Out of Time - Ryan Matthew Harker (short books to read TXT) 📗

the asphalt rushes up at me. Not enough to tell what’s happening though, at least not with any amount of certainty.

I’m falling and all of a sudden everything around me goes into slow motion. I can clearly make out the Hench’s back turning away from the scene of my demise. All the little glass shards twinkle prettily as they fall. It seems I could have counted them in a more sound state of mind. Boom! I go into fast forward, stretch out like a rubber band to the ground and then snap, back to myself in an instant!

 

I’m awake… I think, and I’m lying on my back… I’m sure. My eyes are closed, still breathing, still able to feel my legs. A part of my brain reassures me I should be dead none-the-less, and I know it to be true. Last I remember clearly I was in an eighth story apartment, logic dictates since I’m now on the ground…

Suddenly my brain registers how comfortable I am just as a shrill bird call echoes out of the silence around me. What the heck’s going on? My eyes snap open and I find I’m staring up into a thick canopy of trees standing against a backdrop of bright and crystal clear blue sky.

I practically leap to my feet and spin around in a true panic. I say true panic because I thought I had been panicked at the thought of dying at the mercy of the Hench but no, it’s here, faced with the sheer mind blowing impossibility of my present surroundings, that I finally know true panic. Trees? Trees! Why am I in the woods? More importantly, how did I get in the woods?!

My circle’s complete without seeing a single sign of humanity so I sink forlornly to my knees in the soft bed of fir mulch under me. I look up, the sky holds no answers though and gravity pulls me back to my soft bed. For lack of anything better to do my hands slide into my jacket pocket and find the little box.

Full of life I bring myself upright and look at the little bit of molded plastic like I’m seeing it for the first time, and really I am. I mean, before I stuck it in my pocket I didn’t look at it long enough to absorb anything about it beyond it was black and small, no bigger than a cell phone. It’s rectangular, about four inches tall by two and a half inches wide, three eighths of an inch thick. The housing is black plastic and there’s even a rubberized protective covering on it, just like a cell phone, but it doesn’t have a screen on it, or any buttons. I peel off the rubber shock cover and find no battery cover, no manufacturers label, no markings whatsoever. Disappointment crosses my face and my brows scrunch together as I replace the shock cover.

Frustration drives my hand deep into my jacket pocket and deposits the strange device there. Well whatever it is it doesn’t seem to explain why I’m here. I attain my full height, pine needles fall from my jeans, and I consider my options.

I suppose it doesn’t really matter how I got here, the fact is I’m here.

I haven’t been in the wilderness for more than five years and I’m not really sure where to start. The sun is nearly overhead and the trees are so thick it’s hard to distinguish which direction their shadows are falling, so I can’t tell which way the sun is traveling but it can’t be any more than twelve-thirty. That means I haven’t been unconscious, not for long anyway.

In an attempt to remain unperturbed by my extraordinary situation I think I’ll disregard my general lack of direction and start walking the way I’m facing. One direction’s as good as another at this point.

In an attempt to keep a hold on my sanity I think I’ll also disregard the fact no time has passed to allow for someone to transport me to any of the local surrounding woodlands. Why would someone do that? I should have been taken to the hospital. But it seems this is what’s happened. I’m having a hard time swallowing any other explanation at this point. I must’ve bounced and the Hench must’ve scraped me up and dumped me out here. Today must be tomorrow. It’s the only explanation that fit, in which case it doesn’t matter which way I walk because eventually I’ll hit civilization.

I feel really good for having bounced off a sidewalk after an eighty foot fall, wa-a-y too good.

Don’t think of that, I don’t want to think of that. But I do off and on, and I walk. Like a tooth with a cavity I just can’t keep my tongue away from my mind keeps returning to the holes in my story, forcing me to face the stark raving reality of my situation whether I want to or not.

“Aaaaaaahhh!” I scream my frustration at the forest and it rewards me with silence.

Ooo, wait, I’ve got my Mp3 player! Patting down my clothes it’s quickly dug out of my pocket and I impatiently jack the earbuds into my ear canals. Hitting power and waiting for it… hitting power, power? Power!

Yeargh! It had a full charge yesterday morning (“This morning,” my mind whispers.) and I haven’t used it yet. I want to complain about catching a break so bad but I’m alive after all. The Mp3 goes back in my pocket and I go for my cell. It’s dead as well, same situation, it had a full charge within the last two days anyway and in no way should it be dead. Just goes to show how out of it I really am that it took me so long to get my phone out. Not that there’s any reception out here but hey, I could come to the top of a hill, or climb a tree or something…

A light bulb lights my mind and my eyes hurt in its brief spasm. Most of these trees are so tall their branches are unreachable though! Searching about madly I find a victim, a well limbed specimen of a tree but I’m going to have to prove I’ve got ape in my ancestry. I climb the smaller, more easily accessible tree and ascend its limbs into the gently swooping canopy of larger branches. Once in the larger, seemingly prehistoric tree the going becomes a bit more of a challenge. Though the limbs of this behemoth are thicker, more supportive, they’re also farther apart which makes it that much harder for me to make it from one to the other. I don’t even want to think about the climb down. Upon reaching the top I’m exhausted, however my heart leaps to my throat before plummeting into my stomach. It hits me like a hammer hits a thumb, without warning, and I almost fall out of the tree. The forest stretches on indefinitely.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” I cry out. My answer is off to the left when what I can only describe as two big, ugly birds take flight.

