T.R. Lansing (darkertides) wrote in horror_story, @ 2013-05-03 09:07:00 |
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At 5:23pm, there was an explosion on the south end of town. Specifically, at the end of Bay Road, at the mortuary and funeral home. Damage was not isolated to the funeral home, of course. The loud boom could be heard as far as Northgate, but Christine York seemed unbothered by it. She was staring at the calendar clock that sat on her desk. The clock had caught her eye in the shop on her first visit, and it was visually a striking piece. Well worth the asking price, even if it had been a regular clock.
Of course, it wasn't. The clock had secrets. It could reset itself, for one. Belli had admitted that the clock had issues with accuracy (it probably needs some restoration work done on the interior... Ha!), but he hadn't wanted to get into it at length. Probably because he saw the resetting as a flaw. He might not have known what the clock was capable of. What it was doing.
However, Christine was very good at noticing the details. She'd figured out the clock's secret within weeks. How priceless it truly was. The hands moved. Times and dates stalled, shifted. The second hand stuttered a moment before it began ticking backwards again. Christine smiled, leaned forward, and pressed naked lips to the glass covering the face in a grateful kiss, showing more affection towards the clock than she'd shown towards any of her children in over two decades. Then she turned her calculating gaze to her son. "See?"
"I don't know what you want me to see, mother." Rob sat stiffly on a wooden chair. The trauma of the past week had been too much for him, really, and he'd folded himself inward. Barricading himself against emotion. Admission. Trying to ward off the tide of guilt and confusion through sheer force of will. He'd listened to his mother, but she hadn't been making any sense. Nothing made sense anymore. Susie, Madeleine, Eden Williams. Now his mother, too, had gone mad. Spouting nonsense over a broken clock. Perhaps she'd be next in line to die. Perhaps he'd have to kill her. Perhaps she'd kill him. Whatever was going to happen, he wished it would get itself over with. He didn't have the strength to care anymore.
Christine frowned, her mouth twisting down into a familiar curl of disapproval. As a boy, Rob had been terrified of that frown. Vivid memories of himself sitting in this same chair, feet not-quite-able to sit flat on the ground, awaiting her judgment for some misstep. Awaiting punishment. And hadn't he committed the most grievous misstep? He'd killed a woman. He might have been the cause of Christine's madness. Hell, he might have been the cause of all of their madness. Something in him was cursed, tainted, and driving women insane. Didn't that warrant so much more than just the wooden chair? The frown? He deserved to be arrested. Electrocuted...
"You were supposed to be watching the clock, Theodore, not wallowing in self-pity," she reminded him. "See? It's changed again. Look at how much time I've bought you."
Her mouth shifted again as she turned back to the clock, bottom lip pinched briefly between her teeth, before pursing into something that was almost wanton. Completely alien to the son who thought he was familiar with every expression that face was capable of. He almost reacted to it, let his own expression change in response. Shudder, flinch, something. Instead, he simply fortified his inner barricade, adding another layer to the wall. Bricking himself in was so much safer than trying to predict her. Navigating Christine's world had been tricky before she'd gone mad. There were so many ways to screw up. It was why Stephen had left, he was sure. Why Samantha had left. Abandoning Rob to bear the brunt of it. And he had done so, without complaint. Even developing some amount of skill at it. But now he felt twelve years old again. His mother a terrifying enigma. He didn't even know where to start with this.
So he fell back on desperate measures. "Thank you, mother."
A disgusted sigh, a pointed glare. "You don't see it because you aren't looking. That fear's the only thing you got from your father. It'll ruin you in time, Theodore." She giggled, then, shocking him into a startled jerk of a reaction. He felt his barricade crumbling, and had to struggle to remain composure. Plaster up the cracks.
"At least now you'll have more of it," she went on, looking back at her clock. Placing her hands on either side of it for a moment. Watching the hands as they moved again. Reading them like a crystal ball. A scroll. The clock didn't keep the time. It made predictions. That's why it ran backwards. A second-by-second countdown. "That's enough for now. Go get ready for dinner, and turn on the news, downstairs. I have some calls to make."
He nodded, grateful for the excuse to leave. His mother's inane giggle still crawling through his skin like ants.
There wasn't much on the news over the next few hours. Windows of the neighboring houses were knocked out by the blast, but O'Neill didn't have many neighbors. Only fifteen buildings were damaged, and the funeral home was the only one that was completely destroyed. Several families would have to stay at The Eclipse hotel while their homes were being repaired. No body count, as of yet. O'Neill was rushed to the hospital, said to be in extremely critical condition. Without him, it would be difficult to distinguish body parts from the already dead to those who might have died in the explosion. In some cases impossible. The corpse of Eden Williams was surely scattered among the rubble, along with God only knew how many others. So much guilt to be found there. Rob felt sick with it, utterly baffled by the fact that his mother could even eat. That she seemed so unbothered. That she could justify it all with a broken clock.
But Christine was right in that he couldn't wallow in self-pity, and she revisited that when it became clear that he was just picking at his food over dinner.
"Archer Avery is going to have his hands full," she told him, thinking that it was a pity the Sheriff wasn't at the funeral home as well, able to get caught in the blast. Nobody could count on that kind of serendipity, however. At least she wouldn't have to worry about Sue Foster being a loose end. "But even if he doesn't have evidence that you did anything, he might still consider you a person of interest. You need to go back to work, Theodore. It's time you start cleaning up after yourself. I can't do everything for you, anymore."
Rob just gave a look of askance, too weary - too wary - to puzzle out what she meant for himself.
Another sigh of disappointment. He wasn't a child. He shouldn't have to have everything spelled out for him. Her words were terse when she answered. "You have a vacant apartment to rent out."
"Ah." The apartment. Rob had already let the police look at it, what seemed like ages ago. There wasn't much there to strip, but it was past due for stripping. He'd have to hire someone to haul all the furniture out. Bring in the standard cleaning crew. Get rid of anything he'd kept of Susanna Wilson's. He sighed, feeling a pang of loss there, as well. He missed Susie. She was broken, fatally flawed, perhaps... but maybe if he'd looked past that, he could have salvaged something. Convinced her to run off with him. He could have changed his name, like Samantha had. Get into business somewhere else. Maybe stayed in real estate. He'd never met Susanna's son, had never spent any time with children. But perhaps he could have been a father figure of some kind. Played pretend at a loving, normal family. A gentler life of pretense than the one he currently lived. It might have been nice. Costly, given Susanna's hourly rates, but well worth the price.
He could feel the weight of Christine's eyes on him. Inspecting his armor for cracks. Rob forced himself to meet her gaze, give her an answer that would be deemed satisfactory. "Yes, I do. I'll see to that by the end of the week."