#208 Hourglass
Episode 1 Kilduskland
Episode 2 Blamelewis
Episode 3 Gareth Preston
Episode 4 Fanzine Editor
Episode 5 Mark Simpson
Episode 6 Steve Lake
Episode 7 Terrence Keenan
Episode 8 Pen Pal
Episode 9 Rivanstar
Episode 10 S. J. Greenway
Episode 1
by Kilduskland
It was his first day in the old familiar place. Or rather his first night. The hours of the community centre, where it opened in the late afternoons and evenings for clubs, groups and meetings, would take a little getting used to. But it was a job, and getting a new job in this dead-end town in the drab mid-winter was a rare event in itself. And the fact that the centre had once been his old school, albeit thirty years ago, gave the place a certain sentimentality. Not that he'd ever admit to such feelings of course.
It was empty now, awaiting the first group in half an hour's time. He still had to get the chairs laid out in room four for them, and get the heating on.
As he sauntered through the centre's square hall, his trainers squeaking slightly on the varnished wooden floor, he listened to the sound of the wind and rain battering against the roof windows, and whipping round the walls. Doors led off from each wall to different rooms. The upper part of each door had four small panes of glass, forming a square, which looked into the dark high-ceilinged rooms; the rooms that used to house lots of forward-facing desks back in his time.
The hall's unshaded pendant light shone mournfully from the tall ceiling, a fitting illumination, he thought, of the pale budget that such council-run buildings always seemed to exist under. But it was giving him a job, allowing him to still pay his rent, the child maintenance, the usual bills...
Stopping outside one of the doors, he bounced the bunch of keys in his hand lightly until the key to room four was on top.
"Thirty years, and here I am back again ..." he muttered to himself, the melancholy grasping at his throat. Older, dark hair thinner, and the rest of his head not much wiser, he suspected. He unlocked the door and pulled the handle down, pulling the door open to the cold dark room within.
He walked in and stood still, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, slowly seeing the big bulky radiators on the far walls under the uncurtained windows, trying to remember all the details of the past before putting on the lights and seeing what it was like now.
"Robert!" a woman's voice shouted out sharply. "Come back here young man!" He looked round instinctively to the far wall, expecting to see Miss Blainey ("Brainy Blainey") standing up at her desk as she was then, middle aged, hair in a bob and thick rimmed glasses. Of course she wasn't there, but he was surprised at how clear the voice from the past had sounded, and how unexpected...
A bang behind him brought him violently out of his reverie, and he swung his head round. The door had closed noisily behind him, having slid back slowly on its hinges to meet the doorframe. He'd forgotten about that. He smiled slightly. It was probably still the same door.
A passing car outside on the road reminded him of the passing time, and he focused his attention once more on his new job, searching the wall near the door for the light switch. Finding it, he flicked the two switches, and two neon strip lights above noisily buzzed and flickered into life. Strip lights. Hmm, they were certainly new.
The room was bare apart from a couple of empty tables parked in the corners of the room. He'd have to find some chairs for the drama club...
***
The empty canteen was in near darkness, save for the pale light from the hallway seeping in through the four panes of glass in the locked connecting door. The canteen was just another room for hire in the centre, a long worktop dividing the thin kitchen area from the vacant floor space. A woman rested her hands on the worktop of the now occupied canteen.
She removed her hands slowly, as if the worktop was evidence at a crime scene, and walked smartly to the other side, looking at all the various items one by one. A neat stack of saucers, a sealed dehydrated meal of minimal nutritional value (packaging identifying it as a 'pot noodle'), and a microwave oven plugged into the wall. She noticed her blue dress reflecting slightly in the face of the large metal urn by the sink, and smiled.
Behind her the door to the canteen started shaking as someone tried to open the locked door. She watched the door as the shaking stopped, and listened as the lock was unbolted. The door opened to reveal a man in a grey suit, his face carrying a business-like purpose, and his empty hand pressed flat against the lock.
The blonde woman smiled knowingly at him. "Magnetic as ever, Steel?"
The man merely scowled before casting a look around the room. "Some kind of human gathering place?" he asked.
"A social gathering place, yes," she replied. "For hire. This is the canteen."
"I doubt if it's come to 'eat', Sapphire."
"No. Nor has the one man who's in this place."
Steel glanced at her. "Does he belong here?"
"He's certainly part of this time." Sapphire frowned as she concentrated. "New to the building ... partly."
"Partly?"
"I'm not sure, Steel. He seems to have a connection to the building."
Steel sighed grimily. "A possible trigger straight away."
The door closed noisily behind him, its slow slide to the doorframe finally coming to an end.
***
'Robert' - who, thirty years on from those school days, settled for Bob as his preferred name - gingerly wheeled the trolley-load of a dozen stacked chairs out of the storeroom and across the hall to room four, the door of which was now wedged open. The wheels of this trolley certainly needed some oil. With all the clatter they made he couldn't hear himself think, let alone if anyone had come in the front doors in this large empty building. Was he getting spooked? Maybe it was just first night nerves. Being alone shouldn't worry him, after all, he'd been alone for the past five years.
He brought the trolley to a halt in the middle of the room and lifted the first four plastic chairs from the top. A tune suddenly came into his head, and he started to sing it to cheer himself up. A song from his past.
"Hey Jude, don't let me down, you are gone but .... not forgotten ..."
"Remember to -"
He froze. A woman's voice had sung the next two words when he'd stopped; a woman in the same room as him. He swung his head round, but there was no one there.
"You're needing your dinner, Bobby man," he told himself, trying to dismiss the voice as his overactive imagination.
***
"A voice?" repeated Steel.
"Yes, across the hall."
The man and woman - Sapphire and Steel - left the canteen and crossed the hall towards an open doorway where a brightly lit room lay beyond.
As they neared, the door slipped off its wooden wedge, slamming itself shut with unnatural speed. From above the duo, the bulb in the pendant light in the hall exploded softly, sprinkling them and the wooden floor with tinkling glass. Ignoring it, they ran up to the window on the upper part of the door and looked in to the scene within.
They saw a man in his late thirties gawping at the far end of the room, where a woman with thick-rimmed glasses and her hair in a bob was leaning on a desk glaring at him.
Steel tried pulling back the door but it was jammed.
"Sealed," he observed sharply.
"By Time," added Sapphire.
He looked at his companion. "We need to get in."
Without another word, Sapphire looked up and the blue of her eyes turned to unnatural jewel-like flames, shining with power. An image of herself left her body like a ghost, passing through the closed door and stopping within the room.
"Robert," she called.
The new caretaker looked round to see a shimmering blonde woman in the blue dress, and gaped again. "Jeez, this place is haunted!" he exclaimed.
Suddenly the presence in the far end of the room vanished, leaving Robert gawping at the empty space. While his attention was elsewhere, Sapphire smoothly brought her self-projection back to rejoin her body, and Steel found the door once more free to open. The seal had been broken.
As Robert looked back at the blue lady, he saw her very much alive, and a fair haired business man behind her. Both looked very un-ghost-like by comparison to Brainy Blainey of yesteryear.
"Gawd, what is this?" demanded Bob trying to regain his senses. "Is this the drama club come early or something?" He looked beyond the grey man to the dark hall behind him. "And what happened to the hall? Did you turn off the light?"
The woman smiled at him. Quite an arresting smile on that very beautiful face. "The light bulb has blown," she said simply. "You'd better replace it before your first booking arrives tonight."
"Yeah, right," said Bob, walking past the newcomers without once thinking about how easily he had taken up her suggestion.
"Was it real?" asked Steel, when the caretaker had gone.
Sapphire paced the far end of the room slowly, her senses concentrating. "Yes," she finally decided, but again she was frowning.
"But?" he prompted.
"Steel, I can smell flowers, candle wax and perfume."
"And?"
She looked up at him. "But it's mixed with a strong smell of petroleum and burning metal. There's more than just a schoolteacher in this room. There's another time, another event. Something else we've still to see."
The sound of a stepladder being erected in the hall came through the wedged-open door. The caretaker had evidently found a new bulb.
"Same people?" asked Steel. "This man and the teacher?" He held his hand up to halt the answer. His face suddenly tensed and his nose twitched. "Sapphire, I can smell the petroleum too," he warned.
Sapphire looked at the floor, and her eyes widened as she watched a pool of blue liquid spill into existence, running across the polished floor towards her.
"Steel, I can smell ignition!" she cried.
But before either of them could react, the petroleum burst into fire, flames engulfing Sapphire in an instant.
Episode 2
by Blamelewis
The fire swarmed over Sapphire, enveloping her.
"It's cold Steel, very cold." She thought.
"So it's not real then?" came Steels thought back.
"It is real. But it's not fire, not real fire..."
"Something else? What?"
Sapphire felt it all over her, touching, exploring. She wasn't fighting it - yet, but she was getting dangerously cold. Reaching out her hands she let it draw even closer, trying to reach it. There was...
"Steel! It's alive!"
"A sentience?"
"Yes, trying to reach me. Something lost, long ago, trying to find..."
It was gone. The room was cold and dark and empty now. Sapphire stood there, hands outstretched into nothing. She began to shiver. Steel stepped closer, took her hands in his, and spoke.
"Trying to find... ...find what, Sapphire? A way in?"
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps? Perhaps isn't good enough. Bring it back - take Time back. Now."
Sapphire shivered. "I can't."
Steel dropped her hands and stepped back, as if wary of her. "Can't or won't?"
"It wouldn't work - it wasn't like that."
"What was it like then?" snapped Steel.
"Cold." whispered Sapphire, looking away at the restless dark city, distant beyond the frosted high windows. "I'm cold."
Steel looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked quickly from the room.
***
Bob had climbed the stepladder carefully, the spare bulb in his hand, the old song still in his head...
"...it's a fool who plays it cool..."
He reached up to clear the remains of the old bulb from the fitting. He'd been careful to turn the switch off first, and as he gently gripped and turned the metal base of the destroyed bulb he sang softly and tunelessly...
"...by making his world a little colder..."
The lamp in his hand burst forth with light, engulfing him in brilliant white.
***
In the doorway Steel stopped in his tracks, throwing his hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden burst of radiation. A fierce wind blew at him and a there was a sound also, huge like many, many voices whispering, and chattering and yelling together.
"Sapphire!" he thought sharply, "It's in the hall"
***
Sapphire turned from the window to see the walls glow and become translucent. Energy scintillated all around them and as she walked swiftly to the door the paint vanished from the walls, blackened and warped wood appearing underneath.
In the hall it was the same. As she joined Steel the fabric of the building around them remade itself in the light.
"This isn't fire either," Sapphire had to yell over the tumult.
"It's Time?" Steel shouted, and as he did so all was abruptly still again. Their surroundings had settled around them, and his words bounced noisily around the hall, off walls painted a different shade of institutional white.
"29 Years, 7 months, 13 days. All at once. Backwards." said Sapphire, then smiled. "hello Robert."
The boy on the stepladder looked at the small bulb in his hand, and the huge empty fitting above him. He turned towards the man and Lady standing in the doorway of his classroom.
"It's wrong," he said, holding it out towards Sapphire. "It's just wrong! Make it better!"
Episode 3
by Gareth Preston
Steel regarded the young boy with suspicion. He seemed real enough, cheeks smeared with dirt, short trousers and untied shoelaces dragging behind one shoe, but in his experience such comforting proofs carried little real weight. The opposition frequently used pieces of reality to work behind.
Sapphire knelt down in front of the boy and gently took the jagged pieces of glass out of the boy's hands. "What's your name?" she asked with a slight smile.
The boy glanced nervously between them and looked at the floor. "Not suppose to talk to strangers," he muttered.
"That's very sensible advice but we can't help you if we don't know who you are. I'm Sapphire and this is my friend Steel." She nodded towards the boy and when he raised his head he seemed to be fixed by her blue gaze.
"Robert miss," he whispered. Then louder he added, "Can you fix the light?"
"Is he real? I mean really here?" asked Steel, ignoring the question.
Sapphire passed her hand across the boy's face and frowned. She waved her palm back across the boy's features.
"Well?"
"Yes he's real. At least as real as anything else around us, but..."
"But what?" asked her partner irritably. These moments of uncertainty always made him a little nervous.
"He is forty six years old," she concluded, standing up again.
"Is that unusual?" he asked.
"For them yes. Judging by his physical appearance and behaviour I would have placed him around nine or ten years old."
Interested, Steel moved closer and scrutinised Robert closer, causing the boy to step back nervously.
"So is he the trigger?"
Sapphire brushed her blond fringe back absently as she said, "Not quite, I'd say he was more a component of it."
Her grey suited friend looked up and down the corridor with an air of slight annoyance. "It never seems to be simple these days does? I'm going to take a look down there. See if we can't locate the remaining parts before anything else happens." He marched off into the darkness.
"Who are you miss? You're not one of our teachers are you?" Robert had taken some more steps back and looked ready to run, the bulb seemingly forgotten. She motioned for him to stand still.
"We've come to help you Robert. Please trust us. Where do you think all your schoolfriends are?"
"They gone home haven't they. I'm just helping Miss Scott. I've not done anything wrong!" he cried out.
She shook her head consolingly. "I know you've not done anything Robert. But we need your help," she told him softly.
"He does! Your man. He thinks I've done it. It's not fair it's always me and it's not!" Robert turned and ran up the hallway towards the entrance. He risked a glance behind him only to see that Sapphire had disappeared into the shadows. His hand gripped the handle of the door and even as he heaved at it, part of his mind wondered why it felt so oddly shaped. The door swung in towards him and he raised his eyes to see _ Sapphire standing in front of him, arms crossed and looking at him sadly.
"I'm sorry Robert but there is nowhere for you to go. Look for yourself."
She stepped back from the entrance and waved her arm out in an arc at the darkness behind her. Robert peered out and looked about him with confusion. There was no path, no low stone wall or the line of chestnut trees he knew so well. Just blackness with no moon or stars to illuminate it and no comforting yellow lights from the houses next to the school. A wave of coldness swept over him and he heard Sapphire's voice in the distance, "We've been cut off from your home Robert, sealed away until whatever is meant to happen, happens."
***
Steel felt along the wall until he found the light switch. Flicking it on he discovered that the corridor broadened out into a space with three doors leading away. A tall battered cupboard stood in one corner. He tried the first door, which had a bar across and a sign saying "Fire Exit" and found it that it was locked by a glass mechanism. It would be easy to break if necessary. The second door opened out into a medium sized room with green plastic chairs arranged in a rough circle. The third led onto another corridor. Turning his attention to the cupboard he found it too was locked and he was about to open it by force when he heard the corridor click open behind him. Swinging around he came face to face with a young red haired woman who gave a sharp gasp and pushed herself back, trying to close the door again. With one swift movement he grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it back open, nearly making the woman topple into the room. Before she could escape he grabbed her wrist.
"Get off me! I warn you Mr Brunswick is still in the building!" she shouted, trying to twist out of his grip.
"Who's Mr Brunswick? More to point who are you?"
"Let go of me! Mr Brunswick!" she shouted.
"Call him! I want to know who else is here," he countered. For a moment there was quiet with only the small gasps of the woman as she struggled to free herself from his vice-like hand. "There is no Mr Brunswick is there? At least, not in this building. I don't mean you any harm, I'm just looking for a few answers. If I let go, will you promise not to run?"
She nodded, but her eyes darted for the open corridor. Steel rotated and placed himself so that he blocked that route. Then he let go. Immediately she dashed for the other corridor door but he anticipated that and slammed his hand against it, in front of her face.
"What do you want from me?" she wailed.
"Just answers. Tell me what you know and I'll go." After a second's thought he added, "My name is Steel. What's yours?"
She eyed him warily, obviously still trying to think of a way of escaping him. "Scott. Miss Scott. You look over-dressed to be a thief."
"Then it's a good idea I'm not one." he countered.
Meanwhile Miss Scott seemed to be looking at her surroundings properly for the first time. Her expression changed to fear. "Why have you brought me here? Where is this place?" she demanded.
"You don't know?", he asked curiously. He tried to guess her period from the blouse and skirt she was wearing but failed hopelessly. He wished Sapphire was here to examine this newcomer and sent out a telepathic call. Instantly she replied and he mentioned the woman and instructed her to join him immediately.
"This isn't the schoolhouse!" Miss Scott looked at the notices pinned on the wall. "Though it seems to be some kind of school. How did you do it? The last thing I can remember is..."
Suddenly was a heavy thump. Both of them turned to the outside door, she with wide panic filled eyes and he with detached appraisal. In front of them the door with the bar across it seemed to shimmer. Then its surface began to blister and blacken, as though being licked by invisible flames. With a crackle of fire, the surface of a new door flowed across it, replacing the light green paint with dark carved wood. The metal bar melted to nothing. Again the heavy thump of someone knocking was heard. The door reverberated to it.
"Don't let him!" implored Miss Scott.
The door was struck again and the frame rattled.
"Please!"
Epsiode 4
by Fanzine Editor
"Who is it?" asked Steel above the continued knocking. "What does he want?"
The woman was in shock, unresponsive to his questions.
Ignoring her, he moved over to the pounding door. The person on the other side still hadn't spoken, his fists on the door doing the talking for him, asking to be let in.
Reaching out a hand to the doorknob, Steel braced himself. As soon as he touched it the door stopped vibrating. The silence was deathly. He turned to look at the woman she was still there unmoving. Gripping the stone-cold handle tighter he twisted it and was suddenly thrown down the corridor as if struck by electricity.
The door reverted from the old dark wooden surface to its modern counterpart with the metal bar crossing it and the "FIRE EXIT" sign.
***
Sapphire ran her fingers across the light green surface of the Fire Exit. She could feel... something.
"Well?" demanded her colleague. A look of irritation crossed his face.
She turned away from the door, her blonde hair swaying. "It's trying to break through."
He scowled. "I know that already. I heard it knocking."
"I'm sorry, Steel. There's nothing more to tell at the moment. We need clues."
"I'll search with the boy, you go with the woman." They both looked to the other end of the corridor where Steel had ordered the humans to wait. They were holding a whispered conversation. The woman seemed calmer, the boy seemed happier too, probably from seeing someone he knew.
Sapphire began moving towards them he took hold of her arm and said telepathically, "See if you can get her to tell you who was after her?"
"I'll try," she replied telepathically. Smiling enigmatically, she walked off.
***
Robert had told Steel that he'd never been in the boiler room before, as it was out of bounds to pupils. But he knew every inch of the dimly lit room. The pipes, and wires, even a crack in the wall that lead to a hiding place for when you needed it.
"What exactly are we looking for?" he asked.
"Something that doesn't belong," replied Steel. In the near dark, wearing his dark grey suit it was hard to spot the man.
Robert walked along the main length of the large boiler, running a finger along it's surface it came away covered in thick layer of dust. He wiped the dust off on his shorts.
Looking around, a glint of light caught his attention. He moved over to the wall where he found a framed photograph. He saw that he was in the picture, but he didn't recall it being taken or even the event it captured happening.
"Over here, Mister," he called into the darkness.
Steel appeared behind him, making him jump slightly. "What have you found?" He noticed the photograph and took it from its hook on the wall.
Steel grunted approvingly, and his lips almost turned up at the sides in a smile. Almost.
***
Sapphire and Miss Scott were looking around the class room where the earlier manifestation had taken place. Sapphire hoped that being here would bring the force out, reveal Miss Scott's role in this.
The teacher had walked over to the row of identical windows crossing the far wall of the classroom. The only view was one of total darkness. She appeared mesmerised by the darkness, standing there swaying slightly as if in silent conversation.
Moving towards her, Sapphire laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Whatever it is that you saw, I can protect you from it."
Without turning, Miss Scott replied, "I don't know what it was. It was just a shape," she faced Sapphire now, her eyes focused on the Operator's face. "After staying late after lessons I heard footsteps in the distance. I thought it was Mr Brunswick, the caretaker. I went to look for him. Then I caught glimpses of a shadow that seemed to be following me. Every time I turned back to look I saw nothing."
Sapphire nodded in understanding.
"The next thing I knew your friend was attacking me," she finished. "That's what I thought at the time." She smiled an apology.
"Don't worry about a thing. We'll get to the bottom of this," Sapphire reassured her.
"Meet me in the Main Hall. Immediately," projected Steel into her mind.
"What have you found?" she replied telepathically.
"A possible trigger."
***
Walking into the large, empty main hall, Sapphire looked around for Steel. No sign of him or any trigger. Miss Scott followed timidly behind.
Steel bustled past them through the doorway. Robert trailing behind him. He stood and watched with Miss Scott. She reached out a hand and took hold of Roberts. It was difficult to tell who was reassuring whom.
