Equilibrium

Chapter 1

They were somewhere near Winnipeg when it happened. Jack could tell because he heard one of the hostesses over the speakers saying something about Lake Manitoba. He guessed this must be where they just passed over. Or maybe it was Minnedosa? He couldn’t tell, but over the damn crackly speaker that had been plaguing him the whole journey, mixed with the double shots of rum he had inhaled to calm his nerves, he was sure he over the border, even if he couldn’t quite work out where. It was worth a drink though. Jack hated flying, and the rum definitely calmed him down. Stone cold sober a slight knock from the outside of the plane would have sent him on some kind of mad freak-out. He could see himself now, stumbling out of his seat at the sight of the seatbelt light, screaming something about life jackets. The poor stewardesses trying to hold him down as he swung frantically for anyone he saw. There was no stopping a man once he was this deep in a psychological trauma, everything else just made it worse. This is why he would drink. A few shots from old Captain Morgan meant he was at a level of serenity to rival Ghandi, even if he did smell like a brewery. He still hated the flight, but the speaker that seemed to give nothing but vowels and static was annoying him a shit load more. There was no point in being negative, however. Despite the size and speed of the plane he was on it would still be a while before he reached his destination. He looked down at the fold-out table in front of him. He had laid out a brochure, a personal file, and a picture of his wife, carol, and his son, Michael. Carol. The poor girl was safe and sound back at Wyoming, awaiting his return in the huge Victorian house that Jack had lived in since he was a baby. The house was built by his Grandfather, also by the name of Jack, and was passed down to him on his 21^st birthday. Both his grandparents, and his parents had died in that very house, though he was too young to remember any of it. For most this would have been a perfect reason to get as far away from the place as possible, but not for jack. He felt a strange connection to it, a safety that he knew no other house would be able to give him. He had begun to wonder if he had been present for his parents deaths, but something deep inside him told him not to pry. When he finally got the courage and asked the rest of his family they simply exchanged flimsy glances and kept just about silent about the whole thing. The worst part was, they looked more scared than suspicious. He suspected that they knew almost as little as him about what caused their actual deaths. When he was 21 he gained rights to the house, and had lived in it ever since, not changing a thing on the interior.

He looked again at the brochure. And then at his file. “Aulavik National Park” definitely didn’t sound Canadian to Jack. But it just so happened to be “one of the biggest and most successful national parks in the whole north of Canada”. That might have something to do with why it was hosting the great “Apple Hollow Music Festival” this year. Perfect, Jack thought bitterly. A bunch of half pagan wood people singing about hockey and whatever else Canadian, on shitty guitars in the middle of a freezing cold field. But still, a job was a job. His job, of course, was to report this prestigious event. Investigative journalism could take him anywhere in the world, and instead it took him to the coldest end of nowhere for a swarm of Canadian hippies singing to the trees. Could be worse, he thought, he could be back in Mexico. And the lodge his firm had set up for him was very sophisticated, he noticed, as he looked again at the brochure. Living room, bathroom, bedroom, and the room that most captured his attention, the study. There was a picture of the study in the leaflet, and it was beautiful. His firm obviously knew him by now, as the study had a full oak finish on just about everything. It had paintings of streams and waterfalls covering the walls creating a feel of peace and tranquillity, even in the photos. On the centre photo was a huge leather armchair in front of a wide, oak desk. And on the desk, to Jack’s total delight, an antique Remmy typewriter. He hadn’t seen a Remmy in years, and it was just what he needed to cover the festival. The whole room was.

