Path of Breath Read online

  PATH OF BREATH

  A NOVEL BY KATIE GEORGE

  This is dedicated to the best beta fish ever, Solomon, who passed away in December of 2013. You will be greatly missed. Keep swimmin’, Solomon.

  PATH OF BREATH

  Katie George

  Published by Katie George at Smashwords

  Copyright 2014 Katie George

  FORWARD

  Hello! I wrote Path of Breath in the winter of 2013/2014 after deciding I wanted to tell a story about science fiction. While the following novel isn’t all about sci-fi, it has various themes of the genre, of romance and of the portrait of a family. It truly classifies as a psychological thriller.

  I would like to say thank-you for reading Path of Breath. The story may seem far-fetched, but what if there are programs that the government keeps hidden from the regular population? This story is not written to bash any government body. It is simply a tall tale, an idea that scares me to the bone. What if?

  -Katie George, January 18, 2014.

  Prologue

  IN THIS WORLD, some people are not content with facts. They look around the Swiss Alps and wonder, “How was this created?” The answer might simply be God to one person, and an orangutan to another, but no one is certain, right? That isn’t necessarily true. If people would look at the facts, they could see that there is nothing to prove. But, if they refuse to look at the facts, or they don’t believe the facts, they want to find a loophole to the problem.

  Therefore, the Swiss Alps could have been created by God, or an orangutan, an alien, Buddha, or by you. This is where scientists and those who associate with the supernatural differ. Scientists are about facts…however, there are some scientists who also believe in the idea of altering what has already been determined. They want to experiment with things that will change the past, present, and future, ideas that could empower them, or confuse things further with intelligence that should not be known.

  There have been experiments tested for millennium.

  Isn’t it easier to believe that God is the Creator, and more assuring as a human being? We, as humans, aren’t supposed to further our intelligence to high levels while jeopardizing life.

  CHAPTER ONE

  FOR THREE YEARS, they had looked into each other’s eyes. They had spent three years passing each other on the street, he pulling his jacket closer to his chest, and she confused by the stranger on the roads.

  He was handsome in every way; with a slight German accent, he was an immigrant from a former life, one he never mentioned to anyone. Noted for his chiseled, European face, and his broad shoulders, he made every woman swoon in his presence. He was tall, probably a few inches six-feet, and his piercing blue eyes brought out the pain of an endless life. His hair was golden, on the darker shade of the spectrum, and he had a distinctive scar on his left arm. He kept to himself, and had never spoken to any of the residents except when he had to purchase something.

  She was beautiful, in her mid-to-late thirties, but seemed older. Wiser, maybe, or possibly it was because though she hadn’t lived long, she seemed to have been an old soul for a long time. She had long, dark blonde hair and navy eyes. She was tall, too, but there was something different about her, like there was something different about him.

  His current name was Christoph Leiden, and he was employed as a teacher in the school on Cherry Street. He passed Isobel (known to all as Izzie) every morning on the way to the school as she headed to the library. They always intersected each other at the giant oak tree at the intersection of Maple and Juniper, and they always noticed the opposite person.

  For three years, Izzie and Christoph glided passed one another, and never said a word. Christoph knew Izzie was married to another man, and Izzie knew Christoph was married to another woman, but something didn’t seem right.

  And it wasn’t.

  NICK LORING ABSENTLY chewed on his thumbnail as Mr. Leiden wrote on the chalkboard, INDEPENDENCE. A young man of tender eighteen, Nick was on the edge of an adult abyss. It was about to be time to choose a college, and a major, and then a wife, and then he’d end up like Mr. Leiden, the German teacher who was broody and depressed most of the time. Mr. Leiden was like the weather of Maine, a constant divider between beautiful and stormy, intolerable and strong.

  Nick thought it was because Mr. Leiden was a lonely, middle-aged wackjob from the fields of Nazi-land, but Nick’s liberal girlfriend Carey Stewart thought otherwise. Carey insisted that Mr. Leiden wasn’t depressed or lonely, but anxious. Nick didn’t try to argue with Carey, because he so-called “loved her”, but he didn’t overly think about Mr. Leiden, either.

