At Death's Door
Freefall
Book One
Astrid V. Tallaksen
Genre: Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance
Date of Publication: 8/1/2014
ISBN: 1500486922
ASIN: B00MU3PSES
Number of pages: 232
Word Count: 79,003
Cover Artist: Indie-Spired Designs
Book Description:
The world is a pretty straightforward place. Even for medium Sara Stone things seem pretty simple, aside from the whole talking to spirits bit. But when the spirits get too hard to handle and Sara ends up admitted to a mental hospital, the world starts to seem a lot less straightforward. First her family disappears, including her four year old son. Then she gets the sneaking suspicion that not only are the staff at the mental hospital somehow connected, but they also have no intention of ever letting her leave the hospital.
Everything changes when Sara has her first visitor in three months. Daniel is handsome, friendly, and a complete stranger. When he promises to spring her from the hospital and swears that everything she's experienced is completely real, Sara has no choice but to believe him. But once she reaches a run-down Victorian house in the tiny Alabama town her rescuer calls home, the last thing she expects to discover is that every memory she has is a lie.
Daniel reveals a world filled with angels, demons, and an impending war humans know nothing about. Sara wants to ignore her role in the whole mess – all that matters is solving the mystery of where her son has gone. But the forces of Heaven, Hell, and the Heart have other plans for her. Can she find her child before the world comes crashing down?
Chapter 1
Apparently
having conversations with dead people means you're crazy. And no matter how
long you try to hide the strange ability, someone is going to find out and
they're going to start questioning your sanity. Unfortunately, the more you try
to shut out the ghosts who need you to listen, the louder they shout. And the
more you try to get your family to understand, the crazier they think you are.
Eventually, between your own helplessness and your family's disbelief in your
open line with the other side, you end up on a one way trip to the mental
hospital.
***
I
don't think I left my room at the hospital except when it was required; for
meals, for processing group, and to see the doctor. If it wasn't mandatory for
those I wouldn't even do that. The doctor only gave me more medication, and the
people in group—who had their own issues—just stared at me. There was no point
bothering to “contribute” anymore, and the therapist leading it didn't bother
trying to make me. If I had refused to leave my room I doubt anyone would have
said much after the first few days of prodding me to go. It wasn't like I was
going to be evicted. I was too “crazy” for that. It was supposed to be a
short-term treatment facility, but I'd been there for three and a half months,
wondering how long it would be before they'd transfer me to something more
permanent. When were they going to figure out that no medicine, no therapy,
nothing they did or said was going to change what they thought was wrong with
me? The problem, as my family and the doctors saw it, was that I believed I
talked to dead people. I'd hidden it for so long, but in the last year the dead
had become so insistent, the things they said so absurd, and I'd tried twice to
kill myself. To be honest, I'm not sure if it was the suicide attempts or the
seeing dead people that convinced them to hospitalize me indefinitely. The
doctor was perplexed, and of course didn't believe a word I said. My family was
downright frightened of me. In fact, at some point during my hospital stay,
they disappeared. Took my son and fled, as far as I knew. The terrifying part?
The doctors and the police all insisted I had no son, and the address where I
claimed to live was the residence of an elderly couple who knew nothing of me.
How could they have forgotten that my mother was the one who brought me to the
hospital? How could they forget the times my son's father brought him to visit?
I pleaded with the doctor to believe me, telling him my son had been kidnapped
and I could have sworn he laughed.
Through
all of this I still saw and heard the dead; on a good day it was only a couple
pushing at me to listen. Translucent figures, young and old, whispered secrets
of their loved ones, insisting I go find them. The torture seemed almost
intentional and there was no way to make them stop, no blades, nothing to at
least distract me. I tried to ignore them, but a pillow over your head won't
deafen voices in your mind even if you can't see their distraught or laughing
or angry faces. While trying to use the sharp edge of metal under the sink to
cut into my wrists, the nurse caught me on her rounds. I ended up sedated and
in bed, wanting to scream in frustration at the ghosts nobody else could see.
My body and mind were too drugged to do anything but stare at the ceiling. I
didn't believe in god, but prayed for death. The next time I wouldn't fail, I
swore to myself.