And that’s when it happened. A massive jolt that made his stomach flip up into his chest, and made every hair on his shaking, and already sweating body stand on end. The whole plane had felt to have risen up slightly and then quickly shot back down to its original position. He quickly looked around and saw a couple of passengers behind him with the same expression of angst, and some of clear distaste towards the pilot. One couple were clutching each other’s hands and didn’t seem to realise, and a business-looking man had closed his eyes lightly, and was clinging to the armrests with both hands, muttering something to himself slowly. Jack looked back in front of him, at the brochure, his file, and......the picture of his family was gone. How? Nothing else had moved, but his picture was gone. Strange, it must have just slid off the table. He stretched his neck down to the right to look under his seat, but there was nothing but a lifejacket, which he noted, and a sweet wrapper. A slight wave of panic washed over him. He could never make it three weeks without at least a picture of his family to keep him company. It was a huge downfall of his job that he would have to be away from his family for extended amounts of time, and up until now that picture had been the only thing that comforted him on his trips. But don’t panic, he thought, you’re on an aeroplane, it won’t have gotten far. He stretched down to his right and did a full sweep of the floor under his feet, he then checked his lap, got up, and checked all of his pockets just in case. Nothing. His nerves began to weaken, and he could feel that slab of angst slide a little further down into his stomach. But there was something else. Something at the back of his mind that was nagging at him to go and check it out. The pilot had given no indication of an explanation or an apology about the turbulence. This was slightly aggravating, but more so unnerving. The other thing that he had just noticed was that the sound of the engine was getting quieter. The high pitched buzz backed up by the low rumble of the plane cutting through the air was gradually fading away, as if the engine was dying out. Jack was suddenly dreadfully aware that he was sober. As sober as he had ever been in his life. The warm comfortable feeling that had kept him restrained the whole flight had worn away, and a million thoughts were rushing through his head. Why had the plane jumped like that? Where had his picture gone? Why had the captain not said a word to the passengers about any of it? And why the hell was the plane slowing down? Pure panic shot up Jack’s spine, this was too much for a man afraid of heights, while being suspended by a few pieces of metal at 30 000 feet. “Come on Jack what are you doing?”, but it was too late, he had dragged himself up and out of the safety zone of his seat, and towards the door of the cockpit. But what did he expect to find behind it? A number of horrible and outrageous situations were playing over in his mind, none of which involved the pilot sitting there, telling him not to worry, that they had to slow down because of the turbulence, but everything would be fine. Everything was being taken care of. Everything would be smooth from there on. He would maybe buy another small drink, arrive safely, go to his lodge and get a good night’s sleep. This situation did not occur to Jack once, because a man in his situation could only expect the worst. He swung oven the cockpit door and his heart stopped. Of all of the situations he had imagined, this was at the top of the list, right next to the idea of his dead parents walking towards him holding his childhood dog’s head. He stood there, frozen in terror, staring at the two empty pilot’s seats that casually sat before him. He couldn’t think. He couldn’t make the slightest reason out of any of it, until finally his brain snapped and pulled itself together, as if some unknown factor of his mind was gathering all the rational sanity left in his body and focusing it on solving the problem at hand. No one had left the cockpit, or gone in. There was no other door in the room, and no sign of any struggle. He ran back out of the cockpit, and straight up to the other end of the plane, to where the stewardesses sat. He found them both sat talking behind a curtain, looking slightly nervous, and wearing seatbelts. They obviously had not expected any turbulence either. One of them, the louder one, was blonde and stout, with too much makeup. Obviously trying to compensate for her weight problem by layering on every bit of makeup she could, in the hope that someone would find her more attractive because of it.

“Trish” she was called. Jack had noticed this earlier as he got on the plane, as he had noticed her arrogant, egotistical, relentlessly self publicising nature. Jack hated people like this, as they were the only type of people he could never understand, as much as he tried. In a conversation with someone, Jack always worked at trying to indentify the other person’s traits, social habits, and why they say the things they do. With these people the only answer he could ever come to was attention. He had also noticed her friend, however, and how she was the exact opposite of Trish. This woman was genuine. And she was genuinely gorgeous. She had short, dark hair, shaved even shorter on one side, and the other side was left to fall over the side of her face. Her eyes were a mixed shade of green and brown, and they were perfectly formed and placed on each side of her nose. They were young, happy, and full of life, and had not yet taken the glazed over effect that most people’s did when they reached Jack’s age. In thinking this, he also noticed that she was considerably younger than him, but not young enough for him to feel guilty about noticing her beauty. He was also sure that they had shared a moment at one point when he had first got on the plane, of which he did feel slightly guilty.

She had been struggling with one of the overhead lockers right next to him, and he thought the courteous thing to do would be to stand up and help out. Well, consciously he thought this. His subconscious however could have been switching to the most primitive of instincts, help the beautiful woman in need. He stood up on this impulse, but in what hope? That she would instantly find him irresistible from this simple polite act, and proceed to drag him to the back of the plane and “overpower” him into sex? Well, that would be justified in his mind, despite his wife, and although there was around a one percent chance of that actual scenario, or any other like it, occurring, this was still only his subconscious kicking into gear.

He found that one of the bags had been jammed to the roof of the locker, and pulled it flat, shutting the locker door. As he turned to look at the stewardess he found she was already staring deeply into him, smiling delicately, and he knew that he hadn’t shared a moment like this with anyone he had just met, in quite a while. He felt wanted, and attractive, and young, as no woman this young could ever look at him this way unless she thought these things. She said “thank you” in a voice that was an obvious attempt to sound casual, but still sounded like silk to Jack’s ears. He watched her walk away slowly, as he once again took his seat. All of a sudden, as she got to the front of the plane, he felt as if every eye around him was delving into him, watching him and judging him, as if they all knew he was married. This was what pure guilt felt like. He tried to think of Carol, but that same sexual scenario from before was playing over in his head, each time getting more and more graphic, until he was sure that if he just went and talked to her....

This was when he knew he should think about something else.

But now, as he dragged the curtain to one side, both women just stared at him, alarmed. He obviously looked flustered and terrified.

