Back to the Future Part II (11 page)

‘Please, I’m sorry!’ Marty yelled back. ‘I just made a mistake!'

‘Damn right you made a mistake!'

The father swung the baseball bat. Marty jumped I aside. The bat smashed into one of the girl’s bookshelves.

‘Dad, stop!' Loretta screamed. ‘You're breaking my stuff!'

But her father was beyond listening. He swung again, missing Marty but smashing half the bottles on the top of the girl's dresser. Loretta ran across the room and started to beat on her father.

This was Marty's chance. He had to get out of here! He jumped over Harold, past father, daughter and mother, and ran from the room.

Whatever had happened, at least this house was laid out the same way as the one he remembered, and he easily made it down the hall to the front door. He unlocked the door and ran out into the street.

He stopped to take one final look back at the place. It sure looked like his house.

The father ran out onto the porch, bat still in hand. Marty decided it was time to leave the neighbourhood.

‘That’s right,’ the father yelled as the rest of his family came out to join him, ‘you keep running, sucker! And you tell that white trash realty company that I ain’t selling, you hear? We ain’t gonna be forced out!’ 

‘Lewis,’ the mother lectured her husband, ‘tomorrow, you're going to put bars on all the windows, understand?’

‘Like hell, I will, ’ the father replied, shouting more at Marty than at his family. ‘I won't have my family livin' in a jail! I won’t have that!’

Marty heard more explosions in the distance. Boy, those sure sounded like gunfire!

But the father wasn’t following him. After he had run a couple of blocks, Marty slowed down to catch his breath and figure out just where he was.

A police car raced around the corner, sirens blaring, flashers blazing. Marty barely had time to jump out of the way before the cops sped by.

What was going on here?

He saw something bright across a yard a few hundred feet in front of him. He walked toward it, and realised it was the kind of broad yellow tape cops used to keep crowds from walking all over the evidence: DO NOT CROSS - POLICE 
INVESTIGATION IN 
PROGRESS. Marty stopped just before the tape, and saw two chalk outlines on the pavement on the other side - outlines in the shape of people. Inside each outline were darker spots that glistened in the streetlights. Marty realised those spots must be blood.

This couldn’t be his old neighbourhood. Sure, he recognised houses, and the street signs were right, but still -

‘This is nuts,’ he said aloud. But he kept on walking. What else could he do?

It was even worse when he got to the corner. There, in front of him, was Hill Valley High School - or maybe he should say what was left of Hill Valley High School. The place looked like it had been fire-bombed. Only half of it was still standing, and that was covered with deep black soot. What windows were left were boarded over, and the whole place was surrounded by a barbed wire fence - like the building had been in the middle of some kind of a war zone.

But, even in ruins, the place was definitely the high school. So Doc had brought him back to the right place. This was Hill Valley, all right.

That meant something else had gone wrong.

‘It’s got to be the wrong year!’ Marty said aloud.

He walked slowly across the street. Something must have gone wrong with Doc’s time machine. But where - or when - had the time machine left him?

There was a newspaper on the porch in front of him. That would tell him what he needed to know. He ran onto the porch and scooped up the folded paper. He opened it, looking for the dateline under the masthead:

SATURDAY OCTOBER 26 1985

‘1985! ’ Marty yelled. ‘It can’t be!’

There was a sound right behind him - like somebody pumping a shotgun. Marty felt something cold and hard pressed against the side of his head - something like the barrel of a shotgun.

A voice spoke behind him:

So you re the son of a bitch who’s been stealing my newspapers!’

Marty knew that voice, sure to strike terror into the hearts of teenagers throughout Hill Valley. He turned, slowly and carefully.

‘Mr Strickland!'

The bald vice-principal in charge of discipline tipped his gun down slightly and frowned back at Marty. He looked even more fierce than the teenager remembered. Maybe it was because Mr Strickland had somehow gotten a long and livid knife scar across his face that made him look like he was going to kill Marty at any minute. Or maybe it was that flak jacket Mr Strickland was wearing over his bathrobe. Whatever it was, he looked twice as mean as he ever had before.

But Strickland still hadn't recognised him.

