The Dark Restarter: Book Two in the Restarter Series by Sean McMahon

Author:Sean McMahon [McMahon, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-21T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

A Glimpse of the Future

178th Restart – Friday, August 24th, 2018, 4:02pm

The fistful of premature restarts that followed seemed to be devoid of a pattern. Malcolm knew this to be by his own twisted design of course, remembering how he had indeed chosen them at random.

Some days, the Dark Restarter allowed the interdimensional interlopers to reach the late afternoon of Saturday the 25th of August, and others giving them less than an hour in Friday the 24th.

Despite his words of reassurance that it would settle down, a further eight restarts had now passed, and everyone but Malcolm was sick of it.

And still, no sign of Peter.

Whether it was through boredom alone, or the fact that Fearne had once again become worryingly quiet, Hal suddenly felt the urge to revisit a concept that Malcolm had, until now, felt certain to be discarded.

‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘May God have mercy on us,’ said Malcolm in false prayer.

‘It couldn’t hurt to at least try jumping to Sunday.’

‘Harold, how many times. It. Will. Not. Work.’

‘Maybe you just need a boost,’ pressed Hal. ‘If we get close enough to our alive-selves, we could really give it some oomph.’

‘Besides,’ said Kara. ‘If you jump ahead in this restart, won’t it lock your past-self out? From using the boundary line, I mean?’

Malcolm stared at her blankly. She was right, of course.

‘Fine,’ said Malcolm, unexpectedly. ‘If only to bring an end to the matter once and for all.’

And with that, they made their way back to Fir Lodge, reasoning that Hal, Kara and Fearne could generate a far more effective surge of energy by remaining as close to their alive-selves as possible.

*

Once inside the lodge, using the communal living area as their anchor point, Malcolm held out his hands, each of them being taken by Hal and Kara, red and blue sparks filling the air around them, all of which entirely invisible to the living.

Fearne seemed reluctant, her arms crossed, and her pose guarded.

‘It’ll need all of us,’ said Kara softly.

Begrudgingly, Fearne stepped between Hal and Kara, completing the circle so they could initiate what felt an awful lot to Fearne like an ill-conceived séance of stupidity.

They had already discussed what the plan would be on the walk over; drawing upon their respective power, Malcolm would let go of their hands in the hope the energy would be enough to catapult him beyond the realms of their existing restart loop. If it worked, they would effectively be sling-shotting him into Sunday the 26th of August, where his second cycle of restarts had begun, and his comatose-self presumably still resided.

He broke contact with them, disappearing with the familiar ruffle of a heavy-set ground sheet being shaken out, leaving the three of them behind.

*

Malcolm flew through their current restart, his eagerness to reach the end fuelled by the knowledge that the act of doing so locked them all out from using the portal on the boundary line.

He wasn’t fond of leaving them so vulnerable. Or, more honestly, to allow them to make any hasty decisions without his say so.

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