Jeff Jones, Week 7

“As I lay dying, the man in the black suit would not close my eyes as I descended into Hell.”

Interesting. The first one that isn’t a direct quote. The source appears to be a quote from The Odyssey, but this certainly isn’t the exact quote. Nice to see there’s a direct connection between this and everything else that is happening; if the quotes were something else entirely I think I’d just end it now.

Speaking of ends – Roland’s dead.

I went in to the store this week to pick up my typical groceries, and Roland wasn’t at the desk as he usually is. There was another guy I’d never seen before, but he seemed to recognize me, and asked me as he rang up my purchases if I was the guy Roland had a drink with the other week. I told him I was, and he asked me to wait there for a minute. He came back a few minutes later with a police officer in tow, and I was asked to come into the station and answer a few questions.

They didn’t seem to think I had done it, but that may well be part of their interrogation technique. They asked fairly basic questions: where I was at the time, could anyone back me up on that, what was my relation to the victim, etc. etc. The whole time they were talking I was growing more and more fearful of what had actually happened. When they said they had no further questions and that I could go, I asked them if they had any crime scene photos. They showed me one of the body. It looked completely unharmed – he was lying face down. But the photo was still one of the most horrifying things I’ve ever seen. Cast over Roland’s dead body was a shadow.

I asked the officer what the shadow was, and he said they didn’t know. It appeared to be somehow permanently embedded within the floor, but they couldn’t determine the material and had sent it to a lab for examination. I thanked him and asked my final question: who found him?

“His daughter.”

I left the police station in a daze. He had a daughter and I never even knew that. He was the only person in this town who appeared to give a damn what happened to me, and I never even cared enough to ask about him. Maybe I deserve all of this. But he didn’t. And it’s my fault he’s dead. Whatever that thing is, it’s sending a message. Well, message received.

I didn’t even try to work.

Jack, Week 6

Jack had followed the stream to a larger river. He threw The Gunslinger into the river to gauge the current, and watched as the book was quickly carried downstream, and pulled under the surface. He walked a bit further down the river, searching for a higher vantage point.

So he could jump.

A day or so later he found a minor waterfall at what appeared to be the edge of the forest. There was a mountainous region in the distance. The river continued on for a few miles; if he jumped from this point, he’d be pretty much assured to die. He set his things against a nearby tree, and walked over the rocks to stand at the cusp of the falls. He stood still for a moment, reflecting, looking out at the world in front of him. It was a beautiful sight. Even with the crumbling interstate cutting through the mountains ahead, there was an awe-inspiring sense of nature to the sights that made Jack smile. He scanned the horizon, and suddenly stopped as his eyes landed on a cabin on the other side of the river, easily reachable by walking over the rocks he was standing on.

Jack stood, conflicted. To jump, or not to jump?

Moments later, as he was searching the cabin, his decision was justified: he, at last, found medicine. He found a weak antibiotic and some aspirin. He went down to the river and popped some pills into his mouth, swallowing them with a swig of water. He slumped against one of the walls of the cabin and waited for a few hours as the aspirin kicked in, and clarity began to return to him.

Why would he have jumped? To end the pain for a fleeting moment? He cursed his weakness, his inability to endure the illness. He had survived for a long time since the Incident – why should he abandon all hope because of a fever?

He stared out at the river and the forest from which he had emerged. The sudden silence of the world in the wake of his fever was shocking to him. A week of illness and he had already forgotten how tranquil this world could be. What made him think death would be better? Hope, desperation – or naivety? Death could feature many unimaginable horrors, he reasoned – and he wasn’t in a hurry to find out any longer.

Night fell, and Jack’s state had improved tremendously. His thinking was clear – but with that clear thinking came the return of the paranoia that had marked his time in the city. The silence of the forest that had struck him as tranquil in the day now struck him as foreboding. He retreated into the cabin and covered the windows and door, lighting a candle to provide some warmth and sight. He slept soundly that night, the medicine keeping the sickness at bay.

