by Blake Crouch
Through the open doorway that leads from the dining room into the kitchen, I glimpse Jason standing at the island, holding a bottle of wine. Reaching across, he pours into someone’s wineglass.
Elation hits, but it doesn’t last.
From my vantage point, all I can see is a beautiful hand holding the stem of the glass, and it crashes down on me again what this man did to me.
All that he took.
Everything he stole.
I can’t hear anything out here in the snow, but I see him laugh and take a sip of wine.
What are they talking about?
When was the last time they fucked?
Is Daniela happier now than she was a month ago, with me?
Can I stand to know the answer to that question?
The sane, even voice in my head is wisely suggesting that I move away from the house right now.
I’m not ready to do this. I have no plan.
Only rage and jealousy.
And I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. I still need more confirmation that this is my world.
A little ways down the block, I see the familiar back end of our Suburban. Walking over, I brush off the snow that’s clinging to the Illinois tag.
The license plate number is mine.
The paint is the right color.
I clear the back windshield.
The purple Lakemont Lions decal looks perfect, inasmuch as it’s half ripped off. I instantly regretted putting the sticker on the glass the moment I did it. Tried to tear it off, but only managed to remove the top half of the lion’s face, so all that’s left is a growling mouth.
But that was three years ago.
I need something more recent, more definitive.
Several weeks before I was abducted, I accidentally backed the Suburban into a parking meter near campus. It didn’t do much damage beyond cracking the right rear taillight and denting in the bumper.
I wipe the snow off the red plastic of the taillight and then the bumper.
I touch the crack.
I touch the dent.
No other Suburban in the countless Chicagos I’ve visited has borne these markings.
Rising, I glance across the street toward that bench where I once spent an entire day watching another version of my life unfold. It’s empty at the moment, the snow piling up silently on the seat.
Shit.
A few feet behind the bench, a figure watches me through the snowy darkness.
I begin walking quickly down the sidewalk, thinking it probably looked as if I were stealing the license plate off the Suburban.
I have to be more careful.
—
The blue neon sign in the front window of Village Tap blinks through the storm, like a signal from a lighthouse, telling me I’m close to home.
There is no Hotel Royale in this world, so I check into the sad Days Inn across from my local bar.
Two nights is all I can afford, and it brings my cash reserves down to $120 and change.
The business center is a tiny room down the hallway on the first floor, with a borderline-obsolete desktop, fax machine, and printer.
Online, I confirm three pieces of information.
Jason Dessen is a professor in the Lakemont physics department.
Ryan Holder just won the Pavia award for his research contributions in the field of neuroscience.
Daniela Vargas-Dessen isn’t a renowned Chicago artist, and she doesn’t run a graphic-design business. Her charmingly amateurish website displays several pieces of her best work and advertises her services as an art instructor.
As I trudge up the stairwell to my third-floor room, I finally begin to let myself believe.
This is my world.
—
I sit by the window of my hotel room, staring down at the blinking neon sign of Village Tap.
I am not a violent person.
I’ve never hit a man.
Never even tried to.
But if I want my family back, there’s simply no way around it.
I have to do a terrible thing.
Have to do what Jason2 did to me, only without the conscience-protecting option of simply putting him back into the box. Even though I have one ampoule left, I wouldn’t repeat his mistake.
He should’ve killed me when he had the chance.
I feel the physicist side of my brain creeping in, trying to take over the controls.
I’m a scientist, after all. A process-minded thinker.
So I think of this like a lab experiment.
There’s a result I want to achieve.
What are the steps it will take for me to arrive at that result?
First, define the desired result.
Kill the Jason Dessen who’s living in my home and put him in a place where no one will ever find him again.
What tools do I need to accomplish that?
A car.
A gun.
Some method of restraining him.
A shovel.
A safe place to dispose of his body.
I hate these thoughts.
Yes, he took my wife, my son, my life, but the idea of the preparation and the violence is so ugly.
There’s a forest preserve an hour south of Chicago. Kankakee River State Park. I’ve been there several times with Charlie and Daniela, usually in the fall when the leaves are turning and we’re antsy for wilderness and solitude and a day out of the city.
I could drive Jason2 there at night, or make him drive, just like he did to me.
Lead him down one of the trails I know on the north side of the river.
I will have been there a day or two prior, so his grave will already be dug in some quiet, secluded place. I’ll have researched how deep to make it so animals can’t smell the rot. Make him think he’s going to dig his own grave, so he thinks he has more time to figure out an escape or to convince me not to do this. Then, when we’re within twenty feet of the hole, I’ll drop the shovel and say that it’s time to start digging.
As he bends down to pick it up, I’ll do the thing I can’t imagine.
I will fire a bullet into the back of his head.
