Night seemed to come quickly that day after Jack returned home. He stared up at the bedroom ceiling, his mind too consumed with thoughts to fall asleep, while Emily slept soundly next to him. Only the faintest of lights peeked from the drapes in front of the window, the barest hints of life attempting to intrude into the peaceful darkness. Jack didn’t pay much attention to the light, though as he lazily shut each eye one at a time, he watched as the darkness vanished into grey haze and reappeared. He’d learned awhile ago that peering into the grey world of the veil allowed him to see through both intense light and deep darkness; a vision unimpeded by the bias of light or its absence.
Jack sighed and carefully got out of bed, moving slowly to avoid waking up his fiancé as he exited the bedroom and closed the door behind him. He walked into the kitchen, poured a glass of water, and moved a chair over to the living room window. He sat and watched the outside world while sipping the water.
The lights of the city and its innards flashed and shone in the distance, the light beams piercing the darkness and light rain that fell. He could make out the shadows of buildings and skyscrapers like fingers, the lines of cars moving like blood, and the moon peeking out of the clouds like an eye shining down on all of it.
His left eye suddenly throbbed, but Jack only calmly sipped his water. The world of the veil transposed itself over reality, and Jack carefully moved his gaze over the city once more. The buildings and skyscrapers were no longer shadowy fingers, but lifeless grey mountains. The cars still moved and stopped as traffic, resembling a living river of civilization. But, the moon. . .
Jack looked at the moon, and the moon looked back. A thousand craterous eyes gazed back, but not, Jack noted, with focus. The throbbing in his left eye didn’t worsen, not like it had that rainy day in the alley. Was it the glass, the thin piece of solid liquid that kept the wandering sky from witnessing him? Was it the lifeless corpse of a building? ‘What was the moon looking down at,’ Jack couldn’t help but wonder. ‘Is it just watching, or is it waiting? If so, then for what, or who? Those questions feel like they can be answered, but never why.’
With the glass of water now empty, Jack sat it down on the end table next to the sofa. He got up then, and opened the window.
A breeze flowed into the room, the boundary of inside and outside ceasing to exist. Jack stuck his head outside the window and looked up again. The eyes continued to look down, innumerous and exoteric. He stepped out of the window while still watching, and began to climb.
Up and up, the world faded away. No, it merely joined him in his gaze. The moon grew in size, the eyes seemed to fade away, until Jack saw the unmoving husk of the long dead celestial. Eyeless craters oozed darkness, but he saw through to the empty depths. The scars, and holes, and one pale bleached flag were all that remained to his eye.
And then he turned around.
The gaze that had once been part of the world, became part of something else. And it looked back at the Earth.
And the Earth glared back, hungry and rabid. It needed more now, it saw, for it was no longer enough. The appetite of the world had begun to reach out to the universe in crying starvation, a billion voices searching for purpose. It, saw, the screams reaching beyond the light of the sun, out into the void. And the void, was reaching back.
***
Jack awoke with a start, a scream almost escaping his lips as he struggled to escape the tight, threatening grasp of. . . the blanket? He stopped moving as his mind caught up with him, and met the half concerned, half amused look of his fiancé stepping out of the bathroom with a toothbrush in her mouth.
“So,” Emily said, “bad dreams I take it?”
***
After mollifying Emily and cooking them both a delicious egg breakfast before she took off to work, Jack was left the solitude to dwell on his thoughts.
“That was a pretty crazy dream,” he muttered to himself, his head lying on the kitchen table and enjoying the cool feeling. “I forgot I could even get nightmares. When was the last time again?” He thought it over. “Right, night before I began my first day of college. Always got stressed before the first day. Guess my life has been a lot less stressful since then, especially after meeting Em.”
Jack couldn’t help but smile at the memory. He’d gone to the party on a dare from his buddies, and had only barely bullshitted his way past the front door. Hell, he didn’t even remember the dare or which of his idiot friends had put him up to it, but with some liquid courage and an excellent poker face he’d done it. Of course, he’d crashed and burned after that after slipping on some vomit, but being stuck in the bathroom washing his clothes had let him avoid the police raid after he spied the trouble coming from the window. He’d just managed to get the ratty thing open when Emily and some her friends had burst in by accident. It didn’t take much convincing to get them to join him in escaping, and he’d helped each of them jump down and then over the fence just in time. One gratitude date later, and the two had begun their happy relationship. It was too bad she hadn’t let him keep those vomit clothes as his ‘lucky clothes’, but no big loss.
Chuckling over the happy memories, Jack turned his head to place the other side down, and had his gaze drawn over to the living room. A lone empty glass was sitting on the end table closest to the window. Jack grimaced, sighed, and forced himself to walk over to get it. It was hard to say if this was the exact glass from his dream since they all looked the same, but Jack didn’t remember seeing it over here before going to bed. Frowning, he looked over at the window.
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The window only opened up halfway to allow air to circulate, and didn’t have enough room for anyone besides a child to climb through. Jack clicked his tongue and returned to the kitchen, placing the glass in the dishwasher for later. He plopped down into the chair again and crossed his arms.
“Weird dream or nightmare, check,” he listed on his fingers, “Talked to a ghost, check. I really ought to make a bingo card of wild shit. Bet I’d make bingo at this rate.”
Joking aside, Jack couldn’t help but wonder about the dream. Yes, it had been a dream despite the panicked awakening and not a nightmare, because he hadn’t felt any fear up until the end. Jack shivered at the fragmented memories of the dream’s end; the tentacular reach of the void had left a lasting impression on him. However, now that he was awake, Jack noticed the terror had receded with time. He remembered something a psy professor had once said in class, that ‘humans had evolved the remarkable ability to disassociate themselves from risk and danger and would forget about even death so long as they weren’t reminded’. It made sense, then, that some far off possible made-up cosmic threat was much less worrying than meeting a psycho in a dark alley.