Throughout the week he began to improve, the antibiotics fighting the infection well and the aspirin keeping the fever down. He was making his way to the mountains in the distance, in the hopes of picking up an interstate again and finding civilization. He made sure to find suitable structures to camp out in at night, still worried about whatever creatures might have been following him.

One day he came to a road and began to follow it, which eventually led to a large tunnel through the mountain. The sun was setting when he reached it, and it appeared to be poorly lit. He resolved to camp at the base of the tunnel near a small guardpost (that appeared to have been built and abandoned post-Incident, interestingly enough), and venture through the tunnel the next morning.

Jeff Jones, Week 6

“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off that mortal coil

Must give us pause…”

I recognize that one. Hamlet.

Fate’s a bitch. Easy come, easy go and all that, but to give me a week when things seem to be returning to normalcy, only to rip it right out from under me on the last day and then serve me a week of hell right back? That’s just cruel.

I’ve been in the hotel almost every night this week, and only dared return to the house once to get my laptop so I could at least try and work. The shadow is still on the door, naturally, but I’ve otherwise seen no signs of the creature’s entry into the house. I’m not sure if that concerns me more or less than if I did see signs.

I always sleep poorly in hotels. This week has been no different, and it’s had a measurable impact on my work. I’m just not producing at the quality I ought to be. It’s killing me, because I know I can do better than this and I know that better is expected of me, but these horrible things outside my control are preventing me from doing better.

Oh, and then there’s yesterday. That’s a fun day.

I was driving to the store to grab more food and speak to Roland. Traffic in this city is pretty terrible, but I’ve gotten used to it. I moved my hand to the side to adjust the volume dial, and saw a shadow cast over the console. I turned around, and saw, a few cars behind me, the creature, in the backseat of a sedan. The light in front of me was red, and it was bumper to bumper on all sides of me. I was trapped. I froze, terrified. I turned back, and saw that the creature had moved up one car – there were now only three cars between us. The light turned green, and my lane thankfully started moving quickly. I managed to speed up quickly and get in front of a car in the other lane and turn down a side road with fewer cars. I reached a stop light and slowly braked, then turned back and saw a car slowly pulling up behind me, the creature in the backseat. The light turned green and I slammed my foot on the accelerator, speeding down the road as quickly as I could. I didn’t look back, but soon I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I turned to the side and saw the creature’s face, inches from my own. I screamed and didn’t notice as I barreled into the intersection, through the red light, and got hit in the side by a car crossing. I blacked out.

I came to a few minutes later, and was miraculously unharmed for the most part. A paramedic was placing a cast on my leg, which he told me had been broken, and that he would need to check for a concussion before I was free to go. A police officer was then allowed to come and question me. He asked me what had happened and why I had run that red light at such a high speed. I first asked him if the other driver was okay, and he told me that they all had only minor injuries – a father and his children. I breathed a sigh of deep relief, and then paused, unsure of what to tell the cop. I remembered the second week I was here, when the passenger of the crash I witnessed told me firmly that there was no third passenger. That driver was dragged away, kicking and screaming.

So I told him that I wasn’t paying attention, that I was talking on the phone and didn’t realize the light was red. I took full responsibility, was naturally given a ticket, but was otherwise allowed to go my way. Crutches suck, by the way.

Roland seemed concerned about my accident. I didn’t bother to tell him about the real reason I crashed.

Jack, Week 5

Day broke over the forest. The trees swam among a flood of sensation, with the smell of the sea drifting through the wood, carried on flower petals as they were blown in by the rapid gale. Frogs croaked, and with each croak erupted thousands of tiny crickets whose symphony clashed with the croaking of the quartet of frogs that swelled and deflated in tune with the gusting gale. Jack lie on his back and consciousness soon came to him, and with it all of the sights and sounds of the forest. The sun vomited colors in the sky and Jack felt his eyes struggling to adjust. The heat was unbearable.

