Vanish (30 page)

Conner swung his legs over and rolled onto his back. He gasped for breath, too weak to talk, still clinging to the boy’s blood-soaked arm. The child swept his free hand softly across Conner’s forehead, and Conner saw his other wrist. An identical wound marred the flesh. Deep, jagged, and thick.

Someone had done something terrible to this boy.

He looked down at Conner and smiled. Conner’s eyes stung with tears as he gazed back into the wide brown eyes. Beautiful and deep, they seemed to hold some ancient secret. A vast knowledge of countless, indescribable worlds. Mysteries beyond imagining. As if the whole of the universe itself could be held in that one look.

It was a depth and wonder he could not fathom.

Conner wept. He wept with all that was in him. He reached his hand to touch the boy’s cheek, but he felt so weak. Darkness was closing in on him. And the abyss still loomed.

Far off on the other side of the chasm, Conner could see sunlight. A lush green country. He turned back to the boy and tried to speak but could only manage a hoarse whisper. “Please… I’m not ready.… I just… I just want to see my family again.”

The boy stared at him for a moment, then nodded.

Far away, Conner thought he heard a faint voice, as if lost in some deep canyon.

“Clear.”

The boy touched his bloody hand to Conner’s chest.

Conner’s body seized uncontrollably as a jolt of pain surged through him. A searing… beautiful pain. It grew from the center of his chest and spread outward. It sucked the air from his lungs. His back arched. His eyes rolled.

White light pressed in from the corners of his vision. Conner could see the boy’s face slowly melding with the light. Fading into it, becoming one with it.

He caught one final glimpse of that far, green country. It was fading as well, growing wide and deep in the brilliance. Surrounding it, enveloping it.

And for one brief moment, just before all was consumed in glorious light, Conner thought he saw the figure of a small boy running.

Blond hair, catching the sunlight…

RACHEL PRESSED HER FACE to the glass. The doctor pushed the defibrillator paddles onto her father’s flesh.

His back arched upward, high off the table. His mouth opened with the sound of a long, slow inhale, sucking air deep into his lungs.

The doctor stepped back, his eyes wide. The nurses as well gasped and moved backward. The entire ER staff stood for a moment in stunned silence around the table.

Then Rachel’s father blinked and exhaled. Long and slow. His body settled back onto the table. The monitor beeped; the line jumped. Once… Twice…

He breathed again.

“We… we have a sinus rhythm,” someone said.

“Blood pressure is rising… stabilizing.”

Everyone snapped back to work, and the flurry of activity resumed.

The doctor glanced through the window at Rachel. She caught his expression for a moment before he looked away. It was a look of amazement.

“He’s breathing!” Rachel said. “He’s breathing again!”

Her mother was pale. She closed her eyes and whispered, “Thank God.”

Rachel turned around and hugged her mother. They stood, holding each other tight, crying, laughing, and thanking God.

Six days later

Conner lay in the hospital bed, wide awake. His fingers pressed lightly against the dressing over his sternum. It was nearly four o’clock. Rachel would be here soon.

Friday night they had managed to stabilize him and kept him in critical care overnight. The next day his doctor ran a barrage of tests and scheduled open-heart surgery for Monday morning. But Marta and Rachel had been with him the entire time. They had practically camped out in the hospital.

Conner told them about his experiences. But he didn’t tell them everything. He didn’t mention Mitch or Helen or Devon or Ray… or even Howard. He wasn’t sure he wanted to share those things with anyone. Besides, he had no idea whether or not they were even real. He had called the office on Saturday and left a message for Nancy, with a list of names and everything he knew about them. He asked her to compile whatever information she could find.

Meanwhile Rachel had bombarded him with Bible passages and books. She recounted every step of her own journey to faith. She shared everything she had found. Marta just sat there quietly and held his hand.

Conner had described being on the very brink of an abyss and told them about the boy who had saved him. Rachel, bless her heart, was convinced Conner had seen Jesus Christ Himself, or at least some image of Him. But Conner was still prickled by doubts. How much of this had been hallucination? He had lived his entire life as a skeptic. It was in his nature to question everything. To doubt everything. Whatever Nancy would come up with would go a long way in convincing him that his experience had been real. But Conner had difficulty sleeping. His dreams were filled with images he couldn’t shake.

