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  Karen once believed those whims were mostly good, but no longer. After her dad went into the hospital, she never entered a church again.

  She doubted God cared.

  * * *

  Within a month, her dad had deteriorated into a flimsy excuse of a man. He’d lost weight, so much that his cheeks looked hollow. Karen couldn’t believe that she hadn’t noticed that he was sick before that night.

  Surely Mom noticed.

  But she never asked her mother. That would only lead to guilt of one kind or another.

  Time stopped for Karen once in that month, and when it did, she stepped away from watching The Bachelor with her mom. Chris Harrison was frozen on the screen, a huge smile on his face as he talked to the man who was picking the most eligible girl in America to be his wife.

  “Stupid show,” Mom said.

  “I know,” Karen said.

  They never missed an episode. Now, though, in Karen’s private time, she wanted to see Dad.

  In his semiprivate room, he was on his back, his eyes staring into empty space, his mouth wide as he gasped for breath. His lungs didn’t work very well, and he couldn’t seem to get a good deep breath.

  She sat on the edge of his bed and put one hand on his cheek.

  “Hi, Daddy … .”

  She reached down to hold his left hand with her right.

  “It’s been a long time since I called you Daddy, hasn’t it? Sometimes I miss that. I miss how close we were when I was a little girl and you were my hero. You were always there to chase the monsters away from under my bed and to sneak me a cookie when Mom said I’d had enough treats for one day. You helped me with my homework when I couldn’t figure out how to multiply or couldn’t remember the names of Christopher Columbus’s ships.”

  She thought back to those days, memories flooding through her. Daddy helping her to build sand castles, teaching her how to fish, and even how to hopscotch. None of her friends had a father who would jump rope with them. Only she had that.

  “I miss you, Daddy.”

  Karen leaned over and hugged her dad, wishing that he could give her a hug in return. She knew she’d never be able to do this when time wasn’t standing still; they hadn’t hugged for many years. Now there was an additional gulf separating them—the box in the closet.

  “I’ve got a secret, too, Daddy. I wish I’d told you about it, but I knew you’d never believe me. Who in their right mind would believe it? But with your love for science, I just wish I could have told you and convinced you it was true.

  “Maybe if I told you about finding your secrets—the gun and the magazines, and … you know, the other thing. Maybe if I told you about what Mrs. Montgomery writes about her husband and all the other hidden gems on our street. Maybe I could convince you, but I doubt it. It’s too freakish.”

  She shrugged and wiped her nose with a tissue from his bedside table.

  “I love you, Daddy.”

  Part of her hoped that some of the sentiment might sink in and that his soul would feel a little better after she was called home. Who knew?

  She stayed with him for what felt like two hours, but of course there was no way to measure time when clocks didn’t tick.

  Later, when she settled back to watch the silly TV show with her mother, she felt a tiny bit more at peace.

  * * *

  One week later, she was at the hospital again, in normal time.

  She was alone with her dad, sitting beside him, telling him about her day. She tried to visit every day, knowing any particular day could be his last, wanting to give her mom a break. Mom sat with Dad twelve hours every day, with never a hint of complaint, but Karen knew she appreciated it when she spelled her off. Tina also took her fair share of time sitting with him.

  The gasping for air was much worse, and everybody knew the end was very close.

  “I still hate broccoli, you know.” Karen was trying to make light conversation when she realized Dad had stopped breathing. She jumped to his side and saw his mouth move, trying to get just one last breath, but nothing was working anymore. His eyes pleaded with her.

  “I love you, Daddy. I always have.”

  She held tightly to both his hands and stared directly into his eyes. He blinked one last time and then stopped even trying to get any air. He was as frozen as when time stopped for her.

  After a few moments of just being with him, Karen called for a nurse and then phoned her mom to tell her.

  Chapter 5

  It was more than a year before Karen saw Bobby again. She didn’t miss him. In fact, he almost never crossed her mind. Her mind and her heart were with her dad. His death had left a hole in her soul that she struggled to fill. When time stopped for her, she walked through some neighbors’ homes, but she didn’t feel the same excitement. She didn’t even bother to write down what she found in her Secrets Journal.

  Her reaction in her free time wasn’t much different from normal time. For almost six months, she didn’t crawl out of the hole that consumed her.

  Early in the new year things changed.

  She woke in the middle of the night. Time was stopped. It rarely happened in the middle of the night, and the combination of enough time having passed and the relative rareness of a night-time stoppage shook her mind free; she felt positive for the first time since the funeral.

  Excitement. Curiosity. Freedom.

  Her special feelings flooded back to her, and she jumped out of bed. She never knew if she’d have ten minutes, an hour, or half a day to herself, but she didn’t want to waste a single second.

  She knew it made no sense to say she had “an hour” to herself, because with time stopped, the concept had no meaning, but it felt like time was passing to her, and that’s what mattered.

  Curiosity. Her favorite emotion. She loved the itch inside her that wanted to know what was going on in the houses down the street.

  She decided to head to a small shopping area nearby. She called it “downtown,” but really it was just a group of stores that happened to have opened in the same general area: a Starbucks, a used bookstore, a bakery, and a half-dozen others.

