Travellers

Pauly Hart

March 21st, 2025

 

1

 

The music wafted through the small bar on the outskirts of Bullseye, North Dakota. Outside, the pale snowdust blew and whipped around the well-lit parking lot. Inside, four people were busy being alone.

“Play that last one again!” Randy shouted from the bar. The watery bourbon on the counter should probably be his last, but he needs to hear it again. As Willie Nelson spun up “Always on my mind,” Randy sighed and took a sip of his drink, now half gone. The bartender slid him the bill across the bar and tried to walk away before Randy noticed. But Randy did notice and scoffed at the man.

“Dangit Ted, I need one more.” Randy said.

“You need to go home.” Ted said as he started putting glasses away.

Maybe I didn’t treat you, quite as good as I should have… Willie said from the jukebox.

The air was stale, but the beer was cold. The tall man from the only other group came to the bar and ordered two more yellow jackets. He noticed the gun hanging from Randy’s holster and the way he was clutching his bourbon. Randy didn’t notice the man looking at him.

“I said, have you ever had to use it?” The tall man repeated.

“Huh?” Randy asked, then looked at his gun. “Oh yeah, once or twice. Why?” He asked the tall man.

“Oh no reason. I’m just not from around here.” The tall man said.

“No kidding.” Randy scowled. “Can’t you leave a fellow alone?”

“It’s just that my friend and I were wondering if you were the law.” The tall man asked.

“Just me and Darla over at the courthouse. Ain’t much action in Bullseye.” He whirled slowly in his bar stool to let his coat swing back around behind the holster, showing his brass Sheriff badge.

“You fellas ain’t looking for action, I suppose?” He eyed the tall man.

The tall man seemed taken aback. He was lean and wore a corduroy suit and sported a lean black cowboy hat. “Oh no sir. Not with the law, at least.”

“Then why are you boys in town?” Randy asked, honest confusion on his face.

The tall man motioned over to his companion who was in the booth at the far end, but was now on the other side of Randy. “We’re just looking around is all.”

A little alarmed that the other man was beside him, Randy gave him a quick look.

“You all from the oil company? Cause you don’t look like cow punchers.” Randy asked. He had seen all sorts of city folk tromp through Bullseye, and none of ‘em were there to do anyone any good. Randy took the drink, swirled it around and drained the last of it.

The tall man laughed. “Nah, I don’t reckon myself to be a land-man. And I never had the patience for ranchers.”

Randy laughed at that. “Makes two of us then.” He wasn’t quite sure they weren’t going to trouble, but at the same time, having the other man appear at his side was a bit unnerving. Yeah he’d had three-no, four drinks. Maybe they were alright. He swung back around, satisfied they weren’t going to be trouble.

“What’s your name?”

“Eagle General.” The man said. As he said it, Ted came over with two large duffle bags. He placed them down on the counter. Inside the bags, Randy could see the overflowing of purple and yellow dotted easter eggs.

Randy didn’t really know how to take that information but he tried his best.

“Ted, here you are hiding all the good stuff while giving me this crap.” Randy said and saw that he had a little doggie bag full of fecal matter in it. He loosed a quiet shriek and slid the bag away from him, down the bar.

Ted leaned in close to his face and asked him if the weather in Montana was cloudy with a chance of meatballs. That was the last real thing Randy knew because after that it got a little weird. 

“Except the thing is, you could wander the hills of Arizona and never once run into Texas.” The ostrich driving the school bus said. He craned his head over to Randy and then said “Oh, our friend is awake.”

The emu sitting in the passenger seat did a funny little turn and from his pocket pulled out a candy cane, which he stuck in Randy’s mouth.

“That should give him another fortnight.” He said in a high elfish tongue, which Randy wondered how he could understand.

The next thing Randy knew he was breastfeeding besides two elephants. No, that wasn’t right. He was in a bed. Something like that. Well, there it was, he was tied to a bed and the ceiling that had been a galaxy sized swimming pool was now just a normal ceiling.

