Written: August 1992 - May 1993
Word Count: Approximately 72,000 words
Background Notes: Gooood Lord. This story embarasses me. It shows off all my early (misguided) notions in the BTTF universe. My prose is awkward and inexperienced. And I believed things in the Animated Series way too much. (Jules and Verne's personalities, etc, were stolen from that; I later tamed that down when I did my revisions of my stories, by that point old enough to realize that the cartoon series wasn't necessarily canon.)
According to my little "author notes" on this tale, I had originally wanted to set this story during the Revolutionary War, but I "couldn't find anything on it," so the Civil War it became. I have no freakin' idea why I set the story in this time and place -- I've decided pretty much to avoid setting time travel stories during wars because they were so gawdawful gorey and sad. I did conduct research on the history, though I'm sure my anachronisms are numerous and blatant.
Anyway. This was my first ever BTTF tale. I was an eighth grader. I never wrote it for anyone to read it, since I didn't even know what fan fiction was at that age, let alone any other BTTF fans. (The Internet in 1992 was still pretty much a dream....) Keep that in mind when you read. And that I had -- still have -- a thing for Marty sleeping. And that I wasn't entirely logical with some of the things that happened. Oh boy....
But, hey, at least I didn't Mary Sue myself in this thing!
Saturday, November 2, 1985
2:38 A.M..
Hill Valley, California
Tap, tap, tap.
Marty McFly awoke with a start. He sat up in bed and looked around his room, puzzled at what could have woken him up. Everything looked the same and in place in his darkened room. He glanced at his clock, seeing it was a little after 2:30 in the morning. Then he heard the noise again. It was a tapping on his window. But who would tap on his window at 2:30 in the morning? A dumb burglar perhaps. Marty silently opened his nightstand drawer where he kept a flashlight for emergencies. He thought this qualified as an emergency, especially if a burglar was on the other side of the window with a weapon.
Marty swung his legs over the side of his bed and stood up. Creeping almost on tip toe, his finger ready to hit the flashlight button, he went over to the window and grabbed one edge of the curtain to pull back. As soon as Marty heard the three sharp taps again, he yanked back the curtain and turned on the flashlight to blind whoever was out there. The person out there gave a gasp of surprise and fell backwards. Marty, his own eyes dazzled by the sudden light, took a few steps back from the window and shut off the flashlight. The person, however, didn't seemed at all discouraged by the light and, a minute later, was once again tapping on the window. "Marty," the person said in a hushed whisper, "It's me, Doc."
"Doc?" Marty asked in surprise. He hadn't heard from Doc Brown in a week, and assumed he would be too busy traveling through time with his new family to visit for a while. But then again, if you had a time machine, you could visit anyone, anywhere, anytime.
"What are you doing here," he asked Doc, opening his window and doing a double take at his inventor friend.
Doc was dressed all in a gray color, with high boots, baggy pants, and a long gray jacket. "Why are you wearing awful that color?" Marty asked, wrinkling his nose in distaste.
Doc, however, ignored Marty's question and got right to the point. "You've got to help me," he whispered urgently.
"What's wrong?" Marty asked, leaning on the windowsill, wondering if one of his future relatives was in trouble again or Doc had another bullet aimed for his back.
"I'll explain it to you momentarily," Doc replied, checking his watch. " Will you meet me where the DeLorean was wrecked in about ten minutes?"
"Uh, sure," Marty said slowly, puzzled. What could Doc want with him in the middle of the night anyway?
"Good," said Doc Brown creeping back into the shadows. "I'll see you in ten minutes."
Marty shook his head in disbelief mixed with puzzlement as he shut his window. He briefly wondered if he would be traveling through time again, but then remembered how paranoid Doc was about time paradoxes and things like that, which came from time traveling.
Ten minutes later, after changing into some jeans, a dark navy blue sweatshirt, and his denim jacket, Marty found himself alone right where the DeLorean was totaled about one week before. It was definitely the same spot, since the wreckage was still scattered about, but where was Doc?
He got his answer less than a minute later when swooping out of the dark sky came the train that Doc had modified into a time machine. It silently lowered itself onto the train tracks and as soon as it touched down, Doc opened the door and hopped out.
"Good, you're here," he said motioning for Marty to come over to the time machine. "We haven't a moment to loose."
"What are you talking about Doc?" Marty said, more confused than ever.
"I'll explain it too you in the simplest and shorted of terms," Doc said hurriedly while he got out a pile of clothes from the train. "But first, change into these."
"Uh... does this mean that were going to another era?" Marty asked uncertainly as he took the clothes from Doc.
"Another century," Doc said grimly.
It was then Marty noticed how sad Doc looked. He wondered if that had anything to do with why he was going with him somewhere. Whether it did or not, he decided to find out now!
"Doc, please tell me what is going on," Marty pleaded.
"All right, " Doc said wearily. "You see, while we were staying in Virginia during the Civil War, Clara was taken prisoner by the Confederate army. It seemed an Abe Tannen, who had a high rank on that side, had a crush on her, and when she refused to have anything to do with him, he found reason to take her captive."
Marty was confused. "Then what has this got to do with me?" he asked, not seeing any connection.
"You see," Doc explained, "I am too old to join the Confederate army. Jules and Verne are too young, but you are the perfect age." Doc once again pointed to the clothes and continued.
"When you join the Confederates, you must be extremely careful to blend in and to do everything the group wants you to do, so they wouldn't find you trying to get a prisoner freed. If you were found a traitor, you would be hung at once."
"Okay...," Marty said uncertainly.
"Now, as I said before, you must change into those clothes so we can be on our way," Doc said, pointing in the train. "I'll be out here doing some things in preparation for the trip."
Doc disappeared around the side of the train. Marty climbed up the steps and looked at the clothes. The pants were a light gray color and looked baggy. They were made out of a rough material, for wear and tear, Marty guessed. The jacket was a darker gray color with a row of silver colored buttons running down on the front and it was made out a scratchy material, which reminded Marty of wool. The shirt under it was a faded gray color and it felt like it was made out of cotton or flannel, with some old fashioned black suspenders on top of it. The boots were made out of another sturdy material. The whole boot was a blackish color. There were buttons on the side of it that started at the ankle and went up to where the boot ended, about halfway to his knees. The last thing in the pile was a hat. It was grey too and it looked like the front had been sat on and had what looked like two swords that x-ed on the front over the brim.
After putting on the clothes, which were slightly loose, Marty looked around on the inside of the train. It looked much different from the inside of the DeLorean. The dials, or whatever controlled the train and the time circuits were up at the front, where there was one seat. At the back of the train were three other seats and various pictures and posters hung on the wall all over the interior of the train. One was the picture of him and Doc in 1885 standing in front of the new clock that was to be on the courthouse. Doc must have had copies made or something, since Marty had that exact same picture that Doc had given to him hanging above his desk. The pictures were quite interesting to look at, since it seemed they came from almost every century. There was what looked like a photograph of Doc and Clara that showed them in what looked like a fifteenth century ball in medieval England. Sure enough, when Marty lifted the photo away from the wall to see if there was a date or anything written of the back, it said in unfamiliar elegant script 'Emmett and Clara, Dec 8, 1460, Nottingham, England'. Another picture showed Doc's two sons, Jules and Verne, sitting in a covered wagon. That picture was labeled 'Jules and Verne, July 3, 1854, Oregon'.
There were many other photos, and other things that looked like postcards and posters tacked on the wall, but Marty didn't have time to look at them all then, since Doc came in about the same time Marty had finished reading the back of the second photograph. Doc looked him over, as if to make sure that Marty looked like a Civil War Confederate solder. Apparently satisfied, Doc walked over to where the controls for the train were and began to type in something. Marty walked over and stood behind him to read where and when they were going. The time display looked like the one in the DeLorean except for a change or two Doc had made. Now in addition to the date and time there was a space for a city, state, and/or country under the day, month, and time. Doc typed in July 23, 1861, 4:00AM, Manassas Junction, Virginia.
"This is a few minutes after I left," Doc explained to Marty. "If anyone saw the time machine I would probably be arrested or worse, so I left an hour or so before dawn. Everyone would think the train was a war weapon or alien if it was seen."
Marty nodded and walked to the back of the train, where he had stacked his 1985 clothes. "Where should I stick these?" he asked, picking up the pile.
Doc, busy with the controls, gestured over his shoulder. "There is a closet in the wall at the back," he said, still fiddling with some buttons and knobs. "Just stick your clothes in there."
Marty stood next to the back wall and looked carefully at it. As far as he could tell, there was no closet door back there. Then he noticed a white button in a corner of the wall with the word 'closet' engraved in a metal plaque above it. He hesitantly pushed the button and a part of the wall slid back to reveal a small walk-in closet, stuffed full of different clothes from different eras in various sizes. There were long dresses from victorian times and clothes that looked like something out of a old Shakespeare play. There were even some clothes from the future that Marty recognized, like the jacket and shoes he wore when he had to save his future son from a life of crime. The hoverbored that had helped Doc and Marty more than once was in the closet too, sitting on a shelf looking a bit battered.
Marty set his present day clothes on the floor of the closet, stepped out, and pressed the white button again. The closet door whooshed closed and the only way you could tell a door was there was from the faint outline of it in the wall.
The train jolted forward suddenly and Marty grabbed on to the back of one of the chairs to keep from falling. He quickly sat down in the chair as the train picked up speed and he felt it lift off the ground as it rushed up to 88 miles per hour. There were the three sonic booms and three flashed of light, then they were in the past.
Tuesday, July 23, 1861
4:00 A.M..
Manassas Junction, Virginia
After the three flashes of light, darkness appeared once again. The train stopped almost immediately and Marty was practically thrown across the room from the force of it. Grabbing on the side of the seat last minute saved him from doing so. Doc guided the train silently through the air until they were over some makeshift railroad tracks next to what looked like an old barn. It was there Doc finally landed the train.
Marty waited until the train had come completely to a stop before standing up. Grabbing his hat, which had fallen off during the sudden jolt forward, Marty climbed out of the train. Doc shut the door behind Marty and backed the train into another building that Marty hadn't noticed earlier. A minute or so later Doc came out of that building and locked the door behind him. Walking towered the barn he gestured Marty to follow him.
Slowly creaking the barn door open he spoke to Marty in a hushed whisper. "I left Jules and Verne asleep so be very quiet--" he was interrupted by a loud shout behind them.
"Hey Pop, is that Marty?" A boy of about eight with messy blond hair shoved under a raccoon skin cap and blue eyes stood behind them in a long white nightshirt, squinting at them from the shadows.
Doc jumped about a foot. "Great Scott Verne!" Doc exclaimed and turning around to see one of his sons behind him. "What are you doing up so early?"
"I heard the time machine leave a few minutes ago," Verne replied stepping back into the barn and continuing. "I thought I might be able to see it return. You must be Marty," Verne said, looking him over.
"Uh, yeah. We met once before," Marty replied a bit bewilderdly. He couldn't believe this ball of energy was one of Doc's kids. He expected two brainy kids, who would be just like there father.
"I remember," Verne said and then addressed his father. "Jules got up too and is working on the DeLorean in the stable."
Marty looked at Doc in disbelief. "Did I here him right?" he asked in astonishment. "Jules is working on the DeLorean?"
Doc nodded. "I bought another DeLorean to make it into another time machine," he said, "but there are still a few glitches in it that must be worked out." Doc turned to his son again. "You should be in bed young man," he said as sternly as he could.
"Aw Pop," Verne moaned. "I can sleep anytime. I wanna go with you and Marty to see the fighting," he added enthusiasticly.
Doc sighed as if he had been through this argument a million times. "We aren't leaving until this evening and anyway, there is no fighting. The Battle of Bull Run was over on Sunday. The soldiers are just there to make sure the Union soldiers do not come back. Now off to bed. Marty will be here all day and he'll be back on Sunday too."
Verne groaned, but obeyed his father and sulked back to bed. Doc sighed and shook his head. "That boy," he muttered under his breath, then in a normal voice, "we better go see what Jules is up to."
Marty followed Doc through the interior of the barn to where the stable area was. Instead of horses, though, there were dozens of different inventions strewn about, including a brand new DeLorean that looked almost exactly like the original, except this one didn't have everything on it as the other one did. Marty figured it probably would eventually.
"Jules," Doc called out, "come on out for a minute!"
The DeLorean's gull wing door popped open and a boy of about ten crawled out. He had straight brown hair cut in what looked like a style from the early 1900's that was neatly combed, and brown eyes. Jules was dressed in some loose pants with an old shirt over it and suspenders. A miniature lab coat was over that. He looked, Marty thought, like Doc must have at his age.
"Father, I think I have figured out the problem with Mr Fusion," Jules said calmly walking over to Doc and Marty. He looked at Marty, noticing him for the first time. "You must be Martin," he said grabbing Marty's hand and shaking it. "Pleased to make your acquaintance."
Marty's eyes widened when he heard what Jules called him. No one he knew ever called him Martin, except for his great aunt who died when he was ten and brand new teachers. This kid seemed to be a total opposite of his brother, who seemed a bit on the wild side. It was hard to belive they had the same parents.
"Please to meet you too," Marty told Jules. "You can call me Marty though. Everyone else does."
"That's okay. I do not mind using your proper name," Jules replied and spoke to Doc again. "The problem with the fusion generator seems to be with the transfer unit. It wasn't functioning properly because one of the parts was loose, but I tightened it and it should cease malfunctioning now."
Doc patted his son on the shoulder. "That's great Jules," he said proudly, "but I think you should go back to bed now. We have a long and busy day starting in a few hours."
Jules gave a gusty sigh. "Yes father," he muttered, glancing at the DeLorean with a look of longing, then leaving the room.
Doc chuckled softly. "He reminds me of I when I was his age. So does Verne in a way. Even though he isn't as inventive or scientific as Jules, he does have a kind of mischievous spark in him that I had. On him, however, that spark is magnified a zillionfold."
Doc looked at Marty. "You should get some rest too. Starting in a few hours, we have to show you everything you should know on the battlefield and, most importantly, how to load and fire one of those guns."
Marty looked at Doc in disbelief. "Do you mean I'm going to have to actually kill people with a gun while I'm here?" he asked astonished.
Doc shook his head quickly. "Certainly not. You could cause a paradox if you hit and killed someone who wasn't suppose to die, since your not here in the original history. Anyway, their is no fighting taking place now. I'll give you some blanks that I picked up that will fit that gun though, just to be on the safe side. Everyone will assume that you have real bullets. I sincerely hope, though, that they won't use your gun to try to kill someone at an execution. I don't know how you could explain why your bullets had no effect on that person."
Doc pulled a watch from his pocket. "Sunrise is in about an hour and a half. We can begin practice then. In the meantime you can rest. Tonight I'll give you a ride in our wagon to where the campsight is, about 10 miles away. You can sign in, and then you're on your own until Sunday, which is when all the solders can visit there friends or relatives. Before Sunday we can use these to keep in contact." He handed Marty a walkie-talkie he took off a table behind him. "Keep this well hidden and use it only when your sure no one else is around."
Marty examined the walkie-talkie Doc handed to him. It looked almost the same as the ones they had used in 1955 and 1885. Marty stuck it in the deepest pocket he could find in his jacket, until he found a better place for it. He looked back up at Doc as a frightening question ran through his head.
"Doc," Marty began hesitantly, "I know you said that I can't hurt anyone if I fire a gun, but what if I get shot? I mean, everyone else out there has real bullets."
Doc shook his head. "You shouldn't get shot since the battle is over. But, on the other hand, soldiers are still practicing. It is very doubtful that you could get shot though."
"Yeah...," Marty murmured, but he wondered if he was making a mistake. If he remembered correctly from his history classes, millions of solders died during the Civil War, most though, from sickness or infections of wounds. Marty just hoped he'd be able to get Clara and go back to his time as soon as possible and not be killed first.
Tuesday, July 23, 1861
4:05 P.M..
Twelve hours later, Doc Emmett Brown was driving himself and Marty to the camp. It had been a long and exhausting day for both of them. Marty, aside from a few textbook facts, hadn't known one thing about the Civil War. He didn't know how to use the guns, which were more like rifles with the bayonets on them, or how many different ways to use coffee boiler, which was one of the most important things for a solder to have. Usually a Civil War solder had to go through a week or so of training before going out on the battlefield, but since they had no time to spare, they had to cram all that training in one day. Right now he still needed to tell Marty some things he should know.
"...And when you get there, go straight to the captain to sign in. You'll recognize the captain because his uniform is more elaborate than the solders, who will be dressed like you," Doc instructed Marty from up at front.
Marty nodded wearily from the back, where he was stretched out on some old horse blankets that Doc kept back there. "I know Doc. You told me that a few minutes ago," he explained trying not to yawn. Marty had never thought that Civil War training could be so exhausting.
"So, now you shouldn't forget it," Doc said trying not to let his nervousness show. He hoped everything would go according to plan and there would be no complications. They couldn't afford one minor mistake, or the confederate soldiers might kill Marty, thinking he was a traitor. That was one of the most important things not to be. Doc wondered if he was making a big mistake bringing Marty here. But the way he saw it there was no other way to get Clara back but to have Marty join up with the confederate army and try to have him sneak her out right from under there noses. It wouldn't be any easy job.
"The first battle of Bull Run was on Sunday," Doc told Marty. "Basicly the camp is just some tents and wagons in one large group. Everyone has to sleep on the floor, on one blanket. It'll be uncomfortable, but you'll survive. Do you understand?"
Marty, who was folding up a blanket, nodded. "Where do they keep the prisoners?" he asked, sticking the folded up blanket behind his head to prop him up in a comfortable, half sitting, half lying position.
"They keep them in a tent under guard, at most times," Doc replied and began on another subject, this one about the solders and how they acted most of the time. "...You must be able to blend in at all times. I know I have said this before, but I cannot stress enough on how important it is." Doc finished his speech.
"Doc, I'll try to blend in as much as I can," Marty said softly from the back, with his head resting on the blanket and his eyes closed. "But from my experience, people are always suspicious of newcomers."
They were indeed. Doc remembered all too well his experience with it when he first arrived in 1885. It took almost a month before people stopped staring suspiciously at him whenever he walked down the street. "Just make sure that no one has reason to believe that you're trying to help a prisoner escape. If they think you're like everyone else, they won't be suspicious of you and keep and eye on you at all times, which is what you don't want happen, since you will be doing exactly what they don't want you to do. Understand?" asked Doc, breathless.
"Yeah, I guess," Marty murmured from on top of the blankets, sounding far off.
"Good," replied Doc and was silent for awhile while trying to think if there was anything else Marty should know. Then he remembered something of extreme importance.
"Marty, " Doc said urgently and continued, "while I was retracing your family roots, to double check that there were no other McFlys at this place and time, I came across something having to to with your maternal side of the family. I believe that it was your great-great-great-grandmother who helped out during the Civil War, so you better be careful and try not to run into her. We don't need anymore time paradoxes then we have caused all ready. Are you listening? Marty?"
Marty wasn't listening. His eyes were closed and his breathing was deep and even. There was about a half hour drive left until they reached the outskirts of town, so Doc decided to let him sleep until they reached the solder camp. In a way, Marty had had the most exhausting day of them all, doing the same things over and over again, so it would look like he had been trained a week or so instead of a day.
About five minutes before they would reach the Confederate camp, Doc leaned over and shook Marty's shoulder gently. "Wake up, we're almost there," he said in a low voice.
Marty's eyes snapped open in surprise and he sat up quickly. He glanced around at the scenery they were passing. "I'm sorry Doc," Marty said yawning,
"I must have fallen asleep for a minute."
"It was more like half an hour," Doc said, smiling kindly. "We're about five minutes away from the camp. Do you remember everything we discussed?"
"I think so," Marty said stretching. "Look for the captain, who should be in fancier clothes, and sign in with him. Be careful and blend in."
"That's basicly it," Doc said and stopped the wagon abruptly. "This is as far as I can go, until Saturday night. I'll pick you up around ten that evening." Doc looked at Marty, who was trying to get out of the wagon without dropping the gun. When he was finally successful, Doc stuck his hand out for Marty to shake it. "Good luck," he said as they shook hands.
"Thanks. I'll need it I'm sure," Marty replied nervously as he looked around him in awe, where groups of solders were talking in huddles and giving him curious looks.
Doc turned around the wagon and looked behind him one last time as he drove off. Marty looked a little lost as he walked down the road to toward the direction where the camp and battlefield were located. Doc turned back around toward home, once again hoping everything would work out okay.
He was halfway home before he realized he forgot to tell Marty about his great-great-great-grandmother.
Marty glanced behind him one more time at the retreating wagon that Doc was in before beginning the walk down the road that Doc had told him earlier led to the camp. He felt really uncomfortable with everyone staring at him as he walked down the road, as if he was intruding on their territory or something. Marty had to also continually shift the gun from shoulder to shoulder because the sucker was so heavy. It felt like their were lead pellets in it instead of wax covered wood.
After walking for about five minutes, Marty finally reached what looked like the camp. It looked exactly how Doc had described it, with tents and wagons all in a large area. There were hundreds of solders dressed as he, talking and laughing with their friends. There was only one man who stood out from the rest and, even though his back was turned, Marty could tell he wore fancier clothes than the others. Marty guessed he was the captain whom he was suppose to sign in with. He had just began to walk off the road toward the man, when he turned around. Marty stopped dead in his tracks and stared in shock. Standing about 12 feet in front of him was another Tannen. It had to be. The resemblance the man had to Biff Tanner and Mad Dog Tannen was uncanny. Marty began to feel the now familure feeling of deja vu. It seemed real eerie that Doc and Marty always had to run into a Tannen through there travels in time. He then remembered what Doc had said earlier, something about a Tannen having a high rank on the Confederate side. Marty wondered why Doc had failed to mention that he was a captain.
Marty walked toward the captain, who was given plenty of breathing room by all the other soldiers. A minute later he found out why. Not only was the captain's looks like his relatives, his expression was too. A large scowl was on his face, as if this was the last place he wanted to be, and a cold, mean look was in his eyes. Marty wasn't surprised that the jerk had taken Clara prisoner for no reason at all.
The captain glared down at him. "Whadda you want," he spat out, as if Marty was some sort of slime that had crawled out from under a refrigerator, and who wasn't worthy of his time.
"I.. uh.. was told to sign in with you," Marty said nervously.
"By who?" the captain asked rudely.
Marty had to think fast. "Uh.. my uncle, um.. told me to sign in with you," Marty said looking straight at the cold stone eyes.
The captain looked back angrily at him. "If you haven't heard by now, my name is Abe Tannen, Captain Tannen to you people," he sneered. "You are in tent 19. Take the first empty space in there."
Captain Tannen started to turn around. "Wait!" Marty cried, grabbing hold of his dirt covered sleave. "Where is tent 19?"
Captain Tannen smiled an ugly smile just like the Tannens before, or after, depending how you looked at it, him. "It's that way somewhere," he said waving vaguely to the south. "You should find it eventually, but don't spend too long lookin'. Supper's in an hour." He sauntered off.
Marty gazed around him. There were tents everywhere. It would take forever to find the tent he was assigned to. Marty hoped Captain Tannen was telling the truth when he said what direction it was in. As he walked towered where the vague direction of the tent was, he caught sight of a number, stenciled on the tent closest to him. It was 147. Marty groaned as he balanced the heavy gun, for the long walk toward his tent.
Wednesday, July 24, 1861
9:36 A.M..
"Doc, come in Doc, this is Marty," Marty said in a hushed whisper from in the leaves of a large tree. "Do you read me?"
The walkie talkie crackled to life. "Marty, this is Doc. Anything to report?" he replied back.
Marty looked cautiously around him from his perch, a good fifteen feet off the ground. He had had a dickens of a time crawling up here. The tree appeared to be in someone's yard, since there was a house about one hundred and fifty feet away from the tree, but no one had yet noticed him among the leaves. No one else was even around him so Marty figured it was safe to answer Doc.
"I'm just checking in," Marty replied. "I'm pretty sure that no one is around and can see me right now, since I am sitting in a large oak tree and lots of thick, green leaves are around me."
"What's happened since yesterday?" Doc asked, his voice blending with some static.
Marty thought back. After hiking for what seemed like an hour, he had finally reached his tent, only to find that he had missed dinner by twenty minutes. Their was no more food, and wouldn't be until morning, so Marty had gone to bed with an empty stomach, and a head full of warnings about Captain Tannen given to him by the six other solders in his tent.
Marty hadn't been able to sleep well either. Each solder had one blanket and it didn't make the hard lumpy ground any softer. Each position he had tried it seemed that there was a rock or stick jabbing him somewhere. It also wasn't that quiet in the tent. Someone in the tent snored like a chainsaw, and Marty could here all sorts of rustling sounds outside and what sounded like a wolf howl in the distance. He had finally dozed off around sunrise, only to be awakened a short while later by a loud bugle from outside of the tent. After a short breakfast, Marty had snuck off, and spent ten minutes trying to scale the tree. He had finally made it and was able to call Doc.
"It's kind of a long story Doc," Marty said and was distracted by a movement he noticed out of the corner of his eye. A young woman of about his age had come out of the house with a basket, and was hanging out clothes to dry on a clothes line. There was something vaguely familure about her, but Marty couldn't put his finger on it. It was as if he knew her from somewhere, but that would be impossible since they were over one hundred years in the past. Marty decided to ignore it for now.
"Is anyone suspicious of you?" Doc asked, sounding slightly nervous.
"Not yet," Marty replied and once again looked at the woman, still wondering where he had seen her before.
"Marty," Doc began, "there is something extremely important that I must tell you about--"
Doc's voice was interrupted by a loud, sharp crack. Marty first thought it was a rifle shot, but that was before he felt himself falling. He was too stunned to try to grab a branch above his head or to cry out and so he fell the fifteen feet silently. Marty hit the ground at the same time as the branch he was sitting on, striking his head on a large tree root at the base of the tree.
Marty lay on his back looking up at the leaves and the place he had just descended from. It must have been a very rare tree, Marty thought, since all the leaves were getting darker by the second, along with the sky. Marty could also feel himself growing drowsy. Maybe the sleepless night was catching up to him. He closed his eyes.
Marty could here light footsteps running toward him, but they sounded like they were miles away. He could also faintly here Doc saying something, but that was impossible since Doc was ten miles away. Marty sensed someone standing above him, but it seemed like too much trouble to open his eyes and see who it was. The person put a cool hand on his forehead, then grabbed him and pulled him into a standing position, though the last thing Marty wanted to do was stand. The person swung one of his arms around their neck and began to pull him somewhere. The last thing Marty remembered was dimly hearing Doc say something about a relative.
Then he fell completely into unconsciousness.
Doc Brown turned the walkie talkie off and on over and over again in hope of reaching Marty. All he got was the ever-present silence. What had happened to that kid? One minute Marty was on the walkie-talkie sounding perfectly clear, the next minute, all he got was silence mixed with static. Doc wondered if the batteries wore out on the other walkie-talkie, but he had bought new batteries at the same time he bought the walkie-talkies.
Doc looked out of the window in his workshop. The sun had just begun to set. He had been trying all day with no luck in contacting Marty. What if something happened to him? He would never be able to forgive himself if Marty had gotten seriously hurt or worse. Doc sighed and turned away from the window. There was no use in worrying. Perhaps Marty had gotten pulled away suddenly from the conversation they had been having earlier or someone was coming toward him. The best Doc could do for the time being was keep his walkie-talkie on, in case Marty tried to contact him, and try to contact Marty every so often. The only thing Doc could do was wait.
* * *
Marty opened his eyes in the pitch blackness. His head ached at the back and he felt disoriented. But there was something in the room that seemed familure to him. He started to sit up, but lay back down and shut his eyes again when he felt the room seem to spin around him. There was a rustling sound from a corner of the room, and he heard someone sit next to him.
"Mom," Marty whispered, "is that you?"
"Just relax now," a soft feminine voice said with a slight southern accent, as she dabbed at his forehead with a damp cloth. "You've been asleep for almost ten hours."
Marty relaxed. It was his mother. But since when had she gotten a southern accent? "I had a horrible nightmare," he said groaning. "I dreamt I was back in time and was caught in the middle of a war."
His mother lightly stroked his hand, which was lying on top of the blankets. "Well, your safe and sound now, here in Manassas Junction, Virginia."
Marty's eyes flew open. "Manassas Junction Virginia?" he asked in surprise and sat up, as the other person in the room struck a match to light a candle.
The flickering light reviled a young woman, who looked exactly like his mother, Marty noticed in shock. She was in a long blue-grey calico dress with an apron tied around her waist and her long brown hair was pulled up in a bun. Even with those changes, there was no doubt about it that she was the spitting image of his mother.
Marty gasped at her. "Who are you?" he asked, still shocked.
She smiled kindly at him. "My name is Lauren Smith. What is your name?"
Something about that name rang a bell with Marty. Then he remembered. Lauren Smith was the name of his mother's great-great-grandmother. Marty's mother would love to tell stories about her relatives, and if Marty remembered correctly, Lauren helped out during the Civil War by helping to nurse in the makeshaft hospitals. That was how she met her husband, Alexander Baines. They had four boys, and the boys all married and had sons of their own. One of those son's was Marty's grandfather, Sam Baines. Marty couldn't believe it. First a Tannen, and now this.
"My name is...." He thought fast, choosing the first name that he had heard in a movie that took place during the Civil War. "Uh, Rhett Butler."
"Nice to meet you Rhett," Lauren said, as she smiled at him. "You fell out of a tree and struck your head. I couldn't just leave you there so I managed to get you over to my house, to keep an eye on you, since I have some medical training. Although I am quite curious what you were doing in that tree."
Marty thought back. He knew that she would not believe the truth, not that he could tell her it. "I was uh... birdwatching," he said, then noticed something which disturbed him.
It wasn't only the looks Marty's mother, Lorraine, and Lauren shared. There expression was the same. In 1955 when Marty had first met his mother, who developed a major crush on him, he had noticed her eyes held a kind of adoring and dreamy look in them whenever she looked at him. Marty found the same expression in Lauren's eyes as she gazed at him. Uh oh, Marty thought.
"Did you see any interesting birds?" she asked leaning toward him, her eyes bright with curiosity and something Marty could recognize all too well.
"Uh yeah, they were all interesting," Marty said nervously. "Listen I, uh, better go now. Everyone must be wondering where I am and it's probably past curfew." He threw back the blankets and stood up, eyeing her suspiciously as he walked toward the door.
"Oh, you don't have to leave," Lauren said standing up. "I have already contacted the captain and told him you were hurt and will be staying the night here."
Marty groaned inwardly. "Perfect," he muttered sarcasticly under his breath.
"What was that?" Lauren asked coming over toward him, still smiling, along with that look in her eyes.
"Ah, nothing. Listen, I'll be right back. I need to get something that I think I left at the tree," Marty said, suddenly remembering dropping the walkie-talkie in his fall.
"All right," Lauren said pleasantly. "I'll have dinner ready for you when you return."
Marty walked out of the room and found himself in a narrow hallway with two other doorways on a second story. Down the stairs there were three other rooms, a dining room, a living room, and a kitchen. The front door seemed to be next to the living room, with a wall separating it from the living room. As he was about to exit it, he gazed around the living room, and tried to remember if his mother had said anything about Lauren having parents. Lauren, who had followed him down the stairs, answered his question for him.
"My parents went to Williamsberg for some supplies and they should come back tommorow," Lauren said, noticing his puzzled expression. "They trust me at home alone, since I am almost 18."
"Yeah," Marty said softly, hoping her parents were right in trusting her. He spun around and walked into the cool night.
It didn't take him long to spot the tree. It's large dark silhouette cast a long shadow across the lawn in the dusky twilight. Marty hurried over to the tree and scouted the area around where he had fallen. The walkie-talkie was about 5 feet away from where he had landed. Marty bent over and picked it up, checking it over for damage. Except for looking a little dirty, it was fine. Marty switched it on - the walkie-talkie had automatically switched off after 10 minutes of no use - and spoke into it softly.
"Doc, this is Marty. Come in," he said as loudly as he dared. There was a burst of static, and then Doc's frantic voice came on.
"Marty, what happened? I have been trying to contact you all day. Where have you been?"
"I guess I have spent the majority of the day unconscious," Marty said, and quickly explained to him what had happened.
Marty heard Doc groan after he finished his speech. "I was about to tell your great-great-great-grandmother when the branch broke. Oh well. As long as you didn't do anything to change history much."
"But Doc," Marty said urgently, "I think Lauren has a crush on me, just like my mom did."
"Great Scott, are you sure?" Doc asked Marty, sounding extremely concerned. Marty didn't blame him. They both knew what had almost happened last time with his mother.
"Pretty sure. Lauren has the same look in her eyes that my mom did whenever she looked at me," Marty replied.
Doc sighed heavily. "If this is the same thing we had to deal with earlier, it could cause a major paradox," Doc said grimly.
"What exactly do you mean?" asked Marty uncertainly.
"If Lauren is infatuated with you, than she won't fall for Alexander. If they don't get married, they don't have kids, the kids are never born so they never have kids, your mother never gets born because your grandfather will never be born, which means you will never be born so that you could never come back here and mess things up in the first place." Doc sighed heavily as he finished his speech.
Marty leaned against the tree, casting a look at the jagged place where the branch had broken off. "This is heavy," he said groaning. "How can I get everything the way it is supposed to be?"
"I'll have to do some more research to figure out how, where, and when they met. I don't suppose you know do you?" Doc asked hopefully.
Marty thought as hard as he could. "All I know is that they met when Lauren was helping out as a nurse at the Confederate hospital near the battlefield, and Alexander was brought in for some injury. I have no idea when it happened though," Marty replied, feeling hopeless.
"It's not a lot to go on, but I think it'll be easy to find in the records. I'll call you back tommorow with the information I have found. In the meantime, try to get away from Lauren," Doc advised.
Marty sighed. "I wish I could," he said longingly, "but she had already told the captain, who happens to be a Tannen, that I have to stay at her house overnight."
Doc sighed again. "Hang in there kid," he said. "I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible. In the meantime, you better keep an eye on her."
"You can be sure I will," Marty said firmly, as he caught sight of her coming out of the house. In a lower voice he said, "I gotta go now Doc. She's coming this way."
"Good luck," Doc said and signed off. Marty knew he was going to need it.
Wednesday, July 24, 1861
10:03 P.M..
Marty sat up in the bed and looked out the window. There was a full moon out that night and all the stars looked large and bright, much brighter than the ones in his present day sky. They shone on the landscape, making everything look ghostly and unreal. Marty lay back on his pillow and stared out the window at the moon, trying to get tired. After dinner, Lauren had given him something she had said would help him get to sleep, but so far it must have not kicked in. He thought about the way dinner had gone and groaned.
The food itself, which was some sort of stew, was quite good. But all during dinner, Lauren stared at him, her eyes never leaving his face. It was not only uncomfortable, but it worried him. Even Marty's mother hadn't stared at his face all during dinner when he had eaten at her house in 1955. Or maybe she had and he hadn't noticed, since she was sitting next to him instead of across him and he had been too preoccupied with trying to get over to the 1955 Doc Brown.
Marty wondered how in the heck he was suppose to get Lauren and Alexander together, and break him and Lauren apart. On top of that mess, he realized he still needed to get Clara freed. Neither job would be easy, that much Marty knew.
Marty could feel his eyelids growing heavy. Perhaps that stuff Lauren had given him was finally working. He decided to worry about those problems later. Maybe when he woke up, he would find out this all a bad dream. Marty closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep.
Lauren Smith opened the door to Rhett's room a crack and peered in. Good, he was asleep. Lauren was beginning to wonder if that opium she had given him would have ever started working. She opened the door all the way and stepped in, carrying an oil lamp with her. She wasn't too worried on Rhett noticing it and waking up. Whenever a person at the hospital took some opium, it would take something like an earthquake to wake them up.
Lauren gazed for a moment at Rhett. The moonlight fell on his sleeping face and made her knees grow weak. He looked so handsome lying there, Lauren felt that she could stare at him for hours. But she averted her eyes after a moment. She had a job to do and it wouldn't do for her to spend the whole night watching Rhett sleep.
Lauren crept over to the chair at the foot of the bed where Rhett had set his coat, hat, and boots. Lauren kneeled down next to the chair and set the oil lamp on the wooden floor. She carefully lifted the heavy coat off the back of the chair and set it on her lap. Sticking her hand in a pocket, she felt around until her hand brushed against something hard and smooth. It had felt like nothing Lauren had ever felt before. She carefully lifted it out, but just as it was almost completely out, an edge of it caught on the pocket, yanking it out of her fingers, and clattering it on the hard wooden floor.
Lauren froze and stood absolutely still as she waited to see if the sound had woken Rhett. His eyes were still closed, his breathing slow and deep, so Lauren figured he had slept through the disturbance. The thing, whatever it was, had landed under the bed, so Lauren stretched out and grabbed it, nearly knocking the blasted thing across the room.
She held the thing carefully in her hands, wondering what she held. It wasn't that large - about 6 inches long, and 3 wide - but it felt and looked alien to anything she had ever seen before. On the side were two knobby disks, one labeled 'volume', the other 'on' at one end, and 'off' at the other end. At the top there was a long silvery metal thing that Lauren thought it looked like a lightning rod. On the other side there was a long button like thing that when you pressed it, it would disappear inside the side of the strange box. On the front of this dark grey box was something black and gauzy behind a few rows of what looked like bars. And at the very top at this item, in strange, small silver colored letters was the word 'Sony'.
Lauren turned the item over and over again in her hands, trying to guess what she held. At the back of the strange thing was the outline of a box a small and the word 'open' next to an arrow pointing downward. Lauren pried the thing off with her fingernails and was greeted with the sight of two long round things decorated in bright colors, with the word 'Energizer' on the side. Lauren replaced the cover to the queer item and dropped it back into the pocket she had found it in.
Lauren found nothing else in the other pockets except for the last one she tried. She stood up, because her legs aching from from being down on her knees. The last thing she found was a square thing that was made out of dark blue material. It opened by pulling a small flap that made a odd cracking noise. In a long pouch that went in the very back was some strange paper with some numbers on it in the corners. It looked a bit like money, but not any she had ever seen, with pictures of some presidents she recognized, and other men she had never seen or heard of before. Putting that back, she found a little pouch, once again with a flap that made that cracking noise, filled with what looked like silvery coins in various shapes and sizes. At the bottom of each were numbers, like 1979 or 1982. In the middle of the objects were profiles of old presidents, except for one small silver one, that had a picture of an unrecognizable man on it. Lauren put the coins back and found a transparent pocket that held what looked like several things. They all puzzled her a great deal. The first thing was a small, flat card with what looked like one of those things called a photograph in color of Rhett on it. But on the card it said the name Marty McFly next to the picture. What did that mean? Beside it and under it, it listen Rhett or Marty's full name, height, birthdate, and a year of expiration, whatever that was. They must have screwed up the years, since it said Rhett was born in the year 1968, and whatever a DMV in California was, it expired in 1987. Lauren flipped the card up. Under the card was a another color photograph. This one showed three people - a young man of perhaps 22, Rhett, and a young woman of about 19. They were all standing in front of what looked like a wall covered with ivy, and a well. But something was truly wrong. All three people were dressed in weird clothes - the girl was even wearing pants! - and the girl's sweatshirt said 'Class of '84', whatever that meant.
