The Replacement Phenomenon

  The neighbours had only looked out of their windows when they heard gun shots, and then all any of them had seen in the January twilight amounted to two figures, probably men, getting into a silver car and driving off, seconds before seeing Jake drive home.

  The accounts of various neighbours helped to clear Jake of any involvement in the shootings. Sadly, all of the neighbours had been too far away to be of any use in identifying these men. The only useful information they could provide was to confirm that the car had looked exactly like Jake’s. No one could even give the police a registration number.

  The police, of course, had checked Jake’s whereabouts and his movements for the day, and had admitted that he was no longer considered a suspect in his family’s murders. He barely registered what they had told him. His life was all but over and no one seemed able to find out who was responsible.

  The last thing the police had done, before leaving Jake alone, was to section off the front of his house as a crime scene. The accounts of witnesses suggested the shooters did not enter the house. Initial forensic examination confirmed that to be the case. He was informed that he could stay at the house overnight if he kept clear of the front of the property and did not open the front door. Initially he had no desire of staying in that house. It was only pure exhaustion and lack of transport that led him to conclude that he could handle one last night in that house.

  Nobody could offer any credible explanation as to why this had happened. Was it some revenge-seeking gang who had simply targeted the wrong house? Was it some crazed customer of his company who had managed to find him? Was it just a couple of lunatics, driving around shooting people for the fun of it? Could it have been a drug fuelled robbery gone wrong? He would never know the truth of it all now.

  He wasn't ready to let his family go without a reason. He needed to know why this happened. There was no way that Jake was going to believe that his family died as a result of some random act of madness. He could not even begin to come to terms with his loss without finding a reason or purpose behind this outrage.

  As Jake looked through the large doors opening onto the balcony, he could see that rain was still hammering on every surface outside. The lightning was still around.

  He wanted to have one last good go at something out there. He decided that he didn't care if he got soaked. He wouldn't care much if he caught pneumonia and died. In fact, that seemed like a suitable way out of this nightmare of a life he now faced. He didn't care whether any of the neighbours heard him and complained. Shouting would make him feel better, and if someone wasn't happy with that, then they'd just have to face his wrath. The clichéd phrase “No more Mr Nice Guy” sounded in his head again.

  Jake opened the left hand door again and walked outside. The rain was certainly heavy. After drying off inside he was soaked to the skin again in about twenty seconds. He looked up at the sky and saw the occasional fork of lightning strike at some distant point on the horizon.

  “I need a reason for all of this! My family did not die for nothing! WHY?” With every word, every thought, tears started streaming down his face.

  “I could've stopped all of this. If I'd got home on time instead of talking to that fool in accounting, my wife and kids would still be alive. If only I could go back.”

  Jake didn't see a shooting star, he had no access to a wishing well, and he didn't have a magic lamp, but he wanted to make a wish anyway. For all he knew there just might be a shooting star behind a cloud somewhere up there. Not that he believed in any of that anyway.

  “I wish I could go back and stop it. I wish I could turn back time!” Just as he spoke the last word, a horrendous crash seemed to surround him. A mighty clap of thunder echoed around him for most of a second and he wondered if perhaps he or his house had been struck by lightning.

  Seconds later he saw another fork of lightning in the distance. There were several quick flashes. For a brief moment he wondered if he was starting to get delusional. Had he really seen what he thought he had just seen? Was he drunk, or was he losing his mind? He could have sworn there had been four almost simultaneous flashes of forked lightning in the distance. They looked to him like letters of the alphabet.

  The word WISH was spelled out on the horizon in the most spectacular display of forked lightning he’d ever seen. Perhaps he was even more drunk than he’d thought.

  Coincidence, he told himself. Lightning could form any one of an infinite number of shapes. No one heard his feeble cry into the night. On the grand scale of things, his cry was nothing. No one had the power to put things right now. Jake would do what he could to avenge his young family's death, but it could never be put right.

  Jake eventually decided that he’d had enough of venting for one evening. Tomorrow he was going to figure out what he was going to do from here. He had a lot to organise. He now had family to contact and a funeral to arrange. After that he'd have to consider what he was going to do with his life.

  He changed, ready for bed, and went robotically through his usual evening routine of washing his face and brushing his teeth. It seemed like so long ago since he had gone through his standard morning tasks.

  He set the calendar for the next day. He always set it the night before. He didn't bother setting the alarm before he glanced up at the digital clock whilst retiring to his bed. It read 23:56.

  He didn't suppose he would get much sleep, but he would try. There was no sense yelling at the sky all night. The end of a long day had finally arrived. Hopefully he could stop thinking about death and revenge for a few hours. He closed his eyes and in no time was out like a light.

 

  CHAPTER 2

  Friday 30th January, 7:30am

 

  A familiar beep sounded and Jake opened his eyes. He flicked the switch on the top of his alarm clock and lay there in his bed quite contentedly for a few seconds, drifting into the day, remembering the final moments of the last of his dreams. Then he remembered yesterday.

