The Soul Monger Read online

  The Soul Monger

  Book One

  Matilda Scotney

  Contents

  Also by Matilda Scotney

  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

  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

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Untitled

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Matilda Scotney

  About the Author

  Copyright ©Matilda Scotney

  All rights reserved

  No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, offered as free download on any website, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Short passages of text may be used for the purposes of a book review or for discussion in a book club.

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situation within its pages, and places and persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.

  Matilda Scotney has asserted her moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  The Soul Monger: Book One

  ISBN: 978-0-6483191-4-6

  Cover Design and Formatting by Beehive Book Design - www.beehivebookdesign.com

  Also by Matilda Scotney

  The Afterlife of Alice Watkins: Book One

  The Afterlife of Alice Watkins: Book Two

  Next – The Soul Monger: Book Two, Revelations.

  When I discover who I am, I’ll be free.

  - Ralph Ellison

  Prologue

  Scotland Yard: Missing Persons Files (Cold Cases–Overseas Agencies) Summary research only.

  Christmas Eve, 2008: A family of five headed home after a pre-Christmas get-together with friends. Travelling along the M25 motorway near Junction 20 at Hemel Hempstead, their car collided with a speeding drunk driver who’d strayed into their lane. The force of the impact lifted the family’s car into the air before it plunged to the ground and rolled several times before landing on its roof. Horrified witnesses rushed to help, but the car was already a fireball, and flames beat back any would-be rescuers. Emergency services recovered four bodies from the burnt-out wreck of the family’s car. Anxious friends later told police a teenaged girl accompanied her parents and two brothers on the journey; a fact corroborated by a service station attendant who spoke to the family less than ten minutes before the accident. Witnesses testified no-one could have walked away from such carnage. The girl was never found.

  This and other strange, unsolved cases of missing persons are listed on several government databases. The files date back more than a century and make extraordinary reading although the very early accounts are poorly documented, often recording the attending police officer’s mistrust in the witness’s descriptions and making personal observations about intoxication and “seeking notoriety”. Later incidents, those which occurred within living memory, are profiled more efficiently and without bias; such as the 1964 disappearance of a young man from a locked, virtually windowless cell in a South African prison; and the nurse who left a Chicago hospital very early one January morning in 2018 and was witnessed by a cab driver vanishing into “thin air”. (The cabbie’s blood alcohol reading accompanied the report).

  An intriguing entry, from 2017, reported the disappearance of an Australian woman in Bali. Her departure was reported to police by a Balinese masseuse who described her missing client as, “Gone! Poof! Just like that!”

  Equally compelling is the 2012 account of a German woman, witnessed by several of her colleagues getting into her car in an underground car park when she was due at an important meeting. Three of the witnesses went to speak to her, but the car was empty, the keys in the ignition and the woman’s shoes kicked off in the driver’s seat well.

  But perhaps the most bizarre? In a small Sicilian town in the spring of 1991, a woman and her child went to chat with their elderly neighbour, whom they’d known for years. As they approached, the man, “walked into the scenery, out of sight”. Why was this more bizarre than the others? According to the report, the man stepped purposefully, and as he vanished, he looked at the mother and child, and waved.

  Police enquiries found homes left as if the occupant planned to return; food in the fridge, open bank accounts (which went untouched), and in the case of the Sicilian man, the washing machine in mid-cycle. Mystified workmates and employers were unable to shed light on their colleague’s disappearance and in every event, no doctors’ records documented any psychiatric disorders.

  In time, these and the mystery of the teenaged girl were packaged together and marked as cold cases. A scribbled memo sticky-taped to the lid of the archive box lends a poignant epitaph:

  “Bill, (Archivist) These are the foreign ones. I put the English kid in as well. Scan ‘em and shove the physical files in the archives. Don’t waste resources. They’re gone.”

  Chapter 1

  Ah, bliss! Laurel dozed in the warm bath. A long soak after a busy night shift at the hospital was her favourite way of unwinding. Usually, she’d fall asleep, but today, something felt vaguely odd. Too relaxed to bother stressing about it, she pushed the feeling away until it nagged at her to such an extent; she decided to open her eyes. But her eyelids felt heavy, stuck together, almost as though she needed to prise them apart with her fingers, and that required effort, more effort than she was prepared to spare. She was too comfortable, they can open in their own time, and Laurel went back to the task of unwinding.