  Nick had better things to think about. His dad was urging him to go to USC, thousands of miles away. Nick’s dad, Peter, wanted him to be something big, something catastrophic, something the Lorings would be proud of. But, Nick’s grades suffered and he wasn’t into sports. He wasn’t anything cool, either. Yeah, he aspired to go to Iowa State, because it was the only place he could go and do the thing that churned him to keep going. He wasn’t a fan of flying, he didn’t volunteer at the animal shelter, and he didn’t tutor kids like Katherine Stone did. He was more of a happy-go-lucky kind of guy, and he spent his time doing whatever he pleased.

  “Nick.” Mr. Leiden’s bright blue eyes penetrated Nick’s boundary of future thoughts, and Nick shuddered. How could a man like Mr. Leiden – the type who ignored sunshine and clouds seemed non-existent – have those beautiful eyes?

  “Yes, Mr. Leiden?” Nick stammered as he looked over to Carey, who rolled her eyes and manicured her fingernails.

  Carey wasn’t anything special either, but none of them were, save Katherine Stone. Carey was short, with cropped blonde hair and a big rack, and she was feisty. She and Nick had been dating for a few months now, but they had “liked” each other since middle school. Carey made all As every semester, but she wasn’t superbly intelligent. And now she was looking at Nick like he was an idiot.

  Mr. Leiden leaned against the chalkboard, his head tilted and his strong body taut. How did a man like him end up in Nowhereland, Maine? Rumor had it the man was the son of a Nazi killer who lived in Brazil.

  “Mr. Loring, it has come to my attention that you like to build things, correct?” Mr. Leiden grinned, but it wasn’t a normal kind of grin. It was sinister, his white teeth barely seen under his lips, and it showed of a past no one knew.

  “Y-yes.” The teenager looked around his fellow classmates. They were all equally pale from the lack of sunshine in this winter weather, and all seemed to have drawn faces and button noses. As he examined the sea of faces, Nick’s long legs awkwardly hit his desk, and he yelped in pain. He didn’t notice his throbbing knees because of the faces of those who surrounded him.

  They looked back at him with dark brown eyes. That was strange. He had never noticed it before. They had the same hallowed cheeks, possibly from lack of hunger? Yet, they were each from decent households where they could eat as much as they pleased. Every single one of them, minus Mr. Leiden, was skinny and gaunt, which Nick also had never noticed before. And no one blinked. Nick expected one of them to blink as they stared at him, but none did. For a glimmer of a second, Nick could see right through their skin.

  Like an x-ray, Nick was able to penetrate their dermis and see through to their creaky, small bones, bones which didn’t seem durable or strong. Nick’s mouth foamed as he saw Carey’s small frame as she protectively crossed her arms around her chest. Nick turned to see one of his old buddies from grade-school basketball. His friend’s strength had diminished, and like a dead flower, Nick watched as his body deteriorated.

  Nick fainted.

  “ARE YOU ALL right?” soothed a familiar, feminine voice.

  As Nick came back from the dead
, his eyes fluttered open and he saw the reassuring face of Kate Stone, a girl who hadn’t been in his English class when he had blacked out. She dabbed him with a wet rag as he sat up, his bones squeaking, reminding him of why he had fainted in the first place. He looked over at the sweet Kate, and muttered, “Why am I here?”

  Kate gulped as she reached out to blot a spot of blood that had appeared on his forehead. “You fainted in Mr. Leiden’s class.”

  “How long was I out?” Nick asked as he yawned and wiped his tired eyes. “Hey, do you have any contact solution? My eyes are kinda bothering me.”

  Kate handed him a bottle of solution and he reapplied his contacts. “You were out for three hours. Actually, it’s after school. That’s why I’m here. Nurse Hannigan had to leave right at four, so I told her I’d stay and watch you. Volunteer hours,” she added as she pushed a lock of blonde hair behind her ear.

  “What happened? I mean, why did I faint?”

  Katherine’s light blue eyes seemed to pop against her light flesh, and she shrugged quickly. “Mr. Leiden came by an hour ago. He said he thought you were dehydrated. He wanted to check up on you.”

