It's 2 O'Clock Somewhen

Petey was always the brains of The Outfit. He was eight, so being not quite a year older automatically made him smarter than Veronica (Ronnie) and me. Or so he claimed. My name is Justin. You already met the rest of The Outfit. For the record, I’m seven and a half and Ronnie is seven and three quarters.

The Outfit, as we called ourselves, was just a gang of three kids getting into minor trouble and trying to keep from being bored during summer vacation. By minor I mean venturing into places we were told not to ¬- like picking peaches off Mrs. Abernathy’s garden, sneaking into the Motel 6 swimming pool or exploring the old abandoned vacuum cleaner factory, which were doing right now, as a matter of fact.

The factory was way off from town, down a deserted road filled with potholes and long hanging tree branches. It was a hot day, and it had taken us over an hour on our bikes to get there so, we were pretty tired and thirsty. I had brought a canteen and passed it around as we stood in the nearly abandoned parking lot and stared up at the factory. There were still a couple of rusted out cars resting on four flats with their windows all broken out, seats torn parked in the lot. They looked sad, like someone had just forgotten to drive them home.

Who the heck forgets their car? I sure wouldn’t.

Anyway, the factory was overgrown with weeds, its metal walls rusted nearly through in some places and most of the small windows near the roof busted out, probably by rock throwing competitions from older kids.

It used to be called Vac-U-Tech but was abandoned and vacant, for no one seemingly knew how long ago. In fact, no one we talked to (our parents, mainly) even remembered it ever being open or knew anyone who had ever worked there.

Of course, that made it so much cooler and weirder for us.

We three stood outside it staring up at its big concrete walls cracked and showing signs of decay with its paint peeled and weeds crawling weeds up its sides. The front door was cracked open. Inside looked dark and spooky.

“Do you think it’s haunted?” Ronnie asked. She was always hoping to find a haunted place.

“Nah,” I replied, it’s just an empty old building.” I was always hoping NOT to find a haunted anything.

“We gotta go in,” Petey said, but even big, brave Petey sounded nervous.

“I don’t think we should,” I insisted. “It’s our last day of summer vacation. We should do something really fun.”

“This can be really fun.” Petey replied.

“I‘m with Justin,” Ronnie nodded. “Let’s do something more fun.”

Petey turned to face us. “Hey. It’s been a great summer, right?”

“Yeah.”

“The best ever, maybe,” I agreed.

“Exactly. And It’s almost over and next Monday we go back to boring old school.”

“Right?”

We nodded

“So, let’s end this summer with a bang!”

I looked up at the building. “How’s this ending the summer with a bang? You going to blow it up or something?”

“Nah. I just got a feeling. There’s something weirdly magical inside.”

“Yeah right,” Ronnie said. “You said the same thing about that old suitcase you found in the weeds.”

“Yuck!” I remembered.

“That was different,” Petey insisted. “That dead possum inside that was pretty cool, you gotta admit. C’mon, just give this place a chance.”

I turned to Ronnie. “We did just ride our bikes all the way out here…”

She nodded. “Okay. Petey, let’s see what’s inside.”

We left the dazzling bright daylight to enter the creepy darkness of the factory. First Petey, then Ronnie, then me.

Petey exclaimed, amazed, “This place really is magical!” as he walked into the empty factory.

Petey loved empty buildings. I’m not sure why.

“Yeah, a real magical dump,” Ronnie frowned, eyeing all the dust and piles of wreckage strewn around.

“Maybe we’ll find a treasure!” I said excitedly as I entered and immediately tripped on a piece of wood and fell onto the hard concrete.

“Ow! That sucks!” I exclaimed. “I broke my watch! And I just got it!”

“At least it’ll be right twice a day,” Ronnie joked.

“Yeah. Great. It’ll always be 2 o’clock.”

I picked myself up and looked around. It was a huge, creepy place. There were most certainly rats here. I do actually like rats, but really only the nice pet store ones.

“Where are all the vacuums?” Ronnie complained, kicking and sending an old fast food container skidding across the floor. “I wanted to get one for my mom.”

Ronnie was right. There wasn’t a vacuum anywhere in here. As a matter of fact, the place was almost completely empty of equipment, machinery, or vacuum parts.

Petey had a weird look on his face. “I don’t think they ever made vacuum cleaners here.”

“What? It says so on the sign,” Ronnie insisted.

Petey smiled. “No, it doesn’t. It says Vac-u-Tech.”

“What else would they make in a place called Vac-u-Tech?”

“Not vacuums, that’s for sure… hold on! What was that?” Petey asked, pointing to a far wall.

“What was what?” I asked.

“I thought I saw a door closing.”

“You mean that wall over there that has no doors?” I laughed.

“Yes!” He raced over to it. He began running his hands along the wall.

“Petey, you’re crazy!” Ronnie exclaimed. “Let’s go! This place is dumb!”

“No, I swear I saw a door open and …”

He must have touched some kind of secret latch because a door swung open.

The opened door revealed a medium-sized, extremely white room. In the center of the room was a booth, about the size of a rounded old-fashioned telephone booth. Not red like Dr. Who’s, but more like the one in the Get Smart re-runs I sometimes liked to watch with my dad.