Whatever drugs they’d slipped him were pretty good. His head was clearing up a little and he was making progress pulling reality back into place. And his nose itched something terrible. He sneezed.

The door opened and in walked a nurse from 1963. Wait. Why was she dressed like that?

“How are ya, darling?” She asked in a southern drawl.

He tried to speak but something like a frog creaked from his throat.

“Oh now dearie, let’s get a little water in that gullet.” She chided and brought him a plastic cup with a bendy straw. He managed to lean his head forward a little and took a drink.

“Why can’t I move my arms?” Were the first words out of his mouth.

She looked at him a little strangely and cocked her head a little. She smiled, brought up a damp rag and wiped his forehead. “Why don’t you drift on back to sleep for a little bit more sweetheart?” She said, and, though he didn’t want to, he did.

Three unicorns were coming towards him at the end of a very long hallway talking softly to each other. They drew closer towards him, though from Randy’s perspective, they weren’t walking, but rather, they were being pulled towards him on a dolly… Like something from a movie.

“Heard of something like that Dr. Gull?”

“I don’t think he heard you.” The middle unicorn doctor said.

Was he one of those half-man half-horse things? What were they called?

“Dr. Gull?” The left doctorcorn asked. “Are you with us Mister Gull?”

The doctor-horse on the right side put a bright light in one eye and then in the other.

“Dr. Gull? Are you here Mister Gull?”

“Scruggs.” Randy moaned. “My name is Randy Scruggs.” He moaned.

“Do we have that on the list?” The left horse asked.

“No, that’s a new one.” The middle unicorn said.

No, they were all just regular doctors. The drugs were fading off again.

 

2

 

Charlene Reffalo packed up the rest of the display with the remainder of the pamphlets. “Blood will change your life” it read, and in it were the pieces she had displayed along with the facts about each piece. Not one of the critics she had invited had come to the third floor mezzanine of the North Dakota Museum of Art, even though she had invited many that she knew and who were in the area. The only attendants were the ones who happened to be wandering by on a visit to the whole museum. It angered her to no end. No one in the whole state would know art, not even if it came up and bit them in the butt.

Spray painted bicycles, giant balls of twine. These were what people wanted to see when they came here, not her samples of blood spatters. A figure darted by her to the staircase. The long white lines of the walls behind her gave away the height of the man who came abruptly to her and stopped. She picked up the basket with the pamphlets and for a second, just the briefest of seconds, she thought she knew him.

“Miss Reffalo?” he asked.

“Yes?” She responded.

“I’m sure you don’t remember me, but we spoke briefly in Billings, Montana, at a conference. I’m…”

“Doctor Strauss?” She finished his sentence.

He was a little taken aback. “Ah, yes. Victor Strauss. It seems I made an impression.”

Oh he had made quite the impression on her. He was tall, dark, and handsome in a northern sort of way. Usually she didn’t like that kind of thing, but his mustache suited his overall being and she had a strange fascination with the upper lip facial hair, when done well.

“So, I see that I just missed your show.” He said, looking around at the canvas wraps and the bare room.

“You and everyone else.” She muttered.

“Ah. So sorry.” He seemed genuine. “Good art is wasted on the masses.”

“Yes it is.” She beamed. “Say, you want to help me get these things to my car?” She asked, gesturing to two wrapped pieces by the column.

“Be glad to.” He said, and hoisted them up to his tall frame. With the other hand, he motioned towards the stairs.

Taking the steps slowly, he continued talking. “So, I’ve got a rather welcomed proposition for you…”

“Does it involve a hotel room?” She ventured shamelessly.

He stumbled over his words, “Uh. Well, er, no. It involves the collection you’re moving. How would you feel about installing it in a private residence instead of, well wherever you’re going?”

They had reached the bottom of the staircase and her curiosity was piqued. “Oh?”

The girl at the foot of the staircase was at a little desk near the foyer and held up her finger in the air and whispered “just a sec.” Charlene and the tall man looked at each other in confusion.

