Volume 3 Chapter 41: Jacobs Box

Jacob shuts the door to his 2005 maroon SUV. He looks at the gas station; the 1950s look is still pristine as always. He notices small details like the fact the lighting has all been upgraded with LEDs and the roof of the station has solar panels. But at the end of the day it is still the same ship of Theseus. He remembers what it looked like after the rampage of the finder.

For a moment he wonders where he is and who else he is tormenting. Has he become a vampire again?

No, today he is here looking for an answer. He isn't sure what the question is, but the cat said he should find it.

Jacob walks up to the doors as Josh Gas steps out. "What brings you here, Jacob?" Josh Gas asks, his clothing immaculate as ever, his blue jumpsuit spotless.

"I don't know. The cat said you might have the answer," Jacob says without real conviction or confidence.

"The answer to what? When his copy of Cat Monthly will arrive?" Josh asks, looking around, scanning the horizon.

"I don't know," Jacob says calmly, feeling goosebumps from how strong the cat was about him coming here.

Why don't you come inside? Maybe we will figure it out. " Josh says, walking back to the store. "Or we can watch an old movie. I have a few more episodes of Dwarven Desires to watch with the door."

"I don't think that's what the cat sent me here for," Jacob shakes his head. He looks around the inside of the store and sees all sorts of things but not the answer. Mainly because he doesn't know the question. What the heck was the cat thinking? He had sent Izzy to deliver a milkshake. How is that supposed to help? Jacob grabs a bottle of water and drinks it as he tries to puzzle out the question.

Jacob feels his bladder grow full as he wanders the store.

"Hey Josh, where is the bathroom?" Jacob asks loudly from across the room.

In response, Josh points to the back of the store. He is busy dialing the ranch, trying to reach the Cat, but the phone isn't connecting.

Jacob walks to the area Josh had pointed out and spots the symbol for bathroom nearby and pulls the door open and steps inside. This is an autonomous action. Like most people, you feel the urge to go; you spot the bathroom, you walk into the bathroom, and you use the bathroom.

The door closes behind him.

Then the screaming starts: "No, bad. You can't be here; you need to leave now!" The doorkeeper shrieks, its black outline unhooking itself from the door and running towards where Jacob is standing.

Jacob realizes that even though there is an easy clear pathway between him and the doorkeeper, the doorkeeper isn't using it. He looks around him, and space warps unpleasantly. He feels a knot in his stomach as reality bifurcates, and he is suddenly seeing in the 4th dimension or as much as his brain can handle. Jacob watches as the doorkeeper eshers around. He opens and steps through doors, seemingly at random, appearing in impossible places. Jacob watches as the doorkeeper moves through an unintelligible route to where he is standing.

"What is this place?" Jacob asks. "Is this what's behind your door?" He is slowly coming to grips with the nature of reality here and notices if he holds his head just right, he is in a Victorian library. If he turns his head even slightly, he is in a cavern. If he swings his head around, it's nauseatingly complex, hundreds of rooms. He turns around, and the doorkeeper is there, and together they are standing in the jaws of a great beast. Jacob can smell the breath of the behemoth; he can feel the squish under his shoes, the wetness seeping into his socks.

The doorkeeper, with panic on his 2-dimensional face and with his mouth and eyes glowing brilliant yellow, pulls at Jacob, roughly yanking him toward the door.

"You can't be here," the doorkeeper says; the genuine fear is unmistakable when he screams every few seconds.

Jacob is pulled along behind the doorkeeper, finding himself in vast worlds inside the tiny door. The doorkeeper grabs a glass doorknob and pulls open a seemingly random door, and Jacob goes inside, closing the door behind them. Inside is an endless world of pink with deep shag carpet. The walls are lined with clothing styles so fantastical that Jacob can't figure out how to wear them.

The doorkeeper's eyes flick around, and he hears the sound of a rifle cocking. He grabs Jacob's shirt and drags him into a closet. Inside this seemingly endless closet is a plastic life form wearing a Vietnam-era uniform. She has long blond hair and a look of hunger on her face. She is soundless as she points her gun around in front of her.

The doorkeeper pulls Jacob through a little access panel in the wall, and they are in a tall mud-brick structure. The walls are covered in little alcoves made of wooden shelves; the building has dozens of scribes moving around with purpose. One spots Jacob and the doorkeeper, and its eyes grow twice as large. Their leather-like skin stretching to accommodate. They open their mouths, and dust comes out as they speak "Τί οἶσθα."

The other leather men stop and stare at them. Jacob opens his mouth and feels dust being pulled out of his lungs. The doorkeeper covers his mouth. "Quiet!" he shouts. The dust that leaves him is yellow and crackles in the light that is omnipresent.

