Old Jack's Tale



  Old Jack’s Tale

  by

  Walter Lazo

  • • • • •

  ISBN 978-1476028934

  Copyright © 2012 Lazo Consumer Products, LLC.

  Lazo Consumer Products, LLC.

  P.O. BOX #690471

  Charlotte, NC 28227

  Thank you for your support.

  OLD JACK’S TALE

  Old Jack hobbled over to the nearest stool, sat down, and waived the bartender over. He hadn’t had a drink in over thirty years, but tonight he needed one, badly. What he had seen would drive any normal man insane, but that had always been Jack’s saving grace, he had never been quite normal. Oh, it wasn’t that Jack was somehow physically different—save for the limp in his right leg—or that his mind or brain were structured differently--no, none of that. Jack thought differently. The ideas in his head had either come from a much older culture or had been acquired through his own experience, from being deeply in tune to the interactions between his mind and reality. Perhaps that was the real difference, Jack had a vast awareness of the world that surrounded him, and his immune system resisted the zeitgeist.

  “First time I see you in here, Jack,” said Fred Wright, the bartender, a short, fat man with thick black hair that grew upward, making his head look like the aftermath of a nuclear explosion.

  “Not much of a drinker, Fred,” said Jack. “Tonight, though, I need the strongest you’ve got.”

  “Sure you can handle it?”

  “God, I hope not.”

  Fred looked at Jack quizzically. He had lived in the same town as Jack for most of his life—except for that two year stint as a kid when he wanted to see more of the world—and even though he wouldn’t exactly call Jack a friend, he thought well of him and could tell that something was wrong. He poured him a glass of whiskey and slid it over.

  “You want to talk about it?” Fred asked.

  Jack swallowed his drink in one gulp, allowed the rough burning sensation to clear his mind, thought about the events earlier tonight, questioned the wisdom of actually telling somebody, decided that he at least owed the truth to those who asked.

  “Do you really want to know?” Jack asked, signaling for another drink.

  “Sure,” said Fred, pouring him another drink, suspecting that senility had finally caught up with old Jack.

  “Very well,” said Jack, downing his second drink. “You do know that I’m semi-retired, right?”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard you only take interesting cases nowadays.”

  “Well, Sherriff Anderson gave me a call at about 6:00pm; something about a dead body they weren’t sure was human.”

  ********

  The phone rings. Jack Matthews, 64, semi-retired forensic investigator, answers it. It’s the Sherriff, Steven Anderson.

  “What can I do for you, Sherriff?” Jack asked, knowing that the Sherriff would not bother calling for anything that the new, young specialist Robert Jensen could do.

  “We’ve found a body,” said the Sherriff in a nervous voice.

  “I figured as much,” said Jack. “Male or female?”

  “That’s the thing, Jack, we just don’t know.”

  “What does Jensen say?”

  “Jensen’s a good kid, but you well know he’s green. The boy really lacks practical experience. If he can’t relate to something he has seen in the lab, he just don’t know what to do.”

  “All right, Sherriff, give me your location and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  “I appreciate it, Jack. Meet us at the old fishing lake off of Wilkinson. You know where, right?”

  “Yes, I know where that is. I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

  Jack gathered his instruments and drove to the old fishing lake. There he met Sherriff Anderson and three of his deputies as well as Robert Jensen, the forensic investigator. After brief introductions, they headed for the corpse.

  While Jack had been expecting to find a curious anomaly of a corpse, perhaps an escaped ape, he was not quite prepared for the twisted shape before him. What lay before him could at best be described as hamburger in the vague shape of a human being.

  “It’s human,” said Jack.

  “How can you tell?” asked Robert Jensen, flustered. “Surely the shape is only accidental.”

  “There are other clues,” said Jack, squatting over the ground remains. He pointed at white spots on the red and pink mess. “Those are bones, probably ribs. And do you see that sparkling little metal thing right in the center of that mess?”

  “What thing?” both Jensen and Sherriff Anderson asked at the same time.

  “Right there,” Jack said, pointing at a pile of minced meat. “Can you please pull it out?”

