I landed in some little town. There were mountains in the distance and a blanket of snow covered everything. Then it happened. Kale saw me. I saw him. We locked eyes from across the street. For just a second...I thought I felt my heart beat.
“Who are you?” I asked him as I crossed the street.
“You know me, Dev,” he whispered back.
“I don’t have you in the memories that crossed over with me but I can’t shake the feeling of déjà vu with you. I don’t understand what’s going on.” I stopped in front of him.
“Can we go somewhere to talk where people aren’t staring at me because it looks like I’m talking to myself right now,” he tilted his head to the side and cocked an eyebrow at a couple staring curiously at him, laughing.
“Sure. Take me wherever you want to go.”
“Okay, I have a place,” he smiled. He grabbed his keys and unlocked his car. I slid in first and hopped over the seat to the passenger side. He followed me and shut his door. As he started the car, he hands were shivering. “Aren’t you cold? Do you need a coat or anything?”
I smiled softly, “No, I don’t get cold. Thank you for the offer, though.”
“Yeah, okay, that’s a little weird. Do you understand I’m having a hard time swallowing all of this?” He turned and looked me in the eyes.
“What do you mean?” He turned back to the front and shifted into gear then pulled out of his parking spot.
“I mean...you’re dead, Dev. You died but you’re here, sitting and talking to me.”
“I can see how that would be awkward, but honestly, I think you have the wrong person. You must have me confused with someone else,” I shook my head.
“No, I don’t.” He reached down on the seat between us and grabbed his wallet without taking his eyes off the road. “Look at this and tell me I have the wrong person still.” He reached in and pulled out a picture then handed it to me.
I reached over for it, scared of what I was going to see. I couldn’t bring myself to look down and see the people in the images, afraid of what I would discover. “I can’t. Not right now,” I whispered, hanging my head.
Silence followed until about an hour later and he came to a stop on top of a mountain. He parked next to a tower and turned the car off. “Do you remember this place?” He turned and looked at me with his big, beautiful eyes.
I turned my head all around so I could see but nothing rang a bell for me. Nothing was familiar about it. “No, I’m sorry,” I shook my head.
Kale sank back into his seat and closed his eyes. “This is bullshit.”
“Do you know why I’m here? Why I was sent?”
He took a heavy deep breath and sighed, “Yes. You’re here for my soul, aren’t you?”
“I am...but I feel like I can’t,” I whispered.
His eyes shot open and he twisted in his seat to face me. “Dev, you have to look at the picture; you have to know me deep down somewhere in your mind.”
I started crying...real tears...holy shit. I brought my hand to my face and touched the wetness that was falling down my face. “Oh my gosh. I’m crying,” I gasped, in fear.
“Why are you scared to cry? It’s okay to cry,” he crooned gently as he reached for my hand. I touched his face with my other hand.
“You don’t get it,” I spoke softly back to him, “I’m dead. I can’t cry. I can eat, I can breathe, so to speak...but I can’t feel pain, cold, heat...and I can’t cry.”
“So...how are you doing that, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come with me. I want to show you something.” He opened his door and held his hand out for mind as I slid out.
“Where are we?”
“This is Mount Erie. You use to love coming up here and exploring the sides of the mountains. There’s a small cubby hole type thing that you would climb down the side of the mountain to get into it. No one knew about your hiding spot...except for me. You carved your name in it to mark it as yours. Every day the sun would set, which was your favorite, by the way, you would be in that hole and watched; soaking in the scenery and the colors of the sky as the sun went down. Sometimes, you would bring your camera and take breath-taking photography. I know you Devalynn. I wish you could remember me; remember that you know me.”
He held my hand as we walked towards the edge of the mountain and he was right. Without remembering most of my memories, that moment felt right. The view overlooking the water and the other islands was so stunning it left me speechless. We stood there in silence. Enjoying the dancing colors in the sky as the sun sank below the horizon. I felt him shivering and decided it was time for him to get warmed up.
We got back in the car and he drove back to the town I saw him in. “I have to reclaim you,” I whispered as I held my head down.
“What happens if you don’t?” he asked me, staring hard at the road in front of him.
“Then I serve your punishment.”
“That can’t happen. You have to take me back then. I can’t let you suffer, I would never let you,” his voice cracked.
“I have about three days to spend down here before we have to go back. Something inside me says I can’t go through with it. If I don’t go back though, Michael will come for me.”
“I understand...what exactly was my crime? I didn’t kill anyone, kidnap anyone. I’ve treated everyone with respect and kindness.”
“You ran your mouth and the Creator heard you, basically.”
“Oh, that’s all it took?” he asked me with a quizzical expression, never taking his eyes off the road.
“Apparently, that’s worse than murder, somehow. I think it’s crazy, personally.” My eyes began to droop as weariness took its toll on me. I yawned and tried to force my eyes to stay open.
“Why don’t you get some sleep and I’ll wake you up when we get back to the house?”
“Thanks, I need it.” I curled up and rested my head on the seat between us. It was a tight fit but I didn’t want to invade his personal space. Gently, with one arm, he slid it around my waist and pulled me towards him; resting my head on his leg. I fell asleep and he never took his arm away from me.
