Illustration by Kevin James Hurtack © 2006
Illustration by Kevin James Hurtack © 2006
Note to Self
By Keith P. Graham © 2006
Harris stopped his unmarked police car. He opened the windows a crack to let some air in, got out, and locked the doors. He paused, looking up and down the street. There was no sign of the mysterious Julia. She seemed to know more about the case than he did. What was her part in all this? She had said noon.
It was 11:50. He was early.
His cell phone rang.
"Hello?" Harris said.
A male voice answered, "Don't go in there. It's not worth your life."
"Who's this?"
"Trust me. It's not worth your life." There was a beep and the call disconnected.
The caller had not given his name and there was no caller ID, yet Harris thought that the voice was familiar. The whole situation was hinky.
Harris pulled a note from his pocket. It had the address of an office building off the freeway. Julia had called him with the address and he had written it down on a yellow sticky note. She knew that Marshall Kingston, the man Harris was searching for, would be there. Kingston was wanted for a string of murders and robberies going back ten years. It didn't make any sense. After months of cold trails and dead ends, this was the first time he had even come close to catching the man. He wondered how Julia had found him.
It was a hot day. Harris unbuttoned his suit jacket and put his hands in his pockets, exposing the police issue .38 special in its quick release shoulder holster. He lit a cigarette and looked down the street. It was Sunday morning and there was no one about.
The office building appeared deserted. The front door was unlocked, though, which was strange for this part of town. Harris climbed the stairs. There was a low wattage bulb burning in the dimly lit stairwell. He climbed to the third floor and found Suite 3A.
He felt a cold shiver as he looked at the door, like someone had just stepped on his grave. He knew that he'd never been here before, but everything seemed a familiar, and not in a good way.
He tried the door. It was locked. He pulled a leather wallet from his inside jacket pocket and selected a thin steel rod with a tooth at the end. He inserted it into the lock, raked it over the pins, and in a moment the door opened with a snick.
Harris looked inside the doorway and saw nobody. The room was empty except for some dingy office furniture and a strange-looking machine in the corner. The machine looked like a large doctor's scale with a low milky glass platform near the floor and a control panel a few feet above it. The only controls were a simple keypad and a red LED readout.
***
There was a yellow sticky note on the small platform. Harris picked it up and read it. On one side was the address of the room that he was in. He took the note out of his pocket and compared them. They were identical. He turned the notes over and on the other side of one was written, "He's behind the door." The handwriting looked familiar, and then he realized that it was his own handwriting. There was blood on the note and the last 'r' was scribbled as though the writer had not been strong enough to finish it.
There was a thump as though something heavy had been dropped. It came from behind what must have been a closet door. Harris moved cautiously towards the closet door and pulled it open. A tall man in a dark suit and a red tie stood there. It was Marshall Kingston. Kingston pointed at pistol at Harris's chest and fired point blank.
Harris fell backwards onto the floor. He felt as though a car was parked on his chest. As he clutched his chest, blood seeped between the fingers. He pulled the .38 from his shoulder holster and shot Kingston. The man went down hard.
Harris pulled himself up to a sitting position. It was hard to breath. Blood was pouring down his chest and there was black smoke swirling around the edges of his vision.
He felt the pieces of paper in his hand and looked at them. He looked at the machine again and in a final moment of clarity understood everything. All of the clues came together. It was impossible, and yet it had to be true.
He pulled a pen out of his pocket and wrote something on one of the notes. He crawled to the machine. A panel showed the glowing red numbers: -180000. Printed to the right of the numbers was the word 'milliseconds'. He set the yellow notes on the platform, and pressed the red button. The notes disappeared. Harris smiled, coughed, and then fell to floor, dead.
***
There were two yellow sticky notes on the small platform. Harris picked one up and read it. On one side was the address of the room that he was in. He took the note out of his pocket and compared them. They were identical. He turned the notes over and on the other side of one was written, "He's behind the door." It looked like his handwriting. There was blood on it. He picked up the other note. It also read, "He's behind the door." But underneath that it said, "and he has a gun."
