Witch Time E-Book

John Chapman

• Herausgeber: JayDax
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: It Was a Dark and Stormynight
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 37

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

I can die or travel to 1785 to save a witch. Time travel - here I come.

I've been infected - with timebots. The last people infected were killed by Jack the Ripper to remove them.

Another short and unbelievable story which will take you about thirty minutes to read.

Leseprobe

It Was Another Dark and Stormy Night

Another Short and Unbelievable Story

By John Chapman

This edition 1.0 ©2015

Hexham

John Chapman has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Copyright ©2015 John Chapman

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

ISBN-13: 9781005547073

This book uses UK English, so expect words like ‘favourite’, ‘colour’ and ‘metre’, temperatures in Celsius and expressions such as ‘I put it in my car boot’… but then… I may use US spelling and expressions.

Oh well – you’ll see

.

My thanks go to my wife, Shelia, who took time from her writing to edit this story.

“Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it; so that when men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale has had its effect.”

Johnathan Swift in The Examiner 1710

I’ve been told by one of the characters in this story that you won’t believe this. However, enough of these stories will stick in someone’s mind for it to trigger an idea. That alone will cause the founding of TACO, the Time Agency Chronoclasm Organisation, which controls time travel.

Chapter 1

It wasn’t a dark and stormy night.

I know what you were expecting. That first line was not supposed to include the wasn’t. There had been quite a few dark nights since I met Alex Pearin, the time traveller, but it wasn’t night yet and it was still quite light. Come to think of it, aren’t all nights dark? Well, maybe not if you live in northern Finland in the summer. Anyway – it wasn’t night and it wasn’t stormy. In fact, it was early evening, the sun hadn’t quite set and the weather was warm.

Having set the scene by describing the weather in detail, something an author should never do because it should be ‘show not tell,’ I suppose I had better get on with the story. If I were an American, I would no doubt have been sitting on my porch watching the sunset with a glass of iced tea. However, I’m from the UK and was sitting in my second-floor apartment living room hunched over my laptop writing. My concentration was interrupted by the doorbell ringing. At least that made a change from the phone ringing so that some nice person could try and sell me a conservatory.

It was Alex. This time he wasn’t dripping wet and smoking from a lightning strike.

“There’s been a complication,” he said before I could open my mouth.

“Oh, well, you better come in then and tell me about it.”

I shifted some papers off the settee so he could sit down. “I have some disturbing news,” Alex said fidgeting. “I appear to have infected you with timebots.”

“Thank God for that,” I responded. “I’ve been putting on weight and am totally sick of salads.” On his previous visit, Alex had explained to me that time travel was made possible by millions of nanomachines which created wormholes throughout the time traveller’s body allowing journeys through time and space. These added to the subject’s weight, making them about fifty percent heavier than they should be.

“Wait a minute!” I said, looking round for something to defend myself with, “You killed those women back in 1888 with your Jack the Ripper thing because they were infected with timebots.”

“Relax – I’m not here to kill you. BELL won’t allow it. You’re too important and killing you would disturb the timeline too much.”

I relaxed, “Who is Belle and why am I so important?”

“It’s not a ‘who’, it’s an ‘it’. BELL is an acronym. I’m not allowed to tell you what it stands for. It’s an organization which makes decisions controlling TACO – Time Agency Control Operatives.”

“I have a sneaky idea, whoever set up TACO and BELL had a great fondness for Mexican food. But the last time you were here, you said TACO stood for the Time Anti-Chronoclasm Organization. You still haven’t explained, why I’m so important.”