A Christmas Miracle

A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE

DB86 Xmas special

Edited by Pat

A miracle changed their lives for the better.

***

CHAPTER 1

"It looks like the same vehicle that caused the accident on the Interstate." Bert advised me, while he called in the license plate number of the SUV to the dispatcher. "Could be a DUI, but they also could be running away from something else. Maybe we should wait for backup, kid."

"For the umpteenth time, I'm not a kid, Bert. I got this."

We had chased and stopped a SUV that was weaving back and forth over the center line. The driver had been supposedly involved in a three-car crash on northbound Interstate 5 in Portland, leaving one person dead.

I got out and approached the vehicle. I tapped a knuckle on the window of the van and begin to converse with the driver. I noted another passenger in front, a frightened woman. She was making strange movements with her eyes. Something was wrong.

I moved a few feet back and gestured for the driver to step out of the vehicle.

The guy reached to unfasten his seatbelt, but he got a gun instead and shot straight at me. I stumbled backwards onto the road.

Shit! The vest saved me from a serious injury, but even so it hurt like hell.

"Freeze! Drop your weapon!" I heard Bert shouting.

The passenger door opened and the woman fell onto the road, screaming hysterically. "Help me! He kidnapped me."

"Stay down, madam!" Bert shouted at her.

Just as I tried to stand, the tires skidded over the pavement, spitting up loose gravel, and the SUV fishtailed out of there.

I aimed my .38 and fired off a couple of rounds at the left rear tire. The car did a 180 on the pavement and skidded into the guard rail about a hundred yards away.

"You okay, kid?" Bert asked me, while I was rising unsteadily to my feet. He reached out to give me a hand.

"Yeah, the bastard got me in the vest."

"I'll get the woman," Bert said.

I heard the sound of the minivan engine sputter. The suspect was attempting to make another escape.

The front door of the van swung open. The suspect hopped out and sprinted down the road.

"Don't even think about it, kid. Don't try to be a hero. Backup is on the way."

Sirens wailed in the distance.

"I'm going after him," I said to Bert, and broke into a run.

I barely registered Bert's voice calling after me. I probably should have listened to him, but I couldn't let the suspect get away.

This was my first taste of real action in years. My veins were probably full of adrenaline at that moment. I radioed in my location and followed the kidnapper into a scrap yard.

The suspect disappeared around a stack of cars. I followed briskly, pausing at the corner to check my weapon and peer out to make sure he wasn't positioned there, waiting for me.

He had gained some distance and was scrambling up and over a chain-link fence. I immediately resumed my pursuit and climbed the fence to propel myself over. My chest hurt like hell.

I dropped to the ground on the other side of the fence.

"Stop! Police!" I shouted.

To my surprise, the suspect halted on the spot and whirled around.

I aimed my gun at him. "Drop your weapon!"

He fired at me three times. A searing pain shot through my stomach, just below the bottom of my vest. Another bullet hit me in the leg.

Somehow I managed to fire off a few rounds before sinking to the ground. The suspect fell.

In that instant, two squad cars came around the corner, sirens wailing and lights flashing.

Slowly, wearily, finding it difficult to breathe, I lay down on my back in the middle of the street. I began to shiver.

I turned my head to watch two officers approach the suspect, who was face down in the ditch in front of the hedge.

Then, I heard rapid footsteps, growing closer.

"Nick, are you okay?"

I looked up at Bert. "I think I'm hit."

"Yeah," he replied, glancing uneasily at my abdomen. "Help's on the way. Hang in there, Nick. You're going to be fine."

Feeling chilled to the bone, I shook my head. "I don't think so. You called me, Nick."

By now Bert was applying pressure to my stomach, which hurt like hell. He shouted over his shoulder, "Officer down! Need some help over here!"

I clenched my jaw against the burning agony in my guts, and heard more sirens.

"Will they be here soon?" I asked with a sickening mixture of panic and dread.

"Yeah," Bert replied. "Any second now. Just hang on."

"It's cold," I whispered.

More footsteps. I felt no pain, only relief but was drifting off. It was hard to focus.

"Don't die on me, Nick," I heard Bert plead.

That was the last thing I remembered from that day.

