Grim

by Gavin McCallion

  I swore and watched his outline roll itself over and off the bed.

  He planted his feet on the ground, swished his hair and swaggered to us through the low fog of the basement. He swaggered everywhere, like a peacock in a tee-shirt that didn't fit. 'She did it on purpose,' he repeated. 'And she better have a good reason.'

  And everyone looked at me.

  'I do, I have a plan, everybody be cool.'

  'A plan??’ Keys whined, turning each sentence into a shrill question. ‘What plan?? I thought the plan was to play well?? No mistakes?? Isn't that the plan??'

  'Aye, but guys, let's be honest here. We've never talked about it, but we're not getting kept alive after this gig.'

  Six rolled his eyes. 'Aye, cheers. We know.'

  'So let's escape. Let's escape together. Now, that kicking I took was just a kicking. I'm still alive.' I leant forward, favouring my ribs. 'Mute's gonna hurt us, but he isn't gonna kill us. He doesn't have time to train a replacement.'

  'Right...' Six nodded me along.

  'So what if we escape today? We go together, and anybody that gets caught doesn't die, not today. But if one person gets out and brings the police back here within the hour, just one of us, well...' I shrugged. 'He can't catch all of us.'

  'Uh... I think he could,' Vox said with a hand raised like an answer she wasn't sure of in class. She was the best.

  'Of course he could,' Six affirmed for her, folding his arms. He was the worst. 'He definitely could.'

  'Yeah, down here, but not upstairs.'

  'Upstairs??' Keys blurted.

  'Yeah, eh...' I sighed. 'Listen, been meaning to mention for a while now but eh... I've been upstairs.'

  'Sorry, what??'

  I would love to say I never found the right time to tell them, but I just didn't want to. 'Yeah...'

  'You want to walk us through that?' Six asked.

  'God no, sorry.' I wasn't sorry, and I wouldn't shift on that point. 'But listen, listen. The room we're playing in is a dining room, an enormous one that's well-lit. It leads out into a conservatory at the back. We break some glass and we're free! We could be out today. At soundcheck.'

  Keys nearly exploded. 'Well how do you know??'

  His voice was giving me a toothache. 'Jesus, Keys. Does it matter?'

  'Eh, yes.' Six said. 'It matters because your whole idea hinges on the fact Mute decided not to kill you, remember? Now you're telling us you got out and lived to chat about it. What did you do the first time? Did you shag him? You shagged him didn't you.'

  'Seriously?'

  'I didn't hear an answer.'

  It didn't need an answer, given that any such activity with the beast would split me in half, so I gave him my best get a fucking grip glare.

  He kept going. 'Let's be honest guys, we all kind of think Mute fancies her. Anybody else think they're lucky enough to be the object of his affections?'

  Nobody answered.

  'Come on guys, I'm talking about freedom here. Fresh air? Awful rain? Remember?'

  Nobody answered.

  I thought it'd be easier to talk them into an escape plan, it's not like any of them wanted to live in a basement. It shouldn't have been such a fight, but Six, I suppose, made a solid argument. Not the stuff about shagging Mute, but the idea that I survived being upstairs once already. I might have been a special case. On their end, I'd struggle to be convinced too.

  The line was drawn.

  They wouldn't look at me. Vox pulled her knees up to her chest, with her stupid beautiful eyes focused on the table. Keys looked at Six. Bass, who'd had no trouble staring at me in the past, found a sudden interest in whatever brutal painting hung behind me. I had lost the three people I assumed to be on my side.

  'Guys?'

  'Tell you what, Kit. Prove we're all as indestructible as you, and we're with you on this.'

  Oh, great.

  ~

  To be fair to Six, I figured Mute fancied me too, but that wasn't why he kept me alive after I escaped. It was nothing to do with Mute, that order came from His Lunacy, Judge Hugh Rabbit Jnr.

  I got the pleasure of his company over a spot of supper one evening, and it was fucking horrible.

  But I don't wanna talk about it.

  Sorry, not sorry.

