Tales of Chills and Thrills: The Mystery Thriller Horror Box Set (7 Mystery Thriller Horror Novels) (128 page)

“I thought I was having a crazy dream,” I said to no one in particular, while trying to collect myself. I began to recall a terrible pain in my chest that had knocked me off my chair onto my knees. I was in a restaurant about to order a meal with my wife, when the world went black. It was like nothing I had ever known before; this memory had the amorphous quality of a dream. Yet there was something else, not anything I could collect in a thought, but something else.

Once again I felt like I was slipping back into whatever it was that I felt earlier. Suddenly everything went black again and I felt a sense of great relief as my flight experience returned and again I was seeing the room, and the people, who were there as I was floating over them… and my own body.

Wait a minute, what is this? I don’t have any feeling, and I’m looking at myself, as if asleep, as someone is about to use a defibrillator. I’m drifting, and liking it, and as I leave the room I suddenly return to standing on the floor, and then come face to face with an old familiar face, that of Brother Scheible, who was one of my high school teachers so many years ago.

“Brother Scheible…” Then it hit me: what was he doing here? How did he get here? “What the hell?” I was blown away.

He smiled at me and pointed his finger at my body lying on the table as he said “Go back. It’s not time.” I tried to say something more but was interrupted by his words, “You will know why, when you awaken, and then it will be your turn to find the way. Do
not
answer his questions
.
Do you understand? Do not answer
any
of his questions. Do not say anything in Latin. Not one word.” I suddenly realized it was he, Brother Scheible, who’d ordered me back into my body the first time. That’s why the voice had such a familiar ring to it.

There was also a beautiful sound occurring from every direction; it was just an “aaaaaaaaaaaaa” like the meditation of Tibetan monks. It was such a beautiful and comforting sound.

Then I was pulled back into my body like it was a vacuum, and I awakened with a loud cough.

I was back again and now wondering what was real and what was not. How did Brother Scheible wind up outside my room? I hadn’t seen him in many, many years. Was I dreaming? Was I dead?

Then I saw him again as he turned and left from among the medical team trying desperately to save my life. It was Brother Scheible, indeed. What in the hell
was
this?

* * *

“Let’s get him stabilized,” said one of the masked men hovering over me, flashing a pen light in my right eye, then my left. He wrote something on a chart then looking at me he said, “Maintain what you are all doing.” I had no concept of what time had passed before someone in the group said, “Off to the IC unit with this man,” sounding a little relieved after taking a deep breath.

I was wheeled onto an elevator and whisked to the Intensive Care Unit where I was hooked up to several machines and monitors. I struggled to stay awake, all to no avail. Drifting like being in a river, the sleep overtook my drive to stay awake.

My wife Kate was looking at me with the greatest concern on her pretty Irish face when I awoke.

She rose from her chair and rushed over to my bedside, touching my head as she said, “How are you feeling, Babe?”

It took me a minute before I could respond in a whisper, “Not feeling anything just yet.”

She continued looking into my eyes as she nodded and let out a quiet sigh.

“They tell me I died… twice.” My voice now came raspy.

“I know, but they got you back and you ain’t leaving again,” she said confidently.

I thought for a minute before I could speak. What a feeling. Dying is something you don’t usually come back from — or do you? “I had the craziest experience. I was floating over the emergency room. Then from out of nowhere my old high school Latin teacher shows up and tells me to get back into my body.”

She said, “Maybe you were dreaming.”

“No, my heart stopped and I was someplace else or in a different form or something like that. It was surreal… and then they brought me back, twice. I died, Honey. I died. I know when I’m dead, believe me. Now I’m alive. Oh, the wonders of modern medicine.”

“No. I mean dreaming just now.” I could hear her, but I felt my eyes involuntarily beginning to close. “You’re drugged up… maybe you’re dreaming, too.”

I fell back to sleep.

* * *

“What time is it?” I asked the nurse who awakened me for a blood sample.

“About 10, Mr. Storyteller.”

“Morning or night?”

“Night. How are we feeling?”

I asked, “Where is my wife?”

“She’s getting something to eat. She just left. But I have no doubt she’ll be back soon,” she said. I drifted off into a sound sleep once again.

