Unmade

By Carol Oates

Lincoln Dowling wouldn’t hurt a fly. That character trait proved deadly when a stray dog stepped into the path of his car on prom night. With all efforts to save Lincoln failing, his mother turns to the one person who might be able to save him.

A year later, Lincoln remains under the care of innovative scientist, Matthew Baker. To the outside world, his recovery is astounding. However, for Lincoln, learning to act normal has become a matter of survival.

Plagued by nightmares of grisly murders and convinced something has gone wrong, he struggles to convince his girlfriend that these nightmares are bleeding into reality.

As Lincoln is forced to the brink of insanity, he will have to face his worst fears to keep the monster from destroying the one he loves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carol Oates
• Release date: Aug 13, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301530359

Carol Oates

Carol Oates has never been one to remain still for long. After her parents’ mad dash to the hospital through the empty city streets of Dublin, Ireland, Carol made her debut into the world in the early hours of Christmas morning. Since then her pace has not slowed down in the least.Carol was introduced to the world of supernatural books when, as a child, her family moved to a coastal suburb of Dublin known as Clontarf, famous as the birthplace of Bram Stoker, the prolific author responsible for breathing life into the legendary story Dracula. This stirred in Carol an early passion for reading about all things supernatural. Combine that passion with a deep interest in the history and folklore of Ireland, as well as an active and vivid imagination, and Carol Oates the author was born. Carol’s love of writing about anything not entirely “human” emerged, and the premise for her debut novel, Shades of Atlantis, was born.

Book preview

Unmade

Carol Oates

Published by Carol Oates

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2013 by Carol Oates

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form, or stored in a database or retrieval system without prior permission of the copyright owner, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

All events and character in this publication are fictitious. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

The smell of disinfectant, blood, and other less savory bodily fluids permeated the air. A voice grated through the intercom alerting someone to an incoming call. Dr. Matthew Baker took no notice of the name as he walked the length of the sterile corridor. The workings of this hospital meant nothing to him. His mind focused on a more pressing engagement.

He paused when his damp palm touched the cool paintwork of the door. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the neatly folded handkerchief, squeezing it in his palm to gather the moisture that had gathered in his clenched fist during the short walk from his patient’s room. Sometimes family members reached out to shake his hand as an automatic response to meeting him. He couldn’t refuse, as much as he would’ve preferred to, and damp palms didn’t exactly exude confidence.

He inhaled a lingering, deep breath to ready himself, then entered the relatives’ room of Dresden Hospital.

They didn’t see him at first. Both women huddled together on one of the cheap faux leather couches. Caramel and chocolate hair fell in a messy torrent, covering their faces from view. Their bodies leaned toward each other, knees touching, arms locked in a desperate embrace. Each woman appeared as if the comfort of the other was the only thing holding her in this world.

Matthew intentionally scuffed the sole of his expensive leather shoe on the faded linoleum floor, but neither woman shifted from her silent vigil.

He cleared his throat as he placed the folded handkerchief back in his pocket.

Both Kathleen Dowling and Nancy Crispin looked up suddenly. Kathleen stood first, her face pallid, smoothing down her crumpled skirt. For a moment he saw the girl she had been when he knew her years before: beautiful, with wide, serious eyes and a steel resolve, a way of moving fluidly, as though she were a water nymph sent to torture him with her loveliness.

Kathleen’s pale gray eyes were dry but horribly bloodshot. Her lack of recent tears was a tribute to her confidence in him, he thought somewhat smugly to himself. Begrudgingly, Matthew admitted it wasn’t the only reason. Kathleen was strong. She had never been one to let anyone see her cry, even on the day he’d left her all those years ago. And they both had known a single tear would have kept him with her. If Kathleen had cried recently, it was in short, brutal moments alone when no one could bear witness to it. She’d called him to ask for help after the boy’s doctors had tried everything they knew. Matthew was her last hope.

Nancy followed her lead and immediately slipped her hand into Kathleen’s, appearing unwilling to break their physical contact.

When he’d first met Nancy, he’d learned she was the girlfriend of Kathleen’s son. The girl’s mascara left angry dark streaks showing the path of her tears down her flushed cheeks. Her hair hung in a tangled mess over the shoulders of her hooded sweatshirt. No, it was far too big to belong to such a small, delicate creature. It had to be his. Relatives sometimes did that too, he noted; they clung onto some keepsake of their loved one—a talisman of sorts. As though the inanimate object would tether them to the patient and keep the patient from slipping away.

Please, Kathleen whispered hoarsely, stepping close to Matthew, drawing his attention back to her. She met his direct gaze with fierce, passionate eyes grasping for hope.

His traitorous heart gave a strong thud and he wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and comfort her. Nevertheless, he had to be stronger than that. This wasn’t only about Kathleen, this was his opportunity to show them all, to prove to the entire town once and for all what he was capable of achieving. What better patient to work with than the son of the woman he had first loved all those years ago, the woman who had started him on the road to what he had become? He resisted offering her the physical comfort he craved and instead shifted his focus to her son, his patient.

In a different life, Lincoln Dowling could have been his son, the son of prominent and reclusive brain specialist, Matthew Baker. However, this wasn’t a different life.

Lincoln Dowling Sr. had stepped in the moment Matthew had left for college, swept Kathleen off her feet, then died and left her to raise the boy alone. Losing her only child would devastate her.

The trauma inflicted on Lincoln’s body wasn’t life threatening, in fact, it wasn’t serious at all.