The Time Change Trilogy-Complete Collection Read online

  Ragged, dripping cloudlets were reaching down from the darkening sky. If Jack had been paying better attention, he’d have recognized this as a supercell, the strongest kind of thunderstorm and the one most associated with severe weather phenomena. But Jack’s mind was elsewhere as they drove right into the heart of it.

  “If all this is true, then why did you get arrested?” Ashley asked, staring at him as if trying to read his face.

  “First off, I didn’t get arrested—they just brought me in for questioning—and secondly, I was holding the weapons when the SWAT team busted in the door. I’m kind of surprised they didn’t arrest me.”

  “Or shoot you!” She softened a bit. “What did he say about you in those postings?”

  “That I was helping him.”

  “That’s ridiculous . . . right?” She searched his face, watched his body language.

  Jack put his head in his hands and massaged his temples. “Not entirely.”

  “Oh my God!” she said.

  “I wasn’t helping him, but I might have helped her with a little of the science . . . inadvertently.” Jack twisted toward Ashley, straining against the seatbelt. “Not the science of bomb building, so don’t even go there--she told me she was working on high-powered rocketry, stuff like launching satellites.”

  “I hope you’re hearing yourself and how little sense this is making.”

  “Shalah Muneem is brilliant—“

  “And beautiful.” Ashley said and kept her eyes reproachfully on his face.

  This was starting to wear on him. “I saw the kid’s excitement and didn’t want to squelch a creative spark.”

  “A sexual spark, you mean.”

  Jack shook his head in frustration. Why am I wasting my breath? She has her mind made up. “No, intellectual. She didn’t turn things in that other direction for a while.”

  “Two or three hours?”

  “No, like two or three days.” He sat back, deflated. “I should have asked more questions. I should have suspected something—hey, can you please slow it the hell down?”

  With one hand Ashley gripped the wheel and with the other she was grabbing her throat. Jack thought she was losing it.

  “I thought you wanted me to be honest with you,” he said.

  “I do,” Ashley cried, “but that doesn’t make any of this easier to hear.”

  He looked at her and wondered what it was that they’d had. Lately they’d been drifting apart, talking once or twice during the week, and maybe getting together one night on the weekend for sex. He shook it off and continued. “I wanted to give her a chance. I saw all this potential. She was wasting away . . ..”

  “And what? It reminded you of someone?” She let the question hang.

  Sheets of rain were blanketing the road ahead. Downbursts of wind rocked the car side-to-side and hail was exploding in icy chunks sliding down the windshield.

  Again, he turned to face her. “What are you trying to say?” A muscle twitched angrily in his jaw.

  “Oh please, Jack. You’re the poster child for unrealized potential.” Now she looked annoyed, but he was upset too, his temples pounding thickly, his throat tight. “You’ve got a Master’s Degree and you’re teaching high school in a district where almost half the kids don’t even graduate. You live in an apartment, drive an embarrassment of a car, and have no savings account.. Do I need to connect the dots?” She paused for a moment. “I think your biggest issue is your mom.”

  He did a double take. “Oh give me a break! You’ve been reading too many self-help books.”

  “Your mom committed suicide, and for years you thought it was your fault.”

  “That’s old news. I’m a big boy, I’m over it.” He pulled back his shoulders and lifted his sharp jaw.

  “Are you? I think it explains your screwed-up perceptions of women. To you, women are something you need to conquer and once you do, once you have them hooked, you find it doesn’t fill that hole in your heart that your mom left and so you move on.”

  “Wow, I get interrogated by the FBI today and you want to give me a hard time about ‘mommy issues.’”

  “Plus a father with such unrealistic ideals that you never felt like you were good enough, which is probably what really killed your mother.”

  “And where did you hear all this crap?”

  “From you.”

  That’s right, Jack remembered. It’s amazing what I’ll do to get a woman to sleep with me.

