A JSE Fanfic
Chapter Thirteen: Upside Down
[This is part of an INCOMPLETE SERIES that I wrote in about 2018-2019. I don't know if I'll ever finish it, but I still think there's good stuff in it, and merit in reposting it here. Where did Jackie go? None of the others are sure, but they know who’s behind it. Jackie himself is lost in a strange sort of world, but he’s surprised by what he finds in there.]
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Chase woke up with his heart beating unusually fast, covered in sweat. For a moment, the image of a red hallway lingers in his mind, a bright green light piercing the darkness…but then it fades. It must have been a nightmare. Weird. He looks over at the clock. It was almost two a.m., jeez, why was he up? Guess it was the nightmare. He’s about to fall asleep again when he hears somebody yelling downstairs.

No, that was probably fine, JJ had stayed the night…and then Chase bolted upright. No, that COULDN'T be an explanation for why there was shouting downstairs. How the hell had he forgotten? And who was in his house, then? Chase flung the covers away, pulling open his nightstand drawer and taking out his gun. It was unloaded, but it could work as a threat. He ran down the hall—having the strangest feeling of deja vu—to the stairs. Taking the steps two at a time, he followed the sound of the voice into the living room.

“—and if Jackie’s dead I swear I’m going to kill him!”

For a split second, Chase doesn’t recognize the people in the room. Then he wonders why he didn’t. There’s JJ, sitting on the couch still wearing his day clothes, probably having not slept at all. And there’s MARVIN, wearing his mask and cape, frantically pacing along one wall. Chase watches as he pulls out his wand and taps the front door’s knob, causing it to glow green for a moment.

“Wh—Marv, what are you doing here?!” Chase asked, lowering his empty gun.

Marvin spun around. “I’m freaking the fuck out, Chase! That’s what I’m doing!”

“Yeah, I can see that but why?”

“Because I saw him!” Marvin was shaking a bit. “Jackie and Sam found me, and there was that detective, and then he showed up in the phone, and-and we decided to split up, which was probably a bad idea but he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, and th-then he followed me, I could hear him there was static everywhere and-and-and—” he cut off, breathing rapidly, almost hyperventilating.

JJ stood up and walked over to Marvin. 'I think you need to sit down, my good man.' Marvin didn’t protest as JJ guided him over to the couch and sat him down on it. Chase stuffed the empty gun into the waistband of his pajama pants, then walked over to stand next to JJ.

'Now, we can’t help if you keep running around like a lunatic and won’t give us the whole story,' JJ signed. 'So if you would please start at the beginning.'

Marvin nodded, very deliberately taking deep breaths. Once he calmed down enough, he told Chase and JJ all about how he’d been in the north part of the city when Sam had led Jackie right to him. He explained about the conversation they had about pocket dimensions and how they’d found Detective Akela eavesdropping on them, recording every word. Marvin had tried to delete the video, only to find out that HE had tracked them down. Jackie had insisted they go different ways, and Marvin acquiesced.

“Wait, you let him go out on his own?!” Chase gaped. “You do realize that’s exactly what you’re not supposed to do, right?”

“Of course I fucking know!” Marvin yelled. “But you didn’t see the look on his face! He would’ve run away from me if he had to! He was just so…so determined.”

'What happened next?' JJ prompted gently.

“Well, I ran, of course. I-I didn’t want to leave him, but I did. And I had to run because I could hear him following me. He—he was in my-my head, s-saying things that—that—and I looked behind me and I s-saw him—” Marvin swallowed. “Like-like a man made out of three-dimensional white noise. Distortion. He was everywhere at once and his eye was glowing and I-I—I—” He cut off.

That description sounded oddly familiar to Chase. But why would it? He’d never seen Anti before. “And you think he followed you here?” Chase asked.

“He must have!” Marvin was shaking again. “Why would he stop? I tri-tried to ward your doors, but I don’t know if that will work.”

