Fire, The by John A. Heldt Read Free Book Online Page A

policeman fumbling through his personal belongings and turning on a device with a power-zoom lens and a 2.8-inch LCD screen.
    After stuffing his suitcase, Kevin grabbed a bite to eat, showered, threw on a suit that fit surprisingly well, and checked his luggage one last time. He didn't want to forget that essential something extra on this trip. He folded the lunar calendar in half and tucked it in a jacket pocket.
    When Kevin walked out of Roger Johnson's house in patent leather shoes at 1:10 p.m., he looked like a man on a mission. He was a man on a mission. He was about to experience Wallace in a way Walking Walt could only dream about. He imagined picking up a phone and calling Joel Smith and asking if he could get graduate credit for a paper on "How I Spent My Summer Vacation in the Edwardian Era."
    Like he did the first time, he pulled two-dozen double eagles from his pockets and arranged them in the shape of two Ms, a C, and an X. Like he did the second time, he waited a moment, collected the coins and opened the door to the chamber of stones. He carried the suitcase into the tiny structure and dropped it on a cement floor.
    The chamber was empty, as it had been on both occasions, and mostly dark. The only light streamed in from horizontal slits located about a foot below the top of each wall. Kevin assumed that the slits had been created for ventilation purposes, though he didn't know for whom. He couldn't imagine anyone voluntarily spending more than a minute or two in the bleak space.
    He waited a moment, turned to face the door, and then reached for the brass knob. He then attempted to turn the knob, as he had done the previous times, but the knob wouldn't budge. It wouldn't turn in the other direction either.
    Kevin tried again to open the door, this time with both hands, but succeeded only in chafing the skin on his palms. Something was wrong.
    Before he had the chance to try again, he heard the wind pick up. Cool air flowed through the vents – very cool air, the kind one might find in a breezy tunnel. He stood on his toes and tried to peek through one of the slits but managed to do little more than strain his feet. He again went for the door and again failed to force it open. For the second time as a time traveler, Kevin felt genuine fear. This wasn't funny. This wasn't funny at all.
    Kevin tried to turn the knob again, with similar results. He threw his weight against the door, kicked it several times, and pounded it with his fists. Nothing moved and no one answered. He repeated the process several times and several times managed only to raise his blood pressure. This was the price one paid, he thought, for messing with powers beyond his control.
    When the air in the chamber turned from cool to cold, he collected himself in a corner and tried to stay warm. Summer, it seemed, had turned to winter. Kevin was never one to panic, but he felt like panicking now. He began to seriously wonder whether he had entered one of Dante's nine circles of hell. The thrill of time travel had long gone by the wayside.
    Gathering his strength, he assaulted the door again. He attacked the knob, kicked the bottom, and knocked as hard as he could. He shouted for help at least three times. Then the door opened and Kevin saw something he welcomed: the outside world.
    But the joy of liberation was short-lived. When Kevin looked out the door of the chamber of stones he saw more than Asa Johnson's backyard and Asa Johnson's house. He saw Asa Johnson himself, along with the business end of a pump-action shotgun.
     

CHAPTER 9: KEVIN
     
    Kevin had to give his great-great-grandfather credit. Asa didn't shoot him on the spot or leave him in the backyard to freeze. He instead invited him into his warm house – at gunpoint, of course – for a friendly game of Twenty Questions.
    Asa directed the trespasser through a door in the back of the house to an extension of the kitchen that the trespasser knew well. A woman in her late twenties held