Backtracker (43 page)

*****

 

"
Ever since I can remember,
"
said Larry Smith,
"
I
'
ve had these...flashes...pictures in my mind. As a kid, it took me a while to figure out what they meant, of course...but it didn
'
t take long for me to realize that they made me different from other people.

"
I
'
d be doing whatever it was I was doing, and then, all of a sudden, I
'
d have this flash...like a daydream, except it wasn
'
t a daydream. I could see things in my head...and I
'
d see the same things later, but they were really happening...or I
'
d find out that they
'
d happened.

"
I remember once, my parents and I were driving past a house, and I kept screaming that it was on fire. I thought it was burning, and the people inside were being cooked alive...but it wasn
'
t really on fire at all. It took a lot of doing, but my folks finally convinced me everything was okay, and they quieted me down.

"
A week later, though, that very same house burned to the ground. There was a family of six in that place, and none of them got out alive.
"
Pausing, Larry sighed and shook his head.

"
My parents never quite knew what to make of me,
"
he started again, slowly.
"
They were very practical, no
-
nonsense kind of people. They didn
'
t believe that anyone could do the kinds of things I did...or maybe they didn
'
t want to believe, I don
'
t know.

"
Anyway, they always said that I was just very intelligent, very perceptive. If I predicted something, and it happened, they would just say it was because I could figure things out really well...I
could
n
o
t
ice details that other people missed, and take it from there.

"
If I had visions that didn
'
t make sense at the time, that wouldn
'
t come true for months or even years, they would just say I had an overactive imagination. The wilder the story I told, the easier they could laugh it off...and then, by the time it finally came true, they
'
d forgotten my prediction...or maybe they remembered and just thought it was better not to think about it too much.

"
Maybe they were a little bit scared of me. After all, there I was, seven years old, and I predicted those people would die in that fire. It wasn
'
t normal, you know? There was no rational explanation for what I could do.

"
Anyway, they never made a big deal out of the stuff I told them, so I mostly kept my flashes to myself. I figured out pretty early that it wasn
'
t a good idea to tell other people about them.

"
Whenever I talked to other kids about what I saw in my head, they
'
d make fun of me, or else they
'
d stay away from me.

"
Once, I had a flash that this little girl
'
s grandfather was going to die, and I told her about it. The very next day, he died. I was in first or second grade, I don
'
t remember which...but this girl told everyone at school, and no one would come near me after that. It was like the other kids thought I
'
d made this girl
'
s grandfather die.
"

Larry drew in a deep breath, then released it.
"
For a while, I used to think it was my fault when bad things happened, too. I used to wonder if maybe I was secretly wishing for some of these awful things, and then somehow making them happen. Naturally, I was pretty confused about it all.

"
I don
'
t think it helped that my family moved around so much. With my father in the military, we were always going from base to base, all over the world, and it made for a pretty unstable life. Under normal circumstances, I think, it would
'
ve been rough for me to adjust to all those different places, all that moving around...but with my flashes...well...

"
Let
'
s just say there were lots of times when I wasn
'
t sure
where
the hell I was, or what was really happening. I
'
d be in...Madrid, say...and then I
'
d have flashes of other places, and I had no idea where they were...but later, they
'
d turn out to be Hawaii or West Germany or the Philippines. I
'
d be walking through a market with my mother, and then I
'
d get flashes of me doing other things, or her doing other things, in other places. Sometimes, I
'
d get flashes of complete strangers...just these flashes, out of the blue, that I couldn
'
t understand, that
had nothing
to do with me or anyone I knew.

"
I
'
d see something in my head, and then I
'
d look around, and it wasn
'
t really happening. These flashes were so strong...it took a long, long time for me to tell the difference between them and reality...the reality of the moment.
"
Larry paused, leaned his shoulder against the wall.

"
As I got older,
"
he continued,
"
I managed to get a better handle on these flashes, learned to live with them. I saw movies, TV shows, comic books...and there were stories about people who could do the same things I did, or similar stuff. They were just stories, of course, but they helped me understand why I saw the things I did. They helped me realize that what I had was a gift, not some kind of curse.

