Written in Time (15 page)

He stepped out of the light of the flashlights and back in the blink of an eye, holding a large rock of the type from which the hearth itself was constructed, probably the rock’s origin.
 

“Here. Let me do that,” David volunteered.
 

David took the rock and smacked it hard against the exposed single piano hinge at the rear of the box, then hammered against the front of the box, but knocking upward with the rock, trying to free the lid.
 

There was another flash of lightning. “If some Arab guys start chanting and we find the Ark of the Covenant, I’m leaving before we get to the part with the snakes,” Jack informed them. Ellen realized that her husband was trying to break the tension; it didn’t work.
 

When the rock hit the box lid, the sound was somehow different this time, and David got up from his crouch. “Got it!” Oddly, he handed the box to Ellen.
 

Ellen looked at Jack, and Jack nodded. Ellen lifted the box lid. Both flashlights bathed its interior in light. “A Ziploc sandwich bag, guys.”
 

That was all. She took it out of the box, breathing a sigh of relief as she realized that inside the bag was a piece of paper. Carefully, uncertain whether or not the paper inside the bag might crumble, she tore open the plastic bag’s seal. There were boxes of bags identical to these packed away in the Suburban. Could it be possible that the same bag somehow existed in two places at the same time? Ellen shivered and shook her head. Time-travel stuff was crazy, or enough to make one crazy just considering it.
 

The paper inside the bag seemed relatively undamaged by time. “Can I read it?” Elizabeth asked. Ellen handed it to her daughter, who slowly, carefully, unfolded it, then read aloud.
 

“Dear Jack,
 

“Writing to oneself is probably like talking to oneself, an early sign of insanity.
 

“Anyway, here goes.
 

“Ellen and I pondered whether or not it would be wise to leave behind a record of this new life, and a record, too, of the future that we knew. If you were to read a record of this new life, would that change things? Were someone from your objective past, now the future, to read of the intervening years of which Ellen and I know, would such knowledge be for good or bad? Would such a record fall into the hands of some unscrupulous person who saw opportunity for wealth and power in changing the past to alter the future or the present?
 

“I don’t think history is locked in bronze; or, perhaps, graven in stone would be putting it better. Not now, not anymore.
 

“Ellen and I discussed this a lot, and she’s less of a buttinsky than I am, as you well know. We finally agreed to let people know—before it was too late—what your today and my yesterday/ tomorrow were/will be like. Ellen and I wrote. I became afraid. In frustration, I nearly burned all that we wrote, the videos which we taped, the still photographs. But I didn’t.
 

“I don’t know how to tell you to determine whether there’s something odd about the world of your present, whether time seems out of order or something like that. When you enter the past, you’ll have to make that determination for yourself, whether or not to leave a record.
 

“As I was about to burn our work, the records of everything, I came across where Ellen and I had noted that more than eight million Jews, not to mention the Poles and the Gypsies who also died, were killed by the Nazis during World War Two. If our writing could save only one of those innocent women and children, by alerting the future to Hitler’s evil intentions, I couldn’t pass up that opportunity and, instead, have even one of those deaths on my conscience.
 

“Once you’ve entered the loop, you and Ellen and David and Lizzie will have to determine such matters for yourselves.
 

“I am running out of time. If you are careful, you may have more of it than I.
 

“On the plus side, at least Ellen and I figured out why this happened/will happen. Maybe.
 

“There were/are/will be a lot of things wrong with the last half of the twentieth century. By changing events just a little—without trying— people who knew what was going to go wrong might be able, a little at a time, to make things go right.
 

“Maybe.
 

“Why is it us, the Naile family? Ellen and I don’t have a clue.
 

“Our advice?
 

“We have no advice to give you, really.
 

“It would be wrong to tell you specifically what happens; or, at least, we think it is/was/will be.
 

Anyway, just reading this will change your future in the past.
 

“I think.
 

“Suffice it to say, we can note three things which will hopefully ease your mind:
 

“1. Love does endure beyond the confines of time.
 

“2. Keep your faith in your family.
 

“3. Cheat time; you’re good, but not as good as
 

the knight of the sorrowful countenance. Bring the
 

Seecamp.
 

  
“Point three is included because I believe that I am dying and wish for you to avoid that fate; there is still too much to do.”
 

Lizzie looked up and there were tears at the corners of her eyes. “It’s signed ‘Sincerely, who else but me/you?’ He was—you—dying?!”
 

Ellen folded her daughter into her arms.
 

Jack cleared his throat.
 

The reference to the knight was, obviously, to Jack’s fascination with Richard Boone’s character in the television series Have Gun—Will Travel.
 

Jack, his voice little more than a whisper, said, “Shine the flashlight on my hand.” David and Lizzie turned the two flashlights on the palm of their father’s right hand. In it was the little pistol he had carried for so long and had thought about leaving behind: the Seecamp .32.
 

David moved the flashlight to shine on the palm of his hand. He held part of a wall outlet. “Just like the ones in the Suburban.”
 

Lizzie was into full-scale tears. David—almost tentatively—touched at his sister’s shoulder. Ellen felt Jack’s head come to rest against her own.
 

CHAPTER
FOUR
 

There were two messages waiting for them at the motel. The first was from Arthur Beach. Jack read it aloud, raising his voice over the drumming rain cascading down on three sides of them from the covered portico where the Suburban was parked outside the motel lobby.
 

“I finally discovered ownership of the property in question. I can’t imagine how you wouldn’t have known, since, from the name at least, the owner would sound to be a relative. The listed ownership is Horizon Enterprises. Horizon is a corporation wholly owned by Alan Naile. Because of the similarity of names, I checked back on Horizon Enterprises. It was founded just prior to World War I by someone who bore the name David Naile. And get this! His father’s name was Jack Naile, possibly the same Jack Naile who owned the store in Atlas! I’m digging for more information.
 

