The time was upon him. In desperation he said, “Fine. Okay. Let me . . . I want to start this day again. If I can make it turn out better a second time around . . .”
Constant stood and looked down on Dan. Against the gray-and-white backdrop his face all but disappeared. Only his black suit and those radiant blue eyes were visible. “Very well. Interesting choice. But you’ll only have seven hours. Remember that. Time is a respecter of no one. Seven hours.” And with that, he turned and walked away, disappearing behind the twisted remains of the Volvo.
Dan tried to prop himself on his one good elbow, but the pain coursing through his body was too crippling. A surge of panic ran through his nerves. He didn’t want to die, not like this, not alone. “Hey, wait. Don’t leave me like this.”
But Constant was gone, out of view, humming that tune again as it grew more and more distant.
Finally Dan relaxed and stared up into the falling snow. It had picked up some and now appeared to swirl and throb in time with the beating in his head. Slowly, darkness pushed back the snow, the steely sky, and encroached upon him, surrounded him. He heard nothing, felt nothing. He was dying. With his final breaths he did something he hadn’t done in years, since the last time God had left him alone with his hopelessness; he whispered a prayer. It was really just a plea: “God, help me. Take care of Sue and Jack and Murphy.” He wanted to say their names aloud one more time.
His life was almost gone. Constant was a liar, a lunatic, like he thought.
Then, for Dan Blakely, everything went to black.
7
The alarm sounded the same time it did every morning, pulling Dan Blakely from London’s nineteenth century. The steady beeping gradually grew louder until he reached over and, groping about like a man in pitch-blackness looking for his lost flashlight, found the Off button.
7 a.m.
Slowly, as if to do it too quickly would land him back on the mountainside pinned beneath a hulk of mangled metal, Dan opened his eyes and oriented himself. The ceiling fan above the bed turned slowly, not making even a whisper of sound. He was in his room, safely tucked into his bed, and it was seven in the morning. The blinds were turned down but still some murky light slipped through the slats. Beside him, the bed was empty, the indentation of Sue’s head still on her pillow. The house was quiet. One by one he moved his limbs—arms first, working from the fingers to the wrists, then elbows and shoulders; then he moved to his hips, knees, ankles. He drew in a deep breath, filling his lungs with the warm air of the bedroom. No pain. Everything seemed to be working properly.
Thinking, hoping he had dreamed the whole thing, from Erin’s accusation and the meeting with Gary to the trip up Bender’s Mountain and the odd interaction with Thomas Constant, Dan smiled. Constant must have been merely a figment of his imagination, a dream character pieced together by a montage of memories and images tucked away in the recesses of Dan’s mind. He rubbed his face, wiped the sleep from his eyes. It had to have been a dream. Constant’s crazy proposition went against everything true and real, as irrational as a slick illusionist claiming the ability to walk on water. No one could turn back the clock.
Dan pushed away the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. The dream had been so real, though—the panic, the pain, the encounter with Constant. He’d never had a dream so vivid and detailed before. He remembered everything, down to the intense thirst and the snowflakes landing on his lips, the texture of the ground beneath him, the striations of varying shades of blue in Constant’s eyes. It was incredible, unbelievable. If it wasn’t so absurd, he’d have to reconsider whether it was a dream at all.
And yet, despite his attempts to convince himself that what he’d seen and heard and felt (oh, man, what he’d felt—the pain and fear), Dan couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by a notion of urgency. Like a sixth sense warning him of some impending danger, his pulse rate rose, muscles tensed. He could practically feel the steady surge of adrenaline infusing his blood. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end and walked spidery legs down his spine.
But Dan shook the sudden involuntary reaction off as nothing more than the remnants of an overly detailed dream. His mind was still in some kind of nebulous state, unable to differentiate between reality and fantasy.
He stood, pulled the covers back up to the pillows, and padded into the bathroom, where he shaved and showered. The hot water failed to relax him. His state of heightened awareness persisted. He had the feeling something grave was going to happen, something of such magnitude that it would forever change the way he looked at the world.
