“THAT’S MY BABY! NO PLEASE GOD NO!”
“I said BACK UP you fucking CUNT!” The policeman bludgeoned Mrs. Jennings across the mouth with his billy club with a sickening thwack.
I heard her cry out from the hit, and watched as her teeth flew from her mouth to the pavement, clattering at the feet of the armed police officers. They were all striking her now. They beat her down to her hands and knees and were all taking turns hammering at her back with their clubs. She was still begging them not to take her son away but they couldn’t hear, they were laughing. Laughing in a sick and maniacal tone that made my stomach turn.
Now the emergency medical responders emerged from the apartment building, wheeling Andrew out on a gurney. They pushed him clumsily down the stairs, his arm emerged from beneath the white sheet as he bounced down the first step. I watched his lifeless body bounce on the gurney until he landed awkwardly and fell off it completely, the white sheet blowing away in the wind and revealing his corpse.
“Oh, well by all means you dumb fucking junkie, just help yourself to a nap while we’re trying to do our fucking JOBS!” With the last word, the EMT kicked Andrew’s body in his stomach.
I watched his body jerk and fold from the impact. The other EMT was joining in now too, both of them kicking and stomping at Andrew’s lifeless corpse. I tried to yell, I tried to scream at them to stop, but while I felt my vocal cords vibrating in my chest not a sound came out. I watch as one EMT picked up a heavy rock from a nearby flowerbed and carried it over to where Andrew’s body lay. The other EMT rolled him onto his back and I let out the loudest scream no one would ever hear as I watched the rock slam down into Andrew’s face. I heard a deep crunch and knew his skull had cracked. His head rolled to the side and faced right at me, bleeding and crushed.
Then I saw his eyes open, those big green eyes surround by a bloodshot white.
“THE END IS THE BEGINNING DOCTOR.” He said to me with his jaw half attached. “THE END IS THE BEGINNING.”
And then I heard him say it. Soft yet loud, small yet commanding, sharp as a knife yet smooth as water.
“Ubloo!”
I shot up from my bed, panting and covered in sweat. I reached frantically in the dark at the bedding next to me until my hand gripped my flashlight. I turned it on and shined it around the room, darting from one corner to the other, looking for something, anything, but there was nothing there, nothing there except for the stacks of boxes that littered my hotel room.
I turned my nightstand light on and checked the time. 4:12 AM. Three hours of sleep would have to do.
I pulled open the nightstand drawer and grabbed the pill bottle from inside. It was half full, I would need to write myself a new prescription soon, which couldn’t have come at a better time because it was looking like it was just about time to move again. I opened the bottle and threw two adderall into my mouth. I grabbed the glass of water I left out for myself and drank half of it.
I was going to have to start packing now if I wanted to make good time finding a new hotel. I stood up and stretched my legs and back. Now that I’m practically running on drugs and minimum sleep I can feel my body falling apart. I walked over to the dresser and twisted the cap off the bottle of gin from the night before. I took a long swig and cringed at the taste. I was never really a big fan of gin but it’s the easiest to conceal on your breath. When I turned to get started packing I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and froze.
My eyes sat above two dark heavy bags and were so bloodshot they almost looked red. My hair stuck up every which way in dark scraggly tufts. I had a dark shadow of hair on my cheek bones and neck that made my once tidy-kept beard look unattended.
“Jesus…” I said with a pause. “How the fuck did I get to this?”
SIX WEEKS PRIOR:
The funeral of Andrew Jennings came and went and I didn’t attend it. Part of me says it’s because I just couldn’t bear to face Mrs. Jennings, part of me says it’s because I’m terrified of Andrew himself. The week leading up to the funeral I could hardly focus on my work, I just kept thinking of what I heard that night before I fell asleep.
After another week, I chalked it up to just the booze and my imagination getting the best of me. Besides, I wasn’t even asleep when it happened, so I couldn’t have dreamed it.
I decided that I was going to go see Mrs. Jennings to give myself closure. Her office wasn’t far from mine for someone who owns half the apartment complexes in Middlesex county, and I decided that I deserved a day off after what I went through.
