The Death of Dulgath

by Michael J. Sullivan

  But it does exist. There must be an answer.

  With his own small bag packed, Daniel went to Estrella’s bedroom and peered in on her. She lay asleep in bed, angelic face upturned to the ceiling, her breathing distressingly shallow. He hated to disturb her from even this labored rest, but there was no time to lose.

  “Estrella,” he said, shaking her awake.

  “Mom?” she asked groggily.

  “No, honey, it’s Dad. I need you to get up and get dressed. Quickly. We’re going to make you better.”

  Her eyes fluttered open and she coughed herself fully awake. “Where are we going this time?”

  “New Mexico.”

  According to a sign, Taos was thirty miles away. Almost no cars were on the highway leading into town. Daniel checked the rearview mirror and was surprised at his own appearance: his eyes bloodshot, the skin around them dark purple. He hadn’t slept for far too long.

  Estrella thankfully didn’t have that problem. She slept, slumped against the side door in the backseat, a denim jacket serving as a blanket that left her head peeking out the top. She didn’t look ten. The illness had kept her small and thin, her cheeks hollow. Her breathing continued to appear shallow, even more so than it had been at home. Maybe after getting into town, he’d pull over at a recharge station to see if she needed anything.

  Then he noticed something in the rearview mirror: a car trailing him in the distance, black and sleek with a slender light bar along the roof.

  Regional police.

  Daniel’s stomach clenched.

  They didn’t have their lights on and followed in the distance. He had to keep calm and not attract attention. He accelerated slightly, but not so much that it would look suspicious.

  I hope.

  WELCOME TO TAOS! a sign on the side of the road announced in bold white font. On the outskirts of town, only a few buildings lined the road, most of them fast food or convenience stores geared toward travelers. Business was light this morning, though there were a few customers here and there, waiting in drive thru lanes or stretching their legs. Happy families on vacation, perhaps. His own had been among them, once upon a time.

  One of the buildings was a recharge station, but he couldn’t stop now. If the police decided to pull in as well, it would be over. The car behind him was still there, taking the main drag into town. Hopefully it was just a coincidence. According to his car’s internal navigation system, the clinic was close. Just a few lights down and to the right.

  From the backseat, Daniel heard a noise. Estrella coughing.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  Estrella coughed again. Checking the mirror, he saw her face drawn tight as if she’d just eaten a lemon, her cheeks dark red. More coughs escaped puckered lips, her tiny body shaking with each one.

  “Estrella?”

  Police car still there, slightly closer.

  “Honey? Answer me!” Estrella stopped coughing now. Her mouth was closed, eyes tightly shut.

  Is she breathing?

  Ahead, the town proper began. Traffic was sparse, but directly in front of Daniel was a major intersection and a green light.

  Then it turned yellow.

  “Hang on,” Daniel shouted as he punched the accelerator.

  Tearing through the intersection, Daniel heard sirens flare behind him. Blue light flashed in the rearview mirror. Then came the terrible sound of a crash. Daniel looked back to see the police car stranded in the middle of the intersection, black smoke already curling from under its hood where it had T-boned a beige pickup truck.

  Daniel kept the pedal down, weaving his way through the few cars on the road. The crash bought him a few minutes perhaps, but reinforcements would arrive soon.

  Behind him, Estrella was choking. He could see tears fighting to escape shuttered eyes, and her little body shook for air.

  “Hold on, baby,” he said. “Hold on.”

  Daniel pulled into the shadows of an alley next to a building at the address he’d been given. It was a small nondescript dingy-gray structure wedged between two others, which appeared to have been abandoned long ago. He pulled Estrella from the backseat.

  “Oh God, oh God,” he said, holding her against his chest as he sped inside. Estrella offered no resistance to being carried, but no assistance, either. She felt limp. Waning.

  “Hello?” Daniel cried.

  No one out front. Just an empty counter, black plastic chairs, and a small bell. Daniel had seen a hundred waiting rooms, although usually they were packed. This one had no visible patients or receptionist.