Dan shut off the water and stood in the shower, naked and cold. The vent fan hummed quietly, sucking the moisture and warm air from the small room. The feeling of urgency that had gripped him while he sat on the bed, then stood under the stream of hot water, had only elevated. He had a powerful sense that he needed to do something and do it quickly. Resting his forehead against the tiled wall, he drew in a series of deep breaths, trying to calm himself, settle his blood pressure, relax his muscles. But it was a futile attempt and served only to increase his tension and restlessness.
When the steam had cleared from the bathroom mirror, Dan stepped out of the shower and stared at himself, studied his face. He had his father’s sharp nose and smallish chin; his mother’s heavy eyelids and broad forehead. His was not the face of someone afflicted with insanity, but one never knew, did they? If he was aware of his own insanity, then he couldn’t really be insane. Crazy people didn’t know they were crazy. They saw themselves as perfectly balanced, having all their marbles in the right place.
Maybe the stress of his job and the encounter with Erin had triggered some psychosis, some deep-seated paranoia that had long ago planted itself in his psyche when his father had been taken from them, so suddenly and unexpectedly that Dan never had the chance to say good-bye, to tell his dad he was loved, appreciated. That had been a lot for a twelve-year-old to absorb and deal with and he wasn’t sure the process had ever completed itself. Maybe now it was rearing its head as this irrational fear.
With the towel wrapped around his waist, Dan walked back into the bedroom, opened the closet, and pulled out a solid gray button-down shirt and a pair of khaki slacks. He didn’t know how long he’d stood in the bathroom, gazing at his face in the mirror, how long he’d studied the lines, the creases, the blemishes, trying to find some assurance that he was indeed still holding a full deck of cards. Turning, he glanced at the clock.
His pants slipped from his hand and dropped to the floor. It read 6:37. He was sure he’d set the alarm for seven. It was the same every morning and he never changed it, not even on weekends. Dan was not only low maintenance, but he was a creature of habit. Sue might have changed it to six, but that meant he’d just spent thirty-seven minutes in the bathroom. He doubted that.
He stood there dumbly watching the clock as if expecting it to suddenly speak and explain itself and its unexpected reading. The minute digit changed but did not advance to thirty-eight. Rather, the clock now read 6:36.
It was counting backward.
A chill blew up Dan’s back, over his shoulders, and down his arms. He crossed the room to the bedside table and picked up his watch. It too showed the unexplainable time.
Dan sat on the bed and watched the clock, hoping beyond hope that what he’d seen had a simple explanation, maybe a brain blink, his mind tricking his eyes. He waited, his palms going wet with sweat and his breath shallow and quick. A minute passed and the clock changed again. 6:35.
Thomas Constant’s voice was in Dan’s head then: “Very well . . . but you’ll only have seven hours. Remember that. Time is a respecter of no one. Seven hours.”
The clock was ticking away his seven hours. Yesterday, or today, or whenever it was had been no dream at all. It was real. Constant was real, and so was his silver, ornate pocket watch with the number 7 engraved on the back.
Constant said Dan would be given only seven hours and then Death would come calling. His time
would be up. Now he only had six and half left.
Six and half hours until he died.
8
Dan Blakely sat on the edge of his bed in his empty bedroom, head in his hands, feeling like he’d just run a mile at top speed. Only this had been no run for pure enjoyment and not even for victory and bragging rights; it had been a run of urgency, a run not to any place special but from someone or something. Cold sweat dotted his forehead, his mouth was dry, and his pulse tapped a staccato rhythm in his ears. This couldn’t be happening. It was impossible, ridiculous, totally preposterous . . . and yet, there it was—the clock didn’t lie. The remaining minutes and hours of his life were ticking away, fading into eternity past like ebb tide water sifting through sand, receding into the vast ocean.
