Adventures of a Time Traveler

By Matthew Holley

William Bennett, a history professor, lost everything when he lost his daughter and his wife. He strolls through life unattached to anything or anyone, except his friend Charles. William had all but given up on ever being happy again...on ever laughing again. All his wants and dreams and hope died with his family until the day he was shown a time machine by a scientist, Doctor Smitty, who was working with our government on a secret mission to stop an outlaw time traveler, dubbed the Time Bandit, running through time stealing historical artifacts and altering history. William Bennett, being the only time traveler the government had at their disposal, is offered a deal. Capture the Time Bandit and be granted personal access to the time machine to save his family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Holley
• Release date: Dec 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465909169

Matthew Holley

I live in Englewood, Florida and own a construction business.I'm 42 and just starting to write. I love it! I write for the love of expressing my thoughts and ideas and for the escapism as I enter my make-believe worlds where anything can happen and nothing is out of reach but the limits of my imagination.

Book preview

The Adventures of a Time Traveler

By

Matthew Holley

Copyright 2011 Matthew Holley

Smashwords Edition

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Chapter One

Three Years Ago

GET OUT OF THE WAY! Professor William Bennett screamed at the traffic in front of him. Both lanes, of the four lane highway, were being blocked by a couple of vehicles running side-by-side down the highway. Although they were obeying the posted speed limit, they were not going fast enough for William who was tailgating the Lincoln in the left lane, trying to intimidate the driver into speeding up and moving into the right lane so he could get pass and resume his uncharacteristic reckless speeding down the highway to his home in Serenity Cove.

Only a few minutes ago, William received a devastating call from a police officer regrettably informing him something tragic had happened to his baby girl and he needed to get home. The officer refused to give him any further details over the phone which only infuriated William adding to the hundred other emotions engulfing his entire being. His imagination was spawning several different possible scenarios that could have happened to his daughter, each one worse than the last. After receiving the news, William immediately tried calling his wife while at the same time rushing out of his classroom at the university to his car parked in the faculty parking lot. There was no answer, only his wife's voice mail promising to return his call as soon as possible.

Now, William was racing toward home with his mind still continuingly playing out a multitude of horrific events in his head that could define the word tragic which is the word the police officer used to describe the scene at his home. Did tragic mean his baby girl, Mandy, was dead? The monotone voice of the police officer refused to say, perhaps feeling it would be best not to emotionally cripple him before he could get home or perhaps the officer didn't have the courage to give William the details and would simply pass that buck to another officer when William arrived.

The driver in the Lincoln finally sped up and got over in the other lane but not before leering at William in his rearview mirror, giving William the sternest look he could muster. William stomped on the accelerator and rushed passed the Lincoln whose driver had to further express his dismay with William by laying on his horn. William imagined the driver was at that very moment calling the highway patrol to report a car speeding recklessly down the highway with no regards for anyone's safety, but it did not concern Williamnot this time.

William's exit quickly appeared unexpectedly for he wasn't accustomed to driving at such a high rate of speed. He had to swerve in front of an SUV forcing that driver to step on his brakes suddenly to avoid a collision with William's vehicle. William made the exit ramp and continued for home running through a red light and narrowing avoiding T-boning another vehicle.

It suddenly dawned on William that the police officer hadn't mentioned his wife. Surely, if anything had happened to Mila, the officer would have mentioned it. But the officer only said something tragic had happened to Mandy, so his wife must be all right... physically that is. Emotionally, if something awful has actually happened to her little girl, if would probably be enough to push Mila over her psychological cliff she has for so long played a balancing act on.

Mila had suffered most her life with a dark seated depression. Since she was a teenager, she had undergone several psychotherapy sessions and has taken every kind of anti-depression medicine on the market with only minimal results. A few months after she married William, Mila was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder but just because she knew the name of her disease didn't make it any better. Being married to her wasn't all bad for William. Mila would have her good days where she could actually manage a smile and a few half-hearted laughs, but then she would have her bad days where it was almost intolerable for her to live, evident by her three attempts at suicide over the years, two of those attempts while she was married to William. A few days into their second week of dating, William had asked Mila about her childhood, but she refused to talk about it, only stating her father was a monster. And even throughout their marriage, she refused to give any details about growing up with her father. What ever her father did, it really messed up Mila's head.