  “Hello?” he shouted again, slamming the bell with his free hand, refusing to set Estrella down. He hoisted her up against his shoulder, her lips cool against his neck.

  “Just a second,” a male voice called from behind a slotted, swinging door behind the counter. Then came the sound of a toilet flushing.

  “She doesn’t have a second!” Daniel rounded the counter and ran toward the swinging door, then froze.

  A man in a short doctor’s coat came from the back, holding a gun. He seemed too young to be a doctor, maybe eighteen or nineteen, with striking good looks and curly red hair.

  “Back,” he said, pointing the gun at Daniel’s chest. “Now.”

  “What? No, my little girl, she—”

  “I said back.”

  Daniel complied, clutching Estrella. She wasn’t struggling to breathe anymore. Wasn’t moving at all. “My daughter is dying,” he said, tears streaking down his face. “I need help.”

  “Why did you bring her here?”

  “A man in Mexico City sent me. Asian. I have his card!”

  The doctor’s eyes went wide and he tucked the gun into a holster under his coat. “Set her here,” he said, patting the counter.

  “Can you help her?” Daniel asked. “The Asian man said you could, but no one knows what’s wrong—”

  “Not surprised…but it doesn’t matter. If Mott sent you, then I can help.” The doctor knelt in front of the counter and pressed his thumb onto a dark pad on a small safe set in the base. The door hissed open, revealing a second, smaller safe within. The doctor lowered himself to face the second safe. The red-light glow of a retinal scan flashed, then a clunk sounded as the lock released. He removed a small bag containing a silver-tinged solution, thick as liquid mercury, which glittered in the light.

  “Methuselah?” Daniel asked. Based on the seemingly homemade packaging, he guessed that this hadn’t come from any government facility or official agency. “Is it real? Where did you get this?”

  “Oh, it’s real. I made it myself,” the doctor said, affixing a steel needle to a syringe.

  Daniel’s jaw dropped. “But how?”

  The doctor stuck the needle into the bag’s aperture and slowly drew the sparkling liquid into the syringe barrel. “I invented the stuff. Well, I was on the team, at least. Mott, the Asian gentleman you met, was, too. Then the government decided Methuselah was too important to be left to private enterprise. They took it from us.” The doctor returned the bag to the double safe and stood. He gently expressed the remaining air from the syringe so only the medicine remained. “Our laboratory mysteriously exploded soon thereafter. Many friends and associates died that day. Myself and Mott were listed with the casualties, and we didn’t contradict the report. Took that as a sign it was time to disappear.”

  The needle primed, the doctor turned to Estrella, examining her wrist for a good injection site.

  “But why are you helping us? Why my Estrella?”

  “The people running the show think only the elite should live, and it’s time to ‘thin the herd.’ First step was Methuselah, but now they’ve shifted to creating diseases. Your little girl is one of their test subjects. That’s why no one knows what’s wrong with her.”

  Daniel felt the world fall away. “They did this to her?”

  The doctor nodded with a sad smile. “Others, too. But we’re going to turn the tables on them. Methuselah will keep Es
trella alive, and with her blood I’ll be able to create a vaccine, so they can’t do the same to others. It’ll take some time, but big changes are coming—soon. Your little girl is going to play an important part in that. You should be very proud.”

  Daniel looked at Estrella lying on the counter, so small. Beautiful, like her mother. He knew she would help people one day, but he never could have guessed this.

  “Do it,” he said.

  The doctor nodded and raised the needle to her wrist.

  From outside, an enhanced voice boomed: “This is the police. We are conducting a building-to-building search for the fugitive Daniel de Montes, wanted for assaulting a Methuselite. If you know his whereabouts, please activate your security beacon now.”

  The doctor looked over at Daniel. “You?”

  “Please, don’t stop. My daughter—”

  “If they find me helping you, they’ll arrest me, too. Then they’ll search the clinic. It will ruin everything.”

  “This is the police…” repeated the message from beyond the clinic’s door. Closer now, maybe a few buildings away.

  “I’m begging you,” Daniel said. “Give her the injection before it’s too late.”

