Doctor Relus, recording a letter found at the scene. I will read this letter in its entirety for the record as it shows the patient’s state of mind and may provide potential clues as to his final disposition.
***
I stared up at the buzzing mercury light on the side of the large building. Usually, that’s a one-way ticket to a sore neck, but I didn’t have to worry about that. A stiff neck was the last of my worries when I’m laying flat on my back in the middle of a parking lot.
‘Not again.’ I thought as I slowly got up and dusted myself off.
For the third time this week, I found myself unconscious. It was becoming very disturbing. I never had these ‘Episodes’ before the accident, and I had no intention of telling anyone about them now, except the doctor.
The funny thing was, the doctor had given me a clean bill of health. After a night in the hospital to observe for signs of concussion, they sent me home. The accident mystified me though. I never knew what caused it. Were the brakes faulty? Did the tires fail? Was it driver error? The police said that they would be contacting me for more information. Did they want to charge me with reckless driving? I’ve never had a ticket in my life.
I mentally shook myself.
‘No use worrying about things like that.’ I thought. ‘Finish your patrol before you get fired.’
I started again on one of my mandatory walks around the grounds. The smell of salt air, mixed with the rust of the slowly decaying warehouses was part of my nightly routine. I checked a lock and moved on. Aside from the episodes, my job hadn’t changed in over a year. Every night I patrolled the giant warehouses, without fail. The grounds were immense. I walked nearly a half-mile to do one patrol. In between, I sat in the guard shack and read, either the newspaper or a book. I had one personal rule about reading on the job, ‘Never read suspense or horror.’ There were too many dark corners on my patrol, and I had a vivid imagination.
I finished my patrol and returned to the guard shack. I tried to focus on filling out my paperwork. Ever since the accident, focus had been a problem for me. Sometimes I would be doing a round and suddenly be on the other side of the warehouse, with no idea how I got there. The doctors told me that it was normal for head trauma cases to ‘lose time’ as they called it. They gave me some meds and said it should clear up in a week. I knew I was lucky to be alive. Not everyone survives a head-on collision.
My second patrol was uneventful. That’s just the way things went. Sometimes I had a problem, sometimes everything was fine. It was nearly impossible to predict when problems would arise. Working the night shift was more challenging than people realize. Boredom and sleep were fierce beasts that had to be fought off by drinking caffeine… lots of caffeine.
I never cared for coffee, so I had to get my caffeine fix from sodas. I finished a soda and looked at the bottle to see what prizes were in the contest. It seemed like these sodas were always running one contest or another, offering ungodly sums of money that I knew no one ever won. I was amused at the different prizes they offered just to get more people to drink their brand. It still didn’t stop me from playing. It was something to do. I looked at the cap, instead of a code I saw a name, ‘Kerry Bridges.’
‘That’s odd.’ I thought, then went back to reading my book without a second thought.
The next night during my rounds, I only lost time once, halfway into my shift.
‘The meds must be helping.’ I thought as I downed another soda. Again I checked the lid, and again instead of the code there was a name ‘Jim Yothers.’ On a lark, I decided to keep the cap. When the morning shift showed up to replace me I showed it to the other guard.
“Jerry, what do you think of this?” I said, showing him the cap.
“Did you win?” Jerry asked.
“No, read it,” I said.
“A C J 5 4 7 B E.” Jerry said, confused.
“What?” I said, looking at the cap. “Right here, it says ‘Jim Yothers’ plain as day.”
Jerry looked at me with concern.
“Are you okay man?” Jerry said.
“Yeah,” I said, distracted. “It was just a joke. Haha, fooled you.”
Jerry half-smiled.
“Good one,” he said without enthusiasm.
“Well I’m going to head home and catch some Z’s,” I said.
“Be careful,” Jerry said.
I could feel his eyes on me all the way to the parking lot.
I got home, took a shower, and went to bed. When I got up and got ready for work, I picked up the lid I had kept. Slowly I turned it over and read it. It said ‘Jim Yothers.’ I tossed the cap in the trash.
That night at work, I didn’t ‘lose time’ at all. That made me happy, but the soda caps were beginning to bother me. I had a soda with me but refused to open the bottle.
