See Jack Hunt (See Jack Die)

by Nicholas Black

  “Gentlemen, I'm lieutenant Bell, I'll be one of your pilots, and . . . ” she looks around, “Captain Salazar will be here momentarily.”

  “How long until take-off?” Ricky inquires.

  She looks at one of those heavy, metallic aviator watches, “Thirty-five minutes we'll power up and do a systems check. We'll be airborne in less than an hour.”

  I still have Angela's letter on my mind. I wonder if she's spooked from last night. And, come to think of it, I wonder why she came over in the first place. I figured she'd still be spending time with Jesse's family.

  Once we're well on our way, I'll read her words. It will help to assuage my fear of flying . . . towards Evil.

  54

  Addison Airport.

  5:15 pm . . .

  We had to wait behind four smaller planes—three trainers and a jet with only one engine. The way we're situated, it's me sitting next to some bags, Ricky and Ms. Josephine sitting next to each other, and the soldier-of-fortune guy—Mr. Green—all by himself.

  He's not very talkative, but he has a very interesting face. His hair is close-cropped reddish-brown. He's got cold blue eyes, almost white, that look like those plastic doll eyes that scare the holy crap out of me. His face, I don't know, it's rugged and scarred, as if he's been halfway through razor wire on more than a couple occasions.

  He has an eastern accent—maybe Boston or New Jersey—and the few times he's spoken, his words were short and choppy, as if he's in court dodging some prosecutors questions, or talking to his ex-girlfriend on the phone.

  I guess he sees me looking at some long, linear cuts in his face, just outside his left eye, running down his cheek to his sculpted jaw. He flashes me a half smile, lowering his novel to his lap. “I got this in Afghanistan a few years ago.”

  He's wearing khaki pants and a black tight-fitting t-shirt. The novel he's reading, it's titled Sodomy Cat . This guy is edgy, but somehow refined.

  Were you in the Army? I ask him.

  “Not exactly,” he replies, the fingers of his left hand tracing his scars blankly.

  I don't know what not exactly means, exactly.

  He closes his book and looks at the three of us, slowly appraising and estimating. “I was in the Legion a few years back. Ricky's father, Mr. Chamberlain, was having some issues with a company he was purchasing in South America. It was a medium-sized plastics factory in French Guiana, right near the borders of Suriname and Brazil.”

  He crosses his arms, leaning back in the soft leather seat, “Anyway, a friend of a friend introduced us, and since I spoke French and Spanish, he hired me and a few of my partners to assist him.”

  When you say, assist , do you mean, like . . . soldier stuff, or lawyer-translator stuff?

  “He's no lawyer,” Ricky says without looking up from the maps he's been religiously studying like they're MRIs of somebody's heart.

  Ms. Josephine and I trade uneasy glances.

  Mr. Green, he just shrugs, “Everyone needs to make a living. Well, so, after that I worked on and off for Mr. Chamberlain and his associates. Last year he brought me on full time.”

  What's your official job title?

  “Dispute Arbitrator,” he says flatly.

  That seems eerily appropriate, I say to him.

  Ms. Josephine asks, “Mr. Green, what—”

  “Oh,” he stops her, “ . . . Andy. You can call me Andy.”

  She nods. “Andy, what has Mr. Chamberlain told you about what it is we're doing?”

  Ricky stops what he's doing. I turn to Mr. Green. We're all a bit curious what he thinks he's here to do.

  He points to her, “You're a psychic.”

  He points at me, “You're cursed or something awful like that.”

  And then he points over at Ricky, “And you're my boss's only son.”

  He nods slowly to all of us, his face pleasant but emotionless, “Whether we're settling a labor dispute, hunting for Yetti, or staging an insurgency, it doesn't matter to me. I'm here to keep all of you alive and safe in an environment that is . . . ” he sighs, scratching the back of his head, “at its best, dangerous and unforgiving.”

  Have you ever arbitrated in Ecuador? I ask.

  This barely-grin passes across his face in a flash and then disappears. “Jack, if you carry a gun long enough, you're eventually going to find yourself in Ecuador.”