Against the far wall of the room was a console with lit dials and buttons and flashing lights and LED screens displaying weird wave patterns. Inside the booth was a large bench and some kind of strange controls.

“What the bananas is this?” Ronnie, who didn’t like to swear, exclaimed. She remained frozen in the doorway.

“I have no idea,” Petey said in awe. It was rare that Petey had no idea, and that kind of scared me, but still I ventured in to look around. I noticed the console had rotating dials and some with times and dates.

“Petey, do you know what this looks like?” I whispered.

He nodded excitedly.

“Someone please tell me what the fudge is going on here!” demanded Ronnie, hands on her hips.

“It’s a time machine,” Petey and I whispered simultaneously.

Ronnie stared at us for a long time before laughing uproariously. “Oh, come on! A time machine! A time machine? Right here in the middle of a vacuum cleaner factory?”

“Vacuums, not vacuum cleaners,” Petey explained.

“OMG,” Ronnie still laughing said. “You expect me to believe someone built A TIME MACHINE here and just left it?”

“Yes.” Petey said, simply. “Why not?” Then he turned to me. “Where should we go?”

I was stunned that he was asking me.

“The future?” I suggested.

“The past?” he countered

“Are you two nuts?” Ronnie suggested, finally entering the room fully. “This is not a real time machine. It’s only just some old movie prop or virtual game console.”

“Where would you go, Ronnie?” Petey asked, ignoring her. “If you could go anywhere in time? Past or future?”

Ronnie saw no one was going to listen to her, so she decided to get into the spirit of things. Sort of. “I would go forward to next Christmas and open all my presents - I’m especially hoping for a new game console and a new bunch of games and then eat cookies and turkey and enjoy it all right now and not having to wait!”

“Wow, that’s really thinking big!” Petey laughed. “It’s only a few months away.”

“What about you, Petey!” She shot back. “You’re so smart. What would you do?”

Petey thought about for a while, then said in a low voice, “I would go back to that night. When Jinkees was hit by that car and stop it from ever happening.”

We all grew silent. Petey had lost his dog a few years before, and he had never really been the same since.

“RIP Jinkees,” I bowed my head and nodded.

“That would be a good thing to do.” I agreed. “Let’s do that.”

But Petey shook his head. “Nah… maybe that wouldn’t be such a good idea. What if I couldn’t stop it? I don’t want to see that.”

We all nodded. This day was turning very sad. Not a great last day of summer after all.

“I know!” I suddenly realized. “Let’s go back to the beginning of summer vacation!”

“Hey, I like that! It has been a great summer!” Petey cheered up.

Ronny pondered it. “Yeah. Okay, it’s not world changing or anything, and it was a great summer and I’m REALLY not looking back to going to school Monday… besides it’s just pretend anyway, Right? No one thinks this is a real time machine, do they?”

“Heck, no.” Petey agreed. “It’s just for fun. Let’s all cram inside and pretend!”

“I wonder where the last people to use it went?” I wondered as I followed Petey inside. No one seemed to hear me.

Ronny followed me. “I get to push some buttons!” she cried.

“Then I get to pull levers,” I called.

“This is just like the movies!” Petey exclaimed, looking over the controls. “We just flip some switches, set the counter and pop! We’re somewhen else!”

“Let’s get time hopping!”

“OK. I’ll set the time chronometer. “What time does your watch say, Justin?”

“Two o’clock. It’s broken, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“That’s weird. This chronometer-thingy is stuck at today’s date and at 2 o’clock. I can’t move it. It’s broken or something.”

“Who cares? I’m pushing buttons!” Ronnie laughed excitedly as she pushed a random series of buttons and pulled down a few levers just for the fun of it.

Suddenly lights flashed, a whiny noise grew louder and louder, the walls spun and whirled like a tilt-a-whirl, then went from white to black to nothing to…

Being were right back where we started.

“That was weird,” I said.

We all climbed out and wobbled a bit.

“What just happened?” Ronnie said.

“I don’t know,” Petey admitted.

I looked at my watch. It said two o’clock. Duh. It was broken. Of course, it said two o’clock.

“Did you hear that?” Petey announced and ran over to the door.

“What?”

“Voices. Someone’s coming!”

“Probably whoever owns this place is coming back!”

“We’re in big trouble!”

Petey slid the door shut. “Hide! “

“Where?”

“Into the machine! Hurry!” Petey commanded. We climbed inside…

Petey exclaimed, amazed, “This place really is magical!” as he walked into the empty factory.

Petey loved empty buildings. I’m not sure why.

“Yeah, a real magical dump,” Ronnie frowned, eyeing all the dust and piles of wreckage strewn around.

“Maybe we’ll find a treasure!” I said excitedly as I entered and immediately tripped on a piece of wood and fell onto the hard concrete.

“Ow! That sucks!” I exclaimed. “I broke my watch! And I just got it!”

“At least it’ll be right twice a day,” Ronnie joked.

“Yeah. Great. It’ll always be 2 o’clock.”