'It will.' The signs were firm, matching the expression on JJ’s face. 'Marvin, you are the most talented and GOOD magician I have ever met. I know he must have said things to you that would strike hard, but you must realize he lies. He just wants you to break down so he can get into your head.'

“I know…” Marvin sounds like he’s trying to convince himself. “No, I know that. It’s just…hard to ignore those thoughts.”

Chase winced. Damn, if that wasn’t something he could relate to. “Well, then, we’re gonna drown them out. Marvin, whatever he said is absolutely not true. He’s a bitch and you’re gonna not give him the satisfaction.”

Marvin removed his mask and put his head in his hands. He took several deep breaths. JJ sat down next to him and put his hand on his back, rubbing comforting circles. After a moment of this, Marvin looks up again. “Okay. Okay, you’re right. You are. But now what are we supposed to do?”

“I think we just hold out,” Chase said, glancing toward the front door. “Wait and see if he really followed you here. See if Jackie shows up too. I should…go find some of the clips for this gun. Keep ‘em in a different part of the house.”

“Good. You shouldn’t even have that in the first place, it’s illegal.” That last part was said half-heartedly. Marvin relaxed, leaning back in the sofa.

JJ smiled. 'Well, while we’re waiting, should I make some tea?'

Marvin laughed. “Only you would want to make tea at a time like this. But, yeah, if you’re offering, that would be appreciated.”

JJ patted Marvin on the shoulder before standing up and hurrying to the kitchen. Chase hesitated before turning around and heading back upstairs, looking for the storage closet where he kept the bullets for his gun. A week of no activity at all, of being worried about Bobby and Trevor wherever they were and wondering what Marvin was doing, and now the glitch just decides to show up again? What was he planning? And why just take a break in the middle of it when they’d had enough trouble dealing with all the shit he caused in just two days? He could have easily swooped in and fucked their lives up, but instead…what?

Chase arrived back downstairs with his gun actually loaded. Marvin was curled up at one end of the sofa, staring resolutely at the door and holding his wand in one hand. Chase had never seen him so tense. “It’s gonna be fine, bro,” he reassured him. “I think you outran him.”

Marvin didn’t look away from the door. “I doubt it. He’s not human, he wouldn’t get exhausted. And why would he give up?”

“I don’t know. Why would he take over Jack’s coma? Why would he take my…?” Chase trails off for a second, losing his train of thought. He blinked a few times and got back on track. “We don’t know how his mind works. Maybe he just wanted to fuck with you.”

Marvin laughed bitterly. “Maybe. Just show up and mess with my head, separate me from Jackie who I haven’t seen in an entire week—” he broke off. His eyes widened. “Wait…what if—Jackie!” He shot to hit feet. “I gotta—no, fuck, Jackie!—I—”

“Whoa, dude!” Chase immediately grabbed Marvin by the shoulders. “Calm down! What’s the problem?”

“He-he might’ve stopped following me to go after Jackie!” Marvin was panicking. “I knew I shouldn’t’ve left him! Fuck, dude, I have to—”

A loud knocking. Marvin and Chase jumped in unison to see JJ standing in the doorway to the kitchen, having just knocked on the doorframe for attention. 'You’ll be no good to anyone rushing off in a tizzy,' he signed. 'There are a million more rational things to do about this. Calm down and think about it.' He waited for a moment, staring down Chase and Marvin, making sure they weren’t about to rush out the door. Then he gestured behind him. 'The tea is ready, if you’d still care for it.'

Chase and Marvin glanced at each other. They hadn’t seen JJ this assertive in a long time. It was a little jarring, but somehow welcome. So they followed him into the kitchen and sat at the table while JJ poured the tea into cups for them.

“Okay, so.” Chase’s fingers drummed an anxious rhythm on the table surface. “We obviously need to check on Jackie. But he doesn’t take his phone on patrol with him, and when he does it’s turned completely off.”

“Why the fuck does he do that?” Marvin muttered.