I only wish my heart really was being dissolved in hydrochloric acid mixed with potassium and sodium chloride because I’m too much of a coward to jump out of this tree.

On the ground again fails to warm me to the prospect of walking through a never ending forest. I reach into my pockets, cold with mental chills, and touch the strange black box again. I pull it out and surprise crashes like a tidal wave, KER-SPLOOSH! It has a screen! Like a cell phone! There hadn’t been one before! I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy, I’m not! But it’s got a screen now, lit up like the frickin’ Fourth of July in extremely high resolution!

A cold sweat on my brow condenses and I absently wipe it away with the back of my hand, wipe my hand on the back of my hoodie and stare in absolute wonder as the very sharp words stand out proudly on the small display.

Temporal

Reconfiguration

Unit

“No way.” My voice sounds small and unreal in the enormity of this (primeval???) forest. It pales in the face of the enormity my situation has taken on but curiosity burns its way to the tip of my finger and my fingertip grazes the screen.

Temporal Reconfiguration Unit fades into...

RIFT CO-ORDINATES

Rift Departure- 12:03:23 08.23.2011 AD

Rift Arrival- 12:03:23 08.23.19,191 BC

PREVIOUS/NEW ↔

This time it isn’t curiosity driving my finger, it’s fear. I touch NEW and the screen changes its display again.

Rift Departure- 15:20:19 (and counting) 08.23.19,191BC

Rift Arrival- 00:00:00 00.00.00 ↕ TRAVEL

I tentatively touch the year and it becomes lit with a blue circle. I arrow up and the counter slowly moves forward. I arrow up again and the counter moves faster. Once more… again, the counter spins as the centuries fly by. I slow the counter with a touch of my finger and see I’m farther than I wish. Arrow down again and again until the counter stops and then as I’m hoping it would, begins to reverse. This time I’m more meticulous with my manipulation and bring the counter to rest on the year of my desire, the year I came from.

The year counter reads 08.23.2011, I press the time counter and the blue circle slips to envelope it. More arrow manipulation gives me my time 12:03:23, the exact instant I left. I don’t stop to think about the fact that by returning to then I’ll actually be three hours older when I get there and press TRAVEL. Everything goes wonky as I experience the stretchy, slingshot effect but this time I’m a bit more coherent and it’s a whole lot worse. In an instant it’s over.

Tires screeching a tour bus blares its horn as it narrowly misses me. I jump at the near collision with the sixteen thousand pound vehicle and another car horn sounds off behind me.

“Hey, watch it pal!” The red faced driver of the car shoots his fist at me as he swerves by.

I hurry my way to the sidewalk and fall into the first bus stop bench to cross my path. Where the heck am I? From my perch on the park bench I observe my surroundings and conclude from the ritzy plazas and snooty pedestrians that I’m in the middle of the lower left hand of the upper east side and nearly thirty blocks from my car. Groaning as my stomach growls I hungrily search about for a suitable eatery.

Depositing TRU in my right jean’s pocket I lurch toward the food stop of my intention only to have a man stumble into me. About my size he’s wearing a long, charcoal grey trench coat and matching fedora, low on his brow. Stinking of booze and cigarettes the man and I collide hard enough I almost go down and he has the audacity to swear loudly, “Why’n’t ya (radio edit) wasch where ya’re (radio edit) goan, (radio edit)!” before stumbling on his way.

Regaining my stride I hardly spare a backwards glance for the drunkard before the opposite sidewalk slides under my feet. An automatic look to the right moves me to the left as savory smells tantalize my nose hairs and play heck with my gastric juices. It feels like it’s been forever since I last ate but it won’t be long now. I place my hands over my gut in a placating gesture but to no avail.

I’m reaching out my left hand to grab the door that guards the restaurant’s entrance when a high pitched voice calls out from behind, “Davey, Davey Jones! Is that you?” My instincts tell me to run but too late for a female figure looms in my peripheral.

Suppressing a groan I turn and acknowledge the person next to me, “Staci, hello. How have you been?” Staci Chase, ex-cheerleader, ex-stripper, ex-girlfriend; ouch, she is not who I want to see right now. Or ever for that matter!

“Oh, Davey, I’ve been great! Denise and I