Bad Memories - Final Chapter

Another Twisted Short Tale - Chapter 2

A new twisted short story for my Morbid Ink Project (my paid subscribers get the first look at all my stories). The final chapter will publish a day or two later. The tale will also be available for subscribers to Medium in the near future.

You can find other stories on Morbid Ink here.

I glanced over, not wanting to believe him. However, his face was colorless as he spoke.

“Like I said, it’s a cursed soul. It will surprise you how many times I’ve tried to kill myself.”

His hushed voice became nearly a whisper.

“I hate the idea of drowning. Unable to breathe and unable to stop the water from entering your lungs. I’ve always feared water, ever since I had that nightmare. So, I won’t go near a lake or river.”

“Yeah! You’re nuts alright. Nobody else is afraid of death,” I stated with a forced grin. “You need to lighten up here.”

My glance over showed me he didn’t hear my comment.

“Listen, I’m not a doc, but it’s obvious you’re acting this way because you keep thinking about it,” I explained. “Any shrink will tell you that.”

But my comment wasn’t fooling Erik Ford a bit.

“Yeah, most people would agree,” he said. “Unlike them, I’ve been to my share of psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, you name it. I’ve had treatments like hypnosis and electroconvulsive therapy. Hell, I’ve tried them all.”

The man shrugged and leaned back, letting out a deep breath.

“Still, not one of them can rationally explain why I was born with a memory of Logan Casper’s life and the memories of the last day of those lives before him. Each memory shows me exact details about the ultimate day when the person in our cycle will drown. So, I have that to look forward in a couple of hours.”

I stayed silent, wanting to yell at him to be quiet. We were in the middle of the Montana plains during the summer with no one around for miles except for the wind and open range. Still, this guy is yammering about drowning and reincarnation. It was enough to drive his partner nuts. No wonder Smithy wore the headphones and listened to music.

The silence stretched on as both men immersed themselves in their own thoughts. One thinking about his choices while I couldn’t stop wondering if my partner might become violent.

“I told you; you wouldn’t like to talk with me,” Erik suddenly sighed.

“No, it’s interesting,” I lied, while trying to think of some way to change the subject. “We just need to get off this topic. It’s a downer, you know what I mean?”

“Well, in thirty minutes, all bets are off,” he said guardedly as he glanced down at the clock.

I looked at the blue-green numbers, which showed it was almost midnight. The time surprised me. It also angered me, since we missed our last delivery for the day. We were still over a hundred miles out of Scobey. Now we’d have to pick it up on the way back.