Shilah crouched. One boot planted firmly on the ground with her leather-clad ass cheek balanced steadily on the heel of her opposite foot. Lithe fingers wrapped tensely around the shaft of a spear but her breathing was controlled; slow and steady. Regulated and practiced.
The surrounding forest air was spongy and humid, not a lick of breeze, which was cloaking her from detection. Rivulets of sweat cut lines through the grime that coated her ivory cleavage. The stagnant warmth didn’t bother her, though. Fresh meat from the boar she was tracking would be well worth the moment of temporary discomfort.
As if it was dismissing her hunting prowess, the little beast let out a snuffling grunt and went on about its business. Its nose rutted through the root-heavy dirt without a care for her threat.
“You will be my fucking meal,” she whispered as she slowly duckwalked through the brush. Silent and precise in her movement.
Within striking distance, she raised the spear to her shoulder, drawing back the razor-sharp blade until it lined up with her ear. A worn leather strap tethered the steel barb in place.
‘Wait for it to move... ju-uust a bit more. Wait... Wa-aait... Now!’
She lunged to a standing position while simultaneously heaving with all her strength. The spear sailed perfectly, swiftly cutting through the air in silence as it spiraled toward its mark. Shilah watched in what felt like slow motion as her projectile impaled into a birch-branch that hovered inches above the hog.
“Goddamnit!” she yelled and hung her head. The boar let out a victorious squeal and bounded deeper into the thicket.
Pulling the spear from the limb, she inspected the tip for damage. Fortunately, it was clean, not bent or broken. Unfortunately, the bloodless glisten of the blade meant yet another boiled-potato dinner for the deflated Shilah.
Darkness began to seep in and the dewy air started to cool. Her adrenaline was all but expended causing the sweat on her skin to raise a chill. Relegated to the failure of her hunt, she rested the spear on her shoulder and began the thirty-minute trek back out of the woods.
As she walked, Shilah reminisced back to the days when hunting was easier, before the bullets ran out.
She could have tried the bow again, but she hadn't been able to get the string taught enough. Without the right amount of tension, the arrow would never penetrate a boar’s thick hide. In the morning, she would load up and make a foraging run; farther than the twenty-mile radius she’d already picked clean. Bullets were probably her only hope for a decent pork-based meal.
Shilah reached the trailhead and emerged through the line of distinction marking where the thickly wooded trees met an open field.
She took in a deep breath, trading the forest’s musty stench of decaying leaves for the sweet meadowy smell of lavender. The perfumed air was evocative of summers past, transporting her mind to thoughts of her mother.
It had been almost five years since the event. Shilah was twenty at the time.
She and her mother were summering at the cabin when the bright light hit. She remembered it illuminating the night sky as fulgent as day. Only, it was white rather than the yellowish hue from the sun; like the burning luminescence of a massive flare. It lasted about twenty seconds then dimmed and extinguished. That was when its ensuing boom violently rattled the cabin, shattering every window with its reverberating shockwave.
Her mother - a registered nurse - had told her to stay put, that she was going to drive into town, and inquire about what had happened.
“Must’ve been an explosion at the plant. They might need me,” she had said. “I’ll come right back.”
But she never did return.
Shilah sighed as she stared across the field to the cabin which sat more than a hundred yards away. A thin layer of patina clung to its shingles. Mismatched glass was fashioned to fill most of those blown out frames, frosty-white polyethylene tarps covered the rest.
She wished more than anything that she could go back. Back to when it was just the two of them. When the hunting and the fishing meant time spent together, bonding, telling stories, camping out under a dust cloud of stars.
Back to when it was done for fun, not for survival.
She plucked a wayward daisy and tucked it behind her ear. Its white petal-like rays framed nicely against her short, tousled dark hair. She whooshed her spearhead over the tips of knee-high grass as she trudged her way through. In her black leather pants, combat boots, and camo tank-top Shilah was a warrior playfully battling the imaginary evils of her world.
Midway through the mock duel with the weeds, a flash appeared and snapped her attention. It was off in the distance to her right, over a cornfield that framed the backside of the cabin.
