“I’m home!” Emily announced tiredly as she trudged into the apartment, her left arm holding her purse while she held something in a grocery bag in her right hand. She was still wearing the hiking outfit from their original outing that morning. “You here Jack?”

Jack looked over from the couch as he paused the movie he’d been watching. “Welcome home,” he said. “They had you out this late for a Saturday?”

“Tell me about it,” Emily groaned as she sat her bags down in the kitchen before marching over to plop herself down next to Jack on the couch. “I didn’t think that just being the intern would be so chaotic. Between running files between offices and a couple of actual coffee runs, I’m dead.” She gestured toward the grocery bag in the kitchen. “Bought some sandwiches at the place across from the office. I’ll cook tomorrow, ugh.”

Jack embraced her in a side hug and pulled her in close. Emily relaxed into his body. “Need a funny movie to recharge your batteries?” he asked.

“No, I’m tired of comedy,” Emily groaned into his side. “Put on something violent we can cheer to.”

“Anime it is then,” Jack said as he switched the movie over to one of Japanese cartoons the two enjoyed watching together.

“How are you day then?” Emily asked while Jack fiddles with the menu. “Sorry about ending out hike in such a rush.”

“Can’t control your job,” Jack said patiently as he found the episode they’d left off at. “Just don’t let them think you’ll roll over for them at every chance. Wouldn’t want you to be taken advantage of.”

“Thanks dad,” Emily rolled her eyes. “And you didn’t answer my question mister. Spill it.” She paused and suddenly began to sniff his body. “Hold up, wait. Is that sweat I’m smelling? You work out today?”

Jack paused the show as it started and nodded slowly. “Yeah, I did,” he answered.

“That’s unusual for you,” Emily noted as she leaned up with a quizzical look. “You grumble every time I drag you to the gym and rarely go on you own. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

Jack sighed and looked up at the ceiling, moving his arm to better accommodate her. “I’ve been thinking about it since the attack Em, and how close things got. What if you had been there? What if there had been more than one bad guy taking a swing at me.” He shook his head. “I decided I should do some more work to keep in shape. Maybe not top athlete shape, but enough to defend myself.”

“Uh huh,” Emily said, still starring suspiciously at Jack. “Right after, I could believe that. But you’ve had a week to rest and settle from that. No, something else pushed you.” She tilted her head suddenly at Jack’s continued silence. “Was it what I said earlier today on the hike? Come on Jack, I was kidding, obviously. You didn’t step into some other dimension, you just took a wrong turn.”

Jack grunted.

“Hey now, no caveman speaking,” Emily’s eyes narrowed. “Come on, we’re a team. Use your words, explain your thoughts. I won’t laugh at you, I promise.”

Jack finally looked over at her and grimaced. “Not sure you would laugh, but instead call the hospital.”

“Try me,” Emily pushed, hands on her hips as she leaned up and twisted to face him properly.

Jack finally relented with a nod. “Okay, so today wasn’t the only weird thing I’ve seen recently. I also saw something earlier this week, after coming back from the eye doctor. The rain was just starting, and I barely made it into a gas station. The lady there was out of umbrellas, but she gave me a trashbag after I bought a snack. I used that to keep myself dry and started back for home.”

Emily scrunched up her face for a moment as she attempted to remember. “It was pouring a flood when I drove home,” her eyes widened in realization. “Jack, you walked home in that? I told you to give me a call or call a taxi babe; its dangerous when it pours like that.”

“You’re telling me,” Jack said before continuing. “As I was walking down the sidewalk, I could have sworn I heard footsteps behind me, but every time I stopped to look no one was there. I was getting a little nervous when I reached the end of the block, and nearly bumped into a couple passing by. After I turned the corner, I realized the sound was gone.” He frowned. “I wasn’t sure if it had been a real, so I walked back to the corner and looked around to see if I could hear it again. I didn’t, but the couple had disappeared.”

“They vanished into the rain?” Emily asked. “Visibility was terrible on the road.”

