Jack in the Box (18 page)

My mouth opened wide. Pain. Physically, it wasn't terrible. A few punches. Hard punches, yeah, but that's all they were. It wasn't the physical pain that mattered. It was that I'd just been beaten down by my father. In what seemed to be pure hatred. That was the pain.

"You made a promise to Brian Colson, Jack."

I lay on my side. Bent my back over.

"You made a promise to never call him 'Father' again."

My ears popped.

He turned the doorknob. "I expect that you keep your promise."

→

I stayed on the floor for several minutes. He had left. Went back to the room, I assumed.

Is this my father's revenge? Did he actually want this for me
?
He wasn't even happy that I'd found out. He was furious. I hid the purpose of the test from him. I took the opportunity he'd given me, and I killed everyone. And this was his justice? Is that what it was all about?

I lifted myself up
.
Which direction did I come from
?
I needed to get back to my room. Thinking of where I had been facing before I hit the floor, I figured which direction to go. I walked through a couple rooms, and I was back in mine.

My father was there. So was lunch.

Lunch
.
I must've slept through breakfast.

I pulled out a chair. Lowered myself into it.

My father pulled out an ice pack from under his seat and handed it to me.

"Thank you. . ." I held it against my jaw.

He chewed quietly. Mouth closed. It was obvious that a lot was going through his head.

I didn't know what to do. He was my dad. And he hated me. "Dad. . ."

He shot his eyes toward me.

". . . Brian. . ." I wanted to talk to him. But I didn't know what to say. "So, why were we able to have that little conversation without the referee coming at us? It was during lunch."

He shook his head, looking at his plate. "The temperature drops five minutes before a meal. We still had time. That's why I could. . ." he tilted his head.

". . . punch me in the face."

"Yeah," he flattened his lips.

"Okay," I rubbed the top of the table.

"I always come five minutes before. It's my schedule."

I nodded.

He moved his food around the plate.

I looked down.

My father offered no other subject matter to talk about. The wrinkles on his face looked deeper than they had before.

The silence choked me.

My father put his fork down.

"Brian," I lifted my eyes, "what's happening?"

He brought his face up. "You think I hate you."

I heard the ticking of my watch again. The air in the room was dense. I felt as though moving would be harder than it should be. It was always the conversation. Conversations always made the room feel different. Everything was blurred except for my dad's face. His words almost echoed in the room. My heart beat resounded in my ears. A quiet tone rang in my head. And the watch. It seemed to tick to the beating of my heart. The ticking of the watch. The beating of my heart. Everything was slow. Tense. Painful. I didn't confirm or deny what he'd said. But he was right. I thought that he hated me.

"I don't, you know," he folded his hands. Rested his elbows on the table.

". . . You beat me."

"I know," he rested his head on his hands, "but that's not because I hate you."

My heart felt as if it were in my throat. It pounded like a drum; its beats resounded through my skull. "Then what's going on?"

His face tightened. He pressed his eyebrows down and shook his head. "You know what, Jack, you just have no idea. You really don't get it."

"Well, Dad. . . Brian, I'm trying to. I know what I did."

"It's not about that," he shot back.

We made no eye contact. We just talked to the table.

"Why can't we just get out of here?" I asked. "Let me pass. We'll both escape."

"It doesn't work like that." he tightened his fingers. His hands grew entirely pale. "If you passed, we'd never see each other again. The only way we both walk out of here is if we both die. But you don't want to do that."

I exhaled. "What happens if we die? We're already dead."

He rocked slightly. Back and forth. Fingers still interlocked. "Death. . ." he started. His cheeks raised. "Death isn't so much the absence of something as it is the travel from one place to another. Death brought you here. Your own hell."

I pulled my chair forward. I watched his eyes as he gathered the words.

"But hell isn't just this place, Jack," he was uneasy. "If you die here, you go where everyone else goes."

I shook my head. "There's two hells?"

"Not two hells. Just two parts to it. Part one is specific."

I ran my hand through my hair.

"Part two is general."

"I don't understand."

"If you die in here, hell doesn't stop," my father brought his eyes up to mine. "It just changes. And trust me, it's much worse." he closed his eyes and exhaled. "When you died on earth, it brought you here. Die here, and you go to the part of hell that everyone else ends up in after their own hell."

It shouldn't have been surprising to me. But for some reason it was. The things he told me about hell, were they true? I looked into his eyes and saw real sadness. But was he speaking reality? It all added up. At the same time, though, I always had this feeling when he spoke about hell. It made me uneasy. Not because it was about hell. No, it was what he said. It didn't seem correct. What grounds did I have to argue against it, though? He knew more than me. And he was my father, he wouldn't lie to me. He had no reason to.

Even my father didn't look right when he spoke about hell. And I don't think it was just because of the subject. Something was going on in him that I couldn't figure out.

"Why. . ."

"Because of what we've done."

"Not that," I folded my hands in the same manner as my father, "Why are you telling me this now?"

"I've told you before," he said painfully. "You asked the right question."

I looked at my wrist. The watch kept begging my attention. I didn't know why, but it almost called out to me. It wasn't its shine, or the tick of the second hand. I felt different with it on. It already had my initials on it. It'd been made for me. By whom, I didn't know.