  Snarled edges of blackened clouds enveloped the taller buildings. Everything was starting to disappear; dark swirling vapors blotted out the visible world. The brake lights of cars in front of them were the only thing that could be seen out the windshield—other than the hail and pounding rain.

  “I feel like this is what’s kept you from reaching your full potential.”

  “I’m paying off school loans.” His face was hot with humiliation.

  “After ten years? Come on, Jack. You and I both know you get by on the minimum adult daily requirement in everything you do.”

  He looked ahead, not sure how to answer. She really was driving way too fast. “Slow down!” he said.

  “See, you can’t even defend yourself with passion. The only passion you have is for bedding another woman.”

  “I’m passionate about helping my students.”

  “Are you talking about this Shalah girl?” She looked far away, not paying attention to the road and the desperate driving conditions. “I saw this capacity for greatness in you. You’re a brilliant man, one of the smartest, and you have this great loving heart.” She cut herself off, hesitated, softened slightly, and then continued, “It doesn’t help that you’re gorgeous. Your eyes were the first thing that attracted me —so blue, so intense, the way they lit your face when you smiled. I wanted to gobble you right up.“ She shook her head, “I’m doing it again, damn it, Jack,” She closed her eyes hard, her mouth twisted, and then she looked at him. “You know what? You’re broken, Jack. And I’m tired of trying to fix you.” He turned away from her, his face darkening with emotion. “You don’t give anything of yourself, so that nobody can take anything away. I think it’s odd you don’t have one male friend.”

  He shook his head. “People have a hard time keeping up with me. I’ve traveled around the world, I’m a Black Belt, and I built my own airplane! I’ve done things other people only dream of doing!”

  “I’m not saying that you didn’t have drive or great potential—at one time.”

  “You don’t believe me?” His question was thunderous.

  “All those things were years ago. I’ve heard the stories, I’ve even seen the plane you built, the same one I couldn’t talk you into getting a pilot’s license so you could fly.”

  “I can fly it!”

  “Not legally. It was just another project on your long list of gonna-get-tos.”

  “I didn’t have the money to take the classes,” he said.

  “Money? Money just happens to be your current excuse for not starting to live your life, and I was stupid enough to think you’d change.”

  “Well, the truth comes out,” he said.

  “Maybe I don’t feel like I deserve to be loved. That’s why I hooked up with someone like you, but the difference between us is that you don’t feel like you deserve anything. You need to spend your life in the future instead of living in the past.”

  He inhaled sharply. Living in the past? Ashley’s words had wounded him. Usually she wasn’t very perceptive, but this time she’d touched a nerve. He sat without speaking. He swallowed hard. “Maybe you’re right,” he finally said.

  Jack could feel the wheels of the Lexus begin to hydroplane. Ashley tightened her grip on the steering wheel but made the mistake of taking her eyes off the road to look at him. Meanwhile, the view ahead was ominous. The sky was beginning to boil. It erupted with torrents of cascading water and jagged claws of deadly lighting.

  “What did you say?” She seemed genuinely puzzled that he’
d agreed with her.

  “I said, maybe you’re right. Things in life have come pretty easy to me; most of the time, I haven’t really put out much effort. Maybe it’s an issue with my parents, maybe I was born this way. I’m not always a very good person.”

  A chilled black silence surrounded them. Ahead of them the traffic had stopped moving. When Ashley finally saw the disaster playing out, she put her brake pedal to the floor. The car began to slip but he kept talking. Ashley’s face was a mask of horror.

  “I wanted to love you. You hit most of the items on my checklist of a perfect mate, but, in the end, this relationship just isn’t right. We've been over for a while; we've just been waiting for the credits to roll. I don’t think I ever truly loved you. I’m not sure I’ve ever loved anyone . . . including myself.” His face clouded with the realization.

  The moment of breakthrough lasted only a second. Lightning cracked from the sky and hit an overhead highway sign two hundred yards ahead of them. The car began to fishtail. They were traveling down the expressway, sliding sideways, staring into the brake lights of vehicles stopped thirty feet in front of them. The passenger side door would be the site of impact. Jack threw his body toward Ashley and tried to shield her. His body tensed, preparing for the collision, and time seemed to slow and dilate as he waited for the crunch of metal.

