Jacques was really suffering and wouldn’t be headed back just yet. Terrence was trying to help him with the Canadian despite his own uneasy state. Eddie could still feel the earth rotating beneath him. Apparently this sensation was overpowering for the others. This was his first patient so he probably over did the care a little. He hit him with the inhaler, a sedative, and shucked his backpack, propping the man’s head and back up so he could not swallow his own vomit in case he hurled anymore.

He began looking around once Jacques was stabilized and Terrence came to one knee besides him, taking their incapacitated team-member’s hand. “I got this Brother. Enjoy the view.”

A grey dawn was unfolding as they looked east from the base of a deep and very wide valley. Menacing thunderheads were rolling up from the south. The beige looking disc of the sun was just beginning to rise above the eastern horizon. They were standing a half mile from the east bank of a wide slow river. The river flowed southwest through the head of the valley that ran in the same direction. This grassy snow-blown depression narrowed enough just to the northwest that both the east and west escarpments could be seen. To the southwest the lowland widened into an apparently limitless plain, through which the slow river wound like a great snake, onward he knew, until it reached the Atlantic, the ocean he had been rocking on moments ago.

The snow cover was uneven, blown or apparently swept into drifts in places, and seemingly scraped away to a dusting over patches of thick grass that had been gnawed to a frosty stubble. Frozen mounds of earth were also scattered about, looking like clods thrown from the treads of a giant-sized sneaker. He was awestruck.

He heard something that sounded vaguely like a snort behind him. He and Terrence, like two heads swiveling on the same body, turned to see Jay, in a squat position with one gloved fist on the frozen ground. The man’s nostrils were flaring as if he were a two-legged bloodhound. His teeth were partially bared in an inquisitive snarl as he craned his neck, sucked in air through his bent and flattened nose, and licked his lips, as if tasting this new world.

Eddie suddenly felt as if he was going to have to lead in order to kick this thing off.

“Yo Jay-Bone, what we got here? We good?”

The man answered with an affirmative nod and then unlimbered his pack. They stood wide-eyed as Jay strapped two swords and a sheath of arrows to his back, two knives to his hips, strung one of the bows, checked his boot laces, packed away his gloves, and then covered his eyes as he looked into the rising sun. He then pointed east to an escarpment that seemed unreachably distant on foot, and looked up at Terrence questioningly.

This is beyond weird. I’m exploring an empty world with the mime-from-Hell.

Terrence then looked at Jacques and Eddie and looked back at Jay. “I gotchya bro. We ain’t clocking out until Jacques is well, and we got ta do it from high ground anyhow, else we go back into the ocean en drown. I’ll carry dude here.”

With that Terrence bent and hoisted the smaller man over his shoulder and waited for Eddie and Jay. Jay headed off east immediately and Eddie followed as best he could, shouldering his pack with more difficulty than Terrence had with Jacques. But they were off into the unknown like brothers. There was a positivity and trust about Terrence that just made the four of them—even poor Jacques—gel into a unit. He had expected that from Jay. Jay however, seemed unconcerned with them, with time for nothing but the natural world around them, which seemed curiously empty…

The only personal items they were supposed to transport with were their wallets, with I.D. and cash. The magnetic strips on credit cards and such would be destroyed, and of no help when one returned to the 21st Century. All electronic devices would also be disabled, so none were taken. Eddie, however, felt uneasy about spending up to a year in a world without time, and had decided on an experiment.

He had transported wearing a watch on each wrist: a normal digital watch purchased at a pawn shop for $40, and an old-school hand-made watch with pointers on it, which had been made in some small European country populated by old blind hunch-backed White dudes and pretty blondes with pigtails who brewed hot chocolate all day long. This masterpiece had set him back $280.

He took a second, fell out of line, and rolled up his left sleeve. As soon as he stopped moving Jay stopped moving. The man then turned and looked back at him inquisitively.

“Just checking the time Jay-Bone.”

He looked down at the electronic watch, and sure enough it was dead. He then looked up at Jay-Bone. The man—looking like a videogame commando—pointed to the sun, then flashed five fingers and two fingers, made a fist, and flashed five fingers twice.

“Yeah Brother, I’ll be right with yah.”

He rolled up his right sleeve and looked down to discover that his hot-chocolate-honey watch had been a good investment. He felt proud with his little experiment and confident that he would be able to contribute to their effort in yet another way, by telling the time. “Yo Jay-Bone, it worked, its Seven-Ten a.m.”

Jay smiled a kind smile as Terrence looked back at Eddie and shook his head. “That’s what he just told you fool. He told the time by the sun. I’m glad it works though. I expect the ticking will help you sleep at night when the wind howls. I know it would help me Brother.”

They walked in single file until 11:00 a.m. and then stopped to drink some water—some good old 21st Century H2O—from their canteens. There were no words spoken, other than the mumbled questions asked by Jacques, who was quietly hushed by Terrence. Although he had not spoken a word, it was clear by Jay’s actions that he wanted silence. The man stopped briefly often, listening, sniffing and licking his lips.

At 3:00 p.m. they stopped again, and ate some Charleston Chews and Tootsie Rolls for lunch. Terrence could not help a quip. “Hey Eddie I know Jay here plans on killing something every time he gets hungry. What about you? D’you pack any real food?”

“Most certainly my suddenly health-conscious brutha: aside from da Charleston Chews and Tootsie Rolls I got Jolly Ranchers, Fruit-flavid Tootsie Rolls, circus peanuts, orange slices, dark-chocolate covered raisins—with dem extra iso-flavorinoids for da circilation, Tootsie Roll Pops which can double as a drumstick for distress signalin’, en juss in case Jay–Bone dare don’t slaughter Bugs Bunny on a regala I gotz a hundred—count ‘em my brutha—a hundred Slim Jims! How’s dat fo feedin’ yo big ass brutha?”

“Seriously?”

“Serious-as-shit.”

Terrence then gave Eddie a slow-motion high-five and a hug. “Ma man. Let’s break out the circus peanuts after we make camp tonight.”

“Gotchyou my brutha, gotchyou.”

Jacques was up and walking after their break but something was wrong. Jay was stepping over the barren chewed grass like he was sneaking through a briar patch, his head swiveling and nostrils flaring. At 3:35 p.m. they came to a pretty deep stream that ran down to the river. Jay signaled that they would not cross it and turned south up the incline along the west side of the stream, that was fairly deep and swift, and definitely cold.

The tension was palpable as they headed upcountry toward the still-distant highlands. At exactly 4:47 p.m. Jay stopped as if someone had thrown cold water down his back. He turned and looked down their back trail with the eyes of a murderer and signaled for them to double-time upstream. He knocked an arrow to his bow and tossed one of his swords to Terrence, and then slapped them each on the back and shoved them uphill.

As they scrambled into action they all seemed to speak at the same time.

Jacques, in a thick accent, pined, “Is it time to egress? Are we ready?”

Terrence spoke in a slow steady drawl, “This is not good Brother. Stay tight. You two stay up close on me. I’ve got the lead.”

As they spoke the panicked voice of some former crack-dealer from East Baltimore chimed in, “Shit, I haven’t seen a nigga act like dis since Trippy spotted dat Narc in da mens room at da El Dorado!”

Move boy, move!