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  The Tunnel

  Time of Death: Book #1

  Written by Josh Anderson

  Copyright © 2016 by Abdo Consulting Group, Inc.

  Published by EPIC Press™

  PO Box 398166

  Minneapolis, MN 55439

  All rights reserved.

  Printed in the United States of America.

  International copyrights reserved in all countries.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without

  written permission from the publisher. EPIC Press™ is trademark

  and logo of Abdo Consulting Group, Inc.

  Cover design by Dorothy Toth

  Images for cover art obtained from iStockPhoto.com

  Edited by Ramey Temple

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Anderson, Josh.

  The tunnel / Josh Anderson.

  p. cm. — (Time of death ; #1)

  Summary: Kyle Cash crashed his friend’s Audi into a school bus full of children.

  The accident haunts him every day, until he gets the opportunity to travel back in

  time. Kyle learns, that time weaving is more complicated—and more

  dangerous—than he ever could have imagined.

  ISBN 978-1-68076-064-4 (hardcover)

  1. Time travel—Fiction. 2. Traffic accidents—Fiction. 3. Life change events—Fiction. 4. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 5. Conduct of life—Fiction. 6. Guilt—Fiction. 7. Self-acceptance—Fiction. 8. Young adult fiction. I. Title.

  [Fic]—dc23

  2015903986

  This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

  To Corey...

  Thank you for being my person.

  PROLOGUE

  March 13, 2014

  * * *

  Kyle hung like a bat in the overturned Audi. A vampire bat, really, given that he was covered with blood. Next to him, his best friend Joe dangled, unconscious, dripping blood from his mangled face onto the hood of the car. Kyle alternated between screaming for Joe to wake up, and closing his eyes tightly to avoid looking at the upside-down nightmare all around him. Is there any way for this to turn out okay? Kyle wondered.

  Kyle tried to calm his breathing like that rescue worker guy had told him to. Deep breaths. The guy said he’d be right back, but it felt like he’d been gone forever. As Kyle winced from the seatbelt digging deeply into his chest and shivered from the cold morning air coming through his busted windows, he thought to himself, This can’t be what dead feels like. He was relieved.

  Kyle wasn’t, however, looking forward to the pounding Joe was going to give him when he woke up and saw how Kyle had wrecked his precious Audi. All because Kyle just couldn’t be late for a math test. Maybe everything could still be okay. Kyle closed his eyes for a moment.

  When he opened them again, Kyle had no idea how long it had been since he’d flipped the car. He heard a loud grinding noise all around him. Now, instead of just seeing the glass-littered pavement of the road, he saw even more legs than before—some standing still, others rushing around.

  Then, a face appeared. The same guy, a black dude wearing a ‘Rescue Squad’ baseball cap. “We’re gonna get you out, kid. My name’s Bart.”

  “I’m Kyle. This is Joe. He’s bleeding. Please don’t leave us again,” Kyle whispered, barely opening his mouth to speak. He started shivering again, and closed his eyes once more.

  The next time Kyle opened his eyes, he saw even more legs than before. Now, there were red and blue lights flashing, sirens, and backup beeps all around him. He caught bits of intense conversation right outside the window of the overturned Audi. “No survivors.” “Divers are just bringing bodies up.” “School bus.”

  When Kyle heard “school bus,” he pounded on the seat above him to catch Bart’s attention. Kyle’s voice was now just a gravely whisper.

  “The school bus! It almost hit us,” he said.

  Suddenly, Bart recoiled. “Oh man, is that . . . ? Is that booze on your breath, kid?” Bart asked, his face all of a sudden disappearing from Kyle’s view. “Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. This kid’s drunk.”

  Now, Kyle could only see anonymous feet around him again and hear the angry murmuring of the kind man who had been with him until just a second ago. The grinding noise of the Jaws of Life now felt loud enough to swallow him whole.

  Kyle closed his eyes once more as he dangled there, hoping there was some way this might turn out okay, but knowing that it probably wouldn’t.

