Then Brianna whispers in her ear.
“You will remember this perfect moment Kimberly, and in your coming life it will make you fearless against time and death.”
Brianna then bestows a silent kiss on the child, and the changeling walks alone on her path. As Brianna and Calvin watch her depart Calvin asks Brianna a question.
“Why did she choose to go back? She was so happy here. Was it just to see her mother?”
“It's more than that Calvin. Her spirit needs the adversity of human experience to grow and thrive. She must live that struggle before she can transcend it. It's true for all of us.”
“Will she be all right?”
“Yes, she'll do better than most.”
Meantime another struggle continues for Paul and Kathleen O’Neil visiting their coma stricken daughter in Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne Australia. The heavy moments of seeing their nine-year-old daughter in her helpless condition is a taxing vigil that drains them both of emotional and physical energy. Since the accident that caused their daughter's coma they've made the four hour drive from their home every Sunday to see her. After more than seventy consecutive trips, their steadfast dedication to their child's welfare and strong resolve to support her in whatever way they can is apparent to all.
Kathleen O’Neil remembers watching a news report on TV some years ago that was based on the true story of a South Korean mother who had two sons who fought in the Korean war. When the conflict had ended they remained captive as prisoners of war. After pleading unsuccessfully to the North Korean government, the mother of the two men began praying for their return. As an added measure of devotion, she would get up in the middle of the night at three am to voice her prayer request. She did this night after night, without missing a single night for forty-three years. Her story was told and eventually retold on nationwide television. Public pressure finally persuaded the North Korean government to relent and the two men were released. A mother's quiet resolve and unwavering faith proved stronger than the stern decrees of a totalitarian government. This news story stuck with Kathleen O’Neil and she remembers it until this day. She also remembers how the story ended. The notoriety ensured that when the Korean mother's two sons returned home to her, film crews were there to record the event. As the two men approached their mother's house they paused several hundred feet from her home and fell to their hands and knees to crawl the rest of the way, publicly showing their profound filial respect for their mother's tireless devotion. Kathleen remembers the expression of quiet strength and dignity on the woman's face as her two sons approached her. The image of that face has remained with her through the intervening years with an uncanny sense she would somehow need it someday to deal with her own struggle. Since her daughter's brain injury, she thinks more often about that woman and identifies with her remarkable story of faith and patience.
The emotional ordeal that Kathleen O’Neil is going through is similar, but in one critical respect, very different. Kathleen O’Neil carries an added burden of self-blame. In her one sided conversations with her daughter when she's visiting, her tone is defensive and apologetic, so much so that Paul is concerned about his wife's psychological and emotional health. Kathleen makes it a point to talk to her daughter when they visit and read to her from books that Kimberly was familiar with before the accident. As Paul sits passively, he winces to hear the title of the book his wife has brought to read to their daughter.
“I brought your favorite book today Kimberly. It's called ‘The Lost Princess.’ We used to read this book together. Do you remember?”
Paul pulls away and moves toward the window as Kathleen reads to their daughter. Looking out the window affords at least a partial distraction from his despondent mood. As he hears his wife's obsequious voice read the simple strain of words, he surrenders to the perfect sadness of the moment. Then he hears something strange, or is he imagining it? He hears a faint second voice in parallel with his wife.
“Once there was a princess who went walking in the forest one day, and ...”
A sudden apprehension comes over Kathleen as she too hears a faint but audible voice in sync with her own.
Paul rushes forward and asks, “Did you hear that? Keep reading. Keep reading.”
Flustered, Kathleen finds her place and begins again, this time more loudly.
“'She went ... she went into the forest.'”
“Not so fast honey, slow down a little,” Paul says.
“'She went into the forest and started picking berries.'”
Again their daughter's voice begins, this time clearer and stronger.
“She was having so much fun — Yes, yes that's it. That's it Kimberly! — She was having so much fun, that she spent the whole afternoon with her basket picking —”
Kathleen breaks off in her nervous excitement.
