The End of the Road

Hello blog family,

As you all know, today marks the beginning of that most sacred and holy of seasons in human culture where we all gather together to share scary stories in hopes of appeasing the four-armed, four-legged ursine monster known as the Octo-Bear.

For those of you who missed yesterday’s announcement, the name’s Daggit. I’ll be taking over Jack’s little website for a while. And for those of you who didn’t miss yesterday’s announcement, it has come to my attention that a bit of clarification might be in order regarding the current status of Mr. Townsend–specifically, whether he is alive or dead. Let me be perfectly clear, because I don’t want any more confusion:

I wish I could tell everyone that Jack Townsend is alive. I really do. But sadly, I cannot. I mean, how would that even work? There’s something close to nine billion people in the world. I can’t tell everyone anything! The only people I can realistically tell anything to are you, the readers of this blog, and I can say whatever I want here, true or not, because the First Amendment protects me from any and all consequences.

In case that wasn’t specific enough, let me be even more direct. For the commenter who posted this:

“You’d think Jack’s lawyer would be able to tell us if Jack was alive.”

Yes. That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time. I can confirm 100 percent that Jack “was” alive.

Now that that’s finally cleared up, let’s get on to business: Jack’s journal entries were a mess, and he did a lousy job of labeling things. I can’t guarantee these are going to be in the right order, chronologically speaking, but something tells me the order of events hardly matters. So, without any further ado, I hereby present part ??? of ??? of "Tales from the Road."

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The end of the road had been a long time coming.

What started as a half-assed plan to see the world with my dog and two best friends quickly devolved into a chaotic mess of near-death experiences and struggles against forces beyond human comprehension.

In the thick of the action, it was hard to detect any kind of order. Only after each event, in those quiet moments where the interstate droned endlessly onward, with Jerry in his usual spot behind the steering wheel, Rosa and Gaston snoring behind us on the queen sized mattress we rescued from an abandoned furniture store, and me in the passenger seat staring at the messy blur outside the window, only then could I reflect on our journey as a whole. From here, it was easy to see that the path behind us wasn’t random. There was a pattern, a shape–not physical, but temporal. The story repeated itself, the details rearranged, the outcomes foregone before we even arrived. Over and over again, we found ourselves tangled up in someone else’s mess. Sometimes we were able to offer help. More often, the best we could do was bear witness.

Shapeshifters in the sewers of Boston. The Skin Man of Pasadena. A devil down in Georgia. Worms in Washington that could strip a carcass to bone in under thirty seconds. A brain parasite in Utah that took the form of a sentient moustache. Secret oceans inside the Smoky Mountains. A gremlin convoy on Route 66. The cases kept coming, piling up and melting inside my memory. Along the way, we connected with others like ourselves–lost souls caught in the spiderweb of cosmic horrors. Most of them retired after one or two misadventures. Not all of them were so lucky. It was, despite all reason, the best two years of my entire life.

Is there something wrong with me? Yes, obviously. But I was happy. Even when things looked ridiculously hopeless, at least I wasn’t alone. The people you spend your darkest hours with make a huge difference in how you emerge on the other side… Are you lost? That’s okay. There’s a lot of backstory. But if I’m being perfectly honest, things probably still wouldn't make a whole lot of sense even if you knew all the details of how we ended up here.

We put over a hundred thousand miles on the van (and nearly as many bumper stickers). We replaced every piece of the engine at one point or other, but the vehicle–our home–refused to give up. Still, with each passing second, I felt our most precious resource slipping away like blood from an unstaunched arterial wound. No matter how many cities we visited, lives we saved, gods we vacuumed into our dog (yeah, Gaston eats gods now, it’s a whole thing), I knew that this was all temporary. We only had so much time left, and nothing I did would ever change that fact.

I could sense the end, feel its presence as we grew closer. It felt monumental, big enough to influence gravity. In a lot of ways, it was like death–uncompromising, unfeeling, unstoppable, cruel in the same way that nature and entropy are cruel. But I couldn’t know the specifics until it was too late. How was this all meant to fall apart? Would I be fortunate enough to go first, or would I be forced to go on without them? Would one of the countless monsters of the week get lucky and take us out? Would we end up in prison for any of the manifold crimes we may or may not have been party to? Would we die in a head-on collision with a drunk driver? Or would we all just get sick of one another and decide to go our separate ways? I wanted to know now so I could brace for the impact, but I couldn’t. There was only one way to properly prepare for the inevitable end: I had to enjoy the hell out of every day while I was still able.

“Hey, watcha workin’ on?” Jerry asked, pulling off the noise-cancelling earphones he used for overnight drives. He flicked on the blinker as an exit drew near. It was time for another pitstop, and not a minute too soon. If we’d waited much longer, I might have required the use of our emergency pee-jug again. Sometimes, especially on quiet nights like these, I get lost in my work and forget to come up for air. Jerry and Rosa were experts at detecting the signs and pulling me back to reality just in the nick of time.

“Research,” I lied, shutting the lid of my laptop.

Behind us, Rosa sat up and went into a full-bodied yawn and stretch like she was imitating a corpse rising from the grave. “Where are we?” she moaned, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

The sign by the road read, “Welcome to Broken Toe.”

Small town in the middle of nowhere, I thought to myself. This is how it usually starts.

Granted, not every small town in the middle of nowhere is a haven of supernatural shenanigans like the one we left two years prior. But I feel confident saying that almost every small town has dark secrets they don’t want exposed. The truth is usually right there, waiting just below the surface. All it takes is the right van full of meddling kids to come along…

Okay, fine. I can face facts. We weren’t “kids” anymore. Not in the literal sense, anyway. Hell, I blew up a gas station on the night of my ten-year high school reunion, and that was back before this road trip even started. Rosa was only a year behind me, and despite how he sometimes behaved, Jerry was older than either of us. Even Gaston was starting to go gray around the muzzle.

