Where One Goes Read online

  by B N Toler

  WHERE ONE GOES

  Copyright 2015 Brandy Toler

  www.bntoler.com

  All Rights Reserved

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means without prior written permission of the authors, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  Cover Design: Cover to Cover Designs

  Cover photo: Savage Ultralight

  Editor: Eagle Eye Reads

  Copy Edit: 77Peaches

  Interior Design: Integrity Formatting

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, to factual events or to businesses is coincidental and unintentional.

  For Hannah Graham, Morgan Harrington, Cassandra Morton, and any other woman who has died by the hands of a cruel person.

  My heart breaks for you and your families.

  May you rest in peace, beautiful girls.

  Dedication

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About B N Toler

  My grandmother had this saying she’d always tell me when I was down about life. This too shall pass. Considering she hung the moon, in my eyes, I believed her. She had a way about her; just being in her presence could right the world in an instant. To this day, I cling to those words, reciting them with every breath I take and release. Sometimes that’s all we really have to get us through the hard times. Something as empty and useless as words can be what keeps us treading water in the raging and unforgiving river that is life. And that is exactly what they’ve been for me. Words have been the fine threads that have tied me to this world, forbidding me to disappear when every instinct in my body is telling me to end it.

  To just let go.

  “Here.” My thoughts are interrupted as Casey speaks, pointing to an overpass just off the highway in Charlottesville, VA. It’s been three hours since our last stop and night has fallen, hiding the colorful mountain sides covered with bouts of fall. I pull over my Toyota 4Runner a few feet off the road into the grass just before we reach the bridge. I’m exhausted. Not just physically, but in every way possible. This trip has taken days, exhausted my dwindling funds, and brought me closer to darker thoughts than ever before.

  “He left me under the bridge, in the area covered with brush. But it doesn’t look like me anymore,” she warns, and I give her the most sympathetic smile I can muster up. I’d love to touch her, comfort her with some physical gesture—like a hug.

  But I can’t touch the dead.

  I can only see them and speak to them.

  “Casey, I . . .”

  “You don’t have to go look,” she interrupts, “but you said you needed to, to be sure this was real.” This is true. I did say that. After all, if I’m going to tip the police off about a dead body, I need to know for sure it’s actually there.

  It’s raining heavily and I stare wearily ahead as the rain beats loudly against my SUV and windshield. I’m wearing my rain parka, well, my brother, Axel’s, but it became mine when he passed away six years ago—back when the world tilted on its axis and sent me reeling into the oblivion.

  Leaning over, I click open my glove box and grab the blue flashlight from inside. I haven’t used it in years, and I’m praying the damn batteries still work. “I’ll be right back.” I sigh and pull the hood of my jacket over my head before climbing out of the SUV and nearly falling on my ass on the slick grass. I should’ve known it would come to this. I knew it was only a matter of time before a soul would find me and ask me to reveal where their body had been left after a cruel murder. Nothing happens as I click the flashlight on, but after beating it against the palm of my hand several times, light begins to flicker, albeit very limited light, but I’ll take it. The ground dips where it meets the bridge and overlooks a steep hill. There’s a creek at the bottom, and it appears the level of the water is higher than usual, so I meticulously crawl down, hoping I won’t slide into it. The rain is unforgiving, pelting down on me with hard, cold pricks along my skin. The universe is always against me. Clear skies might have made seeing my first murdered body a little less traumatic—not much, but a little.

  At the bottom, I stand, feeling uneasy. The water reaches my knees, seeping into my rain boots, filling them instantly. Scanning the area with my extremely dim flashlight, I immediately see the pile of vegetation Casey described against the pillar closest to me. Taking a deep breath, I swallow back the bile rising in my throat and put a hand to my chest, as if it might somehow calm my thundering heart. It takes me ten steps to reach the surrounding shrubland. As I stand frozen, I take another deep breath.

  “Come on, Charlotte. Just do it,” I will myself. With a trembling hand, I reach out and grab some of the wet shrub and pull it back. Casey’s killer didn’t do a very good job of hiding her. As soon as I pull the debris back, her skull is in full view, with what little is left of her blonde hair matted to it. I let the shrub go and stumble back, losing my balance and falling into the water, losing my flashlight as I land. The light immediately flickers out, and I fumble blindly in the dark murky water for it, but after several minutes I realize it’s gone. Standing up, I close my eyes, praying I won’t get sick. It’s the last thing Casey needs to see right now.

  Crawling back up the hill to the SUV, I lean on my hood to remove my boots and dump out the water in them, before putting them back on. When I climb back inside, Casey watches me, but says nothing as I stare straight ahead, lost in thought. Casey found me just outside of Vermont at a restaurant her parents and sister were eating at. The moment I looked at her, she knew I could see her even though she was dead. When the dead appear to me, there’s no weird sound or blurred image. A warning sign of some sort would be lovely, but it’s not a luxury afforded to me. They look like everyone else. It’s only when they see me notice them that I figure out they’re dead.

