Eighty-Sixed: Chapter 50 - Thieves

“Committing robbery in broad daylight,” Gordon said, chuckling.  “Never thought I’d voluntarily sign up for that.”

“I don’t reckon we need to wait until nightfall, do we?” Charlie said, lugging along a worn and dented red metal toolbox that looked older than Charlie himself. “I’m hoping to find some of these places unlocked so we won’t be doing much breaking.  Just a lot of entering.” 

The three of them — Charlie, Gordon, and Becca — stood in the backyard outside a stubby little pink house in desperate need of a new coat of paint on its wood-paneled exterior.  It was the first house on the block just behind Charlie’s.  

“If the neighbors ever come back, I don’t think I could look them in the eye if they’d known it was me that broke through their back door,” Charlie said. “Even if it was for a good reason.”

“I just hope we find what we’re looking for,” Becca said. She dressed for the occasion as best she could in Key West with a black T-shirt and white-washed jeans, plus a pair of gardening gloves she found in Charlie’s backyard.  

“Is breaking and entering an actual felony?” Gordon asked.  “Or is it just a petty crime?”

“Second thoughts?” Charlie asked with a grin.

“I just want to know what I’m getting myself into here,” Gordon said as he scanned the long street with houses on both sides.  

“So what are you thinking?” Charlie asked.

“Check the doors first,” Gordon said.  “If it’s locked, we’ll just toss a rock through the window, then, or smash it with a hammer or something.  I don’t have much experience with this kind of thing, so we’ll have to figure it out as we go along.”

“I already know this first one’s locked,” Charlie said.  “Let’s try this.”  

He walked over to a large garden stone nearly the size of a football at the corner of the house’s small concrete patio.  Squatting, his thin legs rippled with sinewy muscles and surprising strength as he hefted the rock up from its resting place, took several lumbering steps toward the patio’s sliding glass door, and started swinging it bodily.  

“Ah, one,” he said with a puff of breath.  “Ah, two…”

Gordon and Becca shot each other a quick glance and took cautious steps away from the pending debris.

“Ah, three!” Charlie called as the rock flew from his hands.  Charlie quickly skittered backward, away from the pending spray of flying glass.

The stone slammed loudly into the door’s large glass panel, but without the crashing impact any of them expected.

“Well, hell,” Charlie said.

The stone had failed to go completely through the glass door, let alone shatter it.  Instead, somehow, the rock made a simple, clean hole where it was now stuck, halfway in and out of the house.  

“Well, that was a one-in-a-million shot right there,” Gordon laughed.

Charlie smiled back with a wide, toothy grin. 

“I tell you what, son,” he said. “I couldn’t duplicate that toss even if you gave me a million bucks.”

He walked over and gave the stone a nudge with his foot.  It wasn’t moving.

“It’s wedged in there tight!” Charlie said, now laughing so much his thin body was shaking.  

“How in the world did it not shatter the glass?” Gordon asked.

“It’s plexiglass,” Becca said.

“Well, don’t that just beat all?” Charlie said, still smiling.

“What do we do now?” Gordon asked.

“Maybe we stick with just the unlocked houses,” Becca suggested.

“That’s going to limit us,” Charlie said.  “Key West is a transient town.  Lots of tourists.  Most people lock their doors and windows when they leave.”

As if to demonstrate, Charlie reached for the sliding door’s handle and tugged on it. Instead of remaining locked in place, the door slid open right up until the rock jammed it from opening any further, at which point it finally fell out and landed with a grinding crunch on the kitchen floor inside.

“What in the blazes?” Charlie said and jumped back away from the door, startled.

Gordon let out a roaring laugh.  

“It was unlocked the whole time!” Charlie said as he looked back at Gordon with eyes wide and white.  

Gordon thought Charlie looked like a startled cat, which made him laugh even harder. 

“We could have just walked right in!” Gordon cried.  He had to grab hold of a patio chair and sit down as tears of laughter streamed down his face.  A deep, unending belly laugh poured out.  Gordon’s most cathartic laughter in years was like a deadened weight finally released.

“I swear,” Gordon said through choked laughter.  “I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard.  Your face!” 

And then he was lost again with laughter, hunched over and wiping at his eyes.

Standing to the side, Becca laughed as well, more from Gordon’s reaction than from the comedy of the situation. All three of them let the laughter wash over them as they stood under the canopied shade of that small patio.  It was the most joyous feeling any of them had experienced since the world had so terribly changed. 

The first to regain composure, Charlie finally took a deep breath and let out a whoop.

“Well, that was something, eh?”  he said.  “What say we get back to what we were doing?  Now that we figured out how to open an unlocked door, that is.”

