Zachary’s notes from “Home is in the Heart”
Notes by Anthony
“Welcome back to WRXL 102.1 FM, home of the latest and greatest alternative and grunge rock this side of the Potomac. It’s DJ Zakz on the mic with you this fine Thursday morning, recording this on DJ Ben Jammin’s old tape recorder in a rather cramped bathtub. Back in our college days, we used this thing to record shows live and played them on our college radio station. Honestly surprised it still works given the amount of beer spilled on it. I hope you’ll forgive the rather unorthodox method I have taken to contact you, dear listeners, and for however long it might have taken for you to hear my dulcet tones once more. I don’t know when next I’ll be able to speak with you live from our studio, but it didn’t feel right to tell this tale without you. After all, is it really a story without someone listening?”
Zachary clicked off the tape recorder and stretched his shoulders, trying to get comfortable. Ben had pulled just about every blanket he’d had out of the storage closet and laid them in the tub, including Zachary’s grandmother’s crocheted throw that had made it into one of Ben’s moving boxes when they’d gotten separate apartments after college. Zachary fluffed the pillow behind him and clicked the recorder back on.
“If you’ll recall, dear listeners, last night I spoke to you about my latest dream. But the madness didn’t stop there, no. As soon as I asked for help, we lost power at the station and a grey figure appeared in the station. Not walked in the door like a normal person, no, but like he’d stepped through an invisible tear in the fabric of the universe. Not the kind of auspicious sign from the universe I’d been hoping for. He asked me about the vision, and I told him that everything I’d witnessed I had told you on the radio. He asked me when I was from, and after asking him what the hell he was on about I told him I was from 1962, which is the year this old Prophet entered screaming and crying into this world.
“He must have been satisfied, for he vanished as quickly as he arrived without murdering all of us, and power returned to the station. That’s when I received a few of your calls, including a tip from one kind listener who told me my task was done, and it was time to get the hell out of dodge. We left the station playing through every song we had loaded into the system. Apologies if the choices get a little weird before the morning crew arrives.
“After I blamed the strange events on a gas leak and left our very capable station management to handle things, Ben and I headed out to our favorite local diner. Well, first we drove around for half an hour while I tried to work up the courage to tell him what was really going on. Or at least a version of it he could understand. I told him that my visions were of something real. That the world was ending, and people out there were hunting me for that information. Whether they wanted to shut me up or find out more or just control the source of it, namely yours truly, I truthfully didn’t know and I told Ben as much. He speculated about aliens and government conspiracies, and I didn’t disagree with him. Honestly, time-traveling FBI ghosts are about as believable as what’s really after me. Might not even be mutually exclusive.
“At the diner, I let Ben get some food and headed into what is frankly one of the nastiest bathrooms I have seen this side of the Potomac. If you’re listening, dear employees of the wonderful diner on Kings Street, would you mind cleaning that single-stall more than once a century? I could practically see the bacteria and mold writhing in the grout. But other than that dismal porcelain hell, the ambiance and food is truly fantastic, and we’d be happy to accept sponsorships in exchange for complimentary omelets and unlimited refills of coffee.”
Zachary huffed a laugh to himself. Patricia would have never let something like that fly on air. Insulting a local business and then soliciting sponsorships for food? Well, this was his show now. He took in a deep breath and let it out. Odd that his lung capacity seemed similar to before, given that he’d left his lungs in half-bitten chunks across his closet floor. But here was the tricky part. How much to tell the listeners, or at the very least to commit to tape, given how dangerous this information was? Zachary remembered Ben, huddled behind him and trembling, as the entity interrogated him. Zachary had been so terrified, but it was mostly for Ben and Patricia and Bill. They seemed so vulnerable now. What if recording all this led to more people getting hurt? But he couldn’t hide this next part behind metaphor or dream logic.
“You see, dear listeners, everything I told you last night was all true, but not necessarily in the order I revealed it. Yesterday morning as I walked home from the radio station, I was attacked and put to sleep by a man named Immanuel in Ben Brennan Park. That was when I had the visions. When I awoke, Immanuel told me that I truly was a prophet, a vessel for someone else’s voice, and the Harbinger of Gehenna. He told me quite frankly a lot of things that I’m still trying to understand, but he said he’d try to contact me soon, which ended up being in yet another diner. One day Ben and I will put together a guide to this city’s best and worst diners. Stay tuned to find out who makes their pancakes from scratch and who remembers to clean out the coffee pot!
“Sorry, dear listeners. I have found myself stalling for time. I’ve gotten used to having all sorts of terrible visions in my head, but it’s quite another to be facing them in the waking world. Wednesday night, before the show, Immanuel’s face replaced my own in the mirror in the diner bathroom. Apparently, people like us can access a different system or plane of existence. A world wide web where we can talk in each other’s minds like we were standing in front of each other. He told me to open the second canticle, which apparently ended up being the vision I shared with you on the radio later that night. I also needed to know about the seals, and either keep them closed or break them open. Helpful instructions. I asked him who, or what I was the voice for, and he said that it was older than the Camarilla, older than all. He also said that, in order to stop the Black Hand from finding me, he might have to meet this sun this morning.
