The Soul Catcher

by Rowanne Carberry

  I’m about to stand up and see if I can touch both walls if I stretch when Officer One takes over the questioning. I’m ashamed to admit, I start paying more attention: his voice is captivating.

  “Well as I’m sure you understand; we’re having a hard time believing this. We also did a search and found that you’ve told a very similar story before, but in the end, you told everyone you had been lying. Is that true?”

  “It’s true yes. Not that I was lying. Well, I was lying about lying, but I’m…” I stop mid-sentence. I’m getting myself confused.

  Standing up, I pace like a caged animal, it only takes me four steps from one wall to the other. Neither of the officers says a thing. They just sit and watch me as I pace. I can feel their eyes on me, burning into my skin.

  “Look, that all happened ten years ago.” I can tell that they’re not listening to me; not really, they have false smiles plastered on their faces and glazed looks in their eyes. Sighing in frustration, I try to keep my calm. “Can you just get Detective Mitchell? He’s the one in charge. He’s the one I want to talk to.”

  Officer One looks at me with a flash of sympathy on his face that I don’t understand. Until I look at Officer Two and see a smug look on his face. It makes him look like a rat.

  “Sit down.” Even his voice is like a rat, maybe that’s what I should call him instead. I do sit down though.

  “We’re going to let you go with a warning. If you come back in again, we’ll have no choice but to charge you with obstructing an on-going investigation.”

  Standing up in a synchronised motion, they turn their backs on me and head for the door. I’m frozen to the chair that I so desperately wanted out of only moments before. After everything I’ve told them, the stress and worry that it caused me to come here; they are just going to walk away?

  Officer One turns back to me with a sympathetic look on his face as he holds open the door for me to walk through. Rat-man comes back into the room in exasperation.

  “Come on, leave, or I might change my mind about not charging you.”

  He puts his hand on my arm – I’m grateful there’s no vision – pulls me up, and starts propelling me towards the door. I can feel my chest begin to rise and fall quickly, it feels like it’s becoming compressed and I know I’m about to have a panic attack. That’s the only explanation for the words that come tumbling out of my mouth.

  “He slit her throat. Her body was lying in the middle of a circle. There were symbols drawn in the blood around her. He slit her throat and watched the last of her life drain from her eyes.”

  Chapter Four

  Have you ever tried to sleep in a police cell? You can answer that if you want and it’ll just stay between you and me. If you haven’t, then let me tell you, it’s awful. They’re tiny, cold, and uncomfortable. And this one has a ghost in it. A ghost that has unfortunately realised I can hear and see him. So he’s decided to tell me his life story.

  “It really wasn’t me that did it, you know. She was lying. I never touched her. She was just annoyed with me.”

  The ghost circles the room; making me dizzy.

  “I told the police but they didn’t believe me. Just because I had a previous offense and they reckon that they found some of my DNA.” He paused. “I only hung myself because no one else believed me. I’d been in this cell for days while they tried to find somewhere to keep me on remand. Everyone kept shouting stuff through the door and the cops were spitting in my food.” He pauses again before coming over and sitting on the bottom of the bed.

  “You believe me, don’t you?”

  No, I do not. But I can’t tell him that can I? I’m just opening my mouth to speak to him when he jumps off the bed and begins pacing again.

  “It’s that stupid bitch’s fault.”

  On and on and on he goes. I give up watching. Lying down on the bed, I close my eyes and try to sleep but I feel like I’m being watched. Opening my eyes, I see the ghost staring down at me with a predatory glint in his eyes. My heart starts racing and my hands start feeling clammy. I know he can’t hurt me, but that look was enough to scare me. Leaning further into my face, he gets as close to me as he can.

  “Will you tell my family that I love them?”

  I give a small nod of my head and he jumps up, bouncing backwards with a smile on his face before floating through the door and leaving me alone.

  You might think that’s why I can’t sleep, but it isn’t. It’s also something that you hopefully wouldn’t have to deal with. I feel claustrophobic. I obviously can’t get out of the room which makes it bad but the fact that it’s so tiny makes it horrendous. The toilet is in the same room with a privacy screen that doesn’t exactly offer you any privacy. There’s a sink next to that but it is a tiny sink; the bowl doesn’t even look like it would fill with enough water to drown a fly.

  And it’s stifling. It doesn’t feel like there’s enough air to breathe properly and I’m sure that no one has cleaned it since the last person was in here — I can smell their sweat, and the heat in the room is making it worse.

  The door has a little window in it that’s covered up at the moment, but over the past couple of hours the cover has been pulled across and a face appeared checking on what I was doing. But it didn’t let any air or light in. There was a cat flap in the bottom of the door which I can only assume is to put food through, but they haven’t done that yet, they haven’t even given me a bloody drink. I don’t have any of my belongings, not even my shoes or jewellery — everything was taken off me. I don’t know why. It’s not like I’d be able to kill myself with a bloody dolly shoe and a ring.

  The ‘bed’ that I have to sit or lie on is a metal slab with a rollaway mattress and a pathetically small blanket that wouldn’t even keep a mouse warm.

  So stress.