I
waited, only leaving my room to eat when a nurse came in, pulled me to my feet,
and directed me to the common room. The food wasn't bad, but being around
people was getting harder and harder. Their loved ones would stand behind them
and beg me to give them a voice. When I'd first gotten to the hospital and the
ghosts asked, I shared their requests. But it scared the other patients, and angered
the nurses. Ignoring the dead made them louder and more insistent. It soon
became too difficult to hear what the real people were saying, and I just tried
to nod when they expected it. Mostly they didn't.
Two
weeks after that first attempt, four months into my stay, I filled the bathroom
sink and immersed my head to drown myself. I took a deep breath of water, then
another, but fell to the floor choking. A nurse came again, and tried to help
me, but I was so angry at failing again that I swung a fist and then tried to
strangle her. The ghosts cheered me on, the sadistic pieces of shit. Another
nurse came and managed to subdue me long enough to pop a needle into my hip,
which dropped me like a poleaxed bull in the space of two breaths. They must have
used a stronger sedative that time. I woke up, who knows how long later, in a
different room, on a different bed, in very uncomfortable restraints. The
ghosts were STILL talking, at such a volume and so many at a time that I
couldn't understand anything they said, except for the repeated word
“apocalypse”.
“STOP!”
I rasped when I could take no more, my voice hoarse from the unsuccessful
attempt at drowning. “I can't hear you all! You have to stop, please just stop.
I can't tell everyone your messages. It makes them sad or angry. I don't know
why you have to talk to me all the fucking time!”
The
other dead fell back, faded away, as one stepped forward. Why were they
suddenly willing to be quiet on behalf of one particular spirit? Unlike the
myriad others who plagued me, this man was nearly corporeal. His deep voice
wasn't distant or faint, although he still spoke in hushed tones. “We talk to
you because you are different. We talk to you because the apocalypse is coming
and you have to help.”
“I
can't help if you make me look like a nutcase! I can't help if I can't hear
myself think because all of you are constantly in my ear. And most of all, I
can't help if I'm stuck in this place. Nobody is ever going to sign off that
I'm safe to go home. Least of all if I'm lying in a padded room in restraints
talking to ghosts.”
“You
have no idea just how much you can help.” In all the time I'd seen the ghosts
of the dead, I'd never had an actual conversation with any of them. They would
tell me what they wanted their loved ones to know, or if they were the more
recent ones, they'd tell me the apocalypse was coming or that that world was
going to end, but they never responded to anything I had to say to them. My
heart was like a battering ram trying to burst through my ribs as the new
spirit spoke. He appeared thirty-five or forty years old, with short brown hair
and the palest blue eyes. “We'll try to be quieter, but you have to be ready.”
Closing
my eyes for a moment, I wondered if I should be grateful for his promise to
give me a little peace, or terrified at his insistence that I could help. The
idea of an apocalypse seemed far-fetched, and the idea that I could somehow
have anything to do with it, whether for better or worse, seemed even less
believable. When I opened my eyes to ask
the innumerable questions swimming around in my head I was alone and the room
was silent for the first time in years. And for the first time in years, I
closed my eyes and slept, deep and dreamless, for hours. He wasn't joking about
the quiet. I wasn't sure how long it was
until a nurse woke me while loosening my restraints.
“Think
you can be kind to yourself and the staff?” she asked me with what sounded like
a combination of gentleness and sarcasm.
I
sat up as she finished the straps on my arms, “I'll try to behave myself.” My
voice was just as gentle and sarcastic as hers. The last of the straps fell
away and I swung my feet over the side, stood up, and followed her to the door.
I looked at the clock as we walked to the nurse's station to check my vitals
for the day and give me my afternoon medicine. An hour until visitation. Last
time for the week. I always waited in the common room just in case my parents
or my son were, by some miracle, to show back up for a visit and say I was going
home. No matter how unrealistic it might be, I couldn't tell myself to give up.
Ghosts, a key part in the apocalypse, and the undying belief in something
impossible—maybe I did need to be here after all.
