PRAISE FOR ADRENALINE:
“If you like gripping drama, starkly effective description and almost unbearable suspense, then this book is for you.
The characters and places are engagingly real. It has been suggested by readers that this book would lend itself to an engrossing film.
Throughout intertwining subplots, significant hints are provided to the reader—including one startling revelation. The ending is breathless. I found myself totally unprepared for the plot twists, even though they had been amply prefigured. The rhapsodic tone of lovely inner reflection of love and its beauty when juxtaposed with the ugliness of killing is particularly welcome.
I hope that many will read Adrenaline. Without question, it will jolt you to some interesting insights.”
— Leslie s. March
Harrisburg Magazine Review
“This guy can flat out write. Benedict has a great grasp of the many ways language can be used in telling a story, paired with the skill to do it, which is the thing that makes him stand out… Add in a good feel for the basics of pacing the story and sentence structures, a superb eye for the role of detail, and the priceless ability to draw a reader in until they forget that they’re actually reading the story they’re in the middle of.”
— Poisonedpenpress.com
“Properly entitled, Adrenaline is a thrill ride from the opening chapter. Dr. John Benedict has written a novel encompassing the intrigue of Michael Crichton’s E.R. combined with the thrill of Crime Scene Investigations. This is a top-notch medical thriller and I hope it is the first of many from Benedict. He could easily become the next Dean Koontz with a medical degree.”
— Robert Denson III
Managing Editor of Sunpiper Press
www.sunpiperpress.com
“Benedict has done an outstanding job at creating scenes, as well as characters, using every detail no matter how miniscule to evoke clear images and emotional response from readers, thus allowing us to really care about what happens to these characters.”
— Betsie’s Literary Page
betsie.tripod.com/literary
“Filled with accelerating suspense, author Benedict builds the plot that moves Adrenaline forward with methodical and deliberate subplots and characters, each of which succeed to broaden the mystery and draw the reader deep into the workings of the operating rooms and administrative offices of Mercy Hospital. Characters are pleasantly humanized, his plotting is meticulous, offering a thrilling journey.
Adrenaline offers a new take on the term ‘Medical Thriller’ that offers a breath of fresh air to the meaning of the term.”
— Denise M. Clark
Denise’s Pieces Author Site & Book Reviews
www.denisemclark.com
Copyright © 2013 John Benedict
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or any other, except for brief quotations in printed reviews—without prior permission of the author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published by Createspace: November, 2013
eBook ISBN: 978-1-63003-979-0
ISBN-13: 9781492230946
ISBN # 1492230944
Library of Congress # 2013915484
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
North Charleston, South Carolina
Cover Photo by John Dalkin
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
P R O L O G U E
C H A P T E R 1
C H A P T E R 2
C H A P T E R 3
C H A P T E R 4
C H A P T E R 5
C H A P T E R 6
C H A P T E R 7
C H A P T E R 8
C H A P T E R 9
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E P I L O G U E
To the beautiful girl I love,
My wife of thirty years, Lou Ann,
Who believes in me
And makes all things possible.
And to my three awesome sons,
Rob, Chip and Luke,
who inspire me and
are more than any father could hope for.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To my friends, Colleen Kruger and Dori O’Neil,
whose careful reading of the manuscript and
encouragement along the way was truly invaluable.
To my brilliant editor, Marg Wilks,
who employs her wizardry to transform my writing.
P R O L O G U E
Somewhere in Macedonia, AD 48
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
“It was hot and dusty, Nicodemus. You were no doubt tired and thirsty. The mind sometimes plays tricks in the afternoon sun.”
“Brother, I know what I saw,” Nicodemus said.
Demetrius set the spindle down and looked up from his loom, tired patience tugging at his worn features. “So you’re saying the holy man healed him?”
“Yes.”
Demetrius rubbed his neck and sat up straighter on his wooden stool. “Healed Timon, who has been a raging lunatic his whole adult life?”
“Yes,” Nicodemus said, struggling to tamp down his growing impatience.
Demetrius smiled and shook his head. “I’ve heard stories like this before. What proof do you bring?”
“Demetrius, do you not believe your own brother? Timon is sitting by the well in
the marketplace.” Nicodemus pointed down the rutted dirt road toward town. “He is having conversations with the townsfolk.”
Demetrius chuckled. “Conversations? Or more ranting and spitting and gnashing of teeth?”
“Calm conversation. See for yourself, brother.”
