The End

The rain was pissing him off. He knew it was going to start pouring before he could get to a phone. Jason Calder knew a lot of things lately.

It all started when he took the apartment. It was clean, priced low, an updated duplex in walking distance to downtown Royal Oak. It was one of those, "if it sounds too good to be true, it is" sort of things. He didn't mind the sounds at first, the humming and odd whirring he would hear coming through the wall at night. He never saw who lived in the unit next door. He would even watch through a small bend in the front window blinds sometimes. But he never saw anyone go in or come out. He thought he heard voices one night and he knocked on their door. No one answered, and an uncomfortable silence always followed. It was the kind of silence where you swear you could hear someone waiting for you to go away.

The sounds began changing about three months ago. Or maybe it was four. He couldn't remember. Jason hadn't been sleeping well. Where once the sounds were like a soothing white noise that he almost depended on to drift into slumber they had become an annoying drone that throbbed in the air like a speaker with its base set too high. Tonight was the worst.

Jason swore he could feel it pulsing through his body, shaking his organs, vibrating in his brain. Earplugs, pillows stuffed to his head, nothing worked. Exhausted and fed up, Jason dragged his pants up his legs and pulled his jacket over his t-shirt. He yanked the door handle open so hard the door slammed against the wall and bounced closed behind him. He rounded the stair handrail between the front porches and stomped up the steps to the next unit. He hated them, whoever they were. CIA, FBI. They were freaking aliens. He thought he saw them once, two black silhouettes slapped up on the blinds in a brief flash of light. One was human.

Something was going on in there and someone was trying to hide it. Everyone thought he was crazy. Something was going on in there. Something nefarious was being wrapped in a friendly neighbor ribbon and Jason wasn't buying it anymore. They were going to answer the damn door this time.

He pounded the door with his fist until his whole arm was humming with pain. He knew they were listening. The silence was infuriating. But not as much as realizing he had locked his key and cell phone in the house.

His wife had been right. It was a mistake to quit his job to chase a pipe dream. Now she was afraid of him. She filed for divorce and took out a restraining order. It was her fault he was living in this hell hole. His friends avoided him. Even his own family thought he had lost his mind. He should never have tried to tell them.

All he ever wanted to do was to become a writer.

Thunder crashed.

The garish light from the halogen streetlamps ran in rivers down the dirty gutters. He knew it was going to rain. But he was not expecting it to feel this cold. Jason flipped the collar of his flimsy jacket against the insistent gusts of rain-wind. He was soaked to the skin. He knew the bar would be open. It was only a few blocks further. He could dry off there, get drunk; maybe figure out what the hell to do.

When he turned the corner at Fourth and Main, even through the deluge Jason could hear the buzz of the neon sign. With the rest of the businesses closed and dark, he could see its light easily, its bright red reflection shimmering on the sidewalk like puddles of luminescent blood. Jason slowed his pace, standing in the rain as he studied the twisted neon letters. "Gusoline Alley". Locals called it the homeless shelter. It was the kind of place where the not so pretty and well off could comingle without disturbing the beautiful rich people. Now he was one of them. The sign may as well have read "welcome home -- "

Home, the place they say to which one can never return. But can they? Can you go back, start over, make different choices and change your destiny? The answer to those questions seemed suddenly important, significant, and like so many things in his screwed up life these days seeing that sign was like looking at something he had seen every day for the first time in his life.

"Shakespeare!"

It was Carl. It was always Carl. Even in the din of the bar his voice was as subtle as cannon fire in a library. He was a big man, the burley biker looking type, with a bald head and far too many tattoos. Still, in spite of his banal presentation Jason felt strangely comforted by his greeting.

"You need a new line, Carl," Jason grumbled.

"As soon as you give me a better one," Carl laughed. The introduction never changed.

Jason claimed his usual stool at the bar, admiring the way Carl's Harley shirt strained admirably to contain his girth. Carl tossed him a bar towel, still laughing. The kid never did remember to bring an umbrella.

"What'll ya have?" Carl asked. The question was as predictable as his grin. "The usual?"

Jason said nothing. He just mopped the rain from his face and hair and made a useless attempt to dry his clothes.

The usual faces were there. George Phillips sat on the corner stool by the wall, slowly sucking on the butt of his cigarette as if it was a woman's nipple. The Chimney was an appropriate nick-name. Jason had to admit that. Unless he was ordering one of his three finger shots of Jack the man never took a breath of smoke free air. The pay phone was on the wall behind him. Jason could call the locksmith. He decided his health wasn't worth the risk.

Myrna was at the corner on the other end, her attempt at a short and sassy haircut flared like a plum fire on her awkwardly small head. In the unflattering light her makeup gave an almost comical animation to her otherwise pallid face. As she scanned the bar for company, sipping delicately from the two tiny plastic straws in the forth cosmopolitan, she tried to be discreet. Jason felt sorry for her, watching every night as the stools on either side of her remained empty. She smiled. He hated it when she made eye contact.

