Epiworld (21 page)

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ says Chase, ‘you’re wondering what year we’re in. Well, it’s the twenty-fifth of September, twenty eighty-three.’

I do a quick calculation in my head. That’s sixteen years before twenty ninety-nine, but what’s so significant about the twenty-fifth of September?

‘Happy birthday,’ says Chase cheerfully, sitting down on the rock, ‘and stop pacing up and down. You’re making me nervous! Sit down and relax.’

‘How do you know when I was born?’ I demand, wishing the tide would rush in at any minute, drown us both, and end this once and for all. ‘
I
don’t even know when my birthday is – and I was there!’

‘So was I,’ says Chase, laughing, ‘right from your conception to the moment you were born.’

I stare at him, wondering what the hell he’s on about. Something in the back of my mind starts to niggle, but whatever it is refuses to surface. I know what Chase is saying, though. He’s telling me he slept with my mother, and I’m the result.

‘You’re sick!’ I shout. ‘My mother, whoever she was, wouldn’t have looked twice at you! Unless you forced her; that’s the only way you could get your leg over a woman!’

‘Why don’t we find out?’ he says icily.

Now it’s my turn to laugh. ‘This I’d like to see!’

‘Let’s go, then.’

The dune doesn’t seem as steep as I remember. It looks, over the years, like the wind has washed most of the sand away.

Once we reach the top we walk across the plain towards the Frasers’ farmhouse. The boards have been removed from the windows, and the garden is tidy; flowers are growing in the borders. Someone is living here.

‘You know this place,’ he says.

‘You know I do. It belonged to the Frasers.’

‘It still does.’

I’m trying to figure out how old Demi will be now. Close to eighty, probably.

Chase hammers on the door. I’m starting to feel apprehensive as I hear the footsteps getting louder, and the door swings open.

‘You’re here at last,’ says the woman.

She’s dressed a bit like the nuns in the institution, with a starched dress, cap and apron. I look around. The only thing that’s changed about the hall is the wallpaper.

‘What’s that?’ Someone is groaning upstairs.

Chase ignores me. ‘How near is she?’ he asks the nun.

‘Very close, sir.’ I bet she’s a droid. ‘Her waters have broken, and labour has started.’

‘Let’s go upstairs, Travis. What’s the matter,’ as I hesitate, ‘don’t you want to meet your mother?’

‘Meet the woman who’s about to give birth to me!’ I’m almost hysterical now. ‘How can she meet me if I’m not even born?’

‘Trust me,’ he says smoothly. ‘It’ll be all right.’

‘Trust
you
? That’s a good one!’

I’m in a kind of daze as I walk into what I know to be Mr and Mrs Fraser’s room. The woman in the bed looks young, small, and frail. Her fair hair is sticking to her hot face, and she’s grasping the sheet, crying out as another wave of pain sweeps over her.

So this is my mother!

I have no memory of ever having a mother, only the recurrent vision of me as a small boy holding onto the hand of a beautiful woman, and I have no idea who
she
is; but now, suddenly, and for the first time in my life, it’s like I belong to someone, that I have an origin, and a mother’s love.

‘Shush, now,’ says the droid, rushing over to her side. She picks up a damp cloth, placing it to her forehead. ‘You’ve got a long way to go yet.’

‘It – hurts!’ Her cries pierce my heart. ‘Oh, make it stop! Please make it stop!’

That voice! That face!

‘
Demi
!’

‘She can’t hear you,’ says Chase, ‘or see you. Hello, my darling!’ There’s something uncharacteristically gentle in the way he takes her hand, but I don’t like him touching her. It turns my stomach.

‘Chas? Is that you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where have you been?’

‘That doesn’t matter. I’m back now.’

‘Demi, I’m here, too. It’s Travis.’

I try to touch her, but my hand passes through hers like a ghost’s!

‘You’re not alive yet, are you?’ Chase hisses. ‘That’s what I meant when I said she can’t see you. You don’t exist in her world yet.’

‘But I exist in
yours
,’ I shout at him, ‘and you claim to be – to be...’

‘I knew who you were,’ he interrupts, ‘when I travelled in time to find you. I came looking for you on purpose. To her you’re just some kid she met once on Barrasay beach, who she travelled with a few times. She doesn’t know you as her son, only as her friend. You’re a boy she had adolescent feelings for, but shouldn’t have.’

