Excuse me, I say.
She's short, with long curly auburn hair and rosy cheeks. She has a kind face, and smile. Her clothes are modest: a pair of jeans and a green blouse. She looks like somebody I might know.
“Is it you?” she says, squinting at me. “It's been nearly twenty years. You look a lot different.”
People change a lot in twenty years. I feel my heart rate beating a million beats a second. What if this girl knew me? Knows me? This could be the break I need to get my old life back. All my questions might get answered because of this one, chance encounter.
And I'm thinking, hey, the universe might work this way. I saw death earlier, but my old life, perhaps it is about to be reborn.
Then she smiles awkwardly, “You're not Hal, are you.”
I might be.
“No, no,” she says. “Hal moved away a long time ago. And besides, you're too polite to be Hal Falter. He was kind of a . . . ”
Kind of a what? I say, stepping closer.
“He was a bit of a womanizer,” she said. And then she looked at my eyes, “And Hal had bluish eyes. You could almost be him. His twin”
Shit.
“I'm sorry, you just looked like a ghost from my past,” she said as she opened her purse to pay. Victor was so caught up in this little soap opera that he hadn't started ringing-up her groceries.
I get that a lot, I say to her. The ghost thing, I mean.
Even though this woman says I'm not who she thought I might be, I keep repeating the name, Hal Falter, over and over in my head as I make my way out.
As the doors open the difference in pressure from outside the 7-11 hits me like a punch in the gut. It's gotten even colder.
Hal Falter.
I wave goodbye to the woman and head out towards Ricky's black gas-guzzler, and make my way around to the passenger side, being blasted by chilling wind. The weather here in Texas seems as unpredictable as the netherworld.
I get in and turn to Ricky, I need you to look-up a name on your Internet for me. He asks, why.
I might be a guy named Hal Falter, I say.
He shrugs, “Well, there shouldn't be more than about two-thousand, Hal Falters on the web. Can you narrow it down a bit?”
Yeah, I say. He's missing. He's got my physical description—well, plus or minus the eye color. And he might have a history of mental illness.
“Is this just the sugar talking?”
Probably, I admit.
“Cool.”
Chapter 25
Heading east on Valley View Ln.
4 minutes later . . .
Against Ricky's better judgment, I was already unwrapping one of my packages of Choco-Kakes. And while I did this, he's unfoiling two yellow antihistamine tablets.
I need sugar.
He needs peace of mind.
We're basically doing the same thing, him and me. Though, from completely different directions.
I figure it's time I told him about the job I was taking. Last week my caseworker—before the soul stealing incident—had called me about a job. I had told him that if nothing else came up, I would consider it. But I have some idea that Ricky will not think highly of my employment decision.
“What, Jack?” Ricky said, seeing me looking at him with that pre-announcement glare.
I, uh, well . . . I think I may have found employment.
“Sweet,” he says as he forces down the second of his two Sudafed tablets without the assistance of water. “Did you get a job at the mall? That's a good place to work, with all the chicks and stuff.”
No, I say—my eyes darting around the black and grey leather interior of his truck. I got a job with Dallas County Services.
And now I'm waiting for his response.
“With what?”
Dallas County Services. The people who tend to the Lyndon B. Johnson Manor, where I live.
“God-damn, dude!” he barks.
What's the problem? I get to work near my apartment. I have relatively flexible hours. And I get to be a part of my own environment. To help people less fortunate than myself. To be a part of the cure. I'm tired of being a drain on society. I want to make a difference. Be a part of something that can lead to a better tomorrow.
“You're going to be a tard-farmer!”
A what?
“You are going to be the guy that tends to the retards. Thus . . . a tard-farmer. Those people will drive you insane, Jack.” Then he squints at me as he glances from the road to me, and back to the road. Gears are turning inside his head.
What? I ask. What is it?
His eyes all narrow, he says, “How did you get the job?”
I could lie to him about actually applying and going through the interview process. I could make up a bunch of nonsense about being called in for a second interview, and how well the manager liked me. But Ricky, he's grown to know me enough that he'd see I'm lying my ass off. For some reason, the post head-trauma me can't lie very convincingly.
“Thing is,” Ricky says conspiratorially, “ . . . they don't usually let the tards run the tard-farm.”
Are you saying I'm retarded? I asked. Because, that's what it seems like.
“Jack, you are the rare exception to the kind of people that waste away in County Services care. You're the exception, not the rule. But see, they don't usually let people that are in the care of County Services, work for them. It's a clear-cut recipe for disaster.”
“Like a conflict of interest,” I add. And maybe he's got a point.
He continues, “ . . . so, there must be one hell of a compelling reason they would hire you. Not that you aren't probably perfect for the job. But something more tangible. Why would they risk having you work for them . . . given your questionable mental status?”
That's easy, I explain. The last guy who was working at the Lyndon B. Johnson Manor got bitten by a guy who lives on the third floor.
“He got bitten! And that doesn't bother you?”
