Michael Hyslip
Invisible Threads
Copyright © 2019 by Michael Hyslip
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
First edition
Editing by Jill Welsh, Cover art by Matt Davies
Contents
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
Chapter 25
About the Author
Chapter 1
The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu once said, “He who knows others is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.” What does that mean if I don’t know either?
As an urgent feeling of being watched trickles across the back of my neck, the certainty that I am not alone grows stronger. Unsure of who is watching, panic pushes its way up my throat. I am unsure if I’m dreaming or in reality, because everything seems legitimate, even when it makes no sense as dreams often do. Closing my eyes does not help, because a sense of foreboding begins to rise like a waking corpse.
Around me is a forest of strange sights blanketing the nearby landscape with confusing shapes. I perceive no pattern in this lifeless landscape, merely fragments that remind me of my own fleeting thoughts. The ground seems to be sand by texture, but the colors subtly change and refuse to settle on anything particular.
Movement beckons my attention across a horizon of subtle green and blue against the dark backdrop of night, like dawn is approaching, and in the distance there is a small group of people moving about. I know I need to find out what is happening to me, and as if my thoughts themselves held the power to move me, I am suddenly standing next to them. I look at each person, and their faces are literally blank, totally smoothed over like masks, except for their eyes. I cannot discern any detail to tell them apart. A faint smell of antiseptic rises from the ground, coupled with the smell of death dancing on the thinning fog swirling around our feet.
I watch as the body on the ground is raised onto a bed that materializes from underneath it; then the body fades back and forth between visibility and invisibility. I suddenly realize no one can see me, and I wave my hands in front of them as panic sets in; no one knows I am here! What is happening? The body feels familiar, the whisper of an old dream begging remembrance in the back of my mind.
As others gather around the body, a woman stares at me and appears confused or maybe surprised. I start to think perhaps she knows that I am really there when she glances back and forth as if I’d disappeared. After a moment she then turns around, walks over to the body, and glances at a clipboard hanging at the end of the bed. Stepping forward to take a closer look, I can only tell that she is a woman. The body on the cot that seems to be reminiscent of one in a medical care facility, shows me no indication of features or gender. She then reaches over to take the wrist of the person on the bed and checks the pulse, seemingly sparking the details. That body is mine… Suddenly, I scream as I snap into cold, adrenaline-flooded reality. So does the nurse who happens to be standing in my hospital room and holding my wrist.
◆◆◆
She jerked back in surprise, and I squinted as the lights became brighter. Her eyes widened and glanced around the room before she closed them, took a deep breath, and looked at me again to verify I was there.
“Are you okay? My heart’s pounding after you yelled so unexpectedly,” she commented, perhaps a bit cautious in her body language.
I tried to grasp my situation. She was a kind-looking, slender woman, perhaps in her mid-thirties with shoulder-length brown hair, and any lines on her face were from smiling. Her brown eyes were so dark it was hard to distinguish the pupil from iris. She must enjoy her job, or life or calling, though I wasn’t exactly sure why she was talking to me. Then I realized she’d asked me a question, and I had not responded.
“Ergugh.” I’m sure my vocabulary was impressive, but I was having trouble getting my throat to respond. Feeling trapped, I pulled at the nasogastric tube taped to my face. The last of the tube finally pulled free, clearing my nasal passages.
“Are you okay, sir?” she asked again. “Can you understand me?” Her caution gave way to concern.
I was becoming more confused by the moment as I struggled to grasp hold of the surroundings; coupled with a splitting headache, I tried to figure out how in the world I got here. “I uh….” was about all I got out before coughing a few times. She quickly filled a glass of water, and it was like a slice of heaven in a desert. I slowly drew a bit of it as she reinforced my shaking hands, my own adrenaline subsiding.
“Thank you; that was amazing. I am sorry I scared you.” I gasped, as speaking was a bit painful. I just knew there were going to be questions, probably all ones for which I had no answers.
“Do you know where you are?” she asked.
“I am fairly sure I am in a hospital room.”
“Incredible. Your name isn’t Sherlock, is it?” she said with a bit of a smirk.
“I have no idea. Is it supposed to be?”
This seemed to bring a bit of laughter from her, and it was a beautiful thing. She wasn’t laughing at me, but simply found joy in the moment, and I did not feel slighted at all.
I totally didn’t get the reference, though, so this was going to be a really long day. Over the next ten minutes, I was told that I’d been in a coma for about two months in a major Atlanta hospital; apparently, my reflexes seemed fine, as well as my gross motor skills. The painkillers they gave me should help the headache that was slowly receding by the minute.
