The Soulkeepers

Chapter 2: The Uncle Who Wasn't

Chapter 2
The Uncle Who Wasn’t

The sound of footsteps woke Jacob in his hospital bed. He was annoyed that the nurses kept waking him up. All he wanted to do was sleep, but as it turned out hospitals were not a good place to rest.

Without opening his eyes, he said, “I’m not hungry and I don’t need another pain pill.”

A gruff voice answered him from the side of the bed. “That’s good because I don’t have either of those things.”

Jacob’s lids flipped open. A stranger sat in the uncomfortable-looking chair next to his hospital bed, the pads of his fingers pressed together under his chin.

“Who are you?” Jacob asked.

“I’m your Uncle John. John Laudner,” the man said. He leaned forward and extended a calloused palm.

Jacob did not take the man’s hand. “You’ve made a mistake. I don’t have an uncle and my last name isn’t Laudner. It’s Lau.”

The man pursed his lips, his green eyes shifting to the hospital floor. He sat back in his chair, opening his mouth as if to say something and then closing it again. At last he lowered his hands, linking them at his waist. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, Jacob. I am your uncle. I am the brother of Charles Lau, formerly known as Charlie Laudner. Your father changed his name before you were born.”

Jacob licked his parched lips and reached for the cup of water the nurse had left him. He sucked greedily on the straw before speaking. “I’ve never even heard of you.”

“It’s a long story. You lived far away. After your father died, well, it never seemed like the right time to introduce myself.”

“So why are you here now?”

“Jacob, do you remember anything about the accident?”

Jacob closed his eyes. The truth was, his brain did have an explanation for what had happened, but it was ludicrous. The memory was so far-fetched he could only believe his imagination had stitched it together to fill in the gaps. “No. I told the doctors, the last thing I remember was fighting with my mom that morning in our apartment. I don’t even remember getting into the car with her.”

“She’s missing, Jacob.”

“Missing?” he said, sitting up in bed despite the pain. “But she must’ve been in the car with me. How could they have rescued me and not her?”

“You were inside the car when they found it. She wasn’t.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense.”

“Your blood was on the inside of the car, Jacob. Hers was on the outside.”

She’d had a gun. She’d been standing next to the door. He shook his head, ignoring the thought. It was a false memory, brought on by emotional and physical trauma. What had the doctor called it? Auditory and visual hallucinations: the brain’s way of making sense of the damage it incurred when his skull collided with the windshield.

“How is that possible?”

“They think, maybe, you were driving.”

“I don’t have a driver’s license.”

John stood up and approached the bed. He unsnapped the arm of the hospital gown Jacob was wearing, pulling it down slightly. Then he tipped up the hideaway mirror on the overbed table. The bruise that arced across Jacob’s chest looked like the top half of a large circle … or a steering wheel. He traced the edge with his finger, a rainbow of purple-hued skin. A chill ran up his spine.