Timelines: Stories Inspired by H.G. Wells' the Time Machine (5 page)

“
He’ll never find new coats, Jenna! Surely you realize this by now.” The yellow-clad man snorted, throwing a withering look back across his shoulder towards his elderly wife. “Like he’ll never find that
part
.”

The second woman in the group shook her head slowly and slipped her thin arm through that of the man beside her. He was leaning heavily on a thick, slightly curved stick of weathered wood. He was breathing raggedly and every step seemed to cause a grimace across his leathery, sun-beaten face. He stopped a moment and stared into the sunny blue skies above and beyond, the woman beside him smiling at him in a mournful way and rubbing his elbow with bony fingers.

“
This is our last time, Eric.” She projected her voice to reach the man in yellow.

“
You always say that,” said Eric, turning around to face her. “It’s never the last time. You’ll travel again. Both of you! If
he
makes it, that is.” Eric waggled a derisive finger at the wheezing man.

A short way off along the dusty road where the sun-scorched hills dipped to meet a narrow, dirty river a baton of lightning arrowed from the sky; a solitary black cloud was rumbling over the near horizon, a dismal blot in a canvas of blue.

“
Why, it looks like a flash storm! How
unexpected!
” Eric said in a sarcastic tone, rolling his eyes.

The rain began to fall, heavily. The four elderly people slowly made their way along the road that was becoming slick and muddy beneath their feet. No one spoke as they reached the low-humped hills, followed the trail across them, and stopped on a slope overlooking the splashing river. On the near bank lay an upturned wooden row-boat. One edge sat off the wet dirt upon a small rock, and there were two oars lying on the ground beside it.

“
Whose turn is it? Does anyone even care?” asked the sick old man, whose name was Jason. “You should do it, Eric, we’re all tired and it is for your benefit.”

“
Let’s just go another way this time!” said the woman arm-in-arm with Jason, “if it doesn’t work out and we don’t get there, well, I don’t think I –
we
– really care anymore.”

Beside her Jason sighed and nodded his head. “I’m with Molly. I’ll happily risk it all ending in a week at the chance of a few extra days that are just
different
. This isn’t living anymore, is it? Was it ever?”

“
Shut it, you two!
” shouted Eric, “I’m sick to death of this. Go, if you want, I don’t care. Enjoy the light show. We’re going on as usual. Wait here, Jenna.”

Eric strode over-confidently down the path to the riverside, barely keeping his balance on the slick ground as the rain pelted off his coat. As he approached the upturned boat he slipped his backpack off and pulled a large knife from a side pouch. Grunting, he bent down and grabbed one of the wet oars from the ground and thwacked it against the side of the boat. A brown-and-yellow diamond-striped snake came wriggling quickly from beneath the boat, skirting the small rock. Eric leaned forward and chopped down with his knife, decapitating the snake in one well-practiced swipe.

“
Us
one thousand, five hundred and sixty
, snake
one!
” said Eric loudly, with little joy in his voice, gesturing to Jenna at the top of the slope to come join him.

The First Trip, Day 1

Molly shouted to Jason as she twisted a key uselessly in the car ignition.

“
Completely dead! Not a thing. You get anything else on the TV?”

Jason ran back inside the cabin before reappearing a moment later, shaking his head.

“
Nothing, it’s
kaput
too! Everything electrical has died.”

Molly rushed back to the cabin, finding herself glancing up at the sky as she did, and pulled Jason inside with her. In the main, spacious room Eric and Jenna were fiddling with the dead television and a small, silent weather radio.

“
Okay, kid, let’s think it through here. This is crazy,” said Molly, pulling her loosened red hair away from her face with both hands. “They said we had one week. They said there are transports leaving Centralia up to and including the seventh day. They expected all communications to be lost quickly – and they were right. They
didn’t
mention everything with electrical power going down.”

“
This is freaking insane,
” yelled Eric, punching the top of the television, “we get an emergency broadcast
out of nowhere
telling us we all die in a week and we’re supposed to just accept it as fact? I want some goddamn proof!”

“
Look around!
” shouted Jenna. “Nothing works! You think a power outage took out everything with batteries, and the
car?
” She dropped her face into her hands and became silent.

A huge boom rocked the cabin, sending plates and cups falling from shelves in the kitchen and smashing on the floor. Jason ran outside and headed towards the back of the cabin where he thought the explosion had come from. Looking out across the forest he saw a thick chimney of black smoke trailing up into the grey sky. Thinking fast, he took off running towards the tree line. Behind him, the others watched from a window, faces ashen. Eric slipped an arm around his wife and pulled her close. Molly crossed herself as she watched her husband disappear amongst the trees.

Forty minutes later Jason returned, dirty and out of breath. The others saw him coming and met him at the door.

“
Start packing,” he said, huffing. “That was a commercial passenger ‘plane. No survivors.”

“
Who is doing this?” asked Jenna. “Who is trying to kill us?”

“
It doesn’t really matter, does it? We have
one
week to get to Centralia, of all places, without any transport. Let’s get some shit together, fast, and head out.” Jason moved towards the bedrooms to collect backpacks.

Within the hour the four were on their way and heading in a direction away from the crashed airplane, much to the relief of Jenna. Each wore the backpacks they had brought along for the weekend in the cabin, stuffed full of processed food, water and a minimum of extra clothing.

“
Look on the bright side,” said Eric, his dark hair blowing in the breeze as he looked back and saw the cabin fading in the distance behind them. “We’re not in a city. Imagine the freaking chaos there right now, all those people trying to get out on foot. They’re probably killing each other. If I’m going to go down, I’m glad it’s with you guys.”

