Read Time Travelers Never Die for Free Online

cell phone. But he apparently didn’t have it. That happens when you don’t know you’re going out.
    “Anybody here?” he said. Then he tried again. Louder. “Hello! Anyone here? Help!”
    The squirrel scrambled up a tree trunk.
    The Q-pod was too big to put into his trouser pockets, so he simply held on to it. And, picking a direction at random, he began to walk.
     
     
    HE kept going over what had happened, how he had come back from the show and had been trying various combinations on the Q-pod. And suddenly he’d been here . He hadn’t awakened here. The place had simply shown up. As if he’d stepped out of his den into this forest. Into the sunlight.
    He hadn’t been drinking. So the only thing that made sense was that he’d suffered a stroke of some sort, or a mental episode. He’d blacked out, gone amnesiac, gotten into his car, and driven out here.
    Wherever here was.
    But that was ridiculous. He had no history of anything like that.
    And where was the car?
    He listened for the sound of traffic. But heard nothing other than birds. And wind.
    The walking got his circulation going, which helped a little. He arrived at a brook. It was too wide to jump, and the last thing he needed was to get his feet wet. He turned right and walked along the bank.
    He’d gone about a mile when he arrived at a place where someone had recently been camping. By then he was seriously cold. He looked at the charred wood. Maybe he should try to start a fire. But he had no matches. Never carried them. And how the hell did you start a fire without matches? Boy Scouts made a big deal of igniting a blaze by rubbing pieces of wood together. He’d been a Scout at one time, but Shel had never attempted to make a fire with a couple of sticks. Neither had anybody else. Except Tommie Barker, who’d always been a show-off.
    He kept walking.
    After a while, he parted company with the brook. The sun was rising higher in the branches, and he heard the sound of a plane. It passed overhead and droned on and droned on and finally began to fade. Moments later he came on a half-buried plow that looked as if it had been out there for a century. A fence appeared, and he followed it, but saw no buildings anywhere, no cows, no plowed fields, nothing.
    Finally, he heard a car.
    It was ahead somewhere, its sound receding. He broke out of the woods and stood at the side of a highway. The car was climbing a hill. It reached the summit and slowly dropped out of sight.
    The road was a two-lane. A stretch about a mile long was visible. Over the hill in one direction, around a curve in the other. He wrapped his arms around himself and waited.
     
     
    A pickup appeared. Coming around the curve. Shel waved. Please.
    The pickup slowed while the driver looked his way. Thought about it. And elected to keep going. Their eyes met as the truck bounced past. The driver was bearded, with white hair, probably in his sixties. Shel watched it start up the hill. Two more vehicles passed, one going each way, before a Prince electric came over the rise and pulled off the road in front of him. Two guys were inside, both in work clothes. Each looked about twenty.
    “Where you headed, pal?” asked the driver.
    He had no idea. “Any town with a restaurant.”
    The right-side door opened and the passenger looked back. “Sheffield’s about four miles ahead.” He nodded toward the curve. “Hop in.” He scrunched over to make room.
    Gratefully, Shel climbed in and pulled the door shut. He closed his eyes momentarily as a wave of warm air engulfed him.
    “You okay?” the passenger said. “You look half-f rozen.”
    “Yes. Thanks. It’s cold out there.”
    “Where’s your car?”
    “Broke down.”
    “Not the best weather for it.”
     
     
     
    THEY left him at a Chevron station with a convenience store that served hot dogs. And good coffee. But they didn’t have a public phone. Probably nobody had a public phone anymore.
    The only resource he had was the few bills