She noticed that Steel was carrying a crowbar in one hand and a shovel in the other. He'd stopped in the middle of the hall and was on his knees.
Leaving the humans in the corner of the room she approached her partner. "Under the floor?" she asked.
"Have a look," he said, and handed her a black and white photograph in a cheap looking frame. In the picture there appeared to be the school's headmaster, Miss Scott and a pupil, a young boy... Robert.
Steel began to rip up the wooden floorboards. It was starting to get colder in here.
Examining the picture in more detail she saw they were stood around a hole in the floor of the main hall. A small metal box was in the open hole. "A time capsule," she said.
"Exactly. A direct link to the past."
Pulling up one more floorboard, Steel threw it on to the pile at the side of him. Taking the shovel, he began digging into the concrete. As he did this the room grew even colder, Sapphire could sense the being. Steel looked up at her from the floor. He felt it too. Turning back to the task he began to dig.
The whole building began to shake. Robert and Miss Scott clung onto each other, alayer of ice almost forming over them, and everything else in the room. Bits of plaster began to tumble down from the ceiling.
Steel continued to dig.
Episode 5
by Mark Simpson
As he continued to dig away at the thin concrete, Steel heard Sapphire's voice inside his mind.
"It doesn't want us to find the time capsule, Steel."
He could see and feel the building shaking apart in his peripheral senses, but continued to work.
"We must find that trigger," he told Sapphire mentally.
All of a sudden, the concrete beneath his shovel dissolved, becoming freshly turned soil. He dug in deeply and was rewarded with a clink of metal on metal.
"It's here," he said aloud, smoothing dirt away from the curved metal surface with the shovel.
Then, as he reached down to remove the metal cylinder from the hole, it vanished, leaving just a gap in the soil where it had lain. As it did, the shaking around them stopped.
Steel straightened, ignoring the frightened humans and addressing his partner.
"What happened?"
She was frowning at him. "It took time back to before the capsule was buried. It's out of our reach, at least for the moment."
Steel dropped his shovel with a clatter to the floor. Now he turned to Robert and Miss Scott.
"What do the two of you know about this time capsule?"
Robert looked down at his shoes and said nothing. But Miss Scott spoke up.
"Mister Brunswick, the Headmaster, thought it would be a good idea to bury a time capsule to celebrate the completion of the work done renovating the school hall. The ceremony will take place in two days."
"And what involvement do the two of you have in this?" Steel wanted to know.
If Miss Scott was intimidated by his questioning, she didn't show it. "He wanted diaries of a typical school day, one from a pupil and one from a teacher. We were selected to provide them."
"Anything else?" Steel asked sharply.
"Well, they are going to put in the current number one single, a newspaper from the day, a comic and an hourglass."
"An hourglass?" Sapphire echoed.
Miss Scott nodded. Then she looked at the woman's curious expression. "You must know what an hourglass is?"
"A crude device for measuring time," Steel said, a hint of irony in his voice.
"The perfect trigger mechanism," Sapphire confirmed. "Simple, non-mechanical and in use over many generations."
Steel was thinking now, pacing around the hall. "But there must be something else." He snapped his fingers and turned to Robert and Miss Scott. "These dairies. Where are they?"
Miss Scott frowned. "Mine is in the Headmaster's safe, ready for the ceremony. Why?"
"We may need to read it," Sapphire said. She looked at Robert. "Is yours there too?"
The boy looked guilty. "No, Miss. I've not written mine yet."
"I think we need to open this safe," Steel said, leading the way out of the hall.
"You can't do that," Miss Scott protested, following him. "It's not right."
Sapphire and Robert followed the two of them. As she walked, Sapphire called out mentally to Steel.
"Robert was lying. He has written his diary."
"Why would he lie?" Steel asked.
"I'm not sure. Some deeply buried secret he has put into the diary. It's hidden in the boiler room."
"We'll deal with the teacher's diary first," Steel decided. "I'm at the Headmaster's office now."
"We'll be with you shortly," Sapphire answered as she and Robert hurried to catch up.
***
Sapphire and Robert arrived at Mister Brunswick's office to find Steel already examining the Headmaster's safe. Miss Scott was still protesting.
"This is outrageous! I don't even know who the two of you are!"
Steel turned his cold, hard gaze upon her. "We're the only two who can possibly save your future."
This confused Miss Scott, who turned to Sapphire. The blonde haired woman smiled.
"He means we're all in a very dangerous situation, and the two of us are best equipped to deal with the hazards we are likely to face." Her smile broadened. "I'm afraid Steel isn't much of a diplomat."
Steel glared at his colleague but said nothing. Instead, he placed his hands either side of the combination lock of the safe, framing it with his thumbs. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
As if by itself, the wheel spun, first one way, then back again. It stopped in four specific places, coming to rest upon the number twelve.
Steel opened his eyes and reached for the handle. The safe swung open with a loud click.
"How did you do that?" asked a shocked Miss Scott.
"Well, while Steel doesn't have much in the way of manners, he does have other skills," Sapphire told her.
Steel was riffling through the safe. He discarded a petty cash box, a large envelope containing exam papers and some small toys, probably confiscated from children in class. He pulled out an exercise book, a vinyl disc in a paper sleeve and an hourglass.
"Looks like we have everything," Sapphire commented. "Except Robert's diary."
Again the boy looked at his shoes, saying nothing.
Steel was flicking through the exercise book. The front was inscribed: -
A Typical Working Day
By Mary Scott
English Teacher
Northwood Secondary Modern School
16th September 1968
"That's private!" Miss Scott exclaimed.
Steel raised an eyebrow at her. "You were content to let it be buried and dug up in the future for people to read. What's the difference?"
"Well, I didn't expect to be around when it was read," she answered lamely.
Sapphire was examining the vinyl disc. A paper label was stuck to each side. She examined one. A company logo dominated the top of the label, while at the bottom were the words: -
Hey Jude
The Beatles
(Lennon/McCartney)
She passed her hand over the disc. Her eyes became a brighter shade of blue for a few seconds, then returned to normal.
"A form of recording," she decided. "Musical. Words and sound combined. Interesting."
"You sound like you've never listened to a record before," Miss Scott said.
"I haven't," Sapphire replied with that slight smile of hers. Miss Scott shuddered.
Steel dropped the diary onto the Headmaster's desk. "Nothing in there but trivia," he concluded.
For some reason she couldn't explain, Miss Scott felt offended. But she decided to keep her feelings to herself. Certainly this arrogant man wouldn't care what she thought. The woman, while more civil, was just as strange.
Sapphire had finished examining the record. "What about that?" she asked her partner, indicating the hourglass.
He reached towards it, but as his fingers were almost closed around the top, the hourglass vanished. So did the diary and the record.
Steel looked up at Sapphire. "Now what?"
"Time moved forward again. We're now just one day away from the capsule being buried."
"We need to look at the other diary," Steel decided. He looked down at Robert. "Whereabouts in the boiler room is it?"
Robert gasped. "How did you know?"
"Never mind how," Steel snapped. "We need to look at your diary."
Miss Scott stepped between them. "Now, I may not know what's going on here, but I am still a teacher and Robert is still one of my pupils. I won't stand by and see him spoken to like that by a stranger."
Steel was getting visibly angry. Sapphire decided to intervene.
"We only want to look at Robert's diary," she told Miss Scott, trying her most disarming smile.
"You can't!" Robert shouted.
"Why not?" Sapphire asked in a reasonable tone.
The little boy looked like he was about to burst into tears. Then he saw Miss Scott looking at him with sympathy and he steadied himself.
He turned to Steel. "Is it really important?" he asked in a small voice.
Steel sighed, reigning in his frustration with the child. "Yes, it could be very important."
Robert nodded. "I'll show you," he said to Steel. "Just you." He shot a fearful glance at Sapphire and Miss Scott.
Steel was mystified. He shot a questioning look at Sapphire, who just shrugged and smiled.
"Very well," Steel said, standing aside so Robert could lead the way.
"Have fun," Sapphire called as the man and the boy walked down the steps into the boiler room.
***
The exercise book was hidden behind a loose brick against the outside wall of the darkened boiler room. The front read pretty much like the teacher's had: -
My School Day
By Robert Harris
Class 9b
Northwood Secondary Modern School
16th September 1968
Steel flicked through the book, as he had Miss Scott's. He can't really read that fast, Robert told himself.
After a few moments, Steel paused. He turned a page back, reading it again. Then he glanced at Robert.
"I assume this is why you wouldn't let Sapphire and Miss Scott come down here?" he asked the boy, arching an eyebrow.
Robert looked down at his shoes. "I didn't think it would matter, writing it down in the diary. It won't be read for a long time, not until after she's dead. Maybe not until after I'm dead too."
Steel nodded, though he didn't understand the complex relationships of humans. That was more Sapphire's department. But he could see the boy was uncomfortable and he didn't want to alienate the child, as he may be useful later.
"Miss Scott won't hear about this. Not from me," Steel assured the boy.
"Really?" Robert jumped up from the small petrol drum he was sitting on. "Thanks, Mister Steel."
The man winced. "Please, just call me Steel," he told Robert. He handed the diary back. "Maybe you should hide this again."
Robert did as he was told. "Is it important?"
Steel's face wasn't clear in the dark. "I'm not certain," he said and Robert was sure he was frowning.
***
Sapphire and Miss Scott were walking the hallways of the building, waiting for the 'men' to finish in the boiler room.
"Why did you become a teacher?"
This wasn't usually an odd question, she got asked it a couple of times a year by new acquaintances and old friends alike. But somehow, hearing this strange woman asking, seemed out of place.
"Well, teaching is in my family, I suppose," she said, reciting her standard answer. "My father was a teacher, and my cousin is too."
Sapphire nodded, seeming to absorb the information. She opened her mouth to make a comment, when the door ahead of them clattered open.
An imposing figure strode out. She was middle aged, with her greying hair wound up into a tight bun behind her head. She wore a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches over a blouse, cardigan and long skirt.
"Who's there?" the woman called down the corridor, her back to them. "Whoever's knocking on my door and running away will get a thick ear when I catch them!"
"Miss Blainey?" Miss Scott said in astonishment. Until then, she had thought that there was just the four of them trapped in the school, herself, Robert and these two strange people. Seeing another familiar face, even if it was one she didn't get along that well with, was welcome.
However, as Miss Blainey turned back to re-enter her classroom, it was clear by the fact that she looked straight through Miss Scott and Sapphire that she didn't see either of them.
"What's wrong with her?" Miss Scott asked as the older woman slammed the door behind herself.
"She's dislocated in time," Sapphire said. When she saw Miss Scott's blank look, she continued. "Your Miss Blainey isn't really here. Not in our timeframe anyway. Whatever is controlling events here is allowing us to see her, but she can't see us."
Miss Scott frowned. "You mean she's like a ghost?"
Sapphire smiled, in the same way Miss Scott smiled at a bright pupil who had almost got the right answer. "From our perspective, yes. "But to her, you and I would be ghosts."
Miss Scott shook her head. "I'm not sure I understand."
"You don't need to," Sapphire told her kindly. "Shall we watch for a while?"
They both looked through the window into Miss Blainey's classroom. She was alone, sat at her desk marking exercise books. Suddenly she looked up, her nose twitching.
At the same moment, Miss Scott noticed the smell. She sniffed too.
"I can smell petrol."
Sapphire nodded. "Me too. I got the smell earlier as well, before you arrived." She glanced back through the window in the door of the classroom. "Look."
Miss Blainey was on her feet now. She took a step towards the door. Suddenly, with a whoosh of sound, the middle-aged teacher was engulfed in flame!
Episode 6
by Steve Lake
Sapphire recoiled as if dealt a heavy blow. The sound she was hearing was deafening, terrifying. Not only was the teacher screaming in pure agony, but also her mind was full of the sound of other people screaming as well - young voices, old voices, raised in fear and terror. A bell began to clamour discordantly, adding to the chaos overwhelming her mind.
Miss Scott seemed oblivious to this. Her eyes were fixed on the horror before them, and she gaped at it in mute disbelief.
Miss Blainey ran towards them, blazing from head to foot. Her hands were held out beseechingly and fire practically dripped from the ends of her fingers.
"Help meeee!" she shrieked. "Help meeee...."
Miss Scott screamed, staggering backwards while clutching at Sapphire's arm, desperate to get away from the thing that charged towards them. But the blonde woman didn't seem to notice. Her face was creased in agony at the noise that battered at her senses.
It was too much. Her eyes rolled upwards into their sockets and she fell backwards to the floor, pulling Miss Scott with her. They fell in a tangled heap on the floor. Miss Scott started to struggle up, trying to pull Sapphire up with her... and froze with a terrified gasp.
Miss Blaney ran up to and then passed through the classroom door, fingers clutching at them, features set into a rictus mask of agony, shrieking madly as she came...
***
"How old are you, Robert?"
Steel was sat near the bottom of the stairs in the boiler room, studying the boy thoughtfully. Robert was sat on the petrol can again, digging idly at the dirt on the floor with the tips of his shoes. The boy had a faraway look on his face - melancholy, brooding, almost - and it was the sort of expression he wouldn't have expected to see on one so young. He didn't look round at Steel to answer the question.
"I'm nine. Ten in a couple of months."
"And how old is Miss Scott?"
The corners of the boys' mouth suddenly drooped and his face took on a more surly aspect. "Dunno," he muttered.
"Older than you," Steel observed casually.
"'Course," the boy shrugged uncomfortably. "She's a teacher, ain't she?"
"She's more than that to you, isn't she Robert?"
The boy blushed, but didn't reply. He was too embarrassed.
"That's why you wrote what you wrote, isn't it?"
Steel's mind was racing, trying to connect this with everything else that was going on here. Sapphire was better at the inter-personal stuff than he was, but sometimes his more abrupt methods had better results.
"You said you wouldn't tell!" the boy blurted suddenly.
"And I won't," he soothed, leaning forward slightly. "But you're afraid that someone else might, aren't you?"
The boy didn't reply, merely stared at his shoes as he dug them more ferociously into the dirt.
"Or has someone already said something? Is that it, Robert? Does someone else know?"
"Shut up," Robert said quietly, almost too quietly.
"What did you say, Robert?"
"I said SHUT UP!"
The boy jumped up from the can and stood upright, glaring at Steel confrontationally, small fists bunched. Again, Steel was struck by how mature the expression on the boys' face appeared to be... yet his reaction was purely that of a child.
"Why can't you leave me alone? Why can't anyone leave me alone? Everyone is always at me! Everyone! It's not fair! It's just not fair!"
He turned and swung a foot at the drum, the shoe clanging solidly off the side. It shifted with a low groan and Steel heard fluid sloshing inside. The thick smell of diesel spirit filled the air. Steel's eyes narrowed.
"Everyone? Who is everyone, Robert?"
"Everyone!" the boy cried bitterly. "Even the other teachers laugh at me! It's not fair!" He began to rain kicks at the can, and it began to rattle and shift alarmingly. The smell of diesel grew stronger. Steel frowned, sat up a little straighter.
"Even worse!" the boy panted. "They laugh..."
Bang!
"At..."
Bang!
"HER!"
Robert's last kick was a powerful one. The can slowly began to topple over. Now the smell of diesel was overpowering, choking almost.
Robert stepped away from the can with a frightened gasp, suddenly realising what he'd done.
"No! No, not again!" he cried.
The can didn't topple more than a few inches. Steel was there, moving across the floor with impossible speed. He stooped and prevented the fall with one hand, before righting it. The way he did it made it look as if the metal container weighed no more than a feather. Then he stared down at the boy, who'd backed across the floor to a dark corner and crouched trembling there, hands clutched to his face.
"Robert," began Steel slowly, stepping round the can and moving slowly towards him. "I think it's time you told me what really happened here..."
"Steel..."
A frightened, agonised whisper flitted across his mind. His head snapped up. The smell of diesel was stronger than ever, mixed with a horrible smell of burning...
Burning flesh.
"Sapphire," Steel muttered, eyes flashing. "Sapphire is in danger."
Steel was at the top of the stairs and moving through the door into the school quicker than Robert could have believed.
But Robert was barely aware of this. His eyes were fixed wide and unblinking upon the petrol can, small frame still wracked by trembling...
Miss Scott shrank away from the terrifying figure before her until her back was pressed firmly against the wall. On the floor beside, Sapphire lay senseless.
Burning fingers reached for them. Miss Scott flinched and cried out.
"Help meeee!" Miss Blaney wailed, face wracked with terrible torment.
But her eyes... Miss Scott suddenly became aware of them. Her eyes told a different story. The pain - at least the pain of the burning - didn't register in those dark eyes. There was a purpose, intent... and an evil intent at that.
They weren't the eyes of the old teacher she knew.
Something... alien was staring back at her.
"NO!"
A commanding voice rang out through the corridor and suddenly there was a figure between them and the wraith reaching for them. The grey-suited man, Steel. Miss Scott couldn't believe how fast he moved. It was like he came from nowhere.
Steel grasped at Miss Blaney's wrists and wrenched them upwards, forcing her back. The flames billowed and roared with a new intensity and suddenly he was overwhelmed by it as well. She screamed again...
But it didn't slow him. He pushed her back step by step towards the classroom, seemingly oblivious to the inferno that raged around him. Miss Scott was suddenly aware of how solid he seemed, and this solidity increased with every step he took forwards towards the classroom. The flames rippled and surged around him but didn't settle, didn't set his suit or his hair aflame. It was like it... slid off from him.
Miss Blaney was still shrieking, but the sound had taken on a different note. Frustration and rage fuelled it. She kicked and struggled in Steel's grasp but could not shake free, nor could she prevent herself from being forced backwards.
Steel reached the door of the classroom and with a final almighty heave shoved the woman back through the entrance. To Miss Scott's amazement, Miss Blaney seemed to pass through the door, as if it weren't there - just as she had before.
The screaming ceased abruptly, as if shut off by a switch. The silence that followed was almost as deafening.
Steel stood braced in the doorway for a moment, as if prepared for a counterattack - but none came. He gave a brief nod, as if satisfied with himself, then turned on his heel and came quickly over to them. She was amazed to see that he was almost completely unmarked from his fiery tussle, except for a single white streak of sooty ash down the front of his otherwise immaculate suit.
What the hell was he?
He knelt beside Sapphire and cradled her head in his arms.
"What happened?" he asked curtly, scrutinising his partner.
"Miss... Miss Blaney. I... we..."
Miss Scott swallowed, voice tailing away. Her mind was reeling from what she'd just witnessed. She was a hair's breadth from going into shock and complete incoherence. Steel glanced up, realised what state of mind she was in, and reached a hand out to grasp her shoulder. She gasped at a sudden feeling of intense pressure, then coolness spread through her entire body. She could feel her heart slowing, her mind unscrambling.
"What... what..."
Steel relaxed his grip. "Never mind," he snapped. "Just tell me what happened!"
Miss Scott took a breath, felt suddenly a lot calmer. Whatever the man had done, it had done the trick. She still felt nervous, apprehensive, but no longer so panicked.
"We saw Miss Blaney coming out of her classroom..."
"Miss Blaney?"
She nodded. "Yes, that woman... the one you... you..."
She swallowed again and shut her eyes. Steel increased his grip again, waited for her to calm down again.
"That thing that was confronting you, yes. That wasn't Miss Blaney."
"But it... we saw her!"
He glanced towards the door. "It was just an image. An echo of her, in time." He glanced back down at Sapphire and his face clouded. "And a particularly twisted image at that. Did it attack you?"
"It just rushed at us. It wasn't able to touch us..."
"Physically, it wouldn't be able to. Images are just that. They have no physical aspect." His mouth twitched downwards slightly. "Usually, anyway. But mentally..."
"Mentally?"
He nodded. "They operate at a mental level." He reached up a hand and gently brushed a strand of hair from Sapphire's forehead. "They can do more damage that way..."
Miss Scott heard the concern in his voice, leaned forward to study the unconscious woman. "Is she badly hurt?"
"I hope not."
There was a grave undertone to his voice that made her shiver. "There's a first aid box in the staffroom..."
"Bandages and iodine can't help... I told you, this was a mental attack." He peered at her face and frowned in concentration as he opened up their mental link.
"Sapphire, can you hear me?"
There was no response. Steel fought to keep his mind focussed.
"Sapphire? Sapphire, talk to me!"
"All right, all right... there's no need to shout!"
Her reply was weak, but it was definite. Steel's mouth twitched again, this time upwards.
"Are you all right?"
Sapphire groaned and twisted slightly on the floor, but kept her eyes shut.
