Agonal Breath (The Deadseer Chronicles Book 1)

by Richard Estep

  “Bad people die and stay bad people. Good people die and stay good people. All of them have the chance to move on, but those that don’t become earthbound. That’s where a lot of the scary haunted house stories really come from — nasty, vindictive people who are pretty much the same way in death as they were in life, angry and spiteful.”

  “And invisible,”Becky added, “and with paranormal powers.”

  “Right, those too,” I agreed.

  “Then what was the deal with Chris?”

  “He sincerely believed that if he stepped through into that light, he was going to hell. The truth is way more complicated than that, but the short version is that there are lower spiritual planes for those less-evolved spirits, and high planes (which are a lot nicer) for those who have developed good qualities like kindness and compassion. Chris seemed like a pretty okay guy to me…yes, he’d made a mistake, and it had cost him his physical life, but he wasn’t going to spend the rest of forever paying for that mistake. When he chose to call the light back and go into it, he’d have been met with spirit helpers who would have helped take care of him. Chris even had a spirit guide of his own — we all do — that had tried to help, but Chris had been so distraught that he had sent him away every time he tried to get close.”

  “So you told him to call back the light and go into it?”

  “I tried, but it wasn’t that simple. It rarely is.” I sighed. “He didn’t want to hear about the light, or moving on, or anything like that…just wouldn’t listen to it, at least not at first. So I ended up agreeing to what he really wanted, which was to contact his folks and tell them that he was doing okay — well, kind of okay, I suppose — and that he was really, really sorry for what he’d done.”

  “And did you? Contact them, I mean.”

  “I called them. He gave me the number. Chris’s mom answered the phone.”

  “And…?”

  “And…how do you think any middle-aged adult is going to react when a teenage boy they don’t know calls them out of the blue and tells them that not only is their dead son actually still alive and sometimes follows them around the house, but that he’s also really, really sorry about accidentally taking a fatal drug overdose and causing them so much pain and grief?”

  “Oh.” She sounded deflated. Which is pretty much how I had felt at the time. “They didn’t take it well, then?”

  “That’s putting it mildly. I got such a chewing-out, I can still hear it now — and who can blame them, really? From their point of view, it must have seemed like some thirteen year-old kid had heard about their son and decided to make a crank call. I’m just lucky they didn’t call the cops on me, which they actually threatened to do,” I finished bitterly.

  “Ouch,” Becky winced sympathetically. “I guess I can see it from their side.”

  “Me too. It sounds pretty nutty, and pretty much the last thing you want to hear when you’ve just lost a loved one…it must have felt like I was dancing on the poor guy’s grave to them.”

  “So, did they ever call the cops on you?”

  “Luckily for me, they were willing to write it off as a childish prank…done in pretty horrifically bad taste, but still a prank. Chris wouldn’t let it go, though. He hung around me all hours of the day and night. I couldn’t get any sleep because he’d be right there, at my bedside — which was pretty weird all by itself — begging and pleading, trying to get me to change my mind and actually go over there to talk to his parents.”

  “Sounds pretty ugly.”

  “Yeah. In the end, I had to cast the poor guy out.” I didn’t like telling her this part, because it didn’t make me look like a particularly nice guy, but I was committed to telling the story now.

  “Cast him out?” Becky sounded puzzled.

  “It’s something that people like me…Deadseers…can sometimes do if a spirit is really bothering them,” I tried to explain.

  “Like a spell or something?”

  “Kind of, I guess. It’s a little difficult to put into words, but if we concentrate our energies up in a certain way, we can sometimes push a spirit out of a place that it’s been haunting…sort of like…”

  “An Expelliarmus spell?” Becky laughed. I didn’t mind it at all. She was laughing with me, not at me, and I couldn’t help joining in.

  “Yeah, if we were at Hogwarts, that would be a great way to put it,” I grinned. She was probably smiling too, and I wished that I could see it, but our entire surroundings were now just a big mess of grays and blacks.

  “Hey — listen. Do you hear that?” she suddenly exclaimed.

  It was the sound of running feet, accompanied by an echo that was coming steadily closer. A burly silhouette filled the doorway for a moment, pausing for breath. It was holding a flashlight in its right hand.

  “Brandon?” I called out, hesitantly. Of course it was him. It looked just like him.

  “Yeah!” he huffed.

  “Over here, man!”

  The flashlight beam swung in our direction. Instinctively, I threw up a hand to shield my eyes. We had been building up a little night vision while we waited in the dark for him to come back, and I didn’t want to have that ruined now. It meant I’d have to start acclimatizing my eyes all over again.

  “Guys, you’re never gonna be believe this.” Brandon jogged on over to join us, nearly tripping over a chair that was sticking out from one of the tables. By the sound of it, he’d come back from parking the Blazer at a flat-out run; for a guy in as great shape as Brandon was to be out of breath, meant that he must have really poured it on.

  “Try us,” Becky invited him. The beam of of light swung around to light up her face, causing her to screw up her eyes and let out a curse.