The Last Trip, Day 4

Molly approached a green SUV on the side of the highway and opened the rear doors, pulling them wide before reaching inside and unstrapping a wheelchair that lay folded in the cargo hold. Without a moment of hesitation or thought, she pulled and clicked the chair into place and wheeled it to the center of the highway where her three friends waited. Jason was being held up by Eric and Jenna, his face towards the ground.

“
OK honey, sit down. It’s relaxing time again.” Molly looked at Eric with pleading eyes and the old man sighed.

“
I’ll push you first, buddy. The girls can do the goody run.”

Molly and Jenna started walking briskly along the vehicle-strewn highway. They stopped occasionally and opened a door on a particular car or truck. They clambered inside and came out with some kind of swag, be it half a bottle of juice, an unopened packet of cookies or a bag of deli chips. The women each covered one side of the highway, and never came out of a vehicle empty-handed. Every treasure-point was deeply ingrained in their minds, a map of refreshments and snacks plotted out over many runs. As Eric slowly pushed Jason along the asphalt towards the women, Jenna called back to him.

“
Do you want the boots from the white Jeep?”

“
Not this time, these are still good.”

Jenna shrugged and moved on to a metallic-blue Lexus, pulling a straw hat from the passenger side. She put it on, struck a silly pose and smiled back at the men that trailed behind.

“
Gotta have my lucky hat!”

Eric leaned down and whispered into Jason’s ear. “That freaking thing’ll never work,” he said.

Jason laughed, coughed, and spat onto the ground. Eric pushed forward, wondering if they could find a wheelbarrow or something before they reached the wheelchair next time. It was getting harder and harder to get Jason to that point; this time had about killed them all. He made a mental note to ask Howard to find something. It was a miracle that
they
had managed to carry
him
all that way on the first trip.

He watched his wife skip between the abandoned cars in her silly hat that she would later throw off a bridge with a silent wish and wondered how she stayed cheerful. They’d never had the chance to do all those things they’d planned when they first married. No trip to Venice. No renovating an old house. No children. They’d honestly had nothing, for 30 years, except each other. Eric knew that Jenna was the only reason he did this. In this world, with no hope and no deviation, she was the only thing on the entire doomed planet that stopped him from climbing to the highest point he could find and throwing himself off with one final middle-fingered salute to the heavens. At least they had been able to grow old together; noone could take that away from them.

The ransacking of abandoned vehicles came to an end as they reached what they had dubbed
Death Mile
. A huge pile-up of traffic, mostly vehicles containing corpses of fractured and burned people spread ahead of them as far as they could see. No one looked into the vehicles if they could help it, picking their way around the wreckage with eyes to the ground. The first time had scarred them all for life.

The First Trip, Day 2

“
How on earth can it be raining?” laughed Jason, pulling his backpack up over his head as a hard rain began to fall from a rogue storm cloud in the otherwise clear blue sky.

Jenna squealed and fell to her knees, rummaging in her own backpack for some kind of protective wear. She pulled out a battered leather jacket and slipped it on as fast as she could, turning up the stiff collar around her neck and tucking her blonde ponytail inside it. Eric pulled out a baseball cap, which he immediately gave to Jenna. Molly had nothing but underwear, socks and t-shirts in her backpack so did as Jason had done, balancing her backpack on her head with both hands.

“
This better pass quickly!” she shouted above the din of the rain, scowling from beneath her pack. “I’m not wearing panties on my head!”

Up ahead of them the road curved to the right but a trail led up into the hills. Eric dropped his pack, seemingly oblivious to the downpour, and ran ahead, shouting back that he was going to check the trail and see if they could save some time.

Within five minutes he came splashing back towards them giving a double thumbs-up as he ran. When he reached the miserably wet threesome sheltering beneath their luggage he grabbed his own backpack and told them to
come on
, there was a small river just ahead and a handy-dandy boat waiting for them. He didn’t seem bothered by the storm at all.

“
We can shelter under the boat until the rain stops!” he said, grinning. “You can thank me later!” He jogged back towards the hills, the others following behind at a slower trot.

Jason and the girls reached the peak of the hill and looked down on the sad, dirty river below. It didn’t look like it would be a difficult crossing at all. Eric was already crouched by an upturned row-boat on the bank and waved as he saw the others appear. He reached both hands under the boats lip that sat up on a small rock then fell back onto his butt with a curse. He scrambled backwards, away from the boat and examined his right wrist, still cursing. The others rushed down the hill towards him, unsure what had happened.

“
Stay away from the boat!” shouted Eric, “I just got bit.”

Eric became sick that night on the other side of the river; Jason and Jenna tended to him the best they could with limited provisions, the sounds of the river water still audible behind them. The three friends continued their journey in the darkness, half carrying, half dragging a feverish, barely-conscious Eric on a shoddily-made sling constructed from back-pack frames and clothing, Jason doing the bulk of the work. They needed to get to Centralia fast and find medical help, before he died. There was no time to rest and they were moving at a snail’s pace. Thank God, they were relatively young and strong.

The Last Trip, Day 6

The four friends moved through the dead city at a decent clip, their final destination just a few blocks away now. Jenna pushed Jason along the sidewalk as Eric sauntered ahead and shooed away dogs that were gnawing on bodies in the street, waving Jason’s stick at them. Even after all this time, even with every sight around every corner permanently stamped into their minds in ridiculous detail, entering the city produced a feeling that surpassed creepiness. Just one time, thought Jenna, something unexpected is going to happen. Someone new is going to appear, leaning on a wall or out of a window. Maybe they’d hear a voice, or a piece of music, or a bird.

After just a few minutes they arrived at a squat, windowless building with a small metal door set centrally along the front wall.

“
Where is he?” yelled Eric, banging on the metal. “No balloons and streamers this time? I am
starving
for some beef stew!”