Time Snatchers (35 page)

I take a deep breath and move closer. When I get to within twenty feet, I spot them.

They’re standing just beyond the exit ramp. Diane is scribbling something. She finishes and is about to hand the scrap of paper to my past self when he holds up his hands. Then my past self shakes hands with Zach and turns to walk away.

I hunch down. I don’t want him to see me. It’s not that I’m afraid something terrible will happen if he does. Under the right circumstances, I’d be happy to shoot the breeze with my past self. But now is not the time. We’ve both got things to do.

I glance up and spot my past self walking toward the washroom.
He doesn’t know it yet but the poor guy is going to get a nasty surprise when Frank follows him in.

I wait another minute and jog alongside the fence until I reach the exit ramp area where Jim and Diane are poring over a map of the rides.

“Hi again,” I say.

They all look up at once.

“Caylid! Did you find your uncle?” Zach asks. “And did he say it was all right for you to come with me to ride the water coaster?”

“Yes, I found him,” I say. Which isn’t a total lie. I mean, I actually did see Uncle. Only not in the way he means. “And I can go with you to La Spitoon.”

“Yippee!” Zach yells. “Caylid’s coming with us, Mom, to La Spi—”

Then his eyes twinkle, and he says to me, “It’s not La Spitoon, silly. It’s La Pitoune! But it doesn’t matter that you got it wrong. We can still go.”

I smile, but my stomach is in a knot. Maybe I should try to keep them here longer. Or take them to another part of Expo. Far away from La Pitoune. But I’ve already been over this in my head at least a dozen times. Zach would never go for it. Not on his birthday. No, there’s only one thing I can do, and that’s go to La Pitoune with them and somehow keep Zach from being snatched by Frank.

At the entrance to La Pitoune, there’s a mural of a canoe with three men inside flying though the air. The men have terrified looks on their faces, but my eyes are drawn to the grinning figure looming behind them: the Devil. I glance around and at first don’t see Abbie anywhere. But on my second visual sweep, I see her—seated on a bench about fifteen feet from where the exit ramp ends and leafing through a copy of
What’s On at Expo Today.

I must be the only one in the line without a big smile plastered on his face. Besides having to watch out for a kidnapper who’s big on revenge, I’m not a huge fan of roller coasters. It’s not that I don’t like the thrill of going fast or the feeling that I’m going to die any second. It’s just that I always worry about the driver. And from a quick glance, the operator for this ride isn’t doing anything to take away my worries. She’s working the controls with only one hand, since there’s a cigarette dangling from her other one.

The line inches forward. Zach is too small to see beyond the people ahead of us, so it’s my job to give him minute-by-minute reports of how much farther we have to go. At the same time, I keep an eye out for Frank.

We finally reach the front of the line. I climb into the seat next to Zach and buckle our seat belts. Maybe this is a bad idea. Maybe I should wait at the side with all the pregnant women, people with heart conditions and short kids. But I’ve got to be strong, for Zach’s sake. According to Phoebe, this is where it happens.

I peek at the time. In just over seven minutes, unless I can change history, Frank is going to snatch Zach.

A father and young daughter are in the car ahead of us. Behind us, an older man is getting into the car with his wife. Normal-looking tourists. In fact, everything around me seems normal, which makes it even harder to believe that Zach could be snatched from here. But as annoying as Phoebe can be sometimes, she’s rarely wrong. I take a deep breath and wait for the ride to begin.

The attendant is making her way along the cars checking seat belts. There’s a commotion behind me, and the older man helps his wife out of their car and over to a bench near the entrance to the ride. She’s looking very pale.

I close my eyes and try to relax by conjuring up the calming
image of the monastery and garden in Central Park. But it’s no use. The image only holds for a moment before it distorts in my mind into a picture of a mountain-sized mega-coaster.

I glance across at Zach. He’s smiling from ear to ear.

Abbie flings a thought my way. “You look
so cute
in that tiny car, Cale.”

“Thanks,” I shoot back. “But I’d rather look
so cute
far away from this tiny car. Anything happening at your end?”

“Everything’s cool,” she says. “No sign of Frank.”

But I barely register what she’s saying. The coaster is on the move. I glance over at Zach. Got to stay alert and keep him safe.

My body presses against the back of the seat as the car rises at an impossible angle. The contents of my stomach threaten to make a break for it, and I swallow hard, willing everything back into place.

We chug up the hill and teeter for a moment at the top.

As we start to go down, everyone around me raises their hands in the air. Ordinarily, I’d consider joining in, but my hands are locked in a death grip with the safety bar.

Abbie blasts a thought at me. “Don’t panic. But he’s sitting right behind you. Don’t look!”

Naturally, I panic and look.

“Boo!” mouths Frank and then gives me one of his stupid grins.

I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself. Frank managed a precise landing on an extremely fast-moving roller coaster. I try to shift my body to shield Zach from Frank, but my seat belt stops me.

The car rockets down a straightaway and water sprays all around.

Zach’s hands are up. Frank leans forward and reaches for Zach’s arm.

I grab Zach’s wrists and pull him forward.

“Caylid, you’re hurting me,” Zach yells, struggling to break free.

Frank has undone his seat belt now and is leaning forward even more. The tips of his hands are inches away from Zach’s shoulder.