Chapter Three
When I woke up, it was morning. I could smell bacon and eggs being cooked. I rubbed my eyes and tried to get them to focus as I sat up. That’s when I remembered I fell asleep in the car. He must have brought me inside. I climbed out of the cozy bed and walked downstairs to where he was. “Kale?” I called out.
“I’m in the kitchen,” he replied.
I walked down the spiral stairs, headed in the direction of his voice. When I rounded the corner, I watched him dancing around the kitchen trying to get everything ready for breakfast.
“Smells good,” I said as I sat down on a stool at the bar.
“Thanks, it was your favorite,” he beamed. “Have you looked at the picture yet?”
“No. Hey, so didn’t you feel kind of weird carrying nothing inside last night? I mean yeah, you can feel me, touch me, and see me but no one else can.” I rested my arms on the counter and propped my face up with my palms.
“I could care less. I got to hold you again,” he cooed.
“You’re such a sweet guy. I really hate having to reclaim you,” I frowned and looked out one of the windows. We were in a heavily wooded area. There were no curtains on any windows. It was nice and private.
“I can’t let you get punished for me so you have to bring me back. All I want is as much time as you can steal for me so I can spend it with you.” He brought a plate of bacon, eggs, sausage, and toast over and sat it down in front of me. I looked up into his eyes. His face was radiant. I studied the lines on his face, every line. I studied his perfect blonde hair and resisted the urge to reach up and touch it. “You okay?” he asked.
I snapped out of my dreaming. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“What were you doing?” He sat down beside me.
“Studying you; I don’t want to ever forget you or this mom
ent.”
“What moment would that be?”
“Complete happiness.”
He reached over and pushed my hair out of my face. I closed my eyes at the touch of his fingers against my skin. To feel his softness was more than I could stand. I leaned over and grabbed his face, pressed my lips to his.
His hands reached behind my head and grabbed the back of it as he pulled me tighter into our lip lock session. I wished I could feel his warmth, his everything, but reality hit me when I realized I could not. I pushed him away; my hands flew to my lips and covered my mouth.
“I’m so sorry. That was out of line,” I whispered. I jolted to stand and run away, but he grabbed my hand and held it to him.
“No, it wasn’t.”
My body felt a jolt like lightening fly through my body. My head felt like it was going to explode. I reached up and squeezed the sides as the pressure mounted inside it. I wanted to scream but bit my lips in pain and agony as I fell to the ground on my knees.
“Dev, what’s wrong!?” He was at my side in an instant.
The pain stopped and I stared off as a vision crossed my mind; a memory from my past. I was in a chair, tied down, screaming as a man scraped a knife across my breasts. The vision ended and I flung back against a chair, grasping my chest.
“Dev!?” Kale grabbed my shoulders and shook me.
I started crying again...what the hell was that all about? “I think I need to go.”
“No, please, you can’t go,” his voice was high pitched and panicky.
“I think...I s-saw what happened to me before I died,” I swallowed the lump that was in my throat but it came right back up.
“Oh God, Devalynn. What happened?”
I shook my head, “I’d rather not say. Look, I need some space. I need to figure out what the hell is going on. I’ll be back in a little bit.” I ran past him and bolted out of the front door. I looked up for the portal and it opened, taking me with it and back to the In-Between that become my new home.
***
“Devalynn!? What is going on?” Kellin came up and wrapped his arms around me when I fell to my knees on the ground. I tried to cry. I wanted nothing more than to cry but the tears wouldn’t come out.
“Oh, Kellin. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what I’ve done.” I hung my head down and rested it on his shoulder.
“It can’t be that bad.”
“It is. I didn’t reclaim him. I didn’t bring him back with me. I saw what happened around the time of my death. I got some of my memories back and holy shit, it was horrible. I was tortured.”
“Damn it. This is why I prayed you would never get your memories back,” he sighed.
“What do you mean?” There was a silence. “Did you know? All this time, did you know what happened to me?” I asked him, my anger boiling as I raised my voice and pushed him away.
His face drained of color. “Dev, we all know what happened to you. We all saw it. The Creator, the Soul Collectors...everyone,” he whispered.
“So what happened!? How did I die?” I yelled at him.
He shook his head, “None of us are allowed to talk about it or tell you. You’d have to find out for yourself and the only way that’s going to happen is for you to get all your memories back; piece by piece. I told you over the next few months this would happen. Tomorrow you might not even remember you saw it.”
“I’m going back down there. I need to talk to Kale.” I stood to my feet in one swift motion and ran through the portal, landing in front of Kales’ house.
The door swung open. He rushed out to me, wrapping me in his arms. “Kale, we need to talk,” I cried into his shoulder.
“Let’s go inside.” I nodded my head. He held the door open and let me go first.
“What’s going on? You just left so quickly.”
“I think I need to see that picture now,” I whispered.
