The Happy Haven by James Gerard (e ink manga reader TXT) 📕

“What are you talking…?”

“Scott?  What…” screamed Kevin, “…I swear Bill if that pathetic loser intends to stop us I swear I’ll blow your head off right now.”

Bill whimpered, “It’s not Scott that’s going to stop us.”

“You told the representative!”

Bill took a deep breath then stammered, “Please Kevin… I swear to God I didn’t.”

Kevin laughed.  “Swear to God?  Now that’s funny.”

“Come on Kevin,” screamed Terry, “we don’t have time for this.  We’ll just wipe him and Scott out of existence with the rest of them.  Paul, barricade the door now!”

Paul did not budge.  “Just let him go,” he pleaded.

Kevin cocked the hammer and stared intently at the target.

“Please Kevin, will you listen to me,” begged Bill.  “He will not let you do this.  He’ll never allow us to have the knowledge this way.” 

“What knowledge?  Who’s going to deny us the knowledge?”

Bill looked at Paul hoping that his friend would come to his senses, but saw the look of terror that arose from Kevin’s illogical words spewing out of the irrational thoughts and stood frozen in place.

“One more time Bill,” Kevin said with a smile, “Who is going to deny us this?”

Bill stared directly down the barrel and whispered, “God.”

Kevin lunged forward thrusting the end of the barrel to his forehead.  “What did you say?”

“Please Kevin, I don’t…I can’t explain…he just will not let us get away with it.”

“God?” laughed Kevin, “you’re telling me that you believe in God?”

The sounds of sirens were heard as if they were just outside the door.  Terry ran up to Kevin.  “We have to go now!”

Kevin looked at Terry, then to Paul.  The trigger finger loosened.  The arm dropped.  Kevin stepped backwards into the perimeter.  “Give us the date and time Bill.”

“I’m telling you please Kevin, don’t do this.”

The sirens faded off into the distance.  Paul grabbed a camera from a bag laying in the perimeter and ran over to Bill.  “Look.”

Bill stared at the digital image framed in the camera.  Eyes looked at the image of himself sitting at a table with tools in hand.  Kevin and Terry appeared in the background.

“We took that picture four days ago Bill.  Can’t you see—how can you be in the photo if you were not here four days ago?”

For a moment, doubt wrestled with the proof before his eyes.  The possibility that they had actually succeeded was contemplated.  He looked to Paul and stammered, “I’m…I’m sorry guys.  I guess the stress of it all got to me.”

“When Bill? Kevin asked.

Terry blurted out, “It doesn’t matter.  Don’t you get it Kevin?—we are in control.”

“Right,” he said while slapping his head with a hand.

Bill felt the tension melt away.  Eyes once again stared at the astonishing digital image portraying the proof of the machine’s purpose and success, and in an instance eliminated all the fallacies that had brought against the possibility of successful time travel.

“What are you waiting for Kevin—let’s go,” said Terry.

“We’ll be back in…Kevin, set the return time for a minute from now,” said Paul.

Bill once again stared at the image.  Something odd came into focus.  Is that a reflection?” he silently considered.  “Oh my God—stop!”

The three along with the equipment started to fade away.

“Bye-bye Bill.”

“No!  You didn’t check out the…” cried Bill.  “…he will not let you do this!”

Mouth agape, the inner consciousness sending utter shock through the entire body, Bill stood silently staring at the second hand of the wall mounted clock sweeping the face.  The thought never seeing his two colleagues or his best friend again sent chilling waves of despair anew throughout the mind.

Sixty seconds expired.  The equipment, the machine came back—Kevin and Terry and Paul did not.

Bill turned and staggered to the door, then stepped outside into the shade provided by the towering building’s stretched out shadow.  He looked around the space confined and protected by the fence, by it was vacant.  A stare at the parking lot ahead and the path leading to the front of the building proved that the representative and his host of armed men were nowhere in the vicinity.

The sounds of traffic were garbled.  The sight of cars cruising up and down the street was barely noticed.  Bill looked to the right and stared at the sidewalk stretching off into the distance.  Knowing his fate was sealed, he aimlessly wobbled down the path waiting for the administration of the punishment.

Bill had not noticed the moon rising higher and higher as he meandered through the unknown streets for hours.  And although he was not too attentive to the clattering of various activities that had steadily tapered off, what was feared was a set of bright headlights casting its light from behind signaling the end at any moment.

The street ahead, alit with headlights and signs, barely stirred any emotions within.  Instantly noticed was its haggard look.  The presence of boarded up store fronts, abandoned gasoline stations, and the light pouring out from open stores selling any variety of wares came to the forethoughts.  The area seemed vaguely familiar, but searching out the memories of a privileged life brought up no recollection of ever having stepped in such a grim area.  Yet, the sense that he had been in the neighborhood before was unshakable.

