Killing Time - A Time Travel Adventure Novel

by Jack Hunt

  “They had this guy on, I don’t know. It was way back in the early nineties. He was a scientist that worked for the military on satellites and shit. Anyway, as far back as the early nineties he was saying that he had developed a way to warp time. You know, speed up or slow down time.” He took another puff of his cigarette and blew it in my face. I started coughing. “Here’s the really interesting part. He said they had done this experiment where they placed a clock inside of this… field… that they had created using electromagnetic energy and lasers and whatnot. Well, here’s the thing. The clock on the outside of the field would show that only one hour had elapsed, while the clock inside the field showed that three hours had passed. They also did this the other way around and on that test, the clock inside the field only showed that ten minutes had passed. But here’s the really weird part. When they got this thing going, which according to him didn’t require a lot of energy, the clock inside the field visually disappeared. Like one second it was there and the next it wasn’t.”

  He glanced over at me as if waiting for me to say something. I just pointed towards the road ahead to remind him to keep his eyes on the car ahead. He was always doing that. It freaked me out. We swerved a little and I gripped the side of my seat. I was pretty sure there were permanent indents in the leather from where I had gripped it hundreds of times.

  “So what are you saying?”

  He blew out more smoke. “Time travel, my friend. Time travel.”

  I snorted. “You think my neighbor is some kind of time traveler?”

  “Who knows? According to the scientist who released his findings back in the early nineties, that information was at least ten years behind.”

  “You’ve lost me.”

  “Dude, it’s like technology. When we are getting the latest phone, you can bet your ass they have already created the one that we are going to get in ten or twenty years but they just aren’t releasing it.”

  I nodded, keeping an eye on the vehicle ahead of us.

  “What I’m saying is… if they could make a clock disappear and return with a different time setting and that was in the early nineties, don’t you think by now they would have tested a human going into that time field?”

  “C’mon,” I said.

  “Hey, I’m not selling anything. I’m just saying what I heard. You’re the one who said you saw your neighbor vanish and then reappear.”

  We pulled into my street and Eric had the bright idea of parking up close to Kelly’s house. It would give us a clear shot across the street. Eric drove a souped-up Honda with dark tinted windows, his parents had bought it back on his eighteenth birthday. They owned several convenience stores in the city and since the day he was born he’d never really wanted for much. They wanted him to become a lawyer or doctor, anything that didn’t require him having to leech off them. I kind of had a feeling that he would still be living with his mother at forty.

  Eric brought out these ridiculous binoculars and peered through them.

  “Dude, what are you doing?”

  “It’s a stakeout, right? I want to get a closer look.”

  “We’re not parked miles away.”

  “I know. But it will be you thanking me when I see him getting it on with your mother.”

  I smacked him in the arm and leaned down to grab up my bottle of drink that had rolled across the floor. As I was groping around there was a bang on the window, it startled me so much that I banged my head on the glove compartment.

  It was Kelly.

  “Great, she’s going to screw this up,” Eric said.

  I dropped the window.

  “What are you guys doing?”

  “Get in.”

  “What? No. I need to get out and you’re blocking my driveway.”

  “Shit!” Eric turned over the ignition and backed up several feet. Kelly tapped on the window again.

  “What’s the deal with her?”

  I dropped the window for a second time.

  “So are you going to tell me what you’re doing?”

  “No. Bye,” Eric said hitting the button to bring up the window.

  Right then the garage door to my neighbor’s house started lifting up. “Crap!” I opened my door, opened the rear door and shoved Kelly inside.

  “What are you doing?” she yelled. I jumped in after her pressing my body against hers to keep her down.

  “Get off, Alex.”

  “Shhh!” I said whispering as if my neighbor could have heard me. Eric had climbed almost down under his steering wheel. My head was peering just above the door. Fortunately, Eric had chosen the darkest tint that was allowed on a car. Kelly was pounding on my chest to get me off. My neighbor’s car eased out of the driveway and slowly crawled past.

