Purgatech: Aaron's Terrible Realization

"Are you sure you really want to go through with this, man?" Collin asked, not taking his eyes from the road. I looked over at him and shrugged my shoulders. "It's not like I'm making any sort of commitment today. This is just an interview, remember?" "Still, it seems weird to me. I mean, it can't be real, right? Ghosts don't really exist." I didn't reply. He didn't push it. Collin and I had been friends long enough to know how each other felt about those sorts of things. He is firmly planted in the "real world". You go to work, you party, you get married. Blah, blah, blah. I've always been a bit different. Ever since I was a young boy, I've had strange occurrences happen around me. It's like, I'm a mild psychic magnet. I can't read minds or move stuff around at will, but things happen to me that just don't seem to happen to other people. Or at least other people aren't willing to admit it. When I saw the ad for the beta testing position, it seemed too good to be true. A thousand bucks a week plus room and board during the trial? How much better could it get? Of course, the description of the app to be tested seemed a bit silly. Accessing the after life through your smart device? Give me a break. I assumed it was one of those alt reality games designed to scare you into thinking there are ghosts in the room. But what did I care? What I needed more than anything was a change. "Well," Collin said, breaking the silence, "whether the ghosts are real or not, I hope the cash is. It'd be great for you to get out of that damn pizza place. You smell like a pepperoni twenty four seven." "Look who's talking, oil man. You always smell like you just crawled out of a muffler." "At least they pay me well for the smell," he said, smirking at his rhyme. "Right, because that should be everyone's goal in life," I said. "To be fairly compensated for the strange odors absorbed at one's place of work." We had a laugh and continued west, flying down the freeway toward the darkening horizon. "Looks like it's going rain on us. You get that windshield wiper replaced?" I asked. Collin smirked again and reached into the backseat, swerving into the next lane. I almost had a heart attack as a car behind us slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting us. "Jesus, look at the road, would you?" He sat back in his seat again, proudly holding up an old wool sock. "Sorry, had to grab my spare wiper blade." "You've got to be kidding me," I groaned as he pulled over onto the shoulder. "Nah, can't afford a real one for at least a few more paychecks. So I just slip this guy on. The metal bits work fine, it’s just the rubber that’s worn off." Collin hopped out and slipped the sock over the blade. "Well," I said as he got back in, "at least it's on my side instead of yours, I guess." Times were tough. I understood what Collin meant about having to push things back a few paychecks until he could afford them. I myself was two weeks late on rent and three weeks behind on my insurance. I really needed this job to work out. Pizza just wasn't paying the bills. Not with business declining and hours getting cut across the board. "You heard from Katie?" Collin asked. Hearing her name made my stomach do a backflip. I didn't say anything, studying the air vent near the Buick's radio instead. "Ah, s**t. I'm sorry, man. I guess that was a stupid thing to ask." Collin looked a little embarrassed. I wanted to let him off the hook. "It's cool. I haven't heard anything since last weekend when she drunk dialed. No big deal though." But of course it was a big deal. Three years and a Dear John text out of the blue? A text? Was the really all that our relationship came down to? Was it that fragile the whole time that a single text could bring it crashing down? And the conversation last weekend was a big deal. She had called from a bar, our old bar, in fact, where she was hanging out with the people that used to be their friends. When her number came across the screen on my phone, I could have jumped for joy. Finally, after two weeks, she was coming to her senses. I swiped the screen to answer and said hello, excited. All I heard were huge, hitching sobs. She choked out apologies and I miss yous through her tears and asked if I would come and pick her up. Said that she needed to see me. I hated to hear her like that and assured her that I would be there ASAP and we could work it all out. When I pulled up at the bar, she wasn't there. All of the people who used to be my friends were also gone. I searched and searched, worried that something was wrong, becoming angry at no one, blaming the universe for the way things were playing out. Just as I began shouting at the bartender, a huge bearded guy picked me up by the shoulders and threw me outside. "Calm down Casa Nova," he said. "Where is she? Where's Katie?" I just sat there on the ground, where I'd fallen. "Oh s**t, are you the guy she was out here on the phone with?" I just looked at him, beginning to tear up. "Look, kid, after you got off the phone, she bummed a smoke off me and started to calm down." A smoke? Katie didn't smoke. "She went back inside for a few minutes, then came out with the people she rode here with. They all got in a car and left. Sorry, man." I left the bar, confused and unsure of what to think. The sun was going down and the rain that had threatened began to fall. Collin switched on his wipers and the comical image of the sock flopping back and forth against the windshield brought me out of my funk. I began to laugh and Collin was infected to. We roared until we couldn't breathe and he began to swerve again. "So you really think this thing is legit?" he asked, echoing his question from earlier. "Man, I don't really care if it's legit as long as the money is there." "Did you Google the address for their headquarters?" "No, didn't think