Haven Cove: Chapter One

[danman113]

Hello fellow Newgrounders! I have been working on this short story for about a month (I have a very slow writing process) and I'm finally done with the first chapter. Please feel free to point out any grammatical mistakes (and I'm sure there are many) and criticize as you see fit. Please don't bash on the plot or the tone too much yet as much of the main plot hasn't been exposed much yet.
Chapter One: The Letter
I can't believe I'm actually doing this Isaac thought to himself as he sat on the stool in the quaint highway diner on the outskirts of Salem, Oregon. Dead people can't write letters, and Isaac knew it, he just couldn't believe it. He took the letter out the pocket and read it slowly aloud, each word sounding more ghostly and unreal as the last.
"Dear Isaac
You've grown up so fast; I only wish I was there to spend those years with you. Although I can't say that I'm proud of what you've grown up to be. I haven't touched the soil of the earth in over 25 years but my feet may soon finally feel the sands of life sift between my toes once again. When I do finally land on the earth once again I want you to be there with me. Meet me on the stone bench atop the hill that you had proposed to that nice girl many years ago. You will find a familiar face that will guide you to me. I'll be waiting for you Isaac.
Love,
Ophelia Cartland"
Ophelia Cartland, he hadn't heard that name in over twenty years. Ophelia Cartland was Isaacs's mother, his mother that he himself never remembered, but the name he could never forget. If you had looked at any obituaries or asked almost anyone that she knew, Ophelia had died by an accident, although her demise was anything but an accident. If Ophelia's new husband had been willing to spend the money to get his wife psychologically evaluated the results would have been clear, severe avoidant personality disorder with a growing case of Postpartum depression.
The actual cause of death for Ophelia Cartland was suicide, by jumping off the edge of the cliff onto the awaiting ocean below. Three hours earlier she had found out she was pregnant with yet another child. It was the thought of bringing another soul into a world where husbands abuse their wives that drove her to the ridge. It was the thought of bringing another soul into a world where husbands sleep with barmaids that drove her to the edge of the cliff. Finally it was the thought of bringing another soul into a world where poor Ophelia, who had dreamt sense she was a little girl to be a professional photographer, to get knocked up halfway through her studies and be forced to live the life of a lowly housewife for the rest of her days that forced her to lift her foot off the edge of the cliff and fall into the water that beckoned to her below.
The letter seemed too unreal to be true, but yet Isaac knew it was real, he could feel it was real. He took a sip of the coffee that sat on the bar in front of him; he had almost forgotten it was there. Isaac crumpled the note in his hand and shoved it back into his jeans pocket, even touching it made his spine tingle with fear. Isaac took his hand out of his pocket and held the glass cup with two hands and emptied it in two, huge gulps. Fear makes a man parched.
"Slow down there pal, drowning in coffee isn't going to keep you awake." The waiter warned from behind the bar.
"Sorry, just kind of in a hurry." Isaac replied promptly
"Nah, its fine. So where you headed all in a hurry to stranger? The waiter responded
"Haven Cove, about two hours away from here."
"Oh, that's interesting, what brings you there?"
"Just looking for a nice place to relax and write my novel." Isaac lied on the spur of the moment. It was time for him to leave.
"Ah, well good luck getting there pal, drive safely." the waiter responded with a wave as Isaac hopped off the stool and walked out the door. Isaac Cartland was 5'9, not a small man by any means, although not a large one either. A light brown beard was adhered to his face and ran all the way across his cheeks down to the cleft of his chin. His light brown beard did nothing but complement the hair that held firmly onto his head, the top as straight as a bowl and ends that stuck out almost half an inch. Some would have said he looked like Jim Halpert with a beard. This "Jim Halpert with a beard" wore a down green parka and a pair of dark blue jeans to shield his body from the elements of fall Oregon.
Isaac took his keys and plunged them into the keyhole of his 2006 Jeep Grand Cherokee, grateful that his stop had finally come to an end. There was only a two hour drive separating him from what lay ahead at Haven Cove and he felt a strange form of anxiousness and unrest permeate his body into his very soul. Isaac turned the ignition on and felt the warm air of the heater hit him straight on the face as the dashboard lit up and displayed the current oration of the car, west, and the temperature, 46 degrees Fahrenheit. It was at this time a panicked thought found its way into his head. You can still turn back Isaac, it's not too late. You can just turn your car around and burn the damnned note, just forget about the whole thing. No I can't Isaacs mind retaliated I have to find out about Ophelia.
After Isaac's mother had met her demise, his father had taken care of him for almost a whole four years by himself. His name was Richard Cartland, my name is Richard Cartland. Before I died, was killed, I was an acclaimed cop, famous for my "even criminals deserve to live" attitude, a rare attitude at the Wellmount police academy. Wellmount was a growing city just outside of Portland, Oregon that had an incredibly large crime rate and a bigger police homicide rate. I was "a good one", one who didn't shoot on first sight of a gun, one who tried to reason with that poor soul holding up that convenience store. He put down his gun and no one got hurt, and I even got a medal. After Ophelia died, Isaac seemed to always stare at me, as if he knew I helped drive his mother off the edge. I just shrugged, and kept on thinking I didn't do anything wrong, and that it was just Ophelia, unstable Ophelia.
Anyways I was out one night on patrol, when out of no where my patrol car gets T-boned and the next thing you know I'm laying on the street with a back full of glass shards and an ass black with asphalt. I stood up and wobbled back to my patrol car to check on my partner, Rick, nice guy, even if he liked to drink a lot. Rick had a six inch shard of glass sticking out of his neck and it looked like he hit his head pretty hard. "Who the hell hit us"? I shouted incoherently to myself. Then over the top of the car I saw a ragged looking guy in an orange hoodie jump out of his cheap sedan with a shotgun in hand start running away.
I took my gun out of its holster and shouted "hey, where the hell you running off too, get your ass back here!" with but with no luck. He ran fast, but I was faster. He took his gun and shot into the air and shouted "It was an accident you damn pig! Don't start something you can't finish!" his voice was hoarse and sickly, a voice that had undoubtedly been used for shouting at officers before. The hooded man then kicked down the door of a recently abandoned house. I stupidly chased into the house, gun pointed. Once in I couldn't find him anywhere, the house as bare as a skeleton hiding him from my view.
"Gotcha!" the hooded man shouted as he leaned out of the cover of the corner of a hallway and shot the wall surrounding me.
I quickly jumped to the corner on the opposite side of the hallway and shouted
"It doesn't have to end like this you know, you're only looking at one charge so far, and ten years of prison isn't so bad," I quickly reasoned.
"And just what the hell do you know about prison?" he shouted as he let off another round that just barley missed the top of my head.