  CHAPTER 1

  March 13, 2014

  * * *

  Thirty minutes earlier

  Kyle almost dropped the bottle of tequila into the bathtub when he heard his mother’s tires roll over the rocky driveway next to his house. His buddy, Joe, took a long pull on their carefully rolled Dutch Master blunt. The one day they don’t wait a few minutes before sparking up, she actually does come back home five minutes after she leaves for work. He looked out the tiny bathroom window and saw her getting out of her old, run-down Kia, parked now behind Kyle’s equally beat-up ‘96 Nissan Sentra. The car was one of the only things his father left behind when he bolted.

  “Shit, it’s my mom,” Kyle said. “What are we gonna do? The second I open this door, the whole upstairs is gonna reek.”

  Joe shrugged his shoulders and grabbed the tequila—lifted from Joe’s dad’s endless stash. “It’s your house, man. I don’t know.” Joe swigged another shot, and then hit the blunt again, craning his neck toward the window, then pursing his lips. He slowly exhaled a huge plume of marijuana smoke through the screen.

  “I wouldn’t worry so much, man,” Joe said a few seconds later. “Anyone who would choose this fuckin’ wallpaper had to be a pothead at some point.” Kyle was so used to seeing the pattern at this point that it didn’t feel weird anymore, but green elephants walking on a tightrope, balancing huge, silver platters with their trunks was pretty weird.

  “Put it out, dude,” Kyle said. “And disappear the bottle.”

  Joe took one more hit, holding the smoke inside for as long as he could before exhaling. His chubby face looked even huger as he puffed out his smoke-filled cheeks. This time, Joe completely forgot to aim for the window. Then, he opened his mouth and used his tongue to extinguish the fiery cherry at the end of the blunt. He tucked the tequila bottle into the deep pocket of his XXL North Face jacket.

  I’m fucked, Kyle thought to himself. His mom had never caught him smoking pot before. Not red-handed, at least. She was definitely one of those moms who was okay with looking the other way now and then, as long as she didn’t feel like Kyle was taking advantage—and as long as his grades were good, which had never been a problem. So much of high school grading was based on memorization, and there was no one in the county with a better memory than his. But ‘hotboxing’ Stella Cash’s upstairs bathroom—the one she showered in every morning—was definitely not a betrayal that the woman who’d raised him by herself would be willing to ignore. He had a big weekend planned too. There has to be a way to make this turn out okay.

  He heard the front door open, and the screen door slam shut behind his mother. For a moment, Kyle debated whether they should quickly exit the bathroom, go downstairs, and hope his mother didn’t notice that they reeked of weed. Or, should they just wait it out quietly and pray she left before she realized that they hadn’t left for school yet.

  The lock on the upstairs bathroom was uselessly placed on the outside of the door, so if she tried to come in, they were screwed. Quite the scene she’d be walking into: her son and his best friend, winter coats and backpacks on, their Timberlands neatly lined up on her bathroom floor, standing in her empty bathtub for a little wake-and-bake before school.

  Kyle grabbed a bottle of mo
uthwash from under the sink. He took a swig, and handed the bottle over to Joe. Kyle swished it around his mouth fast, and then spit it toward the shower drain. He closed his eyes and pictured the downstairs of the house, wondering if he’d left anything down there that would signal to his mother that he was still home. There were four dishes in the sink. The small side table where his mother kept her wallet was empty.

  Joe gargled for a second, looked around aimlessly, and then swallowed. “Ahh . . . ” he said, as if it were another shot of the tequila. “Prolly should’ve smoked outside, huh?”

  This wasn’t their normal move—drinking and getting high before school in Ms. Cash’s upstairs bathroom. Usually, they played video games in Kyle’s basement until she left, and then smoked a little in the backyard, or in one of their cars.

  Today was even bleaker and colder than usual for a winter day in Flemming. Plus, the heat in Kyle’s car wasn’t working, which was particularly bad timing due to the super-chilly stretch, even by upstate New York standards. The normally picturesque landscape was littered by dirt-speckled, hilly remnants of frozen snow on the sides of every road which hadn’t gotten a chance to melt since the two-foot snowstorm last week. Black ice made the late nights and early mornings treacherous on the roads. During this cold streak, the only time most days that Kyle went outside voluntarily was when he and Joe, and some of their other friends, would sneak away into the huge field behind Silverman High School for a midday smoke break.

