Two: Ghosts and Monsters

Warren's room was pretty much what Chloe had expected for a science geek. There was a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 poster on one side of the room and, on the other side, what appeared to be an anatomical diagram of Godzilla. A bookcase held a mix of SF and Fantasy novels, Darwin's The Origin of Species, a collection of cult films, and a couple of World of Warcraft figures still pristine in their boxes. Of course that also meant the room had lots of USB ports so everyone could charge their various devices at once. That was one of the reasons she and Max made a daily trip here.

A showerhead hissed to life in the adjacent room. That was the other reason.

Boots propped up on Warren's desk, Chloe leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind her head and listened to the sound of rushing water and the staccato rhythm of Warren's one-handed typing. Seated on his bed with his laptop, he pecked at his laptop's keyboard with his right hand; his left arm was still in a cast, covered in colourful signatures.

"Hey," Chloe said, balancing on the back legs of the chair.

"Hmm?"

"Are you thinking about Max in the shower? You know, all covered in lather and soap suds?"

"W–what?" Warren stammered. "No!"

"Really? Because I totally am." She glanced over her shoulder to see Warren looking red in the face and staring at his laptop screen with unflinching determination. Score. He was just as easy as Max.

Max. Chloe had to admit that she found herself thinking about Max an awful lot these days. She thought about her when they were curled up together in their sleeping bag and when she was driving the junker. She thought about her while she was hauling pieces of people's demolished homes into trash bins and when Max was taking photos of the destruction. It was sort of weird to not see someone for five years and then boom! You fall for them. Weird, but hella awesome too. Didn't hurt that Max had grown into a total hottie. Chloe wanted to run her hands over every inch of her skin and press her lips to every one of her freckles. Not to mention an assortment of other things that would make her little hippie blush.

But sadly, she couldn't spend the next twenty minutes daydreaming about Max's dips and curves–much as she would've liked to. There was bidness to attend to.

She drew her feet off the desk and turned so she was straddling the chair, facing Warren. "Have you heard any news about the Jefferson case?"

He glanced up. "News?"

"Yeah. It's not like I can check on Max's laptop without her noticing."

Warren looked confused. "Why don't you want her to notice?"

Chloe glanced in the direction of the bathroom. The water was still running steadily. "Dude, she's got enough on her mind right now." And last night hadn't helped any. More ominous visions. Fucktastic. That's just what Max needed. "Look, have they found that dipshit's body or not?"

"You mean Nathan?" Warren said, keep his voice low even though there was no way Max could hear them over the streaming water.

"Yes. I mean Nathan, Jefferson's fucking Sith apprentice."

And in spite of everything, Warren's lips twitched at the Star Wars reference. Good thing she knew how to speak geek. "No, they're still looking. Newport News Times has been covering it. But it doesn't sound good. If they don't find a body they can only charge him with the photos and he's claiming Nathan set him up anyway."

"Motherfucker." Chloe rose and pushed the chair into the desk with a clatter. "I wish I'd shot him when I had the chance," she said under her breath, arms crossed as she glared at Godzilla on the wall. Jefferson was more a monster than that giant lizard would ever be.

"Wait, what did–"

"Never mind." She spun and stood over Warren, scowling. "Look... can you keep an eye on the news and text me anything you find out?"

"Yeah, I can do that." He licked his lips, looking nervous all of a sudden. "Is Max... okay? I mean she seems to be taking things really hard."

Chloe almost laughed. Understatement of the fucking century. But she couldn't explain that to Warren. Or to anyone. "You could say that." She paced around his room, pulling books and DVDs off the shelves and reading their spines. "She just needs to do her project. That'll help."

Warren nodded. "At least that's something I can do. I've scanned all the photos she gave me and I was able to up the resolution. It's looking like Bayfore and After will be good to go soon."

"Dude, they are never calling it that."

Warren held out his hands and shrugged. "Hey I thought it was funny."

Chloe rolled her eyes and continued poking around his room. "So how come you were living in the Blackwell dorms when your folks were in town?"

"My mom got a new job in Portland. They were planning to sell the house and move before the end of the semester." Warren sighed. "I don't know if they'll still be able to."

Chloe felt a twinge at that bit of info. More fallout from the storm, from Max letting her live. All told, Warren's family had been pretty damn lucky. Their garage had been skewered by a telephone pole, but the rest of the house had survived. Unlike Chloe's. And all the houses in Chloe's neighbourhood, which had been completely wiped off the face of Oregon.

