Vincent Grey's Story

Chapter One:

The First Encounter

Vincent Grey was six years old and sleeping soundly in his bed. It was the sixth of June in 1985. He was dreaming of a world where you didn't have to pay to see movies and you could eat all the ice-cream you wanted. He was dreaming of the same world pretty much every six year old dreams of. No bossy parents, all members of the opposite sex excluded, adventures galore, etcetera.

He smiled in his sleep and rolled over. The "Star Wars" themed blanket pulled out from under the mattress and began to get roiled up. His bed was just one yellowing mattress sitting on top of a box spring on the floor. There were no bed posts or space under the bed. Just a mattress and a box spring sitting on the floor.

It was a little past midnight--the time that very few six year olds experience no matter how much they want to--and the room surrounding Vincent was ominously dark. A television sat in one corner, blank and without cable, along with a VCR and a few videotapes (including "E.T.", "Star Wars", "The Empire Strikes Back", and, supplied by his father and hidden from his mother, "Jaws").

In another corner of the room was a bookshelf that had several children's books on it. Vincent wasn't a fan of most of them, but his mother, Mary, insisted that he read them. Sometimes she read them to him. As an only child she could easily spare the time to do that for him. She had a part-time job at a grocery store as a cashier.

His father, Harry, didn't spend much time around Vincent because he was always busy at work as a manager at McDonald's.

Sometimes Vincent could hear them yelling at each other during the night. That was something else about his dream world: no one screamed at each other.

Vincent's room was L-shaped. The door that led out of the room was next to the book shelf. His closet made up the portion of the L that was shorter. That was on the opposite side of the room from Vincent's bed.

He was always scared over there because it got darker quicker there, and it was really dark at night, so much darker than the rest of the room.

Suddenly Vincent began to frown in his sleep. He groaned a little and then began to cover himself up with the blanket more. Then he rolled over to face the wooden wall of his bedroom. He was getting quite cold despite the fact that he was covered in blankets. His breath began to show in the small amount of light cast into the small room by the moon through his window.

Vincent's breathing began to quicken. It was getting really cold. Then his dream world was demolished as he jerked awake. He pulled the blankets in closer. He wondered why it was so cold.

Then he realized that it was really dark… and that he was all alone in that dark.

"Mom?" he asked in a very small voice that made him more frightened. "Where are you?"

Mary always stayed in his room until he was asleep. He had never been alone in the dark before and he had been scared of the dark even when he hadn't been alone. He was scared to the point of nearly wetting his bed. "Mom?" he repeated.

Suddenly the shadows looked much more threatening. His television looked like a giant, black eye staring at him, waiting for him to let his guard down. The videos he had were lined up on a lower shelf of the small entertainment center that his TV stood on. They looked a little like fingers or claws clutching a bar.

"Mom?" he was much more terrified now, and his voice showed it.

Then he saw his breath. It was exceedingly cold. Why was it so cold? It was summer! Close to it, anyway. It was colder than winter. It shouldn't have been that cold.

Then he heard a voice float out of the depths of his dark room. It was a female voice. The voice sounded like it had been filtered through water to reach his ears. "Charles…"

"H-Hello?" Vincent now sounded weak as well as scared.

"I just want to talk Charles…"

Vincent shrunk into his bed. He wanted to hide under his blankets and sheets, but he couldn't send the message to his body that he wanted to do that. It was like he was paralyzed.

Then a human form broke through the shadows of his room. It was an adult woman. She was wearing a long, red skirt that went down to her ankles and was cut down the side. Her top was a red shirt that went along with her skirt.

Her long arms were held out defensively. Her legs were poised to run. Vincent looked at her eyes to see what she was looking at. That's when he lost control of his muscles and urinated all over his monkeys and bananas pajamas and his bed.

The half of her face that remained was splattered with blood and unable to be made out. Her right eye was oozing down the remainder of her face and her hair--which might have been blonde or brunette if not for the severe amount of blood that was covering it--was hanging down all side of her head, including the one that was jagged and exposed the inside of her skull. Blood was bubbling out of her mouth, which was still mostly there, as she spoke.

"Put the gun down Charles… I just want to talk… PUT THE GODDAMNED GUN DOWN!"

Then the remainder of the woman's head turned to him and he was certain that she saw him. She didn't have any eyes but she saw him. "Just want to talk…"

Then the woman took a step toward him threateningly. "Just want to talk…"

Vincent was up and out of the room in a flash. He barreled down the hallways screaming for his mother. "Mom! Mom!"

He heard footsteps behind him following him. "Just want to talk…" her voice continued to haunt him. "Charles…"

He arrived at his parents' bedroom door after turning down another hallway. He started knocking on it as hard as he could while screaming his lungs out. Screaming as loud as he could.

The footsteps were still coming for him. "MOM! MOM! HELP ME! MOM!"

The door swung open fiercely and Vincent fell into forward into the room. It was dark in there, too, but safe. His mother was there and it was safe.

He looked up into the worried faces of his mother and father. Both were wearing bath robes, which they were still getting wrapped around themselves. Vincent wasn't aware that he was crying.

"There was someone in my room!" he bawled. Harry went out of the room cautiously.

"Harry?" Mary called after him in a hushed voice. "What are you doing?"

"Going to check it out," Harry whispered back. "Take Vincent and get the gun out of the nightstand."

Mary walked over to the nightstand next to the queen-sized bed that she shared with Harry and opened its drawer. From it she removed a small handgun. She then returned to Vincent and waited with him at the door of the bedroom.

Two minutes later Harry returned saying that he hadn't seen anything.

"It must've just been a bad dream Vincent," Harry said as he kneeled down on one knee to ruffle up Vincent's hair. "Nothing more."

He then started leading Vincent back out of the room to his own bedroom and Vincent pulled free of Harry's hand. "Can I sleep in here?" he asked desperately. He didn't want to go back to the dark alone. He wanted to stay with his mother.

Harry and Mary exchanged a glance. "Sure honey," Mary said. "You can sleep in here."

Harry sighed and walked over to the bedroom door and closed it. But not before Vincent saw the woman with only half a head walking towards the room from across the hall.

He decided to keep quiet and fell asleep between his parents. He was safe with them. He was safe from the dead woman.

He had no idea how wrong he was.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Hey, MorbidMan here. I hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this story.

Disclaimer: Vincent Grey is a character created by M. Night Shymalan, not me, and belongs to him, not me. The same goes for Malcolm Crowe, who will be included next chapter.

I always thought it would be neat to find out what had happened to Vincent Grey who--Spoiler Alert for "The Sixth Sense"--kills himself and Malcolm (although Malcolm doesn't find out until the end of the movie) in the first scene of the movie. That's it for this chapter. Please review.

"Do you know why you're scared when you're alone? I do. I do." - Vincent Grey "The Sixth Sense"