The Replacement Phenomenon

  Jake had another look through the names that had already been “taken care of” and realised that no one was due to be attacked today. For the rest of the day there was no one left to save but himself.

  He needed to hide away and study the information he had in front of him. If he could last until the end of the day, and commit this information to memory, he would have an advantage over these people tomorrow. There were three to save in the course of the day and he needed to hit the ground running if he was to succeed in saving them.

  He left the cheap diner and booked himself into the nearby roadside hotel. The hotel was basic and cheap. It was apparently run by the same people as the diner in which he had just eaten, judging by the meal deals and bed and breakfast offers thrust at him when he asked for a room. He opted for just the room, knowing that he would not be there by the time breakfast was served. The room into which he entered by virtue of a plastic key card had one double bed, a small cream coloured plastic en-suite and some unusual artwork on the walls. The television was small and the remote barely worked, but this was of little concern to Jake. He would spend the rest of the day studying the paper in preparation for the following day.

  He had to keep his head down and prepare for tomorrow. His tomorrow – their yesterday - would be a very busy day, and there was no margin for error when lives were at stake.

 

  CHAPTER 10

  Monday 26th January, 7:30am

  Jake awoke in his own bed after spending the rest of the day in a lonely cheap hotel room a couple of hundred miles away. Today he was glad to be back in familiar surroundings once again. He remembered his reaction on waking up when this Monday first rolled around, now nine days ago to him. He didn’t much enjoy work, and so had a feeling of dread deep within him every time he awoke knowing he had a whole week of work ahead of him.

  This time, he wasn’t sure what he felt. He was still confused by his unique situation. Why was this happening? How long would it continue? He still didn’t know what these killers had done, or what they had tried to do. The only information he had received about the original incident was that all future victims had somehow interfered with something.

  He had so many questions that he didn’t know which one to try to figure out first. He figured that he’d just let the day unwind and see if anything became clearer than it was at that moment. It seemed with every passing day that a little bit more information was added to what Jake already knew. Unfortunately for Jake, the added information each day seemed to confuse more than assist.

  Whatever happened, he was in for a busy day. According to the papers he’d spent all of his previous night studying, Julie Clark, Peter White and William Spalder were the targets for that day. It seemed to have been well-planned. Julie was hit at 10:30am, Peter at 12pm, and William at 2:15pm. According to the papers he’d seen, everything went like clockwork. At least that was until Jake would arrive on the scene to disrupt things. He was about to change all of that.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  The light green walls of his office never looked as dull to him as they did that day as he sat behind his desk at Nannotek.

  He had experienced so much over the past few days that his office, by comparison, seemed like the most boring place on earth. He had been in an exploding van, had been shot at several times, spent the night in a police cell and had come through it all relatively unscathed. The injuries he had received had now been evaporated due to time rewinding again. He felt for a moment like he was invincible, and the day-to-day work he'd undertaken over the last few years was now beneath him. Of course, he knew he was not really invincible, he was just lucky. If time were to suddenly move in a forward motion again he would realise how invincible he was in reality.

  Jake managed to relieve the boredom between complaint calls by searching the Internet for time travel information. In the search engine results he had seen several intriguing websites listed, such as “How Time Travel Would Work” and “Time Travel for Beginners.” He smiled at the second one, and asked himself, “How many people are not beginners when it comes to time travel?” Maybe people had actually done it and were keeping quiet? Ridiculous! But then again, with the reaction he had received every time he told anyone about his experience, he could understand why a person who had actually done so wouldn't tell anyone about having travelled through time.

  He found it interesting that time travel hadn’t been ruled out by science. He read a bit about the space-time continuum, stating that time cannot exist without space, neither space without time. It all sounded interesting, but way beyond his ability to understand. He didn’t have enough time to figure out how it was all working, nor did he think he would succeed in figuring things out where hundreds of more intelligent people had failed.

  All Jake cared about was using his time wisely. He looked at the clock on his wall. He had only half an hour to get to the scene of Julie Clark’s attack. Luckily for him, it was only a short drive away.

  The attempt on Julie Clark’s life was a hit-and-run on Duke Street – a busy street in the middle of the town. He had no idea where this woman lived or worked, so all he could plan on doing was to intercept her and try to prevent her from putting herself in danger.

  He’d seen a picture of her. She was probably around the age of forty, with blonde hair and glasses. She looked like any typical businesswoman. He had enough information to prevent this attack. Now he just needed to find an excuse for getting out of the office for a little while.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Stretching like an arrow, pointing in a straight line towards the Town Centre, was Duke Street. Lined with the typical ageing Edwardian and Victorian Era terraced brick buildings, it was very busy for most of the year. A number of locals referred to the end of the street where Jake was standing as Estate Agent Central. It was an appropriate name as nearly every shop front marked another independent estate agent, each with a window full of colour pictures of houses available to buy or to rent. There were, of course, other shops. There was an exclusive-looking opticians, a number of small clothes shops and the occasional shop representing various charities. In addition to the retail establishments, this street was a popular choice for cheap parking, assuming a space could be found by the side of the road.

