The flash receded and the boys stumbled to their feet. Their eyes burned from the intense flash of the time jump, and now they stood momentarily blinded in the sudden dark around them. A dog nearby barked in the darkness and the green-blue afterimage of a bright flash swam in their heads. Spreading outwards, and without speaking, they shuffled their way through the pitch-black space, feeling along the walls and tables until Shaun found what they had been seeking: the lightswitch.
The fluorescent lights overhead clicked on and buzzed softly as they rose to a dull yellow-white. "When are we?" Wade asked, steadying himself against the counter.
"About 4:30 in the morning of the sixteenth, which was—is?—today," Parker replied. "We're lucky… I pulled the damn dial too far and nearly sent us back an entire year."
"What does that mean?" Logan asked, still shaking his head clear.
"If I pull the adjustment dial out, one click controls the hour hand, two clicks is the day dial, and three is the year bit… in a panic, I yanked on the dial and nearly sent us to 1980," Parker said with a laugh.
"That is not funny," Wade replied.
"Guys, we've got a problem here," said Ronnie, rubbing at his eyes and surveying the scene. Everyone's eyes burned, as they had gone through the near-whiplash of normal light to bright flash to pitch darkness to fluorescents in about the span of a minute. Still, as they blinked away the disorientation, they all quickly saw what was the matter: a thin layer of black soot coated much of the room, centering on the place they had been standing when they arrived.
"Well, that's not very subtle," Logan said.
"If we leave it like this, come morning, the Trents and police might realize something's up with this place," Ronnie said. "If they call off the trap, or decide to host it elsewhere…"
"Yeah yeah, yada yada yada, paradoxes 'n stuff," Wade said with a dismissive wave of the hand. "So, it's clean-up time?"
After a brief search through the myriad cabinets and drawers, the group quickly found a spray bottle of cleaning solution and a roll of paper towels. Each grabbed supplies and began working his way through the room, scrubbing up any of the black powder he could find. There was a shared motivation to be thorough, and so the cleaning took more than a few minutes. As they worked, Ronnie formulated a plan.
"So, we fell for their trap. They dangled the Trent connection right in front of our noses and we stumbled right on in… and now, after Skinny's disappearance, us masked vigilantes are missing a member that fits his description. It'll be hard for them to conclude definitively that it was us, per se, but I have every reason to believe they'll bring us back in for questioning, and they'll probably be a lot more thorough about it this time."
"What, like arrested?" Shaun asked, worried.
"I don't think so," Ronnie said, before correcting himself. "I don't know, to be honest." Ronnie frowned as he rubbed at a particularly stubborn spot of black on the wall. "That being said, there's a way to dodge all that trouble… a way to get them off our tails for good."
"We disappear and flee off to Canada," Wade offered.
Ronnie ignored him. "We've got a singularly unique opportunity here… we can craft the perfect alibi." He let his words settle over the boys, who continued to scrub as they thought. Ronnie watched realization first dawn on Logan's face.
"That's pretty brilliant," he said, momentarily pausing from the clean-up. "That's damn clever, actually."
"What am I missing?" Parker asked.
"It's the morning of the sixteenth," Logan said. "Right now, in a way, there's two of each of us. One group is all asleep in their beds right now and pretty soon they'll get up, bike out to the woods, and charge into this trap recklessly right here…"
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Parker nodded, understanding. "But we can establish unshakeable alibis… we just gotta make sure we're somewhere else with other people when the ambush happens here," he said excitedly.
"And then we're off the suspect list for good," Ronnie concluded, triumphantly.
"You genius son of a bitch, you," Wade said, clapping Ronnie on the shoulder.
"So, here's the plan: we finish up here, and then we go out into the woods to the south, far from where we were earlier today. Once it's been long enough for us, and I mean the us of the past, to be out in the woods by Castle Rock, we can go back into town and start to establish separate alibis. Separate is ideal, because the more trustworthy sources we can implicate into our alibis, the better. The police might come looking for us, but, when they have our parents or family or whoever insisting that we've been with them all day, they'll have no choice but to leave us be. Then, when this is all wrapped up, let's say around 6:30—which should be a couple hours after the ambush—let's meet up at mine. Sound good?"