Night fell. The forest was silent and the sky dark. Jack vomited. He felt sweat roll down his body in a vain attempt to cool him down. In the dark there was nothing to see, so Jack tried to sleep. Whether what he experienced would be better called sleep or unconsciousness he did not know, but the night passed quickly by his reckoning.

Day broke. The sky above was calm today. The frogs and crickets were in silence, not unison or clash. The sea scent was absent and no petals filled the air. Jack sat up for the first time in over a day, and vomited again. He needed to find food and medicine to survive. Did he want to?

He walked a few miles, probably in circles. He found some food but no medicine. He tried to read the book he had found the week previous, but found the letters danced too much, and when they were still, the words made him thirst. He searched for water, and found a small stream. He followed it for some time, doing his best to keep his mind coherent.

Night fell. Jack slept, drenched still in sweat. The heat remained unbearable, but he was so near death that sleep came easily to him, even with the heat. The fears that had kept him awake in the city had faded to barely a whisper in the back of his mind, drowned out by the screams of anguish and panting of thirst.

Day broke. Night fell. Day broke. Night fell.

It was a miserable existence, and Jack was losing the will to carry on. Nobody would know he died. Nobody would care. Those who would had perished long ago. He could join them. He could be free from this earth’s dreadful clutches. He could be bathed in the bliss of silence, and allow the chill of death to cleanse the heat that afflicted his body.

Day broke. Night fell. Day broke. Night fell. Day broke.

Yes. Why continue? What was left for him? He reached in his pack for his sister’s locket. He rummaged. He rummaged. He did not find.

Yes. He was sure now.

Night fell.

Jeff Jones, Week 5

“In the silence of the night

How we shiver with affright

At the melancholy menace of their tone!”

Poe. “The Bells” this time rather than “The Raven”.

Contact has been good for me. Having someone to talk to has restored some sense of normalcy to my life. The day after my last post, I went out to have a drink with Roland. He seemed genuinely concerned about me, which is good, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to confide in him every strange thing that has happened to me for fear I may be thought crazy. We had good conversation nonetheless, about city life and various hobbies and what not. He’s an avid reader, which is always nice to hear. I’m not sure he’s recognized me yet, thankfully. Moments like that night remind me why I moved here in the first place.

The creature was still outside my window like clockwork when I returned, however, and this night had approached close enough to where I could view him just by turning my head from my desk. I did my best to ignore him, a task I proved much more successful at than I expected, which led to my completion of a significant amount of work – the most since I moved here, actually. I was feeling pretty on top of the world at the time.

The rest of the week continued respectably well. I conversed with Roland a fair deal when I went into town to grab some groceries. No sightings of the creature in the town. I got a lot of work done. Life was, for the first time in a month, surprisingly tenable.

Until last night.

I was sitting at my desk, having been working for the past few hours, when I observed that the sun had set. Knowing what to expect, I turned my head to look at the window – but the creature wasn’t there. I stood up and walked to the window to gaze out and see how far the creature had retreated – only to find that he wasn’t outside at all. My heart rate quickened, and for a moment I experienced the briefest elation that the creature had finally departed, that I had somehow kicked whatever affliction had befallen me. I decided to be completely sure and go outside and investigate.

There was nothing but silence outside. No cars, no animals, and no creature. The shadows in the road remained, but there was no otherwise sign of the creature. Until I turned around to walk back into the house.

Cast across my door was the shadow of the creature, with its arm clutching the doorknob.

I stood there petrified in fear. I’m fairly certain the shadow wasn’t on the door before I exited my home to investigate the lack of the creature. Was it in the house? Was it still outside? I shut the door, got in my car and drove to a hotel in town, where I stayed the night. This morning I woke up and told Roland immediately.

Of course, I was still concerned he’d think I’m insane, so I fudged the details a bit – I didn’t mention his unnatural height or lack of face, nor the shadows that he seems to cast – which may have changed his advice. He told me to go to the police.