"
I also got the idea that maybe I could help people with this gift. I started thinking
'
Hey, I can see the future sometimes! Maybe I can stop bad stuff from happening! Maybe I can
warn
people when they
'
re headed for trouble! I
'
ll be like a super
-
hero!
'

"
Boy, was
that
a dumb idea.
"
Larry
'
s voice abruptly lowered. He jerked away from the wall and began to pace across the tiny room.

"
I should have left well enough alone,
"
he said angrily, hands clasped behind his back.
"
I should
'
ve kept my big mouth shut, like I
'
d been doing before.

"
You see, if you
'
re twelve years old, and you walk up to somebody and tell them they
'
re gonna
'
die in a week if they don
'
t avoid a certain bus, or train, or street, they
'
re gonna
'
do one of two things. They
'
re either gonna
'
laugh in your face, or they
'
re gonna
'
get really mad. If they
'
re the wrong kind of person, they might even slap you around some.

"
I met a lot of the wrong kind of people,
"
Larry said darkly. He hesitated in mid
-
step, frowning at the floor...then sighed and resumed his steady pacing.

"
Anyway, nobody paid much attention to my warnings. Pretty soon, I wised up, and I quit trying to tell people about the bad stuff that was gonna
'
happen to them.

"
Since I wasn
'
t having any luck with the warnings, I decided to try something different. I figured maybe I could take care of things myself, by jumping in and changing things from what I saw in my flashes.

"
For years, I tried to do this...but it never worked out. Whenever I interfered myself, I could never stop my flashes from coming true.

"
Part of the problem was these flashes weren
'
t always clear...still aren
'
t. Sometimes, they
'
d be perfectly clear, and I could see every detail of what was going to happen...the time, the date, the place, everything.

"
Other times, the flashes would be blurry. I wouldn
'
t pick up all the details...like, I
'
d see who would be involved, what would happen, but I wouldn
'
t get the when or where. Sometimes, I
'
d get everything except one or two
details, and other times, all
I
'
d get was one or two details.

"
The flashes that weren
'
t clear made it impossible for me to change what was going to happen. I
'
d know that somebody was going to fall down some stairs, for example, and I
'
d know right where the stairs were, but I wouldn
'
t know
when
that person was going to fall...so I
'
d go and wait at those stairs, wait for the person to show up...and I
'
d wait for hours, go back every day...but I
'
d always be there at the wrong time, and I
'
d get there one day and find out that the person had already fallen and broken his neck.

"
That happened more times than I want to think about,
"
said Larry, his voice tinged with sadness.
"
I
'
d know something terrible was going to happen to someone, and I
'
d try to stop it...but there would be one or two things I didn
'
t know, and that would keep me from saving that person.
"
Larry said nothing for a moment, just kept pacing. He reached one corner of the room, then turned and started for the other corner again.

"
Now, you
'
d think that the
clear
flashes, the ones that showed me everything, would
'
ve been better, right? You
'
d think that if I knew
all
the details...the who, what, when, where, how...I
'
d be able to get right out there and stop the bad shit before it happened, right?
"
Casually, he shot a questioning glance at Dave, who simply shrugged.

"
Well, it turned out that the really clear visions didn
'
t do me any good, either. No matter how much I knew about something that was going to happen, I couldn
'
t change it. Even when I knew everything, every damn detail, I couldn
'
t stop whatever awful thing I
'
d seen in my flash.

"
I really
tried
, too,
"
Larry said emphatically.
"
I really did my best...but it never made any difference.

"
I
'
d have a flash, and I
'
d carefully plan out exactly what I was gonna
'
do to keep it from coming true...but something always got in my way at the most critical moment. My parents would drag me off somewhere just as I was getting ready to leave...or my bike would get a flat tire...or I
'
d sprain my ankle...or I
'
d be right at the place where I had to be to save someone, and someone would chase me off, or a dog would run after me. Something
always
happened to mess things up.

"
It was like I wasn
'
t
allowed
to change what was coming. I could
see
the future but I couldn
'
t
change
it.

"
How
'
s
that
for a kick in the ass
?
"
Larry growled bitterly.
"
I could see when people were going to die, or get hurt, or lose everything...but God or fate or whatever wouldn
'
t let me
help
them.