The Time Machine

It was deep in the night (9:27 pm) when Marcus heard the Velociraptors again. He tilted his head toward the door and heard the creaking of the stairs, footsteps maybe, but they had a distinct pattern: click, scrape, click, scrape. It sounded like claws.

It was not the first time this had happened.

Marcus’ dad had a time machine in the garage, which explained a lot.

These were the facts: he had not been allowed in the garage for a few weeks now, he could hear velociraptors creeping around his house at night, and his grandmother was often uncertain about what year it was.

Over breakfast, Marcus announced his discovery to his mother.

“Mom,” he said. “I know why I’m not allowed in the garage.”

His mother immediately frowned. “Marc, I told you not to go in there. Now the surprise is ru-”

“I know dad is building a time machine!” Marcus burst out. “I know he’s building a time machine, and I know that that’s why grandma is acting strange, and that’s why there are dinosaurs in the house!” Marcus’ entire body was shaking at the thought.

Marcus’ mom just blinked at him for a moment. “Right,” she said slowly and then nodded once. “You’re absolutely right. Dad is building a time machine and… and it’s not working exactly right.”

Marcus nodded seriously. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked.

“It’s uh… it’s the motor,” his mom answered.

“Oh, the motor,” Marcus repeated. “That can be tricky.”

“Yeah.” They sat in silence for a moment. Marcus’ mom narrowed her eyes at a middle distance for a few seconds, as if deep in thought, before quickly pivoting to a new subject. “Well, time to go to school,” his mother said, donning her usual cheery expression.

Marcus sighed but marched to the car on the driveway. Second grade was pretty boring, but probably less boring than staying home all day with mom and grandma, who mostly slept all day, so he tried to make the most of it.

As usual, his mom and grandma came to pick him up at the end of the day. When they got home, they also had the usual argument in the kitchen.

“I’m not taking those!” Grandma Rose shouted as Marcus’ mom tried to hand her two pills.

“Rose,” Marcus’ mom sighed. “Please, we fight about this every day. You know you have to take these.”

“No, I don’t! There’s nothing wrong with me! You just want to keep me under control! You’re just like those damned fascists!”

“You need to take these because you have dementia, Rose. I know you don’t remember, and that’s okay, but-”

“I don’t want to hear it! You’re a spy, and I know it! I won’t take anything from you!” Rose waved her arms around so rapidly that she knocked the entire pill bottle off the counter. Luckily, something like that happened often enough that everything was always shut when not immediately in use.

Marcus shook his head as the two of them kept arguing. His mom was pretty smart, especially if she knew how the time machine worked, but why couldn’t she see that the time machine was clearly affecting Grandma Rose? Marcus would have to talk to her about it.

Tuning out the noise from the kitchen, Marcus spent the rest of the afternoon watching Jurassic Park on the TV, for research, until his dad came home. It was far from the first time Marcus had seen the movie; they typically watched it bi-weekly. But this time, instead of closing his eyes when the Velociraptors were on the screen, he tried to watch as best he could (mostly with his hands covering his eyes, peeking through small gaps in his fingers). How else would he learn?

Marcus knew his father was home when his work boots clacked on the tile floor of their back entry.

“Dad! Dad!” Marcus shouted. He leapt up from his position on the floor as his dad entered the living room. “I really need to talk to you about something!” Marcus said desperately.

His dad chuckled a little and patted him on the shoulder. “Give me one minute, kid. I need to check on grandma real quick, and then you can tell me all about your day.”

Marcus huffed. “Okay, but hurry!”

Marcus’ dad went upstairs to go check on Grandma Rose, who had been sleeping ever since Marcus’ mom had finally gotten her to take the pills by saying they were for her eyes, which Grandma Rose endlessly complained about being too dry or too fuzzy. Marcus thought she probably just needed glasses, but when he had pointed that out to his parents one day, they had assured him she didn’t.

His dad returned a few minutes later, now in sweatpants instead of his dusty construction gear.

“So, what’s got you all excited about?” his dad asked.

“I know you’re building a time machine in the garage! Mom told me you can’t get the motor to work!” he practically shouted. His dad’s eyes widened for a single moment before he began to belly laugh until he cried, and Marcus crossed his arms and pouted. “Dad,” Marcus whined. “Be serious!”

His dad sobered up and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Sorry, Marc. I was just laughing because… because uh… because I never expected that you’d figure out my secret.”

“Well, it explains a lot,” Marcus said, his chin slightly upturned, still indignant at the way his dad wasn’t taking him seriously.

“Like what?”

“Like the velociraptors in our house at night! And grandma forgetting what year it is and stuff!”