  ~

  Sixteen

  Tom's Dumb Idea

  So, while I tried to rescue a group of rag-tag teens from almost-certain death, and about half an hour before Grim sauntered into a K.O fist from a semi-professional boxer, Tom tried to work up the energy to masturbate.

  He was... conflicted, I guess.

  He started out ecstatic. Dad had plagued his relationship with Mum like a phantom limb. It took years to correct the shit Grim left behind when he died. Each of them felt responsible for Dad's death, and his ghost (only figuratively in this sense) haunted them, nearly destroying their relationship. Tom kind of thought Dad did it on purpose. His final revenge - a dose of lethal poison to their relationship - was dying. It was petty and unreasonable, but he wanted to punch Dad, and he couldn't.

  But then he could.

  He tossed Grim out on his arse with the biggest grin on his face. One act of violence cured his awful hangover. For about half an hour, he revelled in bliss.

  However, when he opened up his new tablet - in bed and returned to the nude - and loaded up his favourite porno from his favourite website, he found himself thoroughly limp. Hungover all over again, he couldn't work up the energy to abuse himself. Twenty minutes later, he realised he didn't only struggle with that horrible little act, but absolutely everything else too. Watching TV seemed like a waste, as did sleep. Even the thought of going to the pub later didn't appeal to him.

  The punch cured him of a patient, nagging piece of his mind, but something had taken its place.

  From bed, he perused Grim's tablet and found nothing he wanted to do. He rotted in his own filth, entirely beneath his duvet, living exclusively by the light of the tablet and the smell of his rancid breath.

  It didn't take long for a calendar notification to pop up on the screen, informing him of a death due to take place. From there, he opened Grim's calendar and found himself imbued with all kinds of knowledge he shouldn't have.

  At the bottom of the calendar, starting at eight, he found an invitation to The Reaper’s Gala. He smirked as he imagined crashing a party thrown by the Court of Reapers. He would love to swagger into a high-class Gala and demand cheap beer. What better way to end a day that started with public defecation?

  He swiped up and found the names and locations of the people to die that day. Instinctively, he held the tablet further away from his face, feeling immediately uncomfortable with the information. At the top of the list, and to die within the hour, was Jo McIvor. Poor girl. On the hot streak of her life with fists fit to break boulders, doomed to die by the weight of a punch-bag.

  Maybe he could save her - he flirted with the idea briefly - but he couldn't.

  Regardless of anything Tom tried, Jo McIvor died on the 26th of November 2016. He wondered how Grim would fare without the schedule, the crucial information it contained, and only the cloak to point him roughly where he needed to be.

  He would be struggling, definitely, and he deserved to. He tried to ruin Tom's relationship with his daughter, and-

  Suddenly, Tom couldn't breathe.

  He shut his eyes and pulled the duvet down from around his face, taking in air that wasn't his own stale breath.

  ~

  Upstairs didn't belong to Tom. It never had. The closest thing he had to a home up there was the room he used to share with Mum. The others belonged to me, my aunts and my grandparents. Without those people, the floor was useless.

  Tom didn't go up there often. The stairs curved nine steps up and shadows crawled around the bend, warding him off. His conflicted emotional state pushed him up them without trying. At the top, he followed the hall to its back, breathing in musty, cold air his chest struggled amongst.

  He pushe
d open the door to my room at the end.

  On entry, the little fraction of his brain making him sick expanded, reaching outwards, swallowing him whole - hangover and all.

  In my room, he made the trip he had made a hundred times. It hadn't been touched since I left for college on the day I vanished: my unmade bed; an assortment of horrible clothing choices scattered across the carpet (clothing choices from the shit-hitting-the-fan period of my life, note); a flaccid drum-kit in the corner of the room; and a TV unit surrounded by a million (or whatever) DVD's in the wrong cases. Tom walked around, not really up to much, just trying to sort his thoughts.