CHAPTER 2

When I woke up, I could see a team of doctors and nurses crowded around a body in an operating room and his stomach was sliced open. I'd never seen so much blood in my life. They were suctioning it into a tube.

I felt sorry for the unfortunate guy on the table. He looked like he was in pretty rough shape.

Then I realized it was actually me on the table.

I was out of my body, right above them, looking down.

Strangely, this didn't trouble me. I was glad not to be in that ravaged body. The whole situation looked rather gruesome.

"Spleen is shattered," one of the surgeons said. "Grab the artery here, put pressure on it until I can clamp it... Another one, Susan. Keep them coming. We've got lots more bleeders."

Some kind of alarm went off on one of the beeping monitors, and the anesthetist said, "We're losing him, we're losing him."

I continued to watch the scene with an unemotional curiosity. I felt nothing. I was surrounded by a warm peacefulness.

"I know, I know," the surgeon replied, digging deeper into my guts.

He reached in and clamped down on the artery to my spleen.

He took the scissors and made a few snips, then pulled out my spleen and dropped it into a steel bin. "This should do it, release the clamp... slowly..."

They all watched in anticipation.

The blood started to stream again. "Shit."

Another alarm sounded. I hoped, for their sake, they could work out the problem. As for my own, I didn't really care.

"Get me another six units."

A nurse ran out of the room. The heart monitor began to hum in a high-pitched, unbroken tone, and everyone moved about in a panic.

"We need chest compressions now. Clamp what you can to stop the bleeding."

A nurse dropped the chart to the floor, pulled on a pair of gloves and rushed to help. She began pushing on my chest under the sterile drapes.

The surgeon yelled, "More clamps... now!" as the suction machine rose to a crescendo.

I understood that I was dying. Oddly, I was indifferent to that. Then I felt a loving presence behind me. Slowly, I turned.

There was a bright light in the back corner of the operation room. I felt the physical sensation of being drawn toward it. None of this seemed out of the ordinary, not even to me, the most spiritually skeptical person in the universe.

The next thing I remember, after moving through some sort of dark, wide tunnel, was being met by a number of people. Well, 'people' wasn't exactly the right word because they weren't really human. They seemed to be made of light, so it was impossible to recognize them in a physical sense. However, they felt familiar. Somehow I knew one of them was my grandma.

Then the vast, open space all around me began to spin like a tornado. I found myself standing in the center of it, reliving every moment of my life from the time I was born, through childhood, adolescence and young adult. I felt everything as if it were happening in real time, except that I could reflect upon it and comprehend every ripple effect of every choice and action, with the wisdom and hindsight of a man who has lived his life a thousand times over.

One particular moment of my life, got stuck in my mind.

CHAPTER 3

I was a very active kid, always getting in trouble. My parents' divorce did not help matters. Dad went to live to Portland, while Mom stayed in Middletown and I split time with each of them.

When I was in Middletown I used to spend a lot of time outdoors, riding my bike with my friends there. However, my best childhood friend lived in Portland. A boy named Jonathan James Reynolds or J.J. for short. He had two sisters. Wendy, who was two years older than we were, and Lizzie, who was three years younger.

Wendy was really cool, and she used to hang with us too. Lizizie, on the other hand, was a very shy girl, and preferred to stay indoors reading books.

Mr. Reynolds was a surgeon, so he was hardly ever home. Mrs. Reynolds was really nice. She always invited us in to swim in the pool they had in the back yard. I always thought they were insanely rich because of that.

J.J. and I were very active kids and we got into our share of trouble. Nothing serious, of course, we used to ride our bikes, explore abandoned houses, and throw rocks at the windows.

One day, one of the neighbors called the police, we were around ten years old. Both our parents were called. Dr. Reynolds accused me of being 'a bad influence' and forbid his son to hang out with me.

That was the beginning of the end of our friendship.

"It's not fair," I said to Dad. "J.J. is my best friend. We didn't do anything really serious."

Dad tried calling Dr. Reynolds, but he hung up the phone. We tried to talk with Mrs. Reynolds but she refused to hear us. Even a kid like me could see that the poor woman lived in terror of contradicting her husband's orders.

Dr. Reynolds was a very strict person who ruled his family like an old Roman Caesar. His way or not way at all. His word was law. He had an obsessive need to control not only his family, but everyone around him.

