Chapter 27
Grant: Comrades in Arms
I’m too afraid of what we’re going to find at the Winter Festival site so I try not to think of it. From the stories I’ve heard, it appears the festival was the epicenter of the clusterfuck so I’d rather not think about dead neighbors and horror movie-like scenarios while I’m trying to be this hero kind of guy.
The town center is across the street from the high school, which I can see in the distance. I can’t look ahead to what’s in the center because of the trees surrounding it, but I’m probably better for that. We walk silently toward the school looking very much like the opposite of heroes. We are worn, torn and a bit shell shocked. I mean, look at everything we’ve been through today. Tell me you would come out of that unscathed. Tell me you wouldn’t be hesitant. Well, we are very scathed. And very hesitant. So hesitant we stop as a group when we reach the stop sign before the high school. It’s like we had the collective thought that once we cross that street, it’s both out of our hands and in our hands. The choice to go in will have been made. The choice to fight is ours.
What the fuck are we even fighting?
“What the fuck are we even fighting?” Stu echoes my thoughts and from the looks on the faces of Mrs. Beasley and Terri, they are thinking the same thing.
“What if we are fighting our neighbors? My classmates? My teachers? Our relatives?” Terri is starting to get hysterical and while I can’t blame her I do want to have a little movie moment here where I slap her across the face and yell “PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER, DAMN IT.” I take her hand instead.
“What if, Terri? If that’s who is out there, then that’s who we fight. If they’ve been possessed by these shadow things, we have to fight them. It doesn’t matter who they were. It matters who they are.”
“We don’t even know what to fight them with. Or why they are here. Or what their powers are. We don’t know anything and we’re all going to end up dead!”
We have to figure this out before we walk across the street. But how? In a movie this would be the moment where the protagonist goes off on a seven minute soliloquy explaining the plot to the audience who is presumably too dumb to get it.
My three comrades in arms sit down on the curb like bored kids waiting for the bus. I walk away. I’ve got to think. I make a right at the stop sign and find myself in front of the library. I’m staring into the reflective window of the Greener Valley Public Library, hoping for Han Solo to appear and either guide me as to what to do next or at least help me stall for time while I come up with a better plan than just walking into the havoc with nothing more than my wits. I wait. Han doesn’t show. Probably busy restoring freedom to the galaxy or something. So now it’s just me and I’ve got to be honest, I don’t know how much faith I have in me right now.
I’m about to turn away, gather the troops and go meet my fate but something catches my eye. Movement in the library window. There’s someone in there. A woman, not someone I immediately recognize as a Greener Valley resident but a woman whose shape and demeanor seem at once familiar and disturbing to me. I put my hand up to the window to shield my view from the light, squint a little, and I can see her clear as day. She’s an older woman in a bright colored dress.
I want to say what I’m about to do is against my better judgment, but I seem to have no good judgment at this time. It’s all haywire. I think “What would Han do?” and then say fuck it, what does Grant need to do? I look at the woman again and I know. I know who she is. She’s from the corporation. She’s the woman who comes here once a year to check on things. She’s the woman I fear and I have no idea why. I just know that my whole life, whenever she would show up in Greener Valley, I’d be nervous and upset the whole day.
I walk into the library. She’s waiting for me, over by the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books. Boy, have I ever chosen wrong. Should have turned to page 42 when I turned to whatever page I’m on now.
“There you are.” Her voice is dark and out of place amid the rainbow colors of her dress and the stark white of her hair. Even with the hair, I can’t tell if she’s young or old. She seems to be both at once, to be made of ancient ruins and to have been born today. When she turns toward me, I’m struck by her beauty, yet wary of it.
“Who are you?”
“You know who I am.”
