Last Chance (22 page)

Amanda pondered everything that the Chance family had explained to her and was more confused than ever. She asked the next obvious question. “How did you know what was going to happen?” Matthew knew Amanda’s trust in him had waned, but he wanted to tell her the truth.

“I know this is going to sound crazy, but you need to keep an open mind. The reason we knew what was going to happen to your family is because we aren’t from this time.” Amanda looked at Matthew like he was crazy. He continued, “We’re from the future—two hundred years or so.”

Amanda chuckled and cried at the same time. Matthew asked, “Are you OK?”

Amanda looked up. “You’re right; I do think you’re crazy.” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “These crazy time travelers came two hundred years into the past because they wanted my necklace.” She put her finger to her ear, made a circular motion with it, and said, “That doesn’t sound crazy at all.”

“He’s telling you the truth.” Connor had wanted to tell someone about their secret ever since they’d arrived in the past.

“We are from the future and now we have to get back to our big tunnel of time to get home.”

Amanda refused to believe such nonsense and asked, “OK, so if you’re from the future, what number am I thinking of?”

April had been quiet but chimed in with a sarcastic tone. “We’re from the future; we’re not mind readers.”

Matthew desperately wanted Amanda to believe him and began spouting off facts that he had learned from Walter’s history textbooks. “A man named George Bush will be president after Ronald Reagan. Then later on, another man named George Bush will be president. I think it’s his son.”

Amanda, unimpressed, shook her head and said, “Well, if two George Bushes become president in my lifetime, maybe I’ll believe you, but until then, you’re all nuts.”

Amanda was troubled about the answers she got from Matthew and his family, but she was really concerned about where this potentially crazy family was taking her and her little brother. “Look, why don’t you just drop me and Steven off at the next police station or even a hotel and I’ll call my uncle or my aunt to come get us.”

April continued down the road with no reply to Amanda’s comment. Amanda cleared her throat and again asked, “Is there any reason why we’re making this trip with you? We can just call my family and they’ll come and pick us up.”

Matthew tried to explain the situation. “We can’t let you call your other family. In fact, I think you and your brother will probably have to come back with us.”

Amanda asked, “What do you mean, back with you?”

Matthew continued, “Keith Kellington knows that you and your brother survived tonight.”

Connor jumped in. “That is the real crazy person in this whole thing, and he won’t stop until he knows that you and Steven are dead.”

April added, “I’m sure you don’t want to put any of your other family members at risk. If you call and get them involved in all of this, he won’t hesitate to hurt them as well, just to get to you.”

Amanda replied, “You people are insane. Where are you really taking us?”

April took an exit just north of Atlanta. “Look, I’m not real excited about taking you two back with us either, but for now, I just don’t see any other way.”

Matthew put his hand on Amanda’s hand and said, “The only way that you two will be safe is with us. April doesn’t want you to get hurt.”

April replied, “They’re both liabilities to us, son. They already know too much, and if Keith got hold of them, he would be able to pull anything out of their heads that he wanted. That includes everything she knows about us.”

Matthew couldn’t understand why his mother was acting like this. Why was she making Amanda feel worse than she already did? He was trying to console her, and his mother was talking like she was a prisoner of war.

April pulled the car into a hotel parking lot. “I think we’ll just stay here until morning.” Amanda could see that the parking lot was well lit. She decided that it was a good time to get away from the Chance family.

As everyone began to get out of the car, Amanda pulled on her little brother. “Steven, wake up. We need to go. Steven, wake up. It’s time to get up.”

Amanda continued to pull and tug on her little brother with no response from him. She started to panic as the realization that something was wrong with him invaded her thoughts. “Steven, wake up! Wake up!”

Matthew heard the terror in Amanda’s voice and sprinted to the far side of the car, along with Connor and April. Matthew asked, “What’s going on? What’s wrong with him?”

Amanda’s voice and body shook uncontrollably as she said, “He won’t wake up. I can’t wake him up.” She fell to her knees and said, “He can’t be gone, too. Somebody do something!”

April helped pull Steven Jr. to the ground, just outside of the car. “His breathing is shallow.”

Amanda screamed out, “Someone call an ambulance! We need help over here!”

April looked to Connor and told him, “Get her quiet or we’re all gonna be in trouble here.”

Connor grabbed Amanda and tried to calm and quiet her down. “You have to be quiet; we’ll help him.”

Matthew held the boy’s head and said, “I took the charm off of him too soon. He must have inhaled more smoke than Amanda did.” Matthew created a new copy of the Hathmec from his own and copied the health charm to be placed in it. He put it around the neck of Amanda’s little brother.

April tried to stop Matthew, “You can’t let her see that.”

Matthew backed away from the young boy and told his mother, “Do you really think it matters at this point? You want his death on your conscience, too?”

