He listened to any sounds coming from inside the house. There was music. Then the door opened. Carter recognized Steve, who wore swimming trunks and nothing else. Water pearled off his skin and hair. When he recognized Carter, Steve immediately slammed the door shut, but Carter had already jammed his foot between door and frame, preventing Steve from closing the door.

  Carter pushed against it, and was helped by the fact that Steve’s wet feet were sliding on the tile floor. He managed to push the door open, and charged inside just as Steve fell backward and landed on his ass. His injured arm was bandaged in white gauze and wrapped in cling film to prevent it from getting wet.

  “What the fuck do you want?” Steve looked up from the floor, trying to get up. “Haven’t you done enough damage?” He motioned to his arm.

  “Apparently not,” Carter said.

  Behind him, Julie entered the house, then shut the door.

  Carter pointed to his black time travel watch he was now wearing on his wrist. “Where is the silver one?”

  Steve squinted as if he couldn’t see what Carter was pointing to. “What?” He got to his feet.

  “My silver watch. Where is it?”

  “How should I know?” Steve asked, shrugging.

  “You and Todd stole my watches. Todd took the black one. Which I took off him. He said you have the silver watch. So, where the fuck is it?” Carter growled.

  “It’s a piece of junk. I tossed it.”

  Carter lunged at him, grabbing his neck. “You did what?”

  “I tossed it in the trash,” Steve squeezed out through his narrowed windpipe.

  “Where?” Carter asked, not letting go of his throat.

  “At the frat house. In the dumpster behind it.”

  “If you’re lying—”

  “It’s the truth! I swear.” He lifted his arms in surrender. “I don’t want any more trouble. That’s why I’m here. I’m done with Todd and the crap he pulls off…”

  Carter let go of his throat.

  “Do you believe him?” Julie asked.

  Carter looked at her then back at Steve. “Should I believe you?” He grabbed Steve’s injured arm and pressed tightly where he’d cut the bastard the day before.

  Steve screamed in pain. “Fuck! I told you, it’s in the trash behind the frat house.”

  Carter glared at him. “If it’s not there—”

  “It is, I swear. I’m not an idiot. I’ve seen what you did to Steve. I don’t want the same happening to me.”

  “Good.” Then he looked at Julie. “Let’s go.”

  They quickly jumped into the car and got back on the freeway. The traffic going north was much lighter than what they’d experienced when going southbound.

  Carter looked at the dashboard clock.

  Julie tossed him a sideways look. “We should be there in forty-five minutes if the traffic stays like this.”

  Julie was right. Or she would have been, but shortly before the Wilshire Boulevard exit, the one leading to UCLA campus, the engine suddenly sputtered, and the car slowed. Julie was forced to pull into the right lane, the off-ramp at the Olympic and Pico Boulevard exit, until the car came to a full stop on the right shoulder.

  “What’s going on?” Carter stared at Julie.

  She studied the dashboard, then looked at him. “We’re out of gas.”

  “Gas? This car runs on gas?”

  Julie nodded. “What else would it run on?”

  “Nuclear fission.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “By 2085, everything is powered by nuclear fission. It’s much more economical than fossil fuels. Sure, in some corners of the world, there are still some communities that haven’t caught up, and they’re still using solar and wind, and even geothermal energy, but fossil fuels? No way.”

  Julie sighed. “Yeah, well, we’re out of that.”

  “Fuck!”

  25 – Back to the Future

  Los Angeles, Monday, September 29, 12:45 a.m.

  “Fuck!” Carter cursed.

  Julie stared at Carter, panic tightening her throat. “We have to leave the car here.”

  She opened the car door, but before she was able to get out, another car whizzed by, sending a shockwave through her. Her heart raced.

  “My side,” Carter instructed, opened his door, and got out.

  Then he helped Julie crawl over to the passenger side, and step out of the car. Together, they ran along the shoulder, up to the end of the exit ramp to the closest street. There, they stopped. Julie oriented herself.

  “We can get an Uber,” she said, pulling her phone from her handbag.

  “A what?” Carter asked.

  “A ride service, like a taxi,” she explained, while already pulling up her account to request a ride. The app pinpointed her location, and she typed in the address of the fraternity house.

  Moments later, the app indicated that the system was looking for an available car. The wheel spun and spun.

  “Come on!” she urged the app.

  “What’s taking so long?” Carter asked, looking at the phone.

  “I don’t know.”

  A few more seconds that felt like minutes, and the app finally came back with the result. The next car available was almost forty minutes away. And from experience she knew that this was just an estimate. The pickup time could change depending on the traffic the driver encountered.

  “That’s cutting it too close,” he said. “How about the bus?”

  Julie shook her head. “After midnight, they run only every hour, and there’s no direct line from here to the campus. We’d have to change at least once.”

  “Then we have to run.”

  Julie punched the fraternity house’s address into her map app. It was over three miles to walk, which the app calculated at an hour and ten minutes. Running would get them there faster.

  She motioned to a pedestrian crossing. “That way. Sepulveda Boulevard will take us toward Westwood.”

  Carter took her hand, and they started running. Julie wasn’t a particularly accomplished jogger. In fact, it had been a while since she had gone for a run, and she felt it now. She was out of shape. She was glad for each traffic light that forced them to stop for a few moments until it was safe to cross. She became more and more winded, but she didn’t complain. She knew what was at stake. She could rest once they arrived in the future.

  “You okay?” Carter asked with a sideways glance at her, without slowing down.

  “I’m good.” She didn’t tell him that she felt breathless, but the way he looked at her she could tell that he knew.

