by Jeff Vrolyks
the immediate area, and turning south Manchester invisible to the night. Was he down there? Maybe, maybe not. My heart seemed to think he was, as it was beating no less than had I just gotten home from a run. I flicked the light switch to off and had another gander. I could see better, but being that there are no street lamps, nothing short of the headlights of a car driving by would evince this man’s presence or lack thereof. I resolved to wait for just that. Manchester was far from a busy street, but it had some traffic, and I only had to wait a few minutes before a sedan was approaching from the north. I took a sip of my scotch and took a few steps nearer the street, fixed on where I estimated the man to be, and waited for the headlights to fill me in on the mystery.
Before that came to pass, the front door of the house across the street opened. A teenaged boy came out. Marshall was his name. His gait was purposeful, his direction was north up Manchester.
“Hey Marshall!” I called out, eyes then returning to their invisible destination.
“Hey. How are you doing, Mister Jacobs?”
I held my hand up gesturing him to hold on for a second, and watched as the headlights of the sedan washed over the black shrouded man in the street. The vehicle was apparently indifferent to it, and that was as alarming as anything. It narrowly avoided clipping the man as it passed, and once again he returned to the shadows of deep night.
I turned my attention to the boy.
“Marshall, would you come over here a minute? Please?”
He nodded and hustled over. I believe he was a sophomore in high school this year, and damn if he hadn’t grown six inches over the last year. He was fifteen and as tall as me.
“What can I do for you?” He asked in transit.
I directed my eyes toward the invisible figure and said, “What’s the deal with that guy in the street?”
“Guy?” He followed my gaze. “What guy?”
“There’s been a guy in a black friggin robe standing in the street these last few days. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen him.”
He scratched his cheek. “Who is it?”
“Hell if I know. You haven’t seen him?”
“No.”
“Are you in a hurry? Could you hang out for a minute or two, until another car passes by so you can take a look for yourself?”
Marshall looked doubtfully at me. He asked if everything was all right. In his tone was skepticism. He thought I was loony, and maybe I was.
“Yeah, yeah, fine. Just stick around for a minute, okay?”
He nodded and looked down the road.
It was several long minutes before another vehicle came by, and I was relieved because the kid was looking quite impatient. I told him to keep his eyes on the road, about fifty yards out. He nodded.
It was an old Cadillac heading south, and belonged to a couple seniors who lived only a few houses down from me. Because of that, the beaten track of its headlights never fully reached the man in black before turning onto the dirt driveway. But it created enough light that I could see its silhouette. Marshall had to have seen it. The eyes of a young man like Marshall were far superior to my own.
“Well…?” I said.
“Well what?”
I didn’t need to ask him what he thought because his tone said it all: he didn’t see him. I said wait right here a moment and hustled to the house to get my car keys.
“Mister Jacobs, I really ought to be going. My friend is expecting me.”
“Please, Marshall. I’ll make it worth your while.”
I didn’t see him nod as I entered the house. Seconds later I had the keys in hand and headed toward my driveway and waved Marshall over. I unlocked the doors of my Explorer and groped out my wallet before taking a seat.
“Here, for your trouble,” I said and offered him a twenty dollar bill. “It will only be a minute. I’ll even drive you to your friend’s afterward.”
“All right, cool.” He pocketed the cash.
I started the car and hit the lights, rolled forward.
Something peculiar happened when I pulled off the driveway and onto Manchester, south. My foot hovering over the gas pedal was hell bent on moving over to the brake. I fought my own damn leg and forced it to accelerate me down the road, and the vehicle surged with a surprised moan before cruising idly from a release of the pedal. I could feel the boy’s eyes on me.
“Sorry, car’s been having some issues lately. Keep your eyes on the road. He’s just up there.”
I gave it some more gas and moved along ten, twenty yards before I had lost complete control of my leg and it stamped down on the brake, putting us at a dead stop in the middle of the road. When I flicked the lever of the lights to high beams, I gasped at what I saw. It was him, and the distance that I had closed between us, scant as it may be, was enough to reveal a whole new level of distinction. His shape, his hooded head, his mask. The fuckin’ guy would scare the piss out of me on Halloween wearing something like that, and here we were in the spring, calendar pages away from masquerading as goblins, demons, death and devils.
The boy was leaning forward in his seat, squinting. My sharp gasp had gotten him to take my enterprise seriously, though there was no fear in his expression. Because there was no fear, I was forced to accept the impossibility that Marshall was blind to what was so clear to me.
“How could you not see that, Marshall? How’s your vision?”
“It’s good. Sorry, man, I just don’t see what you want me to see.”
I nodded, feigned some degree of apathy toward this turn of events, lest he tell his folks that neighbor-Jeff is nuttier than a fruitcake, and I apologized to him for wasting his time. I had no troubles throwing the car into reverse and applying ample pressure to the gas pedal. That my body was in full agreement with its master.
“Where’s your friend live? I’ll give you a lift.”
The next two days I didn’t leave my house.
