Jack in the Box (10 page)

“I. . .” I shook my head. Slowly. “I don’t know.”

Thoughts started coming in. “Satan, “I said. “The devil. Condemned to hell.”

“Yes, he’s been called that,” Brian looked at the table. Started tracing knots in the wood. “Many people called him those names, even called him the ruler of hell.”

Ruler of hell. So he made the rules. But if he was condemned here too, why would he be able to do that
?
“What happened to those people? The ones that called him that?” I asked.

“. . .They died Jack.” He frowned. The gaze he had on the table was steady. But his eyes themselves seemed to shake.

“And they’re in hell, too?”

He puckered his lips. Like he was tasting something sour. “You sure you don’t know what year it is?” He wouldn’t look up at me.

I lifted my hands a bit. “No, Brian.”

He rubbed the surface with his fingers.

“Brian,” I leaned forward. “How many people are on earth right now?”

“Can’t answer that.”

I rubbed my legs. “Why not?”

“Let me ask you something.” Brian finally lifted his head back up. “Let’s say you pass this thing.” He gestured with his hand. “Hypothetically. You pass it. And like I promised, passing it gets you out of here.”

I took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“So you get out. . .” He went back to scratching his chin again.

I put my hands on the table.

“Who’s the first person you’d go see?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know. . .” Then after a second, it was easy. “My father.”

He held up one finger. “Can’t.”

I looked at the finger.

Brian’s chest moved in and out. I hadn’t realized how deep his breaths were until this moment.

“Why not?”

“Your father is dead, Jack.”

My entire face fell
.
No. .
.

I had felt composed up until this point. That hit me harder than it should've. It shouldn't have been a surprise. But it still affected me. The whole room felt smaller. I flickered my eyes. "He's dead?"

He kept his finger up. But he looked back down. He started breathing through his mouth.

“My father is dead?” even sitting down, I felt like I'd lost my balance.

“Yes, Jack.”

“I. . .” I ducked my head down. Tried to make eye contact. “For how long?”

“What year is it?”

I put both hands on my head. “No. . .” tried to steady my breaths.

“Who else would you see?”

“My mother,” I answered immediately.

“Strike two,” he exhaled. His voice shook. Another finger went up.

“Brian, I. . .” I squeezed the sides of my forehead.

“Who else?”

“I don’t know, my classmates?”

“Dead.” Three fingers.

“My professor.”

Four fingers.

I wiped the front of my face. I held back tears. I felt the need to cry for the loss of loved ones, but I knew I would lose focus. Every time I focused on my emotions before, nothing went right. “Who, then? Who is there to see?”

Brian curled his hand into a fist. "Exactly." He was shaking. I realized he wasn't making eye contact with me for a reason. He was trying not to show his emotion. Trying not to cry. Whoever Brian was, he was a person, and he had people he cared about, too.

I bit my lip.

“Who is there to see?” he said. And all this time, he wouldn’t bring his head back up.

My eyes dropped to the table. A small puddle was on the surface just below Brian’s face.

“Brian,” I craned my neck downward. Tried to catch his eyes. “Is everyone dead?”

He backed his chair up a little. Raised his eyes to mine. "Gravity," he said.

I made my lip numb from biting it. "How many?"

He brought himself to his feet. "Seven billion people." He let out an overt breath one more time.

I tried to focus on the conversation. Focus on the information, not that that the few people I knew were dead. "Percentage?" I said, trying to keep my voice from quivering.

"Ninety-nine." He pulled out my gun and put it on the table. "Four more bullets."

I grabbed it. Stood up. My body shook as I stood. "And what about the one percent?"

He squinted his eyes. Rubbed them with his fingers. "Earth regrew, Jack." He said it the same way that someone would say an obvious fact. He said it in a forced positive tone.

"How do you know that? You don't even know what year it is."

"Well, he. . . The man who makes the rules. . ."

"The devil." I cut in.

". . .he does know what year it is. And he says that earth has much more than that original 'one percent' now. About half has been populated. Half of the globe."

The conversation just kept going. Back and forth. But I was getting a lot of answers. I wanted to think about my family, my father. I wanted him to be alive. And I definitely didn't want him to be experiencing the same type of thing I was. But I couldn't afford to focus on my family then. Brian was talking, and I knew that what I was learning had to matter. Nothing could be disregarded in my mind. Anything could be a potential aid in the test. Or, who knows? Maybe it could help me when I got out of the test. If I eve
r
coul
d
get out.

Brian opened the door.

I wiped my face again. Took a step forward. "Wait."

He brought his feet together.

"Tell me how I can get a compass."

He reached in his pocket, pulled out a compass, and tossed it to me. Then he wiped his own face.

I snatched it out of the air. Steel back. Nice quality. "Wait. . ." I said. "You already had one?" looked at him. "You knew I was going to ask for it?"

He tapped the side of his head. Tried to look happy again. "Remember, Jack? Ask the right questions."