“Sara,
you have a visitor.” A nurse touched my shoulder and pointed to a man, about my
age, 28, standing in the doorway to the common room. He was tall, six five I
would have guessed, considering he was nearly a head taller than me, and I'm a
good six feet tall. Shaggy dark hair curled around his ears and grazed the
collar of his shirt. He looked a bit embarrassed or unsure about being in the
psych ward of a hospital, but when his gaze landed on me, the tension went out
of his body as if he had all at once become much more at home in the place. His smile wasn't exactly bright or cheery,
but it was still a smile aimed at me that wasn't faked. He came and sat across
from me at one of the many tables in the room, all of which had families
visiting with their loved ones. For the first time in three months, I had a
visitor. To my disappointment it was neither my parents nor my son and his
father, nor anyone else I had ever met in my life. Maybe he was confused. He
didn't look confused—at least not anywhere near as much as me. And for once the
dead were nowhere to be found; just my luck. When the blue-eyed man had offered
peace and quiet, I didn't know this was coming down the line. I cursed the
damned wily ghost. And then myself for being so strange.
“Umm,
Sara,” the man said my name, pulling me out of my odd little reverie, “You look
a little out of it. How much did they sedate you today?” He seemed to know a
little more than I was comfortable with about my current situation. I frowned,
my forehead creasing, and looked down. He reached forward, pushed the curtain
of red hair out of my face and lifted my chin so I'd look at him. His eyes were
golden brown, like amber, and he looked at me like he'd known me for years.
“Not
to be rude, but who the fuck are you? I wasn't exactly expecting anyone to
visit today.” Sarcasm was my usual defense.
“Daniel,
I'm Daniel,” he introduced himself, ducking his head in a sort of apology. “I
know it's out of the blue, especially after the few months—”
“Months?!
Try last couple forever! I've never met you before! Then you show up 'out of
the blue',” I punctuated the obvious sarcasm with the symbol for quotes as I
tried to somehow yell at him without raising my voice, “just so conveniently
after I've spent the last 4 months, all by myself, in a fucking nut-house that
was supposed to be temporary and wouldn't have been necessary at all if I
didn't have some stupid—” I stopped talking, because there was a very good
chance he had no idea what I did. Maybe he was investigating the disappearance
of my family; I doubted it. Nobody else would even acknowledge they'd ever
existed.
“I
know about your … what you see and hear. That's why I'm here. I can't get you
out of here right now. I don't have that kind of pull. And if you do manage to
get out on your own—barring the likelihood that you'll be sent to a long-term
facility first—we'll have to find somewhere safe to take you. You have to stick
it out. I know you aren't crazy.” He
kept leaning toward me even though I was pulling away, our conversation a
shared secret that he spoke in a low voice. If he hadn't seemed so serious
about it all I'd think it was some sort of joke. He knew too much about me, and
cared too much about what happened to me. Too bad he didn't care enough to get
me out. “Listen to them okay?”
“To
the doctors and nurses?” I asked incredulously. The hell I would. That was
asking too damned much.
“No,”
he laughed although the mirth didn't reach his eyes, “your ghosts. They're a
part of all of this.”
“Part
of all of what? How do you know I'm not crazy? Why can't you get me out of here
right now? Why do you even care?” I had so many questions that he might answer
with some degree of honesty instead of just penalizing me for even thinking
about it. This was the very tip of things starting to make sense, but I felt
like every tiny answer he laid out caused me to have ten more questions. “For
that matter, who are you? Just your name isn't much information—anyone could
give any name. How much DO you know about me?”
“Most
of those questions I can't answer while you're in here, I'm so sorry.” He
rubbed the back of his neck, his other hand rolling a pencil back and forth on
the table. It looked like he was holding his breath, and when he released it in
one long exhale it was to continue speaking. Maybe he really was distraught that
he couldn't answer more of my questions. “I know you are Sara Stone, 28. You
were born in Chicago, raised here in Birmingham, Alabama. You have a son, four
years old, and you're a single mom. And
you talk to people nobody else can see or hear. There's more, but we can't talk
about it here.” His eyes never left my face as he listed everything he knew
about me. When he reached out as if to take my hand I pulled it away into my
lap, his gaze breaking from mine for the first time and looking down at the table
where my hand had been as if I'd somehow hurt him by removing it. “When we get
you out of here, I'll tell you everything. I swear it. I know my word means
nothing to you, but it means everything to me, and I would never hurt you, of
all people.”
