He says, “I’m not ready for this.”
I look down into his eyes as my own panic builds. “If this is the end, be brave.”
A gunshot shreds the silence.
It came from behind the cabin, near the lake.
I race back through the snow, past the Jeep, sprinting toward the front porch, trying to process what’s happening.
From inside the cabin, Daniela calls my name.
I climb the steps.
Crash through the front door.
Daniela is coming down the hallway, wrapped in a blanket and backlit by the light spilling out of the master bedroom.
My son approaches from the kitchen.
I lock the front door behind me as Daniela and Charlie converge in the foyer.
She asks, “Was that a gunshot?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s happening?”
“They found us.”
“Who?”
“I did.”
“How is that possible?”
“We have to leave right now. Both of you head to our bedroom, get dressed, start getting our things together. I’m going to make sure the back door is locked, then I’ll join you.”
They head down the hallway.
The front door is secure.
The only other way into the house is through the French doors that lead from the screened-in porch into the living room.
I move through the kitchen.
Daniela and Charlie will be looking to me to tell them what’s next.
And I have no idea.
We can’t take the car.
We’ll have to leave on foot.
As I reach the living room, my thoughts come in a raging stream of consciousness.
What do we need to bring with us?
Phones.
Money.
Where’s our money?
In an envelope in the bottom dresser drawer of our bedroom.
What else do we need?
What can we not forget?
How many versions of me tracked us here?
Am I going to die tonight?
By my own hand?
I feel my way through the darkness, past the sleeper sofa, to the French doors. As I reach down to test the handles, I realize—it shouldn’t be this cold in here.
Unless these doors were recently opened.
As in a few seconds ago.
They’re locked now, and I don’t remember locking them.
Through the glass panes, I can see something on the patio, but it’s too dark to make out any detail. I think it’s moving.
I need to get back to my family.
As I turn away from the French doors, a shadow rises from behind the sofa.
My heart stops.
A lamp blinks on.
I see myself standing ten feet away, one hand on the light switch, the other pointing a gun at me.
He’s wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.
His hands are covered in blood.
Coming around the sofa with the gun aimed at my face, he says quietly, “Take your clothes off.”
The slash across his face identifies him.
I glance behind me through the French doors.
The lamplight illuminates just enough of the patio for me to see a pile of clothes—Timberlands and a peacoat—and another Jason lying on his side, his head in a pool of blood, throat laid open.
He says, “I won’t tell you again.”
I start undoing the buttons of my shirt.
“We know each other,” I say.
“Obviously.”
“No, that cut on your face. We had beers together two nights ago.”
I watch that piece of information land, but it doesn’t derail him like I’d hoped.
He says, “That doesn’t change what has to happen. This is the end, brother. You’d do the same and you know it.”
“I wouldn’t, actually. I thought so at first, but I wouldn’t.”
I slide my arms out of the sleeves, toss him the shirt.
I know what he’s planning: dress himself in my clothes. Go to Daniela pretending to be me. He’ll have to reopen the slash across his face to make it look like a fresh wound.
I say, “I had a plan to protect her.”
“Yeah, I read it. I’m not sacrificing myself so someone else can be with my wife and son. Jeans too.”
I unbutton them, thinking, I misjudged. We’re not all the same.
“How many of us have you murdered tonight?” I ask.
“Four. I’ll kill a thousand of you if that’s what it takes.”
As I pull off the jeans, one leg at a time, I say, “Something happened to you in the box, in those worlds you mentioned. What turned you into this?”
“Maybe you don’t want them back badly enough. And if that’s the case, you don’t deserve them any—”
I throw the jeans at his face and rush him.
Wrapping my arms around Jason’s thighs, I lift with everything I’ve got and run him straight into the wall, crushing the air out of his lungs.
The gun hits the floor.
I kick it into the kitchen as Jason crumples and drive my knee into his face.
I hear bone crunch.
Grabbing his head, I bring my knee back for another blow, but he sweeps my left leg out from under me.
I slam into the hardwood floor, the back of my head hitting so hard I see bursts of light, and then he’s on top of me, blood dripping off his ruined face, one hand squeezing my throat.
When he hits me, I feel my cheek fracture in a supernova of pain below my left eye.