Free Soul Seekers by Dean Crawford Page A

to his touch as he gripped it, and with a deep breath he pulled the door open.
    * * *

17
    The rickety door’s rusted hinges squeaked and groaned as he pulled the door open, thick creepers rustling as they were forced out of the way. Cas aimed the flashlight beam into the deep blackness within.
    He could see the rusted springs of an old bed that had collapsed with age onto the floor of the shack, the mattress having long since crumbled away. An ancient lantern dangled from an overhead beam and he smelled musty air inside the shack. His legs quivered beneath him as he crept inside.
    To his amazement the interior walls were covered in old writing, words and numbers and letters and weird equations filling every spare space.
    ‘What do they all mean? Emily whispered. ‘Who wrote them?’
    The flashlight beam swept across a bench on the opposite side of the shack to the bed, on top of which was a layer of thick dust and an old book. Cas edged toward the book, the flashlight illuminating the cover and a name inscribed there with a jagged, uneven script. A chill ran down his spine as he read the name.
    Jo.
    ‘That must have been Crazy Jo’s diary,’ Emily guessed.
    Cas reached out for the diary and opened it, the cover rustling with age as he turned it over to reveal pages of scrawled script written with ink that had faded, the pages yellow with age.
    The writing was barely legible, as though Jo had suffered from some kind of illness, but Cas could make out a few solitary words and passages.
Gravity loops. The past is the present. The illusion of time
. Then a single passage leapt out at him.
Reincarnation is real.
    ‘What’s reincarnation?’ Emily asked.
    Cas felt another chill ripple through his body as he realised what the passage meant.
    ‘It’s the belief that we have all lived before, and will live again,’ he replied.
    ‘You mean in the past?’ she asked. Cas nodded, captivated by Crazy Jo’s scrawlings. ‘But how did a man who lived hundreds of years ago know that?’ she asked.
    Cas suddenly had a premonition of doom as he began to put the pieces of their shared puzzle together in his mind, and as he turned to Emily so his own words sounded as though they were spoken by somebody else.
    ‘Because his name wasn’t Jo.’
    A shadow crossed the open doorway to the shack even as Cas whirled the flashlight and Emily’s hand whipped up to cover her mouth. The flashlight beam settled on a terrifying sight.
    In the doorway stood a man, his ragged gray hair glowing like an unearthly halo around his head and his eyes wide and round. His mouth opened to reveal stained, broken teeth surrounded by a long, straggly beard as he slowly raised a hand to point directly at Cas, a bony finger trembling in the light.
    From his mouth came a long cry of despair that roared ever higher in Cas’s ears as the figure lunged into the shack and charged toward him with arms outstretched, the face stricken with anger.
    Emily screamed and hurled herself past the figure and out of the shack as Cas dropped the flashlight onto the floor.
    In the sudden and overwhelming darkness the ghostly figure screamed in his ears as it slammed into him.
    *
    ‘Cas’, are you okay?’
    Cas blinked awake and stared up into Emily’s eyes. He was lying on his back in the shack, Siren and Jude standing over him.
    ‘What happened?’ he asked as he sat up.
    ‘Emily screamed, we came running,’ Siren said. ‘Found you where you are now.’
    Cas struggled to his feet as Emily dusted him off. ‘I’m sorry I ran,’ she said. ‘I just panicked.’
    Cas turned to look at the diary on the bench beside them.
    ‘Did you see him?’ Siren asked. ‘Crazy Jo?’
    Cas nodded and picked the diary up. ‘And this is our evidence,’ he said.
    ‘What are we going to do with that?’ Jude asked.
    ‘I’m going to show it to my mom,’ Cas explained.
    ‘What the hell good will that do?’ Jude wailed.
    ‘Crazy Jo,’ Siren repeated, barging in front of Jude.