Time Master

by Wyatt Kane

 

  I nodded and sprinted as best as my bum leg would let me toward the spear display. There were half a dozen of them, all stone spearheads. I figured if they were good enough for tribes in the Amazon to bring down their prey and defend themselves against others, they could certainly help us kill a giant bug.

 

  I turned toward April, catching her eye. She was still hidden behind the tree. I raised my hand in a gesture to ask, ‘what?’

 

  I didn’t like spiders, but we knew it was going to be a giant bug of some kind. I didn’t see why that was more of a problem now than it was a minute ago.

 

  Oh. More than anything, I wished I could talk back to April through her telepathic connection, but no matter how hard I thought my words, she didn’t seem to get them. I grabbed every spear I could off the wall, glad they were only cordoned off and not behind more glass. Carefully, holding them so they wouldn’t click together, I limped back to April.

  “Does June know it’s a big-ass spider?” I whispered as quietly as I could. The dark-haired twin was still in the hallway.

  April shook her head.

  “She can stay here,” I said. “We took two of the monsters last night by ourselves.”

  April looked doubtful, but she paused for a moment, and I thought she was communicating something to June via telepathy.

  Sure enough, a second later, I felt a flash of surprise and fear from June, and heard her say, “Oh, hell no.”

  It was such a perfect response to the situation that I had to chuckle under my breath. Then I calmed myself down. I gave April most of the spears, keeping two for myself and assuming she would give a couple to her sister. “When I give the signal, attract its attention,” I said.

  April nodded.

  There wasn’t much else to do but get on with it. I drew a deep breath and let it all out at once. “You got this,” I muttered to myself. With that, I left the relative shelter of the plastic trees and made my way toward the creature.

  It was still crunching on something. As I drew closer, I saw that April’s description of it as a, ‘really big fucking spider’ didn’t do it justice. It was the size of a rhino, and for a moment, my courage failed me as I gazed at the beast that was calmly eating one of the guards. Someone whimpered in a corner, and the creature turned.

  I realized then that the person who whimpered was me. This demon was as scary as hell, and I was sure it had come straight from there.

  How did I manage to get myself into this mess? I wondered.

  The spider let a partially chewed leg fall from its maw as it moved toward me. I focused all my energy on slowing down time. The wizard had said I should be able to freeze it completely, like ice. But I couldn’t. The creature barely slowed.

 

  That was comforting, I thought. Especially right then, as the spider decided to lunge.

  I actually screamed in fear as I dove to the floor away from the creature. Not fast enough. It reared over me and attempted to crush me under its feet.

  “Now!” I yelled. I rolled beneath the spider, slipping and sliding on the floor slick with blood. The spider’s tail whipped around, cracking the air as it broke the sound barrier. People screamed as glass and displays went flying. Glass cut into my face and hands as I pushed myself to my feet. The spider had stopped directly over me, and it looked ready to bite my head clean off my shoulders.

  “Hey, hairy ass spider!” April yelled. “Over here!”

  Words couldn’t express how much I loved that woman just then. Her courage was beyond compare. The creature turned its attention to her, and I seized the opportunity to drive a spear into its belly.

  It screamed. Not screeched, screamed, and I fell to my knees at the force of it.

  Then something unexpected happened. I felt it clearly. The fabric of reality was ripping apart all around us.

  XVII

  At first, I couldn’t believe what was happening, but then I just knew. The monster was tearing space-time apart. It was creating a rift, like the one in the parking lot at the Good Times Club. Up until then, I hadn’t even considered that the rift had been made. I’d thought of it as an anomaly that the bug-demons exploited.

  I’d never even considered the possibility that the insects had created it on purpose.

  It was a staggering thought, and if I’d had the time, I would have been shocked out of my mind. But I didn’t have time. I must have hurt it. The creature was trying to run, and there was no way we could let that happen.

  If we did, the monster would just reappear somewhere else to wreak whatever havoc it wanted, and we wouldn’t be there to stop it.

  Still screaming, the spider rose up on its back legs, pulling the spear out of my grasp. Surprised, I didn’t let go quickly enough and was pulled off my feet. I crashed to the floor, bashing my bum leg on the hard wood. Pain shot up my thigh, but I had no time to worry about it. Sensing the beast preparing to attack, I rolled as fast as I could away from the monster.

  April yelled an incongruously sexy battle cry, and from somewhere behind her, I heard June shouting as well.

  Somehow, I’d lost my second spear. “Throw me another spear!” I bellowed.

  April never hesitated. She tossed the one in her hand to me. I caught it, swinging it around like a staff, and in one swift movement I thrust it toward the injured creature. Even now, that monster was still trying to create a rift big enough for it to escape. I stabbed at its head, going for what I thought might be eyes, and then the tail whipped around and slapped me across the back.

  I was flung sideways, but managed to turn so I landed face first. My nose hit the floor with a sickening crunch. Blood spurted, but the pain was nothing compared to the searing fire I felt across my shoulder blades.