"I'll live. It took me by surprise, rather."
"Surprise?" Steel frowned. "How did it manage that?"
"The sheer ferocity of the attack... wasn't prepared for it. I thought it was just a dislocated image, but it wasn't, Steel. It was more powerful than that." She winced. "I think it's a lot stronger here than we've given it credit."
He snorted. "Credit? That'll be the day... Sapphire, how did it attack you? Not the flames..."
"Noise." Sapphire spoke out loud, sat bolt upright, making Miss Scott jump. She opened her eyes and turned her face to look at Steel. "It was a terrible noise..." she smiled gravely. "Quite overwhelming, in fact."
"So I see..." Steel held Sapphire's gaze for a moment, then flicked a look at Miss Scott. "Did you hear it?" he asked the teacher.
"I heard Miss Blaney screaming..."
"It was more than that... more than just Miss Blaney screaming." Sapphire clutched at Steel's hand. "Steel, it was the whole school... the whole school screaming in fear and agony."
"The unholy sound of chaos..." he murmured, gazing back at her again. "Yes, that's what it likes, isn't it? That's where it draws its power, its strength from..."
"I didn't hear any of that," admitted the teacher. "Miss Blaney screaming was bad enough..."
Sapphire glanced at her. "That wasn't your Miss Blaney."
"Your partner said that too..."
Sapphire glanced back at Steel, said mentally:
"I don't think she believes us."
"I don't think I believe her," he thought back.
Sapphire smiled slightly. "She's real enough..."
"But in the wrong time..."
Sapphire cocked her head on one side. "Really?" she said out loud. "Where's the boy?"
"In the cellar..." Steel helped Sapphire stand up. "There's something down there I think you should see," he added mentally.
"Something important?" she thought.
"Very." Steel's eyes flickered back to Miss Scott. "It involves her."
Sapphire sighed before answering mentally: "I think I can guess."
"That sort of stored emotion can be the most chaotic..." he warned.
"And the most difficult to deal with..."
"True," murmured Steel out loud, eyes centring on hers again. "You would know..."
She smiled gently. "As would you," she replied softly. She noticed the streak of ash running down the front of his suit. "Disgraceful," she said with good-humoured indignation and slowly wiped her hand down his front. It lingered for a second when it passed over his heart before completing its path.
The soot disappeared as if by magic before it.
Miss Scott was watching them all the while through this exchange', trying - and not succeeding - to work out what was going on, dazed and confused by a multitude of conflicting emotions.
"What is going on here?" she blurted.
"Something beyond your understanding," replied Steel, still gazing at Sapphire.
"But something we're going to fix," said Sapphire, smile increasing in radiance. She took her hand away from his chest and stepped back before looking at her. Her smile didn't fade even slightly. She showed absolutely no sign of her ordeal at all. Miss Scott couldn't help but be impressed by her cool demeanour.
"So don't be alarmed, Mary," she added reassuringly, reaching down to help her up. "We'll take care of it." She glanced at Steel again. "We always do."
He raised his eyebrows fractionally. "Let's go back to the cellar," said Steel abruptly. "And collect Robert."
"Robert?" Miss Scott frowned. "What does he have to do with this? He's just a kid!"
"He might have everything to do with this," said Steel darkly, propelling her politely but firmly back down the corridor towards the basement.
***
Robert didn't like being in the cellar any more. It used to be something of a haven for him, somewhere he could be alone with his thoughts, but now it was way too dark and creepy for him - especially on his own like this. He didn't much like that man Steel but at least he was someone to talk to and he did feel safe with him - sort of.
He kept staring at the petrol can. He couldn't help it. The big dark green metal container suddenly held a dreadful fascination for him. He wanted very much to shift it away out of his sight but he couldn't lift it. He didn't like to touch it anyway. It felt... creepy. Made him shiver just to think about it, though he just didn't know why.
The boiler suddenly roared and thumped, making him jump. It was an old machine and was prone to making a lot of noise. He could hear the soft whoosh of the pilot light, saw the dull orange glow of the flames behind the inspection cover... a nice, warm, friendly glow. Couldn't beat a roaring fire, his dad always said. Good for all sorts of troubles...
Robert stepped closer to the boiler, fascinated by the glow, the warmth...
Something rattled the handle of the door at the top of the stairs. Robert spun round with a frightened gasp.
"Who's there?" he stammered. "Mr Steel? Miss Scott?"
A high pitched, malicious chuckle drifted down through the darkness.
"Who's that?" Robert cried.
"Bobby loves teacher, Bobby loves teacher..."
It was a child's voice, singing softly but cruelly. Another voice joined it, then another and another... until an entire malicious chorus of voices had built up and assailed him from the gloom. Robert clapped his hands to his ears, face screwed up into a tight knot of despair.
"Shut up! Shut up!" he screamed.
But he could not blot the sound out. It got louder and closer until he felt like he was surrounded.
"Bobby loves teacher, Bobby loves teacher..."
"Shut up! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
Robert whirled round and round the room wildly, as if trying to escape, crying out at the top of his lungs in a desperate attempt to drown that dreadful sound out.
He didn't see the petrol can when he careered into it. He stumbled and fell over it with a sharp cry, tumbling breathlessly to the floor.
The can toppled over with a heavy clang. The top came loose and fluid gurgled and splashed across the floor.
A thin trail began seeping inexorably towards the roaring boiler...
Episode 7
by Terrence Keenan
A thin trail of petrol slid towards the roaring boiler....
Steel reached the entrance to the boiler room, flung open the door....
The explosion ripped through the hall. Steel flew past the skidding Sapphire and Miss Scott, slammed up against the far wall of the hallway. The flames poured out of the boiler room, engulfing all in their path.
Sapphire stood her ground. Her eyes glowed.
The flames slowed, then stopped.
Miss Scott cowered behind Sapphire, unsure what to make of what was happening. She felt the intense heat of the flame, coughed as the stench of burning petrol filled her nose and lungs.
The flames came no closer.
"I'm holding it steady, Steel, but I won't be able to do it for long."
Steel stood up, ignored the pain in his back and joined Sapphire.
"Can you find out how?"
Sapphire nodded. Her entire body glowed. The flames receded back further, till they reached the entrance to the boiler room, then held firm.
"It's the best I can do. Time is holding firm here."
The flame swirled in the doorway, weaving patterns, almost dancing in the air.
Steel saw the strain on his partner's face.
"Can you tell anything?" Steel asked
"No." Sapphire took a step forward, a determined look on her face. "The strain is lessening."
"Do the best you can, Sapphire."
Miss Scott slumped to the floor in a dead faint.
Steel felt time shift in the hall. The flames dissolved into thin air. He looked for Miss Scott, but the woman had disappeared.
Sapphire came out her trance, her body shaking.
"What happened, Steel?"
"There was a shift in time. The fire is gone and so is Miss Scott."
The hall had changed, took on a more modern appearance. Sapphire and Steel headed for the boiler room.
The boiler room had changed. Gone was the ominous cast iron, oil fired burner that filled the room with choking fumes. Gone was the cracked and scorched cement walls. In their place, the walls had fresh gray paint. A natural gas furnace one third the size of the oil beast had been placed in the corner.
There was no sign of Bobby, either.
"I can't feel the presence of Bobby, Steel."
"I thought as much."
"Is there any explanation?" Sapphire asked.
Steel shook his head. "It's as if time reset itself."
"The hourglass has been flipped over?"
"As apt a metaphor as any."
Back in the hallway, they saw an older man arranging chairs in one of the room in the community center.
"The man, Robert." Steel whispered. "Oblivious to anything that's occurred."
Sapphire walked over to a framed newspaper article, read it:
Yesterday, in Ispwich, the new Mary Scott Community Center was opened on the grounds of the Islington Public School. The main lecture halls had been destroyed in a tragic fire in September of 1968, due to an explosion of suspicious origins. Mary Scott, a teacher at the Islington died in the tragedy....
Steel joined Sapphire in front of the article.
"That makes sense," Steel said.
"The event itself is the trigger."
"Yes. I think we've been attacking this from the wrong angle."
Sapphire paused. "So where does the boy," she said, pointing at the adult Robert, "fit into this."
"I have the feeling that time wants to claim him."
"He's not supposed to be here."
"No, Sapphire. He's not." He turned to his partner, gave Sapphire a half smile. "I believe that he should have died in the fire at the schoolhouse thirty years ago."
"Into the past we go, then."
"Yes. To see the probem from a different angle."
Authors Note
Um, this was a challenge, for the dual reasons of having to follow six excellent episodes and work in a format (S&S) I am unfamiliar with. I hope I acquitted myself nicely with this rather brief episode.
Episode 8
by Penpal
Bob was getting rather nervous. An hour had passed and not even one member of the drama club had turned up. He started wondering if he'd made a mistake. Jeez, not on his first night! He checked his diary, then he looked at his watch. There was no mistake, tonight the drama club would rehearse their new play. Bob frowned. Perhaps the rehearsal had been cancelled and someone had forgotten to inform him. He went to the telephone that was hanging on the wall and started dialling the number he'd been given. Then he stopped. The line was dead. He fumbled in his pocket for his mobile phone. When he checked the display, he noticed there was no signal.
Suddenly words were forming in the back of his mind.
Hey Jude, don't let me down.
You have found her, now go and get her.
Remember to let her into your heart.
Then you can start to make it better.
For some reason the song kept popping up, almost as if someone was trying to send him a message. The words seemed to take on a new meaning. Bob shivered, it gave him the creeps. This whole damn building gave him the creeps. He should have kept the promise he'd made to himself thirty years ago, never to return here. He decided to wait outside, in the frosty cold of the winter evening.
When he reached the entrance and opened the door, there was nothing but darkness outside. He even doubted if there was any oxygen out there. It might have been the end of the universe for all he knew. He stepped back, feeling dizzy.
"Hello Bob," a pleasant woman's voice said. "I'm glad to see you've changed your mind. It wouldn't be the same without you."
He looked up, startled to see a beautiful woman with long blond hair and a dazzling blue dress. "Who are you? Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
"You might have," answered the woman, smiling. "In another life."
"Come again?"
"We've got no time for games, Sapphire," said the man next to her. There was irritation in his voice. "Time itself is playing enough tricks on us already." He turned to Bob and fixed his steely blue eyes on him. "We have to talk, Bob. Or Robert. Or whatever your name is. We have to talk now."
"Talk? About what?" Bob cleared his throat. "Look, if you've come for the drama club..."
"We are here because of that." Steel gestured at the vast darkness, lurking outside like a predator. "We think it's looking for you. That it wants you."
"Looking for me?" Bob laughed nervously. "Who are you? Is this some kind of joke? Where's the hidden camera?"
Steel tried hard not to lose his patience. "Does that look like a joke?" he snapped.
Bob shook his head. "No, it... it looks weird," he admitted. "I've never seen anything like it. But what in blazes are you talking about? Why should it... want me?"
"Do you remember the fire, Bob. Thirty years ago?" asked Sapphire in a soft voice.
"The fire?" The blood drained from the caretaker's face.
"You do, don't you?" Sapphire urged.
Bob nodded.
"You should have died in that fire," Steel told him bluntly. "But for some reason you didn't. Now Time wants to reclaim you. The question is why and why has it picked this time frame?"
"Time frame?"
Steel glanced at Sapphire. "He doesn't understand," he told her telepathically.
"Leave him to me," she answered. "Bob," she continued aloud. "Tonight is the first time in thirty years you went back here, isn't it?"
"How... did you know?" he stammered.
Sapphire smiled reassuringly. "It's our business to know these things. Now, why did you return?"
It took some time before Bob had regained his composure. "Well, they offered me a job, didn't they? To work as a caretaker in the community centre. I was only too glad to accept, because frankly I'm skint."
Steel gave him a penetrating look. "Who offered you the job?"
"I haven't seen anybody, if that's what you mean. I received an e-mail, asking if I was interested in an evening job. They told me I would get paid extra, because of the irregular working hours. It was signed by someone called John Smith. He asked me if I could start work straightaway."
"So out of the blue you received an...e-mail" - Steel cast a wondering glance at Sapphire - "by someone you never heard of, and you accepted the job without questioning?"
"It's a recently developed way of communicating via computers," Sapphire explained mentally.
"Well..." Bob shrugged. "As I've told you, I was flat broke. Their timing was perfect."
"Yes, one could say that," Steel muttered darkly.
"And you haven't met this John Smith, have you Bob?"
The caretaker shook his head. "When I replied that I accepted the job, he sent me a detailed list with instructions. He said we would meet soon."
"Do you still have the list Mr Smith gave you?" Steel asked.
Bob searched his pockets. "Why yes, I must have it somewhere." After a while he gave up. "That's odd, I can't seem to find it."
"Never mind," Sapphire said. "There's something else we've got to know. And it's very important." She was silent for a moment, then she gave him a sad smile. "This might be difficult for you, Bob, but Miss Scott, the teacher who died in the fire thirty years ago... she was your mother, wasn't she?"
The silence seemed to last for ever.
Bob nearly passed out. Steel took him to a chair in the hall and sat him down. Then he fetched him a glass of water from the canteen.
The caretaker gulped it down. "It's impossible," he croaked after a while. "Totally impossible. Nobody knows about this. Except my father, and he's been dead for ages." He looked at the man and the woman standing next to him. "You simply can't know this. Who told you?"
Steel gave him a clinical glance. "You did."
"We know about the little poem you wrote in your diary," Sapphire continued. "It gave us a clue. The rest was conjecture."
"But... but my diary was destroyed in the fire." Bob's voice was filled with anxiety. "You cannot have read it. Who are you?"
Sapphire smiled reassuringly and put a hand on Bob's trembling shoulder. "I'm Sapphire." She nodded at the man next to her. "This is Steel, my colleague. We're here to help you, Bob. But you have to answer some questions first."
Sapphire's touch seemed to relax him a little. "All right. Go ahead."
Sapphire looked him straight in the face. Again a strange blue light emanated from her eyes. "Please tell us how you found out that Miss Scott was your mother."
The caretaker started to talk as if he'd been hypnotised. "Miss Scott wanted me to stay after school one day. To help her with something. When we were alone she told me she was my real mother. She said she wanted to adopt me, because my dad beat me and stuff. I didn't believe her. My mother died when I was little. I got angry with Miss Scott and ran away. To the boiler room."
"When was this?" Sapphire asked.
"October 1967. I remember the school yard was covered in fallen leaves."
"And eventually you did believe Miss Scott?"
He nodded. "Later on she showed me some old documents to prove she was my real mother. When I was still a baby my Mum and Dad adopted me, because Miss Scott was too young at the time to look after me. She was allowed to see me from time to time though, but after a year my parents moved. They didn't leave any address. Miss Scott had just got her job at the Islington when I came to the school. She recognised my Dad and couldn't believe her luck. Then she..."
"Why did you write the poem?" Steel interrupted.
"To comfort her. Or myself rather. Somehow the children in my class noticed there was something going on between her and me. They often pestered me because of it. Bobby loves teacher, they would chant. It was horrible. I knew I would never show the poem to Miss Scott. But I liked the idea that her diary and mine would be buried together in the time capsule."
"Do you still remember it?" Sapphire asked.
"The poem? Yes." He started to recite. "Oh, I wish I could turn back time..."
Steel quickly covered Bob's mouth with his hand. "Not aloud! It might be dangerous."
Bob suddenly sat upright. The blue light disappeared from Sapphire's eyes as if a switch had been turned off. "Dangerous?" he repeated.
Steel nodded. "Never say the poem aloud. Something or someone might try to make you do it, but you must resist. It's vital that you resist. Do you understand?"
"I... I don't know." Bob hesitated. "It's all rather confusing."
Steel glanced at Sapphire. There was a grave look on his face. "It's what I feared," he told her mentally. "When I saw the poem in his diary I knew it would be trouble. Bob's tried to hide it, but Time found out. Together with the hourglass and the recording, the poem will be a powerful trigger."
"And now that Bob's back in the building, history is going to repeat itself," Sapphire concluded.
"Or is it?" Her colleague frowned. "We don't know half of it yet, Sapphire." He turned to Bob who had been watching them intently during their telepathic conversation. "Tell us about the fire,' he said aloud. "How did it start?"
But before the caretaker could answer, large flames started to dance around him.
Episode 9
by Rivanstar
"Argh!" Bob yelled, shielding his face from the intense heat. The fire crackled as it drew closer, from all around him.
"Ignore it, Bob," Sapphire urged.
"But it burns!" Bob cried.
Sapphire walked quickly through the flames, took hold of Rob's hand, and placed it firmly in her own. "It doesn't burn, Bob. It isn't real," she told him, and the fire was gone. "Merely a projection, an afterimage. It will only hurt you if you let it." She smiled.
"Follow me," Steel ordered, walking briskly out of the door without waiting for a response. Sapphire went to follow him, but turned to see Bob, who was standing still, perplexed.
"Come on," she encouraged, outstretching her hand. "I know this is confusing Bob, but please trust us. Something is out to get you, and we can protect you from it. You have to believe us. We might not have much more time." Bob seemed to struggle with his thoughts for a moment, then reluctantly followed.
"Come to the boiler room," Steel sent mentally.
"Ok, Steel." Sapphire thought back.
Sapphire and Bob strode quickly out through the door, and down the corridor. The light bulbs above pulsed with energy as they passed, then exploded, showering them both in glass and leaving them in darkness. Rob paused for a moment, brushing himself off and trying to see through the blackness. Mere seconds later the corridor was bright again, but not by bulb light. The red light of fire shone off of the walls, and in its ruddy glow were the silhouettes of children, writhing and screaming in fear and agony. Their young cries echoed through the corridor as the crackling flames consumed their shadowy flesh. Bob flinched and fell to his knees, covering his face with his hands in an attempt to block out this horrendous sight.
"This isn't real either. Not anymore." Sapphire said. She spoke quietly and reassuringly, but her voice seemed to reach clearly over the noise. She walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was dark again, and silent. "Follow quickly please." The blond elemental requested, walking off. Confused and frightened by this real nightmare, Rob got up off the floor and quickly caught up with her. They travelled along the rest of the corridor and down to the boiler room where Steel stood waiting.
"This is where the fire started isn't it, Bob?" Steel said as soon as they entered. He had lit a small lantern and had placed it near the door.
"I don't know." Bob replied, nervously.
"You knocked over the can of oil and the heat from the boiler started the blaze,"
"I ... no."
"And the fire spread," Steel said darkly. "Spread across the school killing many innocent men, women and children."
"I ... yes," Bob whispered, barely audibly. "It was me."
"Steel," Sapphire sent telepathically, after a moment of silence where Bob was held under Steel's unforgiving gaze. "Something is wrong. Usually when we find the clues here, Time attempts to take away the evidence. I don't think this information is right, or at least not complete, and he was very young at the time. We are still missing hard evidence." Sapphire then spoke out loud to Rob. "You didn't see the fire start, did you Bob?"
"No," the man admitted. "I was outside when it happened."
"So, you don't know for sure that you did start the blaze," Sapphire said. She sent him a reassuring smile. "I think there is still more to learn."
"Sapphire, why did Time send us back?" Steel asked, changing the subject. "Back to the present when it already had Bob in the past, just where it wanted him to be. Was it because of us? Has it given up because of our interference? We do have a reputation for beating Time, haven't we?"
"We have," Sapphire said, with a brief smile. "But no, that isn't the answer, well, not all of it at least. Time is still here, Steel, in this room and throughout the building. It was tormenting us in the canteen and the corridor. It hasn't given up."
"Then why?" Steel asked. Sapphire was silent so Steel continued. "It must be waiting for something," his eyes brightened as he thought of something. "Sapphire, when did the fire start?"
"Not long after we were there before," She reminded him. "29 years, 7 months and 13 days ago."
"What time?" Steel pressed.
"Approximately 10.15pm," Sapphire claimed.
"And what time is it right now?"
"9.48pm," she replied.
"That's what it's waiting for," Steel realised. "It has put us back here to wait, and because you and I were interfering, realising too much. But, we still have more to learn." He paused a moment. "Two diaries, a record, all from the sixties. Why an hourglass? A time capsule is placed in the ground to show future generations how the people of the time lived. They had clocks to measure time in the sixties didn't they?"
"It was the school symbol," Bob interjected. "It was Mr Brunswick who put that in. It was engraved with the school's name, address and his name, as the headmaster."
"And what of Mr Brunswick?" Steel asked, turning to Sapphire. "Did he die in the blaze?"
Sapphire was about to reply when she was suddenly overcome by cold. A brilliant flame, cool as ice, leapt up from all around forcing all in the room to flinch away and shield themselves. It vanished as quickly as it came, taking Bob with it.