  Homes surrounded the stores, and those homes commanded her attention tonight.

  The first two were locked tight.

  The third was different. It was a small, wooden, two-story house with faded brown paint and a sagging appearance that made her expect to find an old husband and wife sleeping soundly.

  The clock had stopped just after midnight.

  The main floor was quiet and dark. Karen could see a light upstairs and she carefully climbed up. Even though she knew that nobody could catch her, she felt a rush of excitement at the prospect of somebody turning and saying, “Hey, what the hell are you doing here?”

  The light was coming from a bathroom. She opened the door and saw a guy a little older than her, maybe twenty or twenty-one. He had long, greasy hair, and he stood naked in front of the sink. He had one hand on his fully erect cock. He seemed to be watching himself in the mirror.

  She wanted to leave but couldn’t. She stared at the guy. He was standing with his feet spread apart, gritting his teeth. He needed a shave, but she only barely noticed that. She reached out, moved his hand away, and put her own hand on him. She felt warmth and wetness. There was a tube of lotion on the counter. She had never touched a man before, and she wanted to know what it felt like.

  Karen had turned eighteen the month before with little fanfare and had never been close to having a serious boyfriend. She sometimes fantasized about being with somebody who would make love to her and give her the kind of pleasure she only ever felt from herself.

  She touched the skin of his penis and rubbed it a bit, but as she did so, an image formed in her mind … her friend, Bonnie MacDonald masturbating. She had wanted to catch her again but even though she’d snuck into Bonnie’s room several times, she’d never had any luck.

  Karen replaced the guy’s hand and left, but she left the bathroom door open. That’d give
the guy a bit of a shock.

  She walked over to the Starbucks. It was closed but she stared in the window, knowing there’d be nothing much to see.

  “You don’t seem much like a coffee drinker.”

  Karen saw his reflection in the plate glass window, and of course she immediately recognized his voice.

  “I suppose you drink coffee all the time,” she said.

  “I do, but that’s because I’m much more mature than you are.”

  She turned and faced Bobby Jersey. In the year since she’d seen him, he’d grown bigger, filling out. She knew that some girls at her school would consider him quite handsome.

  But he scared her. Not a lot, but a little.

  “You’re the same age as me, remember?”

  “Oh, I remember.”

  “Hey,” she said. “What are you doing here? You don’t live near here. Do you?”

  “I was looking for you. I want you to show me where you live.”

  “Why?”

  He didn’t answer right away. He just looked at her with the bright eyes that she remembered from the times they’d met at the beach. After a minute, he smiled and said, “We’re normally on different schedules. Sometimes time stops for both of us simultaneously, like now, but sometimes it’s just me or just you.”

  “I know. So?”

  “So, I thought I could come and visit you when time stops and you’re frozen there, ready for me to do whatever I want to you.”

  Karen wanted to laugh, hoping it was just a joke. He was smiling and he made it sound light, like he was poking fun at her.

  But … why was he here? Why did he want to know where she lived?

  “You tell me where you live,” she said. “What’s your address?”

  “16 Sunnyside Lane.”

  He’d answered too fast. She knew he was lying.

  She wanted to run away but couldn’t. He was her only link to whatever power they shared.

  He leaned over and kissed her on the mouth. His tongue pushed into her, and she couldn’t help responding. She put one hand on the back of his head to pull him closer.

  Then he pushed one hand roughly up her shirt and pushed her bra off one breast, grabbing her and holding her tightly.

  “Stop!”

  He didn’t let her go, squeezing her breast again, laughing.

  Then he let her go but he grabbed one wrist, stopping her from running.

  Fear pulsed through her. She used her free hand to put her bra back. She wanted to get away, to scream for help that couldn’t possibly come, to kick him in the balls, to slap him, to yell at him for doing that, but mostly she just wanted him to go away.

  “Please leave me.”

  “No. Not until you tell me where you live.”

  “No fucking way.”

  “Oooh, the little girl swore.”

  “Fuck you!”

  He laughed at her. “When I’m free to move around and you’re frozen in time, you won’t be able to stop me from doing whatever I want with your body.”

  “Leave me alone!”

  He laughed once again, and she couldn’t help but look at him.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I was just screwing with you. I wouldn’t do anything. I just like to press your buttons.”

  “Doesn’t really seem like that’s all it is.”

  “Listen, I’m sorry. I went too far.” His voice softened, as if he really was sorry. “I promise I won’t do that again.”

  She listened, not knowing what to believe.

  “At least not without your permission.”

  Finally the smile got to her. She knew he was playing her now, that the smile meant nothing, and yet somehow it meant a lot. No other boy paid any attention to her, and part of her was excited by the groping.

  “So tell me where you live,” he asked again.

  “No.”

  He shrugged. “There’s a fifty-fifty chance you’ll be called back before me. I’ll just follow you.”

  Karen knew he would do exactly that. And would he follow through on his earlier threat? One day, would she be reading or watching TV and suddenly realize he’d been there? How far would he go if he did? Would he just play a practical joke on her or would he hurt her?