  All of this leads to stress. And if you’ve ever been stressed you know that it makes it damn hard to sleep.

  Apparently, after my description of the murder they decided I was involved in the murders somehow. That’s why they arrested me. Why they threw me into this cell. And why I haven’t seen or spoken to anyone since.

  Not knowing the time is driving me insane. I know it’s some stupid time of the morning though. I also really need a drink but they haven’t even given me a cup. What the hell they think I’m going to do with a cup, I don’t know. Unless they think I’m somehow going to be able to get a paper cut and bleed myself to death? You would think I would at least be entitled to a paper cup, wouldn’t you?

  My throat is getting drier and drier. It’s becoming hard to swallow. And the harder it is to swallow, the more panicked and claustrophobic I feel. I take over the pacing of the ghost from earlier on and walk around the room, but it just makes me feel more frustrated. Going over to the door, I bang on it as loudly as I can, but no one comes. I leave it a few minutes before banging again and still no one comes. Closing my eyes, I lean my head against the door and sigh in frustration.

  I hear a click but it doesn’t quite register. The next thing I know, I’m falling into the arms of a muscular man with brown hair and brown eyes that are widened in surprise. He reaches out to grab me and as soon as his hands touch my arms, the whole world goes black.

  * * *

  When colour seeps in, I see someone. He’s on a chair with his hands behind his back. His head is down and strands of hair stick to his forehead with sweat. I hear the same laugh as I did in the vision with the woman. Into the scene steps the same man, only this time his white suit is covered in blood.

  “You were too late, Detective. You thought you could catch me? With a witch?” He laughs again. This time, his eyes glow with a fire deep within and a black shadow passes over his face. The laugh is a deep rumble of thunder that makes me shudder. “This is what happens to those that come after me.”

  He walks out of the room and returns dragging a body drained of all life and throws it in front of the man’s feet. He stalks closer to the man on the chair, drawing a blade from a
holster strapped to his leg. He moves so smoothly, it’s like watching a cat the moment before it pounces on a mouse to kill it.

  Finally, circling around to the back of the chair, the man with the knife leans down and wraps an arm around the throat of the man tied to the chair. The air around them ripples and thrives with shadows. I catch a movement out of the corner of my eye as the knife is lifted, then plunged down into the chest of the man in the chair.

  Chapter Five

  I wake up panting and shaking, covered in sweat and filled with fear. Looking around me, I see that I’m no longer in the cell. I’m sitting on a cracked leather sofa. There are filing cabinets in one corner of the room. A large desk piled with paperwork takes up the back wall of the office. Turning around to see the rest of the room, I notice that I’m being watched by three people. Two of them I recognise from the vision. The last is one of the arseholes from my interview. He’s staring at me now and he’s still got that look that makes it seem like he’s laughing at me. I feel like sticking my tongue out at him but know that would be too childish.

  So I stick my middle finger up instead. That earns me a deep bark of laughter from him. Which I’m ashamed to admit sends a nice shiver down my spine.

  Turning away from him, I focus my gaze on the man that I’m pretty sure is Detective Mitchell.

  “Where am I?” I ask, “And who are you?” I want clarification.

  He counters my question with one of his own. “What did you see?”

  “Where am I and who are you?” I ask again, determined to get an answer to my question before I answer any of theirs.

  The person I think to be Detective Mitchell looks at me. I can tell he’s trying to decide whether to answer my question or push for an answer to his.

  “I’m Detective Mitchell.” He tells me, pausing before answering the next part of my question. “We need your help to catch the person responsible for Nicole Brown’s murder.”

  “You believe me?” I cry out.

  People I’ve known and loved haven’t believed me in the past when I’ve told them. Yet, here are a bunch of strangers telling me that they believe what I saw in the vision to be true. I wanted to cry tears of relief knowing that they didn’t think I was crazy. All my life I’ve had to hide what I can do for fear of scaring the people I love.

  Detective Mitchell glances at the woman beside him. She looks different to what she did in the vision. Her hair is long, thick and curly, it’s black, but when she moves her head, the light catches flashes of red running throughout the curls. Her skin is a deep honey colour and she has startling blue eyes set in the middle of a very pretty face.

  “We believe you,” She tells me, “Let’s just say… We have reasons to believe in supernatural occurrences like your visions.”

  “Well, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” I’m still sitting on the sofa with the other three on the opposite side of the room. “And who are you?” I wish they would just tell me without having to ask. Instead of answering straight away, she comes and sits beside me.

  “I’m a witch,” Maria tells me. That one short sentence helps me to understand why people have reacted to me in the past the way they have. With not believing me, laughing at me, avoiding me.

  I wanted to laugh. Trying to control it, I look to Detective Mitchell and Officer One — both leaning against the wall with crossed arms — then back over to the so-called witch, Maria.

  “A witch?” I repeat raising my eyebrows at her

  “Do you really find that so hard to believe?” Officer One asks me.

  “Well, considering how you reacted to me telling you about my visions, I don’t really see that you’ve got room to speak when it comes to believing people.” He’s pissed me off now, pisses me off even more by the smirk that comes across his face.