  “It’s already too late. I can’t expose the clinic. I’m sorry.” He slipped the syringe into his coat pocket and pressed a button under the counter.

  More noise now, directly outside. Daniel could hear the scruff of boots outside the door and harsh voices.

  Daniel lunged and grabbed the doctor’s gun from its holster. He raised and pointed it directly at the doctor’s head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Promise you’ll take care of her,” Daniel said.

  “What do you—?”

  The front door to the clinic crashed open, followed by two large, dark-jacketed police officers brandishing laser pistols. The doctor jumped back at the sound, but Daniel held firm and kept the gun steady. The officers looked from Daniel to the doctor and back, then took aim at Daniel.

  Perfect. Now if the doctor will just follow my lead…

  “Drop your weapon!” one of the officers shouted, stooping into a crouch.

  “Come any closer,” Daniel said, “and the doctor dies!” He meant the doctor no harm, and hoped the young man understood Daniel was providing cover. He would only have a second before—

  The crouching officer opened fire, severing Daniel’s gun arm from the rest of his body at the elbow.

  He collapsed to the floor in a heap, screaming and clutching his cauterized stump. The other officer ran forward and grabbed him with his Taser gloves, paralyzing him.

  “You okay, Doc?” the officer who’d cut off Daniel’s arm asked, holstering his pistol.

  Daniel grit his teeth through the pain and looked up to the doctor, trying to read his face or catch a sign.

  The doctor nodded—at Daniel! “Yes, everything’s fine now. Thank you, Officers.”

  The police appeared blessedly oblivious. “This guy is some piece of work. He attacked Kai Ripsen, can you believe it? What’d he want with you, anyway?”

  The doctor indicated the girl on the counter. “This is his daughter. Wanted me to save her, but she was already dead when he came in.”

  The officer nodded. “You want me to send someone for her body?”

  “No need. I’ll fill out the death certificate and call the coroner. You’ve already done more than enough. Thank you again. I’d hate to think what would have happened if you didn’t arrive when you did.”

  The officer smiled. “All in a day’s work.” He turned to his partner: “I’ll take his arm; you get the rest.” He picked up the gun and Daniel’s severed arm. “Come by the station later, we’ll need you to sign a statement.” The officer waved goodbye with the arm. The other Tased Daniel a second time and stooped to lift him under the armpits, dragging him across the floor.

  Daniel struggled to stay conscious. He wanted to see Estrella for as long as he could.

  As he was dragged from the clinic, he watched the doctor take the syringe from his coat pocket and inject Methuselah into Estrella’s wrist.

  <<<<>>>>

  T. C. Powell starves full-time and writes award-winning short fiction on the side. His stories—ranging from science fiction to horror to mainstream and everything in between—have appeared in Flash Fiction Online, New Myths, Every Day Fiction, and several other online and print publications. After he took a brief hiatus from the craft for the birth of his beautiful daughter, 2015 has proven to be a tremendous year for T. C. Not only is he the proud winner of Michael J. Sullivan’s Short Story Contest, but he’s also the two-time recipient of the Penn Cove Literary Arts Award and a finalist for the prestigious Writers of the Future competition. He looks forward to building upon this momentum in 2016 and beyond. You can find out more about T. C. at his website: www.tcpowellfiction.blogspot.com

  Acknowledgments

  It takes a great many people to produce a work of this nature, especially under the deadline pressure I had for this book. I find it’s impossible to fully express my appreciation. You’d think I’d be able to, given I write for a living. But heartfelt isn’t nearly enough and all other words fail. First, of course, I’d like to thank my wife, Robin. If you were a backer of the Kickstarter or a member of the beta crew, you know just a little about how hard she works. What you didn’t see is all the effort she put into the book before it reached anyone else. Her structural, line, and copyedits have made this book better than I could have produced on my own, and we all owe her a debt of gratitude.

