by Adam Moon
Jack didn’t have any more questions he could think of. Maybe it was the whisky softening his brain but he suddenly felt very tired.
He thanked the General for being so candid and he promised not to say anything to Doc Collins about what had happened at his apartment earlier today.
As he was leaving the General made him swear again that nothing they’d talked about would be repeated. The man was paranoid, but for good reason.
Jack reassured him and started down the hallways.
When he reached his apartment he went straight to bed.
He dreamt of his dad. It was that same old dream from nearly two decades ago but it hadn’t lost its luster over time. It was just as vivid now.
Just like when he was a kid, he woke up cold from the piss he’d expelled in his sleep.
He took a shower, changed clothes, pulled off the sheets and flipped the mattress. He chastised himself the whole time.
He thought that nightmare was behind him. He threw the comforter and sheets in a hamper and hoped whoever had to do his laundry wouldn’t notice how wet they were. He settled into the couch cushions and fell back asleep, this time nightmare free.
He woke up the next morning dry as a bone but he still felt a little silly. Grown men don’t piss the bed. That was just a known law of the universe that was only broken by alcohol or old age. He knew he was about to get too busy to dwell upon it and for that he was glad.
Chapter 21: Day Four
“So how was the General?” Billy asked nonchalantly when Jack answered the door.
Jack decided Billy deserved a second chance so he took up the conversation.
“He’s ok really. He comes off as a crusty old bitch until you get to know him. I think all of his mania and aggression and uptightness is all rooted in a deep seated fear that things might get away from him; that he might lose control of the situation.”
Billy hadn’t expected a psych eval.
“I meant did he bite your head off all night after you two left?”
“No, he was fine.”
Jack started the morning off adding to his personal history. He had an hour of this before spending the next six hours on artifacts. God knew how much time after that he‘d have to spend downstairs.
This hour might be the only normal part of his day.
He wrote:
I kissed a girl for the first time when I was twelve and I hadn’t even perfected it by the time I got laid at age fourteen by a girl a year older than me who’d had two beers and decided she was an adult. I don’t remember her name and if you showed me a picture of her I can guarantee you I wouldn’t recognize her. I was scared to the point of passing out, but dammit, I quickly did the deed (it was a race right?) and for about a year I was a fucking legend at school.
Other kids in my grade had fumble-fucked each other but none of them had boned an older chick from a different school. I got a bit of a reputation from that one chance encounter that was honestly just being in the right place at the right time.
Girls started to see me all of a sudden and for a while all the hang-ups from my past seemed to just melt away.
I was a popular teenager who was getting laid by a different girl every month or two. That doesn’t sound like much now but compared to my classmates I was a regular Don Juan.
I almost started to believe in God because it seemed like someone was watching over me.
I was happy.
Then I dated Stacy Beckham when I was about seventeen and it all went in the crapper.
She was one of the hot chicks and I was more than happy to maintain a long term relationship with her; in fact it might have even been my decision to date rather than just screw and move on.
I really liked her in the beginning.
But after a while I think she decided that the glossy veneer I gave to the world wasn’t enough to hold her interest so she started trying to peel back my layers to find out who the true inner me was. I don’t know if it scared her but it scared the shit out of me. For the past three years I had no reason to cry. I was an athlete, popular, smart and I was getting laid.
But those first few tears she pried loose opened a floodgate I didn’t even know existed anymore.
I started to think too internally and every day I became more and more intrigued by myself.
I let it happen though. It wasn’t that it felt cathartic or anything, it was that I knew these were the new shitty conditions in order to sleep with Stacy.
I was whipped.
But I had to end it when she started feuding with my uncle Nick. I realized right then that she was just a fucking bitch who liked turmoil.
She begged me to stay with her. She said she knew the real Jack, the deeply troubled, tragic teen. She said she loved me which actually made me even angrier.
Nick even asked me to reconsider, saying it was all just a misunderstanding.
I might not have even remembered any of this except that about two months after I dumped her they found her body mutilated, stuffed between her mattress and box spring.
She didn’t deserve that.
The cops questioned me but I had a new girl by then and I had spent the past three days camping with her and a few other people up north.
Uncle Nick vouched for me as did all my camping buddies.
They never did find out who did it and the killings started and ended with her.
Maybe some new boyfriend found out just what a bitch she was and took it too far. I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead. She was my first and maybe only true love.
I saw a few girls after Stacy before high school was over but something seemed off about me. I think embracing my inner sadness was not beneficial. It showed on my face and in my movements more each day.
Within a year of breaking up with her my charisma was gone and girls failed to notice me anymore. I had started to brood.
Uncle Nick tried to help me through hypnosis and diet and by just being extra cheerful but the moods were here to stay, always smoldering beneath the surface.
I think he only tried to help because I was driving him nuts with my glumness, but who knows.
