This story is by Jennifer Klepsch and was part of our 2021 Spring Writing Contest. You can find all the writing contest stories here.
Jackie shakes her longish chestnut hair to the side and then struggles to put it up into a bun.
“Hey, do I have it good or what?” Can’t get much better.”
“What did you say luv?” remarks her husband Matt.
“Grr, said I have a good life. You know though, I’m thinking of cutting this hair.”
“Don’t do that baby, you are so beautiful.”
Matt seems to stand still for the longest moment staring at her. His tall muscular frame is offset by his hazel eyes and smooth handsome face. The moment feels like time is silent. She looks at her husband. He seems uneasy.
“Why don’t you stay home today?”
“I can’t Hun. My project team has been texting me all night about the time machine project. You know, it is ready to be tested.”
Matt forces a smile, happy for her success and sad that he seems to be losing her to that beast of a machine.
Still, duty calls. Both of them work at the Military Complex in Colorado. Jackie is in the air force and a physics scientist, while her husband Matt is in the air force as well, a communication specialist.
The conversation is rudely interrupted as Jackie sporadically glances at the round digital clock on the wall.
Will you look at that! No time for breakfast.
Almost in a panic she kisses Matt and pets her dog Sands, then runs out of the door. Jackie abruptly turns around and puckers her lips and sends a far kiss with her hand. She stares at Matt in the doorway of their home. His eyes were squinting and mouth nearly frowning as if he is fighting the release of tears. Sands is whining. Still, she turns the other direction, almost ignoring the grim moment she couldn’t explain.
Her shaky hand opens the heated car door. The spring air and lack of scenery mades it a quick ride for Jackie.
She wipes her sweaty brow, closes the car window and rams up the air conditioning. When she reaches the security check, the window comes down again.
“Hi there Jackie.”
“Hi Dan, what’s all the cars and extra security for today.”
“Don’t know Mam, but they are headed toward your department.”
“Okay Dan. I best find out what the heck is going on.”
Jackie arrives at the research facility. A slew of military and important scientist greeted her, pushing her forward to the front where her physics project – her time travel circle is.
“You’d succeeded stage 1,” her project head yells.
Everyone began to applause.
Jackie’s heart pounds and sinks at the same time, thinking to herself this is great and what I wanted to achieve—why today. I sense something is wrong?
Crowds of people hoard around her and she is up against the entrance to the machine. There is a shrilling sound. Every bone in her body trembles.
“What!” Someone is trying to operate this system.”
“Get away from the controls, the gravitational fields aren’t focused,” She yells up to the operations room.
Jackie feels someone grab her hand. There were so many people around her and everyone’s attention is on the control room.
She naturally starts to push back. A glimpse showed a hairy face. Who or whatever it is continues to push her with its long thick claws extending from its fingers? The odd thing looks like a creature more than a man.
She struggles to go the other direction, but the door opens and the hairy one jabs her with its claws and forces her into the machine. A piercing sound starts to deafen everyone in the room.
“I’m bleeding!” the time machine door closes, and everyone looks her direction.
Jackie clamps down on the open wound to lessen the loss of blood, why yelling
“Arrest that thing.”
Her colleagues and visitors stare at her in awe, some searching for the perpetrator.
Still in pain she starts to fade, until she is no longer seen.
“Oh, I’m in the darkness traveling to—where? What address did that fanged creature send me to.”
Jackie knows she is in the spacetime tunnel. She can feel the speed of the loop. This cold, void eerie feeling is overwhelming – like an endless nightmare. The speed stops and Jackie drops on the ground. Her wound resumes to drip.
“Where am I?” Jackie says. She dreadfully opens her tearing eyes to see her surroundings. Her head is being spun like a spinning top, and shaken hands cling to dirt. She digs into it with her fingernails. Slowly her eyes begin to focus.
“Jackie don’t be afraid tell yourself it will be alright. Yes, the sky is blue, I see mountains around me about 500 ft away. The deep brown and red hills looked familiar but are well covered as if civilization is absent.
“I am experiencing some whiplash?”
She looks down at her left arm, still bleeding.
“Seriously, who grabs a person by their left arm.”
Still feeling groggy from the fast ride, Jackie looks at the ground beneath her.
“Just dirt, just plain old dirt.”
Jackie hears the sound of footsteps moving toward her. There are shadow figures by the mountains that are approaching. She doesn’t know whether to yell for help or hide and cannot stand up and walk. The larger one is getting closer. He looks somewhat human but more like a Neanderthal. What a phenomenon.
“Oh, no, stop! Stop it!
A strong hand drags her by the hair. She is dizzy but can see a woman waiting at the base of the mountain about 300 ft.
Jackie begs the Neanderthal man to stop dragging her. It is pointless. Grunting, he drags her over to the woman and points to her injury.
“Can you help me?’
The Neanderthal women secures Jackie’s left arm and pours some kind of liquid over it. In spite of Jackie’s screams she gently blots it with a large leaf and dresses it with some putrid goo. Her man gives her an evil look and the Neanderthal woman changes her demeanor, kicks her and sits next to him.
“I have to get out of here. They’re too primitive.”
Jackie didn’t want to linger and see the Neanderthal woman’s claws come out again.
She closes her eyes as if sleeping. Her dizziness is less now, and she intends to slither out of this hole. The sun is starting to set.
With the one uninjured arm She throws a rock out the entrance. The Neanderthal man walks out. She throws another rock, and the Neanderthal woman walks out to see what the noise is.
“I’m getting out of here.” “Jackie stands up and walks.”
She starts to tread and hides beneath a nearby rock. The cranky couple returns and when they realize she wasn’t there, frightening noises of grunts and screams come from the cave.
“I am so much not into this stuff,” Jackie moans.
Ouch, dammit, now what! Something has got my foot. Shaken and scared of hell, Jackie stares at a huge beast with spikes on its back, definitely prehistoric.
Why is this happening to me? If I don’t do something this monster will kill me.
The beast starts to drag her. The pain is excruciating. The skin on her leg is ripping and tearing. As she is dragged Jackie can see trails of blood. No words can describe the stabbing aching and throbbing pain beating her physique, together with the sharpness of rocks spiking her wounds. She screams in agony, not caring if the beast rips her face off.
She outcries again.”
“I see flashes of my life before me!”
In the dusty filth of blood, sweat, gore and screams, a noise breaks the silence.
“Chuff, chuff—chuff, chuff.”
Jackie lays flat on her back, strength and will gone. She mutters to herself.
A helicopter! A helicopter?
“What timeline is this?”
The cuffing sound of the modern-day machine draws nearer. A bright light borders her, and she feels a pull before being lifted up.
Still half-conscious, she notices a man in the passenger seat. He’s dressed in modern clothes.
“Whew.” Is this Earth’s future or past?
Did you say Earth, Earth woman? Just be still so that gadget can repair your wounds.”
Without moving her head, Jackie’s eyes gazes at the driver of the helicopter.
He turns for a moment and looks at her.
“Your one of those things that pushed me into my own time-machine. What am I doing here?”
“Jackie we like things the way they are in this time. You humans have no future in the past or present.”
“What do you mean, yells Jackie.”
The beast of a man alerts a device. The human man in the passenger seat babbles.
It is probably safe to draw the conclusion he can’t speak. The pilot treats him like a wild animal.
“You’re the only talking human in this era.”
Jackie’s heart drops as she experiences a death of a future. She squints her eyes and curses the day.
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