8 Souls

by Rachel Rust

  And I’m considering it. I can leave Villisca, go back to Minneapolis and forget this summer even happened. Forget the voices and gray mist. Forget David. Just hang out with Kaylee, sleep in my own bed, and practice my clarinet like I’ve always done.

  Or even if I stay in Villisca, I can ignore him. I can tell my grandparents something awful about him so that they keep him off the front porch. He’d be out of my life for good if Grandma thinks he’s bad news.

  After paying, David and I walk over to the park, past the bench with sleeping Old Man Zach. David grabs the folded-up newspaper that’s about to fall off the bench and tucks it back under Zach’s limp arm.

  We sit on the next bench and watch the trees move in the wind.

  “I can explain,” David says.

  “Explain how you’ve been born seven times?” I ask with more than a hint of snootiness. “Go for it.” My Minnesota-nice is virtually non-existent these days. Bad sleep will do that. As will the ghostly giggles of murdered children and boys with mixed messages.

  He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees, hands clasped together. The wind swirls in his hair, robbing it of its perfect part. “I knew the Moore family,” he says.

  “In 1912?”

  He nods.

  “Just so we’re clear…you were alive in 1912.”

  Another nod.

  “So, you’ve been, like, reincarnated?”

  He shrugs. “I guess you could call it that.”

  “When were you born? The first time, I mean.”

  He smiles a little. “1894. Right here in Villisca. I’m always born in Villisca. I’m always named David. And I always…” He picks at a hangnail as his voice drifts off in the wind.

  I give him a moment before finally asking, “You always what?”

  “I always die on my eighteenth birthday.”

  My gut lurches at the words and I blurt out, “But you’ll be eighteen in only a few days.”

  He doesn’t nod, but his silent affirmation of my statement rings clear.

  “Are you seriously telling me that you’re going to die in a few days?”

  He turns his head to peer over at me. “Yes. I’m going to be dead in less than seventy-two hours.”

  The BLT trio of lunch ingredients shifts up my esophagus. “And then what?”

  He shrugs. “I’ll be born again. Here in Villisca, next June fifteenth. And whoever my parents are next time, they’ll name me David…again.”

  I stand up and spin around, facing him but unable to speak at first. The wind whips at my face and Old Man Zach lets out a stern snore. I look to David and he holds my gaze.

  “Okay,” I say, holding my hands out as though they can calm the craziness in the air around me. “I’ll ask one more time…are you messing with me? Is this some kind of sick prank? Because if it is, it’s not fucking funny anymore.”

  David’s eyes are kind, and he pats the bench next to him. “Sit. I’ll tell you everything.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I sit on the park bench, consciously leaving a few inches between David and me, as though touching him will spread the reincarnation and I’ll be doomed for all eternity to be named Francesca.

  He inhales deeply, then begins his tale.

  “I was born in 1894 for the first time. Growing up, my best friend was a kid named Tommy Ford. He was real crude and had no off switch. He used to talk me into doing all kinds of stupid stuff. He’d always try to get me to do things that were beyond my comfort zone. He’d make me have a little more to drink than I wanted or talk to girls that I didn’t want to talk to, insisting that I had to. He’d always pat me on the back and tell me the same thing every time, ‘bad decisions are fun decisions, Davey.’

  “Tommy was a short guy, but real muscular. He used to make extra cash in fighting rings around the area—nothing like boxing matches today. These were fought in the dirt with no rules, wherever anyone could find space, and they didn’t end until someone went face down. And Tommy was never the guy who ended up in the dirt. Admittedly, I was always a little afraid of him. It was real easy to get on his bad side and, well, I never wanted to experience his infamous right hook.” A rush of wind knocks Old Man Zach’s newspaper on the ground. David glances over. “Tommy and I worked together at his father’s farm equipment store. Doing deliveries mostly. Tommy was the muscle, loading and unloading, and I did most of the talking because people around town didn’t care for Tommy. They thought he was too vulgar. Which he was.