“She's talking Paul! She's talking! Honey can you hear me? Kimberly I'm here. I'm here angel. We're both here. Please come home. We're waiting for you.”
Then, with no prior hint, Paul and Kathleen see their daughter do something she hasn't done in nearly a year and a half. She opens her eyes. Startled, Paul looks on in muted amazement, but Kathleen cannot contain her emotions.
“Kimberly! Oh God, oh God, Kimberly you're back. You're back. Oh honey, we love you.”
Kathleen sees her daughter looking back at her and hears the words she's waited so long to hear.
“Hi Mum.”
When Kathleen hears her daughter say these words, a mother's fervent hope instantly becomes an assured reality, triggering the release of a torrent of pent up emotions and she breaks down in tears.
“Oh Kimberly, Kimberly I'm sorry. I'm sorry angel.”
“It's okay, Mum.”
Leaning to kiss her daughter's face, Kathleen drinks in through tear soaked eyes the joyful sight of her daughter's animated countenance. As his wife tries to cope with the flood of emotion she's experiencing, Paul tentatively moves toward his daughter almost afraid that she will slip again into oblivion. He moves closer, and as she looks back at him, he too is greeted by her.
“Hi Daddy.”
“Hello sweetheart.”
His daughter's words are emotionally wrenching, and he too succumbs to the tearfully joyous moment. As tears flow copiously from Paul and Kathleen, Kimberly is comparatively calm and relaxed. Then a knock on the door signals the entry of a nurse making her daily rounds, who is alarmed by the commotion.
“What's wrong?” she asks.
“She's back. Our angel is back,” Kathleen says.
“What?”
“Our angel is back. She's finally back.”
“What do you mean she's back?”
As the nurse moves over to see for herself, she too is startled to see young Kimberly looking back at her.
“I have to get Doctor Emerson up here. Don't do anything until Doctor Emerson gets here.”
As Paul and Kathleen watch the staff nurse quickly leave, they pay little heed to her words. As far as they're concerned, they need not be told what they already know. Their daughter is back. Kathleen struggles to express herself.
“We've missed you Kimberly. We missed you so much.”
“I was flying Mummy.”
“You were flying? Oh honey, that's just your imagination. That's okay.”
“How do you feel Kimberly? Are you okay?” Paul asks.
“Yes, I'm okay ... What is this place?”
“It's a hospital darling. You've been here a while.”
“Why?”
“Well, we wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I was in a hospital before I was flying. Can we go home now Mummy?”
“Oh Kimberly, we'll take you home as soon as we can.”
“God in heaven thank you, thank you,” Paul says, still rapt in amazement.
S
uddenly the door opens. Two doctors and a nurse enter and quickly move to Kimberly's bedside. Doctor Emerson and one of his colleagues move closer and see nine-year-old Kimberly O’Neil awake, animated, and lucid. His medical training prompts him to do the obvious. He checks the child's vital signs and as Paul and Kathleen pull back, they are aware that an extensive battery of tests will most likely follow. That is of little consequence to them, however. They are now both of one mind. They will stay in the hospital or nearby for as long as it takes, and when they drive back home, they'll be taking their daughter with them. Kathleen is still weeping when Doctor Emerson tells her, “Mr and Mrs O’Neil, I know you want to be with your daughter, but it's vitally important that we run some more tests on her just to be safe.”
“We understand Doctor. We understand perfectly,” Paul says.
“It might be best if you could wait downstairs and I'll talk with you as soon as I can. I promise you.”
“Sure, that's what we'll do,” Paul says.
“I need to tell her where we're going,” says Kathleen.
“Absolutely,” says Doctor Emerson.
Paul and Kathleen return to their daughter and again see her keenly alert. Her face brightens as they approach and the heart-warming moment is joyfully palpable, as Kathleen tells her, “Kimberly, the doctors want to make sure you're okay, so we have to let them do their work. We'll be back as soon as they get done, okay?”
