The Delta Project

On this sultry summer night, as Jack Thompson worked his way down the stairs into the atrium of what was now known as Round House Plaza, the building was silent.  The retail shops were closed and it was too early for the cleaning crew.  It was a scene familiar to Jack but he never got comfortable with it.  The atrium was a cavernous space, dark and foreboding at night with no light from the stores or the sun to fight the gloom.  At night, the historical charm of the Round House, yielded to silence and shadows.  Jack paused, as he had on many occasions, to linger in the past.  He watched the old switches and signal lights, now just quaint ornaments, half expecting them to come alive.  When the winds were strong, the old roof timbers creaked and groaned.  It was as if the building wanted to share her secrets.  But not tonight.  There were no whispers from the past.  Only Jack’s footsteps echoed through the Plaza as he walked toward the South Entrance.

The South Entrance was really the back door.  The leasing agents and building management staff, in their never ending quest to lure tenants, had a collective annoying habit of applying verbal window dressing to even the most mundane of real estate features.  The south door opened onto a long narrow parking lot that was bordered by the bricks of the building and a railroad track that was still very much active.  Commuter rail traffic frequently rattled the coffee cups in the conference room at Black, Hillman.  New clients got rattled themselves the first time they felt the Round House fight the force of a freight train rumbling by less than sixty feet away.  All the tenants told their customers, and each other, it was just part of the Round House ambience.  The railroad and the Round House had a love-hate relationship.

The silence followed Jack outside.  The air was still and heavy.  He waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.  The lot was poorly lit.  The owner of the Plaza had given up replacing the lights that local high school kids made a game of breaking.  He didn’t like parking here but the lot on the other side of the building was twice as far from his office and when he was late for an appointment it made a difference.

Jack’s pickup truck was the only vehicle in sight.  There were no kids or bums hanging around and he breathed a little easier.  Crystal Lake, Illinois was not exactly a high crime area but having grown up in Chicago, Jack took nothing for granted.

Looking more down than up to avoid tripping in cracks and potholes in the pavement, Jack moved toward his vehicle.  The only sound came from his heels crunching the pebbles that had broken free of the worn asphalt.  When Jack was within fifteen feet of his truck, he pressed the un-lock button on his alarm control.  He heard the familiar click of the door locks releasing.  The interior cab light came on – a beacon in the night to guide him.  The light allowed him to look up from the ground.   Then Jack Thompson’s blood ran cold and he was quite sure his heart would burst.  There was a man sitting in the driver seat of his truck.

The mind and body can do strange things when a massive dose of adrenaline is released into the human physiological system.  But the reactions can be distilled down to fight or flight.  Psychiatrists and endocrinologists can debate ad nauseum about the reasons why, but the bottom line is that you find out what you are made of when it happens.

Jack Thompson froze like a statue.  And for what seemed like eternity, he stared at the truck and the man sitting where Jack was supposed to be.  Jack had backed into the parking space that morning and was now standing on the passenger side.  The man in the truck had his head turned slightly left as if he was watching or waiting for someone or something from the west end of the lot.

Is it possible that he doesn’t see me, Jack asked himself?  He remained still as stone.

The initial shock wave dissipated slightly and Jack’s mind raced for what to do next.  Was the guy trying to steal the truck?  And what the hell was he looking at?  But there was something else; something was not right.  The man behind the wheel had not moved – at all.

In the seconds that passed while Jack Thompson groped for answers and fought for control, the cab light went off.  This begged another question.  Why did the man in the truck not appear startled when the light went on?  More seconds; more silence.  Nothing.