CT 04 "A Time Traveler's Terror"

A Chapter by dw817

"EVERYONE gets fed, you, me, and Glackee, mustn't forget dear sweet Glackee !" he laughed and as he did the back of his skull lifted up slightly and for a moment I could see straight through his eyes.

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A TIME TRAVELER'S TERROR

© October 2013 Written by David Wicker
Please do not reprint without permission

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This Tale is Rated: TEEN

(THE LABORATORY)

I remember working on some kind of time-travel device. There was an assistant with me. Dr. Cleary. He was working on a long metallic cable. I guess my mind was drifting when suddenly there was a soft spark from it as I was working on the computer.

"Can you come help me a second, David ?" he asked.

I nodded and got up, "Sure." I stretched my legs before coming over. Suddenly the computer clicked open a new panel and I heard the hard-drive power up. Someone was somehow using the device we were working on !

We paused both holding onto the cable. But we were the only ones that had the device ? How ? And then we realized. Someone from the future ! And it could only be - =US= was traveling to our past ! That would disrupt everything !

We hurriedly unplugged the cable, but it was too late. There was a tremendous flash of light, of searing pain, and then ...

(BETWEEN)

I was standing in a line in an ashen gray room sitting on a long stone bench. There were people behind me and I was sitting on the edge of the bench. I looked to the side of me and there was a door clearly marked IN on the left-hand side and OUT on the right-hand side.

I looked on the floor and saw there were skid marks as if someone had shuffled their shoes hard against it on the door marked out.

I pondered this for a moment when I suddenly heard a loud voice announce, "Next !"

And then there was someone that looked like a waiter from a restaurant, but he was too ingratiating standing next to me, almost cringing or beside himself with pleasure. It was a combination of the two. There was something clearly odd about him.

"Where am I ?" I asked him.

"Oh ! Don't worry !" he assured me. "You are BETWEEN. You were working on a time travel experiment, weren't you ?"

"Well, yes." I said, "But how did you know ? It was completely top-secret ?"

He tilted his head quizzically and clasped his hands almost apologetically, "We tend to know things like that, here, and in BETWEEN."

Then he stood perfectly still for a moment and for in instant I entertained the notion that he was a mechanism. I broke the silence.

"How long do I need to wait here, sir ?"

He immediately reacted, "Please call me Gretchen and well, I'm not really sure. How long did you want to wait ?" and he looked genuinely puzzled at my question.

"Perhaps you'd like some food ?" he offered after an uncomfortable moment of silence, and jumbled his hands together as if he were agitated over something.

"Well, sure, what do you have ?" I asked, actually feeling hungry at this point.

"EVERYONE gets fed here !" he said and smiled angelically then motioned me with his finger.

I got off the bench to look at the others. They were obviously scientists too, all in lab coats but looked positively miserable. Well, who wouldn't be, to be working on a great time-travel experiment and then wind up here ?

Hmm .. Maybe I wouldn't be here very long, I told myself.

We didn't travel too far, just around the bend to the right and there was more light here, long lit strips in the ceiling. There was a nice table set-up there, 2 of them, and a large door directly to the right that appeared to have incredible statues decorating the left and right of the frame.

The statues were totally awesome looking and futuristic in appearance. They appeared to have a semi-sphere head with decorative spikes around where the neck would be. The arms were the same. semi-spheres also, but with sharper blades that curved inward, the legs were the same but inverted so it could stand.

It was definitely some tripped out steelworker's idea of art.

"Sir !" he said with that odd ingratiating tone again to get my attention.

"Hmm ?" I asked and looked to see that he had put food on the table, but I was too mesmerized by the metal statues to notice where he got it from.

There was like a rice-paper mat, beautifully decorated with Chinese writing and zodiac symbols and what looked to be a small prepared lobster in the middle, complete with fork, knife, salt, and pepper.

"Wow, thanks." I said and sat down and went right into my meal.

My host (hostess ?) then went back to the group and invited another person, my assistant, Dr. Cleary, to sit to a table to the left of me.

I did notice where my meal came from this time. Directly behind me was a small conveyor belt and my Host hit a button. Unlike a mechanism there was a slight delay and I could see someone silhouetted against a hot oven's frame hurriedly preparing a meal.

I tried to meet the eye of the cook through the tiny portal but he deliberately avoided mine, and he seemed to be a big fellow too ! There was a pleasant ding and my assistant's meal arrived through a dark shutter on a spring, this time it was some kind of chicken, also on the decorative rice paper with utensils and spices.

I looked to my assistant who clearly looked as hungry as I was. I shrugged and set into my lobster. I found rather quickly it was quite spicy and I was coughing. I felt a thump on my shoulder and found that my host had apparently taken it upon himself to pat me comfortingly on my back to help me with the burning in my throat.

