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

by Nicholas Black

  I looked down at the book, my eyes blankly staring at the cover the same way I had at those stupid inkblots. Numbly, I said, “I saw another one, yesterday.”

  “Another one of the shadowy things.”

  “Spooks. Yeah, right after I left Dr. Smith's office.”

  “Were you on any medication?”

  “No!” I replied. “I'm not some junkie. I have major head trauma. Long-term amnesia. I'm not some addict pill-popper.”

  “Calm down, buddy,” Ricky said with a smile, “ . . . I'm just trying to rule things out.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. I took a few breaths, trying to remember every sordid detail of my sightings. “At first I only saw them when I was falling asleep, or just waking up.”

  “Between dogs and wolves,” Ricky said.

  “What's that?”

  He explained to me that the dusk and dawn times—when the light was blue and surreal, and your thoughts were ethereal and floating—that was what the French called, the time between dogs and wolves.

  “Okay then,” I said. “At first it was only then. But then there was what I saw a couple nights ago, in the morgue . . .” I realized that I was speaking a little louder than I should have been because when I said the word, morgue, at least three tables of people looked over at us.

  Ricky looked around the room with a thousand-dollar smile, holding his fingers as if he had an imaginary pencil in them, “ . . . we're writers.” And all the nosy patrons were instantly relaxed and put at ease as if he'd said the magic code word or something. A fickle bunch, these youths.

  I continued, my voice several notches lower, “ . . . so then we were at the morgue and I saw them, again. And that night, I was really tired. And no medication, either.”

  “Okay, so it's when you're tired. Sleepy,” he noted.

  “That's what I was originally thinking. Because that makes sense for hallucinations to happen when your really tired and having problems staying focused.”

  “But then?”

  I nodded. “But then I saw one on my way out of Dr. Smith's office, right when I left the reception area. Something flew past me at about a hundred-miles-an-hour. Fwoom!” I said using my hand to illustrate.

  “Well,” Ricky surmised, “ . . . I guess that makes sense. You were in that office, talking to that shrink and his pudgy twin. You were focused, but then you got worn-out by the Rorschach test. So when you left the office you were emotionally drained. Same as the other night in the morgue. Same as when you fall asleep and awaken.”

  He nodded, took another sip, and scratched his chin, “You were between dogs and wolves every time.”

  He wasn't understanding why I was worried. “Look, what happens when I start seeing them when I'm just a little tired? And then, I see the spooks when I'm just relaxed. And eventually, if I go up a flight of stairs too fast, I'm seeing these creepy little bastards in every corner.”

  He had an 'Ooh' face. “I see, now. You're worried that you'll start seeing them all the time, and won't be able to chalk it up to hallucinations.”

  “Either that, or I will be hallucinating all the time,” I complained. “If I'm going insane, it's happening much quicker than I am able to deal with. Hell, in a couple of weeks, the time between dogs and wolves might be infinite. I don't know if I can deal with seeing these things all the time. I might be losing my shit, here.”

  “Don't get all carried away,” Ricky said reassuringly.

  I looked at him uncomprehendingly.

  “I mean, for all we know, all of those spooks might actually be running around. You might not be going crazy at all.”

  “That's comforting.”

  “Anyway,” he said tipping his cup towards me, “ . . . this stuff should keep the spooks at bay for a little while. Like jet-fuel for your brain.”

  Now I understand why people get hooked on drugs.

  Chapter 12

  Jack's apartment.

  Friday morning, early . . .

  Bang, bang, bang!

  I heard the pounding, and at first I wasn't sure if it was inside of me, or actually the front door. Then I heard Ricky's muffled voice talking to somebody outside the door. I almost fell on my face twice on my way to the door. My balance wasn't up and running, yet.

  I pulled open the door and Ricky walked in, talking to somebody on his cell phone.

  “ . . . we'll be there as fast as we can. Thanks, Rupert.” He disconnected the call and took a quick look at me, “You look like hammered dog shit.”

