TIME TRIPPERS: AWARENESS
CHAPTER 1: TIMELY DISCOVERY
A time machine.
That would solve everything, Carrie Waterson decided. If she had a time
machine, then she could make an appearance at Julie’s party tonight, and then
later on, travel back in time to now. This meant that her future self would end
up back here in her room, on the off chance that her father came to check on
her later. For that matter, Carrie mused, there would also be the fringe
benefit that she would then get a full night’s sleep before tomorrow’s math
test.
Oh well – her
dad probably wouldn’t check. In fact, it was wouldn’t even be a problem if she
hadn’t accidentally let slip about the party during dinner earlier this week.
Seeing as, generally speaking, her dad remained wonderfully oblivious to most
of her comings and goings, and indeed, her whole social life. Now, if she’d still had a mother, maybe
her mother would have paid more attention...
“But you don’t,
so let’s get on with it,” the blonde teenager muttered aloud to herself.
She raised her bedroom window, and
poked her head out, glancing around the backyard.
No one was around.
Not surprising, with it being a Thursday night in late September, but
since the yard opened right out into a ravine, one could never be sure what
people (or small animals) might be wandering around.
After briefly
adjusting the strap of the small purse she had slung over her shoulder, Carrie
made her way onto the roof, and over to the oak tree. It was then with practiced ease that she
climbed down via the branches, despite how her hair was nearly long enough to
reach her waist, and her somewhat impractical choice of attire. This being a slightly cropped top, and
a skirt that only just reached her knees.
But you didn’t show up to a party thrown by the richest girl in town
wearing a long sleeved T-shirt with torn jeans. Particularly not when you had
been declared the head cheerleader for the school year.
Carrie couldn’t
help but smirk a little at that thought, as she dropped to the ground. She
wasn’t even part of the graduating class, however even as a junior, her
athletic ability already surpassed most, if not all of the seniors. Add to that
the fact that she was in the right social circles, and well, it had really been
a foregone conclusion. So with her
reputation, she could be forgiven for showing up while wearing her running
shoes, which would be more practical for traversing the ravine than any sort of
heels. Not showing up at all though – that would be harder to explain away.
Especially since Julie was also her best friend.
The blonde
hooked some errant strands of her long hair back behind her ear, and adjusted
the blue hairband she wore, before quickly sprinting across the backyard and
into the cover of the trees in the ravine. She glanced briefly back towards the
house, seeing the light was still on in the den. Maybe her dad would be so into
writing his latest set of short stories that she would be back before he even
went to bed. That would be helpful.
Finally completely
turning her back on the house, she headed down into the band of greenery that
cut a swath through the small Canadian town in which she lived. There were some
paths, to be sure, but they weren’t always obvious, so one had to take care not
to trip on a root, or fall and twist an ankle. Despite this, and the fact that
it was growing ever darker, Carrie was able to make good time. She knew the
routes well, having lived in this town all her life, having explored around the
area when she was younger. Her current trajectory would lead her out to the
park on the other side. From
there, party central was just a few blocks away.
Carrie put her
track and field abilities to good use as she hurried through the underbrush. So it wasn't long before she saw the
park through the trees ahead.
However, in her haste and confident familiarity, Carrie tripped just
before emerging from the wooded area.
She fell to the ground, biting back a cry of surprise. And while managing to break her fall,
she still slid a bit and felt a twinge of pain.
The blonde
quickly turned herself over into a seated position, looking down at her
knees. Sure enough, she'd skinned
one of them. Perhaps she shouldn't
have worn so short a skirt. She
sighed. At least her reflexes had
still been good, and the rest of her seemed fine... but damn it, if there was
one thing she was not, it was clumsy!
How had she fallen?
Something unusual must have tripped her up, maybe an animal or
something. Half annoyed and half
curious, Carrie tossed some of her long hair back off her face, sat up fully
and peered back along her trail to see what had been in her way.
She
blinked. Though it had become
difficult to see in the dark, with the moonlight, Carrie was able to pick out
the outline of a medium sized black box.
Most curious. Carrie
approached to look more closely at it - she was sure it hadn't been there
earlier in the week. The box was a
rectangular prism, but with a digital readout that had been sunken slightly
into the front. It also had a handle on the side, and Carrie's first impression
was that this device was some cross between a computerized slot machine and a
cash register. But the readout didn’t depict cherries or lemons. It just
featured eight numbers – with no indication of a decimal point.
Wait a minute,
Carrie realized upon closer inspection, there was also a slot next to the
readout where you could drop in coins... that could be another reason she was
drawing parallels with slot machines.
But investigating further, Carrie saw nowhere to collect your winnings,
or any other openings. So what was this thing, and why was it here?
She tried
lifting the black box, which turned out to be lighter than she expected.
She shook it.
She couldn't hear any coins inside.
