The father ran out onto the porch, bat still in hand. Marty decided it was time to leave the neighbourhood.
‘That’s right,’ the father yelled as the rest of his family came out to join him, ‘you keep running, sucker! And you tell that white trash realty company that I ain’t selling, you hear? We ain’t gonna be forced out!’
‘Lewis,’ the mother lectured her husband, ‘tomorrow, you're going to put bars on all the windows, understand?’
‘Like hell, I will, ’ the father replied, shouting more at Marty than at his family. ‘I won't have my family livin' in a jail! I won’t have that!’
Marty heard more explosions in the distance. Boy, those sure sounded like gunfire!
But the father wasn’t following him. After he had run a couple of blocks, Marty slowed down to catch his breath and figure out just where he was.
A police car raced around the corner, sirens blaring, flashers blazing. Marty barely had time to jump out of the way before the cops sped by.
What was going on here?
He saw something bright across a yard a few hundred feet in front of him. He walked toward it, and realised it was the kind of broad yellow tape cops used to keep crowds from walking all over the evidence: DO NOT CROSS - POLICE INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS. Marty stopped just before the tape, and saw two chalk outlines on the pavement on the other side - outlines in the shape of people. Inside each outline were darker spots that glistened in the streetlights. Marty realised those spots must be blood.
This couldn’t be his old neighbourhood. Sure, he recognised houses, and the street signs were right, but still -
‘This is nuts,’ he said aloud. But he kept on walking. What else could he do?
It was even worse when he got to the corner. There, in front of him, was Hill Valley High School - or maybe he should say what was left of Hill Valley High School. The place looked like it had been fire-bombed. Only half of it was still standing, and that was covered with deep black soot. What windows were left were boarded over, and the whole place was surrounded by a barbed wire fence - like the building had been in the middle of some kind of a war zone.
But, even in ruins, the place was definitely the high school. So Doc had brought him back to the right place. This was Hill Valley, all right.
That meant something else had gone wrong.
‘It’s got to be the wrong year!’ Marty said aloud.
He walked slowly across the street. Something must have gone wrong with Doc’s time machine. But where - or when - had the time machine left him?
There was a newspaper on the porch in front of him. That would tell him what he needed to know. He ran onto the porch and scooped up the folded paper. He opened it, looking for the dateline under the masthead:
SATURDAY OCTOBER 26 1985
‘1985! ’ Marty yelled. ‘It can’t be!’
There was a sound right behind him - like somebody pumping a shotgun. Marty felt something cold and hard pressed against the side of his head - something like the barrel of a shotgun.
A voice spoke behind him:
So you re the son of a bitch who’s been stealing my newspapers!’
Marty knew that voice, sure to strike terror into the hearts of teenagers throughout Hill Valley. He turned, slowly and carefully.
‘Mr Strickland!'
The bald vice-principal in charge of discipline tipped his gun down slightly and frowned back at Marty. He looked even more fierce than the teenager remembered. Maybe it was because Mr Strickland had somehow gotten a long and livid knife scar across his face that made him look like he was going to kill Marty at any minute. Or maybe it was that flak jacket Mr Strickland was wearing over his bathrobe. Whatever it was, he looked twice as mean as he ever had before.
But Strickland still hadn't recognised him.
‘It’s me, sir!’ He pointed at his chest. ‘Marty! Marty McFly!’
‘Who?' Strickland demanded.
‘Marty McFly. Don’t you know me, sir?’ What sort of world would this be if the vice-principal in charge of detention didn’t recognise him?
Strickland lowered his gun. squinting at Marty in the darkness.