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A month had already flown by since Paulette’s arrival at Thomas’s village. She had settled in well and was making progress in getting people to like her. She still had issues with Bo. He hadn’t liked her from the beginning, and she didn’t understand why.
It wasn’t easy living there, but she got busy trying to fit in. She used her special knowledge and skills to help the village people upgrade some of their systems.
She helped build a system that would deliver water into each of the homes by siphoning it out of a closed tub or bucket. It wasn’t glorious, but at least they didn’t have to fetch water every day. After that, they only needed to fetch water about once a week, or more, depending on how much was used. She tinkered with a few other things and was able to repair them and get them working again. The group admired her for her ingenuity and ability to fix and manufacture things out of such simple materials. Apparently, there were few people who knew how to make wooden gadgets, including wheels. She was able to improve their existing wheels, making the transport of goods easier. She was enjoying her time there and had almost forgotten why she was there.
The main task that Thomas gave her was to teach his team of hunters and trappers a better way to hunt. She began the lessons by asking each person what he or she knew about upwind and downwind and masking their scent.
She was pleased to find that they were quite skilled at masking their scent, so she began with showing them how to build deer stands in areas that had a good supply of game that came through. Then she taught them how to detect deer and elk. The basics were easy; it was just getting them used to sighting and identifying the signs — the same signs she had already gone over with Thomas and Bo earlier. She went out with each group of hunters to watch them use their skills, and to reinforce or show them what they missed so they didn’t miss it the next time. The classes went well, and most of the hunters picked up on it quickly. She was impressed on how quickly they learned the skills she taught them. Hopefully, with the new training and the upgrades she had made to the village, things would go better for them.
She had gotten to know her new friends well. She figured if she had to get stuck in the apocalyptic future, this was the place for her. However, she needed to remember that finding a way back home was her priority.
One afternoon, Thomas came by to visit. “Afternoon, Paulette. How’re you doing today?”
“Doing great, and you?”
“Doing good. Thank you for all the help you’ve been giving my people. Things are looking up for the first time in a long time. The reason I’m here is to talk to you about what brought you here. I’m thinking you’ve had enough time to get to know people and to trust me. Do you think you can tell me the truth now?”
She paused a moment wondering what she should say. “Well, you’re right. I’ve gotten to know a lot of the people here and have been able to trust you, so far. So maybe it’s time for me to share my real story with you. I must tell you that, for now, it should stay between us. Is that okay?”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Also, keep in mind, you may not believe me, but what I’m about to tell you is the truth. I can prove it if you need me to, though it would be a long hike to do so.”
“Okay, shall we step into your cabin and talk?”
“Right this way.” Paulette led Thomas into her modest little cabin and got him a seat. She then siphoned water into two cups and added some of their favorite fruit drink mix in the cups and stirred it. Grasping the cups by the handles, she walked over and handed him one, and then she sat down across from him. She took a sip of her drink and placed the cup down on the floor before beginning her story.
“Again, what I’m about to tell you stays between us. It’s especially important that it does, at least for now.”
“Okay, so shoot.”
“My name is Paulette Brown, and I was born in Wilmington, North Carolina, in July 2006.”
Thomas choked on his drink and spewed the rest out all over her. “What the heck? You’re saying your over two hundred fifty years old? That’s not possible!”
“Whoa, hold your horses. I’m not over two hundred fifty years old. Let me finish my story.”
“Okay, but I don’t know how you can explain that one.”
“It’s simple. Let me give you a little back story about me first though.
“I was mute till the age of three. When I finally started talking, it scared my parents. As it turned out, I was some kind of super genius. My parents insisted I stay in the grade level for my age, though they allowed me to read any and everything I could get my hands on. As a child, I dreamed of traveling though time. It was a dream, but somewhere in my mind, I knew I could solve the problems other scientists had never been able to. I just had to bide my time.
“While in college, I asked my best friend to help me start a bionics company so I could raise enough money to fund my time-travel project. I got the funding, quit college, and the company soared. We made a lot of money while helping thousands of people. It took five years to program everything, build the time pod, and test it. All the tests were perfect. I could send it into the past or the future and have it return right where it started.
“Once I was convinced it was working properly, I stepped into the time pod and programed in the year 2280. I hoped to find new technology that I could study, and learn about advanced techniques that I could take back with me. This first run was only supposed to be a test run. However, when I got out and made my way to the edge of the clearing where I had set down, I saw Seattle destroyed and covered by ocean water. The whole area had become the new Pacific Ocean. I decided then that I should go back as quickly as possible, so I went back to the time pod to get back home to the present. But something went wrong, and I couldn’t get back. I figured maybe I was dreaming or was trapped in a time diffraction or something, so I checked again, only to verify my worst nightmare was true. I was stuck in an apocalyptic future with no idea what happened or how I’d get home.
