Tara Across Time--NaNoWriMo

Chapter One

Tara was out cold for hours but woke up in a room dark except for the spot light directly on her. She could see little else but a bare floor. She then remembered being in her car. If she'd had an accident, why were there no severe bruises, lacerations, or broken bones.

In fact, she felt in the best of health. Neither was she hungry.

"Okay, you guys!" Tara said. "Why am I in jail for an accident anybody could have had. I'm not even drunk anymore. Jake sobered me up last night." She stood up. "So if someone will get this ark light off me and turn on the room lights, I gotta get to work at Walmart now. They'll fire me if I keep missing work."

A deep voice like an olympian god filled the room. "Relax, Tara. We're not the cops, as you call law enforcement personnel on your world?"

"Come on, guys, you gotta be kidding me or something." She tried her best to see someone. She was alone. "Is this one of those new TV reality shows? If it is, you owe me a handsome gift or money, buster!"

"This isn't what you call TV. Boob tube. Vast Wasteland, as one of your writers called your crude communication medium."

"Then who the hell are you? You're not in this room, or I'd feel you."

"Who are we, Tara?  We don't want to complicate things with our long history. Just call us The Visitors!"

"Still sounds like a reality show. Maybe you're with Publishers' Clearing House and I get the prize." Tara didn't want to show fear. "Okay, where are you?"

"We're still on our home planet. From a galaxy your Hubble Telescope hasn't even see yet."

"Yeah, right! I heard about guys like you trying to get into a girl's pants!"

Another voice lower than the first spoke aside. "She's referring to copulation, human reproductive activities. Supposedly joyful."

"I heard that!" Tara put her hands on her hips and shook her boobs. "A lot of guys want what I got!"

The first visitor spoke aloud. "I can't remember when any of our kind needed what you got, Tara."

"Well, if you don't want pussy, what do you want? I don't have all day."

"Tara, I'm afraid that you have billions of years ahead or you or behind you."

"Now, you're beginning to scare me! Look, can I go now?"

"You owe us your very life, Tara."

"What do you mean?"

"If we hadn't chosen you, you'd have been dead now."

"What? You're really scaring me now. Did I die and go to hell?'

"No, young lady. You were severely  injured in that car crash after you rammed it through that guard rail. We put you back together."

"Then I owe you my life? What do I do, community service for your favorite charity? How many hours. I gotta.work, you know."

"You won't be gone according to your way of reckoning time. Like time is for us, it will be so for you."

"You're talking in riddles, buster."

"Time is flexible for us. It will be for you too."

"What do you mean?"

"One moment you'll be in Ancient Egypt. Another in The French Revolution."

"You have things for me to do? What if I say no?"

"Then we return you to your car at the precise moment we took you. Just before your death was certain."

There was a long pause.

"Okay, I'm not sure that I would be in heaven right now. What do I do?"

"We have determined that there are places in Earth history in which a person like you could be a positive difference."

"Me?"

"Everybody has overlooked your potential."

"I'm a skank, almost a whore!"

"There's one person who has not overlooked your potential."

"How did you know about that?"

"We know you better than yourself. You deliberately missed a word in a spelling bee so someone else could win. You play dumb because boys might like you that way."

"What exactly am I supposed to do, tell me!"

"You'll find what to do. We're counting on you to do the right thing every assignment."

"How will I know that I am doing right?"

The voice boomed with absolute certainty. "Your world is filled with both good and evil. You will eventually choose the good."

"What will I get out of this good will?"

"By the time you have completed your trials, you will notice an important change in your character. You will no longer be the shallow, quick-spoken girl you are now. If you don't see it, others will."

"What comes first?"

"We don't even know because we have set your coming ordeal to be random. In a way, you are entertaining us. That's what we get. We hope you're all the better person when you finish your time of trial."

"What about material support?"

"You're absolutely on your own."

"I could die?"

"But for us you'd already be dead. This will extend your life.  Eventually we may intervene to return you to your present time."

"When do I start on my quest?"

"We're glad you asked us that."

"So?"

"Now!"

The room went dark.