  “Okay, let’s go,” I said crawling from the backseat to the front.

  “What the hell are you both —”

  Before I could answer, Eric had turned over the ignition and did a huey in the road.

  “Don’t get too close or he’ll know.”

  “What is going on?” Kelly demanded to know. “Let me out.”

  I leaned back to answer her while occasionally glancing to see that Eric was swerving all over the road. There were two cars between Harry Castle and us.

  “We’re following my neighbor.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Why? Why on earth would you—”

  “Because Alex thinks he’s a time traveler.”

  “No, I don’t. You’re the one who suggested that.” I looked back at her. “I don’t. I swear. But there is some weird shit going on.”

  “Tell her about what you found.”

  “Eric.”

  “Well, tell her.”

  “Tell me what?”

  I sighed. “You know the break-in yesterday?”

  “Yeah. The police came around my house.”

  I nodded.

  “That was you?”

  “Look, I know I shouldn’t have but I—”

  “He saw his neighbor disappear and reappear.”

  Her eyebrows rose. Even as Eric said the words, I cringed.

  “I know. It sounds absurd but that’s not all. Inside his house he has this… um… hidden room. Uh. Look…” I remembered I had taken photos on my phone. I pulled it out and passed it to her to flick through. While she did that I kept my eyes on the road.

  “Strange, huh?” Eric said glancing in his rearview mirror.

  She shook her head. “Both of you are mental.” She then tossed my phone back into my lap. “Take me back home.”

  “No can do. We’re on a stakeout,” Eric replied.

  She looked at me. I tossed my hands up in the air.

  “Eric. If you don’t turn this car around and take me home now, I’m gonna call the cops.”

  Chapter 8

  She was pissed. As we drove away from Kelly’s place, I glanced back in the mirror.

  “Great, I have screwed up what little chance I had,” I said.

  “Oh forget her, man, we have lost him now.”

  We drove around for the better part of an hour searching the streets for his car. There was no sign of him. We’d all but given up on the idea of finding him when I thought about the response my neighbor had to the news that morning.

  “You think he might have gone over to Hornet Stadium?”

  “Do you really think he is going to do something? Maybe we’re looking at this all wrong. Perhaps he’s Secret Service. You know, scoping out the city before Dempsey shows up.”

  “I highly doubt it. Those guys might go ahead but they don’t buy homes.”

  “Who’s to say he bought it? For all we know he rents the place from your old neighbor.”

  We drove out to Hornet Stadium. It was located on J Street, a few miles down from John Smith Field. The place was massive. It could hold up to twenty-one thousand people. That weekend there was a football game between Sacramento State and Northern Colorado. The roads were clogged with vehicles coming and going. The parking lots
were jam-packed. We parked and then eased our way into the stream of people heading in for the day.

  “Oh hey, grab your binoculars.”

  Eric returned briefly to the car and scooped them up.

  “I don’t have any money to buy a ticket,” he said rushing back.

  “Just keep an eye out for his vehicle.”

  “Dude, look around you, there are thousands of cars.”

  “Don’t you have your OneCard?”

  A OneCard was an identification card that was given to all students, faculty and staff. It was used for all manner of things, including a library card, public transit, computer lab print card and more importantly a way to get discounts. If you didn’t have one you would have to pay around twenty bucks to get in and see a game.

  “I lost mine. You must have yours?” he replied.

  “I think I left it at home, let me check.” I pulled out my wallet and started fishing through it. Eric would always joke that it looked like a brick because it was packed so tightly with cards. Most of them were of no use to me. I just tended to collect them. Everything from cinema tickets to coupon cards and whatnot.

  “There it is,” Eric spotted it before I did. I pulled out a card that was gold at the bottom and said Sac State Student. Below that was my identification number. It had a small photo of me in the left-hand corner.

  “Well, let’s hope it works.”