  The number of people passing by had been greatly multiplied on account of the January sales with a substantial number of shoppers going about their business, locating car parks close to the centre of town. There was only one lane of traffic flowing in each direction on a narrow road, aside a packed pavement and parked cars on either side filling every possible space. It seemed impossible that someone could drive fast enough to cause an accident on this road. Between the various crossings and road junctions, there was not a long enough piece of road to build up any speed.

  Jake suddenly felt overwhelmed by the size of the street. It was perfectly straight, but it wasn’t particularly long. It was, however, long enough to cause him a problem. He didn’t know exactly where the hit-and-run was going to take place and there was no information available to him to reduce his search area.

  He looked at the street, trying to get inside the mind of a killer. He needed to figure out how and where someone would plan something like this attack. Towards the bottom of the street was a long segment of road, which ended with a right turn, but the road itself continued into a pedestrian zone, with brick paving replacing tarmac.

  Only delivery vans and similar types of vehicle were allowed down the road during the day, but there was no barrier preventing others from driving down it, should they choose to ignore the multiple signs indicating that a fine may be issued on driving into the area.

  On closer inspection, Jake discovered that there were usually two bollards at the entrance to the pedestrian area, but for whatever reason they had been removed. It seemed that part of the planning could well have been the bribing of the man that held the key to the usual blockade, making sure it was open today. Maybe his friend, the corrupt policeman, had
ordered that the route to the brick paved road should remain open and clear of obstruction.

  He deduced that this must be close to where the “accident” was going to happen. He glanced at his watch, and then around him as he stood in the middle of the pedestrianised portion of the road, surrounded by people and shop-fronted two storey buildings of various ages and states of repair. Occasionally older buildings had been torn down and replaced with newer but uglier buildings. He did not have time to consider the architectural merit of his surroundings, however. He had a task to complete within the next couple of minutes.

  Once again he looked at his watch twice in just a few seconds, realising that he wasn’t paying attention when he looked at it previously. He needed to get out of the habit of doing that, but it was obvious that his mind was elsewhere. When he needed to stay focussed, he would make sure he kept his mind on important things.

  Looking up from his watch again, he could see Julie. She was approximately five and a half feet tall, was wearing a light grey trouser-suit and had her blonde hair tied back, but was wearing the same glasses that she was wearing in the picture Jake had seen. She had a thin face that seemed to typically wear a slightly withdrawn look.

  There were still two or three minutes until someone was due to hit her. She was walking straight towards him as he stood in the middle of the pedestrianised section of the road. He thought hard to find words to say that might distract her enough to stop her getting run over. She was just a couple of feet away from him in that busy street when he blurted out her name. She stopped dead and stared at him, trying to figure out whether she knew his face from somewhere.

  “Do I know you?” she said with a puzzled look crossing her face.

  “In a way, you do. I live in the same apartment block as you.” Jake took a risk with a blatant lie.

  “Oh, right!” she replied, feigning recognition. “Two flats below me?”

  “That's right. I moved in recently,” Jake lied, playing along, hoping she was not talking about a neighbour she had had for several years. “I could do with drinking something. Have you got time for a coffee?”

  “Not really. I’m in a hurry,” she told him. And with that, and rather abruptly, she walked off. Jake turned to follow her, but Julie got suspicious. He suspected she had seen through his lies. She started walking faster, apparently worried that Jake was some kind of stalker. He wouldn’t care what she thought, as long as she moved to a place where she wasn’t in danger, but instead she was moving swiftly into the middle of the bricked road, close to the place where bollards would usually be situated.

  He looked at his watch. It was exactly 10:30am. He looked at the busy road ahead of him. A red sports car was approaching at some speed, indicating to turn to its right into a car park when the main part of the road ended.

  Jake walked in Julie’s direction, but the walk turned into a run as the car’s approach quickened. “Julie!” Jake shouted. “Get out of the way!” With every pedestrian gazing on the scene in the middle of the street, Jake continued his chase.

  With every passing second the car drew closer, and Jake was soon within a couple of steps from the woman he was trying to save. Sadly, his chase caught her attention more than the car ahead of her and she continued to move into the path of the oncoming car.

  When she was within reach, Jake flung himself at her, knocking her out of the car's path. His own momentum caused him to tumble clear of the speeding vehicle as it rushed past his feet.

  Jake rolled along the ground to the sound of screeching tyres, and the scream of a frightened woman.

  It took Julie several moments to realise that Jake had in fact saved her life. After yelling at him for the minor injuries she had sustained, she calmed herself and quietly apologised, then thanked him for his heroism. The thought occurred to Jake that he could have easily lost his own life in an attempt to save the life of a stranger, but he was currently more concerned about her safety than his own.

  “You’ll not be safe until you get far away from here,” he said. “Somebody wants you dead and I’m here to make sure you don’t fall victim to them.”