‘It’s me, sir!’ He pointed at his chest. ‘Marty! Marty McFly!’

‘Who?' Strickland demanded.

‘Marty McFly. Don’t you know me, sir?’ What sort of world would this be if the vice-principal in charge of detention didn’t recognise him?

Strickland lowered his gun. squinting at Marty in the darkness.

‘I’ve never seen you before,’ he said with a shake of his head. ‘But you look like a slacker!’

Wait a minute! Maybe Strickland recognised him

‘That’s right!’ Marty exclaimed enthusiastically.

‘You're always 
calling me  a slacker! I'm always late, 
you’re always giving me tardy slips.’

Strickland still stared as if he had never seen this teenager before. There had to be some way to remind him. Of course!

‘You just gave me detentionlast week!’ Marty added happily.

Strickland nodded to himself, as if Marty had confirmed something he had known all along.

‘Last week?’ the vice-principal snapped. ‘Now I know you’re lying.’ He nodded across the street. ‘The school’s been burned down for six years.’

Strickland glanced meaningfully at the shotgun.

‘Now you’ve got exactly three seconds to get off my porch with your nuts intact.’

He curled his finger around the trigger.

‘One.’

What? He wasgoing to shoot Marty? But he couldn’t! ‘Mr Strickland!’ Marty insisted. ‘You’ve got to tell ; me what's going on here! ’

‘Two,’ was Strickland’s only reply. He raised the shotgun.

A car screeched up to the curb, full of scruffy teens sporting leather jackets and multi-coloured mohawks. , And, Marty noticed, all of them had guns, too.

‘Eat lead, Strickland!’ the mangiest of the bunch announced. The entire punk-filled carload opened  fire. Bullets strafed the porch. Strickland ducked for cover, as Marty vaulted over the railing. He was in the middle of a war!

Strickland came back up shooting.

‘Eat buckshot, slackers!’

Marty ran like hell. He had to get out of here!

But where was he?

And where could he go?

Marty ran all the way to Courthouse Square. He had to go this way to get to Doc’s Jab anyway, if Doc’s lab was still there - and Marty could make it that far without getting shot. In the meantime, maybe he could find somebody here to tell him what was going on.

He walked past the ‘Hill Valley - A Nice Place to Live’ sign. It was riddled with bullet holes.

The Courthouse had changed, too. Someone had turned it into a hotel - and what a hotel! It looked like something straight out of Las Vegas, full of neon and glaring lights.

Marty couldn’t believe it when he read the sign:

BIFF TANNEN’S PLEASURE PARADISE

Biff Tannen? Marty thought? The Biff Tannen?

But there was more to the sign, below the name, flashing one after another:

HOTEL

             RESORT

                            CASINO

                                           GIRLS

And that wasn’t all! Right in the middle of the sign was a huge portrait of Biff, lighting a cigar with a hundred dollar bill.

It was bright! It was garish! It had absolutely no taste! It 
had
 to be the same Biff Tannen!

Marty was overwhelmed. It was the middle of the night, and the place was doing a fantastic business! People streamed in and out of the door marked CASINO - most of them fat, middle-aged men in business suits, each one with a much younger woman -sometimes two - on one or both of his arms, and all of them talking and laughing.

Whatever they were saying, though, was completely lost in the roar of motorcycles. The grass and hedges of the square were gone, paved over with asphalt, and filled now with a hundred bikers, drag racing and revving their engines.

As Marty looked around, he realised the whole square was different. The aerobics place and family stores had disappeared, replaced by adult book stores, bars, pawn shops, bail bondsmen, and porno theatres - and all of those were open for business, too. The whole town seemed to be open all night!

And behind it all, on every side of the square, even towering over the Pleasure Palace, were row after row of tall industrial smokestacks, all spewing thick smoke into the darkness.

Hill Valley certainly had changed.

The front door of the Biff Tannen Pleasure Palace slammed open, and three men emerged, half-dragging, half-carrying a fourth. It looked like three bouncers getting rid of a drunk. At least, Marty reflected, that sort of thing hadn’t changed.

Marty could have sworn he knew those bouncers.

