See Jack Die (Part 1 in the Paranormal Series) (See Jack Die Series)

by Nicholas Black

  I lean back and relax, taking my slow, deliberate breaths . . . just the way Dr. Culligan said I should when I need a time-out.

  And I'm breathing, in 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . out 4 . . . 5 . . . 6 . . .

  Positive pools of warm energy.

  I'm using my thumbs to lightly massage my temples. Then the top of my eye sockets. My eyebrows. The upper part of my nose.

  My palms press and circle around my cheekbones. Then I make soft imaginary rivers of energy from my temples, to the area just in front of my ears, and down to my lower jaw. All of it just like the good doctor told me.

  Self-meditation.

  It beats self-medication, I guess.

  And in 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . out 4 . . . 5 . . . 6 . . .

  Positive rays of healing power.

  I open my eyes, expecting to see things that will get your average guy locked away for a long, straightjacketed time. My eyes work their way slowly and tentatively, starting from one corner of the room to the other, studying each and every shadow. I don't want to miss anything.

  The black outside is beating out the blue, and it no longer looks peaceful and kind. The sun is running for cover, afraid of something. And my eyes continue to scan. Under a table, beneath a chair. To the corner where a lamp sits idly on a small end table. And I know, out of my peripheral vision, that something is going on around the chair where the book is. But still I don't rush my eyes there.

  I have to be a scientist about all of this.

  I need to be an objective observer.

  I must be a detective. Todd Steele.

  In 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . out 4 . . . 5 . . . holy shit!

  My eyes skipped past a dresser, and right to the chair where four spooks are gathered. My heart rate, maybe it jumped up a beat or two per minute. My mouth, perhaps it was dryer than it had been recently. And the little hairs on the back of your neck that tell you things are not as they should be, those hairs are all standing at attention.

  These spooks don't seem to notice me, not at all. And, come to think of it, they never have paid me much attention. Well, except for that first time, when those gatherers were digging in my chest. And I'd rather forget all that.

  But these spooks, they seem wholly concerned with the book, as if it's glowing or something. Maybe it is, to them. They're just crawling around, checking it out the same way they were checking-out that dead traffic cop in the morgue. They look like primitive scientists.

  The way they're all crouched, it's like they are considering something. Trying to figure out how to open it. How to steal it. They definitely seem bothered. One of them appears to be much more animated than the others.

  He, or she, is probably the ring leader of this invisible posse. This spook is circling the chair, very careful not to touch it, even with his shadowy fingers. Like the others I've seen, these are short, 3 ½ to 4 feet tall, bent forward and almost crouching as they walk. Their limbs, and especially their fingers and toes are long and curled, as if they have to hang on to trees or something.

  I don't understand why they would need fingers and toes like that, but then I don't understand why I'm looking at creatures made of shadows, either. I'm feeling braver, now. More confident than I ever have been around them. Not that I'm some expert, or anything. But I'm pretty sure that this isn't an everyday thing for most people.

  I wonder—as they huddle around the chair, gazing at the book—if I sent out some alarm when I felt the name drumming inside of me. Like a locater beacon or something.

  A tracking system from the netherworld?

  Satan's lo-jack?

  And then another possibility crosses my mind: what if I initiated a pager? Maybe my messing with the book sent out some signal. A call to the other side. And this is their advanced party coming to check it out. If that's the case, the grim reality sets in that they will eventually come looking for me.

  To make contact.

  To establish communication.

  Perhaps this is the way it's done. At first you see them for a few fleeting moments at night. Then during the day, when your tired. Pretty soon you see them after a set of sit-ups in the park. And when they're convinced that you're not going to pull a major freak-out, they make contact. This idea, while it sounds reasonable enough, sends shivers down my spine. I don't want to get the kind of attention that those other things—the gatherers—gave me before.

