The Spirit Who Loved Me: Spirit Whispers Book One (22 page)

My lip twitched. “Do you think she’ll let us get close enough to her to actually do that? Seriously? You saw how she looked at me.”

“Well, do you have a better idea?” She asked, putting her hands on her hips, effectively shutting me up, ‘cause I didn’t, and all my Spirit friends were keeping quiet, so I guessed they didn’t either.

I started making way the last dozen or so feet to the coolers since they weren’t much farther. Maybe a cool drink would jar my brain into working. I didn’t even check if my friends were coming.

Several kids were milling about the coolers, I nodded to a couple I knew. I pulled off the white top on a red cooler, disappointed when all I could make out were beers cans. I sighed and moved on to the next. I pulled the top off, and it was empty of drinks, only melting ice remaining.

“Sorry, all outta ‘shine,” offered a boy standing a couple feet away.

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said. “Got any water around?”

He looked at me for a second like I had grown multiple heads. “No,” he finally laughed and adjusted his John Deere ball cap. “Don’t ya know water’s bad for ya?”

“Uh, right,” I grinned. He was kind of cute in a farmer boy way. I grabbed a few pieces of ice to suck on, trying hard not to think about all of the grimy hands that must have been in the cooler. “Desperate times,” I called to Tammy and Malcom.

I motioned for them to follow me, and we made our way closer to the dark trio still feverishly whispering away. I noticed Tara and Jett and a few others in their clique were now joined around listening, laughing and carrying on. Clueless.

“Come on out you, devil! Show us whatcha got!” taunted Alexander James, A.J. to our school’s football team, as he pumped his fist high up into the air.

“Hell Yeah!” rang out in chorus from various other hormonal young men in the vicinity.

Malcom placed a hand on my shoulder. “We’re going to have a time getting close enough now.”

I nodded and swore under my breath. “But I just can’t stand here and let them ruin their lives.” I stomped my foot. I took a deep breath to steady myself, to steady my resolve, and stalked towards them.

Tammy called out, “Kris, what are you gonna do?” And she rushed after me, Malcom trailing behind us.
 

POP!
Rang out over the Devil’s Tramping Grounds.

I stopped my progress, frozen in fear. I knew that sound.

I knew that sound…. I knew….
That
…. Sound…..

The once roaring fire was now burning down low. The music died but only for a moment, before whatever device had been playing was rushed through song after song so quickly there was no telling what the songs were. The partiers were unnaturally quiet, looking around, whispering to one another as they tried to make sense of this turn of events, excitement running through them. I could feel it humming; they’d come to the Grounds for a show, and they were going to get it.

I trembled. I knew better. A cold sweat broke upon my brow. My stomach turned inward as I dry heaved, my friends coming to stand along my side. I knew that sound from the visits of the departed Dr. Roberts. Confusion muddled my brain.

“Too late,”
Abigail’s, my grandmother’s, cries ripped through my mind.

I stood hunched over, trying not to pass out. “What do you mean it’s too late?” In the ensuing confusion, nobody was going to pay attention to a lone girl talking to herself.

The seal is broken. Get out of there now, Krystal. Call Sheriff Donny soon as possible.

The wind was picking up, I could hear it rushing wildly through the remaining leaves on the trees. I forced a look upwards from the angle of my knees, I saw Missy Anne dropping the book as if in slow motion. From out of nowhere, silver flashed in her palm as she moved her hand in an upward arc, burying it deep within the girl standing on her right. The girl’s body fell as if into itself, a black heap of clothing was all that was left.

S A C R I F I C E,
a disembodied voice uttered, hurtling through my brain, the sound uneven and scratchy from being unused. Not human.

Missy Anne immediately turned to the girl on her left. The poor thing, blissfully unaware, didn’t have a chance, as Missy Anne gracefully swept the blade upward into the girl’s gut. The young girl disappeared same as the first, the clothing left behind the only testament to her having been there at all.

I screamed.

I screamed again, but no sound would come out. I grabbed at my abdomen having felt the pain of the girls. I swooned on my feet, sure I would pass out.

Missy Anne turned away from the fire, facing me. Her eyes were vacant, devoid of life, but a crooked smile was forced onto her face from the unseen entity. She bowed, bobbling as if she were a puppet. She turned back towards the fire, and without a pause in her step, walked straight in to the flames.

I jumped forward to go after her, but Malcom rushed after me. He was faster, and wrapping his arms around me in a death grip, I was unable to proceed any further. Horrified screams erupted from the crowd as Missy burned, the air filling with the scent of burning hair and flesh. You could make out her form in the licking flames and the insane laughter muffled from within.

“I’m going to end this.” Tammy sprinted to the fire.

“Stop, Tammy!” My scream hurt my throat.

Tammy stopped where the dark threesome had stood only moments before, and reaching down, she grabbed the now forgotten satanic bible. She held it up for me to see before hurling it straight into the fire with Missy, whose laughter had ceased and whom we could no longer see, her body having collapsed.

WHOOSH!

The fire exploded, reaching upwards as if to Heaven itself, engulfing those few standing to close within its greedy flames. Malcom and I were thrown backwards to the ground as was anyone else still in the circle. I struggled free from Malcom’s grasp.

