The Hour Between

Prologue 3:17 At 3:17 in the morning, the lift arrived at Room Fourteen. Bellweather House did not have a Room Fourteen. Joseph knew this because he had worked the night shift there for eleven years. There were thirteen apartments on every floor, four floors in total, and a basement that smelled of wet concrete no matter how many times the management had it painted. He knew which residents came home drunk, which ones forgot their keys, and which ones pretended not to hear the lift when it stopped outside their doors. He knew the building. That was why he noticed the extra number. The lift bell sounded once. Joseph looked up from the visitor ledger. The doors stood open. The empty car reflected the lobby's fluorescent lights in long, sickly strips. On the security monitor, however, a man was getting out. Joseph leaned forward. The man wore Joseph's uniform. He had Joseph's thinning hair, Joseph's rounded shoulders, and the same small white scar near his chin from a fall off a bicycle when he was nine. He was Joseph. On the monitor, the other Joseph walked down the corridor towards the lift. The real Joseph remained seated. He looked at the clock above the desk. 3:17. On the screen, the other man pressed the button for the fourth floor. The lift doors closed around him. Its display climbed from G to 1, 2, 3, 4. Then the number changed. 14. Joseph stood so quickly his chair rolled backwards. The monitor showed the doors opening onto the fourth-floor corridor. The other Joseph stepped out carrying a small red umbrella. He walked to the end of the hallway, where there should have been a blank wall, and stopped. For eleven seconds he did not move. Then he turned towards the camera. He smiled. Joseph reached for the desk telephone. His hand would not close around it. The other Joseph set the umbrella against the wall and returned to the lift. The doors shut. The display went dark. The umbrella remained. A white luggage tag hung from its handle. The camera zoomed in by itself, though Joseph had not touched the controls. Three words appeared on the monitor. YOU WERE THERE. Joseph looked at the actual lobby. A red umbrella lay across the visitor ledger. Water dripped from its fabric onto the page. There had been no rain that night. He was certain of that because he had stood outside ten minutes earlier to smoke. He backed away. The lift opened again. A young woman stood inside. Dark hair. A black coat. One hand pressed flat against the mirrored wall. She looked exhausted, as if she had been awake for years. Joseph had never seen her before. He knew her anyway. Not her name. Not her face. Something worse: the sensation of having once been asked to remember her and having failed. The lights flickered. The woman spoke. “Did you keep it?” Joseph could not answer. “Please,” she said. “Tell me you kept it.” The emergency lights came on. The lift was empty. The umbrella had vanished. On the visitor ledger, beneath Joseph's last signature, a new line had appeared. ROOM 14 — 3:17 A.M. The signature beside it was his. Joseph stared until the letters seemed to crawl across the paper. His phone rang. The caller ID showed his own number. He answered. For several seconds there was only breathing. Then his own voice, older and frightened, whispered:“Don't let her remember.” The call ended. Joseph looked at the monitor. The fourth-floor corridor was empty again. He opened the incident log and began to write. At the top of the page, he wrote the date. Then he stopped. He could not remember what year it was. And on the monitor, in the corner of the frame, a little boy stood holding a red umbrella.