by P. T. Hylton
Frank had become skilled at avoiding the Ones Who Sing. It was all about watching the Unfeathered and clearing out when they did. The few times he had gotten caught, Frank fought off the Ones Who Sing with minimal damage. The real trouble was any time he went to sleep. By the time their song was loud enough to wake him, it was too late.
It had only happened once so far, but he had been lucky to escape. Even still, they had taken a small piece of his ear before he managed to fight them off.
He couldn’t live like that forever, he knew. Some night he would wake to find them too thick to escape. They considered him an enemy now, and the song said, “Come to us as an enemy and we will take your life.”
He had to figure something out.
He’d been thinking a lot about the song they sang to him on his first day. “Come to us as a dog to its master and we will give you food. Come to us as a friend and we will take your flesh. Come to us as an enemy and we will take your life.” He understood all of that. But there had been another part.
“Come to us as a master to his dog and we will give you three truths.”
That was the part he kept thinking about. What were the three truths? Would they tell him how to get out of there? And how exactly did a master come to his dog? With confidence? With love? He didn’t know.
Three days later, he was sleeping near the fountain when they came. That was the moment, half asleep, that he figured it out.
As they swarmed around him, he began to whistle.
5.
At first, the whistling didn’t seem to do anything. The shapes sped around him, brushing past him, cutting him, singing their haunting song. Then Frank listened for a moment and adjusted his whistle. He matched the pitch to the song.
Suddenly, for the first time, he could hear them as individuals instead of as part of the whole.
“He joins!”
“A new voice in the song! A little voice!”
“The Little One has joined the song.”
Frank kept whistling.
Then, as one, the shapes sang, “Three truths are yours to know. What three truths would you ask, Little One?”
Frank wasn’t sure how he felt about being called Little One, but at least they weren’t cutting pieces off of him. He said, “How do I return home?”
The voices separated and babbled too quickly to follow, as if they were conferring among themselves. Then they said, “You are home, Little One. Are you not of Rook Mountain?”
“Yes, but how do I get back into time?”
“Ah, there’s a wiser question, Little One. Time is a prison for your kind. It’s a river that carries you so fast that you cannot experience the sights on the passing banks. Why do you wish to return to your prison?”
“I—I need to help my friends who are there.”
“You are locked outside of time, Little One. You wear the lock around your neck. You must unlock it with the key.”
“The key?” Frank asked. “What if I don’t have a key?”
“Then find it. Or make it. Or pick the lock. Are you not the people who build powerful machines to cough smoke into the air and who traveled to the moon itself? Can you truly not open a lock? You try our patience, Little One. Ask your second question.”
Frank thought hard before speaking. He had heard too many stories of genies and wishes to screw it up. They didn’t seem to be counting follow up questions, so that was something.
“There is a man named Zed. How do I kill him?”
The voices rumbled in something like anger. “We know of this man. The boy who found the watch. Or was it the watch who found the boy?”
The throng seemed to be at odds on this matter, but the voices soon reunified and continued. “He has taken the Town of Rook Mountain and moved it out of the river of time. He has put it into a stagnant pool where time cannot flow and the town will grow putrid. He sent you and the other two as peace offerings, but we are not at peace. He cannot be killed by any means we know, Little One, or he would be dead.”
“Then how can I put Rook Mountain back in the… river of time?”
“That is the same thing you asked before. Your kind will always be in the river unless they are locked out of it. For Rook Mountain, there is another lock and another key. You risk our anger by repeating your questions, Little One. Ask your last question, and we will give your last truth.”
Frank’s mind was racing. One last question. Before he could even think, he blurted it out. “Where’s my brother? Where is Jake Hinkle?”
“Ah, we know this name, too. We know it well. He is our—” Here the voices split once again and Frank heard multiple words at once.
“Friend.”
“Enemy.”
“Rival.”
“Champion.”
“Oppressor.”
“Brother.”
The voices joined back together. “The one you speak of stands outside the river of time. He stands on its edge like a fisherman, pulling out those who swim by as it suits him.”
“Is he locked out, too?”
Another babbling laugh. “No, Little One. He chose to step out. We do not know all, but we do know this: you will never see Jake Hinkle again.”
Frank started to speak, but the voices cut him off.
“Little One, will you join us? Will you join our throng?”
Frank looked out at the shapes around him. They almost appeared to be dancing.
“Join us. Your kind flows in the river of time, but the river of time flows in us. Join us and time will be your plaything.”
Frank thought of Trevor, still standing on the stage holding out his hand. “Would I be able to help my friends?”
The babbling laugh came again. “No, those Little Ones will be of no consequence to you once you are in our throng. They matter no more than a flash of light at the edge of the universe.”
“Then no,” Frank said. “I won’t join you.”
