Chapter 31
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
They traded the whisky bottle back and forth. After about twenty minutes, Boris’s anger faded into incredulous despair.
“You feel like someone I met in a dream,” he complained, taking a swig of whisky, spinning in circles in his chair. At some point, he’d taken off his shoes, revealing grey socks that looked like something he’d fished out of a dumpster. “I barely remember you, but I remember you. You know?”
“Kinda,” slurred Jack, making grabby hands for the whisky bottle. Boris clutched it to his chest, mocking offense, then handed it over.
The whisky burned all the way down.
“I propositioned you, huh?”
Jack nearly choked on his next sip. “Uh, yeah. Twice, actually.” Something like panic crept into his throat. “Sorry, I just—I thought maybe it would be wrong to sleep with someone who wouldn’t remember what happened the next day.”
“Right,” said Boris slowly, frowning into the distance. “Thanks, I guess. Real thoughtful of you.” There was something strange in his tone—not quite anger. Disappointment?
Jack opened his mouth to say something reassuring, something to take the sting from the rejection, but Boris beat him to it. “So did we dig up a body, or what?”
Jack wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m really sorry.”
“Aw, shit.” Boris scratched at his jaw. “Really?”
“Yeah. I, um… What do you know about what’s going on?”
“What do you mean, what’s going on?” Blue eyes narrowed in suspicion, sharp as daggers.
“I mean, what’s your, uh, your perception of events?” Jack gestured around the lobby, as though this might help clarify things.
“My perception of events?”
Jack sighed. “What do you think is going on, Boris?”
“I don’t know,” Boris growled, reaching for the whisky. “I had weird dreams during my lunch break.” He shook his head. “I feel like I have these weird dreams a lot, but it’s only been one day.”
“Yeah,” said Jack, rubbing his temples. “About that… It hasn’t been. Not exactly, anyway.”
“The fuck do you mean?” Boris snarled, gaze snapping back to Jack’s.
He shifted uncomfortably, crammed his hands into his pockets. “It’s… We’re living the same day over and over again. Almost nobody has noticed yet.”
A scowl deep as a canyon carved itself into Boris’s perfect face. “No way.”
“I’m not kidding.”
A long silence. Boris took another sip of whisky, winced. “This shit ain’t strong enough for this conversation.”
“Yeah,” agreed Jack, making a noise halfway between a laugh and a gasp. “I lost my wallet on the way here. Your whisky is all I’ve had in, uh, technically weeks.”
Boris sputtered. “Weeks?! I’ve been sharing whisky with you for weeks?”
“Yeah, something like that. I lost count.”
“Fuck,” Boris groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Fuck, why the fuck do I believe you?”
Jack shrugged. Tried to stay nonchalant even as his heart threatened to burst free of his chest. “Probably because you know something weird is going on.”
“Yeah, but the same day over and over for weeks? And the worst day, too. Shit.” Boris slumped back against the chair and tilted his face to the ceiling.
“Sorry to break the news.”
A long, pained groan. “OK, but what about the lady?”
Jack paled. “What lady?” The one we dug up?
“The lady at the end of my bed a couple nights ago.” Boris raised an eyebrow, like Jack should know her. His thoughts flashed to the old lady in the room above him but surely, surely Boris was referring to someone else.
“You’ll, um, have to elaborate on that.”
“You haven’t seen her?”
“Definitely not.”
“Huh. How ‘bout that.”
Jack waited impatiently for him to explain himself. When he didn’t, Jack prompted, “So, what about her?”
“Dunno. She just sat on the edge of my bed and like, stared at me. I didn’t know who the hell she was, but I couldn’t ask, either. I was, like, frozen or something.” Boris gave a one-shouldered shrug and spun around in the chair. “I thought it was just a weird dream, but now… Who knows.”
“What did she look like?” Nausea roiled in Jack’s stomach. Something about this didn’t feel right. The image in his mind was shadowed and fast-moving, silhouetted in moonlight, dripping in blood. Whatever Boris saw, he hoped it wasn’t so ghastly.
“Kind of pale. Dark-haired. Scrawny in, like, a sickly way. Her arms looked like sticks.” He shuddered. “And her eyes were hollow. I think I coulda seen straight inside her skull if she got any closer.”
Jack recoiled, like the incremental distance could save him from this nightmare vision. “Freaky.” He thought of the yellow-eyed man and his vanishing sedan but opted to keep that to himself. As badly as he wanted to trust Boris, he was afraid of revealing too much too soon.
“Yeah, I dunno. It didn’t feel like a dream.”
“But I did?”
“Yeah,” said Boris. “More than you can imagine.” His nails tapped against the bottle.
Jack didn’t know what to say to that. His stomach flipped. After a long pause, he decided to change the subject. “Hey, did anyone call for me?”
“No,” Boris said. “Don’t think so. Why?” A beat passed. He frowned as he realized. “They don’t… call every day.”
“No,” said Jack, tapping his foot in a frantic rhythm.
“Do the days—Are they different? Like, there’s actual variation?”
“Yeah,” Jack scoffed. “When I do something differently.”