“Sir, if you could please take a sea.....”

“Where the hell are the pilots?”

A look of confusion and slight panic swept across both their faces.

“The...... sir the pilots are in the cockpit, flying the plane, where they always are.” it suddenly hit him that they both thought he was some kind of madman.

“I’m not crazy! The plane just jumped, and I went to look and they’re not there! Both pilots are gone.”

“Alright, sir” his girl looked him in the eye for a second, and then turned away, “wait here Trish I’ll go and look”. Trish just sat in one place looking stunned, but the other stewardess unbuckled her seatbelt and followed Jack to the other end of the plane. For one stupid, irrelevant moment Jack felt the same intimate connection to the girl as he had felt earlier, but he soon discarded it and tried to focus on the situation at hand. As they walked into the cockpit the girl’s look of angst and unease suddenly turned to pure horror. She looked, mouth slightly open, at the empty seats, then at Jack, then at the seats again. She was taking huge panic breaths, and Jack thought she may be on the verge of hyperventilation. Neither of them said a word until....

“Trish!” she had finally turned her panic into affirmative action, just as jack had done when he first left his seat.

“What’s going on?” demanded one of the passengers. It was the business man. He had cautiously got up and made his way across the plane without them even noticing. Jack could have kicked himself. Why had he not thought of the passengers? He was bad enough panicking on his own, but a plane full of people suddenly noticing that the pilots have disappeared? Things were about to get a whole lot worse.

“Nothing sir! Please stay in your...”

“Jesus Christ!” one of the other passengers could apparently see through the small opening of the cockpit door. Instant uproar. People screaming, shouting, pushing to get a look at the empty cockpit, as if they didn’t believe it, they had to see for themselves. Jack suddenly understood the concept of containment, the reason the military, the police force; the CIA and everyone else in power hated the news networks. The reason they all hated journalists. The very sight of these cockroaches swarming to get a glimpse of the very thing that was about to kill them all, blew every idea he had about his profession straight out of the water. This was exactly what Jack didn’t need, and that must have been the case for Trish and her colleague, as he could faintly hear them shouting at everyone to keep calm, and stay in their seats. Only faintly though. They could speak up, the crowd isn’t that loud. And the engine of the plane had stopped altogether, so there was no noise there. In fact, everything was quietening down. Everything was getting quieter, and his sight was blurring too. Before he fainted, he felt the nose of the plane take a sickening dip, which caused him to black out altogether, and the screams of all the passengers plummeting to their deaths to slowly fade away.

‘Am I dead?’

Jack felt as if he had just woken up, but he had never been asleep. He felt as if instead of opening his eyes, his surroundings had somehow faded into him. But what were these surroundings? Where was he? There was a brilliant light shining from every possible direction. There was no floor, he had no shadow, he was simply suspended on blindingly white air. He couldn’t move, but didn’t really want to. There was a peculiar calm atmosphere around him, and somehow knew that he wasn’t dead, no matter how much his surroundings might suggest it. His first thought was initially heaven, as that seemed the only rational explanation, but this wasn’t heaven. It wasn’t a dream either; it was far too clear and realistic. He was in a secluded place, filled with peace and quiet and serenity, but something wasn’t quite right. Jack felt uneasy. This place wasn’t just secluded. It was empty. He was alone and vulnerable. The place felt dark, sinister. Something definitely wasn’t right. The silence and loneliness was getting to him. Jack suddenly wanted to move. He started moving his head around, and found that he had full function of his body and face, but couldn’t move anywhere because there was nothing under his feet. He turned his head to reveal that he wasn’t actually alone. There was someone else there. A tall, black figure. He couldn’t make it out, and suddenly realised, now that there was something to look at, how blurred his eyesight was. He looked at his hands, which he could barely see, and then quickly looked back up at the figure, not wanting to let it out of his sight for too long. It seemed to be bigger than when he first looked. Or was it closer? Jack suddenly wanted to move. The figure was definitely getting closer to him. He was panicking again. It was like being back on the plane, although that seemed like a distant memory now. The figure got closer and closer, until it overwhelmed him, and enveloped him in darkness.

It was taking him somewhere. Good, Jack thought, anywhere was better than here. The blackness lifted him up and he felt like he was being carried, but he was as light as a feather. He didn’t like it. He was being abducted by something he could barely see.

Jack blinked.

Suddenly he was floating down a long tunnel, with the figure by his side. There was a tremendous sense of speed, but there was no wind. It was the same feeling as being in a car as it takes a steep drop. Or a plane. He didn’t like it. He tried to say “what do you want with me?” but no sound would escape him. This thing was going to kill him. That is, if he wasn’t already dead. But the question remained, where was it taking him now? What was at the end of this darkness? He feared his question would soon be answered, as he could see a tiny speck of light in the distance, growing and growing. It suddenly exploded in a flash of brilliant white that burned into the back of his retina and made him recoil in agony.