Chase shrugged. “Apparently the noise got in in trouble one time. Even the vibration. But anyway, we can’t call him.”

JJ then makes two signs. The one for phone, which looked like one of those fake telephones children make with their hands, and then one neither of the others had ever seen before. It looked like a combination of two: first tapping his left wrist with two of his fingers like he was taking a pulse, then linking his two pinkies together.

“What was that?” Marvin asked. “Doctor…then that second one is ‘S’ right?” His eyes widen. “Wait, did you give Schneep a name sign? When did you do that?”

JJ nodded. 'I don’t see why I shouldn’t. We are…going to be close, after all.'

Wait, didn’t Schneep not like JJ? No, they made up. Chase and Jackie locked them in a room together until they did. Chase shook himself internally. How could he forget that? “Well anyway, you sayin’ we should call him?”

'He is staying with Jackie,' JJ pointed out. 'If Jackie has come home, Schneep would know.'

“But…he’s electronic and shit,” Chase said. “Wouldn’t he know if we call Doc? Could he mess with the call? Make a fake one?”

“Possibly, but I think we should try. Better than waiting.” Marvin digs deep into his pocket and pulls out a phone, then dials a number.

Chase raises an eyebrow. “New phone?”

“Yeah. Didn’t want the police or, y’know, him, tracking me.” The other line rings for a while before someone on the other side picks up. “Hey, Schneep? It’s Marvin.” This prompts a string of yelling so loud even Chase and JJ can hear it through the phone. “Schneep, calm down, I—yeah, I know—no, shut up, just listen. First things first, I have a question for you. Do you remember when we first met? What was the first thing you said to me? Yes, this is important.”

Chase gives Marvin an odd look, but Marvin just waves him down, listening to the other side. JJ signs, 'He’s asking a question only the doctor would know the answer to. Just to check if it’s really him. Great idea!'

Schneep must’ve given the right answer, because Marvin relaxed. “Okay. Cool. Just making sure. Now, uh, is Jackie home?” A pause. Then Marvin’s eyes widened and he started tapping the table nervously. “You’re sure? Maybe he just came home without you noticing. Can you check?” The next pause seemed to last an hour. Then Marvin made a strange sort of squeak sound. He forced himself to sound calm. “Okay, thank’s for checking. No, it’s fine. You can go back to sleep now. No, seriously, it’s fine. I just wanted to talk to him, but if he’s still out on patrol I can wait. Yes, everything’s fine. Thanks, bye.” He hung up the phone, took a shaky breath, then looked at Chase and JJ. “He’s not there.”

Chase feels a jolt of panic. “B-but that doesn’t mean he got to him? Right? Does it?”

JJ looks grave. 'I am…afraid. There’s a chance, but…the odds aren’t in Jackie’s favor.'

Marvin shuddered. “Fuck. Fuck, dude. We need to—well, we need to check on Schneep, he was starting to freak out on his end—but then we need to look for Jackie…just to make sure.”

“But…” Chase almost didn’t want to mention it, but it needed to be said. “Marv…if he took him, wouldn’t Jackie be in that-that pocket dimension place you mentioned?”

Marvin paled. “Yeah. But I…I don’t know how to access those yet. I—I need to practice. So we’ll start by checking the city.”

'If we’re going to check on the doctor, then we’d better do it sooner than later.' JJ stood up. 'Never mind the tea, I’ll clean up while Chase gets ready to go.'

“James, how are you so…calm?” Chase asked. “I thought you’d be freaking out.”

Jameson looked at him. There was an unusual, hard light in his eyes. 'That bastard can have my dreams, but he won’t have the rest of me. I won’t give him the pleasure. And he will not take my friends either.' He closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath. 'Now, let’s go check on the good doctor.'
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Jackie opened his eyes, even though he couldn’t remember closing them. He was in the same spot he was before, kneeling on the sidewalk, holding Sam in his hands. But then he looked up. He didn’t see the night sky. He saw a vast expanse of red, no stars, no moon, no sun.

