Vanish (24 page)

He rushed out the door with Howard on his heels.

FREEZING. It was freezing.

Conner felt his body floating limp and numb. Brilliant white light flooded over him, permeating him, though he couldn’t tell whether his eyes were open or closed. Either way, they ached with the brightness. His whole head ached.

He could still hear the wind pulsing, much louder now.

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh.

His body felt thick and disjointed. And heavy.

And freezing cold.

He tried to remember where he had been. Images circled in his head. A farm. A barn. Swirling shadows. Faces, dark and hideous. And eyes. Cold, white, and empty.

He felt himself being pulled upward, as though through bone-chilling water, and his body seemed to grow heavier with every inch. He tried to move his limbs, but they were far too heavy.

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh.

Beneath the pulsing, sloshing torrent, Conner heard…

Voices!

Human voices! People!

They were speaking to each other. He couldn’t quite make out the words. It was English, he thought. There were several people, all talking at once. All talking over each other. Worried. Excited. They grew louder and more distinct as the pulsing wind faded into the background.

The light seemed to take form. His eyes were open. Wide open. Five enormous, circular lights floated in front of him.

Other sounds fought through the voices. Clattering, shuffling. The sound of people moving around. He could make out a few disjointed words now. Echoing off in a cavern.

“…one hundred milligrams… lidocaine…”

“…sinus rhythm…”

“…looks… regaining consciousness…”

“…Hayden… Mr. Hayden?”

Someone was calling his name. Someone was talking to him!

A dark image swept in front of the lights. Conner tried to focus. He tried to squint, but he couldn’t move his eyes.

“Mr. Hayden… can you hear me?” The dark image came into focus. A face. A woman’s face, with worried eyes and something covering her mouth.

Conner blinked. The face leaned close. A smaller light shone in his eye, then flicked away. Conner blinked again.

He tried to lift his head. Move his arm. But they were too heavy. Or he was too weak.

More faces moved in. Then moved away. Hands and arms passed things back and forth. His head rolled to the side. A man was holding a pair of shoes. One in each hand. No. No, not shoes. Something else. Something plastic and…

Someone moved his head back again. Back to the lights.

The wind was still pulsing in the background, though it wasn’t actually wind any longer. Conner recognized it now.

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh.

It was his heart. Beating.

The face drew close again.

“Mr. Hayden? Can you understand me?”

He tried to answer.
Yes
. His tongue felt thick and dry, like a piece of wood in his mouth. “Ehhthh…”

He blinked again. He was so cold.

“Mr. Hayden,” the voice said, “you’re in the Lake Forest Hospital ER. You’re having a heart attack.”

Where
? Conner blinked.
What
?

“Mr. Hayden, do you understand what I’m saying?”

Conner tried to nod. His head felt like it was made of lead. He was having a…

A heart attack.

Heart.

Attack.

He was having a heart attack?

His head fell to the side again. The man holding the shoes that weren’t shoes had put them back on a machine. And he recognized them now. Paddles. What did they call them? De-… defibrillators? Or something like that.

His eyes rolled to examine his surroundings. He was in a white, tiled room. Brightly lit. And cold. Fleeting images passed by his face: stethoscopes, syringes, monitors. Where did she say he was? Lake Forest Hospital ER?

Lake Forest? Not Indiana?

Lake Forest! His home. His head flopped to the other side. There were people all around him. Dozens of them. Nurses! Doctors! His eyes caught a glimpse of a face he recognized. A face beyond the ER staff. Beyond the room. Through the double doors. Peeking in…

Rachel!

Her eyes were red. Her face was pale. She looked concerned. Scared. But it was Rachel. He was sure it was Rachel. Conner’s breathing quickened. He tried to talk. To call out to her. He wanted to jump up and hug her. Just to touch her. Just to make sure she was real.

And with Rachel he saw… Marta! They were standing in the hall. Hugging. Marta’s hand was over her mouth. She was crying. He could see the tears streaming down her cheeks.

