Paradox Bound

by Peter Clines

  “I took a shortcut,” she said. “We’re in 1961, or thereabouts. In your time, I think the town’s called Dinosaur.”

  “Dinosaur?”

  She nodded. “A nod to the local tourist trade.”

  “Ahhh. Still haven’t heard of it.” He wadded up the blanket and pushed it behind the bench. He stretched again, and the stiff collar of his new work shirt pressed against the underside of his chin. The hard creases scratched at his skin. They still hadn’t fallen out after almost eight hours of wear. Granted, he’d been asleep for most of that time.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Better.” He rolled his shoulder, then stretched his arm out the Model A’s side. Wind slapped at his palm and he turned his hand flat to sail alongside the car. He lifted his leg and flexed the knee up to his chest. “Good,” he decided, “considering I was shot and tortured yesterday.”

  “Almost two days ago, now,” said Harry. “You’ve slept through a lot of it.”

  “Are you still good to drive?”

  “I should be fine for another five or six hours. Enough to get us across Colorado. Maybe even into Kansas, I think.”

  For a few minutes they rode in silence. A sign announcing the upcoming state border approached and passed them. Some of the hills dropped away to become stark, chalky cliffs. Someone had told him once that Utah was beautiful. He couldn’t remember who, but they’d been absolutely right.

  “Hungry?” she asked.

  “Starving.”

  “There’s some food back there for you.” She waved to the back again. “I pulled into a truck stop a while ago. You didn’t even budge.”

  He looked, moved the blanket, and found the brown paper bag. “Thank you.”

  “It’s another club sandwich. I hope that’s acceptable.”

  “It’s great,” he said. The sandwich was wrapped in wax paper with a pair of toothpicks pinning it shut. No flags this time. Next to it in the bag sat a paper sleeve of cold french fries. Eli pulled one free and enjoyed the salt. He held the sleeve out, and Harry helped herself.

  “So,” he said after munching a few more fries. “Abraham Porter is one of the faceless men.”

  Harry swallowed her own fries and stared at the road. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he is.”

  “Did anyone see this coming?”

  She shook her head. “Not at all. Abraham was a good man, overall. Honest. Fair. Some might say fair to a fault. He did so many good things, but he also burned more than a few bridges doing what was ‘right’ in his mind. He was very much a ‘doing what needed to be done’ sort of man.”

  “I’ve known a few people like that.”

  “Haven’t we all,” she said.

  “I saw him in Hourglass. Abraham Porter, I mean, not Fifteen.”

  “At the First Time Around?”

  He nodded.

  “Sourpuss, isn’t he?”

  “He reminded me of a disapproving dad.”

  The corners of Harry’s mouth trembled. “That may be the best description of him I’ve ever heard. You know, on the last day of our wedding celebration in Hourglass, he took me aside to tell me he thought it presented a very poor image, that I wore pants and also that I didn’t wear a brassiere.”

  Eli snorted out a laugh without much amusement behind it. “I recognized him. The shape of his face and jaw. It just didn’t click until they showed up at the barn.”

  The almost-smile on Harry’s face collapsed.

  “How did they get him? Or, I don’t know, recruit him?”

  “I don’t know. Phoebe never spoke about it to Christopher. We figured it out on our own, after the wedding, much like you did.” She glanced at Eli. “I recognized his voice.”

  “Does everyone know? All the other searchers?”

  She shook her head. “John knows. Truss did, clearly. I believe a few suspect.” Her fingers drummed on the wheel. “You must understand, Eli, the faceless men have killed dozens of searchers. Hundreds, perhaps. They were always dangerous, but Abraham made them ruthless. Enough of him survived the…the process, I suppose, that they all took on his black-and-white view of things. That’s when they stopped looking for the dream and started hunting searchers. There’s a reason the crowd at the Second Iteration is so much smaller than at the First Time Around.”

  Eli let a few miles go by beneath the tires. “So you think you can stop him if he’ll still honor the favor?”

  “He’ll honor it,” said Harry. “As I told you, he was fair to a fault.”

  “Was fair to a fault,” echoed Eli. “That was then. He’s one of them now, right? One of the guardian zealots.”

  “I believe there’s enough of him left in that thing,” said Harry. “Truss believed it too. If he and I can agree on something, it must be true.”

  “Or extremely wishful thinking.”

  She scowled at him.

  “So,” Eli said, “he honors the favor and you think you can prevent him from killing anyone else?”

  “No,” she said. “A favor won’t work on that scale. At best it would serve as a…are you familiar with a game called Monopoly?”

  “Everyone on Earth has heard of Monopoly.”

  “Then you know about the Get Out of Jail Free card.”

  Eli nodded.

  “That’s what the favor would be. One instance of being caught or cornered by the faceless men. The holder could call it in and safely walk away.”

  “Which is why Truss was screaming for you to use it in the barn.”

  Harry glanced at him. “The man’s whole fortune was built from tiny nudges and adjustments throughout history. Imagine if he could’ve given something one big, hard shove without the worry of being caught. With no restrictions whatsoever.”

