by Sean McMahon
15th Restart – Friday Afternoon, 12:01pm
The first thing that struck them, as they landed in a fresh restart, was that the colours were less vibrant than before. The sun that regularly blinded them upon arrival was far less intense, duller even. It wasn’t just the sky that seemed off either, everything around them seemed slightly more saturated. What was once a day showered in beautiful sunshine, now appeared to be a day that was slightly overcast. Additionally, the now ever-present mist was even more prevalent than their previous forays into the past. It was as if their connection to this place and to their friends was waning. They both noticed it, but neither saw the benefit in mentioning it.
They set off immediately for Kevin’s lodge and, upon their arrival, they were glad to see Kevin’s door was open. They needed to see just what his connection was to their killer, reasoning that if they were working together, Hal and Kara might be able to use that to their advantage.
The place was empty, and being unable to interact with anything, Hal dropped into an armchair, sparking up the first of his three restarted-cigarettes, with Kara choosing the sofa opposite. All they could do now was wait for Kevin to show.
*
Kevin returned late that Friday evening, the lights from his pickup truck filling the living room where Hal and Kara were waiting for him. The light bounced around the room like a searchlight. Hal held up his hand, noting that it didn’t cast a shadow on the wall opposite him, as Kevin walked through his open front door, Jerry following his master close behind.
‘Good boy Jer-Bear, Dinner time,’ said Kevin happily, pulling open a cupboard door in his modest kitchen, which ran along the back wall and almost all the way to his front door. Pulling Jerry’s dog food container from the cupboard, he gave it a little shake.
‘Uh-oh, no dinner for you, we’re all out!’ said Kevin, grabbing the keys from his pocket. The jingling noise caused Jerry’s tail to wag, clearly a result of him associating the noise with what came next, as Kevin walked to the door to the left of the kitchen.
Hal and Kara were on their feet immediately, ready to act. Kevin unlocked the door, reached around the door frame to switch on the light, leaving the door wide open as Kevin and Jerry descended the staircase.
‘Well, that’s convenient,’ said Kara, unable to believe their luck that they were finally getting to explore more of the lodge. With another piece of the puzzle within their reach, they descended the staircase, pursuing who they were certain to be the accomplice of their killer, with fiery resolve.
They realised that they were now in a basement, under the living room they had spent the past countless number of hours in, whilst waiting for Kevin to return.
The area was deceptively large, with wooden work benches against each wall, lined with various projects either half-finished or half-forgotten. As Hal and Kara spread out to give Kevin and Jerry space, Hal nearly tripped over a long, wide black object. Trying to prevent himself from falling, he made matters worse for himself by standing on a small box on the floor, which remained perfectly in place beneath his black, rubber boot. As Hal stood there, his arms spread out like a surfer catching some waves, trying to regain his balance, Kara couldn’t help but laugh at him.
‘Real smooth Hal,’ she said, still chuckling.
She ran her right hand over the counters, brushing past and over the various tools and knick-knacks littering the surface, the items refusing to move under her touch. Despite looking a little untidy, everything looked perfectly normal, and boringly ordinary.
‘Pssst,’ said Hal, getting her attention and wincing at himself for choosing this precise moment to utter “pssst” for the first time in his life, as he pointed at Kevin, who had walked through another side-door, and out of sight.
Jerry was far too busy waiting on the, as yet, incomplete promise of food to give them much thought or attention, as they followed Kevin through the doorway and inside the new room. They realised, all too late, that Kevin was coming back out, his arms filled with a large bag of dog food. Acting on instinct, they pressed themselves against the back wall of the room, so as not to pass through him.
‘No, no, NO!’ said Hal.
But it was too late. Kevin had closed the door behind him as he left. Kara ran to the door and grabbed at the handle, but being so far away from her past-self, was unable to interact with it. She looked back at Hal, her eyes wide with the realisation of their mistake. They were trapped.
