REVELATION: Book One of THE RECARN CHRONICLES (5 page)

It was impossible not to
want this proof to exist no matter how cynical and detached Aaron
tried to remain – emotionally he was like a child torn between
overcoming a level in a video game by using a cheat, and succeeding
by his own diligence and perseverance. He had been forced to
reluctantly admit to himself that despite his best efforts he had
been unable to come up with anything that could be considered as
substantial proof of reincarnation. All his efforts had been
founded on studying people from a retrospective point of view, from
the past lives that his subjects had supposedly lived. There was no
credible proof that the subjects were remembering things and not
simply regurgitating things that they had, consciously or
subconsciously, heard or read about and the evidence was thus
anecdotal. But now he appeared to have the opportunity – as crazy
as it may seem – to be the sole physical witness to an experience
from the past and to be part of its retelling twenty-five years
later by a stranger who could only know certain aspects of these
same experiences if he or she had also been there at the
time.

He checked the calendar again.
Nothing had changed. The date was still Friday
15
^th
May, 2015. It was half-past seven in the
morning, and at eight o’clock Aaron would go to through to his
office and start his day’s work. But today would be different.
Today, Aaron would be acutely aware of any phone calls, emails, or
knocks at the door. He would answer each phone call, read each
email, and answer each knock at the door hoping upon hope that it
would be Jake or, at least, the new incarnation of Jake.

Aaron was interviewing his
second subject of the day, a tedious task compared to what else
that day might bring, when his mobile phone chirruped loudly at
him

. He lunged at it as if it
were a live hand grenade threatening to blow him up and hurriedly
pressed the attend call button without even looking to see who the
call was from.

The phone spoke to
him.

“Send a text to this number
with the reply YES to participate in a competition to win a brand
new 4x4 off-road vehicle.”

He pressed the disconnect
button and gripped the phone hard. Forgetting that he wasn’t alone
he growled at it.

“
Why the fuck do these bloody phone
companies
keep calling me with this crap!”

The middle-aged
housewife who had been telling him about how she had been a chief
housekeeper at a stately home
in the early nineteen hundreds looked sympathetically at
him.

“We never had trouble like
that when I was working at the manor house. Not many people had a
telephone in them days.”

Aaron looked at her, giving
her a wry smile, all the while thinking that she had been watching
too much Downton Abbey on TV. He counted to ten silently and
proceeded with the interview. He was about to call his third
subject into the room when the landline telephone rang. This time
he did his best to remain calm and removed the receiver from its
cradle.

“Hello.”

“Hello. Is that Aaron? Aaron
Hunt?”

“This is Doctor Aaron Hunt.
Who’s calling please?”

Aaron was aware that he
sounded more like a company receptionist than a research scientist
but he was trying hard not to betray the excitement and
anticipation that he was feeling that day.

“Try not to drop the phone
Aaron. You know me as Jake Griffiths.”

Aaron nearly shouted out
loud, then he bit his lip hard to stop that from actually
happening. There was nobody else in the room but he felt
embarrassed at the way he was reacting. It was like he had woken up
just in time to see Santa Claus placing his presents at the foot of
the Christmas tree. He was beside himself with excitement. Was this
really happening? Was he about to be given proof that his life’s
work wasn’t in vain? He didn’t even stop to consider that he had
put so much effort into proving reincarnation, effort that had
reaped no useful results and that he was going to have
reincarnation proved by some other method, not his own hard work.
If he had stopped to think about this he may have reflected upon
how much time he had wasted chasing rainbows. But he was in too
good a mood to think about such things. He was beaming, whilst
still hoping that this wasn’t some elaborate prank.

“Aaron? Are you still
there?”

The scientist gathered his
thoughts.

“Yes. I’m still here. Sorry
about that. I just couldn’t believe that you’d called.”

“Well, I have called Aaron.
I want to you to meet me at the car park we visited in Maidenhead
Thicket in two hours’ time. No balloon this time. And no blindfold
necessary either.”

Aaron was starting to
believe. He didn’t recognize the voice at all. But the voice
obviously knew that he had been taken to the Maidenhead Thicket all
those years ago – and especially that a blindfold had been involved
somehow. Things were looking promising.

“Sure…I’ll be
there.”

“OK. Two hours then. I
assume I don’t need to tell you to come alone.”

“Of course. It goes without
saying.”

“See you there then. Don’t
be late.”

It was at times like this
that Aaron was pleased that his mid-life crisis – as his wife,
Susan, like to call it – had led him to buy himself a Yamaha 650cc
Dragstar motorcycle. Aaron was sixty years old now, and liked the
idea that sixty was considered the new forty nowadays. He certainly
didn’t feel sixty years old. The Yamaha was a beautiful machine.
Aaron kept it in pristine condition, paintwork polished and chrome
shining, even though he often used it for his commute to work. He
was glad that he’d decided to use it today; he’d been given a two
hour deadline and he’d rather have been late for his own wedding
than be late for this rendezvous. Today, traffic jams wouldn’t be a
problem. He walked over to a tall cupboard and took out his silver
full-face helmet and the deep brown leather jacket that he had
bought at the Hard Rock Café in Rio de Janeiro several years
earlier. He liked the weight of the jacket on his body – he felt
like a real biker when he wore it. Once dressed for his journey he
took a few deep breaths before heading to the lift for the seven
floor trip to the garage where his trusty steed was waiting for
him, but not before telling his assistant to cancel all other
meetings and interviews for that day.

“Give them my profuse
apologies and explain that I have urgent personal business to
attend to, please. And reimburse the expenses of those that you
can’t get in touch with, of course. If anyone arrives at the
office, the least we can do is pay their transport costs before
sending them back home.”