Lauren began to feel an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. What did all this mean? Because she was thinking hard about this, she had a difficult time closing the strange folder thing. The thing slipped from her fingers, and landed right on Rhett's chest, since she was standing right over him. Lauren gasped in horror, and hitched up her skirts, climbing on to the bed and reached for the folder, placing her face about an inch over Rhett's. Just as Lauren had the folder thing in her hand, and was about to lean back, Rhett stirred and opened his eyes, staring right into Lauren's hazel ones.
Rhett's blue eyes widened. "YEEEEEAAAHHHHH!" he screamed, sitting up and scooting back a bit too far, which caused him to fall out of the bed onto the floor, bringing most of the blankets with him.
Lauren, just as surprised as he was, gasped and toppled backwards off the bed, knocking the oil lamp over with her arm, shattering the glass, and spreading the oil and fire in a long steak.
Lauren jumped up and yanked a blanket off the dazed Rhett, still lying on the ground. Spotting the water that was still in the bowl from earlier in the day, Lauren dumped it on the blanket and tossed the blanket on the flames, stomping on it. In less than a minute, the fire was out.
Lauren, weak with relief, walked over to the window and opened it, letting some of the smoke out of the room. Rhett slowly got up, still looking a bit confused on what just happened. He wasn't the only one.
"What happened?" he asked, staring at the scorched blanket, the shattered glass, and the smoke curdling out the window.
"Oh, we just had a little accident," Lauren said, trying to steady her voice, which was trembling a little.
"Why were you leaning over me anyway?" Rhett asked, looking at Lauren a bit suspiciously.
Lauren bit her lower lip, trying to think of a harmless excuse. "Ah... well, you see, I was cold and then I remembered I gave you my extra blanket off my bed earlier today. So I came in and was leaning over to get a blanket, when you woke up. I was just as surprised as you, so I fell backwards off the bed, hit the oil lamp, which shattered, and then had to put out the fire."
It was then Lauren realized that she still had the blue thing in her hand. Quickly she slipped it in her apron pocket, but Rhett didn't notice. He was still looking at the scorched blanket in amazement. Slowly he walked over to the blanket and lifted it up, coughing when smoke flooded the room. Rhett ran over to the window and tossed the blanket into the clear night air, and then went back over to the blackened floor, kneeling next to it. He ran a finger over the floor and looked at it to see if any ashes came up.
"The floor looks pretty safe -," Rhett began as he stood up and yawned in the middle of his speech. Lauren guessed that he still had some of the opium in his body.
"I'll be right back," Lauren said, running downstairs to grab a new oil lamp, since they were in almost total blackness, a broom, a dustpan, and an old rug. Returning upstairs, she found Rhett lying on top of the sheets - most of the blankets were still in a tangle on the floor - and staring at the sky.
Lauren leaned the broom against the wall and set the dustpan and the rug on the floor as she crossed the room. Having learned her lesson, she sat the oil lamp down on the nightstand next to the bed as she sat down on the edge of the bed, next to Rhett.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked softly, gazing once again at his features bathed in the moonlight.
Rhett jumped slightly, as if he didn't notice she was there. When he answered, his voice sounded drowsy. "I was just thinking how the moon and the sky always looks the same year after year."
Lauren laughed softly. "How can it look the same every year when things are changing all the time?" she asked, mildly curious.
"It just does," Rhett said closing his eyes. "I shouldn't be telling you this though. It might cause a paradox which, according to Doc, would end all life as we know it."
Lauren was puzzled. "What's a paradox?" she asked, a bit more than mildly curious now.
Rhett didn't answer. Lauren felt frustrated. She had to know what that meant. Perhaps it was a key to all that stuff she found tonight and what it meant. Lauren shook Rhett's shoulder softly. "Rhett, what is a paradox?" she said, whispering it in his ear.
Rhett groaned softly. "You don't want to know," he muttered and turned on his side, away from Lauren.
Lauren sighed and looked out the window. It was a clear night and all the stars were shining brightly. The moon was the brightest of all, and she had to squint to stare up at it. Lauren wondered if anyone was out there and feeling as confused as she was.
After a few minutes, Lauren got up and shut the window. After doing that, she picked up the pile of bedding on the floor and covered Rhett, who seemed to be sleeping soundly, with it. Her fingers brushed a lock of his straight brown hair out of his eyes as she finished tucking the blanket in around him. Lauren felt her heart pound, as it did when she first saw him lying hurt at the bottom of that oak tree. She had never felt this way about anyone before.
As she swept up the glass in the dustpan, she remembered that there was a dance coming up this Friday. Perhaps she would be able to work up enough nerve to ask Rhett to it, even though it wasn't proper for a girl to ask a boy. Before she left the room, she slipped the strange folder back into what she thought the correct pocket was in the jacket. Lauren went to sleep that night wondering how the words Lauren Butler sounded together.
Thursday, July 25, 1861
12:15 P.M..
Marty pulled back a tent flap for the umpteenth time and peeked inside. Again he was greeted by emptiness. Letting it fall back, he sighed. That seemed to be the one hundredth tent he had looked in today, in hope of finding the one where they were keeping Clara. So far he had had no luck and there were still hundreds of tents left to go. Marty had spent all morning, peering in and out of tents, escaping once again after breakfast before they could tell him to go and keep guard or train with most of the other soldiers. Marty was sure that if he had to go to train he might bump into Lauren again, who would be nursing the wounded that day. It was lucky for him that he had woken up at about sunrise and had been able to escape without running into her, whom he noticed, even in his half awake state the night before when she had practically set the house aflame, was looking at him with more tenderness than at dinner.
Marty decided it was time to call Doc. Maybe he would have some ideas on how to shorten this lengthy process. Plus, Marty realized, Doc hadn't called earlier like he had promised to the night before. He walked over to some woods and stood behind a clump of trees. No more climbing for him. As he pulled out his walkie-talkie, he noticed a small chip off one of the corners. He had never noticed it before, but he shrugged it off. It probably had happened when he fell out of the tree.
"Doc, come in Doc," Marty whispered into the walkie-talkie.
"Marty, this is Doc, what is it?" Doc answered, coming on after a minute.
Marty explained to him what had happened the night before first. Doc was silent for so long after he had finished, that Marty thought Doc had somehow turned off his walkie talkie.
"Doc? Are you there?" Marty asked, shaking his walkie-talkie to see if the problem could somehow been his reason.
"Yes, I'm here, " Doc replied sounding extremely worried. "This is worse than I had ever thought."
"No kidding," Marty said glumly. "If we can't fix this, I might as well have never been born."
"I have some information for you about Lauren and Alexander meeting for the first time," Doc said. "I found it in an old diary of Lauren's. I have it right here. Uh oh." Doc's voice sounded grim.
"What is it?" Marty asked, worried.
"You changed history. Instead of saying what it did earlier, it now says, and I quote 'Tonight I had a nasty scare. I knocked over an oil lamp, shattering it, and the floor caught fire. Luckily, I was able to put it out quickly and not much damage was done. Just the top of the floor was scorched, but Mother and Father will probably give me a good scolding.
"'It was all my fault that the lamp was knocked over. I was on top of the bed when Rhett Butler was sleeping in it.' " Doc stopped reading for a minute. "Rhett Butler?"
Marty could feel his face redden. "That's the name I gave her."
"I see," Doc replied. He continued reading. "'He awoke just when my face was above his, as I was trying to pick up this strange folder like thing that I found in his coat that I had accidentally dropped on him. He was startled, to say the least, to find my face above his. I was surprised too, and fell backwards off the bed, hitting the oil lamp, which I had sat on the ground, and knocking it over. Luckily, he never notice I had one of his belongings in my hand, and was able to put it back without him noticing. It has made me ever so curious of him, though. There was so many strange objects in this folder, including a card with a color- yes color!- photograph of Rhett's face on it with another name, Marty McFly, and along with strange years I can only dream of and odd writing. What is a DMV anyway?
" 'Another puzzling thing. What is a paradox? Rhett mentioned it earlier, unfortunately, I couldn't get a straight answer out of him.
" 'I am going to bed now, to dream of Rhett, whom I feel I could love deeply. Perhaps I might ask him to the soldiers dance on Friday(?). Yours, Lauren' unquote. Marty what does this mean?" Doc asked, sounding frantic and puzzled.
Marty sat down on an half rotted tree stump, feeling weak. "It must mean that she snooped through my things while I was sleeping," he replied, his mind whirling. What would happen if she guessed he was from over one hundred years in the future?
"That much I could tell," Doc said, "but what is this about you telling her about paradoxes?"
Marty had to think hard before he remembered, and then it was just a dim memory. "After the fire that she mentions, I was lying down on the bed, and she sat down next to me and asked me something. I can't really remember what I said, because I was half asleep, but then she shook me awake, and asked me what a paradox was. I said something back to answer her question, and that is the last thing I can remember happening until morning."
"It says in the diary that you didn't give her a straight answer, so perhaps she will give up on that subject," Doc said, sounding slightly hopeful.
"Maybe, but if she was gutsy enough to search through my things while I was sleeping, I'd think that she wouldn't give up that easily on finding out what a paradox is," Marty replied, sighing.
"True," Doc said and was silent for a while, during which, Marty guessed, he was leafing through the diary. "Here is something interesting," Doc said, breaking the silence. "This was written on a Saturday morning. Listen. 'Dear Diary- Last night was one of the worst nights in my life. Rhett, whom I finally mustered up enough courage to ask to the dance the day before, never showed up. I can feel my heart breaking...' It goes on for awhile about broken hearts and such, but the main point is, she asked you to the dance and you never showed up. I wonder why..." Doc said, his voice trailing off as he thought.
"Doc?" Marty asked. "Didn't you look at the diary before it changed?"
"Yes. I had to skim through most of it before I hit up on something describing how, where, and when Lauren and Alexander met," Doc replied, "which, if I remember correctly, is this coming Monday."
"How would I help them to fall in love?" Marty asked. "I mean, it was easy with my parents. One kiss locked them together forever."
"I know," Doc said thinking. "I guess I'll still have to do more research. Just try not to change much history so that this diary is accurate on what happened in the original history."
"Doc," Marty said, "before you go, I was wondering if you had any ideas on how to make finding where Clara is being held any easier. I have spent all morning looking in tents and if that keeps up, I'll be looking in them all night."
Doc chuckled softly. "That's an easy question," he said. "Just look for the tents that are under guard."
Marty felt like kicking himself. Why hadn't he thought of that? Hadn't Doc also told him that a few days ago too, when they were in the wagon on the way to camp?
"I think I'll keep that in mind," Marty said evenly.
"Good. Call me if anything else transpires," Doc said signing off.
"I will," Marty whispered and shut off his walkie-talkie, shoving it back into his pocket.
Friday, July 26, 1861
7:35 P.M..
Marty snuck off from where the dance was just getting underway and plunged into the woods. He had finally located some tents under guard earlier in the day and had decided that this would have been the perfect opportunity to check them out, since there would be less people around.
That day Marty hadn't escaped quick enough after breakfast and had been forced to go train. It was there, during lunch, that Lauren had cornered him and asked him, with hope in her eyes, to go to the dance with her. Marty had tried to think of a believable excuse to explain why he couldn't go, but couldn't come up with any, so he had said yes. As Marty crashed through the underbrush, trying to be as quiet as possible which was hard, especially when it was getting dark in the woods and he couldn't really see where he was going that well, he tried to convince himself that he wasn't going to kill Lauren by standing her up. In fact, he told himself, maybe this is what it would take to end this crush she had on him. However, he still felt uncomfortable standing her up.
After a few minutes of wandering around in the dim woods, Marty spotted light up ahead. He hoped he was in the right spot and not miles off his goal. Instead of striding through the woods, as he had been doing, he slowed down to a walk and tried to be as light on his feet as possible. He peeked around a large apple tree and let out a sigh of relief. Up ahead of him were the five tents with two solders at each tent, except for one, where there was just one solder. Now that he was here, Marty wondered how he was going to figure out which tent Clara was in. Luckily, he didn't even have to look in one tent. The only solder at the one tent went over to pull back the flap, and the light fell on the face of Captain Tannen!
Marty's eyes widened when he remembered what Doc had said about why Clara was taken prisoner. That had to be the tent she was in. Sure enough, as soon as Captain Tannen looked in, he heard her voice.
"Will you quit looking in at me!" Marty heard Clara snap angrily. "You know I am always here."
Captain Tannen chuckled. "I love to look in at you. You know, if you go to that dance tonight with me, I might consider letting you go." He grinned at her. "Provided you give me what I want."
"Never!" Marty heard Clara say. "I wouldn't go anywhere with you, even if you were the last slimeball left on earth!"
Captain Tannen shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said letting the tent flap fall back, "but you'll have to give in eventually, seein' you won't get out if ya don't." Marty heard him chuckle to himself as he resumed the position.
How could he sidetrack Captain Tannen into getting away from the front of the tent, while he stepped in there? Marty scanned the ground by his feet, looking for an answer. He spotted a rock the size of his hand near his feet. He picked it up, weighing it. Maybe if he threw the rock and it dropped into the bushes in front of the tent, it might distract Captain Tannen. It was worth a try.
Marty aimed the rock the large clump of bushes and let it fly. It landed perfectly, making a lot of rustling before it hit the ground. Captain Tannen was the only one who noticed it. With a suspicious look on his face, he slowly snuck up on the bush. Marty had to struggle not to laugh. It was pretty funny for a Tannen to be sneaking up on a rock with his gun. But Marty quickly pushed that thought out of his head. The distraction would probably last only a minute or so, and he needed to hopefully get Clara out of there by then.
Marty crept out from behind the tree and as silently as possible walked over to the tent and pulled back the flap, sticking his head in. Clara, who was sitting on a blanket on the floor reading, looked up angrily. When she saw it was Marty who stood there, instead of Captain Tannen, her eyes lighted up and she jumped to her feet.
"Marty," she said in amazement, "what are you doing here?"
"Doc sent me," he replied as he stepped all the way in the tent. The inside was small, but it was high enough for him to stand up straight. At the opening was a log holding that end up, with a thin branch that went to the opposite end of the tent, where there was another log. On that log was an oil lamp, that hung on a stick jutting out.
"Emmett?" Clara asked. "How is he? And the boys?"
Marty opened his mouth to answer her, but before he could get one word out he felt something hard hit him in the back of the head. Then everything went black.
Clara Brown gasped in horror as she looked between the unconscious Marty and the smirking Captain Tannen. She felt her blood boil when she gazed into that ugly face.
"What did you do?" she almost screamed at him, but was able to keep her temper, just barely, and keep her voice quiet and even.
"He was in my way," Captain Tannen said, looking down at Marty. "Plus he was talkin' to ya. And I can't have that."
"You could have killed him!" Clara yelled, struggling to keep her temper under control.
"But I didn't," Captain Tannen pointed out, kicking Marty none too softly. Marty moaned softly from his unconscious state.
Clara glared at him. "Get out of here," she said trying to calm down. "And don't come in here until morning."
Captain Tannen smiled, a twisted ugly one. "All right, but if he starts buggin' you later, just let me know. I think that he best stay here 'til mornin'." He walked out, letting the flap close behind him.
Clara let out a sigh of relief, and immediately knelt down next to Marty to try to revive him.
Clara shook his shoulder softly and called his name. When that didn't work, she sat down and put his head in her lap. She tried shaking him, yelling in his ear, and taking off his hat and waving it over his face. When none of those worked, she sat back, frustrated. It was then she caught sight of the glass of water she had left over from her dinner. That gave her a brilliant idea. Clara reached out for the glass of water. When she had it in her hand, she proceeded to dump it all in Marty's face. That worked.
Marty sat up, dripping water. "Why did you have to do that? " he asked groaning, as he rubbed the back of his head.
"It was the only way to wake you up," Clara replied sympathetically, handing him her blanket to dry his face off with, which Marty did then handed her back the blanket.
"That's the second time I have gotten hit in the head in the past two days," Marty complained as he lay back down, and shut his eyes. "Unless you want one whopper of a headache like I have, I don't recommend it."
"Wait!" Clara cried out suddenly, as she realized something. "Don't go to sleep."
Marty sat up again. "Why not?" he asked, looking at her puzzledly. "It looks like I'll be stuck here for a while."
"If you have a concussion, you shouldn't go to sleep until at least twelve hours later," Clara explained, remembering she had read that somewhere.
"I'm sure I don't have a concussion," Marty replied. "Just a bad headache."
"Just to be on the safe side, you shouldn't go to sleep until the sun rises." Clara said, catching sight of the dusk outside.
"Fine, but I'll need to keep pretty busy," Marty replied yawning, "because I'm really tired right now, and I have the feeling that it will get worse as the night wears on."
"I don't think that will be too hard," Clara said smiling, relieved that she had convinced him to stay up. Aside from that fact she had seen somewhere, she was also terribly lonely. "You can tell me all you know and what has been happening to you lately, and I'll do the same."
"That reminds me...." Marty began, taking off his jacket and reaching into one of the pockets. "Here is a walkie-talkie. You could call Doc with it and talk to him. It would be just like talking on a phone."
"You mean one of those contraptions in the future that allow you to talk to people across oceans without leaving your house?" Clara asked, taking the walkie-talkie.
"Exactly," Marty said nodding, than winced. "God, I wish I had some aspirin or something," he said rubbing his forehead. "My head feels like it was used as a baseball at the World Series."
"Close," Clara said, pulling up the anntene, like the ones on portable phones. "Captain Tannen swung at the back of your head with the back of his gun."
"So that's what happened," Marty said softly, sitting up straighter.
Clara tossed him two books. "You could read these while I talk on this contraption." Clara, noticing Marty's puzzled expression, on the books (one was a old school reader, the other a Jules Verne novel), hastily added, "Those were the only books I had with me when I was captured."
"Oh," Marty replied and opened one. Clara turned her attention back to the walkie-talkie and proceeded to turn it on. She then spent the next hour or so in bliss.
Marty slammed the book shut and stared off into space. He had been reading for what seemed like hours, while Clara talked on the walkie-talkie with her family. It wasn't that the books were boring, but the words had begun to swim in front of his eyes, and his headache had gotten worse. All he wanted to do was go to sleep, but he couldn't, not for over six long hours.
A few minutes later, Clara finally broke the connection and got off the walkie talkie. Though she looked thinner and paler than the last time Marty had seen her, which was the week before in 1985, her eyes were sparkling now, and her face was glowing.
"Oh it was so nice to here their voices," she said sighing. "I'm so glad that everyone is well and their have been no disasters. One time when we went back to visit my parents in 1897, Verne broke the water pump and there was no water the rest of the week."
Marty smiled faintly. "That must have been awful," he said, stifling a yawn, and forcing his eyes wide open, as he leaned sideways and rested his shoulder and head against one of the log posts.
Clara smiled. "It was. I thought Mother and Father were going to kill him. They were always like that...."
Clara proceeded to tell Marty about her childhood. Marty listened, but as her voice droned on, his thoughts drifted toward his own family. It seemed as if he hadn't seen them for years. Along with Jennifer, although they had had a date the Friday night before he left....
"Marty!" Clara's sharp voice brought him back to earth. He never even realized his eyes had closed until he had to open them to see Clara's face looking at him in concern.
"What did I miss?" Marty asked, feeling groggy. He was so exhausted and thought if he didn't get any sleep soon, he would keel over in a faint. He looked at his watch. Getting hit on the head must have taken more out of him then he realized, since he normally was not nearly this tired at 9PM.
Clara frowned. "Not much I guess," she said, than gave a little smile. "The only way I could tell that I didn't have your attention, was that you were snoring softly."
Marty felt his face redden. "I do not snore," he said trying to sound indignant, but he was so tired that it came out sounding weak.
Clara smiled. "Whatever," she said, than asked him, "Do you want to tell me about anything?"
Marty sighed wearily. "Sure," he said, and told Clara all about what had happened ever since he arrived in 1861 and how his great-great-great-grandmother had fallen in love with him, instead of his great-great-great-grandfather. It took him over an hour to explain to her what had happened to him in the past few days. When Marty was finished, he felt more exhausted than when he had started.
"That sounds pretty complicated," Clara agreed when he had finished talking. "Do you have any idea how to get them to fall in love?"
Marty shook his head, feeling mild pain when doing so. His headache had faded a bit, but it was still there. "Doc said he'd have to do more research to figure that out," he said drowsily and yawned. "But I don't even know if it was even documented anywhere."
Clara jumped up and clapped her hands suddenly, jerking Marty's eyes open, which had fallen closed again. "Instead of sitting here talking, why don't we play a game?" she asked, sitting back down and taking something out of her pocket. Marty leaned forward to see what it was. It was a deck of cards. "I had this with me at the time because Jules and Verne would love to play poker and gamble away money during the trips to town on the wagon," she said to him as she opened the box and shuffled the cards.
Ten long games and about two hours later, Marty leaned back against the post, drained of all energy. He had lost all but one game because he wasn't able to keep his mind from wandering, or his body from dozing off. Marty suddenly had a whole new respect for people who crammed for tests all night, something that he had never had to do.
"I can't move," he murmured to Clara. "I have no energy left."
Clara handed him one of the books she had. "Here read this," she told him. "Maybe that will keep you awake."
Marty propped the book on his knees and held the pages apart with his hands. He sat up straight against the tree trunk that propped up the tent, facing the door. Outside he could here the sound of crickets chirping, about the only thing awake out there. Even the guards had switched shifts, and their tent now had two people standing watch outside instead of just Captain Tannen.
Marty turned his attention back to the book, but the writing looked like scribbles of black pen. He yawned. He was tired, so tired. Maybe, Marty thought, if he closed his eyes for one minute, he would feel refreshed and be able to stay awake for the rest of the night. Marty let his eyes fall closed. He was so exhausted and it would just be for one minute. Then he would have some energy and be able to think clearly. Just one minute, Marty promised himself dreamily, one minute....
Clara finished cleaning up the scattered cards and sat back. The night seemed to drag on endlessly. Clara took out a watch she had in her pocket. It read 1:35AM. She put it back and looked around her for something to keep her busy for a while. She caught sight of Marty. He was sitting against one of the log posts with his head tilted back, his eyes closed, and was snoring softly, though he had denied it earlier. Clara walked over to him and plucked the book gently from his limp hands. She then took the blanket and covered him with it. She figured she'd let him sleep awhile.
Clara lay down and propped herself up on her elbow and read for about a hour after writing a letter. Then she figured she dozed off, because when she woke up, two beady eyes were staring at her, right in her face. She knew immediately it had to be Captain Tannen.
She sat up and glared at him. "What are you doing here?" she asked him, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.
"Ya said I could come back in the mornin' and, if I am not mistaken it's mornin'," Captain Tannen said, grinning at her as he gestured outside at the pale, early dawn light.
"I may have said that," Clara retorted, taking her watch out and glancing at it. "But I didn't mean you could come back at five in the morning."
"As far as I am concerned, it's mornin' when the sun is in the sky, and if that ain't the sun on the horizon, I don't know what it is," Captain Tannen said, leaning toward Clara, his lips coming toward hers.
Clara slapped him before he could get any closer. "Do you dare!" she hissed, standing up.
Captain Tannen pushed her down roughly. "Don't ya ever do that to me!" he yelled angrily, and went to the entrance of the tent.
He turned around. "You know, I can make your life ten times more miserable than it is right now," he said darkly, then turned back around, stalking out of the tent.
Clara let out a sigh of relief and gingerly stood up. Except for her arm being sore where Captain Tannen had grabbed it to shove her down, she was fine. But she knew one thing for certain. She had to get Marty out of here as soon as possible, because if Captain Tannen planned to make her life more miserable, he might decide to do the same to Marty, since he was in here with her. And she couldn't have that, because he was her only hope for a rescue. She walked over toward Marty who, amazingly, hadn't stirred once during the argument. In fact, he was still curled in the same position that Clara had left him in a couple hours earlier.
Clara leaned over him and shook his shoulder gently, while calling his name. She got no response. Right away she could tell waking him wouldn't be that easy of a job. Clara yanked the blanket off him and clapped her hands directly in his face. Marty still seemed to be sleeping soundly. She knelt down in front of him, taking both his shoulders in her hands and shook him hard. Marty groaned softly, with his eyes still shut. Clara leaned forward and hissed in his ear, "Marty McFly, you wake up this instant or I'll... I'll...I'll never speak to you again!" Clara said, still shaking him.
"But mom, it's not time for school yet," Marty mumbled in his sleep.
"You will be late to more than school, if you don't wake up now!" Clara whispered frustrated, wishing she had another glass of water handy. What could she do?
It was then she remembered the whistle lying in her pocket. Verne had been blowing it at the Fourth of July picnic and annoying everybody, so Clara had taken it away from him, intending to give it back to him later that night. However, she had forgotten about it, until that moment. Taking the whistle out of her pocket she put it right next to Marty's ear, took a deep breath, and blew hard into it.
Marty's eyes popped open in surprise and he toppled sideways. Clara stopped blowing the whistle and smiled down at him. "I'm glad you finally decided to wake up," she said sweetly to him.
Marty looked at her through his sleep fogged eyes as though she was crazy. "What was that for?" he muttered, sitting up and yawning.
Clara dropped the whistle back into her pocket. "I needed you to wake up and, since the old traditional methods didn't work, I had to resort to a more unusual way."
Marty sighed. "Can I go back to sleep, or do I need to still stay awake for my concussion?" he asked, mildly sarcastic.
Clara ignored the sarcasm. "I woke you up, because I thought it would be best if you leave," she explained and told him what Captain Tannen had said.
Marty sighed again as he stood up and put on the jacket, jamming the hat in a pocket. "I don't know if he would really try to make my life more miserable, but I don't plan to find out. Plus I'm suppose to meet Doc tonight and go back to your place over Sunday."
Clara took out a letter that she had written the night before, after she read a chapter in the book. "Will you give this to Emmett?" she asked holding it out.
Marty smiled slightly. "Sure," he replied and stuck it into another pocket, then asked in a low voice, "How do I get out?"
Clara pointed to the loose flaps. "Out there of course," she said and hugged him. "Hope to see you soon."
Marty nodded. "Me too," he said and vanished outside. Clara felt a dull, lonely ache in her heart. She wished she could get out of here as easily too.
Long after Marty left, Clara noticed that the walkie-talkie was still lying on the floor of the tent.
Saturday, July 27, 1861
9:55 P.M..
Marty looked up and down the road, searching for the familure shape of a wagon, preferably Doc Brown's.
The day had been hot and, while Marty was running laps and practicing marching with the other soldiers, he had been able to forget his fatigue. But after dinner, it all came crashing on top of him. He felt like he had only five minutes of sleep the night before and had spent the whole day running about. He couldn't wait to lie down somewhere and rest.
Besides his exhaustion weighing heavily on him, he was also being bugged by something else. While he had been at the training sight, he had caught sight of Lauren. Her eyes had been red, like she had been crying, and when she had caught sight of him, her face had crumpled, and she had hurried away in the other direction. Marty had started to follow her, but thought better of it and walked away. Even six hours later, the thought of hurting her was still nagging him.
A few minutes later Marty caught sight of a wagon in the distance. But what was wrong with it? Marty squinted at it, wondering if he was seeing things. The wagon appeared to have two bright circles of light shining out of the front. When it was about halfway toward where he was standing, the lights abruptly shut off, but Marty, not quite use to the sudden darkness, continued to see circles of light. However, he knew even before the wagon stopped next to him that Doc had to be in it. Who else would have had the technology to make headlights?
A minute later, the wagon stopped and Doc grinned out from the front wagon seat. Marty waited until he was comfortable in the back, among the horse blankets, and the town was out of sight before he asked about the lights.
"I constructed those with some batteries, and some old flashlights," Doc said in response to Marty's question. He switched them on, and the dirt road came into view. "It's easier for the horses to see where they are going, and there is less chance if them wandering off the road."
Marty nodded. "That makes sense," he admitted, and gazed up at the stars from on his back. It was a perfectly clear night, with not a cloud in the sky. The stars were bright, and Marty could see the big dipper. He closed his eyes, glad to finally be able to relax.
Doc pulled in to his garage, which was really an old carriage house, two hours after leaving it. He unhitched the horses and turned them loose into the pasture, because the stable area of the barn was being occupied by the construction of the new DeLorean. Before going into the house, he covered Marty, who was asleep in the back of the wagon, with a horse blanket.
As soon as he walked into the barn, Doc was almost knocked over by Verne and Einstein, Doc's sheep dog. Both were excitedly bouncing around. Verne had his pet snake Fang with him, a baby rattlesnake who had had it's venom sacks removed.
Verne looked up at Doc curiously. "Where's Marty?" he asked, draping Fang around his neck like a scarf.
Doc took off his coat and hung it on a nail. "Marty is sleeping right now," Doc said, than gave Verne the sternest look he could. "So don't you bother him."
Verne looked up at Doc innocently. "Why do you think I would do a thing like that?" he asked, his blue eyes wide with sincerity.
Doc smiled. "Because I know precisely how you think," he replied, then asked, "Where's Jules?"
Verne sighed. "Aw, he's in with the DeLorean. He told me to tell you that he found a new problem with the Y shaped thingy."
"You mean the flux capacitor?" Doc asked.
"Yeah that," Verne replied.
"Thanks for telling me," Doc said and hurried off toward the stables. What could have gone wrong with the flux capacitor anyway? Because his mind was pondering over this question, he never thought to look behind him, and never noticed Verne slipping out.
Verne Brown slowly eased the door to the carriage house Doc used for storing the wagon and stuck is head in. Everything was dark and silent, and looked eerily unreal in the moonlight that streamed in through the windows. Einstein whimpered at Verne's heels.
"Shhhhhh," Verne hissed to the dog. "Their is nothing to be afraid of." As if to prove this, Verne walked all the way across the room and climbed into the wagon, and almost tripping over Marty.
The dog hesitated in the doorway, then quickly ran across the room, and hopped into the wagon after him.
Fang, whom Verne had brought with him around his neck, had the bad timing to slither and drop off, right when he was leaning over, and trying to wake Marty. The snake gently fell down, right beside Marty. Verne noticed this, and make a quick grab for the snake, almost loosing his balance in the process. However, Fang was quick and by the time Verne had regained his balance, the snake had slithered up Marty's shirt sleeve.
Verne gasped and tried to think of something, anything, he could do. He didn't exactly want to imagine what would happen if Marty was to suddenly wake up and find a snake up his shirt. Einstein growled softly, eyeing the foot long slim shape that crawled steadily up Marty's arm.
It was at this point things began to go bad.
Marty began to toss and turn. The snake didn't seen to mind, and began to go down the right sleeve. Verne began to breathe again and thinking everything would be all right. The snake would get out and Marty would never know that a baby rattlesnake had crawled over him. Then however, Marty opened his eyes and found himself staring right at the snake shape. His eyes grew really wide and his body stiffened as Fang poked his head out of the shirt, right next to Marty's wrist. Verne opened his mouth to tell Marty to hold still and that the snake was harmless, when chaos erupted.
Before Verne could get one word out, Marty yelled at the top of his lungs,
"SNNAAAAAKKKEE!", stood up, leapt backward out of the wagon, and started shaking his arm and jumping around, trying to get Fang out of his shirt. Fang, who was just as scared as Marty was, if not more, held on for dear life. It was only because the snake was so scared, Verne guessed that what happened next happened.
Fang sank his teeth into Marty's wrist.
Marty felt the teeth go in and looked down at the snake, suddenly standing still. Fang, seeing his chance to escape, took his teeth out of the skin, and calmly slithered down, heading for some old junk piled up in the corner.
Marty looked down at Verne, his eyes wide and scared. Verne walked over and picked up Fang calmly. "This is Fang," he said to Marty. "He's a baby rattlesnake."
Marty looked down at his wrist, where there were two small, almost imperceptible, identical puncture wounds. "Rat-tt-le-sn-na-ake?" Marty asked his voice trembling, and the color draining from his face.
Verne nodded and noticed Marty didn't look too good. His face was so pale, he looked like a ghost. "Are you all right?" Verne asked, concerned.
Marty uttered low moan and fell to the ground. Einstein walked over to where he lay motionless and licked his face. When Marty didn't respond, the dog began to whimper. Verne, eyeing the snake, tossed him into the wagon and ran out of the garage to find his father. Only one thought ran through his head as he ran. Fang must have been poisonous and killed Marty!
Marty smelled something potent. He tried turning his head away from the smell, but it would follow him. He opened his eyes slowly and gazed up, blinking a few times before his eyes focused. Three faces stared down at him in a dim circle of lantern light. Doc's, Jules's and Verne's. Whatever was under his nose was removed, once he had opened his eyes. Marty closed them again, feeling his wrist throb, though he couldn't quite remember why.
"He's alive!" Marty heard Verne say, his voice sounding relived.
Marty heard Jules sigh, as if his brother was beyond stupid. "Of course he's alive," Jules said. "People don't die from fainting."
Verne sighed. "Well excuuuse me," he said sarcastically. "I thought Fang poisoned him when he bit Marty."
Marty's eyes flew open, it all coming back to him. He was bitten by a rattlesnake. Marty started to shake. "Oh God," he moaned. "I'm going to die."
Doc's voice broke into his thoughts of death. "You're not going to die," he said firmly, giving Verne a look. "The snake is perfectly harmless."
Marty propped himself on his elbows, ignoring the dizziness when he did. "Then why did I faint?" he asked, and showed Doc his wrist. "These teeth marks don't look harmless to me."
"You fainted because you got a big shock," Doc replied. "The teeth marks look worse than they are. You might have scars but I am sure you won't die because, even though the snake was a rattler, the poison sacks have already been removed."
Marty relaxed a little. "You mean I won't die?"
Doc shook his head. "Not unless the bite becomes infected and you get blood poisoning," he said, then asked, "Can you stand up?"
"I think so," Marty said, a bit uncertain. Even though he knew he wasn't going to die, his heart was still pounding, and he felt a little dizzy.
Marty slowly stood up and saw the room spin around him, like a out of control carrousel, and felt his knees buckle. He reached out for something to grab on to and his hand came into contact with the side of the wagon. When the room stopped spinning, Marty happened to glance in the wagon and saw Fang resting right next to the side of the wagon he had grabbed. Even though Marty now knew he was harmless, he felt his face begin to loose what color it had regained, and the room begin to go dark. Doc saw this and rushed over to Marty, practically holding him up, as they walked out of the garage and into the barn. Jules and Verne followed silently. Doc led Marty to a couch and told him to lie down. Marty obeyed, and saw Doc hurry off into where Marty thought the kitchen must be. Marty had the feeling that, from now on, he would probably be afraid of snakes. He never had been before, but then again, he had never been bitten by a snake before, aside from garter snakes.
Jules, Verne, and Doc's dog Einstein all came into the room at the same time. Verne looked at him carefully, as if to make sure that he was really there. "Are you sure you are okay?" Verne asked Marty. "You're awfully pale."
Marty tried to smile, but it came out more of a grimace. "I think I'm fine," he replied, than held up his right arm and looked at his wrist. "Except for this thing. It sure hurts."
"Father will probably bandage it up soon," Jules said, glancing toward the direction that Doc had disappeared in.
At that moment Doc returned, balancing a heavy blanket, some bandages, a bottle of something, a glass of water, and a pill. Jules and Verne ran over and grabbed some of the things off their father, and dumped them in a heap on the floor next to the couch. Doc held out the glass of water and the pill. "Take this," he instructed. "It should help you relax."
Marty took the pill and the glass of water and swallowed them. He handed the glass back to Doc and lay back, not feeling any different. Doc pulled over a chair and sat next to Marty, covering him up with the blanket, then taking the bottle and unscrewing the cap off it. "Hold out your wrist, " Doc told him.
Marty did so and Doc poured some kind of liquid on his wrist. It stung horribly and Marty had to grit his teeth to keep from yelling out. After that was done, Doc took the bandages and wrapped up the snakebite. " In a few minutes the stinging will probably stop," he said, standing up and gathering the empty glass and bottle together. "I'll be right back," Doc added, going toward the kitchen or whatever it was that he had come from before.
"So Marty, how do you like the Civil War?" Verne asked brightly, as if nothing had happened.
"It isn't exactly what I pictured," Marty said, thinking back to the hard training and the strict generals that were ten times worse than the strictest high school teachers.
"I heard you have met our mother," Jules said matter-of-factly.
"Yeah, I saw her last night," Marty replied, thinking how last night he had felt so tired, but now, because of the snake scare, he felt wide awake.
"How is she?" Verne asked, as he scratched Einstein behind the ears.
"She's fine," Marty said, then remembered the letter that he was suppose to give Doc, which was in his coat, which he had left in the wagon. And Marty didn't plan on setting foot in the garage, let alone the wagon until the snake was long gone!
"Verne," he asked, "could you go in the garage and get my coat for me?"
Verne's eyes lighted up. "Sure!" he exclaimed and ran out of the room, followed by Einstein. Jules followed too, after a moments pause.
Doc came back into the room with a pile of papers in his arm. "This is all the stuff I was able to find on your family," he said, setting it on Marty's lap, with the diary on top. "I think you should especially take a look at this," Doc added, pointing to the diary as he sat down in the chair next to the couch.
Marty opened it to where Doc had marked a page. Monday evening, the 29th of July, 1861, Dear Diary, it read, Today I helped a man who was shot in the shoulder. His name is Alexander Baines, and Rhett Butler was with him when he was brought in. If I wasn't so attached to Rhett, I might decide to fall for Alexander. He has nice clean blond hair
Marty's head jerked up. He must have been more tired than he had thought, because he had begun to doze off for a second. Doc looked at him, as if he knew what he was thinking. "It's that pill I gave you," he explained. "I was afraid you might go into shock, so I gave you a sleeping pill, to help you relax. It is probably kicking in right now."
Marty nodded and continued reading. Tommorow when I report to the hospital, I am thinking of bringing Alexander some flowers, maybe some carnations from Mother's prize garden. Speaking of Mother, I wonder where she and Father could be. They were suppose to arrive here a few days ago. I wonder what could have happened to them. They were, after all, just going on a routine drive to Williamsberg for some supplies and food. I sincerely hope nothing bad has happened to them. Yours, Lauren.
Doc nodded for Marty to turn to the next page. Marty, though his eyes were beginning to feel like they were holding up the world, did. The next page was written in large messy bold strokes and was smeared in some parts.
Thursday morning, the 1st of August, 1861, Dearest Diary, I had just received the worst news ever imaginable. Around three in the morning, I was awoken by a fearsome knowing at my door. I immediately ran downstairs and threw open the door. The sheriff from Williamsberg was there. He told me, with great sadness, that Mother and Father had been killed when they had both taken ill with fever suddenly, and only two days ago were they both found dead in their wagon, midway home. Oh diary, I am so distraught. Besides finding out Mother and Father are dead, I am now going to have to move all the way to a far off place called Florida to stay with my Aunt Doris, and Uncle William. I will have to leave at the end of next the week. I must say goodbye now friend. I am now going to weep out my tears for dear Mother and Father. Yours, Lauren.