about it. Just plugged it into the GPS. Why?" I asked. Collin began to laugh. "They’re running the company out of a decrepit old house, man. It's pretty ridiculous actually. I think these guys might be full of shit." "Weird," I said, trying to imagine tech guys in nerdy glasses, hunched over their computers in an creepy mansion. It made me think of the bad indie horror movies about ghost hunters that I loved so much. Especially the found footage ones with the shaky cameras. Solid gold. "Well, if it’s too sketchy, I guess I'll just have you come back and pick me up. You're still planning to stay in town at your cousin's right?" "Yeah, good thing I got some family that stays all the way out here in the middle of nowhere. No way I could afford a hotel room. Even if I could, I'd spend it on the ladies way before I spent it waiting around for you to have a haunted job interview." He elbowed me in the ribs. "Like you would ever have a lady to spend it on," I said, rubbing my side. He was right though, we were definitely out in the boonies. The only building we had seen in the last ten miles or so was an overbearing church with a sign out front reading: THE ONLY WAY TO HAVE ETERNAL LIFE IS THROUGH JESUS CHRIST. The rest of the highway was boarded by trees, with the occasional swamp or creek to break up the landscape. To tell the truth, I was way more excited than I could explain to Collin. For so long, I'd done the same thing. Wake up way too early. Unlock the pizza joint so the prep guys could get in to make dough and chop veggies. Work all day and half the night. I was pulling sixty and seventy hour weeks because our GM was a slacker who liked to call me into work when there was something more interesting for him to do. The pay sucked, I was always tired, and I hated the immature, adult aged children that I worked with. I actually had to break up a fight in the dish room. Can you imagine that? A fight. Between grown men. One thought that the other had stolen his lighter. So instead of talking it out or coming to find me for help, they began to hit each other. I couldn't believe it. Two days later, Katie pulled the plug on us and I realized it was time for something different. I hoped that Purgatech would be that something. "Not too far now," Collin said. Indeed, we saw the glow of streetlights ahead of us. The speed limit dropped abruptly to twenty-five and houses began to appear on either side of us. They all seemed to be very old. They sat quietly, watching the road with dark windows and porches that leaned almost imperceptibly. Most looked abandoned but there was no way to know for sure. We passed a grocery store that looked like the sign hadn't been painted since the Civil War. The flaking paint read "Trixie's" and one of those signs with interchangeable letters announced chicken legs and sirloin steaks at "GREAT LOW PRICES". The library was in an equal state of disrepair. It was hard to imagine that place containing any books that had been published since the turn of the century. The flagpole out front was rusted. It was hard to tell in the dark, but it looked like the statue out front was missing its nose. "Where the hell have you brought us?" Collin mused, talking more to himself than to me, a small grin slowly spreading across his face. "Dude, this town is creepy as hell. You said it was called Mary's Rest? If you were going to find ghosts in the state, this would be the place." I didn't say anything, but I had to agree. Not because of how creepy everything looked, but because of a feeling that the town gave me. There were no people out. No one walking the streets or hanging around outside of bars and restaurants. Hell, there didn't even seem to be any bars or restaurants. Where were all of the people and what were they doing on a Saturday night if there was nowhere in town to hang our? I imagined them, sitting in dark houses, quietly watching TV and eating sleepy suppers. Or maybe, they were sitting behind their dark windows, watching me and Collin, outsiders invading their silent streets. I got a chill as were rode past a particularly rundown two story. I could have sworn I saw a silhouette in one of the upstairs windows. "Here we are," Collin said, turning abruptly into a driveway. And just like that, we were sitting in front of the Purgatech headquarters. The house was exactly as Collin had described it. Decrepit. The short, sparsely grassed lawn ran up to a wide front porch. It wrapped around one side of the house and disappeared into the dark. The other side of the house featured a tiny carport that wouldn't have accommodated even and average size truck. I shivered as I was reminded of the drive thru areas of old timey funeral homes. The house was painted white. Or had been at least. So much of that paint had flaked off or been claimed by ivy that the building seemed to be a patchwork of varying shades of white, tan, green, and brown. At least, I thought, there were lights on in the windows. I saw the glow of what must have been computer monitors in one of the upstairs windows. "Last chance. You sure you're going to go through with this? House looks like it might eat you." Collin tried to laugh but it came out a little forced. I scanned the house up and down and said, "Yes. I'm going to go through with it. No matter how strange this all seems." "Alright, dude. If a bunch of crazy inbreds chop you to bits, don't come crying to me." We both laughed and I pushed the car door open. In truth, I wouldn't have been able to describe to Collin just how excited I was. I'd been trying to remind myself the whole car ride that I was likely to find nothing more than another start up tech company with a silly alt reality app, but I couldn't help hoping. Looking at the house now, feeling in the atmosphere of this strange town, I couldn't help thinking that maybe, just maybe, these guys might be on to something.