Dad is a Ninja
by A. M. Johnson
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Table of Contents parts: 1, 2, 3, 4 |
part 3
That afternoon, I left the hospital, picked up my children from their friends’ houses, took them home and made their favorite dinner. We ate and laughed and talked about all the places we’d lived as a military family. We told our stories about Ricky and laughed and cried, and said goodbye to the most amazing ninja dad the world had ever seen.
I didn’t tell the kids that I had given the attending physician permission to remove Ricky from life support the following day. However, they seemed to understand that we had lost him. He was really gone. Sgt. Baloch’s story and the reasons why Ricky may have done it were no longer relevant.
That night, I lay in bed sleepless, my mind full of memories both wonderful and terrible. I was angry at Ricky, and I was sad, and I missed him. There was an ache in my chest that wouldn’t go away. But at last, I was facing the truth. Tomorrow, we would begin the process of starting over.
As I lay thinking, tears slipping down my cheeks, Jamie let out a blood-curdling scream from his bedroom. I leapt to my feet and ran to his room.
Elaina came in right after shouting, “What’s going on??”
Jamie was standing in one corner, and as we entered the room, he pointed to the opposite wall.
There was a shadow, a man. My heart stopped for a second. Elaina screamed. The shadow was still, standing like a soldier at attention. Then, suddenly the shadow dropped to a crouch, held up one hand and made the sign for “I love you,” then put his index and middle finger up to where his eyes would be, and pointed them at the room. Watching. He was watching.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Kids,” I said, “don’t be afraid. It’s your dad.”
* * *
Ricky’s Story
I never was one to believe in fairy tales. Reality had a strong hold on me from childhood. Spending most of your time running away from your drunk dad will do that for you.
Yet I could not deny that something supernatural was happening to my squad, and that this supernatural entity had the power to harm and even to kill. When the old woman offered us a way to fight it, I was ready. I knew that at some point I would face this thing, and I was prepared because of some ancient magic that, to be honest, I didn’t really believe in. I didn’t even mention the situation to Marie, my wife. She would just think I’d lost it.
When Jamie tumbled down the stairs, though, I knew exactly what I had to do. Up to that point,d I’d entertained the misconception that the djinni was only after me, and that my family was safe. Once he hurt Jamie, I knew I had to take action. I swallowed three bottles of pills and washed them down with a six-pack of beer, and I woke up in the underworld.
To be accurate, I woke up on a rickety old boat in the middle of a dark river, and I mean it looked like motor oil flowing. As far as I could see, no one was rowing the boat. It was just gliding along, but I could hear what sounded like oars in the water. I looked down at my arm and saw that my coin tattoo was still there, and since I’ve never cheated anyone in my life, I said out loud to no one in particular, “Hey, you didn’t take my payment.”
Immediately the sound of oars in the water stopped, and a skeletal face in a hood appeared before my eyes, devoid of a body. A bony hand came into view, grasping my arm, and the face looked at the coin, then the bloodshot eyes stared into mine.
“First ride is free,” the face said hoarsely, then disappeared along with the bony hand. The sound of oars in the water came back, and we glided across that black, inky river to a rocky shore. Silly me. The coin was for getting to the land of the djinn. I knew that. I guess my nerves got the better of me, and I followed.
Once I was actually in the underworld, I was not sure where to go at first. Then I remembered my compass. It would only show me the direction of the djinni, nothing else, but that was exactly what I had come for. I was going to end this one way or another, or my family would never be safe again.
The underworld is not so different from the world of the living, if you can imagine a city full of fog or smoke and it’s like dusk all the time. I could only see a few feet in front of me because of this gray mist that hung about. But there were streets and buildings and people walking around.
I got a bad start when a man walked out of the mist and almost collided with me, but he was on his own mission and had no interest in what I was up to. At least, that’s what I figured after encountering a few more people. They all seemed to be caught up in their own purposes and barely even acknowledged me. That suited me fine. There didn’t seem to be any demons or any sinners being tortured, but then I guess that’s Hell, not the underworld. Maybe it’s a special section or something.