William was now regretting not buying a house in the Faculty Ghetto being that it was only walking distance from Stanford's University campus where he taught but Mila wanted to live further out of town. He turned sharply down Maple Lane causing his tires to squeal as they tried to stay in contact with the asphalt road. William was thankful the street was void of any pedestrians. Any children living in this residential neighborhood were most likely in school. He made a sharp right onto Pine Street, accelerating even more knowing he had only three more blocks until he was home. His apprehension was growing to a head and he felt he would explode before he could make it to his family. He wanted so much to hold both his wife and daughter and tell them how much he loved them, but he couldn't shake off the gruesome feeling it was too late for that. They were his worldhis happinessespecially little Mandy. His daughter’s birth had also changed Mila for the better...more than any drug could.

When Mila found out she was pregnant, she burst into tears but, for the first time in many years, it wasn't tears of sadness but of overwhelming joy. She spent the next nine months with a song in her heart and a constant smile plastered on her face, especially after the doctor informed William and Mila they were having a girl. All Mila talked about was her daughter and how much she was going to love her and spoil her and never let her be sad. And when Mandy was born, Mila was happier than any person could possibly be. She lived her life for her daughter.

William had to hit his brakes hard in order to maneuver a left turn onto Elm Avenue and then once again he accelerated down the road so fast, the houses on both sides of the street look like abstract watercolor paintings out his side windows. One more block and he would finally be home. He rapidly slowed down and made a right onto Mahogany Lane, the street where Mila had found the perfect house to raise their daughter. As William looked down his street, he saw several police cars, an ambulance, and a fire truck all sitting in front of his house. As he approached his house, he saw that his front door was wide open and people he didn’t know were walking in and out. He stopped his car behind the fire truck, jumped out without bothering to turn the engine off, and ran toward his house.

Sir, are you William Bennett? a police officer asked while stepping in front of William to stop him from entering the house.

Where are my wife and daughter? LET ME GO! I want to see them! William demanded, struggling to get around the officer.

Sir, I need you to stay right here for now!

Like hell! William forced his way passed the officer.

William ran into his house and immediately saw a male paramedic coming around the corner from the guest bathroom carrying something in his arms wrapped inside a wet blanket. The paramedic gently placed the blanket and its contents on a gurney. William’s heart immediately sank for he suspected what was inside that blanket. He ran toward the paramedic but a female paramedic stopped him.

Sir, you don't want to do that!

Is thatMandy? Is that my little girl? William asked through quivering lips.

I'm sorry! was all the paramedic could say as her eyes filled with tears.

No, it can't be! Not Mandy! Not my little girl! William dropped to his knees and sobbed uncontrollably. The female paramedic stood beside William with her hand on his shoulder in a futile attempt to comfort him. After several minutes, William regained enough of his composure to look up at the female paramedic through watery eyes. "Whathappened? How did she? William was unable to say the word, because by saying it, it would mean it was real.

She apparently drowned in the bathtub.

The bathtub? Why was she in the bathtub?

You'll have to ask your wife that.

My wifewhere is she?

She's in the other room.

William slowly got to his feet. He felt so weak like he had aged thirty years while down on his knees. He made his way into the living room where he found his wife sitting on the couch with two officers standing over her. Mila was staring blankly straight ahead with no expression on her face. Her eyes appeared blood shot, her yellow sundress was soaked, and she was wearing handcuffs.

What's going on here? William demanded to know. Why is she handcuffed? Let her go!

One of the officers immediately came to William and stopped him from getting any closer. Sir, are you the husband?

Yeah. Why is my wife handcuffed?

Your wife's psychologist called the police informing us that your wife called her saying that her daughter was dead. When we arrived, we found your wife sitting on the bathroom floor holding an infant. The little girl was naked, bluish in color, and appeared lifeless. We immediately began administering CPR but the infant didn’t respond. The paramedics said the child had been without oxygen for too long. There was nothing they could do to save the child. Your wife was questioned as to what happened, but she refuses to say a word.

William was full of both disbelief and rage from the unimaginable thought that was filling his head. He forcibly pushed passed the officer to confront Mila.

What happened here? he accusingly asked. What happened to Mandy? What did you do to our little girl?

Mila did not answer, she did not blink, and she did not look at William...she only stared blankly straight ahead and slowly began rocking back and forth.

ANSWER ME! William screamed. He then squatted in front of his wife and grabbed her by the shoulders and began shaking her. Why, Mila? Why did you do this? Why did you ruin our lives? Why?

An officer pulled William away from his wife who had stopped rocking and was now looking at her husband with eyes wide with hurtful fear atop bewildered confusion. Mila was shaking her head slowly and her mouth tried to form words but she utter nothing.

