Lightpoints

By Peter Kassan

What if you suddenly discovered you had a sense—and powers—that almost no one else in the world did?

When Amanda Lindner Nichols, a 24-year-old graphic artist living with her husband in Queens, New York, is revived from a near-death experience, she discovers she perceives everyone around her as points of light—but not with her eyes. She soon learns she can not only perceive the life energy of others, but she can give and take it. With the help of others like her, she brings her husband Chris to the brink of death and back to bestow on him the same remarkable faculty, and they're the happiest they've been.

But not for long. All over the world, people who've been revived from their own near-death experience at just the right moment discover themselves with these same unusual powers. They find ways to use them—some for good and some for evil. When Amanda and Chris encounter a ruthless group of gangsters with the same faculty, tragedy follows—and Amanda faces the greatest challenge of her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melange Books, LLC
• Release date: Apr 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781612356099

Peter Kassan

Peter Kassan has been a writer for virtually his entire life, publishing poems in literary journals and national magazines while still a teenager. In his twenties, he was a staff writer at Children's Television Workshop, where he wrote, among other things, monologues for Bill Cosby. As a technical writer in the software products industry, his work included user's manuals, marketing materials, and business plans. He is also the author of a cover article about artificial intelligence in Skeptic Magazine. Mr. Kassan currently lives in Connecticut with his wife and their three cats. Lightpoints is his first published novel. Mr. Kassan has a B.A. in mathematics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author or co-author of several patents. He is the peer facilitator of a writers' group in Bloomfield, Connecticut. He plays diatonic and chromatic harmonica. He and his wife have two grown children, a son and a daughter.

Book preview

Lightpoints

Peter Kassan

What if you suddenly discovered you had a sense—and powers—that almost no one else in the world did?

When Amanda Lindner Nichols, a 24-year-old graphic artist living with her husband in Queens, New York, is revived from a near-death experience, she discovers she perceives everyone around her as points of light—but not with her eyes. She soon learns she can not only perceive the life energy of others, but she can give and take it. With the help of others like her, she brings her husband Chris to the brink of death and back to bestow on him the same remarkable faculty, and they're the happiest they've been.

But not for long. All over the world, people who've been revived from their own near-death experience at just the right moment discover Tracy Kimball is awakened one night by a voice emanating from the television static. She recognizes the voice--her fiancé, David, who was killed in car accident, an accident of which she survived.

Plagued by a series of paranormal occurrences, Tracy enlists the aid of a local paranormal investigative team, who discovers that Tracy is not being haunted, she's being warned. A race to save her ensues, leading to the final climactic ending.

encounter a ruthless group of gangsters with the same faculty, tragedy follows—and Amanda faces the greatest challenge of her life.

For Michelle.

Table of Contents

Lightpoints

Dedication

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

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Chapter Forty-Nine

Chapter Fifty

Chapter Fifty-One

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Chapter Fifty-Four

About the Author

Previews

Chapter One

Amanda got a kiss on the forehead from her dad and gave him a kiss on the cheek in return. She put in her earbuds, started iTunes on her iPhone, and hurried across Grand Central Terminal toward the subway station for the last leg of her commute.

One of her favorite songs, Brown-Eyed Girl by Van Morrison, was playing when a guy with wild hair and wilder eyes appeared in front her. She had nearly bumped into him. He took his hand from the folds of his filthy raincoat. He held a huge knife. Staring madly into her eyes, he stabbed her in the chest just below her collarbone. She screamed. He locked eyes with her for a moment and then pulled the knife out and rushed away.

Amanda put her hand where it hurt so much. She felt a hot, sticky wetness. The blood coursed through her fingers in spurts. The pain was greater than any she had ever felt. Her right arm was feeling oddly cold. She felt faint.