When I went to see Mrs. Jennings it was a cool spring day. I was nervous, very nervous. In med-school before I had to give a big presentation I would ease my tension with a shot or two, to loosen up. I did the same that morning, but I guess I should have eaten a bigger breakfast because by the time I got out of my car at her office building my head was swimming.
Inside the lobby was a cute young receptionist. I asked her where I could find Mrs. Jennings and she told me floor three suite one, very politely. I got in the elevator with another man and we rode up together. While we stood there I heard him sniff the air twice, then look sideways at me from the corner of his eye. Fuck, he must be able to smell the booze.
When I got off at the third floor I found a water fountain and drank a few gulps. I pulled another piece of gum from my pocket and chewed it for a minute before I knocked on Mrs. Jennings’ door.
The door swung open and her eyes met mine, and almost instantly I saw them start to well up.
“Oh, Doctor A.” She said, sounding unsurprised. “Please, come in.”
She stepped to the side and let me walk into her office. Immediately I noticed that she was in the process of packing her things, and the office was practically bare save for a few papers and her computer.
“Moving out eh?” I said to her with a half-smile, trying to lighten the mood.
“Yes.” She said, shifting her eyes from me to look around the room as she spoke. “I found someone who’s going to buy all my property. Normally it would be too much but I gave them a great price. I’m going to travel and see Europe like myself and Robert always wanted to.”
“Well, that sounds exciting!” I said, a little too enthusiastically. I saw the sadness creeping up on Mrs. Jennings and continued on, changing the subject. “Mrs. Jennings, I’m terribly sorry to hear about Andrew. He was a very bright young man.”
This brought on the water works.
“He was.” She sobbed. “And I want to thank you, Doctor, that day when he left your office he called me and told me he felt better than he had in years. Thank you for giving me that one moment of having my son back before I lost him for good.”
She started to cry. I looked around her office nervously, and my eyes found a photograph of a young Mrs. Jennings, standing next to a tall broad shouldered man with a big smile, and a young, handsome Andrew. At his side sat a golden retriever, who must have been Buster. I remembered the dream Andrew told me about him and shuddered. I walked over to the photograph and picked it up out of its box.
“This must be Robert, no?” I asked. She looked up from sobbing and saw the photograph in my hands.
“Oh yes.” She answered as she walked over. “That’s my Robert there, Lord he was handsome. And of course there’s Andrew and his dog, Buster.”
A chill ran up my spine as she said his name. Something told me Mrs. Jennings knew very little if not nothing about the dreams her son was having. I looked down at the box I took the photograph from and saw a proposal to buy a property. I was about to look away when something caught my eye.
“Mrs. Jennings?” I said, not lifting my eyes from the paper
“Please dear, call me Gloria. I don’t feel like much of a Mrs. anymore.”
“Gloria, I thought all the property you owned was in Masschusetts?” She blinked at me for asking such an out-of-the-moment question.
“Well, yes dear it is.” She answered, studying my face.
“Sorry it’s just, I couldn’t help but notice this proposal here, for a property in Louisiana?” She looked lost for a second and then I saw the memory hit her.
“Oh yes, that was a property Robert was looking into. He simply adored that Louisiana house. I’m not too sure how he even found the place quite honestly. In fact, when he first started flying down there every other weekend I was all but sure he was having an affair, but when I asked if I could come with him he didn’t put up a struggle at all.” She picked up the proposal and thumbed through the pages until she found a picture and handed it to me.
The house was huge and old, with big columns that framed the front of it, and a black gated fence surrounding the yard. The windows were too dark to see through but it looked to be two stories, only wide enough barely to fit in the picture. It looked a little run down but I could see why Robert was interested in this house, it had potential to be absolutely gorgeous.
After looking over the picture for some time I finally spoke.
“And this house…” I began. “Are you selling this as well?”
“Why, no, we don’t own it Doctor.” She said, looking hurt by those words. “Robert passed before we could finish up the paper work. Such a shame too because the place was lovely.”
