Killing Time (standard:fantasy, 4300 words)
Author: mysnfrigginrocks	Added: Nov 03 2006	Views/Reads: 3021/2093	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Adventure-comedy-fantasy story about two guys who accidentally kill Time himself and must restore order to the universe before it collapses.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

He certainly looked the part of a homeless man with his long, unkempt
white hair and beard. He was thin as a scarecrow and wore an unusual 
brown hooded robe that was torn and filthy. It looked like something 
the monks from the Middle Ages would have worn. 

Still not quite recovered from the initial shock, Dave fished a candy
bar out of his pocket and thrust it toward the unusual-looking man 
along with a few dollar bills and some loose change. “Here, take this. 
I think we should get going now.” 

The old man grinned, showing crooked, yellow teeth. “Thank you very
much, sir, you've been very kind. You have a good night now.” 

“You too,” Dave stammered, backing away cautiously and grabbing Jon's
arm. “Let's get going.” 

“No arguments there,” Jon replied. 

They started walking away as the old man opened the wrapper on his candy
bar. 

Jon leaned over and whispered, “See? What did I tell you? Nothing to
worry about. The old fart seems harmless enough. It's not like he would 
have tried to attack two of us when there's only one of him.” 

They were several yards away, when they heard the old man start coughing
violently. At first, Dave didn't think much of it, but something didn't 
sound right. The man just kept hacking until it sounded like he would 
cough up his internal organs. Dave looked over his shoulder to see the 
man bent over and vigorously hitting himself in the stomach. 

“Do you think he's all right?” Jon asked uneasily. 

“I think he's choking!” Dave yelled, suddenly sprinting toward the man,
“Hey! Don't panic! I'm coming!” 

As Jon caught up to him, they started slapping the man on the back,
trying to dislodge the piece of the candy bar stuck in his throat. 

“Not working! What do we do?! Do you know the...the...Heimlich?” Jon
screamed. 

“Hang on!” Dave shouted back, wrapping his arms around the man's
stomach. He desperately tried the abdominal thrusts he had learned long 
ago, but there was something wrong with his technique. Why wouldn't it 
work? Maybe he was squeezing the wrong area! He kept pushing harder as 
Jon kept hitting the poor man, until it must have looked like they were 
trying to abduct him. Good thing there were no passersby. 

The man had stopped coughing and was now turning blue. In a growing
state of panic, Dave swung the victim around and accidentally bashed 
his head against a brick wall. 

“Oh! No!” he yelled, as the old man went limp in his arms, knocked out
cold by the blow. He let go and the man sagged to the ground. 

“Wha...what? Is he still alive?” Jon was breathing heavily now. 

Dave put his ear against the man's chest. There was a faint heartbeat,
but he knew the man was fading fast. He tried some more useless 
abdominal thrusts. 

In less than a minute, the man was gone. 

“He's...dead...” Dave murmured wearily. 

“Uh...well... at least he was unconscious when it happened...right? Not
such a bad way to go.” 

They stood in silence for a minute, staring at the body and the eyes
nearly popping out of its head. 

“So...what do we do now?” Jon spoke up tentatively. 

“Uh...I guess we have to get someone to come and take the body. And find
out who he is so we can let his family know. Uh...hmm. Come on, let's 
search him and see if he's got any kind of ID.” 

They went through his clothes and found nothing but a neat stack of
business cards in one pocket, held together with a rubber band and 
ready to be distributed to potential clients. 

“This seems a little weird,” Dave said, “Why would a homeless guy be
carrying these around?” 

Jon took one and squinted at it. “It says the guy's name is Father Time.
Oh, that's just great! We killed Father Time! What are we going to tell 
the cops?” 

Dave peered at the man's body again. “Well, he's certainly dressed for
the part. And he looks it too.” 

Jon grunted. “The guy would have done better posing as Santa Claus. If
he were fatter, anyway.” 

Dave got up and looked around uneasily. “Well, I guess we've got to go
find the nearest police station or something. Maybe there's—“ 

There was a noise in the distance like a two-ton wrecking ball being
dropped on the concrete, followed by a roar. 

“What was that?” Jon looked around nervously for the source of the
sound. 

“There it is again!” Dave whispered as the noise repeated itself several
times over, seemingly getting closer. It almost sounded like...giant 
footsteps. 

Suddenly, several screams came from the distance. 

“This is starting to sound like a very bad horror movie,” Jon moaned. 

The sound was very close by now and more screams were coming. The ground
vibrated under their feet. 

“Ahh...let's get outta here!” Jon yelled, grabbing Dave's arm. 

Dave didn't need much convincing. They both ran back the way they had
come, nearly tripping over their own feet. Dave risked a glance over 
his shoulder and nearly passed out at the sight that greeted him. 
“Holy......crap!” 

