Cracked by the branches of the cottonwood tree, moonlight lay scattered about the backyard. A cool breeze plucked at Nick’s hair as he opened the door of his grandfather’s shed. The scent of grease and wood shavings teasing his nostrils, he peered inside the cabinet beneath the work-bench. He half-expected the silver thing to be gone, yet there it was on the top shelf, shining in a stray moonbeam.
He’d only come to look at the gadget, but found himself taking it out of the shed. Quietly he stole around the corner of the house, away from the window to Grandpa’s bedroom and out of sight of nosy neighbors.
About the size and shape of a paperback book, the silver thing had a hinged, catch-sealed lid. As Nick started to lift the lid a blue glow spilled from the device and he nearly dropped it. He held his breath, certain something bad would happen.
Several seconds elapsed. The blue light still poured from beneath the half-open lid, but he hadn’t exploded or been sliced up by lasers, or anything else. Should he play it safe and put the thing back?
Come on, Nick. Don’t be a wuss.
He swallowed and lifted the lid further. Beneath it was a smooth silver surface dotted by glass-covered dials with red pointer hands, most set at "0" on various scales. The dials were emitting the strange blue light.
Frowning, Nick studied the device more closely. Below the dials a small lever rested at the left end of a slot, while brass knobs on the right-hand side appeared to adjust three windowed displays. Each display had an ornate title, marking them as "Date," "Month," and "Year". The whole thing looked like an antique, something made in what Grandpa called, “The Good Old Days.”
What does it do? Is it a toy? Or something else?
As his thoughts swirled, Nick idly spun the knobs. He stopped when he realized he was changing the date. September 13, 2416. He grunted in surprise. Exactly today’s date and month, but 404 years in the future.
His thumb twitched. He tried to slide the lever along the slot, but it was hard to move, as if fighting him, and sprang back to the start position as soon as he released it. He used more force. Again the lever reached the slot’s midpoint and refused to go any farther, so he let it snap back to the left-hand end.
It couldn’t be stiff because of a lack of oil. Grandpa would never have missed something that obvious. He thought for a moment. Clocks and watches often had a little winding knob that when pulled out allowed you to adjust the time, so maybe if he …
He grasped the lever and pulled up. It popped out with a click. Now the lever slid freely to the right end of the slot, where it locked in place.
Without warning, an electric blue haze brighter than that given off by the dials flared around him, obscuring Grandpa’s backyard and house. At the same time a menacing, low pitched rumble filled his ears and shook the ground.
Uh oh.
He wrenched the lever back to the start position.
The blue haze didn’t go away.
Nor did the ominous rumble.
Now what?
The haze shimmered and brightened, so intense that Nick thought he would be blinded. Yet before he could lift a hand to shield his eyes the blue light disappeared altogether and the bone-shaking growl faded away.
Blinking, he looked around. For some inexplicable reason it seemed to be daytime, but that wasn’t what caused his heart-rate to hit Warp Factor ten.
Everything was gone. His grandfather's backyard. The house. The entire neighborhood.
Turned to rubble.
Mouth agape, he spun a full circle, hoping to spot something familiar, but discovered only a piece of wall here, a chimney there, ragged pieces of buildings everywhere. Nowhere could he see signs of people.
Alone.
Nick sagged to the ground, oblivious of the sand and concrete dust that soiled his clothes. A whimper tried to crawl from his throat. “What happened?”
He stared at the silver device. Somehow it had something to do with the … destruction around him. He wished he’d come home ten minutes later and never seen the strange gadget in Grandpa’s shed. What on earth had possessed him to start fiddling with it?
But he knew why.
#
THREE HOURS EARLIER.
“Grandpa? You home?”
Echoes replied. Nick grinned. No prizes for guessing where his grandfather was. Floorboards creaked as he walked down the hallway. To avoid the framed photograph on the wall he kept his gaze locked on the back door. He couldn’t face Mom and Dad smiling away as if nothing were wrong. Not today.
Out in the backyard the shed door hung open a crack. Nick peered inside. His grandfather sat at the bench, engrossed in something Nick couldn’t see from the doorway. Although a naked bulb cast yellow light over everything, a distinct blue glow hovered over the bench.
Where’s that weird light coming from? he wondered.
He coughed politely, startling his grandfather, who turned his head sharply. Sapphire reflections in his spectacles hid Grandpa’s eyes. “What? Oh, it’s you. School out already?”
“Only about two hours ago. I had a soda at the Mall. But what are you up to?”
“Er, just studying a ‘For Fun Project.’”
Nick smiled. He always found it funny that despite retiring from general fix-it work, Grandpa still liked to work on scavenged devices for fun. As Nick stepped into the shed, Grandpa appeared to close something and the blue light vanished. Nick caught a glimpse of a silver object, before his grandfather stowed it in the cabinet beneath the bench.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Nothing much. Something for another time.” Grandpa started scooping up tools and placing them in a wicker basket on the bench.