"What happened?" Steel asked her sharply.
"Time has taken Bob back," Sapphire informed him. "Back to the time frame it is using, just before the blaze."
"Why now?" Steel asked. "We still have a good twenty minutes left before the blaze would start."
"We must have been getting close, Steel." Sapphire stated. "It keeps taking the clues away from us, remember."
"It didn't need a trigger to take him?" Steel asked. "He didn't say a poem or a song."
"The triggers in this room are enough, now." Sapphire guessed. "Bob, the time capsule, the very room itself. A room that Time has weakened ready for Rob to come, to be summoned by a mysterious person who offers him a job he needs so badly."
Steel, a worried expression on his face, took the photograph, the one that was taken at the time the capsule was buried, down from the wall where it hung. He stared closely at Mr Brunswick's image. "Is he the key?" he wondered aloud.
"Mr Brunswick's death was caused by the blaze," Sapphire answered her partner's earlier question, her eyes blazing blue, focusing the newspaper article she once held. "But he wasn't burnt to death like the others."
"What then?"
"He ... he was buried alive," Sapphire said, still concentrating. "Injured, but living, trapped under rubble. It was January and very cold. For days he was there, under the rubble, freezing, so cold." She shivered. "The days were torment and the nights were worse. It took three long days for him to die of thirst and cold, and they found his body but a few hours after. That's what the records say."
"Killed because of the fire," Steel mused. "But not by it. Is he the cold fire? You said it was sentient when it attacked you when we arrived here. And now, it collects Robert when Brunswick's name is mentioned."
"It could be so," Sapphire said, taking the photograph from Steel and looking at it. "Mr Brunswick probably wants Robert to suffer, to feel the pain the boy escaped from and he didn't."
"You said that Robert was meant to die in the fire," Steel reminded her. "Not that spirits of the past wanted revenge."
"I might have been wrong," Sapphire conceded. "But Brunswick may believe that the boy should have died. Maybe that is what I sensed."
"Bob escaped from being burnt," Steel thought aloud. "The conditions of this escape must be important."
"Perhaps," Sapphire said. "He said he wasn't in the building when the fire raged, but I got the feeling from him that his memories of the event are twisted, after being buried for so long because they were so traumatic. Asking him about wouldn't have helped." She paused a moment in thought, then put the photo back where it originally hung. "There is one thing that does bother me. Why would Time be trying to kill Robert? What will come to be if he dies? Time does not act on the grievance of one man who died in an accidental fire. Time has its own purpose."
"Whatever it wants, it can't be good," Steel concluded.
"No," Sapphire agreed.
"Take us to Robert, Sapphire!" Steel said. "Use the corridor Time has created and take us back! The answers are back there, not here. We need to see this as it happen." He walked behind her and gently put his hands on her shoulders. Sapphire, her eyes pulsing with blue light, stood still, mentally breaking through the barriers that Time had placed to block the passageway through times. In moments, they were back in the sixties. The boiler room was dark and empty, and Sapphire and Steel rushed through the door and out into the corridor, but paused for a moment to listen. The sound of beautiful singing was about them, the heavenly voices of a young school choir, rehearsing into the night.
"They will die in the blaze?" Steel wondered.
"Most of them, yes," Sapphire said, sadly.
They marched towards the office, down the corridor and passing a variety of children's portraits and drawings on a cream-coloured wall.
"What's down there?" Steel wondered telepathically, looking down a corridor he hadn't noticed before.
"That part of the building was totally destroyed in the blaze," Sapphire explained. "It was beyond saving and they did not rebuild it." They started to move again, heading towards the teachers offices. "Steel!" she called mentally after a few seconds, stopping still near, what was at that time, the main entrance. "Wait!"
Just as he turned a man walked through the door. Dressed in a black suit, with dark hair and an air of pomposity, he walked passed, not noticing the invisible two.
"Mr Brunswick?" Steel asked.
The man paused a moment, looking at a school map. Sapphire quickly walked up to him and touched him gently. "No," she stated after a moment. "He is, or was, Mr John Eithen Smith. He worked for the countries government. He has found about Miss Scott and Robert and is suspicious of them, but," she paused a moment, her eyes pulsing as she concentrated on the man. "There's something more. Something hidden, something dark." Mr Smith, having discovered what direction he would go, walked away.
"He is the man who contacted Bob about the caretaking job," Steel observed. "Did he die in the fire?"
"I believe so, yes," she replied.
Steel strode hastily down the corridor with Sapphire not far behind. As they neared the offices they heard shouting.
"This is school property," a man yelled. "You cannot just walk in here like you own the place."
Sapphire and Steel turned the corner to observe the scene. Two men, one of which was Mr Smith, the other an older man, presumably the head master and caretaker, Mr Brunswick, were arguing. Robert, who was a child again, stood nearby, observing the situation and sobbing slightly.
"I am from the social services," Mr Smith stated.
"I don't care where you're from," Mr Brunswick shouted, his old face red with fury. "Miss Scott is working, and she doesn't want to see you right now. Make an appointment or..." He stopped abruptly as Mr Smith pushed him aside and sent him sliding along the floor. Mr Smith then knocked on the door three times before trying to force it open. From inside comes the voice of Miss Scott, screaming and yelling.
"Don't let him, don't let him in!" she cried.
Finally, the strong man forced the door open, pushing against the smaller Miss Scott who was trying to keep it closed from the other side. The door closed behind him with a bang.
"Was John Smith the force that tried to get to Miss Scott before?" Steel asked. "When she and I were in the office in the present?" That was why she was so frightened. She knew who he was and what he meant."
"Yes," Sapphire agreed. "He had probably been watching them both for a while before this time, and Miss Scott had sensed it. There is something about him Steel, I don't know what it is, but..." she stopped to observe what was going on.
"You're such a troublemaker, boy," Mr Brunswick shouted at the boy, having got up from the floor. He moved to hit young Robert with the back of his clenched fist, and the boy braced himself for the attack. The headmaster stopped mid-swing however, and looked at the boy. He started to laugh, cackling evilly, and turned away from him, heading down the corridor. His laughter echoed though the whole school, and through Time itself.
Sapphire and Steel looked at each other, both frowning.
Episode 10
by S. J. Greenway
"Is he real Sapphire?" asked Steel mentally.
"I think so. I can't be certain unless I can do a proper analysis," replied Sapphire.
Robert stood in the middle of the corridor and watched Mr Brunswick stalk away, his laughter permeating every fibre of the ether. Sobs began to wrack the small boy's body, until he slumped down in a defeated heap next to the classroom door.
Steel winced, his face a mixture of annoyance and incomprehension. "Can't you stop him doing that? You're supposed to be the diplomat after all," Steel asked his partner. There was no reply from Sapphire. She simply stood perfectly still, eyes blazing with crystal blue intensity as she assessed the situation.
"Well?"
"I can't," she replied stonily.
"What do you mean, 'can't'?" barked Steel.
"I mean I can't reach him. He's...sealed off somehow. Something's odd Steel, something's changed... I," she gasped suddenly, "it can't be!"
"What is it?"
"Well I took us back to 9.30pm on the night of the fire. But what we're witnessing, Mr Smith coming to the school, happened at 6.33pm on the day before the fire!" The glow in her eyes faded and she turned to her partner.
"Steel, it's tricked us... it knew what I was trying to do and it shunted us back one day further so that we were out of the way again! There's something... wrong with all this Steel and I don't like it."
"Of course there's something wrong, that's why we've been assigned," said Steel, allowing himself a rare smile.
Sapphire continued. "No I mean something in the way that we're being outmanoeuvred. In the way that I can't be certain of anything. I was wrong about Miss Blainey earlier; I simply took her to be a harmless refraction, and it used my complacency to take the advantage. And take Smith for instance; when I assessed him I could sense the job, the name, the primary agenda... but no personality and no life expectancy."
"But I thought you said he died in the fire with the rest of them," replied Steel.
"No I said I believed he did, but I couldn't be sure. That's just it Steel, that's what's wrong! I'm being blocked. Remember I told you there was something deeper, something dark, cold and hidden in him? It's hiding itself from me because it knows about us. It knows who we are and what we do!"
She paused and took a deep breath, "Remember the darkness Steel?"
Steel's grey eyes narrowed as he regarded his partner. "Tully?"
Sapphire nodded. "I think it's something akin to that. The way it keeps changing the rules and jumping one-step ahead of us. For one thing the visual refractions seem conscious, cognisant of their purpose almost... but there's still something else, something that I just can't see yet."
A muffled whimpering emanated from the classroom. The high Victorian windows didn't offer a view of the events inside the room, but a disquieting un-earthly glow began to seep through the gaps in the doorframe.
Tears streaming down his cheeks, Robert flung himself at the classroom door that separated him from his mother. His fists pummelled the wood frantically, shaking the door in its frame.
"Let her go! You let my mum go!" cried Robert as he wrenched at the handle. "Don't hurt her, please...please don't hurt my mummy," Robert's voice trailed away as he gave into the tears.
A low pulsing hum began to emerge from the locked classroom, the floor under their feet shuddered from the vibrations. Robert stepped slowly back from the door, fear contorting his every feature.
"Can you get in there?" asked Steel.
Sapphire nodded, "I think so." She placed both her hands against the frame and stared straight ahead, as if looking through the closed door. Her irises began to shimmer, a deep hypnotic blue radiating in each eye whilst she concentrated intently on sending her mind into the classroom.
Particle by particle she began to think her way through the door. This was a simple task for one of her kind. Colleagues like Steel and Lead found it more difficult due to their more grounded natures but for her, it was a basic procedure; why then was she finding it so difficult?
"What's wrong Sapphire?" her partner asked.
"I don't know, I... can't...seem to... break away..." She stepped away from the door and the light in her eyes faded. "I just can't project," she replied.
"Try harder!" Hissed Steel. "You've got to get in there!"
Sapphire's eyes glowed once again, and she resumed her position at the door. She visualised herself walking through the door, this time focussing all her will on dissolving the tether between her physical and her astral body. All at once she felt that familiar shift in her body; a small, almost imperceptible shiver as her consciousness divided and her projected self stepped seamlessly through the door into the classroom.
Miss Scott stood with her back to the door, whilst Mr Smith stood in front of her, his hands either side of her head. She trembled, her heels beginning to rise out of her shoes as Smith's hold on her rigid body lifted her up towards his face; a face that was now elongating and stretching into a grotesque mask of desire and hunger. His eyes glowed red and what was once his mouth had become a cavernous black maw, pursed and funnelled. As Sapphire watched, a wisp of grey smoke began to emanate from Smith's jaws, and was sucked into Miss Scott's gaping mouth.
"Steel he's... it's using Smith as a host! It's trying to jump to Miss Scott!" cried Sapphire.
"Jump? Jump into her body Sapphire?" asked Steel.
"Yes, it's...it's a sort of parasite. I'm going to try to communicate with it."
"No Sapphire!" barked Steel. "Don't try that, it's too dangerous! Come back here now!"
"It's all right Steel, I know what I'm doing. Just stay close and try to open the door from your side."
"Sapphire! No!" cried Steel. "Sapphire are you listening to me?" No reply. He moved Sapphire's body gently to one side and approached the door. His hands skimmed over the doorknob and felt for the lock. This was an average lock; just a couple of twists and it would burst open under his expert touch. Metal always obeyed him. But just as Sapphire had found difficulty in projecting through the door in the first place, so Steel now found resistance in the lock. He began the process again, this time focussing all his will on the mechanism.
Sapphire tried to move toward Miss Scott in order to communicate with the entity that was pouring itself into her, fragment by fragment. She placed her ghostly hand on Miss Scott's shoulder and the familiar blue pulse lit up her eyes.
"Can you hear me? We wish to talk with you. We wish to communicate with you. Please acknowledge." There was a strange whistling sound, a rushing of air and Miss Scott whipped round to confront Sapphire. It was no longer the Miss Scott that Sapphire had befriended in the corridor. The creature had taken on most of her body but it had not quite melded with the facial features of its new host, and the countenance that now confronted Sapphire was a disturbing fusion of its two sources.
Miss Scott's normally green eyes were now ragged black holes, with just a pinprick of crimson light glowing deep in each socket. Her nose was a vertical slit in the middle of her face and her mouth now resembled that of the creature, a yawning pit of oblivion.
The knife-like screaming began again and Sapphire clutched her ears in a vain attempt to block out the sound. She felt her legs buckle under her and she slumped to the floor, all the while staring into the red eyes of her assailant.
"Steel it's...I can't... breathe... Steel!" cried Sapphire, Steel's name echoing around the atmosphere.
"Sapphire come out of there! Now!" hollered Steel.
"I... I can't Steel... I..." her voice faded away as she fell into unconsciousness.
"Sapphire! Sapphire speak to me!" Steel passed his hand over the lock once more, this time pushing with all his strength with his free hand. As he did so, he heard the children's choir singing once more behind him, their angelic voices floating down the hallway and surrounding him with their harmonies. He turned slightly to look for Robert, but instead was confronted by a small group of children all staring at him intently. There was no sign of Robert in the corridor. No sign of the corridor itself. Only the darkness remained. The same darkness that had encircled the outside of the school building, now pervaded the inside of the corridor, as the spectral figures of the school choir maintained their silent vigil over him.
Steel turned slowly back to the lock. A piercing scream came from behind him, and he could feel the freezing cold flames licking at his back as the children blistered and screeched. He turned to see them engulfed in the blue fire, writhing in a seething mass of charred limbs and contorted faces. For a moment he almost succumbed to their pleading out-stretched hands and then he remembered. Only their eyes betrayed their true purpose. The same malevolence that had been present in Miss Blainey's eyes as she had burned in front of him.
He forced himself to turn back to his task once more and gave one hard push. There was a loud crunching sound and the handle plate sprang off and fell to the floor. The door creaked on its hinges and swung an inch or two ajar. The classroom was silent, and so now was the corridor. Steel snatched a glance behind him and saw the hallway had returned to its normal state, bathed in the stark light from the overhead bulbs. Robert was crouching against the far wall, gazing wide-eyed at the doorway, waiting to see who would appear. Steel stepped back and waited.
The door opened and Miss Scott emerged. She stepped into the corridor and stood in front of Robert. Steel examined her features. Her face showed no sign of alteration. It was to all intents and purposes the same Miss Scott who Sapphire and he had befriended earlier.
"Mum!" Cried Robert, and flung his arms around her waist. "Mum are you all right, did he upset you?"
Miss Scott stood absolutely stiff, not moving a muscle. She looked straight ahead, not once glancing down at her son. "I'm perfectly all right Robert. In fact... everything's going to be all right now," she said, somewhat haltingly.
"But where's Mr Smith, and what did he want?" asked Robert.
"Oh he just wanted to let me know that there'll be no more problems for us. He's going to go back to his department now and file a report saying that everything's in order. Aren't you Mr Smith?" She extended a hand out towards the door.
Mr Smith moved silently through the door, looking dazed. His eyes were dull and empty looking, and he moved like someone being puppeted. "I... I'll be leaving now," he mumbled.
"Oh Mr Smith don't go far will you? I'm sure Mr Brunswick would like to speak to you before you leave," said Miss Scott.
"Oh... quite," said Mr Smith, that same confused expression washing over his features. Steel watched as the tall man turned and began to stumble down the corridor towards the basement.
"What are you doing here anyway Robert? You should be in choir practice shouldn't you?" said Miss Scott. "Now run along this instant."
"But Mum I..."
"I said run along Robert. I'm going to find Mr Brunswick... we have a little matter to discuss, but I'll come and find you later, so mind you do as you're told young man." Miss Scott turned on her heel and walked briskly away down the corridor leaving Robert standing looking after her. He watched until she had gone out of sight and then slowly wandered into the main hall.
"Sapphire! Sapphire are you there?" Shouted Steel telepathically.
"Yes I'm here," said Sapphire from behind him. He turned to see that she had managed to rejoin her physical body and she was leaning against the wall where he had left her, visibly drained.
"Are you all right, I thought I'd lost you for a moment?" Enquired Steel, somewhat more tenderly than his usual tone.
Sapphire smiled weakly. "Yes I'm fine. She...it knew I was there. It could sense me and tried to block me again with the screaming."
"Yes, I had a little visit from an aspect of it too whilst I was trying to open the door. It used the choir to distract me. I think I know what you meant now about being blocked'. The lock wouldn't shift at first...and I don't get blocked,' said Steel coldly.
Sapphire smiled once again, but seeing the expression on Steel's face she stifled it. "I don't recognise the creature. I got a good look at it in there and it's not like anything we've seen before. I think I know what it's doing though."
"Oh yes? What?" Replied Steel.
"Well I think it uses human hosts to move through time. Rather like hitching a ride if you like,"
"I don't like," snapped Steel.
Sapphire continued, ignoring her partner's jibing. "It still must have to locate a weak spot to break through at, and I think Brunswick with his hourglass provided the perfect place to enter this time period. Only now, it's used up all the available hosts here, as they all died in the fire, or in Brunswick's case, as a result of it."
"So now it needs Robert because he's the only link to the future. To it's future. Yes, that makes sense. But if it can manipulate time to the point where it can outwit us and move people back and forth, why can't it just move itself through time that way?" Asked Steel.
"Well I think it can only manipulate the time period it's broken through into. The reason it could pluck Robert from the future was because it was using the Robert of the past to connect with the present. But in order to exist permanently in Robert's present, in order to move on, it needs to bond with him and use him as a stepping-stone. Plus the fact Brunswick's assisting it."
"What do you mean, assisting it'? You mean he deliberately made some kind of deal with it?"
"Yes. I think Brunswick must have encountered the parasite after the fire and made a deal with it to allow him to live again. I think his presence is still here in the building; what they would call a ghost' and it's still sentient. He's using his memories of the place as weapons to block us with, such as Miss Blainey and the children, and the parasite is giving them substance. It's also providing the fire."
"Do you think the ghost' of Brunswick was responsible for sending that message to Rob in the present? After all he'd know the significance of the name Mr Smith to Rob..."
"And that it would be bound to get Rob's attention! Bound to get him to take the job here. Yes, I think you're right Steel. It's bargained its whole future existence on Rob. " Said Sapphire, her blue eyes sparkling in the dim hall light.
"That's why I feel it's akin to the situation at the railway station. Where we found poor Mr Tully."
Steel looked away. That had been a difficult but necessary decision. He couldn't help regretting the deception though.
"I still don't like this Steel. We're the operators, we're the ones who are supposed to be in control of the situation; for the first time, I think I know how it must feel to be one of them," she said nodding in the direction that Rob had gone.
Steel thought for a moment. His flaxen eyebrows rose in an expression of illumination and he straightened. "Sapphire, what did you say about it's whole future depending on Rob?
"I said that in order to further it's existence it would have to be taken to the present by Rob. Why? You... you wouldn't! Oh no Steel, you're not going to do that again, I forbid it! Tully was one thing but a young man, a... a child Steel! That's unnecessary!" She cried, outraged at what she thought her partner was planning.
"I agree."
"What? Well what are you intending to do then?" She asked, somewhat baffled but relieved.
"We're going to allow it to do just what it wants. We're going to allow it to jump to the present and use Rob to hitch a lift' as you called it," said Steel with a mischievous glint in his eye, the kind he only got when he'd got a plan.
"But then what? How will we repair the break and stop it from jumping further ahead?" Sapphire asked.
"I would have thought it was obvious. Once it's in the present, all it's ties with this time period will be cut and it will have to find a new host. We'll need some kind of bate to lure it free of Rob of course and once it's loose we'll capture it and seal it in the hourglass. It'll have all the time it ever wanted!"
"I see. What kind of bate' Steel?" asked Sapphire guardedly.
Steel walked up to his willowy partner and planted a small kiss on her porcelain cheek. "You."
"Oh... well I suppose I am the perfect candidate," said Sapphire. "You'll want me to hold time while you imprison it in the hourglass I assume?"
"Got it in one," beamed Steel. He walked to the door of the main hall and peeped through. There were the children singing softly, being conducted by Miss Blainey and there was Rob in the front row, singing with them.
"Watch him Sapphire, see that he stays put. I'll check on Miss Scott and our friends Mr Smith and Mr Brunswick, see if I can't find out a bit more about their connection. And I'll try to get hold of that hourglass," said Steel.
"Steel, be careful... it has the same powers as us. More perhaps."
Steel regarded his partner steadily. "I will. I'll meet you back here in fifteen minutes." He turned on his heel and strode off down the corridor.
