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

by Nicholas Black

  He believes in good because he has learned it in books, and desperately hopes it exists in and around him. His faith is based on words on a page.

  I believe in evil because I have seen it.

  Ignorance is truly bliss.

  “Maybe some other time,” I say as I head out into the bright sun.

  This man of the church, I think he was scared of me. I think that he might have seen something that I was only just now realizing. For better or worse . . . I'm a kind of monster, too. The depths of my nature are only now being explored by Ricky, Ms. Josephine, and I.

  A bit of humanity.

  A splash of divinity.

  Standing on the cusp of devastation.

  Chapter 48

  Jack's apartment.

  Wednesday afternoon . . .

  Ricky and I are engaged in an old-fashioned, wild-west stare-down. Me on the corner of my bed—unwavering, unflinching. Him sitting in one of my wooden chairs in the living room—solid as a rock. Both of our arms are crossed, our eyes narrowed and unblinking.

  What we're at a standstill about, that we've been arguing for the last 35 minutes over, is whether or not I can make another crossing to Deadside tonight.

  His position—and it's backed by years of medical data and empirical evidence—is that my body can't take repeated flirts with cold hypothermic death. My body will give-up, he says, and no amount of normal saline and hot blankets will keep me from ending up on the autopsy table.

  My position—backed mostly by my desire to help Kristen, and live out what just might be my destiny—is that I am getting better at this whole thing.

  This entire alive-dead-alive-again process.

  I'm practically an expert.

  I tell him that I'm accidentally designed for this crossing-over stuff.

  To which he wisely counters that, nobody can be designed to be repeatedly hit by trucks. Like Ms. Josephine said, “ . . . death is death.” His points are mostly valid, while mine are mostly emotional and heartfelt.

  And to be honest, I hate admitting that I can be so swayed by my attraction to a girl that I may or may not have been in love with. A woman who is at this moment in time . . . dead. It makes me feel weak and incapable, and I know that I must conquer this or I'll be useless to the living and the dead, both.

  “What did Ms. Josephine say?” Ricky asked rhetorically. We both know she was adamant about not going so soon.

  You know what she said. But, I countered, we can do it ourselves.

  “Without her, you and I can't communicate,” he pointed out. “There aren't cell phones in the Land of Sorrows . . . unless there's something I've missed.”

  I still have the necklace, I said. I can just empty it out and eat whatever the hell is in that pouch. And viola, I'm back!

  “Jack,” he said frustrated, “you don't have any sense of time over there. What feels like a couple of minutes could be a few hours over here. And then you're finished. What are you going to do . . . use the green ball in the sky to make a Deadside Sundial?”

  That's not a bad idea, I agreed.

  “I'm fucking kidding, dude!”

  And so here we are, arms crossed, staring each other down. I expect tumble weed to go rolling by at any moment. In my imagination old people are closing up small shoppes, the town grocery store, and the barbershop, while the blacksmith is shooing people away from the main street where Ricky and I are locked into our showdown.

  Who will blink first?

  Who's going to budge?

  I have to do this, Ricky, I say. It's bigger than just me. You've read the book. This is important. We're not the only considerations here.

  And he's thinking.

  The book must be legitimate, I say. Otherwise, they wouldn't have killed Rupert for it.

  And he's considering.

  And, I plead, I have to help this girl . . . Kristen. She needs me. And I need to know who she was to me, in order to find out who I was. I must discover who I am, at whatever cost. This is confusing, but it makes sense if you pick it apart. Do an autopsy on my reasoning and you'll see that we have to do this. And I can't do it alone.

  And he's staring at me.

  Finally, he says, “Okay . . . but this is it, for at least a week. No matter what you hear, or learn, or the enticing things they may try to lay on you, this is it until your body recovers. Your body is going to quit, and then there's nothing I, or anyone else can do to save you. No amount of experimental drugs or defibrillators will be able to bring you back.”

  Fair enough, I say.

