See Jack Hunt (See Jack Die)

by Nicholas Black

  Shit .

  If I don't learn to control this thing, I'll never, ever, in a trillion years, pass a driving test. How am I going to parallel park when I've got a Honda Civic out the right side, and 15-foot tall flying monsters out the left. When you see that sticker that says, ' Things in mirror may be nearer than they appear, ' they aren't kidding.

  I'm either evolving, or decaying. And I'm not sure what the difference is just yet. I need to speak with Uriel about this. I concentrate on him, hoping that he'll appear at any moment with a printed sheet full of answers.

  He'll know what's going on.

  23 seconds later . . .

  “I have no idea what's going on inside that head of yours,” Uriel says as he approaches me, startling the ripe shit out of me.

  Now I see only the border town between the earth plane and the Deadside. This is getting frustratingly confusing. I explain what's going on, and he just stands back, in the corner of my bedroom and ponders this.

  He's wearing his large black cloak, his arms folded across his chest, and just his right fingers are tapping his left bicep. He's huge, this angel. I don't know how much he bench presses, but it's probably like three times more than me. And I can hit 225 for a set of eight.

  His voice is crisp and full, like one of those guys who narrates movie previews, and he says, “Jack, this might be good news for us. It might give us a tactical advantage over the twenty-three evils.”

  Do we need a tactical advantage ? I ask him. I mean, aren't they just some evil spirits on the run from the law, or whatever? Why should we be worried? They should be worried.

  He ignores my rambling like an impatient father. “This is your body rising to the task. You are going through changes. You are like a small caterpillar who has begun his transformation into a brilliant butterfly.”

  And although I don't necessarily like the connotation that I'm going to end up a brilliant butterfly , I get where he's going with all this.

  This is me becoming different than human.

  No more humanity.

  And just the tiniest shred of divinity.

  “You will be fine, Jack. Now tell me, how has your research been going?”

  We went online, today. Hal is working the research as we speak. He never sleeps.

  “Who is Hal?” Uriel asks suspiciously, his face coming out of the shadows a few inches.

  He's our supercomputer-sentient-artificial-being thingy. And all he does is pour through the worlds electrons, looking for the footprints of evil.

  The angel doesn't look satisfied. He steps closer, “They grow stronger by the day. They will find ways to increase their power as the time goes on. We don't have much time.”

  Why? What's about to happen?

  He backs away to the corner of the room again, “Find them, Jack. Or they'll find you . . . ”

  And his voice fades away as the world shakes and jostles its way back to normal. My left and right eyes are in agreement again, and I decide to try and get some sleep before everything becomes unplugged.

  I'm the actor with only half of his lines.

  I'm the paint that's under the famous painting, that nobody ever sees.

  This thing with my left eye and ear, my death-vision, I need to learn how to control it before it controls me.

  This is death, my new life.

  28

  Barnes & Noble, North Dallas.

  Sunday afternoon . . .

  I'm at the bookstore, again. There's all kinds of people milling about, browsing for something that catches their eyes in the magical six seconds. But me, I'm actually here to surprise Angela.

  After we ate pizza at Luigi's , we talked on the phone for over 30 minutes. For me, that's like a world record. I never talk to people on the phone very long, because it seems so impersonal. But with Angela it's not like that at all. She's very interesting and her voice is wonderfully soft and pleasing to hear on the otherwise cold, colorless phone line. She does that, she adds color to things.

  And since my life deals with places that have no color, I could use more of her kind of energy. That's why I'm here to say hi to her. I can smell coffee and books, and it's just right. There's energy here, but it's a quiet, restrained energy. Not as stuffy as a library, but much more tranquil than a McDonald's .

  As I'm walking towards her section, which I know she'll be working in, I see some elderly couple book shopping together. There's no way to explain how simple and nice this little moment in time is. Everything is the way it would be in a perfect world. We're all just going in our different directions, looking for the word from somebody else.

