GRIM Chapter 2

GRIM Chapter 2

Here it is! Hope you like it; tune in next week for chapter three, Wednesday for a new video, and Thursday for a new post. 

CHAPTER 2

J A C O B

WASHINGTON, D.C.

JULY 5, 1969

11:47 P.M.

            I was the only one who noticed the black car when it first pulled up on the curb next to the bar.

            Unlike most of the vehicles in the nation, this one was quiet and soft, making a sound like the purr of a cat, pulling in smoothly and gliding along just above the dark asphalt. Its wheels were clean and shining with fresh rubber, and its bumper and grill and door handles were all newly polished, glinting in the light from the nighttime neon signs hanging on the glass outside the pub.

            I knew that they had come for me. I could not see through the tinted windows, but I knew it: they were watching me, waiting for me to get in and go.

            I had no choice.

            Do I wish that I had stayed behind, left them to deal with their issues on their own, without my knowledge or presence?

            Of course.

            I set down the small shot glass and rose to my feet, tuning out the sounds of the slap-happy bar-goers as I buttoned up my black suit. I straightened my tie of the same color, as it was slightly askew.

            When I had made it out the door, without even leaving a tip, I stood and watched the car for a while. Its engines did not go completely silent. It just sat, calling me to a future that I had not predicted could even be possible.

            Then the back door opened spontaneously, without having been open by any visible person. It just swung open, barely missing the rainwater-smothered sidewalk, and sat there. I could wait no longer. So, quietly, without the direction of anyone, I got in the car.

            “Mr. Dawn,” greeted the apprehensive car driver, a fellow secret service agent of mine, “Been drinking on the job?”

            I ignored him and stared out the window.

            He just smiled and stepped on the gas pedal, the car lurching forward and slowly floating down the nighttime lower-class streets of D.C. He was a young man, about twenty-five, with sunglasses on his eyes despite the fact that it was close to midnight. The man next to him was tall and lanky, with the same pair of Aviators on and a grim, cold expression, like his underwear wasn’t on quite right. His face was bony and slightly wrinkled, and he just stared ahead at the rain.

            A sound jolted me out of my buzzed state: the phone ringing in the back seat. I could never get used to those mobile car phones. The latest technology, I suppose.

            “It’s for you,” grunted the skinny man, his voice clogged and almost slimy.

            Cautiously, I answered.

            “Hello?”

            “Mr. Dawn. I trust you have been doing well?”

            “Only on Mondays.”

            “You haven’t been…drinking, by any chance, have you?”

            “No, I was down at the water park playing in the kiddie pool. What do you think I was doing?”

            “Good. Because the alcohol will be needed to dull the effects of your next…assignment.”

            His voice is stiff and low and a bit scratched, almost frighteningly so.

            “If anyone asks, you’re just going to have a drink with an old college friend.”

            “Good. That’s exactly what I want to be doing right now.”

            “I will see you in five minutes. Don’t keep me waiting.”

            “Sorry in advance.”

            He hung up, and I did, too.

.     .     .

            The White House at night always looked formidable to me, like a fortress that guards some precious thing that only a select few are allowed to see. I think he liked it that way.

            When the guards had escorted me to the doors, I straightened my jacket once more; I had to look my best for a meeting with the Big Cheese.

            The door in the wall swung silently open and let me in. Then it closed tight, leaving me stranded in one VERY powerful room with one VERY powerful person.

            Richard Milhous Nixon.

            A single orange desk lamp illuminated the seemingly massive and hollow room, and it did the same to his similar face. He was round and bit beefy around the neck, with a protruding nose and intense eyes. He wore a jet-black suit, freshly ironed, and a shining red tie.

He rose from his chair and walked around it to greet me.

            “Jacob Dawn,” he said, smiling weakly, “It’s a pleasure to meet someone of such high…prestige.”

            He lingered on the word, as if taunting me.

            “Have a seat,” he offered, but to me, it sounded like more of a command.

            The room, like its name described, was an oval shape, and Nixon’s desk was wooden and dark, with a bright red telephone, a nameplate, a buzzer, and a…tape recorder.

            Curious, I asked about it.

            “Why the tape recorder?” I inquired, as the President sat back down in his tall brown leather chair. He flashed me the briefest of glares before answering.

            “Doesn’t matter,” he dismissed, pulling something out of a drawer. An old-looking folder, filled to the brim with papers and photos and documents. In big red letters on the cardstock file, it read:

CLASSIFIED

            “So, Jacob, before I speak to you about this…matter, I need you to promise me one thing.”

            I nodded slightly. “And what’s that?”

            “That you won’t scream.”

            I didn’t even answer that question, because his face was dead serious. President Richard Milhous Nixon was a man I respected but one I deeply feared. Maybe it was his voice. Maybe it was his bright red tie that stood out against the black. Or maybe it was because he did not respect ME. But whatever it was, I knew that I felt chills down my spine when I was in his presence.

            “Yesterday, one of the security night guards was patrolling the halls,” he began, opening the folder in such a way that I couldn’t see the inside, “When he heard noises. Odd noises, like whispers in the air.”

            This was eerie, but intriguing.

            “You sure he wasn’t…I don’t know…intoxicated?” I asked.

            “I’m sure. We took drug tests.”

            I nod. I was hoping he wouldn’t say that.

            “But after a few moments, he decided to take a photo of the air around him. And when it got developed, it looked like this.”

            Nixon pulled a picture out of the folder and plopped it down on the desk. It made me jump when I saw it, and much to my surprise, the President did not laugh at me. Because this was no laughing matter.

            The photo, black and white and grainy, depicted one of the empty halls of the White House, one of the ones that I had just walked through on my way here. But in the center of the hall, just in front of the darkest spot on the photo, there was the image of a skull. One that was gray, ghastly, and ghoulish, like something out of those ghost hoax photos on the news. It was staring directly into the camera, its mouth agape and its eyes glowing unnaturally.

            It was staring right at me.

            “Wh—What is it?” I asked, looking back up at the President.

            “I don’t know,” he said, “But I have been called to Area 51 for a emergency meeting.”

            “What is the meeting for?”

            “I think this exact matter,” he said, standing up and walking towards the door, “I am leaving tomorrow.”

            “Wait,” I said, “Why am I here?”

            “You are here,” he informed me eerily, “Because you are coming with me.”

            And with that, he turned and left the room, leaving me in the Oval Office, listening to the pattering of the rain on the windows.

           







c. Taylor Ward 2013. All rights reserved.