Episode 1 Kilduskland
Episode 2 Blamelewis
Episode 3 Gareth Preston
Episode 4 Fanzine Editor
Episode 5 Mark Simpson
Episode 6 Steve Lake
Episode 7 Terrence Keenan
Episode 8 Pen Pal
Episode 9 Rivanstar
Episode 10 S. J. Greenway
Episode 1
by Kilduskland
It was his first day in the old familiar place. Or rather his first night. The hours of the community centre, where it opened in the late afternoons and evenings for clubs, groups and meetings, would take a little getting used to. But it was a job, and getting a new job in this dead-end town in the drab mid-winter was a rare event in itself. And the fact that the centre had once been his old school, albeit thirty years ago, gave the place a certain sentimentality. Not that he'd ever admit to such feelings of course.
It was empty now, awaiting the first group in half an hour's time. He still had to get the chairs laid out in room four for them, and get the heating on.
As he sauntered through the centre's square hall, his trainers squeaking slightly on the varnished wooden floor, he listened to the sound of the wind and rain battering against the roof windows, and whipping round the walls. Doors led off from each wall to different rooms. The upper part of each door had four small panes of glass, forming a square, which looked into the dark high-ceilinged rooms; the rooms that used to house lots of forward-facing desks back in his time.
The hall's unshaded pendant light shone mournfully from the tall ceiling, a fitting illumination, he thought, of the pale budget that such council-run buildings always seemed to exist under. But it was giving him a job, allowing him to still pay his rent, the child maintenance, the usual bills...
Stopping outside one of the doors, he bounced the bunch of keys in his hand lightly until the key to room four was on top.
"Thirty years, and here I am back again ..." he muttered to himself, the melancholy grasping at his throat. Older, dark hair thinner, and the rest of his head not much wiser, he suspected. He unlocked the door and pulled the handle down, pulling the door open to the cold dark room within.
He walked in and stood still, letting his eyes adjust to the dark, slowly seeing the big bulky radiators on the far walls under the uncurtained windows, trying to remember all the details of the past before putting on the lights and seeing what it was like now.
"Robert!" a woman's voice shouted out sharply. "Come back here young man!" He looked round instinctively to the far wall, expecting to see Miss Blainey ("Brainy Blainey") standing up at her desk as she was then, middle aged, hair in a bob and thick rimmed glasses. Of course she wasn't there, but he was surprised at how clear the voice from the past had sounded, and how unexpected...
A bang behind him brought him violently out of his reverie, and he swung his head round. The door had closed noisily behind him, having slid back slowly on its hinges to meet the doorframe. He'd forgotten about that. He smiled slightly. It was probably still the same door.
A passing car outside on the road reminded him of the passing time, and he focused his attention once more on his new job, searching the wall near the door for the light switch. Finding it, he flicked the two switches, and two neon strip lights above noisily buzzed and flickered into life. Strip lights. Hmm, they were certainly new.
The room was bare apart from a couple of empty tables parked in the corners of the room. He'd have to find some chairs for the drama club...
***
The empty canteen was in near darkness, save for the pale light from the hallway seeping in through the four panes of glass in the locked connecting door. The canteen was just another room for hire in the centre, a long worktop dividing the thin kitchen area from the vacant floor space. A woman rested her hands on the worktop of the now occupied canteen.
She removed her hands slowly, as if the worktop was evidence at a crime scene, and walked smartly to the other side, looking at all the various items one by one. A neat stack of saucers, a sealed dehydrated meal of minimal nutritional value (packaging identifying it as a 'pot noodle'), and a microwave oven plugged into the wall. She noticed her blue dress reflecting slightly in the face of the large metal urn by the sink, and smiled.
Behind her the door to the canteen started shaking as someone tried to open the locked door. She watched the door as the shaking stopped, and listened as the lock was unbolted. The door opened to reveal a man in a grey suit, his face carrying a business-like purpose, and his empty hand pressed flat against the lock.
The blonde woman smiled knowingly at him. "Magnetic as ever, Steel?"
The man merely scowled before casting a look around the room. "Some kind of human gathering place?" he asked.
"A social gathering place, yes," she replied. "For hire. This is the canteen."
"I doubt if it's come to 'eat', Sapphire."
"No. Nor has the one man who's in this place."
Steel glanced at her. "Does he belong here?"
"He's certainly part of this time." Sapphire frowned as she concentrated. "New to the building ... partly."
"Partly?"
"I'm not sure, Steel. He seems to have a connection to the building."
Steel sighed grimily. "A possible trigger straight away."
The door closed noisily behind him, its slow slide to the doorframe finally coming to an end.
***
'Robert' - who, thirty years on from those school days, settled for Bob as his preferred name - gingerly wheeled the trolley-load of a dozen stacked chairs out of the storeroom and across the hall to room four, the door of which was now wedged open. The wheels of this trolley certainly needed some oil. With all the clatter they made he couldn't hear himself think, let alone if anyone had come in the front doors in this large empty building. Was he getting spooked? Maybe it was just first night nerves. Being alone shouldn't worry him, after all, he'd been alone for the past five years.
He brought the trolley to a halt in the middle of the room and lifted the first four plastic chairs from the top. A tune suddenly came into his head, and he started to sing it to cheer himself up. A song from his past.
"Hey Jude, don't let me down, you are gone but .... not forgotten ..."
"Remember to -"
He froze. A woman's voice had sung the next two words when he'd stopped; a woman in the same room as him. He swung his head round, but there was no one there.
"You're needing your dinner, Bobby man," he told himself, trying to dismiss the voice as his overactive imagination.
***
"A voice?" repeated Steel.
"Yes, across the hall."
The man and woman - Sapphire and Steel - left the canteen and crossed the hall towards an open doorway where a brightly lit room lay beyond.
As they neared, the door slipped off its wooden wedge, slamming itself shut with unnatural speed. From above the duo, the bulb in the pendant light in the hall exploded softly, sprinkling them and the wooden floor with tinkling glass. Ignoring it, they ran up to the window on the upper part of the door and looked in to the scene within.
They saw a man in his late thirties gawping at the far end of the room, where a woman with thick-rimmed glasses and her hair in a bob was leaning on a desk glaring at him.
Steel tried pulling back the door but it was jammed.
"Sealed," he observed sharply.
"By Time," added Sapphire.
He looked at his companion. "We need to get in."
Without another word, Sapphire looked up and the blue of her eyes turned to unnatural jewel-like flames, shining with power. An image of herself left her body like a ghost, passing through the closed door and stopping within the room.
"Robert," she called.
The new caretaker looked round to see a shimmering blonde woman in the blue dress, and gaped again. "Jeez, this place is haunted!" he exclaimed.
Suddenly the presence in the far end of the room vanished, leaving Robert gawping at the empty space. While his attention was elsewhere, Sapphire smoothly brought her self-projection back to rejoin her body, and Steel found the door once more free to open. The seal had been broken.
As Robert looked back at the blue lady, he saw her very much alive, and a fair haired business man behind her. Both looked very un-ghost-like by comparison to Brainy Blainey of yesteryear.
"Gawd, what is this?" demanded Bob trying to regain his senses. "Is this the drama club come early or something?" He looked beyond the grey man to the dark hall behind him. "And what happened to the hall? Did you turn off the light?"
The woman smiled at him. Quite an arresting smile on that very beautiful face. "The light bulb has blown," she said simply. "You'd better replace it before your first booking arrives tonight."
"Yeah, right," said Bob, walking past the newcomers without once thinking about how easily he had taken up her suggestion.
"Was it real?" asked Steel, when the caretaker had gone.
Sapphire paced the far end of the room slowly, her senses concentrating. "Yes," she finally decided, but again she was frowning.
"But?" he prompted.
"Steel, I can smell flowers, candle wax and perfume."
"And?"
She looked up at him. "But it's mixed with a strong smell of petroleum and burning metal. There's more than just a schoolteacher in this room. There's another time, another event. Something else we've still to see."
The sound of a stepladder being erected in the hall came through the wedged-open door. The caretaker had evidently found a new bulb.
"Same people?" asked Steel. "This man and the teacher?" He held his hand up to halt the answer. His face suddenly tensed and his nose twitched. "Sapphire, I can smell the petroleum too," he warned.
Sapphire looked at the floor, and her eyes widened as she watched a pool of blue liquid spill into existence, running across the polished floor towards her.
"Steel, I can smell ignition!" she cried.
But before either of them could react, the petroleum burst into fire, flames engulfing Sapphire in an instant.
Episode 2
by Blamelewis
The fire swarmed over Sapphire, enveloping her.
"It's cold Steel, very cold." She thought.
"So it's not real then?" came Steels thought back.
"It is real. But it's not fire, not real fire..."
"Something else? What?"
Sapphire felt it all over her, touching, exploring. She wasn't fighting it - yet, but she was getting dangerously cold. Reaching out her hands she let it draw even closer, trying to reach it. There was...
"Steel! It's alive!"
"A sentience?"
"Yes, trying to reach me. Something lost, long ago, trying to find..."
It was gone. The room was cold and dark and empty now. Sapphire stood there, hands outstretched into nothing. She began to shiver. Steel stepped closer, took her hands in his, and spoke.
"Trying to find... ...find what, Sapphire? A way in?"
"Perhaps."
"Perhaps? Perhaps isn't good enough. Bring it back - take Time back. Now."
Sapphire shivered. "I can't."
Steel dropped her hands and stepped back, as if wary of her. "Can't or won't?"
"It wouldn't work - it wasn't like that."
"What was it like then?" snapped Steel.
"Cold." whispered Sapphire, looking away at the restless dark city, distant beyond the frosted high windows. "I'm cold."
Steel looked at her for a long moment, then turned and walked quickly from the room.
***
Bob had climbed the stepladder carefully, the spare bulb in his hand, the old song still in his head...
"...it's a fool who plays it cool..."
He reached up to clear the remains of the old bulb from the fitting. He'd been careful to turn the switch off first, and as he gently gripped and turned the metal base of the destroyed bulb he sang softly and tunelessly...
"...by making his world a little colder..."
The lamp in his hand burst forth with light, engulfing him in brilliant white.
***
In the doorway Steel stopped in his tracks, throwing his hand up to shield his eyes from the sudden burst of radiation. A fierce wind blew at him and a there was a sound also, huge like many, many voices whispering, and chattering and yelling together.
"Sapphire!" he thought sharply, "It's in the hall"
***
Sapphire turned from the window to see the walls glow and become translucent. Energy scintillated all around them and as she walked swiftly to the door the paint vanished from the walls, blackened and warped wood appearing underneath.
In the hall it was the same. As she joined Steel the fabric of the building around them remade itself in the light.
"This isn't fire either," Sapphire had to yell over the tumult.
"It's Time?" Steel shouted, and as he did so all was abruptly still again. Their surroundings had settled around them, and his words bounced noisily around the hall, off walls painted a different shade of institutional white.
"29 Years, 7 months, 13 days. All at once. Backwards." said Sapphire, then smiled. "hello Robert."
The boy on the stepladder looked at the small bulb in his hand, and the huge empty fitting above him. He turned towards the man and Lady standing in the doorway of his classroom.
"It's wrong," he said, holding it out towards Sapphire. "It's just wrong! Make it better!"
Episode 3
by Gareth Preston
Steel regarded the young boy with suspicion. He seemed real enough, cheeks smeared with dirt, short trousers and untied shoelaces dragging behind one shoe, but in his experience such comforting proofs carried little real weight. The opposition frequently used pieces of reality to work behind.
Sapphire knelt down in front of the boy and gently took the jagged pieces of glass out of the boy's hands. "What's your name?" she asked with a slight smile.
The boy glanced nervously between them and looked at the floor. "Not suppose to talk to strangers," he muttered.
"That's very sensible advice but we can't help you if we don't know who you are. I'm Sapphire and this is my friend Steel." She nodded towards the boy and when he raised his head he seemed to be fixed by her blue gaze.
"Robert miss," he whispered. Then louder he added, "Can you fix the light?"
"Is he real? I mean really here?" asked Steel, ignoring the question.
Sapphire passed her hand across the boy's face and frowned. She waved her palm back across the boy's features.
"Well?"
"Yes he's real. At least as real as anything else around us, but..."
"But what?" asked her partner irritably. These moments of uncertainty always made him a little nervous.
"He is forty six years old," she concluded, standing up again.
"Is that unusual?" he asked.
"For them yes. Judging by his physical appearance and behaviour I would have placed him around nine or ten years old."
Interested, Steel moved closer and scrutinised Robert closer, causing the boy to step back nervously.
"So is he the trigger?"
Sapphire brushed her blond fringe back absently as she said, "Not quite, I'd say he was more a component of it."
Her grey suited friend looked up and down the corridor with an air of slight annoyance. "It never seems to be simple these days does? I'm going to take a look down there. See if we can't locate the remaining parts before anything else happens." He marched off into the darkness.
"Who are you miss? You're not one of our teachers are you?" Robert had taken some more steps back and looked ready to run, the bulb seemingly forgotten. She motioned for him to stand still.
"We've come to help you Robert. Please trust us. Where do you think all your schoolfriends are?"
"They gone home haven't they. I'm just helping Miss Scott. I've not done anything wrong!" he cried out.
She shook her head consolingly. "I know you've not done anything Robert. But we need your help," she told him softly.
"He does! Your man. He thinks I've done it. It's not fair it's always me and it's not!" Robert turned and ran up the hallway towards the entrance. He risked a glance behind him only to see that Sapphire had disappeared into the shadows. His hand gripped the handle of the door and even as he heaved at it, part of his mind wondered why it felt so oddly shaped. The door swung in towards him and he raised his eyes to see _ Sapphire standing in front of him, arms crossed and looking at him sadly.
"I'm sorry Robert but there is nowhere for you to go. Look for yourself."
She stepped back from the entrance and waved her arm out in an arc at the darkness behind her. Robert peered out and looked about him with confusion. There was no path, no low stone wall or the line of chestnut trees he knew so well. Just blackness with no moon or stars to illuminate it and no comforting yellow lights from the houses next to the school. A wave of coldness swept over him and he heard Sapphire's voice in the distance, "We've been cut off from your home Robert, sealed away until whatever is meant to happen, happens."
***
Steel felt along the wall until he found the light switch. Flicking it on he discovered that the corridor broadened out into a space with three doors leading away. A tall battered cupboard stood in one corner. He tried the first door, which had a bar across and a sign saying "Fire Exit" and found it that it was locked by a glass mechanism. It would be easy to break if necessary. The second door opened out into a medium sized room with green plastic chairs arranged in a rough circle. The third led onto another corridor. Turning his attention to the cupboard he found it too was locked and he was about to open it by force when he heard the corridor click open behind him. Swinging around he came face to face with a young red haired woman who gave a sharp gasp and pushed herself back, trying to close the door again. With one swift movement he grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it back open, nearly making the woman topple into the room. Before she could escape he grabbed her wrist.
"Get off me! I warn you Mr Brunswick is still in the building!" she shouted, trying to twist out of his grip.
"Who's Mr Brunswick? More to point who are you?"
"Let go of me! Mr Brunswick!" she shouted.
"Call him! I want to know who else is here," he countered. For a moment there was quiet with only the small gasps of the woman as she struggled to free herself from his vice-like hand. "There is no Mr Brunswick is there? At least, not in this building. I don't mean you any harm, I'm just looking for a few answers. If I let go, will you promise not to run?"
She nodded, but her eyes darted for the open corridor. Steel rotated and placed himself so that he blocked that route. Then he let go. Immediately she dashed for the other corridor door but he anticipated that and slammed his hand against it, in front of her face.
"What do you want from me?" she wailed.
"Just answers. Tell me what you know and I'll go." After a second's thought he added, "My name is Steel. What's yours?"
She eyed him warily, obviously still trying to think of a way of escaping him. "Scott. Miss Scott. You look over-dressed to be a thief."
"Then it's a good idea I'm not one." he countered.
Meanwhile Miss Scott seemed to be looking at her surroundings properly for the first time. Her expression changed to fear. "Why have you brought me here? Where is this place?" she demanded.
"You don't know?", he asked curiously. He tried to guess her period from the blouse and skirt she was wearing but failed hopelessly. He wished Sapphire was here to examine this newcomer and sent out a telepathic call. Instantly she replied and he mentioned the woman and instructed her to join him immediately.
"This isn't the schoolhouse!" Miss Scott looked at the notices pinned on the wall. "Though it seems to be some kind of school. How did you do it? The last thing I can remember is..."
Suddenly was a heavy thump. Both of them turned to the outside door, she with wide panic filled eyes and he with detached appraisal. In front of them the door with the bar across it seemed to shimmer. Then its surface began to blister and blacken, as though being licked by invisible flames. With a crackle of fire, the surface of a new door flowed across it, replacing the light green paint with dark carved wood. The metal bar melted to nothing. Again the heavy thump of someone knocking was heard. The door reverberated to it.
"Don't let him!" implored Miss Scott.
The door was struck again and the frame rattled.
"Please!"
Epsiode 4
by Fanzine Editor
"Who is it?" asked Steel above the continued knocking. "What does he want?"
The woman was in shock, unresponsive to his questions.
Ignoring her, he moved over to the pounding door. The person on the other side still hadn't spoken, his fists on the door doing the talking for him, asking to be let in.
Reaching out a hand to the doorknob, Steel braced himself. As soon as he touched it the door stopped vibrating. The silence was deathly. He turned to look at the woman she was still there unmoving. Gripping the stone-cold handle tighter he twisted it and was suddenly thrown down the corridor as if struck by electricity.
The door reverted from the old dark wooden surface to its modern counterpart with the metal bar crossing it and the "FIRE EXIT" sign.
***
Sapphire ran her fingers across the light green surface of the Fire Exit. She could feel... something.
"Well?" demanded her colleague. A look of irritation crossed his face.
She turned away from the door, her blonde hair swaying. "It's trying to break through."
He scowled. "I know that already. I heard it knocking."
"I'm sorry, Steel. There's nothing more to tell at the moment. We need clues."
"I'll search with the boy, you go with the woman." They both looked to the other end of the corridor where Steel had ordered the humans to wait. They were holding a whispered conversation. The woman seemed calmer, the boy seemed happier too, probably from seeing someone he knew.
Sapphire began moving towards them he took hold of her arm and said telepathically, "See if you can get her to tell you who was after her?"
"I'll try," she replied telepathically. Smiling enigmatically, she walked off.
***
Robert had told Steel that he'd never been in the boiler room before, as it was out of bounds to pupils. But he knew every inch of the dimly lit room. The pipes, and wires, even a crack in the wall that lead to a hiding place for when you needed it.
"What exactly are we looking for?" he asked.
"Something that doesn't belong," replied Steel. In the near dark, wearing his dark grey suit it was hard to spot the man.
Robert walked along the main length of the large boiler, running a finger along it's surface it came away covered in thick layer of dust. He wiped the dust off on his shorts.
Looking around, a glint of light caught his attention. He moved over to the wall where he found a framed photograph. He saw that he was in the picture, but he didn't recall it being taken or even the event it captured happening.
"Over here, Mister," he called into the darkness.
Steel appeared behind him, making him jump slightly. "What have you found?" He noticed the photograph and took it from its hook on the wall.
Steel grunted approvingly, and his lips almost turned up at the sides in a smile. Almost.
***
Sapphire and Miss Scott were looking around the class room where the earlier manifestation had taken place. Sapphire hoped that being here would bring the force out, reveal Miss Scott's role in this.
The teacher had walked over to the row of identical windows crossing the far wall of the classroom. The only view was one of total darkness. She appeared mesmerised by the darkness, standing there swaying slightly as if in silent conversation.
Moving towards her, Sapphire laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Whatever it is that you saw, I can protect you from it."
Without turning, Miss Scott replied, "I don't know what it was. It was just a shape," she faced Sapphire now, her eyes focused on the Operator's face. "After staying late after lessons I heard footsteps in the distance. I thought it was Mr Brunswick, the caretaker. I went to look for him. Then I caught glimpses of a shadow that seemed to be following me. Every time I turned back to look I saw nothing."
Sapphire nodded in understanding.
"The next thing I knew your friend was attacking me," she finished. "That's what I thought at the time." She smiled an apology.
"Don't worry about a thing. We'll get to the bottom of this," Sapphire reassured her.
"Meet me in the Main Hall. Immediately," projected Steel into her mind.
"What have you found?" she replied telepathically.
"A possible trigger."
***
Walking into the large, empty main hall, Sapphire looked around for Steel. No sign of him or any trigger. Miss Scott followed timidly behind.
Steel bustled past them through the doorway. Robert trailing behind him. He stood and watched with Miss Scott. She reached out a hand and took hold of Roberts. It was difficult to tell who was reassuring whom.
