26 Aug I Bought a Working Time Machine

Posted at 11:00h in Apocalyptic and Dystopian, Science Fiction, Strange and Unexplained, Technology, the Internet, and the Deep Web by CreepypastaStories.com 2 Comments

📅 Published on August 26, 2020

“I Bought a Working Time Machine”

Written by Chris Fox
Edited by Craig Groshek
Thumbnail Art by Craig Groshek
Narrated by N/A

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🎧 Available Audio Adaptations: None Available

⏰ ESTIMATED READING TIME — 7 minutes

Rating: 8.92/10. From 12 votes.

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All of my life, I’ve heard people say we are heading into a new utopian age of progressive enlightenment, and while I really wanted to believe that to be true, with the things I have seen going on with the world, I’ve had to remain skeptical, but then I saw the future for myself. My glimpse of what’s to come and the experiences leading up to it started with my unexpected acquisition of a mundane item.

The magazine was hidden amongst the old paperbacks I had bought at a used bookstore. “Strange Things and Oddities”, the cover proclaimed in a bright, green font, with ‘Oct. 97’ printed underneath it. Behind the text, an alien creature stared back at me.

Grinning, I gave the magazine a quick flip through. “Where did this come from?” I wondered. I certainly didn’t recall seeing the cashier put the item in the box, and the thing was in immaculate condition for being twenty years old. I gave it another quick look, then tossed the periodical onto the coffee table before going about my business

Later that evening I was in a funk of boredom and nothing was helping, so I turned on the TV. I scanned through the channels trying to find something worth watching, but after a bit, I just turned it off, giving up. There wasn’t a damn thing worth watching on. I looked down at the coffee table and saw the magazine lying there, its bright, green title shining like a beacon. “Might as well see what was going on back in good ole’ 1997,” I said, picking it up.

Over the next hour, I was enveloped in the paranormal world of two decades ago. One very interesting article involved the account of a woman’s sexual encounter with an alien. “Probably the one from the cover,” I said to myself smiling. There were many other interesting articles and columns, then when I got to the back, I found a classifieds section. It advertised a good variety of strange things such as voodoo dolls and psychic readings, but one ad, in particular, caught my eye.

“Travel through time”, read the headline. The listing informed me that for the low price of $30 USD, I could have my very own time travel device.

I don’t know what possessed me, but I went and got my checkbook. I wrote out a check for the amount, addressed and stamped an envelope, then sealed the check inside. I mailed it the next day and immediately forgot about it.

One afternoon about six weeks later, I came home from work to find a shoebox-sized package sitting at my door. I didn’t think I was expecting anything, and when I looked closer, I didn’t recognize the shipper’s address. I unlocked my door, picked up the box, and went inside.

I sat the box on the coffee table and sliced open the tape with a pair of scissors. Inside was a smaller box labeled Chrono Industries Model TTD005. Upon opening it, I found an instruction booklet and a small electronic device. Realization dawned; it was my time travel device.

I’ll admit, I never assumed to receive anything, but here it was. The device, which was roughly the size of a walkie-talkie, had a full keyboard, LED display, and belt clip on the back. On the top of the TTD were a power switch and two buttons, labeled ‘start’ and ‘recall’, respectively. For a time machine, the damn thing seemed pretty simple. I opened the user’s manual. After a few minutes of reading, I had the gist of the device’s operation.

“No time like the present,” I said switching the TTD on. The screen lit up with blue characters that displayed the current date and time. With no visible antenna, I wondered how or where the device received its information, but who was I to question such technology. I thought for a moment about where, or rather when, I would go first. I decided to start small, and entered a destination of three days in the past. Then I hit start.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect. The novelty of the thing alone was worth the thirty bucks I had spent on it, but after pushing the start button, and nothing happening, I’ll admit I was a little disappointed. The thing didn’t even beep for God’s sake. “Oh, well,” I said to the device, “at least you kept me entertained for half an hour.”

Carrying the TTD with me, I went over to my desk and turned on the computer. I figured I might as well see what kind of craziness was going on in the world. I opened my favorite news webpage and began scrolling through the headlines. Even though this had been my first visit to the site that day, the headlines all looked so familiar, and an overwhelming sense of déjà vu hit me. My eyes fell on the device sitting on the desk. “No way,” I said in disbelief. “It can’t be.”

