Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 83353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83353 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“Good,” she said encouragingly. “Now come with me, we’re going to leave this room and try to find the way to your mother.”
She started walking towards the open doorway and Michelle followed along. But she stopped when they came to the table in the center of the room.
“That’s where they did it,” she whispered. “That’s where they killed me. They kept turning the dials, giving me more and more shocks. I could tell it was too much but the doctor kept saying, ‘More—more!’ And I had that nasty-tasting rubber bite piece in my mouth, so I couldn’t say anything.”
Sam waited patiently until she finished speaking, but she knew it was important not to let the girl get fixated on her point of death. If she did, she would never get out of the room where she had died.
“That’s very sad and the doctor was wrong to do that,” she told Michelle. “But it’s time to go now. We have to find your Mom—remember?”
“Oh yes—we’re going to find Mama!” Michelle tore her gaze from the rusted metal table and started walking again, following Sam out of the room.
“Good, that’s good! Come on—let’s go,” Sam coaxed her. Finally they made it past the threshold of the room and out into the darkened hallway.
“Where are we?” Michelle looked around. “This place is so dark and scary! What are we doing here? Where’s my room? I want my room!”
“No, no!” Sam moved hastily to block the open doorway. Of course the ghost could pass right through her if she was really determined to go back, but Sam hoped she wouldn’t. She was afraid if Michelle went back to her death room, she’d never leave it again.
“But my room!” the ghost girl begged.
“I know it’s dark and scary here, Michelle,” Sam said patiently. “But it’s brighter outside. There’s a full moon overhead tonight!”
Sometimes a troubled spirit found their way to the afterlife as soon as they left the immediate vicinity of their death, but sometimes they had to be brought out and away from the place where they had died. Sam was betting this was one of the latter cases. She knew that she had to get Michelle out of the abandoned hospital and into the grounds outside. That was the only way to help her into the afterlife.
“Come with me,” she said to the ghost girl. “Come on—I know the way out. You can trust me, just keep your hand in mine and follow me.”
She knew that her audience watching at home couldn’t see the spirit she was helping, but they could see her actions and watch as she led Michelle out of the dark and awful building where she had been killed.
“Keep going,” she urged, making sure she could still feel the cool, ghostly fingers in hers as she walked down the hallways, her Docs crunching on the glass and debris. “Keep going—almost there.”
At last they reached the side door of the hospital, which Sam had found unlocked and used to get in. Just outside it was a barren, overgrown parking lot filled with weeds and beyond that, a bunch of trees nearly covered by the tangle of underbrush and vines that grew around them. Central Florida’s sub-tropical climate ensured that any piece of property that went neglected eventually turned into a mini jungle.
But it wasn’t the parking lot or the overgrown forest Michelle was looking at. When Sam turned to look at her ghostly companion, she saw that the ghost girl was staring up into the sky. It seemed like she was looking at the full moon, floating overhead, but Sam didn’t think that was what drew her attention.
“Oh, look,” she said in her pale whisper of a voice. “Look up there—I see a light shining. It’s shining in a kind of tunnel and it’s all golden and warm.”
“That’s your path,” Sam told her, though she couldn’t see the path herself. No one but a soul on the edge of death could. “That’s the way to your Mom. Go on, Michelle—you can do it—move towards the light.”
“That’s the way?” Michelle asked, half turning to her. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Sam said firmly. She squeezed the ghostly fingers, even though she couldn’t feel anything but coldness. “Go on now—I’m sure she’s waiting for you.”
“Oh, she is! She is!” Michelle’s voice got a little stronger. “I can see her now—she’s waving to me!”
“Go to her then!” Sam urged her. “Go on—be free!”
“I will!” Michelle turned to her once more. “Thank you…thank you so much!”
“You’re welcome.” Sam smiled. It always made her feel so good when she was able to help a spirit who was stuck move on to the next plane of existence!
She felt the cold fingers leave her hand and watched as Michelle’s spirit drifted upwards, over the parking lot with its crumbling asphalt and weeds and up into the moonlit sky.