Jacob fusses, trying to pull away, but the doorkeeper drags him toward an open spot on the shelf and jumps at it, his body elongating and slipping through, leaving Jacob screaming as he is pulled through.

The area beyond is a stark white room. Featureless to the extreme. "Rest for a moment," the doorkeeper whispers, walking slowly around the room, touching the walls.

Jacob tilts his head, and to his surprise, the world doesn't change. "What is this place?"

"There is no name for this place; it has no name. It can't have a name. Don't give it a name; just rest," the doorkeeper rattles off.

"I was in the gas station, and now I am here. You're the thing in the door, aren't you?" Jacob says, sitting down.

"Not a thing... doorkeeper. Not here inside the door; I have failed twice!!" The doorkeeper pauses and starts jumping his way across the room.

"What are you doing?" Jacob asks, watching the shadows' antics.

"Tricky place, hard to navigate. Door here somewhere," he whispers, then turns to Jacob. "No asking questions rest."

The doorkeeper reaches impossibly high above his head and feels the ceiling for an opening and finds none.

"Time to go." The doorkeeper says and grabs Jacob tightly and tilts his head. They are falling down an endless void, the air rushing up to them. The walls are covered in long green tentacles reaching out for them.

Jacob screams loudly, the bottom of the shaft approaching far too quickly. The doorkeeper screams with Jacob, and they slam into the ground at terminal velocity. Reality tears, and they slip through the molasses and find themselves on a garden path in a heap.

The doorkeeper stands up and looks around, finding his bearings. "This is why you shouldn't be here; it is not meant for your kind. Why do you barge in?"

"I had to pee," Jacob says in his defense. "The door was a men's room, so I went in."

"Had? Had? HAD?" the doorkeeper screeches. "Did you pee in my door?"

The doorkeeper makes no noise other than when he talks or screams. Jacob's hair stands on end as the face of the doorkeeper gets closer and closer.

"You need to go; you can't be here; you really can't be here," the doorkeeper screeches.

"I would love to, but how do I get out of this funhouse?" Jacob shouts back.

The doorkeeper turns and looks back up the path. He slowly turns back to Jacob. "Run," the doorkeeper whispers.

"What? Where?" Jacob shouts back.

"Run now or stay here." The doorkeeper starts running.

Jacob looks up the garden path. An old faded white picket fence lines both sides of the path; it is covered by brilliantly blooming morning glories with brilliant blue flowers, and as his eyes follow the meandering path up to the horizon, he spots a pair of eyes looking at him. "That's a fucking dinosaur!" Jacob shouts and turns to see that the doorkeeper is now 50 feet ahead of him. Jacob turns and runs.

as the doorkeeper gracefully runs ahead of Jacob. Jacob wheezes hard, his ribs aching and his body unable to keep up. "I can't, I can't keep up," he shouts and trips.

The doorkeeper turns back and watches Jacob fall. He makes a decision and skids to a stop. He runs back and grabs Jacob and leaps over the picket fence. He tears at the vines covering a structure. The dinosaur gets closer, its steps vibrating the ground. Soon the doorkeeper had cleared off enough wall to reveal a door set into the side of a classic English cottage. As soon as he does, they step through the door. The doorkeeper slams the door shut just in time to get thrown across the room by the force of the door bulging inward as the dinosaur slams into the other side.

The room is silent. Jacob looks around. The room they are in has a giant chunk of iron, and on top is a figure of Venus with a key around her neck. Jacob is stunned by her beauty, and then his eyes fall down lower to see a chastity belt locked firmly around her hips. "What is this?" he asks.

The doorkeeper covers Jacob's eyes with his hands made of nothing. "It is not meant for you; nothing here is meant for you. If you don't do what I say, you will die, and then Izzy will be sad, and Izzy will upset Dr. Blob, and Dr. Blob will stop going to the gas station, and Josh Gas will stop giving me extra hot dogs. Do you understand now?"

"What?" Jacob pulls at the hands covering his face. The doorkeeper is cold to the touch and unyielding. "Is this what Eucleia is after?" Jacob says, looking at the statue again. He walks closer to it. The lock on the chastity cage jitters as he gets closer, trying to move itself to the key.

Jacob notices the neck of the statue has a channel worn down into the marble from where the chain has rubbed back and forth trying to unite with its lock.

The doorkeeper pushes Jacob away. "You don't know what you would unleash if you unlocked that lock."

"Then we should go," Jacob whispers, his hand trying to reach for the key. "I don't know if I can control myself."