The woman had been riding her motorcycle all night, and she was chilled down to her bones. Even the morning sun hadn’t helped thaw her. She supposed it was time she pulled into a roadhouse.
Where am I?
She had crossed into New Mexico a while back, and was seeing signs for Albuquerque more than a hundred miles ahead. So, she figured, she was just somewhere between a desert expanse and an empty wasteland. But, thankfully, there was a lonely roadside tavern coming up fast.
She pulled up, and pumped some gas into her bike, before entering, while rifling through her wallet. The first thing that hit her as she entered was the pungent aroma of cigar smoke. As she pulled out a twenty, she glanced up and froze.
Standing at the bar were three men, who all looked dishevelled. On the right, a thirty-something man leaning on the bar, with a gaunt face and stubble. On the left, an older man wearing a gaudy silver blazer. He was evidently the source of the cigar smell, given the smouldering stogie between his fingers. But it was the tall man in the middle that actually caught her eye.
“Sam?!”
The man, who she knew was definitely Sam Beckett, looked back at her without recognition, but he was clearly spooked to hear his name.
He looked for a moment at the bartender, before stepping towards her.
“Do… do you know me?”
“Yes…” she said, and frowned. “You must be… swiss-cheesed, right? You don’t remember me.”
His eyes widened. “Swiss-cheesed… huh.” He looked at the bartender once again. The grey-haired man shrugged back at him, a strange smile playing at his lips.
Sam took another step toward her. “I think you must have met a different Sam…”
The woman frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Sam gave her an exhausted smile. “Welcome to the migraine that is this bar,” he said, and gestured around the otherwise empty tavern. “What’s your name?”
She moved to a bar stool, and took a perplexed seat on it.
“…Alia.”
Sam nodded, and gestured to the men on either side of him. “This is Al, and Will. We’re, uh… a little displaced from our homes right now.”
Al, like Sam’s hologram?
She looked at the man, tapping ash into a tray on the bar. He winked at her. “How you doin’, gorgeous?”
“Al, this really isn’t the time…” Sam said, shooting him a warning look.
Alia sat in a daze for a moment, attempting to comprehend this surreal predicament, before the bartender spoke up.
“You plan on paying for that gas, little lady?”
She realised she was still holding the bill, and she handed it to him.
“Appreciate it,” he said, and opened his register. “Staying for a meal? Soup of the day is chunky mushroom. Three fifty.”
He pulled out a few smaller bills, and handed them back, as she continued looking at Sam and his companions.
“Yeah. Guess I will.”
She picked up a menu, but couldn’t concentrate on the words. Her gaze kept drifting up to Sam.
“I…” she began, but wasn’t able to find more words. He looked back at her awkwardly.
“Listen, you should know…” he said, glancing between his friends a moment, before looking back to her. “This place we’re in right now is an unstable anomaly in spacetime.”
Alia glared at him. “What?”
“Well that’s no way to speak about my fine establishment,” said the bartender, hands on hips. “If you don’t like the way I pull a beer, you should just say so.”
Sam gave the man a flat, sardonic look. “Enough with the theatrics, already.”
He looked back at Alia with some concern. “Look, Al walked in here four months ago, and disappeared. Then when Will and I tracked the anomaly again, we came in here and only an hour had passed for him. And then we got stuck here too. Every time we open that door, it leads somewhere different.”
He turned an accusing eye to the bartender. “This guy’s got us trapped here, bouncing around across time and dimensions.”
Alia crinkled her nose. “The bartender?”
“It’s true,” said Will, who finally looked up at her. “What year is it for you?”
“Two thousand two…” she said, brow furrowed. Will and Sam exchanged a look of horror.
“When we came in here it was 1998,” Sam muttered, rubbing a hand on his forehead. “My watch says it’s been an hour and fifteen.”
“Fellas,” the bartender said, trying to break the tension, “Time tends to fly when you’re spending quality time with your friends. Long as you’re home in time for Christmas, right?”
It was Al’s turn to snap at the bartender. “Would you shut up already?”
He stamped out his cigar. “I’ve had it up to here with this nozzle beating around the damn bush all day. What do you want with us?”
The bartender chuckled.
“Just your patronage.” He gestured to the door. “You can leave any time.”
“Can we, though?” Sam asked, his face deadpan. “How do we know if we go out there it won’t be straight into a Kromagg apocalypse?”
A what apocalypse?
Alia stood. “I don’t know what’s going on here, but I think maybe I should go. I have something important I’m doing, and…”
Sam looked at her, anxious. “Wait, let me go out with you… just in case.”
He looked at his friends. “I’ll be back.”
The bartender looked Sam up and down, before reaching under the bar, and throwing a big coat to him. “Here. It’s chilly out.”
Sam put a light hand on Alia’s shoulder, guiding her to the door.
He really doesn’t know me at all, does he?
She still had no clue what the meaning of any of this was, but it was no coincidence that Sam was here. Even if he didn’t recognise her.
The pair stepped out of the tavern, into the cool air. Her motorcycle was still where she left it and she moved to it, checking her device.
Still tracing. Good.
“I thought you said this place changes every time you open the door?” she asked.
Sam looked off into the desert, uneasy. “It… it normally does.”
He looked back at the door, and grabbed the handle. It didn’t budge.
“Huh…?”
Alia watched him struggle with the door. He then cupped his hands over one of the small windows. A moment later, he took a step backwards, and stood frozen, mouth hanging open.
“He wouldn’t just…” He slowly turned to her. “I can’t believe it. The anomaly bounced out of here. They’re… they’re all gone.”
Alia rushed to see into the window, and he was right: the roadhouse was closed up, dark, and seemingly abandoned.
Alia met Sam’s troubled gaze.
“Did… did he want me to go with you?” he asked, looking down at the coat that was still hanging over his forearm. “Was this his plan all along?”
Alia fought back tears. “You can come with me if you like, Sam…”
Please come with me.
Sam looked into her moist eyes, and nodded. He put the coat on. “I’m not the Sam you know, so… call me John, okay?”