"Where'd you get this. . ." I held my wrist up.

He shrugged solemnly, "I. . . already had it when I got here. . ."

I examined the time. Twelve thirty. "Was this mine? When we were alive?"

He looked down. Started pushing his food around the plate again.

I lowered my hand. And I forgot about the watch rather quickly.

My father looked like the saddest man on the planet. No, the saddest man ever. I thought it was because of me. But it was something else. I saw regret. But he wouldn't tell me what was going on.

"Why are you here?" I asked him.

"You know why you're here. . ."

"No," I said firmly. "Not me. You. Why are you here?"

My father smiled. The gravity of the room told me he wasn't really happy. But he smiled anyway. "That's a good question."

I nodded. Raised my eyebrows and waited for the answer.

"But I can't answer it." The smile left as quickly as it had come.

My eyebrows fell. "You don't know?"

"Oh, trust me I do. I don't know everything, but I know the reason I was put here."

"Then why can't I know?"

"I can't tell you why this is my hell. But
I
ca
n
tell you my job. One, to keep you from passing. Two," his eyes reflected the light on their glossy surfaces, "to help you discover why it's yours."

I released my folded hands. Rested my arms on the table.

My father was not the same man I'd known in my life. There was always something he hid. He was never like this on earth.

But he probably felt the same way about me. I was not the same person either. Who knew death could change the way a man lives? The life I lived before death was almost completely polar to the one I was living in hell.

So, we were both changed. With that similarity, though, there was still one difference between him and me.

My change was for the better.

"You said it was a good question," I objected.

"It's not one I'm allowed to answer," he blinked.

"If I made the rules, I wouldn't have made any rule about that."

"Yeah, Jack, you made the rules on earth." My father sat up. "But things here aren't going to be just as they were in the world. You already know that."

I rubbed my head.

"The rules aren't the same here. They're. . . edited."

"And who would have edited them?"

"No," he shook his head. "Can't answer."

I leaned forward. "Do I know him?" I imagined the answer would be the devil, but I had the feeling there was more to this.

He sighed. "You know him more than you'd think. But. . ." I saw in his eyes that he was picturing the face of this person, or thing, ". . . For your sake, I hope you never meet him."

My father was never afraid of anything. Even when I betrayed him. When I was the world's most powerful enemy, he didn't back down. He was never afraid. But he was afraid now. Whoever, or whatever, this thing was, it scared my father. And it was in complete control.

"The referee?"

My father chuckled. "No, the referee's just another pawn. Its power goes nowhere past its own strength."

My heart came back with its pounding rhythm. My upper body moved with it. "Then what do we do?"

He curled his lips inward. Turned his head to the side.

The room heated back up. I shifted in my seat.

He looked back at me. "We do what we're told."

I sniffed. Nodded. "Yeah," I said, unconvincingly.

My father nodded. "Yeah," he said softly.

We didn't say anything else. There was nothing else to say. The test would go on. I would keep dreaming. We would have to be enemies. My father couldn't be my father. I couldn't be his son.

This place really was hell.

thirteen

After my father left, our conversation played back in my head several times.

There were things going on that I wasn't aware of. My father and I were both dead, but our conditions were different. He knew everything, but I lost my memory. Had he died before me? Maybe he'd learned all that he knew before I came. And the guy in charge gave him his instructions. Whoeve
r
tha
t
was.

I took out my marker pen and walked to the North door. I had known what I wanted to do for a long time, but things kept keeping me from doing it. The referee, my dreams, my father. I'd gotten sidetracked.

I didn't mark the door. I marked the wall next to it. An N next to the North door. An S for the South door. And a W and E for West and East. I put a line under the S and the W and two lines under the N and E.

I wouldn't mark every room like this. Just my bedroom. To know where I'd be going whenever I set out. And I'd bring my compass with me. I didn't know if it would work. But I decided to be hopeful. Everything else had been ruined for me. I was the apocalypse. My father was in hell. And we couldn't both get out. The only thing I had now was hope. Hope that everything would be okay. That I'd pass this thing without getting one or both of us killed. That I could be his son again. Hope. Maybe it was irrational. But it was a fuel that I couldn't get from anything else.

So I continued to work. I tried to simply move through the rooms with an awareness of where I was. Things went better than I thought. I realized I had a very good visual memory. The map I'd drawn on paper appeared in my mind. I knew where I was in relation to my room. What made it hard was going north or east. I had to remember it was two steps forward, one step back.

When I felt the cold, I started to return to my room. I had ten minutes before dinner. I was pleased with the day. My success in navigation gave me some encouragement. However, I did still feel like I didn't have a plan. Even if I became perfect at going through the rooms, what would I do then? Knowing how to move was one thing. I would have to anticipate where my father was in order to catch him.

I realized that I hadn't encountered the referee all day. Where had it gone? More importantly, what would I do when it came back? I couldn't keep running from it. And it wasn't about the dreams anymore. The dreams couldn't get worse. I wasn't afraid of them. It was the set back that the referee always caused. I couldn't afford it if I wanted to pass. It stood in my way when I was figuring out the rooms. It stood in my way when I came closer to passing. It was always to hold me back from progressing. That's why I had to do something about it.