Authors: Arielle Caldwell
Reclaiming Souls
Reclaiming Souls
By
Arielle Caldwell
Cover imagery by Mae I Design in collaboration with Emma Michaels
First Printing: 2014
They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.” ~ Stephen King
Dedication
Thank you. Without your support and patience, I would have never achieved my dream.
Arielle
Acknowledgements
Thank you for your patience and guidance. I know having to deal with my oh shiny moments, my moments of destitution and angst, my outbursts of random comments, and the lack of communication when I go into a writing frenzy can be a lot to handle.
Without any of you, I wouldn’t be where I’ve gotten today but hang on, because it isn’t over yet. I’ve got a lot in the planning and I’m so very grateful to have each and every one of you along for the ride.
Preface
November 2013, I decided to write a novel to participate in NaNoWriMo. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. It was a month of challenges and doubts, tears and laughter. I used my online community to help me get through it and my family was supportive as well. Writing 50,000 words can be a very daunting task. I almost gave up. I almost threw in the towel and didn’t finish Reclaiming Souls…but I didn’t. With 15 minutes to spare, I submitted my work and got to the Winner screen. When I ended NaNo, before editing, I finished with 50, 237. I surpassed my goal.
With that being said, I edited this baby myself so please excuse any errors you come across. I hope you enjoy the writing that took me 30 days and countless eye twitches to get through and write. In the words of Hemingway, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
~ Arielle Caldwell
Table of Contents
My phone buzzed in the seat next to me as I drove towards the little pub outside of my hometown of Mount Vernon, Washington. I let it go to voicemail but they called right back another four times. With an exaggerated sigh, I decided to finally pick it up.
“Hello?” I answered as I turned my headlights on. The sun was setting. It was a cold December evening and only getting colder as the night approached and as usual, it was dreary and raining.
“Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you,” his voice rang through my ear.
I sighed, “I’m almost there. I got caught up at work this afternoon then had to run home and get ready. Is something wrong?” I rounded a corner where there were no street lights.
“No, just trying to keep everyone entertained until the birthday girl shows up,” he laughed.
I smiled from ear to ear as a warming feeling flooded my heart and soul for that man. “Thank you, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Dev, be careful,” he warned, as always, in an over protective fatherly tone.
“I always am. Love you, see you soon!” I hung up the phone and focused back on the road.
I was in the middle of nowhere. It was pitch black except for the glow from my headlights. The rain wasn’t helping. I was blinded by the glare as the water drops crossed my high beams. Rounding another corner, I took it a little too fast; sending my phone to the floorboard next to me. “Shit,” I grumbled.
I reached down and felt around but couldn’t get a hold of it so I quickly bent further down and pulled it back up. When I looked back at the road, there was a man on the side who threw something out across my path.
My tires hit it; a loud popping noise left me to realize they had gone flat. I spun around three times; hitting a ditch then rolled into the side of a tree, upside down.
My vision was blurred and as I tried to regain my focus, the man pulled the door open and grabbed me by my arm, dragging me out. The phone slipped from my hand and lay on the floorboard, flickering from the impact of the crash.
“Thank you, for helping me,” I told the stranger, groggily.
He laughed a deep horrible laugh that made my chest tighten in fear. I tried to move my body but it was unresponsive to anything. He dragged me through the fallen trees and icy forest bottom. I was getting scraped up something awful. At one point, he hopped over a tree branch. I hit it dead on and swear I cracked a rib. It was excruciatingly painful.
I was sobbing but I couldn’t control my body still. The wreck really messed with my head. Every time I tried to focus on something, I got really dizzy and wanted to empty my stomach everywhere.
Finally, he pulled me up the steps to a little cabin. It was puffing out smoke from the chimney. Once inside, he lifted and carried me downstairs into the basement where he chained me to a chair, and blindfolded me. That first night, he beat me to a pulp. I wanted nothing more than to die a quick death…but he wasn’t having any of that.
“Please, let me go,” I would cry out to him to only get a small, husky chuckle as a reply.
Somehow, I was able to fall asleep but was woken up abruptly when he shoved a needle in my arm that pumped liquids in that kept me under his control and unresponsive. After the effects of it hit me, he took a sharp knife and ran it across my arms; slicing them open. Blood began to pour out of me. I was sobbing once again; begging for him to just kill me and be done.
“What the fuck is wrong you!?” I screamed at him as I pulled on my restraints, determined to break free. He hit me in the mouth with a shovel, breaking my jaw. It was the last time I would ever speak.
Days went by. It felt like forever. Each day death was closer but he wouldn’t let me slip away. He kept me in a drugged out state as he would cut pieces off and perform experiments on me. Every night I fell asleep, I prayed to God I wouldn’t wake up the next morning only to be disappointed I hadn’t died when I heard the door open. At the end of all the torture and hell he put me through, he killed me.
