Pipeline

Published by

Melange Books, LLC

White Bear Lake, MN 55110

www.melange-books.com

Pipeline, Copyright 2012 by
Christopher Carrolli

This ebook is licensed for your
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you for respecting the hard work of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-61235-360-9

Names, characters, and incidents
depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of
this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
or by any information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States of
America.

Cover Design by Caroline
Andrus

PIPELINE

by Christopher Carrolli

Tracy Kimball is awakened one night by a
voice emanating from the television static. She recognizes the
voice--her fiancé, David, who was killed in car accident, an
accident of which she survived.

Plagued by a series of paranormal
occurrences, Tracy enlists the aid of a local paranormal
investigative team, who discovers that Tracy is not being haunted,
she’s
being warned.
A race to save her ensues, leading to
the final climactic ending.

This book is dedicated to my Mother, Gladys
Carrolli

(1937-2011)

Table of Contents

"Pipeline"

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

About the Author

Previews

Chapter One

“Tracy... ”

The odd and
distant voice jolted her awake, and she flinched her eyes open
wide. It couldn’t be. She knew she wasn’t asleep just now, only at
that final stage of drifting when sounds are the last things to be
recognized, and that last sound was someone calling her
name.

She turned her head toward the television.
The local station had concluded its late-night broadcast, and now
the gray static filled the screen and crashed from the audio. She
could hear it in that last phase of consciousness as sleep
paralysis grounded her to the couch in helpless abandon. It was the
eerie sound of her name that had released her.

She sat up and stared at the screen.

“Tracy.”

There it was again. Her heart pounded hard.
The voice was coming from the screen.

“Tracy... love... you.” It called out again.
The voice was strange; the words were quick, hollow, and
haunting.

She jumped from the couch and turned the
volume up with the remote. Nothing—just the rushing roar of static
that seemed to taunt her. She was fully awake now, knowing what
she’d heard. She recognized the voice.

“David?” She called out to the mocking
screen, her chest heaving, as the tears streamed down her face.

How? He’s dead.

The static said no more.

* * * *

She sat and watched the sun rise then swallow
the blue dawn, and a burst of orange ignited reality. The new day
greeted her, as though all episodes in the darkness had never
occurred. Three pots of coffee with just a drop of Jack Daniel’s in
her cup to calm her nerves had kept her alert since the rude
awakening. With the coffee cup clutched in her hand, she gazed out
of the kitchen window and wondered what was real.

“David,” she said to the empty house. Her
eyes became rolling searchlights, scoping and scanning every corner
and hoping for an answer.

It was him... his voice. I know it was.

Her thoughts carried her back to that
horrible night...

Rex’s birthday party had been in full blast
when keg number two was tapped with applause. It was a scene of
indulgence as roars of laughter filled the room, and the Hi-fi,
Satellite radio blared Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon
Rising. A muted baseball game (silenced in full, swinging progress
by the Classic Rock station) played out on a giant screen TV that
hung behind a fully stocked wet bar.

Rex was David’s longtime pal and they were
celebrating his thirtieth. Earlier she had agreed to drive home,
but after four Rum and Cokes, it was a far gone conclusion that
David should take the wheel. He had no qualms about her quick
change of mind; he felt too tired to party anyway. They were
sitting at the bar when she almost swayed from the barstool.

“You really should eat something,” he said to
her. She had skipped dinner that evening, and the concerned look on
his face pleaded to her.

“I’m eating something,” she said, opening a
handful of popcorn she’d snatched from the bowls set around the
bar. “You should try some.”

“No thanks, I hate popcorn.” He sipped from
the foamy mug in front of him that would be his last.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Besides, you’re
the designated driver now, so there.” She had designated him,
playfully poking her finger to his chest.

He laughed at her, enjoying her wacky sense
of humor and deep gray eyes. Her long brown hair hung well past her
shoulders, and he kissed her forehead. She smiled at him, adoring
his deep blue eyes and sandy hair, his strong structure, but mostly
his light hearted, easy going manner. She’d said yes when he asked
her to marry him over a month ago, and she was still showing off
the diamond engagement ring.

“Well, better me than you, Princess,” he said
with impish sarcasm.

His pet name for her, “Princess,” was usually
spoken with that same teasing tongue. They smiled into each other’s
eyes, unaware of the impending doom the fateful night would deliver
them. The song played on in the background.

I see the Bad Moon Rising. I see trouble on
the way...

He chugged the rest of the mug and wiped the
foam mustache from his face.

“Yeah, some designated driver,” he said.
“Let’s roll.”

Don’t go around tonight, it’s bound to take
your life...

