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I think it’s only made it worse.
    I couldn’t watch. Who could watch something like that?
    Grandpa was only awake for a short period of time before he passed out. Those screams. I’ll never forget them. I never want to hear them again. The Doctor’s couldn’t get the bullet out, so they just wrapped it up and moved on to the next patient.
    Kip is dead.
    I killed him.
    Once it was dark enough Grandpa got us to a watering hole, and we drank from it just as some Confederate Soldiers were coming up to fill their canteens. I expected a fight but they were actually very kind.
    By my ‘accent’ they could tell I was from the North but they didn’t much mind. They shared their rations with us and talked of better times. Some of them didn’t even want tomorrow to come.
    Some of them were talking about a hum. I have no idea what they were talking about but Grandpa seemed to. “Drives you nuts doesn’t it?” he asked them.
    “Yea, it gets into yer head.” One agreed with the rest completely clueless about it.
    When we went our separate ways I asked Grandpa about this. He only said. “There are things out there we shouldn’t be metaling with. Cause it tends to come back to test our resolve.” He shuttered but still managed to sound hopeful. It was weird.
    I don’t know what happened next. I think we fell asleep at some point cause the next thing I knew guns were firing all around us.
    It was late in the day. Don’t know how I slept that long but I did see some people at a picnic watching from a hill. That was weird. “Ignore them.” Grandpa waved to them and we went on our way.
    We creeped into town, Confederate soldiers moving around but not really noticing us. I think we might have been heading toward the Time Machine but we didn’t get far.
    A woman in a white jumpsuit plowed into us, just as the stone walls burst to pebbles in flashes of pounding death. Grandpa could get up, did he brake something? I don’t know.
    The woman held out a modern sawed off shotgun and fired back over the wall but was met with her weapon flying apart with the stones, pieces of it everywhere.
    “That’s not going to work.” She turned to me and smiled. “Is it, love?”
    Her suit scrapped the air and covered her body in a grey uniform. “We’re being flanked!!” she yelled to the other soldiers.
    The Confederates in the area all formed up around us and fired at our attacker.
    “Kip.” Grandpa growled as I helped him up but he just couldn’t stand right. “He found me. I don’t know how but he found me. Jason we can’t stay here.”
    “We have him. Look.”
    “No. You don’t understand. He’s not hu-.” Several soldiers blasted away. There was so much blood and limps. I don’t know how we got out of there.
    The woman was still in uniform as she helped me carry Grandpa to the edge of town.
    Kip was there waiting for us. How he got in front of us I’ll never know. Both his fingers snapped, the ground around us exploding. The woman fired her rifle once, and then charged him with the bayonet.
    He broke it in half with his bare hands an she struggled with him. He would have won if not for a series of loud shots puncturing his suit more times than I could count. He fell and didn’t get up. I should have stabbed him right then. I should have known something wasn’t right. 
    When I turned toward the shots I saw Grandpa. I think. He was younger. Much younger. He was also in a tuxedo for some reason. He waved to Grandpa and I and then jumped behind a chimney.
    “Marla.” Grandpa moaned. That’s when I knew.
    “Are you-?” I wanted to ask the woman if she was my Grandma but she held a finger to my lips to silence me.
    “I’m not part of HIS timeline Jason.” She kissed me on the forehead and held my cheek. “Good luck. This is the only freebee you’ll get. For now.”
    I got Grandpa back to the Time Machine on my own. It was long and grueling. It was so humid and sticky, we had to rest in the shade several times.