At that, his dad’s amused grin faltered slightly as he tilted his head slightly, confused, but he kept playing along. “There are velociraptors in our house at night?”

“Yeah! I hear them all the time!”

“Well, I’ve got to be more careful about that,” his dad said. He hazarded a glance back toward Marcus’ mom, who shrugged.

Marcus nodded seriously. “Yeah, it’s a safety hazard. I think you should probably take it apart. It’s causing all kinds of problems. And I don’t want any velociraptors in my room!”

That evening, after it was abundantly clear that his dad wasn’t taking Marcus’ concerns seriously, Marcus prepared to confront the Velociraptors. He had armed himself with two forks and an oversized hoodie with a scale-like print.

The plan was simple:

1. Pretend to be a velociraptor

2. Follow the dinosaurs back to the time machine in the garage

3. Destroy the time machine

When Marcus’ bedtime arrived, his mom came upstairs to check on him and then left. Now, Marcus was ready to take action.

He hid behind his door and peered out into the darkened hallway. Very faintly, he could hear his parents talking downstairs, but only if he really focused on what they were saying, which got boring almost instantaneously when Marcus realized the topic of the conversation was that Marcus’ dad needs to remember not to wear his steel-toed work boots inside anymore because they're scuffing up the stairs.

Marcus sat there for hours (about 30 minutes), but no velociraptors ever came. Feeling defeated, Marcus placed his claws (the forks) on his dresser and removed his scales (the hoodie) with slumped shoulders. He fell into his bed and sighed, a little relieved. Why couldn’t the time machine bring friendly dinosaurs into his house, like the one with the really long neck? Marcus would have no problem meeting that dinosaur, but no, it just had to be the velociraptors, which he knew from Jurassic Park were really not dinosaurs he wanted anything to do with if he wanted to keep his tummy safe (organs intact).

The rest of the nights that week progressed as normal, with the exception of Marcus’ new habit of preparing to follow the velociraptors, which had yet to yield any results.

Marcus didn’t understand exactly why the Velociraptors had stopped coming into the house. He had a few ideas. Maybe his dad added a new safety feature? Or maybe the motor had stopped working entirely, so they couldn’t show up anymore? He really hoped that his dad had just stopped working on the time machine. Marcus was pretty brave, but even he realized that he would probably just cry and run away if he saw any of the velociraptors, and he probably wouldn’t know how to stop the time machine even if he did follow them back to it.

Either way, by the end of the week, Marcus was beginning to believe that the issues with the time machine in the garage were over. That was, until his birthday.

“Okay, Marcus,” his dad said with a big grin. “I know you’ve been wondering why we’ve been keeping you out of the garage for the past two weeks.”

Marcus’ eyes widened, possibly wider than they’d ever been open before, and his entire body started shaking. He looked up at his parents with a terrified expression on his face, and they both looked at each other and frowned.

“No, no, no, no, no!” he shouted. Tears sprung into his eyes. “I told you to stop building the time machine! I don’t want velociraptors to eat me!” he nearly wailed as he ran to his mom and hugged her tightly as he cried into her stomach.

“Hey, Marc,” his dad started softly from a crouched position beside him. “Look at me, buddy.”

Marcus sniffled a little and turned his neck so that his ear rested on his mom’s stomach and he could face his dad.

“I promise you, there is no time machine in the garage,” he said, completely seriously. “But I did build something for you, and I think you’ll really like it. So, if you’re feeling up to it, do you want to see your birthday present?”

Marcus had to take a few breaths to be able to really talk.

“Okay,” he said softly.

Marcus’ mom held his hand as the three of them walked into the garage. There were three noteworthy things in the garage: dad’s car, grandpa’s old motorcycle, and something in front of Marcus that was covered by a sheet.

“Surprise!” Marcus’ dad said with a smile as he pulled the sheet away to reveal a grown-up (child-sized, sans training wheels) bicycle.

“This is a big-kid bike,” his mom said. “Your dad built it himself. You might notice that it looks a lot like-”

“Like grandpa’s motorcycle!” Marcus interrupted excitedly. His eyes noticed the details right away. It was pretty obvious when they were almost side by side. The motorcycle had red flame decals on the sides, and so did Marcus’ bike. The motorcycle had orange handles, and so did Marcus’ bike. Finally, the motorcycle had a black leather seat, and so did Marcus’ bike.

Almost all thought of the fear and anxiety that had filled Marcus before was gone. He jumped up and down.

“I love it! I love it!”

The looks on his parents’ faces were ones of deep relief. His mom then presented him with a helmet. “Want to take it for a spin?” she asked.

“Yeah!”

Marcus rode up and down the quiet residential street that ended in a cul-de-sac. While his parents stood on the sidewalk, watching him.

