Grave Intent

by G. K. Lund

  “Granddaughter,” Armen corrected.

  “How old?”

  “Three years. I’m showing you that because I am so thankful, Peter. Five years ago, my wife died.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. It was breast cancer, and it happened fast. I was absolutely unprepared for it. She was not.” His smile vanished at this before he shook his head a little and focused on continuing. “Anyway, I lost my purpose for a long time after that. My kids are grown and married, with careers of their own. And then, little Miriam came along. My daughter’s daughter.”

  Peter sat silent for this, oddly not feeling awkward at the man’s honesty about something so personal.

  “When I was lying on the ground, bleeding and in danger of all the fleeing people, I thought of this little girl and my children. How I would give anything to see them again. I had only swung by The Happy Bakery to get some pastries for their visit later that day.”

  “Well, I’m glad you got to see them, Armen.”

  “So am I. But that’s not all. See, when the doctor mentioned the possibilities of nerve damage in my leg, that saddened me. At this point, I was in the hospital so I knew I was going to live of course, and I was so thankful for that. Somehow I got even more than that. Suffice it to say that earlier this morning I was helping little Miriam learn how to use her tiny kick-scooter. She may only be three, but she’s a force to be reckoned with on that thing. She looks like a tiny pink lightning.” He laughed, and Peter couldn’t help joining him. “This activity demands a little running to keep up. Running I am very happy to be able to do.”

  “Glad to hear it, I really am,” Peter said and set the photo on the table before picking up his coffee cup. So he had done something right in the midst of that chaotic disaster. He wondered what he would have done if Armen hadn’t been pushed and hurt by the panicking man who’d shown no regard for another wounded person in his way. Would Peter have panicked and run off himself? No, not run off at least. Ben had been adamant he stay on the ground through the whole thing. He had been doing all kinds of things that day. Peter chewed the inside of his cheek a moment while considering Armen who drank carefully from his warm cup of coffee. The man had been frank about a lot of things.

  “I have a question for you if you don’t mind” Peter began with a tentative tone.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Something happened at Cury Square, besides the explosions I mean. I couldn’t quite hear it, but I think Ben said something to you. Something more than comfort. Something important.”

  Armen gave him a blank look as he leaned back in the chair and rested one leg over his knee, the coffee cup between his relaxed hands. “Yes, he did.”

  Peter nodded and sat up straight. “Do you mind telling me what it was?”

  “I gather you haven’t asked him yourself?”

  “It’s not that I can’t…but if I’m wrong.”

  “Yes.” Armen sighed and gave a small smile, not unfriendly, but rather resigned. “The few minutes the attacks lasted passed slowly. I guess it’s true what they say about time. It does not pass at the same continuous speed. I was hurt and bleeding from an explosion in a nice part of the city. A place people go to get food and drink and be together. It was a nightmare come true, and I was sure I was going to die.”

  “Ben was sure of the opposite,” Peter said as he remembered Ben’s comment when Peter had wanted to help Armen. It had been completely out of character. But then he figured people reacted differently to disasters like that. Armen simply nodded at his comment.

  “I didn’t hear that, exactly, but it fits well, I suppose.”

  “How so?”

  “As I said I was certain I was dying. That I’d never see my loved ones again. I think he saw it. It looked like he recognized that fear in me. He didn’t seem overly invested in this knowledge though. I guess it’s normal to take in your surroundings under those circumstances. But then he took pity on me as it were, and told me straight out that I was not going to die. And I believed him.”

  “Why?”

  “His whole face changed in that moment like your friend wasn’t looking at me anymore, but someone else. Someone… it’s hard to explain. Someone I simply trusted to know.”

  “His voice?”

  Armen smiled as he exhaled. “Yes, it changed. Lower, rasping. Almost like a whisper, I’d say, but a little voice in the mix.” He looked pointedly at Peter. “Wouldn’t you agree?” Obviously, Peter would not have asked that had he not heard it himself. Twice to be specific.

  “Yeah, he did the same thing before the first explosion. He knew someone was going to die.” Peter couldn’t keep from shuddering as he finally thought consciously of his friend’s eyes as they had gone white. Not back in his head, but white, as he had spoken with that unfamiliar voice, stating that people were going to die. It had been surreal, and even more confounding was the fact that he had been right as the grenades started going off around them.

  “How long have you known each other?” Armen asked after a short silence.

  “My whole life. Do you believe in such things?”

  Armen pressed his lips together and moved his head from side to side in a thoughtful manner. “I never used to, but I am old enough, at least, to know that I don’t know everything.”

  “I looked it up online. Tried to figure it out. There were such weird pages, almost conspiracy-like, it made me feel like an idiot for checking them out.”

  “And?”

  “There were a few mentions of something called a death warning, whatever that is.”

  “I think it might be exactly what it sounds like,” Armen pointed out with some amusement in his voice. “I gather this whole thing is new to you?”

  Peter swallowed some coffee and nodded before briefly telling Armen about Ben’s accident. He had no idea why he was being so honest, but it was a relief lifted off his shoulders to finally talk to someone – someone who didn’t look at him like he was insane.

