Fook

by Brian Drinkwater

“Spare parts,” Derek explained as he picked up the bag and trotting back toward the device, grabbed Jason’s arm to encourage him.

  “Spare parts? Encouraging,” Jason hesitantly moved toward the briefcase.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Derek reassured. “Everything will be fine. I just wanna be prepared for anything.”

  “You, prepared?” Jason almost began laughing at the comical statement.

  “Hey, I can plan ahead when necessary,” Derek assured as he bent down and picked up his orbs. “You remember those two girls in our dorm room?”

  “You mean the one I assaulted and her friend,” Jason recalled the embarrassing encounter, his face turning red.

  “Yes, them.”

  “What about them?” Jason searched for a point.

  “Well, before bringing them home, I made sure that I was well protected.

  “But weren’t you just telling me in the lab the other night how you needed another box of condoms and wanted me to run to the convenience store to pick them up for you.”

  “A task which you have yet to complete.”

  “Sorry. I’ll get right on that.”

  “Anyway, yes you are correct. I was out of condoms but I knew that I was out of condoms so I made sure to engage our fine young female friends in a very specific and provocative line of questioning before inviting them home. A line of questioning which ultimately provided me with the knowledge that not only were both on birth control, but also that the lovely blonde occasionally left her back door unlocked.”

  “What does having no condoms have to do with her poor security habits?”

  The grin, which had continued to grow as he’d recounted his previous night’s escapades, suddenly faded at his sadly inexperienced friend’s tame existence.

  “Never mind,” Derek sighed. “You ready?”

  “What?” Jason’s confusion continued. “Oh wait.”

  “There you go,” Derek’s smile returned.

  “How are we going to get back?”

  Derek’s grin again faded. “What?”

  “Here. How do we get home? How do we know if there’s a suitable power source on the other side that can safely return us back to this time?”

  Realizing that the joke had been completely lost on his friend, Derek switched back to a tone of reassurance. “What does that plaque over there say?” he motioned to a small silver sign mounted on the exterior wall of the gate house.

  “1990,” Jason stuttered as he adjusted his glasses in an attempt to read the distant numbers.

  “Right, a whole year before our programmed arrival point. So there’s nothing to be concerned about. This place will exist to provide us a safe journey home.”

  “But if the calculations are off, we could arrive in the wrong year.”

  “If the calculations are off we could be dead,” Derek let out an uncomfortable chuckle.

  “Excuse me!” a young, female voice suddenly interrupted.

  Both Derek and Jason turned to find a young girl holding a baseball and standing on the other side of the fence at the edge of the clearing.

  “Time to go,” Derek announced as he pushed the tiny button on his orb.

  “Wait! What about the transfor—” Jason was cut off mid-sentence as a loud snap followed by a deafening pop erupted from the equipment around them.

  Autumn stumbled backward at the eruption of noise and a sudden burst of wind that swept through the large clearing, tripping over a root and falling backward onto her butt. The home run ball that she’d just retrieved, before stumbling upon the two strange men standing at the center of the large facility, rolled from her grip and stopped against a nearby tree.

  Though the fall had temporarily jarred her head back, she quickly returned her focus to the two strangers, just in time to see them, the wires and the odd box at their feet, vanish into thin air. The popping, sizzling noises slowly faded as the air calmed, but the same couldn’t be said for her nerves. Stumbling to her feet, forgetting about the ball and reluctant to remove her eyes from the spot on which the two men had just been standing, she began making her way back to her two friends who were now standing at the other edge of the woods, intrigued by the odd noises taking place just beyond their property.

  “Go back!” Autumn yelled as she waved her friends toward the safety of their homes, her nervous stagger quickly becoming an all out sprint.

  “Where’s the ball?” Jonathan asked confused.

  “Forget the ball! They disappeared!” she replied as she ran passed them.

  “The ball’s lost?” Callie asked.

  “You didn’t hit it that hard,” Jonathan attempted to regain some of his dignity.

  “I hit it harder then you did,” Callie poked fun.

  “Come on!” Autumn yelled again.

  Forgetting the ball, Jonathan also bolted for the house, quickly being overtaken by the pretty redhead.

  TWELVE

  “Explain to me again why we’re participating in this antiterrorism thing,” Officer Michael Lucern questioned from the passenger seat as he peered out his window at the tree lined, rolling hills along Interstate 90.

  “Because the Chief asked us to,” Phil Bishop fed his partner the simplest explanation he had. He didn’t want to make the long trek from the quiet, rural streets of Cannon to the monstrosity that was Boston. Early on in his marriage and his career, he and his wife had spent three years living and working in the city. Out of those three years came more experience then he could have ever asked for and was glad to receive, but it also made him realize that, while he loved police work, he didn’t love that type. He didn’t want to be dealing with drug addicts, gang members and prostitutes day in and day out and while he understood the inherent risks involved with his chosen profession, the thought that he might leave his then pregnant wife and future daughter without a husband and father never did sit well with him. It was a feeling very vocally shared by his wife. So, six months into their pregnancy, they’d made the decision to up and leave the big city, leaving their small apartment in exchange for a large country house deep in the secluded woods of Western Massachusetts. With the highest of recommendation from his chief back in Boston, he easily found a position in the Cannon Police Department where he’d remained ever since.

