CHAPTER TWENTY TWO - DOWNHILL
Brian sat on the couch with Tyke in his arms as he idly stared at the games show on the television, the sound having been reduced to the minimum volume. He had a headache.
His head was throbbing painfully and he felt dizzy and confused for no apparent reason. He had tried an aspirin but it had not helped in the slightest. He never usually suffered from headaches and certainly nothing this intense.
He reached for the remote and switched the television off, the excited claps and squeals from the audience now too much for his sore head to bear. He abandoned stroking Tyke and placed his hands to his head.
He had a terrible feeling that this was all very familiar. The last time he had felt like this had been in B’s time, but there had been nothing since. This headache was close to the intensity of the ones he had experienced as an after-effect of time travel in 2023, but why was he suffering from it now?
He would ask B about it when the boy woke up, although that seemed highly unlikely at the moment as he had been peacefully unconscious since Brian left him three hours ago. Maybe the boy would know some reason behind Brian’s sudden headaches and nightmares. Nightmares and headaches… both were reminiscent of the ones he had had before.
He groaned as the phone began to ring, the loud noise splitting straight through his skull. He pushed Tyke away and sought to grasp the phone before it could pain him anymore. “Hello?” he asked.
“Hey daddy!” Sammy’s voice squealed excitedly.
Brian was immediately cheerful again, the headache forgotten as he realised that Sammy would be home the day after tomorrow. He loved having B with him, but it didn’t stop him missing Sammy, just as Sammy’s presence had not stopped him from thinking and crying over B. “Sammy, hey!” Brian said leaning against the table to make himself more comfortable for a lengthy little chat with his son. He missed him…
“Where were you yesterday?” Sammy asked. “We called!”
“Sorry I, um, something came up,” Brian apologised vaguely, kicking himself for forgetting that Sammy was supposed to have called yesterday. “What did you do yesterday?”
“We went to a theme park!” Sammy said, all accusation gone as it was cast aside in favour of memories from the park. “I went on the spaceships and the logs and the elephants and the cars and the tractors and the train and the snake and a bouncy castle and a roller coasted and a swingy thing and a - ”
“Wow! Slow down!” Brian laughed as he tried to keep up with the words that bubbled out of Sammy’s mouth so quickly that all he could hear was a string of mindless mess. “You sound like you had fun!”
“Yeah! It was really good! Can we go sometime?”
“Sure, we will.”
“I miss you… and Tykey!” Sammy said. “But I’m home tomorrow!”
Brian frowned slightly in confusion. “What? It’s only Thursday. I thought you were coming back on Saturday?”
Sammy’s voice was suddenly replaced by Jon’s, Jacob’s father. “Brian, we’ll be back at ten tomorrow morning. There’s a huge storm forecast for tomorrow afternoon and there’s no saying what that will do to the trains. We don’t want to get stranded here with train problems so we’re getting one tonight.”
“Okay,” Brian said, rapidly trying to make plans to cover all evidence of B’s arrival from Sammy. This would really be a blow to B. As much as the boy did adore his older brother, Brian knew that he really wanted Brian all to himself at the moment, especially with how sensitive he was feeling over events in his own time.
“Is that okay?” Jon asked.
“Of course it is!” Brian’s heart was soaring as he realised that this time tomorrow he would be cuddling his little Sammy again… and at the moment he really wanted Sammy with him. He was unnerved that there had been nothing from the older version. “I can’t wait to see Sammy again!”
At the same time though there was something hard dropping within his stomach as he realised how restricted B would become. He was already stuck inside but now he would have to stay in his room until Sammy was playing round a friend’s or until he had gone to bed. Brian would be unable to spend any time with him at all without Sammy getting suspicious. He felt guilty as hell for feeling such thoughts, but B was someone he might never see again so it was especially important that Brian paid him some attention now.
