◀ Prev • [ All parts ] • Next ▶
Part 1-26: Latch
Dim greyness, a shifty shadow, and a hundred twinkling lights.
The shadow turned into Deluxe as my eyes adjusted. She hunched over her laptop, clacking away. I slapped an arm backward, unable to fully believe it. It hit hard, cool steel. She turned around at the sound and said, “Alena? Are… are you back?”
I tried to speak, but my whole mouth trembled with such force, all I could do was wrench my head up and down.
Deluxe scooted over and pinned me in a hug. “We got it!” she said. “It’s done, full wifi, even boosted a bit, both routers, it’s done, our way or the information super-friggin’-highway baby!”
We both cracked up, probably scaring anyone who happened to be outside the hut, but I didn’t care. It was over, we’d won, and I could spend some blessed time not thinking about this wild, unreal bullshit.
Even the little blue book had the decency to vanish without a trace.
Two weeks later
Out of everyone, Dack ended up in the most trouble. He had raced from the hut, right through a live play at the ball game. Then past the field to the info kiosk. He kicked in another door, terrifying the attendant, and jammed a little device into the USB port of the wifi router. Deluxe had put a program in it that let her override Eden’s signal. It had come back on just as I returned to the hut.
Willy went comatose, and the same police that were called on him collected Dack too. Fergus was let off, for he was only ‘trying to subdue’ what seemed like a man gone crazy.
Dack made some story up about having too much to drink and taking a stupid bet. He was put on suspension and would have to do some sort of trial and evaluation. Deluxe felt a world of guilt over this and visited him whenever she could. I somehow suspected he forgave her.
The days passed, and there were no more strange explosions or unexplained tragedies. At least not in our town.
As for me, I was physically okay. I did not think much about the restaurant or making a living for a while, I’ll say that much. I ordered a lot of delivery, called my parents and family a bunch, feigning homesickness that was only half fabricated. Turns out nearly dying makes you miss people.
Deluxe was keen to confirm the clock’s state, but I refused to visit the John B. Zachary Business Center. I told myself I had enough of Bannerman Drive, and that leaving it alone was the best thing I could do.
But like in that sad, slow late-nineties song, a phone call changed my mind.
When my phone buzzed that evening, I was actually looking at a business related spreadsheet, finally starting to toe back into a world where I was a regular human with some silly dream of opening a vegetarian restaurant. The caller ID read: H. Glenscot.
“Harold, hi!” I said. “Put some more thought into that bakery supply idea?”
“Hello Alena! I’ve mentioned it to the wife, aye. Still considerin’. Not why I’m callin’ though.”
“Oh! Well what’s up?”
“It’s yer cousin. She’s done lost your contact but managed to remember your favourite cafe and cafe owner, heh. Got her here if you wanna say hi and maybe come pick ‘er up.”
“Susanna? What? Susanna’s sitting in the cafe?” She lived halfway across the country.
“Susanna? Naw naw. Persi she calls herself.”
The computer slid off my lap, bounced on the couch and clattered to the floor.
“Hello? Hello, you still there?”
“I…”
“Want me to put her on?”
“No. No I mean, I’ll come get her. Right away. Thanks. Bye.”
I ended the call, distantly aware that every time I spoke to Harold Glenscot I was either acting like a jerk or a nutcase. I found Deluxe—who was feeding Lobster the legit, actual lobster—and told her what was up. She was able to take me to the cafe, having finished whatever wild experiment she was up to with her car. I was too nervous to drive.
When we arrived, I paused outside the big, wide windows. Persi sat at the same table we were at almost a month ago when this all started. Pretty, perky, hair short and styled. White summer dress against brown skin. Little pastel flowers on it. The setting sun bathed her in a square of blood orange.
I went in, thanked Harold as sanely as I could and ushered my ‘cousin’ into Deluxe’s fancy car. She got in the back.
“Persi!” squealed Deluxe.
“Hello.”
“Okay. Okay. Just… lay it all out,” I said.
Deluxe put us into drive and Persimmon began to speak.
She told us that she saw the clock tick backwards. When it did, she felt a cloud lift from her, and she was suddenly hungry, and tired. We’d freed her. She was overjoyed. She fled from the office, into real sunlight for the first time in what she estimated must have been only a few days, or a week at most now that she had her memory and sense of time back. Her pet fish were alive and well when she went back to hers and Willy’s apartment. No overdue bills nor hundreds of voicemails.