The burst wasn’t large, not nearly the magnitude of the one from the event. Although, it was similar in its flare-like brightness. It flickered, grew horizontally, then dissipated shortly after depositing a dark object.
Shilah froze.
From where she was standing, it was hard to tell exactly what had fallen into the middle of the corn stalks. It appeared to have been human. But how?
Her heart began to race and instinct kicked in. Tightening the grip on her spear, she sprinted for the safety of her home.
By the time she reached the kitchen, she could hear rustling through the stalks. The window above the sink faced where cornrows ran only feet from the backside of the cabin. Its protective tarp was rolled up for ventilated relief from the daytime warmth of the waning summer. As she was reaching up to unpin the plastic, he appeared. A man. A living, breathing, in-the-flesh, black man.
A very naked, living, breathing, in-the-flesh, black man. She stared in awe.
“Hello?” he called out.
Shit. She spun from the window; ass pressed into the counter, chest heaving with anxiety. The verbal salutation shattered the laconic silence she was so accustomed to.
“Hello? Is someone in there?” His voice was moving to the side. “I don’t mean you any harm and I could use some help.” He was making his way to the front.
‘Shit.’
Part of Shilah wished he would wander off, just leave her be. But it was the first human contact she’d encountered since her mother disappeared. She gripped her spear and slinked toward the front foyer. How dangerous could a naked man be?
‘He did just plummet from a light in the sky,’ she thought. ‘Fuck.’
He knocked at the front door.
“Hello? I saw movement. I wouldn’t otherwise bother you, but this appears to be the only house for miles and it is getting dark, and well, I’m naked.”
He seemed sincere.
“Go away!” she yelled. It had been so long since Shilah used her voice above a murmur that her own outburst somewhat startled her.
“Please, miss. My name is Declyn. Doctor Declyn Samuels. May I please come in?”
“No!”
“Shit,” he muttered to himself through the door. “Okay, how about clothes?” he said a bit louder. “Do you have any shorts and perhaps a shirt? If you could just slide them out here then at dawn I will make my way into town. I promise.”
“There is no one there.”
“No one...where?”
“Anywhere.”
There was a pause, seconds that felt eternal. Shilah pressed her back to the wall and let out a sigh.
“I need to come in, ma’am. I need to ask you some questions. This is going to sound crazy, but can you tell me what year it is?”
It wasn't so much the nature of the question that took Shilah by surprise, but the question itself. So concerned with surviving, she had lost track of days, months, and years. It was roughly five winters since that night, give or take.
“I don’t know,” she finally answered.
“Tell me this, is it the year 2020?”
“No.”
Another eternal pause.
“If the team’s calculations were correct it is probably somewhere close to 2025.” He was muttering to himself, again loud enough that she could hear.
“Ma’am, listen. I’d rather explain this face to face but I understand your trepidation, I assure you I mean no harm.
“About a decade ago, a team of scientists developed the ability to travel through time. We were able to successfully jump to the past and return with no harm. This is our first attempt at a boomerang to the future. I was sent here on a reconnaissance mission, of sorts. I suspect the reason no one is anywhere, as you stated, is due to some sort of catastrophic foul-up. For lack of a better way to put it.”
Shilah was now sitting, knees bent, back and head still pressed to the wall, spear cradled in her lap. Her mind was reeling, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
“The power-source for the jumps,” he continued, “is a crystal. The Boeidine crystal to be exact. In 2020 it was discovered that the supply was finite and rapidly running out. Our theoretical goal was to use the remaining crystals to create a permanent portal. A doorway that would allow travelers passage to and from certain points throughout the past or the future. An eternal wrinkle in time, if you will.”
“Where is my mother?”
“Ma’am, I do not know the answer to that. But…” he took a breath. “But, if I can get back, I can warn them, put a stop to the experiment until we can run further tests. It would possibly reverse or at least avoid whatever it was that caused everyone to disappear. To do this, though, I will need some help and some supplies.” His voice lowered once again to a mutter, “Clothes would be a good starting point.”
She stood, unlatched the metal bolt, and creaked the cabin door open. He took a step back, hands raised in defense, her spear inches from his face. Her eye was drawn to the glint of a marble-sized rock clutched in the fingers of his left hand.