Every morning before his kids left for school, their beds had to be made with hospital corners and without creases.

If they were ever caught leaving a dirty dish anywhere in the house, or not hanging up their jackets when they came in the door, they had to do extra chores for a week. There were more rules about grades and J.J. had a hard time with that because he wasn't as book smart as Wendy or Lizzie.

Of course, J.J. defied his father orders every time he could, which not only got him into trouble, but me too. Every time he could, he escaped from his house to hang with me.

One day, Dr. Reynolds had enough, and sent J.J. to a military school while the rest of the Reynolds family moved away to Arizona.

"Was it because of me?" I asked my father. "Is this my fault? Am I the reason they moved?"

"Of course not, Nicky," Dad replied ruffling my hair. "Dr. Reynolds was wrong to say that to you. He's just upset and wants someone to blame."

Mom made an effort to keep in touch with Mrs. Reynolds, and she knew that the girls had been enrolled in an expensive private school which required them to wear uniforms and play instruments in the school band. However, after a while, we lost touch with the Reynolds' family completely.

Suddenly, I felt my grandma's presence at my side and her voice sounded clearly in my mind. "It's not your time yet. You still have things to do, Nicky."

CHAPTER 4

Pain exploded through my central core and shot down the length of my left thigh. Hot, searing and torturous. This was followed by a searing burst of panic that radiated outward from my heart.

"Open your eyes, Nick. You can do it," whispered a voice.

My mind screamed the command, but my lids merely fluttered in response. My frustration mounted.

A flash of light swept through the darkness.

Fear and confusion gripped me.

"Nick, can you hear me? I know you can do it. Wake up. Wake up."

I fought with all my might against the stubborn weight of my eyelids. Then, at last, they lifted, and I saw a hand in front of my face. It held a penlight. The light was sweeping back and forth. Everything was blurry.

"That's it," the voice approved with encouragement. "You can do it."

It was a woman's voice.

Wendy...?

No. That wasn't possible.

The penlight clicked off and the room became bathed in semi-darkness again as I watched that mysterious hand slip the little black device into the breast pocket of a white lab coat.

"I'm right here, Nick," Wendy Reynolds said. "Welcome back."

I struggled to focus on a pair of achingly familiar green eyes blinking down at me. Was I still dreaming? Or was this death?

Every instinct in my body told me it was Wendy Reynolds, J.J.'s big sister. However, the world was still a blur and I couldn't let myself believe it. This had to be a lingering imprint from all those memories that had flashed through my mind.

"Wendy?" I whispered, still unable to believe she was truly standing over me.

"Can you see me?" she asked as if she couldn't believe it either. "Can you hear me?"

I managed a nod.

"This has to be some kind of miracle," she said with surprise.

"Am I dead?" I asked.

She gave a short laugh. "No, but you came pretty close. Welcome back to the world of the living. Good decision, by the way."

I blinked a few times, and glanced at the name tag on her lab coat. It read Dr. Wendy Reynolds.

"You work here?" I asked in a raspy voice.

"Kind of. I'm a third year psychiatry resident. I shouldn't really be in here with you. I'm supposed to be somewhere else right now, but when I saw them take you out of the ambulance..." Her voice quavered. "I couldn't believe it was you and I had to stay with you. It's been such a long time, Nick."

She glanced over her shoulder at the door. "There's a nurse coming in now and the ICU doc should be right behind her. I must go."

I couldn't think straight. I felt frazzled and displaced. Then, I remembered watching the details of my operation. My stomach was open... There was blood everywhere... a warm light and a tunnel that pulled me in...

"Will you come back?" I asked.

I wanted to tell her what had happened to me. Would she believe it? Would anyone believe it?

Wendy nodded. "I will, but right now they need to check you over. You did really well, Nick. You're a survivor. I'm so glad you made it."

Just then, a nurse ran into the room and I lost sight of Wendy. I looked around for her, but she was gone.

CHAPTER 5

"How long was I out?" I asked Dr. Russell, who leaned over me to listen to my chest with a stethoscope. He ignored my question.

After a moment, he tugged the ear buds out and looped the instrument around his neck.

"You've been in a coma for five days," he replied as he checked both my incisions, "so let me be the first to congratulate you on what has been an amazing recovery. You're a real fighter, Nick. There's no doubt about that."