She then ran her hands over the sides
of the machine, which seemed to be surprisingly smooth.
Something about it struck her as being
high-tech, but she couldn't put her finger on what.
Had someone thrown this device away?
After all, it was back in the
underbrush of the ravine near the park, and she couldn't think of any other
reason for it to be here.
Maybe
the thing didn't work.
Which
raised the question of how it was supposed to work.
Carrie decided a few more minutes of inspection wouldn't
hurt at this point.
She looked
closer.
There was an
unexpected flash of light from somewhere in the park behind her, which allowed
Carrie to pick out the outline of a circular panel on the top of the
device. Carrie tossed a quick
glance back over her shoulder but saw nothing unusual, so she returned to her
examination. The panel reminded
her vaguely of her father’s CD player.
This really was a hybrid device.
She pressed the top circular section, wondering if it would open, but
nothing happened. Maybe the
handle? She pulled it down, but
again nothing happened. Perhaps it
worked like an old style jukebox, only activating when you dropped coins into
the slot.
Curiosity
completely piqued by this point, Carrie fished around in the small shoulder
purse she'd brought with her, bringing out a quarter. Potentially a waste of money, but if this thing did play
music or do anything cool, maybe she could present it to everyone at the party
as both an interesting artifact and the reason for her lateness. Carrie plunked her quarter into the
machine. It began humming. This seemed like progress. Carrie pressed on the top. Nothing. She pulled down on the handle. There was a flash of light and Carrie had the sensation of
being sucked into a void. She
screamed.
***
Consciousness
came back to her, slowly. That is,
until Carrie realized where she was, at which point she sat up with a
start. "Dammit!" she
cursed, brushing at the dirt all over her clothes. She'd fallen again!
Wait, no, the earth had dropped away from underneath her! But then why wasn't she down in a hole
somewhere? Carrie looked
around. She was still sitting at
the border of the ravine, yet now she was slightly off the path and in a small
pile of dirt. What the hell had
just happened? Carrie's eyes set
on the black box, which was still in front of her. It had produced a flash of light...
"Damn
thing almost electrocuted me!" Carrie deduced. No wonder it had been thrown away! Her curiosity would be the death of her someday... if only
it didn't seem to come naturally.
Scowling, Carrie picked herself up off the ground, being reminded of her
scraped knee in the process. She
tried to brush the rest of the dirt off of herself but quickly realized that
her clothes could use changing now too.
How many things could go wrong in a single evening? For that matter, how long had she been
unconscious? Carrie checked her
watch: less than an hour. She
should have time for a quick tidy up before taking another run at the party -
since Julie's parents were away again, it would probably continue until 1am
anyway.
Leaving the
stupid box where it was, Carrie hurried out of the wooded area behind her
house, up towards the convenient tree in the backyard. She absently remarked on the fact that
the wind had picked up a bit, so maybe it would be good that she'd be changing
her skirt. Abruptly, Carrie
stopped. This was her
backyard. She turned. But she'd been about to emerge into the
park before she found the device... right? What was she doing back on the wrong side of the ravine?
Carrie's eyes
narrowed. This was starting to
turn into a very weird night.
Perhaps she had wandered towards the house in a semi-dazed state after
receiving that electrical shock?
Dragging the weird box with her?
Well, it was the only explanation she could think of. Anyway, there were more immediate
concerns, she'd figure it out later.
Carrie
clambered up into the tree, slightly favouring her right leg. She soon reached her unlocked window,
opened it, and climbed in onto her desk.
She swung her legs around to hop off... and in the process kicked the
crystal swan she kept there, causing it to fall to the ground and shatter into
a hundred pieces.
Carrie
froze. Her heart constricted. She wasn't upset over the noise she had
just caused, because more than that... she couldn't have just hit the crystal
swan she kept on her desk. That
particular ornament had been broken over two years ago...
It was then
that Carrie heard the movement over in the sheets on her bed. Someone was in her room. No one was supposed to be in here! What the hell was happening?! Carrie sat on the desk, paralyzed in
fear and confusion as whoever was in the bed rolled over, looking in her
direction as they blinked themselves awake. On the desk, Carrie's eyes went wide. Then Carrie let out a scream. But it wasn't the Carrie on the desk
who was screaming. On the
contrary, that Carrie's reflexes were finally kicking in, causing her to get
away by practically falling back out of the window.
Meanwhile, the
Carrie in the bed was tossing her covers aside and rubbing her eyes to try and
clear the sleep from them. There
was a knock at her bedroom door.
"Hey, are you all right in there? Was that you screaming?" her
father called out.
"I..." Carrie stopped, not sure what to
say. Had she really just seen a
figure breaking into her room, or had she been dreaming? Wait, hadn't she closed her window
before going to bed? Carrie
scrambled out of bed and moved towards the window. There was what looked like fresh traces of dirt on the
surface of the desk and the windowsill.