“When
you get me out of here? You know about my son and you won't tell me where the
hell he is. Do you even know? The problem is, every time you tell me something
I just want to know something else, and all you keep saying is you can't tell
me while I'm here. I might never leave here! Or if I do, it will just be to
somewhere more permanent.” The nurses were looking at me as my voice rose in
anger. “Saying you can't tell me, just makes me think that it's all a
conspiracy, and I'm here because someone isn't letting me leave.”
“Shhhh
you have to calm down,” he urged me in a harsh whisper. “It's not one person
you can't trust, it's all of them. We have no idea who does what here, but
something isn't right. They have all the power in the world to never sign the
papers for you to leave. And I can't make them, no matter how much I want to.
I'm not a doctor, and I'm not family as far as they know. You just need to go
with the flow, make them happy, and maybe they'll let you go. I'll leave you a
cell phone so that if they do, then you can call me.”
“If
the dead stay quiet, then I'll stay calm and go with the status quo. I can't
promise anything if they don't. Trust me, I don't want to be sedated and
restrained any more than most people. Here least of all,” I assured him, lifting
my hands from my lap, resting my elbows on the table and my forehead in my
palms. Falling apart, panicking, wasn't an option. He knew about my son, but he
didn't say he knew where Danny was. All I wanted to think about was how to find
him. But I could only do that if I got out of the hospital. “And even if they
let me leave, where do I go? My apartment is already leased to someone else I'm
sure. You said my son was real, but you didn't say my parents were. Even if
they were at home and just telling people they don't know me, I obviously can't
go there. Do they have Danny and just think I'm not stable enough to take care
of him? If you know where he is you better fucking tell me.”
“I'll
take you home,” he promised. What the heck was that supposed to mean? I just
said I couldn't go home, and I didn't think he misunderstood me. The fog of the
sedative still lingered, and I was so frustrated and scared I found myself on
the verge of tears. I rubbed at my eyes to hold them at bay, and as I pulled my
hands away, Daniel grabbed both and held them. “I know it's hard, almost
impossible. Just please believe me. This whole terrible part of your life is
going to be over soon. And I'll make sure you get through it safely and find
your son. I promise.”
“I
don't have much choice but to trust you, do I? Just get me out of here. Get me
back to my son.” I didn't pull my hands away. His were warm and they surrounded
mine, and for the moment that was more comforting than the coldness of the
hospital. He let one hand go and reached to the pocket of the leather jacket he
wore, pulling out two things. One was a crappy prepaid cell phone which he set
on the table, the other was an odd, woven bronze torc bracelet that he slipped
onto my wrist. It was beautiful, looked ancient, and had been made with
impeccable craftsmanship. It didn't take a person with strong intuition to know
it was somehow important. But I couldn't decipher why in the world he would
want me to wear something so precious. I frowned and looked up at him, waiting
for some explanation.
“The
phone is off right now. I can't and won't call you on it, and I don't want it
to be dead when you're finally able to leave. Turn it on and call the third
number in the contact list, and I'll be here to get you within 15 minutes.”
"And
the bracelet?" I asked, raising an eyebrow.
Taking
my wrist in his hand, he ran a finger over the cool metal, “I know it seems
strange to give you a random piece of jewelry, but I just..." he
hesitated, looking at me with a pained expression, "I just need you to
wear it. I promise you I'll explain when you get out of here. I know you aren't
seeing any spirits right this moment, but at some point they'll be back. You
really need to try to get out as soon as possible when that happens, if you
haven't gotten out already by that point.”
“Why
does it matter how soon I get out of here. It might never happen. It's a lot
more likely they'll just take me to Wallace.”