They were older than the last time he had seen them, but those three bouncers looked an awful lot like those guys that used to hang around with Biff back in the fifties - Match, Skinhead and 3-D. All of them wore suits now. Match now wore a cowboy hat, while Skinhead’s crewcut was a lot greyer than before. And 3-D's glasses were a lot fancier. The way they gleamed under the neon, they almost looked like they had jewels embedded in the rims. But all three were the same bullies they’d been back in 1955.

‘And don’t ever come beggin’ for drinks in here again!’ 3-D yelled. ‘Friggin’ lush!’

The drunk picked himself up off the pavement.

‘Hey,’ he called after the bouncers, his voice slightly slurred, ‘can’t you guys take a joke?’

The drunk reached into the pocket of his ragged coat, and fished out a pint bottle, which he drained in a single gulp. He threw the empty bottle in the general direction of the hotel, then started to stagger down the street.

There was something disturbingly familiar about that drunk - the curly hair and crooked smile, the way he laughed, even the way he staggered. In fact, the drunk looked just like Marty’s older brother!

Marty walked quickly - but very cautiously -through the bikers who filled the asphalt-covererd Courthouse Square, past roaring fires in oil drums and seven-foot-tall guys swinging chains, toward the Pleasure Palace.

‘Dave!’ Marty called.

His brother should talk, Marty thought. He had hardly ever seen anyone look so down and out. But now, maybe, he could get some answers.

‘Dave, my God, what’s happened to you? What’s happened to the town? What’s going on around here?’

‘Oh, all this?’ Dave waved generously at the drag racers on the street. ‘It’s the biker’s convention!’

Dave turned slowly back to his brother. It seemed to take his eyes a moment to focus.

‘So, Marty,’ he said at last, ‘when’d you get back?’

Marty had no idea what Dave was talking about.

‘Back?’ he asked. ‘Back from where?’

‘Well,’ Dave drawled in response, ‘if you don’t know, how do you expect me to tell you?’

He laughed as if that was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

Dave grabbed his brother’s arm. ‘Hey, let’s go have a few, huh? You got money, don’t you?’ He started to pull Marty toward the tavern.

Marty pulled back.

What are you talking about, Dave? I’m under age!’ brother stopped and stared at him.

‘So, Marty,’ he said at last, ‘when’d you get back?’ Marty had no idea what Dave was talking about. ‘Back?’ he asked. ‘Back from where?’

‘Well,’ Dave drawled in response, ‘if you don’t know, how do you expect me to tell you?’

He laughed as if that was the funniest thing he had ever heard.

Dave grabbed his brother’s arm. ‘Hey, let’s go have a few, huh? You got money, don’t you?’ He started to pull Marty toward the tavern.

Marty pulled back.

‘What are you talking about, Dave? I’m under age!’ His brother stopped and stared at him.

‘Under age? Quit kiddin’ around! You been over fourteen since’- he paused with a frown, trying to concentrate -‘since’- he shrugged and grinned, as if concentration was far beyond someone in his state -‘well, since your fourteenth birthday!’

Dave thought that remark was funnier than the last one. He roared and roared.

‘Fourteen?’ Marty asked. Did his brother mean the drinking age around here was fourteen? Oh, well, it didn’t matter. There was only one thing that did what had happened to everybody?

‘Listen Dave, I gotta find Mom and Dad.’ 

Dave stared back at his brother, suddenly sober.

‘Dad? You gotta find Dad? That’s sick, Marty. That’s really sick. What’s the matter with you, anyway?’ He shook his head, as if he couldn’t believe anyone could be that unfeeling. ‘And since when are you and Mom on speaking terms again?’

Marty was getting more confused with every passing minute here.

‘Speaking terms?’ he asked. What was going on here? But, maybe, Marty thought, any explanation Dave might give him would confuse him even more.

‘Look, do you know where she is?’ he asked Dave instead. ‘Can you tell me where I can find Mom?’ Dave shrugged as if he could care less.

‘Same place as usual, I guess. In there.’

He pointed toward Biff Tannen’s Paradise Hotel. 

In there?    .

Marty turned back to his brother, but Dave had already staggered half-way back toward the bar. Maybe. Marty thought, he should stop Dave. But he needed to find his mother, and figure out what had happened!