The ride to Maidenhead
Thicket was pleasant enough. Aaron liked the sensation of the
breeze against his body and the sense of freedom that riding a
motorcycle gave him. The traffic was normal for the time of day and
he actually arrived at his destination early. Too early in fact.
But this didn’t worry him. He’d been waiting twenty-five years for
this day to arrive and he’d rather be early than arrive
late.

Several cars were parked in
the gravel car park. Dad’s with children on an access day, young
couples taking their dogs for a walk, elderly couples reminiscing.
Aaron was admiring a particularly energetic German Shepherd dog
chasing a Frisbee when he felt a tap on the shoulder. He turned
round to see a well-dressed, bespectacled young black man in his
early twenties.

“Hi Aaron. I’m Thomas
McCall, but you can call me Tom.”

“And I know you
because…?”

Aaron wasn’t going to play
along straightaway, even though he thought this person was probably
the person he was waiting for.

“You know me because we’ve
met before. Except that you knew me as Jake Griffiths then.
Twenty-five years ago.”

“OK Tom. So you wanted to
meet up with me because….?”

“Because – as you know – I’m
going to give you conclusive proof that when we die we are then
reincarnated in a different body.”

“Well, if you don’t this may
turn into one of the most time-consuming hoaxes in
history.”

“It’s no hoax. You’ll like
it, Aaron. I guarantee it. Are you ready?”

“Sure.”

“Let’s go then. I’ll lead
the way.”

“You better had. I have no
idea where the safe is. I want this to work.”

“It’s not a case of it
working or not, Aaron. It’s a scientific fact. I am Jake
reincarnated. I am Simon reincarnated. I am Ruth reincarnated. I am
many, many others reincarnated. It’s just a question of you being
convinced.”

“Hang on. Haven’t we
forgotten something? What’s the code word?”

“Rembrandt.”

“OK. Just checking. Let’s
carry on. I’m just ticking off the list of things that Jake told me
to remember.”

The two of them walked
through the undergrowth taking the same path that Jake had taken
twenty-five years earlier, leading Aaron like a sniffer-dog might
lead its handler. The difference on this day is that Aaron was free
to see where he was going. It felt like a more direct route to him
but that’s because it was. Previously Jake had led him in a zig-zag
route, with a couple of U-turns put in for good measure, so that he
couldn’t calculate directions and number of paces on their way to
the site. This time there was no need for that.

After what seemed like an
eternity of walking they took a sudden right turn to be faced with
a wildly overgrown area of brush. Tom reached into his pocket and
drew out a pair of secateurs. He looked at Aaron.

“Twenty-five years is a long
time. I came prepared for twenty-five years extra
growth.”

“Very sensible. I don’t know
if I’d have thought of that.”

“I try to be
meticulous.”

The secateurs proved their
worth. The progress of the pair of modern day treasure hunters,
decidedly not dressed for traipsing through this kind of habitat,
was slow but they weren’t to be beaten. Finally, surrounded by a
natural fortress of thorns and barbs, Tom stopped.

“We’ve arrived.”

Aaron tried to look for the
door to the safe, but couldn’t see anything but a mass of hostile
foliage.

“It’s under that tangle of
surface roots.” Tom pointed at the ground right in front of them.
Aaron still couldn’t see anything resembling an entrance
door.

“Are you sure?”

“As sure as night follows
day.”

Tom attacked the roots with
the secateurs, but more carefully this time. Twenty-five years of
rain, even though largely protected from the elements by Mother
Nature herself, could have rendered the safe’s defences unstable.
He hadn’t shared that possibility with Aaron; if Aaron was going to
be blown up it was better that he didn’t know
beforehand.

At last, the area above the
safe was cleared and Aaron found himself looking at something he
hadn’t seen for twenty-five years. He was relieved that this wasn’t
all a crazy dream. Tom rubbed his hands together and then cracked
his knuckles.

“Are you ready?”

Aaron took a deep
breath.

“As I’ll ever
be.”

“Right, this is what is
going to happen. I’m going to open the safe. Remember, there are
forty-eight numbers on each dial to be selected, and they must be
selected in the correct order.”

“I remember. But what if
they get jammed? It’s been a long time.”

“Well, I’ve got some WD-40
that I’ll spray onto the combination dials first. Plus, to make
sure that nothing goes wrong I’ll cross my fingers and
hope.”

Aaron couldn’t understand
how Tom could remain so calm when there was such an obvious element
of mortal danger. He thanked his lucky stars that he’d written his
will and all his affairs were in order. But there was no reason for
Tom to be afraid. He had lived and died and lived again many times
before. Death held no fear for him.

Tom started the task of
unlocking the combination. He began by selecting the first number
on the first dial. Then it was the turn of the fourth dial at the
other end. Two numbers selected and they were still alive.
Forty-six to go.

Next he turned the third
dial six clicks to the right. The sound of the lock mechanism
gradually unlocking seemed very loud against the blank silence that
enveloped the area. The only other thing that Aaron could hear was
his own breathing. No birds singing. No insects rustling
around.

The tension was almost
unbearable. Aaron felt a desire to talk to Tom, to feel that time
hadn’t slowed down or even stopped, but the last thing he wanted to
do was to distract him. There were plenty more numbers to be
selected, and a certain order in which to select them, so he didn’t
want to distract the man from his task. It really was a matter of
life or death.

Time seemed to be passing at
a snail’s pace. Each time a number was chosen and was safely turned
into place Aaron gave an inaudible sigh of relief that he was still
alive and not in hundreds of pieces adorning the surrounding plant
life.