John Gone (2 page)

John faced the imposing warehouse behind him
and walked through its front double doors without further
hesitation. The first step inside landed on a polished concrete
floor with a bouncing echo.

The majority of the building’s inside was
wrapped in darkness, broken only by small, scattered sections lit
by low-hanging halogen lamps. The wall to his left was more
illuminated than the rest. Over fifty people scrambled like moths
around the light, huddled around what appeared to be a large
map.

As John approached the wall, he saw the map
for what it was, a series of regular, square corkboards hung
edge-to-edge to form a large cohesive rectangle, easily twenty-five
feet or more in length. Down its center was a thin, grey line
representing a single road. Marker-drawn houses were outlined on
either side, placed between the road and the blue,
construction-paper water pasted to the board’s edges.

John recognized the map immediately as
Longboard Key, and how could he not? It was the island he’d spent
his entire life on. Seeing it drawn out this way made it seem even
more simple and small then he’d already thought. The image was a
sharp reminder of his desire to leave it.

John leaned in closer and noticed photographs
of people tacked inside most of the houses. White cards listing
birthdays, alma maters and spouses were furiously stapled and taped
beside them. Some of the houses even held newspaper clippings,
magazine cutouts, and scraps of paper filled with what looked like
rumors and personal messages.

An older woman in a Hawaiian shirt and
neon-pink vinyl shorts edged past John and ran a long yellow yarn
between the house with her picture in it and another further down
the island. It was one of many similar yarns and strings connecting
the houses and photos to others along the boards.

John looked for where his house should be
along the road and was surprised not to find it, empty or
otherwise. Instead, someone had drawn in a new mortuary:
Priscilla’s Prestigious Plots.

Well, that’s creepy
, John thought.

“There it is boy, the future in front of
you,” a raspy voice whispered into his ear. “Now, what do you
think?”

John quickly turned to find the source of the
voice. The words had come from an older man, hunched in half over a
tall ornate cane. His skin was an elephant’s, grayed and folding
over itself in heavy wrinkles. From the golden monocle adorning his
left eye to the identically colored chain circling out from a
pocket in his striped vest, John thought the man looked like some
sort of old-timey train conductor.

The man cocked his head and looked into
John’s eyes impatiently.

“You mean this board?” John finally asked
him.

“Yes, the board,” the man asserted. “Come,
come, what do you think of it?”

“It’s long,” John answered conservatively,
not exactly sure of what to say.

“Quite right, lad, quite right,” the man
agreed. “I call it
Face Board
. It’s just one of the things
my company is doing to help curb the techno-tide.” He turned his
eyes back to John. “Jonathon, I presume?”

“Just John,” John answered. This must be
Virgil.

“We’ve much to do, much to talk about. Follow
me.”

Virgil jiggled his cane at the crowd of
people behind him and they parted at the motion as waves. John
followed closely as Virgil led him to a back wall, far from the
group.

“Of course the board is just one of America
Offline’s ventures. Each of those people you saw back there pay a
hefty subscription for the service, but it doesn’t stop with the
boards, no sir.” Virgil pointed to a door on the wall in front of
them, the first in an identical series. “Behind here is the Search
Department. People can call in at any hour to ask us questions.
Some are simple: ‘How many ounces in a cup?’ Others are more
philosophical: ‘Does God exist?’ We research the answers and phone
them back with top results.”

John carefully hid rolling eyes.

“That next one,” Virgil began, pointing at
the neighboring door, “is
The Bay
. Soon, I’ll grow it into a
large weekly auction house. The restroom is there beside it, and
the one after that is my office. We’ll head there in a moment, but
first let’s take a look at your scooter.”

“Scooter?” John asked.

“Yes, it’s just back here in the ell.”

Virgil led John around the corner at the end
of the wall and pointed to a slim silver machine with a shaking
finger. John left the man’s side and approached it in awe.

“What is this for?” John asked.

“What do you mean, lad? It’s for you!”

“This is mine?”

