Later that afternoon, he returned to the woods, driven by free lobby coffee and desperation. If he stayed busy, he couldn’t worry about the reality of his situation, which grew more hopeless with every passing day. How long had it been October seventeenth? At least ten days, he thought. Maybe more.
It wasn’t as if he could write anything down permanently. Even his carefully drawn map had disappeared.
This time, he scrawled a rudimentary map at the trailhead and located the trampled bushes in minutes.
How fresh was the grave? What would happen if he returnedin the morning? Would he spy the culprits, or would he only encounter more joggers eager to side-eye him?
Did hewantto know who did this?
Jack pushed through heavy branches and broken foliage and emerged at the mound. He took his time examining the scene, noting a depression in the grass, and chunks of tree bark that looked like they’d been scraped off the nearby aspens. He spotted an indent in the dirt shaped like the spade of a shovel. He tried to identify individual footprints but found he wasn’t very good at that. Multiple people had passed through here, but they all wore similar shoes. Only one set of footprints was easily identifiable, as it was significantly smaller than the others.
Probably three people, he decided. There were too many tracks for anything less.
He found nothing else of note. No bullet casings, no discarded jewelry or weapons, not even a button that might’ve popped off a jacket.
For a long time, he sat before the mound. Who (or what) was buried here? Did someone miss them? Was a manhunt only a single day away from breaking out? If the eighteenth of October never came, would anyone initiate a search?
“I’m sorry,” Jack told the mound. “If you’re a person. I—I can’t tell, and I’m afraid to check, honestly. I just—I’m really sorry you’re stuck down there. You deserved better. A real burial.” He frowned. “Well, you know, I suppose this is technically a burial. I’m sorry, I’m rambling. I’m sure this isn’t what you wanted. The rambling, and everything else.” Knees creaking, he got to his feet. “I—I’m sorry. Again.”
He hadn’t expected the weight of grief and anxiety to be so crushing. Death was something of a stranger to him. Only once had he attended a funeral, and that was for a grandparent he barely knew. He’d lost pets and grieved them, seen the mourning that his friends went through whenever their family members finally succumbed to old age or disease or injury, but he hadn’t expected to feel this way for a complete stranger. There was an unfamiliar sense of finality to this mound. Whoever wasburied here deserved more. A proper headstone. A better send off.
Words were useless. The corpse rotting beside him couldn’t hear them, and Jack could do nothing to fix the situation. Reporting his findings to the police wouldn’t do much good. He’d have to call in every single day until the loop snapped. If it ever did.
But maybe the police knew something. Maybe heshouldcall.
Tomorrow, he thought, reluctantly. If he called very early, then maybe there would be a report in the evening paper. Maybe he could pretend to stumble onto the scene and ask some questions.
No, the cops would probably just chase him off. Might even investigate him as a potential suspect.
This gave him pause. As always, the niggling fear of the eighteenth ate at him. What if the body was the key to ending the loop? What if he was always meant to stumble upon it? What if there was no other way to right the universe but to repeat the same day over and over until the crime was solved, or at least reported?
Excitement pierced the measured, muddled dread of the last few days.
Was this… the solution? Could it be so simple as one phone call?
Only one way to find out, Jack decided. First thing in the morning, he’d report the body. The crime scene would be fresh, undisturbed by today’s investigation.
The parking lot was empty save for an idling sedan, polished and expensive, painted such a dark blue that it was nearly black. Jack could’ve sworn it was sparkling, as though the night sky was reflected in its paint. Then he blinked and the stars were gone. The paint job was dull and uninteresting. Jack tore his gaze from the car to the figure lounging against it.
Half-obscured by cigarette smoke, he wore a loose-fitting pin-striped suit, not terribly unlike Jack’s own, but black instead of navy. A bowler hat was tilted just so over blond hair, long andloose. There was an odd greenish tint to it. Perhaps he’d been swimming recently?
Something unpleasant twisted in Jack’s stomach. For all of one second, he considered retreating to the woods. But the figure had already started toward him, moving in a cloud of cigarette smoke. Mist swirled across the asphalt.
Barely visible through the smoke were strange yellow eyes. Milky white skin stretched over blue veins.
Shit, thought Jack. The world dipped and reeled around him. He was going to die.Thiswas the killer. Had to be.Shit shit shit.
Thin lips grinned around the cigarette. “Congratulations,” rumbled a deep voice. There was an unnatural reverberation to it. Jack’s bones rattled. Saliva pooled in his mouth as panic constricted his throat.
“For w-what?” he stammered. His knees were locked, his legs frozen.
Those strange eyes narrowed in something like amusement. “Normally, no one notices. You’reveryself-aware.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Jack, barely able to keep his voice steady.
Catlike eyes watched him with intensity. “You’re observant. The first I’ve seen changing their routine every day.” The cigarette dropped the to the asphalt with a pitiful curl of grey smoke. Then it was ground under a heel, yellow filter smashed into the road beside the slanted parking line.
There was no one else here. Hands shaking, Jack said, “I-I’ve only been here one day.”
