Past Lives
Terry Cloutier
The Past Lives Chronicles Book One
Copyright © 2021 TERRY CLOUTIER
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced,
in whole or in part, without prior written permission
from the copyright holder.
Books by Terry Cloutier
The Wolf of Corwick Castle Series
The Nine (2019)
The Wolf At Large (2020)
The Wolf On The Run (2020)
The Wolf At War (2021)
The Past Lives Chronicles
Past Lives (2021)
The Zone War Series
The Demon Inside (2008)
The Balance Of Power (2010)
Novella
Peter Pickler and the Cat That Talked Back (2010)
“The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn.” – H.G. Wells
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
Glossary of Roman Terms and Words
Historical Notes
PROLOGUE
Claire hated needles. She’d seen thousands of them over her career, of course, and had even administered many of them herself in her younger days. But no matter how many times she saw one, her stomach would always roil and flutter the moment the cold steel and plastic appeared from its sterile packaging. Claire had learned early on that she needed to keep her face a mask of professional concentration, not letting the patient or test subject see the discomfort she felt as vulnerable flesh was penetrated. It wasn’t always easy, though, especially when young children were involved—more so after Julie had died. Claire had taken to waiting until an assistant administered the drug before entering the room and doing her assessment, which helped immensely. But this time, there would be no assistant, and Claire knew that hiding her unease from the subject was going to be impossible—simply because she was that subject.
A clear syringe sat on her desk along with a small glass vial with its single dose of the final variant of JPL-7. The room was enveloped in darkness except for a pale light coming from a knock-off Tiffany banker’s lamp on the desk that Gerald had bought online several years ago. Claire had never cared for the lamp but, even so, she couldn’t help smiling at the memories that the rose-petalled glass shade invoked in her. She believed that if you wanted something badly enough, you should get the real thing or do without—doing without being her preference—as she was anything but materialistic. Her motto was to never settle for second best. That’s how she viewed the world, herself, and her job as a biotechnologist. But Gerald never much cared about such things. He would just laugh her opinion away and brag about how much money he’d saved, always stating with a wink that no one would know the difference anyway.
Claire sighed, pausing to glance up at the clock on the far wall—the steady tick-tock the only sound in the otherwise silent room. She couldn’t see the hands, even with the faint moonlight streaming in the window, guessing it had to be well past midnight by now. She focused back on the vial and syringe, feeling the familiar turning in her stomach. Could she do it? Could she really stick that thing in her arm? And if she did, would it just bring immediate darkness and death? Or would it open the door to something else like she desperately hoped?
A picture sat on the corner of the desk and Claire turned her attention there. The amplified ticking of the clock seeming harsh and invasive now, as though reminding her that she was delaying the inevitable. A man and a woman stared back at her from the picture, both of them laughing as they walked through a park filled with brightly colored autumn leaves. A little girl swung joyfully between her parents as they each held one of her hands. The girl was seven, her eyes alight with the kind of innocent happiness that only a child can achieve.
The man was tall and handsome, with thick black hair showing just a hint of grey at the temples. Claire knew he would be completely grey less than three years later. The woman was pretty, with a long nose and a small, almost dainty chin—both courtesy of her Italian heritage. There was something guarded in the woman’s eyes, something even the smile on her face couldn’t quite penetrate.
“I know your secret, girl,” Claire whispered, locking eyes with the younger version of herself in the photograph.
She sat that way for a long time, remembering the past and the happier times, feeling an almost overwhelming sense of melancholy. Twice she reached for the top desk drawer only to stop at the last moment, dropping her hand limply in her lap. Could she look again? Would it help or just make things worse?
A dog began to bark outside just then, the deep, guttural sounds echoing from down the street, quickly followed by a man’s muted voice shouting at the dog to be quiet. Joe Lambert, Claire knew, having heard this very thing many times. Why Joe left his dog tied up outside every night was a mystery to her, since inevitably, he had to get out of bed at some point and scream at it to shut up. Either get rid of the dog or bring it inside, Claire thought. How difficult a decision can that be?
A car slowly drove down the street outside her home, the headlamps briefly illuminating the room in a wash of harsh light before moving on. Claire waited in anticipation, a knowing smile already on her lips, as moments later the car was back, the driver having realized that the street led to a dead end. It was a familiar sight for the inhabitants of Teton Crescent. Claire and Gerald had moved to Naperville from Chicago fourteen years ago and had found the charming two-story house almost by accident. They’d taken a wrong turn on their way to an open house and had reached the dead end, only to see a For Sale sign on one of the lawns. They had both fallen in love with the place in an instant and had made a bid that same day. They’d never looked back since.
Westglen Park—where the photo on the desk had been taken— ran behind their half-acre, fenced-in property, and Owen Elementary School—where Julie had gone to school—was only a short walk away. The commute to Claire’s job at the Institute of Medicine in Chicago was long, usually taking her forty minutes one way in good traffic, but even so, not once in the years that they’d lived in Naperville had she ever regretted moving there.
