Time Lost: A Time Travel Novel, page 14
Pulsing with anxiety, and drained from recounting her story, Sally waited, her hands busy with the napkin. Would Bert think she was crazy? Would he ridicule her? Would he call the police? His face told her nothing.
Time seemed to taunt her as the living room mantle clock ticked, loud, in the infinite silence.
Finally, Bert looked at her and his eyes wouldn’t let her go.
“Do you believe me, Bert?” she said, aware it was a plea for help. “I feel like a drunken woman, and everything is spinning around. I keep thinking that maybe I’m crazy, but if that’s true, can insanity explain all of it? I just don’t think so.”
Breathing softly, Bert finally spoke. “And you said your doctor, a psychiatrist, told you that a CIA agent wanted to speak to you?”
Sally nodded.
Bert shook his head in disgust. “So that’s why you were out in the storm. That knucklehead from the hospital tossed you out of his car.”
Sally’s eyes misted. “I don’t understand it, Bert. Why me?”
“And you saw the same alien from 1953 outside the house last night?”
She nodded again. “I think so. I don’t know for sure.”
Sally leaned forward. “Bert, you don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”
His gaze dropped, then came back up. “No, Sally, I don’t think you’re crazy. I’m going to be honest with you and say, I don’t know what the hell happened to you, but you’re not crazy. I’ve heard about people being abducted by aliens. Some years ago, a student of mine told me he’d been abducted. Maybe I should have believed him, but I didn’t.”
Sally looked down and away. “I just want to see my kids… My grown kids. I want to tell them what happened, and that I didn’t abandon them, and that I still love them.”
Bert stood up, giving a tug to his suspenders. “Sally… Have you thought what it might do to them, when they see you like you were seventy years ago? You haven’t changed, but they have. They’re about my age. It will be quite a shock. It would be one helluva shock to me if my young mother knocked on my door and told me she had time traveled seventy years into the future. It’s a real risky thing, Sally.”
“I know, but I’ve just got to see them, Bert. I’ve just got to.”
He thought about it, turning his head to look outside. “Well, I suppose I could use an adventure. I haven’t had one in years. You said you want to see your son first, in Florida?”
“Yes. He will remember the lights. I know it. My daughter, Mary, has Alzheimer’s. Do you know what that is?”
Bert looked at her soberly. “Yes, Sally, I do. She probably won’t remember you, young or old.”
Sally breathed in and let it out in a rush. “Yes, that’s what the doctor said.”
Sunlight fled the room as dark clouds appeared.
“Okay, then. Let’s pack a bag. I’ll book us a flight to the nearest airport to Fort Pierce, and then we’ll see what happens. Oh, wait a minute. Do you have any ID, Sally?”
She shook her head. “No. The police took my purse.”
Bert pocketed his hands and sighed. “Okay… Well, I guess we’ll have to drive it, then. But that’s okay. It will be a good old-fashioned road trip.”
Sally shot to her feet, her face coming alive. “Oh, my heavens, Bert. Will you? Will you take me?”
The joy in her face cheered him. “Yes, Sally, I will. I haven’t had a good jolt like this since I won the lottery eight years ago.”
“You won a lottery?”
He winked at her. “Oh, yeah. Twenty bucks.”
CHAPTER 28
That afternoon, Bert insisted they drive to the mall so Sally could purchase toiletries and clothing.
“You can’t wear that same outfit every day, Sally. I’ll get tired of looking at you,” he said with a grin.
“But I have no money, Bert, and I can’t ask you to pay for everything.”
“Don’t worry about it. Someday, maybe you’ll buy me a new fishing rod and a bucket of worms. Anyway, you’ve got to look pretty when you meet your son, don’t you?”
At the mall, Sally bought underwear, capris, jeans, shorts, a sweatshirt, a jacket, three t-shirts, two blouses, a pair of sandals, and some makeup. It took her a while to figure out the sizes, but Bert waited patiently after he’d bought himself a pair of Bermuda shorts, two polo shirts and a pair of white sneakers.
Sally and Bert set off for Fort Pierce, Florida, early the next morning, Sally nervous, Bert as excited as a kid heading for a circus. As they hit the open road on I-65, Sally was astonished by the vast super highways with their twisting ramps and bridges, and how well-maintained they were. The racing speeds frightened her, the endless car models baffled her, and the extravagant rest areas made her laugh.
“I could have never imagined this, Bert,” Sally said. “None of it. None of those telephones you carry with you, and the computers and those huge jet airplanes.”
“Do you know what, Sally? You’re making me see the world in new ways; I’m seeing things I took for granted and never really noticed. I feel like a kid again.”
“I was thinking,” Sally said. “What about your art students? You’ll be missing your art classes.”
“It’s okay. I don’t ask them for a set fee or anything. We meet at the Senior Citizens Center, and they pay what they want. So, I emailed them and said I needed a vacation, and I’d be in touch. No big deal, Sally.”
Weather on the first day was perfect—clear skies and a cool, gentle breeze. Bert played country music from his playlist and sang along as they drove past scenic meadows and rolling hills.