The room was dark and silent when I awoke again. Sitting in the corner of the room was someone whose face was hidden in the shadows. I yawned and tried sitting up. “Who is that?” No answer but I could feel eyes on me. I rubbed mine and tried to see who was sitting there.

Brother Scheible rose and walked over to my bed. “Did you see him? Did he tell you about the Name?”

“Did I see who? This makes no sense. What are you doing here and how did you find me after all these years?”

He looked at me intently, apparently expecting an answer to his question which didn’t come.

He paused before saying, “Joe, your Uncle Joe.”

“Joe? I didn’t meet anyone on the other side except… you. What is going on, Brother? I haven’t seen you since high school. What are you doing here, now?” I was extremely agitated. “Are you alive or dead? Are you a hallucination?”

I tried to rise but couldn’t. “What is this all about?” I demanded.

He didn’t answer.

“I don’t
have
an Uncle Joe,” I said, struggling to sit up.

“Yes you do,” he said confidently. “Yes you do, or you did at one time anyway.” Smiling a knowing smile while his eyes flashed, he looked like he knew something I didn’t know.

“What are you doing here, Brother? Why are you back in my life? Why are you in my hospital room?”

But before he could even respond, I suddenly just drifted back down to my pillow like a deflated balloon and quickly faded back into sleep.

* * *

The gentle nudge of a nurse trying to wake me for another blood sample was the next thing I felt. “Hi, time for another draw,” she said with a smile on her pleasant face. She was a dark-skinned, slender Indian woman.

“How about a draught?” I commented, trying to be glib as I extended my arm.

I looked around the room and asked where everyone was.

She nodded her head and said in her charming accent, chuckling as she said, “Ain’t nobody here but us mice.”

My blood entered the vial and I yawned as I struggled to get myself back to full function. I saw a doctor as he entered the room and started reading my chart. He shook his head mournfully, looked at me over his glasses, and left.

“Hey Doc, wait a minute. I need to ask you something.” I’d raised my voice a little as I spoke.

“Who are you talking to?” asked the nurse as she lifted her head from the chart on which she was writing.

“Him, right there… the doctor.” I gestured toward the door at the gaunt-faced older man who I assumed was a doctor.

“Where?” She turned to look and then turned back to me, shaking her head. “Did you fall back to sleep and have a vivid dream, Mr. Storyteller?”

“No, he was standing right there at the foot of the bed reading my chart; then he went out the door.”

“Couldn’t have been. I have your chart right here.” She held it up and wiggled it.

I was really losing it. Nothing was making sense to me. Was this all a drug induced hallucination, or a very bad dream?

Just then Kate came into the room and I was greatly relieved, to say the least. Her lean frame, red hair and gorgeous smile were always a welcome sight.

“Hi Hon,” she said as she kissed my forehead. “Feeling any better?”

I thought about telling her of all the craziness that was going on but decided to wait, since I didn’t want to be committed to a mental institution on top of everything else.

Kate looked down at the floor near my bed and asked, “Why are these feathers here?”

“Feathers? … What feathers?… Where?” I questioned, struggling to get a look at them as I repositioned myself in the bed.

The nurse looked surprised to see several large, snow-white feathers too and asked, almost to herself, “How, in heaven, did these get here?” She picked one up as I asked to see it. She examined it before handing it to me.

Kate also picked up a feather, and seemed strangely fascinated by it – even moreso than the situation called for. My own fascination was a growing one, yet weariness overtook me and I just fell off to sleep again, with the large white feather in my hand.

* * *

I awoke early the next morning to the sun shining and strangely it felt like a beginning of a return to normal. Why, I was even able to eat a little oatmeal and some blueberries. No coffee though.

They moved me out of the ICU and into a room on another level. Kate showed up later in the day with magazines and the newspaper and her usual beautiful smiling eyes. I was starting to feel a bit better, and before I could ask about going home, she told me that both of our sons were on their way to visit me. John was coming in from his home in Chicago and Dennis from his home in Madrid, Spain. Then there was Lucy, our nomadic daughter who lived in Seattle but most of the time she spent working on a cruise ship and Kate had left a message on her voicemail.

“Get them all on the phone and tell them not to fly here over this. They can call me and I can call them and if I get worse or have another event then they can come.”