I don’t know why but my heart sank a little bit with this.
“But Robert visited there often, right before his death?” I asked.
“Yes. Yes he did.” Gloria responded. “The funny thing is, Robert was known for closing on properties quickly, sometimes too quickly.” She said with a chuckle. “It was like he was afraid to finally go through with it.”
She watched me scrutinize the photograph of the house. “You look interested Doctor.” She said, the chuckle returning as well. “Are you looking to make a move as well? Or get into the real estate biz?”
“Maybe…” I said trailing off.
“Well tell you what. That whole box is full of information Robert kept on that house, separated a bit amongst some other paperwork. I’m just gonna shred all this stuff so if you’re interested help yourself.”
It took me a bit to register what she just said.
“Sure, yeah.” I finally managed to push out. “That sounds great Gloria, thank you.”
I picked up the box and slowly started walking to the door.
“Say, just for curiousity’s sake…” I started. “Who was the previous owner of the house?”
“Oh well it didn’t have an owner, it wasn’t in use when we viewed it.” She said. “Technically it’s owned by the Bank of Louisiana. Before that, it was a school.”
“A school huh?” I ask.
“Yep. If what the woman who showed us the property told us was true, it was the first all-black school in the whole state.”
I stood there for a minute. Thinking about how bizarre this whole thing was. Why was Robert looking to buy an old run-down school in Louisiana? Why this one specifically? And why wouldn’t he close on the property?
As I turned to leave I heard Mrs. Jennings call out from behind me.
“Oh, Doctor.” She said. “One last thing.”
“Yes?”
“I won’t ask why–although I think I know–but if you’re gonna walk around on the liquor, drink gin.”
I was startled.
“I’m sorry?”
“Gin, honey.” She said. “It’s tougher to smell on someone. That’s what Robert used to do.”
I left that office feeling out of place. As if everything that just happened was a dream. I drove straight home and immediately started rifling through Robert’s paperwork. It was tough business at first. I wasn’t too adept at identifying real estate documents so I didn’t quite know what I was looking at at first, but about an hour in I got the hang of it.
I separated the paper work out on my dining room table. In one pile I had all the information about the house. Turns out the thing was owned by some incredibly wealthy family back in the early 1800’s. In fact, they were one of the first families to move down to Louisiana once we got it from the French. The date when they fully converted the place to a school I couldn’t find but it looked like the Bank didn’t get ahold of it until the 1960’s.
I sat back and scratched my head. I looked at the other two piles I had made. One was anything Robert had written on or used not pertaining to this house and the other was just junk. I walked over to the junk pile and started putting the papers back into the box, one by one. Halfway through the pile I got to a beat-up looking manila folder. I undid the clasp and pulled the papers out from inside it.
I thumbed through the first few pages, more rental agreements for Massachusetts properties. I was about to throw them in the box when I noticed a series of numbers on the corner of a page.
“12-4-21”
I pulled this paper out and studied it. It was a rental agreement for a studio apartment in Cambridge. As I looked over the paper more I realized that there was a check stub stapled to the back of it. The check read for $180,000.00, made payable to the Cambridge Realty Trust Company. He had paid for this property is his name for ten years. I found this odd. Why would one of the biggest apartment owners in the state rent an apartment from someone else? I dropped the envelope to the table and heard a clink. I picked the envelope back up and turned it upside down. I felt something slide down the envelope and into my hand, and when I looked, I found a key, with “Unit E335” etched into it. I looked back over to the rental agreement and sure enough, the address of the property read:
375 Broadway St. Unit E335 Cambridge MA
I froze for a half second, then frantically searched for my coat. I couldn’t tell you why I felt the urge to go see this place now, but it all just felt too abnormal to ignore. My instincts were telling me to go to there and I was going to trust them.
