He was going to Zambia.
FOUR
The Fall
1985
Zambia, Africa
An unfamiliar cracking noise filled the jungle, causing birds to jet away to the safety of the sky. Light flashed through the thick foliage like a frantic photo shoot. A shard of light split open, just above the ground, and spilled David out. He appeared, stumbled a few feet and leaned on a moss-covered tree for support. Boom! With a clap like thunder, the light vanished. Glowing blue sparkles twinkled to the wet ground around David, signifying the completion of the event.
David struggled to take another step, but fell to the ground and vomited into a patch of ferns. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea? For all he knew, time travel was only safe for inanimate objects. David pulled himself back to his feet and looked at his surroundings-lush jungle as far as the eye could see. This had to be Zambia, but were his coordinates correct? A thought occurred to David and a smile came to his sickly face, it had worked! He had traveled through time and space! He- crack! A gunshot pierced the air in the distance and David remembered what he had come to see.
He carefully made his way through the dense wilderness toward the sounds of gunfire. He crept low to the ground while attempting to avoid the many snakes, spiders, and larger predators that he couldn’t see but thought must be lurking nearby. A metallic click froze David in his tracks.
“Tuhn arownd,” came a deep voice. “Slohly.”
David did as he was told and came face to face with four men he thought must be from a local tribe. Their dress was half-modern, half-tribal and one of them wore a Yankees baseball cap… David’s memory was triggered. He remembered the night Tom broke down and told David the entire story. Four men, in tribal clothes with rifles… and one of them, Tom called him the Yankee fan, because he wore a Yankees hat. These were Megan’s killers! These were the men Tom was going to kill mere minutes from now! David’s mind raced with thoughts and theories about what his presence would do to this past and his future.
He thought about transporting himself back to the future right before their eyes, saving his own life, but perhaps distracting or frightening these men enough so that the events of the past never occur. David cringed at the thought that he might be changing the past just he feared Tom would.
David winced as he felt cold steel press against his forehead. “Who ah you?” the Yankee fan demanded, “Ah you wit de missionaries?”
“No,” David replied. He wondered if that was his ticket out of this. “I have nothing to do with the missionaries.”
The Yankee fan leaned in close and inspected David’s face. “Do we know you? I tink we do.”
“No.” David answered. “I’m a scientist.”
David’s answer seemed to cause the men some confusion. It was not an answer they had anticipated. The Yankee fan noticed David’s LightTech badge still attached to his outer shirt. He lifted it up and looked at the picture, then back at David. He looked up and down David’s body, taking in his ornate tie, his pressed shirt and polished shoes. They seemed to dissuade any suspicion that David was lying. The four men held a quick discussion in their native tongue and then the Yankee fan said, “You ah fortunate, Mr. Scienteest. You do nah balieve as dey do, so you weel live… But we tink we will see you again. Yes we will.”
David felt a pang of guilt as he stifled the urge to stand by his fellow believers and tell these men that he did believe in the same God. But he felt, no, he knew that the fate of space and time depended on his keeping his mouth shut.
The Yankee fan had more news to deliver. “Howevah,” he said, trying to sound smart in the presence of a scientist, “You have trespahssed on tribal lahnd and must beh punished.”
David didn’t like the sound of that and dove surprisingly fast into the jungle. He had to lose these guys before it was too late for them to murder Megan. David nearly froze with horror at the fact that here he was, in a position to stop Megan’s murder and all he could think about was helping her killers. What the hell was he doing?
The four men moved like stalking lions and sprinted after David. Thorns and branches tore at David’s clothing and flesh. He tumbled through a heap of brush and crashed down onto a path. To his right he heard a gunshot, to his left lay a field. David’s memory was triggered again. Tom told him of the field, with the tall yellow grass. That was it! This is where it happened.
Quick to his feet, David managed to make it only ten more steps into the forest on the other side of the path before the four men caught him. There was no dialogue between them, no chance for David to redeem his actions. The four men simply began beating him. He felt the butt of a rifle bruise his ribs. One of their heels pounded his back. A fist to his jaw struck next. These men were punishing David for trespassing, but he knew another minute of this would mean his death sentence. There had to be a way out, something he could offer them. David’s train of thought was brutally interrupted by a popping noise as his shoulder dislocated.
He screamed as his shoulder sent surges of electrical impulses to his mind telling him his body couldn’t take much more. He was sure his life would soon come to an end. His eyes began to twitch. He was feeling the impacts of fists to his head and boots to his body, but the pain delivered by each blow was now only a numb throb. His body’s natural painkillers flooded his bloodstream. He was going into shock.
One of the men tried frantically to remove David’s watch from his wrist, but was fumbling the job in his excitement. David thought he heard someone yell, “A woman escapes!” and looked up through his one good eye- the other was swollen shut. Standing not ten feet away was a woman on the path. She was staring at David with a confused expression. The four men must have been confused too because they didn’t take action right away. This delay gave David the time he needed to put the pieces together.
David recognized Megan from pictures he had seen at Tom’s house. She was as beautiful and strong as the photos showed and as Tom had told. But she wasn’t moving. Why wasn’t she moving? “Megan! Run!” Blood sprayed from David’s mouth as he yelled.
Megan wrinkled her forehead. David thought she must have been trying to figure out how he knew her name. But his message seemed to sink in. She pounded dirt and ran toward the field. The four men leapt toward her in pursuit, and as they did, David thought he saw something unusual. He watched as the Yankee fan ran, and there, trailing behind him on the forest floor, were two shadows, as though there were two sources of light. But one of the shadows was different; it didn’t follow the man’s every move and at times it seemed to have a will of its own. David was sure his failing vision and beaten mind were playing tricks on him. He had seen enough and would surely die if he remained any longer.
David looked at his watch through his clear eye. Thank God, they weren’t able to get it off his wrist. David punched in a series of numbers and hit one final button. A bright light began to pulsate over his head. He prayed the loud noise his tear in time would create wouldn’t distract Megan’s murderers from carrying out their evil act.
The light expanded toward David’s face. He watched it increase in speed through his good eye. He felt his head spinning, his ears thrumming with each pulse of light. He fell back into the grass and watched the passing clouds overhead as his eye closed shut. David lost consciousness and light enveloped his body.
In a flash, David was gone. Boom! Time resealed itself.
Sally gasped when David reappeared seconds after he had disappeared. He was a bloody mess, sprawled out on the floor. Sally thought something must have gone wrong with David’s time jump. She imagined David’s insides being twisted and disfigured by the time travel process-the side effects of which, if any, had yet to be documented.
