The Grisly Ghosts of Gruesome Time – Chapter 8

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“You’re a difficult man to follow, Mr. Hardcase.”

“So is a shadow on a cloudy day and yet you found me, Ms. Bacon.”

She held up what could only be described as a credit card, but the way she was holding it made Joey think it wasn’t just a credit card, but a gun. “Hardcase, Joey Hardcase, oh how I hit a lucky break pulling you into the scene.”

Joey activated the time disk only to find he was still in front of Miles Files Security in the years 2050. “Nuts.”

“You couldn’t have jumped more than 500 times already?”

“I lost count after I started running into talking animals.”

Keeping the credit card trained on Joey, Crystal reached into her purse and tossed him another time disk. “Here, take it.”

Comparing the two, even his untrained eye could see that they were exactly the same. He sighed, “I’m tired of asking questions and not getting answers.”

“There’s a bomb in your brain.”

Taking a breath, Joey could feel his mind begin to unravel at the insanity of the last few hours, days? Was it weeks even? How long had he been dealing with this whole mess? Time travel, inter-dimensional beings, and cops to enforce laws on them? He’s from the past, but he only has memories of the present-day, or what he considers to be present-day since time travel has wropped any sense of the forward progress of time itself.

Now, now he has a bomb in his brain.

A laugh trickled out from his splintered soul that almost overwhelmed the hardnosed detective. He pulled back the riotous laughter, a giggle built on madness, and took deep breaths. He looked around the vacant street. A heavy fog had set in, making the lamp posts in the distance appear to be giants who all were having really good ideas. “There’s a bomb in my brain?” He took some fast steps toward Crystal and knocked the credit card gun out of her hand, and like a madman, scrambled to pick it up. He pointed it at his client and said, “This is a credit card.”

“Of course it is.”

“I thought it was a gun.”

“Because I wanted you to think that, seeing as we’re in what you would think to be the ‘future’ I thought I would take advantage of the situation.” She pulled from her large coat sleeve a small revolver. She pointed it at Joey. “This is actually a gun.”

He threw the credit card away. “I figured as such.” He looked at the time disk in his hand and back at Crystal. “I don’t believe for a moment that there’s a bomb in my brain.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because you’re a known liar and crazy person.”

“The tooth fairy planted it through your ear while you were asleep last night.”

“You listen to me you damn zigzag of a human being: Do it.”

A perplexed look crossed Crystal’s face as she grinned saying, “Excuse me?”

“If there’s a bomb, use it. I’m done with all of this.”

“The detonator has a maximum range of…” Her words stopped trying to exit her brain as she watched Hardcase walk right up to the gun she was holding. “…a maximum range of…”

He looked down at her and said, “Good thing I’m still here then. Push it.” The two stood in the silent street. Seconds dragged by, but he knew he was onto something as he reached for the gun she was holding on him and took it away from her. “Old Joey Hardcase didn’t pass math, ever, but he knows how to put two and two together, you see.” He held up the Time Disk that Crystal had given him. “Time Cops…”

“Multiverse Marsh...”

He waved away the comment. “Whatever! They don’t want me running around. They want me with them all the time, otherwise, I’m sittin’ on the sidelines in 40’s. You, you want me running around. That’s why I was able to get that there disk from John. He didn’t try to get it back.”

A slight panic crept into her voice as she said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but I must go…” She turned to leave only to have Joey grab her arm. “You’re hurting me, Joey.”

“And you turned my life into a bad line in a first draft dime store novel. Literally. I read it and it was bad! So either you start making sense or so help me I will make sure that the bullet in this gun keeps you in this timeline forever.”

“When the mole people contacted me…”

He bit through her response. “Cut it with these bullshit theories, Crystal!”

Her eyes stared through him as she calmly said, “Your brain, it opens doors, Hardcase. With every jump through time, you open the door for that timeline to flow into another timeline.”

He glanced down at the time disk. “Every time I jump?”

“Every. Time.” She felt his grip lighten and took the opportunity to pull her arm away. She took out another time disk from her coat sleeve. “Everyone reacts differently to the flow of time. Yours is just the perfect distraction.”

Joey thumbed back the hammer on the gun. “Did you know that this would happen?”

“It was a happy accident. I just happened to find the one person who could keep the authorities off my back while I arrange my dealings.” The heavy click of the hammer striking metal didn’t make Crystal flinch. “And that gun is a dummy. Much like the man holding it.” She held up the disk, tapped it, and before she faded away said, “Keep jumping.”

The detective threw the dummy gun against the wall. He pulled out the time disk. How could he be so sure that what she was saying was true? She lies, all the time. He mulled her final line again in his head as he rubbed the device in his hand.

How in the hell was he going to get back to his own time without destroying everything?

[To be continued next Thursday on Fulgurites]

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Text © 2022 by Nick Mazmanian.

Header image by Erica Drayton.