“Packing up?” Nick couldn’t hide his surprise; normally his grandfather stayed in the shed until full dark.
“Yep. We’re going out for dinner.” Grandpa winked. “You thought I’d forgotten, didn’t you?”
"No. Well, OK, maybe I did." Nick hadn’t mentioned his birthday to Grandpa. His grandfather wasn’t well off and he hadn’t wanted the old guy to feel obliged to purchase something expensive. Especially now that Grandpa was responsible for Nick’s upbringing.
"Not a chance. Here, I've got something for you." Grandpa fumbled about in the cabinet and produced another item. Nick recognized the fancy watch he’d found on Willow Street a few months back. Although the watch hadn’t been working, they’d still handed it in to the police.
"The Swiss watch. How did you get it back from the cops?” Nick had half-expected Grandpa to give him something embarrassing, but the watch was cool. His current watch, a chunky Japanese digital model, was pretty geeky, despite being able to do all sorts of stuff.
"No one claimed it, so it was officially yours. Of course, it still didn’t work – I think it was dropped in water at some stage - but I opened it up and did some tinkering and general cleaning. It's as good as new." Grandpa winked again. "Better, I think, now that it's had the Jim Fox touch. Took me quite a few days, though, and I had to buy a new strap and a few parts. Anyhow, happy birthday."
Nick accepted the watch with a grin. "Thanks, Grandpa."
"You're welcome.” Grandpa paused. “Let's see, I was thinking of going to Big Steve's …"
Nick’s grin faded. Big Steve’s Burger House was where his dad always took him for birthdays. Or, rather, where his dad used to take him.
Before the disappearance.
“Sorry, Nick. I should’ve thought before I opened my big mouth.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Nick muttered, looking down. He realized he was shuffling his feet on the concrete floor and had to make a conscious effort to stop. “Not your fault, I guess.”
“Nick.”
He looked up, pushing his dark hair out of his eyes.
“It’s all right to be down, you know,” Grandpa said.
“I guess I should get over it after six months, huh?”
Grandpa sighed. “It’s nearly eight years since I lost Grandma and I’m not ‘over it’. You were upset for months when your mom passed away, if you remember.”
“I was five then. Not fourteen.”
“Doesn’t matter. Getting older doesn’t make it any easier. But you can’t give up hope. If he can, your dad will come back. He wouldn’t have just upped and left you.”
Nick nodded. Everyone kept telling him his father wouldn’t have left without a good reason. And he wanted to believe it. No, he did believe it. Yet if it were true, then the one thing that made sense was that something serious had happened.
Frowning, he rubbed his chin and winced as a dull pain flared. He knew what was causing it: a zit was building itself up to an eruption. Great. Just what I need. Happy birthday, Nick.
“Come on, we should go out,” Grandpa said brightly. “Try and enjoy ourselves.”
“OK,” Nick replied, trying to summon some enthusiasm. “But can we go somewhere else? Somewhere other than Big Steve’s?”
“How about Pizza Napolitano? Only if you want to, of course.”
Nick smiled weakly. “Sure, that would be great.”
#
The sun hovered overhead, but it flickered as a stiff breeze swept iron-gray clouds across its face. Nick found himself wandering aimlessly, shaking his head at the ruin that surrounded him. Broken glass and crumbled masonry crunched under his feet as he walked along a weed-pocked strip that might have once been a street. He stopped and stared at a huge pile of red bricks, hoping it might spark some explanation of what had happened, though nothing came to mind. He sighed and looked up at the ominous sky. What did it matter anyway? The more he explored, the more convinced he was that he was the only person alive around here.
Maybe in the whole world.
Something was nagging him. What was it? A sound? He listened hard, but heard nothing beyond the rustle of leaves stirred by the wind. He frowned for a few seconds and then his expression cleared. It wasn’t a sound that had perturbed him, so much as the absence of sound. No cars or trucks roaring down the street, no construction workers clanging and banging, no pedestrians talking on cell-phones or listening to iPODs or playing hand-held game devices, just …
Silence.
Weird. In fact, it was way beyond weird. He looked at his new watch. It showed the time as about five to ten. It seemed to be working OK. The second hand was moving around the face at a normal rate. And 9:55 PM sounded about right by his best guess.
Except that it was the middle of the day here. Wherever “here” really was. He was beginning to doubt it was his hometown, though he found it hard to believe he’d been ... transported somewhere in the blink of an eye.
He laughed shortly. “As hard to believe as it can turn from night to day in one second?”
Not sure what to do next, Nick clambered up the brick heap, the broken masonry shifting dangerously under his feet as he neared the top. Using one hand to screen his eyes from the sun, he took a long look around, trying to get his bearings. Fifty yards away a red-brown pole stuck out of the ground. Suddenly he knew where he was.