"Short Walk to Yesteryear"
by Charles A. Murphy
The Plot: This story takes place one week before Kristen Sheley's "Alternating Times"
SYNOPSIS: Doc and Clara's wedding is interrupted by a strange phenomenon appeared in the sky and crashed to the earth. What is believed to be a spaceship from another world turns out, in Doc's eyes, to be the DeLorean from the future. For some reason, after going back to the future, Marty didn't destroy the time machine. After the car is opened, it is discovered that an unconscience Jennifer is in there. She is hospitalized, and when she comes too, she doesn't know who she is. Nor, does she recognize Doc or remember her own time. Unable to get an answer from her on why Marty didn't destroy the time machine, Doc decides to take it back to the future and ask him himself. By now, the DeLorean had been removed from it's landing site and have been move into a highly tight security area. Doc sleep induces the guard, checks out the time circuits and discovers that it's still in working order despite the impact. Activating the circuits, Doc discovers that Jennifer's last stop before her current arrival was the year 2015. Heading there, Doc searches the other DeLorean for the date that Jennifer left. Afterwords, the Jennifer that still had her memory arrives back and runs into her future self. Shocked at the site of that other self, Jennifer passes out falling backwards into the car, bangs her head on the time circuits-resetting them for 1885, and sending her there. Heading for the date that Jennifer came from, Doc encounters Marty and gives him a tongue-lashing for not destroying the time machine. That's when a look-a-like of him comes out of nowhere and puts Doc into shock, causing him to pass out. When he comes too, he learns that his future self had made another time machine out of a train and took himself, Clara and their two boys to the future to get Einstein and not let Marty worry about him. He also learns that his future self had ordered another DeLorean to turn into a time machine and that the original DeLorean was destroyed by an oncoming train after all. Finally, after learning that Jennifer had went to the future to buy Marty a birthday gift, Doc invites him back to 1885 to help her regain her memory. Meanwhile, word of the DeLorean's appearance gets out rivetting the attention of Mark Twain and a young H.G. Wells who is on a visit from England. When Doc and Marty return, the two writers start stalking them. On overhearing a conversation between Doc, Marty and Clara, Twain goes to the Hill Valley Telegraph to tell the editor what he had overheard. At that time, word was received that Buford Tannen had escaped and was heading back to Hill Valley. Meanwhile, Doc and Marty visit Jennifer at the hospital in hopes that Marty would help her regain her memory. Marty's tell her about "the future" is overheard by Twain who had came back from the Palace Saloon talking to the customers who had heard Doc talking about the future two months back. Buford Tannen shows up in town looking for revenge against Doc and Marty not knowing that Marty's "Clint Eastwood" character had gone down into the ravine, after rescuing Clara from a pair of robbers who had hijacked the train, and perished. Seeing Doc and Marty leaving the hospital, he goes in there and kidnaps Jennifer hoping that the two would come after them. Marty goes by himself to rescue her, but Tannen demands the Doc as well knowing that he still owes him money for the horse that threw his shoe and the bottle of whiskey that broke as a result of that unfortunate accident. To that end, he points a gun at Jennifer's head threatening to blow it off unless his demand is met.
BACKGROUND: Mark Twain (1835-1910), a.k.a. Samuel L. Clemens was one of America's most noted writer in his time. He had finished writing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn when most of this story has taken place. His bookwriting career started with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveris County for the newspapers in 1866 achieving national circulation. His first book Innocents Abroad, was published in 1869. After that, his writing career soared and in 1876, he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Please keep in mind that Doc, Marty and Jennifer's appearance in 1885 had no bearing on him writing A Connecticut Yankee in King Author's Court.
Herbert George (H.G.) Wells (1866-1946)
was noted for his science fiction novels like The Time Machine and War of the Worlds. He was a sort of a man ahead of his time having correctly predicted two world wars and the woman's liberation movement. When I first conceived the idea of this story, I was envisioning the DeLorean making a crater just like the spaceship in H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds hence adding the British to this story.
Jack London (1866-1916) has a cameo as a nine-year-old boy visiting some cousins in Hill Valley for Christmas and wanting to meet Mark Twain. Having Marty come across him seeing him write about a wolf just like White Fang was one of the few comic reliefs in the story.
And finally, although the story does take place one week before Kristen Sheley's story, "Alternating Times", I've got the story started on December 15, 1885 using the date from the Extra Tidbit under Doc Brown's profile on Kristen's "Future" Character Profiles page of her website.
Disclaimer: Back to the Future™ is a property of Universal Studios and Amblim Entertainment. I just hope they're reading this story too and either e-mailing or telephoning me for the story. The characters in this story are the creation of Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale and are purely fictitious. Any reference to any person living or dead or any mention of any actual event is purely coincidental.