It wasn’t until Uncle Nick took off shortly thereafter that I had to put all that self hatred to rest because now I had to figure out my future, go to college and get a job, feed myself and buy a car.
I no longer had the time to brood about the past; there was just too much to do.
Possibly the best thing Uncle Nick could have done for me at that point in my life was to leave. When he did, I was forced to grow up and become a man on my own.
But not right away.
You have to understand that I was pretty distraught about my uncle bailing on me so I went overboard that summer, plus I was eighteen years old fresh out of high school. My debauchery had no limits.
I had some missteps, got wasted and ticketed for pissing on the sidewalk outside a bar. I got a ticket for my fake ID and underage drinking that night too.
What really ended up biting me on the ass was this: When the cop tapped me on the shoulder as I peed, I turned around and some piss got on the pant leg of his uniform. It turns out that’s assault on an officer and lewd and lascivious behavior or something as well.
That kind of thing will put up roadblocks your entire life.
I do not recommend it.
I dated a few skanks back to back. One of them was low enough to steal money from my wallet right before I never saw her again.
I got the clap once and even gave blood a few times just to eat.
I hit a hooker in the face for trying to reach into my pocket as I passed her by after a night out drinking.
At a bar one night I hit a big biker dude over the head with a bottle and when he just stood there and glared at me I took off running like a punk.
I dabbled in drugs but my drug of choice was alcohol.
There might even still be a decade old scratchy amateur porno floating around the internet starring yours truly and this tattooed, pierced up G
oth chick I picked up while I was trawling coffee shops for stray ass. I didn’t know she was taping it until we finished. I would have felt like a little bitch if I’d asked her to erase it.
Her apartment’s decorations left no doubt that she belonged to that new age, phony Wiccan crowd that was so popular a decade ago. It gave me the willies so I just got the fuck out as soon as possible. I should have nabbed the tape but she seemed like the type to track me down and kick the shit out of me for it. At least I got to go bare back on her; God bless latex allergies.
I was a regular Holden Caulfield that summer. I felt limitless and unbound.
But after those couple months of drifting around aimlessly, I got accepted into college and things got better for me right away.
I met other young men and women there who’d had tough lives and they were well adjusted enough despite all they’d been through. I knew I could be too. I learned how to drink socially instead of using booze as a means to escape my own thoughts and moods. The college chicks helped to brighten my spirits as much as anything else and I started to find my inner stud again.
It’s true what they say, if you believe in yourself, others will believe in you too. I believed my sex appeal was second to none during my college years. If you invent yourself in the right way for the right person in the right situation that person will respond to you the way you want them to. I felt like I had mastered this art and not once did I feel like a phony.
Not every girl fell for my bullshit but enough did.
I’m proud to say I accomplished all of this without ever joining a fraternity. I’m also proud to say I graduated with a 4.0 GPA even though I took most of my finals hung-over or exhausted from lack of sleep.
Jack hit enter.
His hands were shaking because of all the memories he'd dredged up. He wanted to edit out his sexual history because he knew deep down he’d only included it because it had been so long since the last time he got laid. He did this, fixated on past sexual partners when the present ones were boring or were simply nonexistent. But he sent it out unedited because he knew he’d just chop and edit all damn afternoon if he started and when he was finished the end product would read like a how-to guide for programming a microwave.
He thought about that cute security guard downstairs. He knew he’d be spending time with her later today and it excited him.
Then he worried for just a moment that she might read his self evaluation and consider him a cad because of his past exploits. But that was so long ago. He’d become a completely different person since then. It would be unfair to judge him based on any of that. He relaxed when he realized there was no reason for a security guard to be involved in his Biography in the first place.
This was the General’s dumb, paranoia induced idea. He regretted mentioning the Chlamydia though. If pissing in a sink disgusted the General then mentioning an STD (long cured though it was) would probably make him projectile vomit all over his computer monitor as he read it.
Jack grimaced at his self indulgences; what did getting laid matter when there was a group of people out there who wanted to abduct him? Why was he thinking about what that guard would look like wearing just her helmet and boots when there was a fucking werewolf downstairs and a clone of Jack in a cage?
Chapter 22: Playing Catch
The clock on his desktop read 7:28. He took a breather to steady his nerves. Then he remembered the shiny red death ball so he opened the cabinet and withdrew the beaker. He didn’t even hesitate; just let it roll out of the tissue and the beaker into his bare palm.
A physical yearning welled up within him on contact with the ball. The sadness returned like an old girlfriend showing up at the weakest point of your life. It was a welcome feeling, a lost feeling that brought back the memories of the recurring dream about his father.
It made him shudder to think that he might have to deal with those dreams all over again and this time without Nick’s help. Maybe the dream this morning was an isolated incident, a freak occurrence. He wondered if the ball had triggered that dream, dredged it up from his past or from his subconscious.
The ball brought sorrow; bittersweet as it was.