What had the nurse said? He was having a heart attack. Rachel was there. Conner tried to recall what had happened. He was in his study. He saw the storm. His neck…

His pain. All day he’d been having pain. His chest and shoulders had been tight all day. A heart attack? He was in the ER. He was…

His eyes widened.
He was dying
!

The ER staff bustled about. The nurse was trying to speak to him. But he couldn’t understand what she was saying. He couldn’t respond. His mind was spinning. He was dying!

But he could remember. He could remember everything! Mitch. Helen. The dark-haired kid. Devon and Ray Cahill. And Howard… Howard who wasn’t what he seemed. Who wasn’t what he claimed to be. Howard who sent Conner into the hands of…

Conner had to get up. He had to help them. He had to warn them. An image flashed into his head: Ray Cahill, gray spider claws digging into his chest, pulling him outside. Out into the darkness. Out into…

Conner could feel his chest pounding. His heart raced. He had to tell them! He couldn’t go back.
Don’t let me go back
! He lifted his head and tried to speak. There was an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. He had to tell them.…

Help me!

“…ellff m-me…”

His voice was weak and pathetic. His tongue wouldn’t move correctly.

He tried again. He focused his mind. Focused all his strength.

“He-elp m-me!”

The nurse glanced down. And looked away.

“P-pleeease!”

She looked at him again. Conner tried to touch her. His arm flopped awkwardly. His hand clutched her shirt. He couldn’t go back. He couldn’t go back! They were going to take
him
!

She peered at him. She frowned.

“Pleease!” He struggled with each word. “Don’t… let… th-them… t-take… me.…”

She looked into his eyes. Her frown deepened. But did she understand?

“…pressure’s falling… ,” a voice said.

The nurse looked away.

No!

“…v-tach…”

The voices grew urgent but began to fade. The lights were growing dim.

Conner could barely see the nurse now. Was she looking at him? He struggled again to tell her. His voice was fading.

“Don’t… let… them…”

The lights were swallowed in shadow. Somewhere far off a voice said faintly, “…losing him…”

Darkness folded around him again.

37 MINUTES EARLIER

Rachel Hayden went to her room and flopped onto the bed. She frowned at the ceiling, biting her lip until it hurt. Supper with her father had gone less than swimmingly. She hated when he was like this. He thought, for all the world, he was this progressive, open-minded man, so thoughtful, so devoted to reason. But he couldn’t even see how bigoted he had become.

Life had been miserable for the last two years, since her parents divorced. Really for the last five, since Matthew died. Her father had turned into a dark, brooding man after that day. He spent most of his time at the office, and when he was home, the tension had been unbearable. He rarely said more than a few words to her mother, and the slightest mishap would send him into a fit of rage. It was as if he was blaming
them
for Matthew’s death.

When her mom started going to a friend’s house for a Bible study, she told Rachel not to mention it to her father. Rachel felt trapped between them, like having to choose allegiances. Since her father remained locked in his own world, Rachel had no choice but to side with her mother.

But when her mom came home one day talking about Jesus and about joining a church, Rachel wondered if she hadn’t gone off the deep end as well. It was as if her parents had gotten on separate trains headed in opposite directions and she had to make a choice or be left at the station. She resented it at first. Why couldn’t things be like they had been before Matthew died? Things weren’t perfect, but at least they were happy.

And she resented the people at her mother’s church. Part of her blamed them for the change in her mother. They all seemed so happy. What right did they have being joyful when she was suffering so much?

Yet during that time her mother had become a different person altogether. Rachel caught her actually
reading
her Bible, and she said she’d even taken up praying in the mornings. Rachel couldn’t believe it. What if her father found out? He seemed to tolerate her mother going to church once in a while, as long as she didn’t take it too seriously. But when she tried to get him to go with her… it was like a match in a powder keg.