Then I’ll drag him over to the hole and roll him into it and cover him up with dirt.
The good news is that no one will be looking for him.
I’ll slide back into his life the same way he slid into mine.
Maybe years down the road, I’ll tell Daniela the truth.
Maybe I’ll never tell her.
—
The sporting-goods store is three blocks away and still an hour shy of closing. I used to come in here once a year to buy cleats and balls when Charlie was into soccer during middle school.
Even then, the gun counter always held a fascination for me.
A mystique.
I could never imagine what would drive someone to want to own one.
I’ve only fired a gun two or three times in my life, while I was in high school in Iowa. Even then, shooting at rusted oil drums on my best friend’s farm, I didn’t experience the same thrill as the other kids. It scared me too much. As I would stand facing the target, aiming the heavy pistol, I couldn’t escape the thought that I was holding death.
The store is called Field and Glove, and I’m one of three customers at this late hour.
Wandering past racks of windbreakers and a wall of running shoes, I make my way toward the counter at the back of the store.
Shotguns and rifles hang on the wall over boxes of ammunition.
Handguns gleam under glass at the counter.
Black ones.
Chrome ones.
Ones with cylinders.
Ones without.
Ones that look like they should only be carried by vigilante cops in 1970s action movies.
A woman walks over wearing a black T-shirt and faded blue jeans. She’s got a distinct Annie Oakley vibe with her frizzy red hair and a tattoo that wraps around her freckled right arm and reads: …the right of the people
to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
“Help you with something?” she asks.
“Yeah, I was looking to buy a handgun, but to be honest, I don’t know the first thing about them.”
“Why do you want one?”
“Home defense.”
She pulls a set of keys out of her pocket and unlocks the cabinet I’m standing in front of. I watch her arm reach under the glass and lift out a black pistol.
“So this is a Glock 23. Forty caliber. Austrian-made. Solid knockdown power. I could also set you up in a subcompact version if you wanted something smaller for a concealed-carry permit.”
“And this will stop an intruder?”
“Oh yeah. This’ll put ’em down, and they won’t be getting back up.”
She pulls the slide, checks to make sure the tube is clear, and then locks it back and ejects the magazine.
“How many bullets does it hold?”
“Thirteen rounds.”
She offers me the gun.
I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed to do with it. Aim it? Feel the weight?
I hold it awkwardly in my hand, and even though it isn’t loaded, I register that same I’m-holding-death unease.
The price tag hanging from the trigger guard reads $599.99.
I need to figure out my money situation. I could probably walk into the bank and tap Charlie’s savings account. It had a balance of around $4,000 the last time I looked. Charlie never accesses that account. No one does. If I withdrew a couple thousand dollars, I doubt it would be missed. At least, not right away. Of course, I’d need to somehow get my hands on a driver’s license first.
“What do you think of it?” she asks.
“Yeah. I mean, it feels like a gun.”
“I could show you a few others. I have a really nice Smith and Wesson .357 if you were thinking more along the lines of a revolver.”
“No, this would do fine. I just need to scrape together some cash. What’s the background-check process?”
“Do you have a FOID card?”
“What’s that?”
“A firearm owners’ identification card that’s issued by the Illinois State Police. You have to apply for it.”
“How long does that take?”
She doesn’t answer.
Just stares at me strangely, then reaches out and takes the Glock from my hand and returns it to its resting place under the glass.
I ask, “Did I say something wrong?”
“You’re Jason, right?”
“How do you know my name?”
“I’ve been standing here trying to put it all together, to make sure I wasn’t crazy. You don’t know my name?”
“No.”
“See, I think you’re messing with me, and it’s not a wise—”
“I’ve never spoken to you before. In fact, I haven’t been in this store in probably four years.”
She locks the cabinet and returns the key ring to her pocket.
“I think you should leave now, Jason.”
“I don’t understand—”
“If this isn’t some game, then you have a head injury or Alzheimer’s or you’re just plain crazy.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
She leans her elbows on the counter. “Two days ago, you walked in here, said you wanted to buy a handgun. I showed you the same Glock. You said it was for home defense.”
What does this mean? Is Jason2 generally preparing in case I possibly return, or is he actually expecting me?
“Did you sell me a gun?” I ask.
“No, you didn’t have a FOID card. You said you needed to get cash. I don’t think you even had a driver’s license.”
Now a prickling sensation trails down my spine.
My knees go weak.
She says, “And it wasn’t just two days ago. I got a weird vibe from you, so yesterday, I asked Gary, who also works the gun counter, if he’d ever seen you in here before. He had. Three other times in the last week. And now, here you are again.”
I brace myself against the counter.
