The Strange Case of the Jackson Building

Chapter 19 - Enigma

Chapter Nineteen

Enigma

"Where are you?"

"Campus Library," Petra replied to her laptop screen, in a whisper.

"You look sick. Are you okay?" Olivia asked, her voice deep into Petra's ears thanks to the phones she was wearing. Petra nodded in response. She wasn't surprised at Olivia's remark. After falling asleep on a cold park's bench the night before, it was natural that she looked even paler and more tired than usual.

Olivia hadn't commented on her hair and Petra was still trying to decide if that was a good thing.

"So, what do you want to talk to me about?" her friend asked, now sporting her own hair in a dark blue shade.

"Remember when I first got here, you told me those things about people disappearing?"

"Yeah..."

"How did you know that?" Petra asked. "Did you do any research?"

"Yes, I searched for news related to your address. I ended up reading about its history, too, because it is actually kind of interesting. Hold on... I'll send you the links."

Petra nodded again. "Thanks."

"At your service," Olivia said, with a smile and a playful wink. "There you go."

In Petra's laptop screen there were now several links at her disposal, all entitled Jackson Building.

"Jackson Building?" she asked, out loud.

"Yeah, that's the name of your building," Olivia said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "You didn't know that?"

"Didn't really know it had a name, no," Petra admitted. "It's not exactly written on it." She took another look at the links her friend sent her. "So these are all news of missing people?"

"There's a little bit of everything, honestly. People disappearing on the neighborhood, ancient inhabitants missing, others found dead, a few institutionalized, later found dead as well, suicides... But you shouldn't read them. I didn't read all of them. Those stories will make anyone paranoid. Besides, it's natural that the building has so much history, I mean, it's really old."

"How old?" Petra asked, opening a link to an article that spoke of the building's origins.

"Really old," Olivia answered while lighting a cigarette. "It was built in 1931, if I'm not mistaken, by order of Kwame Jackson, a jazz singer that was really famous and rich at the time."

"Kwame Jackson? I don't think I ever heard of him."

"His career hit its prime in 1925, I think. It was during the Golden Era of Jazz, many others were stealing the spotlight, it's natural that we don't know of him," Olivia explained. "Anyway, so he got the Jackson Building built, probably as an investment or something, since it was supposed to be a grand, luxurious hotel."

"So what happened?" Petra asked, skimming through the article.

"No one knows," Olivia replied, with a shrug. "He changed his mind, I guess. It's pretty odd, actually, because he spent all this money on it and then did nothing with it. That's why the building got famous at the time, actually. First, because it was so ugly, it would never make it as a Grand Hotel and second, because Kwame refused to live in it or let anyone get inside it."

"That is weird," Petra agreed, wondering if Kwame already knew something was wrong with the place and tried to protect people from it.

"For years, decades even, no one lived on the Jackson Building. You'd think that, once he passed away, someone would make something of it, but no," Olivia continued. "For years and years, generations of Jacksons owned the building and continued Kwame's tradition of keeping it locked and inhabited. Then, the last surviving Jackson family member died in a car crash, left no one to inherit it and the City took over. Eventually, it was bought, renovated - and I use the term lightly - and rented for people like you to live in it. And that's where the story got depressing."