  “Anyway, Josiah Moore—the husband killed in the murders—used to work for Tommy’s father, too. But then he opened his own business. And when he did that, Tommy’s father was pissed. Not only did he lose what he thought was a good employee, but Josiah took most of the customers with him when he left. The Ford Store, as it was called back then, went belly up as Josiah’s business thrived. One night, when Tommy and I were seventeen, we were hanging out at the Old Stone Road down by the river, drinking some stale whiskey and Tommy was shooting off his dad’s Remington revolver, knocking off cans—or mostly missing them, if memory serves. Anyway, we were complaining about how Josiah had screwed over Tommy’s dad and how the closing of our store meant we’d both be out of a job soon. And that’s when Tommy suggested that we should put Josiah out of business.”

  The knuckles on David’s hands turn white as he clasps them tighter. The warm wind whips around me, whistling through the trees overhead. It’s a muggy day, but the goosebumps on my skin don’t realize it.

  “The idea started as just spreading a rumor about him,” David says. “We could tell the town that Josiah was a thief, or that he was having an affair with someone…anything to make people not want to do business with him. The rumor idea was pretty harmless compared to what was suggested next.” David glances at me, then back to the ground, as though he can’t get himself to look me in the eye with his next words. “Tommy said that we should go to the house and deal with him that night—right then and there, go teach him a lesson. I laughed and agreed. Of course, I was drunk and stupid and angry, and I had no idea that Tommy had meant that suggestion in a far different way than I had interpreted it.

  “Before I knew it, we were in Tommy’s truck, heading back into town. We parked in front of his father’s store, and then I followed Tommy to the Moore house. I was nervous, but figured all we’d do was throw a few rocks, wake the family, and cause a little ruckus. Tommy was good at causing a ruckus. So we staked out the house for a while, and then once all the lights were out, we waited another twenty minutes before sneaking up under the windows by the front door.”

  My arms wrap around themselves. The scene is vivid in my head, and I’m scared to hear about the horrid crime from someone who saw it with his own eyes. It’s all too real. No longer is it only in my dreams, or in grainy book photos. It’s real. The murders. The people. The blood.

  “Tommy wasted no time picking the lock of the Moore house,” David continues. “That was something he’d done countless times at other houses and businesses throughout his life. I didn’t want to go inside and told him not to. I told him we should leave, but he just laughed and said he wanted to give Josiah a fist in the face. But when Tommy came back outside less than a minute later, he said he had a better idea. About thirty feet behind the house, halfway to the barn, he grabbed a long-handled axe from the chopping stump. When I asked him what he was doing—and I remember this like it was yesterday—he patted my shoulder, and said not to worry, that he was only going to scare the family and, of course, added his favorite phrase, ‘bad decisions are fun decisions.’ I told him whatever sick joke he had planned wasn’t funny, but there was no stopping Tommy—especially not with an axe in his hand. I grabbed at his arm, but he shoved me into the dirt and then slipped back into the house.”

  David hangs his head, placing his hands on the back of his neck. His voice is beginning to quiver. “That was the last time I saw him…until about twenty minutes later when he slipped out of a window and ran like hell down the s
treet. I never saw his face again. He disappeared and I never got a chance to ask him why. Why did he do it? Why Sarah? Why the kids? How does a guy go from wanting to punch one person to killing eight?”

  David remains still for a long time. His hunched over shoulders loom right next to me. I consider putting my arm around him in a lame attempt to comfort him from century-old pain, but timidity keeps my hands clasped in my lap. Behind us, a noisy family leaves the diner, laughing and talking, but neither of us react. When David finally looks up, the rims of his eyes are tinged red. “And more than a hundred years later, I still hate myself. I agreed to go to that house with him. If I had just tried harder to stop him, if I had grabbed the axe away from him, none of it would’ve happened.”

  “No,” I say with a firm headshake. “You only agreed to go to the house and throw some rocks at the window or something. You did not agree to harm the Moores and Stillingers, and you definitely did not agree to Tommy’s decision to go inside with an axe. That is all on Tommy. He’s the bad guy, not you.”

