket watch.”

  He took another step toward me.

  “If I give you this, you’re not going to let me live.” I backed up. “Don’t lie to me.”

  “That pocket watch will run out of power eventually, and you will be nothing.” He stepped forward with every step I took back. “You are nothing without it, Jon. You’re just a college kid who stumbled on something he couldn’t handle. And since you’ve refused my offer, I promise you,” he grit his teeth, “once I’ve taken the watch, I will not hesitate to kill you.”

  I walked off of the tracks and away from the train. The ladder to the platform was in my peripheral vision.

  He stepped off of the tracks and ran for me.

  Maybe he was right. Maybe I was just a helpless kid without the watch. But right now, I still had it in my possession. I reached into my pocket and pressed the button.

  I immediately felt the strike to my head. David and I both doubled over once more, and the train sped past. Time was continuing again.

  A loud crunch came out from under the train. I looked back at the wheels. It had run over the claw device that David had used to open the watch.

  He kept himself from falling this time. “Ashe,” he groaned.

  I willed myself forward and ran for the ladder.

  “Ashe!” He bolted toward me and stayed on my heels.

  I opened the cover as I ran. Two percent. I shook my head and cringed. I had to do it again. I pressed the button, braced for the flash, and let it hit me.

  My ears killed me. I stopped just to keep myself from falling. When I peered behind my back, I saw David, frozen mid-step. I had just paused time twice in a mere span of seconds. That is, a mere span of seconds in the perspective of my internal time. I.T. now counted up from zero once more. I closed the cover and climbed up the ladder.

  Walking around as the world stands still is unnerving. There was not even a sound other than my own footsteps. Even more frightening was the sight of people that were once all shuffling or running about the station. They stood completely still now. They were the most realistic statues I had ever seen.

  I collected my things from the train and walked out of the station, carrying the duffel bag around my shoulder and the book bag on my back. Jacob, as well as the strange man that had been following me, were nowhere to be seen.

  Losing yourself in the crowd is easy in Sacramento. I walked briskly for a couple blocks before bringing time back. And now that I was back in my home city, I knew just the place to go. “You’ll just have to look in the right places,” Jason’s words echoed within my thoughts.

  I needed Hunter to meet me where I was; there was no way for me to get any further. I had no vehicle, and there was only two percent left in the watch. So I went to a place that both Hunter and I knew. Then, I took the risk and put my battery and SIM card back in my phone.

  The same man from last time picked up. “Hello?”

  “This is Jonathan Ashe calling for Hunter Calhoun.”

  A few seconds of silence.

  Hunter’s voice came on. “Jon?”

  “I need you to pick me up.”

  “Listen, man, if you’re still in San Jose…”

  “I’m not. I’m in Sacramento.”

  He exhaled. “Okay. I can work with that.”

  “My house is a police playground right now,” I said. “And I don’t have a car. I don’t know where to-”

  “Listen, listen. Relax. Let me come to you. Where are you now?”

  I kneeled next to the stone. My knees rested on top of the soft, vibrant grass, and I remembered how many times I had visited this place. “I’m at the graveyard.”

  Chapter 14

  Green Mount Cemetery. I sat quietly in front of the headstones. George Ashe: In loving memory. Carrie Ashe: Gone but not forgotten. In between these two epitaphs, a marble sign sat in the ground. “Freedom is a place and time where space and time cannot hold me.” I leaned back and squeezed patches of grass between my fingers, letting them cover my knuckles.

  Ever since yesterday, my thought had been to run. Escape the police, and escape these mysterious men I had met at Luna. But I had never taken the second to sit down and ask what I would do once I was safe from them. Part of me wanted to scold myself for acting the way I had. It was against my intuitions to just run like that. I could have gone to the police. But Jason specifically told me not to. Why did I have to disappear like this?

  The only thing I was sure of in this moment was that I wanted to save my parents. I wanted to go back and change the past. But I had no means of accomplishing my goal; the watch was almost dead. I had to find a way to power it, to recharge it. As powerful as it was now, I could only imagine what it would be able to do at full capacity.

  I ran my hands through my hair and wondered what I had gotten myself into. Was David right about me? Was I out of my mind for even thinking I could escape him, Howard, and Jacob? “You are nothing without it, Jon,” his voice resounded in my head. I blinked and thought of the measures these people had taken to catch me. They tried to put me in handcuffs. They reported me to the police. They tried to shoot me. And they killed the last family member I had. I rubbed my eyes. David’s voice wouldn’t go away. “You’re just a college kid who stumbled on something he couldn’t handle.” Jason’s dying breath played back in my head. I rubbed my eyelids. If it weren’t for me, he’d still be here. I looked at myself. Why did my father leave this pocket watch with me? I’ve been lucky thus far, but I have no idea what I’m doing. What will happen next? I’m just going to ruin something else.

