As Fate Would Have It , livre ebook

Outskirts Press - David M. Brooks

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166 pages

English

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Description

Chris wants to believe that he is in total control of his life. But after a near-death experience, someone-or something-has appeared in his sleep each night, trying to tell him differently. His dreams take him to a grave site guarded by a hooded figure who shows him the faces of strangers destined to die soon. At first, he accepts this as some sort of brain malfunction caused by his accident. But when he meets a young woman in his waking hours who also appears in his dream, he begins to question whether her seemingly predestined fate can be changed or not. Has her death already been determined...or can he defy the entity that has turned his dreams into nightmares?

Sujets

Fiction

Suspense

Thrillers

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Publié par	Outskirts Press
Date de parution	21 avril 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781977242976
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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As Fate Would Have It All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2021 David M. Brooks v2.0
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-4297-6
Cover illustrated by Victor Guiza Illustrations © 2021 Outskirts Press, Inc. All rights reserved - used with permission.
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
First Edition
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Dedicated to
Faith Mackenzie Shaw
(2001-2019)

And all those who are born
To a fate that is not of their choosing,
Yet proudly create their own destiny.
Table of Contents
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Part Two
9
10
11
12
13
14
Part Three
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
Epilogue
Part One
"…What a long strange trip it’s been."
---The Grateful Dead
1
It was always the same…to a point. Chris can see the small crowd of seven dressed in black, hooded robes gathered around the casket at the top of the hill. The features of their faces are indiscernible, deep in the shadows of their hoods. Their heads are bowed as if in silent prayer, their black-gloved hands clasped together before their waists.
The Priest standing at the head of the casket also wears a black, hooded robe with his face equally concealed. He is reading from a large, worn black book that he holds delicately in his two large hands. He wears the same robe as the mourners around the freshly dug grave but his long, white, bony fingers are free of gloves, perhaps to make it easier to turn the pages as he reads. The Priest also wears a red band tied around his waist, while the others wear a black one around theirs. The Priest towers over the others, standing tall at six and a half feet, while the rest of the mourners surrounding the gravesite are all no more than five feet in height.
The casket they are gathered around is suspended over an open hole in the ground awaiting the Priest’s final words of comfort for the living before being lowered to its final resting place. Chris is still far enough down the hill that he can’t make out the words the Priest is reciting from his Bible, but between the low breaking waves of the wind gently urging him on from his back, he is able to hear some of the chanting, yet doesn’t believe they sound like any words he has ever heard before, let alone understood.
Chris slowly makes his way up the winding path between scattered tombstones on both sides. The faces of the old, gray markers seem to be watching Chris as he passes. Somewhere on a subconscious level he is asking himself if it is even possible, if the dead resting under these final acknowledgements of their lives could be watching him as he slowly ascends the hill. Subconsciously he feels as though he is interrupting a play in progress, as if he is walking across center stage as the actors in black on the hill remain in character, continuing their story, uninterested in his approach. Yet the audience, the gray and decaying faces etched with memories of better days, the tombstones, have shifted their attention to the newcomer, to himself. Subconsciously he feels many eyes upon him. But on a conscious level, his own eyes and mind are fully riveted on the approaching scene at the apex of the hill.
He is reluctant to go up the hill but he knows he cannot retreat. When he stops walking, he feels the wind pick up behind him as if laying a gentle but firm hand on his back to coax him along in the right direction. The sun is beginning to sink behind the hill. The sky directly above is still a cloudless, slowly darkening blue, but the sky peeking out from behind the burial mound is a combination of a deep red and a brilliant, fiery yellow, causing what appears to be a strange glowing aura around the silhouettes of the ominous looking group clad in black surrounding the casket.
The air around him feels heavier than normal and he seems to have to swallow each breath into his lungs and then let it out again slowly, cautiously. There is a scent of wet grass in the wind, sweet like a freshly mown lawn on a dewy spring morning, but its taste seems tainted with something less pleasant, something dead, as it wisps past his lips in its gentle gusts. He dreads reaching the top of the hill, but he also senses that he wants to get there, if he must, before the sun’s light loses its hold on the day.
As Chris nears the site atop the hill, all the mourners in black, slowly, appearing as unsurprised as though it were called for in their previously read and well-rehearsed scripts, turn to face him and watch him approach. Even the Priest falls silent, closes his book, and shifts his attention from the Bible in his hands to the newcomer. Yet even as Chris approaches the site, their faces remain eerily just out of sight with the sun at their backs.
Chris stops walking, again wanting to turn and run in the opposite direction, but the wind behind him urges him forward with increased force. The day is still hot even as the sun sinks into the earth and his hands and face are drenched in sweat as he takes a few more steps toward the small crowd.
He can’t take his eyes off the closed coffin, yet he can feel all the other eyes on himself. The coffin itself is a deep ebony, with elaborate carvings in its side in the same dark black, only revealing their presence as he approaches the fresh hole in the ground.
As Chris reaches the site, standing at the foot of the hole, he looks up at the Priest standing on the other side. The Priest says nothing but slowly bows his head again towards the coffin, willing Chris’ eyes to follow. Again, the wind picks up, chilling the sweat on his face and raising goose bumps on his arms. He can still feel the watching eyes of the audience now behind and below him, senses an anticipation with their gaze causing more sweat to fill his pores and be chilled by his skin.
Chris opens his mouth to ask the Priest who is in the coffin but then thinks better of speaking to the Holy Man. Something about him scares Chris in a way he doesn’t want to think about. He looks back at the coffin. He knows he will see who is in the coffin soon. He always does.
He watches helplessly as the coffin lid slowly opens on its own.