  “What now, Casey?”

  She gently pushes her blonde hair behind her ear. She was a beautiful girl—the kind that couldn’t help but be noticed by every man she crossed. Luckily, the dead appear to me as they looked in their everyday life; not how they looked when they passed. “Now you call the police,” she says, simply.

  “And say what exactly? They might think I was involved in your murder somehow.”

  “Make an anonymous report.”

  “What about the guy that killed you? Don’t you want them to find him?”

  “They will. In time. There are other things more important.”

  I start my SUV and let it rest idly for a minute, cranking the heat up to full blast. “And this is it? This is what you need to crossover?”

 
“My mother and father can’t move on until they know what happened to me. Once they know I’m dead, for sure, they can mourn and move on. Not knowing is destroying them, and my little sister is falling apart. I can’t leave until I know they’ll be okay.”

  “Okay.” I nod and put the SUV in drive. I’m soaked to the bone, freezing, but the sooner I report this, the sooner Casey can be at peace, and I can be alone. Although, my alone time is always brief. There’s always a soul, everywhere I go, in need of closure, needing to settle some form of unfinished business.

  Casey was killed by a guy she met at a bar her junior year in college. She didn’t notice he followed her when she left the bar by herself. It upsets me to rehash all the details; frankly, I wish I didn’t know them. Some things are just too hard to imagine. Her last moments in this world were the things nightmares are made of. But her family has been unable to let go, therefore she hasn’t been able to let go.

  “Thank you for this, Char. I know you consider your gift to see the dead a curse, but you’ve given me peace.”

  I don’t respond. I know I’m giving her peace of mind, like I have others before her, but their peace costs me my own. This ‘gift,’ as she called it, has cost me any semblance of normalcy; it’s cost me my family, my friends, and my hope. We pull into a gas station just off the highway. I grab my backpack from the backseat and pull out a notebook and pen.

  There’s a body off of Highway 501 under the Ukon Bridge.

  The note is short and sweet. No need to get too in-depth. I take out an envelope and write down the detective’s name in charge of her case and the address Casey recites for me. Once that’s done, the letter is sealed, and I place a stamp on it. We head into town and find the nearest post office, where I drop the letter in the box.

  Casey lets out an audible sigh, filled with what I can only describe as relief. “I’ll go see them one last time, and then I can go.”

  “Good luck, Casey,” I offer; I don’t know what else to say. What else could I say? Safe travels? Send a postcard?

  “Thank you,” she says, softly. Then, she disappears.

  I drive for hours after Casey disappears. At least it feels like hours. I have no map or plans of where I’m going, but I go anyway. My life has become one huge uncertainty.

  My SUV revs at a good speed as it climbs the mountain’s roads, winding around perilous curves, driving me further into the darkness—literally and figuratively speaking. I’ve never seen night as dark as it is here in the mountains. It’s almost consuming, and oddly, it doesn’t bother me. It’s funny how the mind works sometimes. I’ve spent the last six years scared and alone. Not scared of the dead, ironically, but scared my life belonged to them, that I will never have it back. But tonight, I made a decision. Tonight, I will take my life back. I will have control. A numbness settles over me, and my mind is blank. And that’s how I know I’ve made the right decision. When my 4Runner begins to sputter, the motor working overtime around the remaining gas fumes, I steer it toward the side of the road. I have a hundred dollars to my name hidden in my glove box, but I don’t need money where I’m going. Whoever finds the SUV first can have it. Leaving the headlights on, I walk, shivering, numb to my soul with a darkness I can’t find my way out of. This isn’t a life—it’s a nightmare. A never-ending torment of death and servitude. And the pain has become too much to bear.

  I don’t meander far when I find myself on a bridge where a large river runs underneath it; the water is raging, angry with all the rain. Walking to the middle, I let my hand glide along the wet railing and stare down at the water, wondering what it would be like to jump in, to let the water drag me down and take me away from this life—this nightmare.

  This too shall pass, I repeat to myself over and over, but the words have lost their magic, and their hold on me. Maybe all of this time I’ve thought of those words as my lifeline when really, all they’ve been is a weight shackled to my ankle, slowly dragging me under, keeping me from finding real peace. This will never pass. I will always belong to the dead and because of that, I will never truly live.

  It’s time to just let go.

  Being in limbo sucks. All you do is watch your loved ones suffer and have no ability to help them. My parents seem to be okay, for the most part. My little brother, too. But it’s George I worry about. Most siblings are close, but being twins creates a bond normal siblings could never understand. We’d been best friends since day one.

  And now, I’m dead.

  “Yes, Ma. I’ll be home Sunday for dinner.” He pauses. “No, I’m not drunk,” George assures my mother over the phone. He isn’t lying. He’s not drunk—not yet anyway.

  “No, Ma! He’s just a fucking drug addict high on cocaine!” I shout, even though neither of them can hear me. It’s a good thing, too; if she ever heard me drop the f-bomb, she’d whip my ass.

