Happy Birthday, Jack

Featured in "Horror/Scary Newsletter (July 27, 2011)" 

Happy Birthday, Jack

Jack had been commemorating his twenty-seventh birthday with a small group of acquaintances. They were at the Mercury, a concealed night club in the crux of Seattle. The thudding music vibrated off the walls, its persistent beat rattling everyone’s chest. Someone had babbled something to him however he had been too influenced by the beer to care and too overwhelmed by the music to hear. Raising his glass mug to the center of the table, all the men cheered “Bottoms up!” raising their glasses to clank against his.

For the last six years it was the same thing, coming to the night clubs with a few acquaintances, co-workers, classmates, but none friends. Looking at each of their faces he considered the group and then winced. Each year the faces were different. Jack never seemed to hang on to his friends for long. Something kept him at a from getting close to people.

Sighing, he clacked the empty glass mug against the hard plastic tabletop and stood up. Staggering from behind the table he made his way to the dance floor and proceeded, with precipitous steps to the music, to the side door. A rush of frigid wind greeted him as he pushed open the door. Hunching his shoulders against the wind, he burrowed down into his jacket as he reached in his pocket for his cell phone. Leaning next to the wall in the alley, he drew his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and flipped open the top. No new calls.

Every year, on this day - his birthday, Jack recollected the haunting events those ten years ago. He clearly relived going out with a group of friends to the beach. It was sunny then, the heat of California beat down on them with hellish scintillating rays. Unlike here in Seattle, where hostile rain clouds could appear without a moment's notice, the bitter rain ruthless in its assault. Both were equally ruthless.

The flashback of California triggered his mind. It brought forth against his will the strange events of his seventeenth birthday. How one accident could turn lives around in such a radical way. Recalling, Jack could make out her face clearly. She was Rachel, a delicate blonde Freshman that Jack was involved with. His friends had relentlessly teased him and made fun of her behind her back because she was not the prettiest of the model figures in high school. Or so they decided.

When his birthday rolled around he foolishly had invited her to go to the beach with them that day.

At one point during the party, Micah, a friend of a friend, had formed a game of truth or dare. It seemed harmless at the time. Everyone took turns with their questions or practical jokes as laughter filled the sandy beach. Finally it rotated around to Jack, who, when finished divulging an embarrassing story about a toilet catastrophe in sixth grade, asked Rachel if she would like a truth or dare.

Jack pinched his eyes closed so hard that when he opened them again miniature crimson speckles lined his vision. Trying hard to collect himself and spare him from the vivid memories, he took a couple of deep breaths and fought the urge to vomit. It did not help stop his memories from flooding his mind.

Rachel had confidently taken a dare over truth, probably thinking that Jack would have put her on the spotlight with something personal. Knowledgeable of his friends making fun of her so much, he did not desire to interrogate her anyways.

“I dare you to jump from each piece of drift wood,” Jack put to the plate lamely. Everyone around him groaned. Instead of declining or scoffing, Rachel picked herself up and climbed her way to the back of the driftwood pile. She began hurdling across, regaining her balance after the first two. On the third jump though, she lost her footing on some slick seaweed and fell backward.

Nobody laughed when they heard the crunch snap of her neck breaking in two, killing her instantly.

Shaking his head hard, Jack calmed himself as best as he could and made his way back inside. Back to the stuffy confines of the nightclub. Gracelessly he dove through a large crowd of dancers, their sticking bodies exuding a grueling heat on his already flushed face. When he reached the table he pulled out his wallet and threw a couple hundred bucks down in the center.

“I’m going. See ya,” he muttered, as if they could even hear him. By the time he turned around and braved the dancers yet again, he heard protests from his supposed friends behind him, but it did not stop him from going on.

Wandering home alone on Capitol Hill at nearly one in the morning was not one of his brightest ideas, but ever since the incident when he was a teenager Jack found himself with a disregard for his own life. Fate proved to him that dreadful night that anything could happen and that there were no rules. So when he dragged himself through one of the most ominous parts of Seattle he took it with a grain of salt. Fate could do whatever it wanted with him.

When he rounded a corner and headed down a dark alley, an abysmal iciness throbbed up his spine. The hair on the back of his neck began to rise and his heart quickened. Everything was dead silent. His long strides shortened, slowed, as an unseen fear washed over him. Something was not right.

The deafening chime of his cell phone disrupted the alien quietness. Jumping up he grabbed the cell phone with lightning speed and flipped open the top.

“Hello?” he asked, fighting to keep his deep breaths under control.

Silence.

“Hello?” he asked again, getting ready to hang up and run.

Finally, a voice on the other end of the line responded. Static buzzing in his ear as she spoke through it.

“Hello Jack, it's Rachel. I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday.”


This was written for "The Writer's Cramp - Poetry Week"