Immortal Fear 5.3

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He took me to his car which wasn’t too far away. It was an old nineties Bronco the color, straight out of an O.J. Simpson car chase. “I didn’t peg you for the gas hog type, Father.”

“I’m not one to bathe in perfume, Joe. I just use the tools He finds appropriate to place in my hands.”

He helped me up into the cab and threw the wheelchair in the back. It was odd, I had already made my first escape today but I felt the pincers coming down on two more. I laid my head back trying to find some semblance of peace to concentrate on my next move.

“Where are we off to, then?”

“Chula Vista,” I said without opening my eyes.

I would have pushed him on the church but he had a point. Violence was always in my nature but I just needed to lay low for a little while. If I had time to plan, I’d be much more likely to come out of this ordeal alive. I would probably have to score some oxy on the street to manage my pain; I could handle that, it wouldn’t be the first time I doped up to survive but the last time had been in the Navy.

“Joe.”

My eyes snapped open, “Huh, Wha?” I must have fallen asleep.

“We’re here.”

I looked out the truck window and saw the façade of my hotel.

“How did you know?” I asked.

“This is the only motel in Chula Vista that caters to shady types,” he said without sounding condescending. “How was your nap?”

I eyed him cautiously.

“Fine,” I said.

“Good.”

I opened his car door and pulled the wheelchair out from the back, dragging it over to me until I could slip into it from the high seat of the Bronco. I landed with a quiet thud and my body was suddenly aching. I bared it with silent determination, gripping the wheels of the chair and spinning myself to face Williams.

“Well, thanks for the lift.”

“You need anything more from me?”

“The things you stole might be nice.”

“I’ll tell you what,” Williams began, “You bring me the forty dollars you owe me, I’ll see if I can find a gun for you.”

“You shouldn’t tease a man who knows his way around deadly weaponry,” I said.

“The Lord is my shepherd, but you are my flock.”

I rolled my eyes turned away from him, heading towards the motel. I raised a hand and called back to him, “I will be seeing you again, Father. You don’t just leave a gun like that laying around.”

“I’ll be waiting to hear your first confession,” he called back. I rolled my eyes and ignored the comment.

My motel room was a shady little complex plastered in purple paint I can only assume was stylish in 1981. The plaster was cracked in all the corners and the windows were painted shut after decades of poor maintenance. The parking lot was all but empty except for an old Volkswagon bus and a couple Mercedes’ that were likely paying the good Inn-keeper by the hour. It always surprises me how far cash would go, keeping people from asking questions. I mean, sure, it’s natural to stick your nose into someone else’s business, but after someone drops five grand on the counter and shows you their gun, you realize that it’s better to take the money and hold on to your tongue.

Problem though, if you lose your key, you may have to make the tough guy act.

In a wheelchair.

I pulled into the manager’s office feeling like an extra from West Side Story. The guy behind the counter was reading the paper and even when the bell jingled from the door he didn’t look up.

“I lost my key,” I said.

“Which room?”

“One, fifty-seven.”

There was a creak in the chair as he turned to the board. A white keychain flew over his paper and I grabbed it out of the air, turning to go.

Hey, you get what you pay for.

I pay for privacy.

Not security.

The room was on the other side of the lot from the office. The do-not-disturb sign was still on the door knob, which I took as something for my privacy. I opened the door and slipped inside. The room was a dank little pit that at one point had been beach themed. Pastel sea shells decorated the dresser. The two beds were sea foam green and the one closest to the door was unmade from where I’d slept in it. I walked to the bathroom sink and splashed water on my face. It wouldn’t be cold wake me up, but it was the first thing close to a bath I’d had. I remember splashing around the coast of Coronado, not a few miles away from here.

Get wet and sandy!

It woke me up a couple of times in Hell Week, but it sure wasn’t my idea of refreshing.

I wheeled into the bathroom and turned on the shower. With the door closed I let the steam accumulate. It was nice to be warm. It had been a long time since I was last in San Diego. More than a life time ago, as I thought about it. I left for the Navy right out of high school. I grew up in some shit town in California. Mom and Dad were addicts, but I survived. I don’t think they even came to my funeral, now that I think about it.

I had a kid sister who, by all accounts of her Facebook page, is a dope smoking burn-out. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my share of junk but I’ve also a former Navy-fucking-SEAL. I’ve done something with my life. I guess you can’t really be mad when the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.

Life in a small town was fun. The girls were naïve and I had a lot of threesomes. It was a good time. Probably the best time I’ve ever had in my life, sixteen to eighteen. But the truth is when you’ve lived under someone else’s thumb your entire life the only thing to do is break free. That was the Navy for me.

I knew I wanted to be a SEAL. I hated being on ships and the thought of being on a sub for months at a time was enough to make me consider a career in film. But the SEALs were the elite few. The badass of the badass. I didn’t want to be anybody’s grunt. Which was unfortunate because even as a SEAL I had shit for rank, and ships and subs? All the time.

After about an hour of sweat I turned the water off. I grabbed a towel and scrubbed my face and neck where I noticed something hard. I moved to the vanity and looked myself over in the mirror. Burned deep into the flesh above my shoulder was a brand. The same brand that marked the headless corpses in my dream.

“What else did you expect?”

I looked up in the mirror to see a man sitting, legs crossed, in the desk chair by the door. A man with salt and pepper in his hair. A man with a feverish menace to his voice. A man with only one working eye.

Grimm.

I reached up underneath the vanity grabbing my .357 tapped beneath the sink and turned on Grimm and instinctively fired three shots: two in the chest, one in the head. Even with my left hand, I’m better than a fair shot. His head jerked back slightly, then shook it slowly.

He smiled and a bullet shown between his teeth.

My jaw dropped.

“Would you like to see a magic trick, Silas?” he said spitting the bullet into one of his hands before juggling it one handed.

“You see, nothing is as it seems,” he said revealing another bullet between his fingers. “Neither people or places or things. You, for example, seem like an average Silas, or is it Joe? All your aliases can be terribly confusing. Albeit average with very poor aim.” A second bullet appeared in between his fingers and he began to move his hand up and down in tandem with the rise and fall of the bullet.

“You’ve seen things now you can’t, or won’t rather, un-see. Don’t look so puzzled, chum, I know you’re slow witted but try to keep up,” he said following my scowl. “The mortal world has always been so… tenuous! But with all the change in your world, there doesn’t seem to be much mystery.” He threw one of the bullets into his juggling hand and the two jumped after one another while his other hand continued moving up and down.

“Who the hell –”

“But what is a mystery but a secret? Everyone has them. You’re interested in secrets, aren’t you Silas? They’re puzzles you get to pull apart like wings off a fly.” I must have missed something because now he juggled all three bullets in one hand. Eerily his eyes never left mine, staring down the barrel of my gun. One by one he let them fall to the ground, bouncing perfectly to be caught in his other hand where he showed each time, they had disappeared.

“Life has plenty of mystery, but death…” he whistled, “I shudder to think of the mystery you’d find!” Grimm said.

I slowly lowered my gun wheeled myself over to him. He smiled wryly. I hadn’t noticed the black eye patch he wore covering the false eye but it left him looking distinguished. I pushed my hand passed him and reached into his pocket, pulling out three bullets. “It’s a stupid sleight of hand, I’m watching the bullets bounce while you’re pocketing –”

Three shots and I fell to my back. I hadn’t even seen the gun.

“Well you were right about one thing but I had you at the start. You assumed they were your bullets.”