  “Really? Do you do everything the Chief asks you to?” Michael joked.

  “Yes.”

  “So if the Chief asked you to jump off a—?”

  “—Given that the highest bridge in Cannon is a whopping ten feet tall...yes,” Phil instinctually guessed where his partner was heading with his typical, childish humor. While a great police officer and his best friend, Michael Lucern was the most immature thirty-eight year old he’d ever met.

  “Building. I was going to say building,” Michael finished his previous sentence with a smug tone and equally smug smile.

  “Well, I’m sure that you’re thinking of the tallest building in Cannon, which we both know is the church at the center of town...if you’re counting the steeple that is...and since I am a God fearing Christian who attends church every Sunday and believes that my Lord and Savior would do everything in his power to protect me, my answer would still be yes.”

  “Do you have an answer for everything?”

  “Yes,” Phil ended the exchange with a smile.

  “Seriously though,” Michael changed the subject back to the road trip. “What second rate terrorist would think that a small town in rural Mass. would make a good target?”

  “I don’t know? That same woman attacks the chili cook off with her atomic butt burner concoction every year.”

  “Hey, my mother’s chili is delicious and you know it. I’ve seen you put down more than one bowl at a time.”

  “It wasn’t me that always complained about it. It was Trish who wouldn’t let me sleep in the same room with her afterwards.”

  Michael still wasn’t sure how to handle the subject of his partner’s deceased wife. Their families having been so close, he’d wit
nessed firsthand the pain that Trisha’s cancer had caused them. He’d always been amazed at how well Phil had handled the situation, never letting on just how torn up inside he likely was. Phil and Trish had fought that battle together for nearly nine years before finally losing and not once had he seen his partner break down.

  “Well,” Phil broke the growing, awkward silence. “Speaking of burning concoctions, you should have seen my kitchen this morning.”

  “Katie trying to cook again?” Michael laughed, more than a little familiar with his godchild’s culinary gifts.

  “The eggs looked like bacon,” Phil shook his head, still trying to grasp how that was even possible.

  “Well it could have been worse, they could have looked like meatloaf. At least they were in the same category this time. If you ask me, it sounds like she’s getting better.”

  “Funny.”

  “She means well,” Michael reassured.

  “I know she does. It just worries me sometimes. Trish was the better parent. I’m afraid that without her around I might have stunted Katie’s ability to fully blossom into the woman that I know she should be. I mean, she’s only sixteen and she’s going to be a mother. Trish and I didn’t even think about having a child until we were in our mid twenties and well established in our lives and careers. What is she going to do?”

  “She’s going to thrive,” Michael reassured his partner in the first real moment of vulnerability he’d seen since the loss of Trish. “She’s a strong girl with a strong father and even though the situation might not seem ideal right now, God always has a plan. Eventually that plan will become clear and you’ll discover that this whole situation is actually a blessing in disguise.”

  “How do you do that?”

  “What?”

  “That. How do you go from obnoxious, post-pubescent, middle aged teenager one moment to mature, reassuring adult friend the next?”

  “It’s a gift I guess,” Michael smiled. “Don’t worry, it’ll pass. Before you know it I’ll be stealing your car, telling you how much I hate you and raiding your liquor cabinet again in no time.”

  “As long as you don’t end up pregnant,” Phil grinned as he signaled to pass a vehicle.

  “I can’t promise anything.”

  THIRTEEN

  “...Transformers!” the shouted completion of Jason’s sentence greeted their familiarly different surroundings. However, as worked up as he’d been just prior to making the jump, nothing could distract him from the strange, tingling sensation running up and down his spine. “Do you feel that?”

  “I think we made it,” Derek whispered, quickly scanning their surroundings as he patted himself down, looking for any odd or unfamiliar limbs. His one fear, other than miscalculating the landing point and ending up floating out in space was that, by some stroke of very bad luck, they would appear in the exact spot as some unlucky maintenance worker from the electric company.

  “Do you feel that?” Jason asked again, in an even more excited tone.

  “Feel what?” Derek responded confused but at the same time relieved to have all of his limbs and no extras.

  “That! The tingling sensation!” Jason emphasized his enthusiasm over what seemed an almost orgasmic experience for him. Closing his eyes, the sensation grew, spreading from his spine until every part of his body, right down to the hairs on his head shared the same odd sensation.

  “Are you alright?” Derek questioned, concerned and a bit confused since he felt nothing whatsoever.

  Jason gasped, holding his breath momentarily before releasing it with a long sigh as the sensation faded.

  “I hope you brought a clean pair of pants,” Derek joked as he watch a wave a relaxation overtake Jason’s body.

  As the tingling sensation dissipated, Jason opened his eyes to find Derek staring at him, both concerned and confused. “You didn’t feel that?” Jason questioned the strange look.

  “Did I feel that? No. Have I felt that? Just…not with another guy by my side.”

  “It was unbelievable,” Jason closed his eyes again, trying to get it back.

