The Speed of Souls Read online

  “This!” I say.

  Megan peers at the various items I last saw twenty-five years earlier and shakes her head.

  “What about it?” she says.

  “Where,” I stammer, “did you get this stuff?”

  “I found it,” she says. “A long time ago. When I was a kid.”

  “When you say you found it, do you mean you dug it up?”

  She takes a step back. “How did you know that?”

  I shake my head at her, “Don’t worry about that. Just tell me how you got it.”

  She lets out a long breath, then says, “My parents used to fight all the time when I was in middle school. There was a wooded area not far from our house and I would go there whenever they started fighting. I was there one day, just walking around and I tripped on something. It was the handle of an old shovel. I dug it out of the ground and I carried it around for a little while. All of the sudden, I stopped and I dug the shovel into the dirt. I dug a hole and that’s when I found this old box covered in duct tape.”

  “Wait,” I say holding up my hand. “What made you dig in that exact spot?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “I just stopped and started digging.”

  “Okay,” I say, not convinced. “Then what?”

  “Wait, why do you care so much?”

  “Please, just finish. Then what?”

  She nods lightly, then says, “I pulled the box out and wiped off the top. Written in black marker on the duct tape, it said, ‘To be opened in 2001’ or something like that.”

  “And what year was this?”

  “I was fourteen, so it would have been 2006. I figured whoever buried it must have forgotten about it.”

  They did forget about it, I almost say. At least one of them did. The other one was dead.

  “I took the box home,” Megan says. “I knew the stuff in there was special and so I kept it.”

  She reaches out her arm and grabs my elbow. “Now tell me why you care so much?”

  “Because that’s my stuff.”

  “What?” she says, with a laugh. “That can’t be.”

  I pick up the copy of Where the Red Fern Grows and wave it at her. “This, mine.” I pick up the stack of Garbage Pail Kids. “This, mine.” I pick up the crumpled $2 bill. “Mine.” The viewfinder. “Mine.”

  “Holy shit!” Megan cries. “Wait, what about the other stuff?” She picks up the Gremlin stuffed animal and shakes it. “Whose is this?”

  I stare at her. I soak up every inch of her holding the stuffed animal.

  That’s when it hits me: if it was possible for Hugo, then maybe…

  Everything comes rushing in at once.

  The first time we met, Megan asked, “You sure we didn’t go to school together when we were kids?”

  Megan’s nightmare about drowning in the lake.

  Sequoia telling Megan, “You have an old soul.”

  How much they both loved to bake.

  How they both loved duct tape.

  How they both clapped their hands together when they were really happy.

  Then the timeline floods in: Morgan died on July, 28th, 1991. Megan was born March 17th, 1992. Megan was born almost exactly nine months after Morgan died.

  I think back to Megan’s question about the stuffed animal. “Whose is this?”

  “I think,” I say, my eyes beginning to water. “That…it was yours.”

  Megan’s face falls.

  She blinks her soft brown eyes twice.

  “Morgan?” I say softly.

  Her bottom lip begins to tremble and then she says it. “Bear?”

  ~

  The time capsule opened up a floodgate and over the course of the next several months, little snippets continue to come back to Megan. Montages of her old life. She called them, “Shadows.”

  “I had another shadow yesterday,” she would say. Then she would describe some event from her childhood, from her eleven years on this earth as Morgan. Sometimes I would be in her shadow, like when Megan described in perfect detail camping in her backyard, toasting S’mores, and burnt marshmallow dripping onto her leg. Or when she finally beat my record on Tetris. She even remembered her exact score.

  The five of us are in the backyard. Hugo is sitting in one of the trees, little budding leaves just beginning to grow. Wally is sniffing at the trunk of the tree, pawing at the bark, wondering how to get up there.

  Cassie is sitting at Megan’s and my feet, her head lifting every so often to survey what’s going on. It’s a rare day off for Megan, which means both she and Cassie are off work. Megan started bringing Cassie to the store when it first opened and she’d become the resident shop dog. It was amazing to see her greet the dogs and humans who came into the store. As for the store, so far it’d been a rousing success. Sales were higher than projected and she was making a killing off dog birthday cakes.

  I reach down and rub my hands through the fur above Cassie’s nose.

  She sighs with pleasure, then lays her head back down. A few moments later, my cell phone rings.

  I check the caller ID.

  It’s Chuck.

  I’ve been anticipating this call and my skin begins to warm.

  “Hey, Chuck,” I say, answering.

  I push myself up and Megan gives me a soft smile.

  “Jerry!” Chuck screams.

  I take a few steps into the grass, let out a long nervous breath, then ask, “So?”

  I sent him my book on May 6th, three days earlier.

  “It’s amazing!” he screams.

  “Seriously?”

  “Dude, we’re talking bestseller here. Like number one bestseller. I already sent it to Alison and she’s flipping out. I think she just got to the part where Cassie destroys the wedding.”

