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Grim Fate

Chapter 1

By Nicho YoungPublished 4 years ago 13 min read
3
Grim Fate
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash

The autumn leaves slowly tumbled to the ground in a graceful dance that reminded the man of a dream he had once upon a time. In the dream there were men and women whirling around in ceremonial dress around a child who was lying on the ground, completely silent. Everything was in slow motion, and while it could have been a peaceful scene, there was something wrong about it. It struck the man as more of a warning and less of a dream; almost as if there were clues he was supposed to follow in order to understand the basic nature of the scene playing out before him.

The child, an infant, was watching the procession with understanding in its eyes, as if it already understood what the dance was for, and why it was being performed. There was something ritualistic to the movements; an appeasement dance perhaps, or a dance to ward off some unseen evil spirit. An itch at the back of the man’s head told him there was something familiar with the scene, something more than simply a dream, but then he had awakened. It had happened as soon as he was noticed as a bystander of the dance. And, as dreams most often do, the details had begun to fade the moment the man’s eyes adjusted to the darkness in his room. Most dreams of this nature are shaken out of the head completely, and this one was no exception, until the man watched the autumn leaves slow tumble to the ground.

The man wanted the dream out of his head, so he physically tried to shake it away. It worked enough to his satisfaction, and he moved down the street and turned into the driveway of a small brown house. The man was in his late forties, wore a nondescript brown sports coat over a black tee, and finished the ensemble with dark blue jeans and a pair of Vans. He carried himself with a confident air of self-knowledge; one that informed anyone around him that he knew precisely what he was doing.

He approached the front door of the house and stood there for a moment, gathering himself, before rapping lightly on the door. The man had been on many of these calls, and they had always ended the same way. Thank you very much and a nice day to you too. No matter how tense the situations became, the man never lost his temper, as most people he visited were sure to do when they found out what the man thought of their, how to put it lightly, bullshit attempts at fortune and fame. After the person would undoubtedly refer to the man as a ‘puckered asshole in need of a good ass whooping’ or some other affectation in that vein, it was always Thank you very much and a nice day to you too. The man had his rituals that he observed; not that he was a superstitious man by any means, but there were certain constants that can help a person grope his way through the day-to-day.

After about a minute the door opened and a haggard man that was most likely in his late thirties, but could have passed for late sixties, stared out at the man before welcoming him into his home. This man was John Billings, a single father of two young children, aged 4 and 6, and the owner of a lifetime supply of pity and well-wishes from the locals because his wife had just passed two months prior. The man decided he would allow Mr. Billings to be the first to break the silence, and followed him into the living room, where the children were sat in front of the television, watching some cartoon with a young man and his dog who appeared to be battling an old wizard king. Neither of them turned when their dad and the strange man entered the room.

Mr. Billings sighed deeply, closed his eyes for a few seconds—the man noticed a tear clinging to the edge of Mr. Billings’ left eye, and waited for it to fall, which it never did—and then gestured to the recliner. The man took the seat and Mr. Billings finally broke the terrible, sad silence. “It’s Grimm, right?”

“Marcus Grimm,” the man replied softly. “You can call me Marcus. That’s fine.”

“Marcus. I’m John. Can I get you something to drink? We don’t have much I’m afraid. Tap water, milk, or something a little stronger?” The sadness in John’s voice was deep. It wrapped around him and squeezed into his core. Marcus made a mental note to leave a therapist’s number just in case the sadness had wound its way into John’s soul.

“I would love some tap water. Thank you,” John said quietly. He hadn’t really wanted the water, and likely the water glass would sit next to him untouched until long after he had left, but he wanted a moment to observe the two children in the room with him.

At first assessment both children looked clean and well kept. It appeared that the older sibling was a girl, and the younger sibling was a boy. The biological resemblance was too great for them to not be blood related. Both had their dad’s slightly sloping nose that opened at the nostril end asymmetrically, one nostril slightly more open than the other. The girl had dark brown hair, and the boy had dirty blonde hair that may have been more strawberry when he was a baby. The dream came unbidden into his mind of the baby lying in the middle of the twirling dancers, and Marcus had to blink the vision away.

Neither of the children had so much as glanced his way, which he took as either a sign that they had no reason to mistrust anyone who came through that front door, or that they were told to ignore the man who was coming to the house unless they were called upon to give witness before God and man to the things their father was telling to Mr. Marcus. Marcus felt it was the former, which helped put him at ease a little more.

Once, he had visited a house where the father seemed on edge the entire visit, and the child, no older than five, had been watching television. The child did not glance even one time at Marcus; didn’t take his eyes off the TV for even a split second. But Marcus had noticed that every few seconds a tear slid down the child’s cheek and dropped off his chin onto his dirty t-shirt.

Child Protective Services arrived before he left the house, and the child was taken away from his father who ended up in prison after admitting to a jury of his peers to some pretty heinous dealings with his son. The father had been sitting in his cell, reading a book quietly, when two men came in and literally stuck it to him until he bled out. According to an anonymous witness there were two guards nearby that physically turned away from the cell and put earbuds in their ears moments before the attack. The two guards were given two weeks paid vacation and returned to their posts with no further repercussions. The anonymous tipper was sent to a different prison just in case the guards decided to punish him for snitching. All of that was purely speculative, of course.

Marcus had gone into the bathroom at the man’s house after watching the boy lift his arm to wipe away one of the tears and had seen finger shaped bruises on the underside of the child’s arm. He called CPS and stalled the man until they showed up with an officer in tow. That was one of those cases where Marcus saying, “Thank you very much and a nice day to you too,” was his way of sticking with ritual to keep himself from sticking his fist in the man’s face repeatedly. Marcus was a very forgiving person, but he did not abide the cowardice of a grown human attacking a child.