  Thanks. It's always nice to have friends.

  “Come on,” he pressed me as he headed to my mini-refrigerator, opening it up and rifling through it for anything tasty; which there wasn't. “ . . . Rupert just said that he had a hit on the book. Says it's important that we go see him . . . eeeee-mediately! His words.”

  I told him I needed to take a shower and brush my teeth. He tossed me a half-wrinkled shirt and told me that we were going . . . now. I acquiesced. What the hell, maybe old Rupert had figured something out.

  Hopefully he tells us the book is a scam.

  Or even better, that it's some useless old gardening book.

  A how-to, maybe, about building grass huts.

  Renaissance Kama-sutra.

  Something I can use to narrow down the list of my possible neuroses. Anything that proves to me that I'm not seeing the spooks. Give me tumors. Give me stagnating neurons. I'd even take a double shot of paranoid schizophrenia.

  I'll be the mad scientist, with a smile on my face from ear-to-ear.

  Dallas Public Library . . .

  37 minutes later . . .

  Rupert met us at the large doors near the front entrance of the library. The library wasn't even officially open, yet, but he had a set of keys and a look on his face that seemed to have been carved out of stone. There were bluish bags under his bloodshot eyes.

  “I would have called last night, but I didn't get word until just a few hours ago, and I had to make all of the necessary skeptical inquiries.”

  “Rupert,” Ricky said, “ . . . you sound a bit loco there, buddy.”

  “You must excuse my crass nature this morning,” Rupert apologized as he led us to the 'dangerous' books room. “It is quite rare that we find a book of this magnitude and cultural significance.”

  We found ourselves sitting at the rectangular table, quietly staring at the Book of Sighs, while Rupert shuffled through a stack of papers he had printed recently. They had that hot-ink smell.

  “Alright, Rupert,” I said as I steepled my hands, “give us the goods.”

  “Yes, of course,” he said as he pulled two pieces of paper to the top of the pile, then adjusted his Coke-bottle glasses. “Gentlemen, our search yielded some remarkable results for this particular volume. If it is what it looks to be, then it will be just incredible.” He shook his head, looking from the printed pages, down the book, and back. “ . . . incredible.”

  “Rupert?” Ricky nudged. “You’re killing us, here.”

  “Oh, right. Well,” he said, clearing his throat several times in that kind of gross way that made me want to clear my throat, and get a pneumonia shot.

  He laid the first page down on the table, a few inches from the book. On the printed page there was a small grainy picture of the book. Well, of some book.

  “What we have here, this book, is one of three.” He lowered his voice. “This book, called the, 'Book . . . of Sighs' . . . ”

  Ricky and I glanced at each other nervously.

  My tumor just got a fraction smaller.

  Rupert continued reading, “ . . . these books date back to three twenty-five AD. Do either of you know the significance of that year?”

  We both looked gloss-eyed at him, our shoulders and eyebrows lifting, and dropping.

  He had a smug grin, deliciously sinister, “ . . . that dates back to the Council of Nicaea. A quick lesson. In three-thirteen, Constantine—the new emperor of Rome—ended the persecutions of the Christians. They were a sma
ll percentage at that time, but the religion, now protected, grew quickly. The various other pagan religions made up the remainder of spiritual thought at that time. But there was movement in progress.

  “They all felt that they were fulfilling a mission and ministry based on the teachings of Jesus Christ. By three-fifteen, many people saw the advantages of belonging to Constantine's new imperial faith, and the churches swelled in ranks. Constantine himself was a pagan, only pushing Christianity for political means. He was trying to keep Rome from ripping itself apart. Religious turmoil is not something new.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I read the Da Vinci Code. I remember that part. The Council of Nicaea was where they all got together and voted on which texts were going to make-up the bible. Lots of wheeling and dealing.”