  “Oh, sorry Becky. Guys, listen up. I saw something. Out there. When I was parking the car…”

  “Saw what?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure exactly.” His voice was half-excited and half-nervous, from the sound of it. “But I’ll tell you what: we sure ain’t alone in here…”

  CHAPTER NINE

  “What do you mean ‘we’re not alone in here?’” Becky demanded. “Tell us what you saw, Brandon?”

  “It was a figure,” Brandon began excitedly, waving his hands around to illustrate his point. Unfortunately he’d forgotten about the flashlight, which had the effect of halfway-blinding Becky and myself when it swept drunkenly through the darkness in front of us both. “Like, a person, I mean. I saw it through the windows when I was outside, parking the Blazer.”

  “It?” I didn’t like the sound of that. “Was it a ‘he it’ or a ‘she it’?”

  “Sheee-it!” Brandon laughed. “Hey, man, there’s no need to swear!”

  Becky and I both groaned, but at least it lightened the mood a little. The atmosphere was starting to feel a little more oppressive. I’d felt this happen a few times before, and it usually meant that something less-than-pleasant was right around the corner.

  “Anyway, I couldn’t tell for sure whether it was a man or a woman, but it was definitely shaped like a person — but a really short one.”

  “Short…like a dwarf?” Becky asked. “Is dwarf the right word anyway?”

  “I think they prefer ‘little people,’” I replied, not entirely sure myself. I pushed thoughts of Hobbits and magic rings aside and got back to the matter at hand. “Do you think it was a really short adult, or a young kid?”

  Brandon paused to consider it.

  “Could have been either,” he said at last. “I’d just finished parking the Blazer out back. I locked it up, turned around to come back inside, and there it was — just inside the window on the ground floor, looking right at me.”

  “How could it have been looking right at you, and you can’t tell whether it was a male or a female?” Becky asked skeptically.

  “It was really dark in there, I couldn’t make out much in the way of details…well, except for a white dress, or gown or something. Come to think of it, it’s getting pretty dark out
side too…”

  White dress or gown. My mind instantly flashed back to a few hours ago, when we’d first arrived at Long Brook. Getting out of the car, looking up at the huge abandoned building — and seeing a flash of white, all the way up there on top of the roof.

  It could have been a sheet or piece of trash, was my first thought; but then I quickly realized that that wasn’t very likely. We had been up on the roof, and could see all the way across from one end to the other. There had been nothing white up there at all, nothing but a rusted old swing set and a few chairs and tables.

  “Show us,” Becky and I said together.

  The sun was now so low in the sky that you could reasonably have called the time of day ‘twilight,’ and it was almost dark enough that any vampires we ran into probably wouldn’t sparkle.

  Don’t ask me how I know about that.

  Brandon retraced his steps to the front door, which he had wedged open just a tiny crack with a small rock, and out onto the lawn.

  Looking up, I saw that the first stars were starting to make an appearance, far above the sanatorium’s flat roof. Between them and me, a gargoyle leered down from a corner eave. Despite the arrival of evening, the air was still warm and mostly still, with just the occasional very light breeze — so why did I feel another sudden shiver run through me?

  Becky and I followed Brandon along the entire front face of the two eastern wings, and then turned northward and followed the tire tracks made by his Blazer in the soft mud, circling around to the rear of the building. We kept to what passed for a dirt road, some instinct warning us to steer clear of the dark unknown that waited for us in the trees.

  The Blazer had been parked close to the building, and Brandon had made sure to lock all the doors. “I was standing right here,” he told us, the words gushing out in a great torrent of excitement, “and I was just about to head back to meet you guys, when right there” he jabbed a finger repeatedly towards two of the empty window-frames “I saw it…whatever it was,” he added as an afterthought.

  Becky directed her flashlight towards the windows, playing the beam off the bare brick walls inside. “Well, there’s nothing there now,” she said doubtfully.

  “Want to take a look?” Brandon asked us both.

  “Sure thing,” I answered, hopefully sounding more enthusiastic than I really felt.

  Nobody moved, and I realized that they were both looking at me as though they expected me to lead the way. Firing up my own flashlight, I picked my way carefully through the overgrown wild grass, taking a moment to examine the window frame for splinters. Although the paint was chipped and faded, the wood itself was in surprisingly good condition, all things considered.

  The sill was only three feet from the ground. I hopped up easily, ducking my head underneath the frame and planting my butt on the sill, then pivoted around and swung my legs inside, landing on the corridor that stretched away further than I could see.

  The scuffle of shoes on a hard surface behind me told me Becky and Brandon had both followed me in. Both were little more than outlines to my eyes, barely discernible human shapes that were visible only because they were slightly less dark than the background against which they stood. They were sensibly keeping their flashlights pointed towards their feet, which I very much appreciated. My night vision was starting to come back again, and I really didn’t want that to get spoiled a second time.

  “Let’s get this party started,” Brandon said, a little nervously, or so I thought.

  “Yeah.” Holding the flashlight at arm’s length in front of me like some kind of protective talisman, I began to walk. It was slow going at first, but as my eyes acclimatized, I began to pick up the pace a little, until finally I got a more confident stride going. It looked as though there were no patient rooms down here on the ground floor; this must have been where all of the day-to-day business of the sanatorium got taken care of, because we found doorways that led to huge laundry rooms, offices, and a massive kitchen with long metal tables that I assumed had once been used to prepare food, but were now falling apart and covered in rust.