*
‘Well this is surely a contender for Worst Restart Ever,’ said Kara, pacing the three strides she could make before walking into a set of shelving, turning on her heel and repeating the process relentlessly.
‘I guess that’s what we get for attempting this on our thirteenth go,’ said Hal, lighting up his second cigarette for the day.
‘Fifteenth,’ corrected Kara.
‘No shit, really? I had us at thirteen?’
‘Trust me, it’s fifteen.’
‘Damn, I guess it’s true what they say. “Time really does fly when you operate outside of conventional physics,”’ said Hal, extremely happy with the fluidity of his joke.
The worst part of their accidental incarceration was that they had no means of escaping from the confinement of the small storage room, until either Kevin returned to open the door, or their past-selves were in close enough proximity to allow them to interact with the handle. The silver lining was that they knew their past-selves would be just about close enough at 11am the following morning. A solution largely negated by the fact that they were in a pitch-black room that made following the passage of time all but impossible. Hal lit his lighter again, the flame illuminating his face, but not spreading to the rest of the room as it should have done, were his lighter in-phase with the room around him.
‘Oh wow,’ said Hal, ‘another bullshit time-travel rule! Light doesn’t travel universally, only within the confines of the timeline it exists in!’ he added, his voice thick with sarcasm. ‘Awesome. Hey Kar’, can you stop pacing? You’re making me anxious.’
‘I didn’t know I was freaked by confined spaces until now,’ she said, slamming her fist against the brickwork. She rolled her eyes at the barely-audible, muffled thud that the action generated. Turning around so that her back was resting against the wall, she took a deep breath, then slid down to a sitting position, accepting temporary defeat.
And so, they waited, discussing their theories on their killer, what they had witnessed with Peter, the portal at the edge of Pentney Lakes that had prevented them from leaving, and everything in-between.
*
The remainder of their Friday revolved around listening to Kevin pottering around upstairs. Their hopes ignited early the following morning, as they heard the door at the top of the stairs open, their accidental-captor walking towards them, teasing them with the possibility of early parole for their good behaviour. Hal and Kara were waiting by the door, ready to bound their way through as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Instead, they were treated to the odd sound of a large sack being lifted, then dragged across the floor, up the stairs, culminated by the sound of the basement door closing once again, acting as a sour cherry on top of the already-dire turd that was their current situation.
‘Awkward,’ said Hal. ‘Okay, my turn…I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with–’
But Kara didn’t listen for the letter, she was too busy trying to resist punching him in the throat.
*
They took the next few hours in shifts, waiting for their past-selves to walk by thanks to their scheduled trip into the woods, attempting to turn the handle every couple of seconds to make sure they didn’t miss their small window of opportunity. Despite neither of them knowing with any certainty if they would be close enough to make it work, the door unlocked with ease at what must have been around 11am. When the door finally opened, it seemed almost farcical. But here they were, free from their imprisonment. They laughed together, more out of a combination of relief, and what wa
s arguably a mild case of cabin fever, more than anything else. Suddenly, Kara’s smile dropped, as she thought of something that Hal clearly hadn’t. She ran up the stairs and reached for the basement door handle, frantically trying to turn it. Either the door was locked, or their past-selves were once again too far away. She swore at the door, pounding it with her fists.
‘Dammit! Trapped again!’
‘It’s okay Kar’, at least we’re right where we need to be for tonight. This is good. I mean, it’s not great, I’d rather be upstairs too, but we can work with this.’
‘Worst. Restart. Ever,’ reiterated Kara. ‘What do you think was in that black sack he keeps carting around anyway?’ asked Kara.
‘At this point,’ said Hal, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s my own dead body. You know, because time-travel, or whatever.’
‘How would that make sense?’ asked Kara, who couldn’t quite tell if he was joking or not.