“When I ran into you and Bo, I felt a sense of hope for the first time in a week. So that’s my story, without getting all technical and geeky on you.”
Thomas had been staring at her the whole time and may have even been holding his breath. His face was ashen, and he was just shaking his head and mumbling. It took a few minutes of silence before he could say anything. “Umm ... so ... you’re telling me you’re from the past?”
“Yep.”
“I never heard about any projects like that from any of my ancestors, so how can it be true?”
“Well, it’s possible. I never released the information and kept it a secret.”
“Possibly, but just wow!”
“There is a scarier issue. Maybe my friends can never fix the problem, and I’ll be stuck here, in the future for the rest of my life.” She started to tear up.
Thomas reached over and took her hand. “Hey, if that City of Technology exists, maybe you can build a new one and get back home. If you can’t build a new one, maybe your friends will figure out what happened and how to fix it so you can get back home in your time thingy.”
“I hope you’re right and that I can get home somehow.”
“We’ll go looking for the City of Technology soon, I promise. Right now, we need to get more information on its possible whereabouts. Remember, it may just be a myth.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that, Thomas. I really do.”
“No problem. I better get back to what I was doing. Thanks for trusting me. It was quite the story, and I do believe you. I won’t tell anyone else, either.”
“Thanks, Thomas.”
Bo had followed Thomas and had overheard the whole conversation between Paulette and Thomas. He stood there for several minutes in total shock. Shaking his head, he balled his fists, pursed his lips, and his face began to redden as he thought about what he had heard. He didn’t know if she was telling the truth or not. Either way, it made him hate her even more. I don’t think she belongs here, and, no matter what, I’ll figure out a way to get rid of her if it’s the last thing I do.
Bo listened for movement in the cabin. After a few minutes, he heard snoring and decided it would be a good time to act. Walking up to her door, he quietly and slowly twisted the knob and opened the door just enough that he could slip in. Once he was inside, he closed the door and tiptoed over to Paulette’s bed. Just as he got there, she rolled over onto her back.
He froze in his tracks, not knowing whether she’d wake up. When she didn’t wake up, he pulled his handgun out and crept closer until he was standing over her with his gun pointed right at her face.
He began squeezing the trigger, but before it could go off, her hand shot up and knocked the gun out of his hand. She bolted up, grabbed him, and they tumbled to the floor.
After falling over, Bo tried to get back up, but she pulled him back down onto his back and was on top of him, punching him in the face and chest. Enraged, he bucked her off, got a hold on her, and pulled her down.
They struggled back and forth until Bo spotted the gun. He went to reach for it when she kicked out, causing him to miss it.
Boiling over from anger, Bo struck Paulette, causing her to fall. As he ran over to grab the gun, she jumped on his back and was beating him with her fists. He still managed to get the gun and was trying to throw her off so he could use it.
With one last heave, he threw her into the wall. As she slumped down, he turned to shoot, only to find that she had launched herself at him and they were in yet another power struggle. They fought back and forth for what seemed an eternity, and then, without warning, a loud boom reverberated in the room.
Bo stumbled backwards, quickly looking and patting down his mid-section to see if he had been shot. To his amazement, he hadn’t. He breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he looked at Paulette and saw a gaping hole in her abdomen. Trembling, he dropped the gun and ran out of the cabin, the door slamming shut behind him. Although he had wanted to kill her, he knew people would have heard the gunshot, so he needed to get out of there before Thomas found out what happened. He ran as fast as he could into the forest without looking back. He knew he could never return.
As Bo had suspected, several people had heard the gunshot and wondered where it had come from. Someone mentioned they thought it came from Paulette’s cabin, and they saw a man run out of there right after the shot went off. A runner hurried to find Thomas. Thomas was in a meeting with some of his advisers when the runner came flying in, panting and trying to catch his breath.
Surprised at the interruption, Thomas asked sternly, “What is the meaning of this?”
The runner finally got enough air and said, “Someone fired a gun in Paulette’s cabin, and a man was seen fleeing the scene.”
“What? Are you serious?” Thomas rose from his chair, toppling it over, almost falling, as he rushed out the door. A few of the other advisors followed suit. Thomas arrived at Paulette’s cabin first and burst in through the door. He stopped immediately when he saw Paulette lying in front of him in a pool of her own blood. He wasn’t sure if she was dead or alive, and he rushed over, falling to his knees and quickly checked for a pulse. While he was checking her pulse, the others arrived and stood there in horror. Thomas turned and yelled, “Peter, run and tell the medic I’m bringing Paulette in with a gunshot wound to the abdomen. Hurry!” Peter took off running.