"So, what's up, Shakespeare?" Carl asked, sliding a mug of Guinness across the bar top in tandem with a fresh shot of J¤germeister . "When are you going to tell me about this story you've been writing?"

Jason lifted his beer, gulping nearly half of it down before tossing back the Jager.

"God," Carl grimaced. "How can you drink that shit?"

"What?" Jason asked. "You sell it."

"I sell it," Carl admitted, excusing himself from the offense. "But I wouldn't drink that crap if you paid me. Damn, it tastes like a cross between Vick's cough syrup and a used grade of 10-W-40."

Carl felt better when he saw Jason smile.

"So what's the story about?" Carl asked again. He seemed genuinely interested. But Jason wasn't ready. He'd already lost his wife, his family and friends. Losing his bartender psychiatrist wasn't something Jason was ready for just yet. As soon as Carl filled his shot glass Jason pounded it back.

"It's about aliens," Jason said, talking half into his beer mug before chugging the last of his Guinness. Carl laughed. Jason didn't.

Carl lifted Jason's empty beer mug to the tap and filled it back to the rim.

"You mean the, '˜No Se±or officer I'm not sneeeking across the border' kinda alien?" Carl asked, his rough voice coated with his best bad Mexican accent. "Or do you mean the whooooo-woooo-woooo, butt-probe, time-warp kinda alien?" The finger spinning toward the side of his head was enough of a warning.

Jason knew that telling Carl would probably be a bad idea but, what the hell. His J¤ger -courage was kicking in. He picked up his beer, studying Carl's face from over the rim of the mug as he considered how best to begin.

"It's about this guy" Jason explained, grinning at the private irony that his glass, like his life, was half empty. But Carl was waiting. The beginning of a book was always the most appropriate place to start.

"He wants to be a writer," Jason went on, maybe sharing too much. Screw it. "So he quits his job, buys a top of the line computer and he converts his spare room into an office where he sits at his brand new desk and tries to write his first novel."

Carl was listening, waiting for more. But Jason wasn't convinced he should continue. Carl bribed him with another shot.

"His neighbors are aliens," Jason said, unable to prevent the smile that cracked his serious fa§ade.

"You never did say which kind of alien, Shakespeare," Carl reminded him with a grin, giving Jason permission to spill his guts. "If you're gonna tell a good story, details like that are important."

Jason twirled his finger to the side of his head.

"Whooo '"wooo-wooo."

Carl tucked back one of his chins. He wasn't impressed but he was willing to listen.

Jason put the mug to his mouth, draining the Guinness. He wished he could drown in it. Carl bent forward, leaning as close as he'd dare to a man who stood on the edge of a cliff.

"So the guy's neighbors are aliens," Carl reiterated, prodding Jason to continue in spite of his disfavor of the story line. "And -- ?"

The Chimney lit another cigarette from the one he had yet to finish before snuffing it out in his ashtray of smoldering butts. Even Myrna was pretending not to eavesdrop. Jason laughed to himself.

"So the guy is staying in this apartment," he went on. "And every night he hears these strange noises coming from the wall on the other side."

Jason watched Carl's face, studying his eyes, watching his expression for any sign that the only person still willing to listen to him was getting ready to toss him to the street.

"And," Carl pressed.

"And, something happened," Jason said matter-of-factly, as if Carl should have known it was coming --

Home, coming home -- Like a neon epiphany the light went off in his mind

"What happened?" Carl insisted. "How does the story -- "

"Shhhh!" Jason hissed, shoving his palm to Carl's face to clip his words in mid sentence.

It all made sense now. This was his way out.

Jason leaned close, inspiring Carl to do the same.

"I don't know, Carl," Jason whispered. "I don't know."

Jason clutched the edge of the bar as if he feared it might vanish at any moment. "All I know is that as soon as you ask me how the story ends it will start all over again and I'll never find my way out."

Carl just stood there, blank faced. His silence was awkward.

Jason let his head drop, the weight of his nightmare squeezing the breath from his lungs. His eyes closed on their own. He was so tired. He shouldn't have said anything to Carl. He should have just kept his mouth shut unless he was using it as a J¤ger -port. How many shots did he have? He couldn't even remember how he got home from there anymore. He drank too much. He didn't even realize he had another shot waiting. But there it was, sitting on the bar top, cupped between his hands like a prayer.

"Last call," Carl said, only it wasn't Carl.

Jason lifted his head. It wasn't Carl. Fear clutched his throat like a boney hand. His thoughts struggled to grasp what he saw; the Carl-thing, with its cool gray skin and its large, black almond shaped eyes. It smiled, mocking him, leaning in to Jason with a broad sadistic grin. It was feasting on Jason's terror.

"How does the story end, Shakespeare?" it hissed, its black tongue slithering between wicked teeth.

Thunder crashed.

The rain was pissing him off. He knew it was going to start pouring before he could get to a phone. Jason Calder knew a lot of things lately.

The Beginning --