a story of mine.

SYNOPSIS:

Fog of Time

By

Gregory Barone

One day I was driving my car with nowhere in mind, I was in a fog when I suddenly saw a sign for Wilfleet! ‘Just how in the world did I get here.‘ It wasn't long till I found a gas station and parked, everything had a vintage 1960s look to it.

Just like looking at an old picture from the time but the thing is; I was in that picture, I stepped out of my car to see it as an old chevy nova of that time and saw that I was wearing old-style clothing and I had no cell phone, ‘Okay, what the hell’ my mind was perplexed.

It was getting late in the day and the air of the city had that feeling that you shouldn’t be out walking at night so the best thing to do was go inside the station store.

The familiar smell of grease, oil, tire rubber, and gasoline of a place like this and the eye burning color choices of the furniture and walls was almost too much to bear at that moment so I called out to see if anyone was here and heard no answer to my call so I went to the garage area of the station and in there I saw old cars from the 60s and older and a few old motorcycles in a corner, and there was a toolbox with some tools out on the floor, and a car had a jack under it to have some work done on its front right break and I was admiring the old car when I heard someone yell ‘HEY, just who are you and what are you doing back here!’ I turned quickly to see a man walking up to me. When he was close I could say he was a foot shorter than me with his hair slicked back and wearing grease-stained

overalls.

‘I’m sorry Mister…’

‘Mister Arlington, but some call me Sam’

‘Okay Sam, So again sorry but I seem to be lost’

‘Yes, it’s quite easy to see that you are.’

It was at that moment and the look on his face that I could see that I wasn’t winning any good points with him and I needed to see if I could remedy the issue.

‘Oh I’m sorry again’ with a slight laugh ‘My name is James’ offering my hand to him and he took it with a good grip to the point that I think he would have broken a bone or two. I did my best to show that he wasn’t hurting me.‘ Well . . . okay Sam . . . how bout you show me how to get back to interstate ninety-five.’ He looked at me with a raised brow. 'Man you are lost, I-95 is a ways away over the Brown Bridge’‘I’ll show you on the map over here.’

He waved as to follow him back the way I came in and as soon as we passed the doorway, we got jumped by some guys who quickly slid cloth bags over our heads plus they tied us up and we did our best to fight them off but they got the better of us and soon we were in a van and we were driven off for a while till we came to a stop and was pulled out of the van and was pushed around and was lead down some stairs and was made to sit in a chair and was tied up, I didn’t know where we were and then the cloth bag was pulled off my head it took some time for my eyes to adjust to the light, the room was dimly lit with one light bulb and it was damp and musty and I could see the walls were of old brick with concrete plaster that in most parts where falling off, there were rust color rings on the walls due to some flooding in times of wet weather plus there were piles of leaves and who knows what else in the corners and a tangle of cob and spider webs in corners of the ceiling and I could see most of them still had the long-dead victims in them covered in dust, an ill-fated omen for us I don’t know.

When I saw men dressed like your typical mobster types and one of them turned around a corner of the room ‘ Hey Mr.Carver, we’re ready for ya’ at that moment I couldn’t believe what I was Hearing but soon enough he came around the corner and he stood in front of me, lean but muscular in a military camo with a gun, and a black beret in his hand with his red hair slicked back ‘Hello my dear friend Sam’ I looked over at Sam, he was breathing heavily with fiery anger and fury to a point, he would’ve busted out of his overalls and then the riddler looked over to me ‘and who do we have here?’‘ He was with Sam at the time we nab him’ spoke up one of the thugs. “Didn't want to leave any witnesses, sir,” said another one.‘Good, good, that was very smart of you Mr. Monday’‘Thanks, boss’ the thug cheerily expressed.

Sam bucked and jumped in the chair “There's nothing you can do to make me work for you clowns.” One of the thugs came over to Sam and push down on him to keep him still and Mr. Carver strode over to him ‘I’m very sad that you didn’t want to join and help us but in the end, you will be a part of this weather you like it or not my dear Sam’ then he turned to me and stepped closer ‘ I’m sorry that I won’t be knowing your name but at least my dear friend here won’t go out alone.’ I didn’t see any reason to reply, all I did was stare at him ‘Not much for talking are you’ tilting himself back ‘No matter, I have much to do than to waste my time here’ Mr. Carver looked at Sam and smirked, “Oh, how I will miss you, my dear friend Sam when I sent you off with a BANG!!!.”