As my body sank to the ocean floor and the life was leaving me, I was scared. Scared of what death would be like. Scared it would hurt more than my lungs begging for air. Scared because I would never get to tell my loved ones goodbye. It didn’t take long for my lungs to fill with water and my heart to stop beating. My eyes closed for the last time and death became me...but it wasn’t the end of my life.
“Devalynn! Stop standing around! You have duties to take care of today!” Lexie hissed as she ran past me; her beautiful, wavy hair blowing in the wind while her bright green eyes darted back to me.
“Shut up, Lex. I do more work than you,” I retorted; running as fast I could to pass her before she got there before me. I was getting a new Reclamation List. That part always sucked about my “new” job. After my death, I woke up here at the In-Between. The Creator gave me a new calling and I became a Soul Collector. I was the repo man of the dead, the reclaimer of souls gone bad after they had been given a second chance.
Getting the Reclamation List always sucked because I hated to see the look in their eyes as I came for them. They knew they were about to spend their entire eternity frozen in solitary confinement and most of them didn’t take it well.
“Devalynn Rose!” a voice boomed out across the sky.
“I’m coming!” I hollered back at Him as I flew through the doors into a small building and walked to the front of the line of Soul Collectors receiving their lists as well.
“Who do I have today?” I asked as I grabbed the list from Kellin.
“Jose Ramirez, Linda Trent, and Alex Conner,” he leaned over the table towards me as I read it.
“That’s it? Pretty light load today.”
“Yeah, so when you get back, we should hang out sometime. Been awhile since we have gotten to do anything,” he smiled.
“I know. Work comes first and you know that. With this small list, I’ll be able to go out after the judgments later today. I’ll see you then!”
“I’ll hold you to that,” he teased.
“I will, I promise!” I turned and headed for the door. Once outside, I ran back towards my little home. It wasn’t much but, when you’re dead, it was more than enough.
I read over my list. Their crimes were enough to send chills down my spine.
Jose Ramirez: 2nd chance age: 28. Crime: Slaughter of three women and a man in a killing spree in Colorado Springs.
Linda Trent: 2nd chance age: 47. Crime: Hit and run involving a child on a bicycle in Toronto.
Alex Conner: 2nd chance age: 21. Crime: Money laundering in the 1st degree; child abduction in Sussex.
“Jeez, what the hell is wrong with people these days?” I muttered to myself. I set the list down on the table as I went to my room and changed. I slid on my all black outfit- a long sleeve, skin tight shirt with pants that hugged the curves of my legs and ass- and tied my knee high black boots on tight.
I slipped my Souls necklace on over my head and around my neck. I used it to collect them and bring them back for their Final Judgment. Hurriedly, I wrapped my long black hair in a bun, grabbed the list, and headed back out to start my day.
There was a line of about twenty Soul Collectors waiting for the portal to cross back over to the world of the living. One by one, we slipped through it, landing at our first destinations.
Judging by the coats everyone was wearing, it was freezing where I was. I felt no cold, no heat...but I did miss them. I missed being able to feel anything. It took a little while to finally get use to not having some sensory functions. Now, I can barely recall what they actually felt like but that didn’t curtail the feelings inside that wanted to be alive again.
Finding our target was often easy but sometimes hard. We listened to the offbeat sound of their heart and followed it. I made my way through the crowds of people who had no idea I was even there.
Thump...thu-thumpthump....thu-thumpthump....thump
. It kept getting louder the closer I made my way to him. A woman’s scream was muffled with a hand. I knew it was Jose and bolted towards the muffled sobbing that became more panicked as he began to cut into her body, his usual MO.
“Jose,” I said as I stopped in front of him, “it’s time to go. We can do this the easy way and you don’t suffer as much or we can do it the hard way. I’ll chase you, you’ll run and get caught then the Creator will be even more pissed off at you and give you a punishment far worse.”
He looked up at me with his eyes bouncing across my face. Dropping back, he fell down and began to crawl away. “I’m not ready! I’m not ready!” he screamed.
I rolled my eyes and stuck my hands on my hips; swaying to one side a little. “If that’s the case, don’t you think it would’ve been a good idea to NOT kill people? Did you really think He wouldn’t send someone after you? I have to set the balance of nature right and that means to remove you from the equation. Now, come on.”
He stood and ran from me. Why? Why do they ALWAYS choose the hard way!? I thought to myself. “Jose! You cannot outrun me!” I began to chase after him. He ran into some thicker trees and I was right behind him as we ducked under tree limbs and he stumbled across roots sticking out of the ground.
“I won’t go back!” he yelled over his shoulder. Stopping quickly, he brought out a knife and threw it at me. I caught it with my hand and dropped it to the ground as I approached him.
“I have to reclaim you and I really, really don’t feel bad about this.” I reached across and shoved my hand into his chest; reaching my fingers around his heart. Inside his heart, I grabbed his soul and pulled it out. His body fell to the ground as I sprinkled his soul into the necklace.
“Okay, one down, two more to go. This is going to be an easy day by far.” I looked up and the portal appeared over my head and transported me to Toronto.