  “Well, I wish I could elaborate for you, Peter, but I am as new to this as you are it seems. There are plenty of self-proclaimed psychics out there. Maybe one or two are the real deal? Maybe the accident your friend had, unleashed something latent? I don’t know. All I know is that he helped me when he told me the truth – that I would get through it and get to see my family again. It gave me hope.”

  “I guess there are worse things,” Peter said and drained his cup before putting in on the table.

  “I think you’ll find,” Armen said as he leaned forward and reached for the coffee pot, “that without hope, there are only worse things. More coffee?”

  Peter smiled, nodded, and held out his cup for the refill.

  Chapter 25

  I had been to Peter’s place exactly two times since the fall from Central Bridge and one would think that getting lost was therefore not a risk. As I walked past Ashdale Cathedral and looked up at its towering spires, that was not the case. Somehow I was certain I would not have gotten off the tram three stops too early in my previous existence. I hadn’t required a body then, so slow moving and rickety carts hadn’t been even remotely part of my daily struggles. Somehow, I was pretty sure I’d had no struggles. Still, it was best to start walking as I would be there anyway when the next tram came along. I also thought I knew where I had to go to get there.

  They had made it a little too easy I realized as I wound my way through the streets of Curtain Fields, the cultural district of the city. It contained most such institutions excluding the Ashdale Archives and Library. After I had woken up by the river and been brought to the hospital, Old Ben’s three closest friends had spent a lot of time in his apartment with me. They had keys. They had taken time to help out. Simply been there. After I came to terms with not being able to leave the body, I hadn’t minded much as I got frustrated with little to do on my own. Still, I should not get off at the wrong stop when going to Peter’s. When it came to Rose and Walter’s new house it was somewhere in the Northwa
ter suburbs where I always went by cab. Maybe I should change some things, I thought, as I passed an active flea market. Despite the weekend being over, and it being late afternoon, a lot of people had come out to peruse the possible treasures.

  I walked on. I was in need of Peter’s technological help and could imagine his eye-rolling at that, but when I told him why, he would be on board. A quaint little side street to my right caught my eye. It had small shops on each side of the street selling handcrafted wares such as textiles, jewelry, and pottery. And then – I walked straight toward it.

  “What…?” I heard myself mumble as I veered from my path. The familiar sensation sprang up from the nape of the neck. A returning reminder that something inevitable was happening.

  “I don’t have time for this,” I said a little louder, making a passing woman look at me with skepticism before averting her eyes and speeding up.

  I stopped outside the first shop, which was now something else. This confused me a moment before I realized it was another memory and not something happening right now. I tried peeking in through the window which led into a small apartment, but bedsheets covered the glass in lieu of actual curtains. It didn’t matter though as I soon found myself inside the space which I could swear a moment ago had been announcing a deal on handcrafted silver bracelets. It was not a bad place to live it seemed. In the front room was a small furnished living room with a kitchenette. Books lay strewn on the coffee table, one side of the couch and otherwise stood in a narrow bookshelf near the door. From what I could tell they centered on the topics of economics. A student was my guess.

  Sure enough, I didn’t wait long as the sensation was now ringing inside the head. A young woman came walking into the front room from the back. She had a long and wide green sweater on that almost reached down to her knees, covering most of a pair of gray leggings. What struck me about her was how these clothes couldn’t hide the lack of any real weight on her. Her legs didn’t fill in the leggings, her shoulders and hip bones poked out behind the loose and soft fabric. Her face had once been beautiful, I thought, but her gaunt and pale features showed a tired soul behind dull eyes and skin that stretched over her bones. Her dry blond hair, made voluminous by tiny curls, made her face look even smaller. She found her way to the kitchenette, which unlike the couch area, was pristine. Not a grain of dust to be seen. She found a glass in a cabinet which she filled with water from the tap.

  I stood there observing her prepare this. The sensation in the head felt like a scream of the inevitable. Something was there with me. Something that had to be there.

  The woman became dizzy. That was the first sign. She staggered a little. Clutched at her chest. She was young, maybe twenty or so? Whatever protests her body made, it was her head hitting the kitchen counter that took her away in the end. It made her unable to brace herself and knocked her out so that when she hit the floor, the second impact to her head sealed the deal.

  I stood there in the silence, noticing framed photos of the wall of her with smiling people. Family and friends. I was interrupted by a piercing blast that made the tiny apartment shake. I knew that sound. I also knew I would not be here much longer so I moved to the front door which had a non-covered little window. I looked outside and saw dust and plaster whirling around in the air. A man lay on the ground and screamed out his pain as his face was bleeding from several wounds and his left hand was missing from the elbow down. Around him lay parts of what had to be a Dumpster. It had likely taken most of the force from the grenade. I had no doubt that was what I had heard.

  I was back where I had stopped outside the woman’s little ground-floor apartment. I stood where I had seen the torn pieces of the Dumpster. Perhaps that was why the Grenade-man hadn’t killed anyone the first time around? He had been busy hiding the traps so that the blast always hit whatever was covering the explosives first? Too bad he had gotten more cunning.

