Who: Grady and Jen When: Evening, Saturday January 13th Where: Home Status: Complete
It was nice having a Saturday night off for once. Having a somewhat adequately sized staff now helped. They were all competent and good enough at their jobs that Grady was able to relax and cook dinner for he and Jen without constantly checking his phone. Of course, in his head Jen should be out with friends on a Saturday night, but he wasn’t going to complain about her staying home. He often felt like he didn’t spend enough time with her, so he would take what he could get.
He was in the kitchen making spaghetti, trying to remember not to overcook the noodles. Alison had always told him he boiled them a minute too long, which made them mushy. Generally Grady hadn’t cared about the outcome of his attempts in the kitchen when he had been living alone but he felt like he should be able to cook something as simple as spaghetti for his daughter.
“So, Mrs. Spencer cornered me in the grocery store today,” Grady told Jen when she appeared in the kitchen. “She said her daughter was excited for some school dance at school next weekend. Are you going?” He really didn’t know enough about her social life and Grady felt like he should. The last time he had seen her friends around was when Hunter was still living with them, and Grady had walked in on Jen sharing a blanket with a boy, and Hunter with his now ex-boyfriend. Grady tried to keep up, he really did, but work made it difficult to be as involved as he wanted to be.
Jen was not expecting the question and she winced a bit at the thought alone. The fucking dance. She wasn't going and she kind of wished her only friends were just nerdy and snarky like her and didn't actually have dates for the dance. It would have been so fun to do something else or at least go together as friends. If she wanted to go now she'd be a third wheel or have to have a date and neither of those options sounded particularly alluring. "Don't think so. I mean, Winter Formal? It even sounds stuffy." She felt weirdly disappointed in the whole thing but maybe she'd go to whatever party was happening afterward. It was just her luck to gravitate toward a girl who was dating a jock; super lame. "Did you go to all the dances back when you were in school?" she asked as she pulled herself up to sit on the counter near him, glancing at the bubbling pot.
Grady had to agree with her on that. Anything with the word 'formal' in it sounded unpleasant to him, at least as an adult. He was still feeling like Jen should be experiencing normal high school things, especially as almost nothing in this town was normal. He glanced over at her, grinning faintly at her question. "Uh, yeah, I went to most of them. At least during my junior and senior years of school. I know it sounds stuffy, but maybe you would have fun. Are your friends going? What about that boy... um..." Shit, he forgot the kid's name. Grady set the lid on top of the sauce pan to keep it from splattering all over. "The Annihilation kid." That sounded better than 'the boy you shared a blanket with', at least in Grady's mind.
"Liam," Jen offered since even without that addendum she knew who he meant - Liam was the only boy she talked to that Grady knew about. "He's bringing a date," she sighed and rolled her eyes. "So is Phee. My friends are boring conformists." Jen left the normal high school things to her brother who loved all this crap whereas Jen really didn't, but she still had a little pang that she was missing out and would regret it in the future and that irritated her. Maybe she'd drag one of the nerd boys who barely spoke in class, just to go with someone. But that meant dressing up and ugh! She so didn't want to want to go! "Did you enjoy the dances?" she asked. "Or was it just like... You felt like you had to go?"
"Oh." Grady was trying to suss out if Jen was upset about any of that stuff or not. She had always been hard to read, whereas Hunter generally wore his heart on his sleeve. Grady realized, with some self-deprecating disappointment, that his daughter was turning out more like him than he'd wanted her to. "Well, hey... your friends are your friends, conformists or not. I don't think there's anything wrong with them wanting to do the school stuff." Walking over to the fridge, he tugged it open to grab a beer. "As for me... I enjoyed some the dances. Depending on who I was with." Grady shrugged and twisted the cap off of the bottle in his hand. "I never felt like I had to go. But I liked being around my friends, and whoever my dates was... for the most part. The formal stuff can be a bit tedious, yeah, but I always looked forward to the parties that came after." He grinned and leaned back against the counter. "That was generally where the real fun kicked in, you know? No chaperones or teachers hanging around, watching where you put your..." Hands. Grady trailed off with a mild grimace. He needed to remember he was talking to his teenage daughter. "You know, I bet your friends would want you to go, with a date or not."