We pulled into an oil-stained parking lot of cracked asphalt and break-through weeds. The sign above the pumps had local branding (something called “Petey Pie’s Gas and Glug”), and even though we’d never been here before, everything about the building looked familiar. While Jerry thumbed through his stash of stolen credit cards–there was a method to his madness, spreading out the purchases on each in just the right order to go unnoticed for as long as possible–Rosa hopped out the back to let Gaston stretch his legs, and I went inside to relieve myself of this urinary burden.

It didn’t take long for the weird stuff to begin.

I’d finished up in the bathroom, picked out a few road-trip essentials, and carried them up to the register before I noticed anything was off. Actually, I stood there waiting for the cashier to acknowledge me for at least a minute before I noticed anything was off. In fact, I might have even started a conversation with the perfectly-still man before I noticed anything was off.

“Crazy weather, huh?”

He stood on his side of the counter, head hung low, arms outstretched with palms flat as if he were supporting his weight entirely with his upper half.

“I’m glad you guys have the water bottles with the squeezy lids. I know it costs a little extra, but they make sharing so much easier. And I know, water is water… Except Dasani, I guess. Not sure what the deal is there.”

The man didn’t respond.

“We’re all trying to stay hydrated. Gotta be responsible, ya know?”

Still nothing. I waited a bit longer. Then, it finally hit me.

“Oh, you’re frozen, aren’t you?”

No response.

“Are you… having a seizure? Sorry, forget I asked. If you were having a seizure, you wouldn’t be able to tell me you were having a seizure because, well, you’d be having a seizure, wouldn’t you?”

Nothing.

I looked through the glass door panes to see if this was a localized phenomenon. Jerry was motionless, back pressed up against the side of our van. On the other edge of the lot, Rosa stared at her phone while Gaston balanced on three legs, a solidified stream of dog pee connecting him to the ground. Yeah, it was like this for everyone.

Hang on, I thought. I’ve been here before. I raced through memories, trying to make the connection. Then, as the fluorescent lights overhead began to flicker, I found it.

There was a guy I met a handful of times on this journey. He could seemingly stop time at will. In theory, that ability would put him on the same playing field as most gods. The only thing I ever saw him use his power for, though, was getting my attention so he could warn me not to return to my hometown. Bit of an overkill, really. A simple text message would have sufficed.

“Hello again, Jack.” I turned to see the man(?) standing at the end of the snack aisle. He looked exactly how I remembered: Nondescript. Curly brown hair. Short beard. Checkered shirt. The kind of face that blends into a crowd. What did he say his name was?

“Amed,” I responded with a nod. “I see that you escaped from Skull World.”

He closed his eyes briefly and shuddered. Then, “Skull World was three or four encounters ago. And my name is Amadeus.”

“Don’t care.”

He approached slowly, his footsteps making no sound. “You surprise me. That’s something I can’t say about very many people. I shouldn’t be surprised. They all warned me about you. And yet, you still surprise me.” He was standing in front of me now. “I was expecting you to ignore my advice.”

“Why?”

“Most people ignore good advice when they hear it.”

“Most people suck.”

“Yes.” There was a solemnity to his voice now, something close to defeat. “Yes, they do. I’ve been at this for a long time. Disappointment is part of the job, and I’m quite used to the feeling. But this time is different.” He cocked his head to look out the window. “This time, I’m actually satisfied with the result.”

“Great!” I said. “Happy to help. Now, why don’t you go ahead and give me your vague ominous warning so I can get on with my night? I can really use the extra lingering anxiety.”

“You don’t understand anything,” he said, returning his gaze to me. I opened a bottle of water and took a sip as he continued. “I was supposed to destroy you. I’ve been given the ultimate authority to rewrite reality itself, to make your greatest fears come true. But in order to keep it fair, I had to offer you a chance to escape first. And, you actually did it.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” I responded. “According to my online therapy app, I’m afraid to let myself be happy. You could have had a field day with that. Anyway, I’m actually glad you stopped by.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, anytime I start seeing people who aren’t there, it reminds me to take my medicine.” I pulled out my phone to check the time and see if I’d missed my last dose, but when I tried to turn it on, the screen remained black. Right, time is frozen. That makes sense, I guess. I held the device up and asked, “Do you mind?”

“Jack,” he growled. “If you had any idea how many humans I’ve killed, you might treat me with more respect.”

Yeah? And if you had any idea how many gods I’d killed, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, I didn’t respond. Instead, I just smiled.

He sighed. “You’ve won.”

“I have? But I didn’t even do anything.”

“Exactly. And now, I’m leaving. On to the next world, the next victim, the next apocalypse. You’ll never see me again. Congratulations and goodbye.”

“Really?” I smelled a trick. “That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“This entire subplot just… never materialized?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“And you aren’t going to pop up again next week to sprinkle in some extra foreshadowing before the grand finale?”

“This isn’t one of your little stories. I’m leaving forever. It’s too bad, really. I had such wonderful plans for you, for this world.” Then, as if it were an afterthought, he muttered, “Such a waste.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’ll see.”

A crack of thunder sounded in my ears and the creature called Amadeus disappeared. I almost lost my balance as the world whiplashed back to its original state. Behind me, the clerk started ringing up my items. Outside, Jerry pumped gas as our dog did laps around the lot, burning up his zoomies before we got back to driving.

That was probably the dumbest climax I’ve ever been part of. Despite the residual pangs of skepticism, I saw no good reason to think Amadeus wasn’t telling the truth. I dodged a bullet by thousands of miles. That was cause enough to celebrate. And sure, the future was still unknown, and the end of the road was still waiting, but as long as the four of us stayed together, I knew we’d be just fine.