"What does this mean?" Marty asked, lying back against the cushions and flipping through the diary randomly.
"It means that you have seriously altered history," Doc replied and pointed to the diary. "In the original history, after Lauren's parents died, Alexander proposed, they were married, and never left the area. Now, since Lauren is in love with you, even if Alexander did propose she would probably decline the offer, move to Florida, and that could destroy the space-time continuum!"
"How?" asked Marty, not seeing anything wrong with Lauren going to Florida. "I mean, why could she destroy the universe if she moves to Florida?"
"It was never in the original history," Doc explained. "If she met a young man, and he fell in love with her while he was suppose to fall in love with someone else it could cause a paradox if that man never got over his love for Lauren."
"Doc look!" Marty exclaimed suddenly, sitting up and pointing to the last entry. They read it together.
Saturday night, the 21st of April, 1862, Dear Diary, This shall be my final entry in you, old friend, for I plan on joining dear Mother and Father tonight, at precisely midnight. I miss them dreadfully and I feel like I do not belong on this earth anymore. Tonight I shall drown myself in the swamp out behind our house. Drowning seems like the romantic way to die; all the heroines do it in books. I know Aunt Doris and Uncle William shall be disappointed in me at first, but I am sure they will feel a blessed relief too, since I know I am an extra burden on the family, which now has seven kids, aged 10 to 1. Plus, Aunt Doris is expecting another one. I hope they find this after I am in my watery grave, and know I loved them dearly. So dear diary, I will now say goodbye. Goodbye forever, my life long chum. Yours for the last time, Lauren Anne Smith.
"Great Scott!" Doc exclaimed, putting a hand to his forehead. "This will change history so much and cause so many paradoxes, I don't even wish to think about it."
Marty felt chilled to the bone as he lay back against the cushions. "Does this mean I might fade away, like in 1955?" he asked, struggling through the waves of drowsiness to stay awake.
Doc nodded grimly. "Unfortunately, yes. Not only will you have never existed, but none of the relatives on your mother's side of the family, plus," Doc grew a bit pale, then continued, "I may not be alive. I would have died from those terrorists shooting me in 1985 if you hadn't warned me."
Marty nodded drowsily. "So what'll we do to get Alexander and Lauren together and not screw up the future?" he asked, fighting to keep his eyes open.
Doc frowned. "That is one thing I can't figure out." He was silent for a moment while thinking. "I got it!" Doc exclaimed suddenly.
"What?" Marty asked softly.
"You could plan a picnic for the two of you," Doc began, then continued,
"then, like the plan with your parents, you could -"
Marty groaned, interrupting what he knew Doc was going to say. "Doc, I seriously doubt that people acted that way in 1861. Besides, I saw her earlier today and she looked pretty unhappy to see me, because I stood her up at the dance."
"Nevertheless, she must have gotten over her disappointment," Doc said and gestured to the diary page about Lauren's dying that Marty still held in his hands. "Because it says in their that she might decide to like Alexander, if she didn't already like you!"
"Doc can't we talk about this tommorow?" Marty murmured softly, giving in to his drowsiness and closing his eyes. If Doc answered, Marty never heard it.
Doc Brown sighed. "We should come up with a decision tonight about what we should do about Lauren and Alexander," Doc said in response to Marty's question, then continued. "Now if we brought them together, perhaps in a traumatic experience..." he trailed off thinking. What could they do to scare them, but at the same time, make sure that no one was hurt? Doc suddenly had a great idea, but it would need some work.
"Perhaps we could use the time machine to show them there futures if they don't get together, like in the book 'A Christmas Carol'! That might frighten them so much, that they would fall in love and get married. What do you think of that?" Doc asked Marty, looking over at him.
Marty let out a soft snore for an answer. Doc had been so busy thinking, he never even notice that Marty had fallen asleep. He was relived to see that Marty was not nearly as pale as he had been earlier. Doc had almost dropped the flux capacitor that he had been removing from the DeLorean to fix a loose part, when Verne ran in yelling that Fang had killed Marty. Verne always tended to be melodramatic so, before panicking, Doc decided he should have a look for himself. Luckily, Marty had only fainted and, except for the snake bite, seemed fine until he caught sight of the snake in the wagon. Doc had noticed his face going white, so he rushed over and helped Marty to the barn before anything worse could have happened. Still, he seemed pretty pale, even in the barn away from snakes and he was afraid Marty might go into shock, which could be dangerous, so Doc had decided to give him a strong sleeping pill to relax him. It seemed to have done it's job. Doc leaned forward and took the diary from Marty, who still held it open in his hands. He browsed through it, for the third time, and noticed the name Alexander on a page. Doc read the entry.
Friday morning, the 9th of August, 1861, Dear Diary, Tommorow Uncle William is coming here to fetch me. I have all morning to pack tommorow, but come the afternoon, I'll be gone forever. Alexander Baines, when he heard the news, looked real sorry. I think he was hoping to court me, but now I'll never know. The house went up for sale today, and Uncle William seems to think he'll get a pretty penny for it. They plan on using the money for my bringing up, though I wanted to go to collage. They told me a women's place is at home, so for now I will have to help them raise their kids. I think this sounds so dreadfully boring. Yours, Lauren.
Right after Doc finished reading the entry, Verne, followed by Jules and Einstein, burst through the door. Verne was triumphantly waving Marty's coat in the air like a banner. "I got it!" he yelled, and tossed the coat on the couch on top of the wingbacked chair that was a few feet away, and continued. "Jules was chicken to even step in the garage, with Fang in there. I was the one who had to grab the coat alone, in the wagon."
"Why did you even get the coat?" Doc asked Verne, shutting the diary.
"Marty asked us to," Verne replied and, catching sight of him, grew slightly pale. "Is he dead?" he asked in a hushed whisper, his eyes wide.
Jules let out an exasperated sigh. "He is not dead if he is still breathing," he said, rolling his eyes at his brother.
Verne's eyes narrowed. "Well sorry Mr. I-can't-go-in-the-garage-because-the-snake-is-poisonous."
"Boys!" Doc said sternly, as Jules opened his mouth to answer back. "It is way past your bedtimes, so why don't you go to bed now."
"Father, can I try to fix the flux capacitor?" Jules asked hopefully.
Doc sighed. "I suppose so," he replied slowly.
Verne groaned. "That's no fair! Why do I have to go to bed, while Jules gets to stay up and work on the time machine?" he asked stubbornly.
"You can too, if you do everything your brother says, and be very careful," Doc said after a moment of thought. What was the worst that could happen?
Jules stared disdainfully at his younger brother. "Come on," he said sighing, as he headed off toward the stables. Verne followed happily.
Doc once again turned his attention to the diary. What did the last entry mean? Could Lauren perhaps be beginning to fall for Alexander? Doc picked up an old family tree of the Baines and studied it, almost dropping it when he noticed something. All the names of the children that Lauren and Alexander were suppose to have were all gone, as if they never existed. The names of their children were still there, along with the names of the spouses, but the four sons that Lauren and Alexander had had - or were suppose to Doc reminded himself- were all gone. He set down the family tree, and shifted through the papers, still lying on Marty's lap, trying to find some old photographs he had noticed earlier. Doc found two from that generation, and they were all blank, except for the background, where their had once been the sons. He found some more photographs, from decades later, and they still had the people who were suppose to be in them, in there, so Doc guessed the non-existence had not progressed far. However he wondered how much time they had left before Marty would fade away.
At that moment, Doc heard a loud crash, coming from the stable, and Jules yelling, "Father, Verne just knocked over the gas can!"
"I did not!" Verne retorted back. "You hit it while you were crawling from underneath the car!"
Doc hurriedly set down the papers and photograph. What else could possibly go wrong? Doc Brown thought as he rushed off to the DeLorean to settle the argument, before it got any worse, just like he hoped he would fix the Lauren and Alexander problem.
Sunday, July 28, 1861
6:36 P.M..
Marty stood at the edge of a swamp looking down, for a reason he couldn't seem to remember. All he knew is that something important had happened or was going to happen on the shore and water.
He heard footsteps behind him and turned around. Lauren Smith was slowly walking toward him, her features set in a grim determination that Marty could see clearly, even in the pale moonlight. She stopped at the edge of the swamp and gazed down, like Marty had been doing a minute before.
"I have to go through with this," she whispered under her breath.
"With what?" Marty asked, but got no answer. It was as if she didn't even know he was there.
Lauren slowly took her necklace off, which had a heart shaped locket on the chain. She let it slide gently through her fingers to the solid ground. Then, closing her eyes, she slowly walked off the shore, toward the center of the swamp. Marty stared at her, too shocked to say a word. It was only when she went completely under that he went into action. Throwing off his denim jacket
( for some reason he was in his 1985 clothing ), he plunged into the water and swam toward the center of the pond, diving under the water over and over again, trying to grab her. Just when he was about to give up, he caught something in his fingers and went to the surface, yanking it up with him.
Marty stared in horror at the skeleton he had just dragged up. "Nooo," he moaned, feeling sick.
"Yes," the skeleton whispered in a barely audible voice, and began yanking him toward the center of the swamp, puling him down. Marty struggled and yelled as loudly as he could, but no one came to his rescue. His last view was of the skull grinning at him, and shaking his shoulders with it's bony hands as it pulled him under.
Then he saw nothing else.
"Marty, wake up!"
"No! I won't die!" Marty moaned, his eyes shut tightly, still in his dream, and sitting bolt upright trying to push away the person who was shaking his shoulders.
"Wake up, Marty!" the voice said again, shaking him.
Marty slowly opened his eyes, looking right into Verne's face, which was pale and looked scared. He looked slowly around him, as if to make sure that he was really awake. Outside, the first rays of sunlight could be seen, and Marty could here birds chirping merrily. It seemed to be real, but so did that nightmare. He let out a sigh of relief and lay back against the cushions, his heart still pounding in his ears.
"What happened?" Verne asked slowly, getting off the couch where he had been kneeling.
"I don't know," Marty said, feeling groggy and confused.
"All I know, is that I heard you tossing and turning, while you were yelling something out. I came down to try to figure out what was happening, and then I tried waking you up," Verne said, still staring at him in amazement.
"Was I yelling that loud?" Marty asked feeling embarrassed. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before, he knew.
"Naw, I was already up," Verne said and pointed upward. "Plus, I sleep in the hay loft and can hear everything that goes on in all the rooms."
"I thought you were a skeleton," Marty murmured under his breath.
"What?" Verne asked.
"Nothing," Marty said in a normal voice. "Listen, I was just having a bad nightmare, that was all."
Verne stared at him, wide eyed. "It must have been one bad one," he said. "You kept on pushing me away, like I was trying to kill you."
Marty remembered fighting with the bony hands that were trying to pull him underwater, and shivered. He hoped he'd never have another nightmare like that again. He sat up and threw the blanket back, scattering a dozen or so papers on the floor that had been lying on top of it. He stood up and quickly put his coat on. "I'm going to go for a walk," he told Verne, opening the door and stepping out before he had a chance to answer.
As Marty walked through the woods surrounding Doc's property, he took deep breaths of the crisp morning air, trying to push out the vivid memory of the nightmare, and trying to wake himself up. Whatever Doc had given him the night before certainly had relaxed him. He didn't think he had ever slept that hard before in his life. Marty wondered if that had any connection to the dream. Or maybe it was from reading about Lauren's suicide that would take place in about 9 months. Whatever it was from, Marty didn't think he wanted to go to sleep for awhile, even though he still felt tired and slightly groggy, for fear of repeating the experience.
The woods were beautiful, with the sunlight glistening off the dew on the trees. The sky seemed to have no clouds in it and it looked like it would be a beautiful day. Marty spent over an hour wandering through the woods, and thinking about the Lauren and Alexander problem. Coming up with no solution, he finally returned back to the barn. No one seemed to be around when he returned, so Marty sat down on the couch and leafed through the pieces of paper, which were still scattered about on the floor. They seemed to be things about his mother's side of the family. There were also a few photographs. Two had no one, just scenery in them, and the third Marty almost dropped in surprise.
In the picture appeared to be a family, with a husband and wife, standing behind three boys. But the picture was not normal. The father was gone, all the way down to his waist. Just like the picture that showed Marty, his brother, and his sister, that in 1955, when Marty's mother had fallen in love with him, showed him and his brother and sister slowly fade away as his parents never fell in love. Lucky for Marty, he had been able to correct things in the nick of time. But what did this photo mean, Marty wondered. He quickly took out the photo he had in his wallet, the one that had started to fade away in 1955. Marty sighed in relief when he saw that nothing had changed in it. As he put his wallet back into his pocket, his fingers brushed against a folded piece of paper. He pulled it out, suddenly remembering about the note he was suppose to give Doc from Clara. Marty stuck it next to the half faded picture, while he picked up some papers and flipped through them. All he found was a bunch of boring facts on when some of his relatives were born, died, who they married, and how many children did they have. He set the papers back down and stood up. He wondered where everyone was. Marty began to wander throughout the barn, searching for anyone. But everyone was gone. Where was Doc, Jules and Verne? Marty wondered.
A few minutes later he found himself in the stable/lab, where the DeLorean sat, silent. The outside looked the same as the other one, except it had a new Californian licence plate that read OUTATIME. The first DeLorean had had the same thing, but the plate had fallen off when Doc had sent the car through time for the first time and he had never put it back on because things had gotten very hectic after that. Marty walked over to the DeLorean and opened the gull wing door, climbing inside. He leaned back in the seat and looked around him. Everything looked almost the same inside as the original DeLorean did. The time display was the only thing very different. Instead of having the 3 different time displays, it now had just one with labels under blank digital screens that read year, month, day, time, place. It appeared that this Delorean could instantly transport you to any place, unlike the other one, which transported you only to the exact place you left. There were also two key pads, one with numbers, and the other with letters that were for, Marty guessed , the place where you wanted to go. The steering wheel was also slightly different. It now resembled one that you might find in an airplane. Marty wondered if this DeLorean would be able to fly, just like the train and the previous DeLorean.
Marty climbed back out and shut the door behind him. He walked over to a table, strewn with odds and ends. What was this? Marty wondered, picking up a large chunk of something, with wires coming out all over.
The door that led outside behind him slammed open. Marty was so startled, he almost dropped the wire thing in his hand.
"Out of my way!" Verne yelled, flying in on the hoverboard, heading straight for him. Marty dove to the ground, and shut his eyes, seeing Verne head straight for the car. When a few seconds passed, and no crash was heard, he cautiously opened one eye, expecting to see Verne as a new addition on the DeLorean or worse. Instead he saw Verne trapped on top of the DeLorean standing on the hoverbored and looking slightly panicked. "How do I get down?" he asked franticly, trying to keep his balance on top of the narrow bored.
Marty got up and walked over to the DeLorean. He reached up and gave the board a slight nudge. The hoverboard slid down the other side of the car, taking Verne with it, and ran into a pile of boxes.
Marty ran over and lifted some boxes of the pile. "Are you alright?" he asked, struggling not to laugh as Verne glared up at him from within a nest of boxes.
"Fine, no thanks to you," he replied angrily, standing up and picking up his coon skin cap that had fallen off in the crash, and sticking back on his head.
Marty continued digging through the boxes, searching for the hoverboard this time. "It's not my fault," he said, finding the hoverboard and picking it up. "You would have been stuck up there all day, if no one pushed you."
"Yeah, but no one else would have pushed me toward the boxes," Verne grumbled.
"Does Doc usually let you hoverboard in the past?" Marty asked changing the subject. He thought that was odd, since Doc usually had all these rules on not attracting too much attention or causing paradoxes, by doing certain things, like, perhaps, using things that haven't been invented yet.
"He's the one who brought it out," Verne replied and looked like he was about to say something else, when they were interrupted by a short figure clothed in a dark robe with a hood that hid the person's face. The person held a long stick in their hand.
"I am the Grim Reaper, coming to claim your soul," Jules said in a low voice trying to sound threatening, but not really succeeding. He walked over to where Marty and Verne stood, and pushed back the hood.
"You didn't harm that hoverboard did you?" Jules asked Verne in a normal voice, taking in the toppled boxes that were scattered on the floor.
"Nothing could break that," Verne said, taking the hoverboard from Marty and tossing it on the floor, proving that it still hovered six inches off the ground.
"I'm sure you could discover a way," Jules said as he pulled the robe thing off, and handed to Marty. "This is part of your costume, along with with the hoverboard device," he told Marty, pointing toward the hoverboard.
"What do you mean costume?" Marty asked puzzled, as he took the robe. As far as he remembered, Doc had never mentioned anything about having him wear a costume.
"Father has not informed you yet," Jules stated, just as Doc came through the doorway.
"Doc, what do they mean by saying I have to dress up?" Marty asked, walking toward him and carrying the robe.
"It's all part of the plan," Doc replied. "Try it on."
Sighing in frustration, Marty slipped the robe over his head, and pulled the hood on. "What am I suppose to be?" he asked, barely able to see a thing with the thick material covering his eyes. How was he suppose to walk with this on anyway?
Doc grinned broadly. "You're supposed to be a ghost from the future, " he explained, as if Marty should have known all along.
Marty didn't get it. "Huh?" he asked, looking at the costume and wondering if it was suppose to make him turn transparent or something.
"Step on the hoverboard and let the bottom of the costume go around it," Doc instructed.
Marty, though he could barely see the hoverboard on the floor with this hood on, did so.
"I still don't get what this what this had to do with anything," he told Doc doubtfully as he stood on the hoverboard and let the bottom of the costume go down over the board. Marty though he must look like he was hovering a few inches above the floor, like a ghost.
"Perfect!" Doc exclaimed, clasping his hands. "It'll be perfect for the plan. You look exactly like a ghost. The hoverboard makes you look as if you have no legs."
"Will someone please tell me what is going on here?" Marty begged, stepping off the hoverboard and picking it up. What did Doc mean, talking about being a ghost was part of a plan? Did it have anything to do with the Lauren and Alexander romance?
"Have you ever seen the play, movie, or read the book 'A Christmas Carol'?" Doc asked him.
Marty blinked. That was a strange question. "Our school put the play on one year, so I saw it then. But what's this have to do with me being a ghost or part of some plan?" he asked, literally feeling left in the dark, and realizing he still had the hood on. He pulled it back off his head, and stared at Doc, waiting for an answer.
"Do you remember in the play when the Ghost of Christmas Future visited Scrouge and showed him what his future would be, if he never changed?" Doc asked.
"Yeah, so?" Marty replied, still not seeing what Doc was getting at.
"Well, it is my plan to finish the DeLorean up by Friday so you, as a ghost from the future, can take Alexander and Lauren through time to see what would happen if they never married, " Doc explained, looking very proud of himself for coming up with a plan like that.
But Marty was confused. "Wouldn't that cause paradoxes in time?" he asked, puzzled. He couldn't remember the number of times Doc had warned him about interfering with the future or past. He had, more than once, screwed things up by just doing things that he would normally do, like saving his future father in 1955 from being hit by a car. Unfortunately, when he did that, he got hit instead of George McFly, and his mother ended up in love with him instead of George, who she was suppose to fall in love with. Marty wondered if Doc had thought out the plan thoroughly.
Doc shrugged. "Not if you are careful about being seen and interfering in the events," he said thoughtfully, then added, "Besides, we are running out of time to have them fall in love, and this is the only thing I could generate on such a short time span."
Marty shrugged. "You're the doc," he said. If Doc wasn't afraid of any major, universe ending disasters, he wouldn't be either.
"Jules and I will spend the whole day working on the DeLorean to get it finished by Friday, so Verne will help you rehearse your part outside," Doc said pointing to his second born, who grinned eagerly at this important task.
A few minutes later, Marty found himself in a small field near Doc Brown's barn. He still had the hooded robe on, even though the temperature was already climbing swiftly and black was not exactly a good color to wear on days like this. Verne was trying to demonstrate to him how to move on a hoverboard without touching the ground, but Marty's mind kept on wandering. He kept on remembering the nightmare he had had earlier. He hoped Doc wouldn't have him go to that time and show Lauren what would happen to her if she and Alexander never got married.
"Marty, watch!" Verne yelled, balancing on the hoverboard. Marty turned his attention back to the present situation. It wouldn't help anyone if he made the board glide by pushing it with his foot, like he normally did, and Lauren or Alexander caught him doing that, while he was suppose to be a levitating spirit.
He wondered how Doc expected him to move without kicking it. He got his answer less than a minute later.
When Marty saw how Verne was making the hoverboard move without his feet touching the ground, he almost burst out laughing. Verne was waving his arms in wide circles, like a strange sick bird, Marty thought, and that motion cause the hoverboard to move several inches at a time. It took him almost five minutes to move two feet. When he had finished moving that much, he jumped off the board and sat plopped down in the grass, out of breath.
"See.. how...easy it..is," Verne said gasping, then he stared at Marty. "Why don't you try it?"
"Won't I look kind of strange flapping my arms, when I'm suppose to be a sinister spirit?" Marty asked doubtfully, stepping on the hoverboard and envisioning himself flapping his arms to move a few inches on the hoverboard, while Lauren and Alexander would watch in a strange fascination, or think that the future spirit was going into convulsions. Maybe Doc hadn't thought out every single detail of the plan yet.
Marty began to flap his arms, trying to make the hoverboard move, and almost lost his balance when the board lurched suddenly under his feet. He stopped waving his arms around like a windmill and the board glided about five more feet before it came to rest. Maybe, Marty thought, he had underestimated the hoverboard and how much it could glide, if it got the tiniest nudge.
At that moment, a strong wind came up, blowing the hood over Marty's eyes. While he was struggling to get it off, he heard Einstein barking as he ran over toward them. Marty heard Verne leap up from the grass and run over to meet the dog halfway. He felt something bump against the board, setting it in motion, as Verne ran past him. Marty, who still had the hood covering his eyes, wasn't worried. The board would eventually stop and, even if it didn't, he could just step off it. For some reason, even though he wasn't kicking the board to move it, it picked up speed. Then it suddenly slowed down and stopped. The hood didn't seem to want to come off, so Marty decided to get off the hoverboard and deal with it. He pulled his foot out of the strap, and stepped off.
He was immediately plunged into cold deep water. Marty, though he couldn't see one thing because the hood was still on his head and over his eyes, opened his eyes wide in surprise, and struggled to reach the surface. It took him almost a minute to reach the surface and when he finally did reach it, he was gasping for air. He pushed the hood, which had grown awfully heavy when wet, out of his eyes, and gazed around to where the board had taken him. He appeared to be in a small pond, surrounded by trees. Marty was directly in the center of it, so that must have been why the pond was so deep and cold. Verne broke through the trees, followed by Einstein a minute later. When he saw Marty in the middle of the water, with the sopping wet robe floating around him and the hoverboard calmly hovering next to him, his shoulders started shaking with laughter.
"It's not funny," Marty said, trying to glare at Verne, but the more he thought how strange he must look, the more he wanted to start laughing too. Luckily he was able to keep it in, otherwise he was afraid he would have floated, once again to the bottom of the pond.
Marty grabbed the hoverboard in the air and swam slowly to shore. When he was finally out of the water, he collapsed on the ground and struggled to get the heavy robe off him. When he finally succeeded, he threw it on the ground in a heavy wet ball, and lay back, propping himself up on his elbows in his soaking wet clothes. Verne bent down next to him. "What happened?" he asked, sounding curious and like he was trying not to laugh. "I know I hit the board, but not that hard."
"I think the board picked up speed when it coasted down the hill," Marty replied, catching sight of a slight downward slope that followed a path down toward the pond, which started a few feet away from where the hoverboard had been sitting earlier. Marty figured that when Verne had bumped the board, it started to follow the path down the hill, and stopped in the middle of the water since, for some reason, hoverboards couldn't work on water. Since he had the hood over his face and couldn't see, he thought he was on dry land when he stepped off.
An hour later, and in some dry clothes, Marty tried moving again on the hoverboard out in the field, alone. This time he didn't have the robe on, mainly because it was outside drying on the clothes line, along with his other clothes. By late afternoon, he had thoroughly exhausted himself from flapping his arms, and trying other approaches to the moving problem. He had even wondered briefly if Doc could somehow add on some rocket power to propel him forward, but just as quickly decided against it, imagining the rocket flames setting the robe on fire with him still in it.
Marty picked up the hoverboard and tucked it under his arm. He began to walk toward the barn, which had grown farther away than when he had started. It took him almost half an hour to hike back, compared to the three minutes it took him on the way there. He must have gone farther than he had thought on the hoverboard. By the time he reached the barn, the sun was just reaching the tops of the trees. Marty opened the door and walked to the stable, grabbing the note to Doc from Clara when he passed the couch.
When he reached the stable, he found Doc inside the car, and Jules under it. Marty walked over to the car, reached in the open door, and tapped Doc on the shoulder. Doc, who had been bent over the time display box with his back towards Marty, jerked up startled and hit his head on the DeLorean's ceiling. He turned around, rubbing his head and saw Marty. "You startled me," Doc said and caught sight of the hoverboard tucked under Marty's arm. "Did you finish practicing?"
Marty nodded. "I tried as many different ways of moving as I could, without having my feet touch the ground, but I still am not sure if I have it down real well," he replied, thinking of all the times he had lost his balance, trying the strangest stunts to move without touching the ground. He handed Doc the note. "Clara wanted me to give you this."
Doc glanced down at it and set it down on a table. "I'll read this later. I have some ideas we can try out in a few days. In the meantime, why don't you go to bed now. We are going to have to leave around four in the morning to reach town on time, so you'll have to get up around 4:30."
Marty nodded again. It would be good to rest after the long day he had had.
Six hours later, though, he was still awake. Marty sat up from the pile of hay he had been lying in and stood up. Doc had given him an empty stable stall for his temporary room, and a huge pile of hay, with a blanket, for his bed. He pushed back the sheet that was strung across the doorway for privacy and stepped out of the room. Marty walked over to the door that led outside and opened it. Maybe if he got some fresh air, he would be able to fall asleep.
Marty didn't understand it. He was exhausted, but as soon as he lay down, he became alert and wide awake. Maybe he was still jumpy from the nightmare earlier and his subconscious didn't want him to go to sleep and have another one. Marty gazed around at the dark scenery. The moon hung low on the horizon and gave out a weak glow. It was partly cloudy that night, so only a few stars were visible in the sky. After standing there for about ten minutes, Marty turned around and went back inside. As he passed the stable with the DeLorean in it, Marty caught sight of the clock that Doc had hung on the wall. It chimed one o' clock exactly when Marty passed the room, making him jump nearly six feet. He shook his head as he went back into his room. He hoped he fall asleep soon, or he would be exhausted the next day. He had only three and a half hours left. Marty lay back down on the hay and stared up at the beams in the ceiling until 4:30, when Doc called him to leave.
Wednesday, July 31, 1861
3:45 P.M..
Marty knocked on the front of Lauren's door and waited. He had been putting this off long enough and had to do this today, or the whole plan would be messed up. As he waited for Lauren to answer the door, Marty caught sight of his reflection in the wavey glass window. He frowned and turned away, as he caught sight of the large dark circles under his eyes. He had not had a minute of sleep for three solid nights. Last night he had to stand guard and make sure that the Union soldiers didn't come back, but the other two nights he had tried every possible thing he could think of to help him fall asleep, but none had worked. Marty was beginning to feel like a zombie and he was sure he would become one if he didn't get any sleep soon.
Marty heard footsteps run to the door and, a minute later, it was thrown open by Lauren. He expression was expectant but when she saw it was only Marty, she frowned.
"May I help you?" she asked cooly. Marty wondered if she was still upset about him standing her up at the dance.
"Yeah, I was wondering if I could ask you something," Marty said a bit nervously. If she turned him down, the whole plan would be ruined and Lauren and Alexander would never get together.
"Come in," she said, standing to one side, allowing him to walk in. Lauren ushered him to the living room. As soon as he was seated, she rushed off to the kitchen, returning a minute later with a tray that had a teapot and two teacups on it. She set it down on the coffee table in front of the couch and poured herself a cup.
"Would you care for a cup?" Lauren asked, pausing with the teapot poised over the other cup.
"Sure," Marty replied shrugging and watched as she poured him a cup. After doing that she set down the teapot, took her cup in her hands, and sat down next to him.
"Now what did you want to ask me?" Lauren asked, after taking a sip from her tea.
"I was wondering if you would like to come over to my house for a picnic on Friday, " Marty asked, then added quickly, "I invited Alexander Baines too."
Lauren looked undecided. "Are you sure Alexander will be able to come? He was shot in the shoulder two days ago."
Marty nodded. "He said he would try to make it, and I'm sure he will," he said, and drank some of the tea. He would make sure that Alexander showed up, even if he had to drag him there.
Lauren frowned. "I suppose I'll go, though I feel as if I should stay here and wait for Mother and Father. They were suppose to arrive back almost a week ago. I just can't imagine what is taking them so long."
"It is really important that you come," Marty said, deciding not to mention her parents were never coming home. Marty finished his tea, setting the cup back on the tray. He leaned back against the sofa.
Lauren hopped up and went over to a bookcase, taking out a long, thick book and returning to the couch with it. As soon as she sat down, she began flipping rapidly through it, until she came to a page near the end. Then she stared at it, as if hypnotized. Marty leaned over her shoulder to see what seemed to be so interesting. On the two pages she held open were some photographs of two people, a man and a woman. The woman bore a striking resemblance to Lauren. In one picture the woman, who must have been Lauren's mother, held a small baby, who must have been Lauren. Besides the photographs, there were some articles, which looked like they had been carefully cut out of a newspaper.
"Those are my parents," Lauren said, pointing to the man and woman. "I was born in 1844 and soon after that, Mother found out that she couldn't have anymore children or she might die. Both of us almost died when I was born."
Marty rested his head on Lauren's shoulder, to get a better, and more comfortable view. Lauren didn't seem to mind and kept on talking and pointing.
"This announced my parents' wedding," she said, pointing to one of the faded newspaper clippings, then read it out loud. "'Mr. John Smith, only son of Mr. and Mrs. William Smith, and Miss Elizabeth Miller, second daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacob Miller, were married at the First Catholic Church on April 21, 1842'."
"So your parents have been married for almost 20 years?" Marty asked, then yawned. He was finally feeling drowsy for the first time in three days.
Lauren nodded. "It'll be twenty years in 1862." She turned the page and pointed to a photograph of a young girl, who looked into the camera with mischief filled eyes. "This is me when I was seven years old, in 1851. I remember the day that was taken as if it was yesterday...."
Marty closed his eyes as he listened to Lauren describe the time she had gotten in trouble because she had climbed a tall tree on a dare and had fallen out of it, not even ten feet off the ground, into a large mud puddle.
"...I thought Mother would tar and feather me when I came home in that brand new white dress, dripping mud, only one hour after that picture was taken," Lauren said, laughing softly at the memory, then adding, "The dress never was the same. From then on it had a brownish tint to it, though mother tried everything...."
But Marty didn't hear her. The three days without any sleep had finally caught up with him and he had fallen into a deep sleep, with his head still resting on Lauren's shoulder.
Lauren turned another page in the book, and pointed out another photograph. This one was her favorite photograph. It showed her, at age 10, in the county fair's photo booth. Earlier that day she had her first ice cream cone, and if she looked carefully, she could still see remains of it around her mouth. She could still remember how good the ice cream tasted, and from that year on, it was a tradition to get one always in vanilla at the fair, but she never had had another picture taken there.
"This picture is my favorite," she told Rhett. "That day I will always remember, because I had my first ice cream cone. They had finally brought them to the county fair and I begged Mother and Father to let me have one. They finally agreed and after I had finished it, they took me to get my picture taken. It wasn't until we saw the photograph that we noticed I still had some ice cream left around my mouth." She glanced down at Rhett, who was leaning heavily on her shoulder, and was surprised to find him asleep. She set the album down on the coffee table and gently shook him. He didn't stir at all, so Lauren carefully laid him down on the couch. She stuck a small pillow from the couch under his head, then covered him up with a knitted afghan that her mother had made to drape over the back of the couch. Before leaving the room, Lauren once again picked up the album, which was a family heirloom of her mother's side. It contained information all the way back to Lauren's great-great-grandparents, who had lived during the signing of the constitution.
As Lauren ran upstairs to grab a blanket off her bed to wrap herself in, she caught sight of some dark, sinister looking clouds on the horizon out of the window. They were probably in for a nasty storm tonight.
With the blanket wrapped snugly around her, even though it was July and not that cold, Lauren returned to the parlor and sat in the rocking chair between the window, and the couch. Once she was comfortable, she opened the album again and looked through her past, oblivious to all the sounds around her - the sharp tick of the clock and the chimes when it struck five o' clock, the soft snoring coming from Rhett, and the low rumble of thunder in the distance. Only when she could barely see the album in front of her from the sudden darkness, did she pay much attention to the last sound. It was much too dark for five in the evening during the summer and when Lauren looked out the window, she saw the low dark clouds that had been on the horizon only an hour before but were now beginning to cover up the sky. There was no doubt about it that they were going to have one bad storm.
Lauren suddenly remembered that she had left all the upstairs windows open to give the second floor a good airing, since it still smelled faintly of smoke from the small fire. If it started raining hard, as it usually did during sudden thunderstorms, the whole upstairs would be a soggy mess. Shutting the album hastily, she tossed it gently on the coffee table and ran upstairs, blanket still wrapped around her shoulders, to go from room to room and slam each window shut. The one in her parents' room seemed to be stuck, and it took her a good twenty minutes before she finally wrestled it closed, though there was still an inch left open at the bottom. Lauren ran downstairs and snatched the day's newspaper off the kitchen table, then stuffed it in the crack to seal out all the rain. Exhausted, she flopped down on her parents' bed and stared at the wall, noticing the photographs that had hung there for years. Lauren got up and walked over to the wall. She took her favorite off the wall and carried it back to the bed, lying down and propping herself up on her side with one elbow so she could look at the photo once again.
The photograph was one of the first her parents had had taken of them. In it they were newlyweds, being married for only a month. Since it took almost one hour of sitting completely still, their expressions were grim but their eyes shone with happiness. Her mother was wearing her most fashionable dress at the time, and her father a suit. They looked so young in that photograph, being only one year older than Lauren was now. She carefully set down the photograph and lay back, staring at the ceiling as it grew darker. She thought about the last time that she had seen her parents, about one week before. They had kissed her goodbye, and said that they would be returning in a day or two. Her mother had jokingly said that they hoped the house would still be standing when they returned. Lauren sighed and closed her eyes, falling into an uneasy sleep and dreaming dreams about her parents all night.
Thursday, August 1, 1861
2:55 A.M..
KER-RASH! Marty sat straight up on the couch, going from a sound sleep to being wide awake in less than a second. There was a violent thunderstorm going on outside and someone was pounding on the front door. He felt disoriented and confused, not knowing where he was for a minute. Then Lauren ran down the stairs to the entryway and threw open the door, getting soaked in a minute from the rain blowing in. Lightning illuminated the room once again and thunder was heard less than 5 seconds later, so loud that the walls rattled. Marty threw the knitted blanket aside and swung his legs over the side of the couch and stood up. He walked over to the entryway and stood to the side out of sight, seeing who was at the door. Lightning flashed again and showed that a tall stocky man stood soaking wet on the doorstep. Both Lauren and the man looked ghostly in the harsh lightning. Lauren took a step back in surprise when she saw who was at the door.
"May I help you?" she asked, her voice trembling slightly, whether it was from being soaked by cold rain or from fear, Marty couldn't tell.
"Lauren Smith I presume?" the man asked, checking a piece of paper.
"Why?" Lauren asked, now sounding suspicious.
"I am Sheriff Thomas from Williamsberg. I have news of your parents," the man said, sounding slightly sympathetic.
Marty suddenly remembered one of the diary entries in her diary, saying that a sheriff from Williamsberg had brought news of her parent's death. He tried to remember the date of that entry. That must mean that today was Thursday, since that was what the diary had said.
"What about Mother and Father?" Lauren asked, beginning to sound worried.
Sheriff Thomas lowered his head. "I am sorry to be the one to tell you this, but your parents both died from a fever a few days ago. Someone just found there bodies in there wagon only two days before, that is why news has taken so long to reach you." He handed Lauren a small folded up piece of paper. "This was found among their things, and was addressed to you. I am sorry miss." The sheriff began to walk away, down the path, ignoring the rain pouring down on him and the lightning flashing every minute.
Lauren slowly shut the door and leaned against it, going limp. The note fluttered out of her hands before she had even opened it. Marty rushed over and caught her, before she hit the floor. He carried her limp body up the stairs and went into the room that he thought might belong to her, since her diary was lying closed on a writing desk right next to the bed. Marty gently set her down on the bed and covered her up with a quilt that was lying folded at the end of the bed. Spotting an oil lamp on the desk next to a box of matches, he lighted it. Then, remembering the letter that Lauren had dropped when she had fainted, Marty ran downstairs to get it and to lock the door. He was shocked when he discovered the door didn't have one lock on it. Then he remembered he was in 1861 and back then people left their doors unlocked because there was no crime. Marty shook his head as he picked up the letter. No wonder people called the good old days good. However in 1985, though they had crime, they also had microwaves, CD players, and videogames, to name a few modern pleasures. He would take those over no crime anyday.
A few minutes later, seated at the writing desk, Marty unfolded the letter and spread it out on the desk. It was one solid page, handwritten, in messy pen. Marty could barely read it, it was so sloppy, but he was able to make out most of it.
Dearest Lauren,it said. If you receive this and read it, it probably means we have died. I can barely hold this pen in my hand, and your father is no help. He is resting right now, though I hate it when we sleep, for fear we will never wake up. I am writing this so I can tell you some things that you must know if we die, which could happen very easily. I think we have scarlet fever. I am so dreadfully hot and sore and my throat is pained like fire.
First is that I hope you know that we love you and always will. You are our beautiful daughter and have brought us more joy than you can know. I hope that you find a nice respectable man to marry and that (the next two lines were unreadable). You know that we will be at your wedding in spirit if not in body.
The second thing I must tell you is that a few years ago your father and I agreed that if we would die unexpectedly, that you would go and stay with my sister Doris and her husband. They know of this.
I am very tired from writing this letter. After the ink will dry I will sleep, though I hate to, for fear of never awaking, but I must in hope of getting well. Remember - we love you, dear Lauren.
Love,
Marty re-folded the note and set it down on a corner of the desk. The date showed that they must have died after or on last Sunday. He glanced at Lauren again. She still hadn't woken up. Marty sighed and rested his head on his arms, which were folded on the desk. How was he going to convince Lauren to come to the 'picnic' when her parents just died? The 'picnic' was really just a reason to get both her and Alexander out and so that he could pretend that he was some ghost from the future and whisk them off in the DeLorean to see their futures without one another would be, in hope of throwing them together. That was why it was so important to have both of them show up. If one didn't show up, then it would ruin the carefully crafted plan.
Even though it was really noisy from the thundering and the pouring rain, Marty must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew, Lauren was calling his 1861 name in a small, frightened voice. He opened his eyes to see her sitting up in bed, her face pale and worried.
