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The elevator doors closed behind Mabel Mora as she stepped in and hit the button for the lobby. She had the car to herself—the elevator stopped on the way down, on the sixth floor, but no one got on, which wasn’t exactly surprising; the sixth floor was just low enough that it almost always ended up being faster to go down the stairs. Someone had probably gotten tired of waiting.
She got out on the ground floor, went down the little hallway and turned right into the Arconia’s lobby—and stopped short, because one of the potted trees in the lobby was on fire.
No, not just one of the trees—as Mabel looked around, horrified, she saw that everything remotely flammable was burning: the stack of packages on the front desk, the paintings on the walls, even the old wooden piano that sat up against the wall and which she suspected hadn’t been tuned in fifty years.
“Hey!” Mabel yelled. “Fire! Help!”
No response—which was good, actually, it meant there wasn’t anyone around getting hurt, but she could see the fire spreading through the lobby and it didn’t seem likely it would stop there, which meant that everyone should be evacuating, the fire alarm should be going off—why wasn’t the fire alarm going off? All the smoke detectors couldn’t be dead, could they?
Mabel could see the pullable fire alarm on the wall just across the lobby. She had a clear shot to it right now, but the way back would be a closer call.
But the longer she stood there worrying about it, the worse her chances got, so Mabel ran forward.
She inhaled a lungful of smoke, hacked out a cough, lost her balance, fell to the ground, and blacked out.
The elevator doors closed behind Mabel Mora as she stepped in and hit the button for the lobby.
“Wait. What the fuck?”
She shook her head. She’d just been in the lobby, running for the fire alarm, and then she’d had one of her blackouts. Hadn’t she?
The elevator stopped at the sixth floor, but no one got on.
Yeah, no, this was the exact same…
She got out at the ground floor, walking more slowly than usual, still unsure of her footing, went down the little hallway, turned right into the Arconia’s lobby—
Which was on fire. Again.
Or, maybe not again ? Maybe still ? Maybe she’d fallen and blacked out and was currently having the stupidest dying vision of all time, in which the moments of her life that flashed before her eyes were neither the best nor the most important and included a lot more elevator than she would have imagined was generally included in a dying vision.
The fire alarm was still there on the wall, and this time Mabel covered her mouth and nose with her arm and walked, rather than ran, towards it.
She made it across and got her hand on the fire alarm—but before she could pull it, she felt the barrel of a gun against her back, and a low voice said in her ear, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Mabel lifted her hands away from the alarm and started to turn around—
And the gun went off, and Mabel blacked out.
The elevator doors closed behind Mabel Mora as she stepped in and hit the button for the lobby.
“Jesus fucking Christ, not again.”
Down to the sixth floor.
Down to the lobby.
Fire everywhere.
And clearly this was no accident—neither the fire itself nor the failure of the smoke detectors. The guy with the gun had been proof of that. Someone wanted the Arconia and everyone in it to burn.
Mabel hung back this time, just poking her head around the corner from the lobby. If she could just catch sight of the guy, maybe find out who he was, then she could get the cops, the fire department, something. At least she’d know who she was dealing with.
She saw him then—it was hard to get a look at his face, since he was covering his nose and mouth in the same way she’d done last time, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t anyone she recognized. Mabel grabbed her phone and took a photo; not the clearest quality, but it was something to go on, anyway.
The guy made his way through the lobby, heading…
“Oh, shit,” said Mabel, because he was coming towards the elevators.
Mabel ducked back towards the elevators and jabbed at the up button, but the elevator she’d been in had apparently already headed back up for someone else, because the doors remained closed.
The guy turned the corner, and she could see his whole face now, and while it wasn’t completely unfamiliar it wasn’t anyone she could put a name to.
More importantly, he still had the gun.
Mabel blacked out.
The elevator doors closed behind Mabel Mora—
No they didn’t. Mabel thrust her arms forward, stopping the doors, and darted back out onto the landing. She wasn’t going down there again. Not without a plan.
She opened the Photos app on her phone, but the picture she’d taken of the guy was, of course, gone, because she hadn’t taken it yet this time around, had she?
Mabel headed for the stairwell and ran up two flights to the 14th floor.
“Mabel!” said Charles, opening his door. “Is everything okay? You didn’t text. You told me it’s ‘weird’ to show up without texting.”
“Yeah,” Mabel said. “It is. Unless it’s an emergency. Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Charles said, stepping aside to let her in. “Can I get you anything, or…”
“No. I’m fine.” Mabel took a deep breath. “Charles, I think I’m in a time loop.”
