Escape From the Future and Other Stories

By Paul Clayton

What if you had access to a time machine and could go back to visit a deceased love... one more time. Would you?

In 1962, Bobby Newman's Grandpa, a basement inventor, loses his wife to cancer, then begins to lose his mind to grief. While tuning up his not-yet-perfected time machine for one last visit with his wife, he ends up going the wrong way... into the dystopian future of 2025. Inexplicably, he sends the machine back.

Fourteen-year-old Bobby uses it to lead Mom and Dad on a mission to find Grandpa and bring him back.

But Grandpa has other ideas...


This volume brings together five of Paul Clayton's most ambitious stories to date, stories that juxtapose a familiar America of the very recent past with ominous new versions of the country now coming into focus.

Clayton's concern is with ordinary people—their innate wisdom and persistent foolishness, their capacity to do good or harm, and their resiliency—with what happens when time travelers from the 1960s arrive in a city dominated by criminal gangs and corrupt politicians, or when a woman opts for a new procedure to avoid losing her cancer-ridden husband, or when a soldier in Vietnam is granted a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to give his elevator speech, or when a man, illegally alive, attempts to stay that way...

Clayton shows how people make choices that, collectively, point civilization in new directions, be it toward forcible reclamation of vast tracts of land as primeval wilderness or elimination of those deemed to be nonproductive 'useless eaters.'

This is a first-rate collection of stories by a serious writer.—Stephen Gallup, author of What About the Boy?


!!Five Stars!! Reviewed by Essien Asian for Readers' Favorite

Grandpa has been skulking around the house in a foul mood all week then one day he disappears. Mom and Dad have no idea where he's gone but young Bobby believes there's more to the strange metallic contraption that lies under the tarp in his parents' basement than meets the eye. This is just one story in Paul Clayton's short story collection titled Escape From The Future And Other Stories. Read on and witness the sacrifice that must be made for a green Earth, as well as the consequences of Ginny's reluctance to let life run its natural course among others. It's a brave new world and everything works better than it used to or so they want us to believe.

Escape From The Future And Other Stories is a science fiction classic by Paul Clayton. It comprises a series of stories with a distinctly dystopian theme where you experience what could be the order of the day in the not-too-distant future. The unique aspect of this book is the way Clayton presents it -- eerily similar to what we see nowadays. He displays dexterity in writing skills, impressively creating a series of frightening stories with a decidedly humorous undertone. The characters have very solid backstories which are impressive when you consider how short some of the stories are. Despite being an excellent anthology, filled with entertainment, Escape From The Future And Other Stories carries a dark warning for readers who are perceptive enough to understand it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Clayton
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215247693

Book preview

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Table Of Contents

ESCAPE FROM THE FUTURE

HUMAN EXCLUSION ZONE

SOMETIMES A GREAT LOTION

‘TIL DEATH OR WHATEVER...

ADIOS, AMERICA

Escape From the Future and Other Stories

Copyright © 2022 by Paul Clayton All rights reserved.

First Edition: March 2022

Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

To my son, Anthony, and my daughter, Colleen...

In my journey as an author, I’ve had many mentors and helpers. In this time, none have been more helpful than my friend and sometimes-editor, Stephen Gallup.

ESCAPE FROM THE FUTURE

I

n September of 1962 I

turned fourteen. I think that’s the age when you start paying attention to what’s going on around you, at least it was for me. Or maybe it was because of the crazy and dangerous things that happened to Grandpa and me, and Mom and Dad, and really to the whole country, but not in our time, in the future. We actually witnessed some of that with the help of one of Grandpa’s inventions. Anyway, the experience was awful, but we all made it back—except for Grandpa. At least not yet.

We lived in South San Francisco, the Industrial City, built right up against San Bruno Mountain. It was the end of the Santa Cruz Mountain range, with hiking trails and eucalyptus groves, and amazing views of the ocean and the bay. A lot of times after school my friends and I would hike up the trails for adventures. Sometimes they would come over to my house after school and Grandpa would show us stuff in his basement workshop. Grandpa was 75. He had been an electrical engineer and knew a lot of things and was also an inventor and designer. And he had a way about him. People could tell he knew what he was talking about, and they listened. Even Tommy, who was always cutting up in school, paid quiet attention to Grandpa. Grandpa made a static generator, that when you put your hands on it, would make your hair stand up. He made little rockets out of stove matches and aluminum foil, using paper clips as launchers. He even made this thing, I forgot what he called it—a red metal box with two silver handles. When you grabbed one handle, and somebody else grabbed the other and you formed a chain holding hands, he would turn it on. A buzzing started as a tickle ran through your arms and you could not open your hands, so you were locked into this circle until he turned it off.