She noticed that Steel was carrying a crowbar in one hand and a shovel in the other. He'd stopped in the middle of the hall and was on his knees.
Leaving the humans in the corner of the room she approached her partner. "Under the floor?" she asked.
"Have a look," he said, and handed her a black and white photograph in a cheap looking frame. In the picture there appeared to be the school's headmaster, Miss Scott and a pupil, a young boy... Robert.
Steel began to rip up the wooden floorboards. It was starting to get colder in here.
Examining the picture in more detail she saw they were stood around a hole in the floor of the main hall. A small metal box was in the open hole. "A time capsule," she said.
"Exactly. A direct link to the past."
Pulling up one more floorboard, Steel threw it on to the pile at the side of him. Taking the shovel, he began digging into the concrete. As he did this the room grew even colder, Sapphire could sense the being. Steel looked up at her from the floor. He felt it too. Turning back to the task he began to dig.
The whole building began to shake. Robert and Miss Scott clung onto each other, alayer of ice almost forming over them, and everything else in the room. Bits of plaster began to tumble down from the ceiling.
Steel continued to dig.
Episode 5
by Mark Simpson
As he continued to dig away at the thin concrete, Steel heard Sapphire's voice inside his mind.
"It doesn't want us to find the time capsule, Steel."
He could see and feel the building shaking apart in his peripheral senses, but continued to work.
"We must find that trigger," he told Sapphire mentally.
All of a sudden, the concrete beneath his shovel dissolved, becoming freshly turned soil. He dug in deeply and was rewarded with a clink of metal on metal.
"It's here," he said aloud, smoothing dirt away from the curved metal surface with the shovel.
Then, as he reached down to remove the metal cylinder from the hole, it vanished, leaving just a gap in the soil where it had lain. As it did, the shaking around them stopped.
Steel straightened, ignoring the frightened humans and addressing his partner.
"What happened?"
She was frowning at him. "It took time back to before the capsule was buried. It's out of our reach, at least for the moment."
Steel dropped his shovel with a clatter to the floor. Now he turned to Robert and Miss Scott.
"What do the two of you know about this time capsule?"
Robert looked down at his shoes and said nothing. But Miss Scott spoke up.
"Mister Brunswick, the Headmaster, thought it would be a good idea to bury a time capsule to celebrate the completion of the work done renovating the school hall. The ceremony will take place in two days."
"And what involvement do the two of you have in this?" Steel wanted to know.
If Miss Scott was intimidated by his questioning, she didn't show it. "He wanted diaries of a typical school day, one from a pupil and one from a teacher. We were selected to provide them."
"Anything else?" Steel asked sharply.
"Well, they are going to put in the current number one single, a newspaper from the day, a comic and an hourglass."
"An hourglass?" Sapphire echoed.
Miss Scott nodded. Then she looked at the woman's curious expression. "You must know what an hourglass is?"
"A crude device for measuring time," Steel said, a hint of irony in his voice.
"The perfect trigger mechanism," Sapphire confirmed. "Simple, non-mechanical and in use over many generations."
Steel was thinking now, pacing around the hall. "But there must be something else." He snapped his fingers and turned to Robert and Miss Scott. "These dairies. Where are they?"
Miss Scott frowned. "Mine is in the Headmaster's safe, ready for the ceremony. Why?"
"We may need to read it," Sapphire said. She looked at Robert. "Is yours there too?"
The boy looked guilty. "No, Miss. I've not written mine yet."
"I think we need to open this safe," Steel said, leading the way out of the hall.
"You can't do that," Miss Scott protested, following him. "It's not right."
Sapphire and Robert followed the two of them. As she walked, Sapphire called out mentally to Steel.
"Robert was lying. He has written his diary."
"Why would he lie?" Steel asked.
"I'm not sure. Some deeply buried secret he has put into the diary. It's hidden in the boiler room."
"We'll deal with the teacher's diary first," Steel decided. "I'm at the Headmaster's office now."
"We'll be with you shortly," Sapphire answered as she and Robert hurried to catch up.
***
Sapphire and Robert arrived at Mister Brunswick's office to find Steel already examining the Headmaster's safe. Miss Scott was still protesting.
"This is outrageous! I don't even know who the two of you are!"
Steel turned his cold, hard gaze upon her. "We're the only two who can possibly save your future."
This confused Miss Scott, who turned to Sapphire. The blonde haired woman smiled.
"He means we're all in a very dangerous situation, and the two of us are best equipped to deal with the hazards we are likely to face." Her smile broadened. "I'm afraid Steel isn't much of a diplomat."
Steel glared at his colleague but said nothing. Instead, he placed his hands either side of the combination lock of the safe, framing it with his thumbs. He closed his eyes and concentrated.
As if by itself, the wheel spun, first one way, then back again. It stopped in four specific places, coming to rest upon the number twelve.
Steel opened his eyes and reached for the handle. The safe swung open with a loud click.
"How did you do that?" asked a shocked Miss Scott.
"Well, while Steel doesn't have much in the way of manners, he does have other skills," Sapphire told her.
Steel was riffling through the safe. He discarded a petty cash box, a large envelope containing exam papers and some small toys, probably confiscated from children in class. He pulled out an exercise book, a vinyl disc in a paper sleeve and an hourglass.
"Looks like we have everything," Sapphire commented. "Except Robert's diary."
Again the boy looked at his shoes, saying nothing.
Steel was flicking through the exercise book. The front was inscribed: -
A Typical Working Day
By Mary Scott
English Teacher
Northwood Secondary Modern School
16th September 1968
"That's private!" Miss Scott exclaimed.
Steel raised an eyebrow at her. "You were content to let it be buried and dug up in the future for people to read. What's the difference?"
"Well, I didn't expect to be around when it was read," she answered lamely.
Sapphire was examining the vinyl disc. A paper label was stuck to each side. She examined one. A company logo dominated the top of the label, while at the bottom were the words: -
Hey Jude
The Beatles
(Lennon/McCartney)
She passed her hand over the disc. Her eyes became a brighter shade of blue for a few seconds, then returned to normal.
"A form of recording," she decided. "Musical. Words and sound combined. Interesting."
"You sound like you've never listened to a record before," Miss Scott said.
"I haven't," Sapphire replied with that slight smile of hers. Miss Scott shuddered.
Steel dropped the diary onto the Headmaster's desk. "Nothing in there but trivia," he concluded.
For some reason she couldn't explain, Miss Scott felt offended. But she decided to keep her feelings to herself. Certainly this arrogant man wouldn't care what she thought. The woman, while more civil, was just as strange.
Sapphire had finished examining the record. "What about that?" she asked her partner, indicating the hourglass.
He reached towards it, but as his fingers were almost closed around the top, the hourglass vanished. So did the diary and the record.
Steel looked up at Sapphire. "Now what?"
"Time moved forward again. We're now just one day away from the capsule being buried."
"We need to look at the other diary," Steel decided. He looked down at Robert. "Whereabouts in the boiler room is it?"
Robert gasped. "How did you know?"
"Never mind how," Steel snapped. "We need to look at your diary."
Miss Scott stepped between them. "Now, I may not know what's going on here, but I am still a teacher and Robert is still one of my pupils. I won't stand by and see him spoken to like that by a stranger."
Steel was getting visibly angry. Sapphire decided to intervene.
"We only want to look at Robert's diary," she told Miss Scott, trying her most disarming smile.
"You can't!" Robert shouted.
"Why not?" Sapphire asked in a reasonable tone.
The little boy looked like he was about to burst into tears. Then he saw Miss Scott looking at him with sympathy and he steadied himself.
He turned to Steel. "Is it really important?" he asked in a small voice.
Steel sighed, reigning in his frustration with the child. "Yes, it could be very important."
Robert nodded. "I'll show you," he said to Steel. "Just you." He shot a fearful glance at Sapphire and Miss Scott.
Steel was mystified. He shot a questioning look at Sapphire, who just shrugged and smiled.
"Very well," Steel said, standing aside so Robert could lead the way.
"Have fun," Sapphire called as the man and the boy walked down the steps into the boiler room.
***
The exercise book was hidden behind a loose brick against the outside wall of the darkened boiler room. The front read pretty much like the teacher's had: -
My School Day
By Robert Harris
Class 9b
Northwood Secondary Modern School
16th September 1968
Steel flicked through the book, as he had Miss Scott's. He can't really read that fast, Robert told himself.
After a few moments, Steel paused. He turned a page back, reading it again. Then he glanced at Robert.
"I assume this is why you wouldn't let Sapphire and Miss Scott come down here?" he asked the boy, arching an eyebrow.
Robert looked down at his shoes. "I didn't think it would matter, writing it down in the diary. It won't be read for a long time, not until after she's dead. Maybe not until after I'm dead too."
Steel nodded, though he didn't understand the complex relationships of humans. That was more Sapphire's department. But he could see the boy was uncomfortable and he didn't want to alienate the child, as he may be useful later.
"Miss Scott won't hear about this. Not from me," Steel assured the boy.
"Really?" Robert jumped up from the small petrol drum he was sitting on. "Thanks, Mister Steel."
The man winced. "Please, just call me Steel," he told Robert. He handed the diary back. "Maybe you should hide this again."
Robert did as he was told. "Is it important?"
Steel's face wasn't clear in the dark. "I'm not certain," he said and Robert was sure he was frowning.
***
Sapphire and Miss Scott were walking the hallways of the building, waiting for the 'men' to finish in the boiler room.
"Why did you become a teacher?"
This wasn't usually an odd question, she got asked it a couple of times a year by new acquaintances and old friends alike. But somehow, hearing this strange woman asking, seemed out of place.
"Well, teaching is in my family, I suppose," she said, reciting her standard answer. "My father was a teacher, and my cousin is too."
Sapphire nodded, seeming to absorb the information. She opened her mouth to make a comment, when the door ahead of them clattered open.
An imposing figure strode out. She was middle aged, with her greying hair wound up into a tight bun behind her head. She wore a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches over a blouse, cardigan and long skirt.
"Who's there?" the woman called down the corridor, her back to them. "Whoever's knocking on my door and running away will get a thick ear when I catch them!"
"Miss Blainey?" Miss Scott said in astonishment. Until then, she had thought that there was just the four of them trapped in the school, herself, Robert and these two strange people. Seeing another familiar face, even if it was one she didn't get along that well with, was welcome.
However, as Miss Blainey turned back to re-enter her classroom, it was clear by the fact that she looked straight through Miss Scott and Sapphire that she didn't see either of them.
"What's wrong with her?" Miss Scott asked as the older woman slammed the door behind herself.
"She's dislocated in time," Sapphire said. When she saw Miss Scott's blank look, she continued. "Your Miss Blainey isn't really here. Not in our timeframe anyway. Whatever is controlling events here is allowing us to see her, but she can't see us."
Miss Scott frowned. "You mean she's like a ghost?"
Sapphire smiled, in the same way Miss Scott smiled at a bright pupil who had almost got the right answer. "From our perspective, yes. "But to her, you and I would be ghosts."
Miss Scott shook her head. "I'm not sure I understand."
"You don't need to," Sapphire told her kindly. "Shall we watch for a while?"
They both looked through the window into Miss Blainey's classroom. She was alone, sat at her desk marking exercise books. Suddenly she looked up, her nose twitching.
At the same moment, Miss Scott noticed the smell. She sniffed too.
"I can smell petrol."
Sapphire nodded. "Me too. I got the smell earlier as well, before you arrived." She glanced back through the window in the door of the classroom. "Look."
Miss Blainey was on her feet now. She took a step towards the door. Suddenly, with a whoosh of sound, the middle-aged teacher was engulfed in flame!
Episode 6
by Steve Lake
Sapphire recoiled as if dealt a heavy blow. The sound she was hearing was deafening, terrifying. Not only was the teacher screaming in pure agony, but also her mind was full of the sound of other people screaming as well - young voices, old voices, raised in fear and terror. A bell began to clamour discordantly, adding to the chaos overwhelming her mind.
Miss Scott seemed oblivious to this. Her eyes were fixed on the horror before them, and she gaped at it in mute disbelief.
Miss Blainey ran towards them, blazing from head to foot. Her hands were held out beseechingly and fire practically dripped from the ends of her fingers.
"Help meeee!" she shrieked. "Help meeee...."
Miss Scott screamed, staggering backwards while clutching at Sapphire's arm, desperate to get away from the thing that charged towards them. But the blonde woman didn't seem to notice. Her face was creased in agony at the noise that battered at her senses.
It was too much. Her eyes rolled upwards into their sockets and she fell backwards to the floor, pulling Miss Scott with her. They fell in a tangled heap on the floor. Miss Scott started to struggle up, trying to pull Sapphire up with her... and froze with a terrified gasp.
Miss Blaney ran up to and then passed through the classroom door, fingers clutching at them, features set into a rictus mask of agony, shrieking madly as she came...
***
"How old are you, Robert?"
Steel was sat near the bottom of the stairs in the boiler room, studying the boy thoughtfully. Robert was sat on the petrol can again, digging idly at the dirt on the floor with the tips of his shoes. The boy had a faraway look on his face - melancholy, brooding, almost - and it was the sort of expression he wouldn't have expected to see on one so young. He didn't look round at Steel to answer the question.
"I'm nine. Ten in a couple of months."
"And how old is Miss Scott?"
The corners of the boys' mouth suddenly drooped and his face took on a more surly aspect. "Dunno," he muttered.
"Older than you," Steel observed casually.
"'Course," the boy shrugged uncomfortably. "She's a teacher, ain't she?"
"She's more than that to you, isn't she Robert?"
The boy blushed, but didn't reply. He was too embarrassed.
"That's why you wrote what you wrote, isn't it?"
Steel's mind was racing, trying to connect this with everything else that was going on here. Sapphire was better at the inter-personal stuff than he was, but sometimes his more abrupt methods had better results.
"You said you wouldn't tell!" the boy blurted suddenly.
"And I won't," he soothed, leaning forward slightly. "But you're afraid that someone else might, aren't you?"
The boy didn't reply, merely stared at his shoes as he dug them more ferociously into the dirt.
"Or has someone already said something? Is that it, Robert? Does someone else know?"
"Shut up," Robert said quietly, almost too quietly.
"What did you say, Robert?"
"I said SHUT UP!"
The boy jumped up from the can and stood upright, glaring at Steel confrontationally, small fists bunched. Again, Steel was struck by how mature the expression on the boys' face appeared to be... yet his reaction was purely that of a child.
"Why can't you leave me alone? Why can't anyone leave me alone? Everyone is always at me! Everyone! It's not fair! It's just not fair!"
He turned and swung a foot at the drum, the shoe clanging solidly off the side. It shifted with a low groan and Steel heard fluid sloshing inside. The thick smell of diesel spirit filled the air. Steel's eyes narrowed.
"Everyone? Who is everyone, Robert?"
"Everyone!" the boy cried bitterly. "Even the other teachers laugh at me! It's not fair!" He began to rain kicks at the can, and it began to rattle and shift alarmingly. The smell of diesel grew stronger. Steel frowned, sat up a little straighter.
"Even worse!" the boy panted. "They laugh..."
Bang!
"At..."
Bang!
"HER!"
Robert's last kick was a powerful one. The can slowly began to topple over. Now the smell of diesel was overpowering, choking almost.
Robert stepped away from the can with a frightened gasp, suddenly realising what he'd done.
"No! No, not again!" he cried.
The can didn't topple more than a few inches. Steel was there, moving across the floor with impossible speed. He stooped and prevented the fall with one hand, before righting it. The way he did it made it look as if the metal container weighed no more than a feather. Then he stared down at the boy, who'd backed across the floor to a dark corner and crouched trembling there, hands clutched to his face.
"Robert," began Steel slowly, stepping round the can and moving slowly towards him. "I think it's time you told me what really happened here..."
"Steel..."
A frightened, agonised whisper flitted across his mind. His head snapped up. The smell of diesel was stronger than ever, mixed with a horrible smell of burning...
Burning flesh.
"Sapphire," Steel muttered, eyes flashing. "Sapphire is in danger."
Steel was at the top of the stairs and moving through the door into the school quicker than Robert could have believed.
But Robert was barely aware of this. His eyes were fixed wide and unblinking upon the petrol can, small frame still wracked by trembling...
Miss Scott shrank away from the terrifying figure before her until her back was pressed firmly against the wall. On the floor beside, Sapphire lay senseless.
Burning fingers reached for them. Miss Scott flinched and cried out.
"Help meeee!" Miss Blaney wailed, face wracked with terrible torment.
But her eyes... Miss Scott suddenly became aware of them. Her eyes told a different story. The pain - at least the pain of the burning - didn't register in those dark eyes. There was a purpose, intent... and an evil intent at that.
They weren't the eyes of the old teacher she knew.
Something... alien was staring back at her.
"NO!"
A commanding voice rang out through the corridor and suddenly there was a figure between them and the wraith reaching for them. The grey-suited man, Steel. Miss Scott couldn't believe how fast he moved. It was like he came from nowhere.
Steel grasped at Miss Blaney's wrists and wrenched them upwards, forcing her back. The flames billowed and roared with a new intensity and suddenly he was overwhelmed by it as well. She screamed again...
But it didn't slow him. He pushed her back step by step towards the classroom, seemingly oblivious to the inferno that raged around him. Miss Scott was suddenly aware of how solid he seemed, and this solidity increased with every step he took forwards towards the classroom. The flames rippled and surged around him but didn't settle, didn't set his suit or his hair aflame. It was like it... slid off from him.
Miss Blaney was still shrieking, but the sound had taken on a different note. Frustration and rage fuelled it. She kicked and struggled in Steel's grasp but could not shake free, nor could she prevent herself from being forced backwards.
Steel reached the door of the classroom and with a final almighty heave shoved the woman back through the entrance. To Miss Scott's amazement, Miss Blaney seemed to pass through the door, as if it weren't there - just as she had before.
The screaming ceased abruptly, as if shut off by a switch. The silence that followed was almost as deafening.
Steel stood braced in the doorway for a moment, as if prepared for a counterattack - but none came. He gave a brief nod, as if satisfied with himself, then turned on his heel and came quickly over to them. She was amazed to see that he was almost completely unmarked from his fiery tussle, except for a single white streak of sooty ash down the front of his otherwise immaculate suit.
What the hell was he?
He knelt beside Sapphire and cradled her head in his arms.
"What happened?" he asked curtly, scrutinising his partner.
"Miss... Miss Blaney. I... we..."
Miss Scott swallowed, voice tailing away. Her mind was reeling from what she'd just witnessed. She was a hair's breadth from going into shock and complete incoherence. Steel glanced up, realised what state of mind she was in, and reached a hand out to grasp her shoulder. She gasped at a sudden feeling of intense pressure, then coolness spread through her entire body. She could feel her heart slowing, her mind unscrambling.
"What... what..."
Steel relaxed his grip. "Never mind," he snapped. "Just tell me what happened!"
Miss Scott took a breath, felt suddenly a lot calmer. Whatever the man had done, it had done the trick. She still felt nervous, apprehensive, but no longer so panicked.
"We saw Miss Blaney coming out of her classroom..."
"Miss Blaney?"
She nodded. "Yes, that woman... the one you... you..."
She swallowed again and shut her eyes. Steel increased his grip again, waited for her to calm down again.
"That thing that was confronting you, yes. That wasn't Miss Blaney."
"But it... we saw her!"
He glanced towards the door. "It was just an image. An echo of her, in time." He glanced back down at Sapphire and his face clouded. "And a particularly twisted image at that. Did it attack you?"
"It just rushed at us. It wasn't able to touch us..."
"Physically, it wouldn't be able to. Images are just that. They have no physical aspect." His mouth twitched downwards slightly. "Usually, anyway. But mentally..."
"Mentally?"
He nodded. "They operate at a mental level." He reached up a hand and gently brushed a strand of hair from Sapphire's forehead. "They can do more damage that way..."
Miss Scott heard the concern in his voice, leaned forward to study the unconscious woman. "Is she badly hurt?"
"I hope not."
There was a grave undertone to his voice that made her shiver. "There's a first aid box in the staffroom..."
"Bandages and iodine can't help... I told you, this was a mental attack." He peered at her face and frowned in concentration as he opened up their mental link.
"Sapphire, can you hear me?"
There was no response. Steel fought to keep his mind focussed.
"Sapphire? Sapphire, talk to me!"
"All right, all right... there's no need to shout!"
Her reply was weak, but it was definite. Steel's mouth twitched again, this time upwards.
"Are you all right?"
Sapphire groaned and twisted slightly on the floor, but kept her eyes shut.
