Olivia
Waking up next to a dried human corpse in a lush, green forest wasn’t how I liked to start my morning. Especially when the corpse was dressed in a torn, blood-stained blue wool jacket, white breeches, black shoes, and a black, taco-shaped, bicorn hat like a soldier. His parched skin was stretched tight to his bones in a gruesome leer.
I jack-knifed to my feet with a screech and stared in horror at the deceased body beside me.
The cadaver stared back at me with lifeless eyes sunk deep into his skull.
Were any other bodies about?
My dagger lay in the leaves near where I’d landed from my time travel in ancient Rome. I snatched it up, sheathed it on the thigh opposite to where my Glock sat, and scrambled backward from the dead man, keeping watch for branches and logs. Wherever I’d landed was so not Rome. And my two time-traveling companions, Roman Alexander, the love of my life, and Marcellious Demarrias, Roman’s sworn enemy, were nowhere in sight.
“Roman!” I called, cupping my hands around my mouth.“Roman!”
Not a sound.
“Marcellious!”
Nothing but the whoosh of wind to leaves met my ears. I stopped yelling, trying to catch my bearings, surrounded by thick, abundant trees. The quietude gave way to the resumed twittering of songbirds and other forest dwellers rustling through the branches. My heart galloped in excitement. This forest reminded me of the Cougar Mountain region where my father and Lee had lived when I’d left them.
Could I have returned home?
I stumbled through the underbrush toward the rushing sounds of water. Pushing aside a branch, I encountered a waterfall I’d never seen before. The waterfall tumbled from a kind of stone that I knew from Washington State. And the trees differed from the forest where Lee and Papa lived. Instead of the fir and cedar trees, here I stood amid oak-hickory and pine.
No, this was not near my home—or in the same century if the dead guy’s attire was any indication.
I spun in a circle, scanning for signs of my companions.
“Roman? Marcellious!”
Still a big fat nothing.
Panic wound its way around my windpipe, strangling my voice. Where couldthey be? Did I leave them in Rome? Were they now dead in the Colosseum? Or what if I did everything wrong? What if I messed up on the daggers and switched them with each other? I’d probably made the biggest mistake of my life by time-traveling us all together, and now they are nowhere to be seen.
My mind began to fog over from fear. This wasn’t good. What had Lee taught me? Panic led to pain and peril. I had to get a grip and move logically if I wanted to find Roman and survive. If Roman was in this century, I’d find him. I just needed a plan.
First, I had to figure out where I had landed.
I retraced my steps back to where I’d awoken. As disgusting as it sounded, I had to search the dead guy for supplies. The only things I had brought from Rome were the clothes on my body—a long linen stola and sandals. And, of course, my weapons. Depending on what century I was in, having different clothes might be the difference between life and death.
Flies buzzed around the body as I rolled it to its side. I had to swallow back the bile that shot into the back of my throat.
A cloth haversack wound around the guy’s back. I gingerly picked open the bag and looked inside. A simple metal cup and pewter plate and the oddest pocketknife lay inside. The handle, elaborately painted with roses, looked fashioned of bone and shaped into a woman’s shin and dainty, booted foot. It folded neatly over the blade.
I glanced at Dead Guy. It had probably been a keepsake from his wife, meant to comfort him on long cold nights.
Poor guy. Poor wife. She probably doesn’t know he’s dead.
Further digging in the sack revealed a three-tine metal fork, a knife, a hard biscuit, and some kind of dried meat wrapped in canvas. I removed the food and sniffed it for signs of spoilage. It didn’t smell foul, so I stuck it back in the bag and maneuvered the cloth rucksack from Dead Guy’s body.
A round, wood cheese-box-type canteen also hung around his lifeless form. I took that, too.
Mosquitoes were already eating me alive. While I didn’t think donning the military jacket was a good idea, I might do well to remove the corpse’s shirt. And maybe his pants. Definitely his boots.
I took a deep breath to gather courage. Then, I rolled Dead Guy back and forth to get off the bloody shirt. I could wash it in the creek below the waterfall. The boots and pants were next.
I searched around for anything else useful. If Dead Guy had possessed weapons, or even ammunition, whoever had killed him had likely taken it. So, I threw the haversack across my shoulders, held the clothes at arm’s length, and trekked back to the waterfall.
R.I.P. Dead Guy. And thanks for the food and clothing.