  Nick sat up and anxiously stretched. “Thanks for watching me. Why’d you stay, anyhow?”

  Kate bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know. Because I thought someone needed to have your back, Nick. I mean, we’re not close or anything, but no one else came to check up on you. Isn’t that strange? Shouldn’t…”

  Nick stood up and his torso was unexpectedly sore. He lifted his shirt once, revealing his strong abdomen, and Kate gasped in shock. “What?”

  Kate reached for the wet cloth and patted his abdomen quickly, but he winced in pain. “You’ve got huge welts on you, Nick. What happened? What really happened, I mean?”

  Nick looked down into her eyes. He knew her question was interrogating, and she did care about his wellbeing. But he couldn’t trust her, not yet. He didn’t know if he was crazy or not, so he angrily yanked his shirt down and shook his head. “I appreciate you watching over me, Kate, but it’s dark outside, and we need to head home.”

  The girl nodded, twisting her skinny finger around her blonde hair. “Can you give me a ride? It is dark, and I don’t want to walk.”

  “Well, I didn’t bring my car, either.” Nick drummed his fingers against his long legs, and looked back at her. He didn’t mention the fact that he didn’t have a car, either. “I’ll walk you home, if you need me to, Katherine.”

  She gulped, pulling on her sweater. “I don’t think that’s necessary, Nick. I should probably walk you home.” She winked once at him as she pulled her hipster bag over her slim shoulders.

  Nick furrowed his eyebrows as he watched her. Something was up, he thought. Katherine was shy, but she was self-dependent. Why would she need someone to walk her home? Their small town in Maine wasn’t known for its friendliness, but it was small enough to trust that your kids wouldn’t get abducted by the Bogeyman.

  Nick found himself trailing a quiet Kate on the cobblestone sidewalk that connected their small school to the corner of Cherry Street, which would connect them with the small cottages where most of the residents called home. He knew Kate’s family was affluent and lived farther down the road, near the water, a good five miles or so away. The trek would be an awful long walk at this time of hour.

  “Kate?” Nick suddenly found himself asking to the girl, who seemed paler than usual in the darkness of the cloudy night. It was so dark that the lampposts seemed like the sun, and the moon didn’t cast its shadows at all.

  In fact, they were only a hundred feet away from their school, yet it seemed like they were in a foreign, dark abyss in a science fiction novel. It was strangely dark, and if he was honest with himself, Nick could feel the goosebumps on his skin.

  Kate seemed more composed, but she was just as frightened. She pulled her bag closer to her body, and though she didn’t realize it, she inched closer to Nick, feeling the warmth of his skin against her own. “Nick, don’t you think it’s darker than usual? I mean, does it usually get this dark this early?”

  “It is winter,” was his half-hearted response. He thought he saw a flash of a figure in an alleyway close by, but as he craned his neck to see who it was, it was gone.

  “What did you see?”

  He crept closer to his female companion. “I don’t know, Kate. I think this darkness is just fooling with our minds.”

  “It’s barely six o’clock,” she shot back, her voice hinting annoyance. “How can I possibly study for my AP Chemistry test tomorrow with this darkness?”

  “A candle?” Nick suggested, his own voice tinged with impatience now. “You know, Kate, if you hadn’t watched me like I was a child, you could’ve been back at your golden mansion with all your manservants tending to your every need.”

  “Excuse me?” Kate’s jaw dropped. “You think I’m some egotistical rich girl?”

  “Of course,” Nick huffed. “You live in the richest part of town, Katherine. The rest of us peasants live in zero-lot lines.”

  “And that’s my fault?”

  Realizing her mistake, Kate reached out to touch his arm as he grunted. “Nick, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m not like that way, I promise.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he angrily barked. He turned back to her, looking like a handsome young punk in the darkness. “You know, Kate, if you’re so concerned with your grades and everything else in your perfect life, why are you here? Why isn’t your family soaking up the sunshine in Napa Valley, or living…”

  “Nick,” Katherine hesitantly whispered.

