Borderland

by Jennifer Seet

  In an ironic twist this artificial confidence led him to an interview with one of the leading law firms in Indianapolis: Arbuckle, Hawkins, and Weller. His arrogant, brash attitude was perceived as ambition; his good looks appealed to the ladies. The firm had read his resume, and to them, Jake looked good on paper as well.

  Taking the job, he watched his clientele grow. Partners, thrilled with his success, congratulated each other on their wise decision to hire him. Jake’s sense of power and aggressiveness depended on his ability to maintain confidence, and he found himself turning to cocaine more and more frequently to bolster this illusion.

  About a year ago, mumblings started, “What’s up with Jake? Have you noticed how often he’s absent?”

  He could hear them and he saw the furtive glances directed his way. He observed how people would go out of their way to avoid him in the hall, on the street, or any place he might be. This only increased his disdain for those around him. The cocaine was what mattered now, and it became more difficult to come up with cash to feed the addiction.

  So, he had created the scheme to siphon funds from his senior clients, convincing them to relinquish control of their bank accounts so he could pay their bills, smiling now as he remembered how easy it had been. Most of them didn’t have relatives or were estranged from their families, more than happy to let Jake take care of their finances. They assumed that their nice young lawyer was very concerned and helpful and never questioned or checked their bank statements with anyone but him.

  He began stealing from the accounts with every intention of paying them back but, sinking deeper into looting and drug addiction, he felt there was no way out of the chasm he had created.

  Turning his gaze to the handgun, was this the solution? Was this the only way out?

  “Life or death, which should I choose?”

  He knew criminal charges would probably be filed against him. He convinced Logan Massey to give him a day to try to come up with the money, begged her to let him have the next twenty-four hours to explain to his law firm what had happened and resign, saving them any embarrassment. Of course, he would be disbarred, his life a shambles. Jake knew he couldn’t come up with the money. All of his friends and family had long since distanced themselves from him, owing to his unpredictability. Maybe they didn’t know what he had done but they surely wouldn’t come to his rescue when they found out!

  As he stood and walked around the desk, running fingers through his hair, again he studied the gun. No one in the law firm will help me…friends... “What friends!” Long ago he had isolated himself, putting up so many emotional barriers that others were reluctant to reach out.

  Jake let out a stifled futile sob, coming from deep within his throat as he contemplated the future. “What future! I have no future.”

  Reaching out, he inhaled that one last line of coke on the sheet of white paper, grabbed the handle of the gun, and carefully placed the barrel in his mouth. Tears streaming down his face, mixing with sweat, Jake pulled back the hammer and squeezed.

  The last thought that raced through his mind, as the bullet entered his mouth and exploded his head in a sea of bloody foam, was of Logan Massey…her fault…not mine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Logan sat in Bill’s office, head down, hands rigidly clasped together on her lap; her lips trembled. Fighting back tears, she thought about the terrible news Bill had just told her.

  He came over and rested his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself for this, Logan. According to the police, Jake Turner was a drug addict. They found remnants of a line of cocaine on his desk.”

  “I know, but…” trailing off.

  “It was only a matter of time. He had been stealing money for about two years and was bound to get caught.”

  “I had no idea he would ...kill himself,” she whispered, a catch in her throat.

  He gently squeezed her shoulder and repeated, “It was not your fault.”

  Raising her head, looking at him, she took a long time before saying anything. “I can’t get it out of my mind.” She shivered and wrapped her arms around her chest.

  A few minutes ago Bill Jensen was told that Jake Turner had committed suicide shortly after Logan and Scott Harris had gone to his office. The police called him with the news. They told him they had found out from the secretary that Jake had had an appointment with bank personnel at his office last night. They also found some of his clients’ bank statements on his desk.

  The secretary discovered the body when she arrived for work. It wasn’t a pretty sight--blood and brains were splattered all over the walls. She stood in the middle of the room, screaming hysterically until several people came running.

  Poor woman, Bill thought. According to the police, she had to be sedated and was still in shock. All of this, he didn’t share with Logan. It was enough to see the guilt written all over her face.

  “Why don’t you take some time off? I’ll take care of contacting the customers and their families.”

  “No, this is my responsibility,” she protested.

  “Logan, please. This investigation will require a lot of time and work and it’ll be here when you get back.” She began to object but he put up his hands and interrupted her, “You need some time off. Scott can take care of it.” Noticing her disappointment, he knew she wanted to work her way through the remorse even though it wasn’t her fault and couldn’t have been prevented.

  “I’ve got another idea,” he suggested. “I’ll call the families and start the initial investigation. You can continue when you come back. You haven’t had a vacation in forever and this will help clear your mind.”

  She wanted to argue because she really felt it was her job to handle the audit with Scott. But Bill put up his hands again, “Logan, I have the final say in this.”

  She stared at the floor for a long time, grieving over the tragedy.

  “Go”, he said tenderly, pointing to the door.

  She stood up and walked a few steps, turning to face him. He could see her lips quivering. “Thanks.”

