Free Night Lurks by Amber Lynn

that is how things worked back then.
    A man walks into the room and sneaks up behind her. She screams and giggles, turning around to face him. It looks like they have a conversation, but I cannot hear that part of it. The scene quickly changes to one of a little girl running to catch up to the woman. The woman picks her up and twirls her around. They look so happy together.
    Another sight appears and it is the three of them altogether playing in a snowstorm. The dad and girl are teaming up to throw snowballs at the mom. The joy of the situation is a little overwhelming. I seem to be picking up outside emotions that I hope the ghoul is giving off because they are unnatural to me.
    The next thing I see is not happiness and my emotions do a flip flop into darkness. I see the man from the previous visions covered in blood. It looks like someone slit his throat. He is lying across a bed and another man is closing in on the woman who is hiding in a corner. The little girl, now maybe in her mid-teens, walks in the room and appears to start screaming. The man looks at her and a smile I never want to see appears on his face. The woman screams something that looks like run and the little girl takes off.
    The man focuses back in on the woman. He gives her a long, forced kiss on the lips before he stabs her in the stomach. I see her try to fight even harder to get away from him, but he continues stabbing her in different locations. It doesn't take long for her to go limp and he tosses her to the ground.
    He turns to the door, probably hopeful to find the girl back. She isn't there and I really hope she found a good hiding place or ran to get the cops. The man walks past my viewing position and I see that last hope may have been in vain. A nice shiny sheriff badge catches my eye.
    “I have always hoped that he didn't find her. He was a very bad man,” a voice says back in the present and I snap my eyes open. The ghoul that was touching me is no longer very ghouly. She is the woman from the vision and has her eyes and everything. “I was hoping I could stay behind and protect her, but something went wrong. I ended up here and I couldn't leave.”
    No one in my group is saying a word. I think I have swallowed my tongue because I too am speechless. The ghouls have touched me before, but I have never had an outcome like this one. I usually just get an overwhelming feeling of disappointment when my encounters are done.
    “I am able to see now that Katherine ended up getting away and lived a very long life with a man she loved. It is finally time that I join her and my husband. Thank you so much for sharing your gift with me and forgiving me for wanting to remain behind.”
    I have no idea what the woman is talking about and I don't think I will get a chance to ask because she is getting awfully transparent with a quickness. That seems about normal. I find I have questions and the person that is possibly capable of answering them just disappears.
    “May your life be as full of love as mine was,” she says and is gone.
    “That was either the weirdest or coolest thing I have ever seen,” Will says interrupting the silence that the moment seemed to need. I will have to ask later what they saw during the weird event.
    “We better get a move on it. I really hope no one witnessed that little display. If someone did, we might be screwed,” Ben says and rushes to grab my arm and get everyone moving.
    “Do you have any idea what just happened?” I ask sure that he is the only one in the group that has a clue.
    “Sure. You are growing up. Weird stuff like that is going to be a common occurrence in your life from now on. I would just prefer it not happen on the sidewalk leading up to Firebreath's, at least not while we are hoping to get information from the people inside the building.”
    “I hate to break it to you, but I have been grown-up for a while now. I know when I activated my genes weird abilities started happening, but that