BACK TO THE PAST
Chapter Fifteen
Where could it be? Rose was crawling around near the clock tower looking
for the 2001 newspaper she had dropped earlier that day. After all the excitement,
she had forgotten about the paper and lost it when Jack was whizzing around on
that crazy pink board.
Doc nearly had a seizure when he found out
she had lost it. No one would believe it was real anyway and if it survived
thirty-three years to when the paper was actually printed. People would just
think it was some urban myth or something.
It was nearly midnight and the town of Hill
Valley was dead. And she was tired—and not just tired but sleepy. She walked
passed a trashcan on her right and strolled back to it. She reached down
through a couple of newspapers, looking through dates and articles.
"MLK, LBJ, RFK…April 8, 1968…no, that’s
yesterday’s…" Rose tossed it back in. "Nicole Kidman, Osama Bin
Laden…2001! Yes!" Those names had even less meaning to her than the others
except that they meant she had found the right one and she could go home. And
it was all in one piece! "Rose DeWitt Bukater and her excellent tracking
skills," she commended herself.
She twirled around and knocked into someone.
Biff. She just slouched and gave a dirty look.
"Move along; I’m tired." She pushed
passed him. He grabbed her arm. "Let go, jerk."
"Nobody makes a fool out of Biff Tannen!
Nobody!" He screamed. She wiped the spit from her face. "Now you and
your friends are going to pay!" Did he always have to scream like that?
"The spitting when you yell is very
unflattering. Besides, it wasn’t that me that fertilized your car. Leave me
alone."
"You tell me where you and your little
boyfriend come from and tell me where that flying car is and I’ll leave you
alone."
"Don’t hold your breath." She tried
to pull her arm free, but he was too strong. Rose found this especially
frustrating and degrading now that she gotten of whiff of women’s lib in the
sixties. "Let go!" She kicked him in the shin and ran away.
Rose ran around the side of the building and
tried to pry open the back door. It was no use. She didn’t know what he wanted.
What was she so afraid of? How badly would he hurt her? He might kill her; he
was the town’s ex-bully looking for a new hook. Maybe he’d do something worse.
With that thought she pulled harder.
"Come on! Come on!"
She reached down and picked up an empty
flowerpot in the garden running along the side of the building. She slammed it
into the window. It cracked but it wasn’t good enough. She stood back as she
heard footsteps coming closer. She heaved the pot at the window smashing
through the glass and setting off the alarm.
With Biff coming around the corner she pulled
herself up and through the window, slicing her hand on broken glass.
Biff reached through and grabbed her arm.
Rose screamed and ripped herself free and bolted for the stairs.
Doc’s Garage
Rose hadn’t come back yet and it was a little
after midnight. Gary and Jack had been cleaning up the mess for hours after
everyone else left and agreed that they would stop as soon as Rose returned.
"I’m so tired my eyes are starting to
fuzz out." Gary sighed. "Tell me about Paris again."
"Again?" Jack asked as he heaved a
box of spare parts back onto the workbench.
"Yeah, you give juicier details like
this. You hold back a little when you’re old…either that or you’re
embellishing."
"Well, that’s for your
interpretation."
"I need those stories. I’ve never had a
real adventure. I’m eighteen, never left my home country, never gone farther
than making out or had a regular girlfriend. All this I managed to achieve
during a sexual revolution. It’s tough when your sister gets more than you do,
too."
"You’re having a hell of an adventure
now. Almost nobody’s done what we’re doing."
"I know. That’s why I keep bugging you.
How long am I going to have you around like this? It’s pretty amazing being
friends with your grandparents like they were your really cool brother and
sister…and you’ve met one of my sisters." Gary laughed.
"Hey, those sisters of yours stem from
my sperm, I’ll have you know."
"Well, see what happens to those after
that hit you took today." Jack threw a towel at him. "Hey, I’ve been
looking for these forever!"
"What?" asked Jack.
"I’m over here so much I leave a lot of
stuff around. It’s most of my copies of The Fantastic Four and Spider-Man!"
"Picture magazines?" Jack picked
one up curiously.
"No," said Gary, "…comic
books." He looked at Jack. "…wait about ten or fifteen years."
"One of the many things I have to look
forward to…"
"Yes, my friend, the greatest…want a
warning about the future?"
"Doc said it wasn’t a good idea."
"Okay, just telling you not to piss off
Nana so much…she’s scary when she’s mad."
"I’ve gotten the impression she’s a
little feisty." Jack winked and looked at his grandson. "Where is she
anyway? I think we might want to look for her. Probably got lost." He
expected to see him smiling—but he had turned dead pale in an instant.
"What is it?"
"What’s happening, Jack?"
"Gary what?"
Gary lifted his arm. His hand was beginning
to disappear.