  The scene that had greeted his arrival home flashed before his eyes again. He recalled finding his wife lying just beyond the front door after having been shot twice, and then finding his two sons lying face down on the lawn having met the same end. It was like watching a horror movie.

  Everything that made life worth living for Jake was now gone. His blood ran chill as he thought of how he had lost his family forever. What made it so much worse was his knowing that whoever had done this was getting away with murder. No one knew who was responsible, and no one had any idea why it had happened.

  He looked up at the familiar clock. It was 7:30 in the morning. On any normal weekday morning it would have been time to get up and go to work. He had his usual routine that he knew needed to be adhered to. But today was no ordinary weekday. Nothing in his life would be ordinary ever again. In the next moment he remembered it was Saturday. He worked a typical working week from nine until five, Monday to Friday, and so he should not have been due in work today. And yet, he had the strangest feeling that all was not what it seemed.

  Jake looked across at his daily flip calendar. It was still set to yesterday. It was very rare that he forgot to change the day on the calendar. Setting it ahead the night before was automatic to Jake. It was so much a part of his routine that it would take great effort for him to not set the calendar. He also found it strange that he would have set his alarm when he knew perfectly well that the next day was Saturday.

  Maybe amongst the drama, confusion and heartache of yesterday he'd set it without thinking, but he did not remember setting his alarm, and he was sure he'd changed his calendar. With every waking second of the day so far, he was feeling more and more confused.

  His confused state was greatly multiplied when he heard a noise in the en-suite bathroom, which was to the left of the bed by about six feet. He heard someone moving around, and clearly not making much of an effort to keep quiet. The toilet flushed and he heard the sound of water hitting the sink as if someone was washing thei
r hands. There was someone else in the house and they were within a few feet of Jake. He had been alone last night, with only the night sky and the rain for company. Who else could be in the house? Had someone else arrived in the midst of his grief that he'd forgotten about? A friend, perhaps, or a relative? The last thing he remembered was his lonely shouting at the night sky. No one was there at the time.

  He hoped for a second that it would be the two mysterious killers from yesterday. He briefly hoped the two men had climbed back into their silver Mercedes and had decided to complete the set by removing him from the life he no longer cared about. That was a bit of a crazy idea. Surely, if someone was going to murder him in his own house, wouldn't they do it discreetly?

  He couldn't imagine they would make their presence so obvious as to use the bathroom, but he was familiar with the phrase, “When you gotta go, you gotta go.” Still, there were other bathrooms in the house. There was one on the ground floor and a family bathroom across the hall. He wouldn't have heard anything from them.

  Maybe it was a policeman coming back to check on him. Even so, they wouldn't be so impolite as to use his en-suite bathroom.

  Jake decided that he had either a very unintelligent, dragged-off-the-street type of killer to deal with, or some adventurous, homicidal thrill-seeker who enjoyed building the tension with their victims before putting them out of their misery. In either case, he didn't like any thoughts that were arising concerning his demise and departure from this life. It was true that he wanted to be with his family again, but he'd prefer to decide how he went, where and why. At the very least he wanted to take some action that would have the whole ordeal over with very quickly. He was not about to be dictated to by a serial killer.

  He decided to lie still under the duvet and spring on this person as soon as they lifted the sheet. He could catch them unaware if they expected him to still be asleep. That was, of course, unless they opened fire on him as he lay on the bed, which would scupper his seconds-old plan.

  He spread out a little bit under the cover. He still only occupied the right hand side of the bed, even though the other side would lie empty. He stretched out his arms. His left arm drew his attention. The other side of the bed was warm, and the mattress had a slight dip in it. Someone had slept there last night.

  It could have been that he moved around a lot in his sleep, but he didn't think he had. His side of the bed was just as warm, so he hadn't just moved over before waking up.

  He heard quiet humming. He recognised the voice, but it didn't make sense. It was clearly the voice of his now deceased wife, Amy. Jake started to doubt his sanity. Here he was, thinking his wife was either back from the grave, that she was haunting him, or that he had somehow transported back to yesterday.

  He didn't change his calendar last night, he set his alarm, and he kept both sides of the bed warm. There was probably no one in his bathroom. His imagination was, without equivocation, running wild. He was going insane, but that seemed like it could be the only logical conclusion for someone who had just lost everything.

  The en-suite bathroom door opened and closed again. There was definitely someone else there, and they weren't being very discreet. There were footsteps approaching the bed. Okay, here we go, he thought.

  The duvet lifted at the same time as he heard Amy's voice say, “You can't hide under that duvet, Jake. Friday morning. You need to be getting up.” She climbed back into bed and lay down, pulling the duvet over herself. “But maybe we can get away with another five minutes.”

  Jake couldn't believe what was happening. Yesterday did happen, didn't it? Everything seemed to point to today being the very same day as yesterday, but how could that be possible? He had experienced vivid dreams in the past, but his entire yesterday surely could not have been one. He remembered every exact thing that happened. He knew what had been said and by whom, and he remembered every little thing and every little detail of Friday 30th January. This was a surreal situation. As much as he wished yesterday hadn't happened, he knew that it had happened. He would prove it.

