The First Small Thing

The last thing he had done was clutch his throat like he was listening to a voice no one else could hear. “He went exactly where the broadcast said,” Dale barked to the crowd gathering behind the barrier. “Go home. Back off.” Mara saw mud on the cuff of his sleeve and felt a nasty little click inside her head. The future broadcast had warned them not to let Dale near the archive cabinet. Now she was looking at the same man, standing in the same town, while his radio crackled with low static that sounded almost like laughter. “The adults are going to call this an accident,” Jessa said through her teeth. “Then they’ll forget why it happened.”