by B. Groves
B. Groves
The Soul Healer
Copyright © 2019 B. Groves
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations em- bodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza- tions, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For information contact :
www.bgrovesauthor.com
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First Edition: July 2019
Book cover design by Broken Candle Book Designs
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Contents
Epigraph
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
About the Author
Other Books by B. Groves
Epigraph
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may desire. -Francis Quarles
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my Aunt Maryann Layton. Thank you for all the shares, comments, and the encouragement on my books and book covers. You rock!
Chapter 1
Journal Entry May 27, Early 2000s.
It’s been two years since the drunk driver ruined my life. As time passes, I remember that day with more clarity. I often wonder what made him get behind the wheel that night. I will never understand it because he died at the accident scene. There are days I wish our fates had taken a different path.
If anyone ever reads this journal and asks why I would say such a thing. Live my life for a day and maybe you’ll understand.
Grateful? That’s what my family tells me I should be. I should live life to the fullest and thank God I’m still alive.
All that bullshit about the sun shining brighter, the birds singing in the trees, the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. I should appreciate those little things.
It’s not easy. It’s not the recovery. I've recovered. Hell, I even drove again after my initial fear of getting behind the wheel. I enjoy driving again. It’s my source of freedom.
It’s not that at all. Whoever reads this journal long after I’m gone, you’ll doubt my sanity. You’ll think I had lingering brain damage. Nope. All brain scans are nice and normal.
Normal. What is that word? I’m not normal anymore.
The images may say I have normal brain activity, but something inside my subconscious came to life the minute metal rammed metal and the windows shattered all over me. When I woke up from my coma, I knew something inside me changed.
My vision of the world changed to utter darkness. I see things, dark things.
When I was still in the hospital, a lab technician entered my room in the middle of the night. He came to draw my blood for the doctor.
I turned over in bed so he could greet me. He had such a nice voice too. Smooth and boyish. His dark hair slicked back with a nice smelling gel.
It was his eyes that caught my attention. They flickered. It’s the only way I can describe it. They flickered and turned black. Not just the pupil or the iris. His whole eye turned black.
I thought I was seeing things. I blinked a few times, and he became nervous and missed my vein. The stinging pain made my eyes water, but it brought me out of my sleepy state.
I pulled my arm back and looked at him again. That’s when I saw my first shadow. That’s what I call them; shadows. I can’t think of anything better right now.
His human form darkened with each movement as he tried to find my vein. His eyes never returned to their human form. His voice was raspy, and a shadow circled his chest.
I remember screaming. I remember jumping out of bed and pulling out my IVs. I remember crying for help. I didn’t know what this man was. He tried to calm me down, but the more I screamed, the angrier he became and the shadow around him formed a head, mouth, and eyes to laugh at me.
I tried to run out of the room, but my ankle was still in its cast, and I fell against the bed. Nurses and the night doctor on duty came running in, confused about what was happening.
I pointed to the lab technician telling them there was a monster in my room. They thought I went insane. I tried to escape, but they held me down.
The hospital staff sedated and restrained me. The last thing I remember from that night was the doctor ordering a change in my meds.
It wasn’t the pain medications. That was the night I became a seer—not quite a hunter, but a seer. That was the night my life turned on its head.
I’m sitting here waiting for a response from another person like me. I don’t know what to do.
This idiot in this secret place called The Network said that I should be proud of my “gift.”
Sure…
I guess when God was handing out straws about who can contact ghosts, who can predict the future or any other psychic power, I drew the short straw.
Because I’m stuck with this “gift.
Chapter 2
Present Day, Charlotte, North Carolina
Alison Stark typed away at her desk. She should have been working, but instead, she was answering her mother on Facebook.
Yes, Mom, Alison typed. I’ll fly down next month.
She closed out her Facebook page and sighed. She had four hours before calling it a day. She knew she needed to start her new project for the new company they had assigned to her through the firm, but she wasn’t feeling it today.
This was a huge score for her company and while everyone else was hard at work trying to please the client, Alison played on the internet. She hoped Brian wouldn’t walk by her while she answered her mom.
She strained her neck to look above the dull, gray walls of her cubicle and spotted her manager on the other side of the big room.
