Temporal Exploring 101 - Deep Future

IV.35 Flare

"I do not have time to argue with you girls," he told us, gruffly. "So just get lost, okay?"

Erin folded her arms. "Well, we shan't," she told him. "This is a free country."

The man stepped forward, closing the distance to us until it was less than a meter.

"I said, get lost," he hollered.

Ndemba uttered an angry sound. You could tell she had just about had it with that guy.

She took a small step toward him. "Why don't you get lost yourself," she retorted.

Without warning, the man raised his right arm and backhanded her, hard. The black girl crashed against the gate, her head striking the metal grid. She crumbled to the ground and lay there, motionless, senseless. Like a discarded, broken toy.

Erin screamed, a howl of anguish and rage and grief, as she turned on him like some small feral creature. "You killed her! You killed my friend!"

The man staggered backwards, almost as if he had been dealt a physical blow. He briefly shook his head, as if to clear it.

"If so, it was her own fault," he declared. "The fool girl had no call to"

Erin cut him short. "Shut up, you stupid bastard!" she yelled. "You killed my friend!"

She was wearing the amulet Granny Morgan had left for her on Mount Fernyr: a brooch with a small blue gemstone, attached to a leather string. It was meant to be worn as a bracelet, but Erin was wearing it as a necklace.

It could have been a trick of the light, of the way the sun was reflected by the blue stone. Whatever the cause, it looked for all the world as  if the gem were shining with a light of its own.

The air appeared to have changed in a strange manner, too. It was shimmering, the way it sometimes does in the desert at extreme temperatures.

The man glared at her. "Now look here, young lady. That's no way to"

"You killed my friend!" the Welsh girl howled, drowning out whatever he might have been attempting to say.

A ray of the sun struck the blue stone of Erin's necklace just then, and the gem blazed.

The man lost his footing, stumbled and fell, as if he had been struck by some heavy object.

He rolled and came up in a crouch, glaring at us, his face a mask of rage.  He was holding a handgun which he had trained on us.

"So be it, then. Can't let you walk away now, anyhow, can I?"

Numb with shock, I watched him pull the trigger, five or six times. Saw him empty the magazine on us. Heard the impact of the bullets as they struck the rocks to the left and to the right of us, ricocheting off some unseen barrier between us and our would-be murderer.

If this was a force field, it was of a kind I had never encountered before.

The man uttered a strange sound. A wail of terror, almost. For a second or two, he stared at us in utter horror.

Then he turned tail and ran for the jeep, jumping on the driver's seat and gunning the engine. He turned the vehicle around and drove off at high speed, with tires squealing and gravel flying. We watched the car disappear in the distance.

"You killed my friend," Erin whispered.

Behind us, there was a small noise.

"I don't think he actually killed me, though," Ndemba observed.

Whirling to face her, we saw her sitting propped up against the gate, looking alive if a bit worse for wear.

"Eunice! You are alive!" In less than a heartbeat Erin was beside her friend, hugging her. "We thought you were dead."

"Ouch! Careful there," the black girl cautioned. "No, I was just out of it for some time, I think." She frowned. "Where did that jerk go?"

"He got scared and ran," Erin told her. "After he saw that you got hurt," she added.

"Good for him." Ndemba scowled. She focused on Erin and stared. "Hey, what happened to your necklace?"

We all looked at the amulet. The blue gemstone had completely lost its luster. It was looking dull now, as if the gem had been replaced by some bauble made of cheap glass.

"I don't know," Erin told her. "Perhaps it has been exposed to the sun too much, or something."

Neither Ndemba nor the rest of us were eager to involve the local police, so we only told James that Ndemba had fallen and hurt her head. The chauffeur insisted on taking her to a hospital in a nearby town so the doctors could have a look at her. We all were relieved when the doctor on duty told us that she had received a bump on the back of her head but appeared to be perfectly okay otherwise.

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