Outside Nashville, Tennessee, they checked into a quaint motel called Melody Inn, which had a live country band playing in the courtyard. While they ate dinner on the patio, Sally and Bert tapped their feet to the music and, after dessert, they crowded onto the floor and danced to the song Cowboy Casanova.
They retired to separate rooms and were up at dawn, ready to go. After breakfast, they drove off into a light rain, rolling through the lush landscapes of Tennessee and Georgia. Sally’s nerves eased as she became acclimated to freeway driving and listened to Bert’s stories of his “young and wild” days. Once he nearly burned the house down while conducting a science experiment in the basement of his parents’ house.
Sally admitted that she’d wanted to go to college but had become a wife and a mother instead.
“What did you want to study, Sally? What did you truly want to do after college?” Bert asked.
Sally looked at him with a wistful smile. “I wanted to be a journalist.”
“Really? A journalist?”
“Yes… Of course, I never told anybody, but I wanted to be like Anne O’Hare McCormick or Lee Miller. Have you heard of them?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“I read about them in Life magazine. I was so amazed by their courage. Anne McCormick interviewed everybody: Hitler and Stalin and Churchill and Roosevelt. She wrote for The New York Times and was the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of her.”
“So tell me more, Sally. Enlighten me.”
“You must have heard of Lee Miller?”
“No, Sally. I don’t know her either.”
Sally glowed with enthusiasm. “Her real name was Elizabeth. She had a wild life. She started out as a model, but she became a photographer and a war correspondent during World War II for Vogue Magazine. She photographed nurses all over Europe, but also went to liberated concentration camps… and there’s even a picture of her in Hitler’s bathtub, in his apartment in Munich. He wasn’t there, of course. He was in some bunker with Eva Braun, committing suicide.”
Bert kept his hands on top of the steering wheel, driving in the right lane, a light mist making the world blurry. He glanced at her with admiration. “Well, I’ll Google them both, Sally. See, you’re a good influence on an old guy who thought he knew everything there was to know,” he said, flashing his signature lopsided grin.
Sally eased back in her seat. “I was living in such a small world, Bert, and now, this world seems so big and mysterious.”
“Well, do you know what, Sally? Once you’ve seen your son, you have some big decisions to make. You’ll have to make your way in this new world and you’re going to need help to do it. With the right help, you just might be able to go to college and become that journalist you wanted to be.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Bert, but I’m smart enough to know that there are people out there, people who work for the government, and they believe my story—that I came from 1953. They’ll be waiting for us in Fort Pierce.”
“Then don’t go. Let’s go somewhere else. Fool them.”
“I’ve got to see my son, Bert.”
Bert tapped off the music, his expression earnest. “Sally… I don’t know if what happened to you has ever happened before. Maybe it has—it probably has—but who’s going to know, except maybe some covert CIA agency? And if they do take you away, who in this world is going to know what happened to you?”
CHAPTER 29
“Are you trying to scare me, Bert?” Sally asked.
“No. I’m just thinking out loud. I had a physics professor in college who told us to always keep an open mind about science and life. So that’s what I’m doing. The bigger part of me doesn’t believe your story of alien transport and time travel, but another part of me is open to it. Now, let’s say I believe you, even eighty percent. Okay, fine. I know you want to see your son, but let’s think about this thing another way. Why should you let yourself be taken by the CIA, or whomever, and then be questioned and pushed and pulled and controlled, when you could simply fade into the background, set up roots in some small town somewhere and start a new life?”
Sally gazed out her window at a distant row of condos that all looked the same. “I want to go back home, Bert. That’s what I really want. I want to go back to my kids when they were children, and I want to raise them and be a part of their lives.”
“And go back to your husband?”
“I don’t know,” Sally said. “I just don’t know what I should do.”
For lunch they stopped in Georgia at a family-run roadside barbecue joint called Southern Smokes. Sitting outside at a picnic table, they shared finger-licking ribs, brisket, and golden fries. Sally commented on the two energetic waitresses with tattoos and heavy Southern accents, and the loud clashing rock music.
“This world is so different from the one I left, Bert. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it.”
Bert sat across from her, licking barbecue sauce from his fingers. And then he surprised her with a suggestion. “Sally, my younger brother has a beach house in Ormond Beach, not so far away. I could call him, and you could stay there for a while. He and his wife won’t come to Florida until after Thanksgiving, so the house is free. His son, my nephew Terry, is one of the owners of a very successful tech company. I won’t go into what that means, since you probably wouldn’t understand it, but he’s a whizz kid, as they say, and by kid, I should clarify that he’s thirty-nine years old. I bet Terry could help you build a new identity, with a new name, a passport, a driver’s license, and a Social Security number. There’s no guarantee, of course, I’d have to ask him, but we always got along, and he’s recently divorced, which means he might jump at the distraction. If I explained all or part of your situation, I think he would help.”
Tipping the soda can, Sally poured the last of her Coca-Cola and watched it fizz over the ice. “Why? Why would he help me?”
“Because I would ask him, as I said, and because I think he would find your situation more than just interesting. And, anyway, it would give you another choice.”
“And what would I do for money?”
“I’ll loan you some until you can pay me back.”
“And what if I can never pay you back?”
