Written on June 10, 2019 by Gale Striker
Category: Fantasy
Crying can be heard from the conference room and I’m sitting in my desk right next to the conference room. I hate crying. I hate knowing that my friend and roommate Jessy is the one crying. I hate even more that I have to work like nothing is wrong. This sucks.
The conference room door bursts open with my friend running towards the nearest exit. I watch my boss slowly exit the room with a folder in one hand and an empty coffee cup in the other. Their shirt is stained from this morning when they spilled coffee all over themselves, as well as the floor right next to my desk. Luckily, the splash zone only reached the top of my papers.
“Jesus Christ, it’s only 9:30,” my boss mutters unaware of my presence. Being in the corner desk of the office, you tend to be forgotten. That is why I can hear all the gossip in the conference room, at the water cooler, and from any passersby. Apparently, my friend isn’t the only one having a rough morning. “Ryan!” I perk up with a straight back. I’m always slouching when no one is looking. “How close are you to finishing your investigation?”
We call all our articles “investigations.” I guess unorthodox terminology comes with writing for a paranormal blog. “Fantastic. Just peachy.” My sass is widely accepted by all five (now four) of us that write here, but apparently my boss is not in the mood today.
“Cut the crap and have it in by noon today.” I flinch at the response. Deadlines are a scary thing. My piece that I’ve been working on for the past three and a half-ish weeks was only supposed to go two weeks. After today I would be scooting closer to four weeks. Without another word my boss walks to their desk at the other side of the room and plops down in their wooden chair. I look back at my paper and continue editing.
By the time I pull into the driveway, my stomach is in a knot. As if this morning wasn’t bad enough, I now must live with the repercussions of my boss’s action. Keys slipping out of the ignition, I prop open the car door and lay one wobbly foot down after the other. There is no good way this will end. I’m still working at Paranomolous, the paranormal media group, and Jessy isn’t.
Giving up to my nerves, I sit on our front stoop and lay my head against the door. Confrontations are not my thing. At least, confrontations with people are not my thing. Ghosts, sure! Creepy houses, no problem. Jessy, hell no. He’s a great person, but I’m used to dealing with paranormal encounters, not beings who have human emotions. Humans are complex and unpredictable. Jessy’s are just batshit crazy, predictability be damned. The door behind me opens just as I lean back causing me to I bang my head against the ground like an idiot. The Jessy factor has already come into play. A letter softly falls onto my face as Jessy stands above me.
“Ryan? What are you doing sitting in front of our door?” Good question Jessy. Now please stomp my face in and end this awkward conversation. “Also, what is that?” I feel the letter that landed on my face brush my cheek as Jessy grabs it. “Gun? Why the hell do you have a gun? Are you going to kill me?” Jessy shrieks and retreats into the house. The note stands still in midair for a second before falling back onto my face.
Slowly lifting myself up, I let the note fall into my lap. It reads, “5PM tomorrow, Brokebank Park. Bring $500 if you want youre gun bak.” My head falls sideways slightly. What gun? Who wrote this? Did they get a proper English education? Regardless of the circumstances, I had a bigger issue on hand. Facing the entrance of my house showed everything in place. The sad door (sliced in two and glued back together by the previous owner) was untouched, still open from Jessy’s retreat.
Quietly taking off my shoes, I enter my house prepared for Jessy to pop out from anywhere. He wasn’t the typical person who would cry in their room. That behavior was too calm and collected. At any moment my crazy friend could lash out at me. Under normal circumstances I would still use caution, but this particular situation called for more surveillance. When you’re living with Jessy every day is unpredictable.
Stepping out of the entrance hallway, I slid onto my belly to look under the kitchen table. Everything looked undisturbed beneath the tablecloth. Blankets were neatly arranged in case either one of us wanted to be alone. There weren’t many private places in this apartment.
By the time I got to my bedroom (after checking the bathroom, closets, living room, and attic) I thought that I was safe until Jessy jumped out from my closet and gently slammed me into my bed. “Where’s the gun?” Again, this behavior isn’t that unusual, but I feel like Jessy might actually think I have a gun. “There is no gun! Did you not write the note?” Right away I know that question was a mistake.
Jessy looks wounded responding, “really? You think my grammar is that bad? Ryan, we work together! I mean worked.” Jessy’s face goes dark. This job firing thing is really going to bring spirits down in this house. I offer little in terms of energy to this household, so seeing Jessy sad just makes me want to cry. “No, I don’t. You’re a great writer. I have no clue why our boss fired you. I’m just confused. Someone must have tacked the note to the wrong house.” I knew for a fact that Jessy didn’t have a gun. Sure, Jessy was crazy, but there is no way in hell he’d ever actually kill someone. Jessy has a hard time watching violence in action movies.
“Oh, well that’s a relief. Now excuse me as I remove myself to a place where I can cry alone.” Before I have the chance to respond Jessy flees into his room and locks his door. Great, now I have a depressed roommate who will be reminded every day of the job they could have had while I go to said job. Worst of all, I still don’t know why Jessy was fired.