Chris woke up feeling a bit disoriented, lost and exhausted, the face in the coffin still lingering on the edges of his mind. It was a new face again, no one he knew or recognized. He had known none of them, in fact, since the first, but that didn’t eliminate his ever-present fear that he would know the next one. And he usually knew when a new face was going to appear. No, he always knew when a new face was going to appear. That was part of the problem.
He drags himself out of bed and into the shower where he tries to wash away the remnants of this recurring dream each day upon awakening. The memories rarely fade, but the feel of the warm water running over his face, the enveloping and seemingly purifying heat that pounds against his skin, is needed. It makes him feel a bit cleaner just beneath his skin, nearer to the soul. The dream always makes him feel used and violated in a way he can’t quite explain even to himself. It leaves him feeling as though he has done something wrong, trespassed where he shouldn’t be trespassing, dabbled where he shouldn’t be dabbling. But most of all, it leaves him feeling tired. So very, very tired.
The first time he had had this dream, he had seen the face of his girlfriend in the coffin, or his ex-girlfriend, as she had just become at the time. When the dreamland coffin had opened and he stood gazing at her face, her eyes had suddenly opened, seeing only him.
"YOU DID THIS TO ME!" she had yelled as she lay there. "THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"
Chris had bolted awake immediately, his pillow drenched in tears mixed with the sweat running down his face. The dream had been so vivid and seemed so real and had refused to fade from his consciousness the way most dreams do upon awakening.
As soon as he began to recognize the familiar surroundings of his bedroom and realized that it had been just a dream, he had raced to the hospital to see her, sure that she had died during the night.
She hadn’t.
He ran down the hospital’s corridor without stopping at the receptionist’s desk on her floor to ask a nurse of her condition, despite the fact that Sherry, his (ex)girlfriend, had said she never wanted to see him again. Without thinking, he burst into her room sure that her bed was going to be empty.
It wasn’t.
Sherry awoke with a start as the door to her room swung open and banged loudly against the wall.
"What the hell are you doing here?" she sneered at him as she realized who had wakened her. "I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again! Look what you’ve done to me!"
"I am so sorry," was all Chris could think to say as he lowered his head and turned back towards the door he had just bounded through. "I just needed to make sure you were okay."
"Oh, I’m okay, if you consider never being able to walk again as okay," she said sarcastically as tears began to well up in her eyes. "No