I Can Barely Breathe (5 page)

Hundreds of old turn-of-the-century houses
were scattered throughout the landscape, some with smoke billowing
from their chimneys. A light fog, lit by the sun, flowed through
the streets and into the lawns and alleys.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Julia asked.

“Not as beautiful as you,” Carver said, as
he looked into her eyes and gave her a smile. He needed so badly to
slide his hand under her skirt but knew it was too soon.

His lips touched hers, and they kissed. His
heart raced as her tongue slipped into his mouth. He couldn’t have
asked for a better first date.

As the sun set in the western sky, Carver
watched from his Chevy as Jared exited the community college and
got into an old blue pickup. The engine roared, as the truck was
put into gear; the taillights flashed, and the tires spun out a
bit, then pushed the powerful vehicle from the lot and onto the
main road, paved with bricks.

Carver was no stranger to a stakeout; he
hunted college campuses on a regular basis. Though he was a bit
more alert than usual, seeing as he wasn’t hunting a pretty little
college girl. Jared had already laid him out once before. Carver
put his car in Drive and crept from the lot, keeping a safe, steady
distance from the truck. He watched Jared’s silhouette bouncing in
his driver’s seat with the bumps of the road. It wasn’t long before
his target turned onto a dirt road; the dust the truck left behind
did well to conceal the Chevy’s position. After a few short
minutes, Jared pulled off the road and parked in front of a long
white trailer.

“Hmm, trailer trash. What the fuck did she
see in this loser?” he said, pulling his car into a dirt lot just
opposite Jared’s house. Carver watched the young man jump from his
truck and walk up the wooden steps to his front door. Jared
unlocked it, pushed it open and disappeared inside. Carver reached
over to his glove compartment and pulled a sharp serrated knife
from it, then tucked it into a leather sheath. He put the blade in
his coat pocket and waited for night to come.

***

After sitting in his car for forty-five
minutes, Carver exited and crossed the road. The night was his
advantage; he loved the dark. As he approached the trailer, he
slipped a pair of black leather gloves over each hand, then pulled
out the knife. The steps to the door were creaky and felt frail
under his weight, but he didn’t waste any time getting up them. It
didn’t matter if the college student heard Carver; he planned on
knocking anyway.

After three hard hits on the door and a
ten-second wait, Carver heard shuffling inside. Jared swung open
the door casually, and Carver gave him a sinister smile. The knife
sliced its way into Jared’s ribs, cutting them on contact and
penetrating his left lung. Jared’s hands gripped Carver’s arms, and
they both toppled to the floor. As Carver lay on top of him, he
pulled out the blade and stabbed him again, this time sinking the
tip into Jared’s beating heart, using his full body weight to get
as much depth as possible.

“Now it’s over,” Carver whispered. “She’s
mine.”

“I don’t wan—” Jared muttered incoherently,
as the life slipped from his eyes.

Carver bounced on the knife a few times,
pulling it out and sinking it back into Jared’s chest.

The seasoned killer then stood and pulled
the knife one final time from the body, carefully, to not drip
blood anywhere other than Jared’s shirt, where Carver wiped the
blade clean. The trailer was already trashed, which worked in his
favor. Dirty dishes were everywhere, even on the floor. Clothes,
blankets and many reels of 8mm film lay scattered throughout. A
projector (still running) sat facing a white wall, casting a square
of light on the paneled surface.

Carver stepped over the fresh corpse, and
his gloved hand immediately found and flipped the light switch. In
only the glow of the small movie machine’s light and with the door
wide open, Carver lifted Jared. Like a firefighter carrying a
victim, he trudged down the steps and through the poor excuse for a
lawn, then looked both ways for prying eyes and jogged across the
road, quickly making his way to the trunk of his car. The
twenty-seven-year-old psychopath, always planning ahead, had
already spread out a tarp on the floorboard, keeping Jared’s blood
from soaking into the carpet. Since Jared’s heart had been
punctured, most of the blood was internal. Carver knew, as long as
he kept the body upright, there would be no messes made; he would
drive accordingly.

