Fook (30 page)

“The Twins? Now I know you’re making this
up. Who do they face, the Braves?” she laughed.

“Actually...”

“No,” she stared at him shocked, before
letting the smile push its way back to her pretty face. “You know,
I don’t know if you actually believe this time thing or not. You
seem so put together, mentally at least,” she gave his disheveled
appearance a once over.

“Thanks?” He didn’t know how to take the
comment.

“I mean, I know how crazy the whole thing
sounds and how impossible it is, but you seem so convinced,” she
stared into his eyes as if searching his soul for the truth.

A bit uncomfortable by the penetrating stare
and spotting a Coke vender making his way up the other side of the
section, he quickly raised his hand to get the young kid’s
attention before remembering his lack of cash.

Looking at Derek’s face and then turning to
see the soda kid making his way toward their row, Sarah knew
exactly what he was thinking.

“That’s okay. I’ve got it,” she insisted,
pulling money from her pocket.

“No, really. I forgot that I—”

“—No, it’s no big deal. I’m actually kind of
thirsty too,” she held two fingers in the air as she handed the
money to the guy beside her, who handed it to the girl beside him
and so on until it made its way into the vendor’s hands who traded
it for two bottles.

“I’ll pay you back,” Derek insisted.

“Tell you what, prove to me that you
are
from, wherever you claim to be from, and we’ll call it
even.”

“It would just be easier to pay you back,”
Derek sighed as the two bottles arrived in their neighbor’s hands,
who passed them along with a odd stare.

At first Derek didn’t know what the man was
staring at until he looked at Sarah’s bottle and saw the odd paper
ring loosely draped around its neck. Reaching over, Derek plucked
the paper from the bottle.

Mass General Hospital

“Is that a—?”

“—Hospital ID,” Derek answered before she
could even get the question out.

Looking back down the line of people in
their row, “But from who,” she asked confused.

Tabitha Tillmore

“Tillmore, Tillmore,” Derek repeated the
name, trying to figure out where he’d heard it before.

“Who?” Sarah, still in the dark, simply
wanted to know what was happening.

“Tillmore,” Derek dug deep into his memory
just as the name resurfaced. “Becky,” he mumbled.

“Who’s Becky?”

“Holy shit!” Derek exclaimed, drowned out by
the crowd as Wade Boggs brought the crowd to their feet with a
monstrous hit over the Green Monster.

Also jumping to his feet, Derek began
frantically scanning the crowd.

With no idea what was going on, Sarah
remained in her seat, staring up at her date’s ghostly
complexion.

“It’s impossible. There’s no way. There was
only a twelve hour window,” Derek muttered as he scanned each face
around them, only stopping when he realized Sarah’s grasp on his
shirt, insisting that he rejoin her in their seats.

“What’s going on?”

He didn’t know what to say. It was one thing
to tell her that he was from the future. She didn’t believe it and
it had proved to be an odd, but light hearted way of breaking the
ice. How could he tell her that he now believed his friend, the
same one that he’d claimed had killed a girl the night before and
then stranded him twenty-three years in the past, had somehow
figured out a way to expand the window in which he could travel and
was very likely with them at this very moment in the stadium? Fun
crazy was one thing. Actual crazy was a completely different
story.

“We have to get out of here,” Derek
insisted, trying to get to his feet but failing as Sarah again
grabbed hold of his shirt and returned him to his seat.

“What’s going on?” she insisted.

Staring into her eyes he knew she wouldn’t
settle for anything less than the truth, but at the same time he
feared that having too much knowledge about Jason and what he
suspected was going on, would only put her in danger. He already
felt sick at the thought that his continued interaction with her
had already put her life at risk, so looking into her eyes with
intense sincerity, all he could muster was, “We have to go to the
hospital.”

THIRTY-TWO

“Daddy! The video stopped again!” Abby cried from
the back room.

“$2.65 is your change,” Dustin addressed the
man on the opposite side of the counter as he handed him his change
and slid his bag closer.

With a nod the man smiled, took his purchase
and headed for the door.