Here is what I finally learned: My nurse’s name was Janet, and I was a creative John Doe. Awesome. I had no ID, fingerprint records, or anything else to identify me. No wedding ring or other jewelry, no tattoos. According to Janet, I had almost died of some sort of infection. How dramatic; probably something just to bill insurance…if I had any. I looked to be in my late twenties or slightly older and in fairly good shape, other than any atrophy caused by lack of exercise during the two-month coma.
I had to take many breaks to drink some water as we talked, and I got a few answers during the next thirty minutes: I was found in a section of a nearby subway platform after a small explosion had been reported. At least that was the explanation, because nothing except the sound of an explosion was reported, and my body was the only evidence. I was presented with b
urns and head trauma, and much of my clothing had been burned away. Some pieces of glass were removed from my scalp, but I healed quickly.
I seemed physically fine, but I could not remember much of anything aside from crazy dreams and short, hazy episodes of being awake in this room. My injuries had originally been thought to be far worse, but perhaps that was yet another dramatic attempt to show how amazing this hospital was. They may be right, though, because even the burned areas of my skin had minimal scarring. The soft scent of antiseptic in the air must have been what invaded my dreams.
I could move my body at command, more or less, so no lasting injuries that would prevent me from being functional, but the memory loss could be permanent. They didn’t know, and certainly neither did I. A doctor had also stopped by, hoping to get more information and offer some congratulations, as my head injuries seemed to heal much faster than expected—mostly attributed to my apparent good health. In fact, I was told that I might have died or been unable to control my limbs if I had ever woken up. A lot of therapy designed to retrain the brain to create basic connections again would have been necessary in that scenario, so I was “lucky.”
I had no explanation, not even a name. Initially, the police were involved, due to the explosion claims, but since no other evidence had been found, they closed the case. I was told my clothing seemed somewhat military and tactical in nature, but with no identifying markings because so much of it burned or ripped away, they could only discern that it was camouflage. Many people wear such clothing, I supposed, so I wasn’t sure what to make of that information. I was thankful they hadn’t pursued charging me, as nothing was damaged and no evidence that I had been party to any sort of plot to blow up the subway. I hoped they were correct. A glance in a small mirror showed dark-brown hair sticking out all over except for across my right side, where it had been shaved or trimmed. I could see where the injury occurred, highlighted by streaks of small scars and indications of previous burns. It all looked fairly recent.
I looked at my somewhat gaunt reflection as unfamiliar, dark-blue eyes looked back at me. My jaw felt sturdy and square, but I was somehow sure I’d seen better days. Still, nothing screamed freak or ugly. Or wouldn’t once I washed my hair and combed it.
“Well, Nurse Janet, I must be in good hands and survived quite a bit. Thank you. I’d like to try and go for a walk if possible. I’ve been in this bed for a while and want to stretch my legs.”
“Let’s find out first if you can handle your body weight enough to walk, and as long as you aren’t pushing yourself more than your body can handle, then, yes, it would do you some good. You’ll need to take this slowly, though.”
I was fairly sure I could handle a walk on my own, but she insisted on helping me actually get out of the bed, which was good since I caught a foot in a blanket and almost met the floor with intimacy. But she helped untangle me, and then we were off, finding many a great wonder, such as a door and a vending machine. These things were supposedly normal and expected, but I struggled with the fear that I might still be asleep somewhere and simply stuck in a dream. This feeling slowly went away as my focus remained on staying upright.
We slowly made our way down a few hallways at a slow shuffle, IV in tow, and I handled it fine, aside from a little problem with balance. I was slowly working out the balance issues, but happy my body was moving well. So was something else: I needed to visit the restroom. This probably would have gone okay had I not sat on a toilet in overwhelming exhaustion after awaking from a coma, but I ended up falling asleep and started snoring. A rescue team was sent in after me and helped me back to my room in embarrassment. I was relieved I’d awakened, as well, and pushed away the fear of slipping back into a coma.
Chapter 2
After two long weeks, I was out of the hospital and living at a homeless shelter, but I was driven to improve and regain whatever memories had been lost. I could walk for a mile and was usually clearheaded—at least by my own self-evaluation, which obviously could not always be trusted—but I felt better daily. I instinctively knew some basic skills, such as tying my shoes and how money and banking worked; plus, I had the benefit of believing I knew how to operate an automobile.
I had some pretty unruly hair on one side, which was horribly mismatched to the new growth on my right side where burns had healed. At around six feet two inches, I awoke from the coma at a low 161 lbs., and my energy was returning with vigor. Evidently, my sense of humor was returning, too, since when they told me that I was healthy as a horse, I pretended not to understand what a horse was. Great times….
My nurse, Janet Spiringo, put me in contact with the proper authorities to get started on an identity, and there were endless questions about what had happened to me. They answered my questions about how I’d arrived on the subway station, but there were too many holes, so I left and got myself a much-needed haircut. Nothing could be found about me: no missing-person claims or any responses to the inquiries made to all the likely agencies. I simply didn’t exist, as far as they knew. Well now I would, and decided I’d just go with the name Samuel Jonathan Brown, which was much better than John Doe. I was issued a social security card and began working toward getting my driver’s license as soon as possible. After securing a local job that I could walk to, I looked for a place to live. Slowly, my life was somehow coming together. If the IRS couldn’t find records of me, then I doubted anyone could. Death and taxes, the unchanging restraints of the universe. I smiled to myself as I realized this meant I owed no taxes and had no other debt, and even if I did, they hadn’t tracked me down yet.
I needed any job I could get and ended up working in a local bar as a bouncer for a few nights a week. I was gaining muscle back quickly, so it wasn’t too difficult to get the job, especially since they were desperate for pretty much anyone to fill the position. The pay was decent, and my hours allowed me time to look for more work. I picked up another job at a local grill, and a few weeks later, I had some cash in my pocket, or at least the bar job was cash.
I had a check coming in a week from the grill, so I needed to open a bank account now that I actually had a social security card to help get things started. I also acquired a driving permit from the wonderful state of Georgia to use as identification until I could get my driver’s license and a vehicle. My address was a local shelter, but that was enough to function for the time being. I didn’t mind; I was alive, free, and able to make my own way.
I was settling in at 190 lbs, and at over six feet tall, it was nearly all muscle and multiplying quickly. It didn’t hurt that I exhibited good reflexes in the bar fights my bouncer job required. It was as if I’d had some training, or perhaps just gotten the crap kicked out of me a lot growing up and learned to fix the problem. After a few weeks of work, though, life became a strange.
◆◆◆
One day I was walking across the street, after browsing some shops for a better pair of shoes, when a car rounded the corner right into the crosswalk. At the last moment, the driver saw me and slammed on the brakes, followed by an extremely loud horn. I was directly in front of the vehicle and startled; when I jerked to attention, though, several things happened to me at once in slow motion. First, I shoved off my forward foot to propel myself backward out of the way. Second, my foot slipped, and I fell flat on my back—most certainly unimpressive. Third, everything faded to almost-black during that moment of adrenaline, but I did know that abrupt changes in blood pressure can cause visual problems or even loss of consciousness. I noticed visual artifacts, like when you close your eyes or look away from a bright light and can see the “negative” ghost as an after image. As my hands went out to cushion my fall, I felt the bumper of the car with one hand as it came to a complete stop about a foot away; my other hand hit the ground a perfect instant before my body to help absorb the impact. About a second later, all the light rushed back again as if it had never left. I had not hit my head, thankfully.
I heard a car door open, and the driver ran to the front
of the vehicle with an absolute bewildered look on his face. He was an older man in a suit, who eyed me in confusion. I almost smiled because it was really nice to see confusion on a face other than my own. “Oh dear Lord! I only saw you at the last second, but then you disappeared, and I was ‘fraid I’d run you over!”
“I’m okay, honestly,” I said. “Nothing broken or hurt, and you didn’t really hit me. I just fell, and I am glad you hit your horn. I sort of tripped in quite the spectacular fashion, but I’m fine. Your car is blocking traffic, so I’ll let you get on your way.”
“Uh sure…as long as you’re okay….” he said as he slowly walked back to the car and drove away, shaking his head.
Once I got off the street, I sat down on a bench to let my heart slow back down and assess my current situation. Way to go, Sam, way to go.
Earlier in the week I’d had my first confrontation as a bouncer: Some punk college kid decided he wasn’t going to pay for a drink. I explained that would not work well, but the alcohol was whispering a different idea to him. As he got up to pump out his chest over it, I felt the adrenaline kick up, as you’d expect, and I could see his body tense. As his teeth and fist clenched, he shifted his shoulder slightly in preparation to punch me. It was dark in the pub, but light enough to notice some visual fuzziness just as I lunged forward and planted the back of my fist across the side of his neck before his own fist neared me. Stunned patrons stepped back to let me do my job as the kid dropped, either dazed or unconscious. I hid a smirk as a few drunks claimed I’d moved so fast that they hadn’t even seen me. Sure…
After the crosswalk incident, my vision cleared almost immediately, but I was concerned about having internal problems in addition to the memory loss. I sat on the bench a few minutes with no clear answers aside from a fairly large headache that was just starting to subside. I would find an answer or I would not, but I couldn’t waste time on possibilities that didn’t even exist. There was a large bank around the corner, and I wanted to open an account before my first check arrived, so I headed that way. The headache slowly went away, along with the stress, and I was feeling fairly upbeat, especially when thinking back to the kid I had to throw out of the bar and how much it was going to hurt when he realized he must have “spent” the $500 in his wallet. He’d owed the bar $220, so I took of the rest as a “fee” for teaching him some life skills. Why not? School wasn’t free.
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