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The Butterfly Effect Novelization by James Swallow Based on the screenplay by J. Mackye Gruber and Eric Bress

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Evan watched Carlos’s eyes glaze over as he tried to explain how the flashbacks worked. He found himself using his hands to indicate places and times, but the more he got into it, the less his cellmate seemed to follow the logic. He stopped for a moment, and peeled one of the tattered pages off the ceiling of the cell and gripped it tightly. Carlos was the closest thing to an ally Evan had in the prison and if he started to tune him out, he might lose everything. “ Look, when I do this, it’s like I’m in a trance, or something.” He held up the paper for emphasis. “You see people do that in church, right?” Carlos gave a slow nod. “Like the Rapture.” He was still unconvinced, and only the lure of winning a carton of cigarettes was keeping him interested. “ So, when I’m out, I need you to watch my face and hands closely.” The other man studied him. “You know what I think? I think you need to see the prison shrink, man.” Evan gave an exasperated sigh; it was clear that Carlos would only accept proof that he could see. Both men paused as the mail cart rolled past the open door of their cell and Evan was surprised to see Snake pushing it. “Hey,” he said expectantly. “Anything today?” If his mother had managed to get some other journals to him, then his attempts to coerce Carlos could be forgotten; but Snake shot down that hope with a thin smile. “Yep. Just not for you.” Evan didn’t bother to mask the disappointment on his face, and he turned back to Carlos, holding the worn page firmly in his fist. “Look, will you do this for me? I need you to watch my back while I’m under… I don’t want Karl slitting my throat while I’m out.” When the convict didn’t reply straight away, Evan tapped the unopened packet of smokes in his pocket. “Come on, man. What have you got to lose?” “ I guess. So what should I do?” Evan rested himself against the wall and flattened out the paper on his lap. “Just tell me afterward, if anything weird happens.” “ Weirder than this?” said Carlos, watching him doubtfully. “There might be something on me, marks or scars, I dunno. Anything could happen, I guess. You ready?” “Go on then,” Carlos folded his arms. “Go talk to Jesus.” Evan swallowed hard and studied the page before him, silently reading the words written there in a labored child’s hand. On wensday I got in trouble for a drawing that I didn’t do. Mommy won’t let me see it. It came instantly now, easy and free; the pressing sensation across the inside of his skull, moving and vibrating with hollow echoed resonance. His vision fogged, and as it blurred and changed he saw the bars of the cell begin to deform and shiver. Carlos’s face studied him with concern and then it too began to slip and alter, falling away from him. Evan heard the sound of children’s voices, growing louder, filling his senses as his consciousness detached from his body and snapped back through the years. The cell trembled around him— And it was gone, fading like a mirage. Evan’s head jerked like a poorly worked puppet’s and he shook off the aftershock of the shift. He blinked, held up his hands before his face and he wiggled the little podgy fingers. “I’m here,” he said aloud. His body felt strange, weak and shrunken. “ So am I!” said a child, and he glanced at the speaker. Kayleigh’s seven year-old smile beamed at him from the next desk over. He glanced around. Evan’s first grade class was just as he had remembered it, the chattering hordes of kids all hard at work on sprawling pictures, some of them gluing pieces of paper together or sprinkling glitter over wet paste. He looked down at his own piece of construction paper that was blank save for a scribble of words at the bottom left corner of the page: Evan Treborn, Age 7. “What… what are we drawing?” he asked, his words sounding strange in the high-pitched voice of a little boy. Kayleigh worked at her paper and answered without looking up. “We gotta draw what we want to be when we grow up.” Evan nodded and looked back at the blank paper, wondering how he could turn this flashback into something that would help him in the future. For a brief second he considered writing a note, something explaining what would happen in thirteen years time but rejected the notion just as quickly. Sure, like anyone would take some little kid’s wacko scribbling seriously… The teacher wandered past, raising an eyebrow at him but said nothing. Evan watched her go. Boswell. That was her name, Mrs Boswell. He’d never really liked her as a child, but as he watched her circle the classroom, Evan found himself re-evaluating her with an adult’s eyes—she was actually quite attractive, in an older woman, prim and proper kind of way. He made a few experimental lines on the paper with a black crayon, then discarded it. Evan reached for a box of colored pencils, but another boy snatched at them first and he jerked back. “ I’m using these!” said the boy. “Tommy?” Evan managed. “ What?” snapped Tommy Miller, giving him a combative stare. “Find your own pencils, Evan!” His heart thumped in his chest as he looked at the child who would grow into the man he had killed, and Evan felt his stomach turn over. Tommy spilled the pencils out across the desk and started to draw, pausing to elbow Lenny Kagan when the portly kid crowded him a little. After a moment, Tommy glared at him. “ What? Why are you staring at me?” “No-nothing,” Evan said, tearing his eyes away. “It’s nothing.”

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