The SF Sideshow, Episode 2: Zoey's Secret Stuff

(Content warning: This episode contains graphic violence and drug references)

Devin Striker woke up shivering in his sweat-soaked bed. The clouds were overcast outside and his room was a dreary gray. He sat up and reached for the uncapped pint of whiskey on his desk, sniffing it before his first shot of the day. His face twisted as the swill hit his tongue. He tipped the bottle up once more before setting it beside the journal that turned up on the first day of the new year. He anticipated its presence as— despite his shelving it— it appeared on his desk by morning, no matter where he’d put it the night before. He rose from bed and carried the book to the case where he’d slotted it every morning after the day it appeared.

He stood in front of the book case, his fingers playing along the edges of the journal’s cover, curling around as though he dared to part it for the first time in days. He shelved it, with held breath. He stared at it over the kitchen counter as he waited for water to boil.

As his coffee brewed.

As he half-heartedly stirred it, absent any cream, sugar, or other accoutrement.

His eyes remained locked upon it as coffee dribbled from his cup down the side of his chin.

Even as the journal remained shut he remained fixated, and his fixation carried consequences.

Trash, empty whiskey bottles, various junk, and dirt cluttered the floor of his apartment. Food rotted on plates and in bowls wherever they sat. The two bookshelves in the living room were collecting dust and their tomes overtaken by cans and bottles in neglect. He was unable to tear his attention away from Zoey’s journal since it came into his possession, yet unable to bring himself to open it again.

He didn’t know what its existence implied, and that was disconcerting to him.

He had no idea what the coded pages in Zoey’s handwriting said or how some of the nonsensical drawings and doodles seemed to change each time he scrutinized them. 

He wasn’t sure which made him more uncomfortable.

Still, as his eyes remained locked upon the journal on the shelf, he cleared the table. He didn’t know why his heart pounded as he stood again in front of the bookcase and pulled the journal from its place. Despite how gently he’d set it down, he heard a thud as he set it on the table.

He froze, staring at the journal for a moment. When he heard it again, he knew it wasn’t coming from the journal. The final rap assured him it was the door. He peered through the peephole and saw Case.

He unlocked door and opened it with a subdued, “Hey.” She hugged him and stepped inside, pausing before taking her sandals off as she usually would, when she saw the state of the apartment. She left them on.

“It smells a bit stale in here,” she said, stepping over a pile of clothes. “Can I open a window?”

“I can get it. Sorry it’s messy, I haven’t gotten around to cleaning yet.”

Her expression said, ‘no shit’. “Is everything okay? I thought you were coming to my place so we could go to Dolores?”

“Shit,” he muttered, “What time is it?”

“Twelve forty. I texted you an hour ago.”

“I think my phone’s dead on my desk. I can be ready to go in a few.”

“I can wait,” she said, brushing crumbs off of the couch before seating herself. “Open a window, though?”

He paused at the window. He hadn’t looked outside of it much. The sun was beginning to break through fog, bathing the Potrero district in warm sunlight. After he opened the window, he was in and out of the shower as quick as he could be. He spent most of the time scrubbing a black line on the back of his left palm. He first noticed it on the second day of year, when it was faint. He thought it was sharpie or some other type of marker. It didn’t go away, no matter how hard he scrubbed or what soap or solvent he used. To his vexation, it grew darker every day since its arrival. When he emerged, Case had cleaned up the vicinity of the couch, clearly more comfortable on an island in a sea of filth.

They were at Dolores Park by the bottom of the hour. There were a multitude of parkgoers on blankets— except for the area by the tennis court, where people engaged in various athletics. The sun was shining on the Mission as clouds hung in the distance over the western end of the city. It was unseasonably warm, and soon would be unseasonably wet, driving the young people of the neighborhood to their local hangout before they would be forced inside.

The pair found a spot with enough room to lay out Case’s large blanket on the south side of the park, near 20th street. She laid out with a book and grapes, but hadn’t considered her replacement flip-phone would be useless for the wireless speaker she’d brought. Striker was less prepared, with only his cigarettes and a flask of whiskey he hadn’t bothered to fill to the top. He’d brought his phone, but hadn’t bothered to charge it.

“Did you look at that book on the table while you were waiting for me?”

Case looked over her book. “This?”

“No, there was a journal of Zoey’s on my table. You were sitting right in front of it when I went to shower.”

She paused and her eyes wandered before she shook her head. “I’m pretty sure the table was clear. I left a cup of water on it when we left. Maybe the journal got knocked off?”

Striker took a swig from his flask and lit a cigarette. “I guess,” he muttered, unconvinced.

He laid on the blanket with his hands behind his head, staring at the sky. Case glanced over when she finished her chapter, and again after she finished the next. She poked his foot with her toe. He didn’t react, nor did he when she called his name. He snapped back to reality when she held the book over his face.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Did you ever see any of Zoey’s notebooks?”

“Yeah? She had pretty handwriting, what about it?”

“I mean her private writing,” he paused. “I guess that doesn’t make sense.”

“Oh, you mean her whole writing system thing. She showed me some of it a long time ago. I don’t know how she remembered it all,” she scratched her chin as she ate a grape, “I guess there was that big binder she pulled out a lot?”