  That elderly couple, they might be looking for adventure classics, or traveling books for their next trip to Europe. They could be searching for books that discuss aging, or scientific journals that specialize in anti-aging techniques and medicines. With their white hair, and wrinkles, and thick glasses, and pants too ugly to imagine ever having to wear, they look exactly the way they should look. They're perfect.

  I walk by them and see the backside of a very attractive girl. I know that pair of legs. They sat across from me at Luigi's Pizza for hours yesterday. And I'm confident that she's not going to slap a restraining order on me. I've got a surprise for her.

  As I approach she stands straight up, stiff as a board, as if she knows somebody is behind her. Slowly she turns and she's got a book she's holding, face out. The title, Remembering The Real YOU. Her eyebrows do this little up and down thing like she's saying, check this out .

  I smile and approach to within a few feet of her. I look at the book, at her, at the manila folder in my right hand, at her, again. She's very pretty today. Her hair is loose, down to her shoulders, but very straight and neat. I notice she doesn't wear much make-up. Truth is, she doesn't have to.

  “Hi, Jack,” she says as she taps on the book, “I've been expecting you.”

  I was going to surprise you, I say. But I see that I'm a bit of a foregone conclusion.

  “No, not at all. I was kind of hoping you might come by and see me. That's why I told you I would be working today, like five times while we ate pizza yesterday.”

  Well, I'm very perceptive, so . . .

  “What's that?” she asks, her eyes glancing at the folder.

  Oh, this old thing?

  “Is that for me?” she says, smiling like it's Christmas morning. It's hard to be clever around a girl who knows everything you're going to do before you do it.

  I hand it to her, nodding.

  She trades me the book I'll probably never understand, for the gift she might not enjoy. Very carefully she opens the folder and inside is a full color, glossy print of the video she saw yesterday that has the possible ghost sighting on it. Ricky helped me put a yellow arrow on the printout so that it points to the probable entity.

  She glances up at me a few times. Her eyes keep going back and forth from me to the ghostly image.

  “That's what you saw yesterday, in the office” I said to her, realizing that maybe it isn't as interesting as I assumed she thought it was. “I just figured you might be interested—”

  “That's . . . incredible,” she says. “It really looks spooky, huh.”

  You have no idea.

  She squints at the picture, “So is this a real live ghost?”

  Well, I'm not sure. I mean, technically it wouldn't be a live ghost, but I suppose that's a semantic question. And, well, there's no way of proving it, of course. But . . .

  “It's creepy, though,” she says looking up at me. And then her face softens to this kind of pleasant, compassionate gaze. “I like it very much. Thank you.”

  I'll be honest, I'm not real good at taking compliments or thank yous . I don't know what to say. So I switch gears, “You look very nice, Angela.”

  And then she just reaches out and grabs my wrist. “I want you to meet my friend. It's my roomate Jesse.” Then she starts tugging me towards the front of the store, near the check-out registers.

  I hope people don
't think I've just been caught shoplifting, the way she's holding my wrist and all. About ten feet from the check-out registers she stops and turns to look at me. And this may be the closest we've ever been to each other. It's so close that I'm not sure if I'm violating her personal space, or if it's the other way around.

  I take a half step backwards just to hedge it on the safe side.

  “Jack . . . .did you do something different with your hair?”

  “Huh?” I say, running my hand through my short-cropped hair. It can't be longer than a half inch. I didn't even know there were other things to do with short hair other than just, well, having it.

  Then she giggles, “I'm kidding, you look nice. White is a good color for you.” And then we continue toward the registers.

  I glance down at my shirt. I'm wearing a white long-sleeved shirt, which may seem a bit odd due to the fact that it is really hot outside this time of year. I'm just keeping my spiritual invisibility tattoos covered for now.

  When we get to the register I'm introduced to a short girl with short blond hair that explodes in different directions. Her hair, it's like a firecracker that just went off. But in a cool way. She's trendy, this girl.

