First of all, thank you all so much for your advice. You have no idea how comforting it was to me, to sit in that pickup reading all your advice instead of driving myself crazy.
My ankle was killing me so I decided to take a bottle of water that I had stored in my pickup and wet a cloth I found inside. I wrapped it over my ankle and that gave me a bit of relief. I contemplated driving away many many times, but I always seemed rooted to the spot, my hands refusing to start my pickup.
Anyway, after many tense hours of waiting, I finally spotted Jackson’s car pull into the driveway followed by another official-looking Cadillac. Jackson exited the car along with his team who were carrying a duffel bag.
I got out of my pickup and shook his hand,
“Thanks for coming all the way here man,” I said pumping his hand up and down.
Jackson nodded towards the two men who were getting out of the Cadillac and they were quite obviously someone from the government, complete with black suits, ties and sunglasses.
One of the guys had a thick moustache while the other one looked as if he was devoid of any emotion – what a shocker.
They stood, waiting for Jackson to do the introductions,
“Right, so guys this is Chris. Chris, these are two of my colleagues from the government”
“Let me guess,” I said, feeling a bit bolder, “The FBI”
“I can neither confirm nor deny that statement,” said the guy with the moustache, “Anyway I’m Daniel and the other guy is John”
Yeah right, like those were their real names anyway.
“I’m assuming Jackson would have told you everything,” I said, gesturing to my house, which Jackson’s team were now taking photos of.
Daniel nodded,
“He did”
“So do you deal with these types of uh, things?” I asked him. The reply was the usual,
“I can neither confirm nor deny that statement”
“I can make a coffee if you come in,” I said looking at Jackson who shook his head,
“No Chris, you can’t go back inside until we have a look ”
“Shit,” I said, “I need to see if I have been rescheduled from my roster”
“Don’t worry” said John speaking for the first time, “We have spoken to your airline Captain”
A icy finger trailed along my spine, what had these bozos from the government told the airline?
Luckily Jackson saw the look on my face,
“Don’t worry Chris, we told them you’re doing some work for us”
I breathed a sigh of relief,
“Any news about Jim? The co-pilot?”
“Jim has left the state,” said Daniel shaking his head, “We have him under observation as well”
“Will whatever you guys are doing take long?” I asked. I didn’t want to stay in my driveway and announce to the entire neighbourhood that something was up with my house.
Jackson looked glum,
“We need to take some energy readings here. I think you should book yourself into a hotel for today”
I sighed,
“Can I at least pack?”
The suits shook their heads at once,
“No Captain, leave everything as it is”
After a final handshake, I got into my pickup and went to the town, searching for a hotel to spend the day in. I had some lunch from a restaurant and checked into a newly built three-star.
The room was okay – but as I surveyed the room I had an unsettling feeling. Don’t get me wrong, one of the perks of being an airline pilot is that we get to stay in amazing hotels but I had never experienced this feeling that made the hair on the back of my head stand up, as if I were not alone. I shrugged it off and opened the curtains.
I had no illusions, I was technically trapped here until the G-men told me everything was okay. Jackson had given me a device that he told me to use “in an emergency” whatever that meant. I looked at the phone-like device that looked very much like an old Nokia. Maybe I was supposed to press the green call button and the phone would do its magic.
Luckily my phone had full charge so I closed the curtains, hopped into the comfy bed and decided to watch something on Netflix to pass the time. I nearly dropped the phone as I opened the app, to be greeted by a picture of a woman smiling like a maniac.
I browsed through the movie collection only to be greeted by horror movie after horror movie. I threw the phone across the pillow and decided to go to sleep.
As my head hit the pillow I was greeted by that thing. It covered me with its shadowy presence and laughed in my face as I struggled to escape that dimension. I tried my best to at least see what it looked like but the only thing I could see were the eyes – the eyes that glowed like they were burning coal. I tried to wake myself up and just as I had that thought, the entity smiled – or at least I thought it smiled. I woke up suddenly, sweating profusely and tried to move my hand to wipe my forehead, when to my horror my hands wouldn’t move. I tried to move my legs but it seemed like they were made out of lead.
My heart leapt out of my chest as I looked at myself and saw that my entire body was covered with grey smoke – only it didn’t feel like smoke, more like if lead were a heavy liquid.
Something told me to look at the armchair and I let out a whimper of fear, sitting on it was the thing itself and this time I saw it properly for the first time.
Its cloak was made of the same grey mist that covered me and its face was the thing that puzzled me. The face didn’t have a form – just the burning coal eyes and the mouth with dark grey lips. The thing smiled, revealing jagged, sharp teeth that didn’t resemble anything human.
“Chrissssss” it moaned, the voice sounding like dragging nails on a chalkboard. I tried to cover my ears only to be reminded that this thing had me in its power. My usually gruff voice came out like the squeak of a mouse,
“What do you want?”
I shuddered as the thing smiled, showing me even more of its teeth that looked like they were suspiciously covered in blood.
“Can’t you rrrrememberrrr?”
“No, no, I’m sorry”
I should have slept with that damn emergency phone near me. This thing was going to give me a heart attack soon.
“That’sssss toooooo bad”
I won’t lie, I nearly wet myself as the thing got up from the armchair in the room and came near me. But something was happening to its face, it was changing into the face of-
“Kate?”
“OPEN UP!” yelled a voice from outside the room, “NTSB OFFICIALS! OPEN UP!”
