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… The black man hit him one more solid blow, and Rufus collapsed. There was no question of his getting up this time. He was out cold.
As I approached, the black man reached down and caught Rufus by the hair as though to hit him again. I stepped up to the man quickly. “What will they do to you if you kill him?” I said.
The man twisted around to glare at me.
“This good for nothing trash has done enough to deserve to die a hundred times over,” he growled. He punched Rufus in the head once more for good measure, then let him drop. The girl winced as she watched Rufus bounce slightly as he hit.
“Let’s go, Alice,” the black man said, taking the girl’s hand.
“Please, Dana,” said Alice quietly to me. And with that, the two of them disappeared into the woods.
I stared after them for a moment, confused. How had she known my name?
Of course. Alice, the young, thin girl I had seen at my last trip here. I hoped the best for the two of them, then looked back down at the unconscious body beside me.
I knelt down beside Rufus and rolled him over onto his back. His nose was bleeding. His split lip was bleeding. His face was a lumpy mess, and a red splotch was steadily growing on the side of his shirt. He makes a strained kind of noise, like he wants to say something, but ends up coughing instead. Despite all that Rufus has probably done since the last time I saw him, I don’t want him to die. If only for the reason that I don’t know what would happen to me if he did. There’s a stream nearby; perhaps I could try to get him conscious again, or wash some of his wounds before looking for help. When I come back, the red splotch has grown to cover nearly half his shirt, and he looks a few shades paler than the last time I saw him. That red spot worries me, though I’m also very uncertain that I want to see how badly he is hurt underneath.
Suddenly, I feel very dizzy again. Am I going home again already? But Rufus is still half dead…
I had knelt to the ground and held my head in my hands to try to stop the dizziness. Now I wasn’t dizzy anymore, but something didn’t feel right. I opened my eyes and looked down at the ground – but it wasn’t ground anymore. I was curled up on hardwood flooring.
“Dana? Are you okay?” A voice asks. Kevin? Rufus? It doesn’t sound like either of them. I look up and see a sandy-haired man in glasses looking down at me in concern. I squint at him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him in my life.
“Who are you?” I ask uncertainly. “Where am I...?”
The man helps me up guides me to a chair. It’s soft and modern-feeling. Am I back to 1976, then? I seem to be in some kind of office. Books are everywhere, filling the shelves along the wall and piled up on the desk. A wastebasket overflows with crumpled papers.
The man studies me. I meet his eyes when I’m finished looking around the room. They’re light blue, and I am faintly reminded of a coffee shop, but I don’t know why. He looks nearly as confused as I am.
“You really don’t know where you are or who I am, do you?” He asks. I shake my head no.
“Do you know who you are?”
“I’m Dana,” I reply.
“That’s right,” he says, sounding a little relieved. “And I’m Bryan. Your husband?” He says this last part questioningly, hopefully. Husband? Where’s Kevin? Well. First things first.
“What year is this? Where am I?” I ask. The man who says he is my husband tells me it’s 1976 and that I’m in my house, our house, in New York. A thought suddenly crosses my mind. But no. It can’t be.
I look at Bryan, stare at him hard. If this is my life, shouldn’t I have memories of it?
“What… what happened?” I ask. Perhaps if I figure out what happened on his side, I can figure out what happened to me.
Bryan wrinkles his brow. Something tells me I’ve seen this expression before, even though I am certain it’s not something Kevin ever had. “Well, we were sitting in this room, talking,” he begins. “Then you said you felt dizzy, and I told you to go lay down for a bit. But then all of a sudden, you disappeared – and then, a few seconds later, you appeared again. Kneeling, as you were just now.”
A feeling of terror washes over me. I had left Rufus while he was still hurt, still half dead.
What if it had been worse than that?
To be continued...
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