Unnatural Souls

by Linda Foster

  US copyright ©2016 by Linda Foster

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

  sales@glasshousepress.com

  Published in the United States by Glass House Press, LLC, 2014. GLASS HOUSE PRESS and colophon are trademarks of Glass House Press, LLC.

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  ISBN: 978-0-9977461-2-9

  Library Of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication is on file with the publisher.

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  Cover by White Rabbit Designs and Creations

  Book Design by Inkstain Interior Book Designing

  2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

  First Edition

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  About Linda

  JOURNAL ENTRY—APRIL 4

  I’M GOING CRAZY.

  There was no doubt in my mind of that simple and terrifying fact. And the situation I was facing right now only made me more positive.

  I dropped my pen and ducked out of the way as another book whizzed by my head, then jumped onto my bed and thrust my back against the wall, hugging my legs against myself. And for what felt like the thousandth time—that day—I prayed for it to stop.

  Around me, books, papers, pillows, and my laptop were swirling through the room in a supernatural whirlwind. Which meant that my normally carefully organized pink and white room was now covered by the chaos of my other belongings. A place of calm and peace, turned to hell. Drawers were opening and closing, spitting out their contents and adding to the mess that flew around the place. They’d been doing it on and off all day. How everything was moving, I didn’t know … but this wasn’t the first time. Not by a long shot. I’d endured months of this torture.

  If only the flying objects were my sole problem. But no, that would be too easy. I was also seeing people who weren’t there, moving places in the blink of an eye without meaning to, and having visions of events that later came true. Take your pick—I had somehow hit the mother lode of crazy jackpot.

  God, I just wanted it to end.

  I should have died. The thought suddenly drifted through my head, just like it had been doing at least a dozen times a day—since the day that had changed my life. And with it, my lower lip began to quiver.

  That was where it all started, I was sure of it. Ever since I hadn’t died, this madness had been life. And it was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. I could feel the sting in my eyes and the warmth as a few stray tears began to slide down my face. Then a familiar pressure settled on my chest, and I gave up and let the sobs come. I just wanted to go back—back to when I was normal. Before all the strange things started happening, and ruining my life. But that wasn’t possible. Not after what had happened.

  There had been an accident … an accident that should have taken my life. I was in a coma for weeks, and the doctors had given up hope. My parents were ready to pull the plug as well, from the stories I’d heard … but not my brother. My sweet, innocent, guilt-ridden Ash. He’d vowed to save me, no matter what it took.

  And that’s when things had started getting weird. I’d found herself in some sort of ghost-like state, able to see and hear the world around me, but unable to communicate. And I’d watched, horrified, as Ash had met with a strange man … and made a deal for my life. He’d sold his soul for me, and I’d been helpless to stop him. Then, right before Ash had shaken hands with the man, there’d been a flash of bright light.

  Next thing I knew, I was awake in the hospital, back in my body. I’d been ready to write off what I thought I saw with Ash as a dream—after all, who in their right mind would have believed it?—but the weirdness started that very day.

  I had made remarks to my parents about people I saw at the hospital, people no one else seemed to notice. The doctors chalked it up to stress, but I couldn’t quite accept that. I tried to, for a while, because who was I to argue? Then I spent a week in the hospital, seeing people. Stress, I kept telling myself. That was what the doctors said, and it made sense.

  Only stress didn’t explain the events that followed.

  My first night home, I swore my bags had unpacked themselves. No one else admitted to doing it, and I knew I hadn’t. Which seemed … well, weird. Once again I tried to explain it away—mental exhaustion, I thought. I’d done it myself, and then forgotten. Or something.

  But as the days and weeks went by and the odd events continued happening, I began to doubt it was just stress. Then one day it all came to a head. My phone fell behind my bed, which wasn’t light, but a solid wood, sleigh-style bed. When I pushed it, using the strength it would normally take to budge it even an inch, I ended up sending the thing sliding across the length of my room and slamming into my desk.

  I stared at the bed, panicked, and knew there was no way the doctors’ excuses explained that one away. That’s when the objects began to move right in front of my eyes. I picked up my phone with a shaky hand, and the bed moved back into place on its own.

  I tried to ignore it all but it continued, and the more time went by, the more freaked out I became. Still, it wasn’t until the day I was running late for school that I truly had to accept that something was seriously wrong with me. I had the thought that there was no way I’d make it to school in time, and boom, in the blink of an eye, I found myself standing alone in the girl’s bathroom right outside first period. Just in time.

  Or I would have been if I hadn’t completely freaked out and spent my first class curled up in the fetal position.

  I didn’t know how, or why, but something else had happened to me the night of the accident. It hadn’t been a dream, I realized—that scene that I’d seen was real. My brother had made a deal with the devil—or maybe something slightly less dramatic—to bring me back.