"Rhett is it really true?" she asked, her voice trembling and her eyes bright with tears.
"Is what true?" he asked, not quite awake yet. He looked out the window to see the sun shining brightly almost mid sky. That had to mean that it was almost noon. The thunderstorm were obviously over.
"The news about my parents," she asked, then grabbed his shirt and pulling him down suddenly so they were almost nose to nose, and almost making Marty lose his balance off the chair. She stared right into his eyes, as if searching for a clue on what he was about to say. Then she pushed him back so abruptly that Marty had to grab onto the side of the desk to keep from falling backwards with the chair.
"I know it's true," she said quietly before he had a chance to say anything, then started to cry. Marty stared at her for a moment, then picked up the note that was on the desk and held it out to her.
"I think you better read this note," was all he said. She looked at him, then the note, slowly reaching out and taking it. She opened it and slowly read it. A few minutes later, she folded it back up and set it on top of her diary. She looked somewhat calmer, so Marty figured now was as good as any to double check about the 'picnic'.
"I know this is not the best time or thing to ask you now," he began, slightly hesitant, "but will you still be coming to the picnic?"
Lauren stared at him, as if he was crazy. "How can you ask about that at a time like this?" she said, almost yelling. Then she lowered her voice and spoke softly. "I suppose I will. Perhaps it will put me in better spirits. But I will only go if Alexander does too," she added quickly, almost as an afterthought. Then she turned away, speaking to the wall. "If you don't mind, I would like you to leave now. I will see you Friday."
Marty got up and went over to the door. "I'll drive you and Alexander over to the spot on Friday evening around five," he said, then went downstairs and out of the house, closing the door behind him. Outside it was hot and humid. It was hard to belive that it had been pouring rain only a few hours before.
Marty walked over to the solder's hospital, to visit his great-great-great-grandfather. He had met him, just as the diary had predicted, when he had pushed him out of the way of a gun during practice when one of the soldiers went insain and started shooting off rounds at everyone. He couldn't help himself. They had been right next to each other that day. Even if he hadn't been there Alexander would have survived anyway, otherwise Marty would never even gotten in this mess because he would have never existed in the first place.
Marty tried not to look at any of sick and wounded solders as he walked through the tent. He had never realized how bad the medical situation was in these times, until he actually was in a makeshaft hospital. He spotted Alexander's blond hair after a minute, and walked over to his cot. He was only about Marty's age now, just like Lauren was. It felt really weird to meet you relieves, who have been dead for decades, face to face when they were your age. Marty didn't think he would ever get used to time traveling.
Alexander was sitting up and reading a book. His arm was in a sling, and his shoulder was bandaged, from the gunshot wound. He seemed to be far away from all the chaos and activity going on around him, but he set down the book after a minute, when Marty came up to him. It looked like he had been expecting him.
"The doctor said that I should be able to get out of here tommorow, so I should be able to come to the picnic," Alexander said right away, before Marty had even had a chance to say hello.
Marty sat down on the cot next to him. "Great," he replied, and quickly explained what he had to Lauren about how they would get there. Alexander listened carefully, and said he would be waiting in front of Lauren's house. That done, Marty left the tent and began to walk down the road to Doc's place. Today he was supposed to finish the DeLorean and Marty was supposed to come over and help out with the testing to make sure nothing was wrong with it and it wouldn't warp Lauren, Alexander, and himself to some far off time with a broken time machine. That had already almost happen to him once before.
Four and a half hours later, Marty finally arrived at Doc Brown's place. The sun had climbed over his head and was now in the low mid western sky. Doc had the DeLorean outside in the field with the doors open, a checklist in his hand, and a large remote control, just like the one that he had had when he tested the first DeLorean, tucked under his arm. Jules was in the car, tightening all the screws on the steering wheel, and Verne was hoverboarding around the car. Marty walked over to the passenger side of the car and plopped down in the seat, tossing his coat in the backseat. His legs felt like they had walked twenty miles instead of ten and he also felt as if he would die of thirst, since he had forgotten to bring along his canteen on the hike and the temperature seemed to be about ninety degrees that day.
Doc looked down at him in the middle of his checking off the list "Are Lauren and Alexander coming?" he asked.
Marty nodded. "They're defiantly coming, even though Lauren just found out today that her parents have died."
Doc frowned as he looked over his checklist. "But she said she will be present?" he asked again.
"Yeah. She said it might be good, in taking her mind off her parents," Marty replied and looked around him. "Is this DeLorean much different from the first?" he asked, spotting several new additions.
"It's a little different. This one, like the train, can travel through time and space instead of just time, like the first car. I was able to go into the future this time and get the correct things needed with the train, unlike with the first DeLorean, where I had to make use of what was in the present day."
"Is that why the time display is different?" Marty asked, pointing to it.
Doc nodded. "Since there are so many more places to go, I had to use all the space possible to build that time display, so now you can't see the last time departed. You will see what the present time and place though, after you arrive there. Until you set a new time and place."
"What about this steering wheel?" he asked, gesturing to it as Jules crawled out of the car, apparently finished with the screw tightening.
Doc sat down in the driver's seat, setting the checklist and remote control on the ground next to the car. "This thing," he said, pointing to something that looked like a handbreak that was mounted right next to the switch that turned the time circuits, "when you pull it up, will rotate the wheels and make the car fly. The steering wheel differs from the other one so it'll be easier to maneuver the car while it is in flight. It works in the same matter as an airplane steering wheel; when you pull it toward you, the DeLorean will go upward, and when you push it away from you, the DeLorean will nose downward."
Doc flipped the time circuit switch on, illuminating the time display. He quickly typed in the time and place, making it exactly where they were now, except for the time. He quickly glanced at his watch before typing it in. " This is five minutes from now," he said, pointing to the time, which read 4:34PM. He climbed out of the car and gestured for Marty to do the same. Marty sat down on the grass and watched Doc as he picked up the remote control and started fiddling with it. Jules and Verne sat down next to him, eyes glued to the DeLorean. Doc pressed a button and the DeLorean roared to life. Einstein, who was lying down next to Verne, raised his head and growled softly at the car. The DeLorean slowly rose a few feet in the air, then took off like a shot, rushing to 88 miles an hour in seconds, then it disappeared with the 3 sonic booms and left twin trails of fire in the middle of the air that dissolved a few seconds.
"Wow, that was cool!" Verne cried jumping up, and running over to Doc. "When will we see it again?"
Doc looked at his watch. "In exactly two minutes and thirty three seconds, the time machine should reappear exactly where it vanished. All we can do until then is wait and keep an eye on the time."
The two minutes seemed to last two hours but, exactly as Doc had predicted, the time machine reappeared exactly where it had left when they were up. It was still moving at 88 miles per hour but Doc immediately hit the break switch, halting in to a complete stop in less than ten seconds. He slowly steered it to the ground and carefully landed it. As soon as it touched down, everyone ran over to it. Marty yanked open the door to the driver's side and looked at the time display. It looked exactly like it had before except now it had a small red light glowed next to the clock, where nothing had been lit up before. "What does that mean?" he asked Doc, who was peering in over his shoulder.
"That means that the time machine is at the present time. It will stay like that until a new destination time is set," Doc replied.
"Does this mean it works?" Verne asked, standing in the passenger side doorway and looking in.
Doc grinned broadly. "Precisely!" he exclaimed, then ushered everyone out of the car. "Now that we know the DeLorean works, we'll leave it here until tommorow morning, to let it rest up and conserve gas."
"Won't it get stolen if we leave it out here all night?" Marty asked puzzled. He knew they were in the middle of nowhere and over 100 years in the past, but still....
"I really doubt someone would want to steal the car but if it'll make you feel better, you could spend the night out here in the car to guard it," Doc replied, shutting the doors and picking up the check off sheet and remote control. He started to walk toward the barn, Jules and Verne following him.
Marty shrugged, then caught up with them. He didn't care where he spent the night. The DeLorean would certainly be more comfortable then a pile of hay. He also would feel much better if he was there with the car, just in case someone did try to take it. He and Doc had learned the hard way just how disastrous it could be if the time machine was used by someone who did not understand the risks. Marty decided he would definitely stay with the car.
Your Mother and Father.
July 28, 1861
Friday, August 2, 1861
3:04 A.M..
Verne silently slipped out and lightly closed the barn door behind him. Setting the hoverboard on the ground, he stepped on it and rode to the DeLorean to get there as quickly and quietly as possible and not wake anyone up by the sound of his sneakers running on the dew soaked grass. When he reached the car, he stepped off the board and picked it up, balancing it, along with several other items in his arms. Verne slowly opened the driver side door on the car and set the objects on the seat. He climbed in after them and was about to toss them on the passenger seat when he noticed Marty was sitting there, asleep, with his head resting against the window.
Verne frowned for a minute, wondering if he should still go through with it. Then he shut the door, finalizing his decision. Unlike his father or Jules, Verne doubted that Marty would mind or tell on him if he used the car for a quick errand.
Sticking the hoverboard in the back, Verne searched around for the keys to the car, finally locating it on the dashboard. Before sticking the keys in the ignition, he switched on the time circuits, punching in the destination and glancing nervously at Marty. The keys, when pushed, made all kinds off beeping noises and the digital display illuminated over half the car by itself with the bright readouts. Much to Verne's relief, none of the things seemed to bother Marty in the least. Maybe he would even be able to leave and come back and no one would ever know.
A minute later, after adjusting the seat to his height, Verne slowly put the key in the ignition. He had watched people do this to start cars more times than he could count, but he was still nervous. After all this wasn't any car. Most cars stayed in their decade, unlike this one. Holding his breath, he slowly twisted the key and gave a sigh of relief as the engine came quietly to life. Verne looked down at his feet, having no idea which peddle to press. He finally decided to try the right one and slammed his foot down hard on it. He was thrown back in the seat as the car peeled forward. Verne's eyes grew wide as he saw the headlights throw light on a small clump of trees that he was heading straight for at 60 miles an hour or more. In his panic, he tried flipping every switch around him, hoping to hit one that might stop the car. Just as he was about to plow into a big thick pine tree, his hand yanked back the lever next to the time circuit power switch and he found the car becoming airborne. His foot still pressing against the gas peddle, Verne yanked the steering wheel back toward him and looked out the side window to see the pine tree growing small as the car climbed higher and higher. A strange noise made him return his attention to the front. The flux capacitor began to glow behind him, making everything a blinding white for a second and three sonic booms were heard. Then he was somewhere else, still going at a fast speed. It then occurred to him to take his foot of the gas, which he did immediately. The car fell back and Verne let out all the breath he had been holding and looked next to him, smiling weakly under Marty's gaze as he glared at him.
"Hi," Verne said softly. "I just have to pick something up." He looked away quickly. He hoped that Marty wasn't going to be too mad. Maybe, Verne thought, he should have taken this driving thing a bit more slower.
Marty looked at Verne in disbelief. "What do you mean you have to pick something up? Where are we anyway?"
Verne pointed to the time display. It read October 29, 2020, 12:00AM, Hill Valley, California. Marty did a double take. 2020! "Why are we in the future?" Marty asked, feeling horribly confused.
"I have to get something at our house," Verne replied, craning his neck to see under them.
"Does Doc usually allow a kid your age to drive?" Marty asked wryly, looking down at all the bright lights glowing underneath them.
Verne's face reddened. "Not exactly," he said hesitantly.
"What do you mean 'not exactly'?" Marty said, looking at him suspiciously.
Verne looked uncomfortable. "He doesn't even know I snuck out of the house outside," he replied, the nosedived the DeLorean forward.
Marty sighed. Ever since he had woken up from being thrown back when the car was moving at sixty miles an hour or better, straight for a tree, he hadn't understood one thing that was going on. Of course, suddenly traveling almost one hundred and sixty years into the future when you weren't expecting to could do that. What did Verne mean by saying he had to pick up something at their house anyway?
The car slowly drifted downward until it reached a small house on the outskirts of town. Verne landed the car in an abandon field next to it, and hoped out of the car as soon as he took the key out of the ignition, leaving it on the dashboard. "Come on!" he said impatiently, running toward the dark house.
Marty opened the door and got out, grabbing the keys and making sure the doors were tightly locked before following Verne. Last time they were in the future, Biff Tannen had stolen the time machine, messing up the past and causing a hellish version of 1985 in Hill Valley. Luckily, Doc and Marty had corrected that and Marty wondered if Biff was even still living in 2020. Even if their seemed to be no one else around, the incident had taught him to be doubly cautious. Marty would have felt much better staying with the car but he thought he better follow Verne, just to make sure he didn't get in trouble. Casting one last look at the car, Marty turned a corner of the house and saw Verne pacing back and forth on the front porch.
"Took you long enough," he muttered and began to punch in a code on a small number keypad hidden behind a thick bush next to the door. After doing that, he pressed his thumb to a small silver plate under the doorbell and the door swung open. The lights, which had been off when they had arrived, all turned on as soon as the door opened. Marty looked at the keypad next to the door. "What is that?" he asked Verne, who was now standing in the doorway.
"The pad is where you type the code to unlock the door," Verne explained. "Even if you managed to de-code it, you still couldn't get in unless your thumbprint matched the ones recorded already." He gestured for Marty to follow him.
Marty stepped inside and looked around him. The entryway was small, but it had a high ceiling, which made it appear larger. A strange picture hung on the wall over a small table that seemed to hover a few inches above the floor. The picture was a nice picturique scene of a waterfall cascading down moss covered rocks. The waterfall seemed to come right in the room and land in a small glass bowl that was resting on the table. It was so realistic looking that Marty reached out to touch it to see if maybe, perhaps, it really was in the room. Just as his fingers were about to brush the water in the falls, they hit against the glass in the picture frame.
"Weird," he whispered under his breath as he pulled back his hand. Hearing a noise behind him, Marty turned around and saw Verne returning from down the hall, carrying two strange looking objects, one in each hand. They looked like strange silvery sunglasses that had extra long sides that were rounder at the ends and looked like they were suppose to go over your ears. Trailing from the headgear with wires were three straps that looked adjustable and two strange looking gloves that were about a foot long. It was one of the most strangest things that Marty had ever seen. Had Verne traveled more than 150 years in the future just for those?
"What are those?" he asked, walking over to him and taking one of the gizmos from his outstretched hand.
"It's called Virtual Reality," Verne replied and slipped the earphone and sunglasses combination over his eyes and ears. He undid the three straps that seemed to have velcro on them and put them around his legs and waist. The gloves, which seemed much too big for him at first, shrunk to his size as soon as he put them on. Verne flipped up the glasses on his forehead and stared at Marty. "Aren't you going to put yours on?"
Marty looked down at the maze of wires in his hands. "What exactly is Virtual Reality?" he asked, holding up the headgear and looking at it, trying to figure out what it's purpose was.
Verne rolled his eyes. "If you put it on, you'll find out," he said and walked over to him. Verne picked up the dangling straps and tied them around Marty's legs and waist. Taking the headgear out of Marty's hands, Verne carefully placed it on Marty's head and flipped a switch at the side of the glasses.
A second later the room around him seemed to slowly disintegrate and was replaced by snow covered hills. Snow was softly falling on the scene. Verne stood in front of him about ten feet away, dressed in thick wintery clothing, but still wearing the glasses and gloves. Marty held out his own arms and looked down at them, seeing that they were clothed in a heavy, long sleeved coat. A cold wind blew and Marty could feel it, along with the snow that was falling, on his face. "What happened and where are we?" he asked, trying to figure out how he could get from a entryway in 2020 to an outside snow scene that was obviously far from the house.
"Well, technically speaking, we're inside a computer game," Verne replied and bent down, scooping up some snow and beginning to pack it together.
"How can we be inside a computer game?" Marty asked, confused for a moment until he remembered that this was the future.
"I don't know, we just are," Verne said shrugging, then continued. "In the game we're in right now, the object is to see who can hit who with ten snowballs the fastest." With that said, Verne hurled the snowball he had been packing while he was talking straight at Marty. It hit him square in the face and he could feel the snow immediately begin to melt on his face. Living in California all his life, Marty had only seen snow a few times in his life but as far as he could tell, this stuff looked and felt exactly like it.
"Bulls eye!" Verne exclaimed and bent over for more snow. Marty slowly wiped the remainder of the snow left off his face and shivered. No wonder they called this Virtual Reality, he thought. It didn't get any more real than this.
"Are we still in your house?" Marty asked, the thought just occurring to him. If this was some sort of fancy home computer game, it would make sense if they were still inside the house, instead of being warped to the location.
"Yeah, we're still in our house," Verne replied, then quickly added, "we have to be careful when we walk around too, since we can't see any of the furniture or walls, and could bump into one."
"Are there any warmer programs that we could use?" Marty said, stomping his booted feet to get some of the snow that was piling up on them off.
"Sure," Verne said, punching in some buttons on his glove. A few seconds later, they were in a large desert with the temperature rising swiftly every minute. Now instead of being dressed in heavy clothes, Marty could see Verne wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and sneakers. Marty looked down to see that he was wearing basicly the same thing. In the distance of the desert, which seemed to stretch on forever, pyramids rose about one inch off the horizon.
"What's this game called?" Marty asked, squinting at the pyramids in the distance.
Verne opened his mouth to answer, then closed it, his eyes widening. "My family is home!" he exclaimed suddenly, hitting a switch on the glove, which made the room return back to normal. Marty looked down at his clothes and noticed that he was once again dressed in his Civil War era clothes.
"Do you mean to tell me that your family - including you - is home right now?" Marty asked incredulously as he took off the headgear and bent down to unfasten the straps that were attached to his legs.
"Yeah," Verne replied as voices and footsteps came up the walk. He yanked off the headgear and looked around hastily, grabbing Marty's arm and yanking him in the direction of the hall. "Let's hide in the closet quick!" Verne whispered.
"How will we get out then?" Marty asked, imagining being stuck in there for the rest of the night.
Verne threw open the closet door, which had a regular doorknob like the ones in 1985. "We'll sneak out when everyone in bed and asleep," he said, still whispering.
The inside of the closet looked like every other one Marty had ever seen. The closet was about five feet across, but he couldn't tell how far back it went since there was a coat rack that was thick with future looking clothes in the way. Verne gently closed the door behind them and stood on tip toe to reach up on the shelf over the rack and grab a flashlight. He switched it one and slowly pushed back some of the clothes disappearing behind them. A second later his hand emerged from the depths and motioned for Marty to follow. After pushing back the clothes and stepping through them, Marty found himself in a small space between the wall and the clothes, about two and a half feet wide. A small pile of folded blankets were stacked in one corner, but other than that, the space was completely empty.
"How long do you think we will have to stay here?" Marty whispered, sitting down on the blankets. Verne frowned, his head cocked to one side, listening. A second later the woosh of the door opening was heard, along with footsteps and voices. Verne quickly switched off the flashlight and he and Marty sat, quietly listening in the dark.
"Emmett are you sure that no burglars have broken in? The lights were on when we drove up and they only go on if someone comes in," they heard Clara say, in a worried tone of voice.
"There is no sign of a forced entry and nothing appears to be missing, so it was most likely a electrical short," they heard Doc reply back calmly. "But if it will make you feel any better, I'll search around the house and closets."
Marty heard Verne gasp and stand up. "What are you doing?" he hissed, but Verne couldn't or wouldn't reply.
Marty heard the front door open again and more footsteps run in. "Mom, Jules is calling me puerile!" he heard Verne whine in a slightly higher sounding voice than usual.
Clara sighed. "Jules, please don't tease your brother. He's only six and you are almost two years older than him."
"Yes mother," Jules replied, his voice sounding slightly different too, but Marty didn't have any time to ponder that over because of how hectic it got in the next few moments.
"Boys, I'll take your coats and you may run along to bed. It is over two hours past your bed time. Clara dear, I'll check out the hall closet so I can hang your coat too," Marty heard Doc say all too clearly, it finally dawning on him that the hall closet that he and Verne had so hastily hid in was about to be opened.
Straining his eyes in the darkness, Marty looked around for anything that might conceal him from Doc. He suddenly remembered the pile of blanket that he was sitting on. Standing up, he quickly yanked the top one off the pile and threw it over his head, sitting back down on the remaining blankets. Almost immediately after doing that, the closet door opened slowly.
After a moment of silence, Marty slowly peaked from beneath the blanket. Small streams of light were filtering through the clothes to the back of the closet. Verne was standing pressed against the wall, with his feet hidden in large oversized boots. His eyes were wide and fixed on the doorway of the closet. A moment later, Doc began to hang up the coats and rummage around on the top shelf. "Do any of you know the location of the flashlight?" he shouted back toward the entryway.
"It should be on the closet shelf," Clara replied and walked over to the closet too, along with Jules and Verne following. "Isn't it there?"
Doc slid a bunch of coats over so that Marty could see all four of them perfectly. Doc was wearing one of his future outfits that he had worn when he and Marty had gone to 2015 a few weeks before. Other than that he looked exactly the same as he did in 1861. Clara was wearing another future outfit, but she looked the same too. The two boys looked quite different aside from there clothes. The future Jules looked about 2 years younger than he was in 1861, along with the future Verne. They were the only ones whom you could tell time had taken it's toll on. Verne was still wearing the raccoon cap that he wore non stop in 1861 though, and Jules still dressed neatly and wore his hair the same way, so they apparently hadn't changed that much in two years.
"Maybe the burglar took it!" the future Verne exclaimed suddenly, sounding gleeful. He pushed past his parents and stepped inside the closet, looking around.
"What would anyone want with a cheap 45 dollar flashlight?" Doc muttered then spoke in a louder voice. "I guess it must have been misplaced. Perhaps it will turn up later."
Doc stepped out of the closet, ushering the future Verne out. "There is apparently no one in here. Off to bed now boys," he said, shutting the door and leaving pitch blackness in the closet once again.
Marty let out all the breath he had been holding. For a minute he had been sure that their hiding place would be discovered and that they would have some heavy explaining to do. But luckily, nothing happened. Across from him Verne also let out a sigh of relief. "That was close," he whispered, slowly lowering himself to the floor.
"It's not over yet," Marty reminded him softly. "We still need to get out of the house without being seen."
"That will be easy compared to what we just went through," Verne replied.
"Now all we have to do is wait."
The last task was easier said than done. After checking out the rest of the house and sending the boys to bed, Doc and Clara went into the living room and stayed there for a few hours. Marty could hear the rise and fall of their voices through the walls of the closet, which was growing stuffy and hot. Just as he thought that they would never get out of that closet, Marty heard Doc and Clara move past the closet, still talking and go into their room, shutting the door behind them. As soon as the door closed, Verne switched on the flashlight and looked at his watch, one that was not the least bit from 1861. "We should wait another half hour before we leave," he whispered, showing Marty the time which was 2:15AM. They had been stuck in the closet for almost two hours.
"Why do we have to stay in here for so much longer?" he asked, straining his ears to hear any noise, but hearing nothing.
Verne rolled his eyes. "Because they might hear us. If we wait half an hour more, than they will probably be sleeping and not hear us sneak out. The one thing we don't want is anyone seeing us." He switched off the flashlight again.
The next half hour seemed to pass agonizingly slow. Just as Marty was beginning to doze off, Verne nudged him and turned on the flashlight, pointing to his watch. Putting a finger to his lips, Verne slowly stood up and pushed his way through the clothes. Marty followed, quickly folding up the blanket he had used, to make it look as if no one had ever hidden back there. Before opening the door of the closet, Verne turned off the flashlight and set it back on the shelf.
"Be careful to not bump into anything," he whispered before slowly opening the door. The house was dark and silent, the only light coming through windows from sleek streetlights. The front door was about 15 feet away from the closet. Most of the floor was hardwood, except for the part in the entryway that was covered by a throw rug. Therefore, every step they took echoed throughout the hall.
Just when Verne was opening the front door and they were almost home free, the unthinkable happened. Verne had stepped out of the house and was waiting next to the thumbplate to shut the door while Marty was about to step out. He almost had one foot out of the door when he stumbled on the throw rug, falling against the small hovering table. The table tipped over sideways and spilled the glass bowl on the floor, shattering it. The sound was loud enough to wake the dead. Marty stood still for a minute, looking down at the glass fragments in shock. Then the hall light came on and doors started to open. Verne grabbed his arm and dragged him outside, throwing his thumb against the plate to shut the door.
"Run!" Verne hissed, breaking into a sprint. Marty followed running as fast as he could. Behind them the house was all lighted up. Casting a hasty look back, Marty could see the whole Brown family gathered in the entryway through a window. He hoped they wouldn't happen to look out the window that soon.
Verne reached the DeLorean first and struggled to open the driver's side door, which was locked. Marty reached it a second later and took the keys out of his pocket, unlocking the door. "I'm driving this time," he told Verne firmly as he was about to climb into the driver's seat. Verne sighed, but ran over to the passenger side door with the keys to unlock it.
A minute later they were a safe mile away from the house. Marty began to punch in the time they left, pausing at the exact time. He had no idea what time it was when they left and thought that guessing might be a bad idea. If they came back too early, they would have to wait around until the DeLorean left in the first place.
"Hey Verne, what time did we leave 1861?" he asked looking over at him. Verne, who was looking down out the window, didn't answer. "Verne?" Marty asked again.
"I forgot the virtual reality!" Verne said groaning as he leaned back in the seat.
"Their's no way we are going back for it," Marty said firmly. He didn't want to go through another experience like that again. They had a hard enough time getting out the first time.
"I know," Verne replied sighing. "But we went through all that trouble for nothing."
Marty couldn't have agreed more.
Friday, August 2, 1861
6:01 P.M..
Who would ever believe it would take this long to get a picnic basket? Marty couldn't help thinking as he hiked to the DeLorean, which was 15 minutes away from where he had left Lauren and Alexander. He had told them that he was going to get the picnicking stuff and be back in a few minutes. They probably thought he had become hopelessly lost by now.
The DeLorean was hidden in a small clearing in some thick woods, so no one who wasn't suppose to would see it. Marty reached it a moment later. The plan was for him to put on his black hooded robe costume and take off in the car, fly it over to the 'picnic' sight and say that he was the ghost of future events. Then he was suppose to whisk them off to about five different locations and times that he had written down on a piece of paper to remember, and placed on the dashboard.
Marty opened the driver's side door and picked up the folded robe off the seat, slipping it over his head. After making sure the hoverboard was resting on the passenger seat, Marty started the car and began to fly it to the spot. He was almost directly over it when a hand touched his shoulder. Gasping in surprise, he twisted the wheel to the right, almost hitting the tops of some trees. It took him almost a minute to get the car rightened properly again. Though he really didn't want to, Marty turned around to find Verne grinning sheepishly at him from the backseat. "Sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to scare you."
Marty looked at him, shocked. "Verne, what are you doing here?" he finally managed to ask.
"He's not the only one here," another voice said next to Verne. A second later Jules's head popped out of the blanket that was stored back there that was used to cover the DeLorean up when their were other people around.
"What are you guys doing here?" Marty asked again, trying to keep one eye out the front window and carry a conversation at the same time.
"It was his brilliant concoction," Jules said, pointing to Verne. "I had no wish to partake in the matter."
Verne turned to glare at his brother. "Oh yeah? Then why did you follow me to the car if you didn't want to come along?"
"Merely to convince you to not go through with this foolish plan," Jules replied evenly, trying to untangle himself from the blanket.
"Hold it, what plan do you mean?" Marty interrupted them. Any minute they would be hitting the picnic area and he would have to set his plan in action.
"He," Jules said, "wanted to hide in the back of the DeLorean, just for pleasure."
"That's not true!" Verne almost shouted. "I was just bored and thought that going through time would be fun."
"You guys aren't supposed to be here," Marty said sighing, then caught sight of Lauren and Alexander staring in wonder at the flying car. "But it's too late now. I guess you'll have to come along. But," Marty quickly added as he started to make the car descend, "try not to get in the way and if they ask, say that you are... their guardian angles!" Marty finished, remembering another Christmas movie.
Verne's eyes shone. "Cool! This will be great!" he said excitedly, leaning forward to look out the window.
"Just be careful what you say, " Marty cautioned, landing the DeLorean and grabbing the hoverboard to use off the seat. He looked quickly at them. "Verne, you can be Lauren's guardian angel and Jules, you can be Alexander's."
Jules and Verne nodded. Marty wondered briefly if this was going to be a big mistake, but pushed that thought out of his mind and threw the hood over his head. "Stay right here," he said, slowly opening the door.
Lauren and Alexander stared in amazement at the creature that was emerging from within the strange vehicle that had landed moments before. Lauren had never seen anything as mysterious as the thing the creature had showed up in. It was silver and sleek with weird tubes and coils in various spots on it, especially the back. It had strange lights at the bottom and the front and strange doors that opened upward.
The creature stepped out, if stepped out could be the proper word. In the evening sunlight, Lauren could see that the creature hovered about half a foot off the ground! Taking a deep breath, Lauren boldly stepped forward. "Who are you?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
The creature glided forward, holding a large stick. It looked like it was wearing a hooded robe. Lauren could only imagine what hideous creature lay underneath it.
"Lauren Smith and Alexander Baines, I am the ghost of your futures," the creature replied, in a horse sounding voice that for some reason nagged at Lauren.
"What do you mean our futures?" Alexander asked, taking a step forward and squinting at the creature.
"Just what I said. I was sent here to show you what your futures are to be, since you have altered time," the creature replied.
"How ?" Lauren asked puzzled. How could they have altered time when it was happening right now?
"You will find out. But first you must step into the DeLor- er, the time machine," the creature said gesturing to the open door.
Before Lauren could reply, Alexander grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "I don't think that is a ghost," Alexander whispered in a low voice.
"Why not?" Lauren asked, looking carefully at the creature, seeing nothing that made her think differently.
"Look at the ground," Alexander pointed out. "The so-called ghost casts a shadow."
Lauren looked at the ground and could indeed see a shadow cast by the creature. "What does that mean?" she asked, turning back to look at Alexander.
"It means that this creature must be solid," Alexander said matter-of-factly.
"How can it float then?" Lauren asked, still not entirely sure that the creature was solid.
Alexander shrugged. "I don't know, but we should find out along with who, or what, it is," he said, looking once again at the creature.
All of the sudden Lauren had a great idea. "I know what we could do!" she exclaimed suddenly in a low voice.
"What?" Alexander asked, staring at her.
"When I was at the hospital today, the doctor gave me a bottle of something called chloroform to use on the solders to knock them out for operations. I still have it in my apron pocket because I had forgotten about until now. If we could pour the liquid on a handkerchief and you distract the creature for a moment I could come up behind it and knock it out. Then we can see who - or what - it is," Lauren explained in a whisper.
Alexander was quiet for a minute, then he slowly nodded. "It just might work. I'll trip and pretend that I have hurt myself and when the creature looks over at me, you can get it." He quickly got a handkerchief out of his pocket. "Here, I'll block you from the creature's view while you soak this."
Alexander quickly stepped behind her and stood there while Lauren got the bottle and uncorked it, pouring almost the entire bottle on the handkerchief until it was dripping. She quickly re-capped the bottle and turned around, holding the soaked handkerchief behind her and trying not to breathe that much. Lauren had just gotten a whiff of the chloroform and it made her feel slightly dizzy. She knew if this wouldn't knock the creature out, nothing would.
Alexander glanced back at her and she gave a small nod. He started walking over to the creature, acting like he was going to get in the vehicle. Lauren followed at a slower pace. When Alexander was almost directly next to the creature, he stumbled and fell. The creature looked down at him. "Are you okay?" the creature asked.
Alexander moaned and grabbed on to his foot. "I think I twisted my ankle," he groaned, pretending he was in great pain.
The creature bent over him. Lauren figured that the distraction didn't get any better than this and ran forward, almost jumping on the back of the creature.
"What are you doing?" the creature asked surprised in a normal sounding voice that sounded very familiar to Lauren. She couldn't quite place it and pushed it out of her mind as she struggled to get the handkerchief over wherever the creature breathed, which she automatically assumed was where she and all other people breathed. The creature struggled and seemed to loose it's footing as some strange pink board shaped thing came out from underneath it's feet.
Alexander leaped up, his job done, to help Lauren control the creature. Jumping behind it, he grabbed the creature's arms and pinned them behind it's back as Lauren held the handkerchief firmly over what felt like the creature's mouth and nose. After struggling for a minute, Lauren could feel it take a deep breath and then the creature went limp, almost falling on top of Alexander. Bending down next to it, Lauren held the handkerchief over the creature's nose and mouth for almost another minute before cautiously removing it. Alexander, who had lost his balance when the creature had fallen, scrambled to his feet and stood beside Lauren. "What do we do now?" she asked him, peering down at the fallen creature.
"Unmask it, I guess," Alexander replied not sounding excited at the prospect. He walked over to the floating pink board and cautiously picking it up, examining it.
"But what if there is some awful creature from another planet under it?" Lauren asked nervously.
"I don't think so," Alexander said, dropping the board on the ground and watching in amazement as it floated.
Lauren took a deep breath and slowly pulled back the hood. When she saw who it was, she was just as shocked as she would have been if it was a slimy green monster with dripping fangs. "Rhett!" she gasped in surprise, dropping the hood.
Alexander came over to Lauren and stood next to her. "Who did you say it was?" he asked, not quite believing what he heard.
Lauren shook her head in disbelief. "Our mysterious creature is Rhett Butler. I was wondering why it was taking him so long to get the picnic basket," she mused.
Meanwhile, in the DeLorean, Jules and Verne looked out the open door in shock. They were still wondering what Lauren and Alexander had done to Marty. "What do we do now?" Verne whispered, looking up at Jules.
Jules shrugged. "Martin said to wait in here, but I am not positive if he meant even if something happened to him like this," he replied in a low voice.
"Then I'm going out. If something happened to Marty, then we should find out, plus they still need to see their futures," Verne said, then leaped out of the car before Jules could make a grab for him.
Lauren stared in shock and surprise at the boy who was coming out of the strange vehicle. He looked about eight years old and had blond hair over which he wore a coon skin cap. He was dressed in normal looking clothes for that time period for a boy his age, so Lauren wasn't exactly sure what to think of him.
"Hi," the boy said, walking over to Lauren and kneeled down next to her and Rhett. "My name is Verne. I'm your guardian angle."
"My what?" Lauren asked confused, still staring at him.
"Your guardian angle," Verne repeated, then added, "Alexander's angel is in there." He pointed at the strange vehicle.
At that moment another boy, this one looked about 10, stepped out from the strange door. This kid had brown hair and was also dressed in the typical clothing for someone his age, but was dressed much more neatly than the other youngster.
The second boy walked over to Alexander, who was staring at him just like Lauren had at Verne moments before, and grabbed his hand to shake it. "I'm Jules, your guardian angel," he said then also knelt down next to Rhett. "What did you do to him?" he asked, looking curiously Lauren.
Lauren hesitantly took out what was left of the bottle of chloroform and handed it to the boy called Jules. "I just gave him some chloroform because Alexander and I weren't sure who or what the hooded figure was," Lauren said, then continued. "So we decided to knock it out to find out. We had no idea it was Rhett."
Jules frowned as he examined the bottle. "How full was this before you found use for it?" he asked, noticing the low volume of liquid in it.
Lauren pointed to the top of the six inch high bottle. There was only about 2 inches left in the bottle. "It was this high," she said, then picked up the handkerchief that had fallen to the ground in all the confusion. "I poured it on this," she added, handing it to Jules.
"For what amount of time did you hold it over his mouth and nose?" Jules asked, taking the still dripping handkerchief and stuffing it into the open bottle of chloroform, corking it, then setting it on the grass beside him.
"About a minute and a half total," Lauren replied after thinking. "I had it over him for another minute, even after he was knocked out, just to make sure that whatever creature was in there was not faking it."
Jules leaned over and took Rhett's wrist, measuring his pulse with a watch he had on his wrist that looked strange to Lauren with large lighted up numbers, then checked his breathing, which was slow and deep. "He seems fine for someone who was just anaesthetized with that much chloroform at one time," Jules concluded, sitting back. "But we should still keep an eye on him because he will be unconscious for quite a while. We shall have to bring him with us."
"Where are we going?" Alexander asked, eyeing the vehicle suspiciously.
Verne stood up. "To the future of course. That was where we would have gone anyway if you didn't knock Mart- uh, Rhett out," he said.
"How can we get there?" Lauren asked, her gaze wandering between the floating board and the silvery carriage looking thing.
"That will become clear as we go along," Jules said, also standing up. He moved over behind Rhett. "Will you and Alexander be so kind as to help me carry, uh, Rhett into the time machine?" he asked.
"Uh, sure," Alexander replied and after a few moments they had managed to move Rhett into the small cramped backseat of the time machine. He hadn't stirred once during the ordeal, though he had been bumped and jolted many times. After gathering up the strange floating board, which Verne had called a hoverboard, they were all ready to leave. Alexander sat in the seat on the right side of the vehicle, with Lauren sitting on his lap. Jules and Verne had argued on who would drive, with Jules finally winning out because he said he was the oldest and knew what every little knob and dial did, so Verne crawled into the backseat behind Alexander to keep an lookout over Rhett.
Picking up a piece of paper that was under a window that stretched across the front of the vehicle, Jules looked at it skimming it. A second later he reached over to a strange looking thing that stretched between the seats and twisted the lever at the front of it, making a panel a half foot in front of it light up with what looked like the day, time, place and year for that day. Lauren watched in amazement as Jules started typing in April 23, 1862, 12:30AM, Gainsville, Floridia.
"What does that thing do?" she asked, pointing to the display of places and dates.
"That displays our destination time at the moment," Jules replied, turning a key next to what could have been a steering function. Less than a second later there was a roaring noise that settled down to a soft growl at the front of the vehicle. After doing that, Jules reached down between the two seats again and pulled up a lever behind the strange looking thing, causing the vehicle to rise slightly and feel a bit off balance.
"What did that do?" Alexander asked, trying to look out a window around Lauren.
"That makes the car fly," Verne said, crawling over Rhett to lean in between the seats. He pointed to the window next to the seat that Alexander and Lauren were in. "If you look outside and look down, you can see that were a few feet off the ground," he added.
"What is this thing that we are in anyway?" Lauren asked curiously, looking around her. Multicolored lights were all around in the vehicle, including the ceiling. Behind the small backseat were more coils and wires, along with a strange looking device behind glass that was Y shaped and had bursts of yellow light move through the tubes. "What is that anyway?" she asked, pointing to it.
"Well, first of all, we're all in a time machine that was made out of a car called a DeLorean," Verne said, turning toward she and Alexander.
"Brother!" Jules said sternly, glaring at Verne, who ignored him.
"And that thing, which lets us travel through time," Verne continued, pointing to the Y shaped thing, "is called a -"
Verne was abruptly cut off by Jules' hand clasping itself over his mouth.
"Don't speak a word about that!" he hissed in his ear. "Do you want to cause a paradox?"
Verne yanked off Jules's hand. "No, but what would be the worst that could happen?" he retorted back.
"Don't ask," Jules replied, turning his attention back to the front of the car.
Lauren watched in wonder and astonishment as the car rushed up to a great speed in a few seconds. "How fast are we going," she asked, watching the trees and ground rush by in a blur.