As he lumbered along, a look across the street revealed a small crowd of people standing in the shadows just outside a motel entrance.   Although their physical descriptions were hidden by the night, he could hear joking and laughing that identified their playful spirit.

Down the street, just visible from a darkened entryway of an empty building, he heard a loud voice issuing threats in an angry tirade laced with cursing.  As he neared the two figures, however, the screaming stopped and the sound of a calm conversation was heard.  It became obvious as he passed by the matter was one of a simple disagreement between two friends.  He quietly passed by figures sprawled out on the sidewalk.  Some were covered with blankets while others looked to be secured in the cozy confines of sleeping bags.

From behind and to the left, he heard the rumblings of a vehicle cruising up the road.  Before turning to see what it was, a bus went roaring by.  Out of curiosity, the attention turned upward to any neon signs ahead.

“Wow,” he whispered, “The Happy Haven.”

As the entrance neared, Bill took a look around with the intent on spotting anyone that might have been paying attention to his every move, but with only a few straggling pedestrians strolling down the sidewalks on either side of the street, no discerning eyes were spotted.

He sighed while memories of his erratic behavior came into the thoughts anew.  Bill realized they had every reason in the world to gang tackle and pin him down to the floor until police arrived, or worse, send him flying out the doors to crash land on the hard concrete, but he knew there was nowhere else to go.

The apartment suite, the laboratory, his parent's estate, or an unexpected visit to any long time friend or associate was out of the question for fear the representative would have them staked out.

Cut off from the readily available stash of cash and the lack of a source of money that could discreetly rent out  a secret hideaway at any one of the motels on either side of the street, he found himself lost. 

Transportation gone as well, legs and feet would have to serve as the only means to flee or to voluntarily jump into a snare just to be purposely entangled with no hope for escape.  He realized even if he were to hold off the inevitable moment of being taken into custody by the man and his band of enforcers, a lack of toiletries and a fresh change of clothes, as well as a lack of food and water, would eventually lead to a desire for a quick capture and the life extinguished.

At that moment, Bill chuckled and shook his head.  He found it ironic that the very disciplines essential to his short-lived success reared up against him.  Bill came to the conclusion that the sum total of his life, despite all the passion for complex equations rooted in statistics, probability, algebra, calculus, trigonometry, and the like was reduced to a simple equation equaling zero.  The prospects of a life enveloped by science gone, all that was left to do was enter into The Happy Haven and hope for the best.

Heads turned.  The gleeful chatter became whispers.  He looked around the dimly lit space hoping to spot Scott sitting somewhere within the crowded booths, but he was nowhere to be found.

“Who are you looking for?” a voice off to the side asked.

Bill turned and sighed.  “Scott.”

“I’m right here Bill.”

“Would it be alright if I stayed awhile?”

Scott smiled and shouted out to Buddy tending to the needs of their friends at the other end of the bar, “A bottle of the good wine and two glasses please.”  He then led Bill over to the very back booth occupied by four of his friends who automatically vacated the seats as soon as he stood before them.

Upon sitting, Buddy came up and set the bottle, the glasses, and a corkscrew on top of the table without uttering a word.  And unlike what Bill had witnessed before, Scott presented no generous payment for either the service or the wine.

Bill sat there quiet with eyes looking down on the table and shoulders slumped not knowing what to make of Scott’s silence.  The cork popped.  The distinctive clanking of the top of the bottle meeting the rim of the fine crystal glass and the gentle trickling of fermented grapes flowing into the glass were heard.  Then, the sound of scratching as the glass was slid across the table was heard.  He took hold of the vessel and looked up to see Scott pouring himself a drink.

“I know you were never the wine connoisseur,” said Scott, “but this wine you are about to drink is of a rare and wonderful vintage and therefore extremely expensive.  Unfortunately, for me, it’s has utterly spoiled having sat in a mini-fridge with all the pickled eggs and such instead of a wine cellar and therefore is as good as a bottle of vinegar.  But for you my friend, it will be quite tasty.”

A long, drawn out sip of the wine intentionally delayed quenching Scott’s obvious curiosity over the accounts of the past few days.  Bill figured an explanation was due.  But in light of the displayed signs of insanity before him and the other patrons, Bill also believed words were useless in explaining such craziness.  He reached into a pants pocket and pulled out the digital camera that was stuffed deep inside and tossed it on the table.

“Documented proof Bill?”

Bill fought off the tears welling in the eyes trying to choke off the words and mumbled, “Yes.”  Through a veil of tears he watched as Scott squinted under the dim light at the image as if to discover the proof of the failure.

“Look closer,” muttered Bill.

Scott shielded the screen from the dim light and examined it closely.  “Well, I see you and Kevin and Terry.  Okay.  What is that supposed to mean?”

“Paul said the photo was the proof of success.   That it was taken the day after I began my break.”

“I see,” responded Scott.  “But