Bert shrugged. “Then, so far, I’ve had one helluva good time, and spending the money is well worth it.”
Sally reached for a French fry and paused before putting it into her mouth. “I don’t know.”
“Sally, when we get to your son’s house in Fort Pierce, if what you say is true, and if the CIA is waiting for you there, you will be picked up and you’ll never be permitted to speak to your son. They can’t allow it. Surely, you understand that. They can’t let this—your situation—your very strange situation—leak out into the world.”
Sally propped her elbow on the table and placed her chin in a palm, looking sullen and discouraged.
“You’re a beautiful young woman, Sally. You’ll have unlimited possibilities. You can go to college and have the career you never had. In 2023, women have career options that were unthinkable in 1953. You’ll find a good man, fall in love, and have another family.”
He leaned toward her. “Sally… I think it’s best if you face reality. Your life in the past is over. It’s sad, yes, but it’s gone. For whatever the reason, you’re now living in 2023, and you have your whole life in front of you.”
As they approached the Florida state line, the weather cleared, and they were greeted with sunshine and blue skies. Sally had not spoken for miles, aware that time was running out, and she’d soon have to make a decision that would radically change her life, no matter what she chose.
Sally and Bert stopped for the night at the small coastal town of Seaside Serenity, near St. Augustine. At a rambling motel with an electric, green-and-yellow sign that read Ocean Breeze Lodge, they checked into separate rooms.
At sunset, Sally left her motel room and took a leisurely stroll across the sand, wading into the foaming ocean surf for the first time in her life. She inhaled the salty air and gazed out at the horizon, crimson and golden. The vast, rolling ocean was as much a mystery as her own life, and her mind was rolling and pitching like the sea.
When night descended and stars twinkled, and the ocean tide rolled in, Sally sat on the beach, pulled her knees to her chest, and wrapped them with her arms. Would Don believe her, or would he think she was some crazy woman? Mary had already left the world, her mind and surely most of her memories gone.
Bert was right, of course. Her past was over. Ronnie had been dead for over twenty years and her children had moved on with their lives long ago. She had vanished in 1953, and she was a nobody in 2023, but a curiosity, a freak to be captured, locked up and studied like some laboratory creature.
As her thoughts rambled, she felt the rise of warm possibility and muted excitement when she considered the new world. Could she go to college? Could she become a journalist? Could she meet a man and fall in love, truly fall in love this time?
She leaned back, stared up into the sky and saw a big, glittering star. Make a wish, Sally. Make a wish with all your heart, and pray it comes true.
A moment later, the wind blew as if from out of the past, and with a cold feeling, Sally pushed up and returned to her room.
CHAPTER 30
The New Mexico night was cold, the stars close, the full moon white on the horizon.
Standing outside a gray airplane hangar in a top-secret area, Kara Gonne and Ayita wore winter coats, hats, and gloves. Ayita gazed up into the wide expanse of sky and smiled. “So many stars. So many galaxies, and so many mysteries.”
“How was your trip?” Kara asked.
“Smooth skies. Didn’t see any UAPs,” Ayita said, joking.
Kara glanced over. “Funny.”
“So, Sally Mason is MIA,” Ayita said. “A no-show at Fort Pierce and St. Louis?”
“I waited four days in Florida. We still have personnel at both locations.”
“Maybe she’s sick or waiting you out. She knows you’re searching for her.”
“She’s had help,” Kara said, tugging gently on her right hooped earring.
Ayita locked her hands behind her back. “Any theories who it might be?”
“Random. Has to be. She had nothing when she left. Just the clothes on her back. No money or ID when that idiot hospital orderly kicked her out of his car. Has to be random. And I think Sally Mason is smarter than I thought she was.”
“And are you sure she’s alive?”
“You’re the psychic, Ayita. You tell me.”
“Not my specialty. Do you want to hear my remote view report, or should we wait for Morgan?” Ayita asked.
“We should wait, but I’m anxious,” Kara said, turning to face her.
Ayita smiled. “I finally had a conversation with my grandfather and told him what remote viewing is.”
“Why?”
“He asked me. He’s a retired engineer… very left brain, a non-believer in anything he can’t touch, tinker with, or see, and he’s not well. My mother told him about it, and he said he wanted to talk to me. So, before I left, I went to see him.”
Kara glanced over to see three F-35 fighter jets parked side by side near the hangar. They were single-engine stealth fighter aircraft with an angular design, sharp edges, and smooth surfaces. In the dim light spilling out from inside the hangar, they appeared ominous, futuristic, and lethal.
“And how did you tell him about remote viewing?” Kara asked. “Even my ex-CIA husband was wary of it, calling it pseudoscientific and paranormal.”
“Well, I kept it simple, and I gave him the textbook explanation, that it’s the paranormal ability to perceive a remote or hidden subject without the support of the senses. I said, some people can perceive information about a location, a person, or an event without using their regular physical senses; they can get impressions about a distant or unseen subject simply by sensing it with their mind.”
“And did he toss you out of his house?” Kara asked, amused.
“No, but his eyes glazed over. We sat in wicker chairs on his porch, and I held his hand.”