“Sorry Miss Reffalo, that was a strange man from Georgia who just wanted to ask a bunch of questions for a story he was writing. Anyway, here is your check and the Museum thanks you for your time.” She held out a little envelope and went back to her desk.

Charlene, curious as to the contents of the envelope, put her basket down and opened it up. Inside was a check for $200.

The tall man looked at it, then at her. “I’ll give you two zeroes on the end if you set up your work in a private residence. No questions asked.”

Charlene did a double take and said “But I wasn’t planning…”

“It’s not a sale, just an installation for the weekend.” The tall man said.

“Twenty thousand? For the weekend?” She balked.

“Exactly.” The tall man smiled and opened the door for her.

Outside, next to her car, was a large white truck, not a box truck, but one of those high end sprinters, the back door already open. A shorter man was leaning up against it, chewing on a toothpick.

“That’s the vehicle.” The tall man said, pointing to it. “Hey Rolf, come give us a hand.”

The shorter man hupped to and said quickly, “Locked and loaded, sir.”

The tall man dropped the canvases on the ground and grabbed Charlene by the chest while the shorter man grabbed her by the legs before she could even react to what was happening. The tall man almost immediately had a rag over her face that smelled of chemicals and they were dragging her towards the back of the van.

Taking a deep breath to scream, she suddenly felt light headed and dizzy. She managed to get out a muffled yell, but you would only have heard it from a few feet away.

The mouth of the woodchipper was spinning wildly and the hyenas who had a hold of her cackled silently as they shlumped her onto the small gurney in the back. Long ropes of licorice were thrown over her and she could no longer move.

The tall hyena put on a pair of sunglasses shaped like kittens and said very slowly: “Ooga Dooga, Dooga Ooga.”

And then her whole head was on fire. Her head felt weird, like it was strapped down to some sort of… Waitasecond… It all came back to her in a flood and she screamed at the top of her lungs.

A very tall and slender earthworm pushed open the lid to the can of tuna and slithered in, standing upright, like no earthworm ever would.

“Glurpy slurpy derpy in a few moments.” It said.

A hat appeared on its head. Some sort of hat from those old movies her mom and her used to watch. A flossie, the hat nurses wore.

“Good morning, Diane,” the nurse said.

 

3

 

Randy opened his eyes to a very brightly lit room. The intercom buzzed again and a voice asked if chocolate chips were made of dental floss.

“What the hell kinda question is that?” Randy yelled back.

The intercom was silent for a while while Randy got his bearings.

“Good morning Doctor Gull.” the intercom squawked again.

“Who the heck are you even talking to?” Randy yelled back, more than a little grumpy at the whole thing. “Where am I? Where did you take me?”

The intercom clicked and distant voices conversed with one another. Then another voice came over the intercom.

“Good morning, sir. We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience and are afraid some deep misunderstanding has taken place. Could you please tell us your name?”

“I’m Randy Scruggs, dangit! Who the heck are you people?”

Randy waited but there was no answer. While he was waiting he looked around him. The room was a white padded room, with no visible door anywhere. He wasn’t on a bed any longer but his hands were tied around his body in some overly large white jacket. Wait. No way he was in the loony bin. No freaking way.

“Hey, tell me just what the holy heck is going on here? Where am I?” He screamed at the walls.

Just then, a door opened on the far corner of the wall. He tried to get up but the back of his jacket was caught on something.

The door opened and three men in long white coats came in. One of them had a stethoscope draped over his shoulders.

The man on the left had a clipboard and looked at it with some concern. “Sheriff Randall M. Scruggs I presume?” He asked Randy.

“You assume correctly.” Randy spat. “Now tell me what’s going on before I have you all locked up for kidnapping and unlawful detainment.”

The man in the middle spoke next. Taking the clipboard from the man next to him, he turned the page and said: “Deus vivus invocat spiritum tuum ad corpus tuum!”

Randy’s head snapped backward and he began convulsing.