I shrugged. Not really, I tell him. People have moments of, um, confusion.
“Confusion?” Ricky says emphatically. “Confusion is not knowing what door is yours. Or what key to use. Or forgetting which cabinet your medicine is in. Biting . . . that's way past confusion. That's primal. That's your deep-seeded psychopathology.”
The caretaker is fine now, I explain. He just had to get some shots.
“Shot's for what . . . Rabies?”
No, I reassure him. Not Rabies . . . MRSA.
Ricky's face, it turns three different shades of red—like a light machine, or a lava lamp. He eyes me through the changing colors of his skin and says, “Do you have any idea what fucking MRSA is?”
I shurg. Some type of skin rash?
“MRSA is the form of staph infection that they think will kill half of the civilized world. It's unstoppable. Like, in that Dustin Hoffman movie, um . . . Outbreak!”
I haven't seen that movie, yet.
“It's old,” he says. “Look, you need to be careful working as a tard-farmer. You don't want to catch some unknown disease because some lip-dragging psycho thinks your arm looks like a Church's chicken leg.”
It's fine, I say, calming his nerves. They make all the staff wear long-sleeved shirts, now.
Ricky shakes his head back and forth. “You had better read all about the undead, because if you work there long enough, you're going to be one of them.”
That's another thing, I say. We need to talk about the book. Something has come up and it warrants your point of view.
“What?” he says as we pull into my apartment complex—the aforementioned tard-farm.
I've been reading back and forth between the King James bible, and the revisions in the Book of Sighs.
“Yeah?”
And I found a new chapter.
“They don't call them chapters,” Ricky explained. “They refer to them as either books, or gospels. The first four sections of the New Testament, they're the gospels. After that, they're called the books. You know
, all the different things that Constantine and his Council of Nicaea decided on.”
Right, right. “Well,” I say as I load a Zinger into my mouth, “I found a new book, then.”
“What's it called?”
The Book of Sorrows.
Chapter 26
Jack's Apartment.
Monday evening . . .
We walk into my apartment and right off the bat, the very second we open the door, I know something is not right. I stop in my kitchen, and Ricky can sense that I'm picking-up on something.
“What is it, Jack?”
I don't know, I tell him. I look around my kitchen, then my eyes focus farther out into my small apartment living area, and beyond. At first glance everything seems fine. But I have a feeling otherwise.
Ricky whispers, “Spooks?”
No, I say as I take a step forward. I think somebody has been in here. Looking around.
Then we both glance at each other and simultaneously we say, “The book!”
Quickly we both race into the living room, and over to the shelves near my bed where our fake bookshelf is hiding in plain sight. It's still there, not moved an inch.
Ricky bends down, looking back and forth over his shoulder before he does the combination. “Maybe we should search the rest of the apartment before we check.”
Good idea, I nod to him.
Then, like super-silent ninjas we both creep our way over to the short hallway leading to my bathroom and washroom. Like stealth secret agents we line-up on both sides of the bathroom door. We trade nods.
On 3, I mouth to him.
1 . . .
2 . . .
3! Both of us spring into action, me turning the door knob, and him kicking it open. “Freeze!” I yell, feeling just like Horatio on CSI: Miami. But there's nobody in the bathroom accept us two dumbasses.
Ricky and I laugh at our over-paranoid reactions and I notice him looking down at my sink basin. His eyes, they go back and forth between my two soaps.
My aromatherapy soaps.
“Jack . . . what are those?”
What?
“Those.”
Never mind all that, I say, trying to get him the hell out of there before he starts asking questions that my masculinity may not be able to answer.
He leans his head back, looking at the soaps one last time, and I know that there is a question forming in his mind.
Let's check on the book, I say.
He nods slowly, and I'm certain that this won't be the last of the aromatherapy soap inquisition.
We head back into the living room, and over near my bed. He unlocks the safe and, cozy as can be, the Book of Sighs is sitting there with several pages of my handwritten notes on top. He takes out the notes and closes the safe.
“So, what have we got?” Ricky says as he sits down on the bed and shuffles through the pages. “Where is this Book of Sorrows?”
Last few pages in the pile, I instruct him.
And then I watch as he finds the pages and sets the others aside. He leans forward and begins reading, whispering as he goes through each verse. Occasionally he looks up at me, as I pace back and forth. But mostly he's just mouthing the text.
While he's reading, I walk slowly from the living room, down the short hallway, make a slow 3-point turn, and then amble back. I'm taking those elongated steps where you let the weight of your body shift at its own pace from left to right. I feel like a soldier marching in one of those parades, although much slower. My left foot falls to the carpet, then my right.
Left, plop.
Right, plop.
And I continued doing this as I think about everything that's happened in the last few hours. Ricky and I, neither of us has discussed the death of my caseworker. It's a taboo subject for the meantime. I think we'll probably talk about it after he finishes reading my notes. As a matter of fact, I'm certain we will.