“I know, dear listener, I know. I feel like I’ve walked in halfway through a movie after getting high and eating popcorn in the janitor’s closet. I’m probably just as confused as you are now, but I was determined to get some answers. Back to earlier this morning after the show, I reached out to Immanuel through the mirror web thing. I found myself within a dark storm cloud, and he was surprised I had been able to reach out to him. He told me that the woman I had seen in the lake and the woman in field with the skull were the same, but not. They were versions of each other, maybe? She was looking for herself, but I couldn’t let her touch herself. I definitely shouldn’t try to find her in the water. This does indeed imply that I can’t necessarily trust everyone I see in my visions, though figuring out who I should or shouldn’t is beyond me at this point.
“Immanuel told me my next step was the find The First Gateway and open it. She has black hair, sees beyond sight, and sees beautiful colors. But I can’t let her know that she’s the Gateway. She won’t be able to keep quiet about it. I then asked about the end of the world, and he listed off some truly terrifying stuff. The flesh monster rising up, creatures from the deep, old ones waking up, a red sun falling out of space to burn us all alive. And I’m supposed to prevent all that? And if I don’t, then the world ends. If you’ve got any thoughts on this one, dear listeners, maybe try to send me a vision in my dreams? I have very little idea where to begin. At least Immanuel said he would try to stay alive, so hopefully I can contact him soon and get more answers for us.
“Ben and I left the diner and drove back to his place. I was hesitant to go, even though this had always been my refuge. But whoever was looking for me had to know where I lived, and neither of us really had the cash for a midnight motel. And truth is, there was something more I needed to tell him. I hugged Ben close and told him that no matter what I said next, no matter how I had changed, I was still me. I was still Zachary. That was when he started comforting me and telling me it was okay to come out as gay! Totally threw me off my doom and gloom track. I actually did end coming out as bisexual, though I’m not sure he knew what that actually meant.”
Zachary wiped at his eyes, even knowing that his body couldn’t really be crying. Ben’s gesture had been very welcome, if entirely unexpected. Zachary had known he liked girls and guys since entering college, but never felt comfortable coming out and dealing with the pressure and questions from his classmates or family. He’d gone on a few dates with girls his freshman and sophomore years, but it was hard to keep the sparks flying when he’d started to get visions of their violent deaths. Easier to just skip relationships all together. No one else understood and accepted him like Ben had. Still, Zachary had been terrified of Ben’s reaction to this final confession.
“And that was when I told Ben that Immanuel had turned me into a vampire. Imagine my surprise when Ben just nodded and said it was cool! He said so many crazy things had happened that we were at the point in the movie where the characters just had to accept what was happening around them and move on. He might have even believed it until I smiled and let the fangs out. That’s when he started screaming. I immediately felt awful. How could Ben, my best friend, look at me like that? Like he didn’t recognize me. Like he was scared of me.
“But I also knew that the sun was coming up soon and we couldn’t deal with nosy neighbors. I rushed over to him and started shaking him. I was yelling at him, telling him to be quiet and calm down. I know that wasn’t the best way to do it. Ben has talked me down from quite a number of panic attacks, dear listener, and the most important thing is to be reassuring and validate their feelings while reminding them that they are actually safe. All that flew out of my brain, however. I just needed Ben to stop screaming at me like I was a monster.
“I don’t really know what I did. I think I did the same thing that Immanuel did when he told me to sleep. I hadn’t remembered falling asleep, only suddenly being unconscious like no other psychiatric medication prescribed to me had ever been able to do. I felt this power rush up through my throat with the word QUIET and Ben stopped screaming instantly. His mouth closed and his face went slack like he’d never been screaming in the first place. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut. It worked, I guess. He might have been too shocked at the fact that I had magic powers to be angry or upset anymore. Or maybe I quieted more than just his voice. He asked if I was going to hurt him, and I told him I would never. I only wanted to keep him safe.
“I think he must have believed me. I hope he does. I told him that the whole vampires burning in the sun thing was true, and that last night I had passed out until sundown. Fortunately for me, Ben’s bathroom doesn’t have any windows. I told him that I don’t think I really sleep anymore, but he was insistent on bringing just about every blanket and pillow in the apartment to make the tub more comfortable. And that just about brings you up to speed on what has happened, dear listener. Sorry that it isn’t quite as poetic as my usual fare – but I figured you’d need to know the context of what is happening in the waking world to order to better understand the dreams. I suspect I’ll have another vision while I, for lack of a better term, sleep today, so I’ll have this tape recorder ready to report back on what I see.
“Stay safe out there, dear listeners. The world is much stranger than any of us could have imagined, even in my dreams. This has been your host, DJ Zakz, signing off.”