Mystery: Suspense: The Lazarus Phenomenon: : A Private Investigator Mystery Crime Thriller: (horror, thriller, science fiction, mystery, police, murder, ... (Marie Avalon Mystery Crime Series Book 1)

by Josh Law

  “Nicky…Nicky’s dead? Now he’s texting-Oh God!” Alex pressed his face against his knees.

  “Can you take me to the place he’s talking about?”

  Alex gave a reluctant nod.

  Chapter 2

  He ran blind. His head hurt, which was his sole focus. Agonizing migraines had been plaguing him for going on three days now.

  There were voices in the woods.

  “It’ll be a lot easier if you stop making it hard.”

  “Doesn’t have to be like this, kiddo.”

  “Come back, Nicky! Let’s not make this so hard!”

  Nick felt his stomach knit itself up into a tight fist of fear. He threw his head back, hoping maybe this would give him an extra ounce of speed.

  Durango isn’t known for extremely cold winters, but winter it was. The grass was slick with frost.

  He slipped and rolled downhill. He heard a few of his ribs crack, but barely noticed the pain.

  All he could think about was the voices. The sound of feet chasing him under the shadows of the trees. Dogs barking. He thought maybe he even heard a truck meander through the foilage.

  He landed on his knees and felt blood pool around his knuckles.

  This might not be so scary if he could just remember why it was happening.

  He remembered blacking out. He could almost see it happen. He was walking down the side of main-street, heading back from school. There was a sound behind him like somebody punching the gas. His neck had snapped in the direction of the noise. A truck was swiveling like a crazy snake down the lane closest to him.

  He remembered heavy force and going numb from the impact. He’d flown through the air and landed in a puddle of his own blood and intense pain. It had started to go dark and he heard Alex screaming his name.

  Oh God, Alex had been there!

  Was he okay?

  The voices were getting closer.

  Why couldn’t he remember anything? He felt like he’d been out for centuries.

  There was nothing before the car crash. His entire life was distant watercolors.

  He leaped up and ran. That’s all he could think to do. Ran as his eyes teared up from the pain in his head. Good God, what the heck was happening?

  He was elated when he saw the old tree fort. He and Alex had built it on an outing the first year they’d lived with the Santa Bianca kids. It was a landmark of childhood and safety to Nick. Innocence and a place to crash is what the confused teen needed now.

  He dove like a baseball player and slid for home. The feet rushed past him. His head came up abruptly on the hard trunk of the ancient hollow cedar.

  The impact jarred his memory. Not enough to solve his current dilemma, but enough to answer his most nagging question.

  “I died.” He blurted to the darkness.

  He was smothering in the blows of a full-blown panic attack then. There was no one here to help him back either. His legs kicked out and stirred up the cedar needles. He dug his fists into the ground and tore at moss. In a daze, he tried to slow his hyperventilating and think this through. It was getting the better of him.

  “I didn’t just die. I was murdered. But why?”

  He didn’t have time to work that out. The dogs were coming back. They wouldn’t need to see him. They could sniff him out.

  “Think, dude! Got to get out of the basic trajectory of evil!”

  He started crawling forward on his belly USMC fashion.

  * * *

  The Mach 1 peeled off down the main highway. The sun looked down from the sloping blue arches that wreathed Durango in majesty. Renee Vierra was sitting in the shotgun seat. Alex Prescott lay in the back. His eyes floated around the cab and he almost smiled.

  “Kiddo, you sure you’re okay to be doing this? The Doc wanted me to rest you up.” Renee’s brow crumbled in concern.

  Alex had a blank expression as he stared at the scrawling red and dirty blues of the Colorado roadside. He shrugged, running a hand over his tender head. Marilyn winced as she looked at him in the rearview mirror. It had to have been agonizing. What kind of internal darkness had compelled him to tear his hair out?

  “I’m not going to be okay until Nick’s back home and totally safe.” He shrugged, twisting his mouth in a white bunch.

  Renee nodded.

  “You’re saying he’s gone to our old camp-sight?”

