The Cutting Room: A Time Travel Thriller Read Online Free PDF

laughed and thumped down steps. Lots of babble. Then the acoustics closed in, going echoey. He'd gone inside. The young voices talked a few minutes more, then the teacher began the day's reading lesson.
    In a way, being able to hear his surroundings but not see them made it even worse; every time a door opened or a chair scraped, I imagined the killer entering the room or getting up to lead Stephen away. My imagination grew legs. Perhaps the attacker wouldn't talk Stephen into leaving with him. Maybe he'd grab the boy and sedate him unconscious. I'd hear nothing but the slam of a car door and the hum of an engine, steady through the walkie talkie, but growing further and further away by the moment.
    Stephen answered a couple of the teacher's questions, but otherwise talked little, even when the bell let them out for first recess and the other children screamed and laughed and raced across the grass. I was a couple blocks away and I couldn't identify Stephen among the groups playing tag and four square and touch football.
    The bell rang. I heard the rustle of kids moving to a new classroom. I was concerned about the batteries. I didn't know enough about the ancient devices to know whether having the talk button pressed down all day would run its charge out too soon.
    Another bell rang. Shuffling and chatter came through the walkie talkie. After a minute, it took on the hollow acoustics of a large enclosed space. Cafeteria, most likely. Confirmed when a kindly-sounding woman asked Stephen whether he wanted fries. The scrape of plastic cutlery. Trays slapping on tables. Either Stephen was eating alone, or his friends were as laconic as himself.
    A door clunked, followed a moment later by the metal thump of its closure. Fabric rasped through my receiver. Kids were scattered around the playground, kept safe by the chain link fence and the bone-deep social law that they were off-limits.
    "Hey!" The man's voice came through my speaker so clearly I jolted, thinking he'd crept into the car with me. "Remember me?"
    "Yeah," Stephen said. "You ran into me."
    "And you tore your pants. Well, I brought you some new ones to make up for it. Want to go get them?"
    There was the briefest of terrible pauses. "Yeah."
    "Right over here."
    My nerves fritzed out. I knew the voice, but it took me a moment to place it. David Prince.
    I strained my neck, but couldn't pick them out from the vast expanse of grass. A couple of grown women stood by themselves, observing the kids as they exercised away their cafeteria lunches, but I saw no sign of a grown man with a six-year-old boy. I got out of the car and ran across the asphalt.
    "Where are we going?" Stephen said.
    "My car. It's right over here."
    More rasping fabric. The walkie talkie must have been in his pocket. I reached the staff lot. Still no sight of Prince or Stephen. I went to the chain link fence and sprinted along its outside edge.
    A latch snicked. "It's right in there."
    A soft thump. A hard slam. Stephen yelled. An engine started up, heavily muffled.
    "It's dark!" Stephen said. "He put me in a place and closed the lid."
    My heart stopped. I ran through the dirt along the fence, dust puffing from my shoes.
    "It'll be okay," I said. "Hang on. It'll all be fine."
    But Stephen couldn't hear me. He whimpered. Tires gritted against pavement. I got past the edge of the school, taking sight of the visitor lot just in time to see a white sedan pull into the street. I zoomed my eyelens as close as it could go but couldn't snap a plate or a make.
    But he was headed northbound. General direction of his house. The noise transmitted through the receiver faded, replaced by static. I ran back to my car as fast as I could and accelerated into the street, tires squealing.
    "Mr. Din?" Stephen said, voice gaining strength as I headed north. "Are you there?"
    "I'm here," I murmured.
    "Mr. Din?" Rodent-like scrabbling. The line went dead. I bit my teeth together. Static crackled. "I took off the tape, Mr. Din.