Beyond This Time: A Time-Travel Suspense Novel (5 page)

As though he had no substance.

As though he’d never existed.

He met Kat’s eyes and spoke for the first time since leaving Park Street. “We saw things that aren’t possible,” he said quietly, hating the quivering timbre of his voice.

“I know,” Kat whispered. “But we—”

“Stop it right there. We’re not rehashing this nonsense.”

“Yes, we are,” Kat insisted. “You and I stood in the middle of that road and watched my car completely disappear. Then everything around us altered. I mean, the trees grew smaller, houses changed color. Cars that weren’t visible a split second before, 1959 Ford Fairlaines and beat up old Chevys, suddenly popped up in driveways or along the curb.” She reached over and gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “We
both
saw the red-orange flames licking out through the windows. Felt the heat. Mitch, look at your own arms, the hairs are singed. The Maceyville Fire Department showed up. We saw their trucks, the flashing lights, heard the sirens. Damnit, we saw it all.”

“But nobody could see us!” he exploded.

“There’s an explanation for all of this, and we’ll figure it out. But, in order to do that we have to talk it through.”

“There isn’t any explanation.” He reached across the table and touched her cheek. “It’s like UFOs or ESP. You can’t explain any of that stuff, Kat. And if you’re smart, you’ll ignore everything that just happened.”

“You are dead wrong, Mitch. It can’t be ignored. I was meant to see those things tonight. You hear what I’m saying? I tell you it wasn’t an accident or random event.”

“Listen to yourself, Kathleen Templeton. Are you telling me New Orleans voodoo spirits called you to Park Street tonight?”

“Maybe … I don’t know. But you have to admit we saw
something
.”

“No, Kathleen, I don’t have to admit anything.” Mitch slid out of the vinyl seat and stood next to the booth. He tossed a handful of bills on the table. “I’m heading home and you should too.”

=FOUR=

March 10—Sunday 6:00 A.M.

James Andrew Mitchell
sat on a metal folding chair, the only piece of furniture in his living room. Elbows on knees, he stared at the boxes and crates lining the walls. He’d been in this apartment for almost six months, one of these days he would have to unpack and buy some furniture. For the time being, he was content with a mattress on the bedroom floor, a refrigerator and card table in the kitchen, and a tiny black and white television on the counter by the sink.

The apartment was Kat’s doing. She’d been the one to decide he should sell the little brick house and get on with his life.

“What life?” he’d asked. “I work twelve hour shifts and head the call list for Sunday and holidays. Given that kind of schedule, what does it matter where or how I live?”

“It matters, Mitch.”

Forcing himself off the chair, he ambled into the kitchen. He took a bottle of orange juice out of the refrigerator that was also Kat’s idea. She claimed no human could exist without one, and just to prove her point, once a week she dropped by with several items requiring refrigeration. He’d grudgingly accepted the ice box, but balked when it came to acquiring a stove. He never cooked; in fact he didn’t even own any plates or bowls that weren’t made out of paper. No, that wasn’t exactly the truth. In one of the sealed boxes stacked along the wall in the living room he could find a set of dishes. Still wrapped in silver or white paper printed with wedding bells or doves.

Unpacking could wait.

Unpacking could wait until hell froze over.

Familiar images of Kat and her Pop, the Reverend Alvin Rayson, took up space in the corner of the kitchen. He saw them seated at Lisa’s bedside, holding her hand, and whispering words of comfort to the dying woman. They never wavered in their vigilance nor devotion as the months elapsed.

By contrast, he’d wandered around in a fog-shrouded daze, unwilling to accept the inevitable conclusion. The only woman he’d ever loved was dying. Maybe not today or even tomorrow, but soon. A twenty-seven-year-old woman did not die of a brain aneurysm.

He remembered screaming those foolish words in the doctor’s face, his heart bending and twisting under the weight of the sorrow and terror of his future. Wondering what it would be like to spend the rest of his life alone. Without Lisa.

Unable express his feelings, his grief had turned into a sullen silence which ultimately became anger. Anger poured from him like sweat on a hot afternoon, spilling on everyone around him. Before long most of his friends dropped from his life like the apples off a cold November tree, leaving him bare and isolated.

No one knew how to comfort the bridegroom. What could you say when the bride collapsed in the doorway of the church? When the wedding couple left the ceremony in an ambulance rather than a limousine.

Mitch clenched and unclenched his balled fists. A year after losing Lisa, he still remained furious with the unfeeling emergency room staff. He’d carried Lisa into the hospital himself, refusing to allow anyone to touch her, and gently placed her on the gurney. People wearing blue scrub suits had shoved him aside, and cut her beautiful wedding gown into tattered bits of lace.

Later, once they’d finished with their medical hocus pocus, they’d thrust the plastic bag containing her dress and personal items into his hands with a curt, “Sorry, sir.”

What did those words really mean? Was the nurse sorry she destroyed Lisa’s wedding gown? Was the doctor sorry he couldn’t save the bride’s life?

Were they sorry he’d waited in the hospital hallway in a rented tuxedo, Lisa’s wedding band, the one she would never wear, still in his pocket?

Through it all Kat had remained by his side. Her strength had been his anchor. And now, when she wanted him to listen, he’d cut her off. Turned his back like a frightened child.