Plodding along behind them was what looked like a very hungry, very
bad-tempered tyrannosaurus rex. It stopped for a moment, casually 
sniffing the area, taking some interest in the dead body on the street. 
Then Dave and Jon, sprinting in front of it, caught its eye. It growled 
viciously and followed its prey with less-than-benevolent intentions. 

“It's seen us!” Dave bellowed, cold sweat running down his face, “What
do we do?” 

He ducked as the monster lunged at him, its gaping jaws coming up just
short, until he could feel the wind from the movement. The stench of 
fresh meat on the tyrannosaurus's breath filled his nostrils. The T-rex 
hesitated for a moment, expecting to have captured its prey, as its 
jaws closed down on nothing. Dave used the moment of reprieve to put 
some distance between himself and his pursuer, running faster than he 
ever knew he could. By this time, Jon was a few yards ahead of him. At 
least one of them had a fighting chance. 

He didn't dare look back over his shoulder as he heard an irritated roar
from behind him, followed by the heavy sound of footsteps. 

In desperation, he wildly looked around for something, anything, he
could use as a weapon. His eyes fixed on a trash can set out near the 
sidewalk. Well, it would just have to do. He pushed it over, spilling 
the contents on the street in front of the predator, then picked it up 
and heaved it toward the massive thing. The can hit it squarely on the 
forehead. That slowed it down momentarily as it roared and stopped to 
see where the projectile had come from. The monster was a good distance 
behind him when it resumed the chase, but Dave knew he had to come up 
with a more permanent solution or he and Jon were both dead. 

His mind raced at the speed of light as he desperately searched for some
kind of plan that seemed painfully obvious, but just out of reach. They 
certainly couldn't outrun it for long, he knew that much. But weren't 
dinosaurs attracted by movement and sound? If something ran, their 
killer instinct would immediately surface. 

He made a split-second decision and dove into a nearby alley, dodging a
swipe of the giant head behind him. He ducked behind a Dumpster, 
grabbed a soda can from the ground, and hurled it past the T-rex's nose 
in a desperate effort to distract it. The ploy worked momentarily as 
the creature followed after it, giving Dave a chance to curl into a 
ball and hide himself under a few sheets of newspaper. Now, he just had 
to hope that Jon had been able to find somewhere to lay low for awhile. 


He lay there trembling, listening for the massive footsteps on the
pavement. By this time, it must have decided that the soda can was not 
edible. For a moment, there was a deafening silence. Then the footsteps 
picked up again, as the T-rex tried to sniff out its prey. The sound 
was definitely getting closer, he realized in horror. He was completely 
trapped. The monster was surely blocking the entrance to the alley. He 
was paralyzed with fear as he distantly wondered what death would be 
like. 

Suddenly there was a terrible roar as the monster was apparently struck
by something, which it went chasing after. Dave risked a peek around 
the Dumpster and saw the shattered remains of a glass bottle lying on 
the ground where it had apparently hit the T-rex. He looked further 
ahead, onto the street, and saw Jon standing there, just staring in 
amazement, as if unable to believe that the thing was really racing 
toward him. 

Dave cried out, “Jon!” 

Jarred by Dave's voice, Jon came to his senses and ran for his life. 

However, the loud yell had gotten the T-rex's attention. It turned
around to face Dave, showing surprising maneuverability for something 
that size. As it turned, its tail whipped around and clouted Jon on the 
shoulder, completely knocking him over. He lay still there. 

Dave had more pressing problems at the moment, with the T-rex galloping
in his direction. He ran out of the alley to avoid getting trapped 
again and grabbed the lid of a garbage can. He held it in front of him 
like a shield as the predator reached him and tried to close its jaws 
over his head. The clang of the T-rex's face smashing into the lid rang 
through the air, forcing Dave to open his eyes. He couldn't see the 
thing behind his shield but it seemed dazed, so he struck out blindly 
with the lid and scored again as the monster roared in pain. 

He darted over to where Jon lay and gave him a shove. “Jon, get up!” 

Jon only grunted and fluttered his eyelids a bit. 

The Tyrannosaurus had recovered by this time and continued the chase,
more furious than ever. 

“Jon!” Dave hissed, trying to drag his friend with him. He gave up
instantly. Jon's dead weight slowed him down too much. The only thing 
he could do was try to lead the T-rex away from Jon. After all, Dave 
was as good as dead anyway. At least this way, one of them might 
survive. 

He gave a yell as loud as he could manage, to draw the T-rex's
attention, and jumped out of the way as it dove toward him. The thing 
seemed to have forgotten about Jon for the moment. 

Dave ran, but knew he was completely out of ideas. He still had the
dented trash can lid, but he couldn't hold the monster off with that 
indefinitely. He tried opening a door into one of the nearby buildings. 
It was locked, as he knew it would be. 