“Wait— do you remember what it looks like?”

“Big thick binder? Like the binders we used in college? Um… white? I think she had to get a bigger one to keep it all in one place anyway, but that was before she moved in with you. I just remember it was huge. I said she should publish it, but you know Zoey. She likes her secret stuff.”

Striker took another swig of his whiskey as his brain began turning over the possibilities. He couldn’t recall any large binders in his apartment since Zoey had been there.

“Earth to Striker?” she said, after he’d fallen silent again.

“Do you think Zoey would hide serious shit from us?”

Case sat up. “Like what?”

“I don’t know… Like, she owed someone a lot money, or saw something she shouldn’t have or—”

“She wouldn’t keep that from us. She trusted you and me with everything.”

“What if it was something weird? Like something she thought we wouldn’t believe?”

“Weird like what?”

“Weird like ‘occult weird’? Or something like that?”

Case shook her head. “She’s too grounded for that. I mean, except for when we first met and she was into ‘manifesting her fortunes’ or whatever. She was a hard skeptic by the time we shared a room, though. Funny thing is we’d have these drunken... I don’t know, hypothetical conversations about stuff like magic, but in this sort of scientific kind of way,”

“Really? She always trashed anything she thought was too ‘woo woo’.”

“It wasn’t like that— it was more like ‘If you could make your apartment the perfect temperature, but you couldn’t use your electricity at the same time, would you?,’ and shit like that. Weird hypotheticals.”

“Like the lever problem?”

Case tilted her head. “Are you talking about the Trolley Problem?”

Striker shrugged.

She shook her head. “It wasn’t about moral dilemmas or anything, just... ‘What if you could do this or that?’ Do you mind, by the way?” she asked, pointing at his flask.

Striker nodded and passed it over. “I’m going to get a six pack,” he said as he rose from the blanket. Case handed the flask back, with a quarter full.

“Sounds good,” she said, laying back down to return her attention to her book.

Striker let the journal and strange events go in the meantime, enjoying what he could of the day. The two lazed through the afternoon until the sun began to set over the hills. Clouds advanced as wind built over the park. Case went for the bus home shortly after the sun disappeared under Sutro Tower. Striker, meanwhile, made his way to North Beach.

 

Before Zoey disappeared, he spent most days at the North Beach Art Gallery. After a stint in the SF College of the Arts, he did several odd jobs that turned into a regular cleaning gig. That got him some space to practice his art when he wasn’t cleaning or preparing for exhibits. After one of their resident artist’s vacations turned into a wedding and move with his new husband, Striker was invited to keep his space warm. After his art began bringing in new clients and more money for the gallery, the spot became his. It became a home away from home.

North Beach was frigid, but the gallery was warm when he stepped in. It was brightly lit with framed paintings and art of various media lining the walls. Sculptures near the center of the floor created islands in the sea of white tile. It was meticulously clean; sterile almost, between the work Striker and the recent new hire had done. At the back, there was a set of iron stairs that ascended to a wooden loft with metal railing. On a laptop at a table by the rail, Striker saw the owner, Sheryl. He took the door to the studio, just to the right of the stairs.

His eyes watered when he entered. He almost sneezed, but several false alarms left him unsatisfied. He flicked the switch by the door and the fan rumbled to life. He took a few steps in darkness before the light above slowly illuminated the space. To an outsider, the studio would look like a disorganized clusterfuck. It was small, with barely enough room for two people’s supplies. It was too tight to work with anyone else in the room, so Striker came in late or early. His space was the one closer to the back. He had a large canvas rigged up with a matte black wash and some strokes of white that resembled nothing yet— and he still had no idea what they would become as he stared at it. His specialty was graphite, but Zoey pushed him to make a new piece with paint before she disappeared.

“Devin?” asked Sheryl, as she poked her head in the door. She always did that before walking in. She paid the rent for the gallery and studio, but treated the latter as though it belonged more to the artists than herself. “I didn’t expect you in. How are you doing?” Her southern dialect slipped through, despite her occasional attempts at restraint.

“Alright. Went to the park. I figured I’d try to make some progress on this before the exhibit.”

“No pressure. I know you’re going through a lot right now.”

“Thanks, Sher. I think I’ll have a piece in. I wanted to have this done a month ago but I don’t even remember what I was going for when I started it.”

“Your life changed. A lot. If it were me, I’d have thrown that out or put it anywhere else but front of me. I never could come back to a piece I didn’t finish when there was a major change, you know? I’ve seen a lot of people go through it— not being sure what to do after some big change in their life, this thing or that— and a lot give up. Just did whatever arbitrary thing they thought would finish the piece. Makes for shitty art, between you and me,” she said with a chuckle, “Gotta cut your losses if you need to, even if your heart’s deep in it.”

“This is salvageable. I’m just... I’m not sure how I want to fill the space yet.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” she said, “I do like that about you, though. You use your head. Even if you do it a bit too much.”

“Thanks, Sheryl.”

“I mean it,” she said, turning to leave. She stopped abruptly, “Right, I almost forgot why I came down here: A couple of young ladies were looking for you.”