  I shook my head. But w
hat else can I do? I have to keep going. I have to find a way to fix all this. I looked at the watch. Maybe I’m nothing without this. Maybe I’m in over my head. But Jason told me to run and find help. I have to find a way to give this pocket watch more power. I have to save my parents. I breathed in through my nostrils. Whether I like it or not, the pocket watch was left with me on purpose. I guess I just I have to do the best I can with it.

  Before we ended our conversation on the phone, Hunter had told me to look for a yellow Jeep. He said that someone would come pick me up, and that Eclipse would help me. While I considered everything that had happened, waited for the man from Eclipse, and sat in front of my parents’ graves, I remembered the flash of David Kemp’s past.

  It was the pocket watch. I held it out in front of me. When both of us touched it, it showed me memories from David’s life. I turned it over to examine the back. Does that mean it showed him memories from mine?

  The sun’s rays beamed down into the graveyard, shedding light on what had always been a place of darkness to me. I felt as though the watch were staring at my face. How was I supposed to re-power it? There weren’t even any screws. Plus, I didn’t how to dissemble it, much less revive its energy. “If only you took double A’s,” I muttered to it. I couldn’t imagine a realistic power source for a time machine; before I found the watch, I did not even think time travel were possible. How did my father make something so small with this kind of capability?

  The images wouldn’t stop resurfacing. David Kemp’s memories, that man on the street, the conversation with Howard. I had learned two things. First, the ‘stolen property’ story was just a cover-up to get to the watch. These men were not from Luna; they were only working under the protection of Luna’s CEO, an arrangement I still did not understand. Second, they wanted me, not just the watch. Especially David, it seemed. But why?

  That man in his memory was talking about “minutes.” I pulled on the grass with my fingers clenched together. They were talking about minutes as though they were a commodity. Minutes… as in minutes of paused time. I opened the watch. Are there more devices like this one? The second hand ticked around; my eyes followed it. Maybe that’s why it’s so valuable to them. I blinked and shut it. But that doesn’t explain why they’re after me, too.

  I traced the infinity on the cover of the watch with my thumb. “A selfish man.” I considered David’s words. Who are these people? I lowered the pocket watch down, leaving just my parents’ graves in my line of vision. Considering my father’s work, and everything he had striven for, I wondered how many people felt that their toes had been stepped on. Could these people be connected to my parents’ murder?

  I did not get to think on this much further; someone approached me from behind. He came up and knelt next to where I sat. I turned my head to the left and looked at him. My eyes widened.

  His hands were folded, and his eyes looked on my mother’s grave. “Hey,” he sighed.

  My arms tensed up. I didn’t know what to say.

  It was Alex.

  Chapter 15

  “Hey,” I brought myself to reply.

  Alex took a deep breath and exhaled. He didn’t call the police. He didn’t try to confront me. He just sat there.

  I put the pocket watch back. “How did you-”

  “I used to come here a lot, Jon.” He lowered his head. His blonde hair reflected bright under the sun. “And so did you, I remember.” He pulled a blade of grass up from the ground. “Guess I just got lucky running into you.”

  “Are you here to turn me in?”

  “I’m here to talk.”

  I swallowed. I was stuck. Transportation was on its way, and Eclipse was my only means of moving forward. I couldn’t run like I had before. I had to stay here and wait.

  “You’re back in Sacramento already,” Alex said.

  I didn’t respond.

  “I thought you said you couldn’t come back.”

  I looked at him. What was he waiting for? Around me, there were no police. Was he really just here to talk?

  “Long sleeves in May?” He nodded at my shirt.

  I pulled the sleeve down over my right wrist.

  “That quote,” he pointed at the stone in the ground, “I always wondered what the author was trying to get at.”

  I breathed in silently. The air was dry. The stone and the words it held reflected the sunlight back up at us. I lowered my eyes down to my feet. “Jason and I just web searched common epitaphs,” I explained faintly.

  We both became still.

  Alex wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Well, why?” He asked. “Why not put something you really felt about them?”

  I shrugged. “Because you can’t fit what we felt on a piece of rock.”

  His lips parted, as though he were about to speak, but he stopped himself.

