Visions
Of
The
Past
Elizabeth Mahood
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictionally.
Text copyright © 2017 by Elizabeth Mahood
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Table of Contents
Prologue
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
Table of Contents Cont.
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Table of Contents Cont.
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Prologu
e
January 1 1990
My Journals
I just got back from the hospital. My son Thomas and his wife Eve just had their third child. She’s beautiful and the moment I took her into my arms, I knew she was just like me. She has dark raven hair and eyes that I hope will stay green. She cried when my son held her but as soon as I took her, she stopped. I know she could sense me because I could sense her. My son can never know that his daughter has special abilities. He might be my son, but there is something deeply wrong with him. If he ever finds out, her life will be miserable and her spirit will be snuffed out. I must protect her the best I can by teaching her how to control it. I just wish my Harold was still alive to watch her grow. Until next time.
Greta
✽✽✽
November 2006
Badger Falls, Wisconsin
Elinora Ridely could feel herself coming out of a deep sleep. She was floating and something was across her mouth and nose causing her to panic. Her heavy eyelids started to feel lighter and her body was pressed up against something hard. As her mind began to clear, she realized she was being carried by someone down the stairs of her house. Now the panic was even more intense and as she tried to move a deep voice whispered in her ear.
“Not a move or a sound or you die.” Fear gripped her as she realized she was still in her night attire which was a night shirt that barely covered her knees. Her breath came in short quick staccatos as the hand that was covering her mouth gripped tighter. She felt blood in her mouth as her teeth dug into her lip. She swallowed trying to fight the urge to scream. Where were her parents? Where was her sister? No one heard a large man enter their house, sneak into her bedroom in the middle of the night and take her from her bed
They moved through the front door and down the steps of her house into the cool crisp night air which blew up her night shirt making her shiver. It hadn’t snowed yet, but the smell of winter was in the air and they had already had their first major frost. She would freeze to death if she stayed out in the night air much longer. She heard a door open and realized that the man carrying her had intended on shoving her in the trunk of a car. She didn’t care if the man was mad, she was not going to let him take her without a fight. If she died doing it, then so be it. As he started to shove her into the trunk, she flung out her feet stopping herself against the car. The cold metal stung her bare feet as she pushed against the man holding her. She heard him groan and then growled.
“Knock it off. I don’t want to knock you out but if I have to, I will.” He said as he forcefully shoved her into the trunk. The lid shut with a bang before she could make a move. She felt around in the trunk for anything she could find to hit the man with once they stopped and he opened the door. She found a tire iron and waited.
Ellie wasn’t sure how far they had gone but she could feel the car starting to slow down. She prepared herself and as the trunk flew open, two men reached in and grabbed her pulling her out of the car. The tire iron dropped to the ground and one of the men laughed as they each gripped her forearms and pushed her forward.
“Look, she was going to fight back.” He said with a snort. The other man shook his head.
“Nice try missy but you better play nice if you want to live. The boss doesn’t like the ones who fight back. They end up dead.” He snarled at her. She didn’t recognize any of them but she wondered who this boss was that had so much power.
Ellie tried to get her bearings. It seemed they were in the woods somewhere, but she had no idea how far away from her small town they had gone. Ellie had grown up in Badger Falls, Wisconsin and hadn’t been out of the state once in her whole life. Ellie was 16 and she dreamed of the day that she could get on a bus, a plane or use her thumb to get out of the po dunk town. As they neared a clearing, she saw several other men milling about with rifles and shot guns in their hands and several women, laying on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs. They seemed to be sleeping or knocked out but either way, Ellie knew she was in trouble.
Suddenly, it started to happen. Why now? She had been having visions ever since she could remember and her grandmother had told her they were a gift not a curse but Ellie didn’t feel that way. The fog started to move over her eyes, the sounds of voices started blending together and talking all at the same time. The last thing she heard was one of the men say…
“I don’t know what’s wrong with her. She was fine when we grabbed her. Is she having a seizure or something?”
Suddenly, she was a little girl riding her bike along the street passed the church. It was a fall day and Ellie would get in trouble for being late. The street lights were coming on as she raced down the sidewalk. Her father would have her out in the shed with a belt on her back side for at least an hour if she didn’t make it home. A light was on in the church, a voice said “Stop, help me” She threw on the breaks and skidded to a halt. The voice called out again. “Help me, Please.” Ellie dropped her bike and walked towards the church. It was supposed to be locked at night. Her father’s car was in the parking lot. Ellie went in the front door and quietly made her way towards her father’s office. As she got closer, she heard a woman crying and then a man grunting and moaning. Maybe her father was helping a parishioner or perhaps he was counseling someone and they were crying. She stopped at the office door which was slightly cracked, allowing her to see directly inside the room.