Striker felt butterflies in his stomach that petrified and nearly came out of the other end when he remembered Ada and Elsie from new year’s eve. “Who?”

“I don’t know, a couple of girls looked about your age, said they found a sketchbook of yours. Smelled like they’d been rolling in grass. I told them they could drop it off, but they insisted on doing it in person. I tried to talk them into bringing it by, but,” she shrugged.

“Did you tell them anything? About me?”

“Oh goodness, no. You know I’m not going to share personal information about my artists.”

He sighed, his tense muscles relaxing from their subconscious guard. “Did they say anything about coming back?”

She shook her head. “I’ll let you know if they do.” She opened the door to leave.

“Wait, Sheryl— Do you remember if one of them was wearing a purple hair clip? With a skull on it?”

“Mhmm,” she nodded, “Reminded me of that one your girlfriend wore. Err.. Wears. I guess things are still up in the air right now?”

Striker shrugged. “Yeah.”

“I hope she’s okay out there,” said Sheryl. She pursed her lips as her eyes swept over Striker, assessing him like a mother who’d been told something bad happened to her child. Still, she flashed a smile and stepped out.

Striker stood in front of the painting. He took off his coat and laid it on a chair. He used white to paint the contours and edges of the GetUp patio. The perspective was low, looking upward. The center remained a black void with a humanoid shape. Several hours, cigarettes, and most of a pint of whiskey later, he stood back from the painting, unfinished, but satisfied. The edges of it feathered in a blur as detail became sharper toward the center. He gave the black-void figure a cartoonish toothy maw in fine strokes where the mouth should be. Its eyes, detailed in wisps of white, were devoid of emotion or love. On the figure’s head, he painted an iconic skull that served as a hair clip in deep purple. Around its neck was an off-white chain with a golden gear in its center.

He packed up his studio supplies and looked at the clock at one-thirteen. He decided to take a cab rather than the long early-morning MUNI ride. His phone was still dead and the land line was in Sheryl’s office, which only she had the key to. He had to hunt for a charger, and found a cable sticking out from under a bunch of paintings in his space. He looked over them after plugging in his phone. 

He didn’t plan to exhibit anything in the pile. Most of it was destined for the trash, while some would make its way to his home, eventually. It was the bottom piece that caught his attention. It was collaboration he made with Zoey, with no particular intention aside from it going on their wall. It was dated less than two weeks before her disappearance. 

The border was painted by her and featured her cipher— the same as she used in the journal— in her hand, although brushed and far more inconsistent than her handwriting. Striker painted a clock in the center, with hands of different lengths extending in every direction. She painted the numbers on its face, again in symbols from her code. He took it with him when the cab arrived.

 

When he arrived home, the journal was on his living room table where he left it. A cup of water with Case’s lipstick on the rim sat just to it’s left. He sat and thumbed through the journal. Some pages changed every time he looked at them, while others were static pages covered in code. It defied logic, and he found himself still unable to come up with an explanation for the journal’s odd behavior. Striker pushed aside the enigma of its properties and focused instead on the cipher.

The glyphs on the clock face were the first clue. With the numbers one through twelve, and some puzzling over formatting, he figured out which lines in the journal were dates. The first entry was January 16th, 2012. The last dated page was September 25th of the same year. He flipped over the painting. It was dated September 12th. She disappeared the 27th. He bookmarked the page with a scrap from the floor and flipped to those around it. He could see patterns in the glyphs, but their meaning eluded him. He did notice, however, a certain recurrence of the number two and two other mystery glyphs that appeared in the border of the painting— the first like a circle, the second an X with a zigzag through it. 

He remembered she chose that round glyph because it had something to do with time, but she didn’t explain much more beyond that. He focused on those pages, hunting for any context clues or something else that would bring more understanding. It was well after five in the morning when he closed the book, without much progress. He slunk into bed and fell asleep. 

When he awoke, his room was bright and warm with the sun shining through his window. He smelled coffee and found himself at the kitchen counter. He poured himself a cup and looked out of the window, overlooking waves rolling over the shore of Ocean Beach. He took a long sip and placed the cup on the living room table beside him. With a spin on his heel he let himself fall onto the couch. He closed his eyes, wondering for a moment why he didn’t remember staggering from his bed to the kitchen. Or when he made coffee. His eyes fluttered open as familiarity caressed the side of his face. Zoey smiled, her eyes locked with his as they lay on the couch. She was dressed in pajamas and her purple bathrobe.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

Striker stared into her eyes, the same fog preventing him from remembering how coffee was made also prevented him from remembering why he felt sadness when he gazed at her so closely. “It’s weird,” he said. “I feel like I miss you.”

She kissed him on the forehead, “I love you too. How’s the coffee?”

“Perfect,” he said, reaching for the cup on the table. Zoey handed it to him.

“I was thinking we could spend a lazy day in together,” she said. “We haven’t done that in a while.”

He nodded as he sipped the drink in his hands. The two sat quietly, nestled together on the couch. “You’re quiet,” he said after a moments.

She shook her head, but smiled, “There’s a lot on my mind. We really don’t need to worry about it right now, though. I’d rather spend time with you.”