My eyes don’t leave Demi’s death-white face. ‘It was more than a friendship for me, too. I...’

I choke back the words. For the first time I’m forced to admit it to myself: I
do
love Demi! I’ve loved her since losing her through the portal in the cave, and I relive the suffering of that loss with torment. The feelings I still have for Jenna, and my foolish infatuation for Demi’s mother, are nothing compared to my devotion to Demi. I’ve imagined us together, married, building a home, having children, all conflicting with my need to go back to my own time. Now that love is smashed by the revelation that she is my mother; as for Chase...

You think Chase is an evil man. You’re right; but give him some credit of feeling, Travis. It isn’t an easy decision to do away with your own son
.

My eyes glaze over. Swallowing back the tears I ask, ‘How did she get here? She was in the lorry with me.’

‘I got her out through the portal, brought her back six months before the happy event; and here we are.’

Six months...

‘Who’re you talking to?’ Demi cries suddenly.

‘No one; I’m just thinking aloud.’ Chase strokes her hand soothingly as she cries in pain again. ‘Stay calm, now.’

‘How could you!’ I bawl at her. ‘He killed your father!’

‘Travis?’ Demi gasps. ‘I’m – I’m sorry, Travis. He drugged me! I didn’t...’

‘She can hear me!’ I bend over her. ‘Demi! Demi! I’m here!’

‘Travis, crossing the bridge,’ she rambles. ‘Demi, the Earth mother; Chase, the hunter; Alexander, the helper and defender...’

‘She’s delirious,’ snaps Chase.

‘You
did
force her!’ My fist flies at his face – and then I get another shock. My hand goes through him, too!

His laughter hurts my ears. He puts the acid gun in his pocket.

‘I couldn’t shoot you today, Travis,’ he says. ‘Oh, yes, I can see you, and you can see us, but we’re only images in your mind. You’re watching from another time dimension, just dropped by to witness your own death; then you’ll disappear out of existence forever.’

The thumping in my chest is getting harder and harder. I wonder if I’m going to collapse. Chase’s voice is droning on and on.

‘For all the times you thought I was going to end your life, it’s been leading up to this moment,’ he says. ‘A tiny baby, minutes old, vulnerable, and at my mercy, is easier prey. Demi can’t stop me, and neither can you.’

I bend down, clutching my head. The nausea rises in my stomach, the sick spews out. There’s no light – this isn’t a seizure – and when I dare to look up the world around me is moving forward very, very fast.

The nurse is rushing around the bed, Demi is writhing and sweating, her legs are apart, there’s blood everywhere. Chase is holding her hand, there are more screams, more blood, and a bundle is placed in her arms, until Chase snatches it away.

‘Stop!’ I shout.

Gradually time slows to its normal pace. I shake my head. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. It’s like I’ve forced time on to get to a point where I can step into this reality, and take control.

It soon becomes clear what’s going on. Alex’s prediction is about to come true: I’m holding Chase’s gun firmly in my hand, and it’s pointing at his head. I test the hope that I’m no longer an image by putting my free hand on the dressing table. It’s solid. I want to smack Chase again, but I can’t while he’s holding the child.

Demi has stopped moaning. She’s quiet and still now, while the bundle is wriggling and crying. It has a good set of lungs.

‘Put him down,’ I command.

‘Such a beautiful baby,’ Chase says mockingly, placing it on the bed.

I glance at the baby, resisting the urge to pull back the blanket and look into his face, but when I see Chase nod to the nurse I react quickly. She doesn’t know what’s hit her as the yellow light melts her into a puddle. Swiftly I direct the gun back at Chase.

‘Are you sure you can kill me, Travis?’ taunts Chase. ‘I’m your father.’

‘Why not?’ I snap. ‘You’re happy enough to kill me, your own son.’

‘A son with an incurable condition,’ he says, ‘one I can’t allow to live. Anyway, they would’ve put you away once they found out. Oh, I didn’t know who you were until you came to the institution. You must’ve guessed we never kept you after you were born. I had my career to think of, and Demi, well, I’m afraid she wasn’t around to take care of you.’

The memory of the woman holding my toddler hand suddenly morphs into mere fantasy.

‘What happened to her?’

‘Well, look at her, Travis. She’s not moving.’