I got to the apartment fairly quick and bounded up the stairs. The front door was locked and I tried the key. The key fit snuggly into the lock and turned with ease. I felt my nerves leap. I entered the lobby and found the staircase. I ran up the stairs two at a time until I reached the third floor. I opened the door and sure enough, right in front of me was Unit E335. It felt like time froze, and I was just standing there staring at this door. This morning I was drunk, trying to find closure, and now here I am rifling through a dead man’s things and walking his footsteps. Who am I doing this for? Me? Robert? Andrew? I shook the thoughts from my head. It’s my day off—I rationalized—I’m just killing time playing detective.
I walked up to the door and slid the key into the lock, and turned the doorknob.
The door swung inward and I was staring into one big room. I found a light switch and flicked it on. The room was your typical studio apartment. Kitchenette and bathroom all in one big spacious area.
But there was no furniture.
The entire room was completely empty, walls bare, except for the middle of the room, where sitting there on the floor, facing me, was a safe.
I walked slowly up to the safe and put my hand against it. The metal was cool. I tried to move it and it was incredibly heavy, it must be thick.
I stood there and looked at it, pondering the peculiarity of the whole thing. Then I knelt down, and expecting it not to work, entered in three numbers.
“12-4-21”
I heard the mechanism inside click and my heart skipped a beat.
Slowly, I swung the door open and peered inside. Sitting at the bottom of the safe were two books. I picked the first one up and read the cover:
“The Personal Journal of Robert A. Jennings”
My hands were shaking. I took the book out from behind Robert’s journal and studied it. The writing was in some weird language I had never seen before. I flicked open the cover and found a folded up piece of paper. I took the paper and unfolded it and my stomach dropped.
It was almost an exact copy of the picture Andrew drew for me that day in my office. Black and white, sitting there staring into my very existence, was that terrible monster, Ubloo.
I don’t know what happened first, shutting the book or getting up to leave. I don’t know why but I couldn’t be in this room anymore. I wasn’t supposed to find these things. With the books in my arms I ran out the apartment door without even shutting it behind me. I ran straight to my car, threw the books on the passenger seat and drove straight home. When I got there I grabbed the books again and sprinted inside, looking over my shoulders the whole way. I got inside and slammed the door, ran over to my dining room table and threw the books down.
I immediately started going through the pages of this weird-languaged book. It was incredibly old and full of pictures. I got hallway through when I stopped on a page with a drawing that looked like a crudely drawn Ubloo. I frantically searched through the rest of the book but I couldn’t make heads or tails of the language so I cast it aside. I then grabbed Robert’s journal and opened it to the first page.
“My name is Robert A. Jennings, and for the past year I have been afflicted with paranormal encounters in my dreams by a monster I call Ubloo. I know how this must sound, but everything I write in here must be taken with the utmost gravity, as I fear I will not be around much longer.”
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. This had to be a dream. Some sort of fucked up dream. I flicked through the next few pages and saw recordings of dreams Robert had that were absolutely horrible. Dreams of standing on the ground and watching his son jump off a six-story building, only to splatter on the pavement right in front of him over and over again. Dreams of walking in on his wife cheating on him with their neighbors, his son video-taping it and them turning on Robert and beating him senseless while his wife laughed. Dreams of his parents being burned alive while the fire department laughed and molested his wife. Terrible things. How this man lived so long with such a burden I will never know.
I quickly flipped through the pages until they were nothing but white. I stopped when I reached the end and I knew Robert had died before he could fill this journal. Slowly, I flipped backwards until I reached the last page he had written on. When I read the words I dropped the book as if it were flaming hot and recoiled a few steps back, staring at it on the floor.
The damage was done. Those horrible words etched into my mind’s eye.
“The end is the beginning”
I paced around the room for a long time and thought hard about everything that happened. Just then, I heard a noise in my kitchen. I walked in to investigate and then felt a blinding pain across the back of my skull. I dropped to the ground face first and my head felt like it had split.
“Look baby he IS home!” I heard an unfamiliar face say. I watched as a pair of black boots walked up next to my face, and lightly kicked me in the forehead. “Wakey wakey Doc!”
From the ground I could see a pair of boots. At the other end of my kitchen I saw another man, dressed all in black with a ski mask, holding a gun up to a girl’s head.
“Please Doctor A! Help me please!”
I recognized that voice from somewhere, but where?