“I’ll look forward to hearing from you soon.”
 

Jack Naile handed the note to his wife through the open window of the Suburban.
 

“Note number two reads as follows: ‘Call at once. Needed on set for rewrites. Dislocated shoulder is actually broken collarbone and production is stalled.’ The director, the executive producer and one of the vice-presidents of the studio have their names at the bottom.”
 

“Should we start driving back tonight?” Lizzie asked, leaning over her mother’s left shoulder from the middle seat.
 

“I can drive,” David volunteered.
 

“I know you can, son, but the weather would be with us for several hundred miles. It’d be foolhardy, David. But thanks for volunteering.”
 

“Jack?”
 

Jack Naile looked at his wife. “What, kid?”
 

“They’ll send a helicopter that would fly us to Reno or Sacramento, won’t they?”
 

“Yeah,” he sighed, instantly seeing the implication of his wife’s words. They would have to leave the Suburban behind. It would have been smarter to go to their rooms, get the gear they needed out of the Suburban and sit down as a family and talk it out, where they could be warm and dry. Instead he asked, “What do you guys think? Should we just sit here and wait it out and leave the movie company stuck, or should we go on with our lives, and when this time shift or whatever the hell it is happens it just happens?”
 

David spoke first. “Well, since I now know the name of my company—Horizon Enterprises—if I can get to a computer, maybe I can find out what it’s worth. Yeah. Let’s do it. If this is going to happen, let’s get on with it.
 

On the plus side, we did get those wall outlets back in time somehow. And we do have a deal with the movie company. If this time shift thing doesn’t take place for a year or so, we can’t go pissing them off.”
 

“David’s right,” Elizabeth chimed in. Her brown eyes looked sad, as best Jack Naile could make out his daughter’s face in the diffuse light from the portico. “This is going to happen, whether we wait here or go back to California, to Bakersfield. Let’s do the right thing.”
 

Ellen’s face glowed, Jack thought. He knew why. And, yes, she hadn’t been thrilled about David and the actress, the thought of, along with her daughter, being time-shifted into second-class-citizen status was eating at her, and her whole world was about to change irrevocably. The reason for the look on her face was pride in her children—and, Jack hoped, in him as well.
 

“Let’s show everybody we’re smart enough to come in out of the rain, huh? David and I’ll get you guys into the rooms and haul in the stuff we’ll need. We can order a couple of pizzas—the guy at the desk said they deliver and the pizzas taste pretty good. Then I’ll call Bakersfield. Agreed?”
 

No one disagreed.
 

Peggy Greer leaned back in her folding chair—the same one she used when they went out into the desert for their experiments with electricity—and stretched. The computer had yielded up all that she knew to ask of it.
 

The new cable was as short as possible, the added insulation enough to protect the wiring within from any conceivable loss.
 

Every item of equipment had been checked and rechecked, then checked again.
 

Jane Rogers entered the living room that was their makeshift office. The dining-room table was their indoor equipment-testing station. With every conceivable surface covered with printouts or gear or both, the TV tray Jane carried was practical in the extreme.
 

There were ham sandwiches on two plates, two small bags of potato chips—Jane liked the sour cream and onion variety, which Peggy could not abide—an open bottle of beer with a schooner beside it and a glass of white wine. Dinner.
 

Jane always brought a glass, and Peggy never used it, but Jane was from an era when a woman drinking straight from the bottle was on a par with a woman appearing in public with a cigarette hanging from her lips.
 

Huddled around the tray together, Jane asked, “How’s the weather holding up for tomorrow, Peggy?”
 

“The rain should be gone by midnight or so. In the morning, meteorological conditions should be as close as possible to those prevalent on the day of our one brush with success, when the light array actually flickered. There’s a second storm front like the one just passing, but it’s stalled on the other side of the mountains, which goes to show that sometimes it really does rain in California.”
 

Jane caught the musical reference and laughed softly.
 

“Maybe tomorrow will really be it, Jane.”
 

“For a med student—”
 

“Hey, I have my degree!”
 

“You know what I mean, young lady. For a med student, you also happen to be one heck of a fine physicist.”
 

“I’m a very tired physicist. And, with the rain, I’ll take you up on crashing on your couch.”
 

“Good. Then we can get a really early start in the morning.” Jane nibbled at a potato chip, not yet touching her sandwich.
 

Peggy yawned, covering her hand with her mouth, then implored, “But not too early? Please?” And she bit into her ham sandwich.
 

“Where’s the helicopter going to land, Jack?”
 

“Probably in that open area on the other side of the highway, if the rain has stopped and the ground isn’t too wet. The production company will bring in a guy to drive the Suburban back. He’s bonded. He’s coming in on the helicopter. I’ll have the guns and the attaché case and we’ll be bringing two of the microfiche readers and the video camera. If it happens before we get the Suburban back, at least we’ll have something. And we should have the Suburban back in under a day.”
 

Jack rolled over onto his left side, and Ellen rolled over behind him, resting her right hand over his abdomen. Almost invariably, they slept naked, tonight no exception. Sometimes, when the weather was very warm, the heat from Jack’s body could be a little much; but, with the rain, the temperatures had cooled enough that they wouldn’t really have needed air-conditioning in the room. But they were both fanatics for fresh air and, failing the option of opening a window while they slept, on would go the air-conditioning. Ambient temperature in their motel room was close to frigid; tonight she was happy for the warmth of her husband’s body, as Ellen knew that Jack was for hers.