  He was sure these were the last seconds of his life. As the force of the spin threw Ashley into the driver’s side window, he tried to lift his head to see her.

  “Ashley, I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.” A suffocating sensation tightened his throat.

  He looked one last time at the impending devastation and then, time stopped.

  The view in front of him elongated, refocused, and re-centered. At the middle of his vision, there was a UPS truck sitting sideways in the roadway. He saw the driver in incredible still-life detail, with his kindly black face and sad, ancient eyes. The driver-side door of the truck seemed like a magnet. Objects and even light seemed to bend as things were pulled toward it as into a black hole. The side of the Lexus stretched impossibly toward it.

  Just as Jack thought the Lexus should be making contact, another flash of lightning filled the car’s interior. Much more intense than the first, it bathed them in a blinding white light; it filled his eyes, his ears, every pore of his body. A low rumble resonated through the car. At the first screaming sound of metal against metal, Jack closed his eyes to the vibrations of the white unearthly light.

  CHAPTER 2

  Where Am I

  Silence.

  I’m dead, but it hurts, Jack thought. I’m dead and it stopped raining.

  He lay on the ground; his head ached so badly he dared not open his eyes. His skin was covered with a grimy layer of what felt like ash. Jack knew to his very core that something was really wrong, the kind of wrong that was life-changing.

  Flat on his back, he could feel the sun hot on his face. He tried to move but couldn’t. Nothing.

  Ashley. Where’s Ashley? Is she all right? He tried calling her name but only managed a moan.

  He passed in and out of consciousness and lost track of time. Then he was aware once again, and this time his awareness was more solid. His headache was sharp now, needling into his head with quick, hard bursts. His mistake had been thinking the wrongness he felt was physical.

  “Ashley! Can you hear me?” His voice sounded weightless and insignificant but also too loud; it sent a shooting spike of pain plunging through his head.

  No response, not a sound. He opened his eyes wide and called her name again.

  He lay in a flattened area surrounded by knee-high grass. Maybe that’s why the paramedics left me here—they couldn’t find me.

  The grime he’d earlier felt on his face must have been blood because now it was a mask that covered his forehead and both cheeks. There was a coppery taste in his mouth. He raised his arms and saw his shirt was torn and bloodied. He felt the air on his leg and knew his pants were ripped as well.

  A hawk circling above let out a cry that broke the silence.

  He stared up at a sky so blue it seemed utterly innocent of ever having held malicious storm clouds or bursts of electricity, a blue devoid of any other color than blue. In spite of his disorientation and confusion, he suddenly thought it odd that here, on this busy section of road, there was no noise except the wind. He glanced from side to side, trying not to move his head, watching the wind wander through the long, uncut waving winter grass, and he wondered how it could have escaped the road crew’s mowers. As long as he had lived in Tidewater, there had been background noise—car horns, screaming kids, planes flying overhead, leaf blowers, lawn mowers. Now all the normal urban sounds were absent. Maybe he’d gone deaf.

  Something was wrong with his sense of smell too. The ever-present smell of smog, the kind for which they issued ozone alerts in the summer, and the colder, darker version in the winter—the smell of car exhaust, the odors of volatilized chemical compounds, inorganic substances, paint and concrete—were all absent. Everything that gave off a stench, everything that stank, stunk, or reeked was gone. He drew in a breath and it filled his lungs in deep places. The air felt good, clean, and powerful.

  Getting up on his elbows, he could just barely see above the blowing grass. Looking in all directions, he was surrounded by a mile-long mile-wide field.

  With a long exhausted sigh, he tried to stand. Somehow, he made it to his feet, feeling muddled and dizzy. He did his best to keep from falling. Even with the added vantage, he could see no signs of civilization.

