Jackfish: Recent Episodes
JRD Skinner
Mukki remembered the day with the crystal clear clarity afforded someone who repeats a story often.
Cal was close behind, each footstep landing with a muttered curse until his breathing became too laboured to maintain his profanities.
The anti-government paranoia that grew throughout the 1990s was a boon to Mukki’s research.
Despite at least an hour of steady work, they’d made it only as far as the husk of Calvin’s car.
The town was burning, and somewhere within one of the sets of blazing walls a phone had begun to ring.
Myriam had little patience left for Calvin’s nonsense, and yet his litany of complaints seemed to grow with every step.
Despite the distance he’d travelled, despite the years he’d waited, Mukki found himself fighting the urge to sprint from the shore.
He’d been reduced to riffling through his memory for nonsense trivia and unlikely anxieties to keep himself awake.
It was tempting to trade off the spear for a bit - tempting to hand it to Calvin and let him hunch in wait, but the thought was tempered by her memory of the monster; of its face split and its slabs of fangs exposed.
There wasn’t much of a world for quite a while. Panic had gotten him - panic had gnawed at his calf muscle, panic had laid him out.
The thin silver line of fear that ran along her spine, mimicking the chill of the cold wall, would help keep her awake.
He had proven to himself that Baker was involved in a cover up, but this was a fact William had already known. It had only been he, the escapee, who’d held any lingering doubt.
Hari cradled his head in his hands, attempting to block out the smokey sweet smell of freshly-charred human flesh
As soon as he stepped from the 747’s controlled climate the dry Arizona air began to bake Mukki’s lungs.
There was no hiss, nor rattle of warning, one moment they were speaking and the next the tent to Gord’s left seemed to explode into motion.
The conversation on the night of their unexpected meeting was so celebratory that Mukki was forced to repeat most of the details the following day when they met for dinner.
Seeing the shredded seats, deployed airbag, and tornado trail of upholstery and glass had brought a reality to his friend’s words.
Without physical records to pin them in place, the events, like the town of Jackfish itself, became a receding memory only touched upon by sentimentalists and conspiracy theorists.
He had argued to no end, then been dragged into the boat by a hand so firm it left four brown bars across his forearm.
While shuffling along the tracks, Gord mentally repeated his arguments against regretting this decision.
Myriam watched the bobbing light break up among the branches, then disappear, as Gord and Cal crept along the rails that led to the car.
As they spoke the Colonel would occasionally raise his hand, then a building would suddenly be ablaze.
Silence, deep and unyielding, descended. No bullfrogs sounded and no night birds called - even the chirp and buzz of the insects had fallen into a hushed lull.
William had clawed his way through the brush and darkness until he could move no more, then he’d discovered that weeping silently was an exhausting business.
While Gord would have claimed it was “an echo of the past carried by the tail of our nation’s avatar,” or some crap, Hari simply hoped he wasn’t about to require a number of rabies shots.
If he’d awoken in the middle of the night and stumbled across the scene it might have seemed peaceful, but there was something unnerving at the lack of lit windows beyond the railroad tracks. The glass panes now seemed to stare him down, sockets without eyes.
The rum was doing an excellent job of warming her against the chill of the lake breeze. Somewhere in the darkness, down where the lapping water worked at an embankment overrun with grasses, a bullfrog began to croon a long and low note.
“Do you think Dad will be okay?” Ester had asked, and Monica and Haaken were quick to assure her he’d be fine, then they’d offered up a blackboard game of Tic-Tac-Toe to keep her mind from the blood they’d all witnessed on the sand.
This is how I heard the story, and I’ve got good reason to believe it - which I’ll get to. It starts with five kids running across town - this town, Jackfish - or, at least, the town that once stood here.
You can run through Jackfish in under ten minutes if you can keep your legs pumping, and your heart from exploding in the humid August heat.