‘We’re a couple of ghosts and/or time-remnants, currently locked in the basement belonging to the person who murdered us and his accomplice, unable to interact with a door, because the past versions of our considerably more-corporeal selves aren’t close enough to allow us to do so, dressed as a ghost-buster, and a ghost-hunter respectively. You’re telling me there’s not a chance it’s me in that body-bag?’ said Hal, breathlessly.
‘Fair point,’ admitted Kara.
*
Several hours passed before the basement door flung open. A heavy-set man appeared, closed the door behind him, switched on the light, then plodded down the stairs towards them, eyes firmly set on Hal and Kara.
Instinctively, they took a step backwards, as their self-preservation overrode the knowledge that they knew he couldn’t see them. As he strode towards them, they moved out of his way, as he threw a large carry-all onto the counter. The sound of the slowly-opening zip echoed throughout the basement.
He removed various items, and placed them next to the bag; A small black rectangular box, a folded-up sheet that appeared to be made of rubber, and two thick A3-sized plastic folders.
Hal and Kara nervously moved closer to get a better look, as the muscular man reached out for the rubber sheet. As he held it from the top-corner edges, it unravelled in front of him. Placing the hoop around his neck, he methodically tied the dangling straps around his waist, looking over his shoulder at the perfectly symmetrical bow he had just created, then instantly undid it. He repeated the act a second time. Then a third. And then so many more times, that the invisible spectators gave up on keeping count.
Finally satisfied with the last attempt, the man took a deep breath, and exhaled with a tone that indicated he was content. Opening the folders, he began pulling out what appeared to be newspapers. He reached into the plastic folder and removed a new packet of tack, which he used to attach multiple sheets of paper to the walls of the room. A room that, with each passing moment, was starting to feel a lot more like a dungeon.
After thirty-or-so minutes of them watching, as the bulk of a man initiated a seemingly endless cycle of placing, taking down, then placing again the various papers, the man took a moment to take stock, and surveyed the display he had created. He made some final adjustments to ensure each page was precisely positioned an equal distance from the neighbouring page, then reached back into his black bag, removing two alarmingly-sized sheathed blades.
‘Great,’ whispered Kara, ‘we were murdered by Rambo.’
Hal gestured for them to move closer to the papers lining the walls, eager to see what was printed on them. The tall, dark haired man picked up the small rectangular box, opened it, then placed it back down next to his bag. Kara noticed the glint of a reflection, as the light bounced off of the contents. She moved past the man, and saw three syringes, each filled with a sickly-translucent green liquid. Plastic caps covered the end of the needles, all of which rested disconcertingly in a box that was clearly custom-made to hold the syringes securely.
‘Kara, get over here,’ whispered Hal.
‘Why are you whispering? He has no idea we’re here!’
But as she saw what was written on the papers adorning the walls, she knew exactly why he was being so overly cautious.
‘Oh,’ said Kara, as she too sub-consciously lowered the volume of her voice. ‘Oh, this is much worse than we thought.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The Murderer’s Apprentice
15th Restart – Saturday Afternoon, 3:25pm
Judging by the newspaper articles, this man had been operating in secret for quite some time. Hal and Kara made their way backwards through the display, until their eyes fell upon the first article. Perfectly-executed calligraphy adorned the sheet of newspaper, as it did with all of the others, though the comments on this one in particular were unique in that the words “You did this” were written in every free margin and dead space on the page. The newspaper was dated with the year 1995, though the rest of the date had been redacted with a black marker pen.
One thing was clear; the article referenced a tragic road collision, the faces of the victims oddly covered in so many scratches that they were no longer recognisable. Hal thought he could just about make out a name, but the lack of a substantial light source made it difficult to be certain.
“Ophelia maybe?” thought Hal.
As they made their way across the additional articles, they realised that they spanned multiple towns, counties and even an incident abroad. The Restarters quickly realised that each and every one of them highlighted the man’s perverse record of achievement. The display was as terrifying as it was devoid of any obvious pattern. Age, sex and race didn’t seem to factor into it, leading Hal and Kara to believe he was little more than an opportunistic bastard.