He kept running straight ahead and then... 

He was no longer on a city street. Piercing sunlight blinded him. It was
not night anymore, he realized. His eyes adjusted to the light just 
enough for him to see a cliff ahead, overlooking a waterfall. He came 
to an abrupt stop just in time to avoid running over the edge. Where in 
the world was he? His first thought was that he must be dead, but that 
theory was thrown out when he turned around and saw the T-rex still 
chasing after him. It saw the cliff too, but its incredible weight and 
momentum made it unable to stop as it plummeted over the edge and 
disappeared into the churning water. 

Dave sat there for a moment, huffing and puffing and staring at the
staggering hundred-foot drop below him. He decided it might be time to 
back away from the cliff now and then collapsed on his back in sheer 
exhaustion. 

A few clouds drifted past in the bright blue sky as he watched a few
birds flying peacefully. It was a beautiful day. But this place 
couldn't be real. The ground under him felt solid, though. He sat up 
and hit the grass with his fist experimentally. It still felt exactly 
like normal grass. He glanced back the way he had come, afraid of what 
he might see. There was nothing there except trees. It looked like the 
outskirts of a forest, nothing out of the ordinary. 

Dave felt a wave of panic wash over him, contrasting oddly with the
relief he felt over still being alive. What if he was trapped here? 
What if he really was dead and the T-rex had somehow died at the same 
time? Maybe a nuclear explosion or something of that sort had killed 
them. The idea sounded ridiculous, but after running from a dinosaur 
and being teleported somewhere else entirely in an instant, an 
explosion didn't sound very far-fetched. 

Cautiously, he walked toward the trees, back the way he had come, with
his arm outstretched in front of him. His hand abruptly disappeared. 

He cried out in terror and reeled backward, falling and landing hard on
his rear. He sat bolt upright, looked at his arm, and breathed a heavy 
sigh of relief to see that it was completely whole. After flexing his 
fingers a bit, the hand still seemed to work fine. 

Dave picked himself up after the momentary shock had passed, and walked
toward the spot where his hand had disappeared, still a bit 
apprehensive. Reaching down, he picked up a pebble and tossed it in 
front of him. It also disappeared, at about the same spot that his hand 
had. 

He struggled with indecision for a moment, but decided he didn't have
any better ideas for getting out of this place. Closing his eyes, he 
forced himself to walk forward while his heart threw itself against the 
walls of his rib cage over and over. 

He stopped after a few steps and cracked open his eyes. There was New
York in front of him, just the way he had left it, minus the hungry 
dinosaur. 

He allowed himself a huge smile, for the first time in what seemed like
days. He was back! Turning around, he saw no sign of the cliff he had 
just left. Had it all been a dream? Just a random hallucination? He put 
his hand out toward the spot where he had been standing and it became 
invisible again, along with his arm as it plunged into the space. It 
must be some kind of portal to that other place, he decided, before 
hastily drawing his arm back from the invisible wall. So it wasn't a 
dream after all. A cold knot formed in the pit of his stomach. What had 
happened to Jon? 

He gave a strangled yell as someone grabbed him violently from behind. 

“Dave! Dave, you're back, man!” 

“Jon?” Dave managed to form that one word while trying to wiggle his way
out of the crushing bear hug. “Jon? It IS you! Thank God, I thought 
you...!” 

Jon finally let him go, beaming like a little kid, “So what the crap
happened to you? Am I seeing things now?” 

“Uh, I don't....” 

“I mean, I remember getting a little banged up,” he said, fingering the
bruise on his head, “and then when I got up, you and the... uh, that 
thing were gone. And I thought I'd fallen asleep on the street and 
dreamed it all. Like I'd gotten really drunk or something. Which seemed 
weird since I don't drink.” 

Good thing. Jon always acted half-drunk, a strangely endearing quality
of his, even without the aid of alcohol. A drunken Jon would have been 
enough to... Dave suppressed a shudder and set to work derailing that 
train of thought. 

“But then, I saw you just appear out of nowhere. And I thought, uh...
well, I guess you know that part already.” 

There was a long silence as Dave exhaled slowly. "Dang. And I was hoping
it was just me going crazy." He had to smile at that. "Strange thing to 
hope for, isn't it?" 

"Ehhh. Not considering the situation," Jon shrugged. He cleared his
throat, showing a rare sign of nervousness. "So, uhh... you mind 
telling me where you skipped off to?" 

"I wish I knew. No. No, on second thought, I might be happier not
knowing." A bit hesitantly, he relayed the story to Jon, who nodded and 
made appropriate grunts in all the right places. 

"So," he said striding over to the spot where Dave had emerged, "you
think it's still...?" 

Dave moved to intercept him, "Wait! I'm not so sure that would be..." 