"When the temporal displacement will occur, we will have attained a speed of 88 miles per hour," Jules said, exactly as there were three bright flashes of light and three huge booms that felt as if they could shake the earth that came from outside. When they slowed down again, they were still in the air, but it was much darker outside and now a small red light glowed next to the time of 12:30AM.
"What happened?" Alexander asked, puzzled.
"We just punctured the time barrier," Jules replied, looking once again at the piece of paper and craning his neck to look out the windows.
"You mean that we are almost one year into the future?" Lauren asked, already feeling like she knew the answer.
"Yeah, but why are we in Florida?" Verne said, looking at Jules, who was still examining the paper.
"I am not completely positive," Jules replied frowning as he re-read the paper. "But I bet Ma- um, Rhett would know. How is his present condition?"
Verne leaned over Rhett and shook him a few times, getting no response.
"He's still out cold," Verne reported.
Jules sighed. "Great," he said sarcasticly under his breath, then added in a normal voice, "I wish there was some solution in discovering what we must see in each time that is on this paper."
"What about this book that Rhett stuck back here?" Verne asked, waving it in front of Jules. "There are about 10 scraps of paper stuck in different places in this."
Jules snatched the book out of Verne's hand and skimmed through it. Lauren noticed something awfully familiar about that book, it all suddenly hitting her a once. That was her diary - or was it? She distinctly remembered sticking her diary in a drawer that evening, before leaving to go to the supposed picnic. The book in front of her also looked like it had about 100 years more wear and tear on it then her book. The cover was cracked and peeling and the binding was coming apart, along with the pages being yellowed with age, but she still could have sworn that that was her diary.
"Where did you get that?" she asked Verne, twisting around to look at him. He shrugged. "I don't know where it came from, but I found it back here, under the end of the blanket."
Lauren turned back around to face Jules, who was reading something in the book. "Do you know where that came from?" she asked him.
Jules looked up from his reading. "I know where this originated from, but I cannot reveal where that is."
"Why not?" Lauren persisted, trying to look over the top of the book to see what was written in it. Jules suddenly slammed it shut and placed it on the floor by his feet. "The results would be very devastating," he replied, decreasing the height of the car as they approached a small two story farm house. A minute later they landed in the back of it by a small swamp.
After turning the key next to the wheel and making the noise stop in the front of the car, Jules turned to Lauren, his face serious.
"Lauren," he began, "what you are about to see does not have to be the way it is. You can change it if you want to. But what you are about to witness may be a large shock to you, so I advise you to keep it in mind that what you see isn't necessarily what is suppose to be."
"What exactly are you talking about?" Lauren asked, beginning to feel scared. What was out there that was making him warn her about?
"You shall see," Jules replied, opening the door. Verne started to follow, but was stopped by Jules' hand. "You wait here. We will return shortly and what is out here may be to gruesome for someone of your age to witness," he said, pushing Verne back into the car firmly.
"What could be so awful out there that you don't want me to see?" Verne asked curiously, trying to duck around Jules, who was blocking the door.
"Trust me," Jules replied, and shut the door in Verne's face. Verne turned to Lauren and Alexander, sulking.
"Why do I always have to do what he says. Just because he is almost two years older than me, he thinks that gives him the right to boss me around," he complained, leaning forward to grab the book that he had found back their from off the floor.
"Are you brothers or something?" Alexander asked as he examined the door, trying to figure out how it opened.
Verne nodded. "Yeah, unfortunately," he replied and opened the book, flipping through to the place where Jules had been reading.
Lauren looked at the door and tentatively pulled back what looked like a handle, jerking back her hand when the door began to opened upwards. She climbed out slowly, with Alexander following and shutting the door. Outside it felt humid and warm, though the sun had probably set hours before. Lauren slowly walked around the front of the car to where Jules was standing, staring across the swamp. Lauren crept up behind him and quickly scanned the waters, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. "What is it that you were warning me so much about?" Lauren asked softly, breaking the heavy silence.
Jules slowly turned around to look at her and stumbled over something. He knelt down to pick up it up off the shore. It appeared to be something that was wrapped in a scarf. Slowly unwrapping the bundle, Jules held up a small gold locket and book, both of which Lauren recognized immediately. "That's my gold locket that my parent's gave me for my sixteenth birthday!" she exclaimed in surprise. But she had her necklace on right now. She had been wearing it constantly and swearing that she would never take it off, ever since her parents died. Inside the locket were pictures of both her parents that they had taken of them, especially for the necklace. It was now one of her most treasured possessions. Lauren quickly reached up to her neck where the locket would be dangling if it was around her neck and it was still hanging there. She looked at the book.
"That's my diary, I know it is!" she said firmly and reached out for it, snatching it out of Jules's hand before he had a chance to react. She flipped quickly through it, finding the entry that she had written just before coming over here and more. Lauren turned the pages quickly in shock, finding dates that were weeks and months in the future. But even though the book was only over a little halfway filled up, the entries stopped abruptly on April 21, 1862, the day that they were at now. Quickly skimming the entry, she suddenly knew why Jules had been so insistent on warning her what she might find. Closing her diary, she turned quickly around so that her back was to the lake. "Am I at the bottom of that swamp now?" she asked, shutting her eyes tight for a second.
Jules nodded slowly. "I believe so. After all, why would you fib to your own personal journal about something like that?"
"Is that what you brought me here for, to show me my dead body?" Lauren asked, staring straight ahead at the car that Verne had called a DeLorean and what was also a time machine. Despite the grim atmosphere and the shock Lauren felt knowing that she was going to be dead in less than a year from committing suicide, a small idea began to grow in her mind. If this DeLorean was really a time machine, did that mean that it could go anywhere at anytime?
"In a way," Jules replied. "But the main reason was to show you that this is what will occur if you continue the path on which your life has turned. You see, this is not what originally happened in your life."
"Then what did happen originally?" Lauren asked, turning back around to face the swamp and Jules.
"I cannot reveal that information to you either," Jules said, sounding regretful and taking the book out of her hand, wrapping it back up in the scarf, along with the golden necklace, setting back on the ground where it had been sitting before.
Lauren was beginning to feel impatient. "What can you tell me now?" she asked, trying to keep her voice steady and calm.
Jules shrugged. "I just depends on what you want to know and if it seems like a harmless question," he replied, beginning to walk back to the DeLorean. Lauren stood staring at the swamp for a minute more. It wasn't until Alexander put a hand on her shoulder that she remembered he was there. "What exactly did that book say that got you so upset?" he asked softly, looking out over the water.
Lauren stared down at the locket that hung around her neck and opened it up, seeing her parents smile up at her from each side of the locket. They looked the same in the black and white photographs as they did when she had seen them last. Sighing, she closet the locket and let it drop back to where it rested, turning to Alexander. "The book," she began, "was my diary. However, this being nine months later, it told what has happened since August. My last entry told that I decided to commit suicide on this day at midnight. So, at this time, I must be at the bottom of the swamp, dead," she said, lowering her head.
Alexander was silent for awhile before replying. "Is that what will happen to you defiantly?" he asked.
Lauren shook her head. "Your guardian angel said no," she replied, bending down to pick up a stone and throwing it into the water, watching the ripples it made as the stone sunk. A minute after the stone hit the water, something large began to surface from the depths. Lauren began to slowly back away, staring in horror at the center of the pond. Alexander turned around and began to run toward the car, grabbing Lauren's wrist along the way and pulling her behind him to the right side of the car, in front of the strange door. Lauren looked down, trying to find the thing that caused the door to open. Though neither of them hadn't touched a thing, the door suddenly opened, almost hitting Lauren and Alexander's legs as it did so. Verne was leaning between the seat and the wall and still had the book in one hand.
"Wow, you guys look like you've seen a ghost!" he told them as Alexander sat down in the seat and Lauren crawled over on top of him.
"I think we almost did," Lauren said, gasping for breath from their sudden sprinting.
"How do you close this door?" Alexander asked, looking up at it.
"You tug on the strap hanging down on the door," Jules said, looking at the paper and leaning over to grab the book that Verne was holding.
"Hey, I was looking at that!" Verne said, trying to grab it back from his brother, but Jules was too quick. While he was looking through it, Verne leaned over Rhett to look out the window on the left side of the car.
"Wow, their's something floating face down in the swamp!" he suddenly exclaimed. "It looks like a body or something. Cool!"
Lauren had no idea what the last word meant in that statement, but she did think she knew what was in the swamp. "Don't say another word about what you see!" Lauren cried out, turning to look out the window on her side of the car and seeing the two story farm house. She noticed that one of the second story windows was lit up and wondered if that was going to be her room in the future.
"It says that our next destination should be in 1915," Jules said, setting the paper back down and flipping open the book to the back, coming across several newspaper clippings. Sorting through them, he picked out one that was about a paragraph long and held it next to the window where some moonlight was coming in. Lauren shifted her gaze from the farmhouse window to the backseat where Rhett was still lying, unconscious. "Has he changed at all while we were outside?" she asked Verne, turning around in Alexander's lap to face him.
Verne looked down at him and shook his head. "He hasn't done anything ever since you clobbered him," he said, still trying to see out the window at the swamp.
Lauren leaned over the seat and stared down at Rhett, still feeling enormously guilty for sneaking up on him and chloroforming him like that. If she would have known that he was in that black hooded outfit, she would have never tried to knock him out. Rhett was lying down on the seat on his left side, facing the seat that Jules was sitting in. His eyes were closed and his mouth was open slightly, making his breathing sound slow and even. The seat had only been about four feet wide in the back so in order to fit both Verne and Rhett, who had to be lying down, in there, they had had to bend Rhett's legs at the knees, but even so they were still jabbing into the strange box that made the date board light up when the switch was twisted. It was a good thing that Rhett was unconscious and not awake in that position. Lauren thought it looked slightly uncomfortable.
Stretching her arm over the seat, Lauren reached over and grabbed Rhett's wrist, checking his pulse. It was slow, but strong and steady, exactly as it should be for someone under the influence of chloroform. She let go of his wrist and pulled back her arm, twisting back around in the seat to once again face the front. Jules was hesitantly punching in a new time. This one read December 15, 1915, 10:15PM, Portland, Maine.
"What's there that we need to see?" Alexander asked as Jules turned the key next to the wheel-like thing. The soft growling was once again heard at the front of the car.
"Once again, we will be witnessing a delicate subject," Jules said, most of his attention on the car. "But this time it may be traumatic for you."
"What do you mean? Is Alexander going to see himself die?" Lauren asked. Instead of answering, Jules handed her the newspaper clipping that he had been reading moments before. She and Alexander read it at the same time.
Alexander Baines, 50 year resident to Portland, Maine, died late last night around 11:00PM at Taylor Bar, located at the corner of 32nd street.
" Big Al " as known to his fisherman friends, died from a gunshot wound through the heart, during a bar fight. Paul Williams, who shot the gun, was obtained by police and will be on trial Friday, December 21st for the shooting.
"I was shot in a bar fight?" Alexander asked incredulously after finishing the article, and looking a bit pale.
"Apparently so," Jules replied, pulling up the lever that caused the car to fly.
"Is this suppose to happen?" Lauren asked, remembering what he had said earlier about her death.
"Why would we bring you through time if we didn't need to change it?" Verne replied, giving up on seeing out the window and leaning in between the seats.
"Am I going to see myself?" Alexander asked, sounding awed and scared at the same time.
"Perhaps," Jules said, accelerating the car up slowly through the air. Lauren caught one last glimpse of the swamp before it disappeared in the shadows. She let out a small sigh of relief that she wouldn't have to see her body. Hopefully, if she and Alexander did what they were suppose to originally do, none of the things they would see tonight would ever happen to them.
Lauren saw the number eighty eight flash on a strange lighted up panel about two inches by one inch that was resting on the shelf under the front window in front of the wheel. The number looked like the dates and times on the large panel up front. Lauren saw the first flash of light and braced herself for going 54 years in the future.
Saturday, December 15, 1915
10:15 P.M..
Portland, Maine
It was dark once again when they arrived, but this dark was not solid like the kind in 1862. Lauren stared down out the window in amazement at the hundreds of lights that shone beneath them on long slim poles next to streets and the lights shining in each building. They looked much brighter than the candles and oil lamp lights that she was use to in 1861.
"What are those lights?" she asked, pointing to them. Jules glanced down outside before answering.
"Those are primitive versions of street lamps," he said, pointing to the lighted sticks. "And the other lights are early electric lights."
As the car began to descend, Lauren could see that the street lamps were placed about one on every block corner, and allowing the street, which looked like it was covered in snow, to be seen in the darkness. Jules flew the car until they reached a small wooded area that was a few blocks away from the lights and buildings. Landing the car so it was surrounded on all four sides by some trees or bushes, Jules turned the key so once again everything was silent. He leaned over Lauren and Alexander and opened a small door that opened downward out infront of them, that looked like it was built in under the shelf under the window. The box was mostly filled with more coils, tubes, and wires, but there was enough room for the camera-like thing that Jules grabbed out of it, and a cylinder thing of a bright color that was left behind.
"What is that?" Verne asked, staring at it as Jules shut the small door.
"This is a regular camera that I modified myself," Jules said, proudly displaying it. The camera didn't look like the ones Lauren was use to seeing, but it did resemble a camera slightly, if you stripped away all the wires and large lense it had.
"What do you need a camera for?" Verne asked, puzzled.
"This camera does not do what all other cameras do," Jules said, opening the car door and stepping out of the DeLorean. He walked around to the other side of the car and opened the door for Lauren and Alexander. Before his brother could stop him, Verne quickly climbed out of the car too and shut the door behind him.
"Alexander and Lauren, stand over in front of the DeLorean," Jules instructed them, then handed the camera thing to Verne. "Press this button when inform you to, and do not touch anything else," he warned.
"How am I suppose to hold the camera if I can't touch anything but the button?" Verne asked innocently, dangling the camera by the button, which stood up out of the camera.
Jules snatched the camera back. "Don't get smart with me!" he snapped, glaring at Verne, then handed him back the camera carefully. "Hold this gently, and don't touch any of the other knobs and switches, or else you will suffer unexplainable things."
Jules walked over and stood by Lauren. "Press the button now!" he called out. Verne aimed and pointed the lense at them and their was a big flash of light. Lauren looked around to see that she, along with Jules and Alexander, were dressed in Greek togas and sandles. "What happened?" she asked, confused.
Jules looked like he was going to explode. The crown of laurel leaves he had encircling his head fell over one ear crooked as he stormed toward his brother. "I told you not to disturb anything!" he yelled furiously, yanking the camera out of Verne's hands and fiddling with it for a minute. Verne stood back, grinning.
"I only hit that one switch," he replied, then added laughing, "Those leaves look really cool on you. You look like you fought with a tree and lost!"
Jules snatched the crown of leaves off his head and stood silently fuming for a minute as he glared at his brother. "Do you thing that you can handle just pressing the correct button, or is that too difficult a task for you?" he asked Verne sarcasticly, holding the camera out to him.
"I think I can manage that," Verne replied in a bored tone of voice, taking the camera and shooting it with Jules still standing directly in front of him, but still getting Lauren and Alexander in the shot. This time after the camera clicked and their was the flash of bright light, Lauren was wearing a long dress, similar to the ones she was use to, and a large brimmed hat. Her hair was still pulled back in the bun as it was before, but the shoes she was wearing were also different. She wondered briefly what happened to the 1861 clothing they were wearing earlier and the togas, but decided she really didn't want to know.
Lauren looked over at Alexander. He was also wearing something different, brown slacks and neat black shoes with laces, a white shirt with a bow tie and suspenders, and a jacket that went down to about a foot below his waist. A hat with a four and a half inch brim all around and a dent in the top that looked like a ruler had hit it was also on his head. Lauren glanced over at Jules, who was wearing what looked like a smaller version of Alexander's clothing, and blinking his eyes rapidly.
"You didn't have to use the camera when I was standing directly in front of you," Jules said sighing, taking the camera out of Verne's hands and opening the door to the DeLorean. He leaned inside and stuck the camera in its original place. "What about me? Don't I get to change clothes?" Verne asked, sounding suspicious. Jules shook his head and pointed to the inside of the car. "You are too young to be going into a bar," he said firmly.
"And you aren't? If Pop found out, I don't think he would be exactly overjoyed." Verne leaned against the car with his arms crossed and glaring stubbornly at Jules.
"I have to accompany Lauren and Alexander to the place. You know that," Jules said, and pushed Verne into the car. "But you don't have to come, so you won't!" He slammed the door down in Verne's face before he could get another word in. Turning around, so he couldn't see Verne giving him a look that could freeze a moving river, he marched ahead of Lauren and Alexander, who were still standing in the same place that they were when the camera had flashed. He stopped when he realized that they weren't following him. "Aren't you coming?" he asked, turning around to face them, and stopping at the edge of the clearing.
"Are you sure we should?" Lauren asked, glancing at the car at Verne, who had quit shooting evil looks at his brother and was now sitting back in the seat on the right side of the car, sulking.
Jules followed her gaze and shrugged. "He should proceed to stay in there, unless he is prepared get in trouble later."
"Okay...." Lauren replied uncertainly, following the others as they began to walk to wherever the bar they were suppose to be going to was. But she knew that by the look on Verne's face, he wasn't going to give up quite that easily.
Verne watched as Jules, Alexander, and Lauren disappeared in the bushes on their way out of the clearing. He waited another minute before grabbing the newspaper article that told of Alexander's death off the dashboard, where Jules had set it after Lauren and Alexander had read it. He quickly skimmed it, stopping at the address and committing it to memory. If Jules wasn't going to let him come with them to the bar, than he would let himself, never mind the threats. Verne was pretty sure that their father wouldn't be exactly jumping up and down with joy if he knew that Jules decided to take the plan into his own hands after Lauren knocked Marty out with the chloroform. But then again, you could never be too sure how Pop would react to things like that. Maybe he would actually approve of Jules driving the DeLorean and continuing the plan because of the unexpected things that had happened.
Slowly opening the glove compartment, Verne carefully lifted out the camera. He only had a slight idea on how it worked, since he had watched as Jules had set it up. On the back of the camera, near the bottom, was a small digital screen that was blank right now. Verne switched on a small switch near the top of the camera on the back and the screen lighted up. Right now it read 1915 AD, America, which was the current year and place. When Jules had asked him to run the camera, he had switched the AD to BC, deleted the 1 before the 9, and changed the location to Greece. He had only done that just to spite Jules because he was being such a jerk to him, the way he was ordering him all around. That was another reason Verne wanted to go to the bar with the others. It was always great fun to get Jules mad!
Verne opened the passenger side door and got out. He held the camera out as far as he could in front of him with the lense pointed toward him. He put his finger on the button and shut his eyes as he pressed it, so he wouldn't be blinded by the large flash. When he opened his eyes again and looked down, he was wearing brown pants with suspenders, a white shirt with a bow tie, and a flat cap that most boys from that time wore that had replaced his coon skin cap that he always wore wherever he went. Before leaving, Verne replaced the camera back in the glove compartment and leaned over the passenger seat to check on Marty. Calling his name softly a few times and shaking him once, Verne breathed a sigh of relief when Marty didn't stir. If he did wake up, then Verne would have probably stayed with him, otherwise his brother would have had a cow. This way, it wouldn't make a difference. Verne crawled out of the car and slammed the door down, casting one last look at the car before he left the clearing. He hoped that nothing would happen to it while he left. Otherwise, he was sure that Jules would blame him for the rest of his life for leaving the DeLorean when he was not suppose to. But nothing will happen to the car, Verne thought firmly as he pushed back the bushes and emerged onto a small dirt path that lead to the street. He froze as he heard a noise behind him from bushes rustling, and spun around to see a squirrel dart out with an acorn from underneath the bush. Verne let out a sigh of relief and began to walk toward the town, putting all of his fears behind him.
The bar was just where the article had said it would be. Inside the swinging doors, Lauren could hear loud men's voices yelling and shouting, sometimes things that Lauren had never heard spoken in public before that were very sinful. On the way to the bar, Jules had told her to pretend that she and Alexander were his parents, to avoid as much suspicion as possible. But wouldn't it be a bit suspicious anyway to bring a ten year old boy to a bar, especially to a bar so dirty in both atmosphere and physically?
Jules walked a few paces ahead of them and turned around to face them, standing near the swinging doors. "You," he said, pointing to Alexander, "will enter first, followed by Lauren, than I. It would seem rather odd if I was the first person in any bar would be someone of my age, so that is the most logical order that we shall follow."
"What about me?" a voice asked, directly behind Lauren. She spun quickly around to see Verne standing behind her, dressed in different clothes than he was wearing earlier and staring at Jules, waiting for an answer.
Jules marched over to Verne and stood looking down at him, though Verne was only an inch shorter than him. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "I thought I told you to stay with the time vehicle!"
Verne stood up on his toes so he had the additional height to look his brother straight in the eye. "Just because you told me to stay with the DeLorean didn't mean I was going to," he replied, sounding as stubborn as Jules had sounded when he had told Verne that he was not to come with them.
Jules pointed toward the direction that they had come from. "Go back to the car, before I have to drag you!" he exclaimed.
"Like you could drag me that far, wimp!" Verne replied. "I bet you can't even drag me out of the door at this place!" He ran to the bar doors and ducked under them, going inside.
Jules stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the place where Verne had vanished. "You can be sure Father will hear of you atrocious behavior!" he yelled, then looked at Lauren and Alexander. "We must go in after him. I know that he will probably find some way of getting into mischief," he said, then ran up the steps that lead to the bar door. Lauren followed, along with Alexander, who followed a bit hesitantly.
As soon as she entered the bar doors several whistles and cat calls were heard that were aimed for her. "Hey girlie, whatcha doin' in a place like this?" a man, with many wrinkles and a cigar between his teeth, asked. "Lookin' for a little lovin'?" He grinned at her, revealing several gaps where teeth were missing.
"Don't you talk to my wife like that!" Alexander said firmly, stepping forward in front of Lauren as if to protect her from the sly looks the old men in the bar were giving her.
"You're lucky to have such a beautiful wife," another man said softly. He was dressed somewhat neatly than the other old men in the bar, and his white hair was actually combed. He looked steadily at Lauren with bright, attentive blue eyes. Lauren thought that they seemed awfully familure, and then it hit her that this must be the older Alexander Baines!
The younger Alexander must have realized it at the same time as she did. Lauren heard him gasp as he looked at the face of the man, and take a few steps backward.
"That's the best you can say Big Al?" another man asked, who was sitting next to the old Alexander. This man was not as old as the others and still had some color left in his hair. "I thought you'd think of a much better comment than that. Like that dame has legs that would go up to the moon!"
Old Alexander turned around and frowned at the man who had just spoken. "She looks like someone that I had fallen in love with years ago - during the Civil War," he added, once again gazing at Lauren. For one minute she felt as if he knew exactly who she was, but then the moment passed and he looked down at the table at the glass of beer that was in his hand. Then just as suddenly he looked up again and looked straight at Alexander, who had sat down in a chair in a table behind him. Lauren thought he looked pale, perhaps from seeing himself 54 years later.
"You look familure, boy," Old Alexander said, getting up from his seat to walk toward them. "What's your name?"
Alexander looked helplessly at Lauren. "Uh, Alex -,"
"Brown," Jules interjected quickly from beside Alexander. Lauren noticed that he had caught up with Verne and had his right hand clasped firmly around Verne's left arm, so he couldn't run away again. "His name is Alex Brown. He is our father," Jules added quickly.
"Alex Brown huh?" Old Alexander repeated, staring steadily at his younger self. "What a coincidence. My name is Alexander. Alexander Baines," the old man said.
The young Alexander kept his head down. "That is funny," he replied, examining the floor.
Old Alexander kept slowly walking, Lauren noticed with a slight limp, until he was directly next to his younger self. "You know," he began, "you look just like I did when I was your age too."
"That's interesting," Alexander said softly, then suddenly looked up and stared directly into the eyes of the older man. The stood still like that for almost a minute before the older man turned away and began to walk away. When he was back at his table he looked back at Alexander, who was still staring at him, and shook his head slowly as if trying to clear it or convince himself of something.
Alexander finally turned around and faced Jules. The bar was pretty noisy, now that the shock of Lauren coming in was over, so their was no reason to whisper, but that was what Alexander did anyway.
"When do I get shot?" he asked, leaning close to Jules so there was no way that anyone else could hear. By now all four of them were seated at the table, so only those gathered around the table could hear the conversation. Lauren thought it was strange that Alexander should want to whisper in such a noisy place, unless it was because he felt that the older version of him would be able to somehow overhear the conversation.
"The clipping said around eleven this evening," Jules replied, also speaking softly. Lauren wondered if it was perhaps the atmosphere of the place that made them do so.
Lauren turned to glance over at a clock that was hanging on the wall over some photographs. "That's in less than twenty minutes!" she exclaimed, twisting back around to face the others.
"Do you know how this bar fight starts in the first place?" Alexander asked, looking at the clock. Lauren knew exactly how he felt, knowing that he was going to watch and see himself die in the next half hour.
"There is no certain information on that," Jules replied.
For the next ten minutes nothing happened that seemed out of the ordinary to Lauren. Then their was a huge commotion as a young man who looked like he was about twenty came in. As he barged in the swinging doors, Lauren caught sight of fat snowflakes falling outside behind him. The man who had come in was dressed all in black in some clothes that seemed even more tattered than the ones that some of the dirtiest old men in the bar were wearing. His black hair was all messy and Lauren was not pleased to see that the man was carrying a gun.
"Why, Paul Williams!" the man who seemed to be the bartender exclaimed. "When did you get home?"
"Paul Williams?" Lauren repeated under her breath. The name seemed familure, then she remembered that the newspaper article had said that someone who was named Paul Williams was the man that had shot the older Alexander! She looked around their table at the others and could tell by the looks on their faces, they had realized it too.
"I just got back today," Paul Williams replied, walking into the place and sitting down on a stool at the bar next to Alexander, who looked like he wanted to bolt.
"Did you strike it rich back in California?" Old Alexander asked, his voice trembling a bit. Lauren wondered if he was afraid of Paul or they were enemies.
"No, but my reason for coming back do have something to do with paybacks," Paul replied seriously, then pointed the gun at old Alexander. "You owe me your life because you bought our farm that you took from underneath my father and killed him," he said calmly.
"I never killed anyone," Old Alexander said flatly, his eyes wide and fixed on the gun. The bar had grown so quiet, that it seemed like you could hear the snow fall outside.
"Yes, you killed my father," Paul repeated quietly. "He loved that farm so much and when you bought it from under our family, you killed him by giving him that heart attack."
"He was old!" Old Alexander said, sounding frantic. "He would have died anyway!"
"But you speeded up the process," Paul said, cocking the gun. "And now I'll speed up the process for you. You will get to feel exactly the way my father did, when he died. Your heart feeling like it is exploding. Except with you, your heart really will explode." He chuckled.
Paul pressed the gun to old Alexander's chest, not noticing that the old man with the cigar whom had first spoken to Lauren, was slowly sneaking up on him with a filled wine bottle in hand. Lauren could look at the scene no longer and turned to face the outside when the gun went off. Then she heard a thunk, which could have been Old Alexander's body hitting the floor, and a crash of glass, which might have been the bottle the man had, hitting Paul. Then she heard shouts and crashes, along with the sound of men hitting each other. This must be the bar fight that was described in the newspaper article, Lauren thought.
Lauren felt a tug on her arm and turned to see Verne was pulling on it. He pulled her to her feet and dragged her to the door. As soon as they were out of the bar, Lauren felt a gust of cold wind, mixed with snow, pelting her. A few feet away she saw Jules and Alexander under one of those strange lamps outside. She and Verne reached it a minute later.
"Is this a blizzard?" Lauren asked Jules as soon as she was near enough to be heard through the screaming wind. The weather had changed drastically since they had entered the bar, twenty minutes before.
Jules looked unsure. "I think so, but I don't have much knowledge on blizzards," he replied, straining his voice to be heard.
Alexander looked around at the weather. "I have been through a few blizzards," he said, his voice a bit shaky, either from the cold or perhaps from what they has just seen in the bar. "And this looks like one."
Verne turned to look at Jules, who looked like he was thinking. "So, Mr. Brain, how do we get back to the DeLorean without getting hopelessly lost?" Verne asked him, staring at him from beneath the snow covered brim of a cap as he waited for and answer.
"The clearing should be easy to find, seeing on how it was surrounded by some foliage and their aren't many trees around this area," Jules replied, not sounding that positive.
Lauren glanced behind her, seeing the footprints that they had made by walking over to the street light were already half filled. "Do you really think that we can find our way back to the car?" she asked doubtfully.
"How will we know if we don't try?" Jules asked, pulling the jacket that he was wearing, tighter around him. He started to walk the way they had come from, his head bent down in the wind. Lauren looked at Alexander and Verne and they all shrugged and began to follow him.
It took them almost half an hour, compared to the ten minutes it had taken the first time, before they reached the car. By that time, Lauren felt as if she would never be warm again. The dress that she was in was not that thick in material, and the hat was so light that Lauren had to keep one hand on it while they were walking, facing the wind, to keep the hat from blowing away, since it was her only protection from getting snow on her head and soaking her hair. The car looked like a white mound in the center of the clearing, with a few inches of snow on it. Jules reached the car first and immediately opened the right side door and getting the camera thing out. "As soon as we are in our normal clothes, make a run for the interior of the DeLorean," Jules yelled over the wind. He bent over the camera for a moment, then brushed some snow off the front of the car and set it their, aiming it where Lauren, Alexander, and Verne stood. Jules pressed something on the camera, then ran over to join the others. A second later, the camera flashed, and Lauren could see at a glance that they were wearing their Civil War clothing again. In less than two minutes everyone was in their proper places inside the car, which felt only a few degrees warmer than the outside because the air was still. But Lauren felt warmer already, being out of the wind and in dry clothes.
"Will the DeLorean work in this kind of weather?" Verne asked, taking part of the blanket that was lying next to Rhett, who was still unconscious, and wrapping it around his shoulders.
"It should," Jules replied, starting the car and letting it sit for a minute. He turned on the lighted up panel with the time and dates. He punched in August 16, 1992, 11:00PM, Hill Valley, California.
"Why are we going there?" Lauren asked. In response, Jules pointed at a dial at the front of the car that was in front of him. It showed a line that was hitting the top of the letter E. At the opposite side of the dial was the letter F.
"What does that mean?" Alexander asked, leaning over to look too.
"It means that we are almost out of gas," Verne replied , leaning over to the window next to Lauren and scraping off some of the fog that was forming on it with his hand. All that could be seen outside was white, mixing with the darkness.
"What is gas?" Lauren asked, puzzled as the car slowly took off.
"It is what makes this car run and what Verne wasted by knocking over a can full of it a few days back," Jules said, looking pointedly at his brother, who promptly turned away from the window to reply.
"I didn't knock that over!" he retorted. "You did while you were crawling from out beneath the car!"
"You did knock it over!" Jules shot back. "I witnessed it!"
"Not, you liar!" Verne replied angrily.
"Fine, think what you wish," Jules said after a moment of silence. Strange sticklike things were waving back and forth at the front window and wiping the gathering snow off so that they were able to see out the window, not that their was much to see. The car was silent the rest of the way as they prepared to go almost 80 more years in the future. Lauren could only imagine what they might find there.
Sunday, August 16, 1992
11:00 P.M..
Hill Valley, California
At one glance, Lauren could tell that this time was much more lighted up from beneath them than the other times. She also felt the temperature swiftly rise inside the car and could see the snow that had traveled on the car with them was melting rapidly. She saw something large come up right in front of them, with a huge noise and some lights.
"What is that?" she asked pointing. Jules, who had been looking out the side window, looked up to see that thing in front of them.
"Airplane!" he gasped, whatever that meant, and twisting the wheel thing all the way to the left. Lauren could feel the car tremble as the large shape passed next to them. Jules immediately lowered the car nearer to the ground, so that Lauren could see some details that she was not able to see from up in the air. For one thing, their were plenty of lights everywhere that looked much brighter than the ones that she had seen in 1915! She wondered what the bright yellow M shaped thing was, and what a dance club was.
The car stayed in the air until it reached a dark street, where Jules landed and stopped the car. He reached for the place where he stored that camera and pulled it out. But instead of getting out of the car, he paused and spoke to Lauren and Alexander seriously.
"Because I am the only one who knows how to drive this vehicle and I am not old enough to be seen doing so, Verne will walk both of you to the gas station while I stay here with the car to make sure it is not stolen or vandalized, and you will buy a tank of unleaded gas." Jules glanced over at Verne to see if he understood and he nodded. Jules hesitated before speaking again. "I must warn you not to look at anything to carefully here, since it may be shocking or frightening, considering where you're from. You may have no idea what people are saying when they speak to you, and so Verne will act as a type of translator. As soon as you have the gas, come back here immediately, and try not to be seen."
A few minutes later Lauren was standing next to Verne and Alexander out of the car while Jules was fixing the camera. Lauren shut her eyes when he aimed for the picture, and opened them again slowly after the flash, not exactly sure if she wanted to see what the fashions from 1992 looked like. She looked down at what she was wearing and felt like she was going to die from embarrassment. On her was a very bright pink dress that didn't even come down to her knees! Almost all of her legs were showing and her shoes were these low healed flat shoes! The dress was so light it felt and looked like some of the petticoats that she wore! The neckline of the dress was low and the sleeves were not even their, just thin straps that went over her shoulders. Her hair was also down and pulled back in a long braid. Lauren could hardly look at the others, she was so embarrassed, but she did so mostly out of curiosity to see what they were wearing.
Alexander was wearing some loose pants that looked like they were made out of denim and shoes that looked like they were made out of white fabric that came up passed his ankles, with white laces. The word "Nike", whatever that meant, was on the side of the shoe. Alexander was also wearing a loose light shirt that was a bright blue and said the word "Nike" on it too, across the front. Alexander's hair was parted at the side and brushed back with some sort of shiny looking thing that seemed to hold his hair in a certain position. On his head was a black brimmed hat that was worn with the brim in the back. Lauren thought Alexander looked like a completely different person. He was looking down at his clothes as if he couldn't believe he was wearing them, just like Lauren had been.
Verne was wearing the same type of shoes and pants that Alexander was wearing, with a shirt similar to Alexander's, except Verne's said across the front, the words "Just Do It" in orange lettering. Just do what? Lauren wondered. Verne was wearing a hat that seamed to have replaced his coon skin cap that he had been wearing and hairstyle like Alexander's, except his hat was worn with the brim in front. Lauren thought he didn't look the least bit surprised with the clothing that all of them were in.
"This is what people wear one hundred and thirty one years in the future?" Lauren asked in disbelief. She was quite glad that her mother could not see her now, in a dress so short that nothing seemed to be left to the imagination. She was sure her mother would be just as shocked as she was, if not more.
"This is what people call 'in' right now," Verne replied, walking over to take the wad of what looked like paper bills out of Jules's hand. He shoved them into a pocket in the strange pants.
"What does being in have to do what we are wearing?" Alexander asked, puzzled. "What are we in right now?"
"Never mind," Verne said quickly. "It's just an expression that people use."
Lauren thought that was a strange expression, but maybe if she lived during this time it would make more sense to her. "Do all women wear such short dresses?" she asked, blushing.
"If you think that is short, you should see what Madonna wears!" Verne replied. "You are dressed quite plainly compared to most other people."
Who was Madonna? Lauren wondered, but figured that was one more thing she would never find out. This future was giving her the creeps. She just wanted to be in and out of here as soon as possible!
"Can we just go to the gas station now?" she asked Jules. He nodded and turned toward Verne.
"You know where it is and hurry back! We have one more time to visit."
"I know, I know," Verne grumbled, then took the lead, with Lauren and Alexander following.
For about ten minutes they passed empty countryside. Then Lauren could see a few buildings that might have been houses appear. Pretty soon they seemed to be in the center of town. There was a huge building with a clock that looked broken in it in the center of different buildings. Lauren guessed the building was a courthouse by the words carved in stone above the pillars - Hill Valley Courthouse. Lauren was more interested in the places that looked like shops around, though. One store that read Hill Valley Video Store had bold full color pictures that looked like photographs, and names on them. Lauren read a few as they passed by the store. What was Wayne's World and Terminator 2 anyway?
Across the street from the video store was something called Town Theater. In bold letters it advertised two different matinees - whatever those were. One was Batman Returns with Michael Keaton, and A League of Their Own with that person or thing, Madonna. The other was Far and Away with someone or something named Tom Cruse, and Sister Act, with a Whoopi Goldberg. Lauren had no idea who or what those things were. Next to the Town Theater was a Musicland. Inside the window their were those strange color photographic things like in the video store that had the words Hammer and Nirvana on them, along with pictures of people who were black, and wore long hair. The gas station was just a few buildings away from the Musicland. Their were a couple of things that might have been cars, because they resembled the DeLorean by the wheels underneath and the lights at front. The DeLorean, however, had all these tubes and coils, along with wires, inside and outside. These vehicles had none of it.
"This is a gas station?" Lauren asked. A lighted up sign, just like all the other signs in the places she had passed, advertised a red star with the word Texico in front of it. The sign also showed amounts of 1.28 per gallon for something called Regular. Their were two other prices for something called Unleaded and Super Unleaded. Once again, Lauren had no idea who or what that was.
"Yep, this is a gas station," Verne replied and walked over to a glass encased room where a grungy looking man about her age was sitting back in a chair, feet propped up on a table, staring at a small metal box with two silvery stick things sticking out of the top. Lauren and Alexander followed and watched as Verne knocked on the door to the room. The man looked disgusted as he stood up. He had black hair that looked greasy, and that fell to his shoulders. He was also wearing a hat just like Alexander was, with the brim in the back, except with the man's hat, he had the words Waynes World written in white above the brim. Lauren once again wondered what that was. The man was also wearing a grey black smudged thing that read "Texico Gas" in a small patch above his heart, with the word "Sal" under it.
"Whaddaya want, dude?" the man asked impatiently, opening the door. Lauren wondered if the man's name was Sal. She had no ides what the word "dude" was. Perhaps it meant "young man" since Verne looked like he was about eight years old.
"Our car ran out of gas a few miles back, so we need to buy a few gallons of unleaded gas," Verne said in answer to the Sal's question.
"Come on in and I'll getcha a 10 gallon tin and fill it up," Sal said walking back behind the counter and getting a tin, that looked empty. "Be right back," he added, walking toward some things that looked were about five feet tall with tubes that stuck out.
Lauren heard a strange noise behind her and turned around to see Verne twisting a dial on the strange box, which had strange lifelike moving pictures in it in color! The pictures looked like people, but they were dressed strangely and wore their hair long, though they looked like men. They were only about four inches tall and were moving in strange ways as they talked in a rhythm sounding way. Lauren reached out to touch them, but her hand brushed against a nearly transparent screen. "What is this?" she asked as she leaned over the box to look at the back of it.
"It's called television, or as we like to call it, TV," Verne replied, staring at the strange people in the box.
"What are those people doing?" Alexander asked, watching the thing called TV too. Verne didn't even take his eyes off the screen when he replied, "This is a music video. These people are dancing and singing at the same time. The channel that shows these almost 24 hours a day is called MTV."