I don’t need her to tell me. I know. She’s the cause of everything. She made this mess. She’s the leader of the shadows, the maker of havoc, the bringer of death. She is the one who made Greener Valley just so she can destroy it. She has been here forever, before I existed. I stare at her, fighting back the chills. I want to reach out and grab her, ask her straight up who she is and why she’s doing this to our town. But I’m dumbstruck, somehow enamored by presence as I am repulsed by her. I’m drawn to her and there’s something inside me, some part of me I don’t like, telling me to go forward as friend not foe. I fight off that part of me, push it back with all my might. I know there’s still two Grants. There’s the Grant of the old days, the one who would do anything to get to the top. The same Grant who would do anything to reach rock bottom. Then there’s yet another Grant, the one who wants to redeem himself for all that came before the clusterfuck of today. This Grant has to be stronger than the other. I reach into my heart, reach deep down in my soul and force myself to look away from her even if just for a second to regain my sense of self. I turn my head and think of the three people waiting outside for me. I think of everyone in the town center, what they’re going through right now. I remember seeing my neighbor die this morning, houses ripped from their foundations, the children rambling around, turned into little monsters meant to do the bidding of bigger monsters. The old Grant would either walk away from this or walk toward the woman, arms outstretched. This Grant? That’s the Grant I want to be. I shall be redeemed.
We’re engaging in a standoff of sorts. Neither one of us moves for a moment but we both know I’m not going to be the first to make a move. I’m just waiting to see what she’s going to do. I think once more about turning, running out of the library, but that would do more harm than good at this point. I know I have to face her. I’m just understanding now that I’ve known it my whole life.
She is still standing, staring at me. We stay that way for a few minutes, me shaking slightly, her standing absolutely still.
She moves toward me and I get those chills, that uncomfortable feeling from my childhood I had whenever she came to town, and at least now I know why. My innate fear of her has found reason. I think back to all those times she made her presence known in Greener Valley, how she never spoke to us, how she walked off into the night, disappearing among the shadows. I had every reason to fear her and now it’s too late for fear. I have to face her. No running this time.
“Do you know who you are?” I say nothing. Of course I don’t know who I am. I spent half this day talking into a mirror trying to assume the role of a movie character. Hearing her voice sets me back, weakens my resolve and I once again don’t know if I’m hero or villain at this point and there are a million things about this woman, about just being near her, that make me doubt my very existence, if not my purpose in being here.
“I know who you are.” And she does. I know this immediately, a knowledge that comes without warning. She was there the whole time. Watching me. My whole life. Hovering, spying, waiting. Every defeat, triumph, she was somewhere in the picture, standing slightly off stage like a movie extra waiting to be brought into the scene.
She comes closer to me. I think I hear her moving, a sound like the sea lapping against the shore. She’s not human. I know this without thinking about it. Maybe on any other day this would seem absurd but given what has transpired - and is still transpiring out there in Greener Valley - this thought feels right and I run with it. If she’s not human, what is she? Why is she in Greener Valley?
She moves closer still. A cloying, sweet smell invades my nostrils. Her breath is on me.
I’m besieged by memories, memories I didn’t even know I had stored away until right now. And she’s there, in all of them and they’re playing out in my head, an 8mm film flickering somewhere inside my brain. There’s me on the playground, just a little kid being teased by boys much older and larger than me and she’s there, mingling with the lunch ladies, glancing over at me but not doing anything to help. Just watching. There she is again, at my first art show, walking the room like a patron of the arts, eyeing sculptures but keeping a watchful eye on me. She’s there again as I flail through an argument with my manager outside the Bally Gallery. Watching. Another memory, walking with Cherilyn down Hollywood Boulevard, hand in hand, feeling that familiar chill as a woman carelessly walks into us. I didn’t recognize her then, but I recognize her now, in these memories that flood my mind. How could I have not known? Why didn’t I place her all those times? She’s been at this my whole life. Watching Waiting. But why?
"You know the answer." Her voice snaps me back into the present. I’m face to face with an inhuman being who has been haunting me in the guise of this woman.
But I don’t know the answer. I don’t know why she chose me. I don’t know who I am. I’m panic stricken and ready to flee. I don’t want to do this. I’m afraid of her and afraid of whatever answers spending time with her will provide. I don’t want to know. I’m better off being ignorant of whatever words she wants to offer me. I think once again about running.