***

After calmly transporting the body through
town, Carver exited Sorrow’s Sky and got on the highway to Cosmos.
Four miles to his destination and he already felt as though he was
home free, a perk of working for the police department. If he were
to get pulled over, they’d soon see that he was one of them and
send him on his way with nothing more than a pat on the back. It
was
, however, quite odd to have a male in the trunk. It was
one thing to have hairs and fibers from a female, but the thought
of a man’s DNA back there gave Carver the shivers. He would clean
it before his next kill, he decided.

On the quiet drive Carver thought of Julia,
her beautiful smile and her soft touch. She made him want to be a
better person. He thought of killing her, then thought of marrying
her. He couldn’t wait to hold her naked body in his arms, lifeless
or not. For the first time in his life, Carver Thorton was
torn.

He turned into Arpac Hills Cemetery and cut
his headlights. Welcoming him to the sacred land, the black
entrance sign above him disappeared from his windshield and over
the roof of his car. A light rain trickled down, and the full moon
lit his way and then some, casting eerie shadows all around. It was
spooky, looking at all the plots on either side of him. A misty fog
covered most of the headstones, and the thick trees looked like
dark silhouettes, towering islands in the massive sea of graves.
Carver kept an eye out for any movement; he searched the area for
looters and thrill-seekers, anyone who could identify him or his
car.

The dead had always intrigued him. He didn’t
fear dead bodies; he feared ghosts. His opinions on the afterlife
were well thought out, and, oddly enough, he
did
believe
that what a person did in their life was either rewarded or
punished in the end. As he kept his driving to a slow pace, his
mind tricked itself into seeing ghouls running through the markers,
ducking behind them and jumping out at him. There was something
strange about the old cemetery.

Carver headed to the back of the grave
garden, and, where the road ended, he put his Chevy in Park and
killed the engine. Not wanting to spend any more time than he had
to in the land of the dead, he popped the trunk. The young murderer
reached into his pockets and pulled out four dollars in
change—quarters, nickels and dimes mostly. He tossed them on the
grass in front of the car. When he got to the trunk, he found that
Jared’s body was heavier than before; he soon realized he must have
burned off the adrenaline he used during the excitement of the
kill. Carver struggled to get the deceased to the tree line of the
forest—about fifteen feet from his front bumper—and couldn’t figure
out why the grass was so wet. His back felt strained. The dark
woodland trees towered over him, and he dropped the body, then ran
as quickly as he could to his car, feeling a chill on his back the
entire way.

Wanting to make sure his plan would work, he
got in his car, closed and locked the doors, then turned on his
lights, illuminating the body. The loose change slowly rose from
the grass, each one reflecting the light and twirling around, as if
there were no gravity.

In the glow—a bit too soon for his comfort—a
gray leg stepped from the trees. The skin looked rough, like
leather. Carver clenched his hands, trying to keep them from
shaking. The alien body was malnourished, and its arms were long,
sending the tips of its fingers to its knees. Its large head held
two oversize black eyes, and its mouth was full of jagged brown
teeth.

Another creature stepped out with such ease
and then another. Together they picked up the body, and Carver
didn’t stick around to watch the rest. He flipped his car around
and sped out of the dead zone. Feeling a bit of relief as his tires
squealed onto the highway, he clicked on his radio and lit a
smoke.

Dr. Whittier pulled down his dark blue
rolled-up sleeves. The breeze blew at his back, almost pushing him
toward his destiny. He buttoned the clasps around both wrists,
adjusted the strap of his shoulder bag and crossed a mostly empty
parking lot to a familiar building. He checked his watch. It was
7:05 a.m.

It always astonished him that the military
never put guards around the property, but, looking back, he
realized there was no need. Nothing bad had ever happened during
his time here, and no one ever tried to trespass. Besides, he knew
that guards would have just drawn attention to the place. The
military had, however, given him a panic button, positioned under
the smooth black surface of his go-to rolling table. Thankfully he
had never needed to push it.

