Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells' the Time Machine (43 page)

And then the instant passed.

They slipped from the railing, screaming as they fell.

Laci arose, ran to the side of the lighthouse and watched them fall through space, reaching for the railing still and holding each other with their other arms.

They fell into the jagged, broken rocks below.

Laci watched them carefully, straining her eyes to see any movement.

As she watched, the surf crashed into their bodies and a lonely, broken form crawled out of the water. It dragged itself along the rocks, its legs horribly shattered and angled out away from its body. It wore a pale yellow dress, shredded and blackened with rot from its many years in the ocean.

Sally reached her sons, grabbed them by one arm. Then she turned and slowly began to drag them into the sea.

Laci covered her eyes.

The lighthouse was completely black inside. There was no way she would be able to make it to the ground floor without killing herself.

Suddenly, thinking of something, her hand went to the pocket of her jacket.

Or would she?

She felt around for a moment, then pulled out a small black camera flashlight.

She smiled then, as a thin pale beam of light cut into the inky darkness of the lantern room.

It was time to go home.

“
You sure you’re going to be all right?” Sheriff Danton asked as he took the last of Laci’s luggage to the car.

“
Thank you, but yes, I’m going to be fine,” she said. She leaned against the hood and smiled, feeling warm sunshine on her face for the first time in what seemed like forever.

Danton shut the trunk and smiled.

“
That’s the last of it,” he said. “Listen, Laci, maybe you’d like to stick around for another day or two? I could show you the sights, maybe buy you dinner…”

He smiled at her, that same well-rehearsed, winning smile. Perfect teeth. For a moment, Laci considered it.

“
Thank you,” she said again, “but I’m afraid I have to get going. Thank you for everything, Sheriff. Really.”

She opened the car door and got in.

Sheriff Danton leaned into the open window.

“
You want to be real careful on these roads now, girl,” he said. “Never know, it could rain again.”

Laci smiled and started the car.

“
Not where I’m going,” she said.

by Douglas Hutcheson

The little pale creatures peered out from dank holes in rusty slagheaps, their beady pink eyes almost blind in the daylight, though the sky stood thick and dark with gun-metal grey clouds and splotchy green smoke churning from tall factory towers that scraped at the horizon where the yellow sun sank like a fetid yolk spilled into stagnant pond scum. The whir of great engines grew louder. The thin creatures popped their balding heads up to risk a glance and confirmed the approach of a sleek silver car hovering above the scorched earth.

Inside, the whole family sang a familiar carol: “
Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!
” Mom and Pop and their son and daughter with faces all lit up pumped their arms into the air and then clapped their hands together. The hovercar steered itself along the narrow path that its program required to get the family home again with what should be their utmost safety.

“
It’s more of them,” said a hissing voice from one of the scampering creatures. Others around it hissed back in reply and then bared their stained and broken teeth.

“
Load the rocket launcher! Make ready to fire!”
shouted a creature some feet behind them. He crawled further atop the heap, scraping himself on jagged rocks and crushing long-discarded cans of soda and candy bars and Styrofoam dinner boxes with logos of secret and once-powerful organizations whose true purposes, along with their actual existences, had long passed into the shadows of myth.
“They’re almost upon us!”
The creature shouted and then spat at the earth. He drew from a twisted leather belt a sword he had fashioned from an old copper pipe–-he had beaten the metal down until it stood almost flat but it sported sharp serrated edges where the pipe had split under the makeshift working. “Let your hatred speak through your weapons, my brave comrades! We shall settle for nothing less than total annihilation of the enemy of our kind!
Fire! Fire! Fire!
”

Scarred and dented rifle barrels blazed and barked, their tiny fires flashing from all around and within the slag heaps. The bullets struck the hovercar and sparked and pinged the air, but did little else to the armored body of the vehicle.

“
What was that, Father?” the daughter asked.

“
Honey?” said the wife.

The father stopped his singing and swivelled to face the sparkling dashboard. It glowed phosphorescent for a moment as its digital readout bars shot up and down. “Computer, status report,” he said to it.

A pink face emitted from a heads-up display and smiled at the family. “Sensors have detected small-arms fire. There is no damage to the hull. The situation is under control. Your vehicle is proceeding on course.” The face beamed at them for a moment and then disappeared.

The father beamed back, and then turned to the children. “See. Nothing to worry about. I designed this old girl to stand up to almost anything!”

The face popped back up. It was still smiling and speaking in a calm tone, but what it said was: “Warning. Sensors have detected a surface-to-surface missile. Your vehicle is taking evasive action.”

“
Show me!”
yelled the father.

The car windows shifted from displaying a false pastoral scene of a flowery meadow full of colorful butterflies and brisk noon sunlight to revealing the dense junkyards and heaving factories that were looming outside. In the immediate vicinity, a missile flew toward the hovercar, its nose cone displaying an angry toothy grin and bloodshot eyes that the creatures had scrawled in sloppy homemade paints.

The family screamed almost as one. At the last moment of what seemed surely their doom, the computer pulled the hovercar skyward and the projectile passed beneath them without touching the vehicle; it struck the ancient broken hull of a rusted-out ice-cream truck. The truck exploded into raging balls of fire and spinning shards of shrapnel.

The car’s face leapt into view again, still grinning. “Your vehicle has avoided the threat,” it said. “Your vehicle is resuming its original course.”

The destruction and desolation outside disappeared from the family’s view and the marigolds and monarchs and dappled light greeted them once more on the hovercar’s windows.