“Okay, our train gets in at 11. 55. We’ll meet you outside the station. If we’re late and you need to check anything it’s the Gatesville 15.05 and it’ll be at platform six, you got that?” Jon asked, speaking carefully enough for Brian to scribble the details down.
“Right, Brian said as he checked that he could read his own unruly handwriting.
“Okay, here’s Sammy again.
There was a pause at the end and then Sammy’s chirpy voice was back. “Daddy!”
“You enjoy the rest of your holiday baby,” Brian said. “And I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Okay, bye bye!”
“Bye!”
Brian waited until the connection had been cut off before slowly replacing the phone. He glanced towards the stairs and then began to make his way to B’s room, wondering if the phone had awoken him.
“B?” he called, quiet enough so as not to wake him if he was asleep.
“I’m awake,” B replied weakly.
Brian sighed as he pushed the door open. B was lying in bed, his eyes half closed in his pale face. Sleep did not seem to have brought any colour back to him. He carefully sat up when Brian entered while he scratched at his arms.
“You okay?” Brian asked, watching the nails scrape over the skin.
“Yeah, I’m just itchy that’s all.”
“Feel any better?”
B hesitated for a moment and then shook his head. “I feel sick and dizzy and I have really weird dreams.”
“Nightmares?” Brian asked, wondering if B was suffering from the same thing as Brian.
B shook his head. “Not really. I’ve had one or two, but most of my dreams are just weird. Why?”
“Just curious.” He paused for a moment before deciding to confess his own health state to B. “I’ve been having nightmares and bad headaches. I just wondered if I’d caught it from you.”
“I don’t think I’m guilty. I had a headache yesterday but it wasn’t bad.”
Brian and B’s states seemed to be completely unrelated. Perhaps Brian was reading too much into his disturbing nights and aches. “B, you don’t think you’re like this because of time travel or anything? We know there can be side effects.” Maybe that would explain B’s illness.
“No, I was ill in my time as well. I had a cold. Besides, you only normally get ill if there are two people in the same time.
“It’s not always that simple though is it? I mean, I was ill in your time but there was only one of me there.” The headaches, dreams and hallucinations had been caused by something called temporal remembrance which occurred when two identical people existed in the same time. It was unnatural and caused sickness.
B stared at him and for a brief moment Brian saw something flicker in the boy’s eyes, something deep and painful and yet loving as well. He hung his head. “I guess. You’re not having the same thing here are you?”
Brian was caught off guard by the question. “I – I’m not sure. I don’t see how it’s possible.”
Another look passed over B’s face but he turned away. There was a hundred emotions there and also a closed look that made Brian certain that he was hiding something. Something big.
“B, Sammy’s coming home tomorrow,” Brian said knowing that he had to know at some point.
“Oh. I bet you miss him.” B did not look particularly enthralled at the idea and Brian knew exactly why, it would make him think of his older brother in his time. That and the fact that B knew his fun with Brian would be over, but there also seemed to be something else playing on his mind, something that he did not want to tell Brian about.
“I do and it will be nice to have him home,” Brian said.
“What about me?” B asked quietly.
“I guess we’ll have to keep you up here. It won’t be so bad,” he said seeing B’s dejected look. “I’ll keep coming up to see you.”
B nodded. “I guess someone will be here for me soon anyway.” His eyes seemed to gaze into a world of their own. “That person who saved us… do you think he’s come for me? Maybe Sammy sent him?”
“Maybe,” Brian agreed. “We’ll see if he turns up.”
B looked nervous and his face seemed to have turned paler. “Yeah…”
Brian made B some hot soup for tea, hoping that it would help rid him of the snuffles, but B was quiet and barely said a word as Brian watched him eat. There was clearly something on his mind, but he would not tell Brian. He allowed him to stay silent and left him to rest as he carried everything back downstairs and into the kitchen.