A woman lay face down on the desk with no clothes on and her head turned towards the door. Her father stood behind the woman and he was naked as well. Ellie froze. He was hurting her; she was crying and he held her neck against the desk. Their eyes met and the fear in the woman’s eyes sent a chill down Ellie’s back. Ellie knew what he was doing, not the particulars but she knew enough to know that her father was having sex with that woman and it wasn’t her mother. The voice called out again. “Help me.” Ellie closed her eyes and started to back away but as she did, she knocked over a vase that was just sitting outside the door. She heard her father yel
l out and the woman let out a scream.
Ellie bolted for the front door and raced to her bike. She climbed on and peddled as hard as she could without looking back. She threw down her bike and raced into the house but just as she was about to scream for her mother her vision blurred, Voices started to whisper and she felt a darkness take over.
She opened her eyes and she was back in the forest. A man was leaning over her and out of instinct she lifted her foot and connected with his crotch. The man howled in pain and Ellie decided not to waste any time. She bolted into the forest as fast as she could in bare feet. She felt the sticks and rocks cutting her feet as she ran but she didn’t care. A gun shot sounded behind her and she hit the ground. She felt a stabbing pain and realized a stick had punctured her stomach. The pain was intense but she pushed herself back up and continued. She had no idea which direction she was going but she felt if she just kept running at least she would be ahead of the group of men now chasing her through the woods. She could hear water and wondered if she was near the lac De Flambeau River.
A few more steps and down she went. She had fallen in a hole and she tumbled over and over until she hit something solid at the bottom. Her breath had been knocked out and the puncture in her stomach was bleeding, saturating her nightgown. She finally caught her breath and turned to look at what had stopped her fall and screamed. A woman’s face was directly in front of hers staring blankly back at her, mouth slightly open with pieces of dirt and twigs stuck to her lips. Ellie couldn’t breathe. She tried to push away but the soft dirt kept sliding her towards the dead woman. Then recognition hit her. The woman in her father’s office. But Ellie hadn’t really been there, she had never seen anything like the vision she had earlier. Then the voice entered her mind. “Help me.”
Ellie jumped to her feet, stepped over the body and tried to climb up the other side of the hole. She heard a gunshot and tried to scramble up but she kept sliding back down. Suddenly, a hand was reaching out to her and a familiar face stood above her.
“Take my hand Ellie. Come on, we don’t have much time.” Cade Masterson. The Sheriff’s son and one of her high school classmates. She took his hand and he pulled her up and out of the hole. He never let go of her hand as he led her away from the shouts of the men who had been following her. They burst through an opening and he pulled her towards a deer stand that stood high in the air on the edge of the forest. He helped her climb the rickety ladder and pulled her into the far corner. She held her stomach and his eyes followed to rest on her wound. Pain was searing into her as she took a deep breath.
“It’s fine, what are you doing out here?” Ellie asked. Cade grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around her.
“I was waiting for my father. We were going to do some deer hunting when I heard the shots. This is our property so I can’t imagine why anyone would be out here shooting. I went to check it out, that’s when I saw you burst through the trees and fall in the hole. Was that a dead body at the bottom? What the hell is going on?” Cade asked as he grabbed a walkie talkie from a small table in the corner. He lifted his shot gun and aimed it out the window and put the radio to his mouth.
Ellie tried to speak but she couldn’t. The pain in her stomach was intense as was the adrenalin from the chase and seeing the body of the woman. Ellie was shaking and Cade must have noticed because he moved towards her, sat down and pulled her into an embraced. She hesitated at first. She had always liked Cade, had watched him from afar and wondered what it would be like to be his girlfriend, but he had been popular and she was the weird pastor’s daughter that everyone was afraid of and despised.
“Relax Ellie, I’m not going to hurt you.” Cade said softly. Ellie felt tears in her eyes. No one ever called her Ellie except her grandmother and she referred to herself as Ellie but everyone else called her Nora or Elinore. She hated it. But when Cade said Ellie, it sounded sexy and sweet. She felt herself relax into him and he nodded. “That’s it.” He lifted the radio to his mouth as he continued to watch her.
“Pop can you hear me? Pop come in, it’s an emergency.” He looked down at her and smiled. “It’s going to be ok Ellie I promise.” Cade said with conviction. The radio crackled.
“Cade, what’s the 911. I heard gun shots. I’m on my way out and I have dispatch sending a patrol car.” Ellie sat up straight and shook her head.
“Tell him to send more than one. There are bodies and girls and men with guns.” She felt like she was going to pass out. The pain in her side was intense but she didn’t want Cade’s father or his men caught off guard. Cade was watching her with confusion and disbelief.