  The feeling wouldn’t let her rest. Something wasn’t right. Laurel squeezed her eyes tight to get her eyelids moving, blinked a few times then focused on her bathroom ceiling. Curious? It looked different; closer somehow, just above her face, and the bathroom seemed dark for this time of the morning. And she was lying flat; her bathtub was too short for her to lie flat. When Laurel slid down in her usual doze, her knees were always bent; and now she couldn’t feel the bath against her back. She was floating; fluid lapping at the side of her face.

  Her uncooperative eyes wide open now, she tried to lift her arm to grip the edge of the tub to pull herself up, but in that instant, the bathroom ceiling lifted away. Viscous, milky fluid washed over her. Laurel choked for air as her body arched and convulsed in panic, grabbing at the suffocating apparatus sucking at her face and throat. Her veins and arteries throbbed, and her heart thumped hard against her chest. Her ribs stubbornly refused to move as she struggled to fill her lungs with air, until, dragging her upwards in its wake, she gagged as the gaping tube withdrew from her throat, snaking up and away towards her unrecognisable, receding bathroom ceiling. Pain seared through her chest as a metal probe flashed momentarily into her vision, detaching from under her right clavicle as it followed the tube upward. She tried to cry out against the intense sensation of choking and suffocation
but couldn’t coordinate the airflow in and out, so she slid helplessly back into the bath. She remained there, her breathing shallow and her body tensed with dread and pain, her mind a whirlpool of confusion. The fluid drained from around her body; she felt it slurping at the well of her back, from behind her arms, the back of her legs. Every sensation hurt. She closed her eyes.

  “Wakey, wakey.”

  Laurel heard the voice. It held no welcome; it’s tone harsh, brusque and irritable. She didn’t open her eyes until she felt a hand on her wrist, hauling her into a sitting position. Upright, emerging from the warmth of the fluid, coolness hit her wet body, and like a newborn baby, she gasped as the first proper deep breath filled her lungs. Insecure and unstable, she stretched out her hands in the dim light, peering through the gloom and making automatic grabbing movements, clutching at the figure who stepped away, just out of reach. She opened her mouth to call for help, but no sound came, only intense pain that caused her throat to spasm and in turn, hinder the precious exchange of air that had only just woken her lungs.

  Laurel struggled against the wave of nausea and burning rising in her throat. Again, and again she retched, as her body sought to expel something deep inside. A small metallic ball finally shot from her mouth and landed with a clatter somewhere in front of her. Tears stung her eyes, and a sob broke, the ensuing intake of air stinging her lungs. But her body hadn’t finished ridding itself of its debris. Her ribs creaked apart, and she coughed out onto her legs, several globules of blackened, gelatinous blobs of clotted blood. They wobbled there for a second, then slipped into her groin to mix with the milky fluid pooling there, changing it from white to pink as it plotted a course over her thighs.

  “Get up!” the voice ordered, low, stern; a man’s voice and decidedly not the voice of a saviour. The side of the container dropped away, and Laurel heard the slosh of fluid escaping onto a floor. She steadied herself; she could see, though not well, and she could hear. At least two of her senses were intact, but every single joint screamed at being moved, and her jaw ached as though someone had smashed her face against a wall. A groan welled up in her throat but dissolved quickly as it competed with the pain.

  “Get up!” the man repeated. He tossed something at her, something soft which struck her in the head before coming to rest on her lap. “Put this on.”

  She looked at the bundle and tried to adjust her vision, blinking against the acute pain that stabbed behind her eyes as she sought to make sense of the object. A surgical gown? Was she undressed, then? Naked? She put her hand on her leg and tried to focus. Is that exposed flesh? She tried to move her hand towards her knee and make her eyes follow. Yes, she was naked, but working out how to “put that on” seemed out of her grasp. A slight, agonising turn of her head revealed the narrow container in which she sat; a tank or incubator, like those used in neonatal care. How did she fit into something that tight? The large pipe that dragged away from her throat dangled ominously at the side of her head; the metal probe folded in two and pointing away among a clutter of other apparatus. Pinching sensations she couldn’t at first locate, sent her checking out and eventually finding several areas of raised skin on her arm and belly. Through the gloom, she made out several healing ports and puncture wounds; as if she’d received infusions or scopes during surgery, or perhaps where a sharp object had pierced her. Her mind sought to recall an accident or procedure, but she encountered a physical barrier when she tried to think; a mental stop sign popping up as she struggled to remember, her mind only allowing in the man’s repeated commands to cover herself.

  But her hands and fingers didn’t cooperate. She fumbled and fiddled, examining the gown for ties, only to discover it was the kind that slipped over the head. She tried, but she couldn’t locate her head, then one of her hands was missing, then the other. It took supreme concentration to carry out the task, made worse by the impatient huffing noises coming from the man, who offered no help.