“Very well, Little One. We will not answer your call again. Next time we see you, we will take your flesh.”
Frank held up the knife. “And I will take yours.” But they were already gone.
Frank held the gold loop dangling from his necklace up to his face. He tried to see it as a lock. If he were designing a lock like this, how would he do it? How would it open? The Ones Who Sing had told him to find a key. There was only one key in this town that might work to unlock the necklace. He just had to find it.
It took a very long time, but he did.
THE UNREGULATED (PART 3)
Jake Hinkle sped through town, frantically looking in his mirrors and expecting to see the flashing lights of a squad car closing in on him. So far there didn’t seem to be anybody following him. That was a good thing, because once they arrested him, he would have missed his opportunity. He would either join Frank in prison or—more likely—he would join Todd in the morgue. Those things couldn’t happen. Not yet. There was more left to do.
He wondered where they would look for him first. There were a couple of possibilities. The most obvious was home. He’d give anything to kiss Christine and hold Trevor one more time. But he couldn’t do either of those things, and probably would never do either of those things again, because home would be the first place they would look for him. If he went there, he would be captured. He wouldn’t get to do the other thing, the thing he needed to do for his family.
Another possibility was the cabins. Two of them were empty with Frank and Brett gone. He could probably go there and hide out for a while. He knew those woods like no one else, save maybe Christine. He could evade them for a good long time if he didn’t mind living wild. But all that would do was delay the inevitable. It wouldn’t help his friends or family. Eventually, he would slip up or they would get lucky.
There was only one destination. He had to go there, even though going there would mean the end of him.
He reached the house at a little after two in the morning. She should be home by now, and, if he knew the owner of this ho
use, she would be awake, maybe winding down with a glass of wine while watching old episodes of The Twilight Zone on Blu-ray.
He took a deep breath and knocked, rapping on the door frame three times with his knuckles. Twenty seconds later the porch light came on and the curtains rustled as she peeked out. Then the door opened a crack.
“Jake, what are you doing here?” Wendy asked. “You scared the hell out of me.”
“Sorry. Let me in. We need to talk.”
“Is everything okay?”
He shook his head. “It’s bad. I need your help.”
She opened the door and shooed him in. Jake saw a half empty glass of red wine on the end table. The TV was on.
“No!” a voice said from the TV. “No, it’s nothing of the sort! I didn’t blow the lights out. I swear I didn’t! Someone’s pulling a gag or something!”
The Twilight Zone.
Another voice from the TV said, “A gag? A gag? Charlie, there’s a man lying dead in the street, and you killed him. Does that look like a gag to you?”
Wendy turned off the TV and sat down on the couch. Her face was drawn with concern. “Tell me.”
He told her, starting with Zed showing up. He told her about shooting Zed and about Zed shooting Todd and the cops.
“So he knows?” Wendy asked. “He knows about us?”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t think so. He only knows that Todd and I are involved.”
Wendy stood up and started pacing. “We have to call the others. We have to meet right away. Talk this through.”
“No. Wendy, listen. We only have one chance. The mirror.”
Wendy shook her head. “That’s a long shot at best. And even if it does work, we have no idea how long it will take to bring back help. It could be years. Decades. And what are the rest of us supposed to do during that time?”
“You’ll wait. You’ll be model citizens. You won’t meet with each other again and you’ll follow every Regulation to the letter. You’ll publicly and vocally support Zed and his cronies. You’ll give them no reason to suspect you of anything.”
“Jake, that’s crazy. If we don’t stand up to them what’s been the point of any of this? They win.”
“What’s the alternative? This is our shot.”
Wendy’s face was pale. Jake saw it from her point of view. She had been relaxing in front of the TV in her t-shirt and yoga pants, and in came Jake to tell her that her friend was dead and that the secret war they had been waging for the last six months was over. When he looked at it that way, she was actually taking it pretty well. She sat down on the couch next to him.
“Look, it’s not an ideal solution,” Jake said, “but I don’t know what else to do. This thing… we’ve been doing our best for a while now, but it isn’t working. We aren’t going to beat him head-on the way we wanted to. The mirror is our only chance. It’s ugly, but it’s the only way Trevor and the rest of the kids in this town have a chance at growing up as anything but slaves.”
Wendy sighed. “Fine.”
“Fine? Like, you agree?”
“Fine like I agree. I only have one favor to ask. Let me be the one to do it.”
Jake gritted his teeth. They were wasting time. “That won’t work.”
“Of course it will,” she said. “You have a family. I disappear, who cares? Your son needs you. Don’t make him grow up without you.”
“Wendy, that doesn’t make sense. I’m the one they’re after. It has to be me. I don’t go and I’m under arrest or dead in the next eight hours.”