After the surgery, they had him up and about almost immediately. He had just finished a round of physical therapy on Thursday afternoon. It was shortly after four when Rachel poked her head inside his room.

“Hi, Dad!” She bounded over and kissed him on the forehead.

Conner grinned; he had been waiting for them all day. “Hi, sweetie.” He kissed her back.

Marta entered a moment later. “Hi, Connie.” She took his hand and squeezed it.

Conner pulled her to him and pressed his lips to hers. He could feel her neck tense slightly and then relax. He breathed in her scent. Her hand brushed up to his jaw.

After a moment, Rachel cleared her throat. “Umm… you just had, like, a quintuple bypass surgery. Don’t you think you should, y’know… hold off on that a bit?”

Marta stood up, her cheeks flushed. “Yes, you should.”

Conner laughed. “I’ve got a lot of lost time to make up for.”

Marta smiled and touched his forehead. “They said you could probably come home tomorrow. I’ve got your room ready, like we discussed.”

Conner smiled. Marta had set up a bed in his old office. The doctors wanted him to ease into stair climbing after a few days. But his physical therapy was going well, and he hoped to be back up to full speed within a few weeks. Besides, they technically weren’t even married. He guessed the people at Marta’s church might frown upon them shacking up together.

He found himself staring at her again. The curve of her lips. The slope of her nose.

Marta glanced at him, then turned to Rachel. “Oh, sweetie, you know what I forgot? I left the card and the gift from the Brandts back in the car. Would you mind running down and getting that for me?”

Rachel sighed. “You know, if you want some time alone, just say, ‘Hey, Rachel, we’d like a few minutes alone.’ You don’t need to come up with all these contrivances.”

Conner chuckled. “Hey, Rachel, we’d like a few minutes—”

“Yeah, yeah.” Rachel rolled her eyes. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.”

After she left, Marta curled an eyebrow. “Contrivances?”

Conner smiled and leaned his head back. “Are you okay with me moving back in like this?”

Marta shrugged. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? We have a lot of unresolved issues. I think we need to take our time and make sure we’re not going to ignore the elephant in the room.”

“I understand.” Conner nodded. “And I know we have a long way to go yet. But I don’t… I just don’t want to put anything off anymore.”

“Neither do I.” Marta sat down on the bedside. “I want to work things out too. I always have. But there are a lot of things to consider.”

“I’ve been thinking a lot over the last few days. And there’s something I have to tell you. Something I
need
to tell you.…” Conner’s eyes began to sting. He cleared his throat. He had practiced this. For five days, he had practiced this. “I know… When Matthew died, I know you had issues with me. I know you blamed me for what happened.…”

Marta shook her head. “Connie, I don’t… I don’t blame you. It was an accident.”

“And I…” Conner swallowed. “And
I
tried to put the blame everywhere else. Everywhere but where it belonged.”

Marta’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, sweetheart, don’t.… You… don’t have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” Conner’s jaw tightened as he fought his tears. “I
have
to do this.” He tried to calm himself. He took a breath.

Marta bit her lip.

“You told me to watch him,” Conner said. “You told me to keep an eye on him, and I made you think… I swore up and down that I had. I said I only turned away for a minute. But… but I wasn’t even watching.… I was inside. I sent him out to the yard—I was irritated with him and I was… I was busy with work.” Conner struggled to speak through his tears. He had dreamed of Matthew’s face every night since the heart attack. It had haunted him. It haunted him still. The sight of Matthew struggling in the water. His eyes wide and fearful. Every night it replayed in his dreams. “I was supposed to be there to protect him. But I was too preoccupied. I sent him outside to play, and I didn’t look out again for
half an hour
. He drowned because I… I wasn’t where I should have been. I wasn’t
what
I should have been.”