  He started walking in a circle; then he widened his radius, searching for Ashley. Where the hell was the road? A promise rose to his lips but went unspoken. Please God, just let me find Ashley safe and alive and I’ll change all the things I’m doing wrong in my life. But he didn’t have the heart to lie to God again. He’d hoped he could just find her breathing, without having to make the bargain. He looked for what seemed like hours, and the untouched grass told the tale of every path he trampled. He was back where he’d started.

  She’s not here . . . but neither is anything else, Jack thought. There is nothing here, not a road, a house, a power line or telephone line. Things felt different, but not as wrong as they’d felt before.

  Then he remembered his iPhone. He pulled it out and pushed the home button and his locked screen came to life. Before he slid the unlock slide along the bottom, he saw the time: Nine o'clock? It can't be that late. With the bright sun overhead, he figured it to be morning—which didn’t make any sense either. How long have I been out? It had to have been four o’clock when Ashley picked him up at the police station. Where the hell is the road? He pressed both hands to his eyes. They burned.

  He slid the lock button, opened the phone, and pressed the clock icon and it still said it was 9 a.m. How can that be? Jack wondered. Have I been lying in this field since yesterday afternoon? He closed the clock program, hit the green phone icon on the bottom, and picked Ashley's number from his list of favorites. The number displayed and tried to dial and then froze. He looked at the top of the screen and saw there were no bars displayed for signal strength. He didn't have a carrier listed.

  There was nowhere within a hundred miles of Norfolk that didn't have a cell signal. Let me try the map. If I can't call someone, at least I can figure out where I am. He touched the map icon, which opened and displayed the last place he had searched a week ago. He tried to update the map to his current location, and it told him that no GPS satellite, cell tower, or WIFI information was available. Stupid phone must be on the fritz. He looked up frustrated.

  There just isn’t this much open space this close to town. The grassy field had large stones every five or six feet. A farmer has never cleared this field? He tried the compass app on the phone and it worked. I really don't know where I am, but let me try walking east. Military Circle Shopping Center has to be somewhere around here.

  Slowly Jack put one foot in front of the other as the lone hawk soare
d in the thermals above him.

  CHAPTER 3

  Meet Murphy McCord

  Jack walked for thirty minutes, at least a mile—nothing.

  He walked another mile without a single sign of humanity—no buildings, no houses, not even a fence.

  Where am I? echoed in his head like the threadbare lyrics of a song. Where are all the people? I can’t believe how thirsty I am. This is the mantra of the lost man. I’m hungry too; let’s add that to the chant. He seriously wondered if he was dead. If I am dead, that would explain a few things. But I thought there would be a lot more robes and singing and a lot less tedium.

  Finally he saw a long meandering line of Poquoson pines and he knew that meant water and that water would lead to people. It was hot and his tongue was sticking to the roof of his mouth. The trees described a wandering course several miles long. His hopes of civilization were dashed as he drew nearer, but then he noticed a structure set deep in the thicket. Smoke rose from a chimney. He could smell the acrid odor of burning pine.

  From across the open field, the building looked like a long-abandoned farmhouse, painfully in need of repair. It sat on a flat-topped shelf slightly above the bottomland near the riverbed and towering pines. Its board-and-batten sides and its shake roof had weathered white as an old rock. Three monstrous magnolia trees twisted like tentacles around the formation, standing guard against attack. There were no telephone or electrical lines leading up to it. Even though there was a well-worn path, the absence of a car or truck made Jack think it had been abandoned—but what about the smoke? He was beginning to think that perhaps it had simply caught fire when he saw several pigs and chickens running loose and a swayback horse in a pen made of strands of thin wire.

  As he neared, he yelled, “Hello? Is anybody there?” He reached out to grab the wire.

  A wizened man appeared in the doorway holding an old-style flintlock rifle. His long face was broken into vertical age-creases and his intelligent blue eyes were barely visible under his bushy white eyebrows. A strange scraggly beard covered the lower part of his face.