  Speaking of editing, I also want to thank three amazing copyeditors for their incredible talent: Laura Jorstad, Paul Witcover, and Linda Branam. I’ve worked with Paul and Laura before (both were editors for Hollow World), and Linda joined the team after impressing Robin with her attention to detail and unique perspective during the beta read. I’m not sure anyone but writers fully appreciate just how amazing copyeditors are. Only we see where the book started and know how it differs from the final version. I can assure you their contributions have been monumental.

  Which segues nicely into the beta readers! This was our largest beta to date. More than fifty people provided feedback, including rating the chapters and answering survey questions. When all was said and done we had rankings for more than a thousand chapters! Thanks to Robin’s hard work, the book was in really good shape when it went out. Still, there was room for improvement, and the beta readers contributed tweaks to a number of key scenes. There isn’t enough space to go into full detail, but you can learn more in my e-book The Making of the Death of Dulgath. It’s free for anyone who is interested in the behind-the-scenes aspects of this book. Just drop me an email at michael.sullivan.dc@gmail.com to get a copy.

  Once again, we utilized the amazing artistic talent of Marc Simonetti to create the book’s cover. If you aren’t familiar with his work, definitely check it out. Not only has he created covers for the French edition of my Riyria books and Hollow World, but he has also developed stunning work for Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles, George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn series, and dozens of others. I’m pleased to announce that Del Rey will be using Marc for my new series, The First Empire. The first book, Age of Myth, will be released June 7, 2016.

  Speaking of Del Rey, I want to thank them on a number of fronts. First, they generously rearranged their editorial schedule so you all could get a sneak peek of Age of Myth in this book. When The Death of Dulgath went to press, they had just finished structural edit feedback, but even so, they were able to have the first chapter copyedited ahead of the rest of the book. Second, I’d like to thank them for their flexibility, which made it possible to get this book released before rolling out The First Empire series. Again, you can read more about that in The Making of the Death of Dulgath e-book.

  For those who don’t know, we held a Kickstarter to fund a hardcover print run for this book. Original estimates for printing, shipping, warehousin
g, and paying the talented individuals listed above were around $33,000. Robin and I decided to foot $7,000 for the book’s production and asked the Kickstarter community for $26,000 for the hardcover print run. If the project failed, the book would still have been produced, just not in hardcover. Well, to our astonishment, the project funded in less than two days and went on to raise more than $73,000, becoming the third-highest-funded fiction project to date. But that’s not all. Afterward, people bought all kinds of cool add-ons (posters, T-shirts, coffee mugs, and such), and even more backers joined the party. When Robin finally locked down the project, it had raised in excess of $90,000 from 1,876 people. How crazy is that?

  One of the rewards for the backers of The Death of Dulgath Kickstarter is seeing their name in print, proclaiming to all the world their support of the democratization of publishing. Some chose to remain anonymous, so this list isn’t complete, but my gratitude goes out to each and every person who made the Kickstarter such a huge success. I like to treat all backers equally, but there were a large number of people (more than two hundred) who contributed at levels that I never dreamed possible. To them I want to give a little special recognition, so I did divide the list just a bit. Without further delay, here are my amazing backers!