  “I didn’t feel anything but it could have been because I was too excited about not being...you know...dead.”

  Realizing that the sensation wasn’t coming back, Jason once again opened his eyes while at the same time remembering the little girl that they’d seen just before activating the device.

  “Shit, the girl!” Jason announced as he turned toward the fence.

  She wasn’t there. Quickly he scanned the perimeter of the transformer yard; still no little girl. “What do you think happened to her? Is she ok?” he questioned, remembering the popping noises and loud, electrical snap that had erupted from the surrounding equipment just before they’d jumped.

  “Just the equipment reacting to the sudden power surge. I’m sure she’s fine. If the equipment had exploded we would have likely heard or seen it just as we made the jump. The moment we left, the surge was over and the equipment, if still functioning, probably returned to normal as if we’d never even been there.”

  The explanation made sense. The electrical noises that had come from the equipment had been loud but they definitely hadn’t been explosions. Looking through the fence, to the tree line where the little girl had stood, Jason realized that he could no longer see the houses from which she’d probably come. It was likely that the neighborhood, that would eventually reside only a hundred or so yards away, hadn’t been built yet.

  “They really let this place go didn’t they?”

  Jason turned to see Derek disconnecting the device from the surrounding equipment.

  “I mean look at this stuff,” Derek admired the transformer to which the machine had just been connected. “The paint looks so fresh and the wires don’t show any signs of deterioration.”

  Jason couldn’t say that he’d paid much attention to the site’s condition prior to that moment but everything did appear to be newer than he remembered. Even the steel plaque on the gatehouse wall seemed to gleam beneath the morning sun. They had obviously traveled back a significant amount of time and since they’d ended up with their feet planted firmly on the ground, he could only assume that they’d hit their desired target.

  Kneeling beside the briefcase, Jason tapped at the iPad, scrolling through the thousands of lines of data that had been transmitted between the tablet and the device.

  “System core stable,” Jason read the three word sentence displayed on the screen with a sigh as he patted his right, front pocket. Just as Derek had brought with him a bag of spare parts, he’d brought with him an extra core.

  “So now what?” Derek announced as Jason continued to stare at the sentence on the screen.

  Swiping at the screen, Jason closed the program as he lowered the lid and engaged the latches on the case. “What do you mean now what?” he asked confused as he got to his feet with the case. Derek was standing beside him, his backpack of electrical toys slung over his shoulder as if he were ready for class.

  “I got us here, so now what do we do?”

  “Don’t ask me, this was your trip.”

  “I’m just joking, come on,” Derek motioned as he started toward the gate.

  “Where are we going?”

  “We came all this way. Don’t you wanna take a look around?”

  “Just a quick look and then we need to get back,” Jason agreed as he followed.

  “To hell with that. We didn’t risk our lives to just poke around the woods for a few minutes.”

  As the gate slowly retracted, Derek slipped out of the yard. Carrying the case, Jason quickly followed.

  “I hope you brought your hiking shoes,” Derek continued as he began walking down the dirt road that they’d previously traversed by way of the car still parked outside the gate in the future.

  “Why?” Jason glanced down at his brown loafers and khaki pants.

  “Because it’s a long walk back to the city,” Derek’s voice faded as the distance between them grew
.

  Jason jogged to catch up to him. “We can’t walk all the way back to the city. Heck, it took us almost twenty minutes to drive here and this thing isn’t exactly light,” he motioned to the metal briefcase as he caught up to his speed walking partner.

  Stopping in his tracks, Derek thought. “You know, you’re right.”

  “Yes, I know I’m right. Now, let's just take a look around and then—”

  “—I guess we’ll have to hitchhike,” Derek announced, in an excited tone, the plan he’d obviously decided on already.

  “Hitchhike?” Jason responded, hesitant to follow. “It would be safer to test the machine again,” he shouted as he again played catch up.

  “Nonsense. It’s the nineties, you know, the time of peace and love.”

  “That was the sixties,” Jason argued as he caught up. “The nineties had AIDS, Dessert Storm and George Bush...the first one.”

  “Yeah, but we have Obama, so how much worse could it have really been?”

  *****

  “This is a stick-up!”

  Dustin Hendrix turned to see his five year old daughter standing beside him with what appeared to be a crude gun cut from the side of an empty cardboard box. From the print on the side of the paper weapon, it appeared to have been a shipment of Jameson Whisky.

  “Don’t shoot,” he played along, throwing his hands in the air.

  “Bang! Bang!” the little girl yelled as the improvised gun jumped in her hands with each shot.

  He realized that he wasn’t going to win any father of the year awards by encouraging his five year old daughter to hold up a liquor store, let alone kill the clerk. He figured he’d probably been knocked out of the running the moment he’d chosen to bring her to work in the first place, so, grasping his chest, he stumbled backwards and dropped to one knee.

  “You got me,” he gasped.

  “Daddy, they aren’t real bullets,” Abby laughed as she lowered the gun.

  Still pretending to be shot, Dustin partially removed his hands from his chest to peek at his wounds. “Oh no. Abby, look,” he groaned.