Run the Day

Table of Contents

• Dedication
  
• Intro
  
• Chapter One
  
• Chapter Two
  
• Chapter Three
  
• Chapter Four
  
• Chapter Five
  
• Chapter Six
  
• Chapter Seven
  
• Chapter Eight
  
• Chapter Nine
  
• Chapter Ten
  
• Chapter Eleven
  
• Chapter Twelve
  
• Chapter Thirteen
  
• Chapter Fourteen
  
• Chapter Fifteen
  
• Chapter Sixteen
  
• Chapter Seventeen
  
• Chapter Eighteen
  
• Chapter Nineteen
  
• Acknowledgements
  
• About The Author
  

GREY DAYS VOLUME ONE:

RUN THE DAY

BY

MATTHEW C. DAVIS

All rights reserved © 2013 MATTHEW C. DAVIS

Dedication

To my wife, Serena,

"Thank you for being beside me."

Intro

"Either you run the day, or the day runs you."

Chapter One

Shifting between spectrums isn't the easiest thing in the world to describe.

Mostly because none of it makes sense to begin with. It's one part synesthesia and one part full-blown hallucination. It usually begins with the taste of blood in the back of my skull, and pins-and-needles behind my eyeballs. That's when things start getting interesting, when the Other Side begins filtering its way into things.

It's kind of painful, too.

It's all accompanied by the feeling of a slender blade working its way into the folds of my brain. It never stops hurting; it's just something I've become used to. But it's all worth it; it's what lets me see the stranger side of life.

Take the old Asian guy for instance, sitting by himself near the windows. When I first walked into the cafe and saw him, he looked like a happy, wizened old man nursing a steaming cup of coffee and playing a crossword puzzle in the local newspaper. I got that buzzing tingle in my skull that lets me know there's something Other afoot, switched between spectrums, and the old timer stood out like a very bizarre sore thumb. The proportions, the framework, it was all still roughly humanoid. But now instead of wrinkled brown skin, he was covered in a black carapace that shimmered like an oil-slick. Humongous compound eyes took up almost the entirety of his head, except where a delicate proboscis sprouted from between them. There were two extra arms folded up against his shiny torso.

He wasn't messing with anyone, so I didn't say anything. Most the time, the Others just mind their own business, content to let mankind believe that it is the dominant species. At the counter I rifled through my pockets for change, my craving for caffeine becoming unbearable. I'd run out a couple days ago, and Devlin had better have a damned good reason for wanting to meet at such an ungodly hour.

"Yeah a...coffee. You have coffee, right? Regular coffee?" I said and received a glacial look from the barista.

"Of course we have coffee, sir. Tall, grande, or venti?" The guy asked with dripping sarcasm.

"Small if you can manage."

I heard his teeth grinding while he poured the cup and set it on the counter. I gave him a thumbs up, dumped out a handful of change and walked off with my coffee to a table and chairs secluded in the corner to wait for Devlin. I dropped my bag on the ground and sat trying to not look too obvious as I scanned the room.

Hipsters, fogies, business types, and other random members of humanity. Who knew this many people were actually up and about at six in the morning? It had been so long since I'd last been up at such a disturbingly early time I'd almost stopped believing morning even existed.

That Devlin wanted me to meet him this early, and at a coffee shop full of mostly normal folk meant two things; that it was middling to extremely important, and he was a bastard.

"Thomas! My dear boy, I feared you wouldn't show." A high, clear voice belted across the room, almost giving me a heart attack. I looked to the door, and saw every head in the place had turned the same way.

Devlin Desmund, ladies and gentlemen.

To everyone else in the room he looked just like a kindly old gentleman, somebody's grandpa, complete with thick spectacles, knit sweater vest, and a fringe of cotton white hair slicked down around his head. He shuffled through the door in battered penny-loafers, gnarled walking stick clicking as he went. He smiled beatifically at me as he ambled along. No one would ever guess he was actually the reigning monarch of Hanford's Others, or one of the most powerful. I noticed the elderly bug-man slipping out as Devlin came in. I was still looking between spectrums and ended up catching a glimpse of Devlin's true appearance, which snapped me back to normal and left me with a metallic taste in my mouth and a ringing in my ears. Flashes of manifold ephemeral limbs, and sun-bright globes orbiting a shape that defied geometry burned themselves onto my retinas and I almost dropped my coffee.

"Thomas, you look as if you've had a fright, whatever is the matter?" Devlin asked as he sat down in the seat across from me and laid his walking stick across his knees.

"I think I might have burned out some brain cells but I probably wasn't using them anyways, thanks."

I set my coffee down and looked across at Devlin. He was watching me, looking me over with too bright eyes that were no human shade of blue, smiling a knowing smile. He drummed his fingers lightly on his cane, waiting for me to speak.

"What have you gone and dragged me out of bed for Devlin? Your messenger made it sound awfully important."

"Oh, Thomas, it can wait. How are you? It's been positively ages. All better after that tussle with those Broken Circle ruffians?" Devlin gave a slight laugh as if it were some kind of inside joke, "You do look a bit...ragged."

The Broken Circle. Thinking about that encounter sent an involuntary shiver through me and brought back unpleasant memories of slime and crawling things. I caught a look at myself in the window behind Devlin. He must have been being polite when he said ragged; I looked like a deranged vagrant.

I was buried under an oversized, battered Army coat and hooded sweater that made me look lumpy and I hadn't cut my hair or beard since they had finally managed to grow back. My hair looked like a rat had recently nested in it, and the coarse black beard that hung from my face was wiry and ragged. There were even dark circles around my eyes that looked like bruises. I looked like absolute shit. So I might have become something of a recluse after my encounter with the Broken Circle. I think this was my first real foray beyond my home since that incident that didn't involve raiding the local ninety-nine cent store for supplies. I might have to do some grooming, after Devlin told me what was going on.

"I'm fine, and your precious barony is no longer infested by dimension devouring cockroach worshippers. You're welcome." Hopefully I sounded smug, not indignant.

"My subjects and I thank you, Thomas; we are in your debt," Devlin said.

"Still waiting for a check," I said over the rim of my cup. "Or cash."

"In due time. You humans and your money. Both so sadly transient." Devlin's friendly, paternal smile faded as he spoke. He looked at me with lambent eyes, and for a split second the gravity in the room got cranked up to eleven, "I digress, forgive me. Since pleasantries are apparently done, shall we move on to business?"

"Yes, please."

"I assume you know of the Libro Nihil?"

I rolled the words around in my head; they rang a few bells. I sorted through the library of collected facts and trivia and, dare I say it, lore in my grey matter. My business is information, and over the years I'd accumulated an awful lot to sort through. It took a second, but I stumbled onto the memory.