She steps closer. Reaches out and touches me, ever so slightly.
My entire body shudders for a brief moment and I let out a small scream. Her touch resonates within me and for a few seconds I’m not in the library, I’m not anywhere. I’m just in blackness and in that blackness I recall vividly every mistake I made in my life, ever wrong I’ve ever done, every person I screwed over. It’s overwhelming. I’m reliving the most painful things, experiencing a mental anguish that is making my eyes tear. I wonder if this is what all those people felt before they died, what my neighbors and friends went through as the children acted as a conduit for this…thing in front of me. I think about my parents, about Cherilyn, about the people who will mourn me when I’m dead. Her fingers grasp tighter around my wrist and I feel cold, cold bones digging into my flesh, deeper and deeper until it feels like she is inside of me, reaching her claws around my heart, snaking her tongue around my soul, squeezing every last bad memory out of me until it all comes out in a whimpered scream.
And then as suddenly as it came, the blackness subsides and I’m left breathless and limp, a fighter at the end of ten rounds. She is standing inches away from my face. The smell of flowers is strong. Her face is next to mine, close enough so that if one saw us from afar they would think we were kissing. Everything I felt when she touched me, everything that went through my head, all the pain I felt, it’s still with me, still announcing itself with every beat of my hammering heart. I want to die. Suddenly that’s all I can think of. I want to die.
“Do you know yourself now?”
She moves away from me and I exhale, unaware that I had even stopped breathing. I feel everything draining out of me with that breath. But some of the fear leaves me, too, and I confront her.
“What do you want?” I hiss at her. I don’t expect an explanation. I say this mostly as a way of making myself feel less like a coward, like I’m doing something to move the situation forward instead of running away.
“I want it all,” she whispers. “But I’ll settle for you.”'
My stomach leaps and I think I’m about to throw up. I remember the only thing I’ve eaten today is a cold turkey hot dog and I don’t want to see that come up. I don’t know why, but my thought here is that throwing up in front of her would be embarrassing. God forbid I embarrass myself in front of some dark entity that wants to devour me. How gauche.
“Come with me.” She extends a hand. Slender fingers, pale, flawless skin. I imagine her as a hand model back in her youthful days then I realize she probably never had any youthful days. She was always this person, this thing. She has never been anyone else but the lady in the bright dress who sneaks off into the woods at the change of the season, the lady who smells like a cemetery floral arrangement and is made of old bones and death.
She pulls her hand back when I don’t extend mine. “Have it your way. But I don’t think you’ll like your way in the end.” She smiles, shows me her teeth. For a beautiful lady she sure casts a sinister glow.
I don’t know what possesses me, maybe that new found heroism trait I seemed to have developed over the past few hours is at work here, or maybe it’s just something born of fear, but I lunge at her. I have no weapon except my hands and my terror, and it’s my terror that forces me on her, my fear that she’s going to destroy whatever is left of my town.
I reach for her neck, attempt to put my hands around her and squeeze the darkness out of her.
But she’s gone. My hands swipe at air.
She’s gone.
Was she ever there?
I walk back outside and look in the window again to see if she’s returned. I’m left looking at myself and I don’t like what I see. Which is nothing unusual. Today, though, it’s less self-loathing and more “holy shit, you look like you’ve been through a war.” I don’t look like a hero. I look maybe like the hero’s sidekick. The guy who fetches things. The guy who plays straight man to the hero’s jokes. The guy who is not the hero, but is the closest thing he’ll ever get to being one so he makes the best of being second place.
Wait. What if I’m not the hero? What if we’ve got this all wrong? I go over the events of the day in my mind, layer them like I’m painting. I put together a quick timeline, think about the details I got from Terri and Mrs. B. and Stu and…Stu.
Stu.
We’ve been using Stu as a weapon against the evil but maybe he’s less weapon and more the prize.