With the gun still firmly pointed at him I move closer to the bed, almost afraid to touch Demi in case my hand goes through her again, but this time I can feel her. She doesn’t look like she’s breathing.

I whisper her name as I put my fingers on her throat. There’s no pulse.

Demi – my mother – is dead!

I
have nothing to lose now.

In a short space of time I have found and lost a mother and a friend, and Chase is responsible. It doesn’t matter that childbirth has killed her;
he’s
to blame for getting her pregnant, so now he has to pay. Never mind what other reasons I may have for killing him, it’s for Demi he has to die now.

I stroke her hair. Chase is talking, but I’m not listening, I just want to concentrate on her, wallow in my grief. This is my Demi, my mother, young and lovely, at peace. I can’t imagine my life without her. I’m overwhelmed with grief, and now a seizure is coming on. The golden glow lights up the room. The world begins to spin, and I turn to look at Chase, my eyes filled with naked hate.

Come with me, Father.

––––––––

W
e leave Demi behind; I can’t do any more for her now.

Chase is on his knees, panting heavily. There’s no sign of the baby. Wherever it is it will survive. It will grow up, become me. I’m living proof of that.

I still have the gun on him; all he has to fight with now is his hatred, and whatever else he may have up his sleeve.

‘Stand up.’

He scrambles to his feet. ‘Killing me won’t do you any good, Travis. You’re not going to change what happens in your life. I’m always going to be your father, you’ll still end up in an institution, and the world will still be in a mess; but if you die you’ll be saved from a world of persecution and shame.’

‘You drugged her,’ is all I can say. ‘You forced her.’

‘I loved her, but she didn’t want me, not after she knew about her father. She only thought of you. It wasn’t right that she wanted her son in that way. I had to change that. When she found out about the baby she started to care for me in a pitying kind of way. It wasn’t ideal, but I took her acceptance, because that was the best I could get.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ I release the safety catch. ‘She’s dead now, so you can’t hurt us.’

‘Stop! You have thirty seconds to surrender your weapon. Stop! You have thirty seconds to surrender your weapon. Stop...’

Chase is winking. ‘Wanna bet?’

I start to run before the first laser reaches the ground, not along the beach, or to the cave, but into the sea, gasping as the cold penetrates my body. I’m hoping the salt water will react with the guard’s system, but I don’t count on it; water doesn’t seem to affect guards the way it affects droids, I’ve heard of them navigating rivers. Chase yells at it to follow me, and it obeys. For me the sea is getting deeper, for the guard it’s like paddling in a rain puddle. I still have the acid gun in my hand, but it’s heavy, full of water, won’t shoot. I throw it away; it’s bloody useless now!

I bob amongst the waves, trying to get away from the guard. It’s scooped up Chase, and he’s sitting on its back, urging it on. The lasers keep coming, so I duck under the water. The sea rushes into my ears, but I have to come up for air before my lungs burst.

I start to panic. The waves are getting heavier, and I’m becoming very tired, out of my depth. I’ve had it. Chase has won; I’m going to fry or drown on the day of my birth. Somewhere in time that baby, wherever it is, will vanish out of existence.

I turn, and look up at the guard. It stops, its red eyes staring back at me.

‘Go on,’ I shout, ‘do it now!’

Its eyes glow hot. I close my eyes, waiting; yet, somehow, I’m not afraid. I’m ready to die; the only thing that annoys me is that Chase has got the better of me at last. Anyone but him...

There’s an ear-piercing yell, a massive splash; Chase has fallen headlong into the sea. The guard’s eyes are closed, it’s slumped forward, there’s no life there.

‘The salt,’ I mutter to myself, relief washing over me. ‘I was right –
gulp
!’

Water floods into my mouth as I go under. Chase has his arms wrapped around my legs, dragging me down, trying to drown me. I’m too tired to fight back, but before I die I want to show him how much I hate him. As we swoop back up I wrap my arms around his neck, open my mouth, and dig my teeth into his ear, ripping it off.

Deaf to his cries of agony, and mad for his blood, I find the strength from somewhere to fight him off. His head has flopped to one side, and his neck is exposed. I don’t have enough of a bite to rip out his throat, nor do I have that shard of glass from the hut to stab him with, but then something sharp digs into my hand. At first I think he’s bitten me, too, until I see the knife; he has a weapon. A trickle of blood oozes from my hand, mingling with his, and I wince as the salt water penetrates the wound.