Free Pinball by Alan Seeger

vicinity of the house, he became even more aware that things were radically different. The house, a weathered white when he had last seen it, now bore gleaming white siding with hunter green trim and had shutters next to the windows that hadn’t been there before. The yard, usually cluttered with the kids’ toys and other miscellaneous items, was now neatly groomed. A neat white picket fence surrounded its perimeter. There was a sign on a post by the front walk that read DENVER RESIDENCE . He saw that about a hundred yards past the house, there appeared to be a primary boundary fence, ten feet in height with razor wire on top. An entrance gate with another guard station stood across the gravel road that used to be the dirt road that they lived on.
    Oh, god, he thought. What the hell have I done?
    He walked up to the front door of the house and knocked tentatively. After a moment, a slender blonde woman in her mid-20s answered. She looked at Steven with a puzzled expression. “Can I help you?” she asked.
    “Uh… yes,” he responded. “I’m looking for Lynne Denver?”
    “Oh, she’s my mother-in-law, but she doesn’t live here,” replied the woman. “I’m Erica Denver. Who are you?”
    “Your mother-in-law? ” Steven asked, more than a little taken aback. His head spun. “Are you married to Samuel Denver?”
    “Why, yes. Dr. Denver is my husband. Do you know him?” she said.
    Dr. Denver? Steven swallowed and took a deep breath. “Yes… I’m his father.”
    Her eyes grew large. “His father? B-but… that’s impossible. Sam’s father has been missing for about fifteen years!”
    Fifteen years? The phrase echoed in his mind. Fifteen years he’d been gone. Fifteen years had passed while he’d spent four hours on a distant planet. What about Lynne? Had she waited all these years?
    He took her hands. “It’s urgent that I see Samuel. Where is he now?”
    Erica looked a little frightened. “He’s in his office, on the other side of the base. I can take you to him.” She closed the door behind her and led Steven across the base to the southeast. As they walked, Steven found himself wondering what year it was now back in Centra.
    Erica led Steven to one of the offices that he had passed earlier and they went inside. Sitting at a desk was a muscular young man with a full head of curly black hair, wearing a pair of wire rimmed glasses. His focus was on the computer terminal that sat on his desk.
    “Sam?” said Erica, knocking lightly on the doorjamb, “There’s someone here for you.”
    Samuel looked up at Steven and a look of bewilderment came over his face.
    “Hello, Samuel,” Steven said.
    “Dad?” Sam replied hesitantly, getting up and approaching his father. “Oh, my God, Dad, is it really you?”
    “It’s me, son,” Steven said. “It’s me.”
    Samuel lashed out suddenly in a rage, grabbing Steven by the shoulders. “Where have you been? God damn you, where have you been? You’ve been gone for fifteen years! Fifteen goddam years! We waited for you, we watched that damned portal for months , but you never came back! Why didn’t you come back? ” His voice was hoarse with emotion.
    “Son…” Steven began, “You don’t understand…”
    “I don’t understand? What is it that I don’t understand? You went off on an adventure and left your family behind — for fifteen years! ”
    “But… where I was, on the other side of the portal…” Steven tried to explain, “I was only gone for four hours.”
    Samuel stared at him with glassy eyes. “What do you mean?”
    “I found another gate, like the one up the hill… that led out of the void, to another place. There are dozens of them, maybe hundreds, even thousands, I don’t know how many there are. I was on another world, another planet, one where there was a small town. I met a man…” He stopped, gasping for breath, realizing just how farfetched the whole thing sounded.
    There was a pause. Samuel looked at him, his eyes