  “I'm not kidding, Jack.”

  I know.

  “I'll narc you out with so much midazolam that you'll forget that last three weeks of your life, and this whole thing will be finished. For good.”

  The thought of hitting the reset button, again. It's enough to make me shudder.

  “This,” I say, “is the last time until you say I'm healthy enough to go. I promise.”

  He looks at me, trying to judge whether I'm lying or not. And since I am a very poor liar, I think he believes me. Ricky waves a warning finger at me as he looks at his wrist watch.

  “ . . . alright, Jack. We'll do this. But the minute you feel yourself shaking and cold, you eat that fucking necklace.”

  Chapter 49

  Jack's apartment.

  Wednesday evening, 14 minutes until sunset . . .

  I'm lying down in the center of my bed, and Ricky has already started an IV in my right arm, just below my wrist. He has an electric heating blanket sandwiched between two blankets, and I'm just sitting here, waiting to die. He's already placed the fast patches on my singed chest.

  He's taken my vitals, and noticed that my body temperature didn't come to rest at 98.6, like it's supposed to. He's scribbling things down in his little notebook, and he says “Ninety-eight-point-nine,” under his breath.

  What? I asked.

  He looks up. “You're body . . . I think . . . is trying to up-regulate your core body temperature in order to make-up for the repeated drops of core temperature over the last couple of days. Or you might just be getting some infection that I haven't been able to locate. We probably need to get you in for a full physical tomorrow to make sure we haven't fucked something important up.”

  Bang, bang, bang!

  Somebody is pounding on the door.

  He and I freeze. We both glance over at the bookshelf safe. I imagine we're both thinking that the thugs have located us. They'll want the book and probably won't be willing to negotiate. Maybe I should drown myself now, to avoid getting the crap kicked out of me. If I'm already dead, how bad could it really be?

  Bang, bang, bang!

  Ricky, he's looking around the room for something he can use to club whoever it is that has come to torture us. He's eying my lamp and I loud whisper, “No!” That's the only nice thing I have in my apartment.

  He slinks his way, super-secret-CIA style, into my kitchen, and grabs the biggest knife he can find. It's neither dangerously sharp, nor dangerously long, but it gives him peace of mind.

  He then signals me to throw the comforter over my head and hide. Like they won't check the human-shaped form in the middle of the bed.

  We're so getting our asses kicked.

  Bang, bang!

  “ . . . I know you boys are in dere . . .” Ms. Josephine's familiar voice says, instantly calming us. “ . . . and don't you tink dat I don't know what you's got planned.”

  Well, we're probably not going to get tortured for the whereabouts of the Book of Sighs, but we still might end up getting our asses handed to us. She doesn't sound too happy.

  Ricky relaxes from his ambush-attack stance, lying the knife down on the counter by the sink and heads to the door.

  As Ms. Josephine comes in, both of our heads lower. For me, my eyes find some low place on the wall to shamefully stare.

  “We were only going to—” Ricky tried.

  Ms. Josephine held up her hand, “Shush! I know what you was doin'. Dat
's why I'm 'ere.”

  Ricky, his head down, he just kind of slides himself back to the bed, his feet leaving Ricky-trails in the carpet.

  And then she made her way, her large purse nearly dragging her down, to the side of my bed. “You can't do dis wit'out no lifeline. I thought I taught you two better dan dis. We ain't jokin' around 'ere, boys.”

  And now she's looking at me, and she's agitated. I try to explain to her how important this is, and she listens. But she's plenty angry at us.

  “ . . . honesty is all we got. We must be truthful to each other, if nobody else. Da tings we're doin', dey's much more important dan we know. So from now on, we make every effort to be up front and honest.”

  Not waiting for an answer, she looks over at the patio door, and then to Ricky, “ . . . what time is it, now? We ain't got no time.”

  7:33 pm . . . Ricky said, as the shadows coming in my window were as long as they'll get before they swallow-up the remaining light.