The chapter—I'm sorry, the book of Sorrows—deals with the other side, and the kinds of things you will encounter when you get there. It's like being at a museum and getting a pamphlet that describes the interior of some old battlefield. Or, at the aquarium, where they have all those placards about the different sharks you may see.
The book of Sorrows, it must have been something that Constantine and his people wanted kept secret, because it's not the kind of thing a religious person would expect to be presented with. I'm not even religious, and it rocks my faith a little.
To be honest, I'm not really sure about the whole God thing. I hope there is a God. I like the concept and the moral principles involved. But I'm just not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt. I don't think I could find the universe guilty of being run by God. At least, not enough to convict.
Back in the day—in 325—when Constantine and his Council of Nicaea were meeting in secret to decide what religion would keep Rome from being ripped apart, they made all of these decisions. Negotiated deals, really.
Rupert told us how they took a vote with a majority show of hands (161-157) and that effectively merged the Druid god, Hesus, with the Eastern Savior-god, Krishna (Krishna is Sanskrit for Christ). They merged the names, and then you had Hesus Krishna. Because there was no “J” letter in alphabets until around the ninth century, the name Hesus Krishna evolved into “Jesus Christ.”
So, when I think about the historical underpinnings of religion, it makes me a bit skeptical. Now, I'm not well versed in these things, but I just have a problem with believing in a legislated deity.
But then there is another side of me. A spiritual side that yearns for something bigger than just what I see. And I also know that just because there isn't proof for something, that doesn't mean it can't exist. I've never seen a black hole, but I believe they are there because I've seen enough in Popular Science to feel confident in this choice. In that sense, I can relate to people with faith.
The part of me that wants to believe in God, that part is constantly looking through newspapers and magazines and seeing horrible catastrophes all around the world. And I can't imagine why a God would let all of that occur.
If God just sits back and watches us suffer, I'm not sure that's somebody I can love. I hate to see people in pain, and I'm not even part-God.
Rupert said that God has his hands tied because he gives us free will. That clever librarian, he supposes that God would like to help, by performing miracles and the like, but he can't because that would cause a moment in time where the laws of physics—the underlying laws of the universe—are inconsistent. That moment, it would spell disaster.
I told Rupert that he needed to start dating.
Anyway, as I walk slowly up and down my hallway, I'm thinking of all these things. I don't even notice that it's way past dark outside. Me doing my walking, and Ricky doing his reading, we could be in two different worlds. We're both in the same place, but it's like neither of us knows where the other is.
The whole time I've been walking back and forth, my eyes have been numbly focused down on the blue carpet. And when I get to the end of the hallway again to make my 3-point turn, I notice there is no color in the walls.
The normally egg-shell painted hallway is a dull grey. I turn slowly around, 60 degrees . . . step, 60 degrees . . . step, 60 degrees . . . whoa!
I look back across my apartment, and I'm stuck in that other place. The melted, stretched place of twisted reality and blue skies. I'm between dogs and wolves and sharks, and as I glance over at the bed I notice Ricky, looking colorful and vibrant in this colorless reality. He's still there, just reading like nothing is happening.
Is everything alright? I say delicately, not completely sure he can hear me.
“Yeah,” Ricky says, not looking up. “Why do you ask?”
No reason, I say as the dead girl walks past him.
Chapter 27
5 long seconds later . . .
This is the first time that the dead girl has been in my presence at the same time as somebody else. I want to say something to Ricky, but I don'
t want to spook her. She's walking nervously, as if somebody may be following her.
There are no spooks to be found measuring Ricky, and I find myself relieved by this.
“This is insane, Jack.”
I know, I say softly.
She looks at me and I nod, motioning her into the hallway where we can have more privacy. I feel like I'm cheating on Ricky, not telling him she's here. But I know he'd understand.
“ . . . keep reading,” I tell him calmly. And then I slowly make my way down my colorless hallway.
She follows me, taking small, careful steps. I want to get a warm blanket to cover her. She looks cold and her clothes are all riped to shreds. Her eyes are so sad and wanting that I wish I could keep her here. Cook her a warm meal or something.
I wish she could explain everything to me. Tell me if she is real, or just a phantom memory from my lost past. We go into the bathroom and I carefully shut the door, trying not to scare her. Imagine that, me trying not to scare the ghost of a dead chick.
Even though the light is not on, there is a blue glow between us, and I can see her very clearly. She wants to tell me something, I can see it in her face. In her body language. We are no more than a foot apart, and this is the closest I've been to any woman, alive or dead, since I woke-up in that hospital bed with those gatherers chopping me apart.
This is the most intimate I've ever been with a woman, as far as I know.
We are studying each other, she and I. She looks like she's in her mid to late twenties. Her skin is smooth and clear—obviously discounting the fact that I know she's dead. Her hair is straight, falling just below her shoulders, and a few stands are in front of her eyes. I have the urge to use my finger and push the hair to the side, but I don't want to make her panic and disappear.
I have this feeling that we're on borrowed time.
See Jack Die (Part 1 in the Paranormal Series) (See Jack Die Series) Page 13