  “That is, of course, a very simplified version of the actual events. But basically . . . yes,” Rupert nodded. “Constantine was a smart ruler. He knew that he needed everyone working together for a common cause. Why not bring all the religions under one umbrella?”

  “That's good politics,” Ricky added.

  “ . . . and to do so they needed a holy figure that everyone would follow. That is why they elected only scripture that supposed Jesus Christ to be godly. That is to say, they needed Jesus to be born of God. Part God, himself. The masses wouldn't follow a prophet, or a religious scholar. But the son of God . . . now that's someone we can all get behind.”

  “But how does this relate to our book?” Ricky said, cutting to the chase.

  Rupert tapped his long bony fingers down on the second page. Your book, the Book of Sighs, it was also produced at this Council. And there are certain historians that claim it was drafted by scholars right along side the bible. At the same time they were building the foundations for Christianity for the next two thousand years, they were working on these three books. All identical copies.”

  Where are the other two? I asked.

  “Destroyed by a mysterious fire, in Italy. The circumstances point to some kind of religiously motivated terrorism, but it's all speculation.” Rupert slid his teeth back and forth, almost to the point where they started to grind like fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “So we have the only copy?” Ricky said.

  Rupert nodded. “And you should see where it's been. The book was kept in secret for hundreds of years, hidden in Rome, then Italy. It spent sixty or seventy years in Spain, in the late fifteen hundreds, before being lost in transit. It was heading to South Africa, and the only remaining stories claim it ended up in the jungles of the Congo, controlled by tribal leaders.”

  “This book is well traveled,” I said. The things it must have seen.

  “Well traveled to put it lightly. Somehow, it appeared in the jungles of Brazil, in the hands of a group of Indians that descended from African slaves. A British explorer wrote about it in eighteen ninety-four.”

  He went on to explain that it was regarded as a sacred object, never to be touched, or even looked at by anyone but the chief of the tribe, and his oldest shaman. And then . . .

  “ . . . and then there is no trace of it. Not once. It disappeared into the jungles of Brazil, south of the Amazon. It was thought to no longer exist . . . until yesterday, that is. When you two walked in with it.”

  “So it's a collector's item?”

  Rupert's mouth turned into a giant 'O'. “To put it mildly . . . it is, most likely, priceless. Millions don't begin to describe what some people would pay. I think it probably belongs in a well-guarded safe, in some museum.”

  “If this is the same book . . .” I said rather skeptically. “If this actually is the Book of Sighs?” And even as I said the words I could feel Ricky's eyes burning a hole in the side of my head.

  “Let's suppose it is the real thing,” Ricky proposed. “What now?”

  Rupert's face contorted in concentration as he pondered the possibilities. He looked like one of those dogs with too many wrinkles. Like a folded skin blanket.

  “Well, first things first, don't go showing it around. People might use various means of deception to procure it,” Rupert said carefully.

  “Like bullets?” I asked, looking back and forth at Ricky and Rupert.

  They both nodded.

  “Is this book that valuable?”

  Rupert leaned in, interlacing his fingers, his elbows pressing into the table, his eyes locking on mine, “Imagine what was so important that it had to be written alongside the bible, and then hidden for almost two-thousand years. Try, if you will, to grasp what was intended by Constantine when he had this book created. We can't possibly fathom what importance this book has.”

  Ricky reached over and ran his hand over the Book of Sighs.

  “Your hand just touched a piece of history,” Rupert said, his eerie voice echoing through the small room. “A piece of history that has been kept secret at all costs.” He nodded. “That book has a higher price than any of us can imagine. And the information it holds hostage in its impossible code . . . that has no price on it.”

  “You can't put a price on the truth,” Ricky said softly, his eyes taking in the newly discovered magnificence of the Book of Sighs.

  And my degenerative brain disease just got a bit less virulent.

  My advanced schizophrenia didn't seem so viable.

  The tumor just shrunk a tad more.

  Looking at the book I realized the frightening reality that I might not be going crazy.