John broke through the reminiscing. “Are you all right, Mr. Grimm?”

It took Marcus a moment to realize that John was speaking to him, and another moment to realize he was squeezing the armrests of the recliner a little too tightly. He forced himself to relax and saw finger shaped indentations (bruises) on the chair. With not a little amount of effort, Marcus smiled up at John. “Sorry, I was remembering an unpleasant memory.” Thank you very much and a nice day to you too.

John studied Marcus for a moment, and Marcus could see a deep intelligence in his eyes. He was truly sizing Marcus up in a way that slightly unnerved him. After a few seconds of silence John nodded his head slightly and then sat down on the sofa. For a moment Marcus thought John was going to keep sinking into the couch until he was nestled in next to the loose change and food wrappers undoubtedly embedded in the under part of the cushions. John did end up sitting lower than Marcus, but the loose change was safe for the moment.

“So, the website said you deal with this type of—“ He looked for the right word to use, and his eyes focused slightly when he found it, “phenomena.”

Phenomena seemed a tad intense to Marcus, considering over ninety percent of the people that hired him to investigate their cases ended up being fraudulent. In fact, he had discovered that most parents were looking for a get rich quick scheme and hoped to fool Marcus into corroborating their stories. Mostly, Marcus could sniff out the ruse within five minutes of entering someone’s house, and he would take his fee, along with a tongue lashing and some veiled (or not-so veiled) threats before leaving the house in his dust. Thank you and a nice day to you too.

The boy with the bruises had been a five minutes or less house. It had, to be honest, been an open and shut house before Marcus’s ass had made friends with the seat cushion. Normally Marcus didn’t dwell on that case, but for some reason everything reminded him of it today. He made a note to call CPS and check on the kid. Brandon had been his name; or was it Braden. Whichever it was, CPS would know who he was referencing with a few key words. Marcus felt John’s gaze on him and realized he had not responded to him. “Basically. That’s a broad term, and to be honest, most cases are phony.”

John thought about the response for a few moments, and then picked his next question carefully. “Are you a charlatan, Mr. Grimm?” He still winced after asking it.

Marcus felt the right side of his mouth lift into a quiet smile and thought to himself, Well, officer, that’s when he pulled out his ten-dollar words and I felt insecure about myself, so I beat him with a shoe. John stared at him intently, waiting for him to answer, and Marcus realized the longer he didn’t answer the question the more likely Mr. Billings was betting that he was full of shit. “Not to my knowledge, Mr. Billings.”

“Please. It’s John.” The response was simple but put Marcus’s mind at ease: If the man still insisted on a first-name basis, he probably believed Marcus on some level.

And it was true; Marcus was no charlatan. He had no idea where his intuition came from or how he so accurately predicted outcomes or unexpected moves from people, but he had long ago put away the notion that he was just one lucky sumbitch.

The first time he noticed he had this gift was in the third grade. He was waiting for his mother to pick him up outside of the school’s entrance. A flash went through his head of someone, a man who was balding and had a yellow snaggletooth, coming up to him and telling him his mom told him to take Marcus home. The man was unaware that Marcus and his parents had developed a codeword for such instances. “Listen up, bucko,” his mom had said with a slight grin on her face, “If someone ever comes up to you and says they are there to take you home, but you don’t recognize that person, make them tell you the codeword. If they don’t know it, you scream and run like the dickens.” Something in Marcus told him this was it. It was game time. This man was going to come and try and steal him away.

He only had to wait two minutes before a man pulled up in a van with no windows (super subtle) and leaned out the passenger window. “Yer ma told me to come pick ya up. She been in a accident and I’m gonna take ya up ta the hospital.” And he flashed a nasty grin and there was that gross yellow snaggletooth. For a moment Marcus could only stare, and then he opened his mouth and screamed as loud as he could and ran into the school. The man left long tire marks on the ground trying to make his speedy getaway. Someone would later remark on how maybe Doc and Marty had come by on one of their time travel adventures.

After that instance, Marcus trusted his brain’s eye. That’s what he called it. And his brain’s eye had a near perfect record. The only problem he had encountered was when he was drunk or too emotionally involved; then the brain’s eye would alter small (or not so small) details. His brain’s eye had even saved his life on several occasions. Thank you and a nice day to you too.

“Well, John,” Marcus said, coming out of his reverie. “I understand the inherent desire to be skeptical. And, honestly, I trust someone who is skeptical of my…abilities more than I trust someone who welcomes me with open arms and agrees with everything I say.” John was nodding his head. “So, I will make the same promise I make to everyone who has hired me, and you can decide if you want me to stay. Sound fair?”

John nodded his head. “Fair.”

“Here are my three promises.” He ticked them off on his fingers as he went along. “Number one, I will not razzle-dazzle you. I’m not going to make anything move, I’m not going to go into a trance-like state and conjure up dead people, and I’m not going to suddenly feel super cold. Two, I will give you my honest assessment of the situation, which, most of the time ends up being a falsity anyhow. And three, I will not promise you more information for more money, meaning I’m not going to extort you for your cash. Does that suit you fine?”

If Marcus wasn’t mistaken, it almost looked as if John was slightly disappointed that there would be no physical manifestations of the spirit world.

John studied Marcus carefully for a minute and then looked at his children. “I think that sounds good. I just want to know what the hell is going on with my kids.”

Marcus furrowed his brow and nodded curtly. “Let’s get to work, shall we?”

**This is Chapter One of a completed novel. If you would like to read more of the story, please read and share and let me know. The novel is unpublished, but it is copyrighted**

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About the Creator

Nicho Young

I have enjoyed writing my entire life. If a story in my head interests me I want to tell it, no matter the genre. I have written short stories, a novel, and screenplays. This is a passion of mine that I am excited to share with the world.

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