Death Prophets
Copyright © 2017
by Steve Armstrong
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2017
ISBN-13: 978-1544159478
ISBN-10: 1544159471
Alreadynotyet Books
Cortlandt Manor, NY
1
For the seventh night in a row, she saw him. He stood across the street, cell phone in hand. She hadn’t noticed that before. Previously, she knew he had held onto something but couldn’t tell what. But tonight she could see the details more clearly. There wasn’t more light than before, but it was as if a thin mist had been lifted, enabling her to discern the definition of his face. The rigid jawline and compact cheekbones suggested a man of strength, of action. His suit and black tie matched his short, neatly combed hair. This time, she could even make out his green eyes.
The man watched something in the shadow regions of her peripheral vision. He spoke into his phone, but the words were muffled. A certain tension animated his movements; this man was on edge about something. His other hand fell down to his right hip and remained there. This was where her vision had ended the previous six nights. Once the man’s hands dropped below his waist, the scene faded to black. But tonight, the moment played forward.
He continued onward, toward the area where her vision went dark. She felt her own pulse quicken. Something about the scene told her she should be anxious, too. Suddenly, the man turned back toward the way he came. A light illuminated him, but she couldn’t tell if it was a car, a train, a spotlight, or the very light that served as a boundary between life and death. But she knew one thing deep in her soul without any further explanation: she was seeing the moment of his death.
Grace Murphy gasped as she shot up straight in her bed. Once again, the vision of the man across the street had vanished, leaving her to the typical scene of her cluttered bedroom. She brushed her fine, red hair away from her face as she reached toward the little table next to her bed. Grace turned the switch to the lamp on the table, flooding the room with the usually reassuring light. But her mood remained vexed; though the man across the street had once again been exposed as a dream, it felt too real to simply dismiss because her bedroom was now a little brighter.
Grace retrieved a sketch pad from the nightstand and the thick pencil that lay next to it. She flipped through its pages—most of them filled with landscapes or eyeballs—until she reached the drawing of the man across the street. Before resuming her work, Grace stacked three pillows on top of each other to support her back and then settled in to add the new details to her sketch. She fixed his jawline by making it straighter and raised his cheekbones. Then she darkened in around his eyes. She placed the phone in his hands, fine-tuning everything until it matched her memories. When she was finished, Grace held the tablet away from her to get a better view of her work. She was satisfied; Grace had brought her dream to life.
“I don’t know who you are or what you want from me, but I need you to stop visiting me like this,” she said to the sketch, which was as unaware of her presence as the man across the street in her dream seemed to be. Her mouth stretched open wide in a yawn. “I need to sleep, but it’s hard when I’m afraid you’re going to show up again.”
Grace dropped the sketchpad onto the table next to her and scooted down the bed so she could lay down. She switched the lamp off, perpetuating the illusion that she could simply go to sleep after the dream. But the dreams had taught her otherwise. In truth, perhaps the struggles with sleep predated the dreams, which were powerful enough that even though they had only arrived a week ago, she couldn’t remember a time before their arrival.
Grace closed her eyes, thinking, They have to mean something, don’t they?
2
John Harrison woke up, scrolling his eyes from the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead to the machines on his left and right that beeped and sighed as they read his vitals. Then he located the young woman with the dirty blonde hair, sitting in the chair next to his bed, perusing her phone. She made every other part of the scene redeemable. When Julia heard him stirring, she put down her phone.
“Hey.” Julia smiled as she leaned toward him and kissed him on the forehead. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel fine,” John replied, ignoring the lingering soreness in his abdomen. A week in the hospital had reduced the sensation from the gunshot wound he had suffered from a sharp pain to a dull ache. Getting out of bed and walking down the hallway, however, remained a challenge.
“So the doctors say you’re on track to go home today. That’s good news, right?” Julia asked. For the first time that morning, John noticed the streaks on her face that looked suspiciously like tear stains.
“Yeah, I thought it was. Are you okay?”
Julia got up and stood next to his bed, placing her hand on his. “I was thinking—maybe I should come stay with you so you don’t have to be alone.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” As practicing Christians, John and Julia had drawn strict boundaries when it came to physical intimacy. Despite a few close calls, the couple had toed the line and had avoided even staying overnight at the other’s house.
She shrugged. “It’s not like it’s going to change anything between us. I just don’t want you to be by yourself.”
“If you feel so strongly about it, I can stay with my parents for a little while,” he said after considering her suggestion for a moment.
“No,” Julia said emphatically, her face tensing up. But it softened again almost immediately. “If it’s okay, I really want to be the one to take care of you.”
John paused before he replied, analyzing Julia’s features as he contemplated why she felt so strongly about being his caregiver. “Is something else the matter, Julia?”
His fiancée sighed and looked out the window, which overlooked the tree lined parking lot of the hospital. When John had entered the hospital, the leaves had just begun to turn. Julia’s view should have overlooked an array of reds, golds, and oranges. However, a week of rain and wind—the last vestiges of a late-season tropical storm—had stripped many of the trees bare.