  “It’s like a mile away from there as the crow flies. We marked the way by carving pictures on the trees around it. It was like a code alphabet to our clubhouse. Hey, quit smiling like that! We were 12 and 12 ½ !” Alex narrowed his eyes as Renee stifled an endeared giggle.

  The riffs to “Black Hole Sun” interrupted the moment. It was Alex’s ringtone.

  “Oh God…” He chewed his fingernails reluctant to look. Marilyn drew a heavy breath.

  “Hey! I know all of this is freaky, but it’s still Nicky, right? He clearly hasn’t figured out what’s happened yet. When he does, it’s going to wig him out just as much as it has you. This doesn’t have to be an American Horror Story. This is a golden opportunity, my young friend. There is hardly a soul alive that has gotten a loved one back from the dead.” She forced a smile.

  Alex gaped. It hadn’t occurred to him until she’d said it. He plucked the phone from his pocket again, braced for whatever the screen portended.

  “Alex. It’s Nick. Dude, you were at the scene of my accident. Are you okay?

  This is messed up, bro. I have no idea how it’s even possible and I’m legit freaking at the moment.

  I died, didn’t I? I was murdered.”

  With a nervous gasp, Alex began to type back.

  “Hey, Nick. Yeah, I’m okay. I have no idea how to do this, man. How to talk to you. Tell you this.

  You’ve been dead for 7 months.”

  “What’s he saying?” Renee asked. She twisted around to look at Alex. It was a miracle, no questions asked. Regardless of the circumstances which lead here, this was more than they could have ever wished for. Nature dictated that Nicky Avalon was never to say anything again. That they could never talk to him again. He was dead. It was done.

  Now they were texting him like it was any other day. As if that fateful day in the spring never even happened.

  “He’s starting to remember.” Alex’s eyes flashed as his own words registered in his ears.

  This could be both a tremendously good and bad thing.

  Chapter 3

  The fish bowl blip sound echoed into the tree’s dark hull. Nicky jumped. He was honestly scared out of his mind. It wasn’t just the distant past he was forgetting. He had trouble remembering recent things, like how he got these new clothes. There was a tag in the sleeve of his black hoodie that said “Boot Barn”. The jeans were store-bought stiff. He’d even forgotten to take the paper out of the toes of his Nikes.

  “Shopping center… Uh, I sold a few cartons of cigarettes I’d stashed behind the Principle’s favorite poplar for quick cash. Mrs. Thurman screamed when I walked through her yard, but I didn’t think it was weird because Mrs. Thurman is batty. Then I sold that Harley I restored last summer and hid in Old Man Payne’s tool shed for a lot of extra cash. I bought like 7 burgers, butt-loads of Coke and pop rocks, and a milkshake. People everywhere I went were giving me the truancy stare. It’s cold out and there are Christmas lights. I’m not truant. I should be on Christmas break, right? Which means they were staring at me because I’m supposed to be dead.”

  He felt like bawling. He could technically get by with it too. After all, he was supposed to be dead and there wasn’t anybody around for God only knew how far. He could just tune up like a little girl if he wanted to. Far too macho to sob like a baby, even in secret, he swiped at the tears that were slipping free nonetheless.

  “Gah! Okay! What the heck is happening?!”

  He shook his head and tried to focus. On something other than the chainsaw massacre brain ache he was experiencing between either of his temples. His fingers knotted his hair
in supreme frustration and he plucked two large clumps of it free from the roots.

  “Think, brainless!” He growled and kicked the wall of the hollow tree.

  The fish bowl chime echoed three consecutive times. Blue light cascaded his face. It registered at last that it was coming from the phone.

  Squinting, he read the tiny print.

  “Calm down, pal. The Doc and Papa Vierra hired a private detective. She’s smoking hot and seems to have her ducks in line. I honestly think she’ll be able to help you. Not just saying it to keep you from freaking.”

  From what had to be lightyears away, Alex calmed the storm in him. He felt his lips twist in a tiny smirk. His fingers moved faster than his thought processes to type his reply.

