Agonal Breath (The Deadseer Chronicles Book 1)

by Richard Estep

  Two of the walls were covered with a set of cheap bookcases, crammed to overflowing with science fiction and fantasy books by the hundreds. The wear and tear on the spines showed how much I loved those books. I’d read them over and over and over again, escaping to distant worlds, other times, and alternate universes…anywhere but the here and now, basically. Even my phone was loaded up with e-books and digital comics, heroes and monsters carried around with me wherever I went, tucked into the pocket of my cargo pants.

  I was starting to get a grip again. The tears were drying up. Rolling off the bed, I went over to the computer desk and fired up my Internet browser. The next few hours passed by at lightning speed. I trolled my regular message boards, surfed a few fan sites for cool developments and news. A Diet Coke kept me company, and before I knew it, the light was beginning to fade outside.

  My iPhone pinged, breaking my concentration. Irritated, I reached over and punched in my unlock code. It was a new text message – Call me :-)

  “Holy crap!”

  A “Call me” and a smiley face!

  I couldn’t believe it.

  It was from Becky.

  CHAPTER THREE

  How I managed not to fall backwards out of my chair in shock, I will never know.

  Play it cool, I told myself with just a trace of desperation. Don’t call her back right away. You don’t want her thinking you’re too keen, right? That’s never good.

  Cradling the phone loosely between my fingers, I let my arm dangle limply across one knee. I stared at it. Waited. If there had been a clock in the room, all I heard would have been the noise of it ticking the seconds away.

  I waited a little longer.

  Screw it.

  I hit the call icon with my thumb. The wait during the ring tone seemed to last a lifetime.

  Come on, Becky…pick up. Pick UP.

  “Hi, Danny!” That bubbly smile had infected her voice. My heart rate was picking up; I could feel it pounding away inside my chest.

  “Hey, Becky,” I said weakly. Not as lame as the ‘sup? I had actually been contemplating for a nanosecond, before reality set in like a cold water bath. Don’t even TRY to be cool. You’re not cool, not even remotely. Just be yourself, man. It’s your only hope. That was always the standard line of advice on those TV dating shows Mom liked to watch so much. Be yourself. I decided to run with it. I mean, it’s not like I had a Plan B to fall back on.

  “Thanks for calling me, Danny. I really appreciate it.”

  “No problem, Becky.” There was a silence that went on for just a fraction too long. “Um, so what can I do for you?”

  She sounded a little embarrassed. “So, I kind of wanted to ask you a favor. If it’s not too weird.”

  “Sure, no problem,” I said again. Idiot. Stop repeating yourself.

  “Oh, sweet. But I kind of wanted to ask you in person. Is it cool if I come on over?”

  Oh my – COME ON OVER? To the trailer?

  “That’d be cool,” I rasped, sounding like a man who hadn’t drunk a drop of water in days. Astonished, I gaped at my reflection in the window glass. I’d said yes without even thinking about it. The words had come straight from my mouth and completely bypassed my brain on the way.

  I gave her the address. We said our goodbyes and both hung up. I set the phone down carefully on the computer desk, leaned back in my chair, and pumped my fist in the air victoriously.

  How AWESOME was this!

  And then, the panic set in.

  It occurred to me that I had no idea where Becky lived, which in turn meant that I had no idea how long it would take her to get here.

  So, no time to lose…I went into hyperdrive. Did the room smell bad? By the standards of a fourteen year-old boy, no. Well, maybe a little musty. But the Den of Nerd was about to have a fourteen year-old girl in it, and one of the few things I knew about girls in general was that they liked things to smell nice.

  Burrowing under the blanket of clothing, I must have looked like a dog digging a hole in the back yard. I scooped and tossed it all up onto the bed, one piece at a time in rapid succession. Where to put all this stuff? I looked around frantically, finally decided that underneath the bed was probably the best place, and began to stuff it all under the bed frame, wedging one article of clothing in after another, until finally the bed was clear. Miracle of miracles, now I could actually see the floor. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

  Window! Twisting the latch, I slid the window upwards in its pane. It gave a tortured screech as it ground against the frame. Note to self: WD-40 the thing tomorrow. A cool breeze came through, the evening air beginning to waft the curtains gently.