“I don’t have time for this. I have work to do.” Demetrius nodded toward the loom and picked up the spindle.
“The rug will wait.”
Demetrius sighed. “It’s a long walk. And the sun is high.”
Nicodemus grasped a handful of Demitrius’s tunic. “Come, brother. You must see this.”
“All right, all right,” Demetrius muttered, rising stiffly from his stool. “Let me fetch my stick.”
The two headed off toward town, the dull flap of their sandals kicking up dust. Before they had gone far, Demetrius unslung the goatskin water bag from his shoulder and took a drink. “Do you remember Timon as a boy?” He swiped the back of his hand against his thick black beard, then handed the water skin to Nicodemus.
“Yes,” Nicodemus said. “I used to play with him before—before the change.” Nicodemus put the water skin to his lips and took several long swallows. The cool water felt good on his gritty throat. “You were there when it happened, right?”
“I remember it like it was yesterday,” Demetrius said. “Tragic accident.” He stared across the field, toward the rolling hills in the distance. A strange look—painful or haunted—came into his eyes. He looked older than usual and it had nothing to do with the seams of gray in his beard.
Finally, Demetrius spoke. “When Timon didn’t come home that night, we went out to look for him. We found him lying under the big sycamore tree, the ground around him dark with his blood—he had been gored by a wild boar. We thought he was dead.
“Before we could carry his body home for burial, a freak storm blew in off the desert; a huge bolt of lightning cleaved the sycamore tree right down the middle and singed all the hair from Timon’s head. Amazingly—and I’ll never forget this part—he got up off the ground and walked home through the pouring rain, under a flashing sky that trembled with the booming thunder. We all kept our distance, terrified. Poor Timon. He came home, alright—but he came back a madman.”
The two men walked on in silence, Nicodemus leading, Demetrius pausing occasionally to lean on his gnarled walking stick. The hot sun burned directly overhead, casting only tiny shadows. After thirty minutes, the outskirts of their small town came into view.
Demetrius paused to take another drink. “So the holy man cast the demon out of him? And you witnessed this?”
“Many others were there as well,” Nicodemus said.
“And will likewise testify to this?”
“Yes, brother,” Nicodemus said.
“What did he say, exactly? The holy man.”
“He said, ‘In the name of Christ Jesus, I command you to leave him.’ And he threw his arms skyward and spat on the ground.”
“So, he was speaking directly to the demon?” Demetrius asked.
“Yes, I believe so.”
“And at that precise moment, Timon was cured?”
“Yes.”
Demetrius stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I’ve heard of this man, Christ Jesus. They say he is a god. What was the holy man’s name?”
“He calls himself Paul—Paul from Tarsus.”
“I do not know him. But we must be wary of him.” Demetrius glanced around and lowered his voice. “All this talk of demons and men who control them—”
“But this Paul, he seems a righteous man.”
“And you say you actually saw the demon leave his body?”
“Well, that’s the funny part.”
“Ah, finally we get down to it.” Demetrius fixed him with a hard stare. “So Nicodemus, what exactly did you see?”
Nicodemus cleared his throat. “Well—it looked like a shimmering bright light flew down from the heavens and went into his body.”
C H A P T E R 1
Tuesday, 5:00 p.m.
Consciousness crept slowly into Nick Chandler’s brain, fingers of awareness snaking into his mind like shafts of sunlight penetrating the morning haze. Here, in the meadow where he lay, there was no time—or pain. He was content to bask in the warm sun and drink in the mingled scent of freshly mown grass and the heady nectar of honeysuckle. Such peacefulness was beyond his experience.
Voices that seemed miles away hummed lightly about his ears. Or was it just the sound of insects flitting about in the hedgerow? The only other sensation he felt was the rhythmic whoosh of air being forced into his mangled chest.
Thoughts began to coalesce, disturbing ones. Questions queued up for attention, threatening to perforate the fuzzy cocoon of his mind. Where am I? What happened to me? Then a stranger thought, more insistent, jumped the line. Am I dead?
Chandler shooed these thoughts away—he didn’t want to deal with any questions right now. Answers usually brought pain and he preferred the tranquil limbo of his nonexistence. But one question buzzed back, like a pesky horsefly, refusing to be ignored: Was this what it felt like to be dead? He couldn’t be sure—and, he realized, he didn’t care. Deep down, though, he remembered that people were supposed to care about such things.
He sensed that something was different about him, changed somehow, though he couldn’t put his finger on it; the feeling was way too vague. But he knew he was right.