The next thing she knew, she was on Grand Central’s hard marble floor. A middle-aged man in a suit and tie was holding both hands on her wound. A circle of people surrounded them. She wondered whether they were encircling her to give her space or just because the spectacle fascinated them. Above her, she could see the magnificent mural of the night sky, the one they had painted backwards and then beautifully restored, still backwards, because it was impossible to fix, so they made up a ridiculous, unscientific excuse. She realized her mind was spinning, and then it seemed the mural was spinning, too.

The pain grew greater and greater. She thought she might be dying, and it terrified her. It didn’t seem fair she would die so young, so randomly. Then there were more people touching her, a couple of people in uniforms. She supposed they were paramedics.

I think we’ve lost her, one of them said. I can’t get any pulse.

She realized her awareness had left her body and she was floating toward the beautiful ceiling. Looking down, she saw her body lying there on the marble floor, saw the paramedics, and saw the people surrounding her. As she rose higher and higher, she saw more and more of the enormous main hall of Grand Central, the many people hurrying in all directions, all but a few oblivious to her. Although she knew what was happening was impossible, it was as real as anything she had ever experienced.

As she looked down, Amanda realized she was, impossibly, both disembodied and in another kind of body, floating above herself both in Grand Central and in another kind of space, another dimension.

Amanda heard a loud, harsh, horrible noise, like a police siren wailing into her ears. She could no longer see herself in Grand Central. Infinite blackness surrounded her. The terrible sound had stopped. The chatter in her mind had also stopped. She felt immensely peaceful.

People who were no longer alive appeared out of the blackness as if from far away. Her grandmother Ellie, who she’d been very close with as a child. Benny, a favorite uncle, who had died last year when he crashed his private plane. Aretha, a close friend from college who had taken her own life. Dylan and Brittany, two friends from high school, who had died in a car crash. Others she knew who had died, people she hadn’t known well, clustered behind them. They were all comforting and reassuring her. Everything was going to be all right.

Amanda sensed herself in a long black tunnel. Across an infinite distance, she saw a minuscule light, indescribably pure and ineffably attractive.

She felt herself moving effortlessly, floating or flying, toward the light. As she grew closer, the light became even more intense, more incomprehensibly beautiful and attractive. It radiated a loving warmth. Wordlessly, without judgment, it asked her to contemplate her time on Earth. She saw the entirety of her life in a panorama of moving images. Some moments were beautiful and happy, others were disappointing, ugly, hurtful, or sad. Although she realized her life was short, it now seemed complete. She had been terrified only moments before, and now she was no longer afraid of dying.

She could actually see the light and feel its loving, inviting warmth. She wanted it to envelope her. She felt a release, a tranquility, a peace. Nothing else was important. Nothing mattered except joining the light. She was ready to die. She was, she realized, all but already dead.

With one strange, fingerless hand of her uncanny, incorporeal body, she reached out to touch the light, just barely touching it. She knew she would merge with it and lose her individual identity. Her dying would be complete.

Then, just at the instant she touched the light, she felt an excruciating pain in her chest in her phantom body and in her physical body on the floor of Grand Central. It was real, visceral, physical. A moment later, she felt the same unendurable pain in her chest a second time, and the light wordlessly told her this was not her time. She felt a devastating sadness and disappointment. She was rushing back the way she had come, away from the light. The people who had already died sadly reaffirmed what the light had conveyed to her. It was not her time to join them.

She was floating high above Grand Central again. She saw herself lying on the floor, her handbag still at her side, the paramedics attending to her, and a gurney and other equipment next to them on the floor. A crowd of people surrounded them as the commuters rushed past. She felt herself rapidly slipping back into her real body. She experienced the pain and wetness where the wild-eyed man had stabbed her, but also felt some kind of compress against her wound, some new, strange sensations inside it. She felt another kind of awareness, a strange and novel one, of everyone around her. She sensed those around her in Grand Central and outside in the street like dazzling points of light, even though her eyes were closed.

