Grave Dealings

by R. R. Virdi

  “That was Timothy’s grandmother and legal guardian.”

  That hit me hard. There was a reason the grandmother was his guardian, whatever it may have been, and she was gone now. The kid had no one. And he saw what I had—a monster doing God knows what to his grandma. I needed to get back in there and search the place. I didn’t think the staff would be keen on letting that happen.

  “She’s been watching over him for days now. He’s lucky to have her, especially after the stunt he pulled.” Ashton shook his head.

  I stared, making it clear I had no clue what he was talking about.

  “Timothy took his grandmother’s car for a joy ride. He didn’t even have his permit yet. It went...south.”

  I didn’t need him to tell me that bit.

  “Timothy tried to avoid someone, panicked, and gunned it, veering off the road towards a building.” Ashton gave me a level look. “The building won.”

  Yeah. Cars and concrete don’t go well together.

  “He was unconscious when they brought him in. Miracle he survived. The trauma to his body was insane. His grandmother was waiting until...” Ashton inhaled.

  “Wait? You’re telling me the kid wasn’t expected to pull through?”

  Ashton shook his head.

  I tilted my head in the direction of his room. “So, what was that back there?”

  He rolled his shoulders. “A miracle.”

  I tried to keep my face neutral. I didn’t believe in those. In my experience, miracles came at a cost—terrible ones. “A lot of those happening around here—miracles?”

  Ashton pursed his lips as he thought. “It’s a hospital; people are saved all the time. Some consider it a miracle when the odds are slim. Depends on who you ask.” His expression darkened. “Ask the wrong person, and trust me, man, miracle isn’t the word they’d use.” He put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed.

  He had a point. For every life saved, there’s always one that slips away. It was a bit of cruel balance in the world.

  “You’re coming to my place when I get off tonight, right?”

  I stared, unsure of what he meant.

  “Movie night?”

  “Everyone else is going to be there?”

  Ashton nodded.

  This was my chance to meet Daniel’s friends, and, hopefully, pin down what was going on.

  He reached into his pockets and plucked a phone, not unlike Daniel’s, free. It was wrapped in a leather case that nursed a small mirror on the back. Ashton spread his mouth, holding the mirror before his teeth. He ran his tongue over them.

  “Uh, I’m pretty sure your teeth are fine. You can still do mouthwash commercials.”

  He snorted. “Sorry, finished a quick meal before that fiasco in Tim’s room. Don’t get a lot of time to eat. Sneak food when I can.”

  “When’s your next break? We could catch a meal and hang out.” I hoped my eagerness didn’t seep into my voice, or that he’d take it the wrong way. I needed to question him and figure things out. If he was the oldest of the leasing tenants neighboring Daniel, he might know something. He could have heard or seen the monster. People don’t just end up miles from their home and drowned. There’s some noise to be made.

  Unless Daniel was killed at home and tossed to hide the evidence. Why tie his hands though? Dead bodies float. I raced through the points, trying to narrow something down that would give me a better direction. I ended up with imaginary arrows pointing everywhere.

  Ashton clapped me on the shoulder, giving me an apologetic look. “Sorry, gotta run.” He pointed a finger at me. “Remember, movie night, my place.”

  I nodded and waved him off. So far, my trip hadn’t gotten me any closer. Well, that wasn’t true. I’d caught a fleeting glimpse of the freak. If red mist and passing through mirrors were worth anything. They didn’t conjure any name of a creature I knew. I needed more, and a chance to hit my journal—hard. But first things first.

  I needed to pay little Timmy a visit.

  I ambled by, waiting outside the room until it looked clear. It took a while. An imaginary hook tugged at the base of my brain, prompting me to gander at my forearm. I pulled on the sleeve of the windbreaker, frowning at the result. Church could have given me more time. Forty-six hours wasn’t a whole lot. Not with what little I had to go on. I yanked the sleeve down to my wrist and grimaced.

