How To Go Back in Time Book One: Chapter Two

THE PRESENT (OR PAST, WHATEVER YOU LIKE)
It was now three-in-the-afternoon. A week before, I had got a call from my boss, telling me to
go down to Arizona for a job. Another murder case. No problem, I had solved them before and I would
continue to do so. So I packed up all my shit, and drove from Seattle downwards. I could’ve taken a
plane, but I liked my cars.
My first instinct upon arrived into town was, “Wow, that’s a lot of gas stations!” Not a single
pretty looking building, not one good tree. Just dirt, heat, mountains, and some cactus. The wind would
blow by the side of the highway, and there would come a dust cloud. Where was the car wash?
I followed a road that did a loopdy-loop around the highway, and then I suddenly came on a thin
valley road. To the right, beautiful canyons. To the left, nothing but a wall of a mountain that curved
outwards. At the end, I appeared back once again on the county roads. Up ahead, I could see it. The
crime scene.
My tires skidded into the dirt as I braked. Stepping out, I lit a cigarette and walked under the
yellow tape. Multiples flies buzzing. A terrible stench in the air. This was not a fresh corpse. And there
was something about the air here, it was charged. It’s like—imagine walking into a room and only
feeling chills. That was it.
“Irwin Sander!” A fat man called out. He wore button-up straps over a flannel. Had a pot belly.
“And you are?”
“Paul Meyers, chief of police here—and you just shook my hand like you were in the military.”
I cracked a smile. “Yeah, well, I was in the marines for ten years. Joined at seventeen.”
“Seventeen? With your GED?”
“Sorry—eighteen.”
I thought for a second that this man was the only officer. Until I saw the flash of a camera from
behind the church. I proceeded and saw a blonde-haired man taking pictures of the victim. He was
wearing a police jacket, in summer.
The victim was a male, probably mid-twenties. Black hair. Weirdly orange shirt. Khakis. Six
stab wounds laid across his chest, all equally vicious. His arm was perched up at an angle. In the
middle, was a pigeon painted red and orange.
“What exactly happened here?”
He paused for a moment, and dropped the camera. “Second murder victim. Completely different
from the last.”
“How different?” I asked.
“Like, the last one was a woman and it wasn’t stabs—it was hanging.”
“Actual hanging? Noose and all and from a tree?”
Solemnly, he nodded. “Yes.”
“But what’s with the pigeon?”
“I honestly don’t know. Maybe he’s making art? Either way, the art is completely sick—“
“It’s painted like a phoenix.”
I watched the realization wash over his face, and said, “It’s like rebirth. He’s saying something
about that… perseverance?”
He snapped the camera. Light shot out. “We’ll probably never know the details, but uh, we’ll
find him.” And then a haunted look washed over him. “We still don’t know exactly what killed the last
one.”
“You don’t?”
“For one, it was a woman. Turns out, she came here from Phoenix to see friends, ended up
getting ganked from a, “superior force of action.””
I stomped my cigarette butt out. My attention was taken away from the conversation. A
supposed superior force of action. Could be code for blunt force trauma. I knew that I would need to
see the case files, and that involved gazing at the victim. And a part of me did not want to see that.
However, I started getting a sick feeling in my stomach. Like a jolt of electricity. This wasn’t
normal. Something about this was not normal. I had seen a lot of shit—I was in the military… But I
didn’t wanna touch this. Whatever it was.
The pigeon was interesting. It’s wings were painted red, orange, and yellow. Obviously meant to
be a phoenix. But why? A symbol of protection and rebirth, at a crime scene. What was the suspect
doing?
“Just talked to the witness.” Paul said, grabbing my arm.
I shook him off me and asked, “Yeah? What’d she say?”
* * *
A TRANSMISSION FROM YOUR BRAND NEW TV CHANNEL
RATED PG-13
Picture this, if you will.
It’s two-in-the-afternoon, a hundred degrees outside. The sweat is, literally, pouring off your
face. You’re in an abandoned church. Surrounding the building is a rusted barbed-wire fence. Beyond
that, fields of pointy cactus and dirt. You’re praying. This is what the witness was doing, at the time the
body was placed.
She sat on a pew in the second-to-front row. It was so quiet she could hear the blood rushing in
her ears. She had had a rough day at work, got bitched at by managers, felt a little lonely. So, she went
to the church and prayed. It helped.
Elisa’s breath slowed and her mind became clear. For just one singular moment she felt
completely relaxed and whole. There was no bitchy managers in here. No loneliness. Just a vast
expanse of light and nothingness.
Outside, she heard footsteps. Elisa opened her eyes and stared at the stained glass window of
purples and reds. A tall shadow stood outside it, with a weird lump on it’s back. It’s breath, fogging up
the window.
Kthunk. Whatever the shadow was carrying on it’s back was suddenly dropped to the ground.
Even from inside the church, Elisa could still smell it. The awful stench. Suddenly, the shadow stopped,
and she watched it turn to the window. It pressed it’s face and body up against the glass with a thud,
peering through. Scratching and attempting to break it.
She leapt from her seat and rushed to the door. Though as she placed her hand the knob, she
realized it was still out there. She couldn’t leave. Crying, she crawled under a pew and hid there. She
waited and covered her mouth with her hand, to stop from loud breathing. And out of the corner of her
eye, the shadow disappeared from the window.