A to Z Reviews: “Zip,” by Steven Utley
“Zip” was one of the last short stories Steven Utley published during his lifetime, appearing in the July 2012 issue of Asimov’s. It is a story of three time travelers who find themselves in the Pleistocene Era and come upon a situation they had not planned for. As they emerge from their time machine, they see the expected megafauna and humans, but within moments, a blurring occurs on the horizon and the world seem to be torn asunder, those creatures in the distance ceasing to exist.
Surmising that their arrival in the time machine is causing the destruction, the men return to their machine and travel further into the past, arguing about whether they caused the destruction and how to stop it, if they can, or whether they can return to their own time, if it still exists.