  All of the sudden the cold hugs my body and I feel myself shaking. I'm trying to breathe in 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . out 4 . . . 5 . . . 6 . . . but all that's happening is I can't breathe at all. My body is trying to stockpile oxygen and I'm starting to hyperventilate. I know they can probably hear me, now. My cover is blown.

  Somehow, though, they don't notice me losing control. And accidentally, I have performed my first experiment. They can't hear me. Suddenly, the shivering stops, as if my brain told the rest of my body to nut-up! Be a man.

  I get a little bold, and whisper, “Hey . . . spooks.”

  Nothing.

  “Spooks!” I say a bit louder. “Over here you spooky bastards.”

  They're still focused on that book.

  I carefully crawl to the edge of my bed and sit, my feet dangling just a few inches from one of them. And in a natural voice I say, “What do you want? Why are you messing with me? Why does this book interest you?”

  And those rude little bastards don't answer. Not only can they not see me, but I'm not sure they can even hear me. “Hey, you little bitches!” I bark.

  With an empowered sense of strength and vigor, I kick my left foot a few inches forward, pushing through one of them. And that will go down as one of the dumber things I have done in my 4-and-change months of life.

  They all stop what they're doing and turn to face me. Suddenly the book isn't so important to them. They are not moving, now. Just looking at me. I can't see any eyes, but I know from their body positions that they're only concern is me. That I am now much more important than some dusty old book.

  Those shivers I had before, they were like a massage compared to the sheer fucking panic that engulfs me like a typhoon.

  I close my eyes, leaning slowly back, knowing that they're probably surrounding me. I keep my eyelids shut with more force than the muscles in my face have ever had to exert. I try that breathing in-and-out stuff, but that's not happening. At this point, I'm just hoping they don't start hacking at my chest, again.

  It could have been minutes, maybe hours, I'm not sure. But when I finally opened my eyes . . . they were gone. The book was still in the chair, seemingly untouched. I glanced at my chest, there was no gaping hole in it. So that was a relief. I looked back across the apartment. Nothing.

  All gone.

  Their excursion, or my delusion, was over.

  I got up, my shirt was drenched with sweat, and walked to the kitchen where a stainless steel wash basin was dripping water at a semi-constant rate. The drops at the bottom of the sink were like bright pearls, with tiny diamonds around them. So many colors in just those pearls of water and the brushed grey and silver of the basin. All those shades I wouldn't normally stop to notice.

  I ran the water for a moment, and when it was cold to the touch I cupped my hands and splashed my face several times. Each time I felt more alive. More safe. Grounded in reality. Whatever it was that was happening to me, I was learning to control it. If I didn't mess with them, then hopefully they would leave me alone.

  To observe.

  To study.

  I took a couple gulps of water, straight from my hands. I didn't much care if that was sanitary or not. I was so thirsty that I didn't have time to fill up a glass and drink like a civilized adult. The liquid invigorated my body. The coldness crawled from my stomach and throat outward. Kind of like it was charging me.

  Stopping to breath, I realized that, for the first time, I felt good. Really good. I was lucky, even. This, whatever it turns out to be, is special. And that made me feel special. I'm not like the next guy in line at the grocery store.
I'm not the same as my neighbors, or the old lady on the bus. I have a purpose.

  I am supposed to do something.

  Something important.

  I lift my head, cold pearls of water falling down my face, down my neck, and melting into my shirt. I take a deep cleansing breath, and turned around. And a dead girl is standing right in front of me.

  Chapter 14

  Jack's kitchen.

  14 seconds later . . .

  I froze.

  She was young, maybe in her 20s. She had long dark hair that looked flat, almost wet. She was searching my face with wide wanting grey eyes.

  Her face was somber, lifeless.

  Her arms were at her sides, her shoulders hanging off of her body as if she was the saddest creature on earth.

  Everything about her was cold and dead. She didn't say anything. She didn't move. Just inches away from my face, she might have been a mannequin. A life-size poster of a girl. This is pretty much what you imagine when you're thinking about hauntings.

  Nothing moved. Nothing at all.