And suddenly.

He was home. He was in the kitchen of his house, as clearly as he had been just a few hours before he boarded his doomed flight to Canada. Jack cast his bleary eyes around, and could see that it was around midday. It was bright out, and the sun glistened off the metallic utensils hanging from the rack above the counter. There was one small difference however. Everything looked enormous. He stumbled around a little, before bringing himself to a halt, wondering if his vision would ever clear. He could see the giant kitchen table, and staggered over to it and clung on, with great difficulty. He wondered why it was so tricky to grab the end of the great wooden slab, and looked at his hands. He gasped as he squinted down at his once strong, rough palms, instead he saw white, stubby little fingers. His skin felt soft and fragile. What was going on? And why could he still not see? He was getting scared and frustrated with the whole situation, yet the feeling was overpowered by the tremendous relief of being alive. That is if he was still alive. Where was the black figure? Had it dropped him off here, half his normal height and barely able to see, for no reason at all? Then it hit him. Was this a flashback? Was he reliving his childhood? After all he had lived in this house since he was born. He didn’t think they even existed, but this was a flashback from his past, and he was going to replay some forgotten memory in his mind, like an ultra-realistic dream. He walked over to what he supposed was the kitchen counter, and grabbed hold of one of the drawer handles. It felt cold in his hands compared to the table edge. He wished he could see, so he could make some sense of the situation. He was sure this was his house, this was him as a child, but what memory was he reliving? He hoped to God that it wasn’t one that his mind had repressed. A sickening slab of fear slid down his throat, and lay in the pit of his stomach. This could be it. He couldn’t watch his parents die. He wasn’t ready for it. He wasn’t mentally fit to handle so much grief all in one go. But this was bound to happen. He was bound to have seen it at one point, with the intensity that he had locked the whole incident up, there had to be some break in the tension. There had to be a leak. There was no way a human mind could confine such a distressing memory for too long without it getting out, and destroying them completely. If only he had dealt with the problem sooner. If only he had confronted it head on, instead of letting it fester inside him, letting his demons get stronger and stronger, until they finally broke free, in the form of the black figure that had brought him here. He finally understood all the anthropomorphisms of “demons” as being people’s unfinished business. They were real. His very own demon brought him here, and now it was going to force him to witness his own parents’ untimely demise. He let the force grow stronger and stronger until it took down an entire plane full of people just to get to him. The idea was stomach-churning. It was an absurd notion that he caused the death of over 50 people by not dealing with his own issues, but after everything else that had happened it now seemed highly likely. He brought down that plane, with a part of his subconscious that he had allowed to gestate inside of him for so many years, and turn into something so horrible it had no need of shape or form or figure. It was simply an entity, an idea, pure blackness of thought. It was every impure, sadistic, perverse notion that had ever infected his otherwise unpolluted psyche.

The drawer handle had started to numb his hand, and he suddenly realised just how cold it was. In fact, he was cold all over. Especially his bare feet, which had gone very numb on the tiled kitchen floor. He turned and walked towards the brownish rectangle that he supposed was the door to the living room, which was right next to the kitchen. As he clumsily made his way over the freezing ground he thought back to the house’s history. He looked around and, though he could barely see it, he realised that not a lot had changed since he was a child. The kitchen was still a dazzling white, the countertops were the same shade of brown, and there was still that god-awful draught that came from the back door. Hardly anything had changed since his parents...passed on. It was probably down to the fact that he subconsciously wanted to keep things the same in memory of them, and to preserve the personality and aesthetic of the house so that he would never lose the atmosphere of when they were alive. It was almost haunting, in a way, to go back and realise what little he had absent-mindedly done to the house’s interior. Had he really been that unstable about their demise? Had he not dealt with it the way that he should? Admittedly he had not been able to talk about it to anyone, as he hadn’t even witnessed it, and whenever he asked about it he was told that a tragic accident happened inside the house, and it was all in the past, no need to know the details. It maybe was an unorthodox way to deal with a teenager’s questions about his parents’ death, but coming from the right people, it was damn effective, and definitely shut him up.

Now however, after all those years of worrying that he would never find out, he was worrying that he would find out. Maybe he did witness it. Maybe he was about to relive witnessing it. If only his vision would clear he would look for a calendar, or something to help him find out at what point in time he was in. The fear and sickening novelty of being back in time had worn out now, and he was frustrated by the fact that he didn’t know when he was, which was a strange thought.

Jack reached the door and peered inside, to the best of his ability. As he gazed around the dimly lit room he saw nothing out of the ordinary. The only strange thing was that the living room seemed much brighter than the kitchen, which couldn’t be possible as the curtains were barely open, and the light wasn’t coming from a bulb. It was getting brighter too, and Jack had to squint as the room flashed white once again, just as it had done when he arrived.