  At my vanity table in the last corner of the room, he sat his shit-caked arse on my stool. It had a big mirror that made me look great, coated in ticket stubs and out-of-date photos I probably should've binned when she broke my heart. I had always meant to throw them away. I never quite sobered up enough to do it.

  Tom perused the photos, brushing past them with his filthy fingers until he reached a business card.

  Wonderland Talent Agency.

  He wondered what waited for me at that agency. He wondered why someone gave me that card. He wondered about my glamorous future in a world where I had given them a call.

  ~

  I know! I know!

  It was a future in a basement, hounded by a murder-cyborg to play the best damn music in the business or die by his hand.

  Wonderland Talent Agency.

  I auditioned for them and then woke up in a basement two days later.

  They did it.

  ~

  Tom would be back for the card later in the day, but he ignored it for now. It was just another dead lead. They were all dead: the photos, the gig stubs, the diary. To Tom's mind - I was dead.

  Probably.

  He was ninety-eight percent sure I was dead, but he got angry when the idea of Grim finding me crept into his mind.

  Tom's anger had been overfed in the year past. It became a swollen, gelatinous creature festering in his guts, eliminating emotions that got in the way. That little part of him he didn't understand got tackled down by anger and the sheer disbelief at the size of Grim's nuts.

  How many times did Tom have to get rid of him?

  He took his girlfriend from him, but he kept his claws in by getting her pregnant. It nearly broke them up. Tom held on.

  Then he died. That nearly broke them up too. Again, Tom held on. The relationship survived.

  Now he's back from the dead. Back from the dead to save the day!

  Tom slammed on the table, letting loose a frustrated cry and shaking various nail varnish bottles onto their sides.

  If Grim managed to find me, his first call would be May.

  They would live happily ever after.

  Tom would rot.

  He wouldn't let it happen. Not a chance.

  Tom was ninety-eight percent sure I was dead, but less than a day ago he was a hundred percent sure Grim was too.

  He needed to do something.

  ~

  I should probably intervene with my thoughts on what Tom ultimately decided to do.

  Tom's not an idiot, nor is he a bad guy. Tom kept drinking on top of what could easily be described as a string of emotionally jarring events - it affected his thought process negatively.

  He took some time to consider his skills, he took some time to consider his options, he took some time to consider his resources.

  He didn't have a lot of skills. He could drink like a fish, and once upon a time he could out-run anything slower than a car. He knew things about being a Reaper, though. As a kid, he thought they were the fucking coolest, and he put the study time in to boost his chances of being one when he grew up.

  Regarding his options, they were limited. Grim was immortal, and he only wanted to find me. He would be on the hunt until the end of time. To be fair, Tom used to think like that, and it only took him a year or so to give up. Tom, however, didn't want to wait a year to feel secure that Grim wouldn't steal his family from him.

  Fortunately, what he lacked in skills and options, he made up for in resources. He had a Reaper's most valuable resource in his "computer" room downstairs: the schedule.

  So, with all these things considered Tom realised he only had one choice - again, given his drunk and distressed mind.

  He had to kidnap The Reaper.

  A kidnapped Reaper couldn't do his job, and a Reaper that couldn't do his job got sacked, and a Reaper that got sacked got his immortality taken away, and a Reaper without immortality was dead, and dead men couldn't go looking for their daughters.

  Simple.

  Dumb, right?

  ~

  Seventeen

  A Pretty Poor Effort, Even for a First Try

  The Wilson Whirl - as well as being like a whirl (duh) - was also comparable to an onion. It was a perfect circle made of increasingly smelly layers. It had a crappy play park and a train station attached to a pub in its middle, then a layer of council-built shops around it. Beyond that, there were the old sandstone buildings (the police station, the library), then the old three-story houses, and finally a layer of slightly better shops (jewellers, opticians and the likes). That was The Whirl. The ageing, grey Whirl that somehow stifled out fresh air in lieu of a hanging pollutive gas. It did not help Tom's hangover.

  Tom had to travel through it to get to the coastline. He had to endure the circular nature of the roads, the horrible air and the noodles (and accompanying detritus) sloshing against the walls of his guts with every turn. He had to swallow his sick down a couple of times before he (finally) took his exit and got to drive on a straight road.

