Outta Time - Part V - Escape

Darkness. Loud, deafening darkness.

The swirling dust from the last stop was thinning and the deafening sound was dissipating. New sights, sounds and smells began to rush Jim's senses like a stowaway emerging from a long voyage to a new land.

Once the dust and sound from the machine stopped, he could see where he was.

"Jamestown?" He asked himself. He was still amazed that this device actually worked. Through all of the physicists warnings and all of the Nay-Sayers, this worked. Despite all of the warnings and fears of what this "May" do to the fabric of Space-time, it still worked and he was still here. Jamestown.

According to his PDA attached to the Device. This was Jamestown, VA, June 16th, 1608.

Why had the Device taken him to 1608 and not 1607? He wondered about this for a while, at least until the reality hit him like a brick to a glass window. Regardless of when, he was here. Whole and intact, for better or worse, he was here, in Jamestown, June 16th, 1608.

He looked out over the land before him. He stood, again, in the middle of the main road into town. He could see no one behind him or around him that would have witnessed this arrival. None that he "Could See", he thought. The dirt of the road was swirled into an interesting spiral pattern. It reminded him of a two-dimensional tornado. He will have to make a note of this and check during the next travels he would take.

The land was lush and green. Fields of Tobacco ruled the landscape, save for a small part that is the "Town". Jamestown was actually a Fortified Township colonized by the English. Far off in the distance, past the low hills he could see several billows of smoke. Most likely, he gathered, these are farms and cottages spread throughout the land close to the town.

He caught some movement off to the left. It was a Woman and her child walking from a short brown building, just outside of town, towards the Fortified Town. They have not noticed Jim yet.

Jim did his best to conceal the Device inside of his jacket, that he now carried with a bit of difficulty. He wrapped the Device in the jacket and held it like it was the most important thing, which it was… To Jim. He wrapped his arms around the bundle and proceeded towards the short brown building that the woman and her child came from.

"I need to get some different clothes", Jim thought to himself. He knew that, with the clothes he had on, he would be identified instantly as, at bare minimum, an Outsider, or worse, the Enemy.

He noticed that the Device was still dripping with condensation from the last trip. He knew that this was normal, but it would draw more attention to him if noticed.

He reached the building and it read: CHURCH

He listened at the door and heard nothing. He knocked, softly at first, and waited between each attempt. He heard nothing. He tried the door, it was unlocked. He opened the door…

It was dark inside the church. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the new light level, or lack thereof. He still heard nothing.

"Hello", he said in a soft voice.

No response.

"Hello", he said, a little louder.

No response.

As his eyes adjusted, he noticed that this was not so much like a church but more like a very small school room. There were desks in tidy order with a podium situated in the middle of the front part of the room. The Door was still opened and he noticed that the sign that said Church was a piece of wood hanging by a string on the door. He grabbed the sign and looked on the other side. It said: SCHOOL

"Interesting", Jim thought. But that thought fleeted as he remembered his history. Most schools in these days were also the Church on Sundays and holy days.

Looking around he saw pictures of ships hanging on the walls. They were labeled.

The first Picture was a picture of a large ship, with several tall masts. There were many people drawn on the picture doing a variety of duties on board. The Name of this ship was "The Susan Constant". Next to it was another picture, almost the same, but the ship was a bit different. This ship was called "The Discovery" and had an extra mast and more people onboard. The last ship, the biggest of them all, was labeled "The Godspeed" and had a Man pictured next to it. His picture was labeled as well: Captain Christopher Newport.

There was also, a very large, roughly carved cross behind the podium.

He noticed a door on the left side of the front of the room. He walked up to it and knocked. No answer.

He opened the door and saw that this was a bedroom of sorts. There was a cot and little table with a lantern on it. Wrapped around the sides were shelves with a cacophony of items on them. Food stores, oil reserves and clothing lay strewn about the impromptu shelves made of roughly hewn timbers.

He checked out the clothes and found some that fit. He hoped that these didn't clash by the local standards but he didn't really have a choice. He donned the apparel and tucked the Device behind and under some other clothes. He checked himself out and proceeded to the front door.

He looked outside and he saw more people on the street than he remembered being there when he arrived. In fact, it looked like something was happening. Everyone looked like the all had jobs to do and were doing them. Not so much like a well-oiled machine, but like they have practiced this before. Maybe this was a drill.

Jim headed off for the town gates.

Off in the distance he heard screaming. Not like a scream of pain, but more like a wailing of many people. Like people getting themselves charged up for something, like battle.

He remembered that there were a lot of attacks on Jamestown by local natives. Who were they again? He tried to remember. Then it came to him, they were the Algonquin Tribe. IF his memory served him, there were about 14,000 of them. Among them would be Pocahontas.

It was all coming back to him. Pocahontas and John Smith, the Massacres, like the Indian Massacre of 1622 that killed over 300 settlers. But, alas, this was 14 years away. Jon Smith would be here as well as Pocahontas. This is the reason he built the Device, to discover the Real History.

So why were all of the settlers panicked now? He walked into the town. The gate was open from his side of the fortified town.

Everyone had a job to do, it seemed. Some were filling buckets with Well water, others were lining up weapons, others were getting on what little armor they had. Even with the recent arrival of the Polish and Germans, there was not enough armor and weapons to go around.

Gates were being closed all around the encampment. Bells were ringing, notifying nearby settlers of the impending danger. People all around were yelling at the water carriers to put out the fires. Jim looked around but could see nothing… Until he turned back to where he had come from and saw the smoke coming up from…

"Oh shit!" He thought. "The Church!"

The Church was on fire and about 40 Algonquin Indian warriors were riding their horses all around the burning Church, yelling and hollering and making it seemingly impossible to get to the Church.

The Church, where the Device was hiding…

"Damn!"