The Jogging Man

Subject: [Retired] | Classif.: Barzakh

Night was when Pitstop truly became a ghost town. The dim, flickering lights of the barely working street lamps shone for no one. Without the sun, the lights were always on. But folks knew when it was time to stay home. Eyes gazed from within walls. Hushed whispers. Those foolish enough to leave the safety of their shelters tend to end up like the corpses on the streets, flesh torn apart by rats feasting on their buffet at this hour.

But even the rats knew they were being watched. All around town, gang members kept an eye on the tarmac, guarding their turf like hawks. Invisible lines ran throughout the town, cutting through the blocks and driveways, each slice of the cake taken by gangs big and small alike. And that night, there was one particular slice that was free for the taking.

Perched high above a watchtower, a pair of binoculars scanned the ruins of The Big Bucket. On the wooden pillar beside the binoculars leaned a sniper rifle. Worth more than the entire building it was in, its presence alone caused the tower to creak in terror, its rickety foundations in fear of what was to come.

With a buzz and a click, the owner of the weapon tapped on the tiny device nestled inside her ear. A ring of red lit up on the device as she spoke.

“You’re right, the bar’s a goner.” Her tone was soft, yet somehow sharp like a razor. Not a voice one would expect from someone trained in eliminating targets miles away.

“I told you,” replied the tired male voice in the earpiece.

The thumbwheel on the binoculars spun ever so slightly. Lenses shifted, welcoming the arrival of the bigger picture. Tucked in between two buildings on that same block in a cramped alleyway, silhouettes stretched in the dark, oblivious to the piercing gaze looking down on them.

“We’ve got movement. Three, no four unknowns on the first alleyway. They appear to be… painting the wall.”

“It’s called tagging. It’s how the new gangs do things these days. Keep up with the times. What are you, living in a retirement home?”

“If I live long enough. Which I won’t.” Indifferent, not even a wrinkle showed up on the woman’s face. Not like there were any in the first place.

“You STILL want to work after this gig? Once we nab the Princess, I’ll—”

“Stop. You’re tagging a red flag. Say anymore, and you’ll die,” warned the superstitious sniper.

She continued to observe the antics of the gangsters below. More and more of them sprouted like mushrooms. Patrols. Lookouts. Taggers. So much manpower was poured into what was essentially an art project. Her eyebrows twisted as the gang’s bizarre ritual eluded her. Why couldn’t they simply plant a flag or establish territory like a normal army? At the very least, their lack of discipline made her job easier.

But not any less complicated.

In front of The Big Bucket, a shouting match broke out between two gangsters. She couldn’t make out their words, but she could translate them; they were speaking fluent body language. One of them eventually stormed off, but when he returned, he came back with a jerry can, violently pouring fuel onto the collapsed establishment.

“They’re going to burn down the bar,” she reported back to her colleague.

“The hell? Buildings get wasted all the time. Why the need to torch this one?”

“I’m going in.”

“Huh? Hold on!”

The sniper closed her eyes, only for them to reopen with a faint green glow. They mirrored that of one of the many rats on the street, the critter’s black beads now emitting that same light. Running through the claustrophobic corridors of the sewage drain, it ended up on the doorstep of The Big Bucket where the two gangsters were now fighting over the jerry can.

“Could you please wait for clearance before using your Gift next time? I swear, you’re gonna be the death of me,” lamented the voice over the line. “So? What do you see?”

“Bodies. Lotsa them.”

Deftly avoiding the broken glass, the rat scampered around the bar, relaying its vision back to the sniper. It showed no sympathy for the lifeless eyes glaring back at it.

“Lemme guess. The Princess’s handiwork?”

“Negative. Looks like infighting. Probably too much drinking. Waaay too many bullet holes. Although…”

The sniper paused. Her imagination ran. Not wild. Meticulous. Every bit of information from the floor of the bar was retrieved and pieced back together. Bullet trajectories. Blood splatters. Last moments. A recreation of what went down inside played in her head. But something didn’t add up.

“Third party came in to finish the job.”

That was the conclusion that she arrived at. It was clear that the men gunned each other down and a few innocent bystanders, but some shots did not make sense. Two bullets to the chest. One bullet to the head. All with alarming consistency. Someone was dead checking. It felt more like military than the average hitman. And the last she checked, gangsters didn’t go to boot camp.

That, and the 33 stab wounds one of the innocents had on their his. Someone, or something, really wanted to ruin that man’s day in particular.

“Just another psycho on the loose,” the male voice commented. “Freaky, but if it ain’t the Princess then it ain’t important. Could you come back now?”

“Roger that.”

The glow faded from the woman’s face, leaving behind a very confused rat in the middle of The Big Bucket, flames now eating the structure, licking it from the outside.

Shifting her position, she scanned the surrounding block, her eyes never quite getting used to the crumbling corpse that was Pitstop. Despite growing up in a warzone herself, the town felt so alien to her. A mountain of garbage on the horizon. A forest surrounding it that grew with no sunlight. Being deployed in The Depths made her skin crawl way more than anywhere else up in The Mids.

From time to time, the occasional car or truck would distract her from her thoughts. Product shipments. Kidnappings. Years of neglect made the roads a nightmare to drive on. She could only imagine what the bottles and passengers inside were going through. The bumpy ride might actually do her tense muscles well. But unless the Princess was inside one of them, that massage would have to wait.