Jen shrugged, then grinned at him a bit impishly. "If I go, are you gonna buy me a dress? Pay for someone to make my hair all pretty?" She flipped her hair over her shoulder with a dramatic flair, amused at the thought of getting all dolled up for some lame dance that wasn't even prom. He was right though, her friends probably would want her to come and if they pushed, she probably would. She genuinely liked them and that was one of the reasons she was still staying in Point Pleasant - despite everything. It was hard to connect with people and the people she felt most connected with were right here.
"Yeah, of course," Grady said, not wanting the lack of a dress to be a deterrent to his daughter getting to have fun. "I mean, there's a shop in town... Veronica's? I think they sell dresses. If you want to take a look and find one. Just let me know how much you need." He couldn't imagine dresses were that much, right? It had been a really long time since Grady had gone to a dance, and he had never had to buy a dress before, so what did he know? But Jen was worth it, and he didn't want her to miss out on things.
"I'm teasing you," Jen told him. "I don't need a dress. Thanks though. Maybe I'll get one for prom." That was still a while away and who knew what might change until then. "So you're fine with me going to some crazy after party? Where nobody's around watching where I put my..." She clamped her lips tight together, cheeky again. She was pretty sure Hunter was the kid Grady needed to worry about more and that had always felt like a running gag to her. At least when it came to parties and boys. Jen was more at risk of wandering into haunted houses and almost getting lit on fire by a witch, but Grady really didn't need to know that had actually happened to her.
Oh, she was teasing. He might have known that if he could read her better, but he supposed he would need to be around more in order to do that. Still, at least she knew he would buy her a dress if she wanted a dress. And if she wanted one for prom, that was fine too because it meant she would actually plan on going to prom. "I don't mind you going to a slightly crazy party where I won't be called on by the neighbors to come shut it down," he said, pointing his beer bottle at her. "And I would appreciate it if you kept your hands to yourself, at a crazy party or... elsewhere." He didn't think she had a boyfriend, or girlfriend, so maybe he had nothing to worry about. Grady knew it was hypocritical of him to say so, given what he got up to at her age, but he was a parent now, and he wasn't thrilled with the idea of Jen doing half the things he did back then.
"Aye, aye, sheriff," Jen said and gave him a little salute. She didn't really have any intention of messing around with someone, she hadn't really enjoyed the one time she did, and there wasn't anyone in town she was drawn to in that way so maybe she was just totally asexual or something. She didn't think it really mattered. She was whatever she was right now and was more than willing to give herself the space to change that. "I talked to Hunter last night," she told him. "He said to say hi and he promised to call you soon. My generation just isn't great with actual phonecalls."
Grady set his beer down on the counter and walked over to check the spaghetti again. "How's he doing?" Hunter had sent him a few texts here and there over the past couple of weeks, but they hadn't had a chance to actually talk to each other in a while. It made Grady miss having Hunter living there with him, but he understood why his son had gone back to Portland. Sometimes he wished Jen had gone with him, just for her safety, but he was happier than she had stayed. It was nice not coming home to a completely empty house every day. "Does he need anything?"
"No, he's pretty happy," Jen said. "With Mitch gone and all. He wants you and mom to get back together, you know." Jen would obviously love that too but she wasn't as naive as Hunter and she took some pride in that, rolling her eyes at the thought of that ever being possible. Hunter was a dreamer and he wanted them all to live together in Portland again, away from this town and all the evil he had witnessed here. Jen couldn't say she really blamed him but aside from being way more mature - in her opinion anyway - a part of her was too fascinated with the craziness of Point Pleasant to want to leave, despite the danger and then there were her friends that she was loathe to leave behind.
That wasn't overly surprising to hear but it still triggered some discomfort in his gut. Grady knew the divorce hadn't been easy on his kids, but he had figured enough time had passed now that they would have both accepted it. Jen clearly had, but maybe Hunter was still clinging to some hope that Grady and Alison would reconcile. "I think your mom is pretty happy in Portland," Grady said finally, offering Jen a faint smile. "But I'm glad Hunter is happy there too." He felt obligated to ask Jen if she was happy here, because he didn't want her thinking she had to stay in Point Pleasant just because Hunter had left. And he was about to do just that when movement from the backyard caught his eye. It was dark outside and Grady had to step up to the kitchen window to get a better look. And then he wished he hadn't. The outline of the dark man was evident, even without much light. Grady could see the long arms and legs, the shape of the bowler hat perched on his head. And the smile, white and gleaming in the night. It was like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on his head and Grady inhaled sharpy before extreme pain radiated up through his arm, like someone had taken it and snapped it in two. A muffled cry of pain caught in his throat as he reached up to grab his shoulder and he stumbled away from the window, already panicked and thinking about where he put his gun.