“So, Jason, I don’t ever want to see you in this store again. Not even to buy a jockstrap. If I do, I’ll call the police. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
She looks scared and resolute, and I would not want to cross her in a dark alley where she took me for a threat.
I say, “I understand.”
“Get out of my store.”
—
I step out into the pouring snow, the flakes blasting my face, my head spinning.
I glance down the street, see a cab approaching. When I raise my arm, it veers toward me, easing to a stop alongside the curb. Pulling open the rear passenger door, I hop in.
“Where to?” the cabbie asks.
Where to.
Great question.
“A hotel, please.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. Something within ten blocks. Something cheap. I want you to pick it.”
He looks back through the Plexiglas separating the front and backseats.
“You want me to pick it?”
“Yes.”
For a moment, I think he isn’t going to do it. Maybe it’s too weird a request. Maybe he’s going to order me out. But instead, he starts the meter running and pulls back out into traffic.
—
I stare through the window at the snow falling through headlights, taillights, streetlights, flashing lights.
My heart stomping inside my chest, my thoughts racing.
I need to calm down.
Approach this logically, rationally.
The cab pulls over in front of a seedy-looking hotel called the End o’ Days.
The cabbie glances back, asks, “This work for you?”
I pay the fare and head for the front office.
There’s a Bulls game on the radio and a heavy hotel clerk behind the desk eating Chinese food from a fleet of white cartons.
Brushing the snow off my shoulders, I check in under the name of my mother’s father—Jess McCrae.
I pay for a single night.
It leaves me with $14.76.
I head up to the fourth floor and lock myself inside the room behind the deadbolt and the chain.
It’s utterly without life.
A bed with a depressing floral-print comforter.
Formica table.
Dressers built of particleboard.
At least it’s warm.
I move to the curtains and peek outside.
It’s snowing hard enough that the streets are beginning to empty and the pavement is frosting over, showing the tire tracks of passing cars.
I undress and stow my last ampoule in the Gideon Bible in the bottom drawer of the bedside table.
Then I jump in the shower.
I need to think.
—
I ride the elevator down to the first floor and use my keycard to access the business center.
I have an idea.
Bringing up the free email service I use in this world, I type in the first idea for a username that comes to mind.
My name spelled out in Pig Latin: asonjayessenday.
Not surprisingly, it’s already taken.
The password is obvious.
The one I’ve used for almost everything the last twenty years—the make, model, and year of my first car: jeepwrangler89.
I attempt to log in.
It works.
I find myself in a newly created email account whose inbox contains several introductory emails from the provider and one recent email from “Jason” that has already been opened.
The subject heading: Welcome Home The Real Jason Dessen
I open it.
There’s no message in the email.
Just a hyperlink.
The new page loads and an alert pops up on the screen:
Welcome to UberChat!
> There are currently three active participants.
Are you a new user?
I click Yes.
Your username is Jason9.
I have to create a password before logging in.
A large window displays the entire history of a conversation.
A selection of emoticons.
A small field in which to type and send public messages to the board and private messages to individual participants.
I scroll to the top of the conversation, which started approximately eighteen hours ago. The most recent message is forty minutes old.
JasonADMIN: I’ve seen some of you around the house. I know there’s more of you out there.
Jason3: Is this seriously happening?
Jason4: Is this seriously happening?
Jason6: Unreal.
Jason3: So how many of you went to field & glove?
JasonADMIN: Three days ago.
Jason4: Two.
Jason6: I bought one in South Chicago.
Jason5: You have a gun?
Jason6: Yes.
JasonADMIN: Who all thought about Kankakee?
Jason3: Guilty.
Jason4: Guilty.
Jason6: I actually drove out there and dug a hole last night. Was all ready to go. Had a car lined up. Shovel. Rope. Everything planned out perfectly. This evening, I went to the house to wait for the Jason who did this to all of us to leave. But then I saw myself behind the Suburban.
Jason8: Why’d you call it off, jason6?
Jason6: What’s the point of going forward with it? If I got rid of him, one of you would just show up and do the same thing to me.
Jason3: Did everyone run through the game-theory scenarios?
Jason4: Yes.
Jason6: Yes.
Jason8: Yes.
JasonADMIN: Yes.
Jason3: So we all know there’s no way this ends well.
Jason4: You could all just kill yourselves and let me have her.
JasonADMIN: I opened this chat room and have administrator controls. Five more Jasons are lurking right now, just FYI.
Jason3: Why don’t we all join forces and conquer the world? Can you imagine what would happen with this many versions of us actually working together? (Only half-kidding)
Jason6: Can I imagine what would happen? Totally. They’d put us in a government lab and test us until the end of time.
Jason4: Can I just say what we’re all thinking? This is fucking weird.
Jason5: I have a gun too. None of you fought as hard as I did to get home. None of you saw what I saw.