  Shit.

  Chapter 13

  Jack's apartment.

  Friday night . . .

  We left Rupert feeling a bit awestruck. This book—the Book of Sighs—it was pretty important. If it was real, that is. And we had no way of knowing for sure. But something told me that it was legitimate. That this wasn't a fake. No prank here.

  Ricky agreed. Why would Ms. Josephine have given me a fake super-secret book that nobody can interpret? Something else struck me, too. Ms. Josephine had said that I would eventually be able to read it. Perhaps all of this seemingly nonsensical research was toward that very aim. I mean, who could resist the temptation of figuring out what some 1,700 year old book was trying to say?

  What was Constantine trying to keep secret . . . but was important enough to have three copies of it?

  Lots of questions that none of us, even salty old Rupert, could answer. Ricky thought we should take much more care with the book, even recommending that we get a safety deposit box for it. It wasn't a bad idea, but I was worried that without the actual book, maybe I wouldn't be able to figure out any of the coded pages. We agreed to sleep on it. Literally, sleep on it, until a better idea arose.

  Two hours later I find myself flipping mindlessly through a National Geographic. On page 79 there are a series of photos from the Typhoon damage in Burma. And these pictures are so, I don't know . . . sharp. Edgy. Grainy, just to the point where you can actually feel the black mud underneath your fingernails.

  As I went from one glossy page to the next, seeing dead bodies next to collapsed buildings, I felt very greedy and arrogant, and ashamed. Here I am, I got a little pop on the head, and the state is shelling out gobs of money, care, and personal attention so that I can cope.

  These people, with their broken lives, their crushed cities, places that look like they were destroyed back when Atlantis disappeared—they've been left with nothing. Just pieces of broken concrete, and rusted rebar, and shards of glass and trees . . . and death everywhere. This is beyond catastrophe. In the blink of an eye, 100,000 people ceased to be among the living.

  Why?

  Were they in the wrong place at the wrong time? Did they not have faith? Or did they have the wrong faith? Is this the world that Constantine was trying to build, or the one he was trying to protect us from?

  Or is it all a dice game?

  There were a few black-n-white photos of a family—all kids—huddled together holding a small dead child. There wasn't a parent to be found. All of the kids looked like they hadn't eaten a good meal, ever.
And they have this blank look in their eyes. This empty stare that says, this is just the way it's supposed to be.

  Like they expected it.

  Like they deserved this devastation.

  And those pictures, those pixelated, grainy, black-n-white photographs, I stared numbly into them as if they were just more Rorschach Inkblots. I was waiting for impressions. But I'm so used to faking it, that my mind doesn't know how to actually interpret this level of sadness. I am actively trying to empathize with these people, but it's difficult.

  Where is the humanity in that?

  Where is the divinity?

  And then I glance over at the book, sitting on that same wooden chair that matches the other three chairs in my apartment. That fucking book.

  The sky had turned blue and peaceful, growing closer to black with each minute as the sun hurries away. Ricky would say we were between dogs and wolves.

  It's quiet in here. My apartment has a low hum. It's a mixture of all the different appliances and lights and the air-conditioner all strumming along together to create their unique collaborated sound. But all of it kind of cancels itself out. It makes the world some foreign place beyond the protective borders of my balcony and the front door.

  So all is as quiet as it will ever be.

  I close the National Geographic, my fingers a bit sticky as if those children sweat ink onto my fingertips. And I take a deep breath and lay back. I'm guessing that at some point, I should feel the drummer's beat inside my chest, and that I will suddenly be able to read this book. But nights, quiet nights like this, they have taken on a far more foreboding nature.

  Nights like this are when I see the spooks.

  So I decide to change the way I have been handling all of this. I make the choice to just sit back, alert and aware, and study them, just like Dr. Smith studies me. The same way that Rupert studied the minutiae of fine details on the book's cover, distilling from it knowledge.