"That is what music is in 1992?" Lauren asked, horrified. She had never heard anything like this before in her entire life, and was quite glad. The obscenities and vulgar of the words! The future was sounding more and more strange by the minute!
"This is what one kind of music is. Their are others that are nothing like this," Verne said. He looked up from the TV as Sal came back into the room.
"Here's ten gallons of gas," he said, dumping the can on the counter with a thunk. "That'll be 46.94, including tax."
Verne reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out several bills. He handed them to Sal, who bent beneath the counter where their were some strange beeps and bell noises. Then he pulled out a small piece of paper about three inches tall, and three more bills, along with four copper colored coins that looked like the ones she had seen in Rhett's wallet over a week before. "Come again," Sal said, turning back to the TV.
Verne grabbed the can filled with ten gallons of the thing called gas off the counter, and almost fell over backwards. Lauren leaned over to grab the handle and could see why. The can weighed a ton! How were they ever going to carry this back to the car?
It took them half an hour and two people carrying the can at a time between them, but they finally reached the car. Lauren thought that her arms would never feel the same again by the time they were able to set the can down for the last time. Verne, who had also been carrying it the last few minutes, dropped the can next to the rear of the car and opened the door up on the side of the car that she and Alexander had been on. Jules, who had been sorting through different papers on the seat, looked up in surprise when the door opened.
"You certainly took your time getting the gas," he said, getting out of the car on his side and walking over to where the can full of gas rested.
"Oh, I'd like to see how fast you could walk carrying that thing half a mile!" Verne replied hotly to him, sitting down on the seat sideways and letting his legs dangle out, after dumping the papers on the seat that Jules had been in. Jules ignored what Verne had said and unscrewed the cap off the can. Then he went over to the front of the car and lifted up the top of it. He then took the can and poured most of the gas into the front top of the car before re-screwing the can and setting it aside. Then he reached for the camera and used it on the three of them again. Lauren was much relived to discover that she was in her long dress that she had been wearing before, and her hair was pulled up into a bun again. Alexander and Verne were also wearing the same clothes that they had begun with.
"Where are we off to now?" she asked a few minutes later when they were back in the car in their proper places.
"Back to 1861," Jules said, typing in the time where they were from, but making it a few minutes after they had left.
"I thought you said that we had one more time to visit?" Alexander asked, puzzledly as the car once again rose into the sky.
"We do, but I couldn't find any information on where or why we are suppose to be there," Jules replied. Lauren could see the numbers slowly creep up to 88 on the shelf. It was then she remembered something that she had been wanting to do ever since she had found out they were in a time machine.
She leaned over and grabbed Jules arm, making him swerve the car. She ignored the irritated look he gave her and plunged right in. "Oh please can we go back to July 28, 1861? My parents were alive that day and they died soon after that. It would mean so much to me if I could see them and they could see me!"
"No way," Jules said, shaking his head. "That could be dangerous."
"I'll be careful!" Lauren pleaded. She wanted to see her parents once again so bad, it hurt!
"No," Jules said flatly, then quickly added, "I'm sorry," when he saw Lauren's face.
Verne leaned over between the seats and whispered to Lauren, "What time and where is it that you want to go?"
"After dark and near Williamsberg," she replied, whispering too. "Why?"
Verne just smiled and winked at her. Then he started punching in the time July 28, 1861, 10:00PM, Williamsberg, Virginia. Jules noticed almost immediately.
"What are you doing?" he cried, turning to Verne, who had completed pushing the time and was sitting back with his eye on the speed, which was at 85. Before Verne had a chance to reply, Lauren saw the Y shaped thing behind them start to glow and she turned back to the front of the car to see the triple flashes of light and hear those three loud noises. Then they were gliding through total darkness, unlike the kind in the future. They seemed to be over a dirt road. After flying over it for a minute, Lauren could see a small covered wagon with a light that glowed from within. Jules was still glaring at Verne, so he didn't see the wagon until Lauren yelled that that was most likely her parents and to land the car so she could get out and see them. Jules drove for a minute longer before following her wishes, complaining the whole time on how this could harm something called the space time continuum. Lauren ignored that and struggled with the door, hopping out even before the car had landed. "Five minutes!" she heard Jules yell behind her. "If your not back in five minutes, we'll leave without you!" Lauren continued running to the wagon, which was now only a few feet away. In seconds she would see her parents!
As she stood outside the wagon though, she felt unsure. What if the people in wagon were not her parents or worse, what if they were her parents and they were already dead? Their was no positive was to find out though, unless she was to look inside the wagon. Taking a deep breath, Lauren pulled a corner of the canvas to one side and peered in. Lauren saw her mother, her face flushed and wrapped in a blanket, sitting up and writing on a piece of paper. A few feet away, Lauren saw her father lying down, sleeping, his breathing labored. Lauren felt a painful tug at her heart. There her parents were, inches from her, but seeing them alive did not erase the pain she had felt when they had died. It seemed in intensify it.
"Mother?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper. Her mother looked up in surprise and dropped the pen she had been holding in her hand.
"Lauren!" her mother exclaimed, her voice hoarse. "What on earth are you doing here?"
Lauren hitched up her skirts and climbed into the wagon. "Someone brought me here," she replied, and hugged her mother. "I have missed you so much," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears.
Her mother pulled back and looked at her strangely. "How could you have missed us? We aren't even due back yet. And why are you crying?"
"Because I know you are both going to die!" Lauren blurted out.
"What!" her mother exclaimed. "Whoever told you that?"
Lauren wiped her eyes. "I know it because in five days a sheriff comes to our house and tells me," she replied.
"How do you know that?" her mother asked, then started coughing. It took almost a minute before she was able to stop. Lauren looked at her, concerned. She knew that time was passed to prevent their death, but she did not want them to die right in front of her eyes.
"I can't tell you," she replied miserably. She wished she could have told her mother, but knew that Jules would probably string her up if she did so.
Her mother, seeing her discomfort, quickly changed the subject. "I was working on a letter to you when you came in." She held it out to Lauren. "Go ahead and take it."
"I better not now," Lauren replied, remembering how she had originally received the letter. If she took it and the sheriff never found it, maybe she would never know about her parents. She suddenly remembered the time and glanced at her watch, noticing her five minutes were almost up.
"Mother," she began, "I have to go now, but I want you to know that I love you and Father and that everything is taken care of at home."
"Do you mean you have to leave now?" her mother asked, surprised. "But I thought you came here to take us home?"
"I wish I could, but I can't," Lauren said sadly. She bent over to hug her mother one last time and kissed her on her hot cheek. "I love you and be sure to tell Father the same when - and if - he awakens." Lauren crawled to the edge of a wagon and jumped out. She looked back one last time to see her mother staring at her in surprise, shock, and then understanding.
"I love you too, Lauren," she said softly.
Lauren nodded. "I know," she replied and walked off into the darkness toward the DeLorean, feeling like she was deserting her parents and leaving them for death. She had never felt as miserable in her life as she did then.
"I knew this was a bad choice!" Jules said turning toward Verne. "But you just had to go and enter in this date!"
Verne rolled his eyes. Once again, Jules was overreacting about the littlest thing. "How would you feel if Mom and Pop died and you had a chance to go back and see them? Would you let a chance like this pass up?" he asked him.
Jules didn't answer him. Instead he turned back to the window and continued to look out. "Here she comes," he said a moment later, sounding relieved. Verne leaned forward across the time circuit switch and could indeed see Lauren coming toward them. She was walking slowly to them, as if she didn't want to leave. Jules opened his door and yelled out for her to hurry up. Verne almost wished that Lauren would purposely go this slow, because Jules was being too bossy and it would be good for him to wait. But unfortunately, Lauren doubled her speed after he yelled at her.
"Do you realize that you are two minutes late?" Jules asked after Lauren was back in the car. Verne noticed her eyes were red, as if she had been crying.
"I know," she replied softly in a low voice and looking at the time display as Jules punched in the time they had come from. A few minutes later they were back where they had started from, minutes after they had left but a few hours wiser. Jules drove the DeLorean in the air over the road until they were about halfway to town. Then he let Lauren and Alexander out of the car, telling them to walk the rest of the way back to town. Verne couldn't help thinking how heartless it was of Jules to make them walk five miles in darkness to town as he crawled into the passenger seat of the car, now that Lauren and Alexander were out of it. Verne saw Lauren take one last look at the car before they both disappeared into the darkness that was only broken by the DeLorean's headlights.
"Excuse me, but why are you making them walk halfway back to town, without a flashlight?" Verne asked when they had turned around and were flying toward home. "You could have at least dropped them off in town."
Jules was keeping his eyes on the sky, otherwise Verne was sure he would have given him some sort of look, by the tone of his voice when he spoke. "Honestly Verne, you're so gullible," Jules said, as if Verne was the lowest life form on earth. "I dropped them off there for two reasons. The first was that if we drove this vehicle into the town, people would be liable to think that this was a UFO, from the lights and it's ability to fly. Second, if they are both supposed to fall in love, a five mile walk in the darkness will give them a chance to discuss their experience with the time traveling and perhaps fall in love while doing so. A walk in the dark is looked on as a romantic experience by most men and women of their age."
"Speaking of time traveling, how do you think Pop will react when he finds out you drove this car without his permission, not to mention going over a time span of one hundred and thirty one years," Verne asked, looking out the side window at the ground.
"I am sure he will agree that it was absolutely necessary considering the circumstances," Jules replied, glancing quickly behind him at Marty, who was still dead to the world. "How were we to know that Alexander and Lauren were planning to chloroform Martin? If I hadn't stepped in when I did, the plan would have surely failed, and we would have no chance of getting the two to fall in love. Now at least we have a chance."
"Boy, you're modest to the end," Verne muttered under his breath sarcasticly as the barn came into view. Verne could see the door open and Doc come out as soon as they touched down. Verne noticed Jules didn't look as sure as he sounded a minute ago.
"Well," Verne said, smiling at Jules, "I guess now we will see what Pop thinks of what you did."
Doc Brown had been looking out the window on and off for the past few minutes, ever since he had heard the triple sonic booms that the DeLorean always made when it warped in and out of time. He was able to tell immediately when the car was growing close, since nothing in 1861 could make lights that bright, especially in the sky. Doc hurried out of his lab, where he had been killing time by working on some plans on how to restore a farmhouse in 1985 that he and Clara had discussed buying before, in order to give the boys a permanent home to grow up in. Doc knew that as much as Jules and Verne liked the time traveling and living in different eras and centuries, they needed a regular time and home to be brought up in. Neither Doc or Clara had told the boys or Marty yet, since nothing was definite yet and if this didn't work out, Doc saw no reason to get them all worked up about it.
When Doc was about five feet from the car, the passenger and driver side doors opened simultaneously and Jules and Verne both got out. Verne was looking a bit cocky and Jules looked like he wanted to bolt. Doc stared at them for a minute, too shocked to say anything. Where was Marty and what were Jules and Verne doing in the DeLorean at this time?
"Hi Pop!" Verne said, bounding over to where Doc stood speechless.
"What were you doing in the DeLorean?" Doc finally asked. "And where, may I ask, is Marty?"
"It's a long story Father," Jules replied, walking over to Doc and staring at the ground with his head down.
"I have time for it," Doc replied, looking down at his first born, who looked up and flinched slightly under his steady gaze.
"This oughtta be good!" Verne said, smirking over a Jules from a few feet away. Jules immediately turned his eyes over to him.
"You're the one who decided to sneak into the DeLorean in the first place, so I wouldn't start gloating quite yet!" Jules yelled over at Verne, who shrank back a few feet behind Doc.
"Will one of you please explain to me what on earth this is about?" Doc asked, raising his voice a bit to be heard over the bickering.
"Well," Jules began, slightly hesitant, "this situation began when Verne decided to hide in the backseat of the DeLorean, so he could be taken along when it was used. I followed him to drag him back out, but at that moment Martin came up, so we were forced to hide in the back. After a few moments, Martin noticed we were inside the vehicle, but it was too late to turn back, so we had to come along. Martin told us to inform Lauren and Alexander that we were their guardian angels. We were to stay in the DeLorean while he went out to do his ghost act. Then what happened next was quite unexpected."
"You can say that again!" Verne interrupted suddenly.
"Do you mind?" Jules asked, glaring at Verne with his hands on his hips. "I was explaining the story."
"Yes I do mind," Verne replied and continued quickly. "Marty must have done a great job convincing Lauren and Alexander that he was a ghost, because they decided to take matters into their own hands. Alexander tripped and while Marty was looking at that, Lauren snuck up behind him and chloroformed him!"
"Chloroformed him?" Doc repeated. "You mean she knocked him out with chloroform?"
"Exactly!" Jules exclaimed, jumping back into the story. "Both of us were still in the DeLorean and we had witnessed the whole thing. Verne jumped out before I could stop him, so I had to follow. Because they believed that we were really guardian angels, the plan had not completely fallen apart, so we drove -"
"You drove," Verne added quickly.
"I drove them to all the locations on the list," Jules said, kind of sheepishly.
"Plus, Jules drove them to two other unscheduled stops," Verne said, looking pointedly at him.
Jules once again turned toward his brother. "Don't forget you made me make one!" he exclaimed.
"I didn't -" Verne began, but Doc interrupted.
"Boys!" he said, holding up both hands for silence. They both looked at Doc, and shut their mouths.
"Now," Doc began, "from what you have told me, you went ahead with the plan because something happened to Marty, correct?"
Jules and Verne both nodded.
"Now first of all," Doc asked, "where was Marty during all of this time traveling?"
Verne pointed to the DeLorean, whose doors were both still open. "We brought him with us in the back seat," he said.
"Has he regained consciousness yet?" Doc asked the boys. Both shook their heads. "Do you think that the plan worked?" Doc asked, looking at Jules and Verne carefully.
Jules frowned. "I have no idea if it worked. They didn't look any different toward each other than when we first picked them up."
"That's why Jules decided to drop them off five miles from town, without any type of light, to walk home," Verne added quickly.
"I did that because it would have given them a chance to discuss the time traveling among themselves," Jules replied when Doc looked at him.
Doc sighed. "I can't say that I approve of you both doing what you did, but I suppose you had to, considering the circumstances."
"Does this mean that I'm not in trouble for driving the car?" Jules asked hopefully.
"I guess not," Doc said after thinking for a moment, then quickly added, "but that doesn't mean that you can drive the car all the time. I would prefer that you both wait until you get your drivers licence or ask for permission."
Jules looked at Verne smugly. "I told you father would approve," he said gloating and walking toward the barn, with Verne following.
"You weren't positive about it," Doc heard Verne reply as the door shut behind them, cutting off the rest of their conversation.
Doc walked over to the DeLorean and leaned into the car on the driver's side door, looking inside. Sure enough, Marty was in the backseat of the car, still unconscious. Doc had to get him back to the house, but their was no way he could carry him, so Marty had to be woken up. Doc knew that just calling his name would not work, considering that the conversation that had gone on in the car all night with Lauren and Alexander hadn't seemed to bother him. But Doc had another idea that was sure to work.
Carefully reaching across the front of the car, Doc opened the glove compartment and reached behind the camera that Jules had modified to change the clothing off all people it was aimed at into the style that was punched in at the back of the camera. The camera came in quite useful for emergencies, as Doc could remember using it a few times when they had ended up in some time unexpectedly. Doc felt around behind the camera until he felt the flashlight beneath his fingers. He closed his hand around the cylinder shape of the base and pulled it out of the glove compartment, switching it on and aiming it at the ceiling of the car to make sure the light was bright, and the batteries fresh, which they both were. Then he leaned over the driver's seat and aimed the flashlight directly at Marty's face. Doc estimated that the bright light shining in his eyes would most likely wake him up, at least for a few minutes. Doc had held it there for almost a minute before Marty groaned and threw an arm across his eyes. "Shut off the light," he muttered, turning his head so that it no longer faced the light.
Doc did so, but reached down to grab Marty's shoulder before he had a chance to doze off again. "Time to get up," he said firmly, pulling Marty up into a sitting position. Marty blinked as if he was having trouble focusing on his surroundings. Doc noticed that his eyes were slightly glassy, a sure sign that the chloroform was not finished with him yet.
Marty stared at Doc, as if he didn't know who he was. "Doc, what are you doing here?" he asked puzzled, then added after realizing that he was in the back of the DeLorean, "and what am I doing here?"
"It's a long story," Doc said, then held out a hand. "Do you think that you can walk?"
"Probably," Marty replied, pushing past Doc and going out the door, slowly standing up outside.
"What happened?" Marty asked Doc while they were walking back to the barn. Marty had stumbled a few times over the long black robe, which he was still wearing over his Civil War clothes, but Doc was glad to see that he was able to walk without any help.
"Before I tell you what happened, tell me what you remember before now," Doc said, opening the barn door and walking in, with Marty following behind. Marty flopped down in an old wingbacked chair as soon as he entered the barn. It was the only piece of furniture that was not presently covered with papers, since Doc had basicly spread out all of Marty's maternal lineage information over all the couch, table, and chairs in the room he used for a living/family room. Doc swept some off the papers and pictures on a chair and moved it so that he would be facing Marty when he talked to him. Just before he sat down a picture, half covered by some of the papers that were resting on the table, caught his eye. Doc reached down and grabbed the picture, examining it. The scene showed Lauren and Alexander looking like they were in their mid-twenties and dressed up nicely, with big smiles on their faces. It looked like they had their hands resting on the shoulders of someone invisible. But as Doc looked at the picture more carefully, he noticed a faint outline of four young boys begin to come in. He watched as the image grew clearer and sharper, like a Polaroid picture when it developed, until the four boys were as sharp and clear as Lauren and Alexander were in the photograph.
"We did it!" he exclaimed softly.
"Did what?" Marty asked, leaning forward in the chair, trying to see what Doc was holding in his hand.
"Secured your future," he replied, walking over and handing the picture to Marty, then sitting down in the wooden chair. Marty studied the picture carefully. "You better tell me what happened, since last I heard, my future didn't seem that secure," he said after looking at the photograph for a moment.
"I will after you tell me what you remember first," Doc said again and waited for Marty to reply.
"All I know," Marty began, leaning back in the chair, "was that I picked up Lauren and Alexander on time from town. I brought them to the spot where we were going to supposedly have the picnic and left to get the DeLorean. I was almost at the spot with the DeLorean where the two of them were waiting, when I realized that I had two stowaways named Jules and Verne, hiding in the backseat," Marty paused with his story. "Where are they anyway?" he asked, looking around the room.
Doc shrugged. "They're in this barn somewhere. If I kept track of both of them every minute, it would be a full time job. When we are this isolated from people, they can go whatever they please."
Marty nodded then yawned. "Why am I so tired?" he asked, rubbing his eyes.
"I'll get to that," Doc replied, "but first continue your part of the story."
Marty sighed. "By the time I realized that Jules and Verne were in the car, it was too late to turn back, so I had to take them with me. I landed the car and before I got out, I told them to pretend that they were Lauren and Alexander's guardian angels. That's all I can remember clearly. After that, everything is all scrambled." Marty looked directly at Doc. "Now will you tell me what happened?"
"Of course," Doc said, sitting back in the chair and crossing his arms. "From what Jules and Verne have told me, Lauren and Alexander were so much convinced that you were a ghost they decided to attack you, with chloroform."
"Chloroform?" Marty repeated. "You mean that stuff that knocks you out?"
"Exactly," Doc said, nodding his head. "That's why you can't remember anything else. Because you were unconscious. Jules and Verne both saw this and went outside of the DeLorean to help. They said that they were Lauren and Alexander's guardian angels and proceeded to take them through time."
"You mean they carried out the plan?" Marty asked in disbelief.
"Apparently so," Doc replied and repeated what Jules and Verne had told him. By the time Doc finished, he could tell that Marty was fighting to stay awake. The chloroform was probably hitting him with it's second round.
"Jules drove the car to all the places on that slip of paper?" Marty asked, leaning down and picking up a blanket that was lying in a heap on the floor and wrapping it around his shoulders.
"He said that they drove to all of the times on the list, but I know for a fact that not all of the places had anything written about them in any newspaper or Lauren's diary," Doc replied, "and neither of them said anything about the two other times they went to. I suppose that they should be questioned further."
"What exactly do you think made them come together?" Marty asked softly, then yawned again and shifted his position, resting his head against one of the wings on the back of the chair.
"I don't even think the boys know," Doc replied shrugging. "The only two people who know the answer to that question positively are Lauren and Alexander themselves."
"I'll go ask Jules and Verne about the trip," Marty murmured drowsily, his eyes closing, "but first I'm going to rest for a minute. Then we can ask them ..about...it...." His voice trailed off and Doc knew he was probably sound asleep. Chloroform was a powerful anesthetic.
Doc stood up and walked to the lab, first taking another picture with Lauren and Alexander with their family. He had a feeling that Jules and Verne were there. Sure enough both boys were there. Verne was looking at some papers, and Jules was tightening the screws on the small electric generator that Doc had installed, to get electricity in the lab for using certain tools.
"I have good news," Doc announced, standing in the middle of the room. Jules and Verne both looked up from what they were doing and waited for him to continue.
"What kind of good news?" Verne asked, then held up the plans that Doc had been working on before their arrival. "Does this have anything to do with it?"
Doc shook his head. "No, but I am sure that in the days that will follow, those plans may be affecting our future, but I need to discuss it more with you mother first."
"Then what is the pleasing news?" Jules asked, setting down the screwdriver he had in his hand and standing up.
"You both apparently did it!" Doc exclaimed, showing them the picture. "Lauren and Alexander are together again."
"I told you dropping them off short of town would work," Jules said to Verne and nudged him.
"They also could have become wolf food," Verne shot back, dropping the plans on a table and turning his attention toward his brother.
"But they weren't," Jules pointed out smugly, and bent down, picking up the screw driver to continue working on the electric generator.
"Hold it!" Doc cried out, before the argument could proceed any farther. "I also have some questions for you two. Such as, where exactly did you go and what were the two times you went to that were not on the list?"
"That's easy," Verne said. "We went to Lauren and Alexander's death, then we were low on gas so Jules drove us to 1992 in Hill Valley and made all three of us walk into town to get the gas while he," Verne pointed at Jules, "sat in the DeLorean and didn't do anything."
"You took Lauren and Alexander over one hundred years in the future?" Doc asked in disbelief, his voice rising. "How could you do something so irresponsible!?"
"It was his idea," Verne said, pointing at Jules again, who shrank a bit under Doc's intense gaze.
"We needed gas, and I thought the year 1985 would be too risky, considering Lauren and Alexander could have run into Martin, and so I just pushed in the first date that came to mind," Jules said weakly, then turned to Verne. "You were the one who decided to go to the second place, which was much more risky then where I decided to go. Why don't you tell Father where you chose to go?"
Doc shifted his gaze over to Verne and raised an eyebrow. Verne shot his brother a deadly glare, then stared down at the old floorboards of the barn. "All I did was a favor," he began. "See, Lauren wanted to go see her parents one last time before they died, and Jules wasn't gonna let her, so I reached over and put in the date Lauren had told me to. Then Lauren went to see her parents and after that we left and came back here." Verne shrugged. "That's all we did."
Doc almost groaned out loud. "I cannot believe that you both went somewhere so dangerous. The consequences that both of those extra trips could have caused were far to risky to play around with!" he said sternly.
"But nothing happened!" Verne insisted. "Otherwise we would have known about it by now... wouldn't we?"
"We'll know eventually if anything changed," Doc said, trying to calm down, since nothing seemed out of place yet. "Remember the story I have told you both about the sports almanac incident?"
"Yeah," Verne said, and Jules nodded.
"Well, that is a prime example of what could happen if you try something like what you just did," Doc replied.
"Why was it fine to bring both Lauren and Alexander to see how they might die then?" Jules asked.
"That was done on purpose because otherwise they might not get together and we were running short of time to fix that problem," Doc said, rubbing his head. He was beginning to get a headache from all the arguing that had gone on that night.
"Speaking of problems, when is Mom coming back. Wasn't that the reason Marty came here in the first place?" Verne asked, sitting down on a wooden carton.
"That is the next thing we must plan on," Doc said, thinking. "I'll have to discuss it with Marty tomorrow."
Seeing that their father was done with the questioning, Jules went back to tightening the electric generator, and Verne left the room, coming back a few minutes later with the hoverboard, which he immediately began using in the middle of the room. But Doc wasn't really paying attention to what was going around him, rather he was thinking on how to get Clara out of being a prisoner. Even when Verne accidentally crashed into a table, cracking one of the legs of it and causing all the bits and pieces of wires and metal that were on top of the table to crash down in a messy pile, Doc was still pondering over that problem as he repaired the table and cleaned up the mess. The biggest question on his mind was how in the world would they be able to get Clara and escape without being seen. It was only hours later that Doc finally found an answer to that question.
Saturday, August 3, 1861
10:38 A.M..
Marty stood in a small clearing, surrounded by thick woods on all sides. The woods were dark, with shadows that moved from deep within them. Marty felt that something, from inside the woods, was staring at him. Suddenly he heard rustling from the bushes behind him and before he could turn around, something warm and wet touched his hand. Marty jumped almost a foot in the air, and tried turning around to see what awful thing lurked behind him, but he couldn't. Marty blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, the woods were gone, replaced by a room with a high ceiling with papers and photographs strewn all over every available piece of furniture. It took Marty a minute before he realized that he was in Doc Brown's barn and was half lying, half sitting, in a wingbacked chair. Marty closed his eyes and was about to go back to sleep again, since he still felt kind of groggy, when he felt that same warm and wet thing on his hand. This time Marty knew he was awake, and not dreaming, so he snapped his eyes open to find Einstein sitting next to the chair, staring up at Marty with dark innocent eyes.
"Einstein, what are you doing here?" he asked softly, scratching the dog behind the ears. The dog didn't answer, but continued to stare at Marty. After a minute, Marty pushed himself out of the chair and stretched. His muscles felt sore and stiff, as if they had been in the same position for awhile. It was then he realized that he was holding something in his right hand. He held it up and squinted at it, realizing that it was a photograph of Lauren and Alexander with their family. Marty suddenly remembered what had happened the night before, with Doc telling him that Jules and Verne had patched up his past after Lauren had chloroformed him.
"Glad to see you decided to join the land of the living," a voice said behind him, startling Marty so that he dropped the photograph. Marty bent down to retrieve the picture then spun around once he was standing again to see who had come into the room.
"Doc!" he gasped. "You scared me!"
"Sorry," the scientist apologized quickly. "I thought you heard me come in."
"I didn't," Marty replied. "I was looking at this photograph."
"That is what I wanted to talk to you about," Doc said, walking over to Marty and taking the photograph from his hands, glancing at it once before he set it on to a heavily cluttered table. "Now that that problem is solved, we have to discuss the original reason you were brought here in the first place."
"You mean to rescue Clara?" Marty asked, remembering the night that Doc had come to 1985 in the middle of the night to ask for his help. It seemed to Marty that he had been in 1861 for years instead of a couple of weeks.
"Correct," Doc replied nodding, then reached across the table and picked up a folded piece of paper.
"What is that?" Marty asked him, pointing to the neatly folded square, that he could see had marks and scribbles on it.
"I'll get to that," Doc explained, then began to walk to where the lab was. "Follow me," he added, over his shoulder.
A minute later, both were in the cluttered lab. Doc swept aside some miscellaneous wires and pieces of different experiments off to one side of a table, and unfolded the paper, spreading it out across the empty space. Marty leaned forward, examining it carefully. It looked like it was suppose to be a map of some kind, where or of what, Marty couldn't tell.
"Tonight," Doc began, "you will go into the woods behind the prisoner camp." He pointed to some drawings that resembled trees that were next to upside down V shaped marks, which was probably suppose to represent the prisoner camp.
"What do I do in the woods?" Marty asked, looking down at the map.
"Nothing," Doc replied, "but the woods will come in handy later. Somehow, you distract whatever guard is guarding Clara's tent, and then you and Clara both go into the woods and walk to this clearing." He pointed to a small empty space among the trees that had an X in the center of it.
"What's in the clearing, and what does the X mean?" Marty asked, pointing to the X.
"That X merely is to mark the point where we will meet up. I will have the DeLorean, lights all off so no one will see, and then I'll be able to smuggle you both out of their, with everyone thinking you vanished into thin air," Doc said, looking at Marty to see his reaction to the plan.
"How am I suppose to distract the guard?" Marty asked Doc. "Last time when I tried I got caught, and had to spend a night under guard."
"I'm sure that you'll think of something," Doc replied, re-folding the map and handing it to Marty. "Be sure to take this with you, just to make sure you don't get lost."
Marty took the map and shoved it into his coat pocket, then looked around the room, realizing that the barn seemed unusually quiet. "Where are Jules and Verne?" he asked curiously.
Doc waved his hand toward the window, which faced the field where Marty could see the DeLorean was parked. "I sent them outside, since they both have been bickering constantly since last night. It's probably a result of being couped up in one place for awhile. Hopefully it'll stop when we move and buy a permanent home."
"Where are you going?" Marty asked, puzzled. "I thought that you were just gonna keep staying in different times for the rest of your lives."
Doc quickly shook his head. "Hardly. Clara and I discussed before she was captured that the boys need a permanent place to live and grow up in. They need to go to school, make friends with children their own age. Clara has been teaching them in the meantime, so they will be able to go right into the correct grades for someone of both their ages."
"Have you decided where to move yet?" Marty asked, holding his breath as he waited for Doc's answer. He hoped that it was his own time. That would be really cool.
Doc smiled a secretive smile. "I can't tell you, because nothing is definite yet. The boys don't even know that we are moving yet. But I promise that you will be one of the first to know when the decision is final."
"Can't you just tell me the year?" Marty begged. But Doc just smiled, and turned away. "You'll know eventually," he said. "But now it would be best if nothing was said until things are final, that way if they do not work out, no one will be disappointed."
"Okay," Marty replied reluctantly. He was already dying of curiosity, and had no idea how he would be able to wait, but he knew that he would have to. Marty could tell by Doc's expression that he wasn't going to say one more word on the subject.
Marty struggled to read his watch in the last rays of daylight. It read 9:52. He had been in this spot for almost an hour, observing the prison camp. He could see Clara's tent from his position, crouched behind a dead tree stump. He could also see that the guard who was watching over her tent was once again Captain Tannen. He had spent the hour thinking how he was going to distract Captain Tannen, and not get caught or captured while doing so. Marty had finally decided to try what had worked on all other Tannens, and hope it worked now. Picking up a tree branch that had been lying by his feet, Marty stood up and made his way down to the campsight, pulling the brim of the Civil War cap low over his eyes before he hit the camp.
Marty walked over to Captain Tannen, keeping his head low and hoping that Captain Tannen would not recognize him as the same person he caught trying to help Clara escape a week before.
Captain Tannen was eyeing Marty suspiciously as he walked over. Before he was even ten feet away from the tent, Captain Tannen cocked his rifle and held it ready at his side. "What do ya want?" he demanded. "This here is private property." Marty carefully held the heavy branch behind him, so Captain Tannen could not see it. "I came to tell you that the North is planning a secret attack tonight," he lied, staring up at the Tannen straight in the eye.
"You mean them Yankees? Who told you this?" he asked, taking a step away from the tent. Marty could see Clara's shadow on the tent's canvas walls, holding still as both of them spoke.
"A undercover spy from there," he replied, as Captain Tannen's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"I don't believe you," he said, then added, holding up the gun and shaking it.
"Now get outta here before I blow some holes in ya."
Marty fixed his gaze on some bushes behind Captain Tannen, and pointed, his eyes widening. "What's that?!" he exclaimed, sounding horrified. Captain Tannen spun around, falling for it. Marty fought back the urge to laugh. Tannens were all so gullible. Quickly, before Captain Tannen lost interest in the bushes, Marty whipped out the branch from behind him and whacked Captain Tannen on the back of the head, just as Captain Tannen had done to Marty last week.
Captain Tannen let out a groan and fell forward. Marty didn't wait to see if he was unconscious, since all they needed to do was get in the woods. He jumped over Captain Tannen and flung back the tent flaps. Clara looked up at him, her eyes wide with curiosity. Marty didn't bother explaining things to her.
"Come on!" he hissed, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. They both started to run, and were just at the edge of the woods when Marty happened to glance back and saw Captain Tannen pull himself to his feet and running unsteadily after them. Because he was looking behind him, Marty did not see the tree root in front of him. His foot snagged on it and he fell to his knees. While Marty was scrambling to his feet, Captain Tannen began to fire off bullets and running closer to Marty while doing so. Marty, now on his feet, began to run as fast as he could, remembering back to asking Doc if he was going to get shot. The chances seemed good now! He could feel branches hitting him and once ran into a low hanging tree limb, bringing stars to his eyes. When he could no longer hear the rifle shooting, or see the lights from camp, Marty stopped, and leaned against a tree, catching his breath. He heard thrashing coming from behind him, and was about to bolt off running again, when he realized it was Clara.
"Marty, are you okay?" she asked, staring at his right arm, then his forehead. Marty looked down at his arm and saw that he was bleeding right below his shoulder. He felt along his forehead and when he pulled his hand away, he saw that his fingers were covered with blood. He must have cut himself when he ran into the tree limb, but he wasn't sure what happened to his arm. Clara answered his question a moment later.
"You've been shot," she said quietly, walking over to him and examining his arm.
"Shot?" Marty whispered, leaning against the tree again for support. "I've been shot?"
Clara caught a look at his face, and quickly shook her head. "It's not that bad," she said quickly. "I think the bullet just winged you. It will need stitches though, along with your head."
"Then it is not fatal?" he asked, feeling dizzy with relief, or maybe from the cut on his head. Clara shook her head and leaned over. Marty could hear fabric tearing, and when Clara straightened up, he saw that she had torn a strip of about two feet off the hem of her dress.
"We need to stop the bleeding, but the wound shouldn't be fatal," she replied, making him take off his coat and roll up his sleave so she could see the bullet wound better, and stop the bleeding. Clara then began wrapping the fabric around the wound and tying it tight. By the time she finished, Marty could feel both his arm and forehead begin to throb where they had been hit.
"Now that we have that taken care of, which way do we go?" Clara asked, looking around at the moonlit woods. "Do you have the map?"
Marty stared at her in surprise. "How do you know about that?" he asked, fishing around in his coat pocket for the piece of paper.
Clara dug down in her apron pocket and pulled out a walkie-talkie, holding it up in the air before putting it back. "You left this in the tent last week. I've had it ever since. I know about the plan because Emmett contacted me and told me about it last night."
Marty handed her the map, after glancing down at it. "I have no idea which way we're suppose to go. Do you know which way we should head?"
Clara frowned as she looked the map over. "Let's try to head north," she suggested. "The clearing seems to be roughly in that area."
"Which way is north?" Marty asked, looking at the trunks of the trees. He had heard somewhere that moss grew on the side that faced north. The only problem was, none of the trees around them at the moment had any moss on them.
Clara looked around. "I don't have any idea." She looked up at the sky and pointed to the moon, which was beginning to rise. "I know that way is east though, so that narrows things down a bit. Let's start walking and perhaps we'll find our way to the clearing."
"Which direction?" Marty asked, stepping away from the tree and wincing as his bandaged arm brushed against a branch.
Clara turned in a circle, her eyes narrowed. "North should be this way," she said walking a few steps. Marty followed, looking at the map once more before he folded it back up and put it back in his coat, which he had slung over one shoulder. He hoped that this was the right way.
Clara looked up past the branches of a tree and noticed the moon had climbed almost directly overhead. It was probably around midnight. They had been walking for hours and not seen anything but trees and bushes. She glanced behind her at Marty, who was struggling to keep up. Clara was worried about him. He had been awfully quiet while they had been trekking through the woods, and she noticed he was quiet pale. It was probably from both his injuries. Much to her relief, she had stopped the bleeding from the bullet wound, but the cut on his forehead was still bleeding freely. Clara would have preferred heading in the direction of town, rather in the direction of a small clearing, and getting Marty to a doctor. Clara stopped suddenly, getting an idea. She looked up at the tree.
"What's wrong?" Marty asked breathlessly. Clara turned toward him, noticing once again how pale he was.
"I just thought of a way to figure out which way we should be going," she said, looking up at the tree again.
Marty followed her gaze. "How, or do I really want to know?" he asked, taking of the Confederate hat he was wearing, in order to see the top of the tree better.
Clara took a deep breath. "I'm going to climb to the top of that tree, that way I'll be able to see around us and get a better idea of where we are."
Marty looked at her in disbelief. "You can't climb that!" he exclaimed, looking at the tree from top to bottom. " It's way too high!"
"That is the point," Clara explained. "The higher the tree, the better I'll be able to see around."
"What if you fall?" Marty asked, looking up again. "It's a long way to the ground."
Clara shook her head. "I won't fall," she said firmly. "I climbed trees dozens of times when I was younger. I have never fallen."
"Their's always a first time," Marty said softly. "These trees may have branches that break."
"I will not fall," Clara repeated stubbornly. She pointed to a tree that was across from the one she was going to climb. "You can rest their while I climb this tree. I shouldn't be too long."
Marty obediently sat down, leaning against the trunk. "You're crazy," he remarked, setting his coat and hat beside him on the ground, and getting out the map again.
"It's the only way," Clara said quietly, turning her attention to the tree. She grabbed a thick branch and pulled herself up. Soon she was halfway to the top. She looked down, noticing she was about fifteen feet off the ground. She tightened her grip on the branch she was holding on to and climbed up another foot, putting all her weight on a steady looking branch, and pulling herself up. She heard a cracking sound and had a split second to react before the branch she had all her weight on, plummeted to the ground. Clara held on for dear life on the other two branches her hands were holding on to and tentatively put one foot on another branch near the one that broke. This one held and she loosened her grip slightly, letting out a deep sigh of relief, her heart still pounding. Clara had forgotten that the higher up you were, the more branches tended to break because they were smaller and more brittle.
A few minutes later she was as high as she dared. From her perch, she could see over most of the trees and beyond. In the distance, Clara could see faint lights, like campfires, and white dots that were glowing, which could have been tents with lanterns in them. She looked up at the sky and made a note to herself that the moon was beginning to set in that direction. In the distance she could see clouds, and hoped that they would not cover up the sky before they got to the camp. Clara could not see any clearing from where she was, and decided that heading toward the lights would be the safest decision. Maybe she could figure out where the clearing was if she looked at the map again. Remembering that, she looked down thirty feet at Marty, whom last she saw was examining the map again. He had apparently given up on that and had his knees drawn up to his chest and was leaning back, his eyes closed. Clara wondered if he was sleeping and was about to call down to him to get out the map when something suddenly flew at her, shrieking. Clara gasped and let go of the branches she was holding on to and her hands flew up to her face, protecting it from what looked like a bat. The bat hit her directly in the face and knocked her off balance. Clara reached out to grab a branch, but her hand closed over nothing but air and she fell backwards, out of the tree, to the ground thirty feet below.
Sunday, August 4, 1861
12:13 A.M..
