Book Five, Chapter 114: First Bloodless

We were getting spoiled by having a camera that we could control.

After a few minutes of prepping and getting ready, we ran back through everything we had just spoken about. This time On-Screen.

We were doing our best to give the reactions we felt the information deserved.

The meteor shards are all different—oh my goodness!

The bad guy used to work at the other museum, and he stole a pendant with part of the meteor on it. How scandalous!

Anna was doing her best to stay positive and keep up with us.

Truthfully, she didn’t have as much experience as we did, and I could see her start to feel a little overwhelmed as we fell into our characters and communicated so easily.

“Everything is going to be okay,” Kimberly had told her. “No matter how well you do, it doesn’t matter. We just have to get to the end.”

And that was something I needed to remember, too. We didn’t need a home run; we just needed to get on base—or maybe some other sports metaphor. As long as we finished this storyline, everything would be okay.

It was so easy to second-guess yourself. Were we overcomplicating things with our plan? I had no idea, but Sal had made it clear that we needed to include some time-travel shenanigans, or else we would “go straight to DVD” and all that implied.

I just hoped that Carousel liked our taste in shenanigans.

🔴 REC    SEP 24, 2018 13:15:26    [▮▮▮▮▯ 80%]

“Look at this,” Logan said, holding the future newspaper. We had just examined the footage of the daylight dance again and discovered that there were multiple different versions of the meteorite shard and some fedora-wearing killers holding them. “The newspaper article changed.”

He turned the newspaper around, and I got a good view of the title for the camera:
CRIME MUSEUM STAFF SLAUGHTERED, OTHERS MISSING.

“Let me see that,” Kimberly said, grabbing the paper and reading the article.

“‘Museum employees Kimberly Madison, Logan Maize, Lila White, and Riley Lawrence are among those deceased or missing,’” she read aloud.

“Wait,” she said. “Lila doesn’t know anything about this. She’s not a part of it.”

She looked up at Logan.

“I don’t think Lila has been in for work today,” he said.

After a quick glance over to Lila’s desk, Kimberly started rushing off toward the old police station part of the museum where Lila worked. I followed behind.

“Lila!” Kimberly called out.

No answer.

She continued walking, and when we got there, we saw Lila’s little corner fingerprinting station had not been set up for the day, and the doors had not been opened.

Kimberly looked around in a panic.

“I’m going to go call her,” she said.

But then I said, “Wait.”

“What?”

“Do you hear that?”

Kimberly and the others were silent as the grave.

In the distance, there was the sound of metal clanging.

I followed the sound with the camera over into the dark part of the museum where the original courthouse had been.

As I walked into the room, the clanging got louder and louder.

“What is that?” I said aloud.

I walked further until I got to the entrance to the courthouse, which had long been boarded up—except, of course, for the mail slot.

I turned the camera and zoomed in on the slot. A little metal door banged as someone tried to shove something through it but struggled because whatever it was was just slightly too big. The slot cover could not open all the way.

Eventually, they figured it out and got their package to slide through.

I cautiously walked over and zoomed down on it, and from its shape, I guessed what it was.

“It looks like another tape,” I said.

“Wait, is he here right now?” Antoine asked from behind me, and I could hear him running back down the hallway.

The windows in this room were boarded up, so there was no way to see who had delivered the package.

I grabbed the package, and just from the feel of it, I could tell that it was a videotape. Then I began to run after Antoine as he went toward the proper entrance of the building and out onto the street.

We looked around at all the people downtown until Antoine locked eyes with one of them, who was in the right place to have just been at the front of the courthouse.

Antoine ran up to him, grabbed his shoulder, turned him around, and…

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…saw that it was a courier.

Carousel Courier Services.

CCS was emblazoned on his jacket.

“What’s your deal, man?” the guy said, clearly afraid.

“Did you just deliver a package to the old courthouse?”

“Yeah, why?” the guy said.

“Who sent it?” Antoine asked.

“I don’t know,” the guy said. “They don’t tell me that kind of stuff. Look, it was an old package scheduled for shipment years ago. I can’t just give random people details you can call the office. Just let me go.”

Antoine let go of the guy’s shoulder and threw up his hands in a pacifying gesture.

“Sorry,” he said. “I thought you were someone else.”

As soon as Antoine let go of him, the courier ran off.

Antoine turned and saw Kimberly.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “This has just got me on edge.”

“I understand,” Kimberly said. “I’m so sorry you got dragged into this.”

“Bet you’re really wishing you didn’t stay behind to do your insurance paperwork, huh?” I asked.

Antoine rolled his eyes. “I was just doing it so I didn’t have to come in today because I was thinking about taking my boat out on the water. It’s crazy how life ends up.”

Back inside, Kimberly opened the package and revealed a tape with the words “finger prints” written on it. It was definitely about Lila, as she had worked the fingerprint booth.

Bobby re-entered the room just as I was getting the tape loaded onto the computer.

“The doors are all locked,” he said.

“The worst part about being hunted by a time-traveling serial killer,” I said, “is that it turns out the time-traveling serial killer doesn’t know that ‘fingerprints’ is one word.”

As soon as I had everything working, I pressed play.

■ STOP