  “This is my roomate, Jesse.”

  Jesse smiles and extends her hand. She had black nail polish on her fingernails, and that's a bit odd considering that she's fairly attractive, and doesn't seem like the Gothic type. Her eyes are light blue, and kind of narrow on her face. She has a unique look. I could see her in a rock video.

  We shake hands and Jesse says, “You must be Jack.”

  I glance over at Angela, and then back to Jesse. I nod.

  “Angela told me a lot about you.”

  Really ? I say. I mean, there's not that much to tell.

  Jesse smiles, and she has big perfect teeth . . . and a tongue ring.

  Did that hurt? I ask, tapping my tongue with my right index finger.

  Then she moves her tongue around really fast making clickety - clackety noises on her teeth with the piercing. “It was worth it. It's my own form of expression.” Then she lowers her voice, “My secret mohawk.”

  She should meet my tattoo artist, Chuck. They'd get along famously.

  For whatever reason, I happen to glance down behind her and I think I saw just the hint of something that shouldn't be here. And this quick flash of heat washes through my body, my heart rate climbing for an instant. I smile at her, kind of awkwardly and glance down again.

  “What is it?” Jesse says, looking down around her.

  I couldn't see them when I was walking up, because the wooden counter blocked my view. But now that I'm right here near the register I can see them just fine. There are three of them.

  Three spooks.

  And the thing is, I don't know what to do. I can't tell Jesse that the door-to-door salesman of death are starting to watch her. That would guarantee me being labeled a freaking lunatic. I'd be that weirdo guy that chases ghosts and sees shadows.

  And I know that this is a difficult moment between all of us. I'm just sitting here, stupidly thinking of ways to tell this girl she's done something to warrant a spook entourage. She's dead soon. No way around it.

  Nowhere to hide from it.

  No stopping it.

  The Jesse that is , today, will be the Jesse that was . My quick estimate is a week, maybe less. They aren't bouncing around like crack junkies, yet, so she's still got a little time. But only a little. And, this predicting death based on spook activity isn't an exact science.

  “Jack,” Angela says, “ . . . are you alright?”

  “Oh, I'm sorry,” I apologize to them. “I just remembered something that I had forgotten back at the . . . at the office. It was very nice to meet you, Jesse. I hope to see you again.” And I wasn't just saying that to be polite.

  I take a few steps back, and turn around. Angela walks with me. “What's going on? You okay?”

  I say, Can I . . . I need to talk to you . . . about Jesse.

  Angela's face turns to something between concern and apprehension. “You can tell me, what is it? Do you know her or something? Did she do something?”

  There's no way to tell her what I want to tell her without guaranteeing that she'll never speak to me again. So I consider my angle. We walk back towards her section, and then we turn into the isle.

  Your roomate, Jesse, she doesn't believe in God, does she?

  Angela shakes her head, not sure where I'm going. “Well . . . she's kind of an atheist, I guess. We don't really talk about it much.” She shrugs, “She's not super religious, no.”

  I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. I say, “Look, you need to take her to church, or read her the bible, or something, because it's really important for her to establish some kind of relationship with God.”

  “She's got her whole life to figure things out,” Angela says, almost miffed that I would be so brazen as to try and convert somebody I just met.

  Maybe she doesn't, I say delicately.

  “Doesn't what?” Angela says, crossing her arms. She's assuming the defensive posture, and I know that means she's putting up barriers between us. I'm losing her before I get her. I'm destroying a foundation that hasn't even been built.

  “ . . . doesn't have her whole life to figure things out,” I say. “Life is tricky and there's no pattern to it. It's your best day, and then it's your worst day, and there's no rhyme or reason to it. You can't plan for the unthinkable.”

  She's looking at me differently. “I didn't even know you were religious. What difference does it make to you if she believes in God or not? You never asked if I believed in God. Do I need to go to church and read the bible, too?”