There was a thump as though something heavy had been dropped. It came from behind what must have been a closet door. Harris drew his own pistol from his coat pocket and moved towards the door.
He hesitated and then shot four times right through the closed door. There was a thump and the door swung open. A man in a dark suit with blood on his white shirt to match his red tie fell dead on the floor. It was Marshall Kingston.
Harris looked at the machine and then at the note in his hand. He recognized it. It could only be his handwriting on the paper. He wondered if the blood was his own blood.
The room was empty except for an old gray metal desk and office chair, the strange machine and the dead man. The red lights on the display panel read -180000 Milliseconds. There were no other markings on the machine. Harris had suspected the possibility of such a thing, but he still found it hard to believe.
This was a time machine.
Julia would be here any second. Once again he wondered what she had to do with all of this.
Harris went over to the platform. He looked at it closely. He looked at his watch and did a quick calculation in his head converting minutes into milliseconds. He typed +300000 into the keyboard. He looked around the room for something to place on the machine's platform but didn't see anything. He found a newspaper in a trash basket. When he read the headline, he frowned, wrinkling his brow. When he read the date of the paper, he laughed. Harris placed the newspaper on the platform and pressed the red button. The paper disappeared; 300000 milliseconds equals five minutes. If Julia showed up before then, she would get a surprise.
Harris picked up Kingston's body by the arms and dragged it through the door with the bullet holes. There was a waist high bundle of old coats in the back of the darkened closet, but he managed to push the body in and shut the door on it. He lit a cigarette.
There was a knock on the door. Harris looked at his watch. Julia was right on time.
When Harris opened the door, it wasn't Julia, but Marshall Kingston. Kingston pointed a nasty looking black pistol at Harris.
Harris opened his mouth, but couldn't think of anything to say. He had just killed the man and dragged his body into the closet.
"Good," said Kingston, "I made it in time." He walked around the room looking for something, always keeping the gun pointed at Harris.
"Where is it?" Kingston asked. "Where did she hide it?" He ducked down and looked under the desk.
Harris did not know what he was talking about. "Hurry, man, or we are both dead!"
"Take a look in the closet." Harris said.
Kinston gave him a questioning look. He walked to the closet, never taking his eyes off of Harris. Kingston opened the door. The dead Kingston fell out into the room, his mouth open and dead eyes staring at the ceiling.
"Damn!" Kingston said. Harris was still confused.
"I have to fix this." Kingston said. He went over to the time machine and punched in some numbers. He stepped up onto the platform.
Before he could press the red button, Julia walked into the room. She looked at Harris and then saw the two Kingston's. She reached into her purse and pulled out a small pistol.
"Julia! Thank God. Kingston was going to kill me. I don't know, but he might have already done it." Harris said.
"I've had to kill you several times today;" said Kingston, "I've been cleaning up bodies all morning." He stepped off the platform, walked over to the closet and pulled a coat off the pile in the back.
Harris gagged. What he saw were several dead bodies piled one on another. All of them were himself.
"Let's see if we can make it stick this time." Julia said. When Harris turned to her, she had the gun trained on him. Harris felt a cold wave of nausea sweep over him. He was starting to understand. Coincidence was not a strong enough word to explain Julia's part in all this.
“You fell right into this.” She said. “You thought that you were pretty smart, but that machine gives me the edge.”
"Quick, Julia." Kingston protested. "We've got to get out of here. The dynamite is set to go off any minute and I can't find the schematics. This is the only timeline I'm in. I have to use the machine and go back and fix this."
"Don't worry, my dear. I've got the schematic. I put it in the cop's car. The bomb will erase all the evidence and I can start over. You're sure that you're not in any other loop?"
"I'm sure. I've been trying to clean up our little police problem here," he pointed at me, "all day, but he keeps on coming back."
"Well, if you're sure..."
She moved the gun, aiming it now at Kingston, and pulled the trigger. The man stood for a moment with a surprised look on his face and then fell stiffly, landing on himself. Both versions of Kingston were dead.
Julia pointed the gun back at Harris. "Sorry, Darling," she said. "I've got to go and I can't have you messing things up for me. Just give me the keys to your car."