“It hadn’t taken me that long to walk back,” Jack countered. “Maybe a minute and a half, and I could still see halfway down the block and across the road. They were gone, so I walked down the block to make sure I hadn’t missed them. I reached the alley,” Jack took a deep breath, “Em, there was a phone in the alley, with a cracked screen. Something red was dripping down one of the walls, and I heard something in the shadows.” He nearly choked up. “God Em, I think it was something, chewing. I backed out and threw up on the street, but then I saw something else.”

Emily watched on with wide eyes.

“There was a man at the end of the block,” Jack muttered. “He was standing there in a suit and an umbrella, but I could see him so clearly, it was as if the rain wasn’t between him and I. I looked away to wipe my mouth, and when I looked back up, there he was right in front of me. His face was, empty, blank, faceless. He was tall too, and he leaned down to look at me, I think. Then, the sound in alley made him turn to face it, and he walked into the darkness and disappeared.” Jack was shaking now, his fist clenching ghost pale. “I ran back home after that. I didn’t tell anyone, hell, I wasn’t sure who I could tell. My eyes were dilated from the doctor, and we’d talked about seeing things so I, I was scared. And then today happened, and I thought I’d lost you, and-”

Tears were bubbling up now in Jack’s eyes as he shivered. Emily leaned in and embraced him in a warm hug.

“Jack, calm down, I’m here,” she said soothingly, rubbing his back. “Shh babe, I’m here. You aren’t in danger-”

“You don’t know that,” Jack interrupted, shaking his head. “Hell, I don’t know that. I’m scared Em, I’m terrified I’m losing my mind. Did I see something awful, or am I damaged? Am I-”

“You’re not going crazy,” Emily said sharply, squeezing him tighter. “Jack, look at me. Look at me.” She forced his head to face her. “You, are, not, crazy. You suffered trauma and nearly died. Everyone I’ve talked to and heard from has told me you’re holding up remarkably well. Jumping at shadows is to be expected. You are thinking Jack; you’re considering all the possibilities. An insane person doesn’t do that. You went to gym to get stronger, to regain a sense of strength and self-assurance. You’re going to be fine. We’re going to be fine. Okay?”

Jack sniffed, staring into her warm, concerned, beautiful eyes and couldn’t look away. “Okay,” he sniffled.

Emily waited a moment longer before smiling and leaning into her hug. “We’ll get through this,” she promised. “You’re doing everything right so far. I’ll call my family and yours and ask for their help too. We’ll get through this.”

Jack nodded, raising his arm to return the hug. “Yeah, okay. Thanks Em, for listening.”

“Always,” she looked up and winked at him. “I have to take care of precious things after all. No one tarnishes your shine but me, not even yourself.”

Jack gave a short laugh and reached over to tickle her. As usual, the tactic failed and he was forced to defend himself from her retaliatory tickling. “Okay I give, I give,” he announced in defeat. “Ah, I feel better now.” Jack sighed and leaned backward into the sofa. “So, you think I should keep going to the gym?”

“You want to keep going?” Emily asked in surprise. “Like, everyday?”

“Uh, maybe not to begin with,” Jack corrected sheepishly, “but I want to do something instead of being cooped up all day in the apartment waiting on you to come home.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Not that I mind the idea of you waiting on me hand and foot, but you should do it if it makes you feel better,” Emily winked at him dodging a pillow Jack casually threw at her. “I’ve been trying to improve your fitness for awhile now, so you won’t get a complaint out of me. Still, you raise a good point about being stuck inside all day. If the diner remains closed, maybe you should consider getting a part-time job somewhere just to break up the monotony.”

Jack nodded and pulled her back into a hug. He pressed play, and the two watched the show together late into the night.

***

Time passed on for Jack as life slowly began to settle back into a familiar, if new, routine for him. Though the diner did remain closed, he at least managed to finish up most of the little maintenance that had slowly been accumulating in the apartment: replacing a rust door hinge, dusting under the furniture, painting the bathroom, etc. He’d even taking to watching several videos on more complicated home maintenance work, though he wasn’t yet brave enough to attempt any.

Over the past two weeks, he’d managed to keep the small, but growing workout routine at the gym. The only thing he’s gained from that was soreness, but Jack knew it would be at least a couple of months before he started to really notice any gains. In the time he wasn’t working out or working on the apartment, he’d been researching a couple of personal projects, one regarding his mental health in particular.

