by J. Thorn
Get up. Hurry.
She shook her leg and ignored the fire in her lungs. Sam ran harder, leaping over fallen trees and trusting the locket was guiding her to the cave. She felt the magnetic pull of the altar as if the locket needed to return home as well.
A hulking monster appeared on her left and Sam stopped, her heart lurching in her chest. Her eyes focused and she saw it wasn’t a monster after all, but the entrance to the cave. Without pausing to congratulate herself on finding it, Sam ran into the gaping, black maw of the cave where the darkness swallowed her whole.
I’m going to make it, she thought. I’m going to save my children.
The locket buzzed and warmed her chest as if smiling with her.
Sam’s vampire sight quickly adjusted to the low light of the cave. She ran down the tunnel, bypassing the cave paintings and glyphs that had fascinated her the first time she entered the cavern. Unlike then, she now had a mission and not much time to spare.
How am I going to activate this thing?
That would not, however, be her biggest challenge. Sam believed she’d be able to start the time-travel process just by getting the locket back to the altar. The real challenge would be guiding the powers to return her to within twenty-four hours of her wreck. Hopefully, before it.
She felt the air expand as she stepped into the underground cathedral. The bronze box and the altar had restored itself and the locket purred as if recognizing its rightful place. Sam forgot about the bleak future, the vampire war and even Voldare. She had to get home and save her children.
The air changed again, the pressure intensifying as if she were trapped beneath the sea. The glyphs on the walls came alive, rotating around the room and pulsing while the bronze box glowed brighter.
“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing,” she said.
The locket buzzed as she stood before the altar. Sam took the medallion from her neck and held it up in front of her eyes. The single beam of light returned, shining from the center of the charm, bouncing off the walls. She took a deep breath, lowered her hand to the bronze box and dropped the locket inside.
A brilliant, silent flash erupted from within. Sam threw her arms up to shield her eyes from the white blast. Her ears popped and she felt her heartbeat accelerate. A low hum came through her feet and vibrated up her legs. A pressure built inside of her head with the force of a migraine and she collapsed to the ground, her hands on her ears as if to prevent her head from exploding. When Sam thought her eyes were about to jump from her head, the light winked out.
The air pressure dropped and she stood. Samantha looked at the altar where a few final pulses of light winked from the box. She looked around and the cave appeared exactly as it had been moments before, exactly as it was when she crawled inside to escape the rain.
She heard the distant plunk of water. Sam looked at the glyphs on the walls, no longer moving around the room or flashing in the light.
“Where am I?” she asked. “More accurately, when am I?”
Before she could attempt to answer her own question or take a step toward the cave entrance, the box holding the locket released one final burst of light. Sam closed her eyes and slid into unconsciousness.
I’m coming, Anthony and Tammy. Mom’s coming home.
Sam surrendered to the locket, hoping it would deliver her to the right place and in the right time.
***
The wind pushed at the minivan and Sam gripped the steering wheel with both hands, feeling the sharp stab of panic in her chest. She took a deep breath and blinked.
“Maybe I should pull off the side of the road and wait it out.”
She spoke the thought as if the minivan might answer.
Samantha leaned forward, attempting to get a better look at the road between manic sweeps of the windshield wipers. The rubber blades tossed water back and forth but never quite cleared the glass. The minivan’s headlights illuminated the wall of rain and now, a soft glow crept in from the sides of the road.
“Fog, too. Wonderful.”
She reached up and turned off the stereo before glancing in the rearview mirror. She saw nothing but water rolling down the rear window. Another gust rocked the minivan and Samantha felt the vehicle slide sideways. For a moment, she relaxed as the tires grabbed the asphalt, but it only lasted a moment. The rear of the minivan swung counterclockwise and Samantha turned the steering wheel into the slide.
“Shit.”
She gripped the wheel with both hands and every cell in her body anticipated what would happen next, what had happened next. But it didn’t. Not this time.
The minivan’s wheels bit down hard on the pavement and straightened out, sliding the minivan back into her lane. Sam watched the headlights bounce off the guardrail where she’d broken through…
I went over it the last time.