 

4

 

Vague smells of cinnamon and clove sifted through the room. A cigarette sitting half lit in a bronze ashtray wafted long tendrils of white smoke towards the unseen ventilation intake. The tall man sat on the plush wingback chair taking notes. He wore a lab coat over his corduroy suit. By the door, a hat tree had several black cowboy hats on it. He waved his pencil in the air trying to draw their attention back to him.

“Go on, tell me what happened after that.” The tall man said. He waved the pencil in the air as if conjuring the story to manifest itself.

“Well,” Dr. Gull continued, “Then you, Stevens, and Ashcroft came into the room and spoke some Latin phrase and that’s the last thing I recall.”

The tall man wrote furiously in his notes for a few moments before looking up at the woman seated next to Gull on the couch.

“And you had a similar experience in the room?”

She nodded. “Yes, it was Latin if I recall.” She said, in a noncommittal fashion. 

“Alright.” The tall man said, made a few more notes, and then set the notepad to the side. “Now, I know you both have questions but before I’ll answer any of them, I want you both to try and go back to the moments when you knew you were those people, and how you came to be in the art gallery and the bar, respectfully.”

Both sat for a minute wondering, deep in thought.

“Mrs. Greeves. Do you recall setting up the art exhibit?”

She thought about it. “No. I was just getting finished and my whole experience was that of frustration and of deep regret.”

“Dr. Gull. Do you remember entering the bar?” The tall man asked.

Dr. Gull struggled to remember even sitting in the seat at the bar. “No. And for the life of me, I don’t like Willie Nelson and don’t even now how I knew the bartender’s name.”

The tall man stood and walked to the window. He opened the heavy patterned drapery and let the daylight permeate the place. Rays of sunlight illuminated the room and there were tiny motes of dust lazily floating behind him.

“You are both willing participants in breaking technology. You’ve signed papers saying that everything you see and do here is held and kept above top secret.” He turned and looked back at them. “But there is another thing we have not been able to unlock yet and here we must tell you the secrets about.”

They waited patiently for him to continue, but instead he went to his desk and sat down. He unlocked a drawer and pulled out two thick manila envelopes. One had “Bullseye” written on it, and the other “NDMOA.” He walked over and handed Dr. Gull the one labeled “Bullseye” and Mrs. Greeves, the other.

“Please open them.” He said.

Dr. Gull unwound the string that held the envelope closed and fumbled through the papers, while Mrs. Greeves did the same with hers. Architectural plans, Spy-plane photos, public records, all the normal spy stuff.

“I don’t get it.” Mrs. Greeves said. “What is all this?”

“In your packet it is the precise details, diagrams, and blueprints of the museum.”

“And mine?” Dr. Gull asked.

“Bullseye.” The tall man said.

“But there’s nothing in here about Bullseye.” Dr. Gull said.

“Precisely.”

“Sorry.” Dr. Gull said. “I don’t get it.”

“There is no town, city, or borough in the whole of the country named Bullseye, let alone North Dakota.”

The tension in the room was palpable. Dr. Gull smacked his lips once, on the verge of saying something, then said nothing. After a while, Mrs. Greeves cleared her throat.

“Uh. So, the museum I was at shows that it’s there. There’s nothing in here…”

“That what was there?” The tall man asked. “What specifically?” The tall man asked, once again taking a seat in his chair. He thumbed the cigarette, took a deep drag and let it out slowly.

“The um…” Mrs. Greeves began. “The art show on the uh…”

“Yes?” The tall man encouraged.

Then it hit her.

“The third floor mezzanine.” She fumbled through the papers quickly and found the third floor layout plan. “There is no third floor mezzanine.” She dropped her hands in her lap uselessly. “What?”

The tall man crushed the now spent cigarette in the ashtray lazily.

“This is our problem. The places that you visited do not exist.”

 

5

 

Strapped to the table, the chimpanzee screamed seeming obscenities at the men who took her blood pressure and poked her with needles.

“This is Julie. She’s housebroken, trained, knows rudimentary sign language, and is overall a well adjusted member of our family here.” The woman with red hair in surgical scrubs told her visitors. “We noticed the change fourteen days ago and didn’t have the wherewithal to make heads or tails of it.”