Of course I haven’t done that. And I don’t plan to. They’d think I’m crazy.

Am I?

Jack, Week 4

Jack turned to the final page of text in great frustration, disgruntled at the pessimism he perceived the novel espoused, and upon reading every bit of text on the page flung the book far ahead of him and let out an anguished shriek, having wasted his time reading the novel. Steinbeck was no longer welcome.

He had left the city some time ago and had been walking ever since. The plains that surrounded the city had given way to a heavily forested area, which seemed strange to him, but he was not particularly familiar with geography so he didn’t question it. The trees were tall and cast a large pall over the ground. Jack was for some reason reminded of a forest composed of giant mushrooms towering over swampland, with giant bugs and marsh creatures stalking him through the night, as the fear of something following him had not quite left itself behind in the city. What exactly is there to fear in the forest these days, he did not know and did not care to think, but he was fearful nonetheless. Despite the shade Jack found himself sweating nearly all the time, shivering and trembling weakly as fever raddled his body. As he fell to the ground one day he thought that for a moment he saw himself fall and then stand back up, outside of his own body, but as the figure that he thought was himself turned around it was just an average man from before the Incident, a pen in his hand and a fearful look in his eyes, which quickly vanished and gave way to a faceless creature in a business suit that reached out for Jack who recoiled and shut his eyes in fear, only to open them to emptiness.

He needed medicine. And he was searching every home, every building he came across for it. But he never found. Because he wasn’t really searching. He did find another book, Stephen King’s The Gunslinger. He read parts of it haphazardly, but the fever was sapping his resolve.

He made his way to a spot of higher ground, a hill of sorts within the forest, when he was struck with another hallucination. This time there were hundreds of figures like the one with the pen he had mistaken for himself surrounding him, so he ran towards one of them and it vanished in a puff of smoke, sending Jack tumbling down the hill uncontrollably, eventually crashing into a tree. He stood up, brushed himself off, and then walked a short distance before collapsing from exhaustion.

Beneath the tree he collided with lied a broken, shattered golden locket.

Jeff Jones, Week 4

“He who was living is now dead

We who are living are now dying

With little patience…”

Eliot again. The Waste Land. Quite a long poem filled with nonsense. Nothing to learn here.

He’s still there. He still shows up every single night. He’s still moving closer. He’s in my yard now. If he were any closer I could see him from my desk. I still don’t know what he wants. But he’s clearly targeting me. Haunting me. Hunting me.

I’ve not gone out much this past week. I’m losing sleep so I rarely have the energy to leave the house. When I do I don’t stay out long. I go and get food to survive and then return home. You’d think that with this isolation and insomnia I’d be able to get more work done. Not so. I’ve found working even more difficult now. Even though I’m in the right state of mind to really hammer out some quality stuff. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’m terrified 24 hours a day. I’m constantly looking over my shoulder. What sort of work would I be doing in this state?

But anyway. I’ve gone out three times this week. The first time was a simple food run. The second time was the same with one difference. I talked to the manager of the store I’ve been shopping at. His name is Roland. He was concerned about me because my visits had grown less frequent over the past week or so and because I looked really pale. I told him I was just feeling a bit under the weather lately. He gave me his cell number and told me to call him if I needed anything. I thanked him and left with my things.

The third time was just today. It wasn’t good. I was heading back to the store for more food as always. I walked to the back of the store and worked my way to the front as I grabbed things that I needed. I looked up after grabbing a can from the shelf. And I saw him. There across the street he was standing on the sidewalk. Staring straight at me. In broad daylight. In a crowd of people. With nobody acknowledging his presence. I froze and dropped the can that I was holding in my hand. I slowly walked toward him. I reached the door and opened it quickly before running down the street. I heard Roland calling out to me from behind but I didn’t stop. I ran for a good twenty minutes before I dared to turn around. There was nothing there. I had ducked down into a small alley so there weren’t even people around. Just silence.