“Daddy!”

“I’m coming sweetheart!” he responded to the
impatient child as he made his way to the back room. “Now, what’s
wrong?”

“Elmo. He’s stuck,” Abby pointed at the
frozen image on the screen.

“Again,” Dustin huffed playfully. “That
Elmo. I don’t know what we’re going to do with him,” he smiled, as
he approached the T.V., and kneeling beside it, began talking to
the choppy, still image. “Hey, Elmo. What are you doing? You’re
killing me here.”

“No daddy. You have to push the buttons,”
Abby laughed, pointing at the VCR on the shelf above the T.V..”

“What button? This one?” he joked, hitting
the power button on the television.

“No!” the little girl giggled. “That
one.”

“Oh.” Dustin stood up, pushed the play
button on the VCR, then looked down at the television again.

“Daddy,” Abby mixed laughter with a hint of
frustration.

“What?” he smiled coyly.

“You have to turn the T.V. back on.”

“Oh yeah. Silly me,” Dustin playfully
smacked his forehead as he again knelt down to turn on the T.V.,
bringing back the still frozen image.

“It’s still broke.”

“You know. I think you’ve worn Elmo out,”
Dustin turned to his daughter. It wasn’t a surprise. This video was
her favorite. She watched it at home with her mother constantly,
and whenever she came over to his apartment, she was always sure to
bring it with her. So of course she’d insisted on bringing it to
the store with her for the second night in a row. “How about
something else?”

“No, I want to watch Elmo,” Abby whined.

“But I don’t think—”

Just as he was about to explain to her that
the tape might not work anymore, Elmo decided that break time was
over and began dancing and singing again to the five year old’s
delight.

“Yay!” Abby celebrated as she bounced up and
down and clapped at the return of her old friend.

Smiling, Dustin knelt down beside his
daughter, staring at her as she excitedly watched the same show
she’d seen literally hundreds of times. “I’m sorry you have to be
here again tonight,” he interrupted, though couldn’t be sure that
he’d actually been heard since Abby didn’t offer a response. Mommy
should be here very soon.”

Abby just continued to watch the show.

“Do you think Elmo has red boogers too?”
Dustin tested to see if his daughter was listening.

Again no response.

“I bet you he does. And when he sneezes big
red furry boogers fly everywhere.”

Sill no response.

“I love you,” he uttered as he stood and
turned to head back to the store.

“I love you too,” Abby responded, still
refusing to take her eyes off the screen. “And that’s gross.”

Little butt-head, Dustin thought as the bell
to the store’s front door greeted another customer.

“I’ve got to go back to work sweetie,”
Dustin informed his daughter, but again, got no response. Shaking
his head, he exited the back room and returned to the store,
looking for the customer who’d just entered.

At first glance the store appeared empty.
There were many isles and a lot of large displays which could
easily conceal someone’s presence though, so thinking nothing of
it, he returned to his spot behind the counter and returned to the
newspaper he’d been reading prior to helping the last customer.

Approximately twelve minutes after takeoff,
Austrian Airlines Boeing 767-300 vanished from radar. Shortly
after, reports of an explosion started coming in.

“
There was a fireball in the sky and then
a big boom,” a Thai police officer described what he’d
witnessed.

There were 223 passengers and crew aboard
the flight at the time of the accident, all of which are presumed
dead. The pilot, Thomas Welch was an American living in Vienna at
the time and...

Pausing in his reading, Dustin glanced up,
curious as to the whereabouts of the mystery shopper. Even if
concealed by a display, he could usually locate a lone shopper by
the clinking of glass as they picked through the abundance of
bottles on the busy shelves, but since the bell had declared their
presence, he hadn’t heard a single sound. Shrugging he returned to
the paper.

Bored with the typical stories of crime and
death that the media seemed to love to print, he flipped to the
sports section.

In a display of dominant superiority, the
Pittsburgh Penguins trounced the Minnesota North Stars 8 - 0 to
claim the Stanley Cup title in a lopsided 4 - 2 series.

