Tragedy of the Gimbles

VII

Something told James that he should be dead. He even remembered dying, being pinned down and stabbed through the heart by his sister. He remembered the life draining out of him, recalled his lungs filling up with... I choked to death on my own blood. I died.

So when James opened his eyes, he wasn't surprised to see that he was no longer in the house.

He was seated in a small chair, made from simple wood. He was in a small room, all the walls of equal length, roughly ten or fifteen meters across. There were no doors, and no windows. There were, however, clocks.

A lot of clocks.

Whatever James had expected from the afterlife, this certainly wasn't something he had anticipated. Top to bottom, left to right, all four walls were covered in clocks. Some were digital, others analog; some were larger than others. One rather massive analog clock dominated the left wall, large enough to cover up a TV screen.

None of the clocks were active. Those with hands were set to 12:00 exactly. Those with digital displays were dark, empty where LED numbers should be brightening the room. James frowned. If the lights were all dead, how was he able to see? Looking around, he couldn't find a clear source of illumination in the room. It was as though everything was just... visible.

I suppose things don't need to make sense in the afterlife, do they? Hesitantly, James felt the area around his chest. The skin under his shirt was smooth and unbroken, as though a knife hadn't been forced through it just a few minutes ago.

"How long has it been?" James muttered to himself, breaking the deafening silence of the room. Somehow, speaking out loud made him feel a little less alone. Almost like somebody was in the room with him.

"About twenty-two minutes by Earth's reckoning, if you must know."

James gave a yelp of surprise, and flew to his feet, heart pounding. A man was standing against the wall of the room. James was certain he hadn't been there a moment ago. He was wearing a fine suit, brown with thin stripes of gold. His face, all too familiar to James, looked far more youthful than it had when they had last seen each other.

Then again, the last time they had seen each other was right after James had killed him.

In his shock, James uttered a word he hadn't used since he had first left for America. "Father?"

"Is that a question?" the man inquired dryly.

James barked out a chuckle, although he wasn't certain why, earning him a cocked head from the suited man. "Well, you are dead," he ended up saying. "So forgive me for being a little confused."

His father shook his head, seemingly in disappointment. "James, my dear boy... what did you expect? You died too. Did you think you would be able to avoid me in the next life? Did you, perhaps, believe that we wouldn't go to the same place?"

James felt his face growing warm from embarassment. Then he grit his teeth. We're both dead, and he's still making me feel like a moron! "I knew exactly where you would end up," he spat out. "I guess I was hoping that somebody would pardon me, seeing how I did the world a favor!"

The other man didn't respond to the taunt. Instead, he sighed. "I was hoping that this meeting might go better. But, considering our last encounter with one another, I suppose I was the foolish one." He checked his wristwatch. "But no matter. Your siblings should be arriving soon, so we'll have to cut our chat a little short."

James frowned. Nancy and Thomas... are they dead too? For some reason, the thought wasn't as delicious as he would have liked. "Why did you come here?" James asked. "Because if you wanted to gloat, let me remind you: you're in the exact same place as I am."

His father smiled. "Well, that's not entirely true, James."

Something about his tone put James on edge. "Meaning?"

The man gestured to the room with outstretched hands. "Meaning, dear boy, that you should probably get comfortable in here. After all, I did go to a lot of effort to throw this room together just for you." He clicked his tongue softly, as though forgetting something. "Well, I didn't build it, of course. But its architect is an old... friend, for lack of a better word."

"Architect?" James felt his eyes widen involuntarily. "You can't be-"

"But I am," the man said. "Anyways, he owes me a few favors. We've done... business... in the past." He chuckled lightly. "You know, the three of you really did surprise me. And I'm sure you'll be happy to hear about how furious I was when I first showed up here. But I'll admit... it was quite enjoyable to watch you three tear each other apart."

James was stunned. If he had the ability to speak in that moment, he would have forced his father to explain all of that over again. Nancy and Thomas were dead. His father had made a deal concerning him. You should probably get comfortable in here... "It's not fair," he muttered. A blunt observation, barely worth voicing. And yet, it was the only thing he could think at the moment.

The old man laughed, deep and booming, without a hint of sickness in his throat. "Fair? If you cared about what was fair, then you wouldn't have ended up here."

Behind him, something ticked. James spun around. One of the analog clocks, a small one in the corner of the wall, had sprung to life. Another tick, from the wall the old man was leaning against. James spun back to look to this new source of sound. The old man was gone. And the large clock he had been leaning against had begun to tick.

"It's not fair!" James cried. "You don't get to leave!" The two ticks were oh-so-subtly out of tune, a pair of horridly distinct noises barely out of symmetry. One of the digital clocks flashed to life, a long line of red numerals appearing on the once-blank display. Then another one. Then another analog clock.

"It's not fair, you bastard!" James ranted into the empty air. Clock after clock engaged its hands or its display, melding into a cacophany which was building with every moment. Impulsively, James slammed his fist into the glass face of one of the analogs. His fist flared with pain, although he hadn't so much as scraped the glass.

James crumpled onto the ground, nursing his throbbing hand. "It's not fair!" No response came from his cry. Only the incessant ticking of clocks.