"Holy shit!" Jack grabbed Gary’s
arm. His hand was fading into thin air.
"What’s happening?" Gary struggled
from his grip in a panic. "My hand’s going! I don’t feel anything!"
"I know! I know! Stop panicking!"
"You stop panicking!" Gary growled
and started crying. Time travel he hadn’t believed but had heard of…body parts
vaporizing he couldn’t possibly comprehend. It didn’t tingle. It didn’t hurt.
There just wasn’t anything there anymore.
"Get up. We’re gonna go get Doc!"
Jack grabbed Gary’s shirt and tried pulling him up. By now he didn’t have a
left arm.
"No! No!"
"Come on!" he roared. He had his
arms around his grandson trying to calm him. "Come on, buddy. You’ll be
all right."
"Don’t touch me! Get off, please!"
Gary cried.
"I’m not leaving you, but we gotta get
help!" Jack ran around the room shoving his head through the window.
"Doc!" he yelled. "Doc! We need help!"
He turned around and slammed his hand on the
windowpane. He looked back out the window, but stopped. He turned around again
slowly. Gary had gotten quiet. He was gone and so was his box of comics. There
wasn’t a single trace of him left.
Jack felt very cold. Doc had told him, and it
was the reason why he was here. People disappeared when something in history
stopped them from being born. In the first misadventure with time travel,
George and Lorraine McFly had almost not gotten together, therefore Marty McFly
had seen his own hand fade away, or so Jack had been told. And the twins’
niece, Jennifer, Jack’s great-granddaughter, it was her disappearance that sent
them in search of Jack. In some alternate world he himself had died at nineteen
on Titanic and Jennifer vanished because Jack had died.
Somebody was dead.
Fifteen Minutes Earlier
Rose ran up the stairs as Biff climbed
through the broken window. The alarm was ringing. The police had to be on their
way. She couldn’t out run him. All she could do now was hide until the
authorities found her.
With Biff’s reputation they would arrest him
and not her. Besides, if she did get into a mess, she was going to be fifty-six
years away soon.
When she had nearly she reached the top she
saw Biff already halfway up the stairs. Rose tripped and took a nosedive when
she turned back around to run.
Biff paused to pick up a piece of newspaper
on one of the landings. Rose held her breath, still on the floor. She was
missing half of the paper.
"2001?" Biff looked at her. "I
knew there was something with you! I’ve seen this kind of stuff before,
girly!"
Rose reached for the door at the top of the
stairs only to find more stairs. She ran up and opened the door quietly closing
it behind her. It was as far as she could go she looked for a place to hide.
She dabbed the palm of her hand on her shirt.
It was bleeding very badly.
Rose opened a little black door to find
herself looking out on the center of town. She looked back into the room. She
was in such a panic she didn’t notice. She was inside the clock.
She heard the other door open and Biff’s
footsteps marched up the stairs.
"Shit!" she hissed and looked
through the door again. She moved her good hand out along the edge. It wasn’t
very wide, but it was her last chance.
She stepped out along the edge, nearly
plastering herself to the wall so as not to fall off.
Wait for the police. Wait till he leaves. She tried to calm herself down so that she could
balance. She inched herself along away from the door. She stopped and exhaled
deeply.
The door burst open with a sudden slam. Rose
screamed and lost her balance.
Just in time she grabbed one the clock hands.
She struggled for a moment as Biff reached for her.
"You give me the rest of that
newspaper," he offered. "I’ll help you back over."
Rose was hanging on for her life looked up at
paper as she kicked and tried to grip the edge with her feet. She had been
gripping it with her sliced hand and it was dripping red now.
Rose looked at Biff and pulled her hand off
of the bigger black metal hand. She released the newspaper.
She pulled herself up more wrapping her arms
the hour hand. Biff watched the paper plummet to the ground as cop cars pulled
in.
"Go get it!" Rose sneered through
her teeth.
"You bitch!"
"Pull her in! Hang on, miss!"
shouted a megaphone.
Rose could hear sirens and saw lights
flashing red and blue down below her. Her heart was racing. She had been deep
inside the bowels of the great Titanic when it was sinking. She trekked through
icy waters nearly reaching over her head with nothing but an ax.
But now it was just she, not a thousand
others. Only Rose was hanging from the clock tower. Rose would be the only one
to die tonight. After a moment, all she could hear was her own breathing and
heartbeat.
The police are here. She reminded herself. Help was on the way. She would
survive this one, too.
Breaking the her inner silence, Biff’s hand
reached for her arm. Maybe this time now that the law was here, to save her.
Rose screeched in a wild panic, losing her grip.
Everything was ripped away and she was airborne.
She screamed again wretchedly. There was a great, forceful pain and
then…nothing.