Evan tossed sixty dollars at the driver. “Don’t go away. I’ll be back in five.”
As he exited the cab, the synchron on his wrist beeped, informing him that it had readjusted to local time. By external clocks, it had only been seven minutes since he and his fellow Silvers crash-landed into this part of existence.
Some crashed harder than others.
In the middle of the park, on a flat patch of grass between picnic tables, a fetching young blonde lay sprawled on her back. Unlike the scattered homeless dozers who malingered here on weekends, the woman was barefoot in a lacy pink nightgown. The silk was marred with dirt and gashes. Only her silver bracelet remained spotless.
She fixed her cracked red eyes on Evan, speaking through wheezes and bloody gurgles.
“I can’t move. I can’t feel anything. I don’t know what’s happening. Please help me.”
Evan kneeled by her side, clucking his tongue with sarcastic pity. She must have been ten stories up when the whole world changed on her.
“Oh, Peaches,” he said, in a mock Savannah drawl. “I do declare this is not your day.”
Evan made a habit of visiting Natalie Tipton in her dying moments. By his twentieth encounter, he’d pieced together her life in fragments. She was born Natalie Elder in Buford, Georgia, the only child of a waitress and a rail worker. She’d overcome dyslexia to earn a full scholarship to Emory University, where she studied to become a veterinarian until a well-placed kick from an ailing mare shattered her knee and ambitions.
But life had a way of working out for the terminally pretty. She soon met Donald Tipton, a campus football legend. They fell in love, got married, then moved out west when Donald scored a place with the San Diego Chargers.
If there was any drama during her time as a footballer’s wife, Natalie didn’t say. In the face of her demise, her only regret was not finishing college and becoming a veterinarian. She’d confessed this to Evan, back when he bothered to feign sympathy.
Having no recollection of their previous encounters, Natalie stared in terror at this creepy, grinning stranger.
“W-what happened to me?”
“You’ve taken a dreadful fall, sugah. And now you’re bone soup, ah say, bone soup from the neck down.”
“Please. Call an ambulance. I’m begging you.”
“Oh, I’ve tried that, darling. But it’s a big park. The paramedics never find you in time. Shame too, because they have a machine that could fix you right up. Reverse those injuries like they never happened.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I’m not the pilot of this plane wreck, sweetie. Just a passenger with a better seat. If you’re looking to file a grievance, the people you want are the Pelletiers. Though in their defense, I’m pretty sure they warned you to stay on the ground floor.”
He was right. Natalie had woken up in the utility room of her building, twenty floors down from her penthouse suite. A hand-scrawled note on the floor strongly advised her to stay where she was. She didn’t listen. When the power died, she was stuck in the elevator between the eighth and ninth floors. Then her bracelet shook, the scenery changed, and Natalie Tipton had nowhere to go but down.
“I don’t understand why this happened,” she cried.
“Oh, honey bear. You don’t even have time for the short answer. Trust me. You’re not long for this world either.”
Natalie closed her eyes and wept. “Why are you so cruel? What did I ever do to you?”
For once, her dialogue crossed into new territory. Evan’s smile dissolved.
“Huh. Weird. I usually get that question from Hannah, not you. For her, I have a long list of grievances. For you?” He gave it some thought. “I don’t know. Maybe you remind me of her. You both go wet for dumb muscle. You both seem to confuse lust with love. Now, granted, I never met your husband. But somehow I doubt you would have fallen for him if he was a professional chess player.”
Natalie turned her head, wincing. “Oh God. I just want this to stop.”
“Well, you’re about to get your wish.” Evan checked his watch. “It’s curtain time.”
While her shallow breaths settled and her consciousness slipped away, Evan stroked her arm and stared pensively at the trees.
“You know, I chat with the Pelletiers on occasion. I once asked them why they didn’t stop you from falling. I mean they can see the futures better than anyone. They could have tied you down, broken your foot, done a hundred other things to keep you on the ground floor. Hell, they could still go back and save you. I’m not the only one with a rewind button.
“So when I asked, that crazy bitch Esis just gave me a shrug and said, ‘Natalie’s but one of many.’ Can you believe that? They destroy a whole damn world to bring us here and we’re still nothing to them. Just rats in their maze.”
He checked her pulse, then breathed a wistful sigh. Natalie Tipton was gone.