Panic laced through Jen and time felt different, like either it was going slower or her brain was going too fast. Her dad was having a heart attack was her first thought and no, she couldn't lose him like that, it made no sense, she had to call 911. "Dad?" she said, her voice shaky as she hurriedly slipped down from the counter to rush to his side. Was it the right arm or the left arm that hurt when a person's heart gave out? She suddenly couldn't remember and she couldn't tell left from right in that moment anyway, running on pure instinct with logic kicked aside. Then she saw the man outside and that fear turned into something much harsher and more visceral. Grady's heart hadn't given out, there was something evil there, grinning at them, all wrong and fucked up outside in the darkness. Jen grabbed onto her dad, tugging at him to get away, to get out of the kitchen, somewhere safer, somewhere with no windows, somewhere.
His arm was broken. It had to be. It felt exactly as it had when he fell out of that tree at the age of ten. And he had fallen out of the tree because that man, that thing in his backyard had been in the tree with him, smiling and reaching for him. Grady was scared, just as he had been when he was younger. But as soon as Jen reached him some paternal instinct kicked in because now it wasn't about protecting himself, it was about protecting his daughter. Grady could feel the pain, but gripping his arm with his free hand, he realized his arm wasn't actually broken. It was memory of some kind. "I need my gun," he told Jen, knowing better than to order her upstairs to her room. She wouldn't go. But he moved with her away from the kitchen window, and then the kitchen, ignoring the water in the spaghetti pot that had begun to boil over, hissing as it hit the heated stovetop. "Stay away from the windows," he instructed sharply as he grabbed his gun from the hall table. He usually locked it up in his room when he got home, but he had been lazy tonight. "If I tell you to run to the neighbor's house, will you do that for me, please?"
Jen wanted to tell him no, scream at him No! Fuck you, I'm not leaving you behind! She was picturing this creature outside their window crawling inside somehow and hurting them, killing her dad. Instead she nodded shakily, unable to find her voice again yet. She wanted to run, she wanted him to run too, there seemed to be nothing to do but run even if her knees felt weak and tense at the same time, shaky like they might turn into jello at any moment. She wanted to run to her room and hide in the closet and that was so stupid because that would mean she was trapped but it felt so much safer than running outside where that horrible grinning thing was. Maybe there were more than one, maybe they were surrounded. She found herself with her back pressed against the wall, watching him ready his gun, wondering if a gun did a damn thing against something supernatural. If only she was like Liam and could set things on fire with her hands. If only she had magic. If only, if only, if only...
Grady moved quickly, pulling his gun from the holster and getting it ready as he walked swiftly to the back door. "Stay inside," he told Jen, his voice strained from the pain that continued to radiate down his arm, especially with every movement he made with it. He had no idea if his gun would work on that thing. But it was a man, wasn't it? Some kind of being anyway. It was solid, surely. Without hesitation, Grady yanked open the back door and lifted his gun. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple, his heart a jackhammer in his chest. But the yard was empty. He stepped out onto the small deck, shifting his gun back and forth, just in case the man had moved, or hidden. But there weren't many places to hide in the yard, as empty as it was. The dark man was gone. Stepping off the deck, he moved to the gate of the fence, ignoring the way the chill in the air enveloped him. After checking the entire perimeter of the house, pausing once to acknowledge a cheerful Ms. Martin across the street who had just gotten out of her car, Grady returned to the backyard and walked with heavy steps up onto the deck and back into the house. He shut and locked the door, feeling the adrenaline start to wear off, replaced by the weight of his fear. He set his gun on the table and looked at Jen. "Are you okay?"
Jen wanted to scream at him not to go outside either but she felt paralyzed, almost tripping over her own feet as she scooted sideways toward the stairs and listened to him open the door. The relief she felt when he came back inside was like nothing she'd ever felt and she shook her head at his question, her eyes wide and her lips pressed tightly together. Was she okay? No, not at all. This had been scarier than the fog and she didn't know why because it made no fucking sense. "What was that?" she whispered, surprised she even managed that when her whole body didn't feel like it was under her control. She wanted to rush to him and hug him but she couldn't even move away from the wall yet.