  She nodded, “Get 'im ready, den.” She looked down at me, “You got your necklace on you?”

  Yes, ma'am.

  She nods, “Do your ting, Ricky.”

  The sun was falling. Hiding, really.

  Chapter 50

  Jack's apartment, Deadside.

  6 minutes later . . .

  I drowned again. I swam again. I dove through the giant fissure in my chest, again. Somewhere back there, Ricky's probably injected me with dead fluid. I'm getting used to this dying.

  Dying is the new adventure sport.

  No longer is it a thrill to parachute. No, the real fun is when the chute doesn't open and you plow into the ground at 190 miles-an-hour. Everything after you smash into a thousand pieces, that's the thrill ride.

  Out of my body, but in my apartment. This is kind of nostalgic, too, because I remember the first time the spooks were looking at the Book of Sighs. How everything was bent and warped and grey. And how scary it all was.

  But now, after having seen this dark world several times, it wasn't so frightening. Having had the chance to explore it twice, it was nothing more than a colorless version of the world I know. Different—stretched and gnarled—but the same. The Deadside—or if you prefer, the Land of Sorrows—it's just a cooked and dried-out version of our world.

  The Earth plane dehydrated.

  Reality, frozen and unplugged.

  I think I'm a few minutes early, but I notice the bluish haze outside my sliding glass door. Out in the parking lot, where cars and trucks and trash were . . . now it's just broken concrete, as if the entire thing had been hit with a giant hammer.

  I see Ms. Josephine sitting next to my slowly freezing body, her blind eyes wondering what I'm looking at.

  “Can you hear me?” I ask her.

  “ . . . yes, child . . . now find Kristen and ask your questions . . . ”

  Alright, I say as I walk to the bathroom thinking she may be there waiting for me. It does have a sentimental value for us. But as I turn the corner to the short hallway, I instantly see both Kristen and Rupert leaning against the back wall of the hallway.

  “I'm here,” I say. “What now?”

  “Come with us,” Kristen says. “We have to show you something.”

  I tell them that my time is limited, but they walk past me without a reply. As we're walking out of my apartment, leaving through the front door that is no longer attached, they take me toward the parking lot.

  Without a word we continue toward the hospital, and I realize that what they want to show me, is probably not something I am anxious to actually see. I need answers, I tell them.

  “You will have your answers very soon,” Rupert says in his saucy English accent.

  And we continue to walk.

  We pass by the entrance to the ED, and carry on around the side of the hospital, still in the parking lot. We walk and walk, the crumbled concrete at our feet. The hidden green sun falling so far away that whatever heat it used to provide is all but gone.

  As we're walking Kristen asks, “Did you dream last night?”

  Yes, I say emphatically. I dreamed of us. Together. In a luxurious place with color and fruit and everything.

  Without stopping to look at me, she asks, “And did that change the way you feel about this place?”

  No, I say. It enhanced the way I feel about you.

  “How do you feel about me?”

  This is a little awkward with Rupert tagging along. It's also not the ideal setting for a discussion about past love and passion. But I continue anyway. Is there some place, I asked, that we can go and talk about this? It's important to me.

  She stopped suddenly, “And you don't think it's important to me?”

  Whoa . . . where did this come from? She's being particularly short and snappy with me. Are we having our first fight? Here . . . in the Land of Sorrows? What the hell kind of girls am I dating?

  Nervously, Rupert's eyes were scanning the sky, looking for something that makes a guy like him fidgety and anxious.

  Kristen is just peering at me, with a kind of fire in her vibrant eyes. “Are you in love with me?”

  I shrug. I think so, I say. I mean, when I was having that dream you gave me, it felt like we shared something. I wanted to hold you. To feel your touch.

  She nodded, turning, and as she began walking, I could see little mice running around in her head as she prepared her thoughts.

  Rupert is still walking, rather quickly, and scanning the sky as he does so.