  But what did he bring me back to?

  What happened after he made the deal for my life, and what did it have to do with what was going on with me now? I didn’t know, but it had to be connected. Had that man truly given me my life back? Had it been tainted by whatever magic he’d used to do it?

  A pillow hit the wall with enough force to send feathers flying, and I buried my head in my lap, holding back a scream of frustration. Go away, please stop. But my silent pleas didn’t help. They never had. I could hear the objects moving and hitting walls but refused to watch, feeling like a little girl hiding from the bogyman. It would stop soon. It always did. I just had to wait it out.

  Please.

  A soft knock came at the door, and I whipped my head up from my lap, petrified that someone else would see. What would they think if they saw what was going on? Running away screaming would be a great reaction. Something involving a priest flinging holy water in my face and chanting “Be gone, devil”?

  Worse?

  Everything froze for a moment, then fell to the ground … right before my mom poked her head in.

  “Grace, honey.” It was the voice I had come to think of as my mom’s “soothing” voice, which made it sound like she was talking to a child, or trying to talk someone out of jumping off a bridge. She was still treating me as if I might break down at any moment.

  It wasn’t far fro
m the truth.

  I remained glued to the wall, and my mom looked at me with a raised brow. “I’ve been calling you for breakfast.” She glanced around the room, but said nothing about the disarray.

  I couldn’t recall my mom ever needing to tell me to clean my room, though, and I knew she was probably thinking the same thing. But what could I say about it? How did one go about explaining that they had new powers they couldn’t control—without being put on crazy pills for the rest of their life?

  “Sorry,” I replied with a shaky voice, my body still plastered against the wall.

  “Are you okay?” My mom stepped further into the room and I finally managed to move. My limbs felt heavy, and I couldn’t stop shaking, but at least I was moving. It was a start. Swinging my legs over the edge of the bed, I rose and wrapped my arms around her waist. I had lost count of how many times she had asked that question. Hundreds, thousands maybe? My answer was always the same.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. I’m just a freak surrounded by supernatural oddness every day, and I’m slowly losing my grip with reality. Oh, and it’s because your son sold his soul to save my life. No big deal, right?

  “It’s just…” Mom started, avoiding eye contact with me. Her hand ran up and down my arm, and she abruptly bent down and picked up a few books, placing them on the empty desk. “You haven’t been the same since…” Her voice trailed off, as it always did. I knew what she meant, and also knew that she was never able to finish that sentence.

  None of them could.

  The tightness returned to my chest, and tears threatened to fall again. My shoulders sagged. My parents had almost lost their little girl, and my brother did something horrible to save me. I had to deal with this, fix it if I could, but I couldn’t let anyone know how broken I felt right now. Not when they’d already been through so much.

  You will not cry.

  “Mom,” I sighed, not wanting to go through this again, “I’m really okay.”

  “No,” my mom insisted, finally making eye contact. “You haven’t been yourself. You’re jumpy. I’ve been ignoring it. You went through a lot and I knew you would need time to heal, mentally as much as physically. It’s been months, though. Your friends are always calling, but you never go out. I know it’s scary, honey, but you have to get back out there.”

  I bit my tongue. It wasn’t scary, it was terrifying. And it wasn’t the idea of hanging out with people that I feared. It wasn’t getting in a car again. It was … well, nothing my mother could imagine, and nothing I could tell anyone about. They’d have me institutionalized, and I couldn’t blame them. How do you tell your parents that you see ghosts, and can move objects with your mind? Worse, what if they witnessed it and wanted nothing to do with me? I’d lose what little I had left, the small part of normalcy that was keeping me sane…ish.

  So I lied, as I slowly lost my mind. Alone.

  “I know, Mom. I’m actually staying after school today to study with the girls.” It wasn’t even remotely true, but I could stay after and do some research in the library, and let my mom think I was with my friends. It would keep her happy for a little while, and the questions at bay. Maybe long enough for me to figure out what I was going to do about this mess.

  My mom’s eyes widened and she smiled. “Great,” she said, enthusiasm bubbling off of her. “Ash already left with Jason. Do you need a ride to school?”

  I nodded, and my mom—seeming to feel better—left me to get ready. I cast a wary look around the room, itching to pick everything back up, to put it all back in perfect order. But I was so tired of cleaning up after the crazy tornados—“craznados,” as I referred to them—that even though I hated it, I left everything where it was. It wasn’t like cleaning it up would keep it from happening again.

  I grabbed my backpack, snatched up a book that had landed on the windowsill and the homework that was scattered across my bed, and left.

  As I walked out of the room, I threw one last glance behind me and sighed. Would my life ever be normal again?

  JOURNAL ENTRY—APRIL 5

  NO INCIDENTS, YET.