  GOLD LEVEL CONTRIBUTORS

  Alastair • Pen Astridge • Jon Auerbach • Joshua Axelson • Keri & Patrick Bailey • Heather Barcomb • Jose J. Barrera • Tyke Beard • Brian Becker • Mark Becker • Cheryl Beebe-Skynar • Caleb Billman • Richard P. Bissmire • Airon Black • Dietmar Bloech • Kris Boultbee • Chad & Anna Britt • Kristi Rae Britt • Davonne Burns • Emily Burns • Jennifer Burns • Christopher Buzzard • Guy Byars • Jeffrey Carr • David Lars Chamberlain • Jaime Chan • Martin Forbes & Julia Charlow • Cpl Chris • Christy, Abby, & Jollin • Greg Clinton • Christine A. Cooney • Michelle Cooper • Macy Coward • Leland Crawford • Jackie Cuda • Elizabeth Daly • Ruth Angela Davies • Alexander Davis • Marcel de Jong • The Delicious One • William Demas • Paul Mervyn Dennison • Machikas Dimitrios • Randy, Marla, & Colin Doan • Andrew Doherty • Alexi Dollar • Sean Dornan-Fish • Christy L. Downey • Linda du Toit • Lee Dunning • Britney N. Duston • Mike Dysput • Steven Ede • Shirley Ednave • Angela Bradley & Kevin Enax • Derek Ferguson • Don, Beth & Meghan Ferris • Holly Flumerfelt • Cathy Fox • Emily Fuller • Chris Garrett • John J. Gerber • Andrew Gilbert • Chad & Morgan Gill • Steve Gordon • Cara Gorman • Dion Graybeal • Samantha Greenland • Rita Grensing • Therese Guerette • Allen & Marce Guthier • Jason K. Hackworth • Travis Hammons • Nicholas Hart • Tammy Hayne • Leah Asher • Douglas Hoffman • Sabrina Hofmann • Sir Jamie Howe • Santiago Hoyos • Christopher A. Huddleston • Ed Hunkin • Peter Hutchinson • John Idlor • Neil Illing • Martin Jackson • Erik Jarvi • Jiazheng • Morten Johansson • Erik T. Johnson • Rebecca and Shawn Jones • Jonna in Aurora • Michelle Jordan • Frank Juranich • Gustavo Tomas Lopez Justo • John Kane • Kevin Kastelic • John M. Kelly • Michael Kelly • Jordan Kemp • Adam Kice • Laura Kimble-Buschelmann • Kim Kline • Krendal • Kristina • Kimberly Kunker • Jeff & Ari Kupferberg • Llorente Lacap • S.K. Lamont • Shawn Larsen • Shirley Lawson • Andreas Leathley • Harry Lee • Keir Lee • Lennhoff Family • J. Leone • Viky Lercher • T. Lewis • Sebastian Linusson • Ariel Yining Loh • J. Lee Lokere • Patrick J. Loller • Andrea Luhman • Mark Lusher • Rissa Lyn • Renan Machado • Maile • Tracey Maknis • Brandon Makowecki • Brenda Marshall • Richard Martin • Paul Matchen • Randy & Chris Mathis • Zachary A. Matzo • Shelly McCann • Kevin McCormick • Michael & Susan McCrum • Bobby McDaniel • Hunter McDole • Amy McKenna • Jack & Kayleigh McKinley • Laura McNaughton • Steven Mentzel • Joby Metcalfe • Stefanie R. Midlock • Corinne Milardo • Annarose Mitchell • Christina Moe • Amanda Moore • Charles Moorhead • G. Moos • Calvin Moy • Francis Muhawij • Dianne Munro • H. Murray • NDC • John Neal • Neecy • Heike Nicks • Dino Nowak • Janet L. Oblinger • Jasmine Olsen • Katherine Owen • Gina Palmer • Paul M. Parra • Allison Pauli • Tina Persch • Joleen K. Peterson • Karina Pfleider • Jennifer L. Pierce • Andrew Preece • Heather Quigg • Jay Quigley • Cindy Radvany • David Ramirez • Tricia Reid • Amber Rendmeister • Grant “WereTiger” Rietze • Charles Roque • Abhilash Sarhadi • Eric Schwartz • Ryan Seaman • Gopakumar Sethuraman • Tina Marie Sharp • Shiro • Brian Sieglaff • Cassidy Singleton • Heber Sorenson • Margaret M. St. John • Erik W. Stegman • Theresa Stephen • Sean Stockton • Thom Stratton • StreamCyper • Julian Stribling • Carole Strohm • Jenn Strohschein • Shawn F. Sullivan • Ashli T. • Louise Tarbit • Stephanie Tettamanti • thesfshark • Chadzilla B. Thompson • David J. Thompson • Ben Trehet • Karilyn Turner • Waszer • Charles G. Weller III • Sam White • Lara Whitehead • Philip J. Whyte • Dick Wilkin • Scott M. Williams • Leilani Wills • John Gregory Wynn • Brandon Zarzyczny • Géraldine Zenhäusern • Perrin Zideos