He had always thought that the building had
an odd feel to it; that feeling was always with him, especially
when he was alone. The doctor was actually quite relieved the day
the military introduced him to his young apprentice, Jonathan.
After that, Gary didn’t mind the eerie feeling of the place; he had
someone to share it with. Memories rushed his mind.

Upon pulling open the large glass entrance
door, he couldn’t help but smile. The lobby still had that
nostalgic scent of buffing wax and copier paper. It was odd though,
in all his time here, he never once saw a maintenance employee.
Once a military team with fully automatic weapons and heavy Kevlar
burst through the doors and raided the building room by room. They
never fully explained themselves, and the doctor just assumed it
was some sort of drill.

His shined black shoes clicked on the floor
with each step. Making his way to the elevator, he unhooked the
flap that held his bag closed. Once inside, he pushed the 5 button,
and, as the doors closed and the lift rose, he pulled from the
large pouch a small frail box tied together with a thin string. The
doors opened, and Gary stepped out, crossed to Room 302 and peeked
in the window. His heart was pounding. He saw himself in the lab,
standing with Jon, talking about specifically this, time traveling
to this date. Gary looked once again at his watch: 7:07 a.m.; it
was time. He pulled open the door, reached in and plopped the box
on the floor, then quickly retreated to the elevator.

Gary felt a constant rush of adrenaline
while waiting for the elevator doors to close. He kept expecting
his other self to poke in his head, and it would all be over. But
he took comfort in the fact that his younger self would most likely
be more intrigued by the box and its contents, rather than who left
it.

He exited the complex and crossed the
parking lot. The doctor had stashed his hovercraft in the trees,
just off an empty field, where the rest of his crew waited for him.
He hated having to bring them along, but the time device required
more power than the touch of one man’s hands. If he hurried, they
could leave without anyone ever knowing they were here. If not, and
they were spotted, it could alter historic events and change the
course of time. The only thing he wanted to change was his past
self’s knowledge of the device. By leaving himself a hint, maybe he
could figure it out sooner, and all that time wouldn’t be wasted.
Maybe the note would allow his younger self to think differently
and change the way he travelled through time. It was for the
better, or so he assumed. But unfortunately for Dr. Gary Whittier,
he had no knowledge of the event to happen next.

Dr. Gary Whittier stepped into the street,
unaware of the 1950 Pontiac Chiefton hauling toward him. His pale
blue tie blew in the breeze, subtly coming to rest on his dark blue
long-sleeved, button-up collared shirt. The strap of a brown
leather bag dug uncomfortably into his shoulder. Nothing was more
important to him at that moment than adjusting it for relief.

The driver, Pauline Walton, was busy finding
a radio station that wasn’t filled with static; her eyes were only
partially focused on the road. The car’s slicked-back roof and
brand-new tires kept it quiet, but the sound of Gary’s head
impacting the hood as his body crumpled underneath the Chiefton was
a sound Rosine Meyers—who, at the time, was detaching her front
yard hoses from their spickets—would never forget. The driver
slammed on the brakes, just after the rear tires went over the
man’s body. She had enough sense to avoid braking while he was
still underneath the car; better to run over him than skid over
him.

Blood from Gary’s head had pooled around him
and soaked into the dirt, as he lay dead in the road with a broken
neck. Pauline dialed 9-1-1 on her portable communicator, and, in no
time, the SSPD were on the scene.

Tom, Carver and Kattic were contacted
shortly after the uniforms checked the contents of the dead man’s
wallet.

Tom pulled up in his silver ’55 Buick. He
had turned in the squad car shortly after payday and was allowed to
use his personal vehicle from then on—the perk being the department
paid for oil changes, gas and other maintenance.

“Did they say why they called us in?” Carver
asked, finishing a smoke and tossing it out the window. “We don’t
get called to random traffic accidents.”

“They didn’t say. You gonna tell us what
happened to your eye?” Tom said, pulling the key from the
ignition.