Time Jacker by Aaron Crash (nonfiction book recommendations .TXT) 📕

hit by two no-name bandits, little better than meth heads with visions of Grand Theft Auto dancing in their heads. Mac Satterstrum had said as much, and so Jack didn’t think those two dirtbags had anything to do with stopping time.

Yes, he’d stopped time. That was when the headache began. The real villain of the evening seemed to be this Horns thing, who said a bunch of cryptic shit and was relatively bulletproof. That first shot had hit, though. He remembered how it created that hole in the horns. Evelyn Mundi had been the ghost they’d seen and heard, but she wasn’t a ghost—she was there, but it seems she’d been trapped somehow, stuck in time. And Horns seemed to be holding her hostage.

After Jack drove Horns away, Evelyn Mundi was free for a second. And then she was gone in a cloud of that spicy perfume. Horns smelled like shit. This other thing? It smelled good.

No, it wasn’t an it. She was a definite she. If there could be trapped mothers and horned demons, there could be some woman out there who smelled good.

Had this mystery woman saved him? Had she stopped time?

That shotgun blast should’ve torn him in half. Instead? He’d sidestepped it.

The beer went well with the burrito. And he had his window open as he sipped the gin. It was good gin, the best around, and he’d drive up to Littleton to buy a bottle every month or two.

Then he took out the toy soldier he’d gotten from Hugo. The paint was fading, it was chipped, and that key seemed stuck. He should be able to wind it up, but he couldn’t get it going. He put it on his nightstand when he went to take a shower.

Later, he spent some time online Googling shit, but there wasn’t anything on time travel or stopping time or any of that. No.

He went to bed figuring it had been some one-time event. Maybe he’d been chosen to save the woman from Horns just so the sweet-smelling woman could sweep her away.

Jack was just a bit drunk, a nice buzz, and that made sleep easy. He was out, and when that fucking alarm dinged, he felt like shit.

He didn’t have an actual nightstand. It was just a series of bricks with a piece of wood on top. It held his phone, which was charging. And his phone went off.

Light leaked in through the shutters, making the walls glow. He glanced at his clock. It was 7:07 a.m. The bank was open on Saturday mornings, and he had to take the shift, even with what had happened the night before. Jack’s boss had called, and Ernie wasn’t available.

Fucking Ernie. He owed Jack about two cases of beer and a bottle of the good stuff for skipping out the night the place got robbed, and now he’d stiffed Jack on a weekend? Jack hoped there was something wrong in Ernie’s life, or he’d have to make sure there was. His head felt like someone dropped a bag of hammers on it. He did not want to get out of bed.

If only he could make time stop now. Give himself another hour of sleep. That would be ideal. But how did a guy stop time?

Jack had to laugh at himself. He focused on his phone and willed it. Nothing happened. He didn’t feel a thing.

He raised his right hand out of his blankets. He snapped his fingers.

That was stupid. There was no way it was going to work like that.

He then tried both snapping his fingers and willing the clock to stop. Nothing.

He saw he’d left the toy soldier by the bed. He grabbed it and again tried to turn the windup key. Unlike last night, it clicked to the left. There seemed to be a pop in his skull. He waited for a second to see what happen. Nothing, probably. He was being dumb.

He closed his eyes and fell back asleep. The dream was a confusing tangle. There was a woman with bright red lipstick and smoky eye makeup. Her right eye was an icy blue, the left a bright red. Her long, slender face was framed by a tangle of black hair. She smelled like spice and sex. Not just that. She had horns. Black horns and fangs, and she had claws. Was that a razor-sharp onyx spike on the end of her tail? He thought so.

The demonic figure was standing in a crowd of frozen people, giving him a long, sultry look.

A flash later, Jack held a sweet blond woman in his arms, and they were kissing. This new woman had pale, shining skin, and she smelled fresh, clean, and a little flowery, like a spring meadow. A second later, the blonde was gone.

And Horns appeared, towering over Jack, digging his long, cruel claws into Jack’s temple—through skin, through bone, right into Jack’s brains.

The pain shocked him awake.

The dream had been bad, but this new pain was worse, far worse. And his phone was lit, showing him 7:07 a.m. He’d fallen back asleep. He’d dreamed. Had it been less than sixty seconds?

He waited, the pain growing more intense. He listened. Generally, he heard traffic from Plum Creek Boulevard, or his neighbors tromping around upstairs, or some kid crying somewhere. Jack didn’t hear any of that.

The pain was getting severe and growing worse.

His phone never switched over to 7:08. Jack saw he’d dropped the toy soldier. He picked it up and clicked the key to the right. Immediately, he heard the traffic, a baby crying, and booming from upstairs.

Jack pressed the toy soldier to his temple, careful not to hit that key. The pain lessened. He waited. The nice thing about time is that it always moved forward, or seemed to. He checked his phone. 7:10 a.m.

Time was flowing. Only, what had Horns called it? The Tempus Influunt. That shit sounded like Latin. As in tempus fugit. In English, that translated into time flies.

Jack showered and dressed in his uniform.