2:5
The concrete felt like ice underneath her naked body. She could see a dim light coming from somewhere.
A window maybe?
No. The door behind her. Beyond the iron bars was a hallway. The light was coming from another room. She tried to push herself up from the floor. Her muscles felt like lead. She was shivering. Her mind was spinning. She remembered something...a face.
Those dark eyes.
A sting.
Her hand slowly reached back and felt her neck. She ran her fingers over a lump on her skin just under her hairline. Thoughts swam through her head like a surreal story with a forgotten ending.
My clothes.
A clanking noise could be heard down the corridor. And crying. Someone was crying. Her whole body was stiff and sore. Her hips were badly bruised and scraped. She sat up. She felt pressure between her legs, swelling. The insides of her thighs were wet and sticky.
Blood?
Yes. And something else.
Tears were running down the dark bruises on her cheeks. She had been raped before, but never when she was unconscious, until now.
She remembered her father's sweaty body on top of her, his smothering weight and foul breath. She was twelve years old in her darkened bedroom. A talk show could be heard in the next room. The volume was turned way up. It was always too loud. Every few seconds the studio audience would laugh in unison, taunting her. They were cheering him on. He was the star of the show, and she, his unwilling guest.
The more she struggled, the more violent he became. He would hold her down and hit her over and over. But not in the face. Never in the face. If anyone saw the damage he'd inflicted she might not be back for the next night's encore performance.
Mom was at work. Her graveyard shift provided the regular opportunity for him. Of that he took full advantage. Her cries for help went completely unheard in a house far from town, not unlike the place she was in now.
One thing was different though. Her parent’s house didn't have a cold basement with locked cells. She had been free to go to school every day, carefully hiding her pain. It's hard to even walk straight and normal like the other girls, having been raped the night before. But she did conceal it, for almost a year.
There would be no hiding it now. Her whole face was swollen. Both eyes were purplish black. She could barely see out of the left one. They would not be letting her out for school or anything else. She was there to stay.
She knew that the door with the metal bars was locked tight. That didn’t stop her from desperately pulling on it with all the strength that was in her. Her screaming echoed throughout the whole basement. Nobody answered her. Nobody came. All she could hear was them.
Laughing in unison.
2:6
Jack woke up with his right cheek lying against the carpet. A thin line of drool led from the corner of his mouth into the tan fibers. He was face down on the floor with his arms stretched out away from him, palms up. He immediately felt around for the necklace.
Where is it?
He should have still been wearing it, but he didn't feel it beneath him.
He got up slowly. It felt like he hadn't gotten any sleep at all. He was very tired and had a pounding headache. Looking around the room, he couldn't see the stone bird anywhere. Sliding over to the velvet jewelry case, he popped it open. There was the necklace, safe and sound.
How did it get in here?
Jack didn't remember putting it away. He supposed in all of the excitement, that he'd forgotten setting it back in its box. In any case, there it was, and that was all that mattered. He sat in front of the closet wondering if what he'd experienced could have possibly been a dream.
It was as real as anything I've ever seen. It wasn't a dream.
So many questions he'd lived his whole life with had been answered in a few short hours. But there was so much more he wanted to know. He would travel again tonight. He didn't just want to, he had to. He’d been let in on the secrets of the universe and he was going to learn all there was to know.
But why me? Why do I get to know?
There had to be a reason why the old woman, out of all the people she could've sold the necklace to, chose him. It couldn't be just random luck. He couldn't imagine why she would’ve sold it in the first place. It had real power. He was quite sure it was worth far more than the fifty bucks he'd paid for it. She knew something that she hadn’t told him at the store. He decided to call her from work later and have another talk with her.
He thought about what Stacey would say if he told her.
My god, she'd think I was fucking nuts.
She wouldn’t believe him. No one would. He could barely believe it himself.
It really happened. It was not a dream.
He would prove that tonight. And this time, he'd go even further. He would come back with the truth about life after death, God, and everything. At least he hoped so.
Jack carefully opened the door and padded down the hallway to their bedroom. He peeked in and saw that she was still sleeping. He hoped that she hadn't woken up in the night and wondered where he was.
Looking down at his watch, he saw that it was almost 6:30. He thought he'd better get ready for work as he smiled to himself.
The X-Files is right. The truth is out there.
Walking into the bathroom, he grabbed a towel off the shelf.
Way out there.
Still grinning, he stepped into the shower.
2:7
Stacey was still sleeping when Jack left the house at 7:30. It usually took forty-five minutes to get to work. His drive took him out of Penrose, twelve miles west through Canon City, another eight miles to the turnoff, and four more up the mountain. He worked at the Royal Gorge Bridge. It was Colorado's premiere scenic attraction. That's what all of the brochures said. At a thousand fifty-three feet above the Arkansas River it was the highest suspension bridge in the world.
Jack thought about how high he was above the earth the previous night, without the help of any man made structures.
On the way to work he passed by a group of tourists feeding the deer. The father, mother and two children had handfuls of what appeared to be popcorn. The three animals ate their breakfast enthusiastically from the palms of the Texans. When the food ran out the deer wondered off into the nearby forest. The father frantically dug through the trunk of his car, looking for a camera.
Jack drove on to the parking lot and pulled into a space. He locked the door and walked over to the wooden gate at the back of the visitor's center. It was the largest building in the park. It mainly served as a gift shop, but also had a restaurant and an information booth.
He went inside and poured himself a cup of coffee. He peeked in at the time clock. It read 8:21. He still had a few minutes before he could punch in. He waited outside the back door.
The gate opened and in walked Jerry Davis. He was a tall man, well over six feet. He carried a large blue lunchbox, whistling as he strutted in.
“Good day Bruce,” he said in his very best British accent.
“Good morning,” Jack answered back, knowing full well that his accent wasn't as good as Jerry’s.
They worked together on the aerial tramway, the cable car that carried people across the span, just east of the bridge. The view was quite beautiful out in the middle, but after three years Jack barely noticed it. It had become just a background for his daily routine.
Other employees started filing though the gate, wearing all different colors of uniforms, according to which department they worked.
A line formed at the clock, meaning it was time to punch in. Jack and Jerry sipped their coffee, waiting for the others to finish. When the line was gone the tram crew slid their cards through the bar code slot. The machine beeped and flashed OK on the screen. Jerry looked at his co-workers weary face.
“Damn man, you look like shit.”
“I didn't get much sleep last night.”
Jerry was smiling and sarcastic, “Oh, I thought maybe you got hit by a train.”
Jack couldn't help but grin back, “Thanks man, you really know how to brighten a guy’s day.”
“I do what I can,” he said in the most serious voice he could muster.
The two of them walked out to the tram building and got to work.
