Beyond Evidence by Emma L Clapperton

time he encountered the spirit of the first murdered woman. He had fallen asleep, but it was a restless sleep. He had been dreaming of a woman who didn't have a face, kind of like a video clip and the editor had put a blur on the characters face. She was running. Patrick ran along side her in the dream, but he had no clue as to who she was. She was young, perhaps in her early twenties with long dark hair, it was damp and hung around the sides of her face as she ran. Her long side fringe was damp and flopping over her face as she ran. Patrick had a fear in him he couldn't comprehend. He felt terror in his veins, and his heart thumped so hard in his chest that he honestly thought it would burst through his chest at any moment. He watched the girl who ran, in bare feet he noticed. She kept looking behind her, which made Patrick look behind him too. He understood there and then what the girl was running from. The black silhouette of a man wasn't far behind them and he was also running.
    Patrick's head began to thump. He ached from the top of his spine to the bottom. He suddenly felt himself willing this girl to run faster. He felt the presence of the silhouette behind them and all of a sudden he felt like he was being sucked up into the air. He watched as the silhouette jumped on top of the girl and pushed her face hard into the ground. Patrick himself felt the weight of the man as if he had jumped on top of him. He watched helplessly as the girl struggled for her life. The man who had been pursuing her was now strangling her.
    Patrick was beginning to have what felt like a panic attack, but in fact he was feeling what the girl was feeling, he was suffocating. The silhouette had wrapped his fingers around her throat and squeezed, digging his fingernails into her skin so hard that he drew blood. Patrick squeezed his eyes shut, he couldn't bare to watch the horrible nightmare he was caught in! As he squeezed his eyes shut he could hear the girl choking on the man's grip, gasping for air to fill her lungs. He opened them and saw the girl was looking up at him, still faceless. She reached out for him as he looked down on the horror she faced. He felt his stomach lurch, and suddenly he sat bolt upright in bed and was gasping for breath!
    He immediately felt relief from the nightmare he had been in. He turned the bedside lamp on and he felt that awful surge of fear again as he saw the girls face in the corner of the room. She didn't say anything, she just reached out for him, making the same gasping motions as he had when he watched her in the nightmare. He stared at her, wondering who she was, what she wanted. He had used his ability to try to communicate with her. He spoke softly in his head to her, using a calmness that was hard to surface in the situation he faced.
    "Who are you? What do you need?"
    She was showing him in the only way that she could that she had suffocated. The only way she could show him was to go into his mind and replay the events leading up to her death.
    But why? Why had this young life been taken so brutally?
    Now, weeks after his first vision there were three spirits in his head and he knew that there was no way he would get any sleep unless he did something to help.
    "Jodie, I have to try, this isn't just about us now. I can't keep this in just so we don't get scrutinised for something that some people don't believe in. Times have changed since we were kids Jodie. People aren't as afraid of the spirit world as they used to be, people are more curious now and much more open minded. Look at all those states in America where the Police use psychic and spiritualist mediums to help in murder investigations. And in so many of the cases the mediums have been almost one hundred percent accurate in their evidence!" She took his other hand and pulled him round to face her.
    "Tell me exactly what you have seen," she looked deep into his eyes and held his hands tight.
    Patrick closed his eyes and relaxed his thoughts.