“It’s just that while you’re in the hospital, you seem a little safer. Now, you’re going to go back out there, and who knows what’s going to happen.”
He squinted at her, partially because of the fluorescent glare in his face, but also to figure out what was disturbing her so much. “What, exactly, are you afraid of? Infection?”
“No.” She shook her head as if she had already dismissed this very real risk as a possibility. Then she sighed. “It’s because once you’re out of here, you’re going to pick up your cases, again. You’re going to start investigating Dan’s death. And you’re probably going to have to finish off your report on what happened with Mike Sullivan, and that guy Josh Williams is still out there…”
John frowned. “I’m going to have be a cop again, sometime.”
She bowed her head. “I know. And I want you to. I’m just afraid…” Julia’s voice trailed off, her emotion escalating as she turned completely away from him.
“Hey.” John tugged lightly on her wrist. “I know the last few months have been kind of crazy with me being involved in two different shootings, but that’s really unusual. It’s an outlier. Besides, I worked in New York City for awhile—I know how to handle myself.”
Julia crinkled her mouth, preventing any more emotions from seeping out. “I know that, it’s just that I get so scared. I have this awful feeling like something terrible is going
to happen.” She swallowed hard. “It’s like death keeps getting closer to us; first it was Dan, then you got shot; I just feel like next time, it’s going to…” Julia failed to finish her thought again.
John pulled her arm just hard enough to draw her toward him. He stroked her cheek with his other hand. “Who says there’s going to be another time? We’re people of faith, not superstition. So let’s not worry about what we can’t control, okay?”
That was his new mantra, an epiphany inspired by taking a bullet. But John could sympathize with Julia’s concern. When he had seen his partner shot, it made him grip the seconds and inches tighter. But being shot himself? Strangely enough, the bullet had somehow liberated him to release the things he couldn’t determine.
Julia did her best to smile. “I know, it’s silly, right?”
“Only a little. I know this has been hard on you. You’ve been here morning and night. We just need to get back to normal and these fears will fade. Besides, do you think you staying with me is going to prevent me from getting hurt again? You’re not exactly some kind of ninja.”
She smiled a bit. “Well, maybe I can’t fend off your attackers. But I can make sure you keep taking your antibiotics, make sure you’re fed, and keep you from pushing yourself too hard, too fast.”
John grinned back. “Well, when you’re around. I mean when you’re not, I can run amok.”
“At least give me the illusion of a little bit of control, okay?” This time, she did manage an authentic smile, signaling that for the moment, she had emerged from the shadows of her fears.
John returned her affectionate expression. “Okay, you can move in with me. But you’re sleeping in the guest room.”
She cocked her head. “Of course, I am. What kind of woman do you think I am, John Harrison?”
Julia bent down to kiss him. Approaching footsteps disrupted their show of affection. A tall, lean and slightly scruffy man who bore a striking resemblance to John entered the doorway, his hands stuffed into his pockets. Julia rose to attention.
“Hi, Matt,” she said, her expression cordial. John stared at his visitor without reaction.
“Nice to see you again, Jules.” He smiled at Julia, then turned his gaze to John. “Detective Harrison.”
John said nothing in reply. His fiancée’s head swiveled between him and Matt. After a moment of silence, she said, “Well, I should be heading off to work, now. Bye, John.” She kissed him again, gave a small wave to Matt, then skirted past him out the door. With Julia removed from the picture, Matt took a few steps toward John’s bed.
“You’re the only one who calls her ‘Jules’,” John said, his tone even.
“Yeah, I know. How are you feeling?”
John’s expression remained taut. “Okay. Doctors say that I’m going home today.”
“That’s good. Took long enough.” Matt’s eyes darted around the room before meeting John’s gaze. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Uh, maybe because I’ve been in the hospital for almost a week and this is the first time I’ve seen you.”
“Oh, that.” Matt rocked back and forth on his heels. “I did visit a few times. One time you were asleep, but I left that for you.” He motioned to a rubber glove that had been inflated into a balloon with the words “Get Well” scrawled onto the palm. John had wondered about its origin but chalked it up as the work of one of his co-workers on the police force, possibly Justin Lansky. “Other times I stopped by, Mom and Dad were here, so I didn’t stick around.”
“So what, you’re not talking to Mom and Dad now?” Though Matt’s relationship with the rest of the family had been strained for the last couple of years, John hadn’t thought it had deteriorated to the point of abject silence.
“That’s probably putting it a little strongly. But yeah, I guess you could say I’m avoiding them.”
“Why?”
Matt shrugged. “No reason. Other than it seems to go better for you guys when I’m not around.”
John meant to contest his brother’s claim but couldn’t find a convincing enough rebuttal. Matt smiled and nodded. “That’s what I thought. Look, I’m sorry I wasn’t around. It wasn’t for lack of concern, which I hope you know. I don’t think I could lose a second sibling.”