“You’re just wasting time, girl,” she muttered under her breath, chuckling moments later as she realized the irony of her words. Time was all she had now. She glanced at the vial with sudden trepidation. Well, maybe, or maybe not.
Claire slowly stood, stretching her aching back. She was fifty-three, and the years spent bent over in a laboratory had taken their toll, not to mention her rapidly worsening condition. The desk chair squeaked on brass casters across the hardwood floor as she pushed it away with the back of her knees. The chair had belonged to Gerald’s father, and though it was beautiful—made f
rom oak and mahogany—it was nonetheless hard and uncomfortable, as Gerald refused to add even a thin cushion. He said his father would turn over in his grave if he did that. Claire had always wondered how Gerald could spend so many hours sitting on that hard surface while he wrote. But it’s amazing the lengths people will go to honor the wishes of the dead. At least Gerald’s father had been a good man and his son had loved him dearly, which did help to explain her husband’s stubbornness, illogical as it was to her.
Claire frowned as a sudden image of her own father, shirtless with an almost empty bottle of Jack Daniels in his hand appeared in her mind. She spun on her heels to study the shelves against the back wall, needing to change her mood before it spiraled any further into the darkness that always waited inside her when she thought of him. She flicked a light switch on the wall, turning on the pot lights beneath the bookcase shelves as she focused on some framed pictures of Julie. Claire smiled at the first one that showed her daughter at eight years old, holding up a trophy with her pretty face shining with pride. Julie had won the award in gymnastics, the first of many more to come in a variety of sports before her illness had manifested. There was another picture of her in a red and gold cheerleader's outfit with a silly grin on her face. Julie was fifteen in that one, Claire remembered, looking impossibly fit and healthy. She sighed with regret, knowing that wouldn’t last much longer.
Unable to take looking at her daughter’s smiling face anymore, Claire turned her attention to the books, running her hands along the spines. Gerald had read every one of them more than once, she knew. She paused in the center of the bookcase where six hardcovers in pristine dust jackets stood side by side in a place of honor inside a glass case. Claire smiled fondly and opened the door to the case, her hand automatically reaching for the last volume on the end. She drew it out and stared at the brightly colored front cover, which said:
Mysticism, the Occult, and the Past Lives Inside Us All by Gerald Blackwood
Claire turned the book over, greeted with a picture of her husband in black and white. He was grinning, his perfect teeth dominating his handsome face, his eyes twinkling with an inner mischief that Claire knew all too well.
“I miss you, Happy,” she whispered, feeling deep loneliness settling over her. Happy was the nickname she’d given Gerald in High School when they had first met as pimple-faced teenagers. He’d never stopped smiling back then—hence the name—and had continued that trend right up until Julie’s death. He never smiled again after that. Neither of them did. Claire had a sudden thought, wondering where Gerald was at that moment. What was he doing? Was he sleeping? Was he thinking about her? Was he longing for the two of them to be together again just like she was?
Claire felt emotion threatening to burst from her chest and she kissed the picture gently, then replaced the book as she glanced at the remaining five volumes. All the spines were very similar—being part of an ambitious, ten-volume historical series that Gerald had started about the Scots and the English. The books had done well—quite well, actually, and Gerald had seemed to be on the verge of literary stardom. But then, like so many other times in Gerald’s life, his attention had shifted and he’d abandoned the series, publishing Mysticism, the Occult, and the Past Lives Inside Us All instead.
Claire had found the book to be impeccably researched and a fascinating example of outside-the-box thinking. Being a scientist, though, as well as being devoid of even one spiritual bone or thought in her entire body, she couldn’t quite accept the theories and conclusions her husband had put forth. Not at first, anyway. But she was open enough not to dismiss his ideas and views out of hand either, just because her scientific-geared mind was predisposed to do so.
But unfortunately, she was one of the very few people who had thought that way. The book had been savaged by reviewers, many of whom were fellow academics of Gerald’s that were so rigid in their beliefs that anything outside of their scope of knowledge was viewed as a frivolous waste of time, and therefore worthy of nothing but scorn. Gerald had been devasted by his peers' rejection of his work, which was not helped by poor sales, and then finally his publisher rescinding the option on a second volume. Gerald had vowed that even without a publisher, he would write the second book, even if he had to self-publish it himself. He’d retreated to his study to write and prove everyone wrong, but then Julie had happened, and nothing mattered after that.
A second car came down the crescent, the headlamps once again lighting the study. Claire saw the clock face glowing in the sudden glare, realizing in surprise that it was now almost two in the morning. She knew it was time to get on with things. She rolled the chair back to the desk and sat down again. The vial and syringe remained where they had been, unmoving and impartial as she stared at them. Use us or don’t, they seemed to say to her. We really don’t care which.