  “Screw it.” I took a breath and relaxed my posture, strolling towards Timothy’s room like I was supposed to be there. I stepped inside and eyed the bathroom. The mirror shone like a mirage under the bright lighting. I stared hard at it. Anything that could pass through a mirror like that warranted keeping my guard up.

  There were a handful of paranormal nasties that could move through mirrors. I didn’t know them all off the top of my head, but if I did things right, I’d soon know what I was dealing with.

  After a long stare, I concluded the mirror wasn’t harboring any magical bullshittery. I made my way to Timmy’s bedside and crossed my fingers that the kid was in a mood to talk. My hand slid over the cool metal bed frame as I neared him. He was out cold. They’d either sedated him after the panic, or the sudden exertion of energy had tired him out. He wasn’t in great shape to begin with. I made a fist and rapped my knuckles on the wall above the kid’s head.

  He groaned and rolled to face me. His eyes opened to slits before snapping open. “You!”

  I grinned. “Me.”

  He stammered, fighting to find the words. Thankfully he didn’t break out screaming again. Timothy swallowed and looked around the room.

  I held my hands up in a calming gesture. “Easy, kid. It’s just me. Ain’t nothing else here, okay?”

  He leaned over, looking past me and rubbernecked for half a minute. “Are you sure?”

  “Positive. I came to check up on you, remember? You think I’d let something follow me?”

  He leaned back, placated. “I thought I was having a nightmare.”

  I gave him a weak smile. In my work, nightmares were a common staple of reality. No need to share that with the kid though. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, and it’s best to let someone keep theirs. I didn’t see the harm in letting the kid continue his life without knowing about the paranormal. “That’s what I’m here to talk to you about. You’ve been through a lot, Timmy—can I call you Timmy?”

  He nodded.

  “With everything concerning your accident, you got rattled pretty good. I’m a psychologist here to help check you out.” I was so going to hell. So long as it was after my case, I could live with that. Church needed to get me a series of fake credentials one of these days.

  Timmy waited in silence.

  “What do you remember seeing?”

  He pursed his lips. “It was real. It felt like a nightmare, but it was real.” His eyes steadied, and the look he gave me made cold steel look soft. “My grandmother’s dead, isn’t she?”

  I sucked in a breath through my teeth. Children are perceptive, more so than we give them credit for. Even so, perceptive and capable of dealing with harsh truths are two different things. The latter is something adults still haven’t gotten the hang of. How do you answer a question like that?

  Truthfully, Graves. I had a point. I released the breath through my nose and scrubbed my face with a palm. “Yes, I’m sorry.”

  Timothy said nothing. He held my stare until his eyes took on a hollow look similar to his grandmother’s. I had the feeling he was staring through me, not at me. The strength left his shoulders as he sagged against the bed. Poor kid looked too tired to even cry. Death can do that to a person. Sometimes it breaks you down a different way. It robs you of the ability to stand straight and function. It’s like cutting the foundation out of something.

  I placed a hand on his leg. “Timmy, you okay?”

  He let his head fall to the side, his gaze going to the window. “No.”

  I exhaled. At least he was honest.

  “It’s my fault.” His voice sounded like warbling strings.
“She’s dead because of me, isn’t she?” Something cut the strings, replacing them with cracking glass. He was on the edge of shattering completely.

  “Oh, kid.” I felt like I’d taken a hammer to the gut, heart, and the base of my skull. Survivor’s guilt is a terrible thing. Timmy spent who knows how long unconscious. Then he wakes to find a monster double-timing it out of his room, leaving his grandmother—a woman who spent days watching over him—dead. The inside of his mind must’ve been a blender tearing through thoughts of grief and guilt.

  I wasn’t going to let the kid be consumed by that. No way in hell. My fingers dug into his calf until the pressure prompted him to turn back.

  He stared at me, unfocused.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  Timothy didn’t look like he believed me.

  “It’s not.” I let stone and metal fill my voice, not leaving any room for argument.

  The kid nodded more to himself than me.

  “You saw that...thing, right?”

  He licked his lips before answering. “Yes.”