Grady walked over to her, but his legs felt kind of weak so he turned and sank down onto the stairs where he rubbed his hand over his face wearily. The pain in his arm was gone, which seemed to somehow give him confidence that the dark man was gone too. "I don't know what it was," he admitted, resting his arms on his bent knees and looking up at her. "Something... someone I saw when I was younger. I broke my arm falling out of a tree to get away from it. I hadn't seen it since, until tonight. It's gone now." For a moment he thought it might have been his imagination, but Jen had seen the dark man too.
He sounded so sure and Jen believed him because she had to believe him or she was sure she'd stop functioning altogether. She was never going to be able to be home alone again, she could feel it in the way every muscle and every nerve seemed wound up and shaky. Her body hurt from fear, it was ridiculous and overwhelming and she didn't know what to do with it. For now she managed to push away from the wall, only because he was so close to her and there was a promise of sitting down. "What if it comes back?" she asked once she'd curled up on the stairs next to Grady, her voice as small as she felt.
It was instinctual to tell Jen that it wouldn't come back, but Grady knew that was a lie, and he didn't want to lie to her. "I don't know," Grady said finally, looking over at his daughter with a sense of resigned apology. "But I'll figure it out. It may never come back. But I think it just... belongs to this town." Like so many other things. He sighed and moved to slip his arm around her shoulders, hoping it aided in some kind of comfort, even if he didn't feel very comforted himself. "Jen, I really wouldn't blame you if you wanted to move back to Portland with your mom and Hunter. I really don't know the best way to keep you safe here."
Jen seriously considered that option for the first time since she had moved here and it all came back to the same mental image in her head. Picking up the phone in Portland to have one of Grady's deputies tell her Grady was missing or dead. She knew there was nothing she could do to prevent that if she was here but the thought of her father, dying all alone in this house, feeling abandoned and afraid... "I'm not going anywhere," she said firmly, even if her voice was shaking. "Not without you." If he could be brave then she could be brave too. She could ask her witchcrafty friends for help, for protection. Maybe Phee's dad could come over and put wards on the house.
For a moment Grady was sure Jen was going to agree to go back to Portland. But then she said she was staying and he honestly wasn't sure how he felt about it. He was her father, so he could make her go, if he really wanted her to. Was he a terrible parent for letting her stay? Grady occasionally thought about moving back himself, but that idea was always fleeting. Deep down he knew he would probably end up dying in this town, sooner or later. Hopefully later. Grady squeezed her shoulder gently before he remembered the spaghetti in the kitchen. Cursing softly, he got to his feet and headed for the kitchen. Dinner was ruined. Sighing, Grady ran his hand through his hair. "Uh... are you still hungry? I can order take out." He ought to take her out somewhere, but... he didn't want to leave the house, which made him feel cowardly, but unless work called, he didn't want to take another step outside tonight.
Jen almost said yes and then her brain decided to be evil and flashed her an image of some poor delivery guy all torn up on their front porch. "We have frozen pizza," she said as she followed him into the kitchen, going oh so slowly and watching the window warily. She didn't want to look at the window but she couldn't keep herself from doing so because if that thing showed up again she wanted to be able to grab onto Grady and run. There was nothing out there but darkness and snow now and eventually she tore her gaze away from it, willing the nasty images away and focusing instead on her father and the pot he rescued from the stove. If he got called back to work tonight, she would go with him. There was no way she was staying here by herself.
Grady turned off the burners, sighing at the sight of the spaghetti. Limp and starting to turn black, now that most of the water had burned off. Shit. He took the pot off the stove and set it into the sink before reaching up to pull the curtains closed over the window looking out into the backyard. "Frozen pizza sounds good," Grady told her with a faint smile. "If you want, we'll eat it in the living room and watch something silly on television." And yes, if he got called into work, he was going to take her with him, or at least ask someone else to come over and sit with her. Jen was a teenager and didn't need a babysitter, but damned if he'd leave her alone.
It was a weird relief when he closed the curtains in a way that reminded Jen of hiding under the covers from the dark. If you can't see it, it can't see you? Or something. She nodded sharply at his suggestion, then all but body slammed into him to hug him, wrapping her arms tightly around him to cling for a moment. They were okay, he was okay, he hadn't had a heart attack and that thing was gone, at least that was what he said and she needed to believe him. "I'm going to get us some protection," she mumbled. "I don't know if a gun is enough anymore."