On the third day I desperately needed to hit the market. I wasn’t the type of shopper who bought for a week or two at a time. I was more impulsive than that, shopped several times a week, buying what struck my fancy at the time. I wished I was the former rather than the latter kind of shopper just then. Grudgingly I decided to head out for groceries, and did so during the night. I normally would have turned left out of my driveway, as the market is south-east of my home, but today I turned right, decided to take the long way to the market. Without rhyme or reason I drove a few blocks north before turning east at the first intersection possessing a stop-light. I took comfort in other cars being both ahead and behind me. Safety in numbers.
Longview Avenue was the street the market was on; I turned southbound onto it. I was behind an old beater of a coupe, cruising at the speed limit of thirty-five. I exhaled deeply and considered a medical explanation for my woes, such as bad wiring in the eyes. Bad wiring in the eyes is preferable to bad wiring in the brain, and a hell of a lot more correctable and agreeable to live with.
I was just pondering making an appointment with a doctor when the headlights of the beater coupe illuminated a dark figure, center street.
“No… don’t do that… why?”
I had a decision to make and it needed to be made right damn now. It was made in favor of continuing on, and as a reward for my bravery I was granting my disquieted soul a reprieve from seeing the man by closing my eyes as I motored past him. That was the plan, at least. I squinted shut my eyes, touched my forehead against my steering-wheel-clutching hands, hating my cowardice in contention with my newfound corrupted sanity—or eyes; let’s not forget that bad wiring in the eyes might be responsible.
A car honked, which instilled in me hope. Hope that someone other than me was included in this mess and wanted this man in black to get the hell out of the road, and out of our lives. But that wasn’t the case. The petulant man or woman tapping the horn was behind me, and did so because Jeffrey Jay Jacobs had decided to hit the brakes and put a halt to southbound traffic on Longview Avenue.
I looked ove
r my shoulder and saw two pairs of headlights; two cars that were disadvantaged by the road’s solitary lane and crazed motorists parking where they damn well wanted to.
A longer honk.
There were no cars currently headed north in the opposing lane, so I gave in to my panic and cranked the wheel, gassed it, and made a U-turn. In my mind I took a quick inventory of non-perishable food-stuffs in my pantry, and wondered how long I could get by on Top Ramen and cans of corn.
Back in the here-and-now I had arrived at the rock formation. Was it lava rock? I’m pretty sure it was. Sure was a lot of it considering there are no volcanoes in… well I didn’t know where I was, but I had never lived near a volcano.
What the hell was that black thing?
My throat was parched, and if I had a wallet full of hundreds I’d have given it all for a glass of water. That gave me an idea. I felt my back pocket for a wallet. At least I’d know what state I lived in—and my age, for that matter. But there was no wallet. There was nothing in my pockets. My jeans were old and dirty, my white tee-shirt sweaty and caked with dirt. I had a wristwatch. The funny thing is, it was a calculator-watch. A small LCD screen reading the time digitally, and a dozen tiny numbered buttons on a panel. It was straight out of the 80’s. I reflected back to my jogs, stretching there on the porch, and could see my left wrist. There was indeed a watch, but it wasn’t this one. It was a nice analogue watch. Why the hell was I wearing this thing now? More vexing was that it made me feel funny looking at it, butterflies in my stomach. If it was accurate, it was 3:36 PM, and with the press of a button I saw that it was Tuesday, November 3rd. Because it said November and not March, I believe the watch was broken. Then again, how did I know it wasn’t November? Because my recent memory had me jogging in early spring? Maybe it wasn’t as recent a memory as I thought.
I made my way up the rocks. The smell of sulfur was becoming less, and I attribute that to having been breathing it continually for some time now. The top rock was a little tricky to get to. I had to scale nearly vertically eight feet, and if I lost my footing it would be bad, broken-bone bad. Maybe worse. I dry swallowed as looked down—it burned, felt like I swallowed a hot cinder. I took extra caution in climbing, slowly made my way to the top. Just before declaring victory over this formation of rock, my left foot slipped off its narrow grooved ledge and I gasped. I gripped the rock with all my might to avoid falling, brought my foot back up to the ledge. I felt a sting on the side of my calf, figured I hitched my pant leg up on the falter and scraped my leg on the ruthlessly abrasive rock.
I made it to the top and laid on my back to catch my breath before having a gander. The clouds didn’t move at all. There was no wind, not even a breath of air, so that would explain the still clouds. The damned things were acting as a blanket, trapping the hot sulfuric air below it. I stood up and had a look around. The valley was oblong, shaped almost like a football, with one end of it higher in elevation than the other. The ridge environing the valley was (you guessed it) more of this damned gray lava rock. I was disheartened to find no roads, and petrified to find no water. I’d die here if I didn’t find something to drink. That was the cold hard truth of it all. I wanted answers to my many questions, but none of that amounted to shit if I died here in want of drink.
I turned and turned, scrutinizing every direction. Each survey taken of vast arid nothingness was a nail in the coffin; there was no way out of this. Sure I could hike across the valley and over the nearest ridge, but then what would I find? If there’s salvation just over a ridge, which one would it be? I could just as easily be distancing myself from salvation as headed for it. And that’s assuming I didn’t die of thirst in the endeavor.
I turned around and saw