Clickety Clack; Don’t Come Back

“Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack"

Somewhere between a nightmare and reality, his mind latched onto the sound; “Clickety Clack.”

It had a rhythm to it— an ever-increasing rhythm, growing slightly louder and faster with each cycle. It felt familiar somehow. He could feel it as much as hear it and struggled with everything in him to stay attached to that sound. It felt like his very life depended on it.

The nightmare was fading now, but the increased heart rate, trembling, and overwhelming feeling of dread were still there and threatening to pull him back down. Fighting against fear, he pushed and pulled and clawed his way towards the surface, towards the light, towards reality. He could sense it getting closer and willed himself forward.

“Don’t come back!”

The words exploded in his head, like an alarm bell, a few seconds before his eyes opened. Confusion arrived before reality as he wasn’t sure if he had spoken the words or if someone else had.

Slowly, he realized that he must have spoken the words as his vision cleared to reveal that he was alone. Alone and sitting in a window seat on a passenger train. Confusion returned as he looked around, not understanding what he was seeing. Nothing made sense. This wasn't a modern passenger train but something much older, like the model trains he remembered from his childhood. Even the sound, "Clickety Clack,” belonged with the steam locomotives of the old west, not with the modern high-speed trains of today. But it wasn't just the age of the train that didn't feel right—everything didn't feel right.

He looked out the window to see flat grassland, which stretched to the horizon, speeding by much faster than any steam train could possibly travel.

How is this happening? Am I dreaming?

Quickly turning in his seat, he scanned the car looking for anybody or anything that could answer his questions. There was nothing, no people, no clothing, no luggage, no sound…

No sound?

“Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack.”

Why is that the only sound I can hear? Why is there no rumbling or bumping or rushing wind or any other sound for that matter? What the hell is going on?

Fear and anxiety set in as he rummaged through his pockets, looking for anything that would provide a clue to what was happening. He found nothing. No wallet, no identification, no papers of any kind, not even a train ticket. The only thing he did discover had the unpleasant effect of increasing his fear. He didn't know how or why, but these were not his clothes—they were the clothes a young man would have worn in the early 1900s, well over one hundred years ago.

He tried calling out, hoping someone could hear him.

“Hello, is there anybody here?”

It felt like his voice was being blasted through a loudspeaker as it echoed around the car, forcing him to cover his ears with his hands. His words bounced back and forth for a few seconds like they were looking for a way out before slowly fading away.

He waited about a minute, fighting the pain in his head, before lowering his hands to see blood on his fingertips. As he stared at the blood, concerned about the damage to his ears, a flash of light suddenly startled him back to his senses.

What was that?

Another flash from a different direction caught his eye.

There it is again. What the hell is that?

The first flash seemed to be coming from the front of the train but a long way ahead and a long way to the right. It looked close to what looked like a large stand of trees far in the distance. The second flash came from the back of the train but a long distance away across the grassy plain. The sun was high in the sky, so he cupped his hands above his eyes and moved close to the glass, trying to understand what he was seeing. He could feel the train slowly increasing speed with each "Clickety Clack” as he stared out the window and realized the light was coming from the sun reflecting off the tracks.

Panic rose in his mind as he put it all together. This train was heading into a curve that would completely reverse its direction, and it was increasing speed at the same time.

Why the hell would they do that? Don’t they know what’s ahead?

They wouldn’t speed up—it’s suicide.

There must be something wrong with the crew; I have to do something now!

Jumping to his feet, he felt an unnerving sense of falling—a lot like what you would feel in a dream. It almost felt like he wasn’t riding in the train but more like he was the train.

Struggling to stay upright, he held onto the seatbacks and slowly willed his feet forward one row at a time, trying to get to the next car. It was next to impossible. It felt like he was in a war with his body; every step was a battle to be fought. Salty sweat fell in his eyes, blurring his vision, while his stomach revolted and threatened to evacuate his bowels every few seconds.

It took him a full ten minutes to move only a few feet, stopping every ten seconds or so to let the nausea pass.

“Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack.”

“Hold onto the sound!”

The words imprinted on his mind from nowhere and everywhere— bringing clarity to his thoughts.

“Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack.”

It's not the sound; it's the rhythm.

He heard it now and understood he could only move on the “Clickety Clack’s,” which were coming in a cycle that felt like a recording playing on a loop. The sound would come for about ten seconds and then pause for a few seconds before repeating.

I can’t move on the pause.

