Some Time to Kill

by Devin James Leonard

part 1

When I stopped at the light, I threw the gear in park, capped the bottle, and placed it in the center console through blurry, half-cocked eyes. My blinks had already been sluggish, eyelids heavy and, as I reached for the lever, they shut completely.

The knuckles rapping on my window startled me back to consciousness, and my eyes jolted open, fixing on a man outside my door. At first I thought he was a cop, but there was only a rust-red pickup in my rearview. He was saying something along the lines of Get out, but since I was still coming out of a hazy slumber, on top of being blitzed beyond coherence, I couldn’t make out his speech.

Just then, he ripped my door open, took me by the shirt with both hands, and forcefully pulled me out of my seat, holding me up as best as one can steady a wobbling drunkard.

“You need to come with me,” the man said, his eyes wide with panic. Despite this physical altercation, his tone held more concern than aggression.

“Who the hell are you?” I said in a slurry drawl. Even to me, it sounded like, Who fell on you?

The man loosened his grip, but continued to clutch me while he dragged me toward the pickup, and didn’t let off until he opened the passenger door and said, “Get in.”

A sober man would not have gone along with this, but sober I was not. Three sheets to the wind is what I was, and tired, therefore careless and cooperative. I scuttled into the vehicle without complaint, sat with my head back, and shut my eyes again.

I heard the man get in on the other side, the door slam shut, and then he lightly tapped me on the cheek, telling me to stay awake.

My eyes shot open. “Say, what kind of game are you playing?”

“Just hush now, Wyatt,” he said. “I need to tell you something, and I’ve already told you countless times before, so let me just get through it in case I got to do it all over again.”

“Told me what? I don’t know you. And how’d you know my name?”

“We have met,” he said. “Tonight, and many tonights before this.”

I thought I’d misheard him: “many to-nights” instead of “nights.” Shaking my head, I said, “Are you sure we’ve met?”

“Yes, only you wouldn’t remember.”

He was spot-on in that aspect. I’d been drinking every night for the past six months, with every intention to forget and, though I was a failure in all aspects of my life as a man, father, husband, friend, and employee, I was a success in taking in enough alcohol to erase my memories of my miserable existence. That had been my plan for tonight, too: to erase my existence. I was halfway there already, until this strange man tossed me into his pickup, kind-of, sort-of holding me hostage.

“We’ve already established you don’t know me, right?” the man asked.

“Right,” I said, waiting for more.

“Then tell me how I know your name is Wyatt Modell?”

My lips parted, prepared to say he had likely met me during one of my drunken benders, but he cut me off, saying, “How do I know you’ve got a bottle of vodka in your center console, a green folding lawn chair in your trunk, a red sweater on the floor of the back seat, and less than a quarter tank of gas?”

I frowned at him and said nothing, mainly because the vodka could have been a good guess. As for the rest? Even I didn’t know if those items were in my car. They could have been, but they sure as hell weren’t in the front of my memory.

“If that’s not enough,” the man continued, “how about this? Your car has 88,756 miles on the odometer. You’ve got eighteen dollars in cash in your wallet. Your license expires on your birthday of this year — August 17th — and tucked away in the inner pocket of the right side of your wallet is a dentist’s business card with the date of your next annual cleaning. October 5th, nine a.m.”

I shut my eyes, smiling drunkenly, and said, “Bullshit.”

“No bull,” he said. “Take out your wallet and see for yourself.”

I had no idea when my license expired, nor was I aware of a dental card. As far as how much money I had on me, I’d broken a fifty earlier to pay for the vodka he oddly knew I had in my possession, so I wasn’t sure how much I was carrying. I fished out my wallet, just to humor him, and checked for myself. Inside there was a ten-dollar bill, a five, and three singles, and sure as hell, when I looked at my driver’s license and the tiny card with a tooth symbol on it, the dates were accurate.

It shocked me into silence.

“If you still don’t believe me,” the man said, “we can go check your mileage.”

“What are you?” I said. “A psychic?”

“I wish.” He shook his head tiredly and stared out at the road. “Name’s Boyd. And all I am is stuck in a loop.”

“A loop?”

“A time loop. I keep living the same night over and over. Waking up right here, with you right there in front of me. I can’t figure how to stop it.”