The last of the paper towels were collected into a trash bag, which Wade slung over his shoulder.
"Trash man is a good look for you," Shaun teased, prompting Wade to swing the bag at him as though it were a squishy flail. The boys laughed and sparred while Ronnie went to check that the front doors were locked. Logan took the moment of distraction to move in towards Parker.
"When we split up later, I want to quickly go back to our earlier conversation. Can you come find me just after we split?" he asked in a low whisper. Parker nodded, watching Ronnie return from across the darkened office hallway. "Wherever we split up, I'll walk away for about five minutes and then double back. Do the same," he said, before wandering off and pretending to inspect the counter for any black smudges of ash.
"With no key," Ronnie said as he arrived back at the group, "we'll have to leave the back door unlocked. I hope they don't find that particularly suspicious."
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Logan said. "They'll just think they forgot to lock it last night, no big deal. Everyone ready?"
The boys did a final visual sweep, confirming that there was evidence of neither the ash nova nor their impromptu midnight cleaning service. Satisfied, they switched off the lights and made their way to the rear door.
The summer air was hot with just a lingering touch of humidity. Gusts of wind rolled their way over the trees in the distance, suffusing the night with the occasional far-off rumble of sighing trees. Insects chirped and buzzed from alarmingly close by as the boys wound and wended their way from the vet's office to the outskirts of town.
"What about our bikes?" Shaun asked, breaking the night's quiet.
Ronnie stroked at his chin. "Good point," he said. "We parked them a short distance from the vet's office, sure, but the police might spread out after we slip away… probably good to move and hide them somehow."
"I could do it invisibly," Shaun offered.
"A great idea, right up until someone reports seeing a bike roll itself into the woods," Ronnie replied.
"I could do it," Logan offered. "Visible, but my parents aren't around, so I won't be much for getting a sturdy alibi, anyways. I could stake out the spot, and as soon as the past-us shows up and drops off our bikes while charging at the vet's office, I could move in and wheel them to better cover."
Ronnie seemed without objections to the plan, so the group considered the matter settled. Logan noted that in the vacuum of Skinny's absence, Ronnie had emerged as the de-facto authority central to the group's planning, of course partly owing to his ring-boosted mind. It made sense, which is what also made it predictable. Logan knew he was rapidly approaching the second critical juncture in his detailed plans. It would require that Parker distrust the rest of the group, and achieving that was as simple as leading Parker to distrust Ronnie. The rest clicked in place by association alone.
As they walked through the darkened woods, navigating by the dim and flickering glow of small lighters in-hand, they heard a distant howl that was soon joined by two others. A skittering of leaves nearby froze the boys in place. A squirrel, perhaps?
Stillness and silence returned after a moment, and the boys continued their wandering. Finally, on some unspoken cue, they sat down at a small clearing and propped their backs up against the bordering trees.
"I always hated sleeping out here without a tent," Wade said.
"Sleeping?" Parker asked.
"It'll be a few hours yet before daybreak… and we've got a full day ahead of us now. It might be good to get some rest while we can," said Ronnie.
"Say no more," Shaun said, leaning his head back to the tree and closing his eyes. "Wake me when it's go-time."
Logan closed his eyes and tried to settle in. After his poor sleep the night previous, he knew that he should revel in the opportunity to catch a few hours before such a critical day. And yet, despite his reason, he found himself totally unable to sleep. Perhaps it was his anticipation at what was to come—or was it more accurate to say excitement?—or perhaps it was simply the lack of comforts out there in the woods against a stiff and gnarled tree. Either way, Logan did not sleep those remaining hours, and instead spent them fitfully imagining what was to come, and remembering the part of it that already had.