Marta only stared at him. He couldn’t tell what she was feeling at that moment. What she must think of him. She stood up and went to the window, wrapping her arms around herself. He could see her shoulders trembling.

Conner went on. “I won’t blame you if you can’t forgive me. I don’t deserve it. I pushed you away. I tried to put the blame everywhere else—even on you and Rachel. I almost convinced myself that if you had just taken him with you that morning, he’d still be alive. But it was
my
fault. I might as well have held his face under the water myself.”

Marta turned around. Her eyes were red.

Conner drew a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. “I need for you to decide if you can forgive me.” His lips tightened. “Or if you never want to see me again.”

Marta blinked her tears away, squeezing them down her cheeks. “It took me a long time to get over blaming you. When you denied it and when you tried to blame me… I hated you for that, Connie. For months I hated you.” She sat down on the bed. “But when I put my faith in Christ… Connie, all that hate and pain began to leave. Slowly. I don’t know how, because it wasn’t my doing, but in time He replaced it with love again.”

THERE WAS A KNOCK at the door. Marta stood up.

Conner wiped his eyes and cleared his throat. “Come in.”

Nancy peeked inside. “Hi, Connie.” She cast a glance at Marta. “Is now a good time?”

Conner blinked. “Yes, come in. What do you have?”

Nancy came in with a legal pad and sat down next to the bed. “I’ve spent the last few days running down those names for you. Where do you want to start?”

“Whatever you have first,” Conner said.

Nancy put her reading glasses on. “Well, there were the two boys from the South Side—Devon Marshall and Terrell Carter. Now—” she glanced over her glasses at Conner—“did you know these people personally?”

Conner shook his head. “Not exactly, no.”

Nancy raised an eyebrow. “They were involved in a gang-related incident. It seems they were the victims of a drive-by shooting last Friday night. Terrell was hit twice in the chest and died at the scene. And Devon was hit in the chest and shoulder. He was brought back to Cook County Memorial, where he is listed in stable condition.”

Conner frowned. “Did you find out any details about Devon’s injury? how serious it was at the time?”

“The police report indicated that neither boy was breathing when they arrived on the scene. The police attempted CPR on both but were unsuccessful at reviving either one. When the paramedics arrived, they… managed to get Devon’s heart going again and stabilized for transport. But the other boy, Terrell, had already lost too much blood by the time they got there.”

“So, what’s going to happen to Devon?”

Nancy checked her notes. “Umm, he’s going to be released into police custody. Apparently he was on probation, but he’s only sixteen. He’s waiting to find out what the state wants to do with him. He’s spent some time at several juvenile detention centers.”

Conner leaned back and nodded. They were real. He
had
met Devon. They had all experienced the same nightmare together. He felt dizzy but tried to shake it off. “I want to try to speak with him. I want to see if I can help him.”

Nancy peered at Conner over her glasses. “I thought you said you didn’t know any of these people?”

“Only as acquaintances, really. Just through professional contacts.”

Nancy wrinkled her forehead. She glanced at Marta, who only shrugged.

Conner pointed to the legal pad. “Who’s next?”

Nancy sighed and glanced at her notes. “Well, there’s twenty-three-year-old Raymond Cahill Jr. of Thorton, Indiana. Deceased. He, uh… he overdosed on methamphetamines a week ago last Monday. His parents came home that night, found him unconscious in their living room, and rushed him to the hospital. He was placed on life-support.” She flipped the page. “The doctors indicated he was brain-dead, and his parents had him disconnected four days later. He died late last Friday.”

Conner frowned. “Are you sure about that timeline?”

“This was from the newspaper in Thorton.”

Conner nodded to himself. He could still see Ray Cahill’s body being dragged outside the house by those creatures. Dragged off into the darkness. He knew exactly where. He shuddered and stared out the window for a moment. Ray had been stuck in that place for what seemed to him like weeks but was in reality just a few days. His body was being kept alive while his brain was dead. Poor Ray was relegated to wandering through that wasteland until his parents disconnected the life-support and his body eventually died. He was one of those souls Howard had talked about, who clung to life for some time before death finally caught up with him.