Agonal Breath (The Deadseer Chronicles Book 1) (4 page)

Two of the walls were covered with a set of cheap bookcases, crammed to overflowing with science fiction and fantasy books by the hundreds. The wear and tear on the spines showed how much I loved those books. I’d read them over and over and over again, escaping to distant worlds, other times, and alternate universes…anywhere but the here and now, basically. Even my phone was loaded up with e-books and digital comics, heroes and monsters carried around with me wherever I went, tucked into the pocket of my cargo pants.

I was starting to get a grip again. The tears were drying up. Rolling off the bed, I went over to the computer desk and fired up my Internet browser. The next few hours passed by at lightning speed. I trolled my regular message boards, surfed a few fan sites for cool developments and news. A Diet Coke kept me company, and before I knew it, the light was beginning to fade outside.

My iPhone pinged, breaking my concentration. Irritated, I reached over and punched in my unlock code. It was a new text message –
Call me :-)

“Holy crap!”

A “Call me”
and
a smiley face!

I couldn’t believe it.

It was from Becky.

CHAPTER THREE

How I managed not to fall backwards out of my chair in shock, I will never know.

Play it cool,
I told myself with just a trace of desperation
. Don’t call her back right away. You don’t want her thinking you’re
too
keen, right? That’s never good.

Cradling the phone loosely between my fingers, I let my arm dangle limply across one knee. I stared at it. Waited. If there had been a clock in the room, all I heard would have been the noise of it ticking the seconds away.

I waited a little longer.

Screw it.

I hit the call icon with my thumb. The wait during the ring tone seemed to last a lifetime.

Come on, Becky…pick up. Pick UP.

“Hi, Danny!” That bubbly smile had infected her voice. My heart rate was picking up; I could feel it pounding away inside my chest.

“Hey, Becky,” I said weakly. Not as lame as the ‘
sup?
I had actually been contemplating for a nanosecond, before reality set in like a cold water bath.
Don’t even TRY to be cool. You’re
not
cool, not even remotely. Just be yourself, man. It’s your only hope.
That was always the standard line of advice on those TV dating shows Mom liked to watch so much. Be yourself. I decided to run with it. I mean, it’s not like I had a Plan B to fall back on.

“Thanks for calling me, Danny. I really appreciate it.”

“No problem, Becky.” There was a silence that went on for just a fraction too long. “Um, so what can I do for you?”

She sounded a little embarrassed. “So, I kind of wanted to ask you a favor. If it’s not too weird.”

“Sure, no problem,” I said again.
Idiot. Stop repeating yourself.

“Oh, sweet. But I kind of wanted to ask you in person. Is it cool if I come on over?”

Oh my – COME ON OVER? To the
trailer?

“
That’d be cool,” I rasped, sounding like a man who hadn’t drunk a drop of water in days. Astonished, I gaped at my reflection in the window glass. I’d said yes without even thinking about it. The words had come straight from my mouth and completely bypassed my brain on the way.

I gave her the address. We said our goodbyes and both hung up. I set the phone down carefully on the computer desk, leaned back in my chair, and pumped my fist in the air victoriously.

How AWESOME was this!

And then, the panic set in.

It occurred to me that I had no idea where Becky lived, which in turn meant that I had no idea how long it would take her to get here.

So, no time to lose…I went into hyperdrive. Did the room smell bad? By the standards of a fourteen year-old boy, no. Well, maybe a little musty. But the Den of Nerd was about to have a fourteen year-old
girl
in it, and one of the few things I knew about girls in general was that they liked things to smell
nice
.

Burrowing under the blanket of clothing, I must have looked like a dog digging a hole in the back yard. I scooped and tossed it all up onto the bed, one piece at a time in rapid succession. Where to put all this stuff? I looked around frantically, finally decided that underneath the bed was probably the best place, and began to stuff it all under the bed frame, wedging one article of clothing in after another, until finally the bed was clear. Miracle of miracles, now I could actually see the floor. I couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

Window! Twisting the latch, I slid the window upwards in its pane. It gave a tortured screech as it ground against the frame. Note to self: WD-40 the thing tomorrow. A cool breeze came through, the evening air beginning to waft the curtains gently.

“Daniel! What is going on in—“ Mom stopped halfway through the doorway. Her jaw dropped as she surveyed the scene, taking in the sudden lack of dirty clothing on the floor, and the fact that the carpet had been excavated. “What. On. Earth…”

“Mom, do we have any air freshener?” Shyness went right out the window. There was no time for it. I didn’t care about anything other than making a good impression on Becky right now.

“Why yes we do,” she responded tartly. “It lives underneath the kitchen sink. May I ask where this sudden urge to de-stink your room has sprung from? It’s not that I don’t approve, but you have to admit – this really isn’t like you, honey.”

“Look, I have a friend coming over. I want the place to look…presentable, you know?”

Mom’s eyes narrowed. “Friend?”

“Alright, alright. It’s a
girl,
OK? But it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything”

“A girl. You mean a
girl,
girl?”

“Is there some other kind?” I snapped, starting to get a little frustrated.

Mom, on the other hand, was overjoyed. She clapped her hands gleefully. “Honey, that’s so…so
wonderful.
” She seemed genuinely thrilled to hear the news. Then her eyes darkened, her tone becoming suddenly grave. “Daniel, do we need to have a talk? You know, about…se—”

“
Mom!
Really? Come on!
”
She wanted to cover Sex Ed 101
now
, of all times?
I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. “Mom,” I practically begged. “She’s just a friend from school. But she’s on the way over here now and we’re losing time. And yeah, I
like
her, OK? I want to make a good impression.”