  “If you love me,” Kristen says without looking at me, “ . . . you'll see what we have to show you. And listen to what we have to tell you. Then you can make your decision.”

  This kind of hurt me. I'm confessing something, that for me is quite difficult, and she's blowing the whole thing off. Like I just told her I thought the movie I saw last night was good.

  I said to them, this isn't exactly the response I expected from you.

  “What would you like me to say?” she asked as we rounded the side of the building, and headed to an abandoned part of the hospital that doesn't connect to the main hospital anymore.

  I remembered Ricky telling me about the old Birthing Unit (Obstetrics). He said that there is no access from the hospital because places like this were haunted. Of course, back then he was just kidding around. We didn't know about the spooks, or Deadside, or the gatherers. We were so blissfully ignorant.

  I guess, I say, I thought you still had some kinds of feelings for me. Like, maybe you felt the same way as I did? I thought that's why you were coming to see me. Because we might still share something.

  We entered a rough hole in a wall that I know is not there in the Earth plane. And carefully, Rupert—still searching the edges of the horizon—he steps over a few broken cinder blocks and disappears into the darkness.

  Kristen and I, we're the only two creatures out here . . . as far as I can see. She softens her expression and looks at me kindly, the way she did that first night she haunted me. “I care about you, John. I have for a long time. Longer than you can imagine. But all of this isn't about us. It's much larger, more grand than you can fathom. So if I seem cold and distant, it is because I want you to succeed. So that we can all be free.”

  Free from what? I ask.

  She reaches out for my hand and leads me into the darkness.

  Obstetrics—this is where the babies come out. Well, it used to be. Now it's an empty place, with only the plastic covered remnants left behind. Old birthing equipment that is no longer functional or useful. Rusting tables and sinks. A weathered, empty operating room with several small tables. Old tarnished turquoise tiles along the floor—most of them cracked.

  Along the walls are fittings for oxygen and other things I can't even figure out. But I can only barely see any of these things in my mind, because it is pitch dark in here.

  I'm just following Kristen's warm touch, trusting that she's not leading me to Hell.

  “We're almost there,” Rupert whispers from in front of us.
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  And I feel Kristen's small hand squeeze mine, as if she is now afraid of something. I know I should probably be worried, too. Anything that scares the dead, it should scare the ripe shit out of an Earth-planer like me.

  “Don't make a sound,” she whispers as a tiny green glow appears near us. Rupert has somehow fashioned a torch out of bits of ripped nothing. And though it didn't seem to provide much heat, it started to glow brightly green, its flame tips dancing around.

  I saw the edges of a tiled wall we were against. There was an opening, which I figured led to the operating room that Ricky had told me about. I could hear his words, “ . . . all kinds of ghosts and shit. Crying babies. Stuff that'll give you nightmares forever . . . ”

  Rupert put his free hand over his mouth signaling me to keep my trap shut. I nodded, and the three of us turned the corner and entered the OR.

  Mary mother of spooky shit!

  There are spooks everywhere. Thousands of them. They are all over the floors, stacked up on the small tables, in the sinks. All over the place. And they're hunched down, like they're resting. Sleeping, maybe.

  If their idea was to scare me . . . mission accomplished. I'm sufficiently horrified. It's like being in the lair of a dragon and all of the babies are sleeping.

  But, apparently, I haven't seen anything, yet. Kristen looks at me with worried eyes, and then they lift towards the ceiling.

  My jaw, it is probably sitting on the cold tile floor as my eyes try to make sense of what I see. Like a wasp nest, there are Gatherers clinging to the ceiling. I'm thinking bat cave in Africa. I'm thinking hornets' nest. I'm thinking . . . thousands of chest splitting monsters all over the god-damned place!

  My chest is burning as I look at these sleeping creatures. There are probably—and this is just a rough estimate—a fucking shitload! Thousands of them. So many they could take all of us. Everybody in Dallas could be wiped out by these bastards in a matter of hours.