  David shakes his head in disagreement.

  “Besides,” I add, “if you had fought with Tommy that night, he may have killed you, too.”

  “Maybe he should have,” David whispers. “I deserved it.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  He doesn’t reply. The night of the murders is clearly a hurdle for his mind, and we aren’t going to get anywhere if I keep trying to convince him he’s not to blame.

  I try another tactic—jump ahead.

  “What happened afterwards?” I ask. “Where did you go? What did you do?”

  David exhales sharply—the kind of sigh that comes involuntarily after crying, as though the body is trying to reset itself, physically and emotionally. A purification. “After Tommy ran away from the house, I knew he had done something awful. Tommy was never the kind of person to run from his crimes. He usually boasted about breaking the law and the Ford name had always been powerful enough to keep him from paying any heavy consequences. So, when he ran and didn’t look back, I feared the worst. I tried to open the front door where Tommy had gone in, but he had relocked it behind him, so I slipped into the same window where he had exited. I had to get into the house, I had to see if they were okay.”

  David pauses, staring hard at his shoes. “I smelled the blood before I saw it. The entire house reeked of it…salty, metallic air. I gagged on it, it was so thick. I only got as far as the downstairs bedroom when I saw two bloodied bodies, and then I ran. I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t find Tommy, so I camped out by the river that night. The next morning, I slipped back into town, listening to the nonstop gossip of the murders. Tommy wasn’t anywhere to be found. I should’ve confessed that I was there, and I should’ve turned Tommy in, but I didn’t. I was too scared—scared of getting blamed for the murders myself, scared of Tommy coming back and taking an axe to my head for ratting him out. I stuck around town for a couple of days, but I didn’t want to be there when the cops started really nosing around, so I ran. I left town and jumped in a car.”

  “Jumped in a car? Were there cars back then?”

  David half smiles. “Yes, there were a few cars, but I meant a train car. Train hopping. It’s what people used to do before there were highways full of cars for hitchhiking.”

  “People still jump trains.”

  “Yeah, I guess they do.”

  “So where did the train take you?” I ask.

  “Nowhere. I hopped in an open car, rode it west for a day, but then I fell asleep on my eighteenth birthday and the next thing I know I’m celebrating my thirteenth birthday.”

  My eyebrows scrunch down. “Wait, what? How did you go from eighteen to thirteen?”

  “Well…that’s where it gets really interesting.”

  I can’t imagine how things can get more interesting from reincarnation, but I stare at him, imploring him to tell me everything.

  “Every time I’m re-born, I don’t remember anything from my past lives until my thirteenth birthday. From zero to thirteen, I’m like any other kid, living a normal life. But then every time I wake up on my thirteenth birthday, I’m myself—my real self, my 1912 self. I’m in the body of a thirteen-year-old, but in my mind I’m really seventeen like I was the night of the murders. I remember everything—what I’ve done, what Tommy did. And I remember all my past lives and the people in them.”

  “But why?” I ask. “What’s the point of it all? Is it like some kind of punishment? Is living in Villisca for all eternity your own living hell or something?”

  “Maybe. I mean, you have no idea how aggravating it is to have your life ripped away from you, again and again. I’ve never been allowed to be eighteen before. Never been an adult. Never lived on my own. Never got a chance to go to college or move out of Villisca. The Moores and Stillingers got robbed of their lives, too, so I suppose that’s what’s happening to me as punishment. I’m being robbed of a full life.”

  “Sounds awful,” I say, with a voice barely louder than the wind.

  “But there’s a way to stop it. A way out.”

  A way out? I glance around. Roads leave Villisca in all directions. “So, leave. Go. Just get out of here. Leave the town, leave the people, the Moore house, the memories.”