Claire took a deep breath, reaching for the syringe, but then she hesitated and looked around the room, certain that she’d just heard something. But other than the steady ticking of the clock, nothing but silence greeted her, and finally, she shrugged, thinking she’d imagined it. Claire started to reach for the syringe again, then let her hand drop to the brass handle of the desk’s top drawer instead. She drew it open slowly, knowing that a bundle of newspaper clippings would be inside—that and the results from her latest battery of tests.
Claire carefully removed the papers, spreading them out on the desktop around the vial and syringe. She barely glanced at the medical results. There wasn’t much point, since she already knew what it said, anyway. Glioblastoma—Grade Four, one of the most aggressive brain tumors there were. Her doctor had told her the average survival rate was fifteen months, and that had been more than a year ago. The only thing keeping Claire going the past year had been her desperate need to finish JPL-7. Something that she had done only hours before in her basement laboratory.
Claire winced, rubbing her knuckles wearily against her temples, trying to ease the pain from the headache that was now a constant companion. She’d been prescribed drugs to help, of course, but they left her feeling fuzzy and unfocused, so she never took them. Claire’s mind was all she had left now, and she couldn’t chance making any mistakes in her calculations. She let her fingers slowly draw one of the clippings closer, trying and failing to suppress her tears at the headline and her daughter’s pretty face depicted below it.
Local girl dies in DakCorp clinical trial tragedy
The picture of Julie was an old one from High School, but it was all the local paper could find on Facebook, as neither Claire nor Gerald had been willing to talk to them about what had happened. Unlike most of her generation, Julie had never been much for social media. Claire kissed her fingers, then pressed them against the photo of her dead daughter. She fought back tears and moved on, her features hardening at the next clipping.
DakCorp wins multi-million dollar wrongful death suit—plaintiffs vow to appeal
A man appeared below the headline, dressed in a three-piece suit and smiling broadly. He was handsome, but in a creepy way, as one of Claire’s friends had described him to her. A round, bald man stood beside him, his face serious as reporters milled around the two on the steps of the Circuit Court of Cook County. The smiling man’s name was Martin O’Shay, president and CEO of DakCorp. Claire glared at him, the hatred she felt for the man threatening to overwhelm her. Finally, she could take it no longer, and she flipped the newspaper over. She carefully went through the rest, studying each one—not that she needed to—she could recite them all word for word. She paused on the last one, her hands shaking as she held it up. Gerald was being led from the same courthouse in handcuffs, his neck arched as he sought her out in the crowd after the verdict had been read. Guilty, they’d said. Guilty of murder! But it hadn’t been murder, Claire knew. It had been justice. She felt nothing but love for her husband, enjoying this last connection with him before the end. The headline above the picture screamed at her in bold print, but she barely glanced at it.
&nbs
p; Author sentenced to twenty years for the murder of billionaire Martin O’Shay
Gerald Blackwood was fifty-three years old the day that he’d gone to prison, and he would be at least seventy before he saw the light of day again. Claire couldn’t wait that long—the tumor in her head would make certain of that—so there was only one thing left to do. Claire carefully placed all the papers back in the drawer, then, with a shaking hand, took up the syringe and vial. She undid the cap on the vial, then stuck the needle through the stopper and turned the bottle upside down as she extracted the greenish-blue fluid inside.
A sound suddenly startled Claire, and she whirled to look behind her. But, just as before, she saw nothing. Had she imagined it? Claire took a deep breath, her heartbeat roaring in her ears, knowing that it had just been her jittery nerves messing with her. The room was empty.
Claire tried to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach as she turned back to the syringe, focusing on the bigger picture instead rather than the gleaming, pointed needle at the end. There was just enough liquid to fill three-quarters of the syringe’s plastic barrel, just as she’d calculated. Claire carefully placed the empty vial in the garbage, then squeezed a minute amount of fluid out of the needle to clear any air. She might be dead in mere moments from now anyway, but her years of training wouldn’t allow her to chance injecting an air embolus into her bloodstream, whether it mattered or not.
Claire looked around Gerald’s study one last time. She thought of her younger sister, knowing how much this would hurt her, but knew there was no other choice. Jen wouldn’t understand, especially after what their mother had done to them. Her sister would just have to cope with her death the best that she could. If the serum worked and Claire was successful, then it wouldn’t matter anyway. Claire took a deep breath and closed her eyes, then stabbed the needle into her arm and pushed the plunger. The JPL-7 burned going in, which surprised her. She sat back in the chair, pressing her aching back into the unyielding wood behind her as she tried to ignore the uncomfortable heat crawling along her arm. Then she started to count backward from one hundred, focusing on happy memories of Gerald and Julie until slowly her head tilted forward. Claire Blackwood’s last thought before she died was a plea to a god that she didn’t even believe existed.
Past Lives (The Past Lives Chronicles Book 1) Page 1