He thought about his dad trying to get back to him. He thought about all the obstacles he knew his dad couldn’t overcome in that dream scenario. Then he thought, it’s just a dream, stop being a dumbass.
Then he felt the ball do something strange and he panicked. It tugged at him. It didn’t physically tug at his body, rather he felt himself, his essence, getting sucked toward the ball. It glowed yellow and became somewhat translucent. He could see it's power. He fought back somehow, instinctively. There was a snapping noise that came from within his eardrums as the ball hopped a few inches upward, and then fell back into his hand. The glow was gone.
Now he felt nothing from the ball. The feelings of sadness evaporated instantly and there was a part of him that understood he had just defeated this artifact in some way and that it wouldn’t fuck with him again. But he was sure he hadn’t rendered it safe. Just because it distinguished that it could not and would not kill him didn’t mean it wasn’t going to kill every other person it touched.
He smiled, feeling a little full of himself. This thing had defeated everyone but him. He tossed it in the air and caught it but when the ball slowed and finally stopped midair to reverse direction and return to his hand he felt something, a kind of newfound connection to this object. He tossed it in the air and caught it again and he knew something was different.
He could feel a physical connection to it. It was an alien feeling at first but very quickly it became familiar. Like meeting a long lost twin you didn’t even know you had.
He tossed it again, and on a whim he moved his hand aside. It stopped right where his hand had been a second earlier; spinning freely in the empty air as though it could simply ignore the force of gravity. Jack reached out gingerly and plucked it out of the air.
Of all the nonsense he’d seen these past few days, this one excited him the most.
When he was a kid he’d watched an old fantasy movie called Krull. The hero in the movie had this big metal object that worked like a throwing star but looked more like a misshapen, three pronged swastika. He’d throw it and then influence what it did whilst it was in the air, even making it come back to him like a killer swastika boomerang. Preteen Jack had spent countless nights awake in bed just imagining having one of those throwing star thingies and having the power to make it do whatever he wanted. Now looking at the ball in his hands, his wish might have finally come true, just too late for it to be quite as cool as it once was.
He tried to concentrate, to commune with the ball through telepathy or sheer will or whatever.
The ball didn’t do shit.
He threw it up again and tried to will it to keep going up and up against the force of gravity but it hit his hand with a dull thud, just as nature intended. He willed it to move about the room but it ignored his futile attempts.
He suddenly felt like a fool. He pulled his arm back like a big league pitcher and hauled off with it out of frustration. He regretted it immediately. Billy would hear the commotion and come in to find the stolen artifact embedded in the wall.
But it was too late now. Or was it?
It was about to hit the far wall when it arced upward at a steep angle and raced right back at him. Jack had to think fast just so it didn’t hit him in the face.
He giggled like a lunatic. He’d somehow done it.
He decided that he was going to keep the ball, even after his research was done. This was his childhood dream become reality.
He turned his hand over so his palm was facing down and the ball stuck to his hand like a magnet to iron. He concentrated hard and it eventually dropped although there was no way for him to know if he made it do that or if it just chose to do it on its own. He preferred the first explanation and proved it true over the next thirty minutes as he willed the death ball to swoop and rise and stop midair, all wit
h the power of his mind.
By the time he was done he felt like he’d mastered it.
His heart was racing and sweat had broken out all over his body but in a good, exhilarating way. He took a quick look at the clock on his desktop and when he saw it was eight o’clock already he hurriedly put the ball back in the beaker and stuffed the beaker to the back of the cabinet. He took a seat behind his desk. He tried to regain his composure but he missed the ball already. It called to him physically.
Holy shit these artifacts are even weirder than anyone knows, he thought as Billy knocked twice and entered with a new artifact in tow.
He spent the next six hours drinking coffee and analyzing artifacts, each one unique in its own creepy way.
The break for lunch in the middle was much needed. The cuisine from the kitchen sent his taste buds twirling skyward. He imagined he’d get fat if he was stuck here much longer.
Chapter 23: Melanie
The Doc arrived a little before two and Jack was happy for it. He was getting bored sitting in the office by himself all day long.
Billy walked them as far as the elevator and then hurried off, probably to give the General an update or something.
The female security guard was inside the elevator as the doors opened. She smiled to each of them as they entered. She was in civilian garb and she turned out to be cuter than Jack had expected which actually dampened his mood; she might be out of his league. She was maybe a couple years younger than he was. She had loosely curled bouncy black hair that looked like it smelled great. She was fair skinned and had a perfect, cute as a button nose. Her eyes were either green or grey and she didn’t pluck her eyebrows, a sure sign of a woman who isn’t a narcissist. Her legs were a little too muscular for his taste, but who was he to judge? They met at the most perfectly shaped butt Jack had ever seen. She had smallish breasts but Jack didn’t give two shits about a woman’s chest size, he was an ass man and she was a dream come true in that area. Plus she had that pistol strapped to her thigh; yeah, she was way too hot for him.