Glitch

GLITCH

  AMIR AHMED

  Copyright © 2012 by Amir Ahmed

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  The cover for this book uses a skull drawing originally by Tim Piper of The Noun Project, and licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY 3.0

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  Prologue

  On April 20, 2011, Professor David Thornton of the University of Toronto disappeared.

  At first, it looked like he had taken an unannounced sick day. But by the end of May, Thornton was still missing. He didn’t come in to his classes. He didn’t contact his colleagues. His customary parking spot in the park near Innis College remained empty. He had vanished.

  When no one else reacted, the university stepped in. They called his home, his cell, his bank. They looked for family but couldn’t find any. The university eventually called the police, who had no idea what to do. Professor Thornton was declared missing one day later, and removed from payroll in July, the start of the summer semester.

  Dr. Thornton had no wife, no children, and very few friends. But he did have me—his old student. Professor Thornton taught me everything I know about writing, research, and stories. He’d also helped me with a few personal problems that came to a head three years ago in my second year of graduate school.

  I figured the least I could do, considering all that Professor Thornton had done for me, was to find out what had happened to him.

  So, as he had taught me to do, I searched. I dove into dumpsters for trashed faculty minutes, cold-called phones that had their service cut decades ago, and boiled my eyes on the Internet reading every scrap of information related to Thornton and his work.

  My search eventually threw up some names. Not a lot. When I tried contacting these leads I usually hit a dead end. It even turned out one of the people on my list had also gone missing. This person’s name was Lena Romanuik.

  The police had not connected the two missing people. Perhaps they didn’t try that hard: it was a busy season for violent crimes, and the relationship between them was so tenuous that my findings could have been a mistake. I’d already racked up a few of those.

  A month after beginning my search, I got lucky.

  I work for a consulting firm on Wellington Street, a quick subway ride away from U of T. On a Friday before lunch, I was sitting at my desk playing flash games when I received an email from Professor Guy Allen, the head of the communications department at U of T’s Mississauga campus. Dr. Allen had known Thornton and had collected some of the papers at his Mississauga office (U of T has three campuses, Toronto, Scarborough, and Mississauga; professors typically shuttle between campuses to teach). Allen told me that he didn’t know what to do with them—would I like to see them?

  I said I would. Very much.

  I left work early and drove over to UTM. I met Professor Allen in UTM’s communications building, a big modern glass and steel structure in the centre of the campus. He led me up a grand flight of sterile black stairs and down a long, narrow white hallway. We spoke the whole time about Thornton, and my attempts to find him.

  When we reached Thornton’s office, Dr. Allen showed me a pile of papers he’d cleaned and stacked neatly on a blacktop desk. He said I could come and look through them as long as I wanted, as often as I wanted, until he figured out what to do with them.

  I sat down and began to read. It was four o’clock. I finished the stack at midnight. I had not taken any breaks. Dr. Allen had left at seven.

  Thornton’s stack was interesting. Disturbing. Some of the notebooks dated back to the eighties, and one was marked April 2011, when he’d gone missing.

  Thornton wrote the last entry in red pen at the back of a spiral notebook with a green cover. The entry was written in clear capital letters instead of his normal slanted script. It was as if he wanted someone to read and understand this message, if nothing else.

  I am going to the house. If Sam Flautt is there, I will have to kill him. Level Zero, the Stalker Men. Blue Eyed Jack. We are in danger. Gary, I let you down if I fail today.

  I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die. Please God don’t let me die. Okay, I’m going.

  This was a shocking find. For all I knew, this was the last printed message Thornton had left before he disappeared. It was incredible. And completely strange. It read half as a message to the reader, and half as a stream of Thornton’s own thoughts.

  The papers gave me a clear idea of what was happening, or what Thornton thought was happening. And they gave me a new lead: Sam Flautt.

  I did some research on Sam Flautt. He had also gone missing—at around the same time as Thornton. I questioned his parents, his coworkers, tracked down his old roommate (still living in their old apartment), and was given permission to look at Sam’s stuff. Sam was a journalist at heart, even though he worked at the HR department of a group called TEB Financial. He kept a blog and even wrote a diary, accompanied by an SD card filled with voice-recorded notes.

  With the permission of Sam’s roommate, I carefully took each bit of information, transcribed it, and correlated it with Thornton’s notes when I could.

  It revealed a story. A very frightening one, with disturbing consequences.

  In memory of David Thornton, I have chosen to narrate the following story using the skills he taught me. I have attempted my best to assume the voice of Samuel Flautt, because his notes and entries are the most prominent, and because I have gathered a lot about his personality from his parents and roommate, Greg Koo. But mostly, I’ve assumed Flautt’s voice because he is the main character, the catalyst of all of these strange events.

  There will inevitably be errors and guesswork. There will be times when I fail to capture the proper tone, and insult these men and their memories. But I will continue because we understand the world through stories, because we act on stories.

  The following story goes beyond the normal. It goes beyond what I personally want to believe. I hold no opinion upon its truth. Instead I narrate the events as Sam saw them, or believed he saw them.