"I'll live. It took me by surprise, rather."
"Surprise?" Steel frowned. "How did it manage that?"
"The sheer ferocity of the attack... wasn't prepared for it. I thought it was just a dislocated image, but it wasn't, Steel. It was more powerful than that." She winced. "I think it's a lot stronger here than we've given it credit."
He snorted. "Credit? That'll be the day... Sapphire, how did it attack you? Not the flames..."
"Noise." Sapphire spoke out loud, sat bolt upright, making Miss Scott jump. She opened her eyes and turned her face to look at Steel. "It was a terrible noise..." she smiled gravely. "Quite overwhelming, in fact."
"So I see..." Steel held Sapphire's gaze for a moment, then flicked a look at Miss Scott. "Did you hear it?" he asked the teacher.
"I heard Miss Blaney screaming..."
"It was more than that... more than just Miss Blaney screaming." Sapphire clutched at Steel's hand. "Steel, it was the whole school... the whole school screaming in fear and agony."
"The unholy sound of chaos..." he murmured, gazing back at her again. "Yes, that's what it likes, isn't it? That's where it draws its power, its strength from..."
"I didn't hear any of that," admitted the teacher. "Miss Blaney screaming was bad enough..."
Sapphire glanced at her. "That wasn't your Miss Blaney."
"Your partner said that too..."
Sapphire glanced back at Steel, said mentally:
"I don't think she believes us."
"I don't think I believe her," he thought back.
Sapphire smiled slightly. "She's real enough..."
"But in the wrong time..."
Sapphire cocked her head on one side. "Really?" she said out loud. "Where's the boy?"
"In the cellar..." Steel helped Sapphire stand up. "There's something down there I think you should see," he added mentally.
"Something important?" she thought.
"Very." Steel's eyes flickered back to Miss Scott. "It involves her."
Sapphire sighed before answering mentally: "I think I can guess."
"That sort of stored emotion can be the most chaotic..." he warned.
"And the most difficult to deal with..."
"True," murmured Steel out loud, eyes centring on hers again. "You would know..."
She smiled gently. "As would you," she replied softly. She noticed the streak of ash running down the front of his suit. "Disgraceful," she said with good-humoured indignation and slowly wiped her hand down his front. It lingered for a second when it passed over his heart before completing its path.
The soot disappeared as if by magic before it.
Miss Scott was watching them all the while through this exchange', trying - and not succeeding - to work out what was going on, dazed and confused by a multitude of conflicting emotions.
"What is going on here?" she blurted.
"Something beyond your understanding," replied Steel, still gazing at Sapphire.
"But something we're going to fix," said Sapphire, smile increasing in radiance. She took her hand away from his chest and stepped back before looking at her. Her smile didn't fade even slightly. She showed absolutely no sign of her ordeal at all. Miss Scott couldn't help but be impressed by her cool demeanour.
"So don't be alarmed, Mary," she added reassuringly, reaching down to help her up. "We'll take care of it." She glanced at Steel again. "We always do."
He raised his eyebrows fractionally. "Let's go back to the cellar," said Steel abruptly. "And collect Robert."
"Robert?" Miss Scott frowned. "What does he have to do with this? He's just a kid!"
"He might have everything to do with this," said Steel darkly, propelling her politely but firmly back down the corridor towards the basement.
***
Robert didn't like being in the cellar any more. It used to be something of a haven for him, somewhere he could be alone with his thoughts, but now it was way too dark and creepy for him - especially on his own like this. He didn't much like that man Steel but at least he was someone to talk to and he did feel safe with him - sort of.
He kept staring at the petrol can. He couldn't help it. The big dark green metal container suddenly held a dreadful fascination for him. He wanted very much to shift it away out of his sight but he couldn't lift it. He didn't like to touch it anyway. It felt... creepy. Made him shiver just to think about it, though he just didn't know why.
The boiler suddenly roared and thumped, making him jump. It was an old machine and was prone to making a lot of noise. He could hear the soft whoosh of the pilot light, saw the dull orange glow of the flames behind the inspection cover... a nice, warm, friendly glow. Couldn't beat a roaring fire, his dad always said. Good for all sorts of troubles...
Robert stepped closer to the boiler, fascinated by the glow, the warmth...
Something rattled the handle of the door at the top of the stairs. Robert spun round with a frightened gasp.
"Who's there?" he stammered. "Mr Steel? Miss Scott?"
A high pitched, malicious chuckle drifted down through the darkness.
"Who's that?" Robert cried.
"Bobby loves teacher, Bobby loves teacher..."
It was a child's voice, singing softly but cruelly. Another voice joined it, then another and another... until an entire malicious chorus of voices had built up and assailed him from the gloom. Robert clapped his hands to his ears, face screwed up into a tight knot of despair.
"Shut up! Shut up!" he screamed.
But he could not blot the sound out. It got louder and closer until he felt like he was surrounded.
"Bobby loves teacher, Bobby loves teacher..."
"Shut up! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
Robert whirled round and round the room wildly, as if trying to escape, crying out at the top of his lungs in a desperate attempt to drown that dreadful sound out.
He didn't see the petrol can when he careered into it. He stumbled and fell over it with a sharp cry, tumbling breathlessly to the floor.
The can toppled over with a heavy clang. The top came loose and fluid gurgled and splashed across the floor.
A thin trail began seeping inexorably towards the roaring boiler...
Episode 7
by Terrence Keenan
A thin trail of petrol slid towards the roaring boiler....
Steel reached the entrance to the boiler room, flung open the door....
The explosion ripped through the hall. Steel flew past the skidding Sapphire and Miss Scott, slammed up against the far wall of the hallway. The flames poured out of the boiler room, engulfing all in their path.
Sapphire stood her ground. Her eyes glowed.
The flames slowed, then stopped.
Miss Scott cowered behind Sapphire, unsure what to make of what was happening. She felt the intense heat of the flame, coughed as the stench of burning petrol filled her nose and lungs.
The flames came no closer.
"I'm holding it steady, Steel, but I won't be able to do it for long."
Steel stood up, ignored the pain in his back and joined Sapphire.
"Can you find out how?"
Sapphire nodded. Her entire body glowed. The flames receded back further, till they reached the entrance to the boiler room, then held firm.
"It's the best I can do. Time is holding firm here."
The flame swirled in the doorway, weaving patterns, almost dancing in the air.
Steel saw the strain on his partner's face.
"Can you tell anything?" Steel asked
"No." Sapphire took a step forward, a determined look on her face. "The strain is lessening."
"Do the best you can, Sapphire."
Miss Scott slumped to the floor in a dead faint.
Steel felt time shift in the hall. The flames dissolved into thin air. He looked for Miss Scott, but the woman had disappeared.
Sapphire came out her trance, her body shaking.
"What happened, Steel?"
"There was a shift in time. The fire is gone and so is Miss Scott."
The hall had changed, took on a more modern appearance. Sapphire and Steel headed for the boiler room.
The boiler room had changed. Gone was the ominous cast iron, oil fired burner that filled the room with choking fumes. Gone was the cracked and scorched cement walls. In their place, the walls had fresh gray paint. A natural gas furnace one third the size of the oil beast had been placed in the corner.
There was no sign of Bobby, either.
"I can't feel the presence of Bobby, Steel."
"I thought as much."
"Is there any explanation?" Sapphire asked.
Steel shook his head. "It's as if time reset itself."
"The hourglass has been flipped over?"
"As apt a metaphor as any."
Back in the hallway, they saw an older man arranging chairs in one of the room in the community center.
"The man, Robert." Steel whispered. "Oblivious to anything that's occurred."
Sapphire walked over to a framed newspaper article, read it:
Yesterday, in Ispwich, the new Mary Scott Community Center was opened on the grounds of the Islington Public School. The main lecture halls had been destroyed in a tragic fire in September of 1968, due to an explosion of suspicious origins. Mary Scott, a teacher at the Islington died in the tragedy....
Steel joined Sapphire in front of the article.
"That makes sense," Steel said.
"The event itself is the trigger."
"Yes. I think we've been attacking this from the wrong angle."
Sapphire paused. "So where does the boy," she said, pointing at the adult Robert, "fit into this."
"I have the feeling that time wants to claim him."
"He's not supposed to be here."
"No, Sapphire. He's not." He turned to his partner, gave Sapphire a half smile. "I believe that he should have died in the fire at the schoolhouse thirty years ago."
"Into the past we go, then."
"Yes. To see the probem from a different angle."
Authors Note
Um, this was a challenge, for the dual reasons of having to follow six excellent episodes and work in a format (S&S) I am unfamiliar with. I hope I acquitted myself nicely with this rather brief episode.
Episode 8
by Penpal
Bob was getting rather nervous. An hour had passed and not even one member of the drama club had turned up. He started wondering if he'd made a mistake. Jeez, not on his first night! He checked his diary, then he looked at his watch. There was no mistake, tonight the drama club would rehearse their new play. Bob frowned. Perhaps the rehearsal had been cancelled and someone had forgotten to inform him. He went to the telephone that was hanging on the wall and started dialling the number he'd been given. Then he stopped. The line was dead. He fumbled in his pocket for his mobile phone. When he checked the display, he noticed there was no signal.
Suddenly words were forming in the back of his mind.
Hey Jude, don't let me down.
You have found her, now go and get her.
Remember to let her into your heart.
Then you can start to make it better.
For some reason the song kept popping up, almost as if someone was trying to send him a message. The words seemed to take on a new meaning. Bob shivered, it gave him the creeps. This whole damn building gave him the creeps. He should have kept the promise he'd made to himself thirty years ago, never to return here. He decided to wait outside, in the frosty cold of the winter evening.
When he reached the entrance and opened the door, there was nothing but darkness outside. He even doubted if there was any oxygen out there. It might have been the end of the universe for all he knew. He stepped back, feeling dizzy.
"Hello Bob," a pleasant woman's voice said. "I'm glad to see you've changed your mind. It wouldn't be the same without you."
He looked up, startled to see a beautiful woman with long blond hair and a dazzling blue dress. "Who are you? Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
"You might have," answered the woman, smiling. "In another life."
"Come again?"
"We've got no time for games, Sapphire," said the man next to her. There was irritation in his voice. "Time itself is playing enough tricks on us already." He turned to Bob and fixed his steely blue eyes on him. "We have to talk, Bob. Or Robert. Or whatever your name is. We have to talk now."
"Talk? About what?" Bob cleared his throat. "Look, if you've come for the drama club..."
"We are here because of that." Steel gestured at the vast darkness, lurking outside like a predator. "We think it's looking for you. That it wants you."
"Looking for me?" Bob laughed nervously. "Who are you? Is this some kind of joke? Where's the hidden camera?"
Steel tried hard not to lose his patience. "Does that look like a joke?" he snapped.
Bob shook his head. "No, it... it looks weird," he admitted. "I've never seen anything like it. But what in blazes are you talking about? Why should it... want me?"
"Do you remember the fire, Bob. Thirty years ago?" asked Sapphire in a soft voice.
"The fire?" The blood drained from the caretaker's face.
"You do, don't you?" Sapphire urged.
Bob nodded.
"You should have died in that fire," Steel told him bluntly. "But for some reason you didn't. Now Time wants to reclaim you. The question is why and why has it picked this time frame?"
"Time frame?"
Steel glanced at Sapphire. "He doesn't understand," he told her telepathically.
"Leave him to me," she answered. "Bob," she continued aloud. "Tonight is the first time in thirty years you went back here, isn't it?"
"How... did you know?" he stammered.
Sapphire smiled reassuringly. "It's our business to know these things. Now, why did you return?"
It took some time before Bob had regained his composure. "Well, they offered me a job, didn't they? To work as a caretaker in the community centre. I was only too glad to accept, because frankly I'm skint."
Steel gave him a penetrating look. "Who offered you the job?"
"I haven't seen anybody, if that's what you mean. I received an e-mail, asking if I was interested in an evening job. They told me I would get paid extra, because of the irregular working hours. It was signed by someone called John Smith. He asked me if I could start work straightaway."
"So out of the blue you received an...e-mail" - Steel cast a wondering glance at Sapphire - "by someone you never heard of, and you accepted the job without questioning?"
"It's a recently developed way of communicating via computers," Sapphire explained mentally.
"Well..." Bob shrugged. "As I've told you, I was flat broke. Their timing was perfect."
"Yes, one could say that," Steel muttered darkly.
"And you haven't met this John Smith, have you Bob?"
The caretaker shook his head. "When I replied that I accepted the job, he sent me a detailed list with instructions. He said we would meet soon."
"Do you still have the list Mr Smith gave you?" Steel asked.
Bob searched his pockets. "Why yes, I must have it somewhere." After a while he gave up. "That's odd, I can't seem to find it."
"Never mind," Sapphire said. "There's something else we've got to know. And it's very important." She was silent for a moment, then she gave him a sad smile. "This might be difficult for you, Bob, but Miss Scott, the teacher who died in the fire thirty years ago... she was your mother, wasn't she?"
The silence seemed to last for ever.
Bob nearly passed out. Steel took him to a chair in the hall and sat him down. Then he fetched him a glass of water from the canteen.
The caretaker gulped it down. "It's impossible," he croaked after a while. "Totally impossible. Nobody knows about this. Except my father, and he's been dead for ages." He looked at the man and the woman standing next to him. "You simply can't know this. Who told you?"
Steel gave him a clinical glance. "You did."
"We know about the little poem you wrote in your diary," Sapphire continued. "It gave us a clue. The rest was conjecture."
"But... but my diary was destroyed in the fire." Bob's voice was filled with anxiety. "You cannot have read it. Who are you?"
Sapphire smiled reassuringly and put a hand on Bob's trembling shoulder. "I'm Sapphire." She nodded at the man next to her. "This is Steel, my colleague. We're here to help you, Bob. But you have to answer some questions first."
Sapphire's touch seemed to relax him a little. "All right. Go ahead."
Sapphire looked him straight in the face. Again a strange blue light emanated from her eyes. "Please tell us how you found out that Miss Scott was your mother."
The caretaker started to talk as if he'd been hypnotised. "Miss Scott wanted me to stay after school one day. To help her with something. When we were alone she told me she was my real mother. She said she wanted to adopt me, because my dad beat me and stuff. I didn't believe her. My mother died when I was little. I got angry with Miss Scott and ran away. To the boiler room."
"When was this?" Sapphire asked.
"October 1967. I remember the school yard was covered in fallen leaves."
"And eventually you did believe Miss Scott?"
He nodded. "Later on she showed me some old documents to prove she was my real mother. When I was still a baby my Mum and Dad adopted me, because Miss Scott was too young at the time to look after me. She was allowed to see me from time to time though, but after a year my parents moved. They didn't leave any address. Miss Scott had just got her job at the Islington when I came to the school. She recognised my Dad and couldn't believe her luck. Then she..."
"Why did you write the poem?" Steel interrupted.
"To comfort her. Or myself rather. Somehow the children in my class noticed there was something going on between her and me. They often pestered me because of it. Bobby loves teacher, they would chant. It was horrible. I knew I would never show the poem to Miss Scott. But I liked the idea that her diary and mine would be buried together in the time capsule."
"Do you still remember it?" Sapphire asked.
"The poem? Yes." He started to recite. "Oh, I wish I could turn back time..."
Steel quickly covered Bob's mouth with his hand. "Not aloud! It might be dangerous."
Bob suddenly sat upright. The blue light disappeared from Sapphire's eyes as if a switch had been turned off. "Dangerous?" he repeated.
Steel nodded. "Never say the poem aloud. Something or someone might try to make you do it, but you must resist. It's vital that you resist. Do you understand?"
"I... I don't know." Bob hesitated. "It's all rather confusing."
Steel glanced at Sapphire. There was a grave look on his face. "It's what I feared," he told her mentally. "When I saw the poem in his diary I knew it would be trouble. Bob's tried to hide it, but Time found out. Together with the hourglass and the recording, the poem will be a powerful trigger."
"And now that Bob's back in the building, history is going to repeat itself," Sapphire concluded.
"Or is it?" Her colleague frowned. "We don't know half of it yet, Sapphire." He turned to Bob who had been watching them intently during their telepathic conversation. "Tell us about the fire,' he said aloud. "How did it start?"
But before the caretaker could answer, large flames started to dance around him.
Episode 9
by Rivanstar
"Argh!" Bob yelled, shielding his face from the intense heat. The fire crackled as it drew closer, from all around him.
"Ignore it, Bob," Sapphire urged.
"But it burns!" Bob cried.
Sapphire walked quickly through the flames, took hold of Rob's hand, and placed it firmly in her own. "It doesn't burn, Bob. It isn't real," she told him, and the fire was gone. "Merely a projection, an afterimage. It will only hurt you if you let it." She smiled.
"Follow me," Steel ordered, walking briskly out of the door without waiting for a response. Sapphire went to follow him, but turned to see Bob, who was standing still, perplexed.
"Come on," she encouraged, outstretching her hand. "I know this is confusing Bob, but please trust us. Something is out to get you, and we can protect you from it. You have to believe us. We might not have much more time." Bob seemed to struggle with his thoughts for a moment, then reluctantly followed.
"Come to the boiler room," Steel sent mentally.
"Ok, Steel." Sapphire thought back.
Sapphire and Bob strode quickly out through the door, and down the corridor. The light bulbs above pulsed with energy as they passed, then exploded, showering them both in glass and leaving them in darkness. Rob paused for a moment, brushing himself off and trying to see through the blackness. Mere seconds later the corridor was bright again, but not by bulb light. The red light of fire shone off of the walls, and in its ruddy glow were the silhouettes of children, writhing and screaming in fear and agony. Their young cries echoed through the corridor as the crackling flames consumed their shadowy flesh. Bob flinched and fell to his knees, covering his face with his hands in an attempt to block out this horrendous sight.
"This isn't real either. Not anymore." Sapphire said. She spoke quietly and reassuringly, but her voice seemed to reach clearly over the noise. She walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. It was dark again, and silent. "Follow quickly please." The blond elemental requested, walking off. Confused and frightened by this real nightmare, Rob got up off the floor and quickly caught up with her. They travelled along the rest of the corridor and down to the boiler room where Steel stood waiting.
"This is where the fire started isn't it, Bob?" Steel said as soon as they entered. He had lit a small lantern and had placed it near the door.
"I don't know." Bob replied, nervously.
"You knocked over the can of oil and the heat from the boiler started the blaze,"
"I ... no."
"And the fire spread," Steel said darkly. "Spread across the school killing many innocent men, women and children."
"I ... yes," Bob whispered, barely audibly. "It was me."
"Steel," Sapphire sent telepathically, after a moment of silence where Bob was held under Steel's unforgiving gaze. "Something is wrong. Usually when we find the clues here, Time attempts to take away the evidence. I don't think this information is right, or at least not complete, and he was very young at the time. We are still missing hard evidence." Sapphire then spoke out loud to Rob. "You didn't see the fire start, did you Bob?"
"No," the man admitted. "I was outside when it happened."
"So, you don't know for sure that you did start the blaze," Sapphire said. She sent him a reassuring smile. "I think there is still more to learn."
"Sapphire, why did Time send us back?" Steel asked, changing the subject. "Back to the present when it already had Bob in the past, just where it wanted him to be. Was it because of us? Has it given up because of our interference? We do have a reputation for beating Time, haven't we?"
"We have," Sapphire said, with a brief smile. "But no, that isn't the answer, well, not all of it at least. Time is still here, Steel, in this room and throughout the building. It was tormenting us in the canteen and the corridor. It hasn't given up."
"Then why?" Steel asked. Sapphire was silent so Steel continued. "It must be waiting for something," his eyes brightened as he thought of something. "Sapphire, when did the fire start?"
"Not long after we were there before," She reminded him. "29 years, 7 months and 13 days ago."
"What time?" Steel pressed.
"Approximately 10.15pm," Sapphire claimed.
"And what time is it right now?"
"9.48pm," she replied.
"That's what it's waiting for," Steel realised. "It has put us back here to wait, and because you and I were interfering, realising too much. But, we still have more to learn." He paused a moment. "Two diaries, a record, all from the sixties. Why an hourglass? A time capsule is placed in the ground to show future generations how the people of the time lived. They had clocks to measure time in the sixties didn't they?"
"It was the school symbol," Bob interjected. "It was Mr Brunswick who put that in. It was engraved with the school's name, address and his name, as the headmaster."
"And what of Mr Brunswick?" Steel asked, turning to Sapphire. "Did he die in the blaze?"
Sapphire was about to reply when she was suddenly overcome by cold. A brilliant flame, cool as ice, leapt up from all around forcing all in the room to flinch away and shield themselves. It vanished as quickly as it came, taking Bob with it.