Amanda, still being restrained by Connor, yelled to Matthew and April, “You’re both crazy! You’re gonna let him die! We need to get him to a hospital.” She began to cry and imagined the loss of yet another family member. It was just too much to bear.

Amanda struggled to free herself from Connor when she noticed some movement from her brother. She began to calm down and could see that he was waking up. He was coughing and his eyes were still heavy, but he was waking up.

He looked to his sister and said, “Mandy, where are we?” Connor let go of Amanda, and she lunged toward her little brother and hugged and kissed him right there in the parking lot of the Moon Over Georgia Hotel.

“How did you do this? What did you give him to wake him up?” She could see the Hathmec pendant and charm that her brother was now wearing. She recognized it as the same one she had noticed on Matthew a week earlier. “This looks just like yours. What is it?”

Matthew shut the car door and said, “There are a lot of things we need to explain to you, but for now, just be glad that your brother’s OK.”

He walked over to his mother, who had leaned up on the front of the car and said, “What’s wrong with you? Can’t you show a little compassion?” April could see the disappointment in her son’s eyes, but couldn’t bring herself to respond to him.

Steven Jr., still groggy, stood up with the help of his sister. April walked toward the registration office and said, “We’ll stay here and get some sleep and then go on to the park.”

Steven Jr. asked his sister, “What park?”

Amanda responded, “I’m not sure, but I think we need to do what she says for now, OK?” Amanda was doing a good job keeping her brother calm in the face of something that neither of them could have ever prepared for.

Amanda held her brother up and whispered into Matthew’s ear, “I still don’t know what your family’s up to, but if you do anything to hurt me or my little brother, I swear I will make you pay.”

Matthew could see the fear and hurt in Amanda’s eyes and responded the only way that he knew how. “I know you don’t believe me right now, but the last thing we want to do is hurt you or Steven.” He looked into her eyes and added, “It will all make sense when we get back to 2185.”

Amanda handed Steven over to Connor, but she wouldn’t back down from Matthew. She replied, “Cut the crap. I don’t know how you know what you know, or how you helped Steven, but this whole future thing is ridiculous. Maybe you just want to plead insanity when you and your whole family are sent to jail.”

April could hear the end of the conversation between her son and Amanda Curry, and it suddenly occurred to her that she had the proof of their time travel with her all along. “Let’s get to the room, kids.” She stopped Amanda and handed her a folded piece of paper and said, “Maybe this will help. Read it.”

Amanda unfolded the paper to see that it was a newspaper clipping dated four days from the current date. It was a copy of the Travis Tribune and under the heading for obituaries it displayed the names and dates of the death of her mother, father, brother, and herself.

Amanda had trouble believing what she saw, but it was real. April had placed the newspaper clipping in her pocket after she had read it several days ago. Walter wanted to make sure she believed the future that he had written to her about. Now she used that same clipping to try to convince Amanda Curry of a future that would have existed. Amanda still had her doubts, but there was at least the slightest hope in her mind that it could be true.

Matthew and Connor carried the few bags that the family had into the hotel room and took a quick stock of what was left for the final push back to the park. Connor asked, “Do you think we’ll have any problems getting back to the tunnel tomorrow?”

Matthew replied, “We’ve had problems ever since we got here; we’re due for an easy finish.”

Matthew placed his bag on the bed and told his brother, “I just wish I could have saved her parents.”

Connor agreed and said, “Yeah, too bad I wasn’t the one who had the attribute charm.”

Matthew was confused by Connor’s comment and was about to ask for clarification, but he was stopped by April’s arrival.

“Let’s get some rest. Tomorrow is a big day.”

Chapter 17

what are you thinking?

“You rolled into me again.” Matthew pushed his brother’s leg away from his back and tried to roll over.

Connor mumbled, “The floor’s too hard; can’t get comfortable.”

The hotel room the Chance family and what was left of the Curry family occupied was nothing to get excited about. April, Amanda, and Steven Jr. shared the one bed. A potent odor emanated from it and burned the nostrils of its occupants. The boys just wanted to get a few hours of sleep, but the hard floor at the side of the bed didn’t allow for much comfort.

The group was only three hours away from the park that hid the R tunnel. The beacon to the future would be open for another eighteen hours, so the family had plenty of time to complete the trip. April had spent much of the previous two weeks worried about the time needed to retrieve the attribute charm; she never dreamed they would be early.

The only noises coming from the hotel room were the on and off roar of the room’s air conditioning system and the beats and bangs that came from the surrounding rooms. Beyond that, it was quiet. This type of quiet had everyone sinking into the recesses of their own minds. What they found was a doubt and fear that could lead them all to ruin.