It was just after 1:30 as they cruised the
highway home, and she let the cool, brisk, night air of an early
spring kiss her from the open window, basking in the breeze that
swept her hair backward. That invigorating feeling of being alive
that came from the cold wind had sobered her mind, if only for
minutes.

The drive home was at least thirty minutes,
and she killed half of that just bathing in the night breeze that
now chilled her.

“Wow, I’m beat,” David said. “I shouldn’t
have downed those last two drafts.”

She hadn’t seen the effort he’d made to keep
his eyelids from closing.

“We’re almost home,” she said, turning her
head back to the window and gazing out at the twilight.

Minutes of silence passed. She looked to see
why he was so quiet.

“David!” she screamed. His eyes were closed,
his hands still clutching the wheel, and the car moved to its own
destination. Her eyes caught sight of the looming road sign just
ahead, blaring familiar words in neon orange letters against a
pitch black background.

CAUTION!

SHADOW VALLEY CURVE AHEAD

Shadow Valley Curve was an unlit, twisting
roundabout perched high above a low lying valley shadowed and
hidden below the steep embankment that neared closer and
closer.

“David!” She shook him and grabbed the wheel,
attempting to steer it. He opened his eyes too late.

The quick jerk of the steering wheel had
failed, and the ground gave way underneath them. The drop was some
thirty feet. Shattering glass and crunching metal intertwined in an
endless, catastrophic symphony, as the car plummeted, bounced, and
pummeled down the embankment, melding the Mercury into a death
trap.

She heard one last cry from David before they
smashed into an oak tree that stood proud among its peers in the
field below.

Then, all sounds surrendered to silence.

This didn’t just happen. I can’t be
dead.
In a moment of instant denial, she wondered if this was
that moment, the moment of finality when life and the state of
being became a thing of the past, and it was too late to undo
it.

A hot, sticky fluid flowed into her eyes,
blinding and blurring her vision then fading her focus. The
excruciating pain in her head screamed to her that she was alive.
She wiped her eyes with her fingers and blood drenched her hands,
gushing from her head gash, hotter and faster.

She reached out next to her and touched the
shape she’d recognized and loved, now slumped and tangled with the
twisted mechanism that once was a steering column. It projected
upward, impaling him through the chest. But she no longer
recognized the ballooned face, lifeless with a sea of blood and
broken glass sprayed through his hair. She heard something, then
nothing.

“David?” Her hand touched his arm. It was
cold.

“David? David, no....PLEASE!”

Her screams had ripped through the night,
piercing the silence and echoing to no one except the mighty oaks
that towered high above as tall, deaf witnesses.

* * * *

She sat coffee wired and daydreaming,
reliving that night in her mind. Six months had passed, but the
memory was as fresh and recent as if it had happened only a week
ago. She kept recalling things she hadn’t before, and little pieces
began to fit a larger puzzle. Like that moment she could have sworn
he was trying to speak, but Marcia had assured her that it was only
that final gasp of breath that escaped him, the rattle of death as
life became extinguished.

She had awakened in the hospital in the early
morning hours with her head bandaged and her mind groggy and numb.
She’d spent eight long hours a day here, sometimes ten, and of all
places to wake up in.

“Tracy?” She knew the voice, and her eyes
fought to focus.

Nurse Marcia Ross was her best friend and
colleague, but most of all, her mentor. She had advised Tracy
throughout nursing school, ensuring that she became one of the
finest, and now Marcia was like an older sister. She stood over
her, and Tracy recognized her dark, ebony skin, her maternal
voice.

“Marcia—”

“Shush, don’t talk,” she said. “You just keep
still and rest—doctor’s orders.”

The neurologist on staff at University
Hospital, where they worked, had examined and diagnosed her with a
severe concussion. Tracy had been the lucky one.

“Am I all right?”

“You got one hell of a head wound. Just lie
still and don’t talk.” Marcia began to take her blood pressure.

“David, where is David?” She knew the answer
to this question; she was a nurse. But maybe somehow, some
way...

She felt a twinge of bitterness when the
small, silent pause shot her down.

“David didn’t make it, baby,” Marcia said,
unable to divert her eyes from the white sheets of the bed. Tears
had streamed down Marcia’s face, and she began wiping them
away.

So, she wasn’t wrong. David was dead, and
there was nothing she could do about it. If only she’d stayed
conscious long enough to help him. If only she hadn’t drank so
much. Her clouded mind flooded with hindsight all too late; the
tragic hour had passed. As a nurse, she felt like she’d failed him,
but worse was the notion that her stupidity had ended his life.
Then, she had cried herself into oblivion.