I looked at his pockets. It didn't seem like he had anything else in them. Except one pocket looked like it had something in it. Something thin. I couldn't tell what it was, though. "What else can I ask for?"

"That still has to do with. . ." He extended the pointed finger at me, ". . . Asking the right questions." He turned back around.

"Bye, Brian."

He started walking.

"I can't stop gravity, but who am I to make you miss out on those last few moments of free-fall?"

He paused. Took a breath. Walked out.

I was by myself again. I said to the air, "I'll give you those moments," sat down, "whether you think they're worth it or not."

Since he was gone, I retrieved the paper. The one with compass directions. I placed it on the table
.
You can't focus on your family right now
,
I tried to convince myself
.
You have to focus on the test
.
Next to the paper I placed the compass. The needle rotated back and forth a few times.

Pleas
e
, I thought
,
land on a door.

The needle finally rested in one position.

I traced a line forward in my mind, following the direction it pointed. It pointed directly toward a door.

Perfect
,
I took out another paper. It was the one with several squares, and an H in the center square. At the top of the paper I put an N, at the bottom an S, and on the left and right, a W and an E
.
So what do I do with this? There's no reference point besides home
.
I didn't know what to do with the map. But I did remember the same old paper experiment. When I had tried it the day before, I got distracted because of Brian
.
This time
,
I thought
,
I'll figure it out.

The north door was first, I tossed a paper into the other room, closed the door, and reopened it. The paper was still there
.
Okay
,
I wasn't surprised
,
that happened yesterday
.
Next I tried the west door. Same result. East door. The same. And the south door? Yeah, it was the same, too.

I bit the side of my lower lip
.
That's. . . different
.
What had happened to the door that made the papers vanish
?
It's not consistent
,
I thought
.
There's no rule
.
I shook my head
.
But there has to be. All Brian tells me about this place has to do with rules. It's all about the rules. Isn't there a rule for the rooms, too
?
I looked down at the grid of rooms I'd drawn
.
Brian can navigate them. There has to be a rule.

I stood up. Put all the items in my pocket, except for the compass. I held it in my right hand and approached the north door. When I opened it I watched the needle. It stayed steady. I passed the paper ball on the floor, and walked into the next room and put a paper ball in it, too. The needle was still pointed correctly. Next I backtracked into the room behind me. Inside was no paper. I took a deep breath. Turned around and went into the other room again. No paper in it either. I tapped my foot
.
Oka
y
, I thought
.
Okay. So two papers in adjacent rooms have just apparently vanished. Now. .
.
I turned around once again and opened the door. A paper was in there. I was used to the inconsistency, but I tried to find a pattern in it
.
It can't be how many times I open a door
.
When I followed Brian, I entered the same rooms he did even after the door closed
.
Even realizing this, I still thought that the rooms did change in some way
.
Wait
,
I said to myself
,
it's not necessarily the contents of the rooms that are changing
.
I picked up the paper
.
Things aren't vanishing
,
I realized
.
I'm just walking into a different room than before
.
I felt like my eyes had just been opened
.
If I'm entering different rooms, then, what determines which room I'm entering
?
I bent over and knocked on my head. I was close. I could feel it. But I was starting to get a little frustrated
.
I just can't figure out what tells me-

Suddenly I felt a small vibration in the compass. I immediately held it in front of me. It wasn't pointing north anymore. It wasn't pointing toward a door at all, actually. And the needle, it wasn't wobbly pointed in a direction, as it was before. It was like a magnet were right in front of it. It was fixed fast in a specific direction. I didn't understand. "What-"

I was knocked back by something in the direction of the needle. I braced myself from falling over. Held my hands up and clenched my fists. My right hand was still holding the compass. I saw nothing in front of me.

It was the referee.

It picked me up by the neck and slammed me against the wall.

I grabbed at my neck with my right hand.

The referee slapped my right hand away and grabbed my left wrist. Its grip was tight. Excruciatingly tight.

The compass slipped from my fingers. I grabbed the referee's hand and tried to pull it off of my neck. It started to choke me. "What'd I do wrong this time?" I gasped. My feet kicked.

It threw me across the room. My back ram into the wall and I fell forward
.
What is this thing
?
It couldn't have been human. It was too strong.

I heard footsteps. More like loud thumps, actually. It was coming toward me.

I jumped to my feet and held my fists up.

"What'd you do wrong?" it growled, surprised I would ask.

I threw a punch in its direction.

It grabbed my wrist and pulled me forward. A hand grabbed the top of my head. It punched me in the cheek. Hard.

I staggered back. Started to fall.

It grabbed the top of my head and brought me up to my feet. "You're passing," it said. It sounded furious. It let go of my head and punched me again. And again. Over and over, on both sides of my face. It paused, then gave me a final blow, harder than all the others. That one I felt in the nose.

I cried out and grabbed my nose. Bloody
.
Please don't be broken.

I heard it take a step back. It cracked its knuckles.

"Why would you care that I'm passing?" I yelled.