April lay on the right side of the small bed located in the center of the room, closest to the door. The last few hours had not gone as planned. Not only was she worried about her own sons, but she had the added burden of Amanda and her little brother. She knew the harm that this could cause and worried about Walter’s reaction to the Curry kids. Her memory flashed back, years before, when she first met Walter Wainright. She questioned herself and the decisions that she made back then.

From the moment she and the boys arrived in the park and made their way to Travis, her eyes had opened to a world that she could not have imagined. A world where people could choose their own path and raise their families how they saw fit, all in a world without boundaries. She could eat what she wanted and talk to whomever she wanted. She could brag about her sons, her own sons. It could be so perfect here. This place in history was so wonderful; it was possible to fall in love with a man she barely knew.

April also saw a world of loss. She saw people who were on their own and needed help. They were normally passed up by others who were so wrapped up in themselves they couldn’t spare the time to aid a fellow human being. There was a class of citizens that had more than they needed, and a class that could barely get by. There was the loss that a young girl now felt, as her parents had been taken away from her. There was the loss that an even younger boy would have to come to grips with as his world would change forever.

April was also dealing with the potential loss of her emotions and sense of humanity. It just continued to run through her head, over and over. “I brought a man who I had feelings for to his death. I killed a man. I killed a man. I killed a man. I didn’t just kill any man—I killed a good man.”

April wiped her eyes and watched the ceiling fan as it went around and around. She remembered the few conversations that she and Danny Charles shared. She remembered the stories that Danny told her of the times he would go hunting with his father and the delicious food that his mom cooked for him.

She pondered the effect that his death would have on his young daughter. He had told her, “She’s the light of my life. She’s a little four-year-old miracle who keeps me going every day.” Danny had revealed to April how her mother had died during childbirth and the pain that he had gone through just trying to get out of bed in the mornings after it happened. “I didn’t have a choice. I’m her father and it’s my responsibility to take care of her. Don’t matter how bad I feel.”

Danny’s southern accent and charm echoed in April’s head as the realization of that little girl’s world without her father flooded April’s thoughts. She saw her going to school for the first time without him. She saw her celebrating a birthday without him. She saw her crying, back to a wall, knees around her face, and the anger that would surely build up in her as the years passed.

She started to realize that Matthew was right. Her regret and hatred for herself was being projected onto Amanda Curry. She wasn’t to blame for the position that she and her little brother had been put in. It was ultimately April’s responsibility, and she knew it.

The boys were the most important things in the world to April Chance. She was willing to give her own life for them, so why would she not give someone else’s? She never wanted to hurt Danny Charles or the Curry kids, but the mission was still the most important thing. Or was it?

April pondered one more question.
What if we just stayed here and enjoyed life for as long as we can? Just miss the window back home and try to survive in the past.

It entered her mind that it would be another thirty or forty years before they would have to worry about the minister or the Hathmec. It could be a good life for April and her kids. School for the boys and a job for her sounded like a dream. They could be anything they wanted to be and with the Hathmec charms they already had; they would be healthy and protected.

April contemplated her options and allowed those thoughts to drift into sleep. She dreamed of the perfect life for her and her boys and tried to forget the dreadful results of the past day.

Connor Chance, on the other hand, was nowhere near nodding off. He dealt with the bumps and muffled words coming from the rooms around them. He dealt with the stray cat meowing outside of their door. He even dealt with the hypnotic rotations of that same ceiling fan.

Connor was starting to have issues dealing with his newly confident brother. Matthew had become the alpha male in the family and Connor wasn’t comfortable with that. Matthew, of all people, controlled the attribute charm, saved two people from certain death, and worst of all, Amanda thought he hung the moon. At least she did a few hours ago. None of it was right. That’s a description for Connor Chance, not Matthew Chance.

He glared over at his brother and could see the attribute charm lighting up for brief moments at every turn of the fan. He imagined the amount of power that Matthew must have felt when he used that charm to save Amanda and Steven Jr. He imagined what it must have felt like to have two, three, or more times your normal strength. He whispered to himself, “I would be unstoppable.”

Matthew whispered back to Connor, “What did you say?”

Connor sharply replied, “I didn’t say anything; you’re hearing things.”

“I was just making sure you were OK.”

Connor’s mind raced with a mix of anger and envy as he replayed that last comment.
He wants to make sure I’m OK? He isn’t my keeper.
Connor began to open his mouth to respond to his brother, but he decided to hold back. He thought,
Just because he gets to look like the hero and he’s able to talk Amanda out of the charm doesn’t mean he has any say over me.

Connor thought back to his life in 2185 and wondered what would change when they got back. He wanted to know what Walter Wainright had in store for them next. He wanted to know how Amanda and Steven Jr. were going to react to the future and what Walter would do with them when they got there. For the most part, Connor Chance wanted to know if anything they had done over these two weeks would make any difference in his own life.

