Rewind Read Free Page B

asked.
    “I don’t know!” Adam replied.
    “And why would anybody be carrying them around?”
    Good question.
    The camera, the clippings. The backpack.
    Whose?
    Why?
    “Maybe the guy is a reporter. Or a cop.” Ripley took an article from the top of the pile and began reading: “ ‘Ten-year-old Easton native Lianna Frazer was lauded by the Easton Chamber of Commerce for her heroism in response to a tragic accident in which horseplay during a hockey game led to the drowning of Edgar Hall, also ten. Her quick actions in summoning adult help were credited for saving the life of Alan Sarno…’ Well, at least they got one name right.”
    “This is too weird,” Adam muttered.
    “Okay, simple explanation,” Lianna said. “These belong to your parents. They fell off a shelf into the backpack.”
    Adam shook his head. “When I opened the backpack last night, this envelope was already in it. I saw it.”
    “You thought you saw a lot of things last night.”
    “You…are…being…followed,” Ripley intoned dramatically, picking up the videocamera and pointing it at Adam. “Uh-oh. Bad news. The camera, she is broken.”
    “I could have told you that,” Lianna said.
    The camera. Think about the camera, Sarno. Worry about the clippings later.
    “Actually, this is why I wanted to come here,” Adam said, measuring his words. “See, the camera isn’t broken.”
    “Look for yourself.” Ripley held the camera to Adam’s face.
    Adam took it and looked through the view-finder.
    Blue.
    Blue wallpaper. Blue bedsheets and carpets. He was staring at an image of Edgar’s room.
    And then he saw Edgar.
    His feet were propped up on his desk. He was fiddling with a handheld video game. Avoiding homework:
    Oh my god.
    He was alive.
    Happy.
    The indicator light read January 13. Edgar died on the fifteenth.
    He had two days.
    Warn him!
    “Ed —” he blurted out.
    Adam cut himself off.
    This was insane. Edgar couldn’t hear him.
    As he put the camera down, Lianna and Ripley were both staring at him.
    “Uh, Earth to Adam?” Ripley said.
    “I—I saw—” Adam stammered.
    Don’t tell them. They won’t believe it.
    Let them see for themselves.
    Show the tape.
    Adam grabbed the tape from the bed and put it in Ripley’s VCR. He rewound it and pressed PLAY.
    The screen blinked to life.
    A fuzzy image took shape. Bed. Dresser. Hockey uniform on the floor.
    Yes.
    YES!
    “You see?” Adam blurted out.
    “Adam, that’s your old bedroom,” Lianna said.
    “ Exactly. When I was ten.” The view began to shift—just as Adam remembered it, moving around as he had moved the camera.
    “This is what you wanted to show us?” Ripley said. “Your very first home video?”
    “You didn’t have a videocamera when you were ten, Adam,” Lianna remarked.
    “Right. I recorded what you’re seeing with this camera. When I look through the lens, the camera sees the past. The place is right, the time and day are right—but it’s all four years earlier.”
    “Four years?” Lianna gave him a sharp look.
    She gets it.
    “January thirteenth. Two days before Edgar died. Which means—”
    “You expect me to believe this?” Lianna asked. “Why can’t I see any of it? Why can’t Ripley?”
    “I don’t know!” Adam replied.
    Ripley reached for the remote. “This is ridiculous. I have to go—”
    “Wait,” Lianna said. “What’s that ?”
    Something in the image was moving.
    Not a solid object, really. More like a distortion in the air, a shimmer in the shape of a human.
    Adam’s shape.
    It passed into the frame on the right side, then out again.
    The same path I took this morning when I started to go to breakfast. In and out of the past. The first time the room blipped.
    The shape reappeared.
    Yes. When I stepped back in. To look around.
    It wandered across the frame, stopping at the window, reaching behind the headboard, trying to pull the book off the shelf…
    Adam could barely breathe.
    I am not insane.
    The scene I saw