  “Caleb!” April yelled. “Watch out!”

  Was she offering a late warning? Or was I in yet more danger?

  I was winded. Trying to remember to breathe, I forced my body into another roll. The pain had jolted my senses, and I lost the last of my grip on time. The creature was no longer slowed down even a little, and I feared for the lives of April and June.

  Real terror gripped me like the jaws of a beast. I’d never known anything like it. I couldn’t think, couldn’t even move. We were going to die, I just knew it. It was visceral, a sense of alarm like no other.

  Yet there was something about it that felt a little detached, and in a flash of inspiration, I realized I was feeling June’s emotions rather than mine. Her phobia of spiders was intense and paralyzing, and I felt a sense of empathy I hadn’t expected.

  At the same time, once I realized it wasn’t me, I found I could act. Lying on my back, I breathed in a great gulp of air. Then I reached out once again, forcing my eyes to stay open despite the pain, and did my level best to slow time once again.

  April took her opportunity. She lunged at the monster, thrusting her spear at its eyes, which grew in clusters on stalks. Her aim was good. She sheared off an entire section of eyeballs from the head. Dark, vile blood poured out, and the creature screamed again and dance-skittered on the floor. The dangerous, whip-like tail thrashed about, still dangerously fast despite my efforts in the dimly lit hall.

  April stabbed again, this time lodging her own spear in the creature’s throat. She let go in time to duck when the spider tried to crush her beneath its body.

  “June! Kill it!” April screamed. “Now!”

  But the other sister was nowhere to be seen.

  I finally found enough strength to sit up, but my movements were slow. Nor could I do much without losing my tenuous grip on time. April tried to get hold of
the spear I had dropped, but the demon thwarted her at every turn, somehow sensing through its pain that if she got the weapon, it would die.

  I was losing my grip. I didn’t have the focus to slow the monster enough to be useful. All I could do was sit where I was, watching in horror as April struggled by herself to defeat a monster too big for any human to fight.

  Where was June? I wondered. Yet somehow, I knew. The dark-haired sister was cowering in a corner. I didn’t need to see her to know what she was feeling.

  April dodged another attack. The creature was slowing, but I wasn’t sure if it was because of its injuries or something I was doing.

  Either way, I had to do something to help.

  I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up to my hands and knees, giving the fight everything I had.

  But even if I’d been able to do something, I was already too late. With a terrifying ripping sound, the fabric of time tore, and the spider disappeared inside the rift it had finally created. What had been a screeching, earth-shaking battle ended so abruptly that for a moment, I couldn’t believe it.

  Then I collapsed onto the floor and rolled onto my back. I lay there, panting to regain my breath and gritting my teeth against the pain. For the second time in twenty-four hours, I was covered in blood. This time, it was all mine.

  April’s beautiful face appeared over mine. She looked like an angel as she gave me a smile and gently touched my cheek. Then June appeared as well, her expression troubled, with the wizard at her side.

  XVIII

  “It’s not dead,” the wizard said as he entered the palace. “Did you get the pendant?”

  The old man had worked his magic on my back and nose. Neither injury hurt any more, for which I was grateful, but I still felt generally drained and battered after the fight. He had offered to fix my bum leg, as well, but I wasn’t ready to forget that I was mortal, that I wasn’t infallible. Nor did I want to erase the trials I had faced.

  I wondered what my health bar might display now. Thirty percent? Twenty? Either way, I doubted it would be cheerfully green any more.

  I reached inside my pocket for the pendant. “This better be worth it,” I said.

  The wizard grabbed it from my hand and headed over to where Shell hovered near the cockpit. For the first time, I noticed a slight limp to the old man’s gait. Just like mine. Had he been injured somehow during his latest period of non-existence? Or had he just been drinking again?

  The old man casually threw the pendant at the AI, which seemed to catch the artifact as if it was sticky, then absorb it in its entirety. It was a fascinating thing to watch, and I made a note to ask the wizard about it at some point.

  But there was still too much urgency as yet. As the wizard had said, the spider-monster wasn’t dead.

  Shell glowed purple while the Greek palace shrank, quickly replacing sheer curtains and the bath with the old musty window coverings and cushions of the Bedford van. As I eased my weary body onto the pillows, the old man plonked himself in the driver’s seat. The van started with a roar, and once again we careened through time. The girls and I slid around in what was becoming a familiar experience. I wondered why, if Shell could conjure a Greek palace out of nowhere, couldn’t she create a few actual seats, with seatbelts?

  “We have to get to the minor demon!” the wizard called over his shoulder to us. “We can’t fucking lose it again!”

  The Bedford lurched to a stop, bounced a couple of times, and then slid on what felt like dirt. It tilted up on its left side as if it would roll over, but the wizard jerked the wheel and the van righted. We bounced once more and finally came to a halt.

  “Where are we?” April asked. She had ended up squashed in a corner with her sister practically on top of her.

  “On the moon,” the wizard answered, “with the minor demon.”

