The Watcher

Part 5

Tracy finished a cold drink, then walked out to the back yard. It was a warm day so she decided to water the garden along the back fence. As she turned on the hose, the phone in the house rang. She didn't hear it as she sprayed the water onto the garden bed. Ten minutes later as she turned off the hose she glanced back at the house and was startled to see her father standing outside the back door.

"Dad, you're home early," she said, walking towards him, "Is everything okay?"

"Tracy," he said slowly in a low slightly distorted voice.

She walked up to him. "Dad, what's wrong with your voice, and why are you dressed in that grey outfit....." Her voice trailed off as realisation hit her. She took a step back as her father seemed to sway and his outline became slightly indistinct for a second. "You're The Watcher," she took another step back.

He looked at her with a distressed look. "Warn you," he said slowly, "Have to warn you....danger."

"What sort of danger?"

"He's here now....will take you and then kill you!"

Tracy's stomach took a flip flop, but she recovered fast.

"Where is he?" she asked.

"In the house."

She thought quickly. A man was in the house intending to kidnap her. Then it suddenly hit her. Her father had told her the names of the three men who were going to kidnap her.....in her premonition they were going to call a fourth man called Ethan. This must be him. She should have remembered this before! How could she protect herself? Her father kept a loaded pistol in the desk in his study, but that would involve going into the house. Ethan was in there somewhere waiting for her. It was too risky. She looked around for a weapon, but all the garden tools were locked in the garage. All she had was the hose. She turned back to The Watcher.

 "What should I do?" she asked, trying to keep her voice from rising hysterically.

"Run, Tracy."

Tracy ran. She ran up the driveway to the front fence. The driveway gate was locked, she didn't have the key with her, but thankfully her father had installed a keypad with a four digit code required to release the gate in the event of the key being lost. She stabbed in the number and the gate release clicked. As she pulled the gate open she glanced over her shoulder. A tall man with a beard came running out the front door.
Tracy screamed and dashed through the gate pulling it closed behind her. That would keep him in the yard long enough for her to get to a neighbour's house. But the man didn't try and go through the driveway gate. Instead he ran up the path to the small front gate which was already open. Tracy ran as fast as she could along the footpath. The street was surprisingly quiet. There were no cars. No one was around who could help her. She glanced over her shoulder. He was gaining on her, only a few metres behind. This is it, she thought. He's too fast for me, I'm dead. There's no one to save me. 

But then standing just up ahead of Tracy was The Watcher, but he couldn't help. He was just an image. She ran past him, but again glanced back a second later. As her pursuer approached him the Watcher raised his arm like a barrier. As Ethan ran through it there was a flash of light. Tracy stopped and turned around to look back. The Watcher was gone and Ethan was lying on his back, apparently unconscious. Tracy wasn't going back to check on him, she ran on to the nearest neighbour's house which was another fifty metres up the road. A retired couple, the Evans, lived there, and they were astonished to see a distressed panting girl on their doorstop gasping at them to call the police. As Mr Evans was in the process of dialling triple 0, a police car drove past and pulled up next to the unconscious man.

"Come on," said Mr Evans, "I'll take you out to the police officers. They'll know what to do."

As they reached the policemen, who were examining the man lying on the ground, two security vans from the Silver Star Research Centre screeched to a stop alongside them. Four security men jumped out to confer with the police while Tracy's father ran to her. "Are you all right?" he asked, holding her in his arms.

"I'm okay, Dad," she answered, "but The Watcher. He was here, he saved me from that man. But Dad, The Watcher....he was you."

Her father nodded.

"But how?"

"Dr Reid's device. He got it to translate the recording from our attempted contact session two weeks ago. The Watcher was trying to warn you that a man would kidnap you from our house today, and that later he would...."

"Kill me?" Tracy said in a small voice. 

Her father nodded again. "I tried phoning you, and when you didn't answer I called the police. Then I came with our security people as fast as we could get here. Come on, let's get you in the house. You probably need to sit down."

Later that night after talking to the police, Phillip Hammond told his daughter what had happened. "It was as we suspected," he said, "The Police got Ethan to talk. He was the fourth member of the group and he had already committed himself to selling a certain device which we had created to a North Korean faction for ten million dollars. When his buddies were caught by the police he decided to risk carrying out the kidnap plan on his own. When you were in the back yard he picked the lock of the gate and the front door. He was waiting for you to come back into the house. He would have chloroformed you and carried you out to his car. Risky in daylight, but he was desperate."

"But he didn't count on The Watcher saving me."

"Right. Somehow The Watcher gave him a jolt of high energy which knocked him out. We couldn't tell the police that. We let them think he had a heart attack."

"But Dad, why did The Watcher look like you?"

"I'm not sure. And why he came here to protect you we will probably never know."

But Tracy did find out the answer to her question. That night it took her a long time to fall asleep, but when she eventually did she saw The Watcher one last time.

She looked out her bedroom window and saw him standing in the paddock across the street near the tree which lightning had struck that night three weeks ago when she first saw him. He waved, beckoning her. She walked across the street, climbed over the fence and made her way to the man by the tree.

"Thank you for saving my life," Tracy murmured, "But I don't understand why you look like my Dad."

He spoke to her in his slow, deep slightly distorted voice. "In another time, another world, I had a daughter. Her name was Tracy and she was exactly the same as you, but I lost her. The man Ethan kidnapped her and killed her. We developed a device which allowed us to see into parallel worlds. Your world is just like mine. We transmitted my image to you. I couldn't let the same thing happen to you, I had to warn you, had to try to save you. Our energy supply is exhausted now, my image will cease. I loved my daughter so much, and I miss her terribly. Seeing you is like seeing her again. I am so glad I was able to save you from my daughter's fate. Good bye Tracy. Please live a long happy life." 

With a sad look he held out his hand to Tracy. Hesitantly she reached out. As their fingers came together there was a brief flash of light and The Watcher was gone.

Author's Note
Thanks so much for reading.
Please let me know if you liked this story by voting and commenting.
I will try to answer all comments.
If you liked the character of Tracy she appears in several other stories.
The next one is "The Boys' Club". You can find it on my home page.

Aurora