  The coastline was a lot of big houses with big drives with big cars. Tom’s car didn’t belong there. Tom didn't drive the car of a forty-five-year-old. Tom's car was creaky, rusty, needed manual labour to start, the driver-side door didn't open, and the window-wipers started and stopped as they pleased (this particular detail was spectacular for thrills on an island where it always rained). The coastline cars judged his. Tom gave his steering wheel a reassuring pat.

  Towards the bottom of a cul-de-sac by the coastline, the location of Jo McIvor's house became apparent: it was the one with the ambulance outside.

  Tom pulled his car into a spot, and - with a groan and minutes of effort - he got out of the passenger-side door and approached the scene.

  The garage had some tape set up around the entrance. Two paramedics shuffled a full body bag onto a stretcher.

  'Fucking hell...' he muttered. He expected to see a body on his quest to kidnap a Reaper, but he didn’t have to be comfortable with it.

  As he neared the garage, he found his attention drawn to a substantial pile of rubble in its middle - an unlit bonfire made up of woods, plaster and general bric-a-brac like photo frames, coat hangers and the odd lamp. He traced the mess from its base to its tip and to the hole in the ceiling from where it came. He could see clear into the room above. The plastering, part of a joist, floorboards and some of the contents of the room above had all collapsed right through.

  Tom's jaw fell open at the sight. He didn't understand how this happened. The building didn't look old, the ceiling didn't look wet, and the items that had apparently caused it to fall certainly weren't heavy enough to do so.

  As he gaped upwards, considering this freak accident, something moved. A shadow and a swish of something black. It could've been anything, he supposed. He turned to the paramedics lifting the body, about to ask about any other residents of the house, when he heard what they were talking about.

  'Poor git,' one of them said as he walked backwards towards the ambulance. 'First day on the job and he gets decked out by Jo McIvor.'

  Sounded like Grim.

  And then there came a shout from above them: 'what does it fucking matter if I've seen Star Wars!?'

  All three men stopped and gazed up into the hole. Tom didn't recognise the voice at all.

  'I'm really sorry! Please don't be angry!'

 
; But he recognised that one; that was Grim.

  ~

  Tom got excited at the prospect of hitting Grim again.

  Upstairs, he directed himself in the rough direction of the garage and found a door lying ajar at the end of the hall. He could hear bickering, and he felt the air get colder the closer he got. He balled up two fists, ready.

  Inside, the scene caught Tom off guard, though he wasn't sure what he expected.

  There was a hole in the floor, but apart from that, it was just a storage space filled with a lot of crap: piled boxes, a mirror, spare chairs and a desk - all standard stuff.

  The scene in the back left corner of the room, though, was not standard. That's where he found Grim and Jo. Grim had his hands outstretched, attempting to calm her, but she didn't look right at all.

  She glowed purple. And see-through. And smudged the air behind her when she moved.

  Tom had never seen one before, but he knew. Jo was a ghost.

  'Fuck you!' she cried, swinging a fist straight for Grim's face.

  A purple smear appeared in the air and travelled through Grim's jaw harmlessly.

  Grim still recoiled like he had been shot, covering his face.

  'The fuck is this?' Tom asked.

  Grim poked his head out from under his arms. 'Oh, hello Thomas.'

  'Who the fuck is this guy??' Jo politely enquired.

  'He's... Well, it's c-complicated.'

  'Aye. Probably not as complicated as this, mind you.'

  Jo raised her fists. 'I'm going nowhere, I swear to God if you touch me I will fuck you up.'

  Tom ran a hand down his sick, hungover face. Behind Grim, he saw something he might not have - a touch of movement in the floor that didn't quite do enough to keep his attention.

  Grim pointed what Tom assumed to be a stern finger at the ghost. 'N-now, I'm quite sorry about this, madam, but I'm afraid I have to-'

  'Try it!!' Jo boomed. 'I dare you!'