* * *

By the time Kat reached her home the sun was busily climbing the low hills surrounding Maceyville. But sleep was the last thing on her mind, so she started a pot of coffee and while it brewed took a shower.

Kat closed her eyes and allowed the hot water to beat against her body, hoping to drive the knots of tension from her neck and shoulders. Suddenly she felt as though someone had entered the room. An icy hand squeezed her heart.

Her eyes popped open. Clouds of steam filled the small yellow bathroom, obscuring the familiar. She instinctively reached for her revolver, but her hand only slid down a soapy thigh. Opaque steam tentacles curled around her feet, her ankles, then reached up, pulling her to the shower floor. All of Kat’s strength followed the gurgling path of water flowing toward the drain.

Colored lights flashed all around her and suddenly she found herself walking along an empty street. The sidewalks were wet. Puddles of rain water reflected the red-yellow-green-red-yellow-green pattern as the traffic lights marched through their sequence.

Her first impulse was to run, but an invisible force kept her to a steady even pace. She didn’t like being jerked around like a stringed puppet, so she tried to come to a complete halt. It didn’t work. Kat had no control over her actions. Whatever the force that wouldn’t allow her to run a few seconds ago, now wouldn’t let her stop moving forward. The force pushed her past the small dress shops, shoe stores, banks, a Woolworth Five-and-Dime.

As though a hand had yanked her puppet strings, she came to an abrupt halt in front of a dimly lit display window. The sign above the store read: Parisian. She recognized the name of the well-known business owned by the Hess family in downtown Birmingham since 1920. What on earth was she doing in Birmingham?

The prim and proper pasty white mannequins, in shirtwaist dresses and high heels seemed to mock her confusion. Clustered in twos and threes, she imagined their hushed comments as they gossiped mean little secrets. Kat looked into the painted eyes and saw displeasure at her presence.

Uneasy, she peered down the street. A warning whispered in her ear and brushed across the back of her neck. Like a wild animal she lifted her head to the wind as though she could smell the approaching danger.

A peripheral shift caused her to gasp. She whipped her head to the left, and a reflection in the Parisian’s display window followed suit. The movement startled her because she would have sworn on a stack of Bibles there had been
no
reflection there before this exact moment.

She raised her arms and the window image copied her actions, playing a bizarre game of Simon Says.

Even though Kat knew it was her own reflection she saw, the clothes were out of sync. Like the house on Tenth Street, two realities had overlapped. She looked at her arm, and then touched her sleeve, relieved to feel the familiar coolness of her favorite red silk blouse. Khaki trousers encased her legs, athletic shoes on her feet.

But the woman reflected in the glass wore a light-colored suit with a knee length straight skirt. Three large black buttons and a black fur collar accented the matching short jacket. A small pill box hat perched jauntily on the reflection’s straightened page-boy styled hair.

“Lord, have mercy,” she said quietly. “She looks like a black Jackie Kennedy.”

The ringing telephone broke the eerie spell. She turned from the window trying to locate the source. The sound originated from a booth halfway down the block. Urgency crawled around inside her belly. Deep down, in a place beyond logic or reason, Kat knew she was expected to answer the call. She took off at a trot, stumbling as she raced to reach the booth before the incessant jangle stopped. She yanked the receiver from the cradle.

“Hello?”

“
Kathleen
,” a weak, static ridden voice filtered through the phone line.

She trembled, her teeth chattering like a wind up toy. She took a deep breath and forced confidence into her voice that she didn’t feel. “Who is this?”

“
Dangerous for you. Stay away. Don’t cross.
”

The colored lights flashed once again, and as quickly as she’d arrived on the deserted street, she was back on the shower floor. No mannequins. No blinking streetlights. No phone booth. Just ice cold water drumming against her bare skin.

* * *

Mitch stood on his tiny balcony and stared across the Tombigbee River. If he squinted just so, he could almost make out Kat’s yellow frame house on the rise. He imagined her curled up and snoring away, untroubled by the craziness of a few hours ago. Earlier he’d attempted to sleep, but after an hour of wrestling the bedcovers like a swamp gator, he gave up on the idea.

“Dang that woman,” he muttered. Maybe she did have several pints of New Orleans voodoo blood in her veins after all. She certainly knew how to burrow under his skin like a tick. And the harder he tried to pull her out, the deeper she dug.

What did all this nonsense mean?

Why had he quit smoking? More importantly, why had he given up drinking? Right this minute a tumbler filled with Jack Daniels and a good smoke would be just the ticket to settle his mind.

Determined to sort it all out, he headed for the carport. He generally did his best thinking while tinkering on his 1962, 409-cubic-inch 380 hp, four-in-the-floor Chevy Impala SS.

The jet black vehicle, with red interior and full wheel cover spinners, once belonged to his father. Billy Lee Mitchell claimed to have purchased the car on his wedding day and in his excitement, almost forgot the ceremony.

Mitch never put much stock in the story, but it never failed to get a rise out of his mother, which was most likely the reason his dad continued to spin the tale for so many years. He shook his head, thinking about his parents, still mystified as to why Pamela, a sweet Pennsylvania girl—attending the University of Alabama—had married the miserable SOB. Billy Lee Mitchell had been a racist, a drunk, and mean as a wet badger.