Doc reassured Marty as they hurried back to the car.
‘She'll be fine. I’ll take you home, you can change clothes and come back for her in your truck.’
Marty guessed that made sense, too. He shrugged and followed the older man.
‘You're the Doc.’
They got back in the DeLorean and headed for Marty’s home, over in the Lyon Estates.
Marty still couldn’t shake the feeling that things weren’t quite right. It probably had something to do with coming back here from the future - a future he realised he didn't know too much about.
May be that’s what was bothering him - getting a glimpse of the future, but not his future - his or his family’s. Heaven knew it looked different to him now , around here - back in 1985, in what should be familiar surroundings. He noticed a boarded-up window |here and there as they drove through the late-night | streets, and there seemed to be twice as much trash everywhere as he had ever seen before. Even the road was awful - didn't Hill Valley ever fill in their pot holes?
But the more he thought about it, the more he guessed time travel had something to do with all of this, not only this trip to the future, but his earlier visit to the past. He was probably ‘gaining a sense of perspective' - that was the sort of thing his parents would say - and seeing things about Hill Valley he never would have noticed before.
Or maybe he was just tired and grumpy from all that action in the future.
Doc pulled the DeLorean past the lion gates and into Marty’s neighbourhood. They stopped in front of Marty’s house. Marty jumped out and waved goodnight.
‘If you need me,’ Doc called out, patting the steering wheel, ‘I’ll be back at my lab, dismantling this thing. Let me know if you have any trouble convincing her it was all a dream.’
‘Or a nightmare,’ Marty added as he started up the walk.
Doc nodded sagely, then drove away.
Marty stopped, half-way up to the house.
He heard a couple of sounds in the distance, explosions, really, like a car backfiring over and over again. It almost Bounded like gunfire.
In Hill Valley? Get serious, McFlyl
Marty hurried to the front door anyway. He stuck his key in the lock. It wouldn’t turn. Marty jiggled the key. It still didn’t work.
‘What the hell?’ Marty whispered.
Somebody had changed the lock. But why? He supposed it must have something to do with the stuff he had done back in 1955, and the changes that stuff had caused - like his father becoming a successful writer and all - here in 1085. But, if that was true, shouldn’t Marty’s key have changed to fit the new lock? That’s the way he thought this time travel stuff worked. He guessed he still really didn’t understand Doc’s explanations after all.
Oh, well. It was too late to try and figure out the mysteries of science. If he couldn't get in the front door, he'd go around the back way. He would have another chance to figure out everything in the morning.
The gate leading into the back yard was locked too, with an impressive looking padlock. It wasn’t going to be as easy to get to sleep as Marty had once thought. But there was more than one way to get into his bedroom.
He climbed on top of a garbage can, then jumped over the gate. There! That wasn’t so hard. He walked a few more paces until he was opposite his bedroom, and tried one of the windows. It opened easily. That was a relief! Marty had started to think there might be something wrong here.
He climbed quickly inside, easing his foot down so that it would hit the top of his dresser.
Wait a minute! The dresser wasn't there!
Marty lost his balance and fell into the room. Onto a bed.
Somebody screamed in his ear.
Chapter Ten
The light went on. A young black girl, maybe eleven or twelve, stared at him from less than a foot away, clutching her covers up to her neck.
'Momma!’ she shrieked. ‘Dad! Help!’
‘Hey,’ Marty demanded, ‘who are you? What are you’ - he hesitated, looking around - ‘doing - in my - room?’