Mila was taken away and ordered by the court to become a patient in the county mental facility where she had to be placed under constant suicide watch. William went to visit her several times, but she never acknowledged he was therenever even looked his way. William found it hard to look upon his wife without feeling rage for what she did to their little girl. He could not find forgiveness for her. How can you forgive someone for taking the life of your little girl? His daughter's death had also robbed William of the capability to feel emotion. He felt like the walking dead, unable to smile or laugh or love. He often blamed himself for Mandy's death because he had foolishly trusted his wife, trusted that she was mentally adept in allowing herself to be happy. The demons of her depression had caused her to remove the only thing in her life that truly made her happy.

Then one day, William got the inevitable call from the institution that Mila had hung herself. William was not surprised when he received the news, but it was enough to sever the last thread of desire he had to live. He found he was not as brave as his wife to take his own life, so he crawled inside a whiskey bottle for the next several months, the only relief he could find from his pain, the only escape from his shattered world.

Chapter Two

Present Day

Professor William Bennett, dressed in his usual black attire, his black leather shoes, his black slacks, his black collared cotton shirt, and his always present black ball cap, was walking down the halls of the University of Stanford on his way to his classroom to prepare for his first class of students of the day. William was once described by an ex-girlfriend as average looking, an assessment he still agreed with every time he looked in the mirror. He stood only five foot eight and had long since lost his slim build he took for granted as a teenager. His dark hair was showing the first signs of graying and his hair line was further from his eyebrows than it had been the previous year. For the past six years, he’s taught American History and Art History for the university. He had always had a passion for history, a passion he obtained from his mother. His mother would fascinate William when William was a young boy with fantastic stories of historical icons and unbelievable tales from the past. She would read her son these stories with such excitement and enthusiasm in her voice that a young boy couldn’t help but be intrigued. Stories of kings, civil war soldiers, Egyptian leaders, and a slew of other fascinating people whom all seemed so alive in the young lad's imagination.

As a young man attending college, William participated in several archaeological digs under university grants in such exotic places as Viru Valley in Peru, Vill, Austria, and Beit She'an, Israel. He recovered hundreds of artifacts on these digs, most of them being pieces of pottery and cooking utensils, but, on a few exceptional occasions, he would unearth rare items like a stone tablet he found on an Egyptian dig not far from the Giza Pyramids with ancients words carved into it which described a mysterious visitor to the land who had a circular mark on the side of his face and spoke a strange language. William met many wonderful people on these digs. One such person became his best friend, Charles Westmore, who, after making several smart financial investments in company stocks such as Apple and Microsoft, was now a multimillionaire who spent most of his time collecting and buying rare historical artifacts for his ever increasing immense private collection. Charles had a round scar on the left side of his face, so it was often joked among the young archeologist on the digs that Charles was the one written about on the stone tablet William had found.

William once made the mistake of telling a classroom of his students about his past adventures as an archeologist and he was soon affectionately nicknamed Professor Jones after the character in the Indiana Jones movies so brilliantly portrayed by Harrison Ford. But William's experiences in archaeology were a far cry from the adventures Indiana Jones encountered. There were no hidden caves full of booby traps, no huge boulders chasing after you, and no Temple of Doom where victims would have their hearts plucked from their chests and forced to watch as it still beat in the hands of a sadistic cult leader. The reality was it was just a lot of digging in the dirt under a relentlessly hot sun and equally relentless time table.

On this first day of class of the new school year, William walked into his class room already occupied with students and was welcomed, as he always was year after year, with the theme music to Raiders of the Lost Arc hummed by a couple male students followed by the inevitable eruption of laughter by the rest of the class, a tradition that had been passed down each year by William’s students.

Seems like after all these classes, that joke would start to lose its life, William remarked with a shake of the head and a grin. It's been going on so long, I expect we might be reading about it in one of our history books.

The class laughed in unison.

All right, today we're going to be talking about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln and discuss if he had been killed earlier in the war, could it have rallied the South enough to win.

The class chuckled assuming their professor was making a joke.

What's so funny? William asked.

You said the assassination of President Lincoln, Becky, a brunette-haired girl and one of William's brightest students, said.

Yes, the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. That's what I said. Whywhat's going on?

Oh, you're talking figurativelyright? Becky asked with a slight look of confusion on her face, an expression shared by the rest of the class.

No. I'm talking about the historical account of President Lincoln's assassination, William stated. He was becoming confused with the strange way his class was acting. At first he thought perhaps the whole class was playing a joke on him, but the seriousness of each student's face looking confusingly at him told him this was no prank and it started to give him an uneasy feeling.

Professor Bennett, Becky spoke with concern in her voice President Lincoln wasn't assassinated!