  My voice hardened past what I thought was possible. “That’s what killed your grandmother. I don’t know what it is, but I promise you when I find it—I’m going kill it.” I gave him a fierce smile.

  He returned a brittle one.

  It was the best I could hope for given the circumstances. I shook his leg and motioned to an empty space on the bed. He gave me a cue that I moved on, lowering myself to sit beside him. “Mind if I show you something?”

  “Sure.” His voice was strained, like the back of his throat had been clawed. I couldn’t blame him.

  I shifted on the bed, making it easier for me to flash my forearm. I hooked an index finger against the cuff of my sleeve and pulled. The windbreaker’s material rustled as I revealed my forearm. I turned it so Timmy could see the tattoo.

  He eyed it and blinked, unsure of what to make of it.

  I felt the same way. It was easy to show a random kid my tattoo, but I’d struggled to come clean with Ortiz about it. I figured it out a second later. Lies hurt, but sometimes, the truth kills. People unaware of the paranormal world can’t get involved knowingly. When you drag them into it, it’s not that easy for them to claw their way free. It ends in death.

  I exhaled and decided to give him the light version. “This is important.” I prodded the tattoo with a finger. “Let’s say it’s part of my job, and that job involves me doing dangerous things. What you saw, it isn’t normal. That’s all I’m going to say. But I’m going to do my job and send it to hell. To do that, I need to know what you saw when you started screaming.”

  The kid flinched, and I felt like something played my spine like a xylophone. I’m not fond of asking kids to conjure up frightening memories. But I needed whatever info I could scrounge up. That didn’t make asking any easier.

  His chest rose slowly as he took deep breaths. I saw the focus flicker in his eyes as he tried to figure things out. Timmy’s face furrowed. “I heard things, before I woke up, I mean.”

  I remained silent, rolling my wrist in a gesture for him to continue and explain.

  “Voices. My grandmother’s first. She sounded scared and excited at the same time, you know?” He groaned and shifted on the bed. “Someone was talking to her, she sounded nice.”

  She? That was something. Not much, but it all adds up.

  “I couldn’t make out the words. Or I don’t remember them—I dunno.”

  I placed a hand over my mouth to muffle the sigh. “It’s okay, kid; keep going.”

  “Then, I don’t know. I felt fine? Like I had a good night’s sleep, and I was waking up. I got up and saw my grandmother twitching.” He spasmed like he’d been shocked. Painful memories do that to people.

  I squeezed his leg harder, reminding that I was by his side. “It’s alright. Go on. What did you see?”

  “A devil.”

  Chapter Eleven

  My body felt like it’d been carved from thin ice. I swallowed and stared at the kid until his features appeared to blur. “What?”

  “A devil.”

  I shut my eyes, pressing my palms against them. Devil was a generic term people used when they couldn’t wrap their heads around the paranormal. Nightmares and things we can’t explain are devils. Sometimes, we turn people into devils when they commit unspeakable acts. It’s a blanket term, and not a good one. But given the circumstances, I got why the kid chose it. I only hoped he wasn’t being literal.

  “What do you mean? What’d it look like?”

  He winced.

  I stopped and looked at his leg, releasing my grip. “Sorry.” I didn’t realize how hard I’d been squeezing. Timmy would have bruises. But it was the least of our worries if he was right.

  God, don’t let him be right.

  “It was tall...and dark. I couldn’t see it right, really. It had stubby horns, like the tops were cut off. I saw wings, I think?”

  “You think?”

  He recoiled.

  I exhaled, working to calm myself. “Sorry, sorry. Go on.”

  “I don’t know. It just, it was a monster, you know? Not...like the devil from stories, but it wasn’t normal.”

  No kidding. I patted his leg and gave him a reassuring smile. “Alright, Timmy, how about you lie down and conk out, huh?” He gave me a dubious look that I answered with a lopsided grin. “Come on. I swear it.” I drew an invisible cross over my heart. “Nothing will mess with you. Last time I checked, whatever it was left after you noticed it, right?”

  He nodded but didn’t seem placated.

  “It’s scared of you.” I grinned wider.