  We elbowed our way through the crowd of people streaming into the stadium. I pulled out the card and handed it to the guy. Sure enough they accepted it. I gave a twenty-dollar bill to Eric to use.

  “Damn!” I muttered after I was given access. “I imagined they would have canceled it by now.”

  We made our way through to the bleachers and went all the way to the top to get a better view of the place. There were thousands of people waiting for the game to start. Green signs with the words Hornets Sacramento State hedged in the huge track and center field.

  “Holy crap, this is like trying to find a needle in a haystack,” Eric muttered.

  “No, it’s not. Think about it. If you were going to shoot the next president, where would you take the shot?”

  “Well, not from the bleachers.”

  “Of course not.”

  Eric pointed to the VIP enclosed seating along one side of the stadium, then pointed to buildings that were at each end.

  “He would have to use a rifle, so I’m guessing either the VIP seating, or the buildings either end.”

  “Or, he might try for a close-up shot. You know, Ronald Reagan-style. John Hinckley was only a few feet away.”

  A few rowdy university students pushed their way past us cheering like idiots. I could smell alcohol. No doubt they had already got liquored up ahead of time.

  “What about over there?”

  Eric pointed to the far corner of the stadium. There was a massive five-story parking structure.

  “Give me your binoculars.”

  I brought them up to my eyes and focused in on the parking structure. I scanned from left to right as I went from the ground level up to the roof. Heat waves rippled across the surface.

  Then I saw him.

  “There he is.”

  “Give me that,” Eric said yanking the binoculars away from my eyes. He peered through.

  “Gotcha.”

  “Come on, let’s go.”

  We slipped along the bleachers and started making our way down the steps. There was a line of people coming up, some of them were holding drinks and food. Eric bumped into one guy who wasn’t looking where he was going. His super-sized drink landed on the floor creating an explosion.

  “You idiot!”

  The guy looked up and before I even saw his face I knew who it was. Richie. The moment he looked at me a big grin broke on his face.

  “Well, if it isn’t Alex Flynn. I should have figured.”

  “Sorry, pal.”

  Richie grabbed a hold of Eric’s top. “Sorry isn’t going to get me another drink.”

  “Let him go, Richie. It was an accident.”

  “Yeah, you weren’t looking where you were going,” Eric added.

  He scowled. “I wasn’t? You want to rephrase that?”

  Eric pushed him back and Richie lost his footing and landed in some big guy’s lap. Shit was about get real now. Richie got up and started blubbering to the guy about how it was Eric’s fault. The guy who looked as though he was stitched into his T-shirt didn’t seem to give two shits whose fault it was. He grabbed hold of Richie and practically launched him into the seats across from him. From there it was a like a domino effect. Fists started being thrown and I grabbed a hold of Eric and we elbowed our way out of there.

  Before we left I brought the binoculars back up to my eyes to take one final look, that’s when I noticed that he was staring back through his own set.

  “Let’s go.”

  We disappeared down the corridor that led out of the building. We had seen enough for the day. Whatever hope we had of tailing him now was shot. He’d be long gone by the time we got over there. No matter how much I ranted about it to Eric, he seemed convinced that it didn’t matter.

  “He couldn’t have seen us, and anyway, even if he did. So what. We could have just been there for the game.”

  “What, looking through binoculars at him?”

  “Alex, you are paranoid, kid.”

  He was right. I was bordering on a new level of paranoia. This whole thing had begun to spiral out of control. I didn’t know if I was even thinking right. My neighbor a time traveler looking to kill the next president? Even I had a hard time wrapping my head around it.

  “Let’s just go home,” Eric said.

  We were already halfway around the block heading towards the parking lot. “No way. I need to know.”

  “Alex, I’m covered in Coke. I need to change my top. Can’t we do this another time?”

  “We don’t have more time. Tomorrow is when this is happening.”