What are you talking about? Of course he was! He was assassinated on April 15, 1865 by John Wilkes Booth.

No sir, he died of heart failure in 1871 after serving four years as president.

I don't know what’s going on with my students today, William said aloud., but unless history was suddenly altered, President Lincoln was shot in the head while watching a play. William then marched over to a bookshelf sitting along the wall to the right of his desk and pulled out a thick book entitled, American Presidents and opened it to the chapter on President Abraham Lincoln. He began skimming through the biography of the President while his students watched in earnest at the bizarre behavior of their professor.

William's eyebrows scrunched together in a look of confusion and concern as he wasn't finding anything about an assassination of President Lincoln. In fact, the book agreed with Becky’s account of the President's life saying he indeed did die of heart failure and not a bullet from the gun of one John Wilkes Booth. William couldn't accept what he had just read, so he reread it hoping the words would miraculously change, but they stubbornly remained the same. He then began to search his own brain trying to reason how he could have made such a mistake but his own brain kept telling him he was correct.

He looked up from the book into the eyes of his students hoping they would break into laughter and tell him how this was all a huge prankhow they even managed to change the pages of his copy of American Presidents, but they just stared at him with worry and confusion and whispered amongst each other. William became aware of his heart beating rapidly inside his chest and the palms of his hands were perspiring. He began to feel ill. He felt he was starting to suffocate and he needed to get to fresh air.

I'm sorry class. I'm not feeling well. We'll reconvene here Wednesday morning.

William hurriedly left his class and headed straight for the nearest exit. He forcibly pushed the double doors open, rushed outside, and took in several deep calming breaths. His mouth was parched and his shirt was slightly wet with his perspiration. He told himself to settle down and relax, find his car and drive home, and then he could get to the bottom of the mystery of why he seemed to be the only one who remembers that President Lincoln was assassinated.

After driving the twenty miles to his modest two bedroom house in Shady Palms, William pulled into his driveway and turned the car’s engine off, but he didn't get out right away. Months after Mila had entered the mental hospital, William sold their house in Serenity Cove, a name which didn't live up to its implied promise of tranquility and peacefulnessat least, not in William’s case. He bought a house in a new development with few neighbors. After losing his daughter, and then his wife, he wasn't able to sleep in his old house due to his mind not willing to accept what had happened. His mind would persistently tell him that his family was still togetherthat the tragic event the police officer had called him about three years ago had never transpired. His mind would play tricks and convince him he heard his daughter’s infectious giggling just around the cornerjust beyond the next roomin the kitchenin the nursery. He felt he had to leave his home for fear of succumbing to the insanity which threatened to rob him of his senses.

Still, three years later, even in his new place, William had to mentally prepare his mind and remind it that when he walked into the house, his wife and his daughter would not be there. That he alone was living in this house of loneliness and solitude in which he neither had the courage nor desire to change. William’s plan was to muddle through this shell he called his life...unwilling to loveunwilling to allow himself happinessunwilling to exonerate himself for being unable to forgive Mila's illness which plucked the life from Mandytheir little baby girl for whom he lived for.

After persuading his mind that the house would be empty, William got out of his car and went inside. He had never bothered to decorate the inside of his house which left it looking bare, giving it an air of somberness and little personality. He had sold all his and Mila's furniture with the old house, for it was saturated with so many memories, he couldn't bear to look at it. His only furniture now consisted of a green couch sitting in front of a forty inch LCD television, a small dinette table in the kitchen, a queen size bed and a dresser in one of the bedrooms, the other bedroom was left empty, and a computer set up next to the kitchen bar. No pictures adorned the walls. No windows treatments. No accessories at all. Just the bare essentials.

William made his way straight to the computer and sat down. Clicking on the mouse woke the computer from its slumber and, within seconds, his home page appeared on the monitor. He typed, Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln into the search engine and impatiently waited for his web page options to appear. His selections became available but none of them was for an assassination of Lincoln. He again began to feel a little nauseous, having expectation of finding what he knew in his heart was the truth, but only finding this twisted spin on reality.

One of the web page search choices asked the question, Which three presidents of the United States were assassinated? William clicked on this web page and began reading about the three presidents who were assassinated: James Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy.

John F. Kennedy? William exclaimed out loud. In his memory of history, John F. Kennedy was never killed while in office. After serving two terms as president, JFK died in a private plane crash followed several years later by the death of his son John F. Kenney Jr. in an eerily similar accident.