While Connor’s mother and brother seemed to think that 1984 was a great place, Connor was not convinced. It was nice to lead the football team, and the girls in 1984 were a lot more fun to look at, but was that enough?

He liked calling April Mom. He liked telling people that Matthew was his brother. He liked the idea of being allowed to be outside of his home at any hour of the day or night, without being questioned about it.

The experience had opened Connor’s eyes, but in his heart, he still questioned the merit of it all. Sure, he enjoyed the freedoms that he had in Travis, Tennessee, but should everyone have those freedoms? It was good for him, but maybe it wasn’t good for everyone.

Who decided that? Surely, there were people in the world who knew what was best for other people. He thought,
Maybe I could be one of those people.

As he pondered that question, it reminded him that Matthew was not one of those people. He remembered that he was the leader of the two brothers. He remembered that he was always the one who stuck up for Matthew. He remembered that he was the best beamball player, the strongest brother, and the starting quarterback. He thought,
Matthew wouldn’t have even talked to Amanda if I hadn’t done it first.

Connor convinced himself that things were going to return to normal once they got back to 2185 and Sector 37. He dreamed of a day when he had liberated the world from the likes of Keith Kellington and the minister. He dreamed of crowds carrying him in celebration.

They would see the good that he had done and they would want him to lead them into the future. The dreams finally overpowered the anger and the angst of the intense Chance boy and he fell off to sleep.

While Connor dreamed of the future, Amanda struggled to wrap her mind around her current circumstance. This was a girl who less than twenty-four hours ago had absolutely everything in the world going for her. She was very popular in school. She had a loving family. She was falling for a new guy who seemed lost at times, but who also seemed to have all the answers she had been looking for. She was going to get out of Travis and see the world. She was going to be more than just one of the leftovers from a small town.

Now she thought about what was to come. Based on what the Chance family had told her, she was definitely going to get out of Travis. Two hundred years into the future out of Travis was a bit more than she had planned for. The newspaper clipping had shocked her, but she knew there had to be a trick to it. She thought,
It’s a fake
. She could explain the clipping but she struggled to explain the pendant around her brother’s neck. How did Matthew do that?

Amanda thought about that charm for a while—that stupid charm. She concluded that this was the cause of all her problems. If only she had never given Matthew that charm.

She convinced herself that she could have saved her own family if she just would have kept the charm she had given to Matthew. She thought,
That’s why they wanted to kill us, because they knew that the necklace I gave them was a fake. If I had given them the real one, they woulda let us go
. She felt like she had been played by Matthew Chance, and any feelings that she thought he had for her were obviously faked.

Determining blame for the death of one’s parents was not an easy process to go through, especially for a sixteen-year-old girl. The laid-out plans for her life had been gutted and there was no longer a clear path to take. Her little brother lay beside her, still asleep, and, for the most part, oblivious to what had happened to his mother and father.

She wondered, “What will his life be like now?” She began to realize that she had been forced into a role of mother for little Steven Jr. Mother was not a role that Amanda wanted to play until much later in her life.

At a much younger age, she had promised herself that she would not become a local young girl who ventured into motherhood too early. This was different, though, and as scared as she was, she knew that it was her responsibility to take care of her brother.

Amanda’s thoughts were disturbed by a sound coming from the bathroom. A continuous drip, drip, drip, could be heard from the faucet. She thought,
Can’t anyone else hear that? It’s so annoying.

She thought about her parents. She thought about the times that her mom and dad had taken her and Steven on vacation. They always wanted everything to be so perfect. Her mom would tell her dad, “This trip is for the kids. I wanna make sure they have a great time. We won’t get to have these times with them forever.”

A small tear formed in the corner of Amanda’s eye as those words played over and over in her head. Amanda told herself,
Mom wouldn’t let that sink keep dripping and wake up the kids. I won’t either.

She didn’t want to wake up either Steven or April, so she slithered her body down to the end of the bed until she could get her feet planted on the floor. She tiptoed to the bathroom and turned on the light. The problem was quite obvious as the drip was catching a loose piece of plastic attached to the sink drain. It vibrated every time the drip hit it, so Amanda simply took a small towel and placed it between the plastic and the drip.

As Amanda turned to switch the light back off, she was startled to see Matthew standing in the doorway. Amanda took a step back from him. Matthew raised his hands to show that he meant no harm and asked, “Are you OK? Do you need anything?”

Amanda slowly made her way to the bathroom door and clicked the light back off. As she passed Matthew, she whispered into his ear, “My parents.”

Matthew stood at the door to the bathroom and watched Amanda carefully crawl back into the bed with his mother and Steven. She had done an excellent job making sure that she didn’t wake either of them, but her comment to Matthew guaranteed he would get no sleep.