Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Flash Fiction February (Day 5)

Image: Amy-Leigh Barnard via Unsplash

My eyes wandered across the device in James’ downtown garage. Various metal tubes, dials, and glowing canisters of strange liquid were spread over the surface.

“It’s perfectly safe!” James exclaimed.

I shook my head. “You’re insane. There’s no chance I’m getting on that thing.”

James sighed, setting down the wrench he was holding. The front of the device looked like an airplane with the top surface stripped away, revealing incredibly complex machinery with bundles of wires woven through it.

I didn’t understand how it worked, but I knew some of the components were radioactive. James climbed into one of the chairs mounted in the center of the device. He had built it with two seats because why not?

He patted the empty seat next to him, which looked like it had been ripped from an airplane.

“Come on, man! We always talked about this!” he said, grinning through his unkempt beard.

“That was a joke, dude! I didn’t think you’d actually build a time machine!”

James shook his head. “Temporal displacement device.”

“Same thing!”

“No, they are completely different things.”

I really doubt that.

I climbed into the chair beside him as James passed me a blue seatbelt with a silver clip.

“Okay, I have to ask, did you get these seats from an airplane?”

He nodded. “Yeah, why?”

Great. Just great.

“No reason. So, how will we know it’s working?”

James slid a pair of goggles over his face and passed me an identical set.

“What are these for?” I asked.

“So your eyes don’t fly out of your head,” he replied.

“That’s a possibility?!” I shouted.

“Maybe! I don’t know, man, I’ve never done this before.”

Wow, I never would have guessed.

I buckled the seatbelt and spent the next few minutes questioning every single one of my life choices. James pressed switches and pulled levers across the incredibly complex and haphazard dashboard in front of us.

I really feel like there should be walls or something. Even just glass would be nice.

“Okay, hold on!”

I looked around and saw nothing that looked safe to grip. Even the armrests on the airline seats were missing.

“Hold on to what?” I asked.

James pulled one more large lever to his left. Everything melted into swirling colors, then bands of light.

The device rattled and sputtered as steam shot from several exhaust pipes to my right.

“Is it working?” I shouted. My words came out all wrong. It was almost like they were out of order.

Did I just speak backward?

The bands of light stretched across my field of view, rotating around like a kaleidoscope. An overwhelming force slammed my head back into the seat. I felt no wind, but I could tell we were moving. My skin stretched across my face until it felt like it would tear right off my skull.

In a flash, everything went back to normal. Well, as normal as suddenly being on a beach could be.

This isn’t James’ garage.

James stripped off his goggles and shrieked with delight.

“It worked! Holy shit, it worked!”

I took off my goggles, surveying the area around us.

“Why do you sound so surprised?” I asked.

My eyes scanned the beach. It was deserted. Not a soul in sight. The border of a thick forest stretched in both directions to my right. To the left, an endless ocean stretched out into the horizon.

“So, how far back did we go?” I asked.

James stood in front of the device, his hands on his hips. He adjusted his glasses on his face. I knew that look.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s nothing!” James replied.

“Don’t lie to me, dude!”

Before James could respond, an earth-shaking roar cut through the relative silence. We both turned toward the sound and watched as the treetops swayed without any wind to move them.

“Kinda reminds me of Dinosaur Park. You know, that one movie?”

“Yes, I know the movie! Did you send us back sixty-five million years?” I asked.

A woman with fiery red hair dressed in animal furs exploded out from the forest and began sprinting toward us. She was at least seven feet tall and incredibly muscular. I wasn’t sure what scared me more: her or the thing chasing her.

When I saw a Tyrannosaurus Rex emerge from the tree line, I had my answer.

“That’s a fucking dinosaur!” I shouted.

I looked back to James, who was repeatedly kicking the front of the machine.

“We need to go now!” I said.

“I’m aware! Just give me a second!”

He just kept kicking the damn thing.

“Are you seriously expecting that to work?” I asked.

James nodded, speaking between impacts. “It. Just. Needs. A. Little. Love!”

With that last kick, the machine sputtered to life. He climbed into the seat beside me and put on his seatbelt. I did the same, sliding the goggles over my head. The ground shook beneath us as the T-rex closed the distance.

“We’re running out of time, man!”

James furiously pulled levers and flipped switches. I looked back to check on the T-rex as the redheaded woman leaped onto the machine.

She gripped the side with white knuckles as James pulled the last lever to his left, and everything melted into a blur once more.

“Wait!” I shouted.

The word came out backward. I went through the entire ordeal again, only for us to return to what looked like James’ garage. The last time I had been that happy to see a room full of tools was at my high school reunion.

I unbuckled myself and fell out of the chair, kissing the no doubt filthy ground beneath the machine.

“Holy shit, I’m so glad we made it back,” I said, climbing back onto my feet.

“Uh, dude. Who the hell is she?” James asked.

I turned around and saw the redheaded woman standing beside the machine. Her green eyes were wide as she scanned the room. She mumbled to herself, using words that made no sense to me whatsoever.

“Hey! It’s okay; we’re not going to hurt you!” I said, holding up my hands.

Her face scrunched with confusion as she hit the back corner and spun around to face the wall.

I couldn’t imagine what was going through her head.

“Did we bring someone back with us?” James asked.

“Unless you have a girlfriend that lifts weights and dresses like she’s from the Flintstones, then yes, James, we brought someone back!”

“What the hell are we going to do?” he asked.

I ran a hand through my hair, trying to catch my breath. I felt like I was going to pass out. My stomach was turning end-over-end.

“I need some air. Just watch her,” I said, walking toward the door on the opposite side of the room.

I stepped through into the outside world. For once, I was grateful for the smell of smog and the cacophony of a busy city.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly as I watched the cars driving by. My eyes narrowed as I saw a car go by that I didn’t recognize. The logo was unfamiliar to me, too.

What the hell is a Tesla?

I started noticing other things that weren’t quite right. Billboards for companies I had never heard of, businesses on James’ street that weren’t there when we left. I ran back inside. James was staring down at his phone, his eyes wide.

The redheaded woman was over by the machine. She reached out with a finger to touch it but recoiled in fear before making contact.

“James, I think something’s wrong,” I said.

James nodded. “Yeah. You should look at this.”

He turned his phone around and showed me a news article. It was the result of a presidential election. The winner was a washed-up reality TV celebrity who had fallen out of the limelight long ago. I would have recognized that shitty hair and orange skin anywhere.

“No fucking way,” I said.

James nodded. “Yeah, we’re definitely not in the right timeline.”

“Oh really, you think?”

I looked over to see the redheaded woman holding a red gasoline canister.

“Just get the machine fixed so we can get her back home and get ourselves back to the right timeline,” I said.

“Uh, yeah. About that.”

I grabbed the canister out of her hands. She growled at me like an angry dog. I wasn’t sure how to react, but I shot James an angry look.

“What is it?” I asked.

James tried to feign a laugh. “We’re out of fuel.”

“Okay, so how do we get more?” I asked.

James stared down at his phone. “Well, the military base where I got the fuel from the first time has a different name in this timeline. The location’s the same, though.”

“Okay, what’s it called?” I asked.

James turned his phone back to face me.

“What the hell is Area 51?”

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