He smiled and with a jeering laugh and made a hand motion ‘ LET’S GO BOY’S, Time waits for no man’ and left the room with his thugs and soon I could hear them outside doing something then I heard Mr.carver speak ‘ Good evening people of Wilfleet; It’s your dear friend Mr. Blaze and I have some Riddles for you, the first one..’ Sam was trying to get out of the chair by jumping around in it which made me not hear the first riddle, and Mr. Carver went to the next one.

‘Second one; what is the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end and the end of every race?” I was able to figure it out and the answer is ‘E’ because there were a lot of words with that letter in it.‘Third one..’ Sam went at it again by trying to smash the chair on the wall, then stopped ‘ JUST YOU WAIT! I’ll get my hands around your damn neck’ and I wasn’t able to hear it so I looked over to Sam (thanks man for being a pain in the ass)

‘Fourth one; I live here in Wilfleet, I am quite tall and I tell all around me the hour?” That had me stumped, being that I don’t live in Wilfleet. ‘Fifth one; I don’t have long to live for when I die I make a loud sigh?” that had me stumped as well, I’ll get them one way or another.

As I sat there all the things that have happened to me thus far were going through my mind, what was the deal with Sam and Mr. Carver and the riddles, what were they about in all this? I could hear them all doing some stuff out in the alleyway. I was able to hear Carver say that three of them go with him in the radio van and the other four guard the clock tower till they come back to get them, but why would he do that? I guessed was that we ( me and Sam) were in the basement of the clock tower which solves riddle number three but I still couldn’t get my head around what Mr. Carver said to Sam? and then it hit me! They have plans to blow up the clock tower with us in it!! but when would that be and when would Mr. Carver and his men be back for his others? Before I did anything else, I and sam had to first get ourselves free! they finished up what they were doing and the van left and the four thugs came in and were doing the rounds in the clocktower, I listened to hear if one of the thugs was near us one of them was out in the hallway walking back and forth and it’s going to be “hard” to get us free with the thug around.

Seeing Sam with his head down exhausted; I moved next to him when the thug was away and Sam looked up to me,‘ what do you want.’‘ “shhh, I have a small knife on my key chain in my pocket, I can’t get to it with the way I’m tied up here. I need you to pull the chain clip and make sure not to drop them or jingle them around. wait for the thug to go far down the hall and pull them out.’ I can tell you for sure as the sky is blue dear reader that Sam had an astonished look ‘ I may not know who you are but I like the way you think’ Sam waited for the thug to get far away and he started to pull on the key chain clip in my pocket and Sam was able to get the key chain from my pocket, luckily my small knife was on it and he put my key chain in my hand and I started to cut the rope around his hand, slowly but surely I was able to cut him loose.

Soon both me and Sam were free of our bonds and I told Sam my thoughts on what was going on and we both agreed to knock out the thugs and disarm the bomb that was in the watchtower, where and when it would go off was what we had to find out but we had to deal with the thug in the hall first, we made a plan that Sam would hit the thug in the gut and I’ll make the knock-out blow, so we waited for the thug to come our way and when he was close to the corner; Sam nailed the thug hard right in the gut and then I was able to knock the thug out cold with an elbow strike to the head and we dragged him into the room that we were tied up in and left him there. So now we had one down and three to go; as we were about to go up some stairs, two of the thugs meet on top of the stairwell

‘Hey Frank’

‘Yeah Nick’

‘What time is it’

‘Well, it’s nine forty-five’

‘and what time would Mr. Caver be back for us’

‘Around four because he plans to have this place go boom at five’

Sam and I looked at each other, well thanks to them we knew what time we had to stop this from happening but we had to deal with the three thugs that were here in the clock tower, so me and Sam made a plan to beat the two thugs when the two came back together; they wondered about their pal downstairs

‘Hey Nick’

‘Yeah Frank’

‘What do ya think happened to Anthony?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know, he’s supposed to let us know he’s okay down there’

‘Oh, right’

‘HEY ANTHONY!! you alive down there’

and as soon as he said that I yelled out ‘IN A WAY, YES!’ and they turned quickly to see two fists coming right at them, Sam was able to hit Frank but he was just able to move back to soften the blow, and I nearly hit Nick but was able to trip him up, Frank came back at Sam and Sam ducked in time and then Sam hit Frank hard knocking him out and then I gave Nick a roundhouse kick to his head and knocked him out cold.