Gordon guffawed again and wiped at his eyes with the edge of his short-sleeved t-shirt.

“It’s been too long since I laughed like that,” Gordon said.  “Especially after all of this crazy time shift stuff.”  

“Ayup,” Charlie agreed.  

Becca stayed silent and edged past them and into the house.

“What now?” Gordon asked as he stepped into the kitchen and surveyed the room.  It reminded him of the house he’d left behind in Burkett.  Low lighting, a small kitchenette, simple appliances, dirty dishes still stacked in the sink, and a half-full pot of coffee with a film of mold on top sitting in an ancient-looking Mr. Coffee percolator.

“We just need to get the back off of that microwave there to start with,” Becca instructed.

“Easy enough,” Charlie answered. He opened his metal toolbox and shifted through its contents before pulling out a well-used Phillips-head screwdriver with a worn wooden handle.  

Gordon unplugged the unit from the wall and, with considerable effort, lugged the mammoth machine over to the table next to the now cracked and broken sliding glass door.  The microwave was a monster of a machine, a classic Amana Radarange.  The contraption looked like a B-grade science fiction movie prop.  It was simple and analog with two large, awkward circular dials, one that set the power level and the other as a radial timer.  Between the two dials were three large plastic green, red, and white pushbuttons: start, stop, and light.

“Haven’t seen one of these in years,” Gordon said as he set it down.

“Looks like one I had right getting married,” Becca said.

“You’re married?” Gordon asked, surprised.  It hadn’t occurred to him to ask, having subconsciously assumed that a pretty young lady by herself in the deserted streets of Key West was most likely unattached.  

“It’s complicated,” Becca answered.

“So, where’s your husband?” Charlie asked pointedly.  He started removing screws from the back of the unit.

“Let’s just say I’m in the process of fixing something I broke,” Becca said.

“And we’ll leave it at that,” Charlie said.

“Didn’t mean to pry,” Gordon said apologetically.  

Their jovial exploration was replaced with an awkwardness that suddenly hung heavily in the air.  Their shared laughter from just moments before disappeared into unspoken words and hidden histories.

“This could make up for what I did,” Becca said quietly.

“What does that mean?” Charlie asked and looked up from the microwave.

“All of this,” Becca said.  “I was trying to fix my marriage, you could say.”

“Wait a minute,” Charlie said.  “What exactly are you saying?”

Becca’s face changed at that moment, hardening.  

“I did all this,” she said.  

“Did what?” Gordon asked.

“All of this,” Becca answered.  “These anomalies.  The time shift.  The fact that entire generations no longer exist.”

“Are you serious?” Gordon said.  He stood upright and met Becca’s now-icy gaze with his own.  “How is that possible?”

“It had to have happened somehow, right?” Becca said.  “Everything has an origin point.  So there has to be a cause.”

“Any you’re saying you’re the cause?” Gordon asked.  “You did this?”

“Well, it was certainly me who pushed the button.”

Charlie set down the screwdriver.  His brow was furled into a scowl.

“Well, wait one second here,” he said.  “Then what are we doing with this microwave?”

“I have an idea of how we might fix all of this,” Becca answered.

“Fix it?” Charlie said.  “Like reversing time kind of fixing it?  Just making those black hole things go away kind of fixing it?  What kind of fixing it are you talking about?”

“I don’t quite yet know,” Becca said.

“You just said you want to fix it, though,” Charlie said.  “What are you hoping for, exactly?”

“I want everything to go back to how it was.”

“How it was?” Charlie said.

“Is that even possible?” Gordon asked. 

“There’s a chance,” Becca said.  

“A chance?” Charlie repeated.

“Yes, there’s a chance.”

“Well, then, I’m out,” Charlie said.

Becca’s eyes widened. 

“What?” she said surprised.  “Why?”

“If what you’re saying is true,” Charlie said, “then you’re not just responsible for — as you said - making entire generations disappear.  But you’re also responsible for entire generations coming back.”

Becca lowered her head. 

“You know what I mean,” Charlie continued.  “The whole fact that dead people are no longer dead.  Dead people like me, for instance.”

“Not all dead people,” Gordon said as an involuntary memory of Marie flashed through his mind.  She was unpacking cans of corn at the grocery store a week after they’d experienced their only miscarriage.

“Well, maybe not all, but certainly this one right here,” Charlie said.  “I’m no idiot.  I know enough to know that I shouldn’t be here anymore.  And I know there’s something wrong with me being here, even if I’m not quite sure what.  I may be nothing more than a ghost for all I know.  But I’m here nonetheless, and I’m glad to be here and have no intention of going anywhere else.”

Charlie dropped the screwdriver back into the toolbox with a loud clang.  Without another word, he marched out of the house alone. 

End Part III