Charles blinked, then laughed, politely but unconvincingly. “Very funny. I mean, I don’t get it, but I’m sure it’s very funny if you do.”
“It’s not a joke,” Mabel said. “Listen. I keep going down in the elevator, and getting to the lobby, and then when I get there it’s on fire, and there’s some guy with a gun who either keeps shooting me or else I black out before getting shot, I’m not sure which one it is, and then I end up back in the elevator again and it starts all over. Except this time I came here.”
“So…you stopped it?”
“I don’t know! But what I do know is that the building’s on fire, and I can’t make it to the alarm.”
“Did you try the one in the hall?” Charles asked.
“In the hall?”
“Yeah. You know. Up here.” Charles opened his door and pointed at the wall across from his apartment. “This alarm.”
Mabel put her hand to her head. “Right! Right. I could just pull this one. Okay. Great. Thanks, Charles.”
“So,” said Charles, after a moment. “Why aren’t you doing it?”
“I don’t know,” Mabel said. “I mean, it felt real, like really real, the last couple of times, but this time it’s like—it sounds so stupid when I say it to you. And I’m just—I mean, do you think the building’s on fire?”
Charles sniffed the air. “Well, it would take a while to make it all the way up here if it started in the lobby, but, no, I don’t think it’s on fire.”
“Yeah. Me neither. But the thing is that I know, that every other time…”
“If you’re waiting for me to tell you to do it,” Charles said, “I have to let you know that I have a policy against being implicated in any kind of false-evacuation shenanigans.”
“What’s your policy on letting-everyone-die-in-a-fire shenanigans?”
“That one actually isn’t set in stone yet.”
“Right,” said Mabel. “You know, based on how things are going today, the odds that this even takes are reasonably low, so. What the hell.”
She went out into the hallway, put her hand on the fire alarm—
And blacked out.
The elevator doors—
“Well, fuck,” said Mabel, and hit the button for the 10th floor.
“Oh, hello, Mabel,” said Oliver, who was holding a bowl of tzatziki and a half-eaten celery stick. “Dip?”
“No thanks,” Mabel said. “Oliver, I’m in a time loop.”
“A time loop?” said Oliver. “Oh! Like Groundhog Day. You know, Bill Murray and I once escaped a sex cult in Connecticut together.”
“Great. I’m guessing he didn’t share any practical time-loop tips?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Okay. Well. I’ve been down to the lobby three times now, and someone’s setting it on fire, and I can’t seem to stop him or to get to the alarm to set it off. And I thought me dying was what was triggering the loop, but last time around I tried to pull the alarm on Charles’ floor and I ended up back at the beginning instead. So either it’s on some kind of timer or I have to actually solve it to get out.”
“You went to Charles first?”
“He lives closer?”
“We both live two floors away!”
“Oliver! Focus.”
“Right, right. Do you want me to come down there with you? I’ve been taking Arthritis-Friendly Taekwondo. I could help you incapacitate the arsonist.”
“That’s, uh, really sweet of you, but…probably not.”
“Are you sure? I’ve been told I have a mean roundhouse kick. Well, it’s more of a roundhouse lift, for hip reasons, but I’m pretty sure it should get the job done.”
“Yeah, I’m…really okay, thanks.”
“Suit yourself.”
“So pulling the fire alarm doesn’t work,” Mabel said, “and lying in wait for the guy doesn’t work, and pulling the fire alarm up here doesn’t work. And I only get like ten minutes in each loop, so I don’t think I can make it down to the lobby before the fire’s started.”
“And you don’t know who’s starting it? Or why?”
“I didn’t recognize the guy—” Mabel started, and blacked out.
The elevator doors—
Okay, so it was definitely a timer, then. Mabel fumbled in her pocket for her phone and texted Charles “Come to Oliver’s. Right now,” then hit the button for 10.
“Hello, Mabel,” Oliver said. “Dip?”
“Is Charles here yet?”
“Is he supposed to be?”
“I think I need both of you,” Mabel said.
“Mabel?” Charles called from the hallway. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” Mabel said. “Come in. Listen. Guys, I’m in a time loop.”
“A time loop? Oh, like Groundhog Day !" Oliver said. "You know, Bill Murray and I once esc—"
"Escaped a sex cult in Connecticut together," Mabel finished.
"Oh, had I told you that one before?"
"Yeah. The last time we had this conversation."
“And how many times have we had this conversation?”
“This one? Just the two. But I think it’s been, like, five or six loops now for me.”
“Hey,” said Charles, “if this goes on long enough, we might all end up the same age.”
“I don’t think that’s how time loop aging works,” Oliver said.