Alison turned back to her computer monitor and pulled up the project files for the assignment.
She shifted in her seat when a pair of eyes searched her out. She hated those eyes, but this one was one of the few that were harmless.
Alison l
earned over the years how to categorize the shadows. Some were benevolent, and then there were different levels of malevolent. There were the ones that liked to play pranks on the humans and then there were the ones that outright murdered the living. She’d seen them all.
Owen was a benevolent one.
“I need to leave this body soon,” he commented.
“Why? Are you bored?” Alison looked back down at her monitor and chewed on her pen.
She quit smoking six months ago and sometimes the cravings became unbearable. Now was one of those times.
The balding, pudgy man made a gesture to his chest. “This guy’s arteries are getting worse.”
“Then take him to a doctor,” Alison answered with a shrug.
“His husband is cheating on him too,” Owen commented.
Alison bit her lip trying to hide her smile. She looked back up at the shadow and waved her hand.
“Owen,” she whispered. “I hate seeing you. You know that.”
Owen looked at himself and Alison caught the shadow disappearing into the meat suit.
“Did you leave his soul in the cage?” Alison asked before she tried to work again.
“He’s there,” Owen said. “Meet me in the parking lot after work.”
Alison nodded without looking back up at the shadow. She hated seeing their true forms. It never failed to make her nauseous even after eleven years.
Alison waited for the clock to tick away while she tried to concentrate on her numbers. She chanced a glance at her personal emails. There wasn’t much there, mostly spam, but sometimes there was an occasional sale that interested her.
She tried not to let her mind wander too much. When she did, it brought back many memories—painful ones. Memories she tried to suppress for a long time.
She moved to North Carolina from Florida three years ago to start a new life and become the most boring person she could think of. She worked her job, went home, ate takeout, had a glass of wine or two, and walked her dog. Then she’d crash in her bed with a book.
If anyone told her she’d be friendless and isolated from other people in the last eleven years, Alison would have laughed at them. She had the time of her life when she was in college. Partying with her sorority sisters, playing sports, and dating hot guys. Her GPA had been phenomenal. Alison was on top of the world until that one moment when Kenneth Holiday stumbled out of a bar without a designated driver and tried to drive home to an empty house since his wife left him.
Alison never saw Kenneth coming. She was on her way home from her current tryst at 12:30 AM when Kenneth lost control of his Ford F-150, jumped a curb and flew into the opposite lane where Alison drove.
Alison never knew what hit her until years later when bits and pieces appeared in her mind.
She never saw that Kenneth had been uninjured, and when he saw Alison slumped over, he thought he had killed her. Good Samaritans were stopping to help when Kenneth stumbled back to his vehicle, grabbed his 9mm pistol from his glove box, and blew the back of his head out right there at the scene.
Alison never remembered that part, and she didn’t know about it until she was well enough for questioning by police officers.
That was the start of her new life, and she despised every moment.
Now, she drifted through life, staying away from potential danger. The less she saw of the shadows, the better.
Alison’s eyes scanned her emails. The usual, back to school sales, an offer from some “Nigerian Prince” who wants her to send money so he can marry her. Nothing new. Alison’s eyes settled on one particular email.
She turned her head both ways to make sure no one was around and clicked on the email. The sender signed the email as Reverend Kyle Ellis.
Alison read the email and froze.
She thought she’d scrubbed herself from The Network years ago. She was stupid and desperate at the time to understand what she was seeing and she put herself out there to find answers.
How did this guy find her?
She leaned in closer to the email only absorbing certain words.
I need help.
I tried, but it didn’t work.
She’s nine years old.
The last words made Alison’s blood run cold.
There was blood everywhere.
Alison clicked out of the email and brought up her files. She closed her eyes trying to slow her breathing and realized her heart was pounding against her ribcage.
“You all right, Allie?” Owen asked.
Alison nodded and glanced at the clock. She realized some time had passed and her coworkers were getting ready to leave for the day.
Alison sat staring at the screen. She shook her head trying to forget about what she read over the email.
Alison blinked several times and swallowed as she pictured what this Reverend Kyle wrote about in his email.
It could have been a hoax she tried to convince herself. She had her share of trolls and nasty people over the years. Those who tried to trick her and make her feel like an outcast. They would discover her information and make her life miserable by telling her to kill herself or she needed to be admitted to a mental institution.
