A Matter of Time

by Brian Harmon

  They actually come from the spaces between worlds. It’s an entire universe contained within the thin fabric separating all realities. Quite fascinating, really. I could tell you all about it, but this isn’t the time for that.

  If I’d turned around right then, things might’ve ended differently. But I didn’t know then what I know now. I took the wendigoes as a sign that I needed to hurry, rather than abort, and I pushed onward.

  With what I imagined was an entire horde of sewer monsters rising from the depths behind me, I ran like hell to the nearest door and, finding it locked, smashed the glass with my flashlight and let myself in.

  Reckless, I know, but I panicked a little. I was only twelve, remember.

  Once inside, I started my search for Zachery. I had no idea where to find him, so I just started moving through the halls, searching for a room with a light on.

  At some point, it occurred to me that I should hide the book somewhere. Zachery didn’t know that the men in the gray suits were dead, so he was still going to be desperate to get it back. And somehow I knew that even if I could convince him that the gray suits were gone forever, he’d still take the book from me. He’d want it for himself. And I couldn’t let him have it.

  I put the entire bag in a locker and memorized the number.

  I was aware of time slipping away from me, but as I began my search, I found the building utterly empty. I searched every floor, all the way to the top of the tower. No one.

  I began to wonder if maybe the fat man had lied to me. Or maybe the tall man had changed the meeting place after he saw that I’d escaped.

  But eventually, I made my way back down to the lowest floor and into the auditorium. That’s when I heard voices. When I investigated further, I found the door leading into the tunnel under the school. Relieved, I hurried down the steps…only to find myself looking down a long, black tunnel with a light at the far end.

  It was the one from my dream. The image that terrified me more than all the others combined. I didn’t understand what was so frightening about it at the time, but now I did. This was where everything else was leading me. This was where I was going to win or lose.

  I was deathly afraid, but I braced myself and quietly made my way down that long, concrete corridor.

  They were there, in that room, gathered in a circle, chanting softly. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it gave me a chill to hear it.

  One thing was already certain: The fat man wasn’t lying. They were where and when he said they’d be. And they didn’t need the book. Whatever they were doing, it was working just fine without it. I could feel it. It was like a static charge in the air. Something was definitely happening.

  It made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.

  I crept closer to the doorway, careful not to be seen.

  I saw Zachery’s two friends. The chubby one and the skinny one. There was also a blonde girl I’d never seen before. She must have been the one they were talking about in the library, the one to replace Vera. Like the two boys, I never heard her name.

  Next to her was Sherry.

  I was disappointed. I’d hoped she’d be smart enough to stay away, but there she was.

  There was another boy in the group, too. Like the girl, I’d never seen him before. He was most likely the other one they were talking about in the library. Fred something. He was supposed to be the extra, in case Sherry didn’t show.

  Then I realized that Zachery wasn’t with the others.

  I was wondering where he could possibly be when someone hit me from behind.

  The next thing I knew, I was in another dream. I was standing in the hallway upstairs, the one I hid my bag in. Except that the school looked old and deserted. The walls were burned. The lockers looked strangely warped. It was the future. And you were there. I saw you open the locker I hid my stuff in. I saw you find the next bottle.

  Even in the dream, I wondered how it could be that it would wait there for you all this time without being found. I didn’t understand. Not consciously, anyway. But somewhere deep down, I felt a mounting dread that I didn’t quite understand.

  Then the lights went out. I found myself standing in the dark, looking around, trying to understand where I was. That’s when I heard your voice. You called out to me. You asked if I could hear you. I said that I could…but somehow I knew that you couldn’t hear me. “You can’t stop it,” you said. “It’s already happened. They’re all going to die.”

  I remember shaking my head. I didn’t understand. It hadn’t already happened. I was there. I was right outside the room.

  But you told me that if I went in there, I’d die, too. “You have to stay out of the high school,” you said.

  But I was already inside… Even in my dream, I felt my belly fill with dread.

  “You were never meant to stop what happened there that night.”

  I understood then. It was like you and me. The circle we were trapped in. Past and future endlessly looped. I did what I did because of you. You did what you did because of me. And round and round we went.

  I’d made a huge mistake.

  Then a light blossomed in the darkness. I was standing in a dark tunnel, with a light in a room at one end. Then the light became a blaze. Fire filled the room at the end of the tunnel.

  And terrible screaming filled my head.

  Then I woke up.

  I was lying on the floor of that room. I thought my ears were ringing, but as I came to, I realized that it was the room that was ringing. The air was filled with a strange, humming sensation.

  I sat up, rubbing at the back of my head and looked up to see Zachery bending over me. I didn’t need to be fully back to my senses to realize that it was him who hit me from behind. He was the only one not present when I approached the room, after all.

  “Where’s my book?” he demanded.

  “He doesn’t have it!” blurted Sherry.

  “Shut up!” he snapped. “Focus on the prayer! We only have one chance at this!”

