“This sound is the kind that is heard by the bowels. It is both native and alien, as if in its initial resonance, it holds some fellowship with the natural world, but in its echoes it is something weird. The mêlée—that strange marriage—is dissolved, the warriors divorced. Each stands alone, isolated now in his own fear, looking into the canopy that is still bandying the echoes of the shriek.”

“Curt rushed in, brandishing the stopwatch that was sweeping past nine seconds, but Derek punched him in the face. Scotty fell to the quivering concrete, his hands over his ears. Someone was screaming, but he closed his eyes. The last thing he saw was the woman, her lips parted in a grin. Bits of dust shook loose from the ceiling.”

“And then it got weird. Not the game. Amber noticed first, said it was like someone was messing with the contrast in Photoshop. The colors started…I mean, everything started to look brighter, more colorful, like the pigment in our skin, or the garbage, or the dirt had woken up, or something. Like the photons from the moon and the streetlights and our flashlights were waking up.”

“Apparently giving people a blank check to mess with the timeline is a bad idea. Banks keeps telling us what a crime it is and how going back in time to change things is one of the most selfish things a person can do. He says its forcing your will on the time stream and, you know, yada yada yada.”