I grimaced slightly and spoke in a hoarse whisper. "Thank you."

"Any trouble catching your breath?" he asked.

"No."

"Chest pain? Pain in your calves?"

"My thigh's pretty sore."

He turned to the nurse. "Get him some Hydromorphone. Two milligrams. Slow IV push." He held a finger up in front of my face. "Now I want you to follow my finger with your eyes. Any double vision?"

"No."

"Good. Now look at my nose." He shone a penlight in both my eyes. "Very good."

He kept performing different test on me. While he checked my reflexes, I asked, "What happened to me... exactly?"

It was a pretty broad enquiry, considering all the questions I had about the past five days. He peered at me curiously over the rims of his spectacles.

"Nick, do you remember anything about what happened?"

Feeling tired all of a sudden, I closed my eyes. "I know I was wounded while pursuing a suspect. I got two shots, in the stomach and the leg."

"That's correct," the doctor said. "Do you know where you are? What city?"

"I passed away before they brought me here. I'm not in Middletown, that's for sure. This looks like a very big hospital, so I'd say Portland," I took a few seconds to draw in a breath. "Is my partner okay? What about the woman in the van? Do you know anything about that?"

"I'm afraid not," Dr. Russell said. "Your mother and father had been here constantly. Tonight was the first night none of them stayed, only because the nurses badgered them to go home and get some rest."

Dr. Russell circled around the bed and checked something on one of the monitors. While he was doing that, the nurse returned and administered what I assumed to be pain medication. I immediately relaxed as it flowed through my system.

"Can I ask you something?" I said to the doctor, turning my head on the pillow.

"Sure." He seemed distracted by what he was writing in my chart.

"Did my heart stop while I was in the operating room?"

That caused him to look up. He inclined his head slightly.

"Why would you ask that?"

I wasn't sure how to explain because I didn't want to come off as a nutcase, but I needed to know what happened.

"I think I had a..." I paused and spoke in a whisper. "I'm not sure what to call it. It was some kind of experience, I guess."

"What kind of experience?"

My mouth went dry. "This is going to sound crazy. I don't even know if it was real. Maybe it was just a dream. Or maybe it was one of those... You know..."

He shook his head and leaned a little closer.

I glanced over at the nurse, who appeared busy with something. "It might have been one of those out-of-body experiences." I whispered, "I saw a light."

For a moment the doctor studied my pupils. "What kind of light?"

"I'm not sure how to describe it. It was... peaceful. It drew me in."

"What else did you see, Nick?" he asked frowning his brow.

Terrific! Now the doctor was thinking I was a nutcase. I could hear it in his voice.

I probably should have shrugged it all off right there and said it was just a dream. It must have been the drugs that made me continue to blabber on.

"I saw the operation," I told him, "but it was like I was watching it from the ceiling. One of the surgeons said they were losing me, and everyone panicked. Is that what happened? Did I flatline?"

"I wasn't there," Dr. Russell replied, "so I'm not sure about the details."

He patted me on the shoulder. "Rest assured, you're fine now. The surgery went well and they were able to remove both bullets."

"What about my spleen?" I asked. "They removed that too, didn't they?"

There was no way I could miss how the nurse stopped what she was doing and looked up to meet Dr. Russell's eyes.

"They did." He moved around the bed and spoke quietly to the nurse. "Let's order a psych consult for tomorrow."

"Wendy Reynolds... Send the third year resident with the long brown hair." I wished in my head.

The drugs started making me sleepy.

"Everything else looks good," Dr. Russell cheerfully said. "Now you just need to focus on healing. First thing tomorrow, we'll set you up in a physio program."

"Physio?" I drowsily asked.

"For your leg," he explained. "The bullet went straight into a major muscle. Tore it up pretty bad. I'm afraid you'll be off work for a while."

"How long?"

"At least six weeks, I'd say."

"Will I make a full recovery?" I groggily asked. I certainly didn't want to end up behind a desk doing paperwork before I could really prove myself in the field.

"That's entirely up to you," the doctor replied as he lowered the clipboard to his side, "and how hard you're willing to work at this. I'll warn you now, though... it's not going to be easy. There will be pain, but you seem to be made of pretty stern stuff."