John exhaled. “Yeah, I know you’re concerned. And I know things haven’t been great between us since Sarah died, but I just wanted you to be here.”
Matt sat down in the chair that Julia had vacated. He pulled it to his brother’s bedside, the legs of the chair scraping against the tile. “Do you need someone to stay with you for awhile after you go home? I could if you want.”
“That’s okay. Julia’s going to move in with me for a few weeks.”
Matt grinned. “Really? Before the wedding?”
John’s cheeks reddened. “It’s not like that. She’s sleeping in the guest room. She just wanted to help take care of me.”
His brother chuckled. “Don’t worry; I’m sure Julia will nurse you back to health in the most PG fashion possible. Not that I would judge you if she slept in the master instead of the guest room; we are, after all, living in the twenty-first century—most of us, anyway.”
John ignored his brother’s mild criticism. “Besides, it’s not like that’s the first thing on my mind after I got shot.”
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never been shot before. By the way, how was that?”
“Getting shot?”
“Yeah. I’ve always wondered.”
“It was great. You should try it some time.”
“Hmm. Maybe I will.” Matt folded his hands together. “What happened in there that night? I read the newspaper, but the story didn’t seem to add up.”
John turned his head toward the ceiling. Something about that posture—lying flat on his back and staring at the ceiling—triggered the memories from 13 Prospect Street, as he watched Mike Sullivan move in for the kill.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” he said finally, after fending off that moment when he thought his life would end.
Matt shrugged. “Okay. Then let’s not talk about it.”
Matt leaned back in his chair, silent. John wondered what his brother was thinking. But he had his suspicions. He doubted that Matt would so easily abandon his pursuit of what happened the night John was shot. But John intended for his brother to never find out what really went down at 13 Prospect Street.
3
“Grace Murphy, will you get out of bed!”
The shrill tone of her mother forced Grace’s eyes open. She sat up in bed, adjusting to the light.
“Mom, what are you doing here?” she asked as her mother circulated the room like a tornado, throwing open the blinds before moving to Grace’s closet door and rummaging through the rack of clothes inside.
“You were supposed to be ready so we could go to brunch and meet your brother’s girlfriend. But you’re not even out of bed, yet!” her mother chastised without looking at Grace.
The harsh sound of hangers sliding against the rack in the closet, accentuating her mother’s unsettling presence in her bedroom, made Grace wish she had never consented to give her mom a key. Grace looked down at the clock next to her stand. Ten o’clock? How had that happened? The last thing she remembered was tossing and turning in bed while the dawn began to trickle in through her closed blinds.
“You need to do your laundry, young lady,” Marilyn Murphy said, tossing a blouse and jeans onto the foot of the bed. “You must have two weeks of dirty laundry, here.”
Just the idea of lugging baskets of dirty clothes down to the laundry machines on the first floor exhausted Grace. Grace met her mother’s gaze. Marilyn Murphy’s short curly hair bobbed up and down as she shook her head. Now that Grace saw her mother more clearly, she realized how old her mom was. The wrinkles and creases in her face, eroding away any remaining traces of her mom’s youth hinted at the passing of time and the grim specter of death lurking off in the distance. But maybe that inev
itable fate wasn’t so distant, after all.
“How is it possible that you sleep until ten o’clock and still look like you’ve been up all night?” Marilyn demanded as Grace stared at her. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
Grace blinked her eyes shut, but everything was the same when she opened them. She touched the dark circles under her eyes, trying to smooth them out with her fingers. Even though the dreams of the man across the street hadn’t materialized for the last few nights, Grace still spent the rest of the night fearing their arrival. The four hours of sleep she had managed failed to provide any meaningful rest; if anything, she felt more tired than if she hadn’t slept at all.
Marilyn departed the room so her daughter could change in peace. But even then, the sound of pots and pans clanging in the kitchen served as a non-verbal reminder that she should hurry up. After Grace pulled on the wrinkled silky blouse and jeans that felt way too tight around her hips, she struggled into the bathroom so she could apply a limited amount of make-up—mainly lipstick and something to cover the obvious lack of sleep her face telegraphed.
“Finally!” Marilyn exclaimed when Grace emerged into the living room, as ready as she could be to go out into public. “It’s like you’re moving in slow motion today.”
Grace felt like she was moving in slow motion, too, but couldn’t summon any additional energy to expedite the process. Mother and daughter walked through the door and down the stairs to the street below. Grace noticed her mother had a newspaper tucked underneath her arm. Since Grace lived in the center of town, they were within walking distance from the restaurant. The mid-October morning was pleasant, as the wind was still and the sun was warm. Normally, this would’ve been the peak of autumn color. However, the storms and winds of the last few weeks had brought an anticlimactic end to autumn, causing most of the leaves to fall before they reached their full color. Maybe that was why the bright sunlight felt muted to Grace, as if the sun was descending instead of ascending and twilight lay just a few minutes away.
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