Force

  The Wheels in My Mind Go Flat

  Quick as it opened, the gateway closes.

  Disappears, leaving me and my target to fend for ourselves once more. Only this time, we’re not in some ancient world covered in water. It looks like we’re back in New York, maybe near Manhattan, on top of another building—like we’re back where we started.

  Taking the time to look around, I notice right away how sick I feel and exhausted. I collapse onto my knees and spot the black smoke of a fire a few blocks to the south.

  Suddenly, I’m flat on my back and my face is stinging like it’s been set on fire. Daemon’s mealy face blocks out the sun.

  “You will not follow this time.”

  Somehow, I find the strength to kick his feet out from underneath him. He lands on his back with one arm stretched out. The ridge of his palm chops across my throat. Having someone crush your windpipe might be the worst feeling in the world.

  While I gag and struggle to breathe, Daemon lifts me from the rooftop and plops my stomach over his shoulder, like I’m a sack of flour. I notice he’s walking towards the edge and it’s all I can do to grab a fistful of his shirt. The material tears as he tosses me like a rag-doll.

  Air rushes past. The buildings blur. I’m sailing at an angle, falling towards the concrete side of an adjacent garage.

  Shifting my weight—which is really just panicked flailing—I manage to direct my path toward a red canopy jutting from the side of the gray building I’ll be scraping down the side of if the heavens don’t open and produce a miracle in the next two seconds.

  I cover my eyes.

  The awning, in all its’ mercy, catches me. The angle of the landing pitches me into a roll that sends me up the slope of the huge sunshade. Gravity takes it from there, makes sure I go back down again. It feels like I hit a trampoline as I’m bounced back up only to slam down in the same spot. The second time I hit, the fabric tears. Ripping straight through, I land on another red canopy a story lower.

  This one’s got no bounce. I fall straight through and keep going. Down, grasping at the passing metal of the next three canopies, but my fingers can’t grip anything. Am I slowing down? I can’t tell by the hard landing, but must be since it doesn’t tear, but sends me rolling down the slope.

  My face hits something and the ungodly crunch of my jaw makes me want to wail.

  My teeth. My tongue.

  Fresh screams, shrill and close.

  Is it me?

  I’d bolt upright if I could move.

  Taking a quick stock of all body parts—my mouth is still closed. So no, I’m not screaming. I can’t move my tongue. I don’t want to try.

  There’s a piece of torn beige material hanging over my head. And the noise is coming from an elderly couple. They’re panicking, pushing on the door locks of a car; their car, which I have just fallen into.

  The old man sees me sprawled over the back seat and then scrambles out, shouting for his wife to hurry as he drags her from the passenger side.

  I take another moment to check myself over. My mouth hurts. My throat as a painful notch and I taste blood. My back aches. One of my knees feels like it might be broken but I can still move it. Oh, then there’s a small wound in my side and the fact that I am soaking wet with sea water and cold.

  After a few deep breaths to make sure I haven’t broken any ribs, I sit up. Just in time to see a long funnel cloud formed of blue fog dissipate and fade up into the sky.

  Daemon’s gone. He kicked me in the face and threw me off a building and then left. Inside my hand, I’ve still got a piece of his shirt. Bastard.

  Opening my palm, I find the white material is gray with dirt, wrapped around a metal charm in the concave shape of three conjoined circles. There’s no color, but it’s easy to make the connection.

  I roll over the seatback and get behind the vacated wheel. Lucky for me, I fell into a convertible with a full tank of gas.

  That solves one part of my most immediate problem.

  The next is finding out what year it is.

  The car shudders when it takes off. I drive slowly, partly due to traffic and partly because I’m searching for a newsstand.

  When I find one, I yell out the window to the vendor, asking him to pass me today’s local paper and then toss him a dollar bill I found in the ashtray. People who don’t smoke tend to use the car ashtrays as change purses.

  The headline splashed across the front page reads, “Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neal, longest serving Speaker of the House Representatives, dies at 84.”

  The date is December 19th, 1996. The same day? Is it possible?

  Did he bring me back to World Two?

  Remembering the view from the parking garage, I take the next left, heading in the direction of the pluming smoke I saw in the distance.

  During my first trip to World Two, the passive version of my father and I had a conversation. It was the night he came to me, drunk and scared, babbling through restrained tears about the most important thing in the world. I remember him insisting that he wasn’t a thief, that he didn’t want any part of this and more specifically, he used the precise phrase: “I left’em in the dirt.” I can still hear the slur.

  There’s only one place he could have meant. If Daemon dropped me back into this world, he must have assumed the stones I carried came from this place.

  That would explain why he thought I couldn’t follow if he left without me. His starting that fire next to my alternate father’s building and opening a gigantic vortex could be the reason every traffic light between here and Manhattan seems to be knocked out.

  What was gridlock before I jumped is now plain madness in every direction. If Daemons original accident sent me back to an alternate reality in 1996 and called for a massive cover-up, then triggering two inside New York City has created complete bedlam.