[danman113]

"More then you think," I responded "I used to be a married man!" Now it amazes me how I could still joke around, even in a life or death situation. "Please just put the gun down and we can talk this out like two mature adults! My name is Richard Cartland; please I'm just trying to help!" I reasoned. The man grew silent.
"You ever kill a man, Richard?" he finally responded after almost thirty seconds of silence.
"No, something that's hard to say in my line of work. I Deal with people who have all the time though."
"Well you're a lucky man; any of those people you know kill a kid, Richard?" He responded, his voice sounding grainier and darker then his usual angry shouts.
"Yeah, a few." I responded uncertainly. Where was this guy going with this?
"Any of them kill their sister, Richard?" His voice sounded stranger, almost maniacal. "Ever meet someone who killed their mother, RICHARD?" he shouted, pausing before the Richard. I glanced from my corner and saw him move out of the cover of the corner and slowly walked closer to my mine, gun ready, his voice even more maniacal then before. "Ever meet anyone who killed a police officer, RICHARD? Ever meet anyone who killed a nun, RICHARD?! HAVE YOU EVER MET ANYONE WHO BLEW THE BRAINS OUT OF A PREGNANT WOMAN, RICHARD!?" I trembled fear. Was I facing a man or a demon? He then emerged out of hallway and his eyes and gun met my eyes, although I was too paralyzed with my own fear to get my arm to move up, I don't even think I could have pulled the trigger if I had somehow managed to get my arm up. They where wide open, more maniacal then any of the inhabitants of the Wellmount asylum for the criminally insane. He then spoke the last words I would ever hear, as calm as the sea and as sane as God himself "Goodbye Richard."
The man who killed me's name was Joseph Thompson. Six months before his eyes met mine he cut the throat of his sixteen year old sister with a bread knife over a bag of meth. That same night he had stabbed his own mother in the head with the same bread knife that had used to cut open the windpipes of his sister six hours earlier. A police officer named Darrel Prescott knocked on the door of Joseph Thompson's house the day after. The door was answered by 17 pellets of buckshot shot from that same shotgun that Joseph would shot me with Six months with later.
Joseph was a Catholic and as a good Catholic, went to church to confess his sins. His sins deeply angered Sister Josephine who had the nerves to pick up the phone and call the police. She had only been able to dial 9-1 by the time Joseph had gotten his hands around her neck and she was desperately grasping for air. Joseph then went into hiding with the knowledge that not even God could save him now. He hid in an abandon building for six months, only going outside to get more bologna and beer. He finally went out of hiding and hijacked the car of eight months pregnant Heather Madison, resulting in him shooting her in the back of the head.
Two weeks after Joseph's eyes met mine he received text from a local drug dealer and recently deceased friend of his to meet him in his old safe house on the other side of town. It was there that he met Judex and the Ghost of all of his victims, including myself. He had no remorse for his sins. I can still taste the sweetness of his blood against my lips and hear the sounds of the last few beats of his heart.
It was at this time that Isaac's paperwork finally went through and he was officially the child of Thomas and Sophie Cartland, my brother and his wife of five years. At least in the eyes of the law. However Thomas and Sophie both felt distance in Isaac, he usually kept to himself and kept as short of a conversation as possible. After about six months it was time for Isaac to go to his first day of school, it would be here that he would learn his most valuable trait, manipulation.
During elementary school, Isaac may have been considered by some to be a bully, although he wasn't the "dumb" kind, nor the "popular" kind, if anything he was the "clever" kind of bully. Isaac himself wasn't a strong child, weak if anything, but he convinced both John Delkin and Andrew Huygens to basically do anything that he asked. " Throw rocks at that kids sandcastle. Break that weird kids stick that he's pretending is a sword. Smash that girls flower!" where all commands that he once shouted and John and Andrew obeyed with complete obedience.
Not all of Isaacs "crimes" where physical either, most of them would come in the form of insults that not only demoralized their unlucky targets but dug under their skin and would harbor in their minds for days, slowly eating it away. Luke Jackman, one of Isaac's unlucky victims, wept from such abuses constantly until they finally ate away at the last of his sanity. He was eventually institutionalized after nearly blinding John Delkin in a fit of pure rage. Isaac was never officially accused of provoking someone as "mentally and emotionally unstable" as Luke and the rest of his elementary school years resumed relatively normally. Sophie and Thomas would take care of Isaac for another seven years until they would finally send him off to collage and out of their lives.