  “This place is amazing,” Becky whispered. We were working our way steadily along the same long hallway, keeping on eye on the exterior windows to our right side and peeking into every doorway we passed on our left. She and Brandon were taking it in turns to snap a picture of every room with their phones, and I made certain to keep my back to them while they did it so that the flash wouldn’t blind me again.

  At last, we came to a stairwell, and I let them both go first so that they could snag their photos.

  Flash.

  “Waaaagh!” That was Brandon, screaming at the top of his lungs; that managed to set Becky off, who yelled in an automatic reaction. I spun around from where I had been covering our backs by keeping an eye on the corridor behind us. My heart was suddenly racing again, and my eyes were looking everywhere for signs of danger.

  “Dude, what?” I demanded, sticking my head through the doorway. All I could see was a dirty staircase leading upwards, and the words I died here spray-painted on the wall in dripping red letters, like something out of a low-budget horror movie.

  “It was a girl,” Brandon replied breathlessly, shining his flashlight up towards the top of the stairs. There was a broken-out window in the wall just above the landing, where the staircase doubled back on itself and climbed directly over our heads. “A little girl. I saw her. She was right there.”

  “I saw her too,” Becky insisted, squinting into the darkness above. She was standing on the fourth and fifth steps, seemingly reluctant to climb any further.

  “You’re both sure?”

  “Totally,” she insisted, and Brandon nodded in vigorous agreement. “She was standing just up there, where the stairs disappear up towards the second floor. I saw her leaning over the handrail. She was looking right at us.”

  “Right,” Brandon agreed. “She was only there for a second, and then she ran, but I know what I saw. She had long, dark hair, hanging down over her shoulders.”

  “What was she wearing?” I demanded.

  “A dress,” Becky put in, “or maybe a hospital gown. At least, that’s what it looked like. I couldn’t see much more than her head and shoulders, but it looked like she was wearing some kind of white dress…”

  “I still can’t believe we’re doing this,” Brandon muttered under his breath.

  The three of us were carefully climbing the rickety wooden staircase, which creaked and popped each time somebody’s foot landed on a step.

  “Try to keep to the sides, either by the wall or the handrail,” Becky suggested over her shoulder, obviously trying to be helpful. She was leading the way, running her flashlight over each landing as we passed it. We had just passed the fourth floor, and were starting up towards the fifth. Although the staircase was completely enclosed, each landing had a doorway which opened out onto the rear side of the sanatorium.

  “Why?” I asked, curious.

  “Because it makes less noise,” she explained. “I saw it in a movie once. Steps get weakest in the middle because that’s where most people put their feet, so they wear out and make more noise there. It should be quieter if we hug the walls.”

  “Yeah, but who’s going to care?” Brandon pointed out, from his position at the rear of our group. “It’s not like we’re going to get any noise complaints all the way out here, is it?”

  “We might,” I muttered darkly, unable to help myself. “Take it from me, we really do not want to wake the dead if we can help it.” That shut him up, and fast. As soon as I’d said it, I regretted it. It really wasn’t a good idea to crank up the tension any higher than it already was.

  We kept on climbing. Becky was right — keeping to the outer staircase definitely made less noise, though there was still a little groaning from the old and weathered wooden boards. She suddenly stopped on the fifth-floor landing, holding up a hand in warning to us both.

  “What is it?” I hissed, trying to peer ov
er her shoulder.

  “She’s right there,” Becky whispered back. “I don’t want to spook her…”

  “Great choice of words, Becky.”

  “Sorry, but you know what I meant.”

  Idiot, I told myself. Why the heck are you needling her? That’s not exactly going to win her over, is it? Knock it OFF.

  “She’s a ghost…” Becky whispered, entranced.

  “I know.”

  “Yeah, but…she’s a ghost!”

  “I know. That’s why we’re here, right?”

  Becky fell silent. From the look on her face, I guessed that she was trying to adjust to the fact that her entire world had just changed, and changed forever. No matter how strongly you believed in the paranormal or the supernatural or whatever you want to call it, it’s a heck of a lot different when you finally come face to face with it.

  Cautiously, I stepped around to stand on the right-hand side of the doorway. Becky still hovered on the top step, peeping around the left side. I motioned for Brandon to move up and stand in between us both, so all three of us could take a better look.

  “That is sick,” was the best he could manage.

  The fifth-floor exterior balcony stretched away into the distance, the entrances to its patient rooms almost completely buried in long shadows. Standing there in the center of the balcony perhaps thirty feet away was a young girl with long dark hair, maybe eight or nine years of age. She seemed remarkably calm, all things considered. Becky had been right — she was wearing a full-length white hospital gown (though I could see how it might easily be mistaken for a dress at first glance) and no shoes or slippers.

  The girl gave no indication that the concrete floor was cold beneath her bare feet, though; she simply stood there, staring back at us in a serene, tranquil way that was borderline unnerving, and glowed with an ethereal blue light. I could see the balcony through her body, which looked a bit like a pencil-sketch drawing done with a very light hand.