I tried to stay awake by reading the newspaper. I read it from front to back, even the obituaries. I came across a familiar name there, ‘Kerry Bridges.’ But I couldn’t figure out why it seemed familiar. I didn’t know anybody by that name. No family, friends, or coworkers why did it seem like I should know this name? The answer seemed just out of reach, like a carrot dangling in front of a donkey.
Without thinking I opened a soda bottle and took a long drink. Right in the middle, I realized what I was doing, and sprayed soda in surprise. The cap was still in my hand. I tried to ignore it. I tried not to look. But it was as if my hand had a mind of its own. Slowly I turned the cap over…
It read, ‘Jerry Pickering.’
It was my coworker I had shown it to.
I slowly laid the cap down on the task next to the newspaper. The paper was still open to the obituaries, and the name, ‘Kerry Bridges’ suddenly made sense. It was the name on the first cap.
I read the obituary intently. It said Mr. Bridges had died of natural causes early Monday morning. I searched my memory, trying to remember exactly when I had first read the name. It was after I ate lunch at four A.M. My last patrol was around six. Four hours from when I read the cap, Kerry Bridges was dead.
My mind was reeling. I picked up the open bottle and started to read. To my surprise, it didn’t say, “Win ten thousand dollars!” It said, “See the future!”
I continued to read the rules.
“Rule number one… Do not attempt to warn anyone, penalties are severe.”
That was the only rule written. I dropped the bottle and started shaking. I collapsed into my chair. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. Fear and imagination grabbed me and drug me down into unconsciousness.
I woke to someone shaking me. As I regained consciousness, my eyes were still hazy. I saw Jerry’s face hovering in front of me. The sight of Jerry, jerked me awake in an instant.
“Jerry! You’re alive!” I said, jumping out of my chair.
But Jerry didn’t look happy.
“I could have you fired for this!” Jerry said. “Sleeping on the job is a major offense!”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “What time is it?”
“It’s eight-fifteen!” Jerry said, quite annoyed. “Waking you up is putting me behind schedule!”
“Eight fifteen,” I repeated slowly. “I opened the soda sometime after four…”
“What are you mumbling about?” Jerry said.
“Jerry!” I said suddenly, with a hint of desperation in my voice. “Your life could be in danger. Just sit here and I’ll go do your round.”
“Are you nuts?” Jerry asked. “Get out of here! Go home and get some sleep.”
“I’m telling you, your life is in danger!” I said desperately.
“Ok,” Jerry said. “I’ll play along. How do you know my life’s in danger?”
“Umm… I can’t tell you,” I said sheepishly.
“That’s what I thought,” Jerry said. “So you want me to sit here while you do my rounds on your own time, so you can go tell the supervisor I’m slacking off, then he won’t believe me that you were sleeping.”
“What? No!” I said.
“I’m doing my own rounds!” Jerry said, walking out of the guard shack. “Go home!”
With that, Jerry started toward the warehouse, not paying attention. He walked right in front of an eighteen-wheeler. The truck was only doing thirty miles per hour, but the force knocked him down. The driver reacted instantly, slamming on the brakes. The result was the opposite of what the driver intended. Had he kept going, Jerry might have been knocked aside, or been seriously injured, but survived. But when he hit the brakes, Jerry got caught on the front wheel, and his body was ground into the pavement like a cheese grater until the truck finally stopped.
I was in shock. The entire scene had unfolded in slow motion, right in front of me. I stepped out of the guard shack and vomited at seeing the long red streak that started almost at my feet.
The ambulance and the coroner arrived at the same time. There wasn’t much of a body left to pronounce dead.
I was treated for shock and sent home. I called off the next two days, took some tranquilizers, and tried to sleep. When I came back to work, I could still see a little bit of the red on the asphalt that they couldn’t clean up.
I quickly looked away. All night, I walked way around the spot, and wouldn’t even look at it.
My night was fairly quiet, nothing out of the ordinary. I read a newspaper someone had left from the day before. I scanned through it, ending up at the obituaries. The name ‘Jim Yothers’ stuck out. I instantly recognized it from the second bottle cap. I swore off sodas right there and then. When I came back from a round I found a soda sitting on the desk. I looked around, but no one was there. I threw it in the trash, having sworn to myself that I would never drink another soft drink after Jerry’s death. When I came back from his next round, there was a soda sitting on the desk again.