  And then she blinked.

  I felt myself not being able to breathe. I felt flush and dizzy. This was way beyond anything I had bargained for. I need air, but am too afraid to move so much as a muscle. But she wasn't going anywhere. Just her silent, probing glare. And all around us it's freezing cold. Like, frost-on-windows cold. Your-breath-making-mist cold.

  The back of my jaw is starting to quiver, and I'm worried she'll see my fear. Feel it. Feed from it.

  And my only choice is to close my eyes, hoping she'll be gone when I open them. So I squeezed every muscle in my face, as if it was my only protection.

  My barrier of safety.

  My safe zone.

  And when I finally open my left eye, just a fraction . . . she's gone.

  I glance around the kitchen, then out into my apartment. But it's clean. Well, relatively speaking. I take a moment to catch my breath, her image still very clear in my mind.

  There was something about her that stuck with me. And it was much more than the fact that a ghost—for lack of a better explanation—was just standing inches from my face, in the middle of my kitchen. It was more than that she was as cold and dead as a corpse. Her face was somehow, I don't know . . . familiar.

  Somewhere, at some point, somehow . . . I had known her.

  Chapter 15

  Saturday morning.

  4:52 am . . .

  I think I'm awake. Although, my body doesn't seem to be responding to anything I do. My eyes can move, but other than that I'm completely paralyzed. And this is one of the more worrisome positions I've been in. Not that this whole night hasn't been completely unraveling.

  I've been lying here for probably 15 minutes. I can hear the things going on around me. Somebody up above flushed their toilet a couple minutes ago. A cat outside in the parking lot was hissing at something. My refrigerator just dumped a fresh batch of semi-cubed ice. And here's me, just still as a board.

  An inanimate object.

  A useless thing.

  A piece of frozen meat.

  I can feel myself breathing. My body doesn't know my mind is awake. And I have this awkward feeling that I am actually two different pieces—the mechanical me, and the mental me. The first thing that starts to grip me is panic.

  What happens if there's a fire?

  What if somebody comes around looking for me? I can't move. Not a single muscle will listen to me. No cooperation with my body.

  I hope this isn't forever.

  I pray that this state I'm in will wear off, like drugs. Like, when you're coming down from anesthetics. Sobering up. Then the thought crosses my mind that this is a vivid dream. A super-intense, lucid dream. A hallucination. I'm just tricking the other parts of me.

  I try desperately to scream, and I start to squirm around inside of myself. A snake stuck inside his old skin. A butterfly in its cocoon. Like, the conscious part of me is not connected to the physical part of me. Not completely. And I feel sick, like I'm on a boat that's rocking in the middle of turbulent waters.

  What in the hell is happening?

  I hope I don't throw-up in my immobile state. I might drown. To drown in your own puke, not only would it be the pinnacle of embarrassment, but I imagine that it will be horribly painful. Drowning scares me more than any other type of death. Give me arrows, or lightening. I'll gladly take fire, or a firing line, even. Stone me, eat me, crush me up into little bits. But please, don't let me drown.

  Because—and I'm not sure why I have this intense fear—drowning is slow. You see it coming. You know the pain is on its way, and then it chokes you. And you're trying to fight the urge to breathe, but you don't have a choice. And then when you do, death grips you.

  See, with drowning, you're dead way before you actually die.

  You die, but are aware that you haven't yet died. It's a prolonged struggle into the abyss. Some people, it takes them several minutes to finally pass on. Can you imagine?

  And I feel this nauseous wave wash over me as my eyes start to water. I can't control any of it. Desperately, I am trying to remember any of those relaxation techniques that the doctors taught me. Something designed for people to get calm. And I'll just do the opposite of that. I'll do it backwards and wake-up.

  This is my plan, and it's fairly moronic.

  Since I can't control my breathing, the old 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . thing isn't going to fly. I don't have any feeling in my fingers or toes, so all of that positive energy crap is untenable. Somebody might find me and shake me back. Unlikely, though. Ricky isn't supposed to come over for several more hours.

