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  44

  by

  Jools Sinclair

  Published by You Come Too Publishing at Smashwords

  Copyright © 2011 Jools Sinclair

  You Come Too Publishing

  44

  by

  Jools Sinclair

  You Come Too Publishing

  Copyright © 2011 Jools Sinclair

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in, or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical without the express written permission of the author. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  to C and M…

  the best of the best of the best

  PROLOGUE

  I know I’m lucky.

  Lucky to be alive, lucky to be able to walk again, to inhale the juniper-laced air and watch the soft leaves change into crispy ones scattering in the wind. I can spend afternoons with Jesse as he plummets down the steep hills around town on his skateboard. I can watch Barcelona soccer games on satellite, eat pizza, and even see those dumb reality TV shows late at night.

  I’ve been on the other side and I’m grateful that I’m here. My life is good, most days.

  But this morning wasn’t like most days.

  The wind had a bite and as I stood at the edge of the river, ice pellets drilled into my face. The sky was slab gray, with low clouds pushing down around me.

  She was there. Floating under the footbridge, snagged and hidden in bony branches and moving in a subtle, unnatural rhythm that the dead dance to when submerged in water. The river rushed around her, forming small riffles at her feet, as if she had always been there, belonging like a large boulder or a rooted tree.

  In my vision the night before, I watched her die. It started soon after I drifted off to sleep. The night was pitchfork-sharp and her fear radiated in waves through me as she ran, trying to get away from him. She slipped, falling hard onto the icy pavement, her screams lost in the hollow, empty night as he wrapped his arm around her neck until she fell quiet into his arms.

  These visions that started months ago have me following in the footsteps of a serial killer I’ve yet to see, as he roams the city looking for his next victim, never satisfied and always needing.

  I stood in the shadows and watched like it was a scene from a movie. I knew I could do nothing. He picked her up and brought her to the water, held her head down. Then he sat next to her, stroking her hair.

  But this time, I was ready. I only needed a glimpse. If I could see his face in my vision, I could find him in reality. I summoned my courage, forced myself to swallow the bile that shot up in the back of my throat and followed him as he strolled arrogantly away.

  The moon was bright, beams threading through the trees, leaving thick shadows. Instinctually, I backed into the darkness as he suddenly stopped, even though I knew he wouldn’t be able to see me. His breath leaked out in ghostly wisps as he stood silent.

  Finally, he turned around, his eyes hooking into mine. He saw me. Somehow he cut through my murky vision and saw me.

  But I saw him too. And now I knew who he was.

  He stared a while, still and contemplative, as I fought my urge to run. But he didn’t come after me. The bastard just stood there, and then smiled, before stepping away and disappearing into the lonely night.

  CHAPTER 1

  Five Months Ago…

  “Can you get the door?” Kate yelled from the bedroom. I was sitting on the sofa, watching that show where three guys lock themselves in abandoned hospitals and prisons and then videotape each other pretending to see ghosts. Mostly the show makes me laugh, but once in a while it gives me chills.

  It was dinnertime, so I was sure that it was Matt, Kate’s boyfriend. As I swung the door open and rolled my eyes, I jumped back. It wasn’t Matt.

  “Hi, Abigail,” Dr. Mortimer said.

  “Oh, hi,” I said, a little embarrassed. “Sorry, I thought you were someone else.”

  “Well, I’m glad I’m not whoever you thought it was,” he said, smiling.

  He stood on the porch, his thick, black hair full of soft white flakes. His eyes were bright and as he smiled, small wrinkles surrounded them, making him look extra happy.

  “Please, come in,” I said.

  “I was just in the neighborhood,” he said. “Thought I would check on my favorite patient as long as I was out and about. If that’s okay?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Dr. Mortimer had gotten into the habit of stopping by a few times a month to check up on me. He worked the night shift in the emergency room and even though he saved my life and I liked him quite a lot, I was never comfortable around him. I felt like he was always studying me.

  I took his coat and hung it up on the rack and we walked to the living room.

  “Can I get you a soda or something?” I asked as he sat on the sofa.

  “Oh, no. But I’d take a glass of water.”

  I was hoping that Kate would emerge from her room and join us. She was good at talking to people effortlessly about anything, plus I was still holding out hope that there could be a romantic spark between them. Dr. Mortimer was perfect for Kate. He was young and good looking, ambitious, and had a nice relaxed way about him that could balance Kate’s intensity. I also knew that he liked her a lot. I just wished that she would notice him, take an interest, and forget about Matt.

  But she didn’t come out and I was on my own. I headed back from the kitchen and handed him a small bottled water.

  “Thanks,” he said, twisting open the lid and taking a long sip.

  He looked tired. It must have been all those long night shifts, stacked one after the other.