Striker’s gaze settled on the table as he pulled Zoey close. A journal of her’s sat on it— purple and plastered with stickers. It filled him with a sense of familiarity he couldn’t place. 

“I meant to put that away,” said Zoey, as she snatched it from the table, carrying it to their bedroom. Thinking little more of it, Striker closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, a warm feeling washed over him as he looked at the downtown skyline, seated on his balcony. The sun and moon were high overhead, and a new structure pierced the clouds. Zoey poured herself a cup of chardonnay. Her namesake brand. Striker felt yet more familiarity as he stared at the label.

“You’ve got that look again,” she said as she set the bottle down.

“Something about the bottle,” he said. “Not that particular one— you know— nevermind.” His eyes wandered to the side table between them. The bottle of Zoey chardonnay and a bottle of unlabled whiskey sat side-by-side. On Striker’s end of the table was a double shot. “There was a girl from Marin who ordered that at the Norton,” he continued, furrowing his brow, before pausing. “I don’t know why that crossed my mind, honestly.”

Zoey giggled. “Not many people go to the Norton for wine. Was she cute?”

He shrugged. “We just talked for a few minutes. Not that I can remember what about.”

“It must not have been than important, then? Cheers?” She held up her cup. He obliged and downed the contents of the shot glass. Silence settled between them.

“What did we do yesterday?” asked Striker.

Zoey shifted in her seat, shaking her head in response with a puzzled look on her face. “The usual?”

“I can’t remember it. I feel like I can’t remember anything right now.”

She looked into his eyes, “Like I said— does it matter? We’re here together.”

“I get that… Something feels off, though. I don’t think you’re lying to me or anything, but you’re not feeling okay or… something. You normally talk a lot about what’s going on in your life and you haven’t really said much of anything. And I still can’t get rid of this weird feeling that I miss you?”

Zoey rounded the table and sat in his lap. “Baby, I’m here right now.”

“You keep saying things like that. I just want to know what’s going on so I can try to help you feel better, if that can happen. Or at least help with whatever’s going on?”

“It’s not something you can fix, but you don’t have to be a part of it.” She sighed and embraced him, pulling his head into her chest. They remained locked together for a few moments before she pulled away. They were in the living room again, Zoey now laying on him, both on the couch.

“Why are you avoiding this?”

She shrugged, grimacing in a matter-of-fact expression. “Sometimes I have to.”

Striker grimaced as well. He wanted to respond, but nothing of substance came to mind. Instead, his eyes wandered around the room. On the table, again, was Zoey’s journal. This time, he picked it up without hesitation. With it in hand, he felt memories untangle.

“You sent me this,” he said, beginning to crack the journal open.

She stopped him. “No— Do not open that here. Ever.”

He stared back at her, as he let the journal rest on his lap. “Where did you go?”

She shook her head slowly. “I’m here. In front of you, right now. That’s what matters. That’s what’s real right now.” She paused, seeming to debate her next few words. “You said I sent that to you, right?”

“I found it on my desk a few days ago. On the first.”

“…Of the month?”

“Yeah, but the year, technically. It’s January.”

She fell silent again, her pupils dancing between his eyes. “There’s no way you’ve met happened Molly yet, have you?”

He shook his head.

“You need to find her. I need you to focus on this right now.”

“Why do I need to find her? Where did you go?”

“It doesn’t matter where I went or where I go, you need to find her and take my journal to her.”

“What’s going on?”

“I really need you to listen to me, Striker. I don’t even know if you’re going to remember this when you need to.”

“Why are you being so vague?”

“I have to be.”

“Does she know how to translate the book?”

She shook her head with a simple, “No.”

“I’ll figure it out either way.”

“No,” she said, “Not yet. You can’t yet. You have to take it to Molly. People will kill you for that journal.”

“Who? The girls from the Norton?” His eyes settled on her hair. The clip was absent.

“You mentioned you talked to a woman at the Norton. Was that on New Year’s Eve, too?”

Striker nodded.

“Was she alone?”

“She had a friend. I think their names were Elsie and Ada. Or that’s what they told me at least.”

“The short one— she didn’t talk, did she?”

Striker shook his head.

“I— They shou— f-f-f-f,” as she stuttered, her entire presence seemed to follow suit until her labored breathing calmed. Striker reached for her shoulder, but froze when she said, “You need to go. Anywhere. It doesn’t matter.”

“Case got into a fight with ‘em and came out with dirt in her eyes. I’ll be fine.”

“You need to get Case out of this,” said Zoey, shaking her head. “Both of you need to stop. Just leave— no, find Molly.”

“Leave or find Molly? I could be figuring out what’s happening with you. And whatever’s in your journal.”

“That’s— Striker, I love you, but that’s a really stupid idea.”

“Why?”

“They’re stronger than you. They’re faster than you. Whatever happened with Case, she got lucky.” Zoey paused. “I’m glad she’s still alive. And I want you to be. You have to find Molly and pass off my journal if that’s going to happen.”

Striker wanted to protest. The situation was spiraling, and however Zoey happened to be in front of him now, he had a distinct feeling the encounter would be shorter than he hoped. Her instructions gave him just the littlest bit of dread. “How do I even do that? Can you tell me her last name or something?”