* * *

I coughed a little more, "I'm fine." I said. "It's really spicy, Gretchen is it ? Sir."

"How about some foi gras to help the palate ?" he offered and didn't bother correcting me that Gretchen was obviously a woman's name.

"Ahhm, sure." I said, not really sure what that was. He had a kind of meat grinder and clumped this gooey stuff on top of my lobster. I took a bite. It was definitely duck as I've had that before. It certainly took some of the spice down from the lobster.

As I ate I imagined my lobster was getting a little larger and more succulent the more I ate of it. I felt something uncomfortable in my stomach and looked down to see I was getting quite a belly from eating this !

Then I noticed Dr. Cleary was still munching on his chicken and his chest looked like he had swallowed a watermelon ! My host turned his back to me and lifted up his mat and whispered in his ear. Dr. Cleary nodded to him and continued his meal.

Then my Host approached me and whispered in my ear. "Sir, I hope you are enjoying your meal, and your payment is good here, please read your contract."

And then he lifted up a corner of the rice-paper mat. There was writing on the bottom.

"This contract certifies that the receiver will hereby walk through the door clearly marked IN if it is in any way stained or spoiled. However, the same person is also entitled to enjoy their meal until such time."

I looked at it. It was clearly marked up the moment I used my fork and knife on the meat. Tricky contract I thought. I whispered back to him, wondering why I was whispering anyways as he clearly said the same thing.

"What's behind the door marked IN, Gretchen ?"

And he goggled his eyes at me, rather frighteningly really, "It's a surprise sir ! A wonderful WONDERFUL surprise !"

"Really." I commented, not thinking it was going to be a good one. Maybe there was a checkout and I had to pay for this meal and I would be short of funds. That would be perfect.

For some reason, Dr. Cleary finished his meal before mine and got up to walk back to the door marked IN. I got up from my incomplete meal and got up to walk after him, curious to know what was in it myself.

And then my dream changed, I was Dr. Cleary, the assistant, and me, who was following him was now someone else. I approached the group which was now talking to itself about theories in time travel and possible reasons as to how they could've arrived to this state, "BETWEEN."

I arrived at the two doors. One labeled IN and one labeled out. To test to see what would happen I tried the OUT door, which was to the LEFT and it clacked on a strong lock, not opening.

One of the other fellows still sitting on the bench shrugged and scooted me out of the way to open the door marked IN which was on the RIGHT and it was like a vacuum pulled at his feet when suddenly a giant shadowy black claw grabbed and dragged him in, clapping one gruesome other claw over his mouth so he couldn't scream.

I saw for the briefest moment it was a spider-like-demon-man thing that had on a cute chef's hate clearly labeled, "Kiss the cook ... or else !" (see illustration above)

I watched through the window in horror as the creature carefully held him down and spit on his face and a kind of gray ooze quickly seeped out and burned on his mouth like crystallizing acid, also preventing him from screaming, and with the beast looking on, the hapless victim fought to scrape it free.

Then there was a large fiery pit and the spider thing grabbed his arms with one claw and his legs with the other and held him over the pit. With a clawed foot it reached for a pedal below and fire suddenly shot up in tight little circles from the pit straight through the man's head, abdomen, and legs.

At once he stopped struggling, obviously dead from shock, and the spider thing rotated him, cooking him perfectly, turning him around and around and then took a blade from the table and started slicing him up, neatly through bone and everything.

He scooted half the meat and all of the bones to a large round metal canister to the right that had a yellow happy smiley face on it and the left he carefully too the remains and formed and chopped it until it looked like a small roasted turkey. He put this on a plate with salt, and pepper.

Then he reached for some kind of weird glowing liquid and sprinkled it on the meat. I peered hard inside the scratched up glass and could see there was a little symbol of a turkey on the canister.

I recognized the tray as the one my meal arrived from. I had just eaten one of my fellow time travelers ! Then the "cook" suddenly looked back at me and bared his fangs at me, nearly 2 feet across !

I felt violently ill but that was soon forgotten by seeing my host, now not walking but somehow GLIDING over the ground, the front of his black oxford shoes were actually dragging on the floor and little jets scooting him up an inch in the air as he curled his toes and whistened forward.

"Mustn't disturb Glackee, sir. He's a very busy cook ! Busy indeed !" he said and wagged a finger at me discouragingly.

I noticed then that his index finger had a slight puncture mark in it and there was a red dot in the center. Without waiting any further, I turned to face the others waiting for their meal, or escape, neither of which they would enjoy, and started to speak out loud when I saw a bright shining needle pop out of the red dot in the middle of Gretchen's finger.