  I can’t hear what my mother is saying to George from the other end, but I can hear her muffled cries over the phone. “I know, Ma. I miss him, too.” He covers his eyes with his free hand, a pained expression taking hold of his features.

  “Shit, George,” I breathe. I hate seeing him like this.

  “I gotta go, Ma. I love you.” He hits end on the screen of his cell and plops down on the sofa. The glass coffee table in front of him is covered with white residue, a bag of coke, his wallet, and empty beer bottles. George leans forward and picks up a framed photo of me in uniform, from the day I graduated from basic training. He stares at the photo for a long moment before setting it down gently. Sliding off the sofa onto his knees, he pulls his license from his wallet. Within seconds, he’s separating a rock of coke into three small lines. After putting his license back in his wallet, he takes a dollar bill out and rolls it tightly, then uses it to snort the first line.

  “George!” I yell. “Jesus, man. Why are you doing this to yourself?” But it’s pointless because he can’t hear my words of concern.

  I can’t watch anymore. Besides, I know that whore, Misty, is on her way over and seeing him with her disgusts me. My brother is obviously a mess, mourning my loss, and she’s taking full advantage of it, bringing him drugs, snorting them with him as long as he’s paying, and then they fuck, even though she has a boyfriend who would beat the shit out of George if he ever found out.

  I vanish and reappear about half a mile from Anioch Bridge, just outside of town. George and I used to come here when we were kids and we’d fish; those are some of my favorite memories. As I walk toward the bridge in the blackness of the night, I hear the water from the Jackson River raging. The rain has been heavy here the last few days, and the water levels are high. I envy the river. It moves, flows, and keeps going. Unlike me. I’m stuck, trapped by my own need to fix something I can do nothing about.

  I died almost ten months ago, and that whole ‘white light’ people talk about is bullshit. At first, I didn’t realize I was dead. Actually, I thought I was dreaming; somehow I was home with my mother and father, but when I tried to speak to them, they didn’t hear me or even respond. It didn’t take long before they received the call notifying them I’d been killed by an IED in Afghanistan.

  Shock was all I felt as everyone fell apart with the news. At that point, I thought it was a nightmare; I’d wake up at any moment next to my buddy, Sniper, in our barracks and we’d bullshit about one thing or another. But that never happened. Instead, I’ve been forced to watch my family mourn my passing, unable to offer them any comfort. George has been spiraling out of control since I died, and I can’t bear to see him like this. I know, without a doubt, he’s what’s anchoring me here, keeping me from moving on to whatever lies ahead.

  “This is hell,” I mumble to myself. So lost in my own thoughts, I don’t notice the faint light ahead until I’m just about to step onto the bridge.

  “I’m sorry, Grandma. I’m sorry, Axel. I’m sorry I’m not stronger.” My thoughts are interrupted when I hear a woman crying. My eyes whip toward the sound of her voice; a thin woman wearing a rain parka
that’s way too big, her dark hair plastered to her head as the rain beats down on her. Water drips from the tip of her nose. She’s standing on the railing of the bridge, sobbing loudly. I’m frozen in place, unsure of how to react, but when her sobs suddenly cease and she lifts her head, my breath hitches. Before, her emotion showed her uncertainty about killing herself. Now, her expression is void, as if she’s decided something. She inhales deeply as she comes to terms with her decision and what she’s about to do. And I’m certain she’s going to jump.

  “Don’t!” I shout as I run toward her, even though I know she can’t hear me, but I can’t help my reaction. When her head jerks toward me at the sound of my voice, I nearly fall on my ass in shock. Her dark eyes meet mine and she tenses. She heard me.

  “Go away!” she shouts back. I stare up at her, my eyes wide and mouth hanging open. She sees me! She can hear me! “Just go away!” she shouts again, wiping her nose with the sleeve of her jacket.

  “You can see me?” I shake my head in disbelief.

  She clenches her eyes closed and groans. “You’re dead.” It’s not a question, but more of a statement. The rain stops and silence falls between us.

  “You can really see me?” I ask again, convinced I’m going mad.

  “Dead and stupid,” she mumbles. “Obviously I can see and hear you.”

  “But . . . how?”

  She turns away from me, and I stare at her profile as she clenches her eyes closed again. “Go away. I can’t help you. I’m done helping the dead. Just leave me alone.” She stares down at the water, her gaze lingering longingly.

  Shit. She’s going to jump. “Listen. What’s your name?”

  “My name doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me,” I argue. “My name is Ike. Ike McDermott. Please, just come down. Let’s talk about this.”

  “Why?” She laughs hysterically, but it just sounds cryptic. “So I can help you settle your unfinished business so you can crossover? Well, guess what, Ike?” she says, bitterly. “I have nothing. I have one hundred dollars to my name, my vehicle is out of gas, I have no friends or family to help me, and it’s all because of your kind. Because the dead won’t let me be!” Her voice shakes with emotion as angry tears fill her eyes.