“Shit,” muttered Zoey. “I don’t know. We don’t really share names like that. I only know hers because we’re close.”

“You just know her first name because you’re ‘so’ close?”

“This really isn’t the time, Striker.” She stood up and began pacing. He looked at the book in his hands and glanced back up at her. She was staring back at him, with her arms crossed. “You’re not going to give this up,” she said, speaking the fact out loud, perhaps to solidify its meaning in her own head.

“Probably not,” replied Striker.

“Okay,” she said. Her posture changed, and her voice shifted into clinical monotone, “You need to understand what you’re getting yourself into.”

Striker grimaced, “What does that mean?”

Her silence was disconcerting. Without a word, she walked to the light switch and flicked it off. In the next moment, the roomed was bathed in absolute darkness and Striker felt weightless. It was like floating with no frame of reference in a vast expanse.

In a brilliant flash, he felt solid ground beneath him. He was in front of a door with light leaking through. Behind him, opposite the door, were stairs that went down and a wall just a bit taller than waist-height with a metal handrail atop it.

The space was impossibly lit. What should have been dark corners had no shadows. He felt suddenly foreign, but knew at the same time that where he stood was not far from where he had been sitting moments before. He was, for the first time, completely aware that he was not awake. 

“I’m dreaming,” he said, out loud. “I was just in my fucking living room,” he continued louder, before yelling, “and everything better change back right now!”

Nothing changed. He held his nose, shut his mouth and tried to breathe. He was unable. Despite his knowledge, he had no power in a space he believed to be wholly his own. He looked over the edge of the staircase when he heard something below. There were a dizzying number of spiraling flights below him. They were rectangular and uniform, like those in the skyscrapers downtown.

He caught sight of two figures— pitch black, and ascending at inhuman speed. His left hand burned, and the black line on it glowed. He rubbed it and shook it out before he looked back over the rail again. By that time, the figures were already ascending the final set of stairs, to his floor. The short one leapt from middle of the two flights, bounding off the wall in front of Striker.

The way it moved shifted between animal and human. It tilted its ‘head’, as if interested in him, and descended into a crouch. The tall one’s movements were more deliberate. Its head brushed the ceiling as it stood, swaying. It was less animate than the short one, who had fully reared back, wiggling its rear. Striker thought of a cat, and what felines do before they pounce.

He turned and ran toward the door. The small one leapt, bounding off of the wall next to Striker and in front of him. It pounced and Striker’s face felt cold as he landed on the ground. His vision was blurred and red, his face felt wet. Mounted upon him, the small void figure tore into his chest and he felt and heard bone crack as he saw viscera fly into the air, against walls, and his face, further obscuring his ability to see. He was paralyzed, completely unable to move. The world slowly became darker. Too slowly, as the small one continued to rip and tear at what was left of him on the floor. 

Before the darkness had completely set in, he saw Zoey standing over him. She choked down the concern on her face, staring into his eyes. She said only, “Run.

The word sounded almost cruel. She’d unceremoniously informed him that the hounds will be coming, long after she’d opened the gate.

The sound of house music jolted him awake as he sat on a couch on the back of the GetUp dance floor. The club was thick with people, all in a fever pitch of intoxication from various substances. He pulled out his phone. The time was 55:55. His notifications showed a single text from Zoey that read, ‘Run.’ Striker jumped to his feet, feeling the rush of chemical-induced euphoria a moment after, rolling without ever taking a pill. It was sudden and nauseating. Striker vomited on the floor in front of himself as soon as he caught his breath. No one took notice or cared as he wiped his face with the sleeve of his trench coat. Their faces were distorted caricatures of human visages that melted and reformed into overjoyed expressions of disconcerting glee.

His left hand burned, and he spotted the door to the patio, toward which he maneuvered around people until he found himself outside. Dream or not, he figured the emergency exit must exist. The outside space was deserted, except for a single person. A short, young woman with curly hair. She took notice of him the instant he set foot off of the dance floor. As when he looked into Elsie’s eyes on New Year’s Eve, his vision began to vibrate, making the world a blur.

He spared no time returning inside and pushed his way through the crowd toward the front door. Striker knew there was another one— the tall one— among the crowd, searching for him. All of the bodies in the spaces made it difficult to see far in any direction. He wasn’t quite six feet tall and most of them seemed to be at least that. Navigating through them toward the door was a task in and of itself. No matter how much he pushed, the intoxicated party goers remained planted and transfixed in their revelry, paying Striker no attention whatsoever. 

Over their heads, he could see the exit sign, closer with each hurried step— just careful enough to not fall over one of the partygoers. They remained so firmly rooted to the space itself that he could climb over someone jumping in midair. 

He didn’t exist to them.

They remained ignorant of Striker’s existence. 

Except for the one that one that was just a bit taller than the rest, with long bangs like Ada’s from new year’s eve. He avoided looking at her face, feeling twinges of that uncomfortable vibration he had a moment before. He quickened his pace, using the partygoers themselves to keep his balance, using some to vault himself forward. 

The lights were particularly dazzling, and the tactile sensations he felt from the people he touched varied in levels of discomfort. As he reached the edge of the crowd near the bar, he could see Zoey standing at the entrance curtain. Her expression remained as clinical as it had in that last moment before his vision faded after he was torn to shreds in the stairwell.