It was like seeing the night sky from a mountaintop, or looking out from airplane at night to see all the lights from all the cities and towns, but unconfined by the small window of an airplane or by any horizon. The lights were everywhere around her, receding in all directions, as if she were in the center of a galaxy with eyes that could see in all directions. It was dazzling and beautiful, but it was also distracting, confusing, and disorienting.

What she perceived wasn’t at all the way she had heard auras described by those who claimed to see them. For one thing, she wasn’t actually seeing them at all. For another, the different energies had different qualities that reminded her of different colors while not actually having any color. They didn’t surround entire people or flare out from their bodies. The lights of the people she could actually see seemed to radiate from the midpoint of their foreheads, where she’d heard a person’s mystical supposed third eye was supposed to be.

She assumed or perhaps hoped these odd sensations were a kind of hallucination, undoubtedly induced by the shock of her experience and would go away soon.

She half-opened her eyes. Good, one of the paramedics said to her. Stay with us. Hold on. This is going to hurt.

They carefully lifted her and placed her on the gurney. She heard herself moan in pain and closed her eyes. She could feel them raising the gurney and heard it locking into position.

Stay with us, one of the workers said as she felt them wheeling her quickly along the hall and out into the street. Just hold on. They continued to speak to her, encouraging her to stay awake, as they raced along.

Amanda sensed they passed through the doors to Grand Central onto the sidewalk and then felt the bumps as they wheeled her off the curb and into the street. She felt another series of painful bumps as they transferred the gurney into the waiting ambulance, jumped in, and pulled its doors shut. A moment later, one of the paramedics covered her face with a mask as the other stuck a needle in her arm. She closed her eyes as she heard the ambulance siren and felt the ambulance pull into traffic.

She realized what had happened. She understood her heart had stopped beating and the paramedics had shocked her heart twice to bring it back into its normal rhythm. She knew if they had not shocked her when they did, she would have died.

She was aware of pain in her chest, in her arm, from the bumps of the ambulance as it sped along, and the pain of a needle in her wrist. The strange, new sense of everyone around her as sources of energy, as points of light she perceived without her eyes, was overwhelming and almost frightening, but she closed her eyes and drifted into an ordinary sort of unconsciousness.

Chapter Two

Almost two years before Amanda’s attack, Carlos Herrera was hit by a drive-by shooting as he came out of an Atlantic City strip joint in which he had a business interest.

Herrera, thirty-five years old, the son of poor Dominican farmers who had illegally immigrated to America, was the head of a New Jersey crime syndicate. The gang had originally specialized in drugs. Herrera prided himself on his willingness to innovate, to try new things, to experiment. He took his organization into virtually every area of high profitability he could think of, from illegal immigration, gun-running, and extortion to loan-sharking, prostitution, and sex trafficking, as well as a few legitimate businesses—a couple of restaurants, some pawn shops, an apartment building—useful to launder money and explain his wealth.

¡Mierda! he cried out, feeling the terrible pain as he fell to the sidewalk. Someone had hit him in the guts, and he was bleeding heavily. Javier, one of Herrera’s bodyguards, rushed him into his waiting limousine and slammed the door as Luis, the other bodyguard on duty, chased after the car with the gunman, shooting at him ineffectually.

¡El hospital! ¡Rápido! shouted Javier to Rodrigo, Herrera’s driver, as he pressed his hands on the entry and exit wounds, trying ineffectually to staunch the flow of blood. Despite the pressure of his hands, Javier could feel the blood flowing freely out of Herrera’s wounds. Herrera moaned and then stopped making any noise.

There was only one hospital on the island of Atlantic City itself, and, only a little more than a mile away. The traffic was so heavy it still took minutes for Rodrigo to get there. Rodrigo ignored the traffic signals, narrowly avoiding crashing, and kept his hand on the horn the entire way. He drove directly to the emergency entrance and helped Javier, his clothing sodden with blood, rush Herrera out of the car. There was so much blood on them all that it took the emergency room attendants a moment to understand that only Herrera was injured. They got Herrera onto a gurney and started working on him as they rushed him down the hall.