Isaac was, however, not driving to Haven Cove to find Sophie Cartland. No, if Sophie had sent the mysterious letter, Isaac would have thrown it away as fast as he had read it. But Ophelia Cartland had sent the letter, and that's what induced him to make the turn at the sign that clearly read "Haven Cove, next exit". Making that turn seemed to be like taking a turn straight into hell itself, although it also felt as if he was finally returning home. Isaac stopped his car at the front of the gate that led to Haven Cove and contemplated for the last time whether or not he really wanted to open the gates and discover what had been on the tip of his mind for the past three days or simply go home and forget about it. He took his hand and slowly slid it into his right pocket, hoping he would pull out nothing and that all of this had been some strange hallucination. But nonetheless he pulled the crumpled up letter out even unfolded it to make sure it wasn't just a blank piece of paper, but once again, no such luck.
Isaac opened his door and retreated out of his Jeep into the foggy parking lot that housed only Isaacs's car. Isaac finally faced the old, tempered metal black gate that separated haven Cove from the rest of the beach. A huge metal sign adorning the words "Haven Cove" in big, silver letters was welded onto the apex of the gate, giving it a gloomy quality. The rest of the area was fenced off with a Wrought iron fence similar in design with the gate, its black verticals sticking out like miniature spears. To anyone unfamiliar with the area, Haven Cove would have looked more like a cemetery than a beach, with its gloomy fencing and unusually foggy and rainy weather. Although Haven Cove was connected to the ocean, it had very little sand. A dark green layer of grass covered the ground in most areas, with an exception of the area the waves where constantly bombarding.
Haven Cove was surrounded by two small hills, each as green as the ones in Ireland. A grey concrete path led to a stone bench on the top of the left hill. It was hard for Isaac to believe that he had proposed to his old fiancé on this bench only two years ago. Isaac couldn't see the stone bench anyway; a dense layer of fog blocked everything but his car and the gate from his sight. He reached into his left pocket and pulled out his blackberry, no signal. He checked the time, 7:04 pm. If no one shows up in an hour I'm getting the hell out of here Isaac thought to himself and pushed open the gates to Haven Cove. The gate was freezing to the touch, making Isaac quickly stuff his hands into his coat and continue along the path to the left hill.

[danman113]

Once Isaac finally made it to the top of the hill, an unusual fatigue made him fall down onto the small stone bench that overlooked the waves crashing on the cliff face that the hill formed
"Shit, I gotta get back in shape, I feel like an seventy year old man." he muttered to himself, rubbing his forehead. The unusual fatigue turned into an unnatural somnolence that took over Isaacs body like a skilled general invading its weaker neighbor. The last thing Isaac heard before he slipped into unconsciousness was the nearby melody of a flute. He had heard the melody somewhere before, he couldn't recognize its name but he did recognize that it was a lullaby.

Coming soon: More Dialogue :D
Creepy Ghost,
a Monsterish thing

[Ef-X]

Its well written. You took your time to create the backstory and the environment and it shows. I found the second post of the story gruesome :/ with that crazy dude. I did not understand the meeting of the ghosts but I am sure I would understand that with the rest of the story. I'm just wondering is the protagonist Isaac's dad? I sense thriller genre within this story and it shows potential. Sorry I can't help with the grammar since I never had a strong point towards that...i know it can be tiring to fix grammar errors here and there. I'm sure richard's character is going to develop more since it is hinted that he was abusive to his wife, perhaps he acknowledges this or not...its up to you to decide however your the writer. But yeah it was a good read.

[danman113]

wow thanks allot and yes i have aleady created a whole process revolving around the ghost (and little FYI their appearence is being based on Guillermo del Toro's ghost). Although Richard is actually only the Narrarator (He is a special type of ghost that is basically omicent) and actually thats a great idea!