  She went back to her odd chanting, but she kept her eyes on us.

  Zachery turned his attention back to me. “Where is it?” he said again. “Don’t bother lying. I know you took it.”

  I stared right back at him. He wasn’t bluffing. He could feel the book’s presence on me. It sounds weird, but it was true. I could tell. “It’s not yours,” I told him.

  He sort of sneered at me. “It will be.”

  It all made sense then. Just like that, I knew how the spell worked. The fat man told me they didn’t need the book to complete the summoning. He told me it was only for show. For inspiration. It was supposed to help them believe in the magic. It was all true. But there was something else, too. The book had a way of getting inside those who possessed it. It had done it to me, I realized. And it had done it to Zachery.

  I remembered how gently he’d handled it when I was spying on them at the activity center. I remembered the way he reached into his bag and rested his hand on it in the library. Such tenderness he’d shown it. Such love.

  He coveted that book. He wanted it all to himself. He hated the idea of anyone else even touching it.

  It was all a part of the dance.

  The summoning of the portal of fire required a soul with five wounds. It required a prayer leader who was tainted by the five sins of the solitary man. His heart needed to feel the sting of fear, envy, rage, greed and grief, all at the same time, and all at the time of the summoning.

  It was the book that gave me this knowledge, just like it showed me how to defeat the men in the gray suits. It was ancient knowledge, lost to mankind for ages untold.

  The book, itself, was the key. It filled him with all those emotions. And the men in the gray suits had made sure he felt the sting of each and every one of them, magnifying them through physical and emotional torture.

  I wondered how long they spent planning for this.

  “Give it to me,” he demanded.

  “I don’t have
it.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Hidden.”

  “Where?” he growled.

  “I’d have to show you.”

  I saw the rage pass over his face.

  That awful ringing in the air had grown more pronounced. I could feel it vibrating in my teeth. It made my head pound where he hit me. And where the tall man hit me, too.

  But in spite of that, I managed to smile.

  It caught him off guard. “What’re you grinning about?”

  “The only way I can show you where it is,” I told him, “is if you all don’t die down here.”

  The chanting had been fairly steady up to this point, but at these words, everyone sort of lost their rhythm. All five of them turned and looked at us.

  “Don’t stop!” he shouted at them. “Focus!”

  Most of them did as he said. But both Sherry and that Fred kid kept looking back at us, nervous.

  “You’re going to kill them all,” I told Zachery.

  “Shut up!” he snapped. “I know what I’m doing!”

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do!”

  “Then why are you talking to me? You’re the prayer leader. You’re supposed to be over there with them.”

  He didn’t have a response for that. He stared at me, a look of horror slowly spreading across his face.

  My stealing the book had thrown a wrench in the gray suits’ careful planning. It shifted Zachery’s emotions. It made him obsessed. And that made him make a mistake.

  And thanks to me, neither of the gray suits were there to set him right again. It was like a freight train rapidly speeding out of control.

  “Better hope it’s not too late,” I told him.

  I could see by the look in his eyes that he knew I was right. He turned to the others. “You!” he shouted, pointing at Sherry. “Keep an eye on him! Don’t let him out of your sight.”

  She hurried to my side and knelt beside me as he took her place in the circle and began chanting.

  It was pointless, of course. He’d already messed it up. The energy was all wrong. The portal was way out of proportion to the energy. He was going to create a vortex.

  Sherry leaned close to me and whispered, “I didn’t tell him. I swear.”

  “I know,” I told her.

  The ringing became a rumbling. The chanting began to lose its rhythm again. Fred and the blonde girl were both looking around. Even Zachery’s friends looked uneasy.

  “Don’t let up!” he shouted at them.

  Time was rapidly running out.

  I looked up at Sherry and saw the fear in her eyes. She stood up and backed toward the doorway. “Guys, I’m scared…”

  Fred stopped chanting and took a step backward.

  “Don’t stop!” shouted Zachery. “We have to finish the spell or we’re all dead!”

  This motivated them. They all closed their eyes and continued chanting, but it was already too late. The spell couldn’t be finished now. The summoning was coming undone. As long as they kept chanting, as long as they kept the magic flowing, they could put off the inevitable a little while longer, but as soon as one of them panicked and ran, the fragile tension between worlds would shatter and death would rain down upon them all.

  This was going to be my only chance.

  I’ve gone over what I did next in my head a million times over the years and I honestly can’t say that there was anything I could’ve done differently. They simply couldn’t be saved.

  It was like you said. It had already happened. It couldn’t be undone.

  I jumped to my feet, grabbed Sherry by the hand and pulled her down that dark corridor.

  She was the only one I had any chance of saving. The spell required five people. She was the sixth. She was the only one who could leave without breaking the circle.

  But I’d only dragged her about half the length of the tunnel when she jerked her hand out of mine and looked back.