He accidentally locked eyes with the tall woman during his flight to the door. His eyes turned opposite directions to avoid her face, seemingly of their own volition. Screams erupted around the tall woman. He saw a torso and blood arcing in the air from it’s bottom end as it sailed above the crowd. His foot hooked onto someone else’s as he backpedaled, his vision still righting itself, and he fell onto his back. The crowd was running toward the door, and Striker couldn’t gain his footing, stumbling and bouncing off of them. One— or perhaps a couple of them— exerted all of their force as their stepped on his leg, breaking it with an accentuating snap. He curled until a ball on the ground until the stragglers of the crowd had passed him. He was left alone with the tall woman who walked toward him, a line a gore behind her on the dance floor.

Striker turned crawled toward the exit post-haste, before something cleaved his back, severing entirely his ability to use his legs. His back was wet, and felt only more so as he lay on his stomach. His arms were weak. He dragged himself forward a few feet until he was yanked back and flipped over. The tall woman rifled through his coat and caste something from it aside before plunging one of her hands, like a knife, into Striker’s chest.

She pulled out whatever she’d grasped.

Viscera again.

It covered Striker’s eyes and made the world a red blur. 

He wanted it to be over sooner.

When darkness fully overtook him again, he thought he might open his eyes in his bed.

He opened them after being jostled, sitting up at a Muni bus stop on Market street. The Powell streetcar turnaround was behind him and people of all types were milling about. Like the club, their faces were caricatures, missing the finer details of what made people unique. Even without them, Striker could tell who was going to work, who was a tourist, and who was going home from a wild night that had spilled into the next day.

He got up immediately and began walking up the road, toward the Ferry Building. He didn’t know what his destination was, only that he needed to move. Like the stairwell, the City’s light and shadow played in uncanny ways that he wouldn’t otherwise notice were it not for how he made his living. He noticed also that there were nothing but skyscrapers, even where he remembered buildings of modest size. His left hand began to itch furiously.

He saw a group of suited men, one of whom stood nearly a head over the rest of them. Despite his sunglasses, Striker knew the man’s eyes were locked on him. He abandoned his plan for the Ferry Building and turned back toward the BART station. The short one was much more difficult to identify in the throng of people. He sprinted toward the BART station when he was satisfied they would not pounce upon him along the way— not that he yet knew what they looked like.

He scrambled down the stairs and reached into his back pocket, empty except for a Clipper card. He’d only used Zoey’s a handful of times and used cash his other transportation endeavors. He couldn’t figure out what the do with the damned thing. Casting a glance around the station, he caught sight of someone who’s face was too clearly-defined to be one of the dream-masses. 

It was an old man whose smile was uncannily wide. 

Whose gait was uncannily fast and unimpeded for a man with a walker. 

Striker hopped the gate and sprinted down the stairs, unsure of what he would do once the short one caught up to him. He was relieved to find a BART train preparing to leave the platform as he reached it. He ran aboard and held his breath until the doors closed and neither of them were on his car.

Zoey was behind him when he turned toward the head of the train. Her expression remained as it had been.

“Okay,” he said, catching his breath. “What now?”

“You try to make it to the next stop.”

Striker wasn’t as familiar with BART as he was with Muni. His plan was already to get off at the next available opportunity, but he wasn’t sure which direction he was going until he heard, “Next stop, Oakland.”

He looked through the windows of the adjoining train car doors, barely able to make out of the figures of the suited man in sunglasses and the old man, now without the walker. Striker looked back to the door past Zoey.

“You won’t make it,” she said.

He jumped as the doors on the far end were thrown open by the tall one. They were in his car, now. Zoey was gone when he looked back, but her absence made running toward the other end an easier task. He reached the doors and pulled the first set open before the tall one’s vice-like grip was on his jacket. He was thrown back toward the center of the car with ease.

He was cornered.

He knew the train wouldn’t be reaching Oakland for another few minutes.

He knew he couldn’t get past the tall one or the short one.

He knew running was no longer an option.

Instead rose to his feet and charged forward toward the short one, who was closer to him. He dove at him, and old man jumped. He clung to the grab bar on the ceiling of the car, upside down, staring at Striker as he tumbled to the floor. Before he had was able to get to his feet, he was pulled up into the air by his coat. The tall one carried him toward the side doors of the train. The short one ripped them open as the tall one held him in the space between the wall of the Transbay tube and the door of the BART car before pushing Striker’s body into the wall as the train continued to move at highway speed. Chunks of his head ripped away as it ground into the wall, bringing the all-too-familiar darkness much more quickly this time.

Time meant nothing, so he wasn’t sure when he opened his eyes. When he did, however, he was in his living room. The detail was vivid and he felt again as though the space he occupied was his. Zoey stood over him, her expression sick and empathetic in stark contrast to the void of emotion she’d clad herself with moments before. She sat down on the floor next to him.

“Do you get why you need to find Molly now? And get rid of that journal?”

Striker remained silent, on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

“I don’t know how much time we have left together. Are you going to find Molly?”