“Maybe we could frame it so I did the crimes. I could leave a note—”
“Wendy!” he said, a little louder than he had intended. “You know it has to be me. I appreciate the offer. Your heart is in the right place and I’ll never forget it. But you know I’m right.”
Finally Wendy said, “I’ll get the mirror.”
She walked out of the living room and left Jake sitting on the couch. He saw the glass of wine and wondered if she had anything stronger. He sure could use a shot of Tennessee whiskey. He couldn’t do that, though. He needed his wits for what was about to happen.
Wendy returned and gave him the hand-held mirror. The broken clock symbol was intricately carved on the handle.
“Do you have a…” He mimed cutting his finger.
“Oh. Yeah, let me get something.” She returned a moment later with a large serrated kitchen knife.
“Thanks,” he said. He set the mirror on his lap and held his index finger over it. Then he stopped, remembering something. “Do you have some paper? And an envelope?”
“Of course.”
Writing it took a while. Words didn’t come easy to him in the best of times, and now was not the best of times. Wendy waited quietly, not rushing him. He finished his message, folded up the paper, and stuck it in the envelope.
“When Trevor gets older, old enough to understand, will you give this to him?”
Wendy nodded.
“I’m coming back. I am. But… just in case. There’s some things I want to tell him.”
“I’ll give it to him.”
He sighed and picked up the knife. “And ask Will to… to take care of my family.”
Wendy nodded again. “Any message for Christine?”
Jake shook his head. “She knows. She knows anything I could want to tell her. She knows what I’m gonna say before I say it. She always has.” Jake smiled. “She is going to be pissed, though. I promised her we’d play darts to see who got to use this thing.”
Tears leapt into Jake’s eyes as he brought the knife toward his skin. Would he ever see his family again? “Wendy,” he said, “I’m scared.”
Wendy said nothing, but she put an arm around his shoulder.
Jake took a deep breath and nodded to her. She stepped back. He slid the blade hard across the meat of his index finger. Blood pooled around the cut. Jake turned his finger over and let the blood drip onto the mirror. The surface of the mirror shimmered when the blood hit it.
“See ya, Wendy,” Jake said. He fell into the mirror.
CHAPTER NINE: THE BROKEN CLOCK
1.
The moment Zed cut his own throat Christine knew she was in trouble.
She and Will had talked late into the night trying to decide what to do. They had at times argued and at times agreed. They had changed each others’ minds and then changed them back. The central point of discussion was that they had been waiting for eight years to make their move, so why exactly were they still waiting?
At first they had been waiting for Jake to return. They had followed his instructions. They stopped meeting and even socializing with Wendy and Sean, the other two remaining members of the Unregulated. But Christine and Will hadn’t stopped seeing each other. As they kept more secrets from everyone else in Rook Mountain, their bond grew stronger. Part of it was the honesty they shared only with each other, but the other part of the bond was how deeply and profoundly they both missed Jake.
It was Christine who first brought up that perhaps they should start dating and eventually marry. It made sense from a logistical perspective. They spent so much time together already. And getting remarried would prove to the town that she had moved on. It would help people to stop seeing her killer husband every time they saw her face. So they had dated and gotten married as quickly as seemed appropriate. They had discussed the idea calmly and rationally, but it quickly became clear that it was much more than a marriage of convenience. As they spent more time together, their feelings for each other grew. They were two people living in a desperate situation, and soon they were desperately in love.
So they had remained undercover, living their new lives with Christine as the town doctor and Will teaching high school and eventually taking over the delivery of the certification program. They were polite, community-minded citizens. They told themselves they were doing it all for Trevor and to protect the coin, and that they were only waiting for the right opportunity to take Zed down.
Acting now was dangerous. They discussed all the usual reasons for inaction: protecting Trevor, giving Jake a chance to do what he needed to do, not wanting the Tools to fall into Zed’s hands if they failed. But all the usual reasons seemed hollow. Frank’s life was on the line. If they didn’t act now, when would they? Sure, it might be putting Trevor at risk, but maybe safety wasn’t worth selling your soul.
So they had devised a plan. The knife for Zed and the lighter and the resurrected head to keep the townsfolk at bay. Christine had fully intended to slash Zed’s throat whether he let Frank go or not, so she was more than a little surprised when Zed did it for her.
Zed cut his throat, took the knife, and threw it on the ground. He put out the fire, and then Christine felt a police officer tackling her, pinning her to the ground. His knee pushed into the small of her back with painful force, but she was beyond such things. She noticed the pain only as a distant annoyance. Everything took on an air of unreality for her. Her only clear thought played on a loop in her brain: we failed. After waiting eight years, they had taken their shot and failed.
She turned her head as much as she could with her face pressed into the ground, and she saw Will in a similar position. His eyes met hers and she saw the same look of despair on his face that she felt on her own.