I scrolled back to the top of the page and read the date. If I’d been looking in a mirror, I’m sure I would have seen that the color had drained from my face. The date showed the fifth of the month where it should have said the eighth.

With a shaking hand, I reached for the TTD and hit recall. Once again there was no sound and no sense of activity, but the computer was now off. I turned it on and checked the news headlines. They were now different and the date up top read the eighth. As impossible as it was to comprehend, I had just traveled through time.

An hour later I sat on my couch staring at the TTD as it sat like a ten-ton weigh on the coffee table. The implications of what had just happened to me were massive. This was supposed to be a joke. I ordered the thing out of a twenty-year-old paranormal magazine for crying out loud, but yet I saw what I saw.

I grabbed the device and left the apartment. There was a park about a block from my building, and I began walking in its direction. I wanted to be completely sure of the device’s legitimacy, and I had an idea of how to test it.

I entered the park and walked around a bit before finding what I was looking for. It was a medium-sized pecan tree, and I pulled out my phone and took a picture of it. Then taking the TTD off of my belt, I set it for five years in the past and hit start.

The change happened so fast and imperceptibly, that my brain could barely process it. One moment the tree was one size, the next it was smaller.

I took a picture and then hit recall. I took one more look at the now larger tree, then returned to my apartment.

I downloaded both pictures to my computer and opened them side by side. At first glance, someone looking at the pictures wouldn’t notice much out of the ordinary. If anything, they would probably think it was nothing more than a couple of pictures of the same tree, taken years apart, but the time stamps told a different story. They showed the pictures were taken less than a minute apart which was just the assurance I needed to know that the device was the real deal.

I thought about the possibilities the TTD could open up for me. I could correct past mistakes I’d made, or even make myself rich one thousand times over. Anything was possible, and it would be so easy, but I knew I could never do any of those things. My parents had raised me with morals, and using the TTD for personal gain would go against everything they had taught me, but I still felt like there was a reason for me having the device.

In the end, I decided the best way for me to use TTD, was to not use it at all, but before I retired the device for good, I would use it one last time. I had to see the future.

I grabbed the TTD and headed out the door. I wanted to know where we were headed and if it was in the right or wrong direction, and in my hand, was the means to do it.

I went back to the park. I was planning to go at least ten years into the future, and there was no telling what could change in that amount of time. I didn’t want to risk appearing or whatever in the wrong place, so the park seemed like the safest solution. After finding a nice wide-open area, I set the TTD for today’s date and time, but ten years from now. “Here goes nothing,” I said pushing the start button.

The park’s calm, green beauty had been replaced by a barren landscape surrounded by the ruins of the burnt-out city. I looked around in awestruck horror as I walked to where the entrance of the park used to be, and once on the street, the real terror began.

Wrecked and abandoned cars filled the streets, and everywhere I looked were the rotted corpses of human beings hanging from inverted, metal crosses. Satanic looking symbols were everywhere, and instead of the usual sounds of the city, I could only hear the tortured screams of people all around me. “What happened here,” I wondered as I took in my horrific surroundings.

Up ahead, movement caught my eye. Coming around a corner, were a group of about eight people followed by two demonic-looking creatures. The people were all shackled to one another, and most of them had ragged and bloody gashes torn from their upper bodies where they had been flayed by their demonic guards. This was just too much, and I decided it was time to go. I turned and ran back to the park. Once there I bent over and vomited, and when I was finished, I pushed recall.

While I was relieved to see everything back to normal, I couldn’t help but feel utter despair from the forbidden knowledge I now possessed.

I returned to my apartment and removed the TTD from my belt. I looked at it for a long time before opening the back and removing the batteries, and then I busted the damn thing. I knew I shouldn’t have blamed the device for what it had shown me, but I just didn’t want it around anymore.

Since that day, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the future and what I saw. I wish that I could say we can all band together and save the world, but I feel that based on the events currently unfolding, there is no way to change what is coming, but at least I can give you all a heads up.