“Hey, I heard the captain’s making Demonelk Stew for breakfast,” the voice in her ear whispered. “I’m telling you right now, I call dibs on the balls.”

While she was usually one for banter, lookout duty could get mind-numbingly boring. Even the gangsters played dice or cards to pass the time. With no one else except the voice to accompany her, she gradually opened up over the course of the job.

She asked, “You’ve confirmed the gender of the elk?”

“There were no antlers.”

“What if it was shedding?”

“C’mon, let a man dream! It’s not every day you get balls for breakfast.”

“Odd. I thought that’s what they serve in the showers.”

“That crap only happens in smut.”

“C’mon, let a girl dream…”

But before her thoughts could venture elsewhere, the strangest thing caught the corner of her eye. A man running on the street. Or at least, that was what she thought before doing a double-take.

Fearing her sanity had drained, she thought for a bit before describing. “Hey, umm, someone’s… exercising?”

“You mean like, gangsters working out?”

“No, that doesn’t look like a gangster. That’s just some guy jogging.”

“...”

“I’m serious.”

“Are you sure it’s the Jogging Man?”

“Sounds like a bootleg of a popular TV show. No.” She waited for her chatty colleague to continue, but there was nothing. “So? What’s the punchline?”

“No, are you positive you have visual on a man jogging?”

His shift in tone caught her off guard. Rubbing her eyes, a third look down the binoculars and all she saw was the man turning the corner, his pace undeniably jogging.

“Affirmative.”

“And how are the gangsters in the area responding?”

Zooming out, her face turned white. It felt as if she was looking at a ghost. A few of the patrols would get startled, raise their weapons, and aim at him, only to lower them moments later. And yet, the man would just jog. Blank-faced. Unaware of the danger he was in. Or maybe, it was the other way around.

“They’re not responding.”

“...”

“Carson, hey, do you read? Please advise.”

“Don’t look at him.”

“He’s in the town square. How can I not look at him?”

“Whatever you do, do not look at him. I repeat. Do. Not. Look at him.”

Desperation bled through his voice, but this only fueled the frustration in hers.

“So what? Am I supposed to RTB?”

The voice in her ear was silent. Putting the binoculars down, her fingerless gloves gripped her forehead, vexed. It was supposed to be a routine lookout. But should it be called off just because of a random civilian? Sure, it spooked her at first, but the more she thought about returning to base just because of someone jogging in the middle of the night, the more ridiculous it sounded.

Slumping down with her back against the balcony, she groaned before tapping on her earpiece once more.

“Carson, please advise. Do I continue to keep watch? Do I have clearance to RTB? Talk to me.”

“I’m trying to figure it out. Hold on.”

“Look, if it’s just a monster from the forest that wandered into town, then there should be no problem for me to take it out and carry on with the mission, right?”

She could hear Carson’s heart sinking as the earpiece transmitted the metallic rattle of the sniper rifle being picked up.

“Are you deaf?! I said hold on!”

His indecisiveness was getting on her nerves, the discomfort quickly remedied by the familiar sensation of her weapon against her skin. Cold, but reliable. Planting her weapon on top of the railing, frustration evolved into excitement. It had been quite some time since the trigger was pulled. Nobody would mind another distant gunshot going off in the night, she thought. Or another dead body on the street.

Through her scope, the Jogging Man appeared perfectly normal, which was precisely what was wrong with him. He has ventured into multiple different gang turfs by now. Yet, there was no attempt to rob, kidnap, or beat him up; a scene that played out so often, the lack of violence actually made it worrisome.

And with such an anomaly locked in her sights, she knew better than to trust her eyeballs. Particularly dangerous monsters were capable of magic. She had a lot more in common with them as an Exiled than a human. And if it had anything like her mind control, the real monster might be hiding somewhere else.

It might even be that Skinwalker that was making the rounds lately.

Refining her vision, the entire town of Pitstop faded into true darkness. Dozens of tiny lights sparkled like stars, a scene only experienced by the Immortals living on The Surface. Her grandparents might have seen this, too, before they were branded as traitors. Beautiful as it was, it was not what she was looking for. The core of a monster was altogether different from the soul of a human or Exiled.

But when her Soulsight landed on the Jogging Man, it stared back. Not the human. But the thing inside him.

There was neither soul nor core. It was a literal hole. Like staring into the keyhole of a door. One that stretched to no end. But there was something there. Something waiting. There had to be. She wanted to look deeper. She needed to look deeper.

The voice in her ear whispered. But there was no sound. She had turned off her earpiece hours ago. How long had she been staring? Days? Months? Years? And yet, the hole kept going. Beckoning. She was getting closer. The soundless voices were starting to form shapes. Shapes that had no dimension, but felt so familiar. As if the shapes were there since her birth, waiting for this exact moment to guide her to the end of the hole.

“Elena. Elena. Elena!”

She heard her name called out, punctuated by a splash of water. That was when it dawned on her; she had been staring into the barrel of her pistol, finger already half-pulling on the trigger.

“C-Carson?” Lowering her gun, she was startled by her colleague who had just emptied his canteen onto her.

“I told you not to look at that damn man.”

“Who—What is he?”

The answer to her question was silence.

In truth, the Jogging Man was working off the calories he put on from drinking all day. All because his adoptive daughter called him “fat” once.