Doc Brown looked down at his watch, then looked outside again. Where in the world were Marty and Clara? He had been waiting for them to show up for almost three hours, but not one sight of either had been seen. Doc hoped that nothing was wrong, though he could think of a dozen different scenarios that could have happened to both of them. Doc leaned over and opened the door, stepping outside into the cool night air. He was about ten steps away from the edge of the foliage, when he heard what sounded like a scream in the distance. It went on for only a few seconds before it was abruptly silence, but the sound brought chills to Doc. What if that was Clara? If it was, what had happened, and where were she and Marty? Doc felt that same helpless feeling he had when he had been unable to contact Marty a week before. There was nothing to do about the situation but wait here in case they found their way to the clearing and see what happened, since he had no idea where both were in these woods.
Marty opened his eyes in time to watch Clara fall out of the very top of the tree. She hadn't even hit the ground before he was on his feet and running toward the tree. By the time Marty did get to the base of the tree, Clara was lying on her back, her eyes shut. Marty bent down next to her, fearing the worst.
"Clara," he whispered, his heart pounding. "Oh God, I was afraid something like this would happen."
Clara opened her eyes slowly, blinking a few times. "Marty?" she asked softly. "Where am I?"
Marty let out a sigh of relief. "You fell out of the tree," he said, pointing up to the twisted branches. "Don't you remember?"
Clara sat up slowly. "I remember," she replied. "Something flew at me from the air." She shuddered. "I think it might have been a bat."
Marty stood up, looking down at her in concern. He knew he would be seeing her falling down through the air like that for a long time. "Are you okay?" he asked. "Do you think you can walk?"
Clara nodded after thinking for a moment. "I think I'm fine, except for getting the breath knocked out of me." She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking up at the tree from which she descended, then pulled herself slowly to her feet and letting out a cry when she put her weight on her left foot. She sunk back down to the ground.
"What's wrong?" Marty asked, worriedly. He knew that something had to be wrong with that foot, since a perfectly healthy person did not moan in pain when they put weight on a foot.
Clara tentatively rubbed her ankle, grimacing. "I think I might have hurt it in the fall," she replied, leaning against the tree.
"What exactly hurts?" Marty asked, kneeling down next to her. "Your whole foot? Your leg? Your ankle?"
"I can't tell," Clara replied, looking down at her foot. "My leg doesn't hurt, just my ankle mostly. You don't think I could have broken it?"
Marty shrugged. "I'm no doctor," he replied, scanning the ground. "Do you think you could walk if you had a stick or something to put your weight on?"
Clara frowned for a moment. "I think so," she replied sounding slightly hesitant. Marty walked a few feet away from the tree, then bent over to look closer at several branches that looked promising. After searching for a few minutes, Marty finally found the perfect branch. It was strong and the right height for Clara. Plus it had a V shape at the top, just like crutches people had used decades before. He brought it back to Clara, who was still sitting on the ground. She was gazing up at the sky looking troubled.
"Here's something you could use for support," Marty said, leaning the branch against the tree. Clara looked over at him.
"Before we start walking again, could I see the map?" she asked. "I need to find something on it."
Marty shrugged again. "Sure," he said, and walked over to get it. He had been looking at it minutes before Clara had tumbled out of the tree, but had set it aside for a moment because his head had been pounding. He had closed his eyes for a minute, since it seemed to make his head feel a bit better, and that was when Clara had fallen.
Before walking back over to Clara, Marty had to lean back against the tree as another dizzy spell hit him. He had been getting them ever since he had run into the tree, but hadn't mentioned it to Clara because she already seemed worried enough about the gunshot wound on his arm and the cut on his head, which Marty could see was still bleeding since he had put his hand on his forehead in hopes of easing the pounding. His arm was sore, but not as much as his head, which felt as if someone was beating drums inside it. Marty sighed and walked back over to Clara with the map, which still wasn't making any sense to him.
"What makes you think you can figure out where we are?" he asked, handing Clara the map. She looked it over quickly, then looked up at the sky, which was rapidly filling up with clouds. Looking down at his watch, Marty noticed that it was about a half hour past midnight. He wondered if Doc was still waiting for them in the clearing, wherever on earth that was.
"From the top of the tree, I saw what looked like a large campsight," Clara said, pointing to the map. "I noticed it was in the western direction, since the moon was going that way."
"The campsight you saw could have been the one we just escaped from," Marty pointed out, looking down over the map. "How can you be sure it isn't?"
Clara shook her head. "The prisoner camp didn't have nearly as many tents as the one I saw. Since we cannot seem find the clearing, I think we should head westward. If we don't we could be getting hopelessly lost in these woods. And both of us should see doctors," Clara quickly added, looking down at her left ankle, then over at Marty. She glanced up at the sky again. "I just hope those clouds won't become a problem," she said, then got slowly to her feet, leaning heavily on the branch.
"The camp should be this way," Clara said, facing the moon, which was fast become covered up by the thick clouds.
Marty picked up his coat, which held the map, and put it on since the woods were becoming cold. He left behind his hat though, because that way if anyone came looking for them if they became totally lost in the woods, they would know that someone had been that way.
The moon was completely obliterated by clouds, which made the woods nearly pitch dark. Clara stumbled over an invisible root and her left foot hit the ground as she instinctively caught her balance. She gritted her teeth against the pain that shot up through her ankle and quickly shifted her weight to the branch/crutch. Behind her she could hear Marty let out a gasp as he tripped over the same root. Clara stopped suddenly, hearing what sounded like a brook or stream. She began to walk toward the sound and a minute later saw what little light remained sparkle on a small stream. Marty caught up with her, almost bumping into her when she stopped.
"Where are we?" he asked, breaking the silence that had been their since they had left the place where Clara had fallen out of the tree. Clara sat down next to the small brook, glad to be off her feet.
"I don't know," she replied, dipping her fingers in the water, and skimming them lightly on the surface.
Marty sat down next to her and got out the map. "I can't see a thing in this darkness," he muttered, squinting and holding the map about an inch from his eyes. He handed it to Clara after failing to read it.
Clara could only make out faint black marks on the paper. She gave up and handed it back to Marty, noticing that the cut on his head was beginning to bruise up. She tore off more of her skirt's hem and dipped it into the water. "We should clean up that wound," she told Marty, pointing to his head. He nodded and winced as she began to gently wipe off the blood. Soon she had it all cleaned up and noticed that the bleeding had slowed down immensely. Clara looked up at the sky and thought she saw a flash of light. She hoped that those clouds were not thunderheads.
"Why don't we rest here for a while?" Clara said, trying to sound cheerful despite the atmosphere. A long low rumble, sounding suspiciously like thunder, sounded from within the depths of the sky. It looked like they were going to have a thunderstorm.
"That's a good idea," Marty agreed, yawning. "We could wait here until the storm passes." He lay down and was sound asleep a few minutes later. Clara looked up at the sky, watching the lightning flash. She wondered what time it was and looked down at her wrists, realizing that she must have left her watch back at her guarded tent. She looked over at Marty and saw he was wearing a watch on his left wrist. She reached over and gently picked up his wrist, twisting it so that she could read the numbers during the next flash of light. Clara noticed that the watch Marty was wearing was one of those type of calculator watches that were popular in the future. Lightning flashed and she caught a quick glimpse of the digital numbers before they were plunged into darkness again. It was 2:28AM. Clara set down Marty's hand and leaned back against the tree, tilting her head back and watching the lightning grow more violent, then listening to the thunder grow louder until it felt like it was shaking the earth.
A split second later, after the thunder and lightning once again shook the earth, the sky opened up and in seconds Clara was drenched to the bone. She stood up, forgetting her injured ankle, and let out a cry of pain, falling back to the slick ground. She grabbed her crutch and pulled herself up, standing under the tree where the rain was less torrential. Clara remembered reading somewhere that you were never suppose to stand under a tree during an electrical storm because the tree could get struck by lightning. That gave her the choice to either become electrocuted by a bolt of lightning, or become drenched from standing in the main line of the rain. Clara chose the latter, figuring that she was already wet and that getting wetter would not hurt anything. She struggled to move ten feet away from the tree, slipping in the mud which was growing thicker every minute. Clara felt a tap on her shoulder and whirled around to see Marty, looking as wet as she was, standing behind her. He was probably awakened when the rain had begun to come down.
"What do we do now?" he asked, almost yelling. Around them the thunder and lightning crashed, along with the rain making plenty of noise as it hit the ground, so that it was nearly impossible to hear anyone speaking.
"Stay away from trees," Clara replied, pointing to one and looking around to make sure that they were both at least ten feet away from anything taller than they were.
Marty looked at her puzzled, then looked around at the trees. "Why? What could the trees do to us?"
"It's not what the trees could do, it is what the lightning could do to trees, and us if we were standing under one," Clara said, looking up as a jagged bolt of light sliced through the sky, followed by a clap of thunder.
They both stood out in the pouring rain until the storm was over, about fifteen minutes later. By the time the storm passed and the sky became clear and lighted up by moonlight again, Clara felt as if she had fallen into a pool of water and stayed their for a few hours. She was soaked to the skin, her dress feeling as if it gained ten pounds. The ground was covered with about four inches of mud, and quite slippery and messy to walk in. Marty was just as soaked as she was. He pulled out the map from the dripping coat and unfolded it.
"Looks like we lost the only way we had of finding out where we are," he said flatly, handing the soggy piece of paper to Clara. Instead of the sharp lines that were once on the paper, their we now big black smears that could have been anything.
"We never knew exactly where we were in the first place," Clara said sighing wearily, dropping the paper on the ground. It landed with a squish in the thick mud. "We'll just continue following the moon."
They followed the moon until it was out of sight behind trees. Clara knew it was probably near dawn, but the sun was not yet up. She could just imagine what they would look like to another person. She glanced behind her to see how Marty was doing, and saw that he had stopped and was leaning with one arm forward against a tree, and a hand over his eyes.
"Is anything wrong?" Clara asked, hurrying to his side as fast as her injured ankle would allow. Marty shook his head with his hand still over his eyes, his breathing labored.
"I'm just a little dizzy," he whispered, looking over at Clara. She noticed his face was almost white and he now had dark circles under his eyes. She hoped that nothing was seriously wrong.
"Maybe we better rest," she suggested nervously. "We've been walking for a few hours straight."
"No, that's okay," Marty replied, his voice sounding stronger. "We should keep walking. Eventually we should get out of these woods." He took a step away from the tree, then fell down to his knees.
Clara felt her heart leap into her throat. "What's wrong?" she asked, struggling to stay calm. Here they were, lost in the woods in the dead of night, both hurt. She wondered if they would make it out alive.
"I guess I was dizzier than I thought," Marty murmured, putting his hand to his head. "Maybe we should rest for a few minutes."
Clara was about to say something else when she heard a low growl from behind her. She looked down at Marty, who had heard it too and was staring at the space behind her, his eyes wide. Clara, though she really didn't want to, turned slowly around. Red eyes, narrowed in evil looking slits, looked up at her. The thing growled again and took a step forward in the moonlight, it's grey shaggy coat gleaming, it's sharp teeth glittering.
"A wolf," she heard Marty say behind her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him stand up unsteadily and break off a branch from the tree. The wolf snarled and came a few more steps closer. Clara could now see that the wolf was about three and a half feet tall, from paw to ear tip, and looked hungry.
"What do we do?" she whispered as the wolf came even closer. It was now only four feet away and still coming.
"Hold still," Marty said quietly. Clara risked a look behind her and could see him creeping slowly behind the tree.
"If I just stand here, the wolf might decide to have me for dinner," Clara shot back. The wolf let out a growl from deep within it's throat, that sounded like a large cat purring, and advanced another foot.
"The best thing we could do would be to climb this tree," Marty whispered back. "But seeing that we both can't, we'll have to somehow distract the wolf or shift it's attention somewhere else."
"And how do you propose we do that?" Clara asked nervously. She did not like the way the wolf was eyeing her, as if he could see her every thought and know what the outcome would be to each option.
"Leave it to me," Marty replied. Clara saw him fingering the stick, as if trying to decide what to do with it.
"What are you going to do with that stick, throw it and have him retrieve it for you?" she asked, her voice trembling. Clara backed up a few inches and the wolf snarled.
"Marty, do something!" she cried, backing up slowly until she was pressed against the tree.
"I'm thinking!" Marty replied franticly from right behind the tree. The wolf, looking like it was smiling almost triumphantly, came up another foot, saliva dripping from it's pointed fangs.
In the distance a wolf howl sounded. The wolf that was about to attack them paused in it's pursuit, cocking his head to one side, then answering back with a long mournful howl. Marty took that time to react. Clara saw the stick fly out from behind the tree and hit the wolf square on the head. The wolf stopped in mid howl and snarled at them. Clara pressed against the tree until she was sure that she would have permanent marks from the tree trunk embedded on her hands and back.
Then suddenly, just as the wolf was about to lunge at both of them, it stopped, listening for a minute. Then, glaring one last time at both Marty and Clara, it turned around and vanished through some bushes. Five minutes passed before anyone said something.
"That was so close," Clara whispered, taking a careful step away from the tree. She was afraid the slightest move would bring the wolf back.
"No kidding," Marty replied quietly, stepping out from behind the tree. Clara noticed the cut on his forehead had started to bleed again, perhaps from getting wet in the rain.
"What do you think made him turn back and not attack us?" she asked, her heart slowly returning to normal speed. Marty looked at the place where the wolf had left and sighed.
"I don't know, but we should be glad that he did leave," he replied, looking at his watch. Clara caught a glimpse of the time. It was almost five AM. She also noticed that the woods were beginning to lighten a bit. That meant that the sun would be up over the horizon shortly.
They began to walk again, the woods become lighter every minute. Birds began waking up and making plenty of noise. Their pace was much slower now, since Clara's ankle was beginning to ache like it never had before. Her shoe felt tight, so she knew that it was probably swelling up too. Marty was stopping frequently and leaning against trees for a few minutes. Clara was worried, though she tried not to show it. Would they ever make it to the campsight?
Clara heard Marty call her name and turned painfully around. Marty was sitting against a tree, his face almost white. "What is it? Are you all right?" Clara asked franticly, leaning over him.
"I'm fine," Marty replied, then yawned. "I was just wondering if we could take a rest?"
Clara was about to reply when she heard what sounded like a bugle in the distance. She held her breath and strained her ears for the sound. She heard it again, slightly clearer. Marty heard it too, Clara could tell by his expression.
"We can't rest now, we're almost to civilization!" she exclaimed, feeling nothing but relief. They were almost out of the woods!
Sunday, August 4, 1861
6:03 A.M..
The sun was peaking over the edge of the camp by the time they both reached it. Marty could see that Clara could not wait until they reached the camp, where there would be people and no wolves, but she was moving slowly and stiffly, leaning on the stick with most of her weight. She was not the only one hurt. With every step he took, Marty's head felt a little worse. His arm was also beginning to ache horribly, along with his feet since they had been walking most of the night. Marty could just imagine what people would think when he and Clara both emerged from the woods, mud covered and hurt. They probably looked like they had fought the war single handedly.
The camp was already bustling at this early time of the day. Marty looked at his watch and noticed that it was a little after six. He heard someone call his Civil War name and looked up. Lauren Smith was hurrying over, surprise all over her face.
"Whatever are you doing here?" she asked Marty as soon as she was close enough to be heard. She noticed Clara, who was looking at her curiously. "Who are you?"
"I'm Clara Brown," Clara said looking at Marty, her eyebrows raised in a silent question. Marty realized that Clara had never met Lauren face to face, though she had heard of her. He quickly made the introductions.
"Lauren, this is Clara, my uh," he thought back to the day he had arrived and what he had told Captain Tannen. "Aunt. Clara, this is Lauren Smith."
"Oh," Clara said knowingly. "You're Lauren."
"Yes I am," Lauren replied, looking like she wanted to say more, then noticed that both Marty and Clara were hurt. Her eyes widened. "We better get you both up to the medical tent. The perhaps you can explain what happened."
As they entered the tent, Marty forgot about his own aches and pains as he looked around. Soldiers everywhere were moaning in agony. Marty saw several gunshot victims, far worse off than him, and a teenager, only a bit older than he, screaming with pain with both of his legs gone from the knees down. What remained was not a pretty sight and reminded Marty of all the gory movies he had ever seen all put together. He turned away and stared at the back of Lauren's dress as she weaved in and out between people and cots.
A minute later they reached an area that seemed a little quieter. Lauren gestured for them to sit down on the two cots, then left, promising to be back in a few minutes. Marty lay down on the cot and turned on his side to face Clara, propping himself up with his left arm. Clara had sat down and had her left leg resting on the cot. She took off her shoe, letting out a sigh of relief.
"It feels so good to sit down," she said, tentatively feeling her ankle. "I thought we would never get here."
"It's been a long night," Marty agreed, remembering how it had begun. Why was it plans never seemed to go the way they were, well, planned? Marty suddenly remembered Doc. He must be worried to death. After all, he had not heard one word from either of them since before Marty had entered the woods. Doc must at least be wondering where they both were, or why they never showed up.
Before Marty could say one word to Clara about Doc, Lauren came back carrying a tray that had bandages and several other medical looking items heaped on it. "Sorry it took so long," she apologized, sitting down in a chair between the two cots and setting the tray on a small table. As she did so, Marty caught a flash of something on her finger. Lauren saw him staring at the ring and smiled. She held up her hand and the early morning light caught the small diamond and made it sparkle.
"Alexander Baines and I are engaged to be married," Lauren said, smiling dreamily and staring off in the distance. "We are going to have the wedding in a few days. Nothing fancy, since their is no time to plan for having a large ceremony, but that does not matter to us."
"How did you both fall in love?" Marty asked innocently. Lauren shook her head.
"I'll explain in a minute, but first I best get you both fixed up," she said, looking between Marty and Clara. Lauren examined Clara's ankle, then looked over Marty's arm and forehead. After doing that, she gave the verdict.
"Clara, you have what appears to be a sprained ankle," she said seriously.
"All we need to do is wrap it up, and you must stay off it for awhile. It should be fine. Rhett," Lauren continued, turning to Marty, "you will need stitches on the cut on your forehead, and on the gunshot wound."
Marty imagined a needle piercing his skin and shuddered. "Is it that painful?" he asked, looking carefully at Lauren when she answered.
She frowned for a moment. "I don't know," she said truthfully. "Some think so, others don't. But I'll tell you the story of how Alexander and I came together to take your mind off it."
Lauren kept her promise. She made Marty lie back on the cot, then went to work on his forehead. It seemed to take hours, but it was really only minutes. The story Lauren told did help keep his mind off the pain.
"I am truly sorry for knocking you out like I did," Lauren said solemnly, beginning her story. "Had I known it was you, Rhett Butler, I would have never done that."
"That's okay," Marty replied, noticing the amused expression that had passed over Clara's face when she had heard what Lauren had called him. He tried to concentrate on what Lauren was saying, rather than how painful getting stitches was.
Lauren quickly ran through what Doc had already told Marty, about Jules and Verne taking she and Alexander through time. Then she began to tell of what had happened after they had been dropped of a few miles from town.
"At first we did not talk at all," Lauren said, bandaging the now stitched up cut on Marty's forehead and beginning on his arm. "I was thinking about Mother and Father. I think leaving them all alone on that desolate road was the hardest thing I ever had to do. After a silence of about ten minutes, Alexander spoke. He asked me who exactly was those two boys who claimed to be our guardian angels, and what exactly just happened. Did we really see what we thought we had? I said I did not know, but knew that I was absolutely going to try to make sure that I did not die the way I saw. Alexander agreed and we got into a discussion about our lives. He told me about his family and I told him about my parents and moving soon. It was at that moment we came upon the lights of the town. We both stopped and Alexander looked me directly in the eyes. I never noticed how bright the moon was, or how loving Alexander's eyes were. It was then he proposed to me, under the moon and the stars, with the lights of town off in the distance. I knew at that moment their was nothing I would have like more than to become Mrs. Alexander Baines." Lauren finished with her story and finished with Marty's arm. He was surprised that he really had not noticed when she was sewing him up.
"How many stitches?" he asked, the thought crossing his mind on how he would explain the scars to his parents.
"Three on your forehead, and eight on your arm," she replied. "You should come back in a few days so that I may remove them. In a week, you will be as good as new."
"Do you know the exact date of your wedding?" Clara asked as Lauren got out another bandage and began to wrap it around Clara's ankle.
"We are thinking of this coming Saturday. I would stay here, instead of going off to Florida with Aunt Doris and Uncle William. I am ever so glad of that. I was not looking forward to help in child rearing," Lauren replied, making a face when she mentioned the child raising.
Lauren suddenly looked up and turned toward Marty. "I would be ever so glad if you could come," she said suddenly. "After all, you brought us together."
"Not exactly," Marty said, thinking how strange it would be to attend his great-great-great-grandparent's wedding. He wondered if Doc would mind much if he actually did. Thinking of Doc reminded him that they should tell him where they were. He grabbed Clara's arm, leaning over to whisper in her ear, "We better call Doc with that walkie-talkie. He must be wondering where we are."
Clara's eyes widened. "You're right," she whispered back. "I'll do that as soon as we are finished here."
Lauren finished wrapping Clara's ankle and left, returning a minute later with a pair of real crutches. She handed them to Clara and once again told her to stay off the ankle for a week or so. A few minutes after that, Marty and Clara were out of the medical tent and in a quiet area of the camp. Clara pulled out the walkie-talkie and turned it on. She held it out to Marty. "You better do it," she said in a low voice, so that they would not attract any attention.
"Why?" he asked, taking it from her hand. "Don't you want to?" Clara shifted her weight on the crutches. "Emmett will be expecting to hear from you first."
Marty switched on the walkie-talkie and was relieved to hear the sound of static. He wouldn't have been surprised if it hadn't worked, since it had fallen 15 feet to the ground, then 30 more, got soaking wet in the thunderstorm, and had probably gotten knocked against trees and their limbs several times in the past 12 hours. Remembering what the walkie-talkie had gone through reminded Marty on what he and Clara had both gone through. Marty wondered exactly where he should begin in explaining to Doc what had happened during the night.
Doc was looking out the window when he heard the walkie-talkie on the seat next to him come to life. "Doc, Doc are you there? Come in," he heard Marty's voice say though a burst of static.
Doc snatched up the walkie-talkie as if it might disappear any minute. "Marty where are you?" he asked franticly. "I've been waiting in the clearing all night!"
"We kinda got a little lost," Marty replied, his voice fading a bit. Doc hoped that the batteries in the walkie-talkies were not failing.
He opened the car door and stepped outside in hopes for a better reception. "Where are you now? Is Clara with you?"
"Clara is with me and we are at the camp," Marty said. "Both of us got a little bit hurt overnight but we're fine now."
"What do you mean hurt?" Doc asked, wishing desperately that he was there with them instead of a few miles away.
"I got shot in the arm when I was running away from the prisoner camp with Clara, then ran into a tree and cut my forehead," Marty replied. "And Clara sprained her ankle after falling thirty feet out of a tree."
"You were shot?" Doc asked in disbelief. "Are you okay?"
"The bullet just scraped against my arm. We both went to the hospital as soon as we got to town. I needed some stitches and Clara needs to stay off her feet and on some crutches that Lauren gave her," Marty said calmly, then added, "She told me what happened between she and Alexander and asked me if I could come to their wedding. Could I?"
"We can discuss that later," Doc said, wanting to get back to the present situation. "Now where exactly are you?"
There was a pause. "We are in a quiet area of the camp near some woods. Not many people are around."
"Okay, here is what we we'll do," Doc said, thinking. "I cannot show the DeLorean in the day light. I am sure it would cause immense suspicion and gossip if I did show up in it. Plus everyone would probably think they were under alien attack. I'll go back in time an hour and drive the car back to the barn. I'll then leave and pick both you up in the buckboard wagon. I should be there in about five minutes, so be sure to get to the road."
"That's fine," Marty replied, then added, with his voice sounding distant, "I better go now if we have to be at the road in a few minutes. Plus I think the batteries or something are beginning to go dead in this thing."
A minute after he said that the walkie-talkie was filled with the sound of static. Doc tried getting through a few times but got no response. He figured that the batteries must have given out or Marty had turned his off. Doc went back in the DeLorean and set the destination time for 5:40AM, exactly one hour before, then started the car. Once he was a respectable distance from the ground, Doc felt comfortable in letting the car rush up to eighty eight. The past was not different from the hour in the future, except it was considerably darker. Doc quickly drove to the barn and landed the car behind the carriage house/garage. He got out, leaving the walkie-talkie behind since he knew that Marty was not going to try calling until an hour later, and quickly went into the barn. He had scarcely opened the door an inch before it was yanked away from his hands and thrown open to reveal both Jules and Verne standing on the threshold, looking expectant.
"Where's Mom?" Verne asked, peering past Doc into the early morning light. "Is she still in the DeLorean?"
"That is why I came back," Doc explained, stepping past the boys and grabbing his coat and hat from off some nails. "Marty contacted me an hour from now and I have to go to town to pick both of them up."
"I thought that you, Mother, and Martin were going to rendezvous in the woods," Jules said, following Doc as he went out into the fenced in pasture to get the horses.
"They got lost and found there way to town instead," Doc replied, grabbing the reins of both horses and leading them to the door of the carriage house. He opened the door and quickly hitched the horses up, not noticing Jules and Verne sneaking into the back of the wagon until he was seated at the front and turned around to check and see that the blankets were still back there. He caught a glimpse of someone ducking their head under one of the blankets.
"Okay boys," Doc said loudly. "You can come, as long as you promise not to argue and stay out of sight of Lauren or Alexander, since they saw you when you took them both through time and we want them to continue to think of you both as guardian angels." Verne unearthed himself from the blankets at the back that Doc had seen someone hiding under. "You mean we aren't in any trouble?" he asked, straightening his coon skin cap which had fallen crooked over one ear.
Jules appeared from under another pile of blankets. "Do you really think that Father would be taking us with him if we were in trouble?" he asked with sarcasm. Verne drew in a deep breath to fire back an angry retort, but Doc quickly intervened.
"Remember, no arguing and that includes insulting, hitting, kicking, teasing, or anything related to the latter. Do you understand?" Doc asked, wanting to make certain of all of this before they were a few miles away from home, when nothing could be done about it.
Verne glared silently at Jules before answering. "Yeah, we understand," he muttered, speaking for both of them.
Doc nodded. "Good," he said, turning around to face the front and lightly slapped the horses with the reins to get them moving. A few minutes later they were driving past empty fields that were slowly being lightened by the sun. When they were about half a mile from town, Doc happened to look up and see the DeLorean gain altitude. Doc turned to the boys. "Look up, quick!" he exclaimed, pointing to where the DeLorean was headed.
Jules and Verne both looked up in time to see the DeLorean begin to glow, then vanish with a sonic boom leaving the twin trails of fire.
"Wow, was that you an hour ago?" Verne asked, kneeling at the back and still gazing at the place where the DeLorean had disappeared.
"Of course it was Father. Who else has a DeLorean time machine, especially in this day in age?" Jules replied before Doc had a chance to answer.
"I wasn't asking you, I was asking Pop," Verne said haughtily to Jules as he turned toward him.
"Boys," Doc said evenly, stopping the argument before it really had a chance to start.
A few minutes later they hit the outside of town and about a minute later, came to a stop next to a tall cypress tree with spanish moss hanging down off the branches. Clara and Marty, who had been sitting under it, got up and came right over. Doc got down off the wagon and came over to help them in. Clara was smiling. "Emmett, I though we would never see each other again," she said as she settled in the front with Doc. He could see that she was keeping all her weight off her bandaged ankle, even though they were now sitting down and when she was walking, she had crutches.
"That was amazing how you go here so quickly," Marty said from the back, looking at his watch. "We just got to this spot and you came a minute later."
Doc smiled. "The magic of time machines," he replied, turning the wagon around. He looked over at Clara, who was looking over at the scenery they passed with a faint smile on her face. "Now that we are all together again, why don't you and Marty explain what happened last night."
Doc listened carefully as the story was told, switching from both points of view. By the time it was finished, they had arrived back at home. "I cannot believe that you fell thirty feet, and the worst that happened was that you sprained your ankle," Doc said in concern, helping Clara down out off the wagon. Marty, who was already out of the wagon, handed her the crutches when she was off.
"I guess I was just lucky," Clara said, as they walked into the barn. "I want to know everything that has happened since I have been gone," she added, sitting down.
Doc, Jules, Verne, and Marty all explained what had happened. Clara was quite surprised to hear about the time that Verne told her about when he had taken the DeLorean and gone to the future. She was not the only one.
"You did what!" Doc exclaimed when Verne had mentioned something about "borrowing" the time machine one night for a quick trip.
Verne looked like he had tasted something bitter. "Did I say that I borrowed the DeLorean?" he asked innocently. "I meant that I, uh, wished I could borrow the DeLorean."
Marty leaned over toward Verne. "It's too late, so you might as well tell them truth," he whispered, then smiled at the others as if nothing had happened.
Verne gave a huge sigh. "All right, here is what happened," he said resigning himself to the inevitable. "I was getting really bored staying here, with nothing to do since Marty was off in town and Pop and Jules were working on the DeLorean. So the night after the DeLorean was finished, I went and just borrowed it to go into the future and get the virtual reality so that I could have something to do. I didn't know that Marty was in it until I got into the car. But since he was sleeping, I decided to risk it."
"He risked both of our necks, too," Marty interrupted. "Verne almost drove straight into some trees. Lucky for both of us, he pulled the stick that makes the car fly, so we missed the tree with about six inches to spare. Then we hit eighty eight, so we went to 2020. Verne then drove us to your family's house and, since no one was home, we went in and he got two of these strange looking things he called Virtual Reality. He made me try it out and it felt like you were being warped to another planet or something."
"Then you guys got home," Verne said, "and we had to hide in the hall closet for about two and a half hours before we tried escaping. Unfortunately, just as we were about out, Marty knocked over the hover table in the entryway and broke that waterfall thing on it."
"I remember that night," Clara said suddenly. "That was about two years ago. I was sure we had burglars, but Emmett convinced me it must have been the dog." "That was all that happened, I swear," Verne said, nodding his head and looking over at Doc.
Doc sighed. What was next? Were Jules and Verne going to confess to going back in time and altering a major history changing event? Doc wouldn't have been surprised if that had happened. "That wasn't a very intelligent thing to do," he said trying to sound reprimanding, but not succeeding very well. He gave up and stood, looking at Clara, who stared back at him. "Your mother and I need to discuss something," he said to Jules and Verne.
Clara stood up, knowing exactly what it was. She picked up her crutches and followed Doc to the lab. "We will probably call for you in a few hours," she said to the boys. "In the meantime, try to stay out of mischief, and no eaves dropping either." She added, "You will all know later today anyway."
Sunday, August 4, 1861
4:52 P.M..
It was late afternoon when Marty found the diary. He had been sorting through some of the papers that told of his family history and had come across it. The diary looked much more used then last time he had seen it, which had been about a week before. Marty set aside some papers that were still piled up on the couch, and lay down. It had been the first time he had been off his feet all day. Right before they had gone into the lab for the day, Doc and Clara had asked Marty if he would keep an eye on Jules and Verne. Doc had given him new clothes too, since their was no more reason to be dressed as a Civil War soldier anymore and his Civil War clothes had some blood on them from his wounds. As much as Marty wanted to dress in his 1985 clothes, Doc had insisted that while they were here, they must act and dress from this year. Marty's new clothes were not much different from the old ones except he did not get a hat or coat, and his shirt was white and not grey. But the pants, boots, and suspenders were the same.
Marty had spent most of the day chasing after both Jules and Verne, who wanted to try one thing after another. First it was going to another time in the DeLorean, then it was using the hoverboard, then it was wanting to jump out of the hay loft into another pile of hay and using various items like umbrellas and blankets to see if it lessened their decent at all. Finally they had found a nice safe activity, playing a game of Monopoly. They were still playing it and Marty could hear them arguing about someone being a double crossing cheat from inside one of the stable rooms.
Marty opened the diary and skimmed through it until he noticed the recent dates and the entries that were different from the last time. On Friday, Lauren had written in great detail about the moonlit walk that she and Alexander had after traveling though time. The hours slipped past as Marty read through their marriage that would take place in six days, the house they bought together, and the birth of their first child. Marty then noticed it was getting hard to see the page and got up to light an oil lamp, seeing that it was almost six thirty and already dark out. Once again dark clouds were beginning to blot out the blue summer sky. Was there going to be another thunderstorm?
Marty was in the middle of reading over a trip that Lauren had written about taking the family to Washington DC in 1864, when his eyes began to feel heavy. All the running around in the woods the night before was beginning to catch up with him. Marty sat up a little straighter and tried to concentrate on reading what Lauren had written about their small son, who they had named Rhett Butler Baines, getting lost in a train station on the way to Washington. A few minutes later the dark clouds gave up their cargo and it began to rain lightly.
The rain was soon accompanied by low rumbles of thunder off in the distance. The room was almost completely dark now except for the small circle of light created by the oil lamp and the brief flashes of lightning. Marty closed his eyes for a moment and found that it was hard to open them again. He finally gave up reading and set the diary down keeping it open so he would not loose his spot. Marty let his head fall back on the armrest and looked out the window, seeing a bright flash outside. A second later thunder shook the ground. Voices floated out from the stable area. It sounded like Jules was now accusing Verne of stealing, or taking a lone as Verne was putting it, out of the bank. Marty closed his eyes and suddenly thought he heard Doc's voice interrupting their fight. He tried to stay awake and hear what Doc was saying to them, but the only thing he caught was something about news. Then he fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The world was shaking, feeling more unstable by the second. It took Marty a moment to realize what it was, and when he did, it chilled him to the bone. The shaking felt just like an....
"Earthquake!" he gasped, sitting up, his eyes open wide. The shaking stopped abruptly and Jules and Verne stepped out from each end of the couch, their faces flushed.
"Good, your awake," Verne said, sitting down on the couch. "We were wondering how much longer we'd have to shake the couch."
"What?" Marty asked, feeling dazed.
"Father said that he has something important to present to all three of us," Jules said, taking a seat in the wingbacked chair.
"Yeah, he said it could change the course of our lives for the better," Verne agreed, getting up and began to walk around the room, lighting candles and oil lamps until the room was as well lighted as non-electric lights could make it.
Marty swung his legs over the side of the couch and leaned over to pick up the diary which had fallen to the floor. He rubbed his eyes and sat back against the couch. Could this mysterious announcement of Doc's be related to moving? Marty opened the book back up and was halfway through the page before both Doc and Clara entered the room together.
"Good, you are all here," Doc said, looking around the room. He and Clara pulled up chairs and sat down. "You mother,Clara," Doc quickly added for Marty's benefit, "and I have come to an important decision."
"What about?" Verne asked leaning forward on the couch, his eyes bright with curiosity.
"Does it have anything to do with what you and I talked about yesterday?" Marty asked, looking at Doc. He closed the diary and set it down on his lap.
"As a matter of fact, it is the precise reason for this meeting." Doc looked over at Clara, who gave an encouraging smile, then looked at both Jules and Verne, who were both staring at him intently, along with Marty.
"What is it?" Jules asked, looking like he was about to jump out of the chair with the suspense.
"We have decided to move to Hill Valley, California in the year 1985 permanently!" Doc exclaimed, smiling along with Clara. The room was silent for a moment. It took Marty a few seconds to realize what Doc had just said and what it meant. When he did, he gasped.
"You mean that you guys are moving back to 1985?" he asked, half afraid he had heard wrong.
"It looks like it," Clara said, a clap of thunder interrupting her words.
"That's great!" Marty exclaimed, jumping to his feet. "When are you moving?"
"We could move tomorrow if we wanted, since we have the time machines," Doc said. "But I think a few weeks is more likely, since you will need to heal completely before you return. Your parents would certainly wonder how you got hurt."
Marty nodded and sat back down. He could just imagine what his parents would say if he told them how he hurt his arm and head. Lucky for him, the snake bite that he had received from the infamous Fang was not even noticeable, unless you looked really hard at his wrist.
Both Jules and Verne had been quiet since they heard the big announcement. But finally they began to speak.
"Does this mean that we can't travel through time anymore?" Verne asked, sounding depressed at the prospect.
"Oh no, we'll still keep the time machines," Doc said quickly, then added,
"but it will be a very secret thing. You cannot tell everyone at school and you know about it."
"We're going to have to attend school?" Jules asked. Marty couldn't tell if he was hoping to go or not.
"Of course," Clara replied. "It is important for you both to go, to learn more things and make friends your own ages."
"What kind of house are we getting?" Verne asked. "Is it big or small or just regular?"
"We are going to 1985 tomorrow to purchase an old farmhouse. It has a large detached garage that I could use for my lab and for storing the DeLorean, and a basement that would work perfectly in storing the train. But you boys would have to share the same room," Doc explained looking carefully at both of the boys to see their reaction. Both made faces, as if they had tasted something sour.
"Share a room with him!" they both exclaimed at the same time, pointing fingers at one another. Normally Marty would have laughed out loud at such a funny sight, but he was still exhausted from the night before so he just gave a faint smile.
"It's very large," Clara said hastily. "Bigger than this room we're in right now."
"It won't be that bad," Doc added. Jules and Verne looked as if they both didn't believe it.
"He is a slob," Jules said, looking at Verne. "How do you expect me to live with someone who will pave the floor with trash?"
"How do you expect me me to live with a neat freak?" Verne replied back.
"If one thing is out of place, he'll go off the edge!"
"Boys," Clara said softly putting a stop to the yelling. "It is not impossible to share a room. You have done it before."
"And hated every minute of it!" Verne said cheerily.
"We can work this out without any bloodshed," Clara continued quickly, ignoring Verne's comment. She continued on about the room arrangements, but Marty wasn't listening. He could not believe that Doc was moving back to 1985 again! Marty would think that they would prefer the future more, since they had better things there. But perhaps they were moving to 1985 because that was where Doc was originaly from in the first place.
"Which old farmhouse is it?" Marty asked during a pause in the conversation. He knew for a fact that there were plenty of old farmhouses in Hill Valley and had no idea which one that Doc was talking about. Most of the old farmhouses fit the description he was giving.
"It's the old Miller one," Doc replied. "The one with the crooked weathervane with a rooster on it."
Marty could dimly remember passing that particular house on the way to school, if he took a shortcut. It had been up for sale for almost ten years and needed plenty of work.
"Your buying that house?" he asked disbelievingly, imagining all the cracked windows and broken boards on the house.
"The house has great potential," Doc said seriously. "I have been drawing up plans to remodel it the past few weeks."
"Great potential for spiders you mean," Marty muttered under his breath, but nobody heard him. Doc and Clara were too busy trying to convince Jules and Verne how much they would enjoy sharing rooms. The argument from both sides seemed to go on and on. Marty glanced down at his watch and noticed that it was almost 8:30. Only fifteen minutes had passed since Doc and Clara had made the announcement. The day felt like it would never end. Marty sighed and struggled to pay attention to what was being said.
"...But why can't we have separate rooms?" Verne was saying. "There has to be some spare room in the house."