“Thank you,” he said timidly.
This abrupt end to the void of human interaction set Shilah’s curiosity ablaze. Trance-like, she stared at his body; the dark ebony tone of his skin, his face, his muscular chest, his exposed manhood. It was as if a dream was taking hold of her reality. She studied every detail in an unsettling, almost primitive gawk.
After a lengthy and uncomfortable silence, she finally stepped aside, lowered her weapon, and allowed him to enter.
He was a handsome man, younger and more fit than she envisioned for a scientist. He was clean and also smelled good, fresh. She guessed his age to be early forties. His character, by her immediate assessment, was trustworthy and not because she was desperate for social interaction.
Shilah was a psychology major before the world was put on pause. She had always been a good judge of character which directed her early-adulthood path toward a career in psycho-analysis. Granted, she had yet to figure out the inner mindset of that wild boar, but she was certain this man, Declyn, was of good nature and intent.
He stopped only a few feet into the cabin, far enough to be out of swinging-range of her spear. Nerves, mixed with modesty, showed in his demeanor. He anxiously covered his genitals with both hands.
“Right, I trust you are who you say you are, but for now I am holding on to this.” She shook her weapon at him. “There are clothes in the basement, you are welcome to rummage through and keep whatever fits.” She flipped on a light and pointed him down the stairs.
“You have power?” he noted as he shimmied past her.
“Yes and no. This cabin was already off the grid, fitted with solar panels on the roof. From what I can tell, power everywhere else is gone. Died a few harvests after the explosion.”
She perched on the top step and watched as Declyn carefully picked through crates of clothes. Her eyes studied his tight, athletic-looking buttocks. She began to feel a stir.
“I applaud your resourcefulness. It must have been difficult to survive on your own all this time.” He was holding up a black t-shirt with a silhouette of sasquatch on the front and the word Believe written under it. He looked up at her and smiled. “Interestingly enough,” he chuckled, “They do exist.”
“How are you going to fix all of this, Mr. Science?” Her serious eyes moved away from staring at his cock.
“Right. Well, the key is in this Boeidine crystal.” He slipped on the shirt and pinched the stone between his fingers, holding it up for her. “I will need to charge it, and unfortunately, solar power is not going to be sufficient.”
“How does that make you time travel?”
He made his way to a stack of denim, pulling out a pair of blue jeans that looked close enough to fit.
“If I can explode it, the crystal creates what’s called, black matter; a mass far denser than its surroundings. Essentially, it implodes the environment within a vicinity that is proportionate to its size. The bigger the crystal, the bigger the hole.” He unfurled the pants with a vigorous snap as if wrinkles would be a bother.
“Now, if I can do this,” he continued, “in that exact spot where I came out in your cornfield, theoretically, it will create a worm-hole and boomerang me back to the precise place and time I came from.” He pulled up the pants, opting to go commando. “Problem is, it has never been tested.” He held his arms outstretched to either side. “Well? What do you think?”
“You looked better naked.” She stood and flipped off the light.
Through all the commotion, the evening had sped into night. Shilah had started a fire in an outdoor firepit and was working to boil four potatoes. The nighttime air was pleasantly cool. A gentle breeze carried glowing embers into the night-sky like dozens of flitting fireflies. Horses rustled in a nearby coral.
“You haven’t told me your name,” he said.
“Shilah...Ramsey.”
“Do you always cook outside, Shilah Ramsey?”
“My propane didn’t last very long. I only use the indoor wood-burning stove in the colder months, otherwise, the house gets too hot.”
“You inquired about your mother earlier. May I ask, what happened?”
They were sitting on Adirondack chairs angled toward the fire. The orange glimmer of the flame delightfully lit Declyn’s face with dancing amber shadows. She contemplated her answer.
“Truthfully, I don’t know.” Her voice was somber, melancholy. Not at all indicative of her true playful spirit. “Right after the explosion, mom left to try and find out what had happened. When she didn’t return the next morning, I rode into town. There was no trace of her...or anyone. It was as if someone or something had taken them all.”