Chandler sighed. Too much work for now—he was bone-tired. Besides, the sunlit meadow beckoned. He let his mind submerge again, bobbing just beneath the surface of consciousness.
An unknowable amount of time passed as Chandler drifted in and out, until the buzzing returned and grew louder, finally nudging him awake. He sensed other people around him, picked up bits of conversation.
“ . . . congestive heart failure secondary to viral myocarditis . . .”
“ . . . overwhelming sepsis with full-blown ARDS . . .”
“ . . . multi-system organ failure with progressive renal and hepatic shutdown . . .”
Later an older male voice, deep and resonant with a professorial tone, commanded his attention. “Lauren, bring us up to speed on what happened yesterday.”
Chandler struggled to focus and stay awake to hear this part; the meadow would have to wait.
A young female voice, crisp and assertive, answered. “He coded around noontime and we consider it a miracle that we brought him back in the first place. An hour later, though, he arrested again and this time we couldn’t get him back. He was pronounced dead. He was then rushed to PML.”
“You mean Dr. Mueller’s lab?”
“Yes. The postmortem lab.”
“I assume you are all familiar with Dr. Mueller’s groundbreaking research into resuscitation science?” the professor said, garnering quiet murmurs of assent. “Go on, Lauren.”
“The patient was immediately placed on full cardiopulmonary bypass. His heart was stopped with a hyper-cool cardioplegic solution, ultra-low oxygen therapy was instituted, and a slew of cerebral protective drugs and antithrombin agents were administered. After twenty-four hours of this treatment, combined with sufficient resting of the myocardium, they attempted to restart his heart. Amazingly, after several countershocks, his heart resumed beating and he was soon transferred here to the ICU. The patient hasn’t regained consciousness, though.”
That certainly answers a lot of questions, thought Chandler. Carol Sue was right about the virus—should’ve listened to her. And now that they mentioned it, he did remember signing some weird form dealing with resuscitation. It was from the Buchanan Med Center Bioethics Committee and was so chock-full of legalese, he hadn’t been able to make heads nor tails of it at the time. But the gist of it was, if any of it came into play, you were basically fucked. And by signing it, you had just helped the hospital install an ironclad covering for their collective butts.
He had been so sick when he was admitted that this particular form and all the others he signed had
been a complete blur to him. Except now, he could call to mind clearly the five-page experimental resuscitation protocol that dealt with the Mueller lab. He could page through the sheets in his mind, backward, forward, and zoom into any paragraph for a closer look. He had no idea how this was possible.
The professor spoke again. “So, what is his prognosis at this point?”
Prognosis? The word was delivered with such grave overtones. Again, Chandler fought off a wave of drowsiness.
“The patient is basically terminal and will be lucky to survive the night,” Lauren answered, delivering her clinical assessment with a tasteful touch of sorrow.
Talk about your good news-bad news. He wasn’t dead, but it didn’t sound like he had long to live. Except again, Chandler knew they were wrong, as they’d been about the consciousness part. He couldn’t say how he knew, or why, just that he felt certain. But what was it the perky med student, Lauren, said? She considers it a miracle that I’m still alive. A tiny smile curved his swollen, cracked lips and pulled painfully at the tape holding his endotracheal tube in place. Miracle might not be quite the right word for it, he thought, drifting back down into the narcotic haze of the soft meadow.
C H A P T E R 2
Tuesday, 11:30 p.m.
Many hours later, Nick Chandler floated in that peculiar void between consciousness and dreaming, the drugs coursing through his veins only heightening the strangeness of the experience. His last intact memory played images through his mind. The fact that he recalled the exact details of that night, right down to the vibrant colors of Carol Sue’s tattoo, went unnoticed.
Halfway through his graveyard shift, on a night that seemed as ordinary as countless nights before, Nick pushed his cleaning cart out of the ICU room, being careful not to bump the door-frame with the various mops and brooms bristling from his cart. He shook his head. The room still stank of death, despite all the industrial-strength cleaners he had used. He was happy to leave.
Nick yanked off his mask and cap. Fresh air never tasted so good, he thought, peeling off the flimsy yellow gown and the latex gloves and chucking them all in the trash bin outside the room—the red plastic one with the biohazard label on it. The laundry bag hanging off the back of his cart was filled to the brim with dirty rags; better take care of those.
The Edge of Death: (Sequel to ADRENALINE) Page 1