“I’ve been here two weeks! It’s been the seventeenth of October every single day!”
“Uh-huh,” said Boris, unconvinced. “Yeah, that sounds rough, buddy. What’s this about a body?”
“I found a body in the woods! Or at least, I think it’s a body. It’s a person-sized mound under a tree, and?—”
“Fuccckkkk.” Boris leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “Yeah, that’s probably the mob.”
“The… mob?”
“Yeah. The mob. Angry guys with guns in suits? All about money and drugs? Themob, fuckwit.”
“I know what the mob is! I didn’t know you had the mob here. I thought that was a city thing.”
“City’s like thirty minutes that a-way,” said Boris, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder. “Those guys vacation here all the time. You see all those empty houses? Mob guys own them.”
Jack stared at him. Observed big, earnest blue eyes.
“Listen, you want a drink, man? You look like you need a drink.” Boris dug under the counter and emerged with the bottle of whiskey. “I can make you an Irish coffee. Well, a shitty Irish coffee.”
Jack sat in the chair across from him and slid the mug over. “Sure. Yeah. Might as well start drinking.”
“Fuck yeah,” said Boris, grinning. Whisky splashed into the mug, replaced the coffee twice over.
It tasted terrible, but Jack was grateful for each burning sip.
“But seriously,” said Boris, replacing the mottled cork. “You are fucking weird, dude.”
“I know,” Jack moaned, putting his face in his hands.
“What does ‘obtuse’ mean?”
With his only reallead scorched to dust, Jack spent the rest of the afternoon poring over the newspaper. He’d managed to gather several editions and searched through each for anything notable. Reports of anything that could be attributed to conspiracies or war. But there was nothing suspicious. A single reported murder several towns away, some missing cows, and a review for a new cafe that had opened down the street.
Irritated and bored, Jack strolled through town, pausing to look inside windows and glaring down shopkeepers who raised their noses at him. He’d done nothing but try to look as if hemightconsider giving them business. If he’d really been a potential customer, their unfriendliness would’ve driven him off. And they deserved to know that.
Really, he was doing them a favor.
Honestly. This fucking town.
He perused the bookstore, this time paying more attention to the conspiracy books. The shopkeeper looked at him like he was one of the aliens featured on the covers, but Jack paid her no heed and marched straight up to the counter. “You, uh, like conspiracies?”
“I don’t support conspiracies,” the clerk snapped. “I support the truth.”
Jack nodded. Trailed his fingers over the surface of the counter. They came away coated in dust. All around him, hip-height stacks of books teetered. “Alright, that’s interesting. So, these books in here? They’re about the truth? Aliens and stuff?”
The shopkeeper nodded, watching warily, as if worried Jack might sprout tentacles and strangle her with them.
“Can I ask you a question then? I’m kind of looking for an expert’s opinion.”
Something just short of a grin appeared on her wrinkled face. “Well, I’m no expert, but I can offer some perspective.”
“Great!” said Jack, bobbing his head enthusiastically. “OK, yeah. Some perspective would be great. So, let’s say, in theory, that I was caught in a time loop. Every day is exactly the same. It’s always October seventeenth, no matter what I do or where I go. It’s just October seventeenth, again and again. Everyone does pretty much the same thing every day, and they have no clue. What would cause something like that? Other than mental illness.”
The shopkeeper stared at him, her lips pursed, brows raised. “That’s highly specific.”
“I know,” said Jack apologetically, worried he’d already scared her off.
“Well…” She frowned, tucked a long strand of graying hair behind her ear. “I guess it could be anything. A time traveler, maybe. One who broke the rules, or whose machine malfunctioned.”