Sitting next to me, he pulled it out of his wallet again and slipped it in my hands. I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and when I looked down and opened them, I was staring back at myself. Kale and I were sitting on the ledge of a mountain. I was wrapped in his arms with mine outstretched to take the picture. We were both smiling as our lips were touching the others. A single tear fell and slipped down my cheek.
“I guess I do know you. I just can’t remember you.” I ran my fingers across the picture. “Do you know how I died?”
“No. No one does. It was your birthday night. You had stayed late at work. I called to check on you and the last thing you told me was ‘I’ll see you soon.’” He got quiet for a minute. “You never showed up. I went out looking for you. We found your car. It was wrecked and the tires had been completely destroyed. Probably ran over something. I searched the woods. There was a cabin and when I knocked a man opened the door, said he hadn’t seen you or even heard the car accident. A search party went out. We never found you. That’s how I died. I was in a boat getting ready to go down and look in the waters for you when the accident happened and I ended up, well, up there.” He had tears streaming down his face.
I was sitting in silence, absorbing all the information. Something didn’t sound right. How was I in a car accident? I was tortured. “Where is that cabin?”
“What do you mean? It was somewhere deep in the woods; took me about an hour to come across it.”
“I think...I know, this is going to sound crazy, but I think I was murdered.”
“By who? That guy? He’s just some old crazy man who lives by himself.”
“What I saw, was someone cutting me. I was screaming a blood curling scream.” That’s when it happened again. The throbbing in my head, the feeling like my head was about to burst, came back.
I squeezed the sides of my head again and fell back on the couch; my eyes were shut so tight it hurt. The memory came. I was being tethered to a weight, still alive, and pushed overboard a boat. I struggled for air; struggled to relieve the burning pressure in my lungs as they fought for air. Then I stopped fighting. I stopped moving. I stopped breathing. I had just remembered my death. My body was still down there somewhere but there was nothing that could be done to find it.
“Dev, I think you need to relax and take a breather. Come on, let’s go sit out back for a little bit.”
“I need to go to that cabin. I think it was him. I think he killed me.”
“What are you going to do? He can’t see you, remember?”
“No, but he can see you.”
He shook his head, “I think you’ve lost your mind. I’m not going out there to bother that man again.”
“Are you serious right now!? You won’t even investigate it!?” I threw my hands up over my head. “This is ridiculous!”
“No, what’s ridiculous is you trying to get me to go out there! He was already looked at and nothing came out of it!”
“I thought you cared about what happened? If you searched for me, why won’t you do this for me and go check him out just one more time?”
“I just can’t, Dev. You’re going to drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out, and truthfully, I don’t want to really know if that is him not because I couldn’t live with it. I would have talked with your killer and could have possibly saved you if it were him. I would kill him. Right there. I wouldn’t hesitate to commit homicide.”
“What if he’s done it to other people? What if I wasn’t the first!?” I waited for an answer but none followed. “Well, I think I’m going to go away for the day. I have other souls on backup I have to get reclaimed.” I stood and walked out, slamming the door behind me. I pulled the list out of my back pocket and studied the next name:
Pamela Winston. Age at second chance: 21. Crime: child abuse; Quebec.
I looked up, the portal open and sucked me in, dropping me down in Quebec. There was snow everywhere and it was falling in heavy sheets out of the sky. I walked around the city for a while. I heard her irregular heartbeat and took my time to get to her.
Why wo
uldn’t Kale help me? Why did he insist on not going to that cabin? Maybe he was right. Maybe I just needed to forget the whole thing and move on. I sighed deep and hard; wrapped my arms around my neck and rubbed the soreness.
I entered a graveyard and walked casually through the resting places for the people, being careful not to step on top of one of them. Her heartbeat became louder as I got closer to her. What on earth was she doing in a place like that? I thought to myself. The closer I got, I could make out faint sobbing. I rounded a tree and saw her lying on the ground with a hand over the freshly disturbed dirt.
“Pamela,” I called out to her.
“I know who you are. Just get it over with. I’m so ashamed of myself,” she began to sob harder.
“You’re not going to fight me?” I asked, slightly confused.
“Why would I? I did a horrible thing. I knew you’d be sent after me but I wanted to see my husband’s grave first. I needed to talk to him and ask his forgiveness.” She finally stopped crying long enough to form a coherent sentence.
“I’m already a day late bringing you back. I’m afraid time is up.” I knelt down next to her slender body.
“Okay,” she responded, “I’m ready.” She closed her eyes. The tears slipped down her face and landed on the grass below her.
I slipped my hand through her chest and grabbed onto her heart, her eyes never opened as I took her soul and stuffed it in the tiny necklace. Well that had to have been the easiest one I did. Next on the list was Brandon, 32, domestic assault, San Diego.
The portal opened as I looked up and took me to San Diego. I was really starting to dislike my job as I took the soul from each person.
“Oh shit. I’m not going back,” he saw me land next to his car. His wife was in the car, curled up against the frame as she cried and hid her face in shame from what he did to her.
“Time’s up, and I’m more than happy to take you back,” I lunged at him but he move to the side then took off running down the street.
Reclaiming Souls Page 3