Chapter Twenty-Six

Tabitha laughed at the knowledge her stories bulged her bank account through syndicated World rights and translations. Who’d have thought it? Certainly not her poppa, who recklessly accompanied Roma and Charlie on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster. He’d been moaning about the heat wave—a hundred and climbing, but said the rushing air from the hurtling carriage would cool him.

“Careful, Poppa, make sure they’re belted in.” She had to yell from below them.

A cellphone call from The Washington Post prevented her from climbing aboard. The twins grinned their cotton-candy-coated mouths, and waved.

Blue sky, the heady aroma of wallflowers—she’d bent to check they weren’t plastic with artificial perfume puffers nearby—and the background chorus of other parents’ happyclappy children both irritated and pleased her. The pleasure derived from seeing her family laughing at last.

They were happy now, but she’d panicked on the flight from Jackson to Florida that morning. Although the increase in timequakes hit the headlines with airplanes splitting, towns buried in avalanches and more tsunamis, most folk weren’t directly affected. It was like shootings and multiple car crashes; they happened to other people.

The jet had bucked in clear air turbulence and she’d gripped Roma’s hand with each bump.

“Ma, you’re hurting me.”

“Hang on tight, Roma.”

“I don’t need to with you strangling my hand.”

The lights blinked out followed by a chorus of gasps and a short scream as a flight attendant fell in the aisle.

Now, here they were, panic over, no timequake. As well as buying the new house, she needed to give her kids and poppa a treat. Magic Kingdom was their choice, not hers. Guilt obligated her compliance this time. She’d been fixin’ to be there for her kids more—not that they complained when she skedaddled for days at a time.

Since Apoidea had set off in hot pursuit, she’d found new angles. She needed to keep the dollars rolling in. She’d squeezed the religious groups, but they wouldn’t bite.

Most reckoned God had driven the spheres away and the timequakes would settle down. Bah.

The cam blackout on the spaceship sent her imagination into overdrive. She checked her new gold watch; Cartier radio-controlled movements allegedly bypassed the timequakes. A smile flitted, moderated by worries for her twins. She looked up again at the slowly accelerating train, and she waved. Their image shimmered in the heat. Already she’d forgotten the time displayed on the watch, and re-checked. Forty-five minutes before she had to leave on another flight; an interview with Derek Stone.

She had a story on Kallandra and Claude. It was dirty, lucrative, and possibly true.

This ride was going to take ages, especially if the twins tricked poppa to stay on.

It was so damned hot. She looked around for a drink stall; a thirst for freshly squeezed orange.

With closed eyes she enjoyed the tangy flavour while her lips exuberated in the crushed ice.

Screams disrupted her trance. Was that Roma’s cry in among the rest? Her legs gave way as the ground shifted. Earthquake or timequake? No way of knowing, and the question lost its relevance as she scrambled back to her feet. Her hand, now cold and wet, crushed the orange drink carton. In spite of the trauma—her children occupying her need—she cursed the wasted dollar.

The air shimmered as if it suddenly became much hotter. Metallic grinding and squealing from the roller coaster drowned the human screaming for long moments.

“Roma! Charlie! Poppa!” Tabitha attempted to stand but collapsed to her knees as if she was grabbed and shaken by an invisible giant. A more unnerving feeling overcame her like losing a sense of direction even though she was looking straight ahead at the disintegrating fairground. Wailing, she held out quivering hands to where her children should have been.

Through the cacophony she heard Roma: “Momma!”

Struggling with momentous effort to stand and move closer to the dust cloud surrounding the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, accompanied by continued clanging, crashes and screams, Tabitha spotted their carriage. It wasn’t so high. Maybe they could climb down the support struts built to appear like a rickety mountain bridge.

Although swaying and vibrating, the mock railway carriages were stationary on the track. Poppa had stood in the shimmering air to talk with waving arms to the attendants below. Tabitha’s kids’ faces portrayed a mix of fear and excitement. Her stomach churned with acid, hurting more with the thought she should’ve been with them.

Although the roller coaster wasn’t rolling, reaching her children didn’t seem an option. If only it’d kept rolling another few seconds. As she contemplated climbing the trestle framework she felt nauseous. The thought that another timequake was upon them occurred but the need to rescue her family overcame the feeling she was about to throw up.

Her immediate problem was a wire mesh fence with no footholds. No choice then but to run to the entrance. That took her out of sight of the kids. She hesitated…a stabbing pain and high-pitch buzzing penetrated her head. She couldn’t stop crying, further blurring her vision. Rubbing her eyes, she peered up. From this angle the sun’s glare blinded her. But was it the sun? Turning her head she found whiteness impinging, intruding into her eye sockets. She rummaged in her bag for sunglasses.

Increased screams from Roma accelerated her scrabbling, while yelling:

“Momma’s here, baby. Hang on in there.”

Just as she rammed the shades onto her nose the whiteout ended but her panic hadn’t. She should be making for open ground but mostly-suppressed motherly instinct drove her upwards.

Adrenalin beat her fear, but she was not a physical person. Her days were spent tapping at keyboards and haggling for higher fees, not negotiating obstacle courses.

Her heart pounded and uncertainty grew.

Her right foot found a shoe-width wooden ledge. She paused and looked up.

Immediately she felt dizzy and put her head down. Maybe it was the pungent creosote that coated the lower struts and now found a new home on her clothes and hands.

Wrinkling her nose, she looked up again.

“Momma, over here,” Roma called from Tabitha’s right.

Relief at seeing Roma’s happy white teeth so close was marred by her vision losing focus. That heat haze and shimmering had returned.

“Poppa, is that you standing? Be careful. You knew you shouldn’t be…. Poppa, sit down!”

He looked as if he might obey but increased shaking refused to make any such obvious caution an easy option. He staggered and Tabitha wailed while she clung tightly to the struts.

A knot started in her stomach and travelled up to her head. She gripped and yet her right hand felt nothing. As if she’d been dipped in water, she seemed to lose buoyancy. Her feet lifted from their shelf but worse was the hammered glass image she had of her father. Through the increased buzzing of a million mosquitoes, she heard him call: “Tabby, my Tabby.”

Her hands waving towards him while her feet tiptoed on the shelf, she watched in horror as her poppa seemed to stretch sideways. His left side pulled slowly away from his right. He seemed to fight the tug-of-war between invisible foes as if he was made of elastic. Her vision seriously impaired, all she could see was out of focus. She felt her bladder lose control as she saw his body pull apart, but not like on a rack. His left arm and half his chest pulled into nothing, as if he was tugged into an invisible doorway.

She knew he was in a timequake. His left side was thrown back, or forward, into time. Back; or he’d catch up again. She struggled to reach him, not thinking of wisdom or rationality but she wasn’t going to lose her poppa to the darned spheres.

She glanced up again and saw half a face, only a right eye to stare back at her.

His mouth was bloody, mangled and drooping. No left side. With his brain starting to fall out of the remaining half of his skull, he collapsed out of her sight but in full sight of her children. Their screams now stifled, they stayed frozen until she reached them moments later. As she climbed into their mountain railway carriage she had to step into the bloody carnage on the floor. Foul vapours from internal organs wafted up with the stench of bile and blood. Gagging, she turned her back on her pa’s remains and hugged her children, squeezing them hoping to control their shaking, and her own.

Her eyebrows lowered, she cursed the spheres, but they’ve escaped, along with their conniving bitch, Kallandra. But someone was left behind—for her revenge.