CHAPTER ONE
Samantha stopped as if standing at a crossroads; the atoms in the air around her whining with anticipation as the movements of the living melted away like wax sliding from a candle.
She stood in the drive of the small subdivision, the emergency lights flashing around her. The methodical strobe, for others signified the arrival of help but for Samantha each turn of color became a painful kaleidoscope of anxiety and urgency.
How long had it been? Eight years - no closer to nine. She pushed the memories away.
Time of course was reported to heal all wounds, but Samantha had never found much truth in that statement. Sure time eased the rough edges of pain but heal?
It would be more accurate to say time anesthetized all wounds. Time somehow dulled her pain, but never completely healed it.
She closed her eyes; tonight she would reopen those wounds.
She felt small as the sea of emergency personnel surrounded the home; knowing at any moment the evil inside would reach out and swallow her.
She stepped back, watching a black hole growing from the center of the house.
It was coming for her.
A bass drum pounding in her ears was in direct communication with her heart; both sounding a warning of the agony inside the home as she waited for Joseph to inform the other officers of her arrival. She whispered a quick prayer this nightmare would be over soon and she could retreat to the safety of her home in the quiet Alabama countryside.
Slowly she opened her eyes; blue uniforms with shiny gold badges appeared and disappeared, materializing in and out of the house, each with their own urgency. She swallowed a groan as an officer brushed against her – this was not his first crime scene tonight.
Her home and the fifty acres surrounding it might as well be on another planet. Samantha released the breath she’d been holding, it would all be over in a matter of minutes; she just needed to get inside, do her job and leave.
Sensing her ability the dead gathered in a swarm around her; knowing she was the anchor in this world they needed to relive the final moments of their lives, but Samantha had to relive them too. Each painful memeory embedding itself deep within her heart.
They stared at her with despondent, anxious eyes most trying desperately to gain some type of rational thought – this was the worst time for murder victims. The time when the resolute certainty of their own mortality overwhelmed them and the fragility of the life they took for granted crystallized into one word – why ?
Samantha kept her eyes fixed on a glassy puddle. If she opened herself to any of them she wouldn’t have the energy left to help the victims inside the home.
The black hole engulfed the home now as the icy fingers of death reached out for her.
Evil was here, and it was pulling her out of her solitude and back into this world. To the seasoned officers this scene was probably no different than any other crime scene but for Samantha everything was different. This evil had a purpose; a desperate driven need for something.
She took a deep breath allowing the cool night air to ease her jangled nerves. Outside the air was clean from the recent rain – inside…
The vibrations hit her as solidly as if she’d been struck by a car and she stumbled to keep her footing.
Even in the afterlife there were cliques – the more heinous your death the more energy you generated. It was that energy which assaulted Samantha – like animals hearing things at higher frequencies – she heard the last moments of life snatched from the innocent.
Anger began somewhere in the pit of her stomach and rose like bile. It wasn’t fair. Her body vibrated as the dead reached out to her; the temperature around her dropping so fast she could see her breath condensing.
She brushed a tear away, focusing on the victims who lived here and their last few moments alive. Samantha clinched her hands in fists by her side, slowly opening and closing them, trying to pump some semblance of warmth into them.
Her body was riveted to the drive, but her mind was yanked inside the house. She fought the pain as the rush and urgency of the tonight’s events engulfed her. Closing her eyes she followed the scene the curious neighbors couldn’t see. She always envied them their barrier of yellow tape.
Inside to the left there was a small kitchen table transformed from its former usage into a desk. The notebooks containing the woman’s class notes now splattered with blood.
She took a quick breath and released it; she must see what the victim saw; feeling what they felt.
Near the sink, she could see a vase with a single rose. Samantha watched the slim fingers of a woman as she ran them over the stuffed teddy bear holding a heart sparkling with the words, “Congratulations.”
She had plans, a life full of promise and hope.
The killer slipped something around her neck and used it....her hand flew to her throat as she felt the first wave of suffocation creep over her. The killer pulling harder now; just enough, until he felt her give in to the lack of oxygen, then release her.
It was the oldest game of cat and mouse, and one Samantha knew all too well. The killers she helped find all had the same uncontrollable need to dominate their victim. It was a large part of why they killed.
She allowed the scene to play out behind her closed lids. He cornered the woman in the living room. Lamps, were overturned, photos of happier times lay shattered among the remains of what had once been a normal, happy life.
A vice slowly tightened around her heart.
She watched a large hunting knife ripped through the fabric of the sofa and the woman’s delicate flesh, over and over; each blow longer and deeper until there was little left.
Samantha stood over the body now and could see the precision the knife made . It hung loosely and pieces of it were scattered around her feet like so much confetti.
Samantha hoped the sick torture of the young woman would sate the killer’s appetite as she allowed her sight to expand.
She was wrong.