It didn’t take us long to find the last thug which was the biggest of the group and he wasn’t happy to see us; Sam was so fired up from the last fight that he went at him first and Sam landed a good blow but the thug was still standing and gave Sam a hit that sent him back and then I went at the thug and made contact and the thug countered and the thugs hit sent me back as well right next to Sam ‘You got guts man.’ Sam Said to me and went back at the thug and gave the thug a good shock and the thug was able to hit and hurt Sam sending him to the floor, seeing Sam hurt I went full force at the thug, and with a sledgehammer strike I was able to knock the thug down but not out cold, I went over to Sam to see how he was, and from the look of it he was in quite a lot of pain but was able to get up If I had to make a guess, Sam might just have a bruised or cracked rib and we walked over to the thug and Sam leaned on the wall and I gave the thug a few good smacks on the face to wake him up, he looked up at me, and then Sam ‘What do you want’ the thug being somewhat defiant.

‘I want to know how the bomb will be triggered to go off.’

‘I ain’t gotta tell you shit’

After that, I gave the thug a good hard thunder kick right between the legs to drive the point home to him that I was not in the mood for his crap, and the thug told us ( me and Sam) that all he knew was that the trigger for the bomb was at the top in the clock working, he didn’t know how but one of the guys did the work and we ( me and Sam) had to go up the stairs to the third floor and the elevator would go from the third floor to the top and had to go up some more stairs to the clock-workings to find the trigger for the bomb.

Things wouldn’t be easy being that Sam was in pain and I would need his help to disarm the bomb and being the thug was of no use I gave him another sledgehammer to the other side of his face and he would be one very swelled up guy by the end of the night and Sam gave me a thumb up.

We went up to the third floor I had Sam lean on me as we went; and luck would have it the elevator was right by the stairs and I was able to see a clock that had three minutes past eleven, we don’t have much time left as far as I knew and in a few minutes we were at the top and in the clockworks of the tower and I wished that I had time to look at the workings but my mind was on dealing with the bomb and I was able to find a toolbox that had wire cutters in it.

It took some time but we were able to figure out how the bomb would go off; the whole deal was quite clever if I must say and we cut some wires, Sam opened a fuse box, and we found a pressure plate on a bell that when the hammer hit the bell, would trigger the bomb to go off and I was able to solve the whole thing (the key of E) now give that a hard think! with that done we headed back down and I had to carry Sam down a ways back to the elevator and back down to the third floor, I enquired sam about what role he would have played in this and he told me about the whole gang of anarchist and Carver wanted to make a name for themselves and it didn’t take much to see what he would do to make that happen I didn’t see any reason to go in more about it, Sam had a reason not to get in with a guy like Carver than I asked Sam to check his watch ‘ two thirty’ not long till they come back ‘What’s the plan now man.’ Sam asked, I told him that I plan on having them get caught at four when he comes back for his guys by calling the police commissioner around three thirty - three forty-five and hopes they come soon enough, I found a payphone and had the operator put my call through to the police commissioner and I told him everything.

After that, I waited by a window looking over the alley where the van would come and if I dare say ‘Like Clockwork’ the van pull into the alley and the Wilfleet police right after it, There was a big commotion down in the alleyway and it wasn’t long for the police to come up the stairs and find me and Sam looking a bit beat up and tired, the bomb squad found all the bombs and thanked us and soon after that Sam was on his way into an ambulance and I was asked to come and get checked out but I told them that I was fine and nothing that some ice packs and pain killers can’t fix and I just wanted to get back to my car and Sam told me that if I was ever back in Wilfleet that he would treat me to a burger at Al’s diner and I said that I’ll do that if I ever came this way again and with that, he was driven to the hospital, I gave my contact info and was driven back to my car at the station and I was back on the road.

My mind was starting to go back into a fog and a bright light was in my face when I suddenly woke up finding myself in my bed with a ray of the sun coming through the window blinds and I found that my legs and arms hurt even some pain around my wrist, It took me a minute to get up and out of bed. after doing my morning routine I was on my computer and after going through all my emails I had a thought to look up the city of Wilfleet and to my surprise, I found that it wasn’t all a dream and I saw all the detail of the case and that they weren’t able to find the guy that helped; I took my time looking through all that I could find about it when my cell rang and on the screen to my surprise, I saw the name Sam Arlington, but could it be the same guy?

THE END