CHAPTER#36

"Holy shit." Beth stared at the demon. She hadn't thought about Victor in years, and she had completely (or deliberately) forgotten Mr. Beary. "Is this a dream?"

"Hard to prove it isn't," the demon told her. "No matter what I tell you here, you could argue that the dream made up the memory. In a way, maybe you could think of your actions here as- DON'T DO THAT!" Beth had picked up one of the forks on the table and jabbed it into her leg. She screamed, pulling the fork free as blood flowed freely through the fabric of her nightgown.

"Holy fuck, ow!"

"Well, that settles it." The demon shook his head. "Not dreaming."

"Oh, fuck!" Beth balled up her fists. "That really hurts."

"Yeah, well I prefer you intact." The demon waved a hand over her leg, and the burning stopped. Beth lifted her nightgown, wiping away the blood with a cloth from the table. Four tiny dots had scarred her legs. "And definitely much quieter."

Staring at the demon, Beth shook her head. "I thought this was just another one of my weird dreams."

"And what kind of dreams would those be?" He asked.

Beth blushed. "I think I'll keep that to myself." Staring out across the garden, it suddenly dawned on her. If this was real, the thing in her room had been real. What did Sebastien want with a copy of her?

Oh no. Beth thought briefly of Mike. How was this whole mess related to him? Looking at the demon, she smiled politely, a feeling that was only skin deep. She was going to find a way out, and she had a pretty good idea how to make it happen.

-

"Alex!" Dana sat up, scattering an array of metal tools onto the floor of her apartment. The sound they made upon striking the ground was deafening, causing Dana put her hands over her ears. It had been the life support dream again, the sound of Alex's last breath being drawn, watching the nurses leave the room with a look of defeat on their faces.

"Fuck," she whispers, staring at the mess on the floor. Hours of painstakingly crafting gears, modeling them on her computer and then using the 3D printer at school to make them. She had brought home several prototypes, hoping to find the proper combination that would allow the clock to work again She had even visited an antique clock repair downtown, letting the octogenarian owner show her how they ticked, but to no avail. None of the obvious patterns fit, and research on the clock itself yielded nothing, which made her think it was a one of a kind creation. She stared at the random assembly in front of her, the strange stack she had formed that now lie scattered across her floor.

She needed a drink. She went to the fridge to grab a beer, her eyes instead settling on the bottle of vodka tucked in the vegetable crisper. A beer sounded nice and cold, refreshing even.

She didn't want refreshing-she wanted something with bite. She pulled the top off of the vodka and sucked greedily at it, wondering how long it would take for fire to fill her belly, for the edges of the world to blur. Staring over the railing at the motorcycle on the floor of the garage, Dana poured a tiny bit of vodka over the railing, watching it splash on the cold concrete.

"For Alex." She drank again, stopping herself before she took it too far. She knew better than most what would happen if she kept drinking. The vodka would catch up with her, and who knew where she would wake up. Picking up her keys and wallet, she tossed them in the back of her sock drawer. She didn't need to go anywhere, and she didn't want to be tempted to.

What time was it anyway? Picking up her phone, she frowned at the clock. It was almost one in the morning. There really wasn't anywhere for her to go after all. She saw that she had a voicemail, so put the phone on speaker, setting it down on her desk.

"Hey Dana, it's Rick!" The voice from her phone was friendly, but tired. Rick was a college dropout who was trying to support his mom and little sister by working sixty hours a week. He spent most of those hours slinging pies behind the counter. Dana stripped out of her pants, tossing them on the bed.

"Hi Rick," she muttered, picking her pants back up and checking the pockets. She found the tube of chapstick she had been looking for, and set it on the desk. She threw her pants even farther, the legs catching her comforter just right that her pants now dangled over the other end of her bed.

"Hey, look, so the reason I called was some guy came in here tonight asking about some deliveries we made. It was to that creepy old house, the one everyone says is haunted. Anyway, he wanted to speak with you, but I couldn't give him your info directly, I think it's a company policy thing. He left his number and all, so next time you come in, it's inside your locker."

Dana stared at the phone. Why would somebody want to talk to her about Mike's house?

"Okay, so I'll see you when I see you. Take care." With that, Rick hung up his phone. Dana took off her shirt and slid into a tank top. Looking at the bed, she found her gaze drawn once more to the clock.

How many hours had she lost already trying to fix the damn thing? She moved closer, tugging gently on the minute hand. The clock face swung open, revealing the complex machine inside. When properly assembled, there would be nearly no room for anything else. Dana had devoted hours to carefully removing the cracked and broken gears, documenting where each one went on a large piece of butcher paper she had taped to her desk. Her protractor, triangle and compass had received more use in the last 48 hours than they had through high school and college. There was something soothing about the diagrams, imagining how all of the pieces fit together, wondering what sound the chime would make.