“Can they really do all that?” Striker’s gaze remained fixed on the ceiling. “Or is that just coming from me dreaming?”

“Everything you’ve experience has happened to someone.”

“Am I really dreaming? Are you really here?”

“Yes… and as much as I can be. If things really are like you say, I fucked up. Timing stuff is harder than I thought.”

“Where exactly are you?”

“That doesn’t matter. What matters is you do what I told you. Bring my journal to Molly and let her handle the rest. Don’t open it at home. Ever. Even if you’re not dreaming.” She sighed and settled into silence.

“What’s wrong?”

“On top of everything else? I don’t think you’re going to remember this. I can’t really send you reminders from where I have to be.” She paused again. “I— can we watch the sun rise on the balcony?”

“Sure,” said Striker. “I just want to know, what was the point of making me go through all that?”

She took his hand and lifted him up. “Like I said, everything you experienced has happened to someone already. There are way too many bodies piling up over this. I don’t want you to be one of them. If they know you have that journal—”

“—I get it,” he said with a heavy sigh.

“Are you still planning to figure this out yourself?”

He shook his head. “Not with these stakes.”

She sighed. “I hope you remember that when you wake up.”

They made their way onto the balcony, where only the two chairs remained. They pushed them together and sat hand-in-hand. 

Over the eastern horizon, a wild spectrum of colors erupted as a massive sun began to crest the the hills of the east bay. It was a mesmerizing entity, radiating a soft warmth that bathed the pair in morning heat. The two remained silent as the orb continued to rise above the hills, growing larger and hotter.

“What happens if we fail? Like— what if they get that journal?” asked Striker.

“You really shouldn’t think about that right now. Remember where you are. Your whims are material.”

“I just got ripped apart, what, three times? If that’s what they’ll do for it, what would they do with it?”

Zoey paused on the thought before responding, “I don’t want to scare you. Especially not right now, but it would be bad. I’m not going to lie. There’s a reason people have died over my journal already.”

Striker stared at the sun entity hanging in the air, dwarfing the impossible skyscrapers of downtown. The fog and clouds had burned off and the warm tones of the sunrise were supplanted by nuclear-bright ones.

“They already know I go to eleventh street.”

“I really hope that’s all they know. If they do find out where we live, the safest place to be is inside. Breathe,” said, Zoey. “But don’t close your eyes.”

It was too late for that.

He blinked while trying to digest what she meant by ‘the safest place to be’.

He no longer felt her hand.

His chair began to rattle violently. Zoey’s empty chair jostled in place as well. He was alone. Even the sun was gone, though its nuclear radiance and heat remained.

He stood and looked over the balcony, seeing the sidewalk and street below trembling, as though a powerful quake tore through the City. The chairs on the balcony began to levitate into the sky, as did anything not tied or bolted down.

As he looked back out over the Potrero district, the shaking had radiated outward and the impossible downtown skyscrapers swayed like bamboo. The black mark on Striker’s left hand was searing— a wholly different sensation than he’d yet experienced.

He felt something else he wasn’t sure how to process, but it directed his attention upward.

Above him was a book. It wasn’t Zoey’s journal, but it felt like it. It was opened, though he didn’t by whom. Its pages exploded out, in inconceivable quantities and all directions. He shielded his face with his arms, expecting another grisly end and yet more darkness, but instead he felt his weight shift upward.

When he peeked through his forearms, he could see chunks of the building, rebar, soil, and liquids he didn’t want to ponder ascending into the sky. All matter Striker could observe was being disintegrated in slivers of pages. He remained unscathed as all around him was obliterated. A jolting tone filled his ears, that made him his clasp his hands over them to no effect.

It was grating. Like something synthesized, yet natural, yet distorted, yet perfect. Before him was downtown, its buildings no longer spires, but like lightning strikes in their architecture. Or perhaps mycelium roots. Shapes only possible because dust and glass was all that remained.

The tone stopped.

The sky darkened into familiar Bay Area fog.

Everything went silent.

Everything fell.

Striker woke up.

 

He laid in his bed, staring at the ceiling. His blankets were on the floor, having been cast aside at some point in the night. He felt no hint of rest. He could recall brief flashes of Zoey. The journal. Drinks on his balcony. The harder he tried to recall, the more he realized he had no hope of remembering.

It was foggy outside and his room was bleak gray. The line on the back of his hand was completely black. He stared at it for a moment, rubbing it with his thumb, before resigning himself to another fifteen minutes of rest. 

He forced himself out of bed and took a shower, then sat on the couch to go through the journal again. He went back to that recurring set of symbols.

The coded number two.

The round one that he figured represented time.

The final symbol that looked like an ‘X’ with a zigzag over it.

A knock at the door interrupted him. It was Case. He shut the journal and opened the door.

“I tried to call, but your phone’s dead. Busy?” she asked when he opened it. He looked back at the journal for a moment before letting her in.

Her eyebrows furrowed as they locked eyes. She was trying to read him, but unsatisfied at her momentary inability. “Do you want to hang out,” she paused, looking at the state of his apartment again, “and maybe clean a bit?”