I looked in the trash, and the first bottle was still there. I looked at the second soda, the label said, “Win ten thousand dollars!” My curiosity was stronger than my fear. I twisted off the lid. The hiss it made sounded like a snake. It gave me chills. I looked at the label again, only this time it said, “See the future!” I immediately tightened the cap and threw the bottle away.
During my next round, I kept looking back at the guard shack, to see who was messing with me. I had locked it, so no one could get in, and quickly did my round. I came back, unlocked the door, and there sat a new bottle. I refused to touch it. I filled out my paperwork, and quickly left for another round, locking the door on my way out. When I returned, there were two sodas.
I ignored them the rest of the night. Before the next shift arrived, I took out the trash bag, full of sodas, and threw it in the dumpster. When the morning shift arrived, the officer asked me how my night was.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped.
The officer was taken aback.
“I…uhh…” was all he could say.
A week went by. Every night I went to work, dreading what would happen. Every morning, I threw away eight unopened sodas. The stress was starting to wear on me. I was struggling to stay awake during my shift. I rarely slept at home anymore, visions of Jerry’s death, combined with increasingly more frequent headaches, weighed heavily on me. Finally, I cracked.
‘As long as I’m getting free soda,’ I thought. ‘I might as well use it.’
I opened one and drank it, refusing to look at the cap. As I was drinking, a swallow went down the wrong pipe, and I started to choke. I grabbed the desk to steady myself, dropping the bottle and cap. My coughing grew more intense. My breath came in shallow wheezes. Air wasn’t making it to my lungs. The harder I struggled, the less air I got. Finally, when my vision began to swim, and I felt as though I was going to pass out, it suddenly subsided. As quickly as it had begun, it went away. My airway was clear as if nothing had happened.
I took another drink to soothe my throat, then without thinking, bent over to pick up the cap. My own name stared back up at me from inside the bottle cap.
I froze. I thought about closing my eyes, but knew it was too late. I sighed heavily, put the cap back on the bottle, and read the label.
It read, “We warned you the penalty would be severe.”
I put the bottle back on the desk and slowly went for my next round. Everything seemed magnified. The shadows were darker, hinting at unknown phantoms waiting to drag me into their nether world. The warehouse became a giant beast, about to devour me. Every corner held anticipation of murders, demons, and perils unimaginable. Each hesitating step seemed an eternity. Every breath felt like my last. Although not thinking it possible, eventually I made it back to the guard shack. I took a drink from the soda bottle and realized, it was the only one there. No second soda had appeared tonight. I slumped into my chair. I knew I was a dead man, I just didn’t know how it would happen.
“Three-thirty,” I said aloud. “I saw that cap around three, so I have about three and a half hours.”
I began to think about the things I wanted to do with what little time I had left. I got out a piece of paper and started writing.
“I’m not crazy,” I started. “Monday, when I opened my soda bottle there was a name on the cap…”
I went on to explain everything that happened over the course of those two weeks. When I was done, I started to re-read it and felt my eyelids getting heavy.
***
Final report on file number 119574,
The subject was found dead sitting on a chair in his guard shack.
No apparent injuries.
Cause of death, complications resulting from earlier head trauma due to an automobile accident.
***
I finished typing my report and sent it off to the coroner. I sat back in my chair and stretched. It was well after midnight and it had been an extremely long day.
I turned off the light in my office as I gathered my things and headed for the door. The nighttime janitor nodded to me as I locked up and headed for the elevator. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and wondered how I was going to drive the forty-minute commute home.
The answer revealed itself in brightly colored shining lights as I stepped off the elevator. A soda machine stood waiting for me to avail myself of its wares.
I picked the variety with the most caffeine and gratefully accepted the bottle that had rocketed to the receiving tray.
The bottle hissed at me as I twisted the top and took a long gulp.
Feeling refreshed I headed for the dark parking lot lit only by a single streetlight fighting valiantly against the darkness.
As I got in and started up the car, I took another drink. I glanced at the bottle and my veins turned to ice.
It read, ‘See the future!’