  “Shhh . . . ” Kyle said to Joe, listening for his mother’s footsteps. “If we get caught, there’s no way she’s letting me go to Randall’s Island this weekend.” He heard her walking around downstairs. If she never came up, they’d be fine. Even if she did, they had toweled the door. Kyle used his hands to fan the air in the room toward the window, as if he could just push out the unmistakable, sticky smell of cheap weed. He didn’t want to miss the Winter Riot music festival this weekend, and since his mom had been on the fence about letting him go anyway, there was no doubt what his punishment would be if she caught them this morning.

  He had trouble tracking where his mother was in the house. First, the footsteps sounded close by, and then distant, and then close once again. He was clearly fucked up—definitely high, and a little drunk too. Then, the footsteps suddenly stopped. Maybe, Kyle thought, this can still turn out okay.

  “Kyle, are you here . . . ?” his mom called out. It sounded like she was right at the bottom of the stairs. Decision time.

  “Did you drive here or walk?” Kyle whispered to Joe.

  “Walked.”

  “I told her you might be driving me today,” Kyle whispered. “She might think my car’s here because you picked me up. Let’s just stay quiet.” Kyle caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and noticed his bloodshot eyes. He didn’t like mirrors when he was high. He’d been lucky enough for girls to find him good looking, but whenever he caught a glimpse of his spiky brown hair and angular cheekbones when he’d been smoking pot, he felt like his hard features made him look monstrous.

  Joe held the extinguished blunt in front of his face. “You mind if I keep this, or you want it?” Even though Kyle had the better weed hookup, Joe was the bigger pothead. If they weren’t best friends, Kyle might’ve made a bigger deal out of paying for ninety percent of the weed they smoked, especially since Joe’s family gave him forty bucks a week for allowance and Kyle gave his whole paycheck from the dry cleaner to his mom to help with bills.

  Kyle pushed Joe’s hand away and moved his head as close as he could get it to the door without falling out of the shower.

  “Is someone there?” Ms. Cash yelled. “Hello?”

  Kyle thought he heard footsteps right outside the door and stepped over the edge of the tub to listen. We still may be okay, he thought to himself. Maybe she’s looking for something in her bedroom. He grabbed a can of Lysol off the top of a bathroom cabinet and pressed the dispenser button gently, as if a light press could make it spray more quietly.

  Joe clumsily climbed out of the bathtub and was about to pick up one of his boots when Kyle grabbed his hand. “Wait,” he said.

  Kyle heard the footsteps get faster and louder. He smiled. Then, the unmistakable screech of the screen door opening downstairs and the front door slamming shut. He and Joe did their patented ‘spooky hands’ high five, perfect for a moment just like this.

  “I have no idea what she forgot,” Kyle said. “Everything she normally takes was gone when we came up.”

  “You’re a freak,” Joe answered.

  “Eidetic people have feelings too,” Kyle said with a laugh, referring to his photographic, or ‘eidetic,’ memory. It wasn’t like a superpower—Kyle didn’t try to use it, but he could recall nearly any image in perfect detail, even if he’d only seen it for a very short time.

  Kyle climbed back into the tub, and pressed his face against the window screen. He saw his mom holding her lunch cooler and standing next to her car with her hands on her hips, looking around. After a few seconds, she walked toward the back of the driveway and peeked into the backyard as if she had heard something. Then, she walked back to her car, shaking her head. “Hello?” he heard her call out. He wished he wasn’t so high, so he could go out and see what was going on. His mom looked a little freaked out, and Kyle felt bad. Perhaps she’d heard them, or sensed that someone else was around.

  After checking the backyard, his mom got back in her car and headed off.

  Kyle sprayed enough Lysol to disinfect a small city before they hurried out of the bathroom, leaving the door and window open. He had enough faith in his memory to know that he’d remember to close the window later when he got home.