  I take to the crowded sidewalks, screaming for everyone to get out of my way, telling all who dare criticize that I’m with the FBI. The fear set loose by what everyone just witnessed is much larger to them than I am and no one can second-guess me.

  What is it about fear that perpetuates such blind trust in authority?

  Back on Crosby Street now, the entire block has been taped off. Uniforms are everywhere. Not as many as there were when I left, but still plenty. Most were probably called away to determine the nature of the ‘freak storm’ that sucked the electrical power right off the grid and disappeared. Twice.

  Sirens are passing in both directions. Many people out on the streets are heading indoors. I’m down the block, waiting, hoping for a chance to get back into the building where I left my frightened sixteen-year-old alternate and his injured father without being noticed.

  The denim around my sore knee has tightened from swelling. I’m already limping and need to hurry inside before I can’t walk on it. In the meantime, I check under my shirt. The blood around the superficial wound was washed away. The cut itself looks like it’s staying closed.

  An ambulance crosses into the road from the alley and stops in front of the donut shop where I stopped a flasher that looked too much like Daemon from behind. Medics rush inside. A few minutes later, as I hobble up the sidewalk, they come out with someone on a gurney.

  Trailing behind, between two medics, I recognize little G and my heart hits my knees. This is exactly what I didn’t want. How am I supposed to get to him? More importantly, where is his father? A tall woman with her hair pulled back in a ponytail wraps a blanket around him and another kid.

  A small girl.

  Her hair’s been cut short, but it’s her! My baby sister. Perfectly alive and wailing!

  “Carrie!”

  I maneuver closer. She’s crying, reaching for the blanket-clad gurney. When she tugs at the gray cover, an arm falls out. My moment of elation is lost in a sea of shit because I know that hand.

  “What happened?” They’re wheeling him into the back of an ambulance that’s going to take hours to get t
o a hospital even if they don’t obey traffic laws.

  Little G’s face is smashed into a glare that makes no sense. His arms push and at me. “Stay away from us!”

  Ponytail asks who I am, and he answers with lies. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”

  I’m choking, pleading with them to let me help. They shouldn’t be alone. “Where’s your mother?” Carrie is here, so Mom should be, too.

  The medic grabs my arm. “If you’re not a relative, I can’t tell you anything. And the kid says he doesn’t know you.”

  “He knows me. I’m family—his fathers’ cousin. He’s just scared.”

  Her eyes grow sympathetic. “He told us his mother left the house early yesterday morning and never came back. We left the address and phone number she’ll need to pick them up. That’s all I can tell you.”

  I watch little G climb into the back of the ambulance and sit next to the gurney. “I’ll stay with you until she comes. I’ll keep you safe.”

  As I make the promise I realize it’s a lie.

  There was something else his dad told me the first night he found me creeping through the back yard. He felt it was important enough to reiterate during our last conversation.

  “Wherever you are, there he is.” He said it twice; sober both times.

  I reach for Carrie’s small arm as little G lifts her into the back of the ambulance. My fingertips barely catch the fresh ends of her silky brown hair.

  “You don’t help.” Little G says and twists to sit with his back to me, stretching his little sister across his lap. He pats her back, quieting her sobs.

  The double-doors of the ambulance shut me out, but little glorious Carrie looks out through the glass. I send a small wave. She gives one back as the ambulance pulls away, lights and sirens blaring.

  The less I know about where they’re going the better. Right?

  And Carrie is okay. My God, she is okay. They’ll still have their mother. I hope. She’s probably just... stuck in traffic. She’ll find them at the hospital and they’ll all be alright. Together.

  I have to believe that because if Daemon truly is wherever I am, then that means they are safest far, far away from me. It also means I should have no trouble finding him again.

  I’ll hold onto that.

  My backpack is still sitting on the floor of the tiny kitchen. Inside is the wad of money my dad—no, his dad, little G’s dad—was trying to give me.

  I dig out a paper bag from the trash and find a sharpie on top of the fridge. The money goes into the bag. I write ‘Mom’ in big, block letters and set it on the counter beside the note the paramedics left. When she comes in, she’ll see the message. She’ll pick them up and they’ll be alright.

  Standing in the apartment doorway, the outside sky is visible through the enormous hole in the side of the hallway. It’s getting dark out.

  I head back into the small bedroom of the micro-apartment and open the closet. There isn’t much in there, except empty hangers and clothes that look like they belonged to G’s dad. No women’s clothes. No lady’s shoes or jacket. No trace of a purse.

  Anger churns my stomach.

  No wonder he begged me to take them. But why didn’t he just say that she left? Was he ashamed or something—because he shouldn’t be? It’s eye-opening, actually, because I’ve blamed myself for my sister dying and was sure that was the reason why my mother left. I just knew it was the grief that proved too much for her. But in this plane, Carrie is alive and that woman still left. She left them both.

  I grab both the roll of cash and my backpack, limping-a-hustle back down to the car.