She peered outside. Nothing
immediately apparent, but if the person was quick, they might have run around
the side of the house. Funny, now
that Carrie thought about it, whoever that was, their silhouette had been
strangely familiar. Some friend playing
a trick on her? If so, Carrie
didn't think it was very funny.
"I'm
coming in!" her father suddenly announced. Carrie grabbed a couple of textbooks and stuck them down to
conceal the few dirty smears on her desk as her door opened and the lights clicked
on.
"It's all
right!" Carrie said quickly.
"I... I just had a bad dream and overreacted." She couldn't let her father know about
the prowler. He might start
keeping a closer eye on her in the future, or even worse cut down the tree in
the backyard... which would put a severe cramp in what little social life she
had. She was having enough trouble
trying to assert herself and gain a position of some status now that she was in
high school. She didn't need this
extra aggravation.
Her father
paused. "Are you
sure?" He took another step
in, then paused. "It looks
like you've broken something..."
Carrie blinked,
and with the lights on she noted for the first time the demise of her crystal
swan. She choked back a cry of
horror. "The swan... the swan
mama gave to me..." Carrie said sadly, biting her lip. But she was not going to cry, damn
it. She was not going to display
such weakness, at least not with her father here. "It... the wind must have knocked it off the
desk..." Carrie continued.
This settled it. Whoever
had just been in here, playing this horrible, stupid prank, they were going to
pay! She would see to that! But how was she supposed to find out
who had done it?
"I'm
sorry," her father replied sincerely. There was a pause. "Maybe I can find you
another--"
"Don't
bother," Carrie said curtly.
She reached out and slammed the window shut. "I'll clean up the mess tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm going back to
bed. See you in the morning."
Her father
blinked at the abruptness of her manner, but didn't seem to know what to say
about it. So it was with a final
'goodnight' that he turned the light back off and departed the room. For her part, Carrie curled up in her
bed, partly incensed but more despondent than anything else. And with her father out of the room,
she allowed a tear to trickle down her cheek. Who had broken the swan? One of the few remembrances she had of her mother. Was there anyone she knew who could
help her track down the culprit and get revenge?
***
Ten minutes
later, the doorbell rang at Julie LaMille's house. Or mansion, really – the LaMilles were by far the richest
family in town. It was after three
rings that Jeeves answered the door.
This surprised Carrie on two levels. Firstly, because she had thought that Julie had given the
family butler the night off, what with the party and all. Secondly, because he
was wearing a bathrobe. It wasn't
even midnight yet, and Carrie had always thought that the family help didn't stop
working until sometime after that. "Yes?" Jeeves said archly. "Why are you disturbing us so late at night?"
"Uhhhh,
I'm looking for Julie," Carrie said uncertainly. She was probably quite a sight too, knee still scraped up,
looking dirty and now sweaty after having run all the way over here. But honestly, she just didn't know
where else to go or what else to do.
Carrie had to figure out what was going on! But there was no party here. Where WAS everybody?
"Miss
LaMille is asleep, as is the rest of the house. Come back tomorrow." Jeeves started to close the door.
"No,
wait! Jeeves, just tell her it's
Carrie, please, I... I don't know where else to go. I think somehow I just met myself... I'm so
confused..."
"Neither
Julie nor I know anyone by the name of Carrie. So whatever problems you have, either take them elsewhere or
come back at a more decent hour."
With that, the door slammed shut.
Carrie
reeled. Now Julie's family and
servants didn't know her? But
they'd been acquainted for almost two years now! What the hell was happening? On top of this, some other version of herself had been
sleeping in her bed... were people being replaced by alien pod lookalikes? Carrie suddenly felt like she was lost
in some bad science fiction movie.
But everything had been fine not two hours ago! Well, not fine exactly, she'd had to
sneak out of her house, and then ended up skinning her knee...
The box. That damn black box thing. That had to be it, Carrie
realized. Somehow, it had done
something to everyone! Or... more
likely to her! But what? Well, she'd soon figure that out. With nowhere else to turn, Carrie
hurried back towards the spot where she'd left the device. Yet as she approached, she heard a rustling
in the bushes... someone else was here now! Had the original owner tracked down their property? Would they have answers? "Who the hell is out there?"
Carrie demanded.
In response, in the darkness, a shadowy figure jumped up and turned, starting to run away. Screw that - Carrie was fed up with the entire situation now. Whoever this person was, they weren't getting away. Calling once again upon her athletic abilities and ignoring the aches in her body, she sprinted forward and tackled the stranger.
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Thanks for reading this far! That was the first 11 pages of my 300 page time travel story (600 double spaced).
If you think there's something to it, comment either here or at
The Intro Post.
If you think there's NOTHING to it, please comment also! (That may be more important...)
If you want to read more (and I already know you), email me, I have a pdf.
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