I caught myself before I fell, my heartbeat thundering in my chest now.
He smiled brightly. “Hey! You came back.”
He looked so different. Was this really Kevin?
“Uh, hello.” I put a hand over my heart. “You scared me.”
He cringed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
I stood staring at him like an idiot. He was almost completely healed, but it was definitely Kevin. Most of his hair had returned, but he’d probably had some missing on top anyway before he was burnt. His clothes were no longer burnt and stuck to his skin, which was a huge relief. He would soon look normal.
I dropped my hand. “That’s alright. I came back to tell you that your name is Kevin Jacobson. You were a priest.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Yes, I know. It’s been slowly coming together in my mind.”
At least he wasn’t like Jackson. “That’s good. What else do you remember?”
“That I’m a minister, like you said, and I have a wife and three children. I wish I could see them one more time. See how they’re faring. Do they know what happened to me?”
“Yes. You’ve been missing for a couple of weeks, so at least now they’ll have closure.”
“What day is it?”
“It’s the third of November.”
“Oh. That’s a long time for me to be missing. They must have been out of their minds with worry. I can’t imagine… Then for them to find out that I’m…” He sighed heavily. “They must be so distressed. This is… difficult for me to process. It’s really upsetting to think that I’ll be hanging around here for all eternity haunting this patch of bush and never seeing them again.”
I cleared my throat. I would not let this get to me. I didn’t even know the guy.
“I’m no expert, but other spirits I’ve talked to say that they can travel to where their loved-ones are and visit them. They wouldn’t be able to see or hear you, but I think it’s supposed to provide closure so you can move on.”
“Really? I can do that? How?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you just think about them and concentrate on trying to find them. I’m not really sure.”
He rubbed his chin and thought for a while, then nodded. He pointed at some patches of skin that were almost back to normal. “I seem to be changing. I don’t know why or what’s going on, but it looks a lot better than before.”
“Like I said, I don’t know much about how all this works, but I do know that spirits always appear to me as they were when they died – if it happened recently, and after a while, the injuries fade and they just look normal.”
He smiled. “You mean, all this burnt skin will be healed?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“That’s good to know.” He looked off into the distance, then looked back at me. “What did you say about moving on?”
“Well, there’s no reason to assume you’ll be stuck here forever. I think it works kind of how they show it in the movies where a spirit is stuck here if they have unfinished business with the living. Your unfinished business is probably having someone find your body and finding the people who did this to you. You’re halfway there now that you helped me find your body. And the authorities are working on finding the people responsible.”
His eyes seemed to sparkle with excitement. “I don’t want to be stuck here. But I want to see my family before I go — cross over or whatever.”
“I understand, but before you try, I wanted to ask you some questions.”
“Shoot.”
“Is there anything else you can remember about what happened to you so I can tell the police so they can find the sick people that did this?”
“Yes. I think so. My mind is still a bit fuzzy, but I remember being stopped as I reached my car in the church car park. It was a man that I’d seen around town and he told me he needed my help and he started to cry. I thought it must be really bad if a grown man was crying in public, so I asked him what I could do for him.”
I wished I could record what Kevin was telling me; I was worried about forgetting important details.
“It was his wife. She was going to leave him. She was taking the kids and the dog and wanted half the house, so he’d have to sell. He was a wreck and was barely keeping it together. He asked if I could meet him at a park on the edge of town away from prying eyes so we could talk properly. He didn’t want his wife to know he was talking to a priest — or anyone, for that matter. So of course I wanted to help him if I could. I met him there and we talked awhile. He said that she’d accused him of cheating on her, so I gave him some tips on how he could prove to her that he was still faithful.
“He started to feel better and after he shook my hand and thanked me profusely for my help, I started to feel woozy. It wasn’t until I found myself lying on the ground that I realized I’d been drugged. He must have had something on his hands or something. Next thing I knew, I was in a different location — somewhere dark and cold with stone walls. I was tied up and they were telling me I’m possessed by the devil.”
I cringed. He was only trying to help some poor guy — or so he thought — and they’d tortured and killed him. Burnt him alive, for God’s sake. I shivered.
What kind of sick bastards would do something like that?
I’d been told by a few people – alive and dead – that it’s unnatural for me to see spirits or for me to possess magic. Sandra, the rude woman from the bookstore, had said we were devil worshippers. Those protesters in the main street were calling us devil worshippers. The cops would have their work cut out for them trying to find out which zealots are kidnapping people and killing them in the most horrific way.
Oh, my God…
It hit me in the gut. What if the same people had taken Piper and Emily?
21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEgNbub4X4I
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───
Author's Note: Do you think the same people could have taken Piper and Emily?
─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───21Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKXQaEKsNzO
