The Grinning Man: A Novel

By A.J. DiChiara

Aside from her nightmares, Felice DePalma enjoys living on Long Island. But when her conniving boyfriend steals all of her money and leaves her in debt, she knows there is only one solution: sell her house and start a new life.

So she lines up a new job in Buffalo and decides to make the road trip to her new home a mini-vacation. Shell visit all the interesting sites along the way, making the best out of a bad situation.

But she quickly finds out that she hasnt left everything behind. Her nightmares continue even when shes awake. In them, a man with a perverse grin terrorizes her. She doesnt know what he wants, but she knows very well that hes evil.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Frank Welker is investigating a string of deaths. Hes finding bodies along the same route that Felice is traveling to Buffalo, and hes beginning to think that she might be a serial killer.

If Felice cant convince authorities to take her nightmares seriously, she just might be the next victim of The Grinning Man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Feb 25, 2009
• ISBN: 9780595634248

A.J. DiChiara

A.J. DiChiara, author of The Human Factor: A Requiem for Darwin, graduated with a Bachelor of Science in advertising/marketing from New York Institute of Technology. DiChiara has worked in the advertising industry in many capacities, over the years- small and large. In 1992, he formed DiChiara and Co., a freelance advertising/consulting company and is currently developing an internet production company which will produce original TV-type shows, movies and content for the World Wide Web. He has contributed articles for the entertainment newspaper SNEAK PREVIEW, and has won 4th place in the Long Island Film Festivals Best Screenplay contest. He resides in Long Island, New York. Visit his website at www.ajdichiara.com.

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Copyright © 2009 A.J. DiChiara

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any Web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-0-595-53368-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4401-2708-3 (cloth)

ISBN: 978-0-595-63424-8 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 6/12/09

Contents

Prologue—

Chapter 1—

Chapter 2—

Chapter 3—

Chapter 4—

Chapter 5—

Chapter 6—

Chapter 7—

Chapter 8—

Chapter 9—

Chapter 10—

Chapter 11—

Chapter 12—

Chapter 13—

Chapter 14—

Chapter 15—

Chapter 16—

Chapter 17—

Chapter 18—

Chapter 19—

Chapter 20—

Chapter 21—

Chapter 22—

Chapter 23—

Chapter 24—

Epilogue—

Also by A.J. DiChiara:

The Human Factor: A Requiem for Darwin (iUniverse, 2004)

For more information about the author and his current projects visit

www.ajdichiara.com.

This book is dedicated to my greatest love, and my best friend, Linda. Thank you for all of your support. You always make me want to be the best that I can be, and I always want the best for you.

And

A special thanks to The St. Paul Evangelical Lutheran Church, in Bethpage, NY for helping me get the details about the Lutheran Church right.

Dear Readers,

There have been tales on the East Coast of the United States—urban legends of a Grinning Man who travels the deserted byways told and retold by frightened travelers, too many to be discounted. Some think he is a demon or phantom. Others think he is an alien creature, whose diabolical purpose has yet to be discovered. Although the accounts vary regarding the size and shape of the Grinning Man, all report having dreams or visions of the creature several days before an actual encounter, and in some cases, a rare few have reported having dreams for several days after an encounter.

A retired FBI agent, who desires to remain anonymous, recounted the following story to me. The facts of his story have been verified, as far as they could be, but the fantastic occurrences and supernatural aspects of the story remain open for speculation, conjecture and debate. As for the people involved in the story, all expressed a strong desire to remain anonymous as well, and so the names and places have been changed to protect their identities and preserve their privacy.

The Grinning Man

Prologue—

This is a dream, she told herself. Nothing can hurt me here. But knowing this didn’t abate the gnawing fear growing inside her. She was lying there, in her room, peering through the rungs of the metal frame at the foot of her bed.

At first she was uncertain —it seemed so real. But her paralysis—her inability to move, or turn on the lights, told her she was dreaming. Just as she also knew, deep down, that someone—or something was in the room with her.

Her eyes scanned the room, searching for any corroboration, but found nothing. Everything in her dream room was identical to the real thing. She didn’t know why, but her fear intensified. Stop this! It’s not real. But her subconscious mind wasn’t listening.

Her heart was pounding now, and her breathing was rapid. Her mind was fighting with her body—pleading with it to get up—to wake up!

Then she heard it—a low wheezing breath, coming from the foot of her bed. Something is there! The terror was palpable now. Her chest hurt, her lungs filled with air, ready to scream—but the only sound that came was the heavy breathing from the foot of the bed. All she could do was lie there and wait in trepidation.

The wheezing breath was growing louder, filling the room, making it hard for her to pinpoint whether the night visitor was still lurking near her bed, or had moved elsewhere in the room.

She scanned the room again—her head turned. She could move! She sat up in a blink, but something was wrong. It was her legs—they wouldn’t budge. Oh, God no. Please, not this.

The mysterious intruder’s breathing rasped louder, with a whooshing blast from massive lungs. Whatever this subconscious boogey man was—it was big!

For an instant, her mind flashed the memory of Bruno, her St. Bernard, whose heavy breathing scared her into her parents’ bed on many a stormy night. But this was not Bruno. Whatever her dreaming mind conjured up, it was bigger than a St. Bernard—much bigger.

The bed jolted—her mind snapped back. Whatever it was, still lurked at the foot of the bed. Move. Please move! she commanded her body, but it didn’t respond. Whatever she had read about being able to control your dreams was immediately disproved. She was a helpless captive of her tormented psyche.

She tried to close her eyes, but her mind wouldn’t allow it. Oh. God—please wake up… please wake UP!

Then out of the depths, it rose from the floor, a dark, hulking figure, cloaked in the shadows of the dreary autumnal night.

U

Her eyes widened. Her heart pounded within her chest like a jackhammer. She wanted to look away, but oddly, there was something—a small part of her that wanted to see the creature in the light.

Her eyes shifted from the nocturnal invader to the light on her nightstand. She forced her mind to concentrate on her left arm—trying to get it to move, but it wouldn’t budge.

It stirred, letting out a deep grunt. In a flash, her eyes were back on the spot. Heavy footsteps from big black work boots made the floorboards creak and groan. It was standing on the left side of the bed now, in the rectangular patch of moonlight that flooded through the windows.

It was a man—or rather man-shaped. The biggest she had ever seen, at least seven feet tall, looming over her. Its smooth head seemed like a pinhead compared to the bulk of its enormous body. Its beady eyes were widely spaced; black iris surrounded by glowing yellow sclera. Its nose and ears were exceedingly small, even for its disproportioned head.

It was dressed only in green coveralls, which shimmered in the moon-glow, broken by a thick black belt cinched tightly around its waist. Its skin was pallid, giving no hint of color, no sense of warmth.

She forced her gaze upward again, towards the behemoth’s face, this time locking with its eyes. They were black and lifeless, like a shark’s—devoid of any human thought or feeling. They were also blank—soulless. Yet there was a sense of depth, like looking into the still black waters of a bog, or lagoon—or a bottomless pit. Her eyes drifted down, towards its mouth, and she saw that grin—that horrible, maniacal grin.

U

Terror ran through her veins, like flaming magma. She fought to breathe through tearing gasps. Then, all at once, she felt a cold sting at the base of her skull, as if someone had stabbed her with an icicle.

The huge creature’s grin was the most frightening thing she had ever seen, but there was something more. The grin by itself was disturbing—like the gnarled, twisted smile from the corpse of an evil clown; its jagged white piranha-like teeth had all the warmth of a bear trap. But it was the grin, coupled with the soulless eyes—dead and joyless, that made the grin unbearable to look at.

She forced her eyes away, jerking her head to the side. She couldn’t bear to look at that grin for one more second. Wake up. WAKE UP! Oh, God please… please. Then suddenly there was a great silence—the heavy breathing had stopped.

Keeping her eyes tightly shut, she strained to listen through the unnatural, maleficent quiet. Had her mind decided to make her deaf as well as paralyzed, or had the monster vanished? She had to know.

She took a deep breath, counted to three, and then opened her eyes to see the Grinning Man leaning, inches away from her face. And in deference to her subconscious mind, which could take no more, she was finally allowed to scream.

U

Felice DePalma awoke to the crash of her lamp hitting the floor. She was now sitting up, drenched in sweat, and breathing heavily, feeling as though she had just run the New York Marathon. It was just a dream… just a dream, she told herself, trying to calm down.

U

Pulling at her delicate white nightie, she thus allowed air to circulate, cooling herself off. The sudden rush of cool air made her nipples stand erect, and she shuddered.

Letting out a tension filled sigh, she brushed her hair behind her ears, then glanced over at the clock on her nightstand, which read, 4:50 a.m. She had wanted to get an early start on her trip, but not this early.

Felice groaned, as she stared tiredly at the amber and gold trimmed pieces of what was once her favorite lamp. She had planned to load it into her car, right beside her in the passenger seat; afraid it would break if she loaded it in the trunk with the heavy boxes.

Sorry, Grandma.

Felice rolled out of bed, knelt, and started picking up the broken pieces of her grandmother’s lamp and dumping them into the wicker wastebasket.

As she thought about her grandmother, a slight smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. It was by the light from this very lamp that her grandmother had read her favorite stories to her.

Felice had started going to her grandmother’s for the summer, several months after her father’s death. She was eight years old. Despite the tragic loss, her summers with her grandmother were some of the happiest times of her life, and she still cherished many fond memories.

U

The memories came trickling back, like the calm currents of a babbling brook, soothing the last bits of tension from her mind and body. She was now once again eight and swimming in her grandmother’s pool, while Bruno nervously barked at her, leaning precariously over the edge of the white coping, trying to pull her out with his teeth.

While most of those summer days were reserved for swimming, the evenings were when she and her grandmother would bond. Sometimes it was during a game of cards. Sometimes it was while baking cookies. And sometimes it was during a rainy summer night, sitting on her grandmother’s lap, while she read to her under the lamp which was eventually left to her, ten years ago, after her grandmother’s death.

Tears welled in her eyes, as she placed the final piece of her grandmother’s lamp in the wastebasket. An unexpected longing for those lost days in Oyster Bay tugged at her, deep within her belly. Oh, Grandma. I miss you so.

Felice stood and looked at her bed. She bit her bottom lip, then made a slashing gesture with her hand. After the dream she had had, the last thing she wanted was to go back to sleep.

Well, I guess I’ll finish packing.

Chapter 1—

Felice felt the warmth of the sun on her back and neck, as she stuffed the last box into her ’99 Honda Civic. The sun felt good, and was a pleasant break from the occasional cool breeze that chilled the autumn air.

Well, this is the first day of the rest of your new life.

Felice walked around her car for one last inspection, making sure the doors were closed and that she hadn’t left anything lying by the side of the car. Seeing that she hadn’t forgotten anything, and that everything was secure, she made a quick mental nod and got in.

She shuddered in the cold car and she immediately fumbled for her keys. After what seemed like an eternity, she found the right key, started the car and turned on the heater to high.

She hated the cold which made her decision to move up north to Buffalo seem ironic—or more candidly, a big mistake. But given her current circumstances, what choice did she have?

She instinctively slid her seatbelt on, then adjusted her rearview mirror. As she adjusted her rear view mirror, she caught glimpse of her parents’ home—her home, standing silent witness.

A tear rolled gently down her cheek. That Bastard! she yelled inwardly. It was because of him that she had to sell—that she had to start her life over at thirty. Her body began quivering, not from the cold as before, but from rage.

It all started five years ago, when her mother died. Feeling lonely scared, and despondent, she sought comfort in a man, who at the time seemed like an angel sent from heaven. But in reality he was a demon in disguise.

Jerry Kinet was a user, a con-man, a liar, and a thief. He was the type of man who sought out the most vulnerable women to prey on—to take advantage of. She should have known better, but she wasn’t in her right mind—wasn’t aware that such predators existed.

They had met at the grocery store, the summer of 1999. He was working as a stock-boy, occasionally bagging groceries, when needed. She had seen him several times, as she shopped, giving the occasional polite nod or curt hello, but that was the extent of their conversations.

He was rough looking, with tattoos covering most of the skin on both arms, and his chest—definitely not her type. His long chestnut brown hair, and untrimmed facial hair made him look like a wild beast—a lion on the prowl on the plains of Africa.

By mid-summer, Jerry was working his way into her life. At first he would carry her grocery bags to her car. Then, he started complimenting her—building her confidence on the outside, yet subversively working his way in, fishing for her weak spots—testing the waters.

Then came the lunch invitations, which she had declined at first. But Jerry was persistent, never giving up until she relented. Soon lunch became dinner, as Jerry worked to tear down her reservations.

After a time she was amazed at how easy it was to talk to him—he was so sensitive and understanding. The thing that struck her was that he was so supportive. He never made a negative comment, or criticized her. The inner workings of this man certainly didn’t reflect his appearance.

Never judge a book by its cover, he told her. That’s the story of my life. People are always judging me on my looks, without getting to know me—the real me. Without giving me a chance.

Of course, she didn’t realize it at the time, but looking back now—that was his hook—the bait that she had naively swallowed. In today’s P.C. world, it was very easy to make people feel guilty about clinging to stereotypes. That kind of thinking was wrong. That kind of thinking was unfair, and judgmental. That kind of reaction was exactly what Jerry was aiming for.

What an idiot I was, she thought with a sigh, as she drifted back to the present. How naive—how blind! All the signals were there. She adjusted the heat to a lower setting. There was nothing wrong with stereotyping. It was a defense mechanism—a way to use familiar behavior, and characteristics to define the world around you, to protect you, and help you make informative decisions. It was only when you took stereotypes to the extreme, letting hatred and bigotry overwhelm you, and cloud your judgment, was when it was dangerous and hurtful. Bottom line—always trust your instincts.

She gazed in the mirror again, as she drove down the long driveway, the house growing smaller. The tears were streaming now. She reached for the Kleenex box she kept in the driver’s door compartment, and wiped her eyes. Her mind flashed back again.

By summer’s end, she and Jerry were dating steadily. He was filling the emptiness in her heart with joy and the more time she spent with him, the more she wanted to be with him. By mid-fall, he had moved into her house—the fox had entered the chicken coop. That day was the beginning of the end.

The first few months were uneventful. Jerry was still on guard, playing the devoted friend, lover, and confidant. Then the real Jerry showed up—the liar. The low-life. He quit his job, and started hanging around the neighborhood bars. She should have thrown him out then—but she didn’t. Why didn’t she?

Then one day an unexpected knock came at the door. A large African-American lady was looking for Jerry—she was his parole officer. Jerry was an ex-con, out after doing five years for illegal drug possession. But that, as she learned, was just the tip of the iceberg. It turned out Jerry also had a rap sheet as long as the Vagina Monologues. Theft, assault and battery, dealing and selling narcotics, and pimping, were just a few of the acts in Jerry’s repertoire.

But instead of throwing him out, she protected him—made excuses. He was different now—he had changed. In fact, the whole thing was a misunderstanding. He was innocent—they were judging him by his cover. ‘You know me baby…’ were the words she heard echoing through her mind—the lies she allowed herself to believe. Why didn’t I throw him out then?

Her mind switched back to the present. It was just past 8:00 A.M., and the traffic on Manchester Drive was heavy for a Monday morning. She looked left, then right, gauging the speed of the rushing traffic, looking for an opening.

Despite the town’s best efforts, people still drove too fast. Most of the offenders were the very same neighbors who were the most vocal with their complaints. Do as I say, not as I do, she thought as she saw an opening and took it.

Ms. Jacobson, the driver she just slid in front of, honked her horn, leaning on it for about a minute. Felice turned, gave a quick shrug, and mouthed the word sorry. But in her mind she was calling her a fucking bitch!

There was no love lost between the two. Jacobson, a short, overweight widow, in her mid-fifties, with over-dyed bleach blond hair, moles on her chin and forehead, and makeup that would make Tammy Faye Baker look conservative, was a nervy, pushy busybody, and a loudmouth.

Jacobson was the kind of neighbor who never picked up her garbage cans, letting them roll all over the street (of course the garbage would always blow on my lawn). She had her dogs (as if one wasn’t enough, she had to have four) out all night barking incessantly. And God forbid you had a party (and it was still going on at 10:00 P.M.) she’d be the first on the phone, calling the cops. If she didn’t have to leave, Jacobson was certainly reason enough to consider it.

Come to think of it, the neighbors to her right were no bargain either. The Richmonds were young, in their late thirties, with two boys, ages twelve and fourteen. A new breed of parents, they wanted to be friends with their children.

This meant indulging their every whim—like their very own basketball court, regardless of the fact, that just down the street there was the school playground, and a block to the right was a neighborhood park. Both had basketball courts and then some.

Felice wondered what kind of mind could find bouncing a ball for hours at a time stimulating? Surely there were more entertaining pursuits. And what about the parents? How could they stand to listen to the hollow echo of the ball continuously bouncing against the pavement, or the loud metal twang of the ball hitting the hoop? Just the thought made Felice twinge. Didn’t they realize that people liked to come home from a hard days work, to some peace and quiet? Not basketballs bouncing until 10:00 p.m.

Didn’t these parents have any consideration for their neighbors? In her day (now she was beginning to sound like her grandmother), her parents, as well as her friend’s parents would never have allowed them to play loudly around the house so late.

A small smirk stretched the corners of her mouth, as she recalled her mother stepping out on the front stoop, in her white apron with the yellow and red flowers on the front. If you kids want to yell and make noise, go to the park or the school playground, she’d say, making a large shooing motion with her arms. After all, some of the neighbors might work nights and sleep days, she’d explain as they scooted off on their bikes. Or they might have babies that are sleeping, or old people who nap during the day… She’d go on and on until they rounded the corner, her job accomplished.

Well Mom, you were right. I didn’t get it until now.

The truth of the matter was that she was ready for a change, even before Jerry put the final nail in the coffin. Just the thought of that man made her lips curl, and her brow furrow. I guess I have nobody to blame but myself. I just didn’t want to admit the truth. Felice pulled two more tissues from the box, as tears welled around her eyes.

In their last year together she discovered that Jerry had been stealing from her. At first he would ‘borrow’ her ATM card, deviously taking small amounts over long periods of time. No wonder I was bouncing so many checks.

Eventually he graduated to a bolder plan. Without her knowing, he had replied to the numerous credit card offers that came in the mail—all in her name of course. Then he proceeded to max them all out, racking up a grand total of $100,000 in debt. By the time she had figured everything out, it was too late. He was long gone, and the creditors were determined to get their pound of flesh—from her.

As if to add insult to injury, her position with the bank was terminated—something about having a policy about their employees being in debt and around all that money—it was a temptation the bank didn’t want to chance.

As for the police—they said there wasn’t anything they could do. They were simply too overwhelmed by the increasing amount of identity theft to be of any help.