  Kyle checked the clock hanging at the top of the stairs—twenty minutes until his logic quiz in first period math. He hadn’t expected math to be his easiest class of second semester, junior year, but Kyle had been doing logic puzzles for fun since he was a little kid. Being a little high and drunk would make it more fun for him. He had nothing to worry about as long as he could get himself to first period in time. “We’ve got to hustle, dude,” he said, bouncing downstairs.

  Kyle turned around to see Joe taking his time behind him. Joe Stropoli wasn’t the world’s best hustler. In fact, Joe didn’t really march to anyone’s beat but his own. Kyle wanted to have fun, be a little irresponsible, and then prove he could still get things done when he needed to. Joe, on the other hand, just didn’t give a shit.

  Kyle ran to the basement to grab his phone. He picked up Joe’s too, and then bolted up the basement stairs two at a time. He handed Joe his phone, opened the front door, and stood there waiting. “Joe, I have a fuckin’ quiz. C’mon, man!”

  Joe started messing with his phone and almost walked into a wall. “This game is sick when you’re high,” he said, pushing past Kyle and out the door. Kyle noticed a couple of leaves on the stairs, courtesy of Joe’s shoes, and picked them up with his hands.

  Kyle saw that his car’s front tire on the driver’s side was flat. “Shit,” he said. “Of course, this morning.” He walked around to the other side, and the front passenger tire was completely slack around the wheel too. Definitely not drivable. Two flats? he thought. Unusual. Not that Kyle would know much about ‘usual’ having only had his license for a couple of months.

  “We’ve gotta take your car,” Kyle said.

  “No way,” Joe answered. “I’m too fucked up to drive today. The morning cocktails did me in.” Joe let out that big laugh of his which was usually directed at something he’d said himself.

  “C’mon, man,” Kyle asked again.

  Joe started walking out of the driveway, toward his house. “Who cares? You think math class really matters? Let’s go chill at my house, play some Madden, and then I’ll drive us to school later. Your nerdy ass will make it to half your classes today, at least.”

  They lived about ten minutes from Silverman High, which was exactly how long Kyle had until his math teacher, Mr. Meltzner, locked the classroom door
to keep out any latecomers.

  “Please, Joe,” Kyle said. “You know I care about my grades, bro.”

  “We’re both fucked up. Better safe than sorry,” Joe said. “Especially today, man, with all the black ice out there.” But, Kyle had seen Joe drive high plenty. If they were going to a party, or to get more weed, or just cruising around, Joe would never have said the first thing about staying off the road. But, if it meant they could just chill out and eat a second breakfast, Joe was happy to conveniently argue for safety first.

  Sometimes Kyle wished he could be as indifferent as Joe about school, and really, about everything that mattered. Kyle didn’t have that luxury, though. His mom wasn’t going to be able to pay for college if he didn’t get a scholarship.

  “The adrenaline rush from my mom coming home totally sobered me up,” Kyle said. “Let me drive us in your car.” Kyle knew he was wasting his breath. He’d have to start talking Joe’s language.

  Joe headed toward the front door of his house, which was twice the size of Kyle’s. “You comin’ inside?”

  “No. I’m walkin’ to school,” Kyle said.

  Joe looked genuinely surprised. “Seriously? You’re gonna freeze your nuts off.”

  “Yeah,” Kyle said. “I better take the rest of that blunt to keep me warm on the walk.” He knew Joe didn’t have any weed at home.

  “You’re a dick,” Joe said.

  “Yeah, but I’m a dick who’s gonna smoke the rest of that blunt without you,” Kyle said. “Come on, man, let’s just go to school.”

  Joe took off his backpack and grabbed his keys from inside. He tossed them to Kyle, and walked over to the passenger side of his Audi.

  “You better drive real careful,” Joe said, tossing a balled up McDonald's bag from the passenger seat onto the floor. “Remember, you’re driving a finely tuned piece of European engineering. This isn’t your shitty fuckin’ Nissan.”