Remember WENN and the characters therein are owned by Rupert Holmes, Howard Meltzer Productions, and a lot of other people who are smarter and more talented than I could ever hope to be. This particular story is entirely my own.
Note: I decided that since my previous stories were all rather conventional, I would go for seriously weird with this one. Please regard this story as "Remember WENN meets The Twilight Zone."
The Loop
By Dana Sherman
"Betty, I need you to release me from the loop."
Betty Roberts held the door open and tried not to shriek or faint. It was doubtful that her 82 year old lungs could manage to scream, but fainting was a distinct possibility. The man standing on her doorstep was Scott Sherwood. Scott Sherwood looking young and handsome. Scott as he had looked in 1941. He was even dressed in the clothes of that era, although in an outfit Betty had never seen. A pure white dinner jacket. He had never looked so gorgeous.
"What," she stammered. She had always had her wits about her. Could senility set in within ten seconds, she wondered.
"I need you to release me from the loop," he repeated, stepping over her threshold into the little California bungalow, where she had lived alone for so many years. She had a CD of the Casablanca soundtrack playing. Could she be dreaming, she suddenly thought, or hallucinating.
"Betty, you are my last chance to escape. Please, if you have any mercy, help me," Scott stopped suddenly, staring into the old woman's terrified face. "You don't understand, do you? Well, there is no reason why you should."
"Are you a ghost, Scott, or did you stay young when everyone else grew old? It wouldn't surprise me. Did you make a deal with the devil like Dorian Grey?"
"Neither one, Betty. Although I'm more a ghost than anything else. I'm trapped in a time loop. If you don't do exactly what I tell you to do, I will be there for eternity. I think I've been there for more than 50 years already, but there's no way I can be sure."
Betty stopped being frightened. Scott Sherwood was a man she had known, had loved, even had married during the most beautiful and turbulent three years of her life. The divorce had been her fault. She was not such a fool that she hadn't realized that. She was too obsessed with Victor Comstock. Too connected to him. Scott had stood it for as long as he could. He had stood it until that night in 1945, three years after their wedding, when he suddenly told her he could not take one more minute of his wife's adoration of another man. He had left Betty, and their little daughter Victoria, that night. He vanished into the darkness. Betty had never seen him again. Until now.
"What do you want me to do, Scott?" she asked. "What happened to you?"
"Do you remember that night in the Green Room, the night that Victor came back?"
"Buy barley futures," she said, barely audible.
"My God, Betty, you were beautiful. I would have gladly have died for you on that night. I should have died that night. It didn't work out the way it was supposed to. It was a mistake. I lived, only to find myself trapped in this loop forever when I finally did die."
"What kind of a loop is it, Scott?" Betty didn't know why she wasn't terrified anymore, but she had always been willing to accept Scott Sherwood for whatever he was. She had given up trying to change him a month after they met. He had changed, of course. He had changed drastically, but she never knew how much she'd had to do with that.
"It starts the day I came to WENN. It goes through every single minute. I am there for everything we ever did there. All those crazy schemes I tried, the fixed quiz show, the all news day, the day my Aunt Agatha came. The day Victor died, or rather, the day we thought he died. I'm there for the entire quarantine. I'm there to fall in love with you and dream of you and want nothing more than your kisses. I'm there when I think of the plans for the Victor Comstock Memorial Fund, and I'm there when Pruitt finds out and fires me. I'm there when I kiss you in the hallway before I go, and I'm there when I get hired back as an actor. Then I'm there in the Green Room. Victor shoots me in the heart. I fall dead. And I find myself walking into WENN, holding a forged letter from Victor. It goes on from there, Betty. Forever, an eternity of missed opportunities, foolish mistakes. And as I'm there, experiencing it all thousands of times, I know every time I went wrong. I keep praying, begging, not to do it again. But I always do. You have to release me Betty. I was only allowed one chance to get out. I can't do it unless you can do it for me."
If this man wasn't Scott Sherwood, Betty wondered, who was he? Scott's son from another marriage, perhaps. Come to scam an old woman. She wouldn't be surprised. The dubious morality of the Sherwoods was hereditary. She watched for signs of it in Victoria often enough. But no, he couldn't be Scott's son. He was a perfect replica. Children might resemble their parents, but they were never exact copies. Even the voice was the same.
"I believe you, Scott. What happened to trap you and what can I do to get you out?"
"I was supposed to be shot by Victor. I was the last person in the room to say the code phrase. Then you said it and distracted him. I was able to escape. At least I thought I was. I know now that it would have been far better had I died at the time." He stopped to draw a breath. Did ghosts need to breathe, she wondered. "There is only one way it can be put right. Victor Comstock has to shoot me, like he was supposed to in the first place. But they tell me Victor is dead. So is Rollie Pruitt. Both died several years ago. I've been given one more chance. Someone who was in the Green Room has to kill me. You are the only one left." He handed Betty a gun. It was a 1941 revolver. The same kind Victor and Pruitt had carried that night, so long ago.
"You've gone mad, Scott," she told him. "I don't know how you managed not to age, but you can't stand there and seriously expect me to shoot you in cold blood. What do you think I am?"
"I think you're an angel, Betty Roberts. I think you're beautiful and noble and fine. I don't deserve to be in the same room with you. I never did. And I think you are the last chance my soul has to rest. You are the only way the loop can be broken and I can find out where it ends. Betty, please. I've been given one chance, and not a very long one, either." The gun felt heavy in her aged hands. They were weaker than they used to be in the days when she had typed day and night. Still, guns were not light. Not like they seemed to be in the movies.
"Where will you go after I shoot you, to heaven?" she asked, remembering her conventional religious upbringing.
"I don't know," he replied softly. "Here, all you have to do is squeeze the trigger like this. It will be easy and it won't hurt me." He put his arm gently around her. "I only know I will be happy. I will be released."
"Will I ever get there?" She suddenly didn't want to lose him. She had lost him so many years ago. She had a million regrets, missed opportunities and foolish mistakes of her own. When she died would she be trapped in the loop too? To regret everything she had ever done, and everything she had ever not done.
"I will make sure you do, Betty. I will make sure you arrive, young and beautiful, to a place where there is music and dancing, intrigue and mystery, beauty and romance. All the things in life I know you like. Please don't think about it anymore. Time is running out. Just do it now. Please, Betty." He helped her aim the gun at his heart. She found her fingers carefully squeezing the trigger.
*******
The neon sign for Scot's Café Mirage blinked on and off slowly in the dark Moroccan night. It was raining slightly, a rare thing in the desert, and the sign was wet, drips sparkling off it. The music played slowly. It was a romantic ballad sung by Samantha, the piano player Scot had once, in another life, known as Eugenia. Victor Comstock was there too, dancing with Lily, the beautiful singer he had come to love. Scot held Roberta closely, dancing with her, knowing he would never let her go. She was so young, so beautiful. Roberta snuggled against him. She vaguely remembered a time when she had been a girl named Betty Roberts, working in a radio station in Pittsburgh, but the memories of that life were already beginning to fade.
THE END
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