“Did Bill Murray tell you that?”
“Guys!” Mabel said. “I really don’t want to do this another time. I’m stuck in a time loop. I keep going down to the lobby. It’s on fire. I try to pull the alarm and a guy shoots me.”
“Do you know the guy?” Oliver asked.
“No. I got a picture once, but it’s gone now. Although—do you have something I can draw with?”
“Sure!” said Oliver, picking a crayon up from a cup on the counter and giving it to her. “This was the crew gift from the gritty dramatic retelling of Harold and the Purple Crayon I directed in 1998. It—”
“Paper?” Mabel asked.
“Right here,” said Oliver, handing her a flyer for the Arconia’s Spring Residents Mixer.
“Thanks,” said Mabel, and closed her eyes, picturing the arsonist. Granted, she hadn’t seen him for three loops now, but that was also only about half an hour, so his face was fairly fresh in her mind, and she managed to get what she thought was a decent likeness down even with unwieldy crayon strokes.
She held up the drawing to Charles and Oliver. “Either of you recognize him?”
Charles shook his head. “Sorry.”
Oliver frowned. “You know, if he was a little less purple, I’d almost say it was that guy that got evicted for having too many exotic pets. I never met him, because lizards and I have a whole mutual-hatred thing, but I remember Howard telling me about him. He lived on the sixth floor. They had to confiscate so many minks, it was like a Neiman Marcus fire sale.”
“Sixth floor?” Mabel said, mind racing. “The elevator—every time I’ve gone down to the lobby, it’s stopped on the sixth floor, and no one’s gotten on. I figured whoever it was just decided to take the stairs instead. But if it was him calling the elevator that recently, I might have a shot at—”
Blackout.
The elevator doors started to close, but Mabel stuck her arm out, stopping them, and tore hell-for-leather towards the stairway. She was starting six flights up from the arsonist—did she even have a shot at making it down in time?
As she entered the stairwell, she remembered, when she was a kid, racing Tim down the stairs, one of them running, one of them sliding on the railing.
The railing, she remembered, always won.
Well, it wasn’t like she wouldn’t get another shot if she cracked her skull on the way down, was it?
Mabel hopped up onto the railing and slid, slowly at first but gaining speed floor by floor. She’d always been good at the quick turns needed to get down without falling off, and she could feel the muscle memory of this same stairway coming back to her as she slid.
No sign of the arsonist yet, though, and Mabel worried that maybe this, too, was the wrong choice.
But as she slid around the corner onto the first floor and hopped off the railing, she saw, just outside the door into the lobby, one of the building’s fire extinguishers.
Which Mabel had always seen as a multi-use item.
She grabbed the fire extinguisher and went through the door into the lobby, holding one hand over her nose and mouth to stop the smoke that was already rising—although it seemed like maybe the fire hadn’t spread as much as the other times? Not yet, at least?
She could see the arsonist’s back as he headed towards the elevators and the exit, and she walked as quickly and quietly as possible towards him, fire extinguisher in hand, holding her breath both to avoid smoke inhalation and out of the fear that he’d turn around again.
Once she was within striking distance, Mabel heaved the fire extinguisher up as high as she could and brought it down firmly on the arsonist’s head.
He fell to the ground, his gun going off—fortunately away from both of them—as he did. Mabel pulled back the fire extinguisher and turned back towards the lobby, and sprayed, coating everything in the lobby in a dense white foam.
Once she’d exhausted the extinguisher, she stepped back, breathing heavily, and looked around. The arsonist was still on the ground, not stirring (although she thought she could see him still breathing, which was probably for the best); the fire was out entirely; and apparently one of the lobby smoke detectors had finally decided to work, because the alarm was sounding.
Mabel waited a few seconds, half-expecting another blackout—either as a loop restart, or just from stress. But she stayed conscious and upright, and, grinning with relief, tossed the fire extinguisher to the ground and joined the crowd of residents streaming out into the courtyard.
“Mabel!” said Oliver, waving her over. “Are you all right?”
“You look like you were in the fire,” Charles said, laughing a bit.
“Yeah,” said Mabel. “Funny story.”
Oliver gasped. “You were in the fire! Did someone really set it on purpose?”
“I think so,” Mabel said. “But he’s…I took care of that.”
“All by yourself?” Charles asked, frowning. “You could have asked us for help, you know. We could probably do something. I owe you one for convincing Oliver to stop referring to me as chat.”
“I still think I was using it correctly,” Oliver said. “But Charles is right, loath though I am to say it. You could have asked us for help.”
Mabel smiled. “Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “I did.”