He’d briefly entertained the idea that all this might be one complex, hilarious joke but dismissed it as unfeasible. While there might be a way to make a digital clock count backward, he expected neither Jack nor Murphy was aware of it, nor Sue. And no one he knew—not family, no colleague, not the pastor—possessed the power to plant dreams in someone’s head. Sue could be persuasive when she was determined to win an argument or steer Dan to see things her way but not that persuasive. She did not possess the power of mind manipulation and control.
Just to be sure he was still planted in reality and hadn’t engaged in a brief layover in the land of Loco, Dan picked up the phone and dialed the number for his school voice mail account. It rang once before a woman’s automated voice asked for his ID. Though he hadn’t the faintest idea whose voice was used for the voice mail options, he’d named her Gretchen.
“Good morning, Gretchen,” he said before punching in the numbers. She did not reciprocate his well-wishing but instead asked for his password. His thumb shook.
“I’m sorry,” Gretchen said, “the number you entered is invalid. Please enter your password again.”
“Oh, Gretchen, c’mon. We do this every morning.” He tried again.
Two rings signaled he’d entered the correct numbers. Gretchen notified him of one waiting message.
Gary’s voice came on: “Dan, I need to see you in my office first thing in the morning. It’s urgent.” The pause was there again, the same pause Dan had heard before. It was the same message. “As soon as you get in, okay?”
Without wasting another moment, another minute of his life, another backward tick of the clock, Dan quickly dressed and headed downstairs. In the kitchen, the sticky note from Sue was there. I love you, babe. You’re the best (husband, dad—you know!) Love, Sue. Like before, he folded it in half and stuffed it into his shirt pocket, but this time he skipped the bagel and coffee. Grabbing the car keys off the hook above the counter, he headed for the garage. When he pushed through the door from kitchen to garage, he half expected to find a twisted ball of mashed metal, broken plastic, and shattered glass, but the Volvo was in one piece, shiny from the washing he’d given it the other day, sitting quietly as if it had never known the violence inflicted upon it from the roll down the mountainside. Of course, it had never known that violence. As far as reality was concerned—this reality—it had never happened.
The vehicle started without hesitation as the garage door lifted. Dan sat behind the wheel, gripping it with both hands, and settled his breathing. He had to think. Sue was in New York with the boys. New York was almost two hours away. He hit the wheel and cursed, two activities he rarely engaged in. If he had believed the deal Constant offered was for real, he could have replayed the confrontation with Erin, handled it totally differently, then gone home and immediately told Sue what had happened, somehow provided an alibi for himself. Or at the very least, he could have chosen to go back to last night so he could see Sue and the boys and spend the whole evening with them. He could have played Uno and Skip-Bo with the boys, could have stayed up late with Sue, until his final second ticked away. But pinned beneath the car, he had been under such stress, his body had gone through so much trauma, so much pain, and Constant’s proposition had seemed so absurd . . . it was so absurd. Dan had no idea his strange visitor could really control time. Now here he was, wanting to see his family one last time, and he would have to waste two hours of his final moments sitting in a car.
Unless . . . He fished for his cell phone. Sue could meet him halfway, cut the driving time in half, and he’d have an extra hour to spend with his family. He quickly dialed her number and waited. It went right to voice mail. She was forever forgetting to recharge the battery. He didn’t leave a message; she wouldn’t get it until he was long gone anyway. He’d just have to drive there. With rush hour nearly passed, the roads would be mostly clear and he could make good time. The Volvo had an engine full of horses and would get him to New York quickly.
First there was something he had to do, business he had to take care of. He hated to because of the time it would take, but for Sue and the boys’ sake, for their ongoing peace of mind, for their future without him, he had to. If he was going to leave this earth, he didn’t want them having to deal with the fallout of the whole Erin thing. It was too late to prevent her accusations, but there still might be a way to make it right.