  Robert Jensen squatted down besides Jack, feeling both impressed by Jack and annoyed by him.

  “Do you see it?” asked Jack.

  “Yes,” said Robert excitedly, digging for gloves and pincers in his bag. “I can’t believe I missed it.” He carefully removed the shinning object with a pair of pincers. Covered in slime and gore, a ring came out.

  “What do you have there?” asked Sherriff Anderson, leaning in.

  “I think it’s a wedding ring,” said Jensen.

  “So, this was a person,” said the Sherriff softly, getting even closer to the mess.

  They heard a loud noise behind them. They all turned around—Jack, the Sherriff, Robert Jensen, and the three deputies. What they saw left them all momentarily paralyzed.

  A man walking in a sudden and jerky manner like a stop motion clay figure, bare chested, wearing only torn trousers, and drenched in dry blood approached them.

  “Gil, is that you?” asked the Sherriff, placing his hand on the handle of his gun. He approached the man cautiously.

  Gil opened his mouth as if to speak. His mouth was filled with inhuman teeth. Gil uttered a sound of agony, fear, regret, and rage. Hair grew all over his body, and his entire jaw popped out and kept growing until it became a snout.

  Jack Matthews couldn’t believe what he was seeing, could not bring himself to understand it. This was Gil Newman—he had known him since he was a kid. For the last twenty years he had seen Gil practically every day. Gil was Martha’s and Gerard’s boy, old friends of his. And Gil had always been such a helpful young man who had never been in any type of serious trouble. How, thought Jack, had Gil become this thing?

  One of the officers turned away and ran; another tried to draw his weapon, but Gil eviscerated him before he could get his gun halfway out of its holster. The third officer dove under his patrol car.

  Jack just stood there. It was not so much fear that paralyzed him but a species of unbelief that he could just not shake.

  The wolf thing that had been Gil made its way toward Jack, frothing at the mouth, saliva dripping to the asphalt. Jack knew that he should run—he could see the entrails of the officer Gil had just killed—but his legs refused to move, and his mind blanked out.

  Robert Jensen, in his panic, threw himself on the ground corpse, covering himself in dirt, gore and meat, rolling away and becoming as still as a corpse himself.

  While Robert Jensen hid, Sherriff Steven Anderson quickly made his way to his patrol car and pulled out a shotgun.

  Jack saw death charging towards him in the form of a disfigured abomination that was neither man nor beast. They say that when death stares at you your entire life flashes before your eyes. Jack now understood that was not entirely true—only his regrets flashed before his eyes.

  A shotgun blast sounded like a massive cinderblock bursting against the sidewalk. Gil spun around like a top and fell down hard.

  Seeing the horrible thing that was now Gil drop finally gave Jack back his legs. He scurried over as fa
st as his sixty-four year old legs could move to the side of the Sherriff.

  Gil let out a mournful howl, then a hellish one as he got up. Another shotgun blast tore a huge chunk of meat from his chest. Gil said, “Ouch,” in a voice that was clearly not human. Sherriff Anderson kept firing, forcing the creature back.

  The Deputy under the patrol car joined the Sherriff; he was also carrying a shotgun.

  Gil saw the two men armed with shotguns standing against him. He looked at Jack. For a moment stood still as if contemplating what to do, and then Gil roared, turned and ran away.

  Robert Jensen made the mistake of sitting up at the exact moment Gil was passing by him and lost his head for his trouble. His decapitated body fell down next to the other gory mess.

  ********

  Fred didn’t know what to say. He knew Gil, considered him a friend. It was much simpler to just believe that Jack had been drinking way before he showed up, or that maybe age had finally defeated his great mind. But there was something in the tone of Jack’s voice and that haunted look in his eyes that told otherwise.

  “It can’t be true,” Fred whispered hoarsely. “You’re pulling a fast one on me, aren’t you?”

  “I wouldn’t joke about something like this,” said Jack. “Make of it what you will, but I was there and saw with my own eyes.”

  Jack got up, paid his tab, and left.

 

  THE END

  From The Author

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