Alex appears to temper a retort, and instead leaves the room again. He’s not gone long when he returns with a hammer and nail. I watch curiously as he drives the nail into the wall opposite me.

He removes the keyring from his pocket and hooks it on the nail. So I can stare at it. Knowing it’s just out of reach. A cruel taunt.

“It’s late…or early,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “We’ll begin in a few hours. Get some sleep.”

The lights dim as he leaves the room, shutting the curtain behind him. I hear a door close. The one I always hear, that leads to his lab. He doesn’t go to his dark room of clocks.

I sit in silence for a long time just staring at the keys on the wall.

Maybe I failed, or maybe I stirred something in Alex that will prove useful. I’m not sure what damage I may or may not have caused—but I am sure of one thing.

I read Toyota on one of the silver keys while I was trying to unlock the door. Which means there’s a vehicle somewhere close.

18

Monster

Alex

Since our inception, humans have been consumed with the concept of time. The ancient Maya believed it was their sacred onus to keep time on its course, using mathematics and astronomy to develop a calendar that is as near accurate to the one we now use.

The ancient Egyptians revered their sun god, placing obelisks at the mouth of tombs to capture the rays of the sun and revive the dead. Those sun monuments served as a way to tell the time of day, a derivative of the sundial. They valued time even in death, mummifying those they honored to withstand the test of time.

From the Sumerian sexagesimal system, the water clocks of the Zhou dynasty, Egyptian shadow clocks, to the Frankish hourglass, every civilization has made a sacred practice of recording the passage of time.

My personal favorite is the pendulum clock. First to analyze the pendulum’s properties, Galileo discovered isochronism, simply meaning the pendulum maintains a constant period despite variations. Which he realized was exceedingly useful in timekeeping.

This method of keeping time was the most accurate up until the mid-twentieth century, when physicists proved atoms were the ultimate timekeepers. Introduction of the atomic clock changed the length of the second as we knew it, and opened a doorway into the future where the writings of H. G. Wells may become fact rather than fiction.

According to Einstein’s special theory of relativity, a clock at rest appears to slow when compared to a clock traveling at a fast rate, thus giving credence to theories of time travel. I’ve dabbled in my own temporal theories, the results proving that particles traveling at virtually the speed of light decay slower than those at a latent state.

The history of time, a witticism in its own right. The desire to crack the space-time continuum is as deeply rooted in personal desire as it is in need of a scientific breakthrough.

However, there is only one truth every scientist can agree upon as cited by Einstein himself: there is no “master clock” for the universe. Time is relative to the observer.

As I am Blakely’s observer, I pay special attention to how I see her, which is no longer through the lens of a microscope. A dangerous shift in perspective.

An image of her standing before me, shirt draped open, her beautiful breasts on display, covers my vision and suddenly even the air is tactile. I can feel the weight of her on top of me. Feel her soft skin as I graze my knuckles down her belly.

I drag my hands over my face, as if I can wipe her from my thoughts. She’s an infection invading my system. That’s why I’ve barricaded myself in the dark room, letting the maddening tick of the clocks drive her out.

I stare at the one pendant of light in the room, the bare bulb strung in the middle. I have no use for the glaring clarity of daylight today. My chair is positioned right in front of the newest clock. It’s a basic, round wall clock. Black and white. A pendulum protrudes from the bottom, oscillating back and forth, ticking the seconds away.

It’s beautiful in its simplicity. That’s why I chose it. Classic, sleek, modern. Hard. It suits her perfectly.

Cold sweat beads along my brow as I extend my hand toward the swinging pendulum. Light reflects off the steel every time it ticks a full second, sending a fracted shard of light onto my palm.

As I watch, absorbed in the comforting rhythm, I speculate if electroshock could work as a time machine and send Blakely’s mind back to a moment before she entered this room.

The way she looked at me—the judgment in her cool eyes—as she stood amid the clocks…

I close my eyes and curse. The errant thought creeps into my mind, questioning if I chose Blakely for the project or my own selfish needs.

I stand and knock the chair backward. The jarring scrape of the legs against the wood floor is barely heard over the relentless ticking, but it’s enough to interrupt my spiral.

Fist clenched, I grip the latest variant of the reagent. With every subject, with every failure, I adjust the chemical compound.

My heart rate increases as I open my palm and stare at the vial. I prepared the mixture for the newest subject, determined to get it right. Not to fail again. I prepared it before I knew the newest subject was Blakely.

I glance at her clock again, desperation flooding my system with adrenaline.

Five clocks no longer tick. Their hands point to the time each of the prior subjects expired.

Died.

I hear Blakely’s voice correcting me, calling out my lies.

You’re a murderer.

“I’m a scientist.” Every breakthrough requires sacrifice. A mantra I’ve been reciting for over two years. I cannot let my subject—no matter how tempting—deter me from that achievement.

I clutch the vial and leave the room.

The time for theoretical hypothesis is done. The only way to test my theory is to administer the reagent.

As I descend the stairs, I hear a scratching noise. I draw back the curtain to find Blakely scraping the edge of the chain against the cement floor.

She looks up, her hair tangled over her shoulders. Apparently she was right about the shampoo, but the wild look is sexy on her. Everything is sexy on her.

“No TV. No books. If you don’t kill me, the boredom will,” she says. “Figured I’d compose my autobiography right here on the floor. Give the next subject something entertaining to read.”

The disdain in her voice gives me hope that my timing is right. She cannot be lethargic or uncommitted. Some range of emotion is needed as a base for the treatment to be a success.

I head to the cart and unwrap a sterile syringe. She hasn’t questioned what she saw upstairs—or what transpired between us. She hasn’t pushed…because she knows it’s a sensitive matter. She’s either wary about forcing the subject, or she’s saving it for later. An ace up her sleeve that she can use to unnerve me.

“I’ll bring you a journal,” I say, as I hold the vial up to fill the syringe.

“With a pen?”

“Of course.”

“Aren’t you worried I’ll stab my jugular?”

I turn to face her, and her gaze goes to the syringe in my hand. “I didn’t perceive you as suicidal. Should I be worried?”

Blakely drops the chain, purposeful in her intent to cause a disturbance. “As you studied me, stalked me, know everything about me…I guess you don’t have that to worry about.”

I hold up the syringe and flick the tube, ridding it of any bubbles. I decide to steal her thunder, as it were, and remove the future opportunity to vilify me with her words.

Taking a seat on the stool opposite her, I say, “In my room, every clock was set to the conception of a new idea. A hypothesis. A theory. An experiment. A subject. Anything of importance that I deemed deserving of documentation, I made it tangible by giving it a way to track its own timeline.”