  “Hurry up. You need to come with me. It’s critical you get moving.”

  With the gown finally on, Laurel extended her legs downwards, searching for the ground. The milk had vanished, and the floor felt dry. She remained still and checked her breathing; it appeared to be okay. She tried to check her pulse but wasn’t altogether sure which part of her arm she was feeling. Her sore throat was an intense focus, making it difficult to give any consideration beyond the pain.

  The man repeated his command to follow him. “The quicker you get moving,” he hissed impatiently, “the quicker your senses and balance will come back. Dawdle, and you’ll probably die.” He turned away, apparently believing her capable of walking, even though Laurel doubted her balance would be reliable, but the urgency, the threat in his voice made her obey.

  She rose gingerly, steadying herself by planting her hands on the surface upon which she sat and pushing herself upwards. Peering around, her eyes adapted to the filtered light. Other containers, close together, contained sleeping or maybe dead, naked bodies, submerged in the milky liquid. Each body with the yawning tube over its face. Laurel reached out to the tank closest to her, using it for support. She turned towards where the man stood, his large frame silhouetted in a doorway. The bright light from behind him hurt her eyes.

  Walking proved problematic and moving her head resulted in waves of nausea. Her knees felt too weak to support her body, and she placed a hand on the surface of her tank. A sixth sense told her she needed to step forward, but all she wanted to do was throw up.

  “You’ve got a build-up of fluid in your ears,” the man said through the muddle. “It’ll settle. Follow me, and your legs will get stronger.” But his voice carried no reassurance or kindness, and she still couldn’t work out how to move her foot forward.

  “Do you want me to carry you?” the man said, his voice laced with sarcasm. Even with her brain in a jelly-like state, his tone made that deadly clear.

  No, she didn’t want that man anywhere near her. He jerked his hand towards the door, and although it took considerable effort, she followed, each step bringing renewed pain. The floor underfoot felt sharp and cold.

  Laurel placed a hand on each of the tanks as surety to stop her falling. She may have moved her right foot forward twice, or maybe the left? Her arms and hands became more responsive as she moved, but each time she pressed her foot against the floor, every nerve in her body pinged back to her brain; some just tingling, others, searing agony. It took every bit of her concentration to focus on just placing one foot in front of the other, taking slow, painful steps. Her knees were unstable and thrust too far forward, making her wobble dangerously, so she waited until she felt they were secure enough to distribute her weight, but that made her progress plodding, and elicited more huffing noises from the man. Surely, someone should bring a wheelchair or stretcher? Enforcing ambulation on someone so uncoordinated was inhumane.

  Laurel trailed painfully after the man into the bright light; she squinted momentarily, but her vision was clearing. Surrounding her, and under her feet were panels of gunmetal grey steel. The walls were covered with a patination of grease and handprints. It was hard to look up or see accurately, but in the absence of any walking aids, the dirty walls made adequate support to stop her from falling. The corridor smelled as bad as a rubbish tip, but Laurel acknowledged that fact thankfully, as it meant appreciating the stench heralded yet another of her senses returning. She concentrated on taking measured, steady steps and avoiding crashing to the floor, while at the same time working out how she got to be in this predicament. An accident or an operation? She had no memory of either.

  The man glanced behind every so often to check she was still following but didn’t growl or try to hurry her again; it would have been pointless, anyway. She inched along behind him, and as he’d said, with each step, her legs became stronger, and she was able to uncurl her back, until, although it hurt, she could stand straight. Her throat still burned, and the taste of blood was thick and unpleasant in her mouth. The fogginess of her brain
cleared somewhat, and where a few moments ago, fear overwhelmed her, and she couldn’t think a single cohesive thought, now they returned all at once, the pain and memories vying for attention.

  What might have happened during the day to engender a dream such as this? She’d had nightmares when she spent a late night on her laptop, surfing the net or reading on her ereader, but this was different. She’d felt low lately, lost, lonely, without purpose, working long hours at the hospital. That might explain feeling suffocated and trapped, but that contraption she woke in, the tank, or the baby’s incubator and that tube she saw, she couldn’t find a dream meaning for that one. Besides, she hadn’t done paediatrics in months. Being naked in a dream meant feeling exposed. Did she feel exposed? She wasn’t sure. Certainly not at work. She considered herself a useful and valued member of staff. But deciphering the dream hurt her brain, and that added to the pain throughout her body.

  The man waited in a doorway, looking down at her as she caught up with him. He was tall, rough-looking; a man you wouldn’t want to meet anywhere, even in a dream. He’d turn any dream—if this were one—into a nightmare.