He shrugged and didn’t protest. Case sat on the couch before she unloaded the usual items— phone, cigarettes, and lighter— onto the table. She placed them several times, each bordering the journal, but never on it. It was her clear frustration over the knowledge that something wrong that drove Striker to assume she wasn’t pretending or failing to notice an obvious detail.

“Can I try something?” he asked, sitting on the couch next to her. 

“If it’s nothing either of us will regret.”

Striker looked at the journal and back at Case.

“Did I do something to the table?”

“No. Do you see anything on it?”

She shook her head. 

“You don’t see anything at all?”

“No. Is this like a magic trick or something?”

“...Yeah,” said Striker. He put a finger on one of the journal’s pages. “Put your finger right next to mine.”

“Are you going to smack my hand or something?”

“No, just do it.”

Case shrugged and dropped her finger on the table, off to the left of the book, far away from his. She tried again, missing by a wide margin. She looked at Striker and tried again. Her finger landed near where it had the first time. “Are you going to stop moving your finger?”

“I’m not,” he paused. “Let me see your hand.”

“Okay, but this is getting a little weird.”

Striker took her hand and guided it toward the journal. When he placed her hand down, it landed around, but never on it. “Are you moving your hand?” He asked.

“Nope.”

He picked up the journal and placed it on her lap.

She leapt up as though he’d poured hot water onto her. The journal tumbled to the floor. She ran her hands along her thighs and looked around herself, her face flushing red as she sat back down.

“What just happened?” asked Striker.

“I thought you,” she trailed off, “I’m not even sure. Was that part of the trick or something? Because I don’t like this trick.”

“No,” said Striker, “I think I fucked it up or something— Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I think I just,” she took a deep breath, “Last night was a long shift. I’m probably wound up or whatever.” she said. “How about we get started on this?”

The two split the work. Striker cleaned his bathroom and hallway while Case worked on the living room. A magic show played on her laptop to break up the monotony alternating silence and rustling of trash.

“Oh, wow,” she said, came across the clock painting. “Is this why you were asking about Zoey’s code?”

“Kindof. It’s related. Do you know what any of that means?”

“This,” she said pointing to the circular symbol, “means like five things.”

“What’s it mean?”

“Ummm,” she thought for a moment before proceeding slowly, “time, and clock, and watch? But I think she said those were just the literal definitions? The context changes what the words mean. Like, watch can mean a watch on your wrist, but it’s the same for watching tv, like English.”

“Shit,” he said, “Do you remember any other symbols?”

“Me?”

“You’re the only person here...?”

“No, like... Me in a sentence. In Zoey’s language. Or was it I? I think it means both.”

“Can you write it? If you remember it?”

She got a pencil and paper and drew the symbol— The X with the zig zag over it. The proportions were off, but Striker was certain the symbol was the same. Case couldn’t remember anything else. She had had to leave early when she was called in for work.

Striker sat on the couch with the book open, staring at those three symbols.

‘Two watching me.’ 

That was the only translation that made sense. He sank back into the couch, thinking about the attack on New Year’s Eve. He thought about the strange women, Ada and Elsie, and their tussle with Case. They still had his sketchbook. 

He flipped to one of the impossible pages of the journal. There was a large sigil in the center that danced and distorted on the cheap media. Striker tried recreating it in pen but found his copies to be incorrect when he referenced the journal again. Each attempt was as though he were copying a different form. He put his finger on the book and yanked it back to scratch the furious itch that erupted along the black line on it. A memory slipped through his fingers as he did. He stared at the line on the back of his hand. Case still hadn’t mentioned it and she would have been furious if he gotten a tattoo without her. Zoey, Case, and himself had made an agreement to get their first together. At the least, she would have ribbed him for not washing marker off of his hands after a couple of days.

He accepted that it wasn’t going away.

He put the book on his lap and took a breath before putting his palm on the page. It felt like a swarm of ants was crawling over his hand. He pushed his palm into it, refusing to draw it back. He could see the sigil underneath— through— his palm. 

He blacked out.

The sun was beaming on him when he woke up. The coffee table was pushed up against the bookshelves, the couch was pushed into a corner, and every loose piece of junk on his floor was shoved up against the walls outward from where he sat. He was on the floor. It felt like time skipped with no rest in between. The journal was on the floor next to him and he picked it up on the way to his room. He placed it on his desk and lay on his bed. Beyond the desk, in the corner, he saw a slim purple bookshelf. 

A bookshelf he had never seen in his bedroom before.

“Fuck me,” he muttered as he got to his feet. He stared at it for nearly twenty minutes, checking his phone obsessively, to confirm to himself he was indeed awake. He touched the bookshelf, expecting it to disappear. 

It did not. 

It was short, about three feet tall and two feet wide. The top of the two shelves housed a tin box, some money, and an empty pistol magazine. The bottom shelf had a few books, including a binder that caught his attention. He opened it.

Someone— most likely Zoey— had taken a permanent marker to most of the pages, scratching over the majority of what could be read. It was the legend he was looking for, but less than a hundred of the likely thousands of sigils that were written in those pages were able to be defined.

It was better than nothing.

The sun was up.

Striker set the two documents side-by-side on the table in front of him along with a sheet of paper.

And a flask of whiskey.

He had work to do.