“Just
do what I say, please. It will make everything easier. And if things don't go
as planned, I WILL find you.” He squeezed my hand and stood up, and I followed
suit. Maybe he was just used to hugging people, or he thought I was in
desperate need of a hug, but without warning he enveloped me in his substantial
embrace, holding me a bit longer than I expected to be comfortable with. It
wasn't uncomfortable though. I found myself returning the hug, my forehead
resting against a chest that was reassuring and solid, and I wasn't even a
hugging person. “I've got to go now,” he said as he stepped away, one hand
lingering on my shoulder as he looked back toward the nurse who was stepping
into the common room to tell all the visitors they needed to leave. “Try to
stick it out and give them no reason to keep you and call me when you're able
to leave. I'll be waiting.”
“I'll
try,” I agreed, more than a little worried about him leaving me here alone
again. There was no reason I should trust him anymore than the staff at this
place, but he believed me and seemed to be more forthcoming and also more
concerned with my well-being. Maybe I was crazy (they thought I was), but my
instinct said that if there was anyone I could trust, it was this man who just
happened to show up four months into my stay at the looney-bin. Now, as he was
telling me goodbye, I realized I couldn't wait for him to come and get me. He
was a glimpse at freedom, and I was ready to see it from the outside instead of
just through his veiled promises of hope. “You'd better be for real. I can't
handle hoping for something that's a lie.”
“I
am real—probably more than most things you've had to live through recently, as
terrible as they've been,” he reassured me, with another quick side hug and a
tap at my temple—referring, I guessed, to the spirits. “Don't forget.” The
nurse ushered him out along with the other visitors and shut the door behind
them. The click of the lock was almost painful. I only had time to ask that the
cell phone be put in my bag in the closet where they kept most of our
belongings. They wouldn't keep the bracelet, if they noticed it at all, because
we were allowed watches, books, toiletries, hair bands, and simple jewelry that
couldn't be used to hurt ourselves or anyone else. I had to go back to the
common room for the dinner they were carting in while we put away our things or
got ready to eat. It was a relief to eat without ghosts telling me this and
that, or begging to tell their loved one how they died or that they loved them,
or whispering in my ear about the apocalypse.
After
dinner was the usual nighttime group session where we told whether we met our
goals for the day and what we learned. It wasn't much more than repetitive
psychobabble, but I did as Daniel had urged, interacting with the group when
necessary and staying quiet whenever I could. The therapist stared at me; I'd
caught her off guard when I responded when spoken to, and she seemed to perk up
quite a bit as if she alone was responsible for the miracle.
“I
take it restraints and sedation don't get along with you, Sara?” Her voice was
over-sweet and flippant. I had a strong urge to punch her, but I didn't; I
wanted to leave far too much for that. I imagined myself in the passenger side
of Daniel's car as we pulled away from the hospital and sped off before they
could make me come back.
“Yes
ma'am I suppose you're right. Not many people like restraints and sedation I
guess. And they changed my meds too,” I admitted. “Maybe they're helping,
because I'm not hearing the dead people anymore.” Lying was something I'd
become quite good at thanks to my special “gift”. The therapist, Roxanne,
seemed pleased to hear what I had to say, and gave me a hug after the group
session before letting the nurse know I was “feeling better”. It wasn't a lie,
but it wasn't because of anything the staff here had done. I glanced down at my
wrist to see what time it was before I remembered it wasn't a watch I was
wearing, but instead the strange bronze torc Daniel had given me. How long
would I have to wait for the doctor to write my release? What if he never did? That was a scary thought
I didn't want to entertain.
About the Author:
Debut author Astrid V. Tallaksen grew up in North Alabama. She was fortunate to be raised with a heart for stories of creatures and places outside of this world. Her love of reading quickly became a love of writing.
She spent several years creating content and helping writers to improve their craft on the online world of Althanas, a creative writing workshop in the guise of a roleplaying forum.
A self-avowed nerd, Astrid loves science fiction, comic books, and eighties fantasy movies in the vein of The Princess Bride and Labyrinth. Her geekiness extends to annual volunteer work at the massive sci-fi convention known as Dragon*con every year in Atlanta, Georgia.
In the odd times that she's not immersed in geekdom or writing, Astrid loves to sing karaoke, crochet, and spend time with her family and pets.
Twitter: @astrid_writes
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2 comments:
Nice cover
Thank you! I got chills when my cover designer sent it to me. It was done by Indie-spired Design.
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