"They're in my pocket," he said. He started to ask why she needed his keys when he saw her finger tighten down on the trigger.
"Wait!" Harris shouted. He didn't know what else to say. He was finally getting it though his head that he had been manipulated by Julia from the beginning. She had been using this time machine device to set up this exact moment.
He saw something out of the corner of his eye pop into the present on the milky glass platform. The newspaper made a popping sound as it appeared. It distracted her long enough for him to get his gun out of the holster. She shot him as he jumped to the side.
He felt the bullet crash through his chest. It felt like she had hit him with a two-by-four. His legs turned to rubber, but as he fell, he turned and emptied the .38's chambers into Julia's body. She fell to the floor. Harris couldn't even guess how many dead bodies there were in the room now.
Harris coughed blood, and could feel the life leaving his body. He grabbed for the newspaper lying on the platform next to him, pulled out his pen, and scribbled a note across the front page. With his last bit of strength he set the newspaper on the platform, entered -600000 on the keyboard, and pushed the button. As the newspaper disappeared, the hidden bomb exploded in a giant fireball. Harris never knew it, though. He was already dead.
***
There was a newspaper on the small platform. Harris picked it up, not noticing the two yellow sticky notes underneath it. He read the message scrawled across the front page. He looked around the room and read it again. The note was in his handwriting. Harris recognized the style, if not the content.
"Turn around and go back out to the car," it read. "Drive away and don't have anything to do with Julia or Kingston again. It is not worth it. It's not worth your life!"
Written underneath, it said, "Take this newspaper with you."
Harris thought he heard something behind the closet door. A chill went up his spine and he had a feeling that all of this had happened before. He did not want to see how it turned out. He backed out of the room as silently as he could, putting the newspaper under his arm. He ran down the steps to the street.
As he left the office building, he saw a figure getting out of a taxi. It was Julia. He turned the other way and ducked into a side street. As he peered around the corner, he saw her stop at his car and push something though the partially opened window. Harris pulled his head back in as she came down the street. She turned and entered the office building.
As soon as he was sure that she couldn't see him, he walked down the street, got in his car, and set the newspaper down on the seat next to a manila envelope.
He thought about going back. There were questions left unanswered, questions that would bother him for the rest of his life.
He heard shots coming from the office building. There was a pause, then some more shots.
Harris pulled out his own gun, but as he opened the door, the third floor of the building exploded in a fireball, sending bricks and broken glass in all directions. Harris pulled the door shut in time to avoid the shower of glass fragments from the broken windows. His car was covered with brick dust and glass, but he was not hurt.
He called in the explosion to the station and the fire department. He didn't call EMS, though. Between the gunshots, the explosion, and the fire, he didn't think that anyone would be left alive in the building.
As he waited, he picked up the newspaper and reread the message. He wondered if all this was just his imagination.
"Turn around and go back. Drive away..." it said. This was a note to himself that he had written. He was sure that it was his handwriting, no one could fake that, but he knew he'd never written it. Then he saw the headline. It all began to make sense. That's how Kingston had done it!
The headline read, "Vikings take Super Bowl." Harris loosened his tie. The hot August sun had heated up the car in spite of the opened windows. This was August and the Super Bowl was in February. The Minnesota Vikings had never won a Super Bowl. The date of the newspaper was February 7, and the year was not the current one, but next year.
Harris opened the manila envelope. It contained a bundle of folded papers. He saw words and diagrams written in some strange language with an alphabet that he did not recognize. He did, however, recognized one of the diagrams. It was the schematic of the machine where he had found the newspaper.
"Cool!" he said under his breath as he realized the value of what he was looking at.
In the end, Harris decided, it was a good thing that he hadn't gone back to the office building and confronted Julia and arrested Kingston. It was a good thing that he had followed the directions in the note. After all, if you have to trust someone, it might as well be yourself.
The End
Keith P. Graham is an Information Technologies Manager, Blues
Harmonica Player, Website Developer, and editor of the web 'zine
AstoundingTales.com. Recently he decided to write a few short stories.
Keith lives in NY State with his childhood sweetheart, Erica, and five
unpleasant cats.
| Sponsers: |