"Tremors in Time"

Synopsis: Doc Brown takes Marty back with him to San Francisco, 1906, with the intention of getting Clara a special birthday gift -- a custom-made clock -- at a place that will soon go out of buisness. While waiting for the clock to be made, the two of them stay at the Parker Palace, an elegant hotel that happens to be owned by ancestors of Marty's girlfriend. It is there Marty meets Jane Parker, the daughter of the hotel owner and a young woman who bears an uncanny resemblance to his girlfriend, Jennifer, at home. Having had an argument recently with his girlfriend, Marty finds himself instantly attracted to Jane and the feeling is mutual. Unfortunately, neither Doc Brown nor Marty realize the significance of their arrival date -- April 17th -- until it is too late. The devastating earthquake hits the city early the following morning, but Doc and Marty are able to come away from it without harm. Unfortunately, shortly after the quake, Jane is killed in an accident, leaving Marty grief-stricken and guilt-ridden. Later, after they return home, the trauma of experiencing the 8.3 earthquake, gives Marty a bad case of insomnia. Doc decides the best thing to do is go back to April 18th and experiance the quake again, with the idea that Marty facing his fear will cure him of it. But Marty has different plans. After the quake hits, he slips away to the crippled city to see Jane again and this time do what he didn't the first time -- save her life. When he and Doc return to the future, they discover an empty and dead version of their hometown. Research turns up that Jane Parker's subsequent life has had far reaching effects on the entire history of the world. Which leaves only one option to put history back....

Length: Approximately 53,000 words.

Written: July 1994 - August 1994

Revised: January 1997 - February 1997; July 1999 - August 1999

What's New in '99: This story has been calling for a revision for a while and more than doubled in length during the process. Among the additions -- more details on the circumstances of Marty and Jennifer's argument, a new cause to the alternate reality, and a new alternate reality. Almost all the words and plots in this tale have been rewritten and modified as well, adding to the length of time that this revision has taken me to do, as well as the length of the story. (Now, it's more than novel length.) I think the additions and changes work well and am rather pleased with the results. Hopefully those who've liked this story in the past (it's one of the ones I've gotten the most e-mail on, along with "The Pair O' Docs") will be satisfied with the changes and not come after me with any sharp kitchen objects. :-)

Author's Notes: The title of this story was one of my favorite ones of all the stories I have titled. (Some other fave titles of mine, "The Pair O Docs" and "Partners In Time?", are both from a piece of music in BTTF2 and an inscription in BTTF3, resp.) I came up with the title a month or so after starting the story, in mid-August 1994. At the time, my family was on a vacation in Walt Disney World. While waiting for the fireworks to start our first night there, I tossed around a couple title ideas. Two of them seemed promising, so I wrote them down before I could forget them. They were: "The Troubles with Time Tripping" and "Tremors in Time." I liked the second choice much better! This story came very easily to me and was one of the quickest ones to write in it's original incarnation (along with being the shortest... originally). I think the seed of it was planted when I went through an earthquake myself, back in March of 1993. The "Spring Break Quake" hit a little after 5:30AM in Portland, Oregon and measured about 5.6 on the richter scale. Since earthquakes are extremely rare up here, I was terrified! But it was great "research" for this story, I suppose. Strangely enough, just a couple weeks before starting the revisions on this story in July of '99, I felt another earthquake in my hometown -- but this one so mild that most in my town didn't notice it at all. The "new" alternate reality in this story was rather interesting to write and something I'd been wanting to do for a while. After a disturbing course in the 10th grade and viewing even more disturbing films related to the matter that causes this reality (never, ever view the films Testament or The Day After unless you want to be really depressed later!), I suddenly had an intense fear of.... well, you'll know if you've read the story, as this alternate reality is kind of my idea of Hell On Earth. It's kind of scary to me still, as this really did almost happen. Real life horror frightens me more than any movie monster. At any rate, I hope this new reality isn't considered too cliche. The manual Marty finds in a newspaper in the alternate reality really does exist; I found it on the Internet, complete with the text and illustrations. I found it amusing in a dark, disturbing way.... I've been asked a lot of times from many, many people over the years if I've seen an episode of "Star Trek" called "The City on the Edge of Forever." Apparently, it bears a great resemblance to this story --- but that's just pure coincidence. I've never seen that episode of "Star Trek" and, in fact, have avoided watching "Star Trek" for as long as I can recall, despite having my dad and brother as fans of the various ST series and an aunt who was such a Trekkie that she ran a fan club for it in the 1960's. Hope this settles the debate, once and for all. :-) In the realm of creepy coincidences.... The Internet has been a wonderful Godsend these last few months as I've revised my stories, allowing me to punch up information on various historic events/times/questions at any hour of the day. I found an excellent site about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake that included photographs, newspaper articles from that time, information, even casualty lists. On a casual perusal of the site, when I first discovered it, I found a Miss Jean Parker on the casualty list and a photograph of a destroyed hotel called the Palace hotel. Enough to make me chuckle a little.

CHAPTERS 1 - 7 CHAPTERS 8 - 14