  I screamed at her to come with me. But she didn’t understand the peril she was in. She thought the danger was limited to that room. She didn’t want to leave the others. And I knew deep in my gut that I had no time to convince her. I had to leave her. I called out to her, begging her to follow me… But I ran. I left her. I climbed those dark stairs without her, leaving her to die.

  It wasn’t even about the book. It was nothing more than time.

  There simply was no more.

  The entire school was rumbling. I’d never been in an earthquake, but that was what I imagined one would feel like.

  I needed to get out of there, but I didn’t run out the door. Instead, I went back to the locker. I went back for the book. It was the only way. Somehow, I knew that leaving it behind was the wrong thing to do.

  Somewhere beneath me, I heard the screaming.

  Time was up.

  I threw open the locker and began digging in my bag. I left the bottle with the letter in there. The rest I threw down onto the floor.

  Then I stood up, my book clutched against my chest. My heart was breaking for poor Sherry, but it was time to leave.

  I ran back to the exit.

  Halfway there, I heard another scream.

  Astoundingly, Sherry had escaped the tunnel before the flames engulfed it. She’d come to her senses after all and made a run for it.

  Unfortunately for her, the exit was blocked. The wendigoes I’d seen on my way in had climbed out of the sewers and forced their way into the cramped lobby.

  Terrified out of her mind, she turned and ran for the exit on the other side, which brought her running straight at me.

  The book spoke to me then. I knew what I had to do.

  I ran at her, grabbed her around her waist and shoved her up against the wall, holding her there.

  I’d never been so close to her in my life, but I barely realized it. My only concern was holding her still and reciting the spell that popped into my head when I saw her running toward me.

  The wendigoes broke through the inner doors and charged at us.

  Fire belched up the stairway.

  Sherry screamed in terror and tried to free herself from my grasp, but I held tight. Tighter than I’ve ever held onto anything in my life.

  I spoke the spell. Like the others, it was in that strange language that didn’t sound like something I should’ve been able to produce with my human tongue, but it didn’t matter because you couldn’t hear it over her screaming anyway.

  A wall of fire engulfed the end of the hallway and raced toward us, incinerating the wendigoes.

  Sherry’s scream this time went on and on, long after the flames reached us. She screamed so long and so hard I was worried her poor vocal cords couldn’t take it.

  Then it was over.

  All around us, the building was scorched and burning. The lockers were smoking. The paint on the walls was cracked and blistered.

  I eased my grip on Sherry. It was about that time that I realized my face was buried between her breasts. I think I probably blushed bright red, in spite of the situation.

  She didn’t seem to notice. She was staring at the scorched hallway with the widest eyes I’ve ever seen. She was trembling. She truly believed she was about to die.

  “I told you not to do anything dangerous,” I said.

  She stared down at me, dazed and baffled.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I told her, “or we really will burn up.”

  I took her by the hand and led her out the door. She didn’t pull away from me this time. She let me hold her hand. She even squeezed it as we walked. I suppose she was in shock.

  There weren’t any more wendigoes, thankfully. I guess the fire took care of them. The school was burning behind us, but we were safe.

  I led her to the Impala. She didn’t want to drive it. She didn’t have her license, but I convinced her that she was less likely to get pulled over than I was. We ditched it a couple blocks from our neighborhood and walked home together.

  We ended up sitting
on the swing in my back yard. I told her everything. My whole story, starting with the dreams. I told her about you. I told her about the men in the gray suits. I told her about the book.

  She didn’t want me to keep it, but I did.

  I still have it today.

  I bet you thought it’d drive me mad by now. And a few times in my life there, you might’ve been right. Its power turned out to be stranger than I ever imagined. Sometimes that power is good. Sometimes it’s dark. But it’s always strange.

  For example, in my other letters I wrote about how it felt like the words I was writing flowed from me as if someone were guiding my hands. The same with some of the words that I heard coming out of my mouth. It turned out to be true. Sort of.

  I was the one doing those things. Over the past few days I’ve felt our strange circle finally coming to a close. It’s how I was able to find you, how I finally learned who you were. During that time, I found myself reliving those days vividly in my mind. I actually sat down and wrote those letters to you. I wrote them here in the present, and they found their way onto paper in 1962. I even told myself what to say a few times when things got hairy.

  I guess I was a Mr. Future of sorts, too.

  What a weird world it is for men like us.

  I convinced Sherry to keep quiet about what happened, by the way, to pretend she was at home in bed the whole time. No one ever suspected either of us of being involved in the disappearances of the five teenagers or in the mysterious fire that devastated the school.

  And for the record, she didn’t let me round any bases with her for saving her life. I’d be lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind at the time, but I was only twelve, after all. And that was a pretty traumatizing experience for a sixteen-year-old girl.

  We did meet up again a few years later…but that’s a completely different story. Maybe I’ll tell it to you someday.

  I have lots of stories. I could write for days and days and not tell you everything. But our story together ends here.

  For now, anyway.