  I have found similar, corroborating stories of the Stalker Men, also called Blue-Eyed Jack, on the Internet, but have no desire to research them any further. Thornton believed in them. Sam believed in them. That’s enough for me.

  If this story is true, some very scary things might start very, very soon.

  —Amir Ahmed

  CHAPTER ONE: THE SANTA

  “Over there!” Greg shouted.

  I followed Greg’s pointing finger to the Santa.

  The Shirtless Santa reared at the base of the subway stairs, crouching like an animal next to an ad for Global TV. He stood six feet tall, bulging with muscle. A shock of curly black hair spilled onto his shoulders from beneath a dirty red cap.

  The Santa scowled beneath his fake beard. His six-pack abs rippled beneath his skin.

  I thought he’d charge. Instead, he raised his middle finger and ran up the flight.

  “Bastard,” I whispered.

  My name is Sam Flautt. Mondays to Fridays I work as an HR rep at TEB Financial. Today is Sunday.

  Greg and I ran to the stairs leading out of the Ossington subway station. Our feet pounded the tiles and clapped over the traffic announcements buzzing out the intercom. I jumped up the first step. A flash of red hat vanished a
t the top.

  On the weekends, I write for my blog “Stranger Danger”, documenting the weird parts of Toronto. Greg does the photos. You should check out the blog; once, we got mentioned on 102.1 The Edge.

  “He’s too fast,” Greg shouted. I gritted my teeth and leapt up the steps three at a time.

  “Get the camera ready!” I yelled back. The air roared past my ears. Afternoon light blazed off the steel railings.

  I cleared the final step.

  Bloor and Ossington was where Toronto’s downtown sank into residential streets and lots of small, pointless shops. The neighborhood lived like the family car: old, comfortable, and worn smooth by use. The graffiti leaned towards the artistic more than the criminally utilitarian, and hipsters with nothing better to do pasted stickers of 8-bit video game characters on the trash cans. The restaurant signs were in equal parts left-to-right English and right-to-left Arabic.

  The calm pedestrians, the gentle breeze, and the warm sunlight disoriented me as I came out of the subway. It was one o’clock, the end of the lunch hour. Toronto’s new spring sun burned high and hot today, blazing white in traffic signs and passing cars. Crickets and cicadas buzzed in the brown, ragged grass.

  I scanned the street. This intersection was home to a TD Bank, a Lebanese restaurant called Mayt El Heshla, a 24/7 convenience store, and Grandmaster Kong’s Karate Academy. There were a lot of people on the sidewalk, moving slowly and enjoying the first few days of spring.

  I forced myself to ignore the peace and quiet. It looked like a normal Sunday afternoon, but the Santa was nearby. I could smell his crazy.

  Greg came up panting behind me. He clutched his Nokia in both hands. His fingers left sweaty, rippled marks on the camera’s black plastic.

  “We’ll split up,” I said, surveying the calm street. I’d tracked the Shirtless Santa for two days. I wasn’t going to let him get away.

  “I’m done,” Greg wheezed. “I can’t do it, man.”

  I didn’t waste time arguing. I turned right on Bloor, stalking between the crowds and small, gnarled trees budding green in the new spring.

  I scanned the streets. At every storefront and in every mob of pedestrians, I observed the same monotone normalcy. Just people relaxing and having fun. The front steps of a sex shop had nothing, the Long and McQuaide music store had nothing, a place called the Comedy Bar had only a slim brunette woman sweeping dead leaves away. Fucking routine everywhere.

  Wait.

  At an intersection a few meters down I saw an old woman in a pink windbreaker. Her face was pulled into a horrified grimace and her hands were reaching to her widening mouth like she was about to scream.

  I sprinted across the street, leaving Greg behind me. A yellow Mustang squealed to a halt as I crossed. Its horn blared at me. I pounded onto the sidewalk, cleared a squat green bench, and chased the old lady’s affronted gaze down an empty side street.

  The side street was a single lane, stretching through a row of low office buildings. To my right, a pit dug two stories deep marked the birthing ground for a new parking garage.

  There were no pedestrians here. The wall of buildings even pushed back most of the noise from Bloor. The buildings were all squat business buildings, half small brick buildings and half fancy wooden ones with ornate fronts and curved gothic windows from when the city was still under British rule.

  I stood in the middle of the empty street. I listened for screams, swears, or the Santa’s supposed catchphrase, “I need a ho ho hooooo!” Nothing.

  I’d heard about the Santa for months, but had only just seen confirmed eyewitnesses testify on Twitter. He’d become a legend in the city; no one knew if he was a buff homeless person or a juice-monkey with a surreal spin to his free time. He appeared on the subway to do pull-ups on the hand-bars and hit on girls. He sported a perpetually gigantic hard-on that he called his Festivus Pole.

  But despite his obvious insanity, the Santa was remarkably savvy. He refused to talk to cameras and left at the first sign of police or media. So far reports of him had been confined to interviews with victims and the girls who’d given him their numbers.

  I needed footage of this man.

  A voice down the road screamed, “What the hell!?”

  Gotcha.

  I ran in the direction of the shout. It came from a brown brick office building next to the construction pit. The building had small, deep-set windows, and a massive hedge-lined entrance. Behind a pair of silver-etched plate glass doors, the Santa screamed at a security guard. The guard screamed back.