  He clambered out of bed and threw on his dressing gown as he noticed the silver coloured stereo still in one piece. It was placed as usual on top of their tall set of drawers. He walked to the door of the bedroom and swung it open. He looked around. Everything was in its proper place. He hadn't removed the empty wine bottle from beside the doors leading to the balcony, yet it was not there. There was no wet clothing strewn over the floor where Jake had left such items the previous night when he had been alone.

  Still utterly unconvinced, he looked out of the window at his car below. He hadn't moved it since the rather incidental collision with the gatepost. He had remained in the house from then until now, with the exception of asking the neighbours what they had seen with one of the police officers who arrived shortly after the incident. He hadn't moved the car, but it was not where he left it. The silver Mercedes was in its usual position, minus the huge dent slightly to the driver side of the middle of the bonnet, which he inadvertently caused just seconds after the new central point of his life. The stereo, previously seen in the bedroom, was of course not lying in several pieces on the ground next to his car. The police were no longer outside his house, and the yellow incident tape which had cordoned off the crime scene last night was nowhere to be seen now. Everything had somehow undone itself.

  He heard his two children talking along the landing as they played happily. Everything in his life was back to the way it should have been, and he had no idea how that was possible.

  Something beyond strange was going on here. He remembered his yell into the dark abyss of a ferocious thunder storm several hours ago. Although his memory of the yesterday's events during daylight were clear, the evening with its drunken mourning was far less clear. Through his clouded memory of the last events of the evening, he remembered one specific wish. Could it be that the seemingly coincidental and unreal reply to his lament into the night was actually a real response to his wish?

  Wish. The word had been spelled out across the distant stormy horizon for perhaps a fraction of a second during one freaky moment. And, of course, he had made that wish, although with not the remotest expectation or belief that it could possibly come true. How, then, could he even begin to explain what was so clearly real and yet so clearly impossible at the same time?

  There he stood, in yesterday. A day which had ended in catastrophe and disaster was once again in its infancy. He did not know how it happened, nor did he know why such a wish had been granted. Somehow the events of yesterday had been reversed, ready to be repeated. It was as if his life was recorded on video tape and someone had hit the rewind button.

  There was nothing special about him and his family. He wasn't the only one to have suffered loss from a tragedy. What made his grief so different that it would qualify him for a second chance?

  He decided he was going crazy. This couldn't happen. How could it happen? Was he losing his mind? It must have been a very, very real dream. He must be transforming into some kind of clairvoyant or prophet. Nobody had such clear visions of the future, especially not normal people in normal situations.

  It was time for Jake to see if the day was going to be exactly the same as his yesterday. His worst fear had been realised, then reversed. He would experience it all for a second time unless he did something about it. He could not bear the thought. Once had been bad enough. He could not allow himself to contemplate the possibility that he would have to experience it all over again, like a horror version of Groundhog Day.

  He showered quickly and got dressed. He wore the same suit that he often put on for work. It was charcoal grey and made of new wool. He didn't much like the pale blue pinstripe running through the suit jacket and trousers. At first glance it looked white, but on closer inspection it was obvious that it was not. His wife had picked out the suit for him. She was beautiful, and perfect in many ways, but her choice in clothing for others left something to be desired.

&nb
sp; Jake wore the suit to work for two main reasons. The first was that he didn't care much about the opinions of his associates in the professional world, especially when it came to fashion sense. The second reason was so he could wear it out as quickly as possible and pick out a suit that he liked.

  On first seeing the suit he was currently wearing, he stopped using the phrase, “Anything you pick out for me would be as perfect as you are.” He would pick out his own clothes in future, but he would do so in as polite a way as possible.

  He let his mind drift away for a minute. Again, he was surprised that he was able to do so on such an important day. It wasn't important for most people on the planet, but right now this was the turning point in Jake's life. The worst thing that could happen today was a repeat of yesterday because he had some sort of lapse in concentration.

  Jake started to make his way down the stairs for breakfast. He figured that a discussion over plans for the day may be drastically different from the previous version as a result of his own input. Whatever he said at breakfast could potentially put in motion the saving of the lives of his family.

  He made his way down the open staircase and turned to his left at the base of the stairs, through the open doorway into the dining room. He made his way through the dining room towards the kitchen. The house had doorways linking the rooms on the ground floor of the house. He could also have turned right at the base of the stairwell and still made his way there, but the distance was marginally shorter through the dining room due to the location of doorways and walls.

  As he walked through the archway into the kitchen he approached the small round beech wood table where they usually had breakfast. The usual noisy breakfast was underway.

  It was quite rare that the family sat around the large solid wooden table in the dining room for a meal. The furniture was expensive and the children were still too young to appreciate it. That was his wife's decision, but one that he agreed with.