Slowly, he looked around. It was the city. He was still in the northern part, but…it was different. Other than the blood-red sky, that is. The street lamps were gone, and all the buildings were black—still made out of the same materials, stone and wood and steel, but now everything was dark as a void. The glass of the windows were solid white, no longer transparent. He looked toward the center of the city, where the tallest buildings were, and saw their black shapes rising into the sky. There was a constant, low-level hum that he couldn’t ignore. The air tasted metallic, snappy, electric.

“Sam?” Jackie looked down at the little eye. They were still unresponsive, barely glowing. But when he held them close to him, the glow increased the tiniest bit. “Hang in there, buddy.” He stood up, carefully making sure not to drop them. “I’m—I’m gonna get you out of here.” He didn’t know where to go, but he started walking anyway.

The ground didn’t feel solid. Every time he took a step, it felt like it shifted a little beneath his boots, like he was walking on gravel instead of plain gray concrete. There was light coming from…somewhere. Maybe the sky. Or the windows. There was no way to tell.

Suddenly, one of the buildings in the distance BROKE. There was no better way to describe it. One moment it was normal, the next moment the top half of it was sideways. It spazzed out, copies of the building jutting out at different angles, the white windows flickering in and out of existence. It looked like…like a video game glitch. Then the glitch spread, the buildings next to it copying, frantically malfunctioning, bugging. The wave of glitching buildings moved outward, coming right toward Jackie.

“Shit!” Jackie broke into a run. He didn’t care which direction he was heading, he just knew he couldn’t get caught up in the glitch wave. It was gaining speed, coming closer and closer to him, and as it approached the hum grew louder, into an ear-piercing whine. The ground was like sand, and he was running uphill. Every step took too much effort for how little he was moving. He glanced behind him, and the glitch wave was upon him, screeching in his ears. He ducked his head, hugging Sam to his chest. The glitches were around him, he was caught in their wild crashing and screaming. The ground gave up its hold on his boots. He felt like he was being tossed too and fro like a pinball in a pinball machine at the hands of a master. All he could do was curl around Sam and hope they’d both make it out okay.

He slammed into something hard with a painful smack. The glitches subsided. He was laying on the sidewalk—no, now he’s standing up, having not moved at all. How…actually it was probably better to not think about it. Jackie made sure that Sam was still safe, then gathered his bearings, observing his surroundings. It looked like he was in the dark version of the city park, with black, twisted trees and black soil underfoot that felt more solid than the sidewalk had. This was all the way across the city. Exactly what had that glitch wave done?

“This is gonna be harder than I thought, Sam,” Jackie muttered. He didn’t know if the eye could hear him, but it made him feel better to talk. “I guess we’ve just gotta improvise, then.” He started walking once again. Once he reached one of the park paths, he walked alongside it. He was pretty sure that it would be about as reliable as the sidewalk had been, with its not-entirely-there feeling.

He reached the park’s playground. It did not look like it had been made for children. The slides were black metal with holes rusted through them, the monkey bars had spikes on them so you would have to place your hands carefully, the swings were hanging by a single chain each, and the ground was made of sharp metal fragments instead of wood chips. Jackie shuddered. As dangerous as that looked, he had the feeling it could be much worse if it tried.

Something moved. He stopped in his tracks. He hadn’t imagined that, had he? He could have sworn he saw something over by one of the trees. “Who’s there?” he called, knowing it was probably a bad idea if the whatever it was could murder him.

Nothing. And then: “Bobby, I think it’s Uncle Jackie.”

Jackie felt his heart stop. He reached up and pulled off his mask and hood. “Trevor? Is that you?”

There was the sound of whispering, and then a small boy with his curly blonde hair tucked under a blue cap came running out from behind one of the trees. He ran right into Jackie with a soft thump, wrapping his small arms around him. “Oh!” Jackie gasped. “It-it IS you!”