Herrera’s heart had not beat for almost five minutes when the doctor applied the defibrillator. The shock that started his heart again came just at the moment he touched the Light. He came back to life with the same sense Amanda was to acquire.

Chapter Three

For Amanda, the next few hours were a blur. She was somewhere between asleep and unconsciousness much of the time. When they had taken her into the ambulance, they must have taken her handbag with her and looked inside it to identify her because, as she drifted in and out, she saw first that her husband Chris and her dad were in the room and then later her mom was there, too. It was a great comfort.

She half-opened her eyes, vaguely aware of the many tubes and cords she was hooked up to, of the thick bandage on her chest, of the blankets over her, of the array of electronic instruments surrounding her.

She sensed the many people in the rooms and halls of the hospital. Each person seemed to be a source of energy, a point of light—not that she could see but that she could perceive in a way she didn’t understand. The lightpoints of those closest to her, such as her mom and dad, were the largest. She perceived someone on the other side of the wall behind her head, awake and in pain, the energy glaring and unpleasant.

A bit later, Amanda opened her eyes. The strange faculty was as vivid as before, but she felt less disoriented. Chris and her mom and dad were still there.

She sensed the strange tension between Chris and her dad in a new way. It was as if their energies somehow clashed. Her mom accepted Chris as her husband, but even after two years of their marriage her dad really didn’t like anything about him. Dad didn’t like the head shaved except for a long braid, the earring, the tattoo, and especially because Chris was her former teacher and eight years older. Chris was an increasingly successful and recognized artist, but that meant nothing to her dad.

Chris was sitting at her bedside, holding her hand. When he saw her eyes opening, Chris gave her hand a squeeze and smiled at her. She returned the smile and the squeeze.

His lightpoint was beautiful, radiant, a mixture of love and concern. She looked at his blue eyes and took hold of his hand, and he squeezed hers. Hey, babe, he said, smiling past his worry.

Hey, she replied.

You’re not getting enough attention? You needed to pull something like this?

Give me a kiss, she said, squeezing his hand.

Chris leaned over, his long braid brushing her arm, and gently kissed her on the lips. Her lips tingled in a way they had never done before.

Love you, babe, he said, too quietly for her mom and dad to hear.

I love you, too, she said, as softly, squeezing his hand.

Her mom and dad were sitting in chairs across the room.

What time is it? she asked.

Oh, Mandy, how’re you feeling? her mom asked, standing up and coming to her bed. She took hold of Amanda’s other hand and squeezed it.

I’m kind of woozy. What time is it?

It’s about three o’clock, honey, her dad said, approaching the other side of her bed. He touched her forehead with his hand and brushed a stray hair from her face. They had you in a room with four beds. We got you moved to a private room. I’m paying, he said, glancing at Chris.

Thanks, Dad. Where’s Will? Where’s Jan? Are they coming?

Will got on the first plane he could. He should be here soon. Jan’s driving down from school.

You almost died, they told us, her mom said tearfully.

You lost a lot of blood, honey, her father said. You went into cardiac arrest.

I kind of figured that out, she said.

It must have happened right after we said goodbye to each other. The doctors said the maniac hit an artery, almost completely severed it. They had to sew it back together.

Mandy doesn’t have to hear all the details right now, Hank, her mom said. How’re you feeling, honey? her mother asked her again.

Not too bad, I guess, she said. I’m alive. She supposed one of the tubes feeding fluids into her veins was supplying her with a painkiller, because there was a dullness to the pain in her chest.

The doctors say you’re going to be fine, her father said.

You were on the news, Chris said. I don’t know where they got it, but they showed your picture from your SVA graduation.

At least it was recent, her mom said, seizing on a meaningless detail. I hate when they show old pictures.

The guy who stabbed you had just been released from a mental hospital, her dad said. He’s in jail now.

Good, Amanda said. He won’t be able to hurt anyone else.

A nurse entered. Only two visitors in the room at a time. One of you has to go.