Grady was taken aback by the sudden hug, but it didn't take him more than a second or two to hug her back. He was trying not to think about the dark man, and how maybe that had been some kind of warning. If that thing came after Jen, he didn't know what he would do. But he could think about that later, when she was safely in bed and he could try to figure out a solution. Jen mentioning protection had Grady frowning, and he looked down at the top of her head. "What do you mean by protection, exactly?"
Jen wasn't done clinging so she didn't let go. She didn't often hug her dad but right now it was comforting, both for feeling safe and for reassuring herself he was alright. So she stayed where she was even as she sighed at his question. He was such a skeptic, she wasn't even sure why she was telling him this. "Magical protection," she mumbled. "I know you don't believe in it, but I do and it can't hurt to try, right?"
"I..." Grady trailed off, the protest dying at his lips. Did he believe in it? After everything he had seen in this town, was he going to scoff at magical protection? Probably. There was still the logical part of his brain that pushed back, refusing to let more of the unnatural in. But he didn't want to scoff at Jen, or brush off her ideas. "I assume by magical protection you mean... going to someone who claims they're magical?"
"Someone I know is magical," Jen replied. "I've seen real magic, dad, and living here? You probably have too." She didn't really want to debate it now, she liked the idea of just settling down and watching something light, spending a whole evening with her dad. "You don't have to believe in it but it makes me feel better, okay? Kinda like... religion, I guess. If you'd actually seen an angel or something." She pulled back a little, tilting her head back to look at him. "I know you've seen weird stuff at work, and the fog, dad. It was weird."
Grady didn't think he had ever seen anything magic. He had seen awful things. Horrible, terrifying things. But magic? No. But he didn't have it in him tonight to argue with her, or try to convince her magic wasn't real. How could he say something like that after what had just been standing in their backyard? He looked at Jen when she pulled back and he frowned, feeling discomfort in his gut. "Jen... if you want to ask someone for help, for protection, that's okay. But I'm still going to do everything in my power to make sure you're all right. I want you to be safe and I don't know that I can just put that completely in someone else's hands."
"I know, dad," Jen said with a faint smile and she knew he meant it but really, what could he do other than shoot at the things that threatened them? Would that even work? He was as powerless as she was in the face of the evil in this town, just a human with a badge and a gun. Jen wished he had power, he had to feel so helpless right now and she could only imagine how shitty that felt when you were a parent. It felt bad enough as a teenager. She wasn't going to point out that he wasn't always home either, she had a feeling that bringing that up would break him right now. Instead she leaned up and pressed a kiss on his cheek. "I feel safe with you here."
He could do something, he was sure. Talk to someone. Find something. He just had to know who to talk to. Grady had heard rumors before, of course, but... he had never felt like he needed to delve any deeper. Now, maybe, he did. But he would let Jen do whatever it was that made her feel better, while he found someone who could actually help them. Then again... hell, if she did know someone who did know magic, or whatever they called it, then he wasn't going to laugh. At this point he'd take just about anything to keep his daughter safe. If this happened again, he was going to have to buckle down and send her back to Portland with Alison and Hunter. "I'm glad," Grady said, giving Jen a quick squeeze. "I'll make some pizza and we'll try to get our minds on something else, okay? Everything is going to be all right."
"I'm starving," Jen said in agreement though she wasn't all that sure she could eat right now. She let him get to the pizza, grabbing the pot to try to clean it up to keep herself busy. There was a small part of her that wanted to go upstairs and make sure her pets were okay but she didn't want to stray far from Grady, not yet. There was still a tremor in her body, bone deep and resilient no matter how much she tried to calm down. She could still see that creepy grin in her mind's eye and it made her think of Hunter and what he'd been through. She'd been impatient with him, hadn't she? Dismissive. Now she understood. Having some dark creature staring in through the window was terrifying.
Grady wasn't entirely sure he could eat either, but making dinner gave him something to do other than stare outside all night, waiting to see if that man came back. He couldn't help but wonder why it had shown up tonight. Why had the pain from his broken arm returned so acutely? Did it mean something? Was he being irresponsible, keeping Jen here? He could only imagine what Alison would say to him if she knew the things that went on in his town, around her daughter. If something else happened, he would have to send her to Portland. He couldn't keep taking risks with her safety. But he would do whatever he could to keep her safe.