“Shut the fuck up bitch he can’t help you!” I heard the other man say as he pistol whipped the girl in the side of the head. She began to cry.
My vision came into focus and then I realized who she was. She was Andrea, my receptionist.
“ANDREA!” I yelled, but I was then kicked in the stomach by my attacker.
“Didn’t you hear my buddy?” He said as he stood over me writhing in pain. “You can’t fucking help her.”
He took a step back and stomped, and I felt his heavy boot come down on my knee cap and felt an exploding pain in my leg. I screamed loudly and clutched at my leg, but when I did the man only kicked me again, which hurt even worse the second time.
“Please Doctor A! Please help! They said they’re going to kill me!” Andrea pleaded from the back of the kitchen.
“Bitch, I said shut the FUCK up!” I heard the thwack of the pistol hitting Andrea again and heard her sob.
“That’s right baby doll.” The first man said. “We’re gonna kill ya. But first, we’re gonna hurt ya, and then, we’re gonna have a little fun.”
“No please, stop!” I looked up just in time to see the muzzle flash, hear Andrea scream, and then almost like it surfaced from all the noise of screaming and gunfire, I heard it in the back of my head.
“Ubloo!”
I woke up in pitch darkness and realized I had been screaming. My throat was sore and my shirt was soaked in sweat. I began to panic. I realized I was sitting at my dining room table and ran to the light switch. I flicked it on but nothing was there. No noise, no one in the kitchen, nothing. All at once it came back to me. How could I forget falling asleep? After I saw those words in Robert’s journal I sat down and decided to go through the rental agreements again, which were all laid out in front of me. I must have fallen asleep doing that, but how did I not remember sitting down to do this?
Then I remembered my conversation with Andrew. How Ubloo realized the he could scare him more with a microsleep dream than a normal one. How the ability to catch him off guard was more effective. I got so caught up in this theory that I didn’t even realize what was happening, but when I did, I got sick to my stomach. It couldn’t happen, it couldn’t. It wasn’t even real this isn’t real. I tried to force the thought from my head but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
Ubloo is controlling my dreams now.
I vomited on my dining room floor. This was all happening too fast.
I looked around the room frantically. I have to pack. I need to get out of here. Maybe if I run he’ll have to chase me. It’s worth a shot.
I ran back to my bedroom and began gathering my things. I ran over to my brief case and pulled out a prescription pad. I was definitely going to need this. I began packing in a frenzy before I even realized I didn’t know where I was going. But then it hit me.
Louisiana.
I’m going to fly to Louisiana. I packed most of my things with this being the idea but I began to feel queasy thinking about it. I couldn’t bring myself to admit I was going to this place to continue Robert’s work. I couldn’t yet, I didn’t know enough.
I’ll drive.
I’ll stay in hotels along the way and do research. Read Robert’s Journal, figure out what this other book says, research that house Robert wanted to buy. I had too much work to just fly to Louisiana. I had to learn. I had to study everything Robert wrote down and knew if I was going to have a chance at getting rid of Ubloo.
6 WEEKS LATER
I pulled my bag behind me as I approached the checkout counter.
“Leaving us so soon Mr. Abian?” The girl behind the counter said to me.
“Yes, sorry but I need to get back on the road now.” I said with a smile.
“Well it was a pleasure having you. I always feel safer working here when a Doctor stays with us.” She smiled back.
I said my good-byes and headed for the door. I checked my watch. 7:01 AM. Perfect. I’ll be in Mississippi by the evening. Then I’ll be able to find a place and hopefully meet up with Eli, if he’s willing to be up that late.
I began to look up from my watch.
It will be great to finally know what that book sa-
In an instant it was gone, but I knew what I saw. I saw it. I fucking saw it right before it disappeared behind the corner of the building.
Staring at me from around a corner was a grey head with shiny skin, and two deep black empty eyes. At the bottom of that head was a long snout that dangled and whipped with his head as he pulled it back.
I stood there frozen with my bag in my hand. I stood there and I waited. I waited to wake up.
But I didn’t.