I’m her husband, Chris said.

Her dad gestured. And we’re her parents.

Only two visitors in the room at once, the nurse reiterated.

It’s a private room, her dad protested.

It doesn’t matter, the nurse said. Rules are rules.

I’ll go for a while, her dad said. Chris, you can have my chair. Amanda knew that it had taken a special effort for her dad to say that.

Amanda’s mom stood up. I’ll go with you, Hank. She looked at Amanda and Chris. We’ll let the two of you have some time alone.

Thank you, sir, Chris said, drawing the chair to her bedside. And thank you, Karen.

Thanks, mom, Amanda said.

You’re both welcome. Her mom followed her husband out of the room.

I wish you wouldn’t call him sir, Amanda said, as she had said many times before. I’m your wife. You’re their son-in-law. Call him by his name.

Chris sat down. Let’s not discuss that now. Chris took hold of her hand again. How are you feeling?

Well, it hurts, but they have me on painkillers.

I’d like to find the guy who did this to you. I’d really fuck him up.

Please don’t talk like that. He’s a mental patient. He’s crazy.

I wish I’d been there. He’d never have touched you.

Well, it happened and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. We just have to get past it.

I’ll try.

Good, she said, squeezing his hand. If I fall asleep again, don’t let go.

I can’t really stay. I have a job due Friday, so I have get as much work done on it as I can before I have to be at SVA again. But I’ll be back tonight, after teaching.

Well, then you might as well go now. I’m just going to try to go to sleep again.

I don’t want you to be all alone.

You can wait until my mom and dad come back, can’t you?

Sure, babe. Of course.

When her they returned, Chris leaned over to kiss Amanda goodbye. She felt the strange sensation in her lips again.

I’ll be back tonight, Chris repeated as he straightened up, squeezing her hand.

She smiled, squeezed his hand, and let it go. She watched him turn and walk toward the door.

He extended his hand to her dad. Thank you, sir.

Her father shook Chris’s hand. Sure thing, Chris.

Take good care of her, Karen, he said to her mom, who took his hand and squeezed.

We will, Chris.

He turned back to look at Amanda.

Love you, babe. Get better as fast as you can.

I will. I love you.

Chapter Four

Herrera spent two weeks in the hospital, shifts of bodyguards on either side of the door to his private room around the clock. He spent all the time he was awake exploring how his new sense worked and wondering how he could exploit it. He could see it helping him know where everyone was all the time, but beyond that, he had no idea.

Herrera ordered Eduardo Sanchez, his top lieutenant, to find out who had ordered the attempted assassination. Once Sanchez determined that it was Fidencio Ortego, the head of a rival gang, Herrera sent a squad of a dozen men with automatic rifles to kill him, his wife, and their four children in their luxurious home not too far from Herrera’s own inland estate. In the course of conducting the retaliation, they also killed

Reviews for Lightpoints

[wiccawitch4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Great Story! I really enjoyed the whole journey to the other side in this book and the ability that resulted. Lightpoints had great characters and great inner stories each with their own unique qualities but all with the same type of experiences.The main character Amanda is brutally attacked in a subway and has a NDE or near death experience and when she comes back everything isn't as it once was. Everyone she perceives as a point of light or energy and she can somehow manipulate that energy within herself and in others.Chris Amanda's husband knows something has changed with his wife since the accident. She will no longer kiss him and wont say why and even though they are the happiest they have been something is off. When Amanda reveals to him about what happened when she had her NDE Chris wants to try to have one too, but at what cost? and what if something goes wrong?with the help of some friends. others like Amanda, she is willing to try anything to save her marriage. Meanwhile all over the world there are others with the same faculty finding each other some good and some evil. They all share one thing in common though they all have the same power and they all had the same NDE. I enjoyed these little side stories and would have liked to know more about some of them.I thought this book was really unique and I enjoyed it a lot! Peter Kassan is a great storyteller and I hope to hear more of his lightpoint stories.