“See, more tire marks,” Marcus’ mom pointed out to his dad as they examined the street. “I just don’t understand who’s making them.”

Marcus’ dad shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t really matter. Doesn’t wake us up, doesn’t do any harm to Marcus if it’s happening at night.”

“Still.”

“Hey! I bet I could make a tire mark!” Marcus called. He quickly twisted the bike and pulled the brakes as hard as could.

Marcus could not be totally certain what exactly happened (he flew over the handlebars, tried to catch himself with his wrist, broke it, landed on his back, knocked the wind out of himself), but when he could actually think straight for a moment, he was laying on the ground, and everything hurt.

Marcus sobbed as he held his arm close to his chest. His vision blurred as the tears overwhelmed his eyes, but he could see his dad’s frame coming toward him.

“Marcus! Hey, can you show me your arm?”

“No!” Marcus screeched. “Don’t touch it!”

His dad sighed sympathetically. “Okay, buddy, I won’t.” He turned to look at his mom as she ran over. “I think we need to take our little street racer to the hospital.”

The doctors that eventually saw Marcus were pretty nice; they let him get a bright red cast on his arm, and they gave him stuff so it didn’t hurt so much. There was a slight hang-up when Grandma Rose—who they had to bring too because she couldn’t be at home by herself (last time she was, she had left the house and walked two miles to the local library where she began to gather books on the topic of religion and started crossing out sections with black marker)—took one look at the poor intake nurses red face and started screaming that she had the Black Plague (it was acne). Other than that, things had gone by pretty smoothly.

When they got home in the evening, his dad carried him up the stairs to his bed and tucked him in.

His dad noticed the two forks on the dresser and furrowed his brows, but he didn’t say anything.

“Have a good sleep, buddy,” he said.

“Thanks, dad,” Marcus murmured quietly and sadly. That was probably the worst birthday ever, and he was including when grandma burst into his birthday party with his first-grade class last year and told everyone that robots were going to become thieves (steal their jobs) and then almost got hit by their neighbour’s car when she ran out into the street in an attempt to escape the house.

Regardless, Marcus felt content to know that the trouble with the time machine was behind him and that when his arm healed, he would have the coolest bike at school.

* * *

At 3:26 am, Grandma Rose swung her legs down from her bed and promptly made her way down the stairs, careful not to step on the creaky parts.

She opened the door to the garage and stepped inside.

Rose saw the new bicycle next to her motorcycle and smiled. She’d make a traveller out of her grandson yet.

She pressed the start ignition on the bike, twisted the dial to the late cretaceous, and let the engine idle. While she waited for the others to join her in the present, she fiddled with her helmet, which she suspected someone had been messing with because it had recently stopped fitting right.

While making her minute adjustments to her safety equipment, she felt a feathery presence brush up beside her.

“Just a moment, Giancarlo,” Rose said as her fingers tried and failed several times to do up the buckle under her chin.

She received a response in the form of a click.

Rose finally got the clasp to tighten and smiled half-triumphantly. When she turned back to the motorcycle, she saw most of her racing companions were present, except one.

“Friedrich, Theodore, Emiliano, Hans-Joseph,” Rose counted. “Giancarlo!” she called, raising her voice ever so slightly. She shook her head as she heard the clacking sound of his claws re-entering the garage. “Really, Giancarlo? The boy is fine. He’s just an idiot.”

Click. Click, click. Click.

“There’s never been a time period in history where a grandmother couldn’t call her grandson an idiot before, and I refuse to accept that I’m living in one now,” Rose scoffed. “And I mean, honestly, all the information was right in front of him. How he didn’t put things together is beyond me! I tell the boy almost every day about the future, the past, and all sorts of things. It’s not my fault he doesn’t listen! He’s just like his mother!”

Click click. Click. Click, click-click.

“For the last time,” Rose said with narrowed eyes. “I don’t have dementia, and I don’t need those stupid pills! The next one of you to tell me there’s something wrong with my memory is getting sent straight back to the asteroid! And you can rest assured that I still remember that date!”

She looked around at her compatriots, daring one of them to say something.

“Enough talk. Let’s ride,” Rose spoke.

She mounted the motorcycle, put it in reverse and slowly backed out of the garage. Moving fairly quietly to the back of the cul-de-sac. The raptors lined up beside her.

“On my count, boys,” Rose said. “Three.” She revved the engine. “Two.” Hans-Joseph let out an excited screech. “One!”

They ripped down the street, the motorcycle leaving black marks behind. As they approached the stop sign at the end of the street, they didn’t slow down. Instead, Rose and the raptors sped up, and when they crossed the threshold between the cul-de-sac and the main road, Rose turned the dial, and they disappeared.