  Eli took in a breath to reply, but instead he just blew it out between his lips.

  “For the moment, though, it’s a moot point.” She tapped her fingers on the steering wheel. “I don’t know how long Truss waited for us in New Orleans, and once Mr. Hawkins sets sail we can’t reach him until he lands in California—wherever and whenever that happens.”

  Eli shook his head and pulled the toothpicks from his sandwich. “Keep going east. Boston.”

  “Why?”

  He unwrapped the wax paper. The sandwich had been cut in half and slumped to the side over time. “We have a new lead.”

  “We do?”

  He nodded and the stiff collar jabbed at his neck again. “Yeah. When I saw Zeke—Zero—well, I think a few things fell into place in my head.”

  “And?”

  “And…I think I know where the dream is.”

  Harry laughed. Her hands twitched on the wheel and Eleanor wobbled for a moment. “I beg your pardon?”

  “The dream,” Eli repeated. “I’m pretty sure I know where it is.”

  “Do you, now?”

  “Yeah.” He rewrapped the wax paper so it made a rough holder for the sandwich.

  “Not so much a lead then as an actual location? A specific place?”

  “Not super specific,” he said, “but I think within a mile or two, yeah.”

  “I’ve been searching for nine years. John’s been at it for almost twenty. But here you are, with just a handful of days on the road and you’ve figured it out. Down to within a mile or two.”

  He shrugged. “I think so.”

  She laughed again. “Everyone has crazy theories now and then, Eli. Especially when they’re starting out. They’re sure they’ve spotted something everyone else missed. I did. I was convinced the dream had to be in Florida, in a swamp near Disney—”

  “This isn’t a crazy theory,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  He took a hungry bite out of the sandwich. Toasted bread made damp from the tomatoes and mayo. Dry turkey. Limp lettuce. Stringy bacon. It might have been the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted.

  He swallowed a second mouthful, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand, and turned to Harry. “I’m serious.”
r />   “I’m sure you are,” she replied. “I’m also quite sure you’re medicated.”

  He repositioned his fingers on the sandwich. “Head for Boston.”

  “Why?”

  “You want to find the dream, right?”

  “Yes. Which is why I’m asking you why you think it’s in Boston.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Now you’re just being tiresome.”

  “I said we should head for Boston. It’s the nearest big city.” He bit off another mouthful of sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. “I think the dream is in Sanders.”

  She snorted. “Your hometown?”

  “Yeah.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Please, Eli, you must explain how I and almost every other searcher has passed through your town again and again without ever noticing a single clue.”

  He wrapped up the second half of the sandwich. “You noticed,” he said. “You just didn’t realize what you were noticing.”

  Her faint smirk faltered. “What?”

  “You and John tried to tell me Sanders was a slick spot.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I’d used it half a dozen times myself before I even met the younger you.”

  “No, it isn’t. It can’t be.”

  “Eli,” she sighed, “history has lost its grip there. It’s a slick spot.”

  Eli shook his head. “No, it’s not. Because if it was, I wouldn’t know about the internet or cell phones or computers. I’d be living somewhere history slipped past, like the people in the ’60s town, or in Independence.”

  She turned her eyes back to the road. “The night we met by the side of the road,” she said, “what year was that?”

  Eli held out the sleeve of french fries to her. “It was 2017,” he said. “My friends could tell you that too. They were married in 2012, right there in town.”

  Harry took another pair of fries. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  He wiggled on the rumble seat. “You told me time slowed down around the dream, right?”

  She nodded. “It’s part of the reason the faceless men live so long.”

  “And that’s what’s been happening in Sanders. Time flows differently there. It flows slower.”

  Harry took in a breath. Held it. Thought about it. “And the road?”

  “I think Sanders has lots of slick spots where you can get on the road, yeah, but only because the dream’s there.” He let a few ideas spin in his head. “Maybe because people in town are so much closer to it, it’s making spots off individual wants and dreams, rather than, y’know, the whole town’s: Here’s the place great-grandpa proposed. Here’s where you found your lost dog. Here’s the sign that…” He stumbled on the words for a moment. “Here’s the sign that tells us we’re home.”

  Her jaw shifted back and forth as she chewed on the words.

  “And one more thing,” Eli said.

  “Yes?”

  “Hawkins? He’s from Maine too.”

  She nodded. “I recognized his accent.”

  Eli bit two french fries in half. “He told me he passed through Sanders once. Just before he decided to go to California.”

  Harry took in another slow breath. Her fingers danced on the steering wheel. “As far as leads go,” she said, “it’s more compelling than some I’ve followed. Do you have any idea where in your town the dream might be?”

  He sighed. “Well, no. It just makes sense that’s where it ended up. It all fits.”

  She took another slow breath.

  Eli let her think about it for a few minutes. “How long do you think it’ll take us to get there?”

  Harry bobbed her head side to side as she calculated the miles. “Kansas tonight,” she said. “If we go nonstop tomorrow, we could possibly make Washington by tomorrow night. Or”—she glanced at a road sign as it whizzed past them—“we could start heading north after Denver, go for Cleveland.”