"What happened?" Steel asked her sharply.
"Time has taken Bob back," Sapphire informed him. "Back to the time frame it is using, just before the blaze."
"Why now?" Steel asked. "We still have a good twenty minutes left before the blaze would start."
"We must have been getting close, Steel." Sapphire stated. "It keeps taking the clues away from us, remember."
"It didn't need a trigger to take him?" Steel asked. "He didn't say a poem or a song."
"The triggers in this room are enough, now." Sapphire guessed. "Bob, the time capsule, the very room itself. A room that Time has weakened ready for Rob to come, to be summoned by a mysterious person who offers him a job he needs so badly."
Steel, a worried expression on his face, took the photograph, the one that was taken at the time the capsule was buried, down from the wall where it hung. He stared closely at Mr Brunswick's image. "Is he the key?" he wondered aloud.
"Mr Brunswick's death was caused by the blaze," Sapphire answered her partner's earlier question, her eyes blazing blue, focusing the newspaper article she once held. "But he wasn't burnt to death like the others."
"What then?"
"He ... he was buried alive," Sapphire said, still concentrating. "Injured, but living, trapped under rubble. It was January and very cold. For days he was there, under the rubble, freezing, so cold." She shivered. "The days were torment and the nights were worse. It took three long days for him to die of thirst and cold, and they found his body but a few hours after. That's what the records say."
"Killed because of the fire," Steel mused. "But not by it. Is he the cold fire? You said it was sentient when it attacked you when we arrived here. And now, it collects Robert when Brunswick's name is mentioned."
"It could be so," Sapphire said, taking the photograph from Steel and looking at it. "Mr Brunswick probably wants Robert to suffer, to feel the pain the boy escaped from and he didn't."
"You said that Robert was meant to die in the fire," Steel reminded her. "Not that spirits of the past wanted revenge."
"I might have been wrong," Sapphire conceded. "But Brunswick may believe that the boy should have died. Maybe that is what I sensed."
"Bob escaped from being burnt," Steel thought aloud. "The conditions of this escape must be important."
"Perhaps," Sapphire said. "He said he wasn't in the building when the fire raged, but I got the feeling from him that his memories of the event are twisted, after being buried for so long because they were so traumatic. Asking him about wouldn't have helped." She paused a moment in thought, then put the photo back where it originally hung. "There is one thing that does bother me. Why would Time be trying to kill Robert? What will come to be if he dies? Time does not act on the grievance of one man who died in an accidental fire. Time has its own purpose."
"Whatever it wants, it can't be good," Steel concluded.
"No," Sapphire agreed.
"Take us to Robert, Sapphire!" Steel said. "Use the corridor Time has created and take us back! The answers are back there, not here. We need to see this as it happen." He walked behind her and gently put his hands on her shoulders. Sapphire, her eyes pulsing with blue light, stood still, mentally breaking through the barriers that Time had placed to block the passageway through times. In moments, they were back in the sixties. The boiler room was dark and empty, and Sapphire and Steel rushed through the door and out into the corridor, but paused for a moment to listen. The sound of beautiful singing was about them, the heavenly voices of a young school choir, rehearsing into the night.
"They will die in the blaze?" Steel wondered.
"Most of them, yes," Sapphire said, sadly.
They marched towards the office, down the corridor and passing a variety of children's portraits and drawings on a cream-coloured wall.
"What's down there?" Steel wondered telepathically, looking down a corridor he hadn't noticed before.
"That part of the building was totally destroyed in the blaze," Sapphire explained. "It was beyond saving and they did not rebuild it." They started to move again, heading towards the teachers offices. "Steel!" she called mentally after a few seconds, stopping still near, what was at that time, the main entrance. "Wait!"
Just as he turned a man walked through the door. Dressed in a black suit, with dark hair and an air of pomposity, he walked passed, not noticing the invisible two.
"Mr Brunswick?" Steel asked.
The man paused a moment, looking at a school map. Sapphire quickly walked up to him and touched him gently. "No," she stated after a moment. "He is, or was, Mr John Eithen Smith. He worked for the countries government. He has found about Miss Scott and Robert and is suspicious of them, but," she paused a moment, her eyes pulsing as she concentrated on the man. "There's something more. Something hidden, something dark." Mr Smith, having discovered what direction he would go, walked away.
"He is the man who contacted Bob about the caretaking job," Steel observed. "Did he die in the fire?"
"I believe so, yes," she replied.
Steel strode hastily down the corridor with Sapphire not far behind. As they neared the offices they heard shouting.
"This is school property," a man yelled. "You cannot just walk in here like you own the place."
Sapphire and Steel turned the corner to observe the scene. Two men, one of which was Mr Smith, the other an older man, presumably the head master and caretaker, Mr Brunswick, were arguing. Robert, who was a child again, stood nearby, observing the situation and sobbing slightly.
"I am from the social services," Mr Smith stated.
"I don't care where you're from," Mr Brunswick shouted, his old face red with fury. "Miss Scott is working, and she doesn't want to see you right now. Make an appointment or..." He stopped abruptly as Mr Smith pushed him aside and sent him sliding along the floor. Mr Smith then knocked on the door three times before trying to force it open. From inside comes the voice of Miss Scott, screaming and yelling.
"Don't let him, don't let him in!" she cried.
Finally, the strong man forced the door open, pushing against the smaller Miss Scott who was trying to keep it closed from the other side. The door closed behind him with a bang.
"Was John Smith the force that tried to get to Miss Scott before?" Steel asked. "When she and I were in the office in the present?" That was why she was so frightened. She knew who he was and what he meant."
"Yes," Sapphire agreed. "He had probably been watching them both for a while before this time, and Miss Scott had sensed it. There is something about him Steel, I don't know what it is, but..." she stopped to observe what was going on.
"You're such a troublemaker, boy," Mr Brunswick shouted at the boy, having got up from the floor. He moved to hit young Robert with the back of his clenched fist, and the boy braced himself for the attack. The headmaster stopped mid-swing however, and looked at the boy. He started to laugh, cackling evilly, and turned away from him, heading down the corridor. His laughter echoed though the whole school, and through Time itself.
Sapphire and Steel looked at each other, both frowning.
Episode 10
by S. J. Greenway
"Is he real Sapphire?" asked Steel mentally.
"I think so. I can't be certain unless I can do a proper analysis," replied Sapphire.
Robert stood in the middle of the corridor and watched Mr Brunswick stalk away, his laughter permeating every fibre of the ether. Sobs began to wrack the small boy's body, until he slumped down in a defeated heap next to the classroom door.
Steel winced, his face a mixture of annoyance and incomprehension. "Can't you stop him doing that? You're supposed to be the diplomat after all," Steel asked his partner. There was no reply from Sapphire. She simply stood perfectly still, eyes blazing with crystal blue intensity as she assessed the situation.
"Well?"
"I can't," she replied stonily.
"What do you mean, 'can't'?" barked Steel.
"I mean I can't reach him. He's...sealed off somehow. Something's odd Steel, something's changed... I," she gasped suddenly, "it can't be!"
"What is it?"
"Well I took us back to 9.30pm on the night of the fire. But what we're witnessing, Mr Smith coming to the school, happened at 6.33pm on the day before the fire!" The glow in her eyes faded and she turned to her partner.
"Steel, it's tricked us... it knew what I was trying to do and it shunted us back one day further so that we were out of the way again! There's something... wrong with all this Steel and I don't like it."
"Of course there's something wrong, that's why we've been assigned," said Steel, allowing himself a rare smile.
Sapphire continued. "No I mean something in the way that we're being outmanoeuvred. In the way that I can't be certain of anything. I was wrong about Miss Blainey earlier; I simply took her to be a harmless refraction, and it used my complacency to take the advantage. And take Smith for instance; when I assessed him I could sense the job, the name, the primary agenda... but no personality and no life expectancy."
"But I thought you said he died in the fire with the rest of them," replied Steel.
"No I said I believed he did, but I couldn't be sure. That's just it Steel, that's what's wrong! I'm being blocked. Remember I told you there was something deeper, something dark, cold and hidden in him? It's hiding itself from me because it knows about us. It knows who we are and what we do!"
She paused and took a deep breath, "Remember the darkness Steel?"
Steel's grey eyes narrowed as he regarded his partner. "Tully?"
Sapphire nodded. "I think it's something akin to that. The way it keeps changing the rules and jumping one-step ahead of us. For one thing the visual refractions seem conscious, cognisant of their purpose almost... but there's still something else, something that I just can't see yet."
A muffled whimpering emanated from the classroom. The high Victorian windows didn't offer a view of the events inside the room, but a disquieting un-earthly glow began to seep through the gaps in the doorframe.
Tears streaming down his cheeks, Robert flung himself at the classroom door that separated him from his mother. His fists pummelled the wood frantically, shaking the door in its frame.
"Let her go! You let my mum go!" cried Robert as he wrenched at the handle. "Don't hurt her, please...please don't hurt my mummy," Robert's voice trailed away as he gave into the tears.
A low pulsing hum began to emerge from the locked classroom, the floor under their feet shuddered from the vibrations. Robert stepped slowly back from the door, fear contorting his every feature.
"Can you get in there?" asked Steel.
Sapphire nodded, "I think so." She placed both her hands against the frame and stared straight ahead, as if looking through the closed door. Her irises began to shimmer, a deep hypnotic blue radiating in each eye whilst she concentrated intently on sending her mind into the classroom.
Particle by particle she began to think her way through the door. This was a simple task for one of her kind. Colleagues like Steel and Lead found it more difficult due to their more grounded natures but for her, it was a basic procedure; why then was she finding it so difficult?
"What's wrong Sapphire?" her partner asked.
"I don't know, I... can't...seem to... break away..." She stepped away from the door and the light in her eyes faded. "I just can't project," she replied.
"Try harder!" Hissed Steel. "You've got to get in there!"
Sapphire's eyes glowed once again, and she resumed her position at the door. She visualised herself walking through the door, this time focussing all her will on dissolving the tether between her physical and her astral body. All at once she felt that familiar shift in her body; a small, almost imperceptible shiver as her consciousness divided and her projected self stepped seamlessly through the door into the classroom.
Miss Scott stood with her back to the door, whilst Mr Smith stood in front of her, his hands either side of her head. She trembled, her heels beginning to rise out of her shoes as Smith's hold on her rigid body lifted her up towards his face; a face that was now elongating and stretching into a grotesque mask of desire and hunger. His eyes glowed red and what was once his mouth had become a cavernous black maw, pursed and funnelled. As Sapphire watched, a wisp of grey smoke began to emanate from Smith's jaws, and was sucked into Miss Scott's gaping mouth.
"Steel he's... it's using Smith as a host! It's trying to jump to Miss Scott!" cried Sapphire.
"Jump? Jump into her body Sapphire?" asked Steel.
"Yes, it's...it's a sort of parasite. I'm going to try to communicate with it."
"No Sapphire!" barked Steel. "Don't try that, it's too dangerous! Come back here now!"
"It's all right Steel, I know what I'm doing. Just stay close and try to open the door from your side."
"Sapphire! No!" cried Steel. "Sapphire are you listening to me?" No reply. He moved Sapphire's body gently to one side and approached the door. His hands skimmed over the doorknob and felt for the lock. This was an average lock; just a couple of twists and it would burst open under his expert touch. Metal always obeyed him. But just as Sapphire had found difficulty in projecting through the door in the first place, so Steel now found resistance in the lock. He began the process again, this time focussing all his will on the mechanism.
Sapphire tried to move toward Miss Scott in order to communicate with the entity that was pouring itself into her, fragment by fragment. She placed her ghostly hand on Miss Scott's shoulder and the familiar blue pulse lit up her eyes.
"Can you hear me? We wish to talk with you. We wish to communicate with you. Please acknowledge." There was a strange whistling sound, a rushing of air and Miss Scott whipped round to confront Sapphire. It was no longer the Miss Scott that Sapphire had befriended in the corridor. The creature had taken on most of her body but it had not quite melded with the facial features of its new host, and the countenance that now confronted Sapphire was a disturbing fusion of its two sources.
Miss Scott's normally green eyes were now ragged black holes, with just a pinprick of crimson light glowing deep in each socket. Her nose was a vertical slit in the middle of her face and her mouth now resembled that of the creature, a yawning pit of oblivion.
The knife-like screaming began again and Sapphire clutched her ears in a vain attempt to block out the sound. She felt her legs buckle under her and she slumped to the floor, all the while staring into the red eyes of her assailant.
"Steel it's...I can't... breathe... Steel!" cried Sapphire, Steel's name echoing around the atmosphere.
"Sapphire come out of there! Now!" hollered Steel.
"I... I can't Steel... I..." her voice faded away as she fell into unconsciousness.
"Sapphire! Sapphire speak to me!" Steel passed his hand over the lock once more, this time pushing with all his strength with his free hand. As he did so, he heard the children's choir singing once more behind him, their angelic voices floating down the hallway and surrounding him with their harmonies. He turned slightly to look for Robert, but instead was confronted by a small group of children all staring at him intently. There was no sign of Robert in the corridor. No sign of the corridor itself. Only the darkness remained. The same darkness that had encircled the outside of the school building, now pervaded the inside of the corridor, as the spectral figures of the school choir maintained their silent vigil over him.
Steel turned slowly back to the lock. A piercing scream came from behind him, and he could feel the freezing cold flames licking at his back as the children blistered and screeched. He turned to see them engulfed in the blue fire, writhing in a seething mass of charred limbs and contorted faces. For a moment he almost succumbed to their pleading out-stretched hands and then he remembered. Only their eyes betrayed their true purpose. The same malevolence that had been present in Miss Blainey's eyes as she had burned in front of him.
He forced himself to turn back to his task once more and gave one hard push. There was a loud crunching sound and the handle plate sprang off and fell to the floor. The door creaked on its hinges and swung an inch or two ajar. The classroom was silent, and so now was the corridor. Steel snatched a glance behind him and saw the hallway had returned to its normal state, bathed in the stark light from the overhead bulbs. Robert was crouching against the far wall, gazing wide-eyed at the doorway, waiting to see who would appear. Steel stepped back and waited.
The door opened and Miss Scott emerged. She stepped into the corridor and stood in front of Robert. Steel examined her features. Her face showed no sign of alteration. It was to all intents and purposes the same Miss Scott who Sapphire and he had befriended earlier.
"Mum!" Cried Robert, and flung his arms around her waist. "Mum are you all right, did he upset you?"
Miss Scott stood absolutely stiff, not moving a muscle. She looked straight ahead, not once glancing down at her son. "I'm perfectly all right Robert. In fact... everything's going to be all right now," she said, somewhat haltingly.
"But where's Mr Smith, and what did he want?" asked Robert.
"Oh he just wanted to let me know that there'll be no more problems for us. He's going to go back to his department now and file a report saying that everything's in order. Aren't you Mr Smith?" She extended a hand out towards the door.
Mr Smith moved silently through the door, looking dazed. His eyes were dull and empty looking, and he moved like someone being puppeted. "I... I'll be leaving now," he mumbled.
"Oh Mr Smith don't go far will you? I'm sure Mr Brunswick would like to speak to you before you leave," said Miss Scott.
"Oh... quite," said Mr Smith, that same confused expression washing over his features. Steel watched as the tall man turned and began to stumble down the corridor towards the basement.
"What are you doing here anyway Robert? You should be in choir practice shouldn't you?" said Miss Scott. "Now run along this instant."
"But Mum I..."
"I said run along Robert. I'm going to find Mr Brunswick... we have a little matter to discuss, but I'll come and find you later, so mind you do as you're told young man." Miss Scott turned on her heel and walked briskly away down the corridor leaving Robert standing looking after her. He watched until she had gone out of sight and then slowly wandered into the main hall.
"Sapphire! Sapphire are you there?" Shouted Steel telepathically.
"Yes I'm here," said Sapphire from behind him. He turned to see that she had managed to rejoin her physical body and she was leaning against the wall where he had left her, visibly drained.
"Are you all right, I thought I'd lost you for a moment?" Enquired Steel, somewhat more tenderly than his usual tone.
Sapphire smiled weakly. "Yes I'm fine. She...it knew I was there. It could sense me and tried to block me again with the screaming."
"Yes, I had a little visit from an aspect of it too whilst I was trying to open the door. It used the choir to distract me. I think I know what you meant now about being blocked'. The lock wouldn't shift at first...and I don't get blocked,' said Steel coldly.
Sapphire smiled once again, but seeing the expression on Steel's face she stifled it. "I don't recognise the creature. I got a good look at it in there and it's not like anything we've seen before. I think I know what it's doing though."
"Oh yes? What?" Replied Steel.
"Well I think it uses human hosts to move through time. Rather like hitching a ride if you like,"
"I don't like," snapped Steel.
Sapphire continued, ignoring her partner's jibing. "It still must have to locate a weak spot to break through at, and I think Brunswick with his hourglass provided the perfect place to enter this time period. Only now, it's used up all the available hosts here, as they all died in the fire, or in Brunswick's case, as a result of it."
"So now it needs Robert because he's the only link to the future. To it's future. Yes, that makes sense. But if it can manipulate time to the point where it can outwit us and move people back and forth, why can't it just move itself through time that way?" Asked Steel.
"Well I think it can only manipulate the time period it's broken through into. The reason it could pluck Robert from the future was because it was using the Robert of the past to connect with the present. But in order to exist permanently in Robert's present, in order to move on, it needs to bond with him and use him as a stepping-stone. Plus the fact Brunswick's assisting it."
"What do you mean, assisting it'? You mean he deliberately made some kind of deal with it?"
"Yes. I think Brunswick must have encountered the parasite after the fire and made a deal with it to allow him to live again. I think his presence is still here in the building; what they would call a ghost' and it's still sentient. He's using his memories of the place as weapons to block us with, such as Miss Blainey and the children, and the parasite is giving them substance. It's also providing the fire."
"Do you think the ghost' of Brunswick was responsible for sending that message to Rob in the present? After all he'd know the significance of the name Mr Smith to Rob..."
"And that it would be bound to get Rob's attention! Bound to get him to take the job here. Yes, I think you're right Steel. It's bargained its whole future existence on Rob. " Said Sapphire, her blue eyes sparkling in the dim hall light.
"That's why I feel it's akin to the situation at the railway station. Where we found poor Mr Tully."
Steel looked away. That had been a difficult but necessary decision. He couldn't help regretting the deception though.
"I still don't like this Steel. We're the operators, we're the ones who are supposed to be in control of the situation; for the first time, I think I know how it must feel to be one of them," she said nodding in the direction that Rob had gone.
Steel thought for a moment. His flaxen eyebrows rose in an expression of illumination and he straightened. "Sapphire, what did you say about it's whole future depending on Rob?
"I said that in order to further it's existence it would have to be taken to the present by Rob. Why? You... you wouldn't! Oh no Steel, you're not going to do that again, I forbid it! Tully was one thing but a young man, a... a child Steel! That's unnecessary!" She cried, outraged at what she thought her partner was planning.
"I agree."
"What? Well what are you intending to do then?" She asked, somewhat baffled but relieved.
"We're going to allow it to do just what it wants. We're going to allow it to jump to the present and use Rob to hitch a lift' as you called it," said Steel with a mischievous glint in his eye, the kind he only got when he'd got a plan.
"But then what? How will we repair the break and stop it from jumping further ahead?" Sapphire asked.
"I would have thought it was obvious. Once it's in the present, all it's ties with this time period will be cut and it will have to find a new host. We'll need some kind of bate to lure it free of Rob of course and once it's loose we'll capture it and seal it in the hourglass. It'll have all the time it ever wanted!"
"I see. What kind of bate' Steel?" asked Sapphire guardedly.
Steel walked up to his willowy partner and planted a small kiss on her porcelain cheek. "You."
"Oh... well I suppose I am the perfect candidate," said Sapphire. "You'll want me to hold time while you imprison it in the hourglass I assume?"
"Got it in one," beamed Steel. He walked to the door of the main hall and peeped through. There were the children singing softly, being conducted by Miss Blainey and there was Rob in the front row, singing with them.
"Watch him Sapphire, see that he stays put. I'll check on Miss Scott and our friends Mr Smith and Mr Brunswick, see if I can't find out a bit more about their connection. And I'll try to get hold of that hourglass," said Steel.
"Steel, be careful... it has the same powers as us. More perhaps."
Steel regarded his partner steadily. "I will. I'll meet you back here in fifteen minutes." He turned on his heel and strode off down the corridor.
-Write the next episode of
Hourglass
-