  “Daniel! What is going on in—“ Mom stopped halfway through the doorway. Her jaw dropped as she surveyed the scene, taking in the sudden lack of dirty clothing on the floor, and the fact that the carpet had been excavated. “What. On. Earth…”

  “Mom, do we have any air freshener?” Shyness went right out the window. There was no time for it. I didn’t care about anything other than making a good impression on Becky right now.

  “Why yes we do,” she responded tartly. “It lives underneath the kitchen sink. May I ask where this sudden urge to de-stink your room has sprung from? It’s not that I don’t approve, but you have to admit – this really isn’t like you, honey.”

  “Look, I have a friend coming over. I want the place to look…presentable, you know?”

  Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Friend?”

  “Alright, alright. It’s a girl, OK? But it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything”

  “A girl. You mean a girl, girl?”

  “Is there some other kind?” I snapped, starting to get a little frustrated.

  Mom, on the other hand, was overjoyed. She clapped her hands gleefully. “Honey, that’s so…so wonderful.” She seemed genuinely thrilled to hear the news. Then her eyes darkened, her tone becoming suddenly grave. “Daniel, do we need to have a talk? You know, about…se—”

  “Mom! Really? Come on!” She wanted to cover Sex Ed 101 now, of all times? I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. “Mom,” I practically begged. “She’s just a friend from school. But she’s on the way over here now and we’re losing time. And yeah, I like her, OK? I want to make a good impression.”

  From the foot of my bed, Lord Vader stared at me in silent disapproval of my weakness.

  “Honey…you got it. Come on, let’s get to work.” And just like that, Mom snapped into full-on protective parent mode.

  ‘Divide and conquer’ was pretty much going to be our strategy. She tucked and straightened the comforter until you could practically bounce a quarter off it, like Dad used to say that Marine recruits did in boot camp; I sprayed vanilla air freshener to the four corners of the room, then doused the center for luck. Mom blasted the vacuum cleaner right around the room, poking the nozzle into all the nooks and crannies, looking like some magical housecleaning dervish; I frantically straightened the spines of every book on my shelves, scrambled to get my sweaty tee-shirt off, sprayed a Z-shaped stripe of body spray from armpit to armpit and down the front of my torso, then rummaged in a clothes drawer for a fresh one.

  We were just in the nick of time. A set of headlights streamed through the open window, a car turning into the street directly outside our lot and stopping. Mom and I froze. We heard a car door slam, a girl’s voice call out, “Thanks, Mom!”

  I looked at my Mom. She looked at me. That’s her, I mouthed. Mom nodded, clapped me firmly and proudly on both my shoulders. Was I imagining it, or was there a tear glistening in the corner of her eye right there? You’re going to do just fine, honey, she mouthed back at me.

  Man, but I hoped she was right.

  Mom answered the knock at the front door while I leaped onto the couch and snatched up a book. I pretended to be engrossed in its pages, but what I was really doing was watching the door out of the corner of my eye and straining my ears to listen.

  I ha
d never worked so hard at pretending to be so relaxed.

  “Oh, hey there! You must be…” Mom’s voice, sunny side up.

  “Rebecca. Rebecca Page. But my friends call me Becky, Mrs. Chill.”

  “Come right on in, Rebecca. Right this way, there you go. Daniel was just…um, reading, weren’t you hon?”

  “Please call me Becky, Mrs. Chill.” Mom’s smile would have melted a glacier. I think that Becky won her over right there and then with that one remark.

  “Becky it is then. And you must call me Rachel.”