The man named Boyd faced me, and what I saw were insistent, desperate eyes staring back. Maybe it was the way the interior lights were casting shadows, but he resembled a man who had not slept for a long time. There were bags under those tired eyes, and strain and exhaustion inside them. His face looked like someone who had been to war, but never came back from it once he got home. If this whole thing was a prank, then Boyd was putting on one hell of a performance, because, not only did he sound insane and look deranged, he appeared to believe everything he was saying.

After a long moment of contemplation and hesitance, I swallowed a dry lump in my throat and said, “Let’s say I believe you, Boyd. That you know the things you know because you, what, searched the contents of my wallet during one of your past lives? What is it you want from me?”

Boyd shrugged. “Your insight. Hell, I don’t know. Nothing else has worked. I figured I’d let you in on the know and see if it helps. If it doesn’t? Well, I’ll be right back here, and you’ll be right back there in your car. Only you won’t remember this, but I’ll have to start over. And over. And over again, until I get it right, whatever it is.”

“All right,” I said, “I’ll listen. But first, I’m gonna need a drink.”

“Between your legs,” he said, nudging his chin toward my feet.

I peered down at the floor. “Hey, look at that,” I said. A six-pack of canned beer lay at my feet, held together in a plastic ring. I bent down, tore one off the ring, cracked it, and gulped. It was warmer than room temperature, but I didn’t mind.

While I was chugging away, Boyd was looking at me with a sad smirk.

“Something funny?” I said, wiping my foamy lips with the back of my wrist.

“The first time this happened,” he said, “I knocked your block off with one of them beers.”

“Come again?”

“It happens the same way each time. I come to like I’m snapping out of a dream. First time it happened, I couldn’t figure where the hell I was or what I was doing. I’m just sitting here behind that silver Cadillac of yours, with how I wound up here a damn mystery.”

He paused, fished out a cigarette, and once he lit it and blew smoke out his window, he went on.

“The first time, you were just stopped there under the flashing red light, like you were waiting for it to turn green. I remember thinking, ‘What’s this guy doing? Is he waiting for it to turn green? If he is, we’ll be here all night, ’cause that signal doesn’t change until daylight, and by then it’ll be yellow.’ So I waited, collecting my thoughts, trying to figure how I found myself in this position with not the slightest memory. It felt like someone had played a joke on me.”

“We’re gonna need more beer than this,” I said, “if you don’t pick up the pace with this story.”

“Trust me,” Boyd said, “we’ve got nothing but time to kill.”

With a long, thoughtful draw on his cigarette, Boyd stared out the windshield, exhaled slowly through his nose, and continued. “This one time, when I was a kid, I passed out at a party with my boots on and woke up to find them missing. I thought someone had taken them off my feet to make me more comfortable, but, come to find out, someone filled them with water and stuck them in the freezer. When the water froze, the ice expanded and stretched the boots right out. Ruined them.”

I guzzled the last mouthful of beer and reached for another can, wondering where the hell this tale was heading.

“I remember how that stupid joke someone pulled on me made me feel embarrassed and furious. That feeling made me want to hurt someone, and so I took it out on whoever was standing nearby. Beat the piss out of some kid who probably didn’t even do it.

“Well, that’s how I felt the first time I came to right here in my truck, staring at the ass end of your car and not knowing how I wound up here. It felt like someone had pulled a prank on me, and that long-ago embarrassment, that rage, was simmering.” Boyd looked at me. “I took it out on the closest person to me.”

“Me?”

“That’s right. You were still just sitting there, not moving. I could have just blared my horn to get you going, but I didn’t. Instead, I rolled forward and tapped my grill against your rear. It wasn’t much of a bump, only a little nudge of encouragement. Your car hardly flinched, but it rattled you, ’cause you hopped out and staggered over to my window with your fists clenched and your chest puffed out like a tough guy.

“As soon as you ducked to my door, I shoved it open and bashed the window against your face. You went tumbling backward, and I hopped out and came after you. I brought an unopened beer can with me” — his eyes darted to the can I was holding — “and pitched it at your face and smashed you right in the nose.”

“And what happened to me?” I said.

“You were out cold, laid out on the shoulder. I left you there and drove off.”

“I’m still waiting for the funny part.”

“I guess it’s not funny,” Boyd said, his face flushed without expression. He rotated himself to face me head-on. “Listen to me. After that first time, when I left you on the side of the road, I drove out to the Creekside Tavern to...” He paused, hesitant, then swallowed and said, “You came along only minutes after I got there, and you crashed your car right outside, in front of the bar. You were drunk.”