  She murmured directions to herself for another mile and a half. Eli toyed with unwrapping the other half of his sandwich and taking one more bite. Instead, he twisted the bag shut and set it on the floor between his legs.

  “I can’t see us getting there in less than two days,” she said.

  “Even with a shortcut through history?”

  “We can take all the shortcuts you like, Eli, we’re still over twenty-two hundred miles away.”

  “Right. Sorry.”

  Another mile rolled by beneath Eleanor’s tires.

  Eli cleared his throat. “What about John Henry? Could the Bucephalus get us there any faster?”

  “Possibly,” she said, “but if you’re sure that’s where the dream is, I’m not sure I want to be calling another searcher into the area with us.”

  Eli smirked. “Worried there’s not enough wishes to go around?”

  “Worried I’ll call in a favor and look like a daft fool for following my drugged-up partner’s suggestions.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “We’ll get there soon enough, don’t worry.”

  Eleanor whizzed past a small brick marker with some kind of plaque, and then a wooden sign welcomed them to colorful Colorado.

  35

  A little under two days later, they drove past the snow-dusted sign welcoming them into Sanders.

  Eleanor roared down the road toward the center of town. Eli took in a breath to warn Harry about Zeke’s standard speed trap. Then he realized the trap probably hadn’t been set that afternoon.

  Or had it? He couldn’t be sure when the faceless men had recruited Zeke. Maybe they hadn’t yet.

  “I brought us back a few weeks after our last encounter,” Harry said. Her words came out in a cloud of steam.

  “A few?”

  She shrugged. “Six or seven. I didn’t think we needed to be exact.”

  Eli flipped up the lapels of his tweed blazer. A Goodwill store in 1970s Des Moines had provided the coat and the faded blue sweatshirt under it. Not perfect for a New England winter, but all they’d been able to afford.

  “Maybe slow down a bit,” he suggested.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Just to be safe.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. But the Model A slowed down. “Satisfied?”

  “You realize drivers like you were the reason my mom never wanted me walking in the street when I was a little kid.”

  “If only she’d known that one day you’d be tempted away by such a reckless driver.”

  “Let’s hold off telling her for now.”

  They rolled down a snowbank-lined Main Street, past the Silver Arrow restaurant and Jackson’s. He glanced in the small bookstore’s window. Two of the three wire racks had vanished over the years, but as they drove by he glimpsed the survivor past the soap-drawn snowflakes on the glass.

  Harry looked at him. “Where am I going?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Eli. He looked through the windshield and saw the Pizza Pub coming up on their left. They had their gaudy silver Christmas tree in the window. “I guess it has to be somewhere people wouldn’t notice it.”

  “Possibly,” she said. “I suppose it depends on who took it. Perhaps someone has it in plain sight out in their living room.”

  Eli bit off a laugh. “I hadn’t really thought about that,” he said. “Do you think someone from Sanders stole the dream? Or did they just hide it here?”

  “I have no idea,” she said. “I always tended to wonder more about the why and the how, myself.” She gestured toward the road ahead. “Which way?”

  “Keep following the road, I guess. Bear to the left.”

  She guided Eleanor around the bend and onto Cross Street. On the dashboard, the red-orange light by the gas gauge flickered twice. “We’ll need to fill up soon,” she said, patting the console next to the steering wheel.

  “I think there’s still two or three gallons in the reserve.”

  She nodded and studied the houses along the street.

  On their right stood the old Protestant church. A snow
bank blocked the parking lot where he’d talked to Harry all those years ago. He swung his head, glanced past the Catholic church, and caught a glimpse of the baseball field. Brown tufts of dead grass stretched up through the snow around the wooden bleachers and across the outfield. In the distance, beyond the field, he could see the back of…

  “Oh, Christ,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Turn left up here,” he said as they passed the two churches.

  “Won’t that circle us back around into town?”

  “Yeah.”

  The road curved around, past another line of dirt-streaked snowbanks, and revealed the sprawling structure that, without knowing it, he’d brought them to see.

  The Founders House.

  “Pull over there,” he said, gesturing at the lot across the street.

  Eleanor slid between twin mounds of snow into the parking lot. Harry steered the car around until they faced the building dead-on. Eli stared at it through the windshield.

  She followed his eyeline as the engine stopped. “I remember that place,” she said. “It’s been closed for years, yes?”

  “Yeah. I’m not even sure when it was open.” He let his eyes run over the rambling structure. Clapboard walls painted that blue-gray colonial white. Dozens of big windows framed by dark shutters. At least three brick chimneys he could see from where Eleanor was parked. A wide, wooden staircase led up the hill, past two landings to the main entrance. “I’ve lived here my whole life,” he said, “and never really looked at this place, y’know?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I know a bunch of kids growing up who used to throw rocks at the windows. My mom told me once they did it when she was a kid too.”

  Harry let her own gaze drift across the building. “What are you looking for?”

  “Broken windows.”

  Her head turned sided to side. “I don’t see any.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Is it significant somehow?”