Killing Time It was an ominous night in New York City. Dave looked around uneasily, wondering what sort of things would be lurking in the shadows in this area of the city. “Are you sure it’s completely safe here?” he asked, trying not to think about how far they still had to go. “Of course I’m sure!” his friend Jon answered, walking ahead with purpose, “It’s not the worst part of town! Just not the cleanest.” “Oh, you’re sure, huh? Just like you were absolutely sure that the apartment was just beyond that intersection?” “Hey, hey, man! We’ve been over this. I just had the wrong intersection that time. It’s a little tougher to tell them apart in the dark. But this route should get us there in a couple minutes tops!” “Yeah…” Dave answered, still looking around uneasily. It definitely wasn’t the nicest part of town. Actually, it looked like the kind of rough neighborhood where all the drug dealers had their home base and the little kids all learned how to pick pockets. The smell of a nearby Dumpster was in the air and a stray cat with half a tail was pawing through the trash and broken beer bottles on the ground next to an overturned trash can. “I don’t know,” Dave said, just louder than a whisper, “This place doesn’t look too safe to me. I feel like we could get attacked at any moment by some gang of chainsaw murderers.” “That’s ridiculous!” Jon scoffed, “You’re just being paranoid.” He thought for a moment. “Besides, what kind of idiot would try to kill a chainsaw?” Dave sighed and shook his head, trying not to smile. Jon was a good friend, if a little unreliable, and hanging around him was certainly never boring. A bit on the muscular side, Jon's good looks, charm, and general personality always made him the life of the party. Even if there was no "party" strictly speaking, that never deterred Jon. He would just create one. A tight T-shirt was his only protection against the onsetting cold of the autumn night, but he seemed blissfully unaware of it, as always. His unruly blond head contrasted with Dave's short, orderly dark brown hair. Dave was the lankier of the two, a bit too pale, and peering through glasses that would have looked nerdy on some people, but gave him the appearance of being only slightly smarter than average. “Come on,” Dave said, “are you trying to tell me this doesn’t give you the creeps at all?” “The only creeps around these parts are those dang New York Yankees!” Jon violently spit his gum out on the ground. “Red Sox all the way, man! Now come on, let’s just keep moving and we’ll be outta here that much quicker.” They kept walking through the darkness. There weren’t many lights in the area and several of the nearby buildings looked like they’d been abandoned for years. The place was eerily silent except for the sound of their footsteps and Jon whistling a happy tune. Dave got busy trying to distract himself, imagining how nice it would feel to get some shut-eye back at the dorm. He had almost succeeded in putting his surroundings out of his mind when he heard a voice to one side that made him nearly jump out of his skin. “Excuse me, sirs!” Dave froze in fear as a dirty old man came trudging out of a dark alley. “Oh,” he mumbled, seeing the look of alarm on Dave’s face, “didn’t mean to startle you, young man. I was wondering: could you spare any food? Or money, perhaps? I’m afraid I have no place to go home to.” He certainly looked the part of a homeless man with his long, unkempt white hair and beard. He was thin as a scarecrow and wore an unusual brown hooded robe that was torn and filthy. It looked like something the monks from the Middle Ages would have worn. Still not quite recovered from the initial shock, Dave fished a candy bar out of his pocket and thrust it toward the unusual-looking man along with a few dollar bills and some loose change. “Here, take this. I think we should get going now.” The old man grinned, showing crooked, yellow teeth. “Thank you very much, sir, you’ve been very kind. You have a good night now.” “You too,” Dave stammered, backing away cautiously and grabbing Jon’s arm. “Let’s get going.” “No arguments there,” Jon replied. They started walking away as the old man opened the wrapper on his candy bar. Jon leaned over and whispered, “See? What did I tell you? Nothing to worry about. The old fart seems harmless enough. It’s not like he would have tried to attack two of us when there’s only one of him.” They were several yards away, when they heard the old man start coughing violently. At first, Dave didn’t think much of it, but something didn’t sound right. The man just kept hacking until it sounded like he would cough up his internal organs. Dave looked over his shoulder to see the man bent over and vigorously hitting himself in the stomach. “Do you think he’s all right?” Jon asked uneasily. “I think he’s choking!” Dave yelled, suddenly sprinting toward the man, “Hey! Don’t