Closed Loop

Chapter 1: The Beginning And The End

      The two-lane blacktop unspooled into the darkness like a forgotten ribbon. Hector's knuckles were bone-white, a stark contrast to the grimy plastic of the steering wheel that groaned under his grip. Beside him, the passenger seat was empty, but he wasn't alone. A suffocating presence filled the car, emanating from the squat, wooden chest in the back. It was an anchor, a promise of damnation he was cursed with towing through the witching hour. A shovel lay on the floor below it, its clean spade glinting with the occasional passing of a lonely streetlight.
        He swallowed, the sound loud in the coffin-quiet of the car. Fear was a cold, dense stone in his gut, but anger was a buzzing hornet in his skull—a furious, confused rage directed at his wife, at himself, at that damn chest. He still couldn't trace the logic of his decision, to drive it out here himself. The rules of this Pandora's Box, as explained by Nancy in impatient tones, twisted in his mind until they were a tangled knot.
        A sudden, violent thump-thwump from behind made him jerk the wheel, the car swerving perilously close to the shoulder. It was a sickeningly soft percussion that his heart hammered in time with. Anything but that. With a choked curse, he wrenched the car onto the gravel shoulder, the tires crunching to a halt under a canopy of skeletal oak branches that clawed at the starless sky.
        He killed the engine. The sudden silence was deafening, broken only by the soft chirping of crickets and the frantic thumping of his own pulse. He fumbled for the door handle, his breath fogging the cold window. Outside, the air was thick and damp, heavy with the smell of wet earth and decay. He circled to the back of the car, his movements as stiff and uneasy.
        He pulled open the rear door and stared in. The chest sat there, impassive. The silver dial on its lid was set to a date and time that no longer held meaning, and the dull grey button beside it coldly stared at him. He reached in, his fingers trembling so violently he could barely grasp the edge of the heavy lid. It came up with a soft groan of old hinges.
        A large, black trash bag filled the interior. He tugged at the plastic, his fingers catching on the knot. It came loose with a yielding, wet pull.
        The smell hit him first, a coppery, metallic tang that clogged his throat and sinuses. It was the smell of blood, thick and unmistakable. He recoiled, a sour wave of bile rising in his throat. Forcing himself to look, he peeled open the black plastic. His fingers, now covered with something more than sweat, pulled away darkened.
        It was a woman. Her long, blonde hair was matted on one side, plastered to her skull with drying blood. A delicate metal spiral necklace, incongruously beautiful, rested against the pale, blood-spattered skin of her throat. She wore a white shirt and white pants, now sullied with a sickeningly large, dark stain that stretched from the back of her head. Behind her lay a bloody a claw hammer, its head caked in gore and hair.
        Hector stumbled back, away from the car, his hands flying to his mouth as his stomach revolted. He doubled over, vomiting onto the gravel, the harsh, acidic spasms racking his body until nothing was left. When he could finally breathe again, gasping in the humid air, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaving a smear of blood and bile across his cheek.
        He shambled back towards the open car door, his mind a screaming void, just as the world was split apart by blinding headlights. He froze, a trapped animal pinned in the glare. The car slowed, its headlights dipping toward the asphalt before a violent pulse of red and blue light washed over the scene in jagged, silent waves. A squad car. It pulled up directly behind him, its engine a low rumble.
        Panic, pure and undiluted, shot through him. No one would believe him. The thought was a second, colder wave of terror that eclipsed the first. He thought of Nancy, her infuriating, cold insistence that he'd brought this on himself. In the eyes of the world, he would be a monster with a preposterous alibi: framed by the future for a crime yet to come. No tracks. No suspects. No witnesses. He was utterly, terrifyingly alone with this nightmare. There was no explanation, no appeal to reason, only the damning evidence now staining his hands and shirt.
        He had to hide it. He grabbed the edges of the trash bag, his bloody hands slipping on the plastic as he tried to stuff the horrific contents back into their wooden tomb. He slammed the lid shut and shoved the chest deeper into the car, a futile, desperate act.
        "Car trouble?" a voice called out, calm and authoritative. The silhouette of a cop detached itself from the blinding lights, one hand resting casually on his hip. He was a faceless arbiter of Hector's fate, his steps crunching on the gravel, each one a hammer blow against Hector's sanity.
        "Everything alright here?" the officer asked again, closer now. Too close. He would see the blood on his shirt, on his hands, on his face.
        The cop's gaze flicked from Hector's wide, terrified eyes down to his trembling hands, then to the dark, wet stains blooming on his shirt. The casual posture vanished. His body went tense, his hand dropping from his hip to the butt of his gun. "Sir, I'm going to need you to step away from the vehicle. Keep your hands where I can see them."
        "No," Hector stammered, his voice cracking. He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender that only served to highlight the damning crimson stains. The sharp, metallic click of a holster's snap cut through the night air. The officer's gun was drawn, level, and aimed directly at Hector's chest.
        "No! You don't understand! I've been set up!"