‘He’s a serial killer,’ whispered Kara, the words feeling false in her mouth. It felt like something out of a movie, rather than a statement based on real life.
Hal struggled to read the smaller text on the pages, given the dimness of the lighting.
‘This one is dated March 2000. It says the victim was…’ he stretched over the counter to read the tiny font. ‘Melanie Jenkins. “A graphic designer, found dead in her home” yadda yadda,’ he skimmed the article, jumping ahead. ‘Died of natural causes apparently.’
Kara read another. ‘Jacob Murray, “a traffic warden, found dead in his flat in Kent in 2009.” Suspected suicide.’
Hal’s eyes were drawn to a third article.
‘Hey, check this one out; “Abigail Shaw. A twenty-eight year old theoretical physicist from Cambridge.” Now she sounds like someone we could use right about now…’ he said, noting the date of the newspaper article. ‘Says here she was found dead in her car near…Cavendish Laboratory in 2012.’
‘Jesus Hal, do you really think he killed all these people?’
Before he could answer, they were interrupted by the sound of a car pulling up on the driveway above them. Their killer’s head dropped to an angle, as he listened intently.
He moved like a panther, in remarkable silence given his size, gliding up the stairs of the basement, three at a time, and waited out of sight by the side of the door frame.
Kevin opened the basement door, and began hoisting his giant black sack, the same one that may or may not have contained a dead version of Hal, down the stairs.
The killer was on him instantly, grabbing Kevin in a choke-hold. The steps of the stairs seemed as if they would buckle under the duress of the combined weight of the two men, but the steps refused to yield.
Their would-be murderer reached out with his free right-hand, and dragged Kevin back up several steps, reaching out for the handle of the basement door, and slamming it shut. Kevin seemed to be losing his connection with consciousness as his frantic kicks and gurgles grew less and less intense, until he finally went limp. The large entity then dragged his prey down the remaining steps, sidestepping the large black sack that was obstructing the stairs.
Setting Kevin down on the floor, he paused, see
mingly to review his options. He stared at Kevin’s wide array of tools, and the do-it-yourself accessories that were adorning the walls. Finally, he settled on the tried and tested heavy-duty black tape, which he grabbed, moving back towards his rectangular box of–
‘Oh no, not the death juice!’ said Hal, covering his eyes, but still looking through his open fingers. ‘Kara, we have to stop this!’
‘How?! What can we do?’
‘Maybe if we join hands or something, use the energy somehow, we have to try!’ said Hal, grabbing her by the hand and swinging wildly with his fists at the sadistic cause of all of their problems. His arms flew through the killer’s body and head, but the monster didn’t so much as shiver. He did, however, stop in his tracks, looking around the dark room suspiciously, as Hal continued to throw harmless punches at Kevin’s attacker, completely ineffectual in his efforts.
Ultimately, it was all in vain, as the man refocused on the task at hand and pulled the plastic cap off of the syringe with his teeth. Wrapping things up, he punctured Kevin’s neck with the needle, pressing the plunger without a semblance of remorse, as the sickly-green liquid flowed into Kevin’s bloodstream.
The man then proceeded to bind his victim’s hands and legs, and dragged him into the small room that Kara and Hal had spent almost the same amount of time in than it would have taken to experience a small city-break. Finally, he locked the storage-room door with the key that was helpfully in the lock, and pocketed the key.
‘Oh c’mon!’ said Kara, as the reality of the situation dawned on her. She could tell by Hal’s face that he was thinking it too. ‘It’s been hard enough trying to figure out how to save ourselves from Kevin and this murder-bot from hell, but now we have to save Kevin too?!’
‘Kevin was innocent all along,’ said Hal, ‘this definitely complicates things.’
‘Switching car insurers complicates things Hal, we’re literally running out of time, or time’s running out on us. This isn’t a complication, this is the definition of impossible.’