  Julie’s eyes widened. Jake could almost see her mind working. She was probably thinking of the current injustice of it all; Thinking of how she’d never hurt anyone, nor deliberately offended anyone, and how there were people far more deserving of dying than her. He thought she might be having such thoughts, because he had had them several days earlier.

  “However crazy this sounds you'll do well to believe me. What almost happened to you was no accident. You've seen something and someone wants you out of the way so you can't interfere. You must find a safe place to go immediately,” Jake added.

  “Where should I go?” Julie responded. “Do they know where I live?”

  “They will not only know where you live, they'll know about your family, your history, they'll know what you had for breakfast this morning,” he replied. “Get to a car if you can and get as far away as a tank of petrol will get you. Failing that, if you follow me I’ll take you somewhere safe, where they won't know to look for you.”

  Panic seemed to envelop Julie. She turned on her heels to face away from Jake, and ran away as fast as she could. “Get out of town immediately or they'll find you!” he called after her, his final instruction to her as she rounded a corner and disappeared from view. He hoped she would listen, or the cuts and bruises they had both just sustained would be for nothing.

  He looked at his watch again. 10:32am. One person saved - at least for now - and less than an hour and a half to go until the next attack. There was no time to sit and wonder what would happen to Julie, or about what he would do next.

  The driver of the red sports car had emerged from the car that was inches from crashing into a baker’s shop front. The man was roughly five and a half feet tall, covered in tattoos and, despite his lack of height, looked as if he was about to squash Jake. He was walking swiftly in Jake's direction with a somewhat demonic look on his face. He took another couple of steps and started to reach inside his jacket with his right hand. It was clear to him that this man was about to take action to stop him interfering. It was time for Jake to make a speedy retreat from the scene before the man considered shooting, and before anyone recognised him. He turned and ran down a narrow alleyway between two shops, and away to eventual safety.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Jake had spent several minutes looking through a phone book for P. White. After several call attempts and a number of apologies, he found the right phone number and address. He had driven to the house and was currently parked outside.

  Olympic Street was made up of a long line of two bedroomed Victorian era housing on both sides of the road. The houses were all two storey with grey slate roofs. Above the ground floor was a small red tiled roof that acted as a porch area across the front of each house. Almost every house he could see had an almost identical partially glazed white PVC front door. He wondered what this street would have looked like before double glazing salesmen had prowled the area.

  He walked to the door of a house somewhere in the middle of the row, not knowing what he was about to say. He knocked on the door, and waited. A few seconds later he was faced with a middle-aged woman, asking who he was. “I am Officer Hampden from the Homicide division of Durham Constabulary. Your husband’s life is in danger. I must know where is at this very moment.”

  “He’s at work. He works at Swannay Insurance, just down the road,” she replied hastily, nodding her head in the direction of the office as though it was next door. Jake knew where the place was. He drove past it on the way to work every day. It was barely at the end of the road. “There’s a chance we may need to locate his car. Can you describe it for us?” he asked.

  “It’s a red Suzuki four-by-four. The registration number is PK 03 XXC.” she responded. Jake was surprised at how open she was, especially as he had not shown any identification. He had nothing but a driving license to show if she had asked, and that of course
would have his real name on it, not the fake name he’d just used.

  “Thank you. We will locate him and keep him safe until the threat passes. We will of course keep you up-to-date.” With that, she thanked him and soon he was making the short drive to the workplace of Mr White.

  Within a couple of minutes Jake was in the car park of the small business park on Yarm Road that housed four different small, local businesses. The large car park sat in the middle of four new light coloured brick buildings with a royal blue trim, with windows and doors in the same colour and shade. The park was well landscaped with a number of types of tree and bush dotted around, separated by a light coloured gravel. The whole business park was well-kept and quite an attractive location for any business. An office here was probably not cheap.

  He located the building with a gold engraved plate indicating that Swannay Insurance was inside. He tried the door and found it to be locked. There was a light on inside and a man walking past a large logo for the company. The logo was comprised of a large blue circle containing two small white ellipses positioned towards the top right and bottom left. The logo seemed like a poor attempt to make the letter "S" out of circles.

  As the man walked in front of the logo Jake knocked on the glass door marking the entrance, causing the man inside to turn his head quickly to meet Jake's gaze.

  The man walked towards the door, and Jake recognised him as Peter White. The door opened and Jake explained for the second time today that this man's life was in danger. Peter's less-than-pleased response included the phrase, “I'm hungry and I don't have time for this,” and he left the building and walked towards his car so he could go and get some lunch.

  Jake followed him to his car, trying to convince him. “My name is Jake Hingham. Someone attempted to kill my family a couple of days ago, and since then they've tried to kill me and three other people. I'm not lying when I say this.” Peter rolled his eyes, but said nothing. The reaction made his disdain and disbelief obvious. “Why would I be making this stuff up?” Jake retorted.