William’s head began spinning as he tried to make sense out of what he was reading. He was positive he was correct in his remembrance of these historical events. How would he had ever passed a history exam or gotten his masters in American history if he had gotten the lives of such monumental historical figures wrong. Yet, there it was in black and white, illuminating from his computer monitor, a different set of events which were impossibly opposite of what was in his memoriesof what he remembered being taught many years ago in high school.

William sat back in his chair and began to massage his temples to try and alleviate the pounding headache which suddenly materialized. He stood up and stepped into the kitchen, opening the cabinet where he kept his aspirin. He took three tablets from their container and then opened the cabinet to the right where he kept his bottle of rum, his preferred drink in battling the memories of his wife and daughter when they became too impossible to fight alone. He had spent nearly a year curled up in the bottom of a rum bottle after he lost his world until he was rescued by his only friend, Charles Westmore who forced him to attend AA meetings. William knew every time he took a sip of alcohol, he was risking crawling back into the bottle once more for an alcoholic can stop drinking, but he can never stop being an alcoholic. At least, that is what the counselors at the weekly meetings always said.

As he took the bottle down, William recalled one particular man who attended the same A.A. sessions as he did. His name was John Adams. William remembered his name because it was the name of a President of the United States. When asked by the counselor in charge of the meeting how he would describe being an alcoholic, John Adams responded, One drink is too many, one more is never enough. To William, that described being an alcoholic, perfectly.

Despite John Adams’s warning echoing in his head, William poured himself a glass. As he savored the warm feeling of the rum rolling down his throat and settling into his stomach and remembering how secure he felt in the bottom of one of those bottles, his cell phone rang. He checked the number and saw it was Charles. William suddenly felt ashamed as if his friend knew what he was doing and was calling him to slap some sense back into him. His friend had no idea, William had started drinking again. Only moderately. William felt he could control his addition, but he didn’t want Charles to know, so he kept his drinking a secret.

William and Charles met in their freshman year of college. William was being bullied by three sophomores when Charles, who had always been a burly guy and looked more like a senior than a freshman, scared the bullies away. Both young men, who didn't have many friends, William because of his shyness and Charles because of his sometimes harsh personality and tendency to say what was on his mind no matter whom it offended, began a friendship. Their love and enthusiasm for history and historical artifacts bonded their friendship. Even after they went separate ways, Charles joining the Navy and eventually the Navy Seals and William becoming a highschool history teacher and eventually a college professor, their friendship endured and they reunited after Charles' tour of duty ended.

Hey, Charles. What's up?

Willywhat's happening? I haven't heard from you in a few days.

Charles was the only one who insisted on calling William Willy though William had asked him repeatedly in the past not to, but Charles constantly ignored his friend's plea until William eventually conceded defeat and no longer asked to be called by his given name. He had once considered calling his friend Charley as payback, but it just seemed a little juvenile. He ultimately accepted the name and embraced it as a term of endearment from his friend.

I thought you were going out of the country to Japan to pick up a sword. I didn't know you were back yet.

Yeah, I just got back this morning. You must come over here and see this sword. It's exquisite! It was forged by Masamune himself around 1300A.D. Get over here. You've got to see it!

All right, I'm on my way.

Charles Westmore's prodigious house could better be described as a fortress, perhaps a reflection of the owner's emphatic personality. The twenty thousand square foot home boasted twelve bedrooms and ten baths, an two Olympic size swimming pools, marble floors, crystal chandeliers, gold fixtures in the kitchens and baths, a full time staff, an indoor archery range, an assortment of imported furniture from around the world, several exhibit rooms for displaying numerous one-of-a-kind and priceless works of art and historical artifacts, and an elaborate security system which would rival anything the Pentagon had.

William pulled up to the familiar white iron gate of Charles's estate and was promptly greeted by one of the security guards on duty while another remained in the guard house ready to either open the gate or call on his radio for backup depending on the signal the greeting guard gave him.

Good evening, Mr. Bennett, the security guard addressed.

William had seen this security guard several times before, but couldn't remember his name. He searched the guard's uniform for a name tag, but there was none and he didn't want to ask the guard for his name, because it would be an admission that he hadn't found the guard important enough to remember his name, so Wiliam simply answered back, Good evening.

Mr. Westmore's expecting you. Have a great evening, sir, the guard said as he gave the signal to open the gate to his partner inside the guard shack who nodded and gave a quick grin as William drove pass.

William drove the long winding driveway through a mini forest of live oaks which abruptly ended at the edge of a massive, well manicured, court yard revealing The Westmore Estate. He continued to follow the driveway to a circular parking lot that surrounded a small island of red cyder mulch with a royal palm tree planted