Her parents had drifted so far apart that it was like they were living in separate houses. Rachel couldn’t figure how they could just stop loving each other. They had gone through so much together. They had seemed so much in love.…

After the divorce, Rachel had been devastated. She wanted to get back at them for ruining her life. She thought of dabbling in drugs but decided it wasn’t worth the risks. She was pragmatic if nothing else. What good would it do to get their attention and then have to deal with the other effects of drug addiction? She even flirted briefly with the Goth look: black clothes and dark lipstick. Frankly, she didn’t like the way she looked, but she thought it would bug her parents more than her. She also hoped it would make the people at church feel uncomfortable. She blamed them in part for her parents’ divorce. But hardly anyone there seemed to notice—or
care
—how she looked. They seemed to accept her as she was. And while part of her still harbored resentment, another part was starting to soften.

So it was over the next few months that Rachel began to research what her mother had gotten into. The beliefs her father despised. She talked to the leaders at the church. She searched through various Web sites and read more than a dozen books. There were days she felt confused and didn’t know what to believe. Ultimately, it was a question of evidence. One thing she had learned from her father was a fierce devotion to logic and to following the evidence wherever it led. Did the structure and complexity in nature point to a Creator? She had to acknowledge it did. But if there
was
a Creator, was it possible to know what He was like? Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, Krishna… there were so many paths. They all had similarities but also some big differences. In the end, it came down to only one issue: an empty tomb. She had no choice but to follow the evidence, despite how her father felt. And that led her to a humble carpenter who claimed to be God.

And her father hated it.

“Rachel…”

From downstairs, her father’s muffled voice brought Rachel up from her thoughts. She went into the hall. “What?”

He didn’t answer.

Rachel sighed and rolled her eyes. “Dad, what?”

There was a loud thump.

“Dad?”

Rachel bounded downstairs to her father’s study. She entered the room and time seemed to slow down. Her father lay on the floor by the patio doors.

He was limp. His face was drained of color and his eyes were wide open.

“Dad?” she heard herself say. “Daddy?”

She fumbled for the phone on the desk and threw herself down next to her father’s limp body.

“Oh, God.” Her voice quivered. It didn’t even sound like her own voice. “Please don’t let him die! Daddy, can you hear me?”

Her mind raced as she dialed 911. The operator answered, calm and emotionless.

“My—my father is unconscious on the floor! He’s—I don’t think he’s breathing!”

The operator calmly verified her name and address. She asked for details of her father’s condition, assured her that a rescue squad was on its way, and walked her through how to check his vital signs.

Check for breathing. Check for pulse. Rachel laid her ear to his mouth. She looked for anything that might be obstructing his airway. She put her head to his chest. No breathing. No heartbeat. Nothing.

Next the operator asked Rachel if she knew CPR. Rachel tried to recall her babysitting classes. They had gone over CPR, but now she struggled to remember the steps they had taught her. She tilted his head back. That was important, though she couldn’t recall exactly why. His lips were still warm as she pressed her mouth to his and breathed in two quick puffs. Was it supposed to be two? Or was it three?

Her mind raced through the next steps of CPR. Hands on his chest… his sternum—not too low—what was that thing called again? She had to be careful to push in the right spot. What else, what else? She was forgetting something. She rose up on her knees, locked her elbows, and got ready to push down on her father’s chest.
Fingers up, off the ribs. Push with the ball of your hand
.

She pushed down. The feeling was strange—not at all like the CPR dummy she had practiced on six months ago. This was her father. This was her dad. She had sat on his shoulders. He had pushed her on swings.…

Was she doing this right? Was she pushing hard enough?
Oh, God, please help me
! How many times was she supposed to push before breathing again? Twenty? Thirty?

How long would it take the rescue squad to get here? At least ten minutes, maybe more.

…twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Now how many breaths? Two. Two breaths. Thirty to two. She thought that was the ratio. She pushed again on her father’s sternum. His face was white.

“Daddy,” she said, losing count. “Can you hear me? Please don’t die!”

His eyes were still wide open.…