“Trevor!” A slightly bigger girl with shoulder-length brown hair stumbled out from behind the same tree. “You can’t just do that! He could have been the monster!”

“Nu-uh!” Trevor’s reply was muffled from where his face was buried in Jackie’s leg. “I know him when I see him!”

“We thought we knew Dad when we see him too!” Bobby scowled.

With one hand, Jackie reached down and patted Trevor’s head. “You two are…okay? You’re not hurt?”

Trevor looked up at him with wide grey eyes. “Nope. But I’m hungry.”

Still scowling, Bobby marched over to the other two. She grabbed her brother by the hand and pulled him away. “Be careful!” she hissed.

“You two think I’m An—the monster, don’t you?” Jackie asked.

Bobby gave him a glare that could have fired lasers. “You could be.”

“Well, I’m not. I know I can’t prove it, but you have to trust me. I’m here to get you out of here.”

Trevor gasped. “You’re gonna defeat the monster?”

Jackie crouched, getting down to the kids’ eye level. “I’m going to try. But before I do that, I need to make sure you’re safe. Do you know where we are?”

Trevor shook his head. Bobby pulled him closer to her, then said, “Well, if you don’ know you’re maybe not the monster. He says this is his base. Like a supervillain. We walked through a hole in the wall and came out here.”

Jackie had no experience on the matter, but he was willing to bet this was one of those pocket dimensions Marvin had mentioned. Anti’s home base. “The monster hasn’t hurt you?”

Bobby shook her head. “He’s chased us. He said it was a game.”

“Like evil tag,” Trevor piped up. “Only we don’ wanna get tagged.”

“That’s a good idea,” Jackie mumbled. The kids didn’t look hurt, just tired. Obviously he wasn’t a doctor, but they seemed fine. They might need counseling once they got out of this place, but they were physically okay. “Have either of you seen a way to get out of here? Like, another hole like the one you came in through?”

“No,” Bobby said. “But we haven’ been everywhere.”

“Well, then. Tell me where you haven’t been, and we’ll start there.”

Bobby nodded slowly. She still wasn’t entirely sure that Jackie wasn’t the monster, but Trevor liked him so she’d go along with this. Trevor, meanwhile, pointed at Jackie’s chest. “What’re you holdin’?”

Jackie looked down. “Oh! This is Sam. They’re a friend of Uncle Jack’s.” He tilted his hand so that the kids could see Sam, curled up in his palm. “They’re not feeling too good right now.”

“Can I hold them?” Trevor asked.

Jackie thought about it, then nodded. “Sure, for a minute.” He passed the little eye to Trevor, who needed both hands to hold them. For a second, Sam’s optic nerve-tail twitched. They glowed a bit brighter. “I think they like you, Trev!” Jackie smiled. “Why don’t you carry them for a little bit?”

“Really? Okay!” Trevor smiled down at Sam, then gently hugged them. Bobby stared at Sam. “Why are they an eye?” she asked.

“I don’t know, why are you a human?”

She thought about this question, then shrugged. “I think it’s because Mom and Dad are humans. So does Sam have a mom eye and a dad eye?”

“Maybe. Like I said, they’re a friend of Uncle Jack’s. I don’t know that much about them.” Jackie straightened up. “Now. We have to get out of here. I’m counting on you two to show me where to go. Can I trust you to do that?”

Trevor nodded eagerly. “We’ll go to all the new places!” Bobby also nodded, though not as enthusiastically.

“That’s the spirit! Lead the way!”

The two kids scampered off, heading out of the twisted park. Jackie paused for just a moment, looking around. He had a feeling someone was watching him, and he didn’t like it. But he couldn’t deal with that right now. The kids were the priority. He had to make sure they were safe, no matter what. So he turned and followed them.

He didn’t see the green eyes blink open out of thin air behind him. He didn’t hear the giggle, hidden under the constant hum. He didn’t realize everything was happening just as he intended.