"That's shitty."

"Hey I'm just glad to be alive. When your mom and the rest of us squeezed into that freezer, well... I think we all thought were toast."

Joyce had had everyone at the Two Whales take shelter in the old walk-in freezer when the storm had slammed into them. It was the reason everyone there was still alive. Warren and Frank had gotten banged up holding the doors closed since the freezer didn't lock from the inside–for obvious reasons. "She cooks, she cleans, she saves people from tornados. All in a day's work for Joyce Price." And then, eager to change the topic. "So how much longer till the cast comes off?"

"Another two weeks."

She leaned down to inspect the collection of signatures scrawled all over it in bright colours. Hers was written in blue: "Get hella better! P.S. Chicks dig scars." Brooke's message said that he still owed her a trip to the drive-in, and was surrounded by a pink heart. She tried to let her eyes slide past Max's but failed miserably. "I'm so sorry. Get well soon." From anyone else it would've been a generic message, but from Max it was an apology.

Finally the bathroom door opened and Max appeared, decked out in generic jeans and a slightly punkish tee, black with a peaked red line like the heart rate on a hospital monitor. Chloe gathered up her stuff in preparation for her own turn in the shower. "The laundry?" Max asked.

"Laundering." That was the third reason they came to Warren's house–to borrow the appliances and get clean clothes once a week. "Mmmm," Chloe said, leaning into Max and sniffing her hair. "You're all fresh and clean."

Max gave her a playful shove towards the door. "And you're still all dirty. Get in there."

"Oh I like it when you get bossy."

She didn't turn to look, but she was pretty sure Warren would be blushing again.

#

The destruction looked worse by daylight, an entire block levelled, reduced to nothing but chunks of shredded lumber and piles of soggy insulation. The roads had been cleared, but the lots where the houses had once stood were still in their original state save for a few places where families and volunteers had already begun the cleanup.

The morning was overcast, giving the day a greyish sheen, but Max could easily make out the names now, carved into the wood of the broken tree: Susan + Michelle.

It had been Chloe's idea to come back here in daylight. "Return to the scene of the crime," she'd said, but her anxiety shone through her bravado like a too-bright flash washing out a photograph. But she was right. They'd both felt something strange here last night so it was a place a start.

Next to her, Chloe was fidgeting, hands darting into her pockets, coming out with her car keys or some spare change, and then darting back in. Max snatched one of those fluttering hands in hers and intertwined their fingers.

"Chloe–"

"No doom and gloom, Max," Chloe cut in before she could get any further. She squeezed Max's hand. "Together."

A tiny smile made its way to Max's lips. "Forever."

And then Max took a deep breath and let her fingers brush over the carved names.

"Anything?" Chloe asked after a moment.

"Nope."

"Huh. Well that was anticlimactic."

Max tried to remember last night. What had been different? The dark. The stars. The way she'd traced the carved lines. Chloe's fingers were still entwined with hers, and it dawned on her... "We need to touch the carving at the same time."

"Makes sense." And then, with a shrug, "As much as any of this time travel shit makes sense anyway." She took a deep breath. "Should we do, one, two, three, go! Or–"

Max rolled her eyes, but she couldn't suppress a smile even with the roiling in her stomach. "Just put your hand down."

And Chloe did, her hand pressing over the carved letters, close against Max's fingers.

The world rippled. Max's breath caught in her throat. It was like everything had become fluid. Except for Chloe. Her hand was solid and real, gripping Max's fingers with steely determination.

For several seconds, the world danced before Max's eyes. When it settled, she found her finger still pressed to the carving, still next to Chloe's, but the tree itself was different. There was bark on its trunk, thick with diamond-like ridges. When she raised her eyes she could see a whole and living tree, not the skeletal remains that she'd been kneeling next to a minute ago. Branches sprawled out in a leafy canopy, casting Max in its shade.

"Shit," she heard Chloe mumble next to her. Next to her. Wherever–whenever–they were, they were together. Max stared at Chloe's familiar face, overwhelmed with a mix of awe and relief. "Was it like that when you used your powers on photos?"

Max shook her head. "No, this is... different." She moved her hand away and she could still see the inscription carved into the tree, Susan + Michelle, surrounded by a heart. It was the same tree.