“Yours after you work for me a few months,
though you may take it up front. I’m beginning an Almost Instant
Messenger Department that you’ll be spearheading. I’m going to send
you out scooting short messages between folks on the island. Here’s
the key, now, don’t lose it.”

Virgil extended his arm to John, holding a
small key ring and chain between his fingers. As John took the key,
it flooded him with visions of riding to and from his school on the
mainland each day, swerving around the slow cars, a crisp wind
rushing past his face, and Molly riding behind him in a bright pink
helmet, squealing with joy as she held tightly to his chest.

“Now follow me, lad,” Virgil said. “You’ll
need to sign some insurance papers so your mother can’t sue me once
you’ve killed yourself on that thing.”

John pocketed the key and followed the
hunched old man into his small, dusty office. The walls inside were
vacant, save a portrait of Virgil overlooking the room, painted in
nineteenth century style.

An ornate desk took most of the floor space,
though supported nothing more than a few overstuffed accounting
books, a fancy-looking Mont Blanc pen, and a messy Rolodex sitting
slightly askew to its axel.

Virgil sat and fished through one of his
files. “Ah, here’s the one!” he said, removing a form from the
rest. “Come, give it a sign.”

John reached across the desk to Virgil’s pen.
As his fingers wrapped around it, Virgil’s fingers wrapped around
John’s wrist.

“And what’s this, then?” Virgil asked, eying
the strange watch on John’s arm.

“Just a wristwatch,” John answered.

Virgil released the teen’s arm and leaned
back into his chair. “Well, you’ll have to take that off. Leave it
here on the desk along with your cellular phone, if you have one,
and anything else that’s digital or high-tech. We’ve a corporate
image to maintain, you know.”

John stood silent, unsure of what to do.

“Come on then, lad! Let’s have it off!”
Virgil said gruffly.

“Well sir, you see, the thing is--”

“Yes?” Virgil asked. The man looked to be
growing more impatient by the second. He stood from his chair,
placed his thumbs into his vest pockets, and expanded his
chest.

“I can’t take it off,” John said.

“Of course you can, boy, just take it
off.”

“That’s the problem. It’s stuck.”

“It’s not stuck; you’re just being
stubborn.”

“I wish it was as simple as that.”

“Bring yourself here,” Virgil said
sternly.

John slowly walked around the desk to the
elderly man, his embarrassment growing with each cautious step.

It’s going to come off the second he
touches it
, John knew,
and I’m going to end up looking like
an idiot. Mom’s going to kill me when he tells her
.

Virgil hurriedly took hold of John’s arm and
turned the wrist upside-down. After unlatching the watch’s band, he
tugged on its face. “If you’re going to take a job in the modern
workforce,” he said, “you’re going to need to learn to--“ The watch
wasn’t budging.

Virgil loosed John’s arm. “Now, what’s going
on here?” he asked, sounding more than a little frustrated.

“I don’t know,” John answered honestly,
almost glad that Virgil had been equally unsuccessful in figuring
it out. “It was easy to put on.”

Virgil muttered something under his breath
and opened his desk’s left drawer. “Now where did I put that
whatchamacallit?” he asked himself as he fumbled through its
contents. After a few moments his hand reappeared holding a large,
wooden-framed Holmesian magnifying glass. He lifted it to John’s
wrist and inspected the watch. “If this is some sort of trick, lad
... ”

“It’s not.”

After a few passes over the watch, Virgil
finished his examination. “Alright, son, this calls for some good,
old fashioned ingenuity. Something you kids today never learned on
your inter-webs.”

Virgil opened his desk drawer again and
traded the magnifying glass for what appeared to be a pair of old
wire cutters. The tool was rusted, made from two pieces of solid
metal attached by a single bolt and spring. He flexed them open and
closed in his hand.

“As good as the day I bought them,” he said
proudly. He took John’s wrist at the watch and brought it close to
his body.

“Wait!” John protested. “What are you going
to do with those?”

“Don’t worry, lad, I’m not going to cut your
arm off. Just this newfangled thing stuck to it.”

Holding the boy’s arm with his left hand, he
slowly slid the side of the cutters between the watch and John’s
arm.