From the foot of my bed, Lord Vader stared at me in silent disapproval of my weakness.

“Honey…you got it. Come on, let’s get to work.” And just like that, Mom snapped into full-on protective parent mode.

‘Divide and conquer’ was pretty much going to be our strategy. She tucked and straightened the comforter until you could practically bounce a quarter off it, like Dad used to say that Marine recruits did in boot camp; I sprayed vanilla air freshener to the four corners of the room, then doused the center for luck. Mom blasted the vacuum cleaner right around the room, poking the nozzle into all the nooks and crannies, looking like some magical housecleaning dervish; I frantically straightened the spines of every book on my shelves, scrambled to get my sweaty tee-shirt off, sprayed a Z-shaped stripe of body spray from armpit to armpit and down the front of my torso, then rummaged in a clothes drawer for a fresh one.

We were just in the nick of time. A set of headlights streamed through the open window, a car turning into the street directly outside our lot and stopping. Mom and I froze. We heard a car door slam, a girl’s voice call out, “Thanks, Mom!”

I looked at my Mom. She looked at me.
That’s her,
I mouthed. Mom nodded, clapped me firmly and proudly on both my shoulders. Was I imagining it, or was there a tear glistening in the corner of her eye right there?
You’re going to do just fine, honey,
she mouthed back at me.

Man, but I hoped she was right.

Mom answered the knock at the front door while I leaped onto the couch and snatched up a book. I pretended to be engrossed in its pages, but what I was really doing was watching the door out of the corner of my eye and straining my ears to listen.

I had never worked so hard at pretending to be so relaxed.

“Oh, hey there! You must be…” Mom’s voice, sunny side up.

“Rebecca. Rebecca Page. But my friends call me Becky, Mrs. Chill.”

“Come right on in, Rebecca. Right this way, there you go. Daniel was just…um,
reading,
weren’t you hon?”

“Please call me Becky, Mrs. Chill.” Mom’s smile would have melted a glacier. I think that Becky won her over right there and then with that one remark.

“Becky it is then. And you must call me Rachel.”

“Hey, Danny.” Becky was still wearing the same clothes she had had on earlier, and a smile that was just a couple of notches below Mom’s. A dark blue backpack was slung over her shoulder. “It’s great to see you again. I’m really glad you wanted to hang out.”

“Hey, Becky.” I stood up, still clutching the book in one hand and wiping my sweaty palm on my pant leg with the other.

“You’re a big fan of Edward and Bella? I never figured you for the type.”

“Huh?”

Becky pointed at the book, one of the
Twilight
series.
Dammit, Mom. Why did you have to leave that in here?
Grinning my most idiotic and embarrassed grin, I fumbled the book down onto the coffee table. “Just…wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” I said lamely.

“Cool. I love Stephanie’s books. Aren’t they awesome?”

“Pretty awesome,” I agreed.
Said no teenage boy ever.

Mom was hovering just behind Becky’s shoulder. “Becky, can I get you a drink? We have coffee, soda, some orange juice, and water.”

“Water would be great, Mrs—I mean, Rachel.” They both laughed.
This is going well.
So why was I sweating?

“Did your Mom bring you over?” Mom asked as she dumped some ice cubes from the freezer into a tall glass and then filled it with filtered water.

Becky nodded. “I just have to text her and she’ll come pick me up again later.”

Mom plainly approved of this sensible arrangement. “You guys go ahead and make yourselves comfortable,” she said, handing Becky the ice water. Becky and I trooped into my bedroom. I was hoping that I was the only one who heard Mom’s whispered, “
Leave the door open!”

We compromised. I left the bedroom door ajar, just open enough to be able to
say
that it was open, and not offend Mom’s sense of decency.

“Woah! This is a pretty cool place,” Becky said approvingly, head on a swivel to take in the storm of geekery plastered across every surface. I thought I saw her nose wrinkle. Maybe I’d overdone it with the air freshener, but better that than the smell of stale farts and body odor that it was covering up. “That’s an awesome collection.” She was running an approving finger along the line of Vertigo graphic novels.

“Thanks,” I said, blushing just a little.

“I can see you love your science fiction and fantasy. Why aren’t there any ghost books?”

I frowned. “I’m not really all that interested in ghosts, to be honest.”

“Shut up!” She obviously didn’t believe me, or couldn’t understand why anybody would say something like that. “But you can
see
them, right? How come you’re not into the paranormal and all that sort of stuff? How can you not find it fascinating?”

“I guess when you live with it all the time, it just becomes…sort of like the background noise. You just get used to it.”

Becky dropped down into the computer desk chair and looked at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. I took a seat on the bed. There was a respectable six feet between us, just in case Mom poked her head around the door. Becky leaned forwards.

“How long have you been able to see them? Were you born that way?”

I shook my head. “Nah. When I was five, I caught an infection and I got really sick -- like,
septic
sick. The way Mom explained it, I nearly died. I mean, obviously I
didn’t
die—“ We both laughed. “But when I woke up at Children’s Hospital, I could see things that nobody else seemed to be able to see. People, mainly.”

“
Dead
people?”

“Yeah, dead people. There was a nurse who used to come into my room every night. I didn’t know it at the time, I wasn’t old enough to understand, but she was dressed in these really old-fashioned clothes. She had on this white head-dress, something out of the Thirties or Forties. Sometimes I could see right through her, but other times she was totally solid, just as solid as you are to me right now.”