  Sitting down at her desk, attempting to read through some of the messages, tears blurred her vision. She noticed co-workers politely avoiding eye contact as they walked past and thought ‘this is no use’.

  She was taking this far too personally. Again, she remembered her parents. How she wished they were still alive! Logan felt the tears begin to well up but she willed herself not to think about them, knowing it would only make her sink deeper into depression.

  Finally, she made up her mind and decided to send an e-mail message to Bill and the other employees announcing her intention to take a short trip to Brown County. Just a one-hour drive from Indianapolis, it would be good for her to be in the ‘hills of Brown County’ again. Her parents had a cabin on Sweetwater Lake and she hadn’t been there in a while.

  She smiled faintly, remembering how much she loved that place, only good memories, until the accident…Then, making a decision to forego the cabin, go camping instead, she realized it was still painful to bring up the happier times. With e-mail typed and sent, grabbing her purse and hastily leaving the building before she could change her mind, her plan to take a trip to the lake, while a snap decision, was a wise one.

  Before her parents’ accident, Logan had spent some time roaming around that part of the state and it had become a sanctuary for her; in the past her inner radar led her there, to one of her favorite places to be alone with nature, to meditate. Making plans to leave, she drove home, but first she would attend Jake Turner’s funeral.

  * * * * *

  When Logan entered the mortuary, she was shocked to see so few mourners in the tiny chapel, and, as she signed the guest registry in the entry hall, she heard several people murmuring about the front-page news in the paper that morning.

  Jake had been identified as a suspect in several thefts at the bank, but Bill had been very careful during the interview with the reporter not to name Logan as the person who discovered the miss
ing money.

  However, Linda, the secretary, had also been interviewed, divulging that Logan had made the initial phone call to set up the appointment with Jake. Someone on the newspaper staff found a photo of her, taken when she was promoted at the bank, and put it in the article.

  A reporter had made several calls to her apartment that morning but she didn’t answer the phone. Her voice mail was full of messages to call him but she ignored them all.

  Steadfastly avoiding eye contact with anyone, she walked into the chapel and saw the closed casket. Guilt flooded through her. She sat down in the back, hoping to maintain anonymity. She looked at Jake’s parents sitting in the front row. It was obvious from their faces that they were unaware of what he had done until today. They sat there, grief-stricken and in shock. Logan felt compassion for them. After all he was their only child; she was an only child too and remembered how much her parents had doted on her.

  “Can you believe it!” someone whispered from the pew in front of her.

  “I knew he had been acting strangely the last few months, but I had no idea. I always thought Jake would be the next partner,” another voice responded.

  “Yeah, but look at the expensive car he drove…and that apartment! I couldn’t afford the lifestyle… just being out of law school and everything. I thought maybe his parents had money, but doesn’t look like it.”

  The conversation continued but was lost on Logan. She hung her head, feeling for the family, relating to their sorrow, and assuming some fault for his death.

  As soon as the short service ended, Logan left without giving condolences to Jake’s parents as blame continued to gnaw at her. Envisioning them recognizing her (even though she had taken care to wear a hat and keep her head down) and condemning her for the role she played in their son’s death, she scurried out of the funeral home, wishing she could tell them how sorry she was.

  She could not get the picture of his last moments on earth out of her mind; the horror of it all made the picture even more vivid.

  * * * * *

  But, his last moments on earth were inconsequential, if the truth was known. What mattered was what Jake Turner faced after he left earth. The afterlife, Heaven, Hell, Borderland--that was what was important to him now. Borderland, the temporary residence, home to all after death, until their fate is judged and designation given.

  No human could understand or even begin to imagine what awaited their arrival. For some, it was a joyful reunion with loved ones, reward for a good life on earth. For others, it was time to meet the Maker, atone for sins, face eternity in Hades.

  Jake could not picture it...and maybe that was a good thing…for his fate was terrible and unimaginable. No one would want to experience it; judgment swift, his journey ended in the inferno.

  Voices invaded his consciousness and swarmed around him, muffled yet rising in a cacophony. Forced to open his eyes, slowly, cautiously, not knowing, dread filling him, he sensed rather than saw the new environment. But, vision sharpened and he began to absorb the strangeness of the place, saw shapes forming in his line of sight, and, as the drug-induced fog enveloping his brain began to lift, he found himself staring at some of the doomed inhabitants in disgust and fear.

  A conjectured stench of decaying flesh hit him. The shapes continued to form, clawing at Jake in sickening enthusiasm, welcoming him to the Dark land. Fighting to free himself from their grip…and eternal damnation…overcome with despair, he let out a groan that rose to a thunderous, terrifying scream. The noise escaped into the air surrounding him, momentarily halting the tugging and clawing.

  Twisting, whipping about, trying to free himself from the ghoulish crowd who were eager to have him join their ranks, he rose, as if pulled by some unseen force, not yet realizing the full extent of his freedom to move, shaky, still adapting to his transformation from a physical body to an ethereal one.