“Okay, can we go home then Mummy?”
“We're not leaving here without you angel. I promise.”
“We'll be back soon Kimberly,” Paul says as they kiss their daughter through a flood of emotion. After leaving the room they stand together in the hallway for a moment and Paul comforts his wife who is still emotionally overwhelmed. Moments later, Paul and Kathleen O’Neil are walking down the hallway, beside themselves in an almost dream-like ecstasy of renewed happiness. As they leisurely walk down the hallway, they have no way of seeing or knowing of the presence of the two souls who are observing them. Brianna and her apprentice Calvin are present and have seen all.
As Paul and Kathleen O’Neil walk past them Calvin says,”They look so happy.”
“The best is still ahead for them. Caitlin is now Kimberly.”
“What about the original Kimberly?” Calvin asks.
“She began her new journey months ago. She's doing fine.”
“That's wonderful.”
Calvin pauses for a moment. “But I get the feeling our next arrival is very different.”
“Your intuition is correct Calvin. Yes, our next arrival is very different, and to take his measure we have to descend into a dark place. It's time to look into the face of the beast.
Chapter Seven: The Serial Killer
When thirty-four-year-old Spencer Phillips reaches over to mute his alarm clock beside his bed, it signals the start of a day he's been anticipating for some time. Today is a travel day for Mr Phillips. The six o'clock alarm means he has three hours to catch his flight to Munich, Germany and then make the connection to Milan, Italy where he'll be staying for at least one week. The purpose of his trip is not to visit family or friends. It's not business related, and it's not a holiday excursion for himself. The reason for this trip, like his last overseas trip, and the eleven he made prior to that, is to find a victim. Spencer Phillips is a serial killer.
It's been over six weeks since his last ‘encounter’ as he calls them, and he found it not particularly satisfying. The more time he spends with a victim before he murders them, the more sated he feels afterward. His last encounter was a target of opportunity that presented itself when he was driving through Montana several months ago, and though it was only partially gratifying, he relives it over and over again in his memory. He recalls every detail as if he was reliving it in the present moment. Always alert for a vehicle on the side of the road, he vividly remembers seeing the truck parked off to the side with a man fixing a flat tire. Like a predator looking for a weakness he instantly notices the flat tire is on the passenger side of the man's truck and hidden from the view of anyone driving by, and he notices something else. The man is alone. Spencer Phillips has mastered the art of the friendly approach since his teens and can wear it like a mask to suit his purpose. Once he saw the man kneeling to loosen the lug nuts to change his tire, a murderous, predatory impulse with an almost erotic lure surged within him, as if his consciousness was amplified, taking in every detail with magnified intensity. Spencer Phillips can recall perfectly every word spoken that day.
“Hi there,” he says as he approaches.
“Hi.”
“What can I do to help?”
“I think I'm all right. I must've picked up a nail or something.”
“I have a can of ‘Fix a Flat'.”
“That's okay. I'll just change the tire and be done with it.”
“No, take it with you. You might need it.”
Quickly moving to his car, Spencer Phillips opens his glove compartment, but not for a can of ‘Fix A Flat'. The nine millimeter Glock he carries with him is always fully loaded. Walking back to the man still kneeling beside his truck, and with no approaching traffic, Spencer Phillips saw his chance and took it. He gets excited when he relives the moment of the kill and clearly recalls the moment he approached and what he said.
“Maybe this'll help,” he said, firing three times into the man's back. As he slumped forward motionless, Spencer Phillips became incensed.
“Maybe this'll help dumb ass,” he repeats with another three shots. The sharp staccato sound of each pistol shot seemed to heighten the sick intensity of the moment.
“Maybe this'll help you dumb son of a bitch!”
Working himself into a frenzy, Spencer Phillips emptied his clip into his helpless victim that day, then casually pulled away as if all was normal. One day later he had four used tires put on his car and paid for them with cash. Mr. Phillips is meticulous in leaving the scene of his encounters with as little incriminatory evidence as possible.