Armed with the courage this insight gave him, he quickly reached the door and yanked hard on the handle. Nothing happened. He pushed and pulled left and right and in and out, but nothing happened. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move that door.

The small round window at the top of the door proved useless. He couldn’t see anything through it. It was like looking into a black hole, a vacuum devoid of light, a place where nothing lived. It chilled him to his core.

“Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack-Clickety Clack.”

The rhythm was clearly gaining speed and volume now. He could feel his heart rate trying to match it as he backed away from whatever was beyond that door.

With legs trembling uncontrollably and fear oozing from every pore, he felt his mind spin and cycle towards madness.

“Stay in frame.”

What? Stay in frame?

It felt like someone else was there, behind him, and had whispered the words into his ear. He quickly turned to see nothing.

Shit! I’m losing it. This can't be real. I must be dreaming, but…

Stay in frame. Why do those words sound so familiar and so important?

He didn't know why but knew deep in his soul that those words were the key to his survival, to his sanity. But he had no idea what they meant.

“Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack—…”

He felt it before he saw it at first— a glint of light coming from the door at the rear of the car. It appeared just for a second every time the rhythm paused.

“Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack-Clickety Clack.”

It was quickly getting faster now. He could feel the train rapidly gaining speed and swaying side to side as each car entered the curve.

Grabbing the seatbacks, he pulled as hard and as fast as he could towards the rear door. He could see the light clearly now and felt his only chance lay on the other side of that door. Stopping at every pause in the rhythm, he realized that the light lasted for a few seconds each time, exactly as long as the pause.

There’s not enough time. How can I get through that door and close it behind me that fast?

Standing at the door, trying to time the rhythm, he could feel the tilting of the car getting more and more pronounced with each “Clickety Clack.”

There’s no time. We’re leaving the tracks. I have to go now!

Frantically, he lunged for the door handle, but it vanished with the rest of the door at that exact moment, causing him to fall forward to the other side. Getting to his knees, he looked back, trying to understand what had happened, but what he saw in no way gave him understanding. It had the opposite effect. It brought him to the edge of a breakdown.

The doorway wasn’t there. The car was gone leaving what looked like a long dark tunnel with a strange faint light that was fading away at the same rate as the “Clickety Clack” sound. The light and sound seemed to be entangled somehow and slowly faded until there was nothing.

Sensing something happening behind him, he turned to see the same scene in reverse. There was no sound, but that same faint light was moving towards him from a long way off. It seemed to have a rhythm to it and would stop every few seconds and double in size.

But something else was happening at the same time, something that, if it had happened a few minutes earlier, would have changed the outcome of what was now coming.

His memory was coming back and becoming clearer, and fuller each time the light grew in size.

He knew now exactly what was happening and why he was here. He also knew that he had made the biggest mistake possible— he didn't "stay in frame.”

The light was touching his body now, and he could feel the pull of it. He felt his entire being pulling towards the light.

Just before the nothingness, Tim finally snapped and screamed.

“Don’t come back.”

***************

Bang, Bang, Bang. “Bill, wake up.” Bang, Bang, Bang. "Bill, get up. It’s Tim. He’s moving.”

Michael’s hands, cold from being in the departure room for hours, couldn’t handle much more banging.

Bang, Bang, Bang. “Bill, you crazy bastard, get the hell up. He’s moving towards the edge.”

Michael couldn't understand why they needed to keep the equipment so cold. They were three hundred feet underground in a manmade cave encased in six feet of concrete and lead. How much colder did they really need to be? It made no sense to him— actually, none of it made any sense to him.

He had jumped at the job offer three months ago, thinking it was easy money. They were paying five times what anybody else would pay for his tech skills or, as it turned out, his ability to hack into power grids and communication lines. At first, he didn't care that what he was doing was illegal— $100,000 a month has a way of blurring the lines between what you can do and what you can’t.

But being trapped underground with two batshit crazy scientists for the last three months was wearing him down. He had almost quit after the first two weeks when he realized what they were trying to do.

Time travel was a crock of shit, or he thought it was in the beginning. But then they proved it and offered him a share of the company. They tried explaining how it worked, but most of it sailed far over his head and left him with more questions than answers.

The only way he could explain it was that light was somehow trapped in old photographs, and these guys had somehow figured out a way of extracting the light from the photograph and trapping it. They held it in this weird-looking capsule they had built in the departure room. Then they would use an algorithm he developed and introduce a set of sounds that looped at specific time frames and created a vortex inside the capsule. For some reason, he didn't understand, the vortex would increase in speed and density until it reached a point that Bill called entanglement. Somehow the light and sound became one, and they could use this entanglement to send anything in the capsule to the time and place of the photograph. They said whatever they sent would appear in the photograph.