  “And just because you’re such a perfect girl doesn’t mean that the rest of us don’t have qualities that make us kind of cool, too…”

  “Nick,” Katherine tapped her foot, drumming her fingers against her leg.

  “And I’m so sick of everyone! Carey, you, we’re all the same…”

  “Nick!”

  “What?”

  As soon as he asked that simple one-word question, he turned back to see a tall, dark figure in the shadows. He gulped quickly and stepped protectively in front of Kate. He looked back at her quickly as his mouth quivered, “I’m sorry for all that nonsense I said.”

  “Me too,” she breathed, her heart racing. “I have pepper spray in my purse. If you can distract him, I’ll just…”

  The pair was deathly quiet, minus Kate’s shivering hands as she dug through her purse, as the shadow glided forward, walking straight toward them. Nick had a rush of panic as he planned their escape route, but as he tensed his biceps, the face cleared in the haze of the lamppost.

  “Mr. Leiden?” Kate breathlessly asked, dropping her purse altogether. If there really had been a serial killer on the loose, her plan would have failed.

  Because of her fear, she raced straight towards The German, a handsome man with those piercing blue eyes and dark golden hair. He eagerly hugged her back, but not in a manner one would think. Mr. Leiden let go of her as he realized how awkward this must look for Nick, and asked, “Why are you kids out this late? I was coming back to the school to check up on you, Nick, but I didn’t think you’d still be out.”

  Nick crossed his arms as a gale of wind hit him. “I’m fine, thanks to Kate’s help.”

  Mr. Leiden smiled a smile he could only give, and he quipped, “Well, who did you think was going to eat you up for dinner? Kate, I see the look of fear in your eyes. What is wrong?”

  “We were afraid,” she explained. “It’s never dark this late, and…”

  “It’s just dark,” Nick finished, not willing to explain the flashes of flesh he had been seeing lately.

  Mr. Leiden seemed to understand, and didn’t ask any other questions about why they had been so frightened. “Well, can I at least walk you both home? It is early, but it seems late, and I’d feel better if you both would be home before dinnertime.”

  “Mr. Leiden, you sound more like a protective parent than a high school teacher,” Nick noted as they
passed a flickering light which shined directly on Nick’s dark hair. It really was a beautiful combination: Nick’s blue eyes and black hair. It would make any teenage girl swoon, but Katherine Stone was different.

  Kate giggled, forgetting all mentions of demons lurking in alleyways, though she stood between the both equally tall men. Well, Nick didn’t exactly classify as a man yet, but he looked like one. Kate appreciated Nick Loring, maybe for reasons she didn’t know, but she appreciated his honesty. There was something there – something on the surface of his skin, something she would find out. But right now she had an AP Chem test to study for.

  “Come on, ladies, I’ve got a test to cram for,” she laughed, grabbing both of their elbows and pulling them into the direction of the residential part of town.

  “‘Ladies?’ You do know I’m your teacher, Miss Stone,” teased Mr. Leiden, who grinned. In a chance second, Nick looked over at the wise teacher to see his chest lift in what was detected as heaviness. Nick turned to see what Mr. Leiden was looking at: the town library. What was all that about?

  “So, how do you feel, Nicholas? You seem to be of mirthful proportions now.”

  Nick’s eyes fluttered and he answered, “Better. I think I was just…dehydrated?”

  “You say that as a question.” Mr. Leiden was good at reading emotion and lies, and Nick almost fell over in shock. He wasn’t used to his parents catching him in lies. They weren’t the smartest pair, and Nick wasn’t a good liar, either. But something alerted Nick that Mr. Leiden was good at everything he did.

  “Oh my goodness!” Katherine squealed, breaking the ice-cold silence. She hadn’t been paying attention to the dank air between her English teacher and her peer, but now, as she looked back at them, she was puzzled.

  Her head tilted and her jaw dropped again, revealing perfect pearly whites. Her eyebrows furrowed and her blonde hair glowed in the pale light. However, she had a perfect vantage point of Mr. Leiden right next to Nick, and she gasped. “Wow.”