Dr. Gull leaned forward and pushed the button to stop the machine. “What’s her security clearance?”

“Not high.” The tall man said. “Continue.”

Gull pressed the “Forward” button. “So far Julie does not recognize anyone in her family. She has lost all capabilities of sign language communication, and doesn’t even seem to know her name. Oh. And she only wants to eat mangos now.”

“What’s so strange about that?” An off camera voice asked.

“She’s been allergic her whole life.” The woman said. “But now she isn’t.”

“This next one is my favorite.” The tall man said.

“But what makes you believe it’s still Julie?” Another voice asked. It was the voice of the tall man.

“It’s the same blood type, same hair type, same everything. Even her scars are the same.”

“Then it’s trauma induced amnesia?” A third voice asked.

“Then how do you explain the mangoes?” The woman with the red hair asked.

The tall man turned the lights on as Mrs. Greeves and Dr. Gull sat in their chairs at the wall where the projector had been focused. The tall man was exchanging out the reels for another film.

“This one may be the key, but we’re still trying to figure it out.” The tall man said, as he placed the new tape on the machine and thread it up.

Just then the door opened and a stranger came in. “Verified.” he said, and then left.

Mrs. Greeves asked the tall man, “What’s ‘verified?’”

He smiled and waved his hands. “We just ran some tests on you. Had to figure out if you were really you. Good news. You’re you and aren’t imposters.”

He pressed the “forward” switch, turned off the lights and a new film showed up on the wall. It was stock Navy footage. Dr. Gull recognized the format.

The film was silent but showed several men retrieving what appeared to be a glowing disc that was submerged at the bottom of a shallow bed of coral somewhere at sea. They were using a long hook and pole device with a trip snare on the end. Maybe to catch large fish. The USS John Paul Jones was in the background.

“It gets weird right here.” The tall man said. “Notice the men.”

There were three men in the frame of the camera, all short with dark hair. When they came in contact with the disc, there was a flash and the footage went white screen. When the camera recovered, there were four men in the frame. Three smaller men with dark hair and a taller man with white hair.

Dr. Gull sighed and said, “Hoax.”

To which the tall man said, “Oh we thought so too. Until we interviewed him. He’s as real as they come all right. Problem is, we don’t have any record of him in the Navy records. No medical, nothing. The only records we have came from his person. He was carrying his own papers.”

“A lot of men do that. Especially for shore leave,” Mrs. Greeves said. “I served at Subic Bay for 2 years.” She looked at Dr. Gul. “What? Just because I’m not a doctor doesn’t mean I’m not valuable.” She gestured. “Most men who are going on leave, take all of their papers, in case they get drunk or lost or both.”

“She’s right.” The tall man said. “And that’s exactly what we had. We had letters and signatures and stamps all legitimate, just with no duplicate record aboard his home vessel.”

“Wait. What was his home vessel?” Dr. Gull asked.

“The USS Eldridge.” The tall man said, very seriously.

“But Gods!” Dr. Gull shouted.

“Yes. That fine ship was decommissioned in 1946 and stricken in 1951.”

Mrs. Greeves shouted, “But how?”

“We still don’t know.” The tall man said.

All three of them were quiet for a while until the tall man stood, turned on the lights, took the reel from the player, wound it back into the metal case, and put the machine away.

“I mean, if you want, you can always go ask him.” The tall man smiled.

 

6

 

Sven sat drinking his tea, ChaTraMue, from Thailand. He stared patiently at his two guests as they fidgeted nervously. The tall man stood by the window out of the house towards the street at the unmarked sedan. Inside the sedan sat two men in black suits, casually smoking cigarettes as if they were enjoying a nice discussion. In fact, this was Sven’s body detail. Two highly trained Army killers who knew nothing but tactics and operations in all environments. At the drop of a hat they could be moved into action to defend or eliminate their target.

“So. I suppose you want the story.” Sven began.

Mrs. Greeves and Dr. Gull said nothing.