He held the needle to my neck and spoke again, with not so much kindness. "Now now, you wouldn't want to spoil the SURPRISE for them, would you ?"

* * *

I was still inhabiting the body of Dr. Cleary so I stomped on Gretchen's foot and rushed past the real me, who was watching confused, wondering what was going on and then I, Dr. Cleary, started to run out the door clearly marked, "Exit" to the right of the dining tables, when the statues suddenly pulled to life !

The head on both of them bobbed up on little fiery jets in perfect hovering balance and the blades around the head started spinning at a speed so fast you could hear the air being cut around them, and they approached to scissor me in half ! A moment later, there was a horrible feeling of RED.

I had died so I was back in my own original body again so I went back to see what the weird whistling and splatting noise was and saw what was left of my assistant. I covered my mouth in horror.

Just then I heard a mechanism above me so I stepped back, and just in time too, as a series of nozzle sprayers of concentrated acid shot directly on the guards, door, what was left of Dr. Cleary, and the walls.

The acid based cleaner was so strong and it sizzled against everything and in less than a minute left everything gleaming perfectly clean, with no trace of my assistant. Only the door and shining statues remained.

I felt a cold hand on my shoulder and it was Gretchen, and he was tsk tsking like it was a great loss.

"How unfortunately. Sir, please finish your meal and do as your contract requests."

I nodded feeling numb. I imagined the arrangement in here would be perfectly prepared if I jumped him so I walked slowly back to my meal and picked at it, not really eager to finish it. My tummy rumbled again uncomfortably. It was now obvious the meat was expanding in my belly.

I stopped eating at this horrid thought and Gretchen arrived again.

"SIR !" he said and it was at such a volume it made me jump in my seat. "Are you done now !?"

"Nono ..." I said quietly, and then with great exaggeration cut into the contract slicing it and eating some of the rice-paper along with a bit of the remaining meat.

"Hmm ..." Gretchen said melodiously as if what I was doing was the correct thing, and then went back to the group sitting on the bench and chimed out, "Next !"

Another traveler sat down and a tray popped out for him. Gretchen stood perpendicular to both of us to observe who would finish first. I managed to get the attention of the other traveler and pointed grimly to the rice-paper before he started to eat. I made a motion over my neck. Death if the contract is met.

Gretchen lost interest in him and came back over to me to confirm I was still eating my meal. As he did, the traveler quickly looked at the contract, his left-hand fingers touching his chin as he did so, then suddenly took the rice-paper contract and folded it up in his shirt.

Gretchen turned his head so fast I swear it was like my brain skipped several frames of motion but the other traveler then immediately plowed into his plate to show, he, too, was interested in the meal.

"Delicious." I heard him say, to distract him/her from the fact the contract was missing from under the meal.

Gretchen tapped his fingers, one to another in front of him like a smaller ribcage. "Yes, isn't it ?" slightly suspicious of what was happening. And drifted away from me to cross perpendicular again.

I picked at my meal and, apparently, the other traveler thinking he was free from the horrible contract finished off his meal rapidly, eager to be rid of the place and had his eyes on the door marked Exit.

Finally he got up and Gretchen was there, baffled, looking at the table where the meal was clearly eaten but there was no sign of the contract.

"Well, good to see ya, Gretchen. You take care now." and as he spoke the gravy from his mouth dripped on the floor as no napkins were provided.

Gretchen looked rather furious at his sloppy manner.

"Sorry." he said suddenly and reached in his pocket for a handkerchief but Gretchen immediately pulled out something for him to wipe his mouth with.

"Oh, thanks, old fellow." and wiped his mouth. Then he looked at it, curiously as it had writing in it. The cloth had the contract written in it as well. He had stained it. He was expected to walk through the door now.

Gretchen was ready this time and without waiting a further moment tapped his neck where the needle came out and I saw a trickle of blood, not from the traveler's neck but from Gretchen's finger. He slumped over immediately onto the floor.

"Everyone gets fed." I said sardonically, and then regretted saying it because Gretchen whistened back to me in a moment.

"Yes !" Gretchen said trilling his voice. "EVERYONE gets fed, you, me, and Glackee, mustn't forget dear sweet Glackee !" and he laughed and as he did the back of his skull lifted up slightly and for a moment I could see straight through his eyes to the glass window.

And this time, Glackee looked straight at me through the small portal and the opening of Gretchen's eyes.

But I was interrupted from that terrible sight by seeing my own belly rupture from inside from the still-expanding meat I had swallowed ! Gretchen was watching me with a growing and wicked smile when -

ALARM GOES OFF - DREAM ENDS