Recalling in vivid detail each of his killings is the closest Spencer Phillips can come to reliving the actual experience. Of his numerous murder victims, one in particular stands out in his memory. It was a year ago in Thailand when circumstances allowed him to spend over two hours with his victim. In that time the native fifteen-year-old girl begged him to spare her before he strangled her to death. That experience changed Spencer Phillips forever and added a sadistic quality to his homicidal psychopathy. Since that experience, he has returned three times to Southeast Asia, each time killing at least once.
Spencer Phillips is a successful serial killer for several reasons, foremost among them is his habit of carefully considering the risks he exposes himself to in each of his encounters. He avoids as far as possible any physical struggle with his victims to prevent inadvertent DNA contamination. Mr. Phillips can still check his psychotic urge to kill if the perceived risk is too great. Highly intelligent and personable, he's confident in his ability to extricate himself verbally from almost any situation.
Another reason he's never been caught is more basic. Five years ago Spencer Phillips won almost 860,000 dollars in lottery money. This boon allows him to travel overseas to places that are less likely to investigate any crime scene with the modern array of forensic technology available to other governments. The money also enables him to travel the highways of America hoping for a chance encounter. He likes fast, powerful cars and can easily drive over 100,000 miles in one year.
Spencer Phillips has killed twenty-six times since committing his first murder when he was twenty two. Twelve of those twenty-six have been outside the U.S.. nineteen of his twenty-six victims were women or girls, and of the total number, eight were children. His preference is to spend time with a victim before murdering them, so he can watch the paralyzing fear of a human being seconds before they die. Hearing some of them beg for their life is for Spencer Ph
illips an experience of complete omnipotence. He often travels with a small hand wound cooking timer, ostensibly to wake him from a short nap after jet lag. His real use for it is something very different. Mr Phillips likes to pull the timer out of his pocket and tell his victim he has only ten minutes to live. Then he coldly stares into the pleading face of terrified desperation. These are the moments Spencer Phillips lives for.
To increase his victim’s terror, when only a few minutes remain, he slowly puts on his leather gloves and wraps the chord around his hands. When the timer rings he moves closer to his victim who is bound and gagged, and with one final taunt whispers, “You're not gonna like this, but I'm gonna love it.”
The moment of strangulation is supremely thrilling for Spencer Phillips. He becomes very excited when his victim breaks down in absolute panic as many do, sometimes calling like a child for their ‘mommies and daddies'. In his mind nothing compares to the eyeball to eyeball contact of absolute power staring into the helpless gaze of doomed innocence.
All the pain and abusive humiliation once forced on him is suddenly his to wield, like someone whipped every day of their lives now finding the whip in his own hands. Spencer Phillips calls it ‘payback time'.
Most people who see Mr Phillips in a normal setting see a man whose calm exterior conceals the seething anger that rules his tormented inner life. The product of a broken home, he never knew his father and his mother was an alcoholic. Her erratic behavior included selling herself to make ends meet, and the abuse was more than psychological for Spencer Phillips. His mother would often slap or kick him because he was a living reminder of his father, the man who raped her and left her pregnant. Forcing him to watch as she performed oral sex on men was her way of saying, “if I'm gonna be a whore, so are you.”
The twisted logic that Spencer Phillips learned when young, through the grim example of direct experience, was that abuse is a normal part of life. Now, as an adult acting it out on others, he finds that killing helps to disgorge some of the toxic rage he lives with day to day. His longest held job before winning the Illinois State Lottery was at a slaughter house, an occupation he found very much to his liking. After leaving his mother's home at seventeen, stable employment enabled him to find a cheap apartment where he lived for eight years. A loner who never made friends, he secluded himself from human contact as much as possible. His personality by this time had been profoundly damaged resulting from years of psychological trauma.
A Journey of Souls Page 9