“Speak for yourself. I want to see my kids and if this is what it takes to get them here, then so be it.” She continued, “Your doctor is stopping by in a few minutes to meet with us about your treatment. He mentioned something about the stent they placed in your artery,” Kate said while studying my newly grown beard stubble.

“What stent? This is the first I’m hearing about this.”

Just then, the doctor strolled through the door with a smile on his face looking at me intently. “Got some good news for you, Jeremy.”

“I’m all ears, Doc,” I said feeling very elated at the prospect of “good news”.

“You are going home tomorrow… first thing!” He was clearly very pleased at the prospect of telling me this.

“So Doc, I understand that you put a stent in my artery?” I asked while I pushed myself up in my bed.

He winked and said, “You got that right. You’re a lucky man to be alive, Jeremy, what with the blockage you had.”

“How bad was the blockage?”

“It was very close to total, roughly eighty-five percent. Were you experiencing chest pains? Because, my good man, if you weren’t having pains, then this would be a very unusual event indeed.”

“I thought I was having gas pains or some kind of indigestion. Are there any other areas in my parts of the cardiovascular system I might have to worry about? Any more blockades?”

He placed his hand on my shoulder. “None. But that doesn’t mean they won’t develop in the future. You might never develop another blockage again — and I can say that because we found only one blockage in your entire system. Eat wisely and exercise regularly, is my advice. Make certain that you get an annual physical by a cardiologist without fail. That’s very important, my friend.” He was emphatic about that. “I want to see you next week at my office,” he said while handing his card to me.

“I have one thing I want to ask you. Are you my main physician? Here at the hospital.” I asked.

“Last time I looked I was. Why?”

“Because, the night before last I was checked on, by a doctor, a tall man, older, slight build. I wondered who he was. He had certain strangeness about him. I don’t know, but it was weird.”

He answered, “With the amount of drugs in you, anyone might have looked
weird
. I can’t think of anyone on staff who matches that description, especially on the night crew. But maybe he was a sub or something like that.” He left after giving me an encouraging tap on the shoulder and a thumbs up, telling me to behave myself. I didn’t think he gave a hoot about my question regarding the night shift doctor.

* * *

Kate smiled broadly. “I can’t wait to get you back home and I promise you that you will be waited on hand and foot, my love.”

“Where’s my feather?” I asked.

“What feather?”

“The one you had in your hands last night. One of the feathers that was on the floor, next to the bed.” I spoke rapidly while watching her draw a blank.

“I didn’t see any feathers, and you know that I wasn’t here last night. You won’t let me stay out at night. Remember?”

Now I was really confused. I must have been dreaming again. I guessed that was what it was. What else? Seriously. Feathers?

She stayed all day but as it started getting dark I suggested she start for home. “Okay, I’ll be here first thing in the morning,” Kate said with a great deal of love in her voice as she kissed me on the head and tussled my hair.

I settled back into my pillow and turned on the TV and as I was surfing the channels, when I came to rest on a movie called “My Uncle Joe.” It was about a doctor who had the power of healing through meditation and ancient herbal formulas. He is asked to treat a young man’s uncle who never really appears in the movie. His uncle’s name is Joe and he is not only healed by this doctor, but he did it from afar. I was startled when I realized that the doctor in the movie looked strangely like the doctor who had visited me during the night and read my chart.

At first I thought that maybe I had seen this movie before and because I was drugged up I was somehow injecting the character into my reality. But the more I thought about it the more rattled I became. Brother Scheible had referred to my seeing my Uncle Joe, who, as far as I knew didn’t exist. Then the appearance of this doctor in my room and the nurse who was there didn’t see him. If even, she herself, was real.

The hospital was quiet and I hadn’t had a visit from the nursing staff in what seemed like quite a long time. This seemed unusual, out of pattern. I decided to take the occasion to rest and possibly fall asleep. Setting the timer on the TV to turn off in one hour, I continued watching this strange movie. Again the doctor was on screen and there was a close-up of his face… and it was the same face that had been in my room that night. It
was
him. What the hell was going on here? Could my mind be playing tricks on me? If I told this to anyone it would most likely be dismissed as a drug induced hallucination at best, or madness at worst. I had to work this all out in my head and it was becoming very unsettling.