But there was still an issue with Willy. The night of the park, the police had turned him over to the hospital, assuming he was on drugs. Then he was discharged after his emergency contact—Persi—was notified and asked to come collect him.
She said he was lucid, but changed. He would eat and sleep, but not much else. When Eden was in him, he was always moving and animated. She suspected another trick, but over the days, he got better, slowly. She was so happy that it was over and her brother was coming back.
Now, tears welled in her eyes. I ground my teeth.
“Then he died, Alena.”
“I’m… I’m so sorry. When? How?”
“Four days ago. Came home and found him in the kitchen, sitting there with his wrists slit and half the skin of his arms peeled off with a paring knife.”
“Jesus!” I said. Deluxe drove on, her lips in a line and fingers white on the wheel.
“He was gagged with a washcloth; rammed down his throat. Based on his episode at the park and the traces of amphetamines in his system, they’re calling it a likely suicide. There was a note that read, ‘i found lock.’”
I’d been looking back at her most of the time, now I sat straight and stared out the windshield. Houses and sidewalks flowed by. I recognized the area we were in. I knew where we were going.
“I checked again. I went back to see for myself,” Persi said. “It’s back at two Alena. It killed Willy for it. It made him… it made him hurt for it Alena!”
She gripped my shoulder and began to weep. I put my hand on hers.
“Any chance this is a lucid dream, Prime?” I said.
“Low probability,” Deluxe whispered. We turned down the street with the ugly buildings on one half and a long, thin park on the other. There was someone waiting for us at the office, standing beside a car I did not recognize.
As we drew closer and stopped, I saw Fergus.
“I texted him when you were in the cafe,” said Deluxe.
“Thanks. Couldn’t get Dack?”
“His mobility is restricted by law, unfortunately.”
We piled out. I gave Fergus an awkward hug. We hadn’t spoken since the day at Henderson Recreational.
“I never said thanks. That was shitty of me,” I said. “You helped slow it down. It gave Dack enough time. It would have… it would have hurt me bad I think. I’m sorry. And thank you. Thank you for even being here now.”
“I can’t even imagine what it was like in there, ghost hunter. You owe me no apology.” He looked past me at Persi. “You’re out.”
“But I have to go back in,” she said.
“Senorita over there was afraid of that,” he said, jerking a thumb toward Deluxe.
“Let’s get it over with,” I said.
Truth be told, I didn’t feel afraid. The dread I felt when Harold said Persi’s name was only temporary: the sting of a bandage that I knew had to come off at some point. I knew, like I had known since the park, that Eden wasn’t done yet. Yes, I had hoped that it had maybe moved on and was someone else’s problem now. A new room, in a new town. But I knew better. And I knew how to beat it. We did it once. We could do it again. These facts carved a sense of resolve out of what might have been fear.
We climbed up to the fifth, the halls of the dusty office as shadowy as ever. The room looked the same, Eden’s clock loomed in the corner, the paint peeled in predictable patterns.
That’s how we came to stand before it once again, its time reset to two to midnight, despite the lovely sunset sky outside. Soon, there’d be another accident in town, and people would get hurt. The minute hand would move a tick closer to midnight, then there’d be only one more chance to stop it.
“It knows we’re enemies now,” said Fergus.
“Indeed. I don’t suspect Eden will be soliciting our aid in future endeavors,” said Deluxe.
“Sure won’t be bothering Willy anymore,” sneered Persimmon.
I walked up to the clock. My forehead came level with the bottom of the face. The backwards six stared down at me. I ran my hands along the clock’s pillars, feeling for a tingle, or maybe a zap. It was only wood.
I rapped my knuckles on the glass of the face. “This is just a stand in,” I said. “The real clock has its numbers sorted out.”
“What’re you thinking?” said Persi.
“The best defense…” began Deluxe.
“…is a good offense,” I finished.
“You’re going to go after it?” said Fergus.
“What kind of hunter sits around and waits for it to kill anyone else? I’m not waiting,” I said, feeling along the front of the clock. I found a little copper ring latch, about halfway down the right hand side. I slipped my middle finger into it.
“Me neither,” said Persi. She wrapped her arm around my waist.
I took a deep breath.
“Bon voyage. Stay safe,” said Deluxe.
“See you on the other side.”
I pulled.
◀ Prev • [ List of parts ] • Next ▶
📚 Readlist 📚
