A Hero's Journey
A Hero’s Journey Jack Sawyer is a retired homicide detective brought back into the game by a rather unconventional villain. He will travel between worlds to defeat this evil creature, in an attempt to save a boy’s life. Jack’s journey will be filled with battles against evil, supernatural forces, special weapons aiding him, and his heroic deeds. Stephen King, author of Black House, introduces the readers to a handsome, intelligent, and articulate man looking for peace and quiet. Until, a murderer terrorizes French Landing, Wisconsin. The chief of police needs Jack’s help. This is the beginning to Jack’s journey with the Fisherman. Two children have disappeared from the little Wisconsin town and Jack has not gotten fully involved in the case. He helps were he can but he does not want that life again. Something is pulling him in though. He cannot explain what it is or why it is happening. Tyler Marshall, the third victim, has now disappeared. Jack sees that this is getting serious. He is getting “signs” from another world, the Territories. Robins’ eggs are showing up everywhere he goes, hundreds of robins’ breast feathers are pouring out of his home. He is at first quizzical about all of this, eventually, he realizes it is someone calling him back to the Territories. One day Jack receives a package on his doorstep. In it there are a few remains of the second victim, a little girl. He feels panicky and begins to run to the fields behind his house. “ There is a sense of approaching climax growing in his mind… something getting ready to break… to change…or change back.” [210] As he is running voices from his past or coming into his head and their faces are circling. Then, Jack “flips”, goes into the other world, into the Territories. Jack is not the only person that can go between worlds. The Fisherman also has this ability. In the Territories Jack walks along a dirt road and comes across Ty’s baseball cap. He believes that the Fisherman is taunting him with the idea that Ty is still alive. With this in mind Jack comes back to this world to talk to Ty’s mother, Judy Marshall. Judy Marshall has not been well these days and has been placed in a hospital. She claims she is hearing voices in the walls, she feels when something terrible will happen, she gets messages in her dreams about Ty, and now she is talking about another world. Jack knows she is not crazy by any means; she just knows about the Territories and cannot tell anyone who will believe her. Although she cannot travel like Jack she still sees this place in her dreams. She calls it “ Faraway”. She knows her son is still alive and trapper in the other world. Jack agrees to fight the Fisherman for Ty. He needs to find a way to get Judy’s Faraway or receive any break he can to start him off. For a few days he works with Dale Gilbertson, chief of police, trying to find any break they can. Then, a call comes in from a hotel on the other side of the city. A man named George Potter has been found with pictures of the dead children in his closet. The Fisherman has planted the pictures there and no one knows this. There is frenzy in the town as the word gets out. Potter is brought into the station to be questioned; most of the town shows up to. Jack does not believe Potter is their man but he questions him to see if there is some connection, maybe revenge. Potter tells Jack about a house in the woods, a folk tale now. This was a dark house a man he knew had built. Many of the men working on this house had become sick or injured on the job. They began to tell stories that this house was haunted before it was even built. Jack knows he has to find this house.