He told me he had worked for a couple years in the mid-1930s with Nikola Tesla, the famous inventor. He said Tesla and Einstein had had a running argument about space-time, whatever that was. He said he had also worked on Tesla’s most important invention, the one that never made it out of his lab.

What happened to it? I asked him.

When Mr. Tesla died, FBI agents took it and all his papers. Grandpa’s serious face morphed momentarily into a smile. Well… almost all of his papers.

Later I would realize that there was some connection between this admission and what he kept covered up with a tarp in our basement.

Didn’t anybody know about it? I asked him.

No. Nobody knew about it except for Mr. Tesla, me, and Gerald Foster, the other engineer.

What happened to him?

An accident. On a beautiful sunny day, he drove his motorcycle off a cliff.

That doesn’t make sense. What happened?

Well, I wasn’t there. But that’s the official report.

Sounds fishy.

Grandpa nodded solemnly. Yeah, well the older you get, the more you’ll find official government stories fishy.

My friends and I stood on Grand Avenue in front of the Five & Dime store, trying to appear nonchalant. Tommy turned his head to casually look through the window. He looked away. It’s crowded, he said, and all the clerks are busy with customers... a cinch. C’mon.

We went inside. Tommy had dared Jay and me to shoplift. I had never stolen anything before and didn’t really like the idea, but it was a test. Tommy and Jay headed straight for the candy aisle, but that was too brightly lit. I went toward the back where it was dim, almost cave-like. There was nobody there either, as it was only fabric, thread, pins, and needles, that sort of thing. The easiest thing within reach was a pack of rubber bands. I had no use for them, but they were only ten cents, so taking them was not exactly a capital crime. I put them in my pocket.

We met outside and walked up Grand Avenue, turned on Walnut Street, then went up to the little playground on the edge of town. The fog was coming in over the hills, the wind picking up. There were no other kids there. The fog did that. Like a ghostly aerial river of white steam, it came in every three or four days, rolling overhead and chilling everything down a good fifteen or so degrees. I’ve seen wedding parties and barbecues run off when it came in, grown men hurrying to their cars and leaving their brides, their burgers, and hot dogs, to their fate. I buttoned up my shirt as we sat on the swings.

What did you get? Tommy asked Jay.

Jay pulled a bright red, white and blue candy bar out of his pocket. Baby Ruth, he said, and a Hershey bar.

I got some Butterfingers, said Tommy, waving the yellow wrapped bar at me. What did you get, Bobby?

I pulled the pack of rubber bands out and read from the plastic wrapper, America’s Best Rubber Bands, thin, three and a half inch.

What? sneered Tommy. Let me see?

I threw the package to him and he looked it over. I don’t know if we should count this, he said, handing it to Jay.

Why not? I said, You didn’t say it had to be candy.

Jay handed the rubber bands back to me. I think that’s gonna be kind of chewy. Let me know how it tastes.

I had to laugh. Jay could be funny. Yeah, right.

Here, said Tommy, tossing me a Butterfinger. Something sweeter for our little budding lawyer. I lifted four of them.

Thanks. I pulled the wrapper off and took a bite, delighting in the buttery nougat crunch. I knew my mom and dad would be really mad at me if they found out about this, but it was good."

You guys want to do another hike? Tommy asked as he ripped into another candy bar. Maybe this time we go all the way to Frisco.

Sure, said Jay.

I nodded my agreement.

Bobby, said Tommy. How’s your grandpa doing?

Okay, I said, I guess. He’s just real quiet now. My grandma had died a month earlier. After that Grandpa grew quiet, and as the days and weeks passed, a little strange. His name was Frank, for Francis, and Grandma’s was Frances. They used to joke about that sometimes, referring to themselves as F&F. They had really loved each other a lot. I guess that comes from all the years they had together.

I didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Well, I did have an older brother, Martin. But he died the day after he was born. My mother had told me about it. She said that after that it had been a while before I came along and that I was her special gift from God.

My father was a machinist and worked in a railroad shop, making engine parts. Before that, when the war was almost over, he turned 18 and joined the service. He served as a machinist’s mate on a Navy destroyer, and I don’t think he saw any action. He never talked about it. He was kind of strict with me when I was little, but he worked a lot of overtime now and wasn’t around much, so a bit of distance had grown between us. It was sad for me, but on the positive side, I could get away with more stuff that way.