  “Hey, Danny.” Becky was still wearing the same clothes she had had on earlier, and a smile that was just a couple of notches below Mom’s. A dark blue backpack was slung over her shoulder. “It’s great to see you again. I’m really glad you wanted to hang out.”

  “Hey, Becky.” I stood up, still clutching the book in one hand and wiping my sweaty palm on my pant leg with the other.

  “You’re a big fan of Edward and Bella? I never figured you for the type.”

  “Huh?”

  Becky pointed at the book, one of the Twilight series. Dammit, Mom. Why did you have to leave that in here? Grinning my most idiotic and embarrassed grin, I fumbled the book down onto the coffee table. “Just…wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” I said lamely.

  “Cool. I love Stephanie’s books. Aren’t they awesome?”

  “Pretty awesome,” I agreed. Said no teenage boy ever.

  Mom was hovering just behind Becky’s shoulder. “Becky, can I get you a drink? We have coffee, soda, some orange juice, and water.”

  “Water would be great, Mrs—I mean, Rachel.” They both laughed. This is going well. So why was I sweating?

  “Did your Mom bring you over?” Mom asked as she dumped some ice cubes from the freezer into a tall glass and then filled it with filtered water.

  Becky nodded. “I just have to text her and she’ll come pick me up again later.”

  Mom plainly approved of this sensible arrangement. “You guys go ahead and make yourselves comfortable,” she said, handing Becky the ice water. Becky and I trooped into my bedroom. I was hoping that I was the only one who heard Mom’s whispered, “Leave the door open!”

  We compromised. I left the bedroom door ajar, just open enough to be able to say that it was open, and not offend Mom’s sense of decency.

  “Woah! This is a pretty cool place,” Becky said approvingly, head on a swivel to take in the storm of geekery plastered across every surface. I thought I saw her nose wrinkle. Maybe I’d overdone it with the air freshener, but better that than the smell of stale farts and body odor that it was covering up. “That’s an awesome collection.” She was running an approving finger along the line of Vertigo graphic novels.

  “Thanks,” I said, blushing just a little.

  “I can see you love your science fiction and fantasy. Why aren’t there any ghost books?”

  I frowned. “I’m not really all that interested in ghosts, to be honest.”

  “Shut up!” She obviously didn’t believe me, or couldn’t understand why anybody would say something like that. “But you can see them, right? How come you’re not into the paranormal and all that sort of stuff? How can you not find it fascinating?”

  “I guess when you live with it all the time, it just becomes…sort of like the background noise. You just get used to it.”

  Becky dropped down into the computer desk chair and looked at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. I took a seat on the bed. There was a respectable six feet between us, just in case Mom poked her head around the door. Becky leaned forwards.

  “How long have you been able to see them? Were you born that way?”

  I shook my head. “Nah. When I was five, I caught an infection and I got really sick -- like, septic sick. The way Mom explained it, I nearly died. I mean, obviously I didn’t die—“ We both laughed. “But when I woke up at Children’s Hospital, I could see things that nobody else seemed to be able to see. People, mainly.”

  “Dead people?”

  “Yeah, dead people. There was a nurse who used to come into my room every night. I didn’t know it at the time, I wasn’t old enough to understand, but she was dressed in these really old-fashioned clothes. She had on this white head-dress, something out of the Thirties or Forties. Sometimes I could see right through her, but other times she was totally solid, just as solid as you are to me right now.”

  “Oh, wow. Weren’t you scared?”

  “Not even a little. She was always so friendly, and I could just tell…could sort of feel, really…that she was this kind and loving soul. Her name was Annalise. She’d taken care of children at the hospital all her life, and when she died, she didn’t particularly want to stop doing that. She wasn’t ready to cross over yet, so she stuck around and did what she loved to do. As far as I know, she’s still doing it.”

  Becky took another swallow of ice water. She was hanging on my every word. “What did the other doctors and nurses think? What about your parents?”

  I laughed. “They just thought I had an imaginary friend and a really active imagination. Happens more often than you’d think.”

  “What does?”