  I snorted, thinking he was joking. But when I rose to look out a window with April and June doing the same beside me, all of us swore out loud.

  We weren’t in Kansas anymore. That much was clear. The landscape looked barren and lifeless, just like every picture of the moon I’d ever seen. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see the original moon lander just outside the window, with maybe a bleached, American flag not far away.

  “Oh my God,” April murmured. June said nothing, but I felt waves of confusion and anxiety from her that echoed my own feelings precisely.

  “How…?” I asked. I wasn’t sure which of many different questions I was trying to ask. So I asked them all. “How are we still alive? Is the van air-tight? How did that monster create a rift?” I thought about it for a moment. “Why do I feel the same? The gravity hasn’t changed.”

  The old man heaved himself out of the cockpit and glared at me in irritation. “You watched this van turn into a Greek palace and back, and you’ve travelled through time in the back of it. And you’re still surprised by what it can do?”

  He had a point.

  “The important thing is that the demon you failed to kill is here. It’s injured and weak, and we still have to stop it!”

  “How?” I asked. “And why did it come to the moon?”

  June had a better question. “How can it survive without any air?”

  “How did it even get here?” April added.

  The old wizard widened his irritated glare to include everyone. “Really? You’re asking these questions now?” he said.

  The three of us just looked at him.

  “Fine! Waste what little time we have on banalities! These creatures are more advanced than they appear. Their technology isn’t built on circuits and wires, though. It’s biological, and from what I’ve been able to find out, is related to their size. The smaller bugs can’t do much. The medium sized ones, like our spider-friend, can sometimes create rifts through space and time, survive in space, and a bunch of other things. But it’s the really big ones you have to worry about. Their capabilities can be extraordinary.” He paused in his speech, but kept glaring. “As to why it came here, how should I know? Best guess, it’s injured and this is as far away as it could get. Now, are you all completely satisfied? Can we get on with this now?”

  Without waiting for an answer, he made his way to the back of the van and started rummaging through the laundry chest, which had somehow survived the transition from the Greek palace.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “You think I want to go for a walk on the moon dressed like this?” the wizard grumbled.

  At the same time, April spoke as well. “I see it!” she said. She had crossed to look out the window on the other side of the van.

  All of us joined her to stare at the monster. It was maybe a hundred and fifty feet away, yet I thought I caught a glimpse of anger in its eyes. It wanted our blood. Slowly, it took one step for the Bedford, then another. It looked as it if was working itself up to attack, and that was a scary thought. We weren’t prepared.

  What if it managed to puncture the van?

  As if in answer to that thought, the wizard shoved something at me. “Put this on,” he said.

  It was a spacesuit, but it didn’t look much like the more bulky one Neil Armstrong wore when he landed here. Yet the helmet was unmistakable, as was the oxygen tank on the back.

  I hesitated for only a moment before bowing to the inevitable. The spacesuit looked reasonably straight-forward. Feeling like I’d barely had time to catch my breath since the last battle, I kicked off my shoes and stepped into it.

  “Right,” said the wizard. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

  I turned to him and realized he was naked again.

  “Jeez, dude! Do I have to stare at your dangling, hairy old nuts all day?” I said.

  He looked at me with a vaguely perplexed expression, as if he couldn’t understand my outrage. “I can hardly stuff these robes into the suit, young Caleb,” he said.

  “At least put some underwear on.”

  The wizard grimaced. “Nah. Too confining.”

&
nbsp; “Boxers?”

  But he was already climbing into his own spacesuit and wasn’t listening. I turned away from him, trying to find all the fasteners on my suit. April helped me with them.

  “Are you really doing this?” she asked.

  “Can’t see any other way.”

  “What are you going to use to kill it?”

  “If I can last long enough,” the wizard said, “which I always do in some settings, between the two of us, we should be able to slow it down enough for one of the ladies to kill it. I have some more suits around here somewhere.”

  “Not me,” June said, shivering.

  I thought about what had happened back at the museum. “June,” I said. “I know you were frightened, but I need you to contain your fear. When you project it, I can’t think clearly. If that means you stay in the van, then do it.”

  “Don’t worry,” June said. “I’ll stay as far away from that thing as I can.”

  Remembering her paralyzing fear, I took a step toward her. “I’m afraid, too,” I said. “But we can beat this thing. It’s already half dead.”

  June looked into my eyes, and she grabbed my arms in a surprisingly strong grip. “Don’t get killed.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving her my best grin.

  June reached up and gave me a quick peck on the cheek, lingering just long enough I almost pulled away, afraid that April would get jealous. But the blonde twin bounced over to me and did the same to my other cheek.

  “What about me?” the wizard asked. “I’m going to risk my life, too.”

  “It’s because of you that we’re in this mess,” June said, glaring over my shoulder at him.

  “You can do it, Caleb,” April said. Then, she kissed me again, this time on the lips. Her mouth tasted like apples. Was that her lipstick? Our tongues brushed against each other all too briefly, and then I tore myself away to go face down a big fucking spider.