"You went through it, didn't you? No ruptured organs there, right? Come
on, it'll be fun!" Although his eyes conveyed a slightly different 
meaning in their rapid shifting back and forth. "Anyway, we have to 
know, don't we? You'll never quit worrying about it otherwise." 

Ignoring Dave's defeated sigh, he turned to face the spot possibly
occupied by the portal, put on his most intimidating game face, and 
leaped forward. He abruptly disappeared in midair. 

"Jon?" Dave raced to the spot where his friend had been erased from
existence, being very careful not to go too far forward. "Jon." Staring 
into space, he furiously chewed on the inside of his lip, nearly 
drawing blood. "Jon. You're not just gonna leave me standing here. 
Don't make me go and get help! Because I'll-- gahhhhhhhhh!" 

He started to turn and run--too late--as a disembodied hand shot out of
the nowhere in front of him and seized his shoulder, jerking him into 
the invisible door. 

CHAPTER 2 

Dave landed on his back with a yell, hitting surprisingly soft ground
and squinting at the assault of light on his eyes. The light, however, 
was clearly unimpressed by his meager defense and continued to hammer 
at him. He looked up and saw Jon's smiling face, upside down and 
regarding him with amusement. 

"Sorry man, I couldn't see where I was grabbing without being on the
other side. But dude... you gotta check this place out! I don't know 
why you made it sound so dangerous. Come on!" He started to turn 
around. "Oh, and... you might want to pull your legs in the door before 
you catch cold." 

"Huh?" Dave managed to answer dazedly, as Jon chuckled. Sitting up, he
screamed again upon seeing that the lower half of his body was gone. 
Fortunately, his legs returned when he scrambled hastily backward. "I 
swear I don't ever want to get used to this thing," he moaned. 

Jon recovered from his laughter. "You're missing out, man. This place is
awesome!" 

"I've been here before, remember?" 

"I mean, who knew they even had these kind of places. How many of these
door thingies do you think there are?" 

"At least one too many." Dave shook his head and followed him as he
strolled toward the cliff's edge. 

"I wonder if it's been in that same spot all this time. Like, how many
people have disappeared into it?" 

"At least two." 

Jon stood at the edge of the waterfall and looked down, clearly
impressed. He hefted a small rock and tossed it downward. "Wow. You 
can't even see it hit the bottom! We must be a couple thousand feet 
up." 

Dave came to stand beside him, keeping his distance from the cliff while
peering down. "Okay, can we leave now and just pretend we never saw 
this? No, I guess not, huh? Not with you around." 

Jon flashed a grin at him. "Dang right. Look at it this way. If there
are more dinosaurs out there, this would be the safest place to hide 
from them." 

Oh great, was Dave's next thought, sitting down resignedly. He had
almost forgotten about that. "At... at least it didn't look like there 
were any other. Right? And I don't even want to think about how that 
one got here." He decided it was time for a change of subject. The 
danger seemed to be over for the night, but if it wasn't, well... no 
one could take away his right to pretend it was. "So uh, where do you 
think this place is exactly?" 

Looking out into the blue hazy mountains in the distance, Jon shrugged.
"Beats me. I don't see any cities or anything out there. No sign of 
human life, it looks like." 

"In that case, I'd say upstate New York, except I really doubt they have
all these mountains there." 

"Yeah..." came the distracted response as Jon wandered around. 

Finally starting to relax a bit, Dave sat there enjoying the view. It
was peaceful, he had to admit. And beautiful. The sound of the rushing 
water was soothing and gave him a strange urge to curl up and go to 
sleep. Actually, he probably wouldn't have needed much convincing, even 
without the surroundings. 

"Uh......Dave?" 

Dave responded with only half a mind. "Yeah?" 

"I think there's something over here you should see." Jon sounded
uncharacteristically serious. 

With a puzzled frown, Dave got up and went over to join him. "What is
it?" 

"This should give us some clue of where we are." Jon pointed down, a bit
grimly. 

Dave's eyes widened with shock as he looked and saw strange footprints
on a slightly muddy area. They looked quite a bit like dinosaur 
footprints. Fairly small ones, but dinosaur footprints nonetheless. 

"I think we know where our scaly buddy came from." Jon murmured in a
trance. 

Panic seized Dave as he grabbed Jon's arm and half-dragged, half-carried
him toward the portal. "We're getting out! Come on!" 

Jon didn't put up any resistance. 

TO BE CONTINUED! Yes, I know the plot doesn't make much sense at this
point of the story. You're probably confused. That's because you're 
supposed to be confused. I haven't quite gotten to the spot where I 
explain these strange events. But I will be updating this every so 
often as I get around to it. In the meantime, don't be shy. Rate it, 
review it, or give ideas for it! Peace.


Tweet