panic! I’m coming!” As Jon caught up to him, they started slapping the man on the back, trying to dislodge the piece of the candy bar stuck in his throat. “Not working! What do we do?! Do you know the…the…Heimlich?” Jon screamed. “Hang on!” Dave shouted back, wrapping his arms around the man’s stomach. He desperately tried the abdominal thrusts he had learned long ago, but there was something wrong with his technique. Why wouldn’t it work? Maybe he was squeezing the wrong area! He kept pushing harder as Jon kept hitting the poor man, until it must have looked like they were trying to abduct him. Good thing there were no passersby. The man had stopped coughing and was now turning blue. In a growing state of panic, Dave swung the victim around and accidentally bashed his head against a brick wall. “Oh! No!” he yelled, as the old man went limp in his arms, knocked out cold by the blow. He let go and the man sagged to the ground. “Wha…what? Is he still alive?” Jon was breathing heavily now. Dave put his ear against the man’s chest. There was a faint heartbeat, but he knew the man was fading fast. He tried some more useless abdominal thrusts. In less than a minute, the man was gone. “He’s…dead…” Dave murmured wearily. “Uh…well… at least he was unconscious when it happened…right? Not such a bad way to go.” They stood in silence for a minute, staring at the body and the eyes nearly popping out of its head. “So…what do we do now?” Jon spoke up tentatively. “Uh…I guess we have to get someone to come and take the body. And find out who he is so we can let his family know. Uh…hmm. Come on, let’s search him and see if he’s got any kind of ID.” They went through his clothes and found nothing but a neat stack of business cards in one pocket, held together with a rubber band and ready to be distributed to potential clients. “This seems a little weird,” Dave said, “Why would a homeless guy be carrying these around?” Jon took one and squinted at it. “It says the guy’s name is Father Time. Oh, that’s just great! We killed Father Time! What are we going to tell the cops?” Dave peered at the man’s body again. “Well, he’s certainly dressed for the part. And he looks it too.” Jon grunted. “The guy would have done better posing as Santa Claus. If he were fatter, anyway.” Dave got up and looked around uneasily. “Well, I guess we’ve got to go find the nearest police station or something. Maybe there’s—“ There was a noise in the distance like a two-ton wrecking ball being dropped on the concrete, followed by a roar. “What was that?” Jon looked around nervously for the source of the sound. “There it is again!” Dave whispered as the noise repeated itself several times over, seemingly getting closer. It almost sounded like…giant footsteps. Suddenly, several screams came from the distance. “This is starting to sound like a very bad horror movie,” Jon moaned. The sound was very close by now and more screams were coming. The ground vibrated under their feet. “Ahh…let’s get outta here!” Jon yelled, grabbing Dave’s arm. Dave didn’t need much convincing. They both ran back the way they had come, nearly tripping over their own feet. Dave risked a glance over his shoulder and nearly passed out at the sight that greeted him. “Holy……crap!” Plodding along behind them was what looked like a very hungry, very bad-tempered tyrannosaurus rex. It stopped for a moment, casually sniffing the area, taking some interest in the dead body on the street. Then Dave and Jon, sprinting in front of it, caught its eye. It growled viciously and followed its prey with less-than-benevolent intentions. “It’s seen us!” Dave bellowed, cold sweat running down his face, “What do we do?” He ducked as the monster lunged at him, its gaping jaws coming up just short, until he could feel the wind from the movement. The stench of fresh meat on the tyrannosaurus’s breath filled his nostrils. The T-rex hesitated for a moment, expecting to have captured its prey, as its jaws closed down on nothing. Dave used the moment of reprieve to put some distance between himself and his pursuer, running faster than he ever knew he could. By this time, Jon was a few yards ahead of him. At least one of them had a fighting chance. He didn’t dare look back over his shoulder as he heard an irritated roar from behind him, followed by the heavy sound of footsteps. In desperation, he wildly looked around for something, anything, he could use as a weapon. His eyes fixed on a trash can set out near the sidewalk. Well, it would just have to do. He pushed it over, spilling the contents on the street in front of the predator, then picked it up and heaved it toward the massive thing. The can hit it squarely on the forehead. That slowed it down momentarily as it roared and stopped to see where the projectile had come from. The monster was a good distance behind him when it resumed the chase, but Dave knew he had to come up