That describes my week almost to a tee. Silence. Silence as I drove through the crowded streets. Silence as I sit at home unable to work. Silence as I stare out at my window at a creature that stares back. Silence as I sit here typing. Silence as I survive without living.

Jack, Week 3

Jack had changed his plans slightly.

Rather than simply scavenging for supplies, Jack placed a new premium on finding a functioning weapon. The rifle he had been using prior to his arrival in the city, while still functional, had run out of ammunition, and Jack was not familiar enough with firearms to know what type of ammo to acquire. He opted instead to just find a new weapon entirely. Unfortunately this proved much more difficult than he anticipated, as there appeared to be very few surviving arms dealers in the city.

About three days after the night of the storm, he found a rifle in the wreckage of a hunting supply store, along with a surplus of ammunition for it. He fired a few test shots down the street to ensure that it worked, and, satisfied, slung it over his back and resumed his previous scavenging.

Throughout the week he continued to hear the sounds of something following him, and continued to feel watched at all times. And as before, whatever the source of it all was eluded his sight. He had not seen a single living creature during his two weeks in the city. The longer he went without seeing something living, the more paranoid he became. He began holding his rifle at all times and firing off into the distance whenever he heard a sound. He began sleeping less and less at night, keeping his rifle close to him at all times and watching the darkness outside his tent.

He had stopped scavenging most days, as well, instead preferring to sit in the false sense of security provided by his tent and read the copy of Of Mice and Men he had found on the interstate. As he read, he was struck by this sense of crushing loneliness; a part of him wanted to find some creature, even one that would threaten his life, simply so he might know that he isn’t totally alone. Ever since the events of a few years ago, Jack had had only fleeting contact with other humans. He had never thought about it much – with the exception of the week after he lost Zack, George and Daniel in the high school – but it was clearly affecting him.

One day, he slammed the book closed in frustration, his mind having wandered into a dark place. Face resting in his palms, he began to weep silently. He regained his composure and reached into his pack, pulling out a small locket. He opened it and pulled out the contents: a small note, folded with great care into a very small square, and a very small photo of a young girl, no older than sixteen. He unfolded the note and read silently, tears slowly dripping onto the old paper.

It was at that moment that it began to rain. Jack hesitated for a moment and looked around the tent. He quickly replaced the note and the photo and stashed the locket in his pack before reaching for his rifle. He stepped outside the tent and scanned the parking garage for signs of the figure. He heard a noise behind him. He whipped around. There was a blur of motion. A mostly black figure dashed in front of him. He turned and fired. He missed. The blur moved faster. Jack aimed. Fired. Missed. The blur vanished. Jack searched frantically. Thunder rumbled and echoed through the garage as lightning illuminated the dark corners, revealing no sign of the creature. Lightning struck again, this time hitting Jack’s tent. The sound waves disoriented Jack and caused him to drop his rifle. As he slowly overcame his confusion, he saw an eerie orange glow coming from his tent – fire. He ran over to the tent and dove inside, pulling out his pack and dumping its contents before tossing it on the ground, stamping out the fire to protect his belongings. He quickly replaced the items in the pack and slung it over his shoulder, picking up his rifle and running down the garage floors to find the creature. As he did, he heard a loud rumbling overhead – it wasn’t thunder, though. He looked up the ramps and saw the floors above him were slowly collapsing. He began to run faster, hoping to escape the falling building. He wasn’t going to make it. He reached the second floor and looked outside, a dangerous idea coming to mind. He leapt over the barrier and jumped from the second floor, falling to the ground and hitting it with a roll, allowing him to get back to his feet quicker. Slowed by the physical trauma of the fall, he tried to run down the street and out of range of the massive debris cloud that was sure to envelop the block, but wasn’t fast enough. Inhaling sharply and covering his eyes, he braced for the cloud’s impact. Debris was everywhere, dust in the air kicked around by the wind and rain. He couldn’t hold his breath for much longer. Eventually he had to inhale, and he barely escaped the dust cloud as he did. After a brief coughing fit, he turned back and watched the dust settle.