I rush back to the trio, but I see only Terri.
“Where did they go?”
“Stu was hungry. They went to see if they could get some candy or something from the gas station.”
“This isn’t a great time…”
“He was kind of insistent.”
“Well, I just thought of something.”
Terri stares at me, waiting. I say nothing.
“Are you going to tell me or did you decide this is a good time to start keeping secrets?”
“Well, it’s a stretch, but this whole thing kind of started happening last night.”
“Everything was fine last night.”
“Was it? Don’t the snow clouds usually roll in the night before? Don’t we get some flurries before the good stuff starts falling right before the ceremony?”
“Yea….”
“Did we?”
I honestly couldn’t remember because I started on my drinking binge at about 9pm. But I do know I was standing outside with a bottle of gin and I said out loud, to no one in particular, that it felt warm. I made nothing of it because I was already stoned on Vicodin and my thought process couldn’t reach that far.
“No. The skies were clear. I was on the football field with some kids from school. We were…well, you know the Winter Festival eve tradition.”
They were doing what I was doing in my backyard. Drinking and getting stoned.
“I said something about how clear the sky was. But none of us thought it weird or anything. You just figure the clouds will come in the morning.”
Because in Greener Valley, everything happened with regularity. It’s like the town took a daily dose of fiber every day just to keep regular.
I go over everything with Terri. How Stu got fired last night, how the shadows suddenly appeared in Greener Valley, everything that happened after. I want to see if she comes to the same conclusion as I do. That the shadows are the manifestation of everything rotten in Denmark. Denmark being here. Greener Valley. Of course. And while the shadows are the culmination of all that is bad here, Stu is the opposite of that. Stu, for lack of a better word, is our archangel.
“And once Stu was fired and Scratch and Skip was effectively gone, the angel and its choir were silenced.” I blurt this out to Terri and I can’t tell by her flat affect if she’s getting it or not.
“That sounds like a verse out of the bible if it was written by Neil Gaiman.”
I smile at her. We’d have to discuss Neil Gaiman together some day. When we didn’t have a town to save.
“Stu seems like an odd choice for an angel,” Terri says.
“He’s not really an angel. There are no angels, just like there are no devils. There are just people who do good and people and things that do bad. He’s here to do good, to do battle with…Her.”
“Who is Her?” Now Terri is genuinely confused.
I explain what happened in the library. She nods in all the right places and doesn’t even seem alarmed at what I’m relaying to her. After everything this poor girl has seen today, I think a mysterious, goddess like woman who wants to swallow my soul doesn’t seem far fetched or out of place at all.
“So maybe he’s not an angel,” she says, picking up where we left off about Stu. “But he’s an agent. He’s working on behalf of someone or something. Somehow, his show and his music kept this town safe from harm. Safe from Her. Like a spell. When he got fired, the spell broke.”
“I don’t think it was even when he got fired. I mean, maybe that started it, but it was when he said motherfucker that everything really went to hell.”
“It lifted the veil.”
“And revealed us for what we really are.”
We’re quiet for a minute or two. This is deep stuff. I feel like I’m living someone else’s life right now. It’s that WalMart parking lot feeling all over again. I want to shake my head and clear it of everything that has happened.
“So Stu is the hero?” Terri says.
“Not so much the hero as the bait.”
“Mr. Grant! Mr. Grant! Stu is dead!”
Mrs. Beasley is running across the street, looking very suddenly like the old lady I saw on my lawn this morning and not the stoic, calm woman who has helped us through this day. She hasn’t called me Mr. Grant since she first appeared on my doorstep – my god was that really only this morning? – with my peed-on newspaper in hand, screaming children at her feet. Through this whole ordeal she’s been some other woman, not the Mrs. Beasley I thought I knew, not the Mrs. Beasley who made non sequiturs on my couch as I painted her into an otherworldly portrait. She’s been smart. Courageous. So is she out of character now or was she out of character then? Does it matter? Shouldn’t I be more concerned with Stu being dead?