“Not that I need to have that happen again,” Jack couldn’t help but muse.
The young man was distracted from his thoughts by a timer on his phone. Pulling it out, Jack noted the notification to pick up the yesterday’s mail. He took a moment to make sure he was presentable before grabbing his keys and leaving the apartment. A short jaunt down the stairs and Jack walked into the mail room, which was just a small room within the security gate section across from the elevator where everyone in the apartment had a lockbox where mail was dropped in from the other side.
Jack walked over to the column for the third floor and unlocked his apartment’s box. Whistling a tune in his head, he pulled each letter out one at a time and guessed at a glance their contents.
“Spam, spam, bill,” he said as he flipped through, “phone bill, college spam, coupons, and . . . personal letter?”
Jack raised a curious eyebrow at the letter with his name handwritten across the front. There wasn’t a return address, which was odd. How did the mailman know to put this letter in Jack’s box when it only had the name and not the apartment number?
Curiosity mixed with a hint of trepidation as Jack took the elevator back up to the third floor and re-entered his apartment, depositing the other letters onto the table as he stared at the odd one out. Before he could open it, however, his phone rang, and his picked it up automatically without seeing how called.
“Hello, this is Jack Smith,” he said.
“Jack? Good morning,” came the voice of Rosetta Catrine, his boss.
“Good morning ma’am,” Jack greeted. “It’s been awhile. How are things at the diner coming along?
“They are coming, I suppose,” his boss said in her smooth voice. “As I told you would happen last call, the insurance company has been kicking and screaming over this entire mess. I’ve about dragged them out as far as they can go without dragging in my lawyers, but it would seem we have reached an impasse.”
Jack felt a sinking feeling in his gut. “I take it it’s not good news ma’am?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Ms. Catrine sighed. “They’ve dealt their final, ultimate final compromise to me in writing, after I tore through their last final offer on public media. Seems they wizened up and included an NDA this time; so you can teach an old dog new tricks it would seem.” She and Jack shared a small chuckle, with Jack imagining the horrified looks on the insurance agents watching Rosetta tear their agreement to shreds on the local news. He and Emily had recorded that entire interview to enjoy over and over again.
“To be blunt,” she continued after a moment of silence, “they’re willing to pay for a near full renovation of the entire diner to modernize it. That means new utility lines, wifi, and even new seat cushions. But, they refuse to pay for anymore PTO.”
Jack winced. “I assume what they’re offering doesn’t cover every cost for you?”
“They do not,” Ms. Catrine agreed with a sigh. “I have several meetings with various groups about the issue, from the historical society of Maples to city hall regarding what I can and can’t do with my family’s property. Lord knows how little that means to everyone and anyone who can make any money from this,” she noted dryly. “There are some legal changes to my taxes that may occur should the diner be declassified as a historic site, to say nothing of the continued damage to the storage from the rotting food and open kitchen doorway. To make a long story short, we have reached the limits of what I can do to keep my staff on staff without earning any money. I’m sorry Jack.”
Jack pinched the top of his nose and took a deep breath. “It’s not your fault,” he finally said. “You were kind enough to fight for us this long Ms. Catrine. I doubt any other restaurant would have done so, especially the corporate owned ones. You need as much money as you can get to get things back to working order. I’m, well, I can’t say I’m happy losing my job, but I understand.”
There were several silent moments before Ms. Catrine spoke again. “Jack,” she said slowly. “I can ask around a few of my associates if they have any openings. You’re a good worker after all, and I’m sure they’d be glad to have you.”
Jack couldn’t help but smile. “Let me talk to Emily about it if you don’t mind.”
“Of course dear,” she said. “Take your time. I’ll be here if you need anything. You call if something comes up, you hear?”
“Yes ma’am,” Jack nodded. “Talk to you later. Bye.” He sighed as he ended the call. There went his job for the past year, almost two. It wasn’t the best job, and certainly not one he’d wanted to do for the rest of his life like Hank, but he’d enjoyed the work and the people there. Now, he needed another one to cover the rent since Emily’s internship didn’t exactly pay well.
“Where do I even start?” he muttered aimlessly as he slouched back into the kitchen chair. With an incomplete degree and limited work experience, Jack didn’t have much options. He didn’t really feel like becoming a cook again; it just didn’t feel right to him. But, who else would take him?
His mind in a slump, Jack’s eye noted the strange letter waiting for him on the table. Idly, he reached over for it and opened it up, pouring the contents haphazardly onto the table. A letter fell out first, followed by a picture that handed on its back. The words ‘we know’ were ominously written on the back of the letter.
Frowning, Jack reached over and swiped the picture up before flipping it around. He froze, a chilling feeling rising up in his gut.
It was a picture of him. Only, it was him kneeling down next to an old collapsed brick wall with his phone outstretched, a single frame of a video on it. The image was zoomed in enough to make out Jack’s serious expression. No one was with Jack in the image, but the space in front of him had a strange, haze to it, as if something had been almost perfectly photo-shopped away.
Jack took a shaking breath and placed the picture onto the table, and then picked up the letter. There was nothing on the front, reminding Jack of the strange ‘Get well soon’ card he’d received weeks ago. He opened the letter.
‘Dear Mr. Smith,
Your presence is requested at 123 4th street, Maples at your earliest convenience for a job interview. You are not required to bring anything at this time. You are not to discuss this with others at this time. Should you fail to make it for your interview, we will come to you. You should be available for new employment opportunities upon receiving this letter.
Have a nice day,
BotUS’