“
Whew! That was a close one!” said the son.

“
Too
close,” said the mother. She glared at the father.

“
I am sending a report in for the authorities now,” said the father, pretending not to notice her distraught looks as he typed on the keys in the dashboard. “They will sort out this lot of ruffians soon enough.” When he had finished with the message, he leaned back against his seat and tapped his fingers on the armrest. “I cannot fathom why these terrorists still clamber up and try to attack decent citizens, especially during holiday season—
the
holiday season—of all times! Can you believe it? What utterly astounding gall they have developed of late!”

The daughter, littlest of the bunch, banged her heels back against the bottom of her car seat. She crossed her arms, stared up at her parents and repeated the oft-heard refrain: “Are we there yet?”

“
No, not yet, dear. You know we have five miles still to go before we reach home,” her mother answered.

“
But I am bored!” she responded.

“
Me too,” said the son, who started poking his finger into his sister’s side and giggling at himself.

“
Father! Make him stop!”

“
Son, stop poking your sister. We need to act civilized, especially in these barbaric times.”

The son crossed his arms. “Aw, she just likes to whine!”

“
Look, can we all just try to act like a proper family for just a few hours maybe, at least for today?” the mother scolded.

“
Listen to your mother, children. This is a holy time, after all, is it not? We should endeavor to make the most of it. Besides, if the two of you will not play nice, your mother and I might have to consider withholding your presents.”

The son scoffed. “But that is the only really cool part of all of this holiday junk!”

The father turned to face him. “My son, you should not speak like that about this holy time! Not ever! Never let me hear you refer to the sacred period as ‘junk’ again, or I will see to it you receive real punishment for blasphemy.”

The mother covered her mouth with the back of her hand. The son lowered his head. They all sat in silence for a moment as the pastoral scenes continued to play on the windows.

The daughter started kicking her heels again. “But I am
still
bored!”

“
I know,” said the mother; she tried to smile. “How about another cheerful holiday carol?”

The rest of the family glared at her without a word.

“
Okay, okay.” She threw up her hands. “Never mind me then. Does anybody else in this vehicle have any better ideas about how to celebrate our wonderful holiest time of the year?”

The daughter stopped kicking her heels then. “Hmph. Well, I just do not get it either. Why is this particular time all
that
special now anyway?”

“
What?” The dad huffed. “Do you children not learn anything about our history anymore? What
are
they filling your little heads with nowadays?”

“
We are all more interested in some actual useful things like mathematics and engineering and programming, Father,” said the son.

“
Well, that is interesting, though somewhat sad and ironic of you to say, since it was mathematics and engineering and programming way back in the past that brought us to where we are today.”

“
And how so, Father?” asked the daughter; she tilted her head toward him and leaned in close.

“
It was back in the twentieth century, when the Second World War had broken out, that things changed. You kids have heard of that one, right?”

“
Of course,” they chimed in together.

“
And you know how Japan defeated the Allied forces, and later went on to defeat even Germany?”

“
Vaguely,” said the daughter.

“
And Imperial Japan soon ruled the world. The great nation seized control of resources far and wide, from factories in the United States to engineers from there and Germany to mines from Russia and more; but it was not enough power for the Emperor, even then, and he directed his top scientists to create weapons for him that would leave his rule unassailable forever.”

The face danced from the console again. “Your vehicle is docking with your home station. Your vehicle has docked. It is now safe for you to exit your vehicle. Please have a wonderful XMAS time.”

The family gathered their many shiny bags and big stiff boxes and stepped down out of the hovercar. The door to their humble home opened with a gentle swooshing sound and they entered through it as it played a series of swift welcoming tones. The overhead lights of the living room popped on and then dimmed, and a simulated fire flared up in a grate in one wall. Ages-old Big Band music began to play at a pleasant volume from tastefully hidden speakers. Best of all - what each of them very much loved and could not deny - was when the lights began twinkling on the bristling XMAS tree, its branches filled where the family had all decked them out the week before with perfect round ornaments of silver and gold; a small bullet train raced around a track circling the base of the tree and tooted its horn every so often as it passed into a tunnel that ran beneath a mountain of boxes with crisp paper and sparkling ribbons that waited for eager children’s hands to unwrap their jolly holiday secrets.

The father placed two new boxes beneath the tree and then turned to his wife. “Dear, would you mind fixing us all something hot and refreshing?”

“
Sure thing, my love.” The mother stepped, almost skipping, to the kitchen where she pulled down some stout mugs sporting winter scenes on their sides.

“
Can we open some presents now?” the daughter asked as she jumped up and down with her fingers pressed together as if in prayer.

The father put his hands on his hips. “But it is only XMAS
Eve
right now! Plus, you two have not even heard the rest of the holiday story! I am starting to think you little hooligans do not actually care about our history!”

“
But we do! We do! We promise!” said the daughter.

“
And besides, we could maybe just open one each, right?” said the son. “That would be more than fair, would it not, dear Father?”

He took a steaming mug from his wife and she passed out one each to their children. “Well, in that case, maybe then–-but only if your mother does not mind.”

They both looked at her and started begging, caterwauling, in perfect synchronized monotony: “Can we, Mother, please? Can we, Mother, please? Can we, Mother, please?”

“
All right! All right! Enough of that racket, children! Just please stop the noise making! I already feel burned out after the riding and the shopping and the riding and the attack and the more riding and now the
this
!”