He dipped his hands in the soapy, warm water carefully scrubbing away at the dirt on the plates. His thoughts however were on another matter. All the time he thought about B and his cryptic story of how he had come here. Brian never had gotten all the details from him and now he was wondering if he should ask for them. B knew the answer to this mystery, or he at least suspected the identity of the stranger who had been following Brian.
Suddenly he felt the shadow slipping through his mind and sending cold convulsions rippling along his skin. He shivered and then his head snapped up and turned to stare at the front of the house. He found himself walking over towards the lounge where the big bay window looked out onto the street and then his eyes were drawn straight to the bench across the road, as if an invisible force were pulling at them. The light was fast fading from the sky to bathe everything in a weak greyness that had not yet given up to the black of night that would soon roll in. By the faint light he could just see the figure seated on the bench in his usual black cloak, only this time the hood was down. Brian leant closer until his face was pressed right up against the smooth glass, like a greedy child peering through the sweet shop windows.
Unfortunately, he was too far away for Brian to see the face as anything more than a light smudge, but the second he saw pink blob he found himself shivering and felt clammy hands gripping fiercely at the sill edge to prevent his body from sliding down to the floor. He could feel his strength wavering as the sickness invaded his stomach, there was something unnaturally wrong with this strange person. His eyes narrowed to slits as he tried to determine the identity of the person, but the only distinguishing feature was the light hair, light hair that looked almost blond but it was difficult to tell for certain in the gloom of the evening. The face was shaped so familiarly…
He suddenly felt their eyes lock. He could not see it, but he could feel it… He shuddered again and then the stranger rapidly pulled up their hood again before slinking away down the street.
They looked so familiar…
Too familiar. He knew them.
He found himself running to the door. He had to go after them and solve this bizarre riddle. There was something here that Brian was missing. This was something to do with Sammy and the real reason B had run away from his own time. Brian knew that it was something more than the Gerai and this man had something to do with it all.
He grasped the door handle to the front door but then suddenly there was a cry from upstairs. He spun around and dashed back up them two at a time recognising B’s voice. He was more important than catching that stranger.
“B!” he cried anxiously as he saw the boy slumped on the landing floor. “B, are you all right?” He leant down beside him and gasped in relief as the green eyes opened.
“I – I just felt real weak…” B whispered. “Then I was dizzy…” His voice was frail and weak, barely audible.
“It’s okay,” Brian soothed. “You’re sick. You should stay in bed.”
“I wanted to come and see you. I have to talk to you…”
“Shush B, just rest. Tell me in the morning,” Brian said, seeing that B was in desperate need of rest.
B groaned slightly and nodded, but then his face contorted. “I think I’m gonna be sick.” He gasped and Brian saw the look on his face as he began to retch. He quickly helped him to his feet and then guided him into the bathroom, just in time for B to empty everything he had eaten that day onto the tiled floor. B retched again and this time made it to the lavatory.
Brian stared in horror at the floor. Blood. There was a small amount of blood mingled with everything else. B was coughing up blood.
B gasped from the lavatory and then turned back to Brian shivering. His eyes fell to the mess on the floor and he gulped. “Sorry…”
He was sorry about the mess? Brian didn’t care about the floor… Coughing up blood was a bad sign.
“B, we need to get you to a doctor. This isn’t right!” Coughing up blood… that meant internal bleeding or TB or something even worse…
“It hasn’t killed me yet,” B said softly.
Brian froze slightly. “What? B, how long has this been going on for?”
B hung his head. “It happened last night but before then I – I’d been throwing up back home in my time.”
Brian crossed over to B and placed his arms about him, feeling the boy fall shivering into his arms. “B,” he whispered sadly as he gently brushed the fringe away from his face. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t know,” B replied faintly, his voice full of a fear worse than Brian’s. “But I don’t think this is a cold. It’s been like this for over two weeks. I just didn’t want to admit it because I was scared…”
Brian slowly kissed him on the head. “You’ll be all right,” he said, although his eyes were filling slowly with tears. Everything was going wrong.
Everything.