The car screams around a corner. Frantically, I try to swat Frank’s hand away.

But he’s quick. He feints high and goes down low. I only just manage to get my hand down in time to block him before we go into a tunnel. It’s pitch-black, and in the moment before my night vision kicks in, panic stabs me and I windmill my arms frantically against his next attack.

Seconds later, we’re out of the tunnel. Water plumes up, making it hard to see. I brace myself, certain that he’ll try again.

I glance back. A seat belt dangles lifelessly from Frank’s vacant seat. The car is slowing down now. The ride is ending.

“Let’s go, Zach,” I say. I get up slowly and step shakily onto the platform. The close call with Frank has sapped all of my energy.

“That was a gas!” says Zach. “Did you like it, Caylid? I can’t wait to tell Daddy.”

I smile and watch him run ahead down the exit ramp, one small fist pounding the top of the wooden railing.

But then, to my horror, I see Frank. He’s lying in wait in the doorway of the small ticket booth just beyond the end of the ramp.

“No! You can’t have him!” I shout into Frank’s head.

“Dreamers dream, Caleb …,” he says over my mindpatch.

Zach is within a stride of Frank’s position. Before I can say or do anything, Frank’s hand lashes out and yanks Zach’s wrist, pulling him inside the ticket booth.

“And snatchers snatch!” he finishes.

I sprint down the ramp.

Jim must have also seen it happen because he’s racing toward the ticket booth, a look of shock and disbelief on his face.

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see Abbie making a beeline for the booth.

Jim and I arrive first. Adrenaline surges through me as I fling open the door to the ticket booth.

But there’s no one inside.

I’m too late.

J
im is on his knees frantically sweeping his hands over the wood floor of the ticket booth. I know what he’s doing—looking for a trapdoor or an escape hatch of some sort. Because that’s the only way his rational mind could explain what has happened.

“Where?” he asks. “How?”

Diane is at his side now, screaming, “Zach!”

Hearing Diane’s screams, I feel as helpless as a swimmer caught in a strong undertow: no matter how hard I try to break free, the current pulls at me, sucking me down deeper and deeper.

“C’mon, Cale, we’ve got to get out of here,” Abbie says, tugging at my arm. “We can still save him. Plan B, remember?”

I want to listen to her, but how can I leave Jim and Diane like this?

They’re both looking at me with questions in their eyes. I can’t bear to look at them because I have no answers. Or at least none that they would believe.

Just then, something inside of me shifts. My feeling of helplessness of only a moment ago is changing, morphing into something hard and strong.

“I’m going to find Zach and bring him back,” I say. Then I turn to follow Abbie.

“There’s nothing else we could have done,” she says once we’re out of earshot of Jim and Diane. “If somehow we managed to keep him from being snatched from the ticket booth, Frank would have found another way.”

“I’m going to undo it,” I say. “I’m going to go back again. But this time, I’m not going to let him run ahead of me down that ramp.”

“Go ahead,” she says. “And as soon as you do that, Frank will go back a third time and snatch Zach before he even gets on the ride. What will you do then?”

“I don’t know,” I say. Then something occurs to me. “Hey, if you erased Frank’s memory, doesn’t that mean he won’t go back again?”

“I
tried
to erase his memory yesterday. But the Frank who’s here, the one who leaped right from the roller coaster to the ticket booth, is probably a Frank from June, when you first saw Zach here. And he didn’t get the quarter memory wipe pill.”

Only part of my brain is registering what she’s saying. “We can’t just give up,” I say.

“I’m not saying give up. I’m saying we do it another way.”

I take a deep breath to calm myself. “I guess you’re right. We still have Plan B.”

I review Plan B in my mind. It sounds simple enough: prance right into the Compound, locate Zach and escape with him. Once we get him to 1967, he’ll be safe because apart from me and Abbie no one else knows where he lives and there will be no record of our escape timeleap or of any other trips I’ve made to his home. All of that assumes no complications in rescuing him. And, right off the bat, I can think of at least two: their names are Uncle and Frank.

“That’s the spirit,” says Abbie, entering a sequence in her wrist. “All aboard for the Compound,” she holds out her hand, and I take it. Her grip is strong and sure.

We’re coming, Zach, I think just as the timeleap kicks in. Coming to bring you home.

I
fend off the blow in the nick of time. But just as I do, there’s another one heading right for my shoulder. With a battle cry, I step nimbly to the left and the projectile misses me by inches. I spring back to position and ready myself for the next attack.

“Easy does it, Cale,” Abbie says. “You’ve done a good job beating up the sports equipment.”

Looking down, I’m still breathing hard. Basketballs lie scattered on the floor. Two hockey sticks swing wildly from hooks on the low ceiling. We’re in a storage room.

I open the door a crack and take a peek. This is the Compound, all right. I’ve got a clear view of the Yard. There must be close to fifty recruits out on the floor, about twice as many as when I was here the last time. They’re divided into three groups: the first group is lifting wallets from mannequins, another is practicing elbow thrusts and roundhouse kicks, and the recruits in the final group are seated cross-legged in a corner listening to a lecture from one of the instructors.

I close the door and feel a pang of guilt. My reason for coming here is to rescue Zach. But what about all of the others? Who is going to save them?

“Did you spot him?” Abbie whispers.