  I pulled out my black Samsung phone, found the camera function, and hit ON.

  The camera flickered on. The quality was crap, but my screen caught the Santa and the guard, locked in their screaming match.

  The Santa paused.

  In the screen of my phone, the Santa flickered, suddenly moving too fast for my Samsung to capture. He raised his arms, lifted his leg, and spun. He drew his foot up. His hips locked like a pistol cocking. A white Adidas hung in the air.

  And kicked the doors.

  The doors blasted open, driven by the elemental fury of a crazy but very buff man.

  I was standing way too close.

  The stainless steel handlebar whacked my hand across the knuckles and sent my Samsung flying. I grabbed at my airborne phone. I missed.

  The phone sailed through the air and crashed onto the sidewalk. That phone cost three hundred dollars.

  “Bastard,” I muttered. I clutched my aching hand. I smelled the Santa as he sprinted past me. He smelled of sweat and mildewed beard.

  “You ass!” I yelled. But the Santa was gone.

  I inspected my hand. Pain. Lots of pain. Red and white blotches swam across my knuckles. A bunch of small bones shifted and I could see them like bubbles beneath my skin. I choked a bit. Steady, Sam. Men don’t cry.

  “What the hell was that?” The security guard stepped out and stared down the street.

  “You know that guy?”

  “No,” I groaned. I tried to move my fingers. They did—barely—with a pain like broken glass. “Just some asshole.”

  “You okay?” the guard asked. But I had turned away from him. I tottered over to my fallen phone, picked it up with my good hand, and slipped it into my pocket.

  “Just—peachy,” I grunted.

  I stumbled towards Bloor.

  If he was back on the main road, the Santa could get anywhere. Even if I found him, I couldn’t film him with my broken Samsung.

  My injured hand hung at my side. I shuffled forward; my hand flopped—dead meat. I pulled out my phone with the other hand.

  I inspected my phone. A long white fracture ran down the black plastic casing. The phone’s touchscreen rioted blue, green, and red shards. Garbage. I gripped the phone and the plastic creaked. No way my warranty covered Shirtless Santas.

  I shoved the phone back and took a jog, trying to force the pain out my hand. My entire right arm hurt now. Shirtless bastard.

  My phone buzzed again. Maybe its insides still worked. Not that it mattered; the trashed screen wouldn’t let me do anything.

  I pushed the phone’s power button, but it kept buzzing. I gave up and slipped it back into my pocket.

  Busted hand. Busted phone. No footage. All in all, not the best Sunday.

  CHAPTER TWO: THE INVISIBLE FLOOR

  No place like Toronto.

  I loved this city for its schizophrenia, and because I’d never gone outside Ontario. Under the CN Tower, Toronto mixed skyscrapers, mom and pop stores, and raver clubs into a crazy chutney. It was also the only real city in Ontario; nearby Mississauga, Oakville, and Brampton all had massive populations, but the mindsets of suburban towns.

  Maybe that’s why when people describe Toronto they always come up short. It’s just Toronto—one of a kind. The only alternative in Canada is Vancouver or Montreal. And I hear Vancouver smells bad.

  There’s an old, unfunny joke about this city. It goes, “Toronto has two seasons: winter
and construction.” Now, in late March, winter had ended and construction had begun. The smell of tar rolled through the streets, and orange pylons clustered around every imperfection in the road. The wind blew a lot because of Lake Ontario, and if you went high enough you could see the lake, a blue horizon at the city limits.

  The wind blew now on the side street on Bloor. Smelling of fresh tar, Lebanese food, and cigarette smoke, this breeze shook the naked trees and flapped the traffic signs. It kicked up eddies of dust and twirled the pounded fragments of dead leaves, sand, and bark chips.

  I watched, clutching my aching hand.

  The Santa had fled. He probably wouldn’t let himself get caught again. I’d have to come up with a blog post for tonight: either admit my failure to the harsh judges of the Internet, or come up with an entirely new story.

  As I thought, a fat brown paper bag flew over a roof, landed on the street, and scuttled across the pavement. The wind picked up, and the bag skidded over the sidewalk, scurrying past my feet.

  A bit of good karma couldn’t hurt. I bent over to pick it up.

  The wind roared and the bag tumbled away. It flew towards the construction pit at the head of the street. Normally I’d have given up, but I really needed that karma. I chased the bag.

  The construction pit probably marked the future home of a parking garage or multilevel office building. Right now it was just a pit dug into ruddy clay. Steel railings and cardboard panels blocked most of it from view. The railings swung off the sidewalk and created a temporary path along the road. The panels showed bright, full-colour photos of pretty buildings in someplace sunny and snowless.

  The paper bag careened through the air. It smacked against a cardboard panel, whacking a larger-than-life couple across the jaw. The wind pinned the bag to the panel, crackling it at the edges. I jumped at the bag and swiped it down.

  The Buddha would be pleased.

  I tried to hold the bag in my injured hand. Pain.

  “Fuck!” I grunted.

  There went my good karma.

  “Did you hear that?”