  I frowned. Was he attempting to prolong the inevitable conversation we were going to have? He had told them everything. Everything that I trusted him with he turned around and gave away. I looked into his eyes. “Alex, you lied about me.”

  He dropped the blade of grass. “How?”

  “You went to the police. You told them I was some crazy person that believes in time travel-”

  “Don’t you?” He shot back. “Don’t you believe in time travel?”

  I got up on one knee, bringing my eyes up to his level. “But Alex, I showed it to you. You believed it, too.”

  “Yeah, I believed you. Past tense.” He stood up.

  I rose to my feet as soon as he did. I saw Alex’s face tighten. Anger. “What did they tell you?”

  “You’re hiding something from me, Jon. And acting like you have a time machine doesn’t help.”

  “Hiding something?” What was he talking about? “Alex, you’ve known me for years. You’re the only person that I don’t hide anything from.” I held one hand in front of him and made as though to hold something. “The fork. Remember the fork?”

  “Yeah. It was a good trick, Jon.” His voice escalated. “Now stop playing games and just admit-”

  “There’s nothing to admit-”

  “Admit you stole it!” He exploded.

  I stood firm. “They’re lying to you.”

  Our faces were inches apart. He glared his eyes at me. Where had this come from? How had my friend gone from full support one day ago to outright denial the next?

  “Quit hiding it,” he whispered fiercely. “Just admit it.”

  “I didn’t steal the watch-”

  “Forget the watch.” He bit his lower lip and inhaled an uneven breath. “You.” He opened his eyes, which were beginning to tear up. “You killed him.” His voice cracked.

  I opened my mouth. “What?”

  “You killed Jason.”

  I put a hand on my forehead. “Alex, no…”

  “I don’t understand, Jon.” He shook his head, “Why did you do this? Why would you-”

  “Alex.” I held my hands out.

  He couldn’t handle it. “You - you - murdered-”

  “Alex!” I grabbed his shoulders.

  He froze.

  Our eyes locked.

  I held back all the things I wanted to say. I didn’t tell him about the people that were out for me. I didn’t tell him about Hunter. I just looked him in the eye. “Why would I kill Jason?”

  His eyes screamed at me in frustration, red and watering, but tears never came out. “I don’t know.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I asserted. “I know you miss him too, and I know how he paid for your mother’s treatments, and your college.”

  “Jon…”

  “But he was my guardian,” I whispered fiercely. “My father, when I didn’t have one.” I took a few steps back, putting air between the two of us. “So if you think,” I pointed up at my chest, “that I would kill him…”

  Alex crossed his arms.

  “Then it’s clear you just won’t trust me at all, will you?”

  He inhaled deeply, scratching his
chin. He kept his mouth shut.

  I put my hands in my pockets. “I showed it to you. I showed you what this pocket watch can do. And Jason told me himself that it belonged to my father.”

  His eyes cried out in objection, but his lips remained sealed.

  I gestured out, beyond the trees. “But if you want to take their story over mine,” I lowered my hand back down, “then I guess that’s just your prerogative.”

  Alex’s eyes didn’t leave mine. They stayed narrow, focused. His lips pressed tight together.

  I wouldn’t be the one to break the gaze. I kept eye contact.

  A light breeze came through the cemetery. It brushed through our hair, brought the trees to life with movement. They swayed with its push, but Alex and I stood rigidly still.

  He parted his lips just slightly. Took a breath to speak.

  I watched him closely.

  “Are you done?” He asked.

  I only held my breath and watched him.

  “You don’t get it. It’s not just about the watch. This isn’t all about your ‘time machine.’” His breaths grew deep once more, just as they had when he asked me about Jason. “I learned something yesterday. Something you knew all along.”

  “What?” I asked, dumbfounded. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” He brought his hands in front of him and pressed his fingertips together. “What do you have to say about our fathers?”

  I opened my mouth. “I - I don’t understand.”

  “They showed me.” He pointed at himself. “They showed me what happened, Jon. Stop pretending you don’t know.”

  “I’m not pretending.” I grabbed the pocket watch while it rested in my right pocket. I thought, maybe if I held it, that sense of peace would come back. That sense of assurance. It eased some of the physical pain, but internally, I still felt helpless. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who showed you?”

  “A man that works for Luna. David Kemp.”

  “What?” No. David’s gotten to him.

  “I got the job, by the way,” he added, a frown on his face.

  “What did David show you?”

  He gave me a long stare and scoffed. “He said you’d pretend not to know.”