"Learning to share a room will help you both get along better and teach you to be responsible," Clara said, sounding as if she believed it was the best thing in the world.
"But I am already responsible," Jules replied seriously, sitting up straighter.
Doc and Clara both looked like they were trying to hide smiles. "You can never be, ah, too responsible," Doc said, coughing. Marty wondered if the cough was really covering up a laugh. But he didn't bother to think it over. He was beginning to see double and his eyes ached. They slipped shut and Marty's head began to nod. The conversation began to grow fainter and sounded like it was coming through a tunnel.
"If we have to share rooms, I am going to put a line dividing up the sides!" Marty heard Verne say, sounding determined to at least have that happen.
"You can do whatever you would want to do to the room, providing you don't burn it down," Doc said cautiously, as if he though they might try such a thing.
"Then I will draw the line," Jules replied, "because if Verne draws the line, it will be uneven and crooked."
"And how would you make it straight and exact?" Verne retorted.
"Tape measurements and yardsticks!" Jules shot back. "Unlike the mere judgement of the eye, like you would use!"
"I would not!" Verne replied, sounding insulted.
Those were the last words Marty heard.
Clara held up her hand for silence. "Let me ask you this," she said calmly. "What is the worst that could happen if you both shared a room?"
Jules and Verne were both silent for a moment. "He will clutter the room up with junk," Jules said, just as Verne yelled, "He will be too neat and declare war on me if I have one piece of paper out!"
"Boys!" Doc said quietly, but firmly. He put a finger to his lips and then pointed at Marty. Clara, who had been too wrapped up in the fight to know what was going on, looked over. Marty's head was bowed, his chin almost resting on his chest. His eyes were closed and his breathing deep and relaxed. He was holding a medium sized book in his lap. Lightning flashed and, ten seconds later, thunder roared, but Marty didn't even flinch.
"Is he asleep?" Jules asked whispering.
"Yes," Doc replied in a low voice.
Clara leaned forward. "What is that book he is holding?"
Doc reached over and gently pried the book from Marty's hands. Marty groaned and mumbled something incoherent, letting his head fall back on the couch. "It's Lauren Smith's diary," Doc replied, handing it to Clara.
Clara flipped through it. "How interesting!" she exclaimed quietly.
"Well," Verne said in a loud, normal voice, "so what!"
"Verne!" Clara reprimanded softly.
"Well, so?" Verne said again, but a little quieter this time. "I still think it is totally unfair for you and Pop to make us share a room!"
"Think how I feel!" Jules said, his voice rising. "How do you think I feel about the situation!"
The argument was off and running, getting louder by the minute. Doc and Clara looked at each other and shrugged. "At least they finally agree on something," she said in a low voice under the rising voices.
Doc nodded, then added, "But of all the things in the world, it had to be this."
Someone was shaking his shoulder. Marty groaned and pushed the hand away. He wasn't ready to get up yet. Wasn't it just a minute ago that he went to bed? Marty heard the person call his name insistently and shake his shoulder harder. It sounded like Doc Brown. Marty dragged open his eyes. The room was full of shadows and grey early morning light. Two of the shadows were standing right in front of him. He blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes used to the light. It took Marty almost a minute to realize that the two shadows standing in front of him were Doc and Clara.
"What time is it?" he mumbled, his voice hoarse from sleep.
"It's a little after 5:30," Doc said, leaning over and lighting a lamp. Marty could now see that they were both dressed in clothing from 1985. He felt a pang of homesickness wash over him. It seemed like ages since he had been in his own time.
"Are you going to 1985?" Marty asked yawning, remembering the familiar streets and people there. He thought of his girlfriend Jennifer, who he hadn't seen for what seemed ages.
"We need to purchase the house and get it ready for living in," Clara replied, standing with her crutches. Marty thought she looked much different without the long sweeping skirts that he had always seen her in. "We will be back in half an hour."
"Can I go with you?" he asked hopefully, suddenly feeling wide awake and getting to his feet.
Doc shook his head. "We'll be there for a few months, and their is too much of a risk of you running into yourself."
Marty sat down again, disappointment weighing heavily in his heart. "Then why did you wake me up for?"
Doc looked up. Marty followed his gaze and saw two heads, one blond, the other brown haired, peering out over the hayloft railing down at them. "Keep and eye on them to make sure they don't kill each other," he said softly, so that Jules and Verne could not hear him up in the loft.
"What gives you the idea that they will do that?" Marty asked, puzzled. If Doc was only going to be gone thirty minutes, why would he worry about something like that? "The fight about bedroom arrangements," Doc replied. He walked over to the door, casting one last glance at the hayloft before opening it. "Nothing should happen, though. We will be back in exactly half an hour."
The door was closed, leaving the room silent. Marty glanced up again, noticing that the loft was now empty. Where did they run off to so quickly? He shrugged and leaned back against the couch. A second later their was a loud crash, that sounded nothing like any of the time machines breaking the space and time barrier. It was immediately followed by shouts.
"You idiot!" Marty heard Jules yell. "That red paint will never get out of the floor!"
"You're the one who had to set it there!" Verne said back.
Marty stood up followed the voices to the lab. The scene that greeted him was a mess. Bright red paint was streaked across the barn floor, oozing into the cracks between the wood. Verne, still in his pajamas, had some paint dripping off him and was making another puddle on the floor. Jules stood a few feet away from the mess, his arms crossed and looking, Marty thought, a bit smug. But it was hard to tell in this lighting.
"What happened?" he asked incredulously, trying to figure out how well the paint would come out of the wood. Marty figured it really didn't matter much, since they would be moving soon.
"Jules opened the paint can and set it on the edge of the table," Verne explained, glaring over at his brother, who was trying to look nonchalant. "I was trying to reach past the can to get some CDs, when I bumped the paint can and it toppled off the table."
"Mother and Father certainly won't be pleased with the mess," Jules stated, staring over at his brother with a kind of superior air.
Verne looked over at Marty, his expression frantic. "Marty, will you help me clean this up before Mom and Pop come home?" he pleaded.
Marty looked at his watch. Barely three minutes had passed since Doc and Clara had left. That left them almost half an hour to try and clean it up. It amazed him how fast Jules and Verne could get into trouble. He tried counting the times since he had met them that they had fought or gotten into some kind of situation, and couldn't remember. Frowning for a moment, Marty though about what cleaned up paint. Would water work? It seemed to clean most everything else.
Ten minutes later, after scrubbing the floor with soapy water, the paint had failed to come out. Instead, it had smeared and made a bigger mess then it was before. Leaning back for a moment, Marty rubbed his right arm, which had begun to ache again. He looked over at Jules, who was was sitting in a chair and looking at Verne, who was still down on his knees and rubbing vigorously with a sponge on one patch of the floor. Was Marty imagining things, or was their a hint of amusement on Jules's face?
"What is it?" he finally asked. Jules jumped, and looked over at Marty, his face turning red. Apparently, he did not know that he was being watched.
"You are using the wrong thing to get paint out," he said after a moment. "Water will make it worse."
"Why didn't you tell us then?" Verne asked looking up and throwing the sponge down. He wiped his forehead leaving a watery red streak where his hand had been.
"Because I thought that it might eventually dawn on you that water and soap wouldn't work," Jules replied, rolling his eyes as if he couldn't believe that anyone would think water would get paint out of wood.
Verne slowly stood up. He walked over to the paint can, dipping his hands in the remaining liquid. Jules watched him, suspicion showing clearly on his face. Marty finally realized what Verne was up to when he began to walk over to Jules, his face expressionless except for a glint of revenge in his eyes, but by then he was too late to stop it.
Jules, keeping his eyes fixed on his brother, slowly smiled. "You wouldn't," he said doubtfully, leaning back in the chair as far as he could without tipping it over backwards.
"Wanna make a bet?" Verne asked, grinning wickedly as he waved his dripping red hands in the air. A second later, chaos erupted. Verne suddenly lunged for Jules, who leaned back so far trying to avoid the paint that the chair fell backwards and the wood cracked. Then, scrambling to his feet, Jules ran out of the room yelling, with Verne in pursuit. Marty, still kneeling down on the floor, heard the door slam and the barn was once again quiet. He quickly got to his feet and looked out the window. In the early morning sunlight, Marty saw Verne tackle Jules and rub his paint covered hands all over his face and clothes. When Verne finally got off his brother and ran back to the barn, Jules looked as though he had fallen in a puddle of the red paint. Marty shook his head and went to the door, where he met Verne, a triumphant grin plastered on his face.
"That wasn't very nice," Marty said, looking out the window as Jules was walking back toward the house. "Or very smart," he added, catching the expression on Jules's face. Verne was going to get it.
"He deserved it," Verne replied calmly, looking out at his brother. "He made both of us get down on our knees and try to get the paint out, all the while never telling us that we were using the wrong thing."
The door was suddenly flung open. Jules stood on the threshold for a moment, anger twisting his features. "You're dead!" he said softly to Verne, who was now hiding behind Marty.
"What are you gonna do?" Verne asked, smirking. "I'm already smeared in red paint, so that wouldn't be something you could do to me."
Jules was quiet for a moment, silently fuming. Marty looked down at his watch and realized that Doc and Clara were going to be back in less than fifteen minutes and the mess was now bigger than ever. Marty decided that he better settle this fight, or they'd never get anywhere.
"Look, Verne, why don't you apologise to your brother, then Jules can help us clean up the mess and tell us what the correct thing is to use to clean up paint."
Verne frowned. "I don't want to," he said pouting.
"Do it anyway," Marty said flatly, beginning to get a headache. How did Doc and Clara manage put up with this anyway?
"Fine," Verne sighed, sounding reluctant. He turned to Jules. "I'm sorry that I attacked you with the paint."
"Apology accepted," Jules muttered, stalking off to his room. "It's turpentine," he added over his shoulder.
"Turpentine?" Marty repeated, not getting it for a moment. Then he realized that turpentine was the chemical that removed paint. How could he have forgotten something that important!
The mess was cleaned up, with only five minutes left before Doc and Clara were due home. Marty, his arm hurting again where he had been shot, was walking back to the couch, when he tripped over something. He grabbed on the side of the couch with his right hand, saving himself from falling to the ground, but sending daggers of pain up his arm. Marty sucked in a deep breath and let go of the couch once he caught his balance, realizing that that arm was the one that had been shot at. He sat down and tentatively rubbed his arm, looking down to see what had tripped him. It was Lauren's diary.
Marty picked it up and opened it, the pages falling open to a certain place automatically. He just had to read a few sentences before he realized that Lauren was writing about her wedding. Marty remembered her invitation to come to it. He wondered if he should. It would be really neat to get to see your great-great-great-grandparents get married! But, knowing Doc, he probably wouldn't let Marty go for fear of some kind of time travel related problem. Unless, Marty thought, he didn't say anything about going. Then, technically, it wouldn't be lying.
"I'll do it!" Marty said out loud, just as he heard the front doorknob turn. It opened a second later.
"How did everything go?" Doc greeted him, entering the barn. Clara followed from behind without her crutches, which confused Marty for a minute until he realized that the both of them had spent a few months in 1985 and her ankle had healed.
"Fine. No problems," Marty lied, hiding the diary behind his back. He knew Doc might ask questions if it was seen.
"Did the boys fight at all?" Clara asked, sitting down in a chair and taking of the high heel pumps that she was wearing. She and Doc were still in their 1985 clothes.
"No, they were fine," Marty replied, crossing his fingers that the red paint was not noticeable. Most of it had come out, but some parts of the floor still had a reddish tint to it.
Clara looked surprised. "That's amazing," she marveled. "I can't believe they got through half an hour without fighting."
"So how was your trip?" Marty asked, wanting to change the subject as soon as possible. "Did you get the house?"
"The deal went through and the house has been remodeled," Doc said matter-of-factly. "It's all ready for moving in."
"Great," Marty said sincerely. It would be nice to have Doc and his family in town.
"We better get back in this time's clothing," Doc continued, looking over at Clara's, then his clothing. "We'll be back in a few minutes."
"Fine," Marty said, hoping he didn't sound over enthused about them leaving. Finally, he was going to be left alone to hide the diary and think of a believable excuse to sneak off to Lauren and Alexander's wedding. Marty couldn't think of one reason why it would be wrong to go to his great-great-great-grandparents wedding. What could possibly happen?
Saturday, August 10, 1861
12:35 P.M..
"By the powers invested in me, I now pronounce you man and wife," the plump, bald minister stated. "You may now kiss the bride."
Marty gave a sigh of relief as soon as the minister had said those words. Even though he was almost completely sure that no harm would result from going to the wedding, Marty was still afraid that for some reason Lauren would quit liking Alexander and start liking him again. But nothing happened. Lauren had asked him to escort her down the isle to give her away though. Marty, against his better judgement, did. He could just imagine what Doc Brown would say if he had known!
After the ceremony, the celebration got underway. Though Lauren had said that the wedding would be small, their were about 50 people there. Most were Confederate soldiers and the rest were some girl friends of Lauren's. Marty felt out of place as he stood alone while couples were dancing and talking. Lauren and Alexander looked like they had completely forgotten that he was there. At the moment they were dancing together and gazing into each other's eyes, looking as if they had no idea what was going on around them. Marty felt the strangest sense of deja vu as he looked at them. He had seen his parents look exactly like that in 1955 at the " Enchantment Under the Sea " dance. Marty turned around to leave and almost bumped into a soldier. He sidestepped him, but the soldier did the same. "Excuse me," Marty said, trying to get past the soldier.
A hand shot out and grabbed him firmly on the arm, right where his stitches were removed the day before. Wincing, Marty tried to remove himself from the vice-like grip of the hand, then looked up. Captain Tannen was glaring down at him. "You ain't going anywhere!" he hissed, dragging Marty out onto the deserted covered porch. The wedding was being held at Mr. and Mrs. Baines's house, which was quite large. The covered porch was on the other side of the house from the living room, where everyone was gathered eating and dancing. Marty did not like the idea that if Captain Tannen wanted to do something to him, no one would hear him. Probably no one would even notice he was gone until it was too late.
"What is it?" Marty asked, trying not to sound like he suspected anything was wrong.
"Where is she?" Tannen asked, shoving his face into Marty's. Marty could clearly smell the wine that was being served at the wedding on Captain Tannen's breath.
"Who?" Marty asked, playing dumb. Even though Clara was now safe ten miles away, why should he tell Captain Tannen where she was?
"You know who!" Tannen said, shaking Marty. "Now where is she?" "I really don't know who you are talking about," Marty said again, trying to keep the fear out of his voice. If Captain Tannen had a temper even the slightest bit like his ansisters, it would be best to get away from him, and fast!
"You better give me a straight answer, or else you're going to get a bullet down you're throat," Tannen said menacingly, "and that won't be a pretty sight!" Marty swallowed. Captain Tannen was already reaching for the old Civil War pistol that he was wearing. From his experiences, Marty thought it was a bad idea for Tannens to get their hands on guns. Each time they had, he would almost ended up getting killed.
"What if I don't know where she is?" Marty asked, a plan forming in his head. Captain Tannen wouldn't kill him if he didn't know anything, would he?
"What do you mean you don't know anything?" Tannen asked suspiciously, loosing his grip on Marty and taking a step back.
"Just what I said," Marty lied, hoping that Captain Tannen would believe him. "The last time I saw her was in the woods. She and I got separated and I haven't seen her since."
Captain Tannen looked piercingly at him for a moment. "You ain't telling me a fib are ya?"
Marty shook his head. "No, I swear. She must still be lost in the woods."
Captain Tannen took another step back. Marty held his breath, hoping that Captain Tannen would decide to go and give Marty enough time to get as far away from the wedding as possible!
"If she is lost in the woods," Tannen said calmly, beginning to advance on Marty again, "then how come I saw her - with you - last Sunday?"
Marty backed up slowly until he was pressed firmly against the tree. Captain Tannen lips were curled back in an evil sneer. "Now," Tannen began quietly, his eyes filled with rage, "why don't you tell me where she is?"
"What if I don't?" Marty challenged, wishing that someone would come out and interrupt this.
Captain Tannen grabbed Marty's throat with both hands and lifted him six inches off the ground. "Then I squeeze," he whispered in a deadly voice.
Marty gasped for air and looked frantically around for a distraction, any kind of distraction, that would get Captain Tannen away for him for just a second. He found none and began to struggle, trying to get out of the deadly grip that Tannen had him in. Marty happened to catch a glimpse of Captain Tannen's face. He had a kind of satanic looking grin on his face. Marty knew he was probably enjoying ever minute of this, something that didn't give Marty any comfort. Captain Tannen, by the way he had his hands already tightened around his neck, wasn't apparently going to wait for Marty to tell him where Clara was.
Just as Marty was about to give all hope of getting out of this situation alive, the impossible happened. A rustling of branches was heard above Captain Tannen's head. Marty heard a chirp. A bird must have landed. He wondered if that chirp was the last sound he would ever hear. Tannen either didn't hear the noise, or else he was too intent on killing Marty. At any rate, he didn't see the bird. A second later something dropped down and hit Captain Tannen directly in the eyes. He let out a yell of rage and surprise, dropping Marty to the ground and trying to wipe the bird sludge out of his eyes.
Marty, glad for the distraction, scrambled to his feet and ran to the room where the wedding reception was being held. He fought against the violent dizziness that probably came from running too fast when he was already out of air. As soon as Marty was in the room where all the people were, he collapsed down in a chair that was against one wall and struggled to catch his breath. After a moment his dizziness subsided and Marty looked around, making sure that Captain Tannen wasn't following him. Marty was just beginning to relax when he caught sight of him, at the other end of the room with the white gook from the bird smeared all over his face. Marty stood up and quickly walked behind some people, hoping that Tannen wouldn't see him in the crowded room. Captain Tannen pushed his way past people and ignored the stares that everyone was giving him.
Marty edged over to where Lauren and Alexander were, which was the refreshment table. A three layer cake covered with pink icing and decorated with fresh sliced strawberries was sitting behind them, with a knife resting next to it. So far Captain Tannen didn't appear to see him, but that could change at any moment. Marty quickly ducked as Tannen swung his head over in his direction. He waited a minute before looking up again and gave a sigh of relief when Captain Tannen was looking the opposite direction. But suddenly Captain Tannen spun around and looked directly at Marty, not giving him any time to duck or hide. Captain Tannen smiled maliciously and began to make his way across the room. Marty looked around for some sort of way to get out of this place quickly. He saw immediately that it was impossible. To reach the only door he would have to go past Captain Tannen. No way was he doing that!
Captain Tannen continued to cross the room. Marty looked around for a way to defend himself and found none. He finally decided to move to the other side of the table, since their was a window behind it. If worst came to worst, he could always jump through the window, just like people did in movies.
Captain Tannen finally reached the table, standing on the other side of the cake. "You are dead meat!" he hissed, lunging for Marty. Marty took a few steps back and Captain Tannen missed. Tannen then lost his balance, falling on the cake, which squirted pink icing across the room, and causing the table to collapse in a heap. All the refreshments crashed down right on top of Captain Tannen. Everyone in the room was staring in shocked silence at the mess. A few minutes passed before anyone spoke.
"What did you do?" Lauren asked Marty, looking at him in astonishment.
"Nothing," Marty replied. At least that was true. "He just tripped, I guess."
Captain Tannen glared up at him. "I'll show you tripped!" he roared, climbing to his feet and ignoring the food that was covering him from head to toe. Marty decided that this would be the perfect time to escape. He darted across the room, pushing his way past the crowd, and burst outside into the bright summer day running as fast as his legs could carry him.
Less then five seconds later, Marty heard heavy pounding footsteps behind him. He tried increasing his speed, but couldn't run any faster. He was already gasping for air. Marty dodged a large pile of horse manure that was heaped on the side of the road. Maybe if he went in the woods, Captain Tannen would decide not to go after him. It was worth a try.
Before Marty had a chance to even get one foot in the wooded area, he heard a gasp, then a sickening splat from behind. He cast a quick glance behind him and saw that Captain Tannen had landed face down in the horse manure. Marty stopped and stared at him for a moment, too surprised to do anything. Then, when he saw Captain Tannen make a move to get up, bolted off again, running in the direction where Doc's barn was. Marty was pretty sure that Captain Tannen wouldn't be able to follow him, at least not ten miles.
When the house was only about the height of a pencil eraser on the horizon, Marty stopped running and tried to breathe normally. Captain Tannen didn't appear to be following him and it was only took a couple of hours to walk back to Doc Brown's barn. Thinking of Doc reminded Marty that he better quicken his stride to get back before three o' clock. Marty had never thought of a good excuse to go to the wedding. He was about ready to just sneak off and suffer the consequences later, but then last night Doc had told him that he was taking the family to 1985 so they could move in. They were going to leave at ten and not be be back until exactly three. Only Doc would return, since later this evening he was going to take Marty back to 1985 again! Marty couldn't wait!
As he walked down the road to the place that his been his home for the past few weeks, Marty couldn't help remembering when he thought that nothing would happen if he went to the wedding. Almost getting killed, indirectly ruining the refreshment table, then getting chased wasn't exactly what he had in mind. Perhaps Doc was right when he said that interfering in history like that was bad.
Saturday, November 2, 1985
3:00A.M.
Hill Valley, California
Marty stepped out of the DeLorean and paused before shutting the door. "Don't forget, I'll be coming over tomorrow afternoon to help you guys unpack," he told Doc. Doc nodded.
"The boys can't wait to give you a tour of the house and see what we've done for it," Doc said, leaning over the passenger seat. "You probably won't even recognize the old farmhouse."
Marty shrugged and shut the door, watching the car disappear down the dark street. The farmhouse wouldn't look that different, he was willing to bet. Marty looked around where Doc had dropped him off, at the entrance of his neighborhood, Lyon Estates. It looked the same as it always had, along with everything else he had seen so far in his time.
It took Marty only a few minutes to walk to his house. He quietly opened the gate that led to the backyard and shut it behind him. Marty walked a few more steps then eased his window open, first looking in to make sure that he was not making the same mistake he had when 1985 had changed and he had almost gotten hit with a baseball bat when he had tried the same thing. The house had turned out to belong someone else. Marty had left a lamp on next to his bed when he had left to meet Doc, having no idea what was going to happen, and from what he could tell, it was his room. He lifted himself up and climbed through the window and as he swung his legs over, they caught the edge of a lamp that was on his desk. The lamp crashed to the floor, taking a ceramic jar that was full of pencils and markers with it. The jar broke, scattering the things in it and the pieces from it across the floor. The lamp's bulb shattered into thousands of glass shreds, as it hit the side of the desk.
Marty silently cursed himself. How could he have been such a klutz? He didn't have that much time to think it over though. A few seconds after all the stuff hit the floor, Marty heard a door out in the hall open and footsteps come toward his room. He knew that if he was discovered sneaking back in his room in the middle of the night his parents might decide to punish him, one way or another. Marty looked quickly around his room. What could he do? Suddenly he had an idea.
The footsteps were coming closer. As quickly and as quietly as he could manage to be, Marty slid off the desk and leaped on his bed, laying down and pulling the blankets up to his chin so that whoever might be coming in would not see that he was fully dressed. Just in time. The door began to open and Marty caught a glimpse of his mother entering his room before he shut his eyes, pretending to be asleep. Marty heard his mother pause and the room was silent. He realized he was holding his breath and he let it out slowly. After a moment, Marty heard his mother cross the room and heard a crunching sound as she stepped on the remains of either the light bulb or the jar. Their was a rustling sound, then a metallic sounding thunk as the lamp was probably set on the desk. Their was another pause, this one longer, and Marty could feel a tingling sensation at the back of his neck. He knew, without even opening his eyes, that his mom was looking at him. Marty tried to steady his breathing and relax, though he felt like he wanted to bolt and was therefore tense.
Their was a sound that was probably the window being shut, then the footsteps went out of the room. Marty waited a few seconds before opening his eyes, just in case his mother was still in the room. The room was empty, but just as he was about to get out of the bed, the door suddenly opened and Marty barely had time to lie down again before his mother entered the room. This time he caught a glimpse of him mother holding a Dustbuster and a garbage bag, probably to clean up the busted jar and light bulb. Marty heard his mother run the dustbuster, then a rhythmic clinking sound as the large pieces from the jar were put in the garbage bag. There was then another long lengthily silence.
During this time, Marty began to finally feel relaxed. His breathing slowed without him consciously making it and his mind drifted to other things, beginning to think about the present time. It was nice not having to worry about the past or the future and paradoxes. Marty tried to figure out exactly how much time he had spent in the past, and gave up. It was too late, he was tired, and with all the complications that had happened, he had kind of lost track of the days. All Marty knew was that it was about two weeks. He wondered if that meant he would die two weeks earlier than he was supposed to in the future. Marty pushed these thoughts out of his head. What was his mom doing now? She seemed to be taking forever in here. Marty shifted position and realized how comfortable his bed was compared to that lumpy couch and hay back in 1861. That was his last conscious thought.
Lorraine McFly frowned as she looked out the window. Who on earth knocked over the lamp and jar? Outside, she saw nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps the wind had knocked over the things.
Lorraine turned around and looked at Marty. She was surprised that he was not woken up by the things breaking. She was also wondering why his bedside lamp had been on when she had entered the room. Lorraine decided to wake him up and question him about it.
"Marty," she whispered. "Wake up."
Marty stirred slightly. "Which time are we in now?" he mumbled, his eyes still closed.
Lorraine frowned. "Which time?" she repeated confused. "What do you mean?"
Marty didn't answer. Lorraine shrugged and turned around to pick up the garbage bag. She glanced out the window and noticed a picture beneath it. She leaned closer to look at it and saw that it showed Marty with his friend Doctor Brown. They were both dressed in historic western clothes and standing in front of the courthouse clock, minus the courthouse. It looked like it was authentic, but it surely couldn't be! Lorraine turned away, the photograph reminding her that she needed to sort through some old paperwork and photographs from Great-Great-Grandmother Lauren. Lorraine walked over to the door, switching the lamp off on her way out, and deciding that now would be the best time to look through those old family heirlooms. Who knew? Perhaps their would be something really amazing in one of those old boxes.
The sound of a lawnmower was the first thing Marty heard when he opened his eyes. The sun was shining brightly through the window and the sky appeared clear. Marty sat up and stretched, looking over at the clock. It was almost eleven. His eyes widened, remembering that he was supposed to meet Doc over at his new house at 11:30. Marty threw back the blankets and quickly changed clothes, since the other ones were all wrinkled. He opened his door and rushed down the hall to the kitchen. Marty had just grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, when he stopped short in the living room. His mother looked up from the pile of old photographs that she was sorting.
"Good morning," she said, glancing over at the clock. "You certainly slept in late."
"I was, um, studying for a test until two in the morning," Marty said, looking down at the photographs. It only took second for him to realize that they were from Lauren and Alexander's wedding in 1861. "What are you doing?"
His mom looked down at the pictures, then at a battered box that had papers and more photos in it. "Last night, around three AM, I heard this crashing sound. I thought it might had been someone breaking in, so I got up and went to check in your room, where the noises seemed to come from. Your light was on and the window was wide open. The lamp and the pencil jar were both on the floor broken."
"Really?" Marty asked innocently, sitting down on the armchair. "What did you do?"
"I cleaned up the broken glass first," his mother replied. "I was kind of surprised that no one else woke up from the sound. You were even in the same room and the crashes didn't seem to bother you. I looked out the window to see if their was any trace of the person outside."
"It could have been a cat or something like that," Marty suggested, taking a bite out of the apple.
"I suppose it could have been," Mom admitted. "I never thought of that. Did you leave your window open last night?"
"I can't remember," Marty replied, figuring that was the safest answer. "What does what happened last night have to do with what you are doing now?"
"I was getting to that," Mom explained. "I was about to leave your room when I noticed an interesting photograph above your desk. It looked like you and that Doctor Brown were in the old west posing with the courthouse clock in the 1880's. Where on earth did you get that anyway?"
Marty gulped. Why did his mom have to see that picture? At least she didn't say anything about the inscription at the bottom. That would have been hard to explain, since it said the day and year.
"Oh, that was taken in one of those simulation booths that they have at fairs," he said after a few seconds of fast thinking.
His mom frowned. "That would explain it. Those people must be very good at making the photographs. It looks so authentic, like you were both really there. But," Mom said smiling, "that would be impossible. Right?"
Marty smiled weakly back. If only she knew. "Right."
"Well," his mother continued, "the picture reminded me that I needed to go through Great-Great-Grandmother Lauren's things. So I got dressed, since I felt wide awake and wanted to make sure the burglar didn't return, and climbed up into the attic to get the box."
"Find anything interesting?" Marty asked, relaxing now that they were past the questions about the picture from 1885. He took another bite out of the apple.
Mom looked down at the photograph in her hand, which looked like a picture of the bride and groom dancing, and frowned again. "Actually yes. This is a picture of Great-Great-Grandmother and Grandfather dancing at their wedding. I couldn't help noticing this figure in the background."
Mom handed the picture to Marty and pointed to someone standing against the wall. Marty only took a quick glance at it before recognizing that person as him!
"Strange how that person looks like you, isn't it?" his mother remarked, not noticing the expression on her son's face. "I looked on the back and it said that person's name was Rhett Butler. I never thought anyone had that name. It's straight out of 'Gone With the Wind'."
Marty choked on the piece of apple he had been chewing and began to cough. His mom looked at him in concern. "Are you okay?"
Marty swallowed hard. "Fine," he gasped, deciding that he better get on over to Doc's new house before his mother noticed anything else strange. "I gotta go now. I have to meet a friend."
"Okay, have fun," she said, looking down at the pictures again. Marty was about to go out of the door when she looked up again, directly into his face. Mom frowned again. Marty was beginning to dread that look.
"What happened to your head?" she asked, pointing to his forehead where the small scar was from the stitches.
"I scratched myself a few days before," Marty replied, then stepped quickly out of the house, shutting the door behind him before his mom noticed anything else that was left over from his trips through time. Those questions had been too close for comfort!
It took only fifteen minutes to walk to the neighborhood where the house that Doc had bought was. Marty wasn't quite sure what to expect with the house. In each place that Doc had lived, even for a little while, he always made inventions that did the simplest things. Marty could only speculate on what the house was like. For all he knew, it could be floating five feet off the ground and have buttons that needed to be pushed to take out the trash. But to his surprise, it looked absolutely normal on the exterior. In fact, he almost walked right past it without a second glance. It was only the mailbox that caught his attention. It looked exactly like a normal mailbox and read in perfectly normal writing 'The Browns'. The house looked brand new, with all the windows and everything repaired. It was painted white with cream colored trim and a red roof. The house was about two or three stories tall and about fifty feet away from it was a detached garage that looked more like a barn except that it wasn't as tall. The house appeared to be on a kind of rise, with a set of huge doors that looked like they could let a truck through next to the house, built into the ground. The doors were on the side where the garage was. The only thing that looked kind of unusual was the fact that train tracks were coming from under that door. Marty was willing to bet that the train was in there. Doc had certainly done lots of work on the old place.
Their was a dirt path that lead from the sidewalk to the door. Marty guessed that their hadn't been enough time to pave it yet, although flowers were planted along both sides of it. He walked up the path and on to the porch, stepping up to the door and knocking hesitantly. Almost immediately pounding footsteps were heard, and the door was thrown open by Verne.
"Hi, come on it," he said. Marty thought Verne looked much different wearing 1985 clothing. He looked more like a normal kid than one that had spent his life traveling through time, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, though he still wore that coon skin cap.
Marty stepped inside and Verne closed the door behind him. The entryway looked normal, with a hardwood floor and a coat rack in one corner. The door had glass panels next to it on each side and white curtains that were semi-transparent were covering the windows. The entryway looked much better than the last time Marty had seen it. Once, on a dare, he had gone into the house on Halloween a few years back. All the windows were broken and their were cobwebs and spiders everywhere. As far as Marty could tell, their wasn't a cobweb or speck of dust anywhere now.
"Where's the rest of your family?" he asked Verne, was looking out the window.
"Jules and Pop are in the lab and Mom is in the backyard, working on her garden," Verne replied, turning around.
"Is the lab in that garage?" Marty asked, remembering what Doc had said in 1861 about that.
"Yeah. Want me to show you to it?" Verne replied, looking hopeful.
"Sure," Marty agreed and followed Verne as he went to the back of the house and opened the back door. Marty caught a quick glimpse of the kitchen as they walked through it. It had been thoroughly modernized, with a microwave, gas stove, and a TV resting on the counter. A dishwasher, which was running, and what looked like a trash compactor were installed along with gleaming white countertops. On the refrigerator was what looked like a miniature TV screen with a small clear glass hole built in above the blank screen. Marty didn't have much time to figure out what that was though. A second later they were in the backyard. Clara was kneeling on the ground and weeding a garden. She was wearing jeans with holes in the knees and a mud smeared T-shirt. Her hair was pulled up, however, so Marty thought she still looked kind of old fashioned except for the fact that she had a walkman strapped to her waist and was listening to it. Clara didn't even look up as they passed.
"What's Doc working on now?" Marty asked as they reached the garage. He didn't want to interrupt anything important.
Verne shrugged. "I don't know. We'll find out in a second though."
He pushed open the normal sized door next to the large barn looking ones and strode inside. Marty followed.
The first thing he saw was the DeLorean, it's sleek silver finish gleaming in the overhead lights. It sat silent, a few feet away from the double doors. The rest of the garage was occupied by tables that were crammed full of gadgets and pieces of things. Typical, thought Marty. Doc and Jules were both bent over something on one of the tables, but as soon as he and Verne entered, they both turned around.
"What are you doing in here?" Jules said to Verne as he trotted on over to the both of them. "I thought you'd be plugged into one of your computer games."
"You thought wrong," Verne replied, hopping up on the table and sitting down. "I'm showing Marty around, in case you didn't notice."
"Of course I noticed. I'm not blind," Jules stated, then turned toward Marty. "Hello Martin," he said formally, as if no words had been exchanged by him and his brother seconds before.
"Hi. What are you guys doing?" Marty replied, walking over to the table and peering over Doc's shoulder. It looked like a mass of tangled wires to him.
"We're adjusting the garbage disposal's wires that control the blade," Doc said.
"Why? What's wrong with it?" Marty asked, looking up.
"It takes too long to chop the food up," Jules replied, picking up a screwdriver and poking the tangled wires with it.
Marty was confused. "If it takes too long to chop up the food, why don't you just get a new blade?"
"The blade is brand new," Doc replied. "The wires control how fast the blade spins. The faster it spins, the quicker the food goes down."
"Oh," Marty said. He decided to change the subject, since he didn't know anything about garbage disposals except they prevented the drain from clogging and were great at twisting spoons. The last thing he wanted to do was to have an in-depth discussion about them. "So what exactly have you done to the house? I saw the entryway, a hallway, and a fleeting sight of the kitchen so far."
Doc picked up the wires and slipped them into a pocket in the lab coat he was wearing. "I'll show you. It is fascinating how these old houses can be re-modeled." He gestured for all of them to follow him as he walked to a corner of the room.
"First," Doc said, bending down, "I will show you where the train is stored. The builders we hired to do this thought we were crazy to want train tracks down here. Of course, I never told them why." He rolled back an old rug that was covering the corner and a trap door was underneath with wooden stairs leading down into darkness. Doc grabbed a flashlight off a nearby table and descended down them, with Jules and Verne following. Marty hesitated before following them down. How could a train fit down there? He decided their was only one way to find out and stepped down into the endless blackness.
Their were about twenty steps and they were steep! Marty tripped once and if it hadn't been for a banister that he saw with the dim light the flashlight gave out, he would have knocked everyone else down the stairs. By the time he reached the bottom and walked through a long narrow hall, the whole room was lit up with lights that looked like lanterns. The lights were hanging from the ceiling and the beams that were there. The floor, ceiling, and walls were all packed dirt. The train, resting on a pair of tracks, was taking up only half the room. The rest was almost empty. The tracks went up a small slope to the door, where they went under them.
"Are we under the house?" Marty asked, looking up as the ceiling creaked and a light dusting of dirt fell down.
"Correct," Doc replied. He waved toward the doors. "The train goes through those doors and by the time the tracks end, ten feet out, the train is in flight and can then proceed to travel through time."
"What if someone sees the train fly, then disappear?" Marty said, walking over to the doors and peering through the narrow crack that was between the two doors. All he saw were some trees and bright sunlight that caused him to squint.
"That is why we will only use the train in time emergencies or at night. I have already taught the boys and Clara how to use it, just in case. I'll teach you in a day or two also," Doc explained, walking around the train in a circle and examining it. "It looks much harder then it really is."
"Can we show Marty the rest of the house?" Verne asked impatiently.
"Sure." Doc turned away from the train and walked toward the stairs. "Are you coming?" he asked Marty, who was still looking around the room.
"Yeah," Marty said, walking over through the hallway, casting one last glance at the room before Doc shut off the lights and it was dark, except for a slim shaft of sunlight that came from under and between the doors.
In the next fifteen minutes, Marty saw the living room, the upstairs, and the bedrooms. The room that Jules and Verne were sharing looked strange. The room was divided up with a white line that went up the door, on the floor, and on the walls and a window. One half was messy with clothing, toys and other stuff lying in heaps on the floor. The bed was unmade and the desk was covered with papers and other things. The window on that half even had a hole in it.
"I accidentally misjudged the distance for throwing a baseball," Verne explained when Marty asked him about it. "It should be fixed soon."
The other half of the room had nothing on the floor. The bed was neatly made and the desk had everything neatly in it's place.
"Talk about conflicting personalities," Marty murmured, looking around. The sides were totally different. Even the posters were different. Verne's were of rock stars and sports, with all hanging cockeyed and crooked. Jules had ones having to do with science and math and every one was straight and even.
The tour of the house ended in the kitchen. Doc explained to him what that TV looking device on the refrigerator was.
"This is where we leave messages. You stand exactly three feet away from it, and press the button marked record." Doc did just that. "Next you leave a short message and when you are done, press save. A red light then will begin to blink and when you play it back, you will see the person giving the message."
Doc pressed the button marked 'message'. A second later, he was on the small screen, saying exactly what he had a minute before. At the bottom of the screen was the day and time.
"Do you use batteries on this?" Marty asked, fascinated. He had never seen anything like this.
"No, I tapped into the wiring on the refrigerator so this is electrically powered," Doc said, walking over to the kitchen sink, taking out the wire blob and setting it on the counter.
"What is everyone doing?" Clara asked, walking into the kitchen. Marty noticed that she was still wearing the walkman and gardening clothes. She was holding a glass of lemonade in one hand, and a pair of gardening gloves in the other.
"We're showing Marty around the house," Verne said, bounding over to his mom.
"Oh. What do you think of it?" Clara said, turning to Marty.
"It's cool how you guys changed this old place," Marty replied, remembering the run down dusty place it had been before.
Clara smiled and turned to Doc. The two of them began to talk about something and Marty thought once again how lucky he was to have Doc live so close. He looked over at Jules and Verne, both listening to what was being said between their parents. Marty smiled, thinking of the days that lay ahead for all of them. He remembered what Doc had told him once, that you could make your future whatever you wanted it to be. Marty could only wonder what lay ahead for them all.