“Mark, come over here and help me lift her.” Mark hurried over to Thomas’s side, bent down and helped pick her up off the floor.
Thomas and Mark carried her out of her cabin and quickly got her to the medical cabin, where Kaden, a young, self-trained medic, was standing by. He was short and thin with dusty-blond hair and hazel eyes that could see some of the smallest details, which made him a great medic.
They laid Paulette carefully onto the examining table.
Kaden rushed over to examine her. “It appears she’s lost a lot of blood. Someone will need to donate blood if she needs it. Do we have a universal donor in the village?”
“Yes, that would be me. Do whatever you’ve got to do to save her,” Thomas said with a quivering voice.
His advisers gave him a perplexed look but decided not to ask questions.
Kaden quickly got to work. He examined her again and found the bullet had gone into her right side and out the back. “This is good, no bullet needing to be dug out.”
He packed up the backside of the wound to stop the bleeding and went to work on the front. He had his assistant, Caitlyn, set Thomas up to donate.
Caitlyn had small hands that worked efficiently at inserting the needle into one of Thomas’s veins in his right arm. She inserted an IV line into Paulette’s left arm and hooked the tube to her. She also hooked up a drip IV to keep both hydrated while Thomas’s blood flowed directly into Paulette. Caitlyn kept a close eye on Thomas. She had been told direct transfusions could easily kill the donor.
“Too much blood. I can’t tell if any organs were hit,” Kaden exclaimed. “I’ll suction the blood out, pack the wound and wrap it up.”
As Kaden was finishing up, Caitlyn unhooked Thomas from the transfusion line.
“Is she going to make it? Thomas asked.
“I don’t know. It’s a waiting game, for now,” Kaden replied.
Scowling, Thomas rose from the bed and tried to head back to the meeting hall, but Kaden forbade him from leaving. “You need to rest for a few hours. You gave a lot of blood and are in no condition to go running around in the woods right now.”
“Errg, if I don’t go know, I may never find him.”
“I understand that, but if you go know, you could pass out, or worse, get injured.”
“Fine.”
Thomas, teeth grating, waited for only as long as he had to before he jumped up and went to the meeting hall to gather a posse. He knew time was of the essence if he was going to find whoever had done this to Paulette.
“Listen up everyone. If you haven’t heard yet, someone shot Paulette.” A cry went up from those in the meeting hall. “Please calm down. I know you’re upset, but right now, it’s important that I get out there and find who did this. With this in mind, I need a few people willing to go with me to hunt this person down. Any volunteers?”
“I’ll go with you,” Mark replied.
“Me too,” said Peter, Devon, and Scott.
“Good. Gather what you’ll need and let’s get going. I want to find this man as fast as possible.”
“Yes sir,” they all replied.
A few moments later, the posse was out the door and beginning the search for who had shot Paulette. Thomas wasn’t going to stop looking until he tracked down the jerk who had hurt her, if it was the last thing he did.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Barbara Gilbert was born in Ft Jackson SC. She has lived in numerous locations around the U.S to include Ft Hood TX, Bonner Montana, and Kennewick WA and now Easton, MD.
She graduated from Kennewick high school in 1985. She and entered the United States Air Force in July 1985. Her USAF career started as an Administrator, then Information Manager, to Aerospace Systems Warning Operator (tracking missiles and other threats).
After a medical retirement she worked at RadioShack, then moved over to an IT position at a Marketing company supplying condiments to the US Commissary Service Worldwide and finally opening her own computer consulting, sales, and service company with her husband. As a spare-time project while running an IT department and family consulting firm she had two boys.
While still running the family business she was offered a teaching position at a Charter High School. Changing career tracks again, she became a teacher of English, computer apps, computer repair, consumer math, principles of business, physics, and earth science. In the Public-School System, she taught computer apps, business, E-commerce, and Web Design.
Moving back to her spiritual home in Montana she again taught Earth Science and Computer Applications (MAC), until a second medical disability ended her teaching career.
Her hobbies in (prize winning) photography, painting, Ham Radio, SCUBA Diving, and a host of other interests keep her busy on Good Days, and she manages to get by on the bad ones.
Writing got started with a NaNoWriMo challenge to her sons and seems to have led her to yet another success.
You can visit Barbara online at:
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Future Works
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