Reclaiming Souls Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 wouldn’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