Past Life Regression

A Murder For Memories

For the past ten weeks I have been doing a weekly writing prompt with a friend. I pick three cards from a deck (what you see in italics below) and we each write a short story based on them. What you see is what you get. No editing…just the first draft of a raw idea. No more than 3-4 pages so we don’t spend all Saturday on this exercise. Just letting the creative juices flow. Enjoy the “story,” errors and all. Cheers!

A note left on the windshield—A forgotten memory returns—Historian

Past lives…what a load of garbage. That’s what Kevin Macy used to think. Then the dreams started two years ago right after the accident. A twenty four hour coma was like unplugging your brain and plugging it back up to make it work again. That’s what he told himself, anyway. At first he dismissed his dreams as just random garbled up thoughts and images from movies mixed with his real life. But then they became more lucid. They had a purpose. That’s when he sought out Dr. Beck.

His dreams were memories. That much he was sure of. Sometimes those visions and memories would even come to him when he was awake. The only problem was that he didn’t remember any of them. He could remember his own childhood and growing up with two brothers and a big sister, two loving parents and playing little league. He remembered graduation night, he remembered college. Hell, he even remembered his first time having sex and the euphoria from that moment. But he had no idea whose childhood memories he was having, whose adult memories and grief he was feeling. He even dreamed of the day he died. Dr. Beck pushed their sessions to the limit. A few weeks ago they began hypnosis and exploring the possibility of past lives.

They began to hold sessions at locations he would recall during deep hypnosis, locations from years before. Eventually Dr. Beck discovered that he was a person that was held of some importance by very secretive men at the federal government. He had gotten the attention of the clandestine world during the years between the World Wars. But who was he?  The curiosity was constant. He couldn’t eat, sleep, work or breathe without craving an answer to the mystery.

He took the elevator down to the parking garage. Friday couldn’t get here quickly enough. He never had any weekend plans, though. His wife tried relentlessly to get him to go out, mingle friends, to have some fun. Instead, he turned into a hermit over the last year and half spending all his free time surfing the web for clues to his past life identity. If he could find out the identity maybe he and Dr. Beck could figure out what the dreams were trying to tell him. He was about to climb behind the wheel of car when he noticed the note held to the windshield under the wiper blade. Written in all caps with a Sharpie was an address and a time. 800 Seaside Way. Third floor. 9 PM. Bring this note. Dr. B.

Kevin drove to the abandoned building down by the marshlands. He knew the area well. He worked the account for his company when they sold this property to a private investor through a shell company. Oddly enough he never bothered to develop the land, not even for tourism which would have been a lucrative business venture in these parts.

Kevin grabbed the note and made his way up the stairwell to the third floor of the dilapidated building. It used to be a hospital for the insane but was closed down in the early 1990’s and had fallen into dangerous disrepair since then. “Doc, you up here,” he called out. His voice echoed in the silence.

“Down here,” he called back. He had a two chairs sitting facing each other in the hallway. The last of the daylight was fading and the air in the building was stuffy. He pulled his sweaty shirt collar away from his neck and slowed his walk to catch his breath.

“Hell of a place you chose for tonight’s session,” he gasped. “If we’re going to start meeting in places without an elevator I’m going to have to start going back to the gym,” he laughed rubbing his expanding gut. “By the way, I didn’t see your car outside.”

“I had it washed and waxed today. I parked it on the other side of the reeds so I wouldn’t get mud on it. And for the record, I don’t like this place any more than you do, but I didn’t pick it. You did during our last session. You mentioned this place. I thought maybe coming here and seeing it might jar another memory loose. Before this was a hospital it was a munitions building going back to World War I. It was a joint venture with the Army and Navy, since we’re here on the coast and the location was perfect.”

“Nothing looks familiar. I’m sorry, maybe in hypnosis tonight. How long is our session going to last. I told my wife I was working late but she wanted me home anyway. I seriously don’t think that woman loves me anymore, to be honest. Maybe we should be talking about that sometime soon.”

“Well, maybe we bring her into our sessions or I can suggest a marriage counselor. Couples therapy isn’t really what I do. But in the hopes of keeping you out of the doghouse let’s get started. I’ll put you under for no more than 30 minutes tonight and then we can go over my notes back at the office at our next session. You can go on home to your wife. I’m actually surprised she wouldn’t be interested in helping you with research since she’s a history professor. Seems like something that would be right up her alley.”

Kevin rolled his eyes. “If you only knew her, doc!”

Kevin sat back in the old wrought iron chair, something dust covered that the doctor probably found in the corner of one of the abandoned rooms that likely hadn’t been touched in over a decade. He began the session and put the man under within a few minutes. “Kevin, I want you to let go. Let go and let Edgar come forth. I want to talk to Edgar.”

Dr. Beck motioned for the woman hiding in the dark room behind Kevin. She was watching through the small crack of the barely opened door. She quietly walked up beside him, knelt down and opened a notepad.

“Edgar, your wife is he transcribing for us just as you always preferred. Do you remember when your best friend asked you about the stock market? He asked you how he could make money during the Great Depression so your families would prosper.”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Good. I want you think back to that day. You gave him predictions for what stocks to buy and you did well for your families. You gave him stocks to buy for each year over the next one hundred years. Your wife made that list for you. Do you remember having that list?”

“Yes. I remember having that list. I don’t remember the names of the companies. I never remember what I see when I’m in trance.”

“That’s right. You never remember. That’s why you have a scribe to take careful notes. Your wife gave you that list of companies and you hid it away, never to share that information with anyone. You felt it was dangerous and wrong.”

“I remember well. I had the list my wife gave me. She was detailed in her notes.”

“Where is the list now, Edgar? Your wife needs to know.”

Kevin’s head slowly rolled from side to side, something that always happened under hypnosis when he was getting tired or agitated.

“Edgar, she just needs to location so she can destroy the list before someone else finds it.”

“Latitude 36° 51' 10.55" North Longitude: -75° 58' 40.76" West. Buried in a red tin box. Two feet from the base of the tree. You’ll find it four feet down.”

“Thank you Edgar. Now I want to talk to Kevin. Is Kevin there?”

After a couple of minutes Kevin finally spoke under hypnosis. His breathing began to slow and his pulse calmed to a normal rate.

“Kevin, I have one more thing to ask you to do before I bring you out of hypnosis. Will you comply?”

“Yes, doctor,” he said with a monotone voice.

“Good. I want you stand up and walk beside me. I’ll hold your hand and guide you but I want you to keep your eyes closed. I’ll count to three. When I get to three you will come back to the present moment and go home to your wife. She is waiting at home for you.”

He led Kevin over to an open elevator shaft. The woman tucked the notepad in her jacket pocket and stood behind him. When the doctor got to three she had already shoved him over the threshold. He barely had time to let out a scream when he hit the ground floor with a thud.

A nervous silence hung in the air. Neither had ever killed before, even though technically she was the one that killed him.

“I’ll report him missing early in the morning. I’ll most likely be a suspect when they find him. I left my car and my cell phone at home. That will help cover my tracks. Do you have his file written up the way I told you?”

“When they come to see his records they’ll find that he was terribly depressed and I was afraid that he might become suicidal. An open and shut case. Hide those coordinates away until after the funeral. Then go get that list. You can use the insurance money to invest your share and I’ll instruct my broker to buy for me. We’ll make a fortune, baby. You and me.”

She grabbed him by the collar and kissed him deeply and caressed his face. “I guess that past life stuff was real,” she laughed. “Lucky for me.”

“Lucky for us,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant. I’ll see you at the funeral,” she said and disappeared down the dark hallway.