  And the day was almost over. A large grin spread across my face. One full day without a single object moving. I hadn’t teleported home—which always forced me to run back to school, since I couldn’t control the teleportation well enough to get back. But there had been none of that. And even better, there had also been no ghosts. I could almost squeal in excitement for that one alone. It meant I could pretend to be as shocked as everyone else when a door slammed shut on its own. You jump back automatically. No need for acting there, because I’m always genuinely surprised, too. Then you just look around like, Oh my gosh, that was so weird, right? Yeah, I had that perfected.

  Even when I’d been the one who had closed the door.

  It was much more difficult, however, to explain why you were talking to someone no one else could see. Mumbling something about memorization for a test always seemed to work. Though there were a stressful few seconds as you watched the other person’s face crinkle in confusion as they tried to decide if they believed you, or heard you right, before they finally shrugged it off and walked away.

  Anyway, the day itself wasn’t quite over—yet. School was though, and that was enough to give me hope. Something I hadn’t felt in a very long time.

  My classmates had scattered to their lockers and out the doors to their cars, to practices and afterschool activities. Which meant the place was empty. And I was safe—for the moment. So, with hope in my heart, and surrounded by peacefully vacant halls, I headed to the library for today’s research.

  When I entered, I headed straight for the back. The old librarian didn’t even glance up from his phone when I walked by. His glasses were perched on the brink of his nose as he stared intently at the device, and I almost grinned. Of course he wasn’t going to look at me—he was used to me by now. I had been collecting stacks of books that might give me answers for months. Some I had gotten from this library, some I had bought and stashed here. After all, I didn’t want my mom finding them in my room. The librarian didn’t seem to notice that I’d been adding to the pile, though, and every time I came in it was untouched.

  Thank God.

  I passed by rows and rows of books, the room getting darker the further I went. There were cubicles hidden away here that I was fairly certain no one ever used, judging by the dust that had collected on them. That’s where I hid my collection. Now, I was praying that my day of good luck might just carry over into my research on how to get Ash his soul back.

  As much as I cared about controlling whatever was going on with me so that I could one day lead a semi-normal life, Ash was more important. My life might suck at the moment, but his problem had a timer on it. Specifically, the time he had left until he lost his soul. And it was ticking away faster by the day. The memory of the night I should have died rolled through my mind as I began combing through the stack of books I’d compiled at the back. Images of Ash standing in a clearing with a red-eyed demon, his hand extended.

  I’d watched in horror as Ash shook hands with that thing, agreeing to give up his soul in one year. In exchange for saving my life.

  An all-too-familiar ache spread through my chest, constricting my lungs. My baby brother, so overwhelmed with guilt because he’d been the one driving at the time of the accident that put me in the hospital, had given up his soul to save me. And there’d been no hesitation in his voice. No sign of second-guessing himself. He’d been sure that he was doing the right thing. It was the most loving token in the world—and at the same time, the most heartbreaking.

  I turned to the very back corner of the cubicle where my stash sat and grabbed a handful of books from the top of the third pile. Slumping into the seat, I dropped the armful of books on the desk, a puff of dust surrounding me when I did. Goes to show how much teenagers check out books in the library nowadays, geesh.

  I plucked up the closest book, entitled True Believers, and ran a finger down the spine, s
ighing. I had searched through every book I could get my hands on—and I’d been doing it for so long that I was starting to forget why I kept at it. Nothing had worked, but I couldn’t just give up. I split my time between books, websites, and online chat rooms for believers just like the ones in these books. If I kept looking, I had to find something.

  Hopefully very soon.

  Besides, research was literally all I could do until I did discover something substantial. So I continued adding to the collection of books, hoping with every fiber of my being that the next one would have an answer, a hint, anything that could help me save my brother. Was this the book? Who knew, but I would read every book ever written if that was what it took.

  I was desperate, but I was also determined, and I let that determination fill my heart. Today, I was going to find what I needed to help me save Ash.

  I flipped the book open and started thumbing through. It was one of the books I had bought and brought here—a book of supernatural stories. Most of them were about aliens, which was oh so helpful. I still read them, though, thinking it was completely plausible for someone to have mistaken a demon for an alien. Could be a false hope, but I didn’t want to leave anything out. The first few stories were about crop circles, abductions, and mysterious lights in the sky.

  The next few chapters were ghost stories, and I slouched down further, my heart hammering. The first one was about a man who swore his wife’s dead mother was haunting him. The next was about a kid who saw people who weren’t there, and the last featured a woman who claimed to be able to talk to the ‘other side.’ I sighed; nothing demonic there, not that my one experience made me an expert. None of the aliens or ghosts were creatures with red eyes, which was really what I scanned everything for. The one feature that I truly knew about the demon. The one feature that would possibly stand out.