They were right. He couldn't believe it, but it worked.

Tim had some old pictures of his ancestors from the early 1900s that were originals and would be perfect to prove the theory. One of them was a picture of a man and a woman sitting in chairs in front of a rundown old shack with a set of steps in front. They put a brand new pair of basketball shoes into the capsule before introducing the sound and light. Within a few minutes, the shoes appeared in the picture, sitting on the steps behind the couple.

It was crazy as hell but what was even crazier and proved their theory, without doubt, was that the shoes also appeared in digital copies of the photograph.

The other side of the theory was to bring something back; all they had to do was reverse the vortex, and the object would reappear in the capsule and disappear from the photograph.

It worked flawlessly. He thought they were all going to be rich beyond their wildest dreams. But then the crazy bastards decided that one of them would have to go in. They actually fought over who would be the one to go. As Tim owned the photos, they decided that he would go.

They needed a photo with no one in it as they didn't know what would happen if he suddenly appeared in front of people. They settled on a picture of the inside of a train car from around 1905.

They agreed on three rules Tim had to follow, but now it looked like he was breaking the most important one. He couldn't interact with anybody and always stay attached to the sound as it would keep him grounded. But because they had no way of knowing what was beyond the edges of the photograph or even if reality existed beyond those points, he could never leave the area trapped within the frame. He must stay in frame.

Bang, Bang, Bang. “Bill, get the fuck up!!”

The door flung open and smashed Michael in the shoulder before Bill came charging out, running as fast as he could to the control room. By the time Michael caught up to him, Bill was in the room turning dials and pushing buttons while looking at the photograph in his hand. Michael looking through the glass into the departure room, could see that the vortex was slowing quickly.

He yelled at Bill, “What the hell are you doing? Tim is still in there.”

Bill threw the photo at him, saying, "He won't be much longer. I'm going to get him."

“Are you fucking nuts? You can’t follow him in; you have no way of knowing what will happen.”

"He's about to leave the frame; I have to try. Maybe I can call him back. He's alone. Maybe he's hurt in some way. I have to go."

"What happens if you land in his space, Bill? You can't do this; you could end up killing him."

Bill turned to him with tears in his eyes and yelled, "If I don't go, he's dead anyway. Don't you understand that?"

"I understand that, but don't you understand that if you go in, you could end up in the same predicament."

Bill stopped what he was doing and stared at him for a few seconds before responding. His voice came in gasps as he softly spoke,

"I know that, but I can't do this without him. I can't do anything without him. He's the reason I'm here. He's the reason…"

His voice faded to tears as he stood looking into Michael’s eyes.

He understood now and touched Bill’s shoulder before saying, “What do you need me to do?”

Bill smiled and touched his hand, "Thank you, Michael. The vortex is taking too long to slow. Is there a way you can use reverse as a break?"

"Yes, I think so. What is your plan?"

"I will go into the room and stand beside the capsule. As soon as it gets to the stop point, I'll jump in. You will have to restart it as quickly as possible once I'm inside. Do you understand?"

Michael looked at the photograph before looking back at Bill.

He paused for a second before saying, "Yes, I understand, but you have to go now."

Bill quickly hugged Michael and thanked him again before rushing into the room.

Michael held his hand up so Bill could see him through the glass as he reversed the vortex. Just as it was about to stop, he pointed at Bill and restarted the machine.

Bill jumped in, holding his hands over his ears as the vortex restarted.

The vortex quickly accelerated, moving towards entanglement as the sound waves became clearer and clearer until Michael could hear the “Clickety Clack” inside the control room.

Just as the capsule flashed with light and Bill disappeared, something else came through on top of the "Clickety Clack" sound.

Michael played with the dials trying to make the sound clearer. It sounded like a voice.

He turned the dials left and right until he removed all the distortion and the voice came through clearly. He looked towards the capsule in disbelief as he replayed it repeatedly.

It came through clear and loud. “Don’t come back.”

***************

“Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack- Clickety Clack."

Somewhere between a nightmare and reality, his mind latched onto the sound; “Clickety Clack.”

It had a rhythm to it— an ever-increasing rhythm, growing slightly louder and faster with each cycle. It felt familiar somehow. Bill could feel it as much as hear it and struggled with everything in him to stay attached to that sound. It felt like his very life depended on it.

*******************************