“How do you know—” Boris paused, pinched the bridge of his nose. “How do you know it’s the same day?”
“Because everyone keeps telling me it’s the seventeenth,” said Jack pointedly.
“OK, right,” said Boris, more to himself than to Jack. “And it’s always been the seventeenth?”
“Yeah.”
“OK, so we aren’t going backwards or anything?”
“No.” Jack shook his head.
“How long have you known?”
“What do you mean?”
“How long have you been, like, aware of all this?”
“Oh,” said Jack. “Since I showed up. I noticed pretty much immediately.”
“Uh-huh,” said Boris. “You said nobody else knows?”
“Um,” Jack hesitated. Wasn’t sure if he should mention Carla.
If she’d want Boris brought into the fold.
If their newfound relationship would suffer because of it.
A part of him, squashed down but still struggling, was a little too interested in Boris.
A little too excited at the sight of him, at the sound of his voice.
Hoped Boris felt that way about him, too. “Not exactly.”
“So other people know.”
“Only one that I’m aware of.”
“And who is that?” Boris’s stare threatened to penetrate Jack’s very flesh—certainly, it pierced his soul.
He looked away, toward the whisky bottle on the counter. “I, um…”
Boris grasped the bottle, dragged it from Jack’s reaching fingers. “Not until you tell me.”
“I just—”
“Come on. I have a right to know.”
“Yeah, but this person hasn’t exactly agreed—”
Boris’s glare sharpened. “What do you mean? You aren’t gonna tell me? Who are you protecting?”
“It’s just—”
“It’s that fucking lady, isn’t it?”
Jack didn’t say anything, but the heat flooding his face was answer enough.
Boris crossed his arms, glared. “We dug up a body, and you don’t fucking trust me?” His eyes widened, lips parted, and he leaned forward, abruptly horrified. “The lady calling isn’t the body, right?” When Jack hesitated, he implored, “Right?”
“Yeah, no,” said Jack. “Don’t worry. She isn’t… the same person.”
“Fine. So, who’s the body? Why were we digging up a body?”
“Because…” Jack bit his lip. “Because I thought maybe if I solved the crime, the time loop would end.”
“The time loop,” Boris repeated.
“That’s what I’m calling it.”
“Like in that one show?”
“What show?”
“I think it was called Trapped in Time or something. That show where they traveled to the nineteen-twenties and got stuck living the same week over and over.” When Jack didn’t say anything, he added sheepishly, “I used to watch it when I was little.”
Jack tried to imagine Boris as a child and quickly gave up. “I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”
“It came on after my bedtime,” Boris said. “My mom used to pretend she didn’t notice me sneaking out of bed to watch it.”
“So did they ever figure out how to get un-trapped?”
“No. There wouldn’t have been a show anymore if they did.”
“Yeah, I-I get that. But do you remember what they tried to do to get back home?”
“They were trying to fix a time machine. That’s how they ended up there in the first place. It all went wrong.”
“Yeah, OK,” said Jack, mentally scrapping the idea. Fictional TV shows weren’t likely to hold the answers to their problem. “Hey, have you been eating? Are you feeling OK?”
Boris raised the whisky bottle. “Got all I need right here.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to scare you, but you look awful.”
“Why would that scare me?” Boris demanded.
“I guess because it would scare me,” said Jack hurriedly. “You didn’t look like this a few days ago.”
The blood drained from Boris’s face. “This is just sleep deprivation.”
That would actually make sense, Jack thought, even as his stomach clenched.
It didn’t change the fact that Boris looked completely wrong.
More wraithlike than he’d been even yesterday.
“Hey, uh, do you want me to man the counter for you tonight?” Jack pointed to the desk with a little too much enthusiasm and sent a stapler flying.
It landed on the floor with a crunch. Little metal brackets spilled free.
Boris shot him a look of disgust and gestured to the carnage. “Now, why the fuck would I let you do that?”
“Because I have a room where you can sleep, dumbass.”
“And wait for the lady to come back? No way.” Boris shook his head. Greasy curls flew.
Oh. Jack hadn’t thought about that. “If it makes you feel better, I haven’t seen her yet. And I’ve been staying in that room a long time.”
“Yeah, no, I don’t wanna see her again,” said Boris, avoiding Jack’s eye.
“Right,” said Jack slowly. “You could call me if she shows up?”
“Did you miss the part where I said I was frozen? Hell no. I couldn’t call you if I wanted to.” A shudder ran through his broad shoulders. “I’m fine, OK?”
“You look awful,” said Jack, as politely but firmly as he could manage. “I really think you need to eat and sleep.”
“What are you, my mom?”
“For tonight? Sure.”
“Hey, I didn’t say the position was open.”
“I didn’t say it was optional.”
“Ooh, pushy!” Boris cackled, leaned onto his elbows, sneered. “Answer’s still no.”
“You really should sleep,” said Jack, swallowing his frustration down like bile.
“I told you, I don’t wanna see her again.”
“You won’t.”
“What are you gonna do? Sit on the edge of the bed and guard me?”
Jack sighed. Dragged a hand through his hair. “You know what? Sure.”