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  Undetermined Events

  An Angela Panther

  Mystery Novella

  Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  Carolyn Ridder Aspenson

  April 2018

  Copyright 2018 CAROLYN RIDDER ASPENSON

  This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

  Attribution — You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

  Noncommercial — You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

  No Derivative Works — You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.

  Cover Design by Tatiana Vila

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to similarly named places or to persons living or deceased is unintentional.

  EPUB ASIN B07C9LQM8C

  Library of Congress Control Number: N/A

  For my mother and father

  Rita D. (Palanca) Ridder

  &

  Richard L. Ridder

  Love you always

  Darkness and fog surrounded me. Even the moon and stars, always visible in the north Georgia night sky, couldn’t light my way. I slowed around each curve in the road, my bright lights barely visible in the fog. I struggled to see, the hidden shadows of the trees lining the road dancing in the wind, making the murky vapor even more ominous. Icy spots covered my way, and try as I might, I couldn’t keep my car from sliding.

  I kept my speedometer at a steady thirty-five miles