  “We’ll make it, Julie, I promise you. Even if I have to carry you the last bit.”

  She hoped it didn’t come to that, and continued pushing herself. They’d already crossed underneath Interstate 10, which meant they were already in Westwood. At the next major intersection, they turned right into Ohio Avenue, then a few blocks later turned north again onto Veteran Boulevard, the road running parallel to the Los Angeles National Cemetery, which now came into sight.

  Carter pointed toward the cemetery. “We can’t be far now. That’s where the time jump deposited me.”

  She nodded, then pointed to the right, where the streets were going up a gentle incline. “Gayley Avenue is over there.”

  The gentle incline of the side streets they soon ran along, didn’t feel that gentle to Julie right now. She was out of breath, huffing and puffing.

  “You have to go on without me,” she said.

  He looked at her. “I can’t leave you here.”

  She was starting to wheeze. The fraternity house was only three blocks away, but she couldn’t go any further.

  “Please, go and get the watch, and come back here,” she begged, but the look on his face told her that he had no intention of doing so.

  “I’ll carry you,” he said, and lifted her up into his arms.

  A moment later, he’d heaved her over his shoulder, her torso hanging over his back, while he held on to her thighs and began running. He was slower now, but was still running at a fast clip. Julie couldn’t even protest.

  It felt like an eternity, until he finally turned off the road and entered a short driveway. They’d arrived at the fraternity house. Carter continued running with Julie slung over his shoulder, until they reached the back of the house. There, he placed her back on her feet. He was breathing hard too, but he didn’t rest for even a second.

  His eyes darted around the dark, only the moonlight guiding him, when he pointed to a spot. “There, the trash cans.”

  Rested from being carried, Julie ran toward them and pulled out her cell phone. She glanced at the clock. They had eight minutes left—and three large trashcans to search.

  She pointed the spotlight app of her cell phone at the trashcans. They were tall and wide. She had an idea. “Let’s tip them over and toss everything on the ground.”

  Carter followed her suggestion, and within seconds the contents of all three trashcans were strewn on the ground. The smell was disgusting, and the many bottles and beer cans had made an awfully loud noise when they clanked together.

  With the aid of their two cell phones, they sorted through the trash. When something silver reflected back at Julie, she dove for it, only to realize that it was nothing more than an aluminum food wrapper. Carter had the same issue, if his low curses were anything to go by.

  “It has to be here,” Carter said, his voice sounding increasingly worried.

  Unless Steve had lied. But Julie didn’t voice that thought. Instead, she frantically continued searching. For a second, she turned her cell phone back to look at the clock. Two minutes left. Her breath caught, and tears shot to her eyes. They were almost out of time.

  From the side of the house, she suddenly heard a noise. With it, the beam of a flashlight zigzagged along the house, moving closer.

  “Got it!” Carter suddenly said and bent down.

  When she looked at his hand, she saw the silver watch.

  “Somebody’s coming,” Julie whispered and hurried to his side.

  He immediately gripped her arm and put the watch around her wrist. She tried to help him close it, when a flashlight’s beam hit her in the face.

  “Shit!” she cursed.

  “Fucking dumpster divers!” the man whose body she couldn’t see cursed. “You’re gonna clean that up, or I’ll shoot you.”

  “Whoa, whoa,” Carter said, finally having managed to close the watch’s wristband. He lifted his arms, and Julie did the same. “Don’t shoot.”

  Julie wasn’t sure that the guy really had a gun. Not too many people living in this area did, but there was always the possibility that he was indeed armed.

  “We didn’t mean any harm,” Julie said.

  “Yeah, I can see that!” the guy snorted in disgust. He shifted the flashlight, and now she saw that he really did have a gun. He was pointing it at them. “You’re picking this up right now, or—”

  The rest of his words faded away.

  Everything around her suddenly dissolved into pixels, everything except Carter. He’d lowered his arms, and reached for her hand, holding it tightly. In a world where everything around them swirled and turned so fast that the different colors blended, Julie and Carter were the only objects remaining still. Julie felt no movement. Her feet were still planted on terra firma, while the world around her and Carter turned.

  Suddenly, a whiteness spread around them, before it dimmed, and the pixels assembled again and formed a new world around her. Carter was still holding her hand. But the fraternity house was gone. In its stead, a modern building of glass stood against bright sunlight.

  Carter put his arm around her waist. “Welcome to 2085.”

  She turned her face to him. “You did it.”

  “We did it. Together.”

  “Together,” she said and felt tears of relief run down her cheeks.

  Carter pulled her into an embrace and kissed her, until her tears dried. Then he took her hand into his. “Let’s go home.”

  “I love you,” Julie murmured.

  He smiled at her. “I love you more.”

  ~ ~ ~

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  About the Author

  Tina Folsom was born in Germany and has been living in English speaking countries for over 25 years, since 2001 in California, where she’s married to an American.

  Tina has always been a bit of a globe trotter: after living in Lausanne, Switzerland, she briefly worked on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean, then lived a year in Munich, before moving to London. There, she became an accountant. But after 8 years she decided to move overseas.

  In New York she studied drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, then moved to Los Angeles a year later to pursue studies in screenwriting. This is also where she met her husband, who she followed to San Francisco three months after first meeting him.

  In San Francisco, Tina worked as a tax accountant and even opened her own firm, then went into real estate, however, she missed writing. In 2008 she wrote her first romance and never looked back.

  She’s always loved vampires and decided that vampire and paranormal romance was her calling. She now has 43 novels in English and several dozens in other languages (Spanish, German, and French).

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