  Eric shook his head. I was started to think that even he didn’t believe me. But I knew what I had seen. This wasn’t just an illusion. I might not have believed it was possible at this point but I wanted answers.

  “Alex, he’s a land surveyor. Who knows, perhaps he is mapping out something new for the city.”

  I scoffed. “On Saturday?”

  As we got closer to the parking structure, Eric’s words struck a chord in me. The car swerved into the lower floor and we went around in circles, each time going up a new ramp until we arrived on the roof. It was packed with cars. Several cars were ahead us.

  I figured he’d be gone. Then I saw him.

  “Pull into there.” I indicated to a parking space. From the safety of the car we watched him. Harry Castle had a yellow tripod positioned at the far corner of the parking structure. He was wearing an orange reflective jacket that would make people believe he was a city employee working a government job. If it was a farce it was the perfect cover. He could waltz into any area in the city, set up his camera on the tripod and make observations without anyone thinking he was up to anything untoward. If anyone asked him, he would probably say he was mapping and collecting measurements in preparation of drafting plans.

  We watched for roughly fifteen minutes. Harry moved into different positions on the roof. At times he was pointing the camera away from the stadium which would seem counter-intuitive to what we figured he was up to.

  Eric sighed heavily trying to make it obvious that he wasn’t enjoying spending his Saturday afternoon watching my neighbor.

  “Okay. If he’s a land surveyor, the city would know about it right? I mean, if he’s meant to be measuring boundaries and whatnot, they would know for sure.”

  I pulled out my phone and brought up the number for City Hall.

  “They won’t be open,” he said in an annoyed tone.

  The phone rang for a minute or two and I was about to hang up when a woman answered.

  “City Hall, how can I direct your call?”
/>
  “Yeah, I’m trying to find out who I would speak to about surveying work that’s being done in the city.”

  She snapped gum annoyingly in my ear. “Hold the line.”

  I got put on hold and some elevator music played softly in the background.

  “Like what I don’t get is if he is planning on shooting her. Wouldn’t he be using a gun scope or going through some routine to determine distance, wind speed and so on?” Eric asked. I wasn’t paying attention. I hated being put on hold.

  “Susan Wright, may I help you?”

  “Yeah, hi Susan, I was wondering if you could tell me if the city has any surveyors over on Stadium Drive and Callery Pear Way?”

  Those were the two roads that encircled the parking structure.

  “Can I ask what this is in regards to?”

  “Just a concerned citizen.”

  “Sir, I don’t have that information available. It’s a Saturday. You will have to phone back on Monday.”

  “Are you sure you can’t tell me? This is kind of urgent.”

  “Sir, perhaps you can tell me what it is you are concerned about?”

  I hung up on her. Useless.

  “Told you,” Eric said biting into an apple loudly.

  “Get down,” I said.

  “What?”

  I yanked on his top as my neighbor turned our way. A few minutes passed before I looked up to see what was going on. He was gone.

  “Great, now we’ve lost him.”

  Eric tossed his hands in the air. “Where did he go?”

  Chapter 9

  Reluctantly we returned home. Back at my house, Eric made up some excuse that he couldn’t stick around. He’d told Ash that he would join him for drinks that afternoon. I stood in the driveway while the car idled. The window was down and I leaned in.

  “You never go out with him.”

  “You remember those two twins? One of them agreed to go out for a drink with me, and as you didn’t seem interested, I asked Ash if he wanted to string along. He’s going to keep her sister company while I lay down the moves. You feel me?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Whatever, man.”

  I should have figured that he wouldn’t take any of this seriously. The guy’s brain was between his legs. For as long as I had known him he had been playing the field with multiple women. I think at any given time he had two on the go. Neither of them knew he was seeing the other. And he didn’t care. His moral compass was shot. As Eric pulled away I glanced across the street. Kelly’s car was back in the driveway. I ambled on over there. It was getting close to the middle of the afternoon. The heat of the day had waned and a light breeze was blowing the trees around.