Dan pressed the accelerator, and the tires chirped on the concrete as the vehicle left the garage. The campus was only a couple short minutes away by car, but weaving through the curvy roads, slowing for students in crosswalks, and stopping at intersections all ate up precious time. Finally Dan stopped in front of Rebecca Residence, a large two-story dormitory named after Daniel Boone’s wife. The residence was fairly new, having been built just a few years before Dan joined the faculty. It had been carefully designed to blend in with the rest of the centuries-old architecture of the college. The builder had done a good job, too. To the untrained eye, it appeared to have been sitting in its same location for over two hundred years.
He glanced at his watch—6:03. 7:57 a.m. Erin should be up and getting ready for her first class, and if she wasn’t, he’d do the job. He needed to talk some sense into her, convince her to recant the ridiculous accusations she’d leveled against him. She had to understand the damage they would do, the damage they’d already done.
Stepping out of the vehicle, Dan drew in a deep breath. The air felt the same as it had before—cold and moist. Thousands of feet above, snow pushed on the clouds, weighed them down, and threatened to break loose.
Feeling a lot like Lucy Pevensie about to enter that magical wardrobe for the first time, he crossed the sidewalk and climbed the steps to the dormitory, not knowing what to expect but hoping Erin would listen to reason. He wouldn’t leave until she heard what he had to say.
But he had to make it quick.
Time was not on his side.
9
A picture of Lady Gaga, torn from a magazine, was taped to the door of room 216. Beside it hung a wooden Santa Claus with a string attached to a small brass bell. When the string was pulled, Santa danced a festive jig and rang his bell. Written on the jolly elf’s stomach were the words “Ring for Service.”
Dan made a fist and knocked on the door.
A girl’s voice came from inside the room. “Door’s open.”
Dan Blakely was not confrontational by nature. Rather, he preferred to keep the peace whenever possible. Only when poked and prodded, when pushed to the point of anger and then some, would he confront head-on. Normally he opted to sidestep opposition and find an alternative route.
This was not one of those times. With sweaty hands and his heart in his throat, he turned the knob and pushed open the door. From the doorway, Dan could see only half of the dimly lit room, one bed, and a cluttered desk. The walls were nearly covered with posters of music and movie stars and half-dressed men. Warm air wafted out, carrying a flowery aroma, but neither Erin nor her roommate, Rachel Fissel, were in view.
Dan stood at the threshold and forced himself to swallow. “Hello?”
“Yeah, come on—” Rachel stepped out from around the corner, looked at Dan, and said, “Oh.” She glanced toward
the bathroom. “Erin, it’s, uh, for you.”
Erin came out of the bathroom, towel wrapped around her head. She wore tight jeans and a thick wool sweater. “What . . . ?” When she saw Dan, her eyes widened and the color drained from her face. A faded, blue-green bruise darkened her right eye and another shadowed the corner of her mouth.
Composing herself as one might when pleading the Fifth Amendment at the advice of her attorney, she clamped her lips tight and set her jaw.
“We need to talk, Erin.”
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” She tried to shut the door on him, but he held it open with his hand.
“No,” Dan said, panic now climbing into his chest. “You need to listen to me. Please, you can’t do this.”
“I have nothing to say to you.” She tried again to shut the door, but this time he stepped forward and blocked it with his foot.
“Get out,” she hollered. Rachel backed up a few steps. In the hallway a couple students stopped to gawk, mumbled among themselves, then kept moving.
Dan shoved his way into the room. “Erin, listen—”
“Call the cops, Rachel.” She kept her eyes on Dan as she spoke.
To Rachel, Dan said, “No. Don’t do it. I’m not here for trouble. Just to talk.”
He raised both hands, palms out, and said to Erin, “Listen to me. Think about what you’re doing.” He spoke fast, running his words together. He didn’t have much time and had to say what he’d come to say before this unwanted confrontation attracted too much attention. “Think about how it affects everyone. My wife, my two little boys, Jack and Murphy—you’ve met them.” Dan had brought the boys to class a couple times and Erin in particular had shown them special attention.
Erin crossed her arms and dropped her eyes to the floor.
Dan lowered his voice. “Please, Erin. You have to take it back. Come clean. Do the right thing here. You have no idea the damage you’re causing.”
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