  “That’s Ripper,” Detective Mitchell tells me; pointing to the one I’ve been calling officer one. “He can read memories.”

  That’s it: this is all too much for me. The laughter I’ve been trying to control bubbles out, tipping over onto the edge of hysteria.

  “In the past, I’ve tried telling people what I can do. They ignore me. People died because they didn’t want to believe what it was I was telling them.”

  “I’m sorry.” Detective Mitchell does look sorry and he even sounds it, but I’m on a roll now.

  “I was sent to a mental asylum, which you already know because you researched me. At fifteen years old, I was taken away from everyone I know, drugged up, made to feel awful and that I was a liar. I only got off the meds because I turned into the liar that they all thought I was and started lying about what it is I can see to get off the meds and get out.” I trail off as my eyes fill with tears. Blinking my eyes rapidly to stop the tears from falling, I look down at the ground and whisper my next sentence.

  “When I got out, my family and friends avoided me; I had to leave home because they were so scared of me.”

  “Why were they scared of you?” Looking up, I see that it’s the man they call Ripper asking me. The sparkle has left his eyes and instead they’re full of concern. I can’t stop the tears from spilling over. A tissue appears in front of me and I take it. Fingers linger against my hand and I brace myself for a vision, but instead warmth courses through me. I look into Ripper’s eyes as he repeats his question and keeps a hold of my hand.

  “I told a family member that they were going to be in an accident. I begged them not to go out. I told other people in my family what I’d seen, but no one believed me, they said I’d already admitted it was a lie. My cousin didn’t listen to me, she went out the next day and were killed in a car crash. She – my cousin - was pregnant with twins. No one survived.” I feel my hand being squeezed but I can’t look up.

  “What did you do then? To try to help people?” The voice belongs to Maria but I still can’t look at her. I just concentrate on the hand in mine.

  “I tried to keep the visions to myself for a while but I couldn’t live with the guilt. I told a few people. They looked at me as though I was a freak. They’d act as though they didn’t know me anymore, even though they often believed me enough to follow my advice. I started leaving leaflets around for certain illnesses like cancer, hoping they would recognise the symptoms and get themselves checked out. I would keep people talking longer, accidently knock into someone or trip them so they wouldn’t walk where they were about to. I’ve learnt a lot of tricks, but mostly, I just try and live as though the things I can do aren’t real.”

  The hand lets go of mine and I instantly feel a loss of warmth. I use the tissue to dry my eyes and look up in time to see Ripper handing me a Styrofoam cup. Taking it, I can already feel how cool the water is. I down the drink in a long gulp, savouring the coolness of the water as it slides down my throat.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He acknowledges the thanks with a nod and goes back to leaning against the wall. I get distracted as he crosses his arms and the muscles flex beneath his shirt. Getting distracted by a physically attractive man isn’t the worst thing that could happen, I suppose.

  There’s a cough.

  I turn my eyes guiltily towards Detective Mitchell.

  “Before we get distracted from our main point—” he pointedly looks between me and Ripper and I can feel a blush heating my cheeks “—I’ll let you know a bit more about why we believe you. There are other people on our team: some work for the police as part of our investigation team, others we call in as and when we need them. They have other jobs and are just our advisors.”

  He gives me a moment to let this sink in. My mind feels like someone has taken a box that would only fit a shoe and tried to make the whole world fit inside of it instead.

  “So what can you do then?” I ask him, I know he’ll get there eventually but I just want this conversation over with so I can go home and go to sleep.

  “I can see ghosts.”

  I let out a small gasp and whisper, “Me too,” to no one in particular.

&n
bsp; “So you have visions and you can see ghosts?” Maria asks.

  Nodding my head, I realise that I should actually just tell them everything.

  “Yeah, I can see ghosts. I can interact with them too. Talk to them, that kind of thing. And then, as you know, I get visions. Death visions. It has to be an imminent death though, and I have to be touching the person.”

  I gulp as I realise I’ve just told Detective Mitchell that I saw his death.

  “Tell me,” he says.

  “You were tied to a chair in the middle of some big industrial room. The walls were bare. You were on your own. You didn’t look in a good way if I’m telling the truth. Then in walks this, man, although he’s not like any man I’ve ever seen before. He’s the same one I saw in the vision with that woman that’s just been killed, Nicole.” I trail off for a moment as I wonder what would have happened if I’d come in earlier and told them about what I’d seen.

  Also, it’s hard recounting the details of someone’s murder to the person who was murdered. I look up and see that they’re all staring at me, Maria gives me an encouraging nod, but that just makes it worse because she’s the woman I saw die in the same vision as the detective.

  I take a deep breath, turn around to face Detective Mitchell, and carry on with my story.

  “He told you that you were too late and that you were stupid to think that you could stop him with just a witch. He’d already killed Maria and showed you her body.”

  I’m cut off by a sharp gasp and look up to see the colour drain from Maria’s face. She looks like her corpse did in the vision.

  Maria stands up with a sharp gasp and looks around the room. Her eyes have gone wide and her breathing has become shallow and fast. “I just… I need a moment.”