“Dad, did you catch that?” Cade said with doubt in his voice.
“Who is that?” His father asked over the radio. She watched Cade’s face change emotions. He was trying to decide if he wanted to tell his father or not.
“Ellie Ridley, she was out here in her night gown running through the woods and she fell in a hole. Dad, there is a body in there.” Cade said. Ellie watched him. He believed her. The radio crackled back to life.
“Alright son, you stay put. If anyone comes up there you know what to do.” She heard his father say. Cade nodded and looked back at Ellie.
“Yes sir, I do.” Cade stated. He stood and put a bullet in the chamber of his hunting rifle and aimed it out the window.
✽✽✽
Cade Masterson had heard his alarm clock go off at 2am. It was the first hunt of the season and he had been waiting all year to go with his father. James Masterson was the Sheriff in Badger Falls, Wisconsin and even though it was a small town, there seemed to always be something going on that kept his father at work constantly. Based on his father’s description of the area, drugs, gangs and human trafficking had sky rocketed and was only going to get worse as time went on.
He had gotten out of bed, washed his face and dressed in his camouflage hunting outfit. His father had agreed to meet him at the deer blind after his shift and Cade was to have all the equipment ready to go. He hadn’t wanted to let his father down.
Once in the blind, Cade had gotten everything ready and was preparing to get his father’s gun loaded when he had heard the shots. For a moment, Cade had thought he had accidentally pulled the trigger on his gun but then realized it wasn’t his gun that had gone off. He’d looked out into the forest but it had still been pitch black out and a light fog moved low across the ground. Another shot fired and Cade had decided it was probably hunters trying to poach on his family’s land. Most people knew that the Sheriff lived there and Cade had wondered who would be stupid enough to kill one of the Sheriff’s deer. He had put on his night vision goggles and his orange hunting vest to avoid being shot and had moved down the deer blind into the forest.
He had made it as far as the edge of a large shallow hole and stopped as he saw a figure emerge from the trees at a run. The figure looked back into the woods and then fell forward down into the hole. A scream came from the hole and Cade realized the figure was a woman. The woman jumped up and started climbing towards him and out of instinct he reached his hand out. He recognized the face. Ellie Ridley. Now here they were in the deer blind and he watched her as she sat in the corner shaking and bleeding. He wanted to check her wound but she was in some kind of night shirt and he wasn’t about to be accused of touching a woman inappropriately. She had the blanket over her shoulders pulled tightly around her with one hand and the other placed on her open wound, watching him as he kept an eye out for any movement coming out of the woods.
“Want to tell me what you are doing out here at this time of night, and what is this about men and woman and dead people?” Cade asked switching positions so his hand wouldn’t fall asleep.
He didn’t think she was going to answer him but finally she spoke.
“I…I was sleeping at home and I woke up. Someone was taking me from the house. They put me in a trunk and drove…I’m not sure how far. We finally stopped just on the other side of those woods and I had no idea how far we had gone. They pulle
d me out of the car and put me with a bunch of other women who were…I don’t know, knocked out, sleeping, I’m not sure but then I had a…” She stopped, closed her mouth and then leaned back into the corner and stopped talking.
“You had a what?” Cade asked. She shook her head. She wouldn’t look at him anymore and it annoyed him that she didn’t trust him enough to talk to him. Why should she though, he never talked to her in school even though he found her extremely attractive. He watched her constantly and something about her fascinated him but she always seemed to want to be left alone, not to mention her father was the well-liked and well-known pastor of the First Lutheran Church in town and a City Council member. Cade had always liked her older brother Alex, who had played football, but Alex had disappeared right after high school and no one had seen him since. The family was strange and Cade had a sense that things were not at all what they seemed to be in the Ridley household.
He was about to ask her again when Cade saw his father come through the forest with a few of his deputies carrying flash lights. He pulled the hunting rifle from the window, ejected the bullet and leaned the gun in the corner. He held out his hand to Ellie and she took it hesitantly. Holding the blanket as close to her as possible, she followed him down the ladder to the ground.
“Cade, Ms. Ridley. I don’t know what she saw but they are long gone now. We didn’t find a body either. Are you sure that’s what you saw?” His father asked, looking at Ellie. She started to speak but Cade interrupted.
“Dad, I don’t know about the men and the girls, but I definitely saw a body. It was in the shallow hole that I pulled her out of about 100 yards into the woods.” Cade said, feeling Ellie lean closer to him. He put an arm around her as his father raised an eyebrow at him and then looked Ellie up and down. Finally, he turned back towards his men.
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