Agonal Breath (The Deadseer Chronicles Book 1)

by Richard Estep

  “You mean like PTSD?”

  He nodded. “That’s right. There’s more to it than that, but the constant strain was a big part of it. When everything went down that day and I died, when we died—” Dad nodded to indicate the other members of his squad, who were all very politely and pointedly pretending not to notice our impromptu father-son conversation “in that ambush, I didn’t go straight to the Summerland. In fact, none of us did.”

  “Where did you go?”

  “To a special place, a house of healing. Sort of like a hospital, but way less formal and sterile. My spirit body was fine as soon as I opened my eyes, as good as new but this—” Dad pointed to his chest, and then at his head “and this needed some rehab, son. It took a lot of working through issues with some truly wonderful and supportive healing souls to get me back on my feet again.”

  That made a lot of sense to me. I’d heard of similar things happening to spirits who died under really traumatic circumstances — murder victims, people caught up in terrorist attacks and nasty stuff like that — and having to get some kind of intensive care and attention from specialists on the other side. Why had it never occurred to me that that was why I hadn’t heard from Dad?

  “I would have come sooner, but I didn’t want to burden you with my problems, son. To tell you the truth, I think I still have a little further to go, but when the charming young lady over there—” he nodded towards Lamiyah, who curtsied politely in return “—came and told me what kind of trouble you’d gotten yourself into, I talked them into letting me out for a little field trip. It actually feels pretty good to get back into the old battle rattle again,” he grinned, referring to his combat gear.

  I grinned back. The tears had stopped.

  “What happens to the sanatorium now, Lamiyah?” I wanted to know, fighting to speak around another bout of hacking coughs.

  In the background, Long Brook was still fully involved, burning heavily and pushing a massive column of dark smoke into the Rocky Mountain night sky. Lamiyah seemed to consider her answer for a long minute before answering.

  “When von Spiessbach awakens momentarily, he has a significant choice to make. Even taking into account the sheer amount of harm that he has done since his demise, he cannot be forced into entering the light and progressing to the next phase of his spiritual development. “ She sighed. “That is one option, certainly, and the most beneficial for him in the long run; but blighted souls such as his often choose to remain bound to the mortal realm, afraid of such judgment as will come in the next world.”

  “What about my grandmother?” Becky interjected, a definite edge of concern in her voice.

  “She will be given the same choice that all are offered under such circumstances: to accept the light and the consequences of her actions, or to reject it and remain earthbound.” Lamiyah squatted next to where Becky lay on the ground and laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “From what I have seen of her behavior tonight, Rebecca, I suspect that she will make the correct choice. Have no fear.”

  “Does the same go for the medical staff?”

  Lamiyah nodded. “It does. You must understand that ultimately, there is no escaping judgment — for any of us. But it is not a ‘fire and brimstone’ situation, as some would have you believe; the spirits who serve as part of the judicial process act as assistants, helping the miscreant to discern the true nature of his or her own crimes. In the end, we all judge ourselves, with a little help from other compassionate souls, and none are banished for all eternity. Although they may be sent to lower planes of existence for a time, it is entirely possible for them to outgrow such places of imprisonment by developing one’s spirit and nurturing a good heart.”

  We all fell silent for a moment, partly because some of us were considering the ramifications of what Lamiyah had just told us, but also because we were just plain exhausted.

  It had been one hell of a night, and I for one was glad just to have survived it.

  Above all else, I was glad beyond words to have my Dad back.

  I suppose it was inevitable that I wouldn’t get to keep him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Through the swirling clouds of angry black smoke and the pillars of flame that fueled them, we could see that a host of golden lights was appearing in each of the windows of the abandoned sanatorium.

  “The light is coming for them,” Lamiyah said matter-of-factly. “It is coming for them all.”

  And one by one, the spirit-residents of Long Brook sanatorium made their choice.

  Our motley little crew watched in awed silence as the earthbound souls took one last glance back at us and the material plane that they were leaving behind, and then walked slowly into the welcoming spirit portals that had come for them at last.

  Some walked slowly, their hesitation obvious even from this far away; others seemed to welcome this next phase of existence with open arms, marching eagerly towards the golden conduits as they formed in the air of their rooms and on the balconies outside.

  I don’t know exactly how much time passed — I was captivated by the drama unfolding right in front of my eyes — but after a while there were no more human figures visible in any of the windows, just the waste products of combustion that were gutting the old building from the inside out.

  In the end, not a single one of them had chosen to remain earthbound.

  Towards the very end, just before the crumbling old sanatorium finally collapsed in on itself, I could have sworn that I saw the dark silhouette of a huge hulk of a man holding the hand of a little girl. They were both waving at us, the little girl excitedly, and the larger figure a little more awkwardly.

  Then they turned and walked off into a portal together. It flashed and winked out of existence, leaving behind only the fire.

  “Goodbye, Polly,” I mouthed silently. “Goodbye, Mister Long Brook.”

  Above the crackle and roar of the flames, a new noise could be heard — the sound of sirens, probably the cops and firefighters heading up from Nederland. A column of smoke and flame this big would be impossible to miss, even at this early hour of the morning.