Chloe stood, tugging Max up next to her. That was when Max turned to look at her and gasped. "What are you wearing?" The tree wasn't the only thing that was the same but different. Chloe's leather jacket and white skull tank top had been replaced by a faded denim jacket overtop a black Metallica T-shirt. Her legs were encased in high-waisted acid wash jeans.

"What about you? You look like you were attacked by a Bon Jovi concert."

Glancing down, Max found she was wearing white stonewashed jeans and a black T-shirt with silver spangles in the shape of a cross. And fishnet sleeves to top it off.

Chloe grimaced as she inspected her own outfit. She grabbed the top button of her jeans and stared down into her pants. "Dude, am I wearing someone else's underwear?"

Max wrinkled her nose and tried not to think too much about that. "I think we probably have bigger problems than that."

While Chloe continued to inspect (and make scathing comments about) her new wardrobe, Max made a point of observing their surroundings. The tree stood in the back corner of a fenced yard, its grass brilliant green in the sunshine and immaculately trimmed. Birdcalls were intermingled with the rumble of lawnmowers, and Max was certain she could smell the smoky scent of meat on a barbeque grill somewhere nearby. Ahead, a house with white siding reminded her painfully of Chloe's home, now nothing but broken timbers. It looked to be the same generic two-story style so common in Arcadia Bay.

"This is so fucking weird," Chloe said.

"For cereal. Do you think this is real? It's not like before."

A wicked smile lit up Chloe's face. "Well let's test it out."

Chloe's lips crashed into hers. Her mouth was hot and fierce and insistent. Her hands seemed to be everywhere at once, in Max's hair, darting under her shirt, sliding up her spine, caressing the nape of her neck. It was all Max could do to just dig her fingers into the fabric of Chloe's denim jacket and hold on, her thoughts aswirl and her heart making a mad dash against her rib cage.

And then, just as suddenly, she broke away, leaving Max panting and unsteady on her feet.

"Did that feel real to you?" Chloe sounded a little out of breath herself.

"Definitely real." Taking a deep breath, Max tried to get a grip on her racing pulse and get her brain to focus on their peculiar situation... rather than on how much she really really wanted Chloe to kiss her again. "We should... uh... maybe go check out the house?"

"One sec. Need to do a little time travel experiment first." Max was about to ask what when she noticed Chloe had fished something out of the denim jacket's pocket, a metallic oval object. It wasn't until Chloe knelt down next to the tree trunk again and flipped open the blade, that Max realized it was a pocket knife. As far as she knew, Chloe didn't carry a pocket knife around so it must have come with the jacket. Weird.

Using the blade, Chloe began etching her name into the tree trunk, just above the other two names.

"Come on, Chloe. We don't have time to mess around. We don't even know how we'll get back."

"We could click our heels and say 'There's no place like home.'" Max crossed her arms and gave Chloe her best 'not impressed' look. "Besides, this is a legit experiment." She carved Max's name below her own and then added a plus sign between the two. "Done. Now we can go exploring. After you, Captain Max."

Together they crossed the lawn and headed for the screen doors on the back of the house. A dog bark from the next yard nearly startled Max out of her skin but then, taking a deep breath, she slid open the screen door and stepped inside.

Chloe's gaze slid across the room and with a snort she announced, "This is not 2013."

A large tube TV occupied the centre of the living room. Hooked up to it with a mess of cables were a VCR and a grey and purple game console. VHS tapes were stacked up next to it, with hand written labels on the spines. Across from the TV loomed an overstuffed leather couch in a pale teal shade.

Chloe approached the stack of tapes and began reading off the labels. "Cheers. MacGyver. The Golden Girls." She shot Max an incredulous look. "These are all shows that ended before I was even born."

Max ambled over to a bookcase in the corner that had a CD player–no wait... it was a cassette player. Next to it, stacked like decks of cards, were albums on cassette tape, only a few from singers she'd heard of. There was Through the Storm by Aretha Franklin and Nick of Time by Bonnie Raitt. And after those rather pointed album titles Max decided to turn her attention elsewhere. Late eighties, early 90s was her guess, but she'd have to do some Googling when they got back. Assuming they got back.

