Sometimes Things Break: Meet the Neighbors

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Chapter 49
"Meet The Neighbors"

They didn’t land with a thud, but it wasn’t a graceful landing, either. Cheryl, Buck, Lumpy, and Anne, found themselves in a dumpster behind a bar on Maple Lane in downtown St. Isidore.
Teenagers in a Dodge pulled up alongside and started throwing empty beer cans into the giant, green waste container. Buck lifted his head up when he heard one of this favorite old rock tunes, an Allman Brothers song, Ramblin’ Man coming from the car.
Cheryl dragged him back down just in time to avoid one of the PBR cans headed their way.“Hey!” hollered Lumpy, “I’ll have you little shitheads behind bars so fast, your puckered assholes won’t open up for a week.”
Ignoring Lumpy’s threat, along with Anne’s that followed at a much higher and more obscene pitch, the youngsters sped off, leaving a cloud of blue smoke from their hot tires and oil.
“Relax, you two,” Cheryl said. “They can’t see us or hear us. Not until we want them to. Don’t forget; you’re under my protection. Invisibility is part of the deal."
Buck didn’t have a hard time following Cheryl and believing her. But, Lumpy and Anne looked at each other with raised eyebrows. “I see you,” whispered Anne. “And I see you,” said Lumpy.
Cheryl didn’t respond. It was tough enough teaching her fellow spirits the ins-and-outs of time travel. She didn’t even know where to start with two members of the Living.They’d just have to get used to it.
"What was up with that car,” asked Buck, finally. “Did we land in the middle of  a classic car show?”
Cheryl sighed and rubbed his back while Anne helped Lumpy clean himself off. Coffee grounds are a bitch to get out of a police chief’s uniform.
“I’d forgotten that you’re really still a rookie when it comes to this time travel stuff,” Cheryl said to Buck with a little more tenderness than she’d intended.
“Those kids were not driving a classic car. It wasn’t new. I’m betting it was a few years old, probably a 1965 or ’66 Dodge Coronet.”
That went down easy with Buck. There was little that Cheryl told him that he would doubt. Not with everything they'd been through.
But, Lumpy didn't want to believe what he was thinking.
“Where are we?” Anne asked. She was much more open to the idea of time travel. In her younger days, when she was a little more open to possibilities offered by other dimensions, she’d done her share of astral projection.
So traveling through time wasn’t such a big jump from her experiences.
Cheryl took a breath and started to reply.
St. Isidore’s top cop — at least in the twenty-first-century — interrupted her.“This is October 1974,” said Lumpy in a voice filled with wonder, amazement, and utter disbelief. ”I know exactly where we are.”
He nodded while gazing into the parking lot surrounding the dumpster.
Two Cadillacs were pulling into spots by the door. A St. Isidore police car, one of the old Crown Vics, followed behind. Except just like with the 1965 Dodge earlier, none of these cars looked like old vehicles. In fact, the Caddies looked brand new.“We’re sitting in a  dumpster behind the Club Chevelle on Maple,” whispered Lumpy. "And, it's October, 19-fricking-74."
“You’ve been here?” Buck asked.
After waiting for car doors to open, Lumpy looked at Buck, pointed and said quietly, “I am here.”
Everyone’s eyes followed Lumpy’s finger to the police car. Getting out of the driver’s side was a young officer, about 6-foot, 3-inches tall, trim, slim and muscular. Looked like he’d done some competitive swimming in high school.
Emerging from the passenger side was another officer. He was a little bit short than his buddy and much more muscular. This guy had played some football in high school. A linebacker on defense, maybe a tight end on the other side of the ball. Nobody would want to mess around with him. Even though he looked to be in his early twenties, this cop strode to the back door of the Club Chevelle with the walk of a man who knows how to handle himself and anyone who crossed his path.
“That’s me,” said Lumpy. To describe him as astonished would be an insult to the word. Lumpy was astounded. 
The doors of the Cadillacs opened. Four men, all in dark suits and thin ties, emerged. “Men in black?” asked Anne with a smile.
“No,” said Lumpy displaying his usual lack of humor. He shot a look at Anne. “The movie. I get it. Hahaha.
“Who those guys are, are the most important men in St. Isidore, that’s who they are,” Lumpy said with a nod in their direction noting his respect for their high ranking in the city’s society. “Dan Van Howe, David Stieger, Marty Rosen, and Allan Morehead,” said Lumpy. “Ladies and gentleman, you are looking at the Neighborhood Association. “These are the guys who make all the decisions.
“And they’ve called me and John Sheldon — Tim’s brother — to a meeting. If I remember right, the shit is about to hit the fan.”
Buck, nerd that he was, was surprised and more than a little disbelieving. 
“I didn’t think you could go back in time and occupy the same space as your past self,” said Buck. “And what about the fact that someone has to be displaced for everyone who lands in another time.”
“Okay,” said Cheryl. Time for a time-travel lesson. “To begin with, we are not traveling as human beings. We are here as spirits. You and I ‘borrowed’ a couple of bodies, true enough. Lumpy and Anne here have their own vessels to carry their spirits.
“But when I put us into the time-travel tunnel, I just moved our souls, our spirits. The bodies you’re seeing are just for the convenience of not rocking your worlds too much. You see them, but no one else does. So there’s nothing to displace.
“And, as for your past self meeting your future self, again, that’s where our spirit time travel saves us.”
Cheryl paused to let her thoughts sink into her traveling companions, and then said, “ Now, as for you Mister Chief of Police... Will you listen to me?”
She pulled on his shirt sleeve with one hand and pinched a chubby cheek with the other.“It’s critical that you don’t make the mistake of revealing future yourself to your past self,” Cheryl said. Her eyes displayed an urgency Buck hadn’t seen since she convinced him to throw some clothes on and leave Glasscock Funeral Home.
“What happens if he does?” asked Anne.
Cheryl looked at Anne, Buck, and finally Lumpy. She wanted to be sure she had their full attention.
“What happens?” Cheryl said. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know.” Her intense, riveting gaze traveled from one companion to another to the last. “Just don’t fuck up. You do, and the world as we know it will be destroyed. I am sure of that. And I know it won’t be cinematic. 
“So, just don’t fuck up.”“You said,” replied Buck“Twice,” said Anne.“Lumpy?” said Cheryl
He looked down at her with a new resolve and confidence. It didn’t matter where they were, or what time zone, as far as Lumpy was concerned. There was a job to do, and he was going to do it.
“Follow me,” Lumpy said. “We’re going inside.”
“Inside?” questioned Anne.“That’s where we need to go, right now,” said Cheryl. She knew better than anyone except Lumpy, what came next. She could have told Cheryl and Buck what would happen, but it wouldn’t have made the same impression.
“And, no,” Lumpy said, throwing a glance Cheryl’s way. “I won’t fuck up.”
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There you have it, an excerpt from Sometimes Things Break:  A Paranormal Time Travel Thriller. I'll be posted more as time goes by (no pun intended. It just slipped out. Really) -Rod
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