  “Totally calm over here. For a Zombie that’s standard procedure anyway. I’m chilling in the tree fort. Tell the Gramps to put some pedal into it!”

  He jabbed the “Send” button with a trembling finger and sagged into the leaves. It might actually be okay.

  That notion left him instantly. He felt the slobber hit the side of his face before he heard the gurgling growl.

  Nick sprung up into a spider monkey’s fight stance. His hair was standing on end, all up the back of his skull and the nape of his neck. He even felt the five o’clock shadow forming around his lips prickle and scrape his nostrils.

  “Okay, for real, Nicolas. Think of something!”

  He was drawing nothing but blanks. Unfortunate. The dog lunged forward and bit into his shoulder. Nick screamed and tried to tear free of the dog. He leaned up and sunk his teeth desperately into its neck, thinking that would hurt it enough to free him. His bite wasn’t strong enough to pierce the bulldog’s hide.

  “Look what I’ve got, boys! Bourbon! Release, boy!”

  The dog’s teeth came free of Nick’s bones. The kid sprawled on the ground in a daze. With one hand, he tried to massage the dog bite, with the other he jabbed a finger at the figure who towered over him.

  “It’s fuzzy, but I know you from somewhere. Somewhere like school maybe or Santa Bianca’s…Or both.”

  He didn’t get the chance to place this mystery re-acquaintance. The butt of a rifle collided with his forehead. Darkness took him again.

  * * *

  “He’s not answering his phone!” Alex was in a panic. It had only been 10 minutes, but 10 minutes is 10,000 years when you’re talking to a loved one that died recently.

  “Maybe he’s just scared. You said we were almost to the old tree fort anyway, right?” Renee tried to keep her voice hopeful.

  “He’s gone.” Marilyn’s blood had gone cold as she uttered the words.

  “What?” Alex looked crestfallen.

  Marilyn pointed to the muddy tracks leading away.

  “The leaves are too crushed for this time of the year. The wildlife doesn’t venture too far from their dens when it gets this cold. Besides nothing leaves a print with grooves in it. Those are mud tires. Some off-road dually truck pulled through here less than an hour ago.”

  Marilyn strayed farther into the thicket.

  “Look! There are dog prints too! A shoe print there, size 10. Nicky wears a 10 didn’t you say?”

  She followed the trail to the hollowed tree Alex had described.

  “God, please…Not again.” Renee’s voice trembled in the air.

  Alex sank to his knees and crawled forward on his hands. There in the mud and wet leaves lay a cheap burner cell with a huge hole knocked in the text screen. It had been crushed in the obvious struggle.

  “Not just gone. He’s been taken.” Marilyn clarified. Alex bit down on the back of his fist again, head bobbing in panic.

  “Taken? Where?” Renee went green around the lips.

  Marilyn looked up to the body of the tree. There was a scrap of white paper pinned to it with a box cutter. Two words were scribbled across it.

  “He’s yours.”

  Marilyn blanched. She teetered on her heels and grabbed the tree. Clenched her mouth in her fist and uttered a tiny wheezing sob.

  “Yeah, okay. The name makes sense now. This just got personal!” She fanned herself with her hands.

  “Do not pass out!” She commanded herself in her head until those four words became a mantra.

  This very scenario had haunted her for years. It was a nightmare come at last to life.

  “What? What’s it say? What does it mean, Marilyn?”

  Renee snatched the paper from Marilyn and read it aloud.

  “He’s yours?” she asked and then her eyes lit up.

  “Nicolas Avalon…Marilyn Avalon. Weird name. Not many people share it?” Renee looked at Alex, eyes popping.

  Alex shook his head, not following.

  “I had a baby out of wedlock when I was a younger woman. I was seeing a guy…We were just fooling around with each other. Didn’t know he was married. When I found out about his wife who had just realized she was pregnant I ended it immediately. Wasn’t fast enough apparently. A week later I realized that I was pregnant too. I ended their marriage, not even meaning to. By the time I delivered, I was too horrified by everything that had happened so I gave the baby up…” Marilyn clutched at her stomach and chewed her lip.