  “How are you feeling by the way?” he asked.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He looked around the house for a moment and we let the silence sit. Eventually his eyes wandered back to mine.

  “How are you getting around?”

  “Pretty good,” I said.

  “And soccer?”

  “I make a good mascot,” I said, trying to laugh casually afterwards. “It’s just not happening this year.”

  Initially Coach Wilson and the team were excited that I would be back. That was, until they saw me run. Or rather my horrible zombie interpretation of it. I’ll never forget the look on the coach’s face when he realized that his Olympic Development player really was gone, along with the team’s shot at the state title. Now I mostly sat on the bench during the games.

  “That’s tough,” Dr. Mortimer said, looking guilty.

  “Naw, I do okay. Really. I don’t even care about it anymore,” I said.

  We stared at the TV, which was still on, but low. I flipped the station back to the news because I knew Kate would have a cow if she walked out and it wasn’t on. The weather guy was in the middle of his forecast, predicting heavy snow.

  “It looks like you’ve been working a lot,” I finally said.

  “Yeah. It was hard last night,” he said, leaning back. “Heart attack and a kid mauled by a dog.”

  “That’s terrible,” I said.

  He took another sip from the bottle.

 
“How about your classes? Any progress?”

  “They’re okay,” I said. “I still have problems remembering things for tests and stuff, but the teachers are giving me a pass, at least for now. That and a few volunteers who help me study.”

  Truthfully, my grades were in the gutter and I knew it didn’t matter what the teachers thought or did because there was no way I’d be going to college next year.

  “I know we’ve talked about this before Abby, but it takes time for drowning victims to fully recover. It hasn’t really been that long.”

  I didn’t like the word victim. I wasn’t a victim. I was an idiot. I was the one who walked out onto that ice.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Dr. Mortimer has told me the story at least a dozen times and I’m always amazed that I can’t remember any of it. Last winter I fell through the ice at a lake and when the rescue squad brought me in to St. Charles, I was clinically dead. No pulse, no breathing. They tried to resuscitate me with no luck. They “called it,” and told Kate she could stay for a little while with me to say good-bye. She was by my bedside, crying, when something happened.

  I woke up from death.

  Kate was the one who saw my eyes open and she screamed.

  Since then, Dr. Mortimer has carried around a heavy guilt. He is sure now that the icy water must have shut down my system, making it appear like I was dead when in fact I was in a deep hibernation, similar to what happens to animals. And he missed it.

  Kate doesn’t believe that though. She told me she was there, that she had held my frozen hands and had desperately tried to hear a beating heart as she sat next to me. She is positive that I was dead.

  “I’m just saying you’re still getting better. You have no idea what kinds of things you’ll be able to do a year from now. Your healing is a process, that’s all I mean.”

  Dr. Mortimer cleared his throat. He always got so serious when he talked about my recovery. He took it very personally, probably because he almost buried me alive.

  “I guess we’ll see what happens,” I said. “So is the kid okay, the one attacked by the dog?”

  “Thirty stitches across his face. It’s going to leave a horrible scar.”

  I was relieved to see Kate walk out.

  “Oh, Dr. Mortimer! I didn’t know you were here,” she said warmly, slipping her phone into a pocket. He stood up and they hugged. The room lit up.

  Although I came back from death, I didn’t come back the same. The biggest change is that I can’t see colors anymore, that everything in my world is in blacks, whites, and grays. I’m also super sensitive now to the emotions of other people. If they’re happy, they have kind of a glow around them. A light surrounds Dr. Mortimer whenever Kate walks into the room. That’s how I know he’s in love with her.

  “So good to see you. How’s everything?” she asked.

  “Great, really great,” he said.

  She walked toward the door and pulled on her boots.

  “Where are you going?” I said, glancing out the window at the snow.

  “The police found a body over by Old Mill. Probably a suicide, but I need to check it out anyway.”

  I sighed. I wanted her to stay and have dinner because I knew that Matt would be arriving soon. When it came to dinner, Matt was like the postman.

  “Couldn’t you just call one of your contacts or something?” I said.

  “Well, I could. But I need to make sure,” she said.

  “Can I come?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  “Probably a good idea to stay out of this weather, in your humble doctor’s opinion,” Dr. Mortimer said, grabbing his coat off the rack. “I’ve got to get going too.”

  I walked over to the door.

  “Abby seems to be doing well, right?” Kate asked, studying me like I was in a glass case at a museum. I hated when people did that, but I was getting used to it. It happened all the time at school.

  “Yeah, she seems good,” he said.

  A cold gust of air blew snow inside as Kate opened the door.

  “Bye, Abby. I’ll call if I’m too late. Leave the lights on.”

  “Bye,” I said.