with a more permanent solution or he and Jon were both dead. His mind raced at the speed of light as he desperately searched for some kind of plan that seemed painfully obvious, but just out of reach. They certainly couldn’t outrun it for long, he knew that much. But weren’t dinosaurs attracted by movement and sound? If something ran, their killer instinct would immediately surface. He made a split-second decision and dove into a nearby alley, dodging a swipe of the giant head behind him. He ducked behind a Dumpster, grabbed a soda can from the ground, and hurled it past the T-rex’s nose in a desperate effort to distract it. The ploy worked momentarily as the creature followed after it, giving Dave a chance to curl into a ball and hide himself under a few sheets of newspaper. Now, he just had to hope that Jon had been able to find somewhere to lay low for awhile. He lay there trembling, listening for the massive footsteps on the pavement. By this time, it must have decided that the soda can was not edible. For a moment, there was a deafening silence. Then the footsteps picked up again, as the T-rex tried to sniff out its prey. The sound was definitely getting closer, he realized in horror. He was completely trapped. The monster was surely blocking the entrance to the alley. He was paralyzed with fear as he distantly wondered what death would be like. Suddenly there was a terrible roar as the monster was apparently struck by something, which it went chasing after. Dave risked a peek around the Dumpster and saw the shattered remains of a glass bottle lying on the ground where it had apparently hit the T-rex. He looked further ahead, onto the street, and saw Jon standing there, just staring in amazement, as if unable to believe that the thing was really racing toward him. Dave cried out, “Jon!” Jarred by Dave’s voice, Jon came to his senses and ran for his life. However, the loud yell had gotten the T-rex’s attention. It turned around to face Dave, showing surprising maneuverability for something that size. As it turned, its tail whipped around and clouted Jon on the shoulder, completely knocking him over. He lay still there. Dave had more pressing problems at the moment, with the T-rex galloping in his direction. He ran out of the alley to avoid getting trapped again and grabbed the lid of a garbage can. He held it in front of him like a shield as the predator reached him and tried to close its jaws over his head. The clang of the T-rex’s face smashing into the lid rang through the air, forcing Dave to open his eyes. He couldn’t see the thing behind his shield but it seemed dazed, so he struck out blindly with the lid and scored again as the monster roared in pain. He darted over to where Jon lay and gave him a shove. “Jon, get up!” Jon only grunted and fluttered his eyelids a bit. The Tyrannosaurus had recovered by this time and continued the chase, more furious than ever. “Jon!” Dave hissed, trying to drag his friend with him. He gave up instantly. Jon’s dead weight slowed him down too much. The only thing he could do was try to lead the T-rex away from Jon. After all, Dave was as good as dead anyway. At least this way, one of them might survive. He gave a yell as loud as he could manage, to draw the T-rex’s attention, and jumped out of the way as it dove toward him. The thing seemed to have forgotten about Jon for the moment. Dave ran, but knew he was completely out of ideas. He still had the dented trash can lid, but he couldn’t hold the monster off with that indefinitely. He tried opening a door into one of the nearby buildings. It was locked, as he knew it would be. He kept running straight ahead and then… He was no longer on a city street. Piercing sunlight blinded him. It was not night anymore, he realized. His eyes adjusted to the light just enough for him to see a cliff ahead, overlooking a waterfall. He came to an abrupt stop just in time to avoid running over the edge. Where in the world was he? His first thought was that he must be dead, but that theory was thrown out when he turned around and saw the T-rex still chasing after him. It saw the cliff too, but its incredible weight and momentum made it unable to stop as it plummeted over the edge and disappeared into the churning water. Dave sat there for a moment, huffing and puffing and staring at the staggering hundred-foot drop below him. He decided it might be time to back away from the cliff now and then collapsed on his back in sheer exhaustion. A few clouds drifted past in the bright blue sky as he watched a few birds flying peacefully. It was a beautiful day. But this place couldn’t be real. The ground under him felt solid, though. He sat up and hit the grass with his fist experimentally. It still felt exactly like normal grass. He glanced back the way he had come, afraid of what he might see. There was nothing there except trees. It looked like the outskirts