Failing his latest search on finding a psychiatrist who’d take his health insurance, Jack grumpily shoved his phone back into his pocket and wandered into the kitchen to check the to-do list.

“Grocery day huh?” he murmured as he checked off several finished chores. “Dang, Emily’s gone with the car.” He checked the weather and time; it was a windy afternoon. Though the walk would be annoying, he could be back before dark. Sighing, Jack grabbed the grocery list off the fridge and left the apartment.

“Hey Mr. Virgil,” Jack greeted as he walked through the security door. “I’m heading out for groceries.”

“No eyepatch today?” the older man noted with a grunt.

“Didn’t want to fight the wind over it.”

Mr. Virgil just grunted and went back to reading his newspaper.

Once Jack was on the sidewalk, he did a quick look around before closing his right eye for several moments. In that time, the gray world returned to his vision, causing Jack to smile slightly. Bored or not, he’d been practicing with his strange new vision over the last two weeks. It still tended to come and go on its own, but he’d figured out how to see the grey world when he wanted to, and how to make it vanish. All it took was a little eye coordination, though it did make him look a bit strange if he wasn’t careful. And, if he overlapped the visions for too long, Jack’s head would slowly begin to throb in pain. Five-minute intervals were fine, but ten pushed his pain limits.

He paused his practice as he crossed a road, nodding to a truck of workmen parking on the side of the road. Once sure he wasn’t being looked at, Jack resummoned the grey haze and noted how the men drifted through it, and with it.

The grey world, or ‘the veil’ as Jack had taken to calling it. was fascinating. It was like looking at the world minus any light or shadow, allowing him see everything without light bias, though with less detail. Merging that view with his normal right eye’s vision allowed Jack to notice things he wouldn’t have been able to otherwise, such as footprints in the dust on the concrete, or the light oil handprints on brick walls. He still didn’t understand why some things stuck out more than others, but he figured he had the rest of his life to figure that out.

“And hopefully, it won’t be a short one,” Jack mused to himself as he walked the sidewalk, whistling the newest earworm song to get stuck in his head. Reaching an intersection, Jack looked both ways before crossing the street. He nearly jumped out of his skin when a red car sped by just as he walked onto the next street. “Asshole,” he muttered angrily while glaring at the car fading into the distance. “This is a residential area, slow down. You’re going to get into an accident and hurt someone.”

Grumbling, Jack closed his left eye long enough for the veil to vanish before continuing his walk. One weakness of seeing the veil was that he had trouble with depth perception. Turns out, human brains relied a lot on light to help determine relative distance and speed, and a world without light and shadow was thus much harder to walk through without running into something if he wasn’t careful.

Jack made it to the grocery store in good time, walking in and grabbing one of the small handbaskets instead of a stroller since he didn’t need to buy much. He wouldn’t make it back to the apartment if he bought too much, after all.

“Carrots, check,” Jack mumbled as he walked through the store, basket under his arm, “onions, check. Yeast, check. Butter, hm, yeah I can get that. Check. And finally, hm.”

Jack tapped the grocery list with a grimace. A pork loin; now that would be a little heavy. Still, it’s what Emily had asked for. Jack made his way over to the meat section and browed through their lions, which were on sale this week. He picked out a good-looking one and placed it in his basket, grimacing at the weight. Everything else had been fine up until the loin was added. He’d have to suck it up.

Waiting in line, as it turned out, drained a good bit of Jack’s strength before he was able to place the basket on the moving part. Just his luck he picked the aisle with the one old lady who insisted on paying with exact change and couldn’t find the last penny. Jack honestly wanted to shake the hand of the good Samaritan who’d given the old woman the missing cent.

By the time Jack got up to pay, he was ready to go with his strength restored somewhat. He started to swipe before switching to chip pay, which went through. Kindly, the cashier double-bagged the loin for him, to which Jack was very grateful. He put the basket back with the others and left the grocery store.

He held up a hand to keep the wind away as he walked out of the store. Apparently, it had picked up while he was inside, to his annoyance. Grimacing, Jack began the walk home through the wind.