  I laugh, recalling the memory.

  I scratched the 9/11 book when another idea struck me.

  A magical idea.

  “Do you have a title for it yet?” Chuck asks.

  As usual, I still didn’t have a title when I sent it to him.

  I glance over my shoulder at Hugo, lying in the crook of two branches. Then to Megan, sitting on a chair on the back porch.

  “I was thinking,” I say, grinning. “The Speed of Souls.”

  Author’s Note

  First off, thank you for reading. I know there are millions of books out there vying for your time and money and I appreciate you picking this one. I hope you enjoyed Hugo, Cassie, and Jerry half as much as I enjoyed writing them.

  A lot of things in this book stem from my real life. I do live in South Lake Tahoe. There is a baby pool in my backyard that fills up with tadpoles each year. There is an old husky named Storm who lives next door. The Farmer’s Market is real. Live@Lakeview is real. The 4th of July celebration is pretty accurate. But most importantly, I have two dogs and they are my world!

  Here are some pictures of my kiddos! (The first three are Penny and the second three are Potter. Penny is a Shih Tzu-poodle and Potter is a Cavalier-poodle.)

  ~

  As for how this story came to be. Well, there’s a doozy of a story behind this story. (One I have been dying to tell for almost three years.)

  So here it is:

  Halloween 2015.

  I’d been living in South Lake Tahoe for six months. I had a Buddy the Elf costume and I planned to go to the casinos for the big Halloween bash, but as I was getting ready to go out, I lost all motivation. Instead, I logged onto a dating site called OkCupid.

  Within a few minutes, I’d set up my profile and within the hour, I’d matched with a beautiful young lady (who from this point on I will refer to as Susan).

  Susan and I spent the next three hours messaging back and forth. She was a huge dork, loved Harry Potter, had two dogs, and suffice it to say, we hit it off.

  The next day, I was at the lake with my two dogs and my phone rang. It was Susan. (We’d traded phone numbers the night
before, but I was still surprised by her call. Who called anyone anymore?) We ended up talking for a good hour. For the next week, every day we texted, talked, and traded pictures.

  I was smitten. A smitten kitten.

  I wanted to meet up with her. The problem was: Susan lived on the California coast, seven hours away (near San Luis Obispo).

  Before moving to South Lake Tahoe, I lived in San Diego for four years and I desperately missed surfing. So I hatched a plan to drive out to see Susan and to do some surfing.

  Susan was all for it.

  So the next week, I packed up my two dogs and I drove the seven hours to the coast. Susan and I had been texting throughout my drive and we had plans to meet up that night. I arrived at my hotel around four, went surfing for a couple hours, then puttered around waiting for Susan to text me. (It turns out Susan had to go to some family function, but she only had to pop in, then we would meet up.)

  I patiently waited at the hotel for her text.

  It never came

  She’d totally blown me off.

  The next day, I got a text from Susan that she’d gotten food poisoning and ended up having to go to the emergency room. She was still at the hospital. She sent me a picture in her hospital bed with an IV in her arm.

  I was bummed, but I understood.

  I’d prepared a gift bag for her with a few of my books and some other stupid little things (I think a few of her favorite snacks that she’d told me about) and I asked her if I could drop it off at her house.

  She sent me her address and on my way out of town, I swung by and dropped the gift bag on her front steps. As I did this, I could see through her front window and I saw her two dogs. She’d sent several pictures of the two dogs and I already felt like I knew them.

  Then I drove back to South Lake Tahoe.

  Susan and my relationship continued for the next month. We talked on the phone every day—for hours. But each time I brought up her coming to visit me or my going to visit her again, something always came up. It seemed a little bit fishy (all her excuses), but Susan was very adamant that we were going to get together “soon.” She’d bought me a Christmas present and she said would only give it to me in person.

  Finally, we made concrete plans. I was going to drive back to Colorado for Christmas, then on my way back from Colorado, I would drive to see her and we’d hang out for a few days. So after spending a week in Colorado for Christmas, I headed out on December 28th.

  The drive from Denver to San Luis Obispo is eighteen hours. My plan was to split the drive into two days and I’d booked a hotel in Primm, Nevada, thirty miles outside of Las Vegas.

  Eight hours into my trip, headed south through Utah, I got a text from Susan.

  Her dog had died.

  He was hit by a car.

  His name was Hugo.

  ~

  I was in the middle of Utah and I’d just started to head south toward Vegas. I easily could have turned around and started back north, toward Salt Lake City, and then driven to South Lake Tahoe. But I’d already paid for my hotel room in Primm and if I’m being honest and I’m trying to be here: I still wanted to go visit Susan. I mean, we’d been talking and texting for two months. I even had a big stocking full of Christmas presents for her.

  So selfishly, I texted her: Do you still want me to come?

  She never responded.