of a forest, nothing out of the ordinary. Dave felt a wave of panic wash over him, contrasting oddly with the relief he felt over still being alive. What if he was trapped here? What if he really was dead and the T-rex had somehow died at the same time? Maybe a nuclear explosion or something of that sort had killed them. The idea sounded ridiculous, but after running from a dinosaur and being teleported somewhere else entirely in an instant, an explosion didn’t sound very far-fetched. Cautiously, he walked toward the trees, back the way he had come, with his arm outstretched in front of him. His hand abruptly disappeared. He cried out in terror and reeled backward, falling and landing hard on his rear. He sat bolt upright, looked at his arm, and breathed a heavy sigh of relief to see that it was completely whole. After flexing his fingers a bit, the hand still seemed to work fine. Dave picked himself up after the momentary shock had passed, and walked toward the spot where his hand had disappeared, still a bit apprehensive. Reaching down, he picked up a pebble and tossed it in front of him. It also disappeared, at about the same spot that his hand had. He struggled with indecision for a moment, but decided he didn’t have any better ideas for getting out of this place. Closing his eyes, he forced himself to walk forward while his heart threw itself against the walls of his rib cage over and over. He stopped after a few steps and cracked open his eyes. There was New York in front of him, just the way he had left it, minus the hungry dinosaur. He allowed himself a huge smile, for the first time in what seemed like days. He was back! Turning around, he saw no sign of the cliff he had just left. Had it all been a dream? Just a random hallucination? He put his hand out toward the spot where he had been standing and it became invisible again, along with his arm as it plunged into the space. It must be some kind of portal to that other place, he decided, before hastily drawing his arm back from the invisible wall. So it wasn’t a dream after all. A cold knot formed in the pit of his stomach. What had happened to Jon? He gave a strangled yell as someone grabbed him violently from behind. “Dave! Dave, you’re back, man!” “Jon?” Dave managed to form that one word while trying to wiggle his way out of the crushing bear hug. “Jon? It is you! Thank God, I thought you…!” Jon finally let him go, beaming like a little kid, “So what the crap happened to you? Am I seeing things now?” “Uh, I don’t…” “I mean, I remember getting a little banged up,” he said, fingering the bruise on his head, “and then when I got up, you and the… uh, that thing were gone. And I thought I’d fallen asleep on the street and dreamed it all. Like I’d gotten really drunk or something. Which seemed weird since I don’t drink.” Good thing. Jon always acted half-drunk, a strangely endearing quality of his, even without the aid of alcohol. A drunken Jon would have been enough to… Dave suppressed a shudder and set to work derailing that train of thought. “But then, I saw you just appear out of nowhere. And I thought, uh… well, I guess you know that part already.” There was a long silence as Dave exhaled slowly. "Dang. And I was hoping it was just me going crazy." He had to smile at that. "Strange thing to hope for, isn't it?" "Ehhh. Not considering the situation," Jon shrugged. He cleared his throat, showing a rare sign of nervousness. "So, uhh... you mind telling me where you skipped off to?" "I wish I knew. No. No, on second thought, I might be happier not knowing." A bit hesitantly, he relayed the story to Jon, who nodded and made appropriate grunts in all the right places. "So," he said striding over to the spot where Dave had emerged, "you think it's still...?" Dave moved to intercept him, "Wait! I'm not so sure that would be..." "You went through it, didn't you? No ruptured organs there, right? Come on, it'll be fun!" Although his eyes conveyed a slightly different meaning in their rapid shifting back and forth. "Anyway, we have to know, don't we? You'll never quit worrying about it otherwise." Ignoring Dave's defeated sigh, he turned to face the spot possibly occupied by the portal, put on his most intimidating game face, and leaped forward. He abruptly disappeared in midair. "Jon?" Dave raced to the spot where his friend had been erased from existence, being very careful not to go too far forward. "Jon." Staring into space, he furiously chewed on the inside of his lip, nearly drawing blood. "Jon. You're not just gonna leave me standing here. Don't make me go and get help! Because I'll-- gahhhhhhhhh!" He started to turn and run--too late--as a disembodied hand shot out of the nowhere in front of him and seized his shoulder, jerking him into the invisible door. END OF CHAPTER 1 Chapter 2 is also posted so make sure to check that out!
Copyright © 2006 Kyle J Douglas |