More Stories from the Twilight Zone (6 page)

Endicott sighed. “All right, but can you tell me how far back you're going this time? It must be tremendously important or you would have already destroyed your machine.”

“Yes, it's for damned important reasons. We're returning to September 11, 2001. Trying to prevent three airline flights from taking off.”

 

 

Professors Petibone and Redmond have not yet returned from their second and final voyage. Are they still trying to complete their mission?

Did Petibone's time machine prove to be their coffin? Or have these two intrepid time travelers ended up at the wrong destination? Such as being trapped forever in what we know as the mysterious and unpredictable world of . . . the Twilight Zone.

 

Respectfully submitted for your approval . . . The place is here, the time is now, and Deb, the harried housewife of our story, is just another victim of our times: an unsung heroine battling the unreasonable, unending demands of modern life. Someone who is too busy, underappreciated, and more than just a little bit desperate to find her way through the chaos that has become her world. Deb needs some help, and she gets some . . . but not in the manner in which it was intended, and not with the results you might imagine.

What you need,” Ellen told Deb, “is a little something for yourself. And I've got just the thing.”

Picture-perfect, Ellen reached into her embroidered tote bag, which was decorated with Halloween pumpkins and candy corn. Deb, slouchy and unprepared for visitors, had her arms filled with a tower of black construction paper topped with a black cat invitation template, and she desperately kept Ellen blockaded in the entryway of the house. The place was a disaster; Kevin had stayed home from work with the flu and there were wads of tissues everywhere. Andy's pajamas were wadded up in the middle of the floor, and the kitchen was covered with ants because Sarah hadn't put away her Sugar Pops before informing her mother that Deb just didn't understand, that Sarah hated her, and she might as well be dead.

Ellen had just given Deb the paper and the pattern to transform the paper into invitations for the Boy Scouts' Halloween party. Both their sons were Cubs. It was going to be a big 'do, and suddenly Deb had sixty-three black cats to cut out. Today. And speaking of cats, the cat box reeked. Deb hadn't noticed it before, but now as she stalled Ellen, who clearly thought coffee and something fragrant and homemade should come forth during the hand-off, her eyes were almost watering. Cleaning the cat box was Sarah's job. So were last night's dishes, but Deb just wouldn't understand why they'd gone undone.

“Okay, well, thank you,” Deb said, as Ellen topped the tower with a thick paperback book. Deb stared down cross-eyed at it. It was a romance novel. Silver-embossed letters read
No Time for Love.
Below the title, a woman with waist-length curly blond hair, dressed in a silver gown with a plunging neckline, clung to a sharp-profiled man wearing a pirate shirt that exposed his bulging pecs. He had miles of curly dark brown hair. Their lips were open, their eyes were closed . . .

. . . and Deb couldn't even remember the last time she'd thought about romance, much less had any. Her ponytail was held back with a rubber band; she wasn't wearing any makeup; and she had on a ratty old sweater, a pair of too-tight jeans, and one blue sock and one green sock.

“It saved my life,” Ellen said, tapping the book with one of her perfectly manicured fingernails, and there was something in her voice, an odd sort of catch, that made Deb blink. “You really should read it.”

“Okay, thanks,” Deb replied. “I'll get the invitations done by tomorrow.”

Ellen sneezed. Maybe it was the cat box. Mortified, Deb closed her eyes and willed her to leave.

“Be good to yourself.” Ellen's charm bracelet—witches, pumpkins, and black cats—jingled as she patted the book. Then she
reached back into her tote and pulled out a key ring. The enameled heart shape said
WORLD
'
S #1 MOM
. She had five kids. Deb had two.

At last she was gone, and Deb shut the door—and her cell went off. Balancing the tower of paper and the book, she fished in her jeans for the phone. Everything tumbled to the floor, the paper flapping like bats. And it was then—and only then—that she discovered the cat had left a gift on the floor, perhaps in retaliation for the filthy litter box: a round little—

She closed her eyes in shame as the purring motor of Ellen's car hummed down the street. The phone trilled again and she managed to connect.

“Mom, I don't have my gym shoes!” Sarah shrieked. “I thought I put them in my locker but they're not here! I'll get a nonsuit! No field trip!”

“Oh, no,” Deb said. Sarah's PE class was going to a performing arts center tomorrow. Sarah was a dancer and an actress; she hardly ever wore her gym uniform, hence no need for shoes.

“Mom!”
Sarah wailed.

“I'll find them. I'll bring them,” Deb promised.

They were underneath Kevin's briefcase in the hall. And on the way to Sarah's school, she ran out of gas.

 

“You should have made sure you had your shoes,” Kevin said to Sarah that evening, as he blew his nose again and dropped the tissue onto another stack beside the couch. Sixty pounds overweight, in need of a shave, wearing his favorite sweats and a ragged bathrobe, he was draped with a fuzzy dark-blue throw covered with cat hair, and he had been there all day, watching TV. Deb had told Andy to pick up his LEGOs, but the TV had him hypnotized.