  “Doesn’t work. I’ll still die on my eighteenth birthday whether I’m in Villisca or anywhere else. I’ll die, unless…”

  I sit up straight. “Unless what?” My fingers twitch at the thought that there’s a way to avoid him dying on me. He’s sitting right here, right in front of me, flesh and blood, he can’t just die in a couple of days. He’s perfectly healthy and perfectly healthy people do not tip over dead for no reason.

  “Unless I save one more person,” he says, smiling a bit at the confusion on my face. He leans toward me. “Here’s the thing…I know something else when I turn thirteen. I know how to make things right again.” He holds out both his hands and stretches out all five fingers on his left hand and three on his right hand. “Eight people died that night on my watch. So, I have to save eight people to set things right.”

  “Eight people,” I repeat back, letting it sink in.

  David nods. “Save eight souls for the eight souls taken that night.”

  My eyes widen. “How many have you saved so far?”

  He curls down one more finger in on his right hand. “Seven. Only one more to go.”

  “Then what are you waiting for? Go save someone!”

  He shakes his head. “It’s not that easy. First of all, I’m pretty sure thousands of people die every day, but not around here. Not in the middle of Iowa. It’s hard to find people on the brink of death who need saving. Plus, even when I do find them, it’s pretty risky myself. I’ve found that out the hard way.”

  “You’ve died trying to save people?”

  “Couple of times. The first time was in my second life when I was only thirteen—I felt all macho and eager and ended up under the wheels of a 1921 Brewster Town Car, after I pushed Old Lady Mathison out of its path.”

  My hand flies to my mouth. “My god, you were run over by a car?”

  David shrugs. “Death doesn’t hurt much. You flicker out before the pain really sets in. And it counted. I saved her. My first save. So I guess it was worth it.”

  “But I thought you don’t die until your eighteenth birthday.”

  “I don’t, unless I die another way. I’m completely mortal just like anyone else. A car, a gun, a virus…anything like that can kill me. Of course, it’s much better if I make it to eighteen because then I just fall asleep. It’s pretty peaceful actually.”

  I grimace. “You remember all your deaths? Even the bad ones like getting run over by a car?”

  David nods. “I especially remember the second time I died trying to save someone. It was in my fifth life when I was fifteen, saving my friend after the ice cracked under his feet as we were trying to cross the river. As I yanked him out of the water, the ice under my feet broke and I got pulled
in, dragged away by the current. I drowned.” He shudders from the memory.

  I shudder at the story—because it’s one I’ve heard before. The ice. The friend dying trying to save him. The river.

  “My God, that was my dad you saved,” I say through numb lips. David nods, studying my face, probably for signs of me freaking out. “You were friends with my dad?”

  “Best friends.”

  “He told me that story once—about you falling through the ice and drowning. You gave up your life for his. That was you. Oh my God.”

  David shrugs as though it’s no big deal.

  “So weird,” I say. “You’ve known this whole time who I am…that I’m the daughter of your old best friend.”

  David’s lip curls up. “Yeah. I’ve wanted to tell you since we met, but that’s not exactly the kind of information you can just throw at someone, ya know?”

  “No doubt.”

  “And, actually, I’ve known who you are for years,” he says. “About five summers ago, I saw you when Samantha Morris made you knock on the door of the old Moore house. I was inside the house, watching you approach.”

  “Holy shit,” I say with a breathy, barely there voice. “You moved the curtain.”

  He nods with a slight chuckle. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “You scared the shit out of me!”

  He smiles sheepishly. “Sorry. But I wanted to see you up close when you stepped up onto the porch. I had turned thirteen a couple of weeks before, so I had just remembered my past. I was in that house, watching my former best friend—your dad—who was home for the holiday. I knew he had a daughter around my age. I was curious.”

  “Does my dad know who you are? If he saw you today, would he remember you?”

  “No, no one remembers me from life to life. I mean, they know I was around, they know a boy named David had been their friend or their neighbor…or their son. But they don’t recognize my face anymore when they see me in my next lives. It’s like once I’m gone, their memories of me grow hazy. But I remember them. I remember everything. Every life, every conversation, every change in this town as though I’m watching a movie.”