  That's reassuring. I have this funny feeling that he'd answer that question the same if we'd asked about any third-world country on the planet. This guy looks like caged violence. And even though he says for us to call him Andy, I'm kind of thinking that Mr. Green is more appropriate. Not that it's probably even his real name.

  I ask him, Have you ever killed anyone?

  And as soon as the question leaves my mouth, Ricky and Ms. Josephine look at me like I'm some kid running around the museum with my pants down. Like I'm a full-on retard. Apparently everyone is bothered by this question except for Mr. Green.

  “Jack,” he says, “have you ever squished a bug that was running across your kitchen floor?”

  This is one of those rhetorical, rationalization-justification analogies.

  I just nod, Yes.

  “Well,” he says, picking up his novel, “there you go.” And then he yawns as if talking about the taking of a human life is just the most boring thing ever. Like watching paint dry, or women's golf.

  This guy—Mr. Green—I don't know too much about him, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that he's probably got a school full of spooks in his future.

  Ms. Josephine clears her throat, “Well, Andy, I'm glad you're 'ere to look after us.”

  He glances over and just kind of tips his novel to her. Ricky and I trade shrugs.

  I settle back in my seat and try to get my mind clear of Angela. I need to focus back on what's ahead of me. But I can't. So I close my eyes and picture her face. Her little nose and deep brown eyes. Her thin lips and dark hair. Her skin tone, somewhere between olive and coffee.

  I haven't read her letter, yet. I'll save it for when we're stuck somewhere out over the Gulf of Mexico and I can't sleep. I have a feeling that I'll be able to sleep less and less as this thing goes further.

  55

  20,000 feet over the Gulf of Mexico, 92” Latitude, 26” Longitude.

  7:49 pm . . .

  On this screen up front there's a map that shows our plane somewhere over the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, on our way to our first stop in Cancun. Depending on the weather, we'll either stay in Cancun for the night, or we'll fuel-up and hit the skies towards Quito, Ecuador, which is about another 1,500 miles.

  Ms. Josephine is thumbing through one of her bags, looking earnestly for something. Ricky is sleeping, his mouth half open. Mr. Green is still entranced with Sodomy Cat . I've actually read that it's an interesting, intellectual book, with a surprise ending. But then, nothing really holds a candle to Todd Steele's adventures.

  Besides, the mind-bending, paradigm-shifting, worldview-altering books like Sodomy Cat , leave me feeling dizzy and unbalanced. And I'm already screwed-up enough with my conflabulations, fugue states, and gross defects, that I don't need any more nutbag-fuel poured on to my crazy-fire.

  I pull out the blue envelope with my name on it. My name is written in black ink, and something about the handwriting is clearly feminine. The letters are rounded and balanced, evenly spaced.

  One of the clever things I learned from my visits to the neurology department at the hospital was how indicative your handwriting is of your personality. The subtle ways a person crosses a t , or dots their i' s, means something. And at first glance I can see that even for the four letters of my name, she took her time and her movements were smooth and flowing, like calligraphy. That shows some kind of deep concern.

  I slowly open the letter and Mr. Green glances up from his book, “Girlfriend?”

  I nod, yes.

  “I don't mean to intrude,” he says almost thoughtfully, his voice low and uncharacteris
tically soft. “Don't think you have forever.”

  What do you mean?

  He lowers his book, considering his words, “If you like her . . . if you really care about this girl, then you tell her every chance you get. You may think you have all the time in the world for each other, but you don't. Things happen.”

  He looks down, probably looking into his past at some place that doesn't exist but in his memories. If it ever even did.

  You have a girl? I ask.

  His eyes are still somewhere far off, and he just starts shaking his head minutely, “You wake up one day in the middle of some piss-ant, third-world shithole, with burning metal and smoke so thick it replaces the air, and you realize that you don't belong to their world. The world that we protect, it isn't the one that we live in. Truth of it . . . the real stink of it is . . . we don't really exist to them, at all.