At first, everything went by normally. Jack avoided other pedestrians, waited at the intersections to cross the road, and avoided having the wind attempt to steal his groceries.

It was only when he reached the intersection from before that something odd happened. Jack looked left, then right, then left again before raising a foot and putting it on the road. The sound reached him first, causing Jack to reflexively step back onto the sidewalk just in time for a red car to speed past him.

“Damnit!” Jack yelled as he nearly dropped his grocery bags. “They really ought to add a speed bump to this road.” Cursing, Jack walked across the street. However, as he turned a corner, he found a group of construction workers had set up in the time he’d been shopping and were blocking the area. With the road closed, Jack would have to take a longer detour, especially since he didn’t feel like cutting through any alleys.

With a sigh, Jack turned around and walked back the way he’d come. He’d have to cross the road again to the next block to keep with the sidewalk. On this side of the road, the sidewalk had been allowed to overgrow in front of the old dilapidated buildings. The work crew would likely be doing road repair on this side next, Jack noted for later.

As he walked across the intersection after looking both ways, Jack felt something prickling in the back of his head. Something, was off. He heard it again before he saw it, stepping back onto the sidewalk as a car sped right behind him, barely missing Jack in its speedy dash. Jack’s head snapped around, but only saw the red color of the vehicle before it vanished from sight.

The tingle in the back of his head hadn’t faded. Jack starred down the road towards where the car had vanished, and frowned. The color was familiar; in fact, hadn’t he also avoided a red car on his way to the eye doctor? The office was on the same path initially as the grocery store. “Once was careless,” Jack muttered. “Twice was a coincidence. Three times, now that’s just weird.”

Despite his trepidations and Emily’s voice in his head telling him to ignore it, Jack couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of curiosity. Biting his lip, Jack turned around and walked back across the intersection. Again, just as he had before, when Jack raised his foot to reach the other side of the road, he heard it again. The red car whizzed past once more before vanishing.

Jack folded his arms across his chest and thought it over. Was this something worth calling Emily or the police about? Or, was this just a drag race in the boonies with everyone using the same car? It was a nice-looking car, at least what he’d been able to make of the little he’d seen, but not one Jack would honestly take for a drag race type. In his musing, Jack turned to look down the street the opposite of where the car had gone. He’d never had a reason to go that way, but he thought he saw something in the distance. The glare of the sun was interfering, so Jack summoned the veil. At the far edge of his vision, Jack saw a speed bump in the road.

Had the car turned onto the road after the speed bump? That didn’t seem likely at the speed it had been going. “Let’s see if I can get a better view of it in the veil,” Jack muttered to himself. He put his foot down on the road, and waited. He heard the noise again, the sound of an approaching car, and this time turned his head to watch it drive by.

A shattered red car appeared suddenly, drove through the speed bump, and zoomed by Jack. Time seemed to slow down for the young man as his eyes widened. He saw a broken man at the wheel, covered in blood and appearing incredibly miserable. Oddly enough, the man didn’t seem to notice Jack as he drove by, instead going past until he swerved at the edge of Jack’s vision, and slammed into a wall.

Jack felt his heart drop. He secured his groceries before running down the road toward the red car’s crash site. With his right eye, Jack saw an old caved in building that had long since been abandoned. With his left eye, he saw a crashed red car, and a man lying through the windshield. His face was a mess, but he seemed to be speaking.

“Hey, are you alright?” Jack asked as he ran over. “Hey, you okay sir?” Jack reached out to touch the man, but his hand went right through.

Gasping, Jack leaped backward as a cold shudder ran up through where his arm had passed through. It was ice cold now.

“Can’t be late.”

Jack blinked and looked up. “Excuse me?”

“She’s graduating after the play, my little girl,” the man muttered. “Can’t be late. She’s waiting for me. I have to be with her for her big day. Her mother would be so proud.”

Jack felt his stomach lurch as he put the dots together. The man and the red car weren’t really here, at least not anymore. The ice-cold touch, the repeating crash, the obsession. This had to be a real ghost, one of tragic origins that now placed street walkers in danger.