Crash!

The sound of breaking glass yanked Dustin's
attention away from the paper. “Son of a...,” he huffed under his
breath as he folded the paper back up and returned it to the shelf
below the counter. “Don’t touch it! Let me get a mop!” he yelled
out to the clumsy shopper as he rounded the counter and returned to
the back room where his daughter was now out of her chair and
dancing along to the little red Muppet on the screen. “Having fun
sweetie?” he greeted his daughter, who again either didn’t hear him
or chose not to answer. Grabbing the handle of the mop, he pulled
the rolling bucket from the corner and returned to the store.

“Are you okay?” Dustin addressed the
customer as he wheeled the cleaning supplies to the back of the
store where he was sure he’d find a little old lady or embarrassed
young woman standing over the shattered spirits.

As he was growing accustom to that night, he
got no response.

“What do we got here?” he asked as he
rounded a large display of Grey Goose vodka, expecting the clumsy
customer to be there waiting, but instead, all he was greeted by
was a broken bottle, sitting in a puddle of vodka. “Hello!” he
shouted as he looked around the store, but again got no
response.

“They must still be here,” he thought as he
left the mop in the bucket, carefully leaning the handle against a
nearby shelf. The bell on the door hadn’t rang again, so there was
no way that they could have left. Wandering down the back isle,
looking down each isle as he passed, he wouldn’t have been
surprised to find a kid cowering against a shelf, caught in the act
while trying to steal the bottle of alcohol. It wouldn’t have been
the first time, but as Dustin rounded the last display, the last,
empty isle came into view. Confused, he stood there for a moment,
wondering where the mysterious shopper could have gone before
turning around and making his way back toward the bucket, checking
each isle for a second time as he passed. Still no one.

“Where the hell...?” the words faded as Abby
returned to mind. Quickly he turned and made his way toward the
muffled, musical number emanating from the back room. The last
thing he wanted to find was some strange man in there with his
little girl and given that he couldn’t find the shopper anywhere
else his heart began to race.

Rounding the doorway, the dancing little
girl came back into view. She was alone. “Abby.”

No response.

“Abigail!” Dustin raised his voice,
startling the little girl and bringing an end to her dance as she
spun around to the sight of her nervous and obviously stressed
father. “Have you seen anybody?”

Confused, Abby looked around the room.

“Was anyone just in here with you?” Dustin
clarified.

“Just you Daddy,” Abby smiled as she
returned to her video.

Completely confused as to how the
mischievous shopper had managed to not only slip by him, but also
allude the noisy bell above the door, Dustin turned to make his way
back to the mess and in doing so, ran right into Abigail’s
mother.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed, jumping back.

Startled as well, Britney White also took a
step back. “Nice language,” she greeted her ex husband with her
usual disdain.

“Mommy! Mommy!” Abby turned at the
commotion, running toward her mother with her arms wide.

“Abby monster,” Britney knelt down,
dismissing Dustin in exchange for a hug from her daughter. “I
missed you.”

“I missed you too mommy. How was work?”

“Work was good. How about you? You look hard
at work.”

“You know,” Abby shrugged in her typical
precocious manner, drawing a smile from her mother.

“Did you break the bottle of vodka?” Dustin
interrupted the mother daughter reunion.

“What?” Britney turned, the look of disgust
instantly returning.

“The vodka...at the back of the store. Did
you break it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I
just got here,” she stared at him like he was crazy.

“Well someone was just in here and they
broke a bottle at the back of the store,” he explained
defensively.

“Then get a mop and clean it up.”

“I did. I mean, I was, but I couldn’t find
who broke it.”

“Well maybe they left,” Britney offered up
the most logical explanation, tacking on a ‘duh’ with her facial
expression.

“They couldn’t have left, I didn’t hear
the...wait a minute. How’d you get in here?” Dustin asked
confused.

Offering the same expression, “The
door.”

“But the bell,” he raised an eyebrow as he
moved past her and through the door to find that the bell, hanging
above the front door to the store, had been removed.