  I gave Dr. Mortimer a quick hug.

  “Take care, Abby,” he said, following my sister outside.

  I watched from the window as he opened her car door. I could tell he was trying to linger, but Kate was all business. That’s how she was when stories came up and there was even a small chance to advance her career. She wasn’t going to be stuck in Bend, Oregon her whole life. She had CNN and New York on her mind, and was determined to find the story that would catapult her towards huge success.

  I locked the door and watched as she drove off, leaving the doctor in the street with snow swirling around him.

  CHAPTER 2

  Going back to school was actually harder than dying.

  I didn’t want to go back. After the accident, in my junior year, I had a tutor who came out to the house every day and I was content at home where I didn’t have to deal with people. I was thinking of doing that again for my senior year or even dropping out.

  “Just get it over with. Everybody misses you. Come back. You need to start living again.”

  Jesse and I had been best friends since fourth grade when we were in Mrs. Turner’s class and were paired up for a science experiment on buoyancy.

  “The tutor says she’ll keep coming to the house,” I said.

  “You can’t be hiding in here the rest of your life. It’s time to face your fears.”

  That was true. I knew I would never really want to go back to school and it had nothing to do with the academics. I didn’t want to show all those kids the new me. I was pretty sure how it would all play out, too. Everybody would be real nice for the first couple weeks, but then the gossip would start. Girl gossip is always the worst. Riley and Olivia had already stopped calling and dropping by and I was sure the rest of my so-called friends would do the same. Me showing up to school as the walking ghost of what I used to be wasn’t going to help my social life any.

  But Jesse was right. I couldn’t hide in the house forever.

  The first few days of my senior year were great. There were painted posters in the hallways that said “Welcome Back Abby Craig!” and the kids and teachers were excited to see me. But it wasn’t long until I was pushed to the outside of my circle of friends. It was subtle, but I could tell. They said hello and everything, but then hurriedly walked by. Being dead had changed me. I thought I could hide it somehow, but I couldn’t.

  Most didn’t ask too many questions and I was grateful for that.

  “Abigail,” Mrs. Baylock said as we sat at a table in the library. She was one of the volunteers who helped me. Her son Robbie played the trumpet in the marching band. I was working on an algebra problem.

  “Did you see anything?” she whispered.

  “See anything?” I said, wondering if she was talking about the dance assembly that morning. I looked up and saw how nervous she was. Her eyes were wild behind her jeweled-frame glasses.

  “Like, you know, Jesus? Or a light? Or a tunnel of some sort? Did you see anything like that?”

  I sighed, put down my pencil, and nodded. I wasn’t going to tell her that there was only darkness, a terrible black so deep that it sucked my breath away just thinking about it.

  She seemed disappointed in my silence and wasn’t going to let it go.

  “Why do you suppose you were brought back?” she asked.

  “What?”

  Suddenly she lunged across the table and squeezed my arm. I looked at her in horror, at the terrible desperation consuming her face.

  “Please, let go,” I begged. My mouth was bone dry. “Please.”

  “My husband needs help. Your help. I know he’s going to Hell. I keep telling him, warning him. Can you talk to him? Please, talk to him, Abigail!”

  My head was spinning as I stood. I couldn’t breathe, everything was fading except those crazy eyes that darted ba
ck and forth.

  “I can’t help you,” I said, finally breaking free from her grasp and backing away.

  “The Devil must have done this, Abigail!” she hissed. “You’re the Devil’s work! I’ll pray for you, evil child!”

  I started running. Out of the library, down the corridor, and into a bathroom stall. I locked the door behind me. My heart thundered in my chest and my face was prickly hot. I tried to calm down, tried to catch my breath.

  I don’t know how long I was in there before the school counselor found me and took me back to her office. Bells had rung and the school was empty. I didn’t mention what had happened, and she just assumed that I was having trouble adjusting to school.

  “I’m going to give your sister the name of a friend of mine. It would be good for you to talk to him,” she said. “I mean, on a regular basis that is.”

  And that’s how I started seeing Dr. Krowe.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Hey, Craigers,” Jesse said as he walked up to me. I was standing by my locker, fiddling with books, buying some time. Amanda and her friends were at the doors and I was hoping they would head out so I wouldn’t have to pass them. I was relieved to see him walk up.

  “Hey, Jesse,” I said.

  He adjusted his hat. For the eight years I had known him, I only had seen Jesse without a baseball cap a few times. One of those times was when he stood over my hospital bed and I hadn’t even recognized him.

  “Let’s get a burger,” he said.

  “Can’t. Have a shrink appointment. Want me to drop you somewhere?” At least I was still able to drive, which came in handy since Jesse smashed up his car last year. He was a speed freak and apparently his dad knew that too because the car was still not fixed.