The creature, whatever it was, had brought down an entire parking garage. Jack knew he had to get out of the city.

Before leaving, he took a quick inventory of his pack. Almost everything was unharmed – except the locket. He noticed it had been opened. He reached inside and opened the locket. Inside was the photo – but no letter. Frantically he rummaged through the rest of the pack and found the seared remains of the letter, almost all of it ruined by the fire. All that remained was the top of the page.

"Dear Jack,

Hey brother! I miss"

Jeff Jones, Week 3

“Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight?

Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows…”

There was another message this morning, just the same as before. This one appears to be from a poem called “Mental Cases” by Wilfred Owen. You know, with these sorts of bizarre happenings, there tends to be a progression from initial interest to disbelieving horror with repetition, and then further to frightened acclimation. I think I’ve skipped straight past that second step – these messages don’t horrify me. They unnerve me, but their like clockwork repetition has become just another part of my overall terrifying life. It doesn’t help that stranger things than literary quotes appearing on my monitor are happening as well.

The man is moving closer. I call him a man – that thing in the suit. The faceless man. He reappeared outside my home every single night this week – he’s there as I type this, actually – but inching slowly forward. He was across the street near the tree line last week. But as I type this, he is about three quarters of the way across the road, just past the shadow. The shadow is one of the most unnerving things about this whole ordeal, actually – while the man would always disappear by the morning, the shadow has persisted. I should explain.

One night, I parked my chair in front of my window. Yet another storm – it’s been incessant for the past week or so – had knocked out my power, so I was out of things to do, particularly since my work has been slow going and fruitless. So I sat in front of the window with a cup of coffee and watched the man. The lightning flashes would illuminate him for brief instants every few minutes, sending waves of horror radiating throughout my body with each flash. But at one point, I saw a car approaching from further down the road. It wasn’t unheard of, but it was rare that cars passed my way so late at night. The man was right in the car’s path. I sat up and gripped the sides of my chair. The car got closer and the man remained still. Thunder rumbled. The car was really close now. They were going to collide. The man would surely die. Lightning flash – and the car passed straight through the man, as if he weren’t there at all.

I sat there, petrified, my head in my hands for what felt like hours. I cannot trust the evidence of my own eyes, I reasoned – the man must be a hallucination. But of course, the words of the driver from last week came back to me.

“You could see him, too?”

I could see him, too. I sat there, wondering – was this some shared psychosis, or was there some worse horror at play? Am I insane, or am I hunted? I didn’t really care to learn the answer – neither one was particularly comforting. They say there is comfort in resolution, that the best horror movies are the ones that don’t resolve everything in a nice little bow. I disagree – resolution isn’t comforting at all. It’s a specific identification of what has befallen you. With your questions answered, there is nothing left but to accept your inevitable fate. No, not knowing is much better. It gives you something to hope for.

I went to bed not long after that, but of course I didn’t sleep. I got up and dressed the next morning, and started the drive into town when I passed the spot where the car had driven through the man the night before. I looked at the spot on the road and slammed on the brake. I got out of my car and stared at the spot on the road.

A shadow of the man was imprinted directly into the asphalt. It wasn’t some sort of substance or an actual shadow – it was as if his visage had been burned into the asphalt. I pulled out my pocket knife and started to scratch at the asphalt, but the shadow did not move. It reminded me of those images of shadows from Hiroshima, reverse burned into the ground as the bodies of people in the blast radius shielded the ground under their shadows from the immense heat. A chill ran through my body and I got back in my car and kept driving. When I returned home and had to pass the shadow again, the same chill ran through my body.

The man appeared again that night, like clockwork. Whatever forces have been allayed against me are rather punctual, though they show no clear motives. I fear for what they may cause and what they may want from me.

I am scared. Moving here was a big mistake.