“It is alright.” Sven smiled, steeping the tea until it was a dark brown. He took out the leaf bag and smushed it against his spoon and then added a yellowed milk. “Everyone wants the story. Everyone who comes. Those in their military uniforms and those in their lab coats. But…” He glanced over at them. “Since you have neither, I suspect you are either special or I am about to die.”

“Our agreement is still in place.” The tall man said, turning from the window. “Besides, they’re operatives, like yourself.”

“They are from another world?” Sven asked.

“No. They’re doing the opposite.” The tall man said. “They’ve just had their first mission.”

This alarmed Sven. “And you haven’t sent me back?”

The tall man sighed. “We don’t know how yet. And besides, there are no counterparts to you in the other worlds.”

“But you have yourself and that dirty little man.” Sven spat.

“Rolf is good at his job, Sven.” The tall man sighed.

“Good enough to do this?” Sven held up his left hand. Though it was not apparent before, you could tell that the finger had been separated surgically and had been reattached.

“You weren’t being cooperative before. We had to take measures.” The tall man said. “Anyway, enough about us. Tell them the story.”

Sven sighed. “All I have is my writings, which I write every day. I write of my past and of all the things I knew. Through hypnosis and drugs, they’ve strained out everything from me. All of my memories. All of my past. Even if I had happened to look at one headline of a time before I came to your world, I am forced to remember it.”

“We’ve had some success with paranormal operations in your case.” The tall man said. “And we’ve done some remote viewing in your case. You are neither special nor unique to any place except your own. You are an anomaly. Someone who should never have existed at all.”

The tall man turned to the pair. “The reason he is alive at all is to tell us about his world, and through a glimpse of his world, how to navigate to it and through it to other worlds like our own. For his world is an outlier, and he’s not the only deposit that it’s made.”

Sven laughed. “Did you show them the chimp?”

“Yes, but that’s not the end of it.” The tall man asked. “Tell them about Bullseye, North Dakota.

Sven laughed. “Ah yes. Bullseye. As famous as your ‘Tombstone’ or ‘Deadwood’ or ‘Pecos.’”

“I’ve been there.” Dr. Gull said.

Sven laughed. “And how was that?”

Dr. Gull pointed at the tall man. “He sent me back.”

Sven’s eyes narrowed. “So you’ve done it too?”

The tall man reached into his pocket and pulled out his pack of cigarettes. “No. They met me in another world. We’ve started working together now.”

Sven smiled. “So that is progress, at least. That you at least are performing the experiments with each other.”

The tall man lit the cigarette and peered out the curtain again. Taking a long drag and exhaling it, he said: “No. It’s not progress. You get one thing right and something else changes.”

Sven glared at him.

“I don’t follow.” Mrs. Greeves said.

The tall man took a manilla envelope out of his pocket, unwound the top and placed several photographs on the table between them. “Look at these.”

In the photographs were pictures of a children’s book. ‘The Big Honey Hunt’ it said.

Dr. Gull laughed. “What about them? These are children’s books.”

Sven glanced at them. “I know these. They’ve been around since the 40’s.”

“No, they haven’t. Maybe yours have. But this was printed last year. Look at the authors’ names. Those timestamps on it are from last year, 1962. Look at the name on the most recent publication. Stan and Jan Berenstain. S-T-A-I-N.”

“But that’s how it is spelled.” Sven said.

“No!” Shouted the tall man. “Look at the first publication! It’s not Berenstain! It’s Berenstein! S-T-E-I-N!”

Dr. Gull immediately put it together. “But that’s just one small change that doesn’t matter to anyone.”

“Really?” The tall man asked, glaring. You think one letter doesn’t matter? What if that one letter was in the spelling of a top secret security code? What if it was a longitude and latitude military target? What if it was a genetic code marker?”

All four were silent for quite some time.

Mrs. Greeves finally broke the silence. “Forgive me, but… How long have you been… I mean… How many experiments have you done? A couple? Ten?”

The tall man was silent.

“Thousands.”

 

FIN