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Part 11: Burned, Burned, Burned
Barton didn’t move for awhile, not until his own phone stirred. There was a voicemail waiting for him, from the alarm company. He put it to his ear.
“Hello, this is Bethany from ShieldSafe, sorry to have missed your call earlier! We did run your request for the month’s late night access records for the address provided. There were three logs: one for August first, 8:10PM. One for August 17, 9:38PM. One for August 20, 2:53AM. Please give us a shout back if you have any further questions, I can be reached at—”
He cut it off. August first had been him. August 17 had been him and her. The last one… he glanced at the mess of dirty curls poking out from the bedsheets. The apartment was a tiny studio with a private bath. There’d only be so many places she could hide anything. There was a moment when something nagged at him about the invasion of privacy, but he heard ‘Goodnight Gordon,’ replay in his mind and decided it that it needed to be done. Anything at all that might help him figure out how to fix this madness.
With as much silence as he could manage, Barton began to search for the missing documents. He covered the obvious places first, then started going under furniture, popping out vents, even looking in the toilet’s reservoir.
Nothing. He did it all again. She slept soundly through it all.
By midnight, he was exhausted, and it was clear the stuff wasn’t in her place. He switched off the lights and tried to find some comfort in her one plush chair. It never occurred to him to join her in the bed, though he was no stranger to its warmth.
At some point he must have dozed because there were good scenes running through his head. He saw the library and knew that the documents were safe and secure because the train hunt hadn’t happened yet. In fact, this was the day he’d meet the girl. She’d be looking vexed, poring over a reference book at the table at which he’d been meaning to eat his lunch. So many tight curly ringlets. Normally shy with this sort of thing, he would approach.
“New in town?” he’d say, then regret the lame predictability of the line.
“Newer’n you,” she’d say back, not looking up. But when she did look up, that grin would be all goofy. “Woof, they make the librarians outta quality stock in these parts!”
Barton felt himself chuckle, and opened his eyes to cold darkness. He shuffled in the seat, uncomfortable, and froze. A man stood at the foot of Gabby’s bed, silhouetted by the bleak light from the window.
“What do you want?” he said, louder than he thought possible.
The man did not react. He just stood with that same defeated posture from the library. Barton reached out for a lamp switch, pawing in the dark, every muscle taut and straining. His bladder screamed. He felt the lamp post.
“Let her go,” he said. No movement.
He crawled numb fingers up to the knob. Twisted it. Nothing happened. He twisted again, and the metal popped but no light came on. He was going to piss himself, and still the man just stood.
Some inborn instinct gave his brain a little kick, and he twisted the knob the other way. The light was so absolute that he cried out, and damned if he didn’t feel a little squirt leak out and warm his leg.
There was no man.
“Oh come on, come on, come on, what the hell,” he said. Then his insides clenched again and nature made its uncompromising demand. It was the toilet or his pants. He skipped around the bed, right through where the shadow had stood, and into the washroom. He pissed for what seemed like five minutes, at a weird, canted angle, staring back at the open door the whole time.
He barreled back into the main room when he was done, not sure what to expect. Gabriella was sitting upright in bed, eyes open, staring straight ahead.
“Gabby, you gotta help me, what is this? What’s happening?” he said.
“Running on time, don’t worry,” she replied, a dreamy singsong lilt in her voice.
Barton slid down the wall, his legs no longer up for the task. A cramp was soon on its way, twitching up and down his hamstring. “What do I do?” he asked the ceiling.
“Make the schedule.”
He shook his head. “Who are you?”
“I keep the schedule. Always on time.”
“What’s your name?”
Silence.
“Is it Gabriella?” he asked.
Silence.
“Is it Gordon? Gordon McVee?”
She laughed an empty laugh. “He once was.”
“Where are all the documents from the library? Where did you put them?”
She was quiet again, for a long time. Barton watched her stare. He felt like he was floating. Now his stomach gnawed, and he realized he never ate dinner. Then a leg cramp did come, and he hissed and welcomed the horrid pain, because it meant he didn’t have to think about anything for a few precious moments.
As he was massaging it away, she said, “I burned them. All of them. Like he burned me. Like he burned all of them.”
“Burned the documents?” Barton said.
“Burned. Burned, burned, burned,” she said, and laughed again. “They couldn’t ever tell. We had to stop, such a simple thing. I forget now, it was so simple. Engine this. Wheel that. Simple, don’t you see?”
“I see,” he said, mainly to keep it talking.
“Simple. But that ruined everything, that simple thing. Ruined everything he had. Always on time, don’t you see? There were only two cars for them. For those who knew the simple thing. Two cars of them and so many cars of burning. They trusted him, he was the best. Until the simple thing. Then he was nothing. So he made us all nothing. Locked the doors. Said don’t worry.”
“We can tell people,” Barton said, not wanting to understand, but understanding anyway. “There will be families, descendants. They have a right to know.”
Gabby’s face seemed to soften for a moment, then it became a mask again. “Too sleepy. Too far now.”
“I want Gabriella back,” he said.
“I want it to go away. I burned the stories. There is no more now.”
“Then, can’t you… go?”
“I always kept the schedule. Always on time.”
Barton stood, his legs wobbling and threatening to crumble. He staggered the few feet to the bedside and forced himself to peer into eyes that were too much white and not enough black. “Please, let her go.”
“Always on time,” whispered those alien lips. Then the eyes fluttered shut and Gabby’s little frame slouched to the side and began to snore. This time, he crawled forward and held her, best he could. She was cold as ice.
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