  But of course, she was mourning her dog’s death, so I totally understood.

  A few hours later, I reached Primm and I pulled into the Golden Nugget Casino where I was staying. We (I had my two dogs with me) headed up to our hotel room. The room wreaked of smoke and it was dingy and dark. And the bathroom was grimy. No wonder it only cost me $49.

  As my dogs and I curled up on the cheap, smelly mattress, I decided that I wouldn’t drive to see Susan the next day. I would let her grieve. (If one of my dog’s died I wouldn’t want to see anyone! I would be an absolute mess!) Instead, I would just drive back to Lake Tahoe.

  Everything changed two hours later.

  My stomach started to gurgle.

  The please, I beg you, please don’t be what I think this is going to be gurgle.

  I ran to the bathroom and I threw up. And I threw up. And I threw up some more.

  I’d had the distinct pleasure of having food poisoning on four occasions prior to this, so I knew I would just have to gut out (pun intended) the next six to twelve hours and then I would be fine.

  I can’t tell you how many times I was sick that night.

  Plenty.

  But at some point I did fall asleep. On the disgusting bathroom floor, next to the disgusting toilet.

  The next day, I called for a late check out.

  If it were possible, my stomach hurt worse than it did the previous night. And the pukes had turned into the shits. I couldn’t go ten minutes without having to go to the bathroom.

  It was obvious there was no way I could drive back to Tahoe. But I couldn’t handle staying another night in the same disgusting hotel room. I needed somewhere clean. With a nice bed. And a bathtub.

  Between cramping (the worst stomach cramps I’ve ever had in my life) and running to the bathroom, I logged onto Hotels.com and I found a room at a three-star hotel in Las Vegas for a hundred and fifty bucks.

  But the question was: could I make the thirty minute drive without crapping my pants?

  And so began the riskiest drive of my life.

  Somehow, I made it. I just remember running into the hotel and tying my dogs’ leashes to a random potted plant and then running around frantically (my hands holding my bottom) looking for a bathroom.

  Soon the dogs and I were in our room. And it was amazing. It was big and clean and there was this white fluffy bed and this huge bathtub.

  I could be sick in luxury.

  And sick I was.

  All day and all night.

  (That’s when I realized that I wasn’t dealing with food poisoning and it was probably the stomach flu.)

  The next day I was still in no shape to drive and I booked the same room. This was December 30th in Las Vegas. The price stayed the same ($150/night), but they warned me the next night, New Year’s Eve, it jumped to $350/night.

  There’s no way I would need to stay another night, so I wasn’t worried.

  How wrong I would be.

  I continued to be sick as a dog. And on that note, I had two dogs with me. Two dogs who needed to go outside five or six times a day. So there I would be, wracked by stomach pains, doubled over, yelling at my dogs in the small grass courtyard to “Please poop! Please, I’m begging you! Pooooop!”

  The next day, I was still sick.

  It was New Year’s Eve and the only hotel room I could find under $200 was thirty minutes away, near Lake Las Vegas. Luckily it was another three-star hotel. That’s where I rang in the New Year.

  On the 1st, day four of being sick, I was lying in bed. (I still had terrible cramps, but I could finally eat a little bit. A banana and some crackers a few times a day.) I’d lost eight pounds and you could see all my ribs.

  Throughout the past four days, I’d traded text messages with Susan. I couldn’t stop thinking about her dog, Hugo. How he got hit by that car. And in my state of delirium, the sickest I’ve ever been in my life, this crazy thought popped into my head: What if Hugo came back as a cat?

  Then I started thinking about how Hugo’s soul was on its way up to heaven when it zoomed into this little kitten.

  And boom. It just hit me.

  The Speed of Souls.

  I spent the next hour making a rough outline of the story on my computer.

  ~

  I spent two more nights in Vegas. I finally drove home on January 4th. I was sick for seven days. I spent over a thousand dollars on hotel bills.

  It would take me a few more months to realize that if Susan wasn’t cat-fishing me entirely, that she had no desire to ever meet.

  There’s no doubt
in my mind that if Susan doesn’t catfish me, if Hugo isn’t hit by a car, and if I don’t get the mother of all stomach viruses, than The Speed of Souls never gets written.

  So yeah, thanks Susan.

  ~

  I want to thank a few people for beta reading and editing the manuscript: my mom, Janell Parque, Kari Biermann, Nadine Villalobos, and Nelda Hirsh.

  And lastly, but really, firstly, I want to thank God for giving me this incredible gift. I feel so blessed and thankful each day. I am humbled by His greatness.

  If you enjoyed the book, I will ask one thing of you. Please either 1) write a review wherever you bought the book or 2) tell three people about the book. (You don’t have to do both, but I implore you to do one.)

  You can read more about me at www.nickthriller.com.

  God is love.

  Nick

  June 18, 2018

  South Lake Tahoe

  1:52 a.m.