  I glanced over at the little jewelry shop and wondered how long it had taken before they had found her. Judging by her photos she had been loved. On account of the explosion outside her door, I guessed she had been found in no time. The photos on her wall made me think of the ones hanging on Old Ben’s fridge. I had seen the beginning of the grief the woman’s loved ones would have felt after her death. I had seen it in Rose when I woke up in the hospital. A grief that had barely begun, and then been quenched. That would not have happened to this woman’s family.

  A buzzing sound from the phone in the pocket stirred me. As I turned and headed back in the right direction toward Peter’s place I read a text from Rose inviting me to dinner the next day. At least I made it there quickly with no more interruptions. The memory-visions worried me. They had increased and I had no control over them. Were they a symptom of the brain not handling whatever I was? Was that organ going to overload at some point? That was something it might be best not to think about.

  Denial.

  Lovely.

  Another ridiculous human quality to add to my list.

  “Ben, hey,” Peter said with a smile as he opened the door. A low electronic type of music was playing in the background, quite repetitive.

  “Yeah. I need your help with Evy.”

  “You know something?” he asked and ushered me in. There I found George eagerly at play, slashing a huge bulky creature in armor.

  “Oh hey, Ben,” she said and gave a quick smile before turning her attention back to her prey. Which died horribly by the looks of it. They were perfectly matched, I thought as I made my way through some grueling small talk. George actually knew Old Ben a little. By my estimation they were acquaintances. Luckily, Peter seemed to pick up on my impatience. He knew Evy was in a bad spot after all. We excused ourselves to the kitchen which was for the most part separated from the living room by a wall. Add in the noise from the game, which George continued, we could speak freely when keeping our voices down.

  “What did Olivia find out?” Peter asked eagerly as we sat down at the kitchen table. I knew he struggled with guilt from seeing Evy being forced into a car with the people she’d already escaped from once that night.

  I was about to tell what I had found out, or not found out to be more precise, when I remembered my promise to leave the long-haired man to her.

  “Oh,” I said without consciously telling the body to.

  “Oh, what?”

  “Okay. So I didn’t involve her.”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t involve her.”

  “No, I heard you. It’s only that stupid comment makes me suspect there are worse things coming.”

  “Okay. So I followed him myself. He’s been following me for some reason since the charity event at the library, and—”

  “What?” Peter raised his voice and then looked toward the living room. The sounds of dying monsters didn’t stop. “Tell me you didn’t say that.”

  I shook the head. “Listen to me. I don’t know why he’s been after me, but it doesn’t matter.” Peter opened his mouth to interrupt again so I held up a hand to silence him. It actually worked so well I remained mute a moment in surprise myself. “I turned it around on him and followed him that night. Then I did the same thing yesterday and once last night. No just listen, please.”

  Peter nodded and kept quiet.

  “I have followed the man three times now, and each time I have lost track of him in Cury Square. You said he was one of the people who took Evy, so I figure there’s a chance she might be there as well. Nobody lives in Cury Square, so why else would he go there? Especially now when there’s no one keeping their shops open?”

  This time, Peter took his time in answering. He gave me a curious look. “How did you, a helpless technophobe, track a dangerous criminal that was targeting you?” His voice was calm now; the words came slowly as well. Not the fast-paced talking that usually flooded out of him.

  I drew breath, the smell of an unfamiliar dinner in the room. I recognized only the lingering scent of lime and coriander. So this was where w
e were, I realized. He had been avoiding asking these questions. Hadn’t wanted to think about any of it. Talk about denial. But it was to be expected, I knew that. Change is difficult, and everything had changed after Old Ben made a decision that could warrant nothing else.

  “Are you sure you want to know?” I asked.

  Peter nodded his confirmation. “How did you do it?”

  “Do you remember in City Hall when those security guards stopped me getting in?”

  “Yeah. How did you get past them anyway?”

  “That’s the point. I can get past people without getting noticed. Kind of like redirecting people’s focus. Unless your attention is directly on me, you won’t notice me.”

  Peter frowned. “Like invisibility?”

  “No,” I blurted. “That’s impossible. Mass is mass and it can’t become perfectly see-through. It’s all about redirecting attention. Like a trick, I’d say.”

  “Okay. So—”

  “Wait, really? Okay? You believe me?”

  “Yeah, I think I kind of have to. I remember you disappearing in City Hall. And you did, in fact, get past a tight security checkpoint. Not one person noticed. Besides, those first thugs were vary of Evy. I guess she wasn’t lying when she said they wanted her as a weapon of sorts. There is nothing else in her past that warrants that kind of attention from any organization. That guy who killed himself was a violent, dangerous thug and he was scared shitless when she touched him. I don’t know what she can do, but it’s something worth controlling her for, and it’s not like she’s got the cure for cancer is it?”

  “Alright…” I began. Something had changed with Peter.

  “I don’t know what happened to you during your accident,” he continued, revealing he hadn’t accepted all truths, “but something changed. Something that’s not easily explained. But I guess I believe you, yeah.”

  “Okay then.” I leaned back a little and crossed the arms over the chest. “So the man with the long hair, he must have noticed me during the charity event because that was how I got away from Winter’s security. And this man also has a… trick.”