  “So, if you do have a piece of their world, hold on to it and cherish every fucking second. Cause one moment everything is beautiful,” he snaps his fingers. “And then, pop . . . it's all gone. Nobody cares about heroes, anymore. Things happen, Jack. They just do.”

  I watch as he lifts his book back up, closing the door on regret and nostalgia.

  I carefully slide the letter out of the envelope. It's ocean blue ink on an off-white, recycled paper. And I read it, devouring each and every curve, slash, squiggle and line. This is her speaking to me through her hands and her heart; through my eyes and my soul.

  56

  6 minutes later . . .

  I read the letter over and over, picturing Angela sitting right beside me, whispering each word into my ear. When you read something like this, your mind automatically assumes all of the writer's little nuances. The slight curve in her lips between words. The way she's so careful and exact with her pronunciations. How she blinks a couple extra times between important sentences, just so I don't miss the things she ascribes emphasis to. How her voice trials off when she says my name.

  I could imagine each and every one of those expressions and mannerisms.

  And then I placed the letter—I placed Angela—back into that envelope that smelled of apples and cinnamon and ecstasy. I reached down and slid it into one of the side pockets in my black duffel bag.

  57

  86 miles northwest of Cancun, Mexico.

  10:17 pm . . .

  I tried sleeping but all I did was toss and turn. I'm trying to focus my mind on hunting whatever it is the 23 Evils have become. I'm keeping Kristen out of my head as much as possible. Obviously, it's not lost on me what might happen when we come face to face. This thing all ends with me having to kill each and every one of them.

  My old friend Rupert—the librarian—I have to kill him.

  Thomas and Stewart, the first faces I ever saw on Deadside, I have to snatch their life away.

  And eventually all the others. Eventually . . . Kristen. This girl that I thought loved me, I have to take her life.

  For the second time.

  I'm not sure if I have the strength in me to take life. I know that in my lost past I could. Uriel said I was a killer before my marbles got scrambled. He seems fairly, if not disconcertingly, confident that when the time comes I'll be able to do what's necessary to clean up the mess I've left on the world.

  For me, the jury's still out.

  I'm stronger than before, but I don't know if I'm strong enough, yet.

  My skill sets consist of throwing knives and walking among the forsaken dead. I'm hoping that gets me over the hump.

  I glance over at Ricky who is discussing something with one of the pilots. From his expressions I don't think it's too terribly worrisome. Ms. Josephine is sleeping rather peacefully. Mr. Green's finally put Sodomy Cat down and now he's studying some of the strip maps that Ricky had printed for us.

  He looks up at me, “Ever done any time in a jungle?” Like it's a prison. A place you get sentenced to.

  Not that I can recall, no.

  His eyes study me for a moment, he nods, and then he's back to the two-dimensional, black-n-white representations of where our nightmares are likely to begin.

  “Jack,” Ricky says, keeping his voice low enough that it won't wake Ms. Josephine.

  I look over at him, and he's half-biting his bottom lip.

  “There's a tropical storm just south of Cuba, north of Jamaica. It's already giving Havana grief, and there are two more storms that might become hurricanes in its wake. We're not going to be spending the night in Cancun.”

  Damn , I say. And I was really looking forward to getting turned-down by a bunch of hot college girls.

  “I know you were, buddy,” he consoles. “But we can't get stuck in Cancun for three days while these storms figure out what they want to do. So, we're just doing a gas-n-dash. An hour on the ground, tops.”

  Then it's on to Quito?

  “That's right. Then it's all jeeps and boots and whatever else. We'll hit the ground and get communications set up with the office. Billtruck just informed me that there had been a bunch of encrypted message traffic coming out of a small church in Cotopaxi, heading to the Vatican.”

  “What are they saying?” Mr. Green asked as he sat forward, his elbows leaning on his knees.

  “Something about a team of investigators they have on the ground.”

  Mr. Green rubs his forehead anxiously, “That's going to get . . . sticky . If we're not careful, and even if we are, I don't know.”

  Ricky's eyebrows wrinkle uncomprehendingly, “There just a bunch of Priests, right? Shouldn't be anything we can't handle.”