  “Son, I have to go,” my Dad said gently.

  “I know.”

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “I know.”

  And I did know. For once, I wasn’t reacting like a sulky teenager who wasn’t getting his own way. Dad had to go back and finish his course of healing, and then…well, who knew what the afterlife had in store for him— and me?

  We hugged again. It went on for so much longer than any hug we’d ever had when he was alive.

  Finally, I was the one who let him go. His Marines had formed a circle a discreet distance away from us, not so close as to be intrusive, but near enough that their hint was being taken clearly.

  Time to go.

  I watched as one of them, a big corporal whose name-tag read SCHULTHEIS, bent over Tony and said something in a low voice. Whatever was said made the criminal turn pale again; he responded with a stiff, jerky nod that evidently satisfied the Marine, because he came back to hang out with the rest of his buddies, assault rifle slung casually from his right shoulder.

  “We’ll be together again, Danny — I promise. I’ll come back to visit, probably when you least expect it.” Dad straightened up, and we both grinned at each other.

  “I can’t wait, Dad.”

  He reached out and ruffled my hair. It was the most wonderful coldness I had ever felt.

  A portal began to form in the air behind them, starting out as a sphere roughly the size of a dime and spiraling quickly to become six or seven feet in diameter. One by one each Marine threw us a respectfully nod, then turned to walk into the light.

  Corporal Schultheis threw Tony a look that was full of meaning, and I saw the meth dealer shudder. Then he was gone too, and it was Dad’s turn.

  “Dad, wait,” I said, stalling for time. I didn’t want him to go, not yet. Not so soon.

  He paused, turning back to look a
t me. I could tell that it was taking everything he had to walk away from me again, that it must be tearing him apart to leave his son behind for a second time, and that made me burn with shame at my selfishness.

  “Yes, son?”

  I said the first thing that popped into my brain.

  “What the hell am I going to tell Mom?”

  Dad paused to think about it for a moment. Finally he said, “You’ll figure it out, Danny. You’re smart and you always do.”

  I flushed with pride at the compliment.

  Then he had to go and spoil it by adding, “And watch your language, son. Swearing is a sign of a limited vocabulary and a shackled mind. Okay?

  And with that, he turned and walked straight out of the world of the living for the second time of his life.

  “Brandon, you can tell me to shut up and mind my own business if you want,” Becky said, rolling over on the grass to face him. “But I’m pretty sure that right around the time those Marines came to bail us out, I saw an older lady talking to you up there on the roof. Was that your grandmother?”

  “Yeah.“ He smiled wistfully.

  “Can I ask you what she said? I mean, if it’s too personal—”

  “No, it’s okay. She told me that she was proud of me, and that she loved me, and that everything was going to be okay.” Then he shot a look over in my direction. “And she told me to be nice to Danny, and not pick on his skinny butt any more.”

  The three of us laughed. It broke the tension a little, which is something I’m pretty sure we were all in dire need of just about then. The light of the fires was casting dancing shadows across the weeds and wild grass. Those flames showed no sign at all of dying down; in fact, they seemed bent on consuming the entire sanatorium and everything within it.

  Maybe that was for the best, I reflected; purge the place, and all of the misery that it had seen over the course of the decades. Wipe it from the history books and be done with it.

  I looked across at Tony, who was laying twenty feet away with his injured leg stretched out in front of him. Getting shakily to my feet, I made my way over there to stand next to him. I guessed he would be a whole lot nicer to be around when he wasn’t pointing a shotgun at my face.

  “’Sup.”

  “’Sup,” he replied. Tony gestured for me to sit down. I pulled up a piece of ground next to him.

  “Hell of a night, huh?” was the best I could think of as an ice-breaker.

  “Hell of a night,” he agreed.

  A couple of minutes passed in awkward silence. The sirens kept getting louder. They’d be here pretty soon, and Tony must have known that he was going to jail. I wondered if that was what occupied his mind the most right now. The fact that he had just witnessed positive proof of life after death had to be pretty solid competition for that spot.

  Finally he said, “I’m going to tell the cops everything when they get here, man.”

  “Oh, uh…that’s awesome, man. Way to go.”

  “Well, not everything. It ain’t like they’re gonna believe the ghosts and goblins stuff, right?”

  We both laughed, drawing a bemused look from Becky and Brandon.

  “Listen kid, you just tell them that you and your two friends were up here doing whatever, okay? I’ll tell them all about the meth lab and that I accidentally started the fire when I dropped some stuff. Leave you out of that part.”

  “Okay. Thanks, man.”

  “Call me Tony.”

  “Thanks, Tony.”

  He nodded, telling me that I was welcome.

  “They’re gonna find Jake’s body in there, when all of this is over. I’m going to jail, but when I get out, I’m gonna do right by his family. And when I’ve done my time, I’m gonna get out of the drug business and find something decent to do with my life.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me.” I paused, unsure of how to ask the question I really wanted to ask. Finally, I just decided to hell with it. “Tony, I have to ask…what did the Marine corporal say to you?”

  Brown eyes flashed up at me, and Tony almost recoiled as if he had been stung.

  “You saw that, huh?” I nodded. He blew out a long, slow breath. “Well,” he began, “he said that when he got back…over there, he was going to find Jake and sort of look out for him, you know? Take him under his wing.

  “Then he said that if I tried to weasel out of my responsibility for causing all this mess, that I’d open my eyes in the dark one night, and me and him would be having words again.” Tony shivered.

  I nodded, finally understanding. Leave it to a Marine to try and right a wrong.

  Even a dead Marine.

  The Nederland Fire Department had a good reputation in Boulder County, but they weren’t in the business of working miracles. Their fire engines ran out of water not long after arriving, dumping the few thousand gallons they brought with them on the burning sanatorium from a couple of hundred feet away.

  “I’m not putting any of my people inside that old deathtrap unless you tell me that somebody might be trapped inside,” said the fire chief sternly, interviewing the four of us. We all shook our heads solemnly. “Alright then. This area’s too remote to be hydranted. Considering how we’ll have burned through all the water we brought with us in about…oh, a couple of minutes more, I’d say that surround and drown isn’t a viable tactic…so it looks like it’s going to be a case of babysitting our scene overnight and letting this thing put itself out.”

  He seemed disappointed, as though not having enough water on hand to extinguish a building was a personal affront.

  An ambulance crewed by an EMT and a paramedic turned up right behind the first fire truck, and those guys wasted no time in checking us all out. We all showed signs of minor airway and respiratory irritation, they said, and so we’d all earned ourselves a trip to Boulder Community Hospital so that a doctor could evaluate us more thoroughly. Tony would be going first, on account of the gunshot wound to his leg, and they’d send more ambulances for the rest of us as soon as possible.

  Then it was the turn of the cops to ask us questions. Tony made the ride into Boulder handcuffed to the cot and accompanied by a deputy. We all stuck to a pretty similar story about having traveled up to the haunted old sanatorium to get our kicks ghost-hunting, and how surprised were we to discover that there were a couple of meth dealers cooking their drug up in the basement.

  Which was true, at least as far as it went. When it came down to how Tony happened to wind up with a bullet in his leg, we were a little more circumspect, preferring to leave it to him to make up that part of the story for himself.

  It took another hour for the ambulances to make the journey up from Boulder, so we passed the time talking in hushed tones, and also by watching the firefighters stand helplessly by while the sanatorium burned to the ground. There was a colossal crash as the roof finally fell in, pancaking down onto the sixth floor in a shower of sparks and a massive cloud of dust.

  Of Spiessbach and Jennifer there was no sign at all. It looked as though they had both chosen to enter their portal, just as Lamiyah had predicted in the case of Becky’s grandmother.

  “It is time for me to take my leave also, Daniel,” Lamiyah said, pressing her palms together and offering me a respectful bow. “I have done all that I can do to assist you here, and my work as a guide beckons me elsewhere.”

  “Thanks for everything, Lamiyah,” I said, and meant every word of it. “Above all else, thanks for bringing my Dad back to me.”

  “You are most welcome,” Lamiyah replied solemnly. “I am glad that not only are you and your friends unhurt, but also that we were able to get to the bottom of this particular mystery.”

  With so many first responders around, Lamiyah was in her most ethereal of spirit bodies, invisible to everyone except me. Even Becky and Brandon couldn’t see her any longer, so she asked me to pass on her farewell to them when time permitted. I promised that I would, and then she was gone as well, leaving the three of us alone.

&n
bsp; A faint glow on the eastern horizon had been growing steadily pinker over the past fifteen minutes or so. The sun was coming up, and bringing a new day along with it.

  “Well,” Brandon said, as he hopped up onto the bright yellow wheeled cot that the EMTs had brought out of the ambulance for him, “it sure has been a night, hasn’t it?”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” Becky laughed, letting her medical crew strap her down to their own cot. “I’ll see you both at the hospital, boys.” And with that, they were both pushed inside the ambulances, a tired-looking EMT closing both sets of doors behind them.

  “How’s it going?” said the EMT that was assigned to my ambulance. He was friendly enough, but all business right out of the gate.“My name’s Mike, but you can call me Mrla — everybody does.” He pronounced it Mar-la. “I’ll be your EMT for your ride back down the canyon, okay?” Mrla cocked a thumb at the tall, dark-haired young guy next to him. “And this here is Ryan. He’ll be your paramedic, which means he’ll basically be the cab driver while I get all the real work done. So, first things first…let’s get you all belted in. Then we’ll be starting an IV and giving you a little fluid…”

  My mind began to wander as the two medical pros efficiently strapped and buckled me to their cot. For a minute I got the chills; it took me back to being strapped down to Spiessbach’s operating table, totally at the mercy of the demented doctor and his scalpel. But then I shook my head and snapped out of it.

  I had far more important things to spend my brainpower on — like how on Earth was I actually going to explain all this to Mom?

  Fortunately, the ride back down into Boulder would give me a lot of time to think.

  I winced as Mrla stuck a needle in my arm and pushed a tiny plastic tube into one of my veins, then starting to run what he told me was “a little saltwater” from a clear plastic bag. The inside of my elbow started to go a little numb.