“I’m always drunk,” I said.

“Point being, you didn’t just crash. You hit another car.”

I burped. “Do I die?”

“No,” Boyd said. “But everyone in the other car does. Two old folks driving with two kids in the back seat. Two little girls.”

“Jesus,” I hissed, slouching in my seat. Even a story that technically hadn’t yet happened made a twinge of guilt and remorse settle in my stomach. I felt my guts knot just then.

“I need to stop it, Wyatt,” Boyd said. “For both of us.”

“All right,” I said. “So, I just sit here and wait with you, then, right? Kill some time, like you said? Wait for that car to get to wherever it’s going, and once it’s gone, then they stay alive, yeah?”

Boyd shook his head. “I’ve tried that. We’ve tried that.”

“We have?”

“I’ve tried everything. I thought I just had to stop you from driving, which I did so many different ways now that I’ve lost count. I’ve knocked you out, crashed my truck into you so you couldn’t go down that route. Even murdered you to prevent you from killing that family. There were even times where I’ve stopped you, and everybody — including you — wound up safe and alive at the end, and I still kept coming back here. Nothing so far, Wyatt — and I mean nothing — has gotten me out of this goddamned time loop.” He flicked his cigarette out the window and said, “Give me one of those beers, will you?”

I passed one over, gulped what remained of my second beer, and opened a third. As I raised the can to my lips, I shook my head and said, “Well, this sure as hell isn’t how I thought my night was gonna go.”

“At least you only have to go through it once,” Boyd said, and then, “Tell me something, Wyatt. How is your night supposed to go?”

“How do you mean?”

He looked at me with a dubious sneer. “What were your plans for the night? Where were you headed?”

I sipped my beer and shrugged. “What happens to you, Boyd?”

“I told you, I wake up right here.”

I raised my hand in a stopping gesture, squinting. “No, I mean, before you wake up. How far along does your night go before you wind up right back here?”

Boyd pondered this thought. “Whenever I go to sleep.”

“Have you tried not falling asleep?”

Boyd shook his head.

“Maybe that’s the key,” I said. “You say even when you stop everybody from dying, you still wake up right here in this same place. Maybe there’s something else you need to do before you go to sleep. Something after you save everybody.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Boyd said. He considered his beer, held it out to me, and said, “Here. I probably shouldn’t be drinking if I’m gonna try to stay up all night. Come on, I wanna show you something, and then I’ll take you home.”

“How do you know where I live?” I asked as I took his can off his hands.

“It’s on your license,” he said.

“Don’t tell me,” I said, “you’ve been to my house, too.”

“No,” Boyd said. “This’ll be a first for me.”

He started the engine, threw it in drive, and swung wide to steer around my Caddy parked in the road.

* * *

Boyd pulled over and stopped on a small flat dirt spot off the shoulder of the county road, on the opposite side of the Creekside Tavern. The commotion of music and small-town drunks, pool-shooters and skirt-chasers rumbled like thunder across the flats of this otherwise quiet stretch of country. We sat parked near the intersection, facing the bar, right where Boyd said the crash would happen, or happened?

We were quiet in our waiting, no sounds but my slurping warm beer. Then Boyd broke the silence, saying, “Takes a lot for you to have your fill, uh?”

I glanced at him, but looked away when I shrugged and said, “Why the hell not? The night’s still young.”

“Has been for me, as of late. That’s for damn sure.”

“You look like shit, by the way,” I said. “You might be living the same day over and over, but you’re aging like a pruned turd.”

“You don’t look so peachy yourself,” he said. “You drink too much.”

“How observant of you.”

“Why is that?”

“Like I said,” I reiterated glumly, “why the hell not?”

“Don’t you have a job to get up and go to tomorrow?”

I shook my head, taking a sip from my fifth beer. “Not lately.”

“No responsibilities?”

“Nope.”

“What about family?”

I said nothing.

“Living the bachelor life, huh?”

“You could say that.”

I wasn’t looking at Boyd, but from the corner of my eye I saw his gauging, calculating stare, and I knew that he knew I was lying. He was looking at me as if he were peering straight through me, searching my soul for the truths of my deception.

Proceed to part 2...