The thing hissed and vanished, taking the grey smoke with it. The door unlocked, thank God for the hotels these days having emergency overrides and Jackson walked in looking anxious.
“What happened?” he asked me. I sat up and looked at him,
“It came again”
He looked at me sheepishly,
“Sorry Chris, that device I gave your to contact me is designed to send a remote alert to us when it detects strange energy and we keyed it to the anomaly we found in your house”
“Speaking of that,” I said, opening a soft drink I found in the minibar, “What did you guys find anyway?”
“There’s an energy fluctuation in your house – mainly your room. But I want to know more about this entity that visited you today”
I told Jackson the entire story and he nodded,
“Shit, my mistake. I think it has attached itself to something you took on that flight”
“Dude” I stared at him, “That could even be my house keys or the keys to my pickup”
“Yeah that’s the thing”
“Jackson,” I said seriously, “The thing, looked a bit like Kate”
Jackson paled, I knew I had him. But before that, let me tell you about Kate.
Kate was an absolute goddess of a woman I met when I had just started working for the cargo airline. She was a pilot herself and worked for a charter airline. I saw her in the airport restaurant and I was immediately in love. I approached her, a bit shyly and asked her out and to my great surprise, it worked. We started meeting up for a few coffees and we decided to date.
I loved her a lot, I knew she would be the perfect woman for me and I the perfect man for her – well that was until she vanished.
I don’t need to tell you how devastated I was, I had never had a successful relationship in high school or college, one that lasted for a long time anyway and to see Kate disappear off the face of the earth was heart-breaking.
I went to the police but apparently, a boyfriend reporting an adult missing isn’t enough. She’s an adult, they said. Her employer had no clue about her disappearance and was concerned. The police agreed to put an alert but nothing came of it after both of us got involved. Months turned into years and so did my hope.
“Jackson,” I said a bit more forcefully. He turned to the window,
“You’re going to hate me after this”
The doorbell rang and in came John. He put a hand on Jackson, John had been listening in to our conversation, typical government.
“Twelve years ago, the NTSB was alerted to a missing aircraft over the Bermuda Triangle”
I gripped my armchair tightly,
“The pilot of the aircraft was Kate”
I looked at Jackson,
“You covered it up. You’ve been covering up every single disappearance in the Triangle, haven’t you?!”
I saw red. I stood up as if that would do any good but I was bought back to earth by Jackson,
“Help us then”
“What?”
John cleared his throat,
“Help us Captain, join us to find Kate and solve the mystery once and for all”
Of course, I agreed. The unnamed agency spoke to my airline who put me on paid leave and told me not to bring anything with me including my clothes. My pickup key, house key and hell, even spectacles would stay behind, it would be only me. Yeah, this included my phone and laptop, the agency whoever they were, paid my hotel bill, gave me some new clothes and even got me new glasses. Hell, they even bought me a new phone – and not a crappy one at that. I’m still in the hotel and will be leaving shortly.
Jackson and his team don’t want to take the risk of flying so it’s eight hours overland. I’m going to fall asleep on the way – it’s almost 7 here anyway. I hadn’t seen even a slight sign of the thing since Jackson and them left, that was a good sign, right? But only if I knew how wrong I was.
I reached into my wallet to take out my credit cards – yes Jackson wanted those as well. His instructions were to cancel them and get new ones posted to some weird-looking address. I had effectively given up all my worldly possessions to this unnamed agency.
My fingers brushed against a talisman, an object that brought tears to my eyes. Kate had given me it a long time ago, saying that her mom considered it good luck and to those of you who want to know, I hadn’t met her folks at all (she was planning on introducing me to them later) until she disappeared.
Anyway as I took the talisman out, I felt a searing pain in my hand, almost as if it were on fire. I clutched my hand and dropped the damn thing on the floor, where the grey mist was leaking from it into the real world. In a panic, I quickly called Jackson. Daniel barged into my room – I was to have no privacy it seemed and the minute he came in, the grey mist miraculously disappeared. Daniel nodded,
“I’ll stay in the room if you don’t mind. And we’ll take care of the talisman”
“Yeah whatever man, I need to wash my face a bit”
I went into the washroom and a strong sense of foreboding greeted me. I stopped suddenly, was that a grey mist leaking through the ventilation duct? I slowly turned towards the mirror and nearly shat myself. The thing was right behind me, smiling with that all-too-wide grin. I quickly grabbed the hair dryer – yes I know, but that was the only thing that I could find, to defend myself but there was nobody there.
“What the hell?!”
I looked in the mirror and to my utter disbelief the thing appeared to be behind me in the reflection.
“DANIEL, IN HERE!”
Daniel rushed to the washroom but predictably, the thing smiled smugly and vanished. Daniel had a very unwelcome explanation,
“Sorry Cap’n, the entity appears to be attached to something of yours”
“Is it the talisman?”
Daniel frowned,
“No Cap’n, we can’t say for sure but I think it’s something in this room”
“Dammit, can’t you find out which thing?”
“No Cap’n not until we test every single thing you took on that plane”
Yeah right, I can’t even take a dump alone without that thing bothering me. Jackson agreed to move the timeline up and we leave in 10 minutes.
I have a strong feeling the suits won’t let me contact anyone once I’m inside their facility so you won’t hear from me in a while.
I’m going to find out what happened to Kate, even if it means walking into hell myself.
PS: If anyone knows how to get rid of that thing do let me know, who knows, I may be able to convince Jackson to access my Reddit account.