Samantha continued down the 57 Freeway, back to her hotel in Brea. Her mind hitched a few times, the land beyond the rain-soaked minivan jumped and skipped twice, as if the fabric of time had snapped, keeping her from vaulting down into the gulley and fighting the inertia of the past.
By the time Sam pulled into the parking lot of the Embassy Suites Hotel, her muscles and her vampire intuition turned to jelly. She nearly crawled out of the minivan and walked through the pouring rain. Sam passed through the lobby and to the elevator, taking it to her room on the fourth floor. She waved the keycard in front of the door until the LED flashed green. Samantha pushed the door open and collapsed on the bed.
“Home,” she said. “I think.”
13
The rain subsided, the gutters overflowing with the excess water running off the roof. Other than the gray wash of light coming from the streetlights, Sam sat in darkness in her hotel room.
I’m not sure any of what just happened was real.
She looked down at the scrapes caused by the bramble on her run to the cave, her vampire flesh smoothing them from open wounds to light scars.
I guess it did.
She reached for the remote more out of habit than a desire to watch television. The LED display on the cable box told her it was 2:45 a.m, meant nothing to Sam, other than placing her evening in context. She had spent days in the future and yet, it had only been a few hours since she’d left the detective at the crime scene.
She aimed the remote like a sling, throwing the invisible infrared rays at the television. It hissed and then came to life, blasting Sam’s face with resplendent color. She immediately recognized the late-night movie.
“The Shining,” she said.
Jack Torrance was sitting at the typewriter, moments before Wendy would discover his masterpiece. Sam smiled and slid deeper into the bed when her subconscious nudged her. She sighed, knowing it was right.
Dr. Franklin L. Stafford. I know , she thought. I can’t call him until morning anyway, so how about you let me enjoy the movie?
Feeling as though she satiated her restless mind, Sam turned to the movie until her thoughts intruded again a few minutes later.
Google him. Fine.
She flipped open a laptop on the bed and waited for the web browser to appear. Sam typed “Dr. Franklin L. Stafford” into the search bar and within seconds, a full page of results appeared. She scrolled down, noticing a LinkedIn account and a Wikipedia page. She clicked on the images tab and the photos tiled from left to right. She leaned in closer, her mouth open.
“I’ve seen him before,” she said.
Sam clicked on the first image to bring it full screen but before she could take a closer look, the television flashed and the scene was not one she remembered from The Shining.
“…in major metropolitan areas, officials warn.”
She pushed up the volume button on the remote.
“As of right now, the virus seems to be contained in Southeast Asia but experts cite international travel as a concern. Airports are scrambling to set up screening posts and U.N. health officials will meet tomorrow to decide whether or not to declare the
outbreak an epidemic.”
Sam felt the night melting away, her opportunity to save her children’s future going with it. She opened a new tab on her computer’s web browser and typed in “Southeast Asia epidemic” which returned a Reuters’ news story posted within the hour. The headline read, “Dangerous outbreak in Thailand has WHO seriously concerned.” She muted the television and skimmed the article, too impatient to wait for the news bulletin to come around again.
A virus had taken hold in Southeast Asia and it was spreading at never-before-seen rates. Samantha wanted to be shocked, but she wasn’t. Instead, she felt gratitude to Voldare. He’d given her, and the rest of the universe, another chance.
Dr. Franklin L. Stafford.
Only if she could get to him in time. Sam flipped back to the tab showing the image search results on the doctor and she felt a hitch in her chest. She stared at the image of a man behind a podium in a white lab coat. His thinning gray hair sat back from a receding hairline and his glasses could not hide brilliant, shining eyes. Eyes that Samantha Moon had stared into before.
“Silven.”
***
As the sun crested the hill behind the hotel, the last of the rain faded. The birds greeted the day, not concerned with the trivial matters of survival that faced the human race.
Samantha tried and tried to get Danny to answer the phone. But he wouldn't pick up this early. The jerk probably had his phone off.