  “So…that means that Nicky?” Renee’s eyes went wide.

  “Nicky is my son!” Marilyn sobbed.

  Chapter 4

  Nick woke up in the woods.

  He breathed heavily out of his nose and tried to move.

  That’s when he realized that his ankles were chained. To concrete blocks.

  “Nicolas. It’s foolish to attempt to run. How many times do we have to go over this? You live and we monitor. You die and we take notes. You wake up and we start all over. Capisce? ”

  He held his breath and closed his eyes. It was rushing back now a mile a minute. He couldn’t deal with this, but he really had no choice. Ready or not, it was happening now.

  First things first. He needed to figure out where he was.

  Twisting around on himself, he felt chains shaken by his legs and something heavy under his feet. Concrete blocks.

  “Listen, alright! I get that this is important. Might change the fate of Humanity. I didn’t sign up for this!”

  There was a revving sound. A truck.

  Nicky realized too quickly that he was connected by several chains to a truck. Which one of his captors had just thrown into neutral and was letting slide for Lake Nighthorse.

  “Ah-oh, God!”

  “You can’t panic. Not now. Wanna stay alive? Think, brainless!”

  It was truly unfortunate how he was drawing total blanks.

  * * *

  Marilyn clutched the note in a quaking hand. She paced Santa Bianca’s living room floor.

  “They knew he was my child, but I never told anyone about him. Not even my closest friends ever knew I was pregnant. I isolated myself from the whole world while I carried Nicolas. There was only one person that I ever told the secret and it was only because I felt it was the right thing to do. This can only mean one thing.”

  Renee raised her brows, trying to follow. Marilyn threw her hands in the air.

  “It means they knew his father! He’s the only one I ever told! Stay tracking with me.”

  “Alright, so who was Nicky’s father?” Renee swallowed, reluctant to pick this scab.

  Marilyn rolled her eyes and laughed.

  “That trashy cowboy’s name was Army Prescott. He had a prominent career in the 101st Airborne. I’ve always been a sucker for a man in uniform.”

  Alex sat up from where he slouched against the couch. He looked like someone had just electrocuted him.

  “What’s the matter, kid? You know something I don’t?” Marilyn’s eyes went wide.

  “Wait a sec. Your name is Prescott, isn’t it?”

  Alex licked his lips.

  “My dad’s real name is Alexander Prescott. They don’t call me Junior. It’s just Alex because they’ve always called my dad Army. He- He won like a boat-l
oad of Medals when he was in the 101st. He’s even been interviewed on Good Morning, America a few times.” Alex was shaking his head. His lips had turned purple.

  “But my dad had a pretty nasty secret. He cheated on my mom a lot. She had been begging him for a baby. He didn’t really want one. Just wanted her to shut up, I guess.

  Mom told me the story something like this. There was a public service lady that Dad had wiled and charmed to( her words not mine) ‘get in her pants’. This was what ended my Mom and Dad’s marriage. She found out I was coming the same week she found out about the affair. She died of cancer when I was 12. I moved through the system a lot and finally got invited to live here in Santa Bianca’s. It’s like a charity or something so they take kids from all over…” His voice trailed off.

  Marilyn sank into an armchair, stupefied.

  “Nicky is your brother. You’re almost exactly the same age because you have different mothers. Your father was a famous service member, which makes you something of a public figure just by association. You both made your way to a unique foster home that accepts children from all over the country because it’s a charity…” She looked up at Renee who was looking at Alex in concern.

  “Okay, so hang on here! This is all just spiraling a little bit out of the Universe for me!”Alex held up his hand.

  His horror was perfectly founded. The boy he’d grown up with in foster care had suddenly died and left him alone, twisting in the winds of turbulent youth. Now he had resurrected and reappeared as his biological brother. The obvious victim of a demented murder scheme. It would be too much for anyone to take in right off.

  “If the guys that took Nick knew that he was your kid, then they’d have to have learned that from my dad. Which means that my dad is in on whatever seriously warped thing it is that they are doing to Nick, right?” Alex sputtered and clutched at his knees to hide that they were trembling.