  It's still dark outside. And as I'm coming to terms with my helplessness, something in my apartment starts to shake and vibrate. It's the glass patio door. Earthquake is the only thing I can imagine. In Texas? If it's an earthquake, I'm done for. This whole place will flatten and crush my body like a bug under a falling load of bricks.

  The shaking continues, but it's only just the patio door at first. Then the chair with the book on it starts to vibrate, too. Just those two things, the door and the chair. Everything else in the room is still.

  But more and more, different objects in the room start to shake and quiver. And they're getting so energetic that they begin to blur. That's it, I'm losing my mind. That's what all of this is about. It has to be. It's the only explanation that makes any sense. I just passed that mad scientist stage in my rotting cortex.

  The entire room—everything in it—is jiggling and blurry, and I feel this deeply powerful hum pressing me, like I'm stuck in a giant speaker box. The hum is pressing me from every side, and I feel like my body is sinking deeper and deeper into the depths of some dark lake, or ocean.

  And then it starts to fade, while the things—the chairs, dresser, kitchen cabinet, the Book of Sighs, the wall mirror, and the stand-alone lamp in the corner—they all bend and morph. They stretch and shift, longer in places, thinner in others. It's as if everything in my apartment went through some metamorphosis.

  Like everything was pliable and elastic. The lamp was taller, and tilted to the left. The dresser warped down in the middle, the edges twisting slightly. The refrigerator was no longer a perfect rectangular shape, but more of a trapezoid—the right side a few inches higher than the left.

  The chair where the Book of Sighs was sitting, it has stretched to nearly twice its original height, thinned in the middle, so that the book is hanging off both sides.

  And all of the color in my apartment—the soft browns, the blue carpet, the white trim around the door thresholds, even the brass door knobs—it's gone. All the color has been washed-out and replaced with shades of grey. Just like the droplets of water in the basin of the sink.

  The things that were black, they're not even black. They are still dark, but everything is a version of grey. Cold dead color. Outside—beyond my convexed, bulging glass patio door—is a wet blue sky.

  The same sky that rests in the time between dogs and wol
ves. Perpetual dusk and dawn. And I can't see any stars.

  This place I'm in, this dream world, it's a contorted, perverted version of the world I know. Even the clock on the wall is bloated and surreal, like it had been next to a blowtorch too long—pregnant and fat at the bottom, the hour and minute hands, twisted and gnarled. Maybe this is my brain trying to make sense of my disease.

  My advanced neuropathology finally taking over.

  My tumor eating up the parts of my brain that kept me sane.

  And I can't explain why, but I feel this sharp, icy cut in my chest. Not pain, so much as a cold, razor's touch. My head tries to lift, but all that happens is that my perspective shifts so that I am looking down at my chest. My clothes, they're all ripped and shredded.

  And on my chest, there's a giant incision. Not the 'Y' incision Ricky told me about from an autopsy. This is the straight cut made by those things . . . those Gatherers. The long, deep cut made by them when I first awoke in the hospital, and nobody seemed to care.

  As I look at this cut, I realize that it isn't sewn shut, or gaping open. It's just there, the skin choosing to stay closed instead of pouring my guts out into the world.

  This is death, my new life.

  I feel like I'm on the edge of a slide, about to fall off. I'm unsteady inside my broken body, and I know that at any moment I will fall off some cliff, pass some invisible line in the darkness. I sense myself sliding downward, again. Once more, I see the back of my eyes, from the inside. I see the inside of my nose, and my jaw, and my throat.

  And I'm sliding, falling out of me.

  And once inside my chest I see the dark bluish light pouring in from my incision, from my gaping hole. A rush of cool air grips me as my legs and lower body slip through this incision.

  I'm reaching for anything that will give me purchase. I claw at the insides of my body for something to hold on to. Some piece of me to keep me from leaving my body. But I can't feel anything.