The Haunted Soul

Chapter 1

The greenish display of the radio on the night stand showed 3.21 am and therefore barely 12 minutes later than last time Alex had checked the time. Annoyed she turned on the light, as she knew it was going to be one of those nights, where she slept too little and thought too much. Since she wasn’t going to get rest anyhow she could also spent the time doing something useful. Maybe useful was a little too much of an expression, since she was going to look, if her friend Jack was online, which wouldn’t be that unusual since Jack lived in LA, where it was late afternoon.

Jack and Alex had met by chance while he was searching for filming locations in Galway, where Alex lived. He was working for some production company that apparently had become a pretty big deal lately. Alex didn’t care, since she wasn’t into movies anyhow, but she really liked Jack. He was fun and made her laugh. They skyped two or three times a week and Alex had started to realize, that while she didn’t think she was falling for him, their conversations were getting more and more important for her. She felt excited and almost inebriated when they spoke. Alex didn’t know how it had happened, but she knew these conversations where like drugs to her. Once one had ended she started thinking about her next fix.

The computer took forever to start, since she had not turned it off properly last time. She went to get a glass of orange juice, while it got ready, only to realize that she was out of orange juice and that the only thing to drink besides tap water was milk. She made a mental note to go shopping and poured herself a glass of milk.

Back at her desk the laptop was finally ready and she started Skype. After two attempts where she mistyped the password, she got it right and the program logged her in. Jack wasn’t online, but he had left her an offline message, which was odd as he never did that. It read: Hi galway girl, sorry I won’t be able to go online for the next two weeks. No worries, all is good! I will explain when I am back. Take care.

Alex checked the time stamp and frowned. He had left the message only 15 minutes after their last video call two days ago. Why hadn’t he just mentioned it then? She was pissed. They never actually scheduled the video calls and it was all very casual, but it has become sort of routine over the last 7 months and she felt he owed her a little more, then such a dull message.

She checked her other contacts and since nobody else was online, at least nobody she felt like talking to, she turned the thing of and started watching TV. She made herself comfortable on the couch with a blanket and tuned the volume down, so that is more of a hum than a whisper. Sometimes that helped her fall asleep and that night it worked again.

The next couple of days went by really fast. The city was pulsating with visitors for the arts festival and since Alex worked as a waitress business was heavy. At least that also meant tips were rich. She had made more in one week, than she usually made in a month.

She was taking a break, when her phone beeped. It was a message from Skype the Jack_25 had sent her an offline message. How strange she thought, but before being able to check it, her boss Peter yelled at her, telling her that her five minutes had been over ten minutes ago. “Whatever.” mumbled Alex and resumed her shift.

When she got home she turned on her computer reflexively before even taking of her jacket. She made herself a sandwich, opened the last package of apple juice and sat in front of her laptop to check the message from Jack. If she had though his last message was odd this one blew her away:

I am sorry to come onto you like this. My name is Richard, I am Jack’s brother. He has been missing for 8 days now. Once I cracked his password and realized you spoke to him on a regular basis I decided to contact you. Please I need your help finding my brother! I will be online 2 pm today my time, please come online. Everything Jack mentioned could be helpful! Thanks! Richard.