A Murder In Time

The old man knows many different names for murder. Homicide, matricide, siblicide, and infanticide, to name a few. But as he studies the young man he intends to kill, he thinks he’s likely committing a new kind of murder, one for which there is no name.

After all, what do you call it when a person travels back in time to kill another?

Several people dressed in Halloween costumes share the college dormitory space with him. A complicating factor, but the dim light in the room makes him feel confident in his chances of success. Half of them dance to Bachata. Others, like himself, stand around watching the dancers like silent sentinels or sit on couches chatting with others and holding red plastic cups in their hands. His fingers tap idly against his thigh, keeping pace with the music.

The young man twirls a beautiful raven-haired woman, then leans over and plants a kiss on her lips as she spins gracefully back into his arms. He’s wearing a ridiculous pirate costume complete with an eyepatch, while she wears an elegant green dress topped with a crown of colorful feathers. Except for the tight roundness at her abdomen, she’s mostly thin. Small spots of color bloom high on her cheeks. She looks thrilled to be alive.

Rosa Bell Fernandez, the old man recalls, though back then, he’d called her Bell. She used to laugh at that, but her hazelnut eyes had always sparkled like the stars every time he had.

His eyes move to Rosa’s swollen belly as the first tear spills over onto his leathery cheeks. No doubt the child would have been just as beautiful as its mother, just as noble, and just as proud. A child who could have grown up and done marvelous things, perhaps even changed the world. But he'd never known, thanks to the lying, cheating scumbag dancing with her.

An hour from now, Rosa and her unborn child will be killed in a horrible car accident. The young man will survive. It was always the bastards that live, always the good ones that die.

Well, the old man was going to change that and damn the consequences. He’d waited sixty years for the miracle of time travel to be possible, six decades to come back and make things right.

The lovers lock hands and begin walking toward him. He clutches the serrated blade concealed in his coat pocket. The young man pulls out a cell phone and begins texting, angling the screen away from Rosa to be sure she can’t see what’s doing.

It takes every bit of willpower the old man has to control his sudden rage and still his trembling hands. Bastard! Bad enough to betray her at all; the cocky little shit’s doing it right in front of her!

He tries to recall the name of the woman the young man had been texting, but it’s like grasping at strands in a complex spiderweb. It doesn’t matter anyway. Whoever she’d been, what happened hadn’t been her responsibility. It had been that smug sack of shit’s.

Closer now. The old man feels cold determination. Soon, they’ll pass right by his position. If he does nothing, the shitbag will take Rosa to his little Honda Civic. He’ll open the passenger door like a gentleman, ushering her into the steel deathtrap that will become her tomb. All the while planning a tryst with his little sidepiece, no doubt fantasizing about all the different positions he wants to put her in while his woman waits for him back home.

If the old man does nothing, the young man will drive Rosa to her death.

The accident makes the local news headlines, featuring a picture of a small car, its passenger side peeled open like a can of sardines where emergency firemen used the Jaws of Life to get at Rosa’s broken body. She’ll suffer from head contusions, numerous internal bruising, and a dozen cuts to the sides of her face and forehead where the glass explodes. But it’ll be the broken ribs that kill her, one of which pierces her heart. The internal bleeding causes her death long before the ambulance ever reaches the hospital. The baby dies less than an hour later, unable to survive the trauma.

The bastard who kills them will survive with only a broken wrist and a few scrapes and bruises. The worst damage will be to the cell phone he’s been texting his sidepiece with when he runs the red light and gets plowed into by the Ford F250, flipping the car over 3 times before it finally slides into another vehicle.

The old man can’t let that happen. He leaps to his feet with a growled curse and a snarl, and buries the knife deep into the soft flesh of the cheater’s belly, savagely twisting it before the younger man has time to do more than cry out in shock. Rosa screams and stumbles backward, clutching her stomach. The liar seizes the old man’s wrist, but it’s too late; the death blow has already been given.

The young man stares in shocked confusion into the eyes of the old man. Familiar eyes the exact shade as his own. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and gasps out a single question:

“Why?”

The old man leans close to whisper. “I had to save her. From us. She will live now.”

Understanding dawns in their twin eyes as the old man lets go. His body is already beginning to fade into nothingness. He turns to Rosa, smiling weakly despite the look of horror on her face. She’ll be traumatized, of course, but the baby should help her through that. They’ll both be okay now; that’s what’s important.

“My beautiful Bell.” He whispers. Then he’s gone.