As I walked in the direction pointed at by the compass, I felt something hard and bulky in my pocket. It was a small wooden case, lacquered dark blue with symbols carved in it, then painted gold. I didn’t recognize the language but it looked a bit like Farsi. Then I noticed that my tattoos had disappeared except for the compass and coin, and I was wearing a pendant around my neck with an evil eye. I wondered if the pendant was the reason I hadn’t been accosted by anyone or encountered a demon. It made as much sense as any other explanation.
As I was examining the lacquered box and the pendant, an old man walked out of the fog and pointed excitedly at the box.
“Do you know what you have here?” he asked, pointing at the box.
“I... think so,” I responded. “I think it’s a trap.”
The man nodded. “Indeed,” he said, “But do you know the words? You must speak the words to activate the trap. Otherwise, the djinni will flee and come back again for you at a later time. They are very tricky, you know.”
I agreed, and told the old man a little about my troubles with this particular djinni.
“Ahh,” he said knowingly, shaking his head. “This djinni is a master of the shadow state. He can move objects and even push a child down the stairs. He is very dangerous. You must act, or surely he will destroy your family.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I said. “So... do you know the words?”
The old man considered. “I do know the words,” he said. “But it would offend Allah if I taught them to you, because you are the infidel.”
I looked at the old man, and recognized his type. After all, this was a common tactic in the Middle East. He wanted to bargain for the words.
“What price would it take for a man such as you,” I began, “to help out a man such as me? What will the words cost me?”
The old man thought for a moment, then pointed to my pendant.
“I could use that to pass safely through the underworld,” he said, “to avoid my enemies, and demons and such.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to give up the thing that was keeping me from encountering enemies and demons, but I didn’t have much else to trade. I needed the compass. The coin would get me passage into the realm of the djinn if that’s where he was, so I couldn’t trade that.
I took the pendant from around my neck and held it out. As he reached for it, I pulled back a bit.
“The words?” I prompted.
He taught me the words, which for the life of me I can no longer remember, but it was three words, I’m sure of that. Three words that sounded like no language I’d ever heard before. They felt like magic when I repeated them, like my tongue tingled or something.
As soon as I said them, I knew they were sacred words, words of power. Words that I needed to respect. I felt their energy and knew that, when the time came, they would serve me well. I relinquished the pendant.
The scenery changed a bit after I gave up the pendant. Now I could see to my right and left as I walked, that people were all around me, cowering on the ground, covered in rags, moaning in anguish. I saw hideous creatures administering torture to the poor souls that had no way to escape as they were bound at the wrists and ankles with what looked like bloody vines. I couldn’t see them if I looked directly at them, I saw them only from the corner of my eye. When I turned to examine them, they disappeared. At first this made me nervous, but I decided they were a distraction. They were meant to pull me off my path, to frighten me into losing my way. So I watched my compass and continued on my journey.
At last, after what felt like weeks, the compass brought me right to the front door of my own house. I mean, it looked like my house, but much older and more dilapidated. From the corner of my eye, I saw what appeared to be my family cowering on the ground, awaiting torture at the hands of a demonic beast, but I knew this was just meant to pull me from my journey.
I ignored my children reaching out to me with tears in their eyes, pleading for my help. I walked right past my wife, crouching in fear. It wasn’t really them. I was the one that had died. They were still in the land of the living. And since the compass brought me here, the djinni was here, too. I couldn’t waste time with the fake people.
Once inside, though, I encountered my real family. They looked the same, except they all appeared to be surrounded by halos of light. It made them sort of hard to look at for long periods, but I took it to mean that they were the real deal, alive and well, and I was reassured that the terrified people out on the lawn were not my true family.
Strangely enough, I appeared to be in a shadow state inside my home. I had felt like a full-blown human walking around in the underworld, but in my house, when I looked at myself, I was nothing but darkness. That was unexpected.
I tried to lay low and not be noticed, but my curiosity got the better of me. and I followed Jamie up to his room when it was bedtime. I guess I was careless. He saw me and let out the most awful scream. Of course, Marie and Elaina came to check on him. That’s when I decided I might as well get a little help from the living on this one. I tried to remember the sign language we taught the kids when they were little, and right off, Marie knew. She’s always been a smart one. That’s why I’d married her.
Copyright © 2023 by A. M. Johnson
