All Fall Down Read Online Free PDF Page B

either.
    I didn't see her daddy's buddy. I suppose he
could have been killed in the blast, too, but I didn't see any sign
of his body. I imagine he took off since the fight wasn't really
his in the first place.
    I'd fallen with my left hand outstretched,
the hand that Harley had been pulling on. I'd smacked the inside of
my wrist good on a rock when I came down. I was pretty sure I'd
broken something, but the only thing I cared about when was
sprawled out on the desert next to me.
    Harley hadn't been as lucky as me. Bits of
rock, sharp as knives, had cut into her back. Blood was seeping
out, more and more of it. But that wasn't the worst.
    She'd hit with her head at an odd angle. I
couldn't move her, not without risking her fragile spine, but I
couldn't leave her where she was. She'd bleed to death.
    I coughed into my hand. More blood this
time.
    It looked like karma was about to wipe out
what was left this new, alien branch of the Wannamaker family. I
didn't mind so much for me. I'd been a volunteer guinea pig.
Harley, like my daughter—they were innocents.
    The whatsamajig in my left wrist picked that
moment to ping me.
    I'll be damned. I never expected to hear
from my time again.
    No voice command came through, only a slow,
steady hum broken by a beat every four seconds. I remembered the
code. They were about to scramble my molecules for a return trip to
my own time.
    I didn't think about what I did next. I
still had my own knife in my pocket, and my right hand worked just
fine.
    It didn't take long to dig the whatsamajig
out from under my skin. It wasn't in there very deep.
    Harley didn't wake up when I cut into her
wrist and inserted the thing that had lain dormant in mine for over
forty years. I ripped a piece of my shirt to bind the wound and
make sure the whatsamajig stayed where it was supposed to.
    In my time, they'd know how to fix Harley.
Hell, for all I knew, they might reconstitute her molecules into
the proper order so that when she woke up, she might not have any
injuries at all. I didn't know how that worked for sure, but it
would be better than leaving her here with only me for help.
    See, I've been in this world for more years
than I'd been in my own. I'm not really an alien here anymore. If
I'm gonna die anywhere, and we all do someday, it might as well be
here where my wife and daughter lived and died.
    Harley would be an alien where I was sending
her, but she'd adapt. I'd already taught her my world's history.
She'd do fine. I had, and she had a bit of me in that stubborn,
beautiful head of hers.
    I held onto her hand until I felt the tingle
on her skin I remembered from my own trip all those years ago. I
watched her become translucent, and then finally shimmer out of
existence.
    After she was gone, I rolled onto my back.
The sun was crawling higher up in the sky. Soon it would be hot out
here, but I didn't think I'd around long to see it.
    The sky was blue overhead. The clouds that
would cover the sky for years wouldn't arrive for a couple of
months yet. Whether he'd meant to or not, Harley's daddy had helped
send her to a better place.
    I hoped karma would be happy now and leave
Harley alone. Maybe I shouldn't have married or had a kid, but I
couldn't imagine spending the last ten years of my life any better
way than I had. To leave life with no regrets seems like a pretty
decent thing, if you ask me.
    "We did good," I said aloud to my wife, then
I grinned.
    I wasn't sure my time was ready for an alien
like Harley.
    "Give 'em hell, girl," I said. "Give 'em
hell."
    ~ ~ ~

Firebug
     
    Me and Bobby, we started a fire yesterday in
that empty house on Colfax, the one with the ugly puke-green Realty
Masters "For Sale" sign in the front yard. We got in through the
patio door, real easy like. The guys working on the inside, fixing
up the place, they don't always lock up when they leave. I guess
they think nobody notices, but I do. Even I know better than to
leave a house open like that. Just asking for