  “Imaginary friends. Most parents write their kids’ invisible friends off as being imaginary, but a lot of the time, they’re actually real visitors. Maybe they live in the same house, or maybe they’re just passing through. Sometimes they’re old friends of the family or relatives that have come to drop in and say ‘hi’ to the newest addition to the family.”

  “That happened to my cousin, Amanda,” she nodded. “Her baby boy was talking to an invisible kid who lived in his toy closet.” Becky went silent as the implication of that sunk in.

  “Usually they’re not harmful,” I reassured her. Sometimes, the dead find it difficult to let go of the material world. They stick around for a little while, look in on their families and friends. Sooner or later, that attachment fades and they can cross over to what comes next. That’s why a lot of imaginary friends disappear within a year or two.”

  “It makes total sense,” Becky nodded.

  There was a pause. I was surprised to find that it didn’t feel awkward this time. We sat in companionable silence for a couple of minutes. I hoped that Becky was enjoying my company half as much as I was enjoying hers.

  Finally, she broke the silence. “So, Danny…this is a little awkward, but I really wanted to ask you something.”

  “Sure thing, Becky.” My mouth was a little dry now, but I was intrigued to find out what had really brought her over here. I mean, it wasn’t likely to be my winning looks or devastating charm, right? But her next question took me by surprise.

  “What do you know about Long Brook?”

  “The sanatorium?” I blinked. She nodded eagerly. I searched my memory. “Uh, it’s that big old place up on the Peak-to-Peak Highway. Been abandoned since the sixties or seventies, hasn’t it?”

  “Since the Eighties,” she corrected me. “I’ve been reading about it on Wikipedia, and a few other places. It’s haunted, Danny. Super haunted, from what I hear.”

  “OK,” I said carefully, not entirely sure where she was going with this — but suspicion was starting to build. “It’s a sanatorium, so it stands to reason that a lot of people died there. I can see why it would be haunted.”

  “Exactly! That’s why I’m going up there this weekend. And...I’d really like it if you came with me.”

  “Come with you?”

  “YES!” Becky was practically bouncing on her chair with excitement. “Ever since I first saw that place on TV, I’ve wanted to go and see it for myself, to spend the night there. A couple of my friends wanted to come along with me, but I figure someone like you would be the perfect guide!”

  Despite doing a pretty good job of keeping a neutral face, I was wilting inside. Yeah, like she’d be interested enough in a skinny, antisocial kid like you to come on over and hang out.

  “I really don’t know, Becky…I know that the
place is run down and abandoned, but word is, the owners don’t like trespassers on their property. They might be the kind to call the cops on us.” Not to mention that mom would totally flip her lid if you asked permission to spend the night up at an old tuberculosis hospital in the middle of nowhere.

  “There are no security guards up there, it’s much too far out of the way,” she told me, reaching into her backpack and pulling out a tablet. Swiping across the screen and bringing up the YouTube app, she fired up a video from one of those TV shows she was so fond of. I watched with considerably less excitement than Becky as a young dude who had muscles that looked like they were carved out of wood, backed slowly down a dark corridor, waving a camera around for emphasis. Occasionally, the feed would cut to the stream from his handheld camera, showing a couple of his buddies, both of whom also had cameras. Awesome, my inner bitch voice cut in, he has only two percent body fat, hair product, and that skin-tight tee-shirt for protection.

  Not wanting to get on Becky’s bad side, I sat next to her and watched for the next hour – well, about three quarters of that without commercials – as the three dudes prowled the shadowy corridors and dark rooms of what I soon learned was the Long Brook Sanatorium, one of those special hospitals where doctors used to send patients with tuberculosis. I watched with mounting skepticism as they jumped out of their skin at what I was pretty sure were just shadows, and a few admittedly weird noises, which you could probably file under “old buildings make weird noises.”

  “Dude, did you hear that?” one of them yelled. “Ssssh! Listen! That totally sounded like footsteps!”