  She started to walk away from Bobby, not wanting anything to do with him.

  “Watch this,” he said.

  “What now?”

  “Just watch.”

  There was an old man walking across the street. Bobby pulled something out of his pocket and showed it to Karen. It was a box cutter. She saw the razor-sharp blade and watched as he walked over to the old man.

  “Bobby, don’t hurt him.”

  The man was between steps, so he appeared to be balanced on one foot. He was intent on where he was walking, and part of Karen briefly wondered what business he had this time of night. Nothing was open. Maybe he was just going for a walk in the fresh air.

  Bobby didn’t hesitate. He took the box cutter and slashed the old man’s neck.

  Karen froze, not believing what she’d just seen. The cut was deep, very deep, and although no blood flooded out, she knew that as soon as time started again, the man’s life was going to spurt away onto the sidewalk.

  “Oh, my God … . Why?”

  Bobby put the box cutter back in his pocket. “Why not? For fun, of course. I just wish I could be here to see it.”

  “You’re a monster,” she whispered.

  Once more, Karen wanted to run away from him, but instead she found herself walking closer to the man, staring at the thin slice that crossed his neck. She patted the man’s cheek and said, “I’m so sorry.”

  Bobby pulled her around to face him. She saw triumph in his eyes, laughter in his soul, and power radiating through every part of him.

  She wanted to kiss him.

  “Leave me alone,” she said. Her voice was shaking, and she didn’t know anymore what she really wanted.

  Then his face went blank. “Shit. I have to go.”

  He pushed her away and ran fast down the street. She guessed that he had a long way to go, and not a lot of time to do it.

  The old man stared forward, nothing in his eyes but determination to meet his destination.

  Chapter 6

  That night, Karen had trouble sleeping. Everything seemed normal (well, as normal as any day could be for her), but when she went to bed and turned the lights off, her mind wouldn’t stop.

  Bobby had gone to a lot of trouble to track her down today. In some ways it was flattering and fun, in other ways it was fascinating and suspenseful; but now that she lay alone in her bed and the night spooks of her mind woke up, all she felt was dread and fear.

  He’ll rape me one day.

  I’ll be sleeping in my bed, and I’ll wake up feeling hurt and bleeding, and I’ll know he’s found me.

  But would he? She struggled to pull back the funny parts of Bobby that she liked so much, the jokes and the ability to not take anything too seriously.

  Then her mind would turn back to the old man, surely dead now.

  I can never let him find me.

  She’d stay away from the beach and keep a closer eye on things when she walked around town, but that was no guarantee.

  Karen knew that everyone left footprints wherever they went. Did he snoop on her Facebook page? Did he know her cell number? There were a lot of opportunities to follow her home from school or church.

  I told him Dad’s name.

  When her dad had died, she remembered talking to Bobby, telling him how lost she felt. She tried to make a joke about her dad’s name, but now that comment was haunting her. If Bobby remembered Parker Samson Richardson’s name, it’d be easy to find where she lived. Easy as slicing an old man’s neck.

  She didn’t have to be sleeping when he found her, of course. If time stopped for her, and he had his freedom, it could happen anytime at all. He could attack her at dinner or in the middle of English class, and she would just feel pain hit her out of the blue.
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  Only she would know what had happened.

  Karen tossed and turned with worry, not falling asleep until after four o’clock. When Mom woke her by jostling her arm, she cried out in fear, pulling away from the only person in the world that she could totally trust.

  * * *

  Two weeks later time froze in the middle of English Lit, with Mrs. Frey rambling on about the theme of Hamlet. Although Karen had enjoyed reading the play, she hated the way Mrs. Frey would dissect every little bit of it and ask the class, “What does this scene really mean?”

  Karen never got it, so she was thankful for a break.

  She gave a mock salute to Mrs. Frey as she walked toward the door. Her desk was at the back of the class, because the teacher liked to have all the troublemakers near the front.

  Bonnie MacDonald was two desks over and one up from Karen; she went to look at her friend. She only hesitated a second before running her hand through Bonnie’s hair and touching her cheek. She thought about watching Bonnie masturbating and wished she could find a way to make that happen again.

  Reluctantly, she left the class and passed through the halls to the closest exit. Cautious, she looked around but couldn’t see Bobby Jersey anywhere.

  There were several houses nearby that she’d never visited so she went inside the first one.

  She found Alexander Michaels sitting in his bedroom. Mr. Michaels was a forty-year-old chubby guy who worked the evening shift at Starbucks. Karen had been served by him several times and was always a bit creeped out when he handed over the proper change and grinned at her. She always felt weird.

  He had his pants pulled down to his ankles. His penis was flaccid, but she suspected it wasn’t going to stay that way for long.

  Karen was pretty sure he lived alone. The bed was unmade and the closet door was open. Only a few men’s shirts hung there, no dresses or women’s clothing of any kind.

  “Can’t say I’m surprised at that.”

  Michaels was at a desk staring at his laptop. He was in a chat room, and when Karen read through the notes on the screen she felt awful. He was talking to a fourteen-year-old girl, pretending to be a boy her age.