  “You think so?”

  “Know so.” I pounded a fist on my chest. “Trust me. Monsters and nightmares prey on those scared of them. There’s a reason so many monsters operate in the shadows and darkness. They’re cowards. Remember that. You’re braver than they are. Keep that in mind, and nothing will mess with you.”

  He smiled and squirmed to relax himself.

  Phew. I couldn’t do much for the kid, but I could put him at ease and get a little revenge for him. I flashed him a smile before rising from the bed to leave the room.

  I passed through the door when a crash followed by screams tore through the hall. My body had sprung to action before I’d finished processing it all. I stopped as soon as I had burst into a sprint. Thirty feet from me, near the end of the hall, was an upturned cart. Food littered the floor. It wasn’t alone.

  A dark-skinned man lay toppled beside it. He looked fine, except for his neck. It was twisted at a grotesque angle that left no doubt it was broken. I cleared my head and crossed the distance to the scene.

  Staffers responded before I could get there. I exhaled and grimaced at the edge of the bustling crowd. A familiar face stood out. I tugged at the edge of her sleeve.

  Anna turned to me. Her eyes were unfocused and carried a wet sheen.

  “Are you okay?”

  She seemed not to hear me.

  “Anna?”

  The nurse drifted back to reality, blinking away whatever thoughts had seized her. “I’m sorry.” She gave me a look like Timmy had, more through me than at me. “I’m a little...” She stopped and turned to the scene. Her hand flew to her mouth.

  I pulled her into a tight side hug. “Yeah, I gotchya.”

  “You know, you see a lot in my line of work, but this is not normal.”

  She was right. The odds of someone falling and breaking their neck from an upright position is in the astronomical odds territory. The only way that happens is with a little push—the supernatural kind.

  “Did you see anything funny or strange before the gentleman”—I gestured to the scene—“that?”

  She shook her head. “No, I was just checking up on his wife, and when I came out...” Anna winced hard.

  “His wife?”

  “Long story, but most of her organs are failing. The shutdown’s bad. It’s been hard on him. He’s always visited though�
�every day. They shared desserts. It was...sweet. She’s been touch and go recently, and it’s been hard on him. He couldn’t bring himself to go into the room today, so I did it for him. You know, act like an intermediary. I’ve done it before. Sometimes it’s just hard for people.”

  I nodded sympathetically. “Yeah, I hear ya.”

  She sniffed once.

  I pulled her as gently as I could. “Come on.” Nearby staff members had the scene under control and were taking care to handle the poor dude’s body. I didn’t want to stand in the way of the professionals. I led Anna down the hall, away from the scene. “How’s his wife doing?” A change of topics always helps.

  Anna’s mouth twisted before she choked down a gulp of air. “She’s fine. It’s a miracle really.”

  Another miracle. Like Ashton had said, those weren’t uncommon in hospitals, but they sure were happening a bit too often for my tastes. “Oh?”

  “Yeah, she was completely coherent, like she wasn’t sick at all. I didn’t have time to run any tests or notify her doctor. And then, when I came out with the news, that happened. It’s horrible irony—cruel—is what it is.” Her voice snapped like twigs.

  A lasso roped around my brain, tugging it from our conversation. Everything that was going on seemed to boil down to something I’d seen before. I’ve dealt with miracles before and cruel twists of irony. They definitely came at the hands of a devil, or something close enough to one.

  But they tended to leave a telltale sign behind. I hadn’t seen any soot lying around, so I buried the thought. Too bad a worse one replaced it. Whatever was doing this had some serious mojo behind it. Enough to alter reality, but just how small or large of a scale. Regardless, that was a level of power I did not want to mess with unprepared.

  I pulled myself together and gave Anna an extra squeeze. “I’m sorry. Hey, how about I get out of your hair and leave you be, hm?”

  She bit her lip but nodded in agreement.

  I turned and moved towards the elevator, hunching over to hide most of my profile. If something was lurking around here with enough magic to kill on a whim and grant miracles, I didn’t need it spotting me before I was ready for a throwdown.