Take a Ride with Me

Jill O'Connor absently had her eyes on the pump's reader, watching the cents become dollars as gas flowed into her tank.
When an engine started, it didn't register that it was the engine in her car that had been started. She was standing outside her little KIA Soul holding the nozzle in her tank's fuel filler hole, wasn't she?
But when her car took off and she was left holding the nozzle, gas spilling onto the cement around her feet, there was no doubt as to whose car had been started.
She watched as her car tore out of the gas station's lot, it's passenger side door still hanging open, and she screamed at the top of her lungs.
"Help! He took my car! Stop him!"
Jill dropped the nozzle and after a bit the gas stopped flowing.
Why hadn't she taken her keys with her? If she'd been planning on going inside after filling, she would have. Jill wasn't careless. But with pay-at-the-pump being the thing to do, she no longer took her keys or purse…
Her purse! Shit! The guy had her car and her purse!
"I saw that," a voice from behind her said. "Wanna get yer car back?"
Jill turned around and saw a huge biker guy looking down on her.
"What? Of course I want my car back! I have to call the police!"
"Take too long. Get on and we'll go get yer car."
Jill saw a beautiful motorcycle in the bay next to where her car had been. It said Harley – Davidson on the gas tank. It looked old, but somehow also looked brand new.
She hadn't even seen or heard him pull up.
"You want me to get on that with you and chase after him?" asked Jill.
"That's the plan. My friends call me Nate," he said, extending his hand. "Time's a wastin'. Let's roll."
"I don't have a helmet," stammered Jill, shaking Nate's hand, but avoiding his eyes.
"Helmets are for protecting yer head if ya get in an accident," said Nate. "I don't get in accidents. Come on. He's buildin' a lead. Let's go. It'll be fun."
Nate got on his bike and kick started it. It had a low rumble to it.
"I must be nuts," Jill said to herself as she got on behind Nate and wrapped her arms around his waist. The seat appeared to be for one, but Jill was thin and just fit in between Nate and the bike's sissy bar.
Her face was pressed into his leather biker jacket. The leather smelled good. Across his shoulders where biker gang members usually had their club name were the words "TO HELL AND BACK."
"What did I expect?" Jill thought.
"My name's Jill."
"I know," answered Nate.
"Now that's not good," Jill said to herself. Could this Nate and the guy who took her car be in on it together?
"Saw it on yer license plate," Nate said over his shoulder. "JILLS TOY."
"I suppose I should thank you."
"Not yet. But soon."

***

The main drag took them to the outskirts of town in a few minutes. In another few minutes, they were in the countryside.
"Shouldn't we have caught up to him by now?" Jill yelled over Nate's shoulder.
They were now doing eighty. Nate didn't respond.
Jill started to be concerned.
"Where are you taking me?" she shouted over his shoulder.
"To the future," said Nate.
"What?" asked Jill.
"Your future. Yours and mine. You'll love it."
Jill now wondered if she'd been kidnapped. Her car and purse stolen and now kidnapped? All in the same hour?

***

After twenty minutes at seventy to eighty miles an hour on a county highway, Nate pulled off onto a rural two-lane road and dropped down to fifty.
Nothing around here but corn, corn, cows, old farms, corn, corn, cows.….
They pulled onto a field road and slowed to fifteen miles an hour as Nate navigated the uneven terrain. There was a small, wooded area ahead, and Nate followed the road toward it.
Jill was thinking about how she would jump off as soon as Nate stopped and then run for her life.
But to where?
Nate maneuvered the Harley chopper slowly into the woods on what looked to be a wide animal path of sorts and stopped in front of an aluminum shed.
Jill got off the bike, last on first off, and then Nate dismounted and walked to the shed.
Knowing she had few options, she decided to wait for what came next.
"I've gotta pee," she said to Nate's back. "Bad."
"Bushes over there," was Nate's curt reply.
Nate went inside the shed after unlocking a small door, leaving Jill by herself to use the bushes or not. Apparently, he didn't think she'd run for it.
Five minutes later, Nate came out of the shed and opened two swinging doors wide. He pushed the Harley inside and motioned for Jill to follow him in.
Jill's jaw dropped as she stepped into the shed. The inside was much bigger than it had looked from the outside. Much bigger.
There was a small Ford pick-up loaded with bags of groceries and some stuff from a hardware store. Snuggled in between the groceries were two propane tanks and 10 five-gallon bottles of name-brand water. A couple of twelve-packs of beer and some bottles of whiskey rounded out the load. The shed had lumber, sheets of drywall, and other building materials stacked neatly on the floor.
"Are you, like, one of those survivalists?" Jill asked.
Nate snorted. "I guess ya could say that. Only we don't live in underground bunkers. We live in the past."
"I had a boyfriend once who lived in the past," Jill said with a smile. "Never got over missing out on the Sixties."
"No, I mean me and some others live back in 1957. We do time travel to come back and forth."
Now Jill was thinking that not only had she might have been kidnapped but kidnapped by a whacko.
Nate walked over and closed and locked the doors of the shed from the inside.
"Come sit in the cab of the truck," said Nate. "The trip's usually pretty smooth, but ya have to allow for possible glitches."
"Where are we going?" asked Jill, getting into the Ford to humor Nate.
"1957," said Nate. "Keep up, will ya?"
"We're gonna time travel in a truck filled with groceries?"
"The whole shed's goin'," Nate said with a wicked grin.
He now held the proverbial little black box on his lap that Jill had seen mad scientists use when planning to take over the world. But that was in movies. This was real life.
Nate pushed a button three times, pausing a full second between each push.
There was a low humming sound and then everything grayed out.

***

Part 2, the conclusion, will be in the next issue.