As the tip of the tool connected with the
metal of the watch’s face, a bright-blue electric arc shot from the
watch to the wire cutters to Virgil’s wrinkled hand and up the
length of his arm. A high-pitched squeal and loud
pop
followed a split-second later. Virgil cried out, but only for a
moment before releasing John’s arm and falling stiffly from his
chair to the ground with a thud, silencing the room.

The surprise had sent John tumbling backward
onto his rear. After recovering from the fall, he held his breath,
listening to the eerie quiet that had taken the room. He looked to
the watch on his wrist. It was still there. Nothing had
changed.

“Mr. Virgil?” John called quietly. He waited
a few moments for a reply before beginning a crawl to the other
side of his new boss’s desk.

“
Ahh!
” he exclaimed as he found the
body. “Virgil! Virgil, are you alright?” There was no reply.

John sprung from the floor and leaned over
the desk for a different view. He found Virgil completely stiff,
eyes wide open, face affright, lying sideways in a seated position
on the floor.

John nervously extended his hand toward the
old man’s mouth to feel for breath. There was none. “Virgil?” he
asked.

John had never seen a dead body before. It
was surprisingly terrifying for something so still and quiet. As he
backed away, he noticed the mark on Virgil’s hand where the
electricity had entered. Parts of the skin were now a darkened red,
littered with small black scabs the size of pinpoints covering the
area like a rash. It was the sort of wound one might expect to
receive from a generator or breaker, not a small wristwatch powered
by a dime-sized battery.

John felt sick. Nervously holding the
corpse’s gaze, he backed toward the door to leave the room. As
Virgil left his line of sight, John bolted from the office to the
bathroom next door. Once inside, he leaned over the toilet and
coughed against his nausea.

John glanced at the innocent and silent face
of the watch beside his downturned head. Its entrancing wires still
pulsed and waved beyond the glass, perhaps even stronger than
before. They carried the same glowing blue as the electric arc that
had leapt and struck Virgil.

It’s 3:13 now
, John thought.
I’ve
got to call the police, then Mom, then Molly--she’s going to be
angry
. John shook his head.
I can’t think about that now!
What am I going to tell the police? They’ll have to believe me when
I show them the watch, right? Right.

Feeling secure in his plan, John rose and
reached deep into his right pocket for his phone. Before he could
lift it, a strange feeling of weakness washed over his shoulders
and chest, as if the weight of his head and arms was suddenly too
much for him to bear. Soon, the effect was radiating to his right
arm and both legs. John shook out the limbs as if they were asleep,
trying to throw the odd feeling overcoming him. His legs went numb
and collapsed.

John fell limp to the floor, finding himself
unable to move the majority of his body. The sensation had spread
evenly across him to everywhere but his left arm, where the humming
watch still clung to the wrist.

John raised the arm and flexed it above him,
first by choice, then by impulse. Moments later, it began shaking
wildly in spasm, moving randomly and rapidly above his helpless
body. He tried to fight against it, hoping to contain the raw
energy forcing the frenzy. Suddenly, the arm went stiff. That’s
when it happened.

A pulsing wave of energy exploded outward
from the watch’s face, blinding John, and enveloping the bathroom
in effulgent blue light. Only a moment later, the light was gone.
And so was John.

The sound began as a listless vibration
buzzing past his eardrums. Soon, it grew to a muddled cacophony of
tones: an air conditioner’s hum, what may have been the sound of
rushing water, a voice. It was saying something John couldn’t
understand.

John straightened his back and forced open
his heavy eyelids to a blur of lights and vague geometric shapes.
His arm twitched; he could move again. He checked his wrist for the
watch; it was still there. John lowered his arm, and his fingers
touched a cold surface beneath his legs. Moving his hand against it
revealed a shape and feel.

How did I get on top of the toilet?

It wasn’t long before John’s eyes could stay
open without struggle. The oddity of his new surroundings was
immediately apparent. The bathroom was completely different than it
had been a moment ago. The décor had changed, and even stranger
were the newfound fixtures, a large, curtained shower in front of
him and a porcelain sink to his right.