Fast Forward

Chapter 9

The first explosion was quickly followed by another explosion. The furniture in Calvin’s room was suddenly flung to the opposite side of the room carrying him with it. Dumb luck had him collide with his mattress that had been flung up against the wall. He wasn’t so lucky with several smaller pieces of his room pelting him. He slid down to the ground with this arms covering his head.

His ears were ringing. He opened his eyes but everything was dark. He thought he saw lights out in the distance. He started to look around and realized that most of the house simply was gone.

He stood up and then jumped to the left as a piece of the wall fell in his direction. The ringing in his ears started to die down a little. He looked down at himself as was surprised to see that he wasn’t injured at all outside of his ringing ears. How was that even possible?

He decided to see if anyone else was alive. “Nathan? Ansel? Gregory? Anyone?”, he shouted. He started to look around where the yard itself was. It was nothing but debris, fire and smoke. No one could live through that and yet here he was. Almost dying twice in one day is getting old, Calvin thought to himself. He was starting to get pissed and he didn’t know who he would be angry at. His wife and children and everyone he loved was buried in the past and what passed for family here was a fugitive of the law. He wanted to do something about it, but what?

“I have to admit, Mr. James, I thought they were kidding when they told me you might survive a direct attack on this house”, Aun Swan said. She walked through what use to be the front yard and into the smoldering ruins of the house. “I wonder if you would survive a more personal touch?”, she said.

She suddenly moved faster than Calvin thought was possible and struck him hard in the stomach. He was lifted off his feet, over the back yard and slammed into the roof of the house across the street. He slid through the attic and then out a wall and landed in a swimming pool. The cold water shocked him to stroke hard to the surface and then he quickly pulled himself out of the pool. He looked down again and saw that he didn’t have any cuts or bruises and he wasn’t in any pain. How? I’m fifty years old, Calvin thought, how can I possibly be unhurt?

Calvin looked back up and there was Aun Swan again…with her weapon pointed at his head. “I getting tired of flirting with you”, she said, “if Jesse isn’t going to try to save you then you are worthless to me.”

“Wait!”, Calvin said backing up and throwing up his hands. “I know nothing about anything here and you’ll be killing an innocent man if you pull that trigger!”.

Aun Swan laughed, “You’re from 2015! The liberals were conservative by today’s standards. Your presence here is a threat to our control over the people. We are here to serve them and you are a threat to all of us!”.

“How?”, Calvin asked. “I’m just an old man lost in this world with no place to go. I mean harm to no one. I never hurt anyone and I’m not going to start now. Look, I’m just lost and would like to go back to my wife and kids. Don’t kill me. Please help me”. Calvin started to cry.

“Awww, is the old man going to cry?”, Aun said mocking him with whimpering sounds. “You really are pathetic and you’re wasting my time”.

Calvin could hear the leather in her glove tighten as she pulled the trigger. There was nothing he could do now, he thought. He could hear the trigger mechanism hit the bullet. There was a small explosion as the bullet was pushed down the barrel twisting on it’s was through it. Calvin looked up and saw the puff of smoke come out of the barrel first and then the bullet itself finally appeared.

Wait, thought Calvin, either the bullet is going really slow or somehow, I’m moving really fast. He stood up as he watched the entire bullet finally move out of the barrel. He walked over to Aun making sure he was not in the path of the bullet. He stood beside her and watched as the bullet moved ever slowly. He quickly pried her fingers off the gun and then moved her hands around the bullet. She looked like she would catch it.

Suddenly time returned to normal. The bullet passed through both of her hands leaving a large hole in both of them. Aun screamed as her body jerked in pain. She fell to her knees crying.

“Awww, is the pretty Asian girl going to start crying now?”, he snarled at her.

She looked up at him, “How did you do that?”.

“I’m not sure why but I have a feeling you know how I did that”, Calvin said. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me now that I have your gun pointed at your head?”.

“You’re an idiot”, she said. “My weapon only fires when I pull the trigger”.

“Oh, thanks for the tip”, he said. “Then all I have to do is repeat what just happened and this time I’ll have you walk into your bullet face first”.

Actually, Calvin had no clue how to do that but he was betting that she didn’t know that he was clueless about what just happened.

She thought about it for a moment as she pressed her bleeding hands against her sides. “How did you learn to use your abilities this quickly?”, she asked.

“Well, I…”, Calvin said trying to be cocky when suddenly she threw dirt into his eyes.