She wandered over to the kitchen with its faux-wood cabinets with brass hardware. On a large beige fridge a magnet advertising Tae Bo classes held up a note, handwritten on floral notepaper. Max pulled it off the fridge. "Chloe, look at this."

Susan,

You've been spending so much time with your friend Michelle lately and your father and I are a little worried. Exclusive friendships aren't healthy. You need to spend more time with other people your age.

Chloe, reading over her shoulder snorted. "'Other people'. She means boys."

"There's more," Max said, turning the paper over.

Mindy has a son about your age. You remember him, don't you? Stewart? He was a couple of years ahead of you in school. I've invited him over for dinner so make sure you're ready by seven sharp. And please wear something nice. None of those ripped clothes you and your friends like so much.

The word "nice" had been underlined several times for emphasis.

Chloe snatched the note from Max's hand. "Guess Susan's set off her mom's gaydar. I bet they're having hot monkey sex while she's out."

"Chloe," Max admonished. "You don't know that."

"They're totally gay and totally going at it when her folks are out. And her parents are freaking. They probably found undies that didn't belong to Susan in the wash–amateur mistake." Slowly, Max turned to glance at Chloe, one eyebrow raised. Chloe shrugged. "Shit happens, long story. So... do we want to stick around and meet mom and Stewart?"

Max winced. "I don't think so. Let's just get out of here while we still have time."

Chloe grinned. "Good call." She reached into the pocket of her borrowed denim jacket and produced a set of car keys. "How about we go find out what these belong to?"

When they walked out the front door, they found a single car in the driveway, a rusty, rectangular, Dijon-mustard-coloured Ford Escort. Chloe looked from the keys to the aging car. "Guess I'm not the only one driving a piece of shit."

Max winced. "At least your truck isn't yellow."

The pleather seats were ripped at the seams and a faint skunk-like scent lingered inside. Chloe jammed the key into the ignition. On the third try, the motor started and she tore out of the driveway.

#

And just like that they were back. Back in the debris-filled yard next to the naked tree, which stood there like a sun-baked bone. They were still kneeling next to it, each with a hand over the carved names.

Chloe was the first to move her hand, drawing back and peering at the spot where she'd carved their own names during their foray into the 1990s. "Check this out, Max." She tapped the debarked tree. "Nothing there now, just Susan + Michelle."

Max shook her head. "This is so strange. I know I was able to change things when I went through a photo."

"So I guess this is different. Like a movie instead the real thing?"

Sitting back, Max felt a wave of exhaustion wash over her. She had just wanted to come back and take pictures, to try to help make things a tiny bit better for the residents of Arcadia Bay. Now this. "Why is this happening? And what does this have to do with that weird photo and with my vision?"

Chloe glared at the mess of broken homes. "It's this fucking town." She shook her head. "It's full of ghosts... and monsters."

Max let her eyes wander over the broken shape of the tree. The initials had been carved into it before she'd even been born. Susan and Michelle. She wondered where they were now. Her eyes followed the gnarled roots, where the tree had been partially uprooted... and then caught on something out of place. A hard corner among the roots. A ninety degree angle–that wasn't natural. Nosy as she'd always been, she couldn't just leave it at that. She scooted closer to the tree and reached into the muddy earth around the roots.

"Max? You digging for buried treasure?"

"There's something here." She tried to push away handfuls of muck from around the edges. "It's metal."

Chloe sighed. "Just remember, no showers until tomorrow morning." And then, with a grimace, she buried her hands in the mud and dirt and helped Max dig.

"A toolbox maybe?"

Chloe shrugged. "Aren't they usually red?"

There was mud deep under her fingernails by the time they managed to tug the box out. It was a plain metal rectangle, about the size of a shoe box, rusted all along the edges. The tree roots, or perhaps the storm, had left a huge dent in the left side box, causing it to warp so that a gap had formed between the box and the lid, and mud had seeped inside of it. Chloe grimaced as she reached in and came back with a squirming earth worm. "Ugh gross." She tossed in back into the mud. "Lid's jammed," she said after giving it a tag. "Maybe it's buried treasure."And then, in her best pirate voice, "Arr! Let's get this booty back ta arrr fine vessel."

Max straightened. "I be the Captain here. Ya keep that in mind or ye'll be swabbing the deck, matey."

"I'll swab ye deck anytime, Captain, just say the word."

Max giggled. Chloe could make anything sound like a come on–even in pirate speak.