  The gathering of spirits grew, circling around him like lions stalking their prey. Surveying the group, distrusting, he wondered, where am I? What is this place? Thoughts raced and he came to the startling recollection. I’m dead! I killed myself! Flashing back to that moment…he was no longer living; he was a spirit, beyond saving, destined to live in an ungodly place, reviewing the unspeakable act of suicide forever.

  Pulsating with vile energy, growing, spreading throughout the throng, wickedness floating closer and closer, Jake immediately sensed the intent…they planned to make him one of their own, consume him into their foul, teeming, ever-expanding pool of malevolence.

  Quickly lurching forward and upward, attempting to escape the mass of hellish fiends, his legs feeling tingly, much like a person who experiences an amputation of a limb and continues to feel what is no longer there, he had the visual memory of a body even though it was transforming, conforming to a new appearance, drastically different in the new world.

  Jake used his leftover mental energy, unsure of the momentum needed to propel away from them. With intense concentration, accepting new powers, he forced his legs to move and, thrashing, kicking and yelling, fled into the unknown.

  Feeling a heart beating, a vein throbbing painfully in his head, a rush of blood sent frightened signals to the brain, trapped reminders, an avalanche of thoughts and emotions waging a constant internal battle. Moving at a speed of light, molecules vibrated so fast as to be unseen by humans. Fear, soon replaced by newfound appreciation for spirit abilities, he relished in the power it gave him.

  Where am I? Is this Hell? Anxiously, Jake looked around and noted the barren landscape. Not very pretty to look at, but at least there’s no fire. Strange, he thought. I’ve never really thought about what it would look like. But, then again, I didn’t expect to wind up here either.

  Then, alarm... Is this it for me now? Hopelessness, along with fear, consumed him as he tried to gain control over human emotions swirling within. He tried to calm down and gain his bearings, saw no one, heard nothing but the turmoil inside his head.

  Slowly, anger filled the crevices, forcing questions and uncertainty into a deeper space. It came from the lingering effects of cocaine, ingested at death and transmitted from one world to another. Irrational, it described an insane mindset that placed blame on another for your own selfish acts of foolishness. It owed its sheer power to the drug. Evolving, it spilled over into intolerable, and, once there, it no longer included sensibility.

  Still, anger was manageable, until it turned to rage and invaded him like a growing cancer, pushing and shoving until all other feelings were removed, leaving only a resurrected budding hatred and awareness of the circumstances and the person who put him here.

  Yes, Jake remembered. The rage and loathing completely occupied him now, fear erased by reminiscences.

  His fists flailed, knees gave out from under him as he dropped to the hard, barren surface, feeling no pain, hearing no thud. Pounding the ground, clouds of dust exploded like smoke signals. Jake’s passion grew and his abhorrence for the person he blamed spilled out and covered the landscape like a festering sore. His words filled the air with short, staccato puffs of breath, “Logan Massey... you - are - mine!’

  * * * * *

  In the distance, on a slightly elevated plane in the parallel world, a crescendo of voices rose, blending into a persistent hum, a response to the fury apparent below.

  “A loner”, someone whispered.

  “He’s no longer with the Dark entities.”

  One voice drowned out the others, commanding their attention. “He is to be watched.”

  A swell of sound greeted this pronouncement.

  In total agreement with their leader’s warning, one of the beings said, “Donald, I sense animosity in this one. His purpose is to hurt a human.”

  He slowly nodded, troubled and saddened by Jake’s intentions.

  The spirits assembled around Donald represented the inhabitants of the Light, the higher plane in Borderland. They were called spirit saviors, and when they made their transition to the afterlife, they were
chosen to guard humans against these loners who sometimes escaped, returning to earth to haunt living beings.

  Now they sensed danger for someone, a person who elicited so much hostility from this loner that he was attempting to go back to earth to do her harm. Their heightened awareness made them capable of recognizing and understanding the threat to the human.

  One savior in the group spoke up, “I know this loner. He was my former lawyer on earth.”

  The others looked at Travis, the newest member, having made his transition to Borderland only days ago, in human time.

  “He has a lot of anger in him. Under the influence of drugs, he took his life, and in a delusional state, he blamed another for his misfortune. The young woman’s name is Logan Massey.”

  Donald already knew the details and quickly responded, “It will be your assignment to help her.”

  Travis knew why he was chosen. The young lady in danger was the one who discovered the missing money from his bank account. Because she had been helping his daughter, Karen, it was now his obligation to return the favor.

  Since making the transition to Borderland, he had been informed of the protocol in his new environment. The first objective when he arrived was to seek out his wife, Elizabeth, though enough time had elapsed since her demise that she had evolved to a higher level of spirituality. Told he must first earn admission to an ultimate plane in the Light, he was selected to become a spirit savior, and it was explained that when his service was complete, he would reap the reward of living an eternity with her. He was eager to begin his assignment.

  Anxiously, one of the voices spoke up, “He’s traveling!”

  Donald and the others watched as Jake made his escape from the Dark with earth as his destination.

  “Travis, you must go now. Keep him in your sight. Don’t let him hurt the woman named Logan.”