The Waiting: A Supernatural Thriller(58)

Soon he found himself staring at the clock more and more while typing less and less. Its obsidian luster deepened further under the glow of the new light bulbs. The four hands on its shining face were still, but he could imagine them moving. He could see the shortest one buzzing around faster than the other three, like a fly caught under glass. The longest would move slower, placid in its surety. All of them spinning backward.

Evan jerked at the cold touch of the encasement’s glass, and only then realized he’d stood and moved in front of the clock. Dropping his hands to his sides, he saw the places where his fingertips had brushed the pane, the fine lines of his fingerprints visible like road maps. The strange symbols and hash marks in place of numbers shone. Now that he looked closer, he saw they were separated into ten groups. Ten, not twelve.

Frowning, he turned and grabbed the chair near the table and pulled it before the clock. When he stood on the chair, his head came slightly above the clock’s face. Yes, the symbols were definitely in groupings, with small spaces defining their outlines. Evan reached out and placed an index finger on the group at the twelve o’clock spot. He traced the raised markings, trying to ignore the shaking of his hands. The brass was colder than the encasement, and he shivered. Dropping his hand away, he leaned in close to the face, the grin of the crescent moon looking even more gruesome at this distance.

Something in the center of the group caught his eye: a minute O that looked incongruous with the rest of the cryptic figures around it. It took another moment for the rest of the shape to come into focus, and then suddenly it was there.

A zero was buried within the grouping.

Evan pulled back, blinking. Had that been there the entire time? No. Maybe. He looked again and saw in the spaces between the symbols, a clear path cut through, forming the number.

“How did I miss that?” he whispered.

He waited, staring at the spot, for something to change or the zero to disappear, consumed by the nonsensical etchings again, but it didn’t. It remained. With trepidation, he focused on the next distinguished cluster. Sure enough, a one hid in its center. A two could be seen in the next, a three in the one after. All of the numbers were buried in the negative space between the cast symbols. He counted up to nine before coming back to the zero at the top.

“It’s like a f*cking rotary phone,” he said.

The idea struck him as funny, and he laughed. Harder and harder, he shook with giggles as his legs grew weak beneath him. He stepped down to the floor and steadied himself on the worktable until the laughter began to taper off to chuckles and snorts. Evan wiped his eyes and looked back at the clock, expecting the numbers to be gone, hidden once more in the strange calligraphy.

They weren’t. Apparently, once seen, you couldn’t un-see them.

“Curiosity killed the cat and nothing in the world could bring him back.”

Evan swallowed, not liking the sound of his voice in the basement. He needed to get to work, enough messing around. But as he turned away, his eyes snagged on the four hands of the clock, now pointing at distinguishable numbers. He froze, feeling as though he stood at the edge of a bottomless cavern, his toes encroaching on empty air. Which way to step? Onto solid ground, or into the emptiness?

You know why you’re down here and not upstairs punching away at Justin’s outline, just like you know why you haven’t left this island like any sane person would have by now. You know. Dispense with the self-serving lies. I am the self, you can’t bullshit me.

Hating the voice inside, Evan noted the placement of the clock’s hands and took in which numbers they pointed at. One, nine, one, nine—1919. He tried to remember if he’d bumped the hands. No, he hadn’t. He rubbed his face, swiping at his eyes, which were much too tired all of a sudden.

How many people had been around the clock over the years? How many curious fingers had touched, prodded, spun the hands? A warmth glowed in the base of his stomach, the same as earlier that day on the boat when Selena kissed him. Excitement. The possibility of something impossible. He opened his mouth as though to speak, to chide himself out loud, and then shut it.

The idea, hidden beneath the dark waters of obscurity over the past days since finding Bob’s notes, rose from the depths, becoming clearer and clearer. For a moment he tried to refuse it, to push it back below to where it would return to the indefinable shadow it once was, but instead, he let it come fully into view. The enormity of the possibility, along with its insanity, almost floored him. Evan gripped the back of the chair and slowly slid into the seat, the strength leaving his legs.

Once seen, it can’t be unseen.

Evan looked at the monstrosity standing indifferent against the wall.

“He tried to go back, back before she got sick.”

He didn’t know if he spoke of Abel or himself. His jaw worked soundlessly, and if the lights were to wink out, he knew he would die, crushed by the immensity of the concept that now breathed—pulsed—with life.

“I can go back.”

Bob’s words spoken aloud should have chilled him, but they didn’t.

Evan shut his laptop, went to the diagrams at the far end of the table, and began to read.

~

When he awoke hours later in his bed, it was to the sound of a pistol cocking. A very round, very cold circle of steel pressed into his cheek, and he saw the outline of a man standing over him. Evan’s heart went from a normal beat to a full racehorse gallop in less than a second. Adrenaline rushed through his recumbent form, and he trembled beneath the light blanket that covered him.