Returning to the front door, I look at the note again. It’s odd that they requested to meet at Brokebank Park. The place was just a scrapyard for broken vehicles. Although no citizens typically strolled into the scrapyard, an employee might still be working tomorrow afternoon. Regardless, I don’t know why someone would put this ransom note on our door. Crumpling the letter up even more, I went to throw it in recycling when my hand has trouble letting go. What if this was a real ransom note? I could only imagine the story I could get actually going to Brokebank Park. People say the scrape yard is supposed to be haunted with all the victims of car accidents. Many angry ghosts wonder that area. Worst comes to worst I can go to the park and just observe. It’s not like the blackmailer would notice me since they obviously put the note on the wrong house.
Later that night I start preparing for the trip. Brokebank Park is a thirty-minute ride from the Paranomoly office, so I will have to leave early. I collect my trusty black notebook with white ghosts drawn on the front. My tape recorder fits snugly into the front pocket of my leather messenger bag. Within thirty minutes I’m packed, ready for tomorrows excursion.
Lying in bed I keep going through how I will casually stroll up to the scrape yard and walk the perimeter looking for any ghostly activities with my tape recorder in hand. Slowly I drift off into a deep sleep without a single dream to remember in the morning.
Jessy kicked the bottom of my bed jolting me awake. My phone is sitting on my nightstand completely silent. I forgot to set my alarm, again. “You weren’t going to wake up, were you?” It is almost tradition for Jessy to wake me up for work (except the days Jessy just didn’t feel like waking me up) as I am chronically bad at getting myself up. Guess all that has to change now that we aren’t working together any more.
Since I woke up twenty minutes late, I find myself picking out shoes while eating cereal and putting on clothes. It’s amazing how much one person can do when they can potentially be late to work. Ten minutes pass as I launch myself out of the door and into my car, pushing hard on the gas. Just when I think I’m going to be late I pull into the parking lot with one minute to spare. Dashing out of the car and up the stairs, I jump into my desk chair and look at the clock. It reads 9:01AM. No one else is in the office, as usual. I’m always the first one here. Whenever I arrive before someone else, I feel like I’m late. To coax my anxiety, I always try to make sure I’m the first one in the office so my boss can never pull of the “you’re late” comment.
Within a couple of minutes, the three other writers spill in. My boss is the last one to arrive at 9:05AM. After the first five minutes, the rest of the day goes by in a blur. As I prepare potential interview questions and research the history of Brokebank Park, my co-workers madly type the rest of their articles to meet the deadlines set by our unrelenting boss. Before I realize it, 4:32PM hits and I rush out of the door late again. Not having Jessy around seems to have affect me more than I realized. Driving into Brokebank Park is like driving into a sci-fi dystopia novel. Broken, rusted car parts are scattered everywhere. Small paths have been cut out of a landscape full of dangerous, pointy objects. Not a tree can be seen within the park, even though it is surrounded by forest. Covered train tracks cut the park in half. At some point this place might have been bustling with activity, but the trains in this area haven’t been used in so long that broken down cars stand in the way of any train that attempt to pass. I park my car on the outskirts by the edge of the forest. There are no fences in this place, so the blackmailer could be coming from any direction. To make things worse, the sun is setting casting huge shadows from cars and trees alike.
Confidently, I start strolling around the perimeter trying to act as if I had a mission of recording some ghostly noise. By the time I reach halfway around the park I begin to panic. What if the blackmailer sees me, and they get spooked? I might be the reason they aren’t coming out of hiding. Suddenly I pretend to hear something and turn my recorder on. As if I’m following something, I run away from the park and hide. After waiting a couple of minutes, I climb to the top of the tree and watch. From where I’m sitting, I can see most of the park. The sun is almost completely set at this point making it really hard for me to see anyone walking in the park.
An hour goes by and it is pitch black. My tape recorder is full because I forgot to turn it off, so now I have an hour’s worth of audio of me just breathing. Right when I get ready to go back down I see a flashlight turn on and enter the park. My hands start shaking as I try to whip out my notebook, ready to take notes. The flashlight stops in the center of the park and starts sweeping the edges. When it sweeps in my direction I have to shield my eyes from the brightness. This flashlight is more like a flood lamp than anything.
Another light appears at the edge of the park and moves in towards the center of the park as well. I look down to take notes and realize that I can’t see anything that I’m writing. No tape recorder, no notepad. Turns out I’m a terrible writer. Squinting at the lights, I try to commit everything to memory. When the lights finally point at each other the two silhouettes become visible. One of them is Jessy. My Jessy. Roommate Jessy. I lean forward acting like it will help me see better. The second person looks like my boss. I blink a couple of times and confirm that it is indeed my boss. My brain starts short circuiting. What is going on here? I shake my head from side to side. When did Jessy partake in weird nighttime meetups? Why would my boss be at Brokebank Park? Before I can look back up, the park lights up like a beacon. Startled, I fall out of the tree and blackout.