She left a short voicemail: It's breaking my heart, but I can't pick up the kids today. I have to see a doctor about something. Yes, really. Please tell Anthony and Tammy that I love them and that I'll see them soon.
She hung up before she completely lost it.
Sam stared at the clock, trying to will the hands toward eight a.m. when the Center for Disease Control would open and she would be able to call Stafford’s office.
She had tried the 800 numbers, but nobody seemed willing or able to connect her with the doctor. As he was somewhat of a biomedical rock star, she wasn’t surprised. Samantha had already booked a flight to Atlanta, whether or not she was able to speak with him over the phone.
She dialed and waited for the receptionist to answer. Three people passed Samantha through the digital phone exchange until she heard a ring. The phone rang twice and Sam heard a voice, one she knew from her own past and from a distant future.
“Stafford.”
“Hello,” she said before pausing.
“I’m very busy right now, as you can imagine…”
“My name is Samantha Moon. I know how to stop the epidemic.”
“Really?” Stafford asked. ”And how did you come across the cure?” he asked, sarcasm oozing into her ear.
“I have the virus in my system along with the antibodies created by a survivor. I’m bringing it from the future,” she said.
“I don’t have time for these games—”
“Wait,” Samantha said. “I thought Einstein said, ‘Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.’ From the picture in your lab.”
The silence on the other end felt heavy in her ears. She knew he was there because she heard his breathing quicken.
“How did you know that’s there? Who told you?” he asked.
“You did,” Samantha said. “And if you want to save the world, you’ll be waiting for me when I land in Atlanta in seven hours.”
“Ms. Moon?”
“Yes.”
Samantha waited for the accusation, hoped he had not already dispatched local law enforcement to track her down. Voldare had made it clear how urgent this would become and Samantha couldn’t wait. She had to lay it all out on the table.
“Please hurry. The virus is spreading faster than we anticipated.”
“I won’t let us die,” she said, hanging up the phone and reaching for her car keys. “I won’t let my children die.”
The End
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Acknowledgements
A special thank you to Eve Paludin and Laurie Love for making this happen in a matter of days. And a special thanks to J.R. Rain for trusting me with his first lady, Samantha Moon.
Thank you for taking this journey with me. If you enjoyed the book please leave a review on Amazon. It can be a few words and written in minutes. Authors depend on reviews from readers like you.
Other works from J. Thorn
Browse the entire J. Thorn catalog at http://jthorn.net/books/.
About the Author
Healed by the written word
Want a story that's rooted in a fundamental aspect of being human?
I believe reading dark fiction can be healing. My overriding mission is to connect with you through my art, and I hope to inspire you to do the same. I’m a word architect and driven visionary. I’m obsessed with heavy metal, horror films and technology. And I admire strong people who are not afraid to speak their mind.
I grew up in an Irish Catholic, working class family and was the first to go to college. I didn't have expensive toys, so I used my own imagination for entertainment. And then I abused alcohol for entertainment. I spent the first thirty years of my life convincing myself I wasn’t an addict and the last ten worrying about all the potential threats the substances hid from me.
Anxiety and depression are always hiding in the corner, waiting to jump me when I start to feel happiness.
I had to break through family programming and accept the role of the black sheep. In my 30s I started writing horror and formed a heavy metal band while my family rolled their eyes, sighed and waited for the “phase” to end.
I spent years paralyzing myself with self-loathing and criticism, keeping my creativity smothered and hidden from the rest of the world. I worked a job I hated because that’s what Irish Catholic fathers do. They don’t express themselves, they pay the damn mortgage. I may have left my guilt and faith behind long ago, but the scars remain.
My creativity is my release, my therapy and my place to work through it all. I haven't had a drink in a long time, but the anxiety and depression are always lurking. Writing novels and songs keeps it at bay. I scream over anxiety with my microphone and I turn my guitar up loud enough to drown out the whispers of self-doubt.
I hope to leave a legacy of art that will continue to entertain and enrich lives long after I'm gone. I want others to see that you don’t have to conform to the mainstream to be fulfilled.
Don’t be afraid of the dark. Embrace it.
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