  Angela's definitely offended by what I've said. And that's perfectly understandable. She's a self-reliant woman, who is confident and intelligent. And it's an insult to both to try and push someone like that to your beliefs. It's like saying, 'you're too dumb to make the right choice.'

  Angela, I say, I have a sense for these things. I think your friend is in real trouble if she doesn't makes some changes in her life. If you care about her you'll trust me, and talk to her about God. Give her some reason to believe.

  “But I'm not even sure I believe in God.”

  “Well,” I say to her, “ . . . you're not the one who's going to die, soon.” And the second the words leave my mouth I regret saying them. I've blown it, for sure.

  “What in the hell is wrong with you?” she says, and her eyes are very narrow and angry. This girl doesn't want to talk to me, probably ever again.

  “I just have a feeling about these kinds of things. Please trust me.”

  She reaches out and takes her book back, and there is so much disappointment in her face.

  I tell her, I'm sorry, Angela.

  And then I turn around and walk away. She doesn't say anything to stop me. Then again, why should she? On my way to the glass doors I see a spook lumber past me, slowing down a couple of feet away and checking me out, then hurrying on to the business at hand.

  Now I have to worry about the restraining order, for real.

  29

  ALG office.

  Monday, 5:26 am . . .

  With Hal's help, and all the computing power at our disposal, Billtruck finally filtered all of the wireless audio from 114 Briargrove. They also got the video from the Full-Spectrum camera loaded in, and processed.

  The reason that Ricky and I are here, staring at computer screens this early, is because we were both awakened by a phone call from Billtruck saying, and I quote, “You gotta get in here and see this spooky shit!”

  I couldn't sleep anyway. I felt so awful about warning Angela about her roommate's impending doom that I didn't get a wink in edgewise. This is the horrible, much romanticised side of dating that they use to fuel 20 or 30 romantic comedies a year. Hollywood's got us pegged.

  “I don't know,” Billtruck says as he lays down several more glossy photos like the one I gave Angela. I want to call her and ap
ologize, but that would probably just end up with her really hating me. On each picture there are little yellow arrows that point to things that have us perplexed.

  It does look kind of like a person standing at the edge of the stairway, I say.

  I'm squinting at a moment in time when I had gone back into the attic to get the two microphones that were placed under the gatherer hive. The gatherer hive that I have, thus far, not mentioned. Don't want to spook Billtruck.

  “I really didn't expect to find anything in these,” Billtruck says, his giant hands thumbing through the photos. “ . . . I mean, you look at the screen and scroll through the video, especially with the Full-Spectrum, but you don't think there's going to be anything conclusive. I probably spent hours just getting it all loaded, having the programs go over and over, filtering this stuff.”

  He shrugs, “But then you get the audio from the wireless microphones . . . ” He leans in as we all gather around one computer. He turns up the speakers on the sides so that we can all hear what he claims to be ' disturbing ' audio clips. “Hal.”

  “Hello, Bill . . . ”

  “Can you run the long clip, marked twenty thirty-seven and five seconds.”

  And then we watch as a graph comes up on the screen with several different colored squiggly lines on it. Each color represents a different type of sound—filtered and separated by the kind of computing power that will eventually takeover and exterminate humanity.

  Billtruck says, “Watch the red line, that's the one we're looking for. That's the EVP line.”

  And so the lines start dancing. There's the red one that dips up and down a bit, nothing spectacular. A green one seems energetic, but very low and close to the baseline white bar that goes from right to left.

  “The green is mechanical, natural noises. You know, doors and hinges and stuff.”

  A blue one has occasional spikes in it, but nothing consistent. “That's your noise, Jack,” Billtruck whispers.

  So, I'm a random blue spike in an otherwise boring graph. That's about right. Even a wireless mic seems to know I'm uninteresting. I watch in a small box above the graph, the video of me walking by the cameras and heading up the steps to the attic.