We lived in an old house built right up against San Bruno Mountain. You could walk right out of our backyard gate and onto the mountain. A trail led to the top. Lots of wild things would show up in our yard, prairie hens, rabbits, snakes, hawks, even a fox once. The house had three bedrooms, one for my mother and father, one for Grandpa and Grandma—all Grandpa’s now—and I had one all to myself. Anyway, after Grandma died, Grandpa didn’t bother with his invention stuff much anymore, so I stopped bringing my friends over.

Jay held the silver foil wrapper from one of his candy bars aloft. It fluttered vigorously in the chill, agitated river of air passing above, like a captured bird struggling to be free. He released it and we watched it leap up, twisting and reflecting the light as it sailed toward the freeway a half mile away. Jay was Portuguese and his name was really Javier, the first letter sounding like an H. But that had gotten him some giggles in class, and so he had told everybody to just call him Jay. A head shorter than me, he had a lot of brothers and sisters and lived a block away.

Tommy was the biggest of our little gang, scrawny but strong, about a foot taller than me. He was two years older, having started school later than most kids, and having flunked fourth grade. He was starting to get a lot of pimples, big angry ones on his forehead and nose. He lived with his mother down on Grand Avenue in a second-floor apartment. His father had come back from the war all busted up and mentally ill. Two years after Tommy was born, he had hanged himself in the closet. Tommy’s mother worked as a waitress, and they didn’t have much money. I’ve seen Tommy eating ketchup sandwiches in the school cafeteria, really, just ketchup between two slices of bread. Sometimes he’d bum money off me or Jay to buy a bag of chips or a candy bar. When his mother wasn’t home, which was most of the time, we went to the apartment and smoked cigarettes and played cards or looked at dirty magazines. Tommy had a stash of them under his mattress.

When I got home, Mom was in the kitchen making dinner. I called, Hi, Mom, and said, Where’s Grandpa?

I think he’s down in the basement.

I went down the stairs.

Grandpa was sitting in his chair at the bottom of the stairs staring at the wall. He did this a lot now and I still wasn’t used to it. In the past he was always busy working on something.

Hey, Grampa, I said.

He didn’t say anything, and I just moved off a little, looking at all his stuff. Grandpa had kind of turned the basement into his own shop. On the far wall he had a big white clock marked, SCWANN’S GARAGE. Next to it hung a calendar with a picture of a woman wearing skimpy short shorts bending over the fender of a car, a wrench in one hand. Four large shelves filled the opposite wall, filled with tools, loops of electrical wiring, copper tubing, electrical boxes, and devices of varying sizes.

I stole a quick look at Grandpa; he hadn’t moved. I wasn’t really sure if he even knew I was here. I continued to look around. When Grandma got cancer, they had treated her at the hospital for a week, but they said it had advanced too far and they couldn’t do anything more for her. She had asked to come home. For about a month, every day when I came home Grandpa was in their room, sitting by her bedside, holding her hand, or reading to her. At the funeral service he was asked by the priest if he wanted to say anything. He shook his head, saying, I can’t. I just can’t talk about it. After that he stopped doing everything he liked to do and just sat around, mostly in the basement, like now.

I snuck another look at him. No change. Taking advantage of that, I lifted some of the tarp back on his secret project. The light was dim, but I could make out a circular array of wire wrapped coils, each as big as a toaster, a black power supply as big as mom’s bread box, with heat radiating fins, a big black box full of vacuum tubes, with colored wires running all over the place like spaghetti, and a sort of circular railing on which was affixed a metal control box the size of a box of cereal. It had colored indicators and switches, and a row of eight tubes with wires visible inside of them. Inside the railing, two small wooden folding chairs were bolted to the plywood base. I reached for the control box.

Don’t touch that!

I turned quickly; he was standing right behind me.

Sorry, Grandpa.

For a moment he just stared at me, not angry, not anything. Then he blinked. You could get in real trouble if you played with that, way more than for shoplifting.

I could feel my face warming.

Your mom and dad don’t know about it, but I do. Stan Carson saw you and the little Portuguese kid, and Tommy. He could’ve put the cops on you, but because we’re friends, he didn’t. But he did call me.

Sorry. I didn’t know if he was going to tell my parents or not and I didn’t know what else to say.

You only get two strikes with me, you hear? If you pull something like that again your dad is gonna hear about it and he’ll probably take the belt to you.

I nodded. I hadn’t had the belt since I was six or seven and I was pretty sure my dad wouldn’t do that now. I was growing fast, already five foot three, and Dad was only five foot seven. I would catch up soon. Grandpa was the tallest; he was six foot three. Anyway, Grandpa was right. If I did