  Mr. Green crosses his arms over his chest, “Those guys are the farthest thing from priests. I'm more of a priest than them. There might be a priest among them . . . but most likely, they'll all be mercenaries.”

  You mean Dispute Arbitrators ?

  “No,” he says with a grim laugh, “ . . . mercenaries.”

  58

  Cancun, Mexico.

  11:44 pm . . .

  We're just about to commence takeoff. We've all been staring blankly out the windows watching the palm trees whip back and forth as if they were as light and malleable as blades of thin grass. The wind is kind of rolling across the runway bringing with it dust and debris. The rain hasn't hit yet, but it's only a matter of time.

  Mr. Green was listening to the local radio broadcast with more than a bit of concern being vocalized by the weathermen. Los Previsiones (the forecast) calls for muy muy mucho rain and thunder. And if their tone is any indication, it's got to be the end of the world as we know it. And I feel fine.

  Ms. Josephine has been quiet for the last hour or so since we landed. She's been staring out the window, but her eyes, they're somewhere else. I don't think she's seeing party capital, Cancun. She's in Haiti, again. I wish I knew more about her. She's so interesting and sagely that there just has to be an incredible back story there. In time she might tell us more. For now, all we know is, she's frighteningly gifted, and she's connected to the other side.

  Ricky has been doing a gear check for the last 30 or so minutes. After every bag is thoroughly inspected, he reads out numbers and letters to Mr. Green. He'll nod here and there, and that's about that. From their interactions it would seem that we have everything we need.

  I'm making little mist circles on the window with my mouth. Yeah, I'm that bored. I can't sleep. I want to get this all started. I want to hunt and kill vampires, or whatever it is we'll find. If they do turn out to be giant bats, I think a tennis racquet will be more efficient at dispatching them. But that's just a theory.

  “We've been given final clearance to go, so please fasten your seatbelts and stow all of your luggage and any other loose items . . . ” Captain Salazar says in a deep Spanish accent. “The trip to Quito should take us a little less than four hours, depending on how far we have to fly around the edge of this current low pressure system.”

  Then he finishes with, “Please enjoy your flight, and thank you for choosing Ricky Airways.”

&
nbsp; Ricky snorts through his nose, “That's my dad having a laugh.”

  Mr. Green is closing up the small radio, laughing to himself.

  I go and sit next to Ms. Josephine. She backs away from the window and blinks several times as if she's coming back to us. “'ey dere, Jack. 'ow you doin' wit all dis?”

  I shrug, “Alright, I guess. It's just part of the job.”

  She looks at me and smiles. “You sure are stronger dan I first imagined you'd be.”

  When?

  “When da voices from da other side first started calling your name. When dey told me to give you da book. I never expected all of dis.”

  But it was all a scam, Ms. Josephine. It was nothing but a lie so that they could escape. And I fell for it . . . hook, line, and sinker.

  She looks at me, almost apologetically, “We all fell for it, Jack. But dat doesn't mean you ain't special. No matter what da circumstances were, you still crossed over dere and did what you thought was right. And you did it because you loved dat girl.”

  I thought I loved her. I was mistaken.

  “You don't know nothin' about love, and yet you got a bigger 'eart dan most. You loved dat girl as much as you knew. You tried to save dat girl's life. All of dem lost souls.”

  I killed her.

  “But you didn't know dat, den,” she says as she puts her hand on my cheek. “You followed da only ting you knew . . . your emotions. And dey's so powerful sometimes dat it's impossible to go against dem. We've all done tings like dat in our lives. You 'ave, too. You just don't remember.”

  I'm not sure I can kill her again.

  And then she just pulls me in and hugs me. And this is as close as I'm ever going to get to a mother. I hug her back. We probably hold each other for just long enough to tell each other we care for one another, without actually saying it.

  Thanks, I tell her.

  “No, Jack. Thank you. You let me find my destiny. And for dat I am in your debt.”

  Well, you let me find my way home from the Land of Sorrows. So, I'm forever in your debt. Although, to be terribly honest, I don't like eating spiders and centipedes.