She pulled up the email and read it again. The words seemed sincere, and he signed the email with an official electronic signature from Reverend Kyle Ellis of First Methodist Church located in Wolfpine, North Carolina.
“Where the hell is Wolfpine?” Alison asked out loud and pulled up her Google maps to locate the town.
Alison found the town northwest of Asheville. Right smack in the middle of the Smoky Mountains. She was surprised to find the population had grown over 100,000 when she searched for logistics.
She never heard of the place, but from the Google pictures, she found a growing town that kept its small-town qualities.
She typed in Reverend Ellis’s address and found his church. A tiny place of worship with a small house sitting next to it.
Alison shut her search down. This had to be fake. The little girl probably had mental issues and this was some weirdo pastor who didn’t understand the little girl needed psychiatric care.
Alison checked the time on the wall. Everyone was clearing out. Owen was giving her a knowing look.
Alison gathered her handbag, checked her phone, and told Owen she needed to use the bathroom first.
Alison entered the ladies’ room and threw down her handbag onto the sink. She leaned over the sink taking deep soothing breaths. She looked at herself in the mirror. She received these kinds of emails every few months, but with children, she almost gave in a few times.
Something wasn’t right. She could feel it deep down in her bones. Something was shifting inside her gut after reading this email. Not that she could see it, but she could feel it as the Reverend’s words played over in her mind.
She gazed at her reflection in the mirror and pushed a stray, blonde hair behind her ear.
Not my circus, not my— Alison stopped her thoughts. This was not her problem. He could contact some other hunter. The hunter might have to travel but he could find someone else.
She stopped when Heather—
Alison banged her hand on the sink. She then put her hands over her face not wanting to remember that night. She didn’t want to remember the moment she discovered what was wrong with Heather.
Alison turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water on her face and hung her head over the sink watching the water swirl down the drain to calm her thoughts.
She turned away from the mirror, gathered her handbag, and walked out of the bathroom when other women walked in to do their business before leaving for the day.
Alison didn’t want questions. She didn’t want anyone to ask if she was “all right.” She was never all right.
She walked out of the office area and down the hallway lined with offices to the front doors.
Giving a nod to the night security guard, she exited the building and walked towards her car.
She spotted Owe
n waiting by his car.
He had a pinched look on his face when she approached him.
“Indigestion?” Alison asked only half-joking.
Owen shook his head. His eyes flickered and turned black. Alison did her best not to turn away from the abnormal sight.
“Allie,” Owen began, “I know you felt it today. Didn’t you?”
Alison let out a breath and fixed her handbag on her shoulder. She didn’t bother to deny it. Owen’s shadow could see right through her.
“What does it mean?” She asked.
“It means one of my own is gaining more power. That’s not good,” Owen answered. He looked at her knowingly. “You might have to go back to work.”
Emotions she thought she’d buried rippled through her body. She dreaded the thought of returning to that life. She didn’t want more heartache and even worse—death.
“I got an email today from some pastor in a small town northwest of here,” Alison explained. “He said a little girl is one of them and killed her mother.”
Owen scratched his bald head. “It’s closer than I thought. It’s your decision, but I would watch your ass.”
Alison nodded while Owen opened his car door and sat down in the driver’s seat. She knew the shadow was ready to leave the human. The real Owen would return momentarily.
He looked at her and said, “I’ve been in this guy for a year. He was fun, but I need to go before I’m pulled into this. I fought long and hard to not become one of them.”
Alison understood. She closed her eyes. The feelings within her stirred to life. It was hard to explain unless you experienced it. People like her were all over the world. She didn’t know she could exorcise the shadows without help from some Bible verses until she touched one for the first time until she trained with experienced hunters.
Her fingers tingled as the electricity pulsed through her body. Her mind was on fire. All it would take is one touch and the shadow with Owen would leave this body forever.
“Be careful, Alison.”
“I always am,” Alison answered.
She leaned into the car and faced Owen. She placed both her hands on the sides of his head. He screamed in pain feeling the burning sensation from Alison’s touch. It never hurt Alison. She never felt the pain the shadows felt when removing them from a human body.