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When he’s gone, I stop the fast-forward, knowing I went too far, and rewind to the commercial as I slip the keys into my other pocket, then press play.
Instead of the movie that I’m expecting, I see it again.
It flashes by in a few seconds, and then it’s gone. The truck, the building, the explosion. And then back to our regularly scheduled programming.
“Stop it,” I whisper. My stomach flips and a creepy shiver runs down my neck. It makes my throat tighten. I pause the recording and sit there a minute, trying to calm down. And then I hit rewind.
Ninety-nine percent of me hopes there’s nothing there but a creepy giant hound on the moor.
But there it is.
I watch it again, and I get this gnawing thing in my chest, like I’m supposed to do something about it.
“Why does this keep happening?” I mutter, and rewind it again. I hit play and it all flies by so fast, I can hardly see it. I rewind once more and this time set it to play in slow motion.
The truck is yellow. I notice it’s actually a snowplow, and the snow is falling pretty hard. It’s dark outside, but the streetlamps are lit. The truck is coming fast and it starts angling slightly, crossing to the wrong side and going off the road. It jumps the curb spastically and jounces over some snow piles in a big parking lot, and then I see the building—there’s a large window—for a split second before the truck hits it. The building explodes shortly after contact, glass and brick shrapnel flying everywhere. The scene cuts to the body bags in the snow. I count again to make sure—definitely nine. The last frame is a close-up of three of the bags, and then it’s over. I hit the pause button.
“What are you doing?”
I jump and whirl around to see Rowan standing in the doorway squinting at me, hair all disheveled. “Jeez!” I whisper, trying to calm my heartbeat. “You scared the crap out of me.” I glance back at the TV with slow-motion dread, like I’ve just been caught looking at . . . I don’t know. Porn, or something else I’m not supposed to look at. But it’s paused at a sour cream commercial. I let out a breath of relief and turn my attention back to Rowan.
She shrugs. “Sorry. I thought I heard Mom come up.”
“Not yet. Not for a while.”
She scratches her head, the sleeve of her boy jammies wagging against her cheek. “You coming to bed soon? Or do you want me to stay up with you?”
Her sweet, sleepy disposition is one of my favorites, maybe because she can be so mellow and generous when she just wakes up. I suck in my bottom lip, thinking, and look at the remote control in my hand. “Nah, I’m coming to bed now. Just gotta brush my teeth.”
She scrunches up her face and yawns. “What time is it?”
I laugh softly. “Around eleven, I guess. Eleven fifteen.”
“Okay,” she says, turning to go back down the hallway to our bedroom. “Night.”
I look at the TV once more and close my weary eyes for a moment. Then I turn it off and stand up, setting the remote on top of the set so it doesn’t get buried, and carefully pick my way to the bathroom, and on to bed. But I don’t think I’ll be sleeping anytime soon.
LISA McMANN is the author of the New York Times bestselling Wake trilogy, Cryer’s Cross, Dead to You, and the middle-grade dystopian fantasy series The Unwanteds. She lives with her family in the Phoenix area. Read more about Lisa and find her blog through her website at LISAMcMANN.com or, better yet, find her on Facebook (facebook.com/mcmannfan) or follow her on Twitter (twitter.com/lisa_mcmann).