“I
did
make sure,” Sarah huffed. She rolled her heavily made-up eyes. She was thin and wiry, a dancer. Her black hair was long and dramatic, a drama student. “Andy must have hidden them.”

“Why—?” Kevin began, but something on the TV caught his eye. He picked up the remote.

“God!” Sarah bellowed. Then she stormed out of the room. Deb heard her door slam. Andy didn't move. He hadn't heard a word.

Kevin blew his nose and put the tissue on coffee table. “Sorry again about the gas,” he said. “I thought
you
had gassed up.”

“I want a baby brother,” Andy announced.

“I think something's burning in the oven.” Kevin picked up the remote and continued to surf.

 

It was after one in the morning. Kevin was asleep on the couch, so Deb would have the bedroom to herself. Which was nice, because Kevin snored. The doctor said if Kevin lost a few pounds, the snoring might go away.

From the chuckles and clacking emanating from Sarah's room, Deb guessed she was on her laptop, chatting with her friends. Sarah's punishment for not doing the dishes last night was to do tonight's as well, but she hadn't emerged from her room all evening, not even to eat. Sarah also still hadn't cleaned the cat box. Better to leave her alone and let her get over her sulk, Deb decided. So Deb did all of them, loading the dishwasher with great care so as not to wake Kevin.

Then she picked up the construction paper and the black cat pattern from the breakfast bar, where she'd left them, and absently grabbed Ellen's romance novel as well. Wearily, she shuffled into the master bedroom, flicked on the lights, and shut the door.

Scissors,
she thought, as she laid everything on the bed. Sighing, she turned to go back into the kitchen. The silver letters of the book cover gleamed, catching her eye.
No Time for Love
. That guy was so handsome, in an outrageous sort of way. Huge chest, arm muscles bulging all over the place . . .

It saved my life.

As she rummaged through the kitchen drawers for the scissors,
Kevin snuffled from the couch and she tried to look more quietly. They weren't anywhere; she was about to knock on Sarah's door when she noticed that the sliver of light beneath it was gone. Sarah had gone to bed. She tiptoed into Andy's room, her stockinged foot coming down hard on a LEGO block. She winced and bit her lip as she spied the prize on top of a pile of paper, markers, and glue sticks: some bright blue kiddie scissors about three inches long.

She plucked them up and limped back out of the room, down the hall, and into the master bedroom again. She picked up the black cat template and three pieces of black paper, and looked down at her scissors. This was ridiculous; she
had
good scissors. If whoever had taken them would have just put them back . . .

No Time for Love.

She sat down on the bed and moved the scissors around the tail of the cat pattern, then along the arched back toward the head. It was hard to cut through three layers with the funky scissors. Her thumb was already hurting. Then she accidentally ripped the tail.

Frustrated, she unthreaded her fingers and flexed them, cricking her neck left and right. This was crazy. She could do it tomorrow. After the carpool and paying the bills and seeing what she could do about the ants.

She put the whole mess on the nightstand. The book was left behind on her mattress. Feeling a little sheepish—she'd never read a romance novel in her life—she opened it to page one.

He stood on the beach, his rough muslin shirt dangling open, the cold air washing his broad chest, his muscular thighs girded with chain mail.

She blinked. Did the man on the cover have on chain mail? She checked. No, no chain mail. Leather trousers. Snug, too. Wow. Very snug.

Aidan's long, brown, curly hair waved in the wind as he thought of his woman in the arms of the sheikh . . .

“His woman gets a pirate
and
a sheikh?” she murmured.

He balled his fists and swore that nothing would come between them, not even his honor . . . or hers . . .

“Wow.” Flushing, she felt a little thrill at the base of her spine. This was pretty hot stuff. She kept reading.

She was his, and his world would end if he could not have her. . . .

Then she thought she heard something, some kind of rushing noise. Was it the TV in the living room? They kept the heater down low for a reason, and that reason was called
money.

She looked up from the book, dropped it, and would have screamed if the man looming over her hadn't covered her mouth with his large hand and gazed into her eyes with fiery passion. It was Aidan, from the cover, with his pirate shirt and his broad, masculine chest and his legs girded in chain mail.

“Mmmwh,” she managed behind his hand. She had to be asleep. She was having a dream.

Gently he pushed her back against the pillows, moving one clanking leg onto the bed. Her eyes widened. The sound she was hearing was the ocean, and she smelled salt and . . . whoa . . .
him . . .

“Nothing shall come between us. Nothing,”
he whispered in a deep, masculine voice. With his other hand, he caressed her cheek. His fingertips were calloused. His eyes burned with lust.