“Tammy! Tammy!” I searched for her, panic rising within me with each passing second. Ash was flying like snow. Nearby trees, lit only that afternoon with autumn leaves, were now lit with a flame of a different name. Trails of fire ran in all directions on the forest floor as dried leaves, the perfect catalyst, were lit ablaze.

“Abel, where is Tammy!? Where is she?!”

This way.
I could feel an invisible pull to the right towards the woods.
She wasn’t consumed by the fire, but she is badly injured.

I tugged on Malcom, pulling him behind me, as I dodged falling embers raining down on us, but Malcom resisted.

“We have to find a way out!” Malcom screamed.

In the seconds Malcom answered me, I realized the path to the grounds had been cut off by the raging fire, the gleeful partiers, now screaming in panic, were fleeing through the woods. “No! Tammy first! Go if you want!”

“I’m not leaving you! But we have to find her soon!”

Fire continued to consume the trees all around us, burning away any distinguishing landmarks, and I lost all sense of direction. The Devil’s tramping ground had disappeared under a ball of unnaturally blue flames, as Abel led us into the woods, away from the melting heat.

Her body rested at the base of a pine, having been thrown about twenty feet into dense forest. I cried out in frustration even as I broke out into a run to my friend. We were on the wrong side of the clearing, the road was on the opposite side. It was going to take an act of God to get us out.

I fell on my knees at her side, Malcom landing on her other. She was unconscious, her limbs splayed out at awkward angles about her body like a rag doll. The tips of her auburn hair were singed with black, but the rest billowed out around her head like a halo. Blood trickled from her nostrils and both ears. In places, her skin was burned in blacks and reds, and I was afraid to touch her, afraid to move her.

“Abel, what do I do?!”

My Spirit friends began to solidify in front of my eyes. They surrounded us, protecting us from the embers and the fierce heat. Malcom sensed the change in temperature, and looked up into the sky.

“We have help,” I told Malcom.

“Good.”

Cyndy leaned down behind Tammy’s head, placing her palms on the sides of her face examining her injuries.
Her neck’s not broken.

“Can we move her?” I asked.

Cyndy shared a look with my granny. I didn’t like that look.

Krystal, listen to me,
my grandmother thought to me, her demeanor full of authority.
Give your phone to Malcom. He needs to go to your contacts and call Sherriff Donny. Now.

“But I don’t know his number!” But I still pulled it from my back pocket, handing it to Malcom.
 

I added it, Krystal. In case.
Abel’s face was grim.

“Malcom, get the Sherriff on the phone.”

I heard Malcom making the frantic call just as Abel leaned down right in front of my face.
Krystal. We can’t hold the fire back much longer. You need to go. We’ll lead you out to the road.

“I can’t leave Tammy.”

I know this is hard,
Abel took my hand in his.

“No! I won’t do it.” Tears I didn’t realize I was crying were running down my face.

“Sherriff Donny was already on his way,” Announced Malcom. “He said the Fire Department and Police have also been dispatched. A neighbor called already.”

Tammy moaned, and her eye lids fluttered. “Kris?” She moaned softly, her voice hoarse.

I looked for a place on her hand or arm where her skin wasn’t burned to hold onto. “I’m right here. We’re going to get you outta here. You’re going to be okay.”

“Falling,” She whispered. “I’m falling upward.”

Spiral stood behind Abel, looking down at Tammy then out into the distance. The trees swayed wildly in the background, fireworks of reds and oranges and blue filling the heavens.
The fire has reached the road. We’ll need to take them around.

“You’re not falling, silly,” I said. “You’re right here.” I saw Malcom on the opposite side of Tammy, holding onto an unburned portion of her other hand, his face smeared with tears of his own.

“It’s so peaceful,” she mumbled. “The light is so warm.”

“Don’t go near the light,” I cried out.

“I’m already bathed in light.” She moaned and took a shallow breath, closing her eyes. “A bath of golden foam.” A small smile played at the corners of her parched lips. “I love you, Krystal Abigail Haggart. I love you, Malcom White. You two make me proud. I’ll be watching.” Her breaths came, each shallower than the last, rattling in her chest. She tried to speak again.

“Shhhhh,” I hushed her. “Don’t talk, save your strength.”

“Don’t… look so… sad.” Malcom and I leaned in closer to make out her words. “Please tell my…mom…” she paused, her eyes out of focus. “And….dad….I….love…” Her head lolled limply over to the side, her eyes glassy.

I cried out, my screams blood curdling, into the air. I fell onto Tammy, hugging her to me. Malcom wrapped his arms around me, I couldn’t hear him over the roar of the fire, but I could feel his sobs.

Too soon, Abel and Spiral were forcing us to our feet.
We have to move both of you now.

“I won’t…I won’t leave her,” I sobbed.

She’s gone from her body, Krystal. She’s okay.

“I can’t do it. Can’t leave her here!”

Gun shots rang out, piercing my ears. A terrible crunching sound followed right after, and I glanced upward in horror as a fire laden pine tree arched down to greet us. My eyes were blinded by a brilliant flash as I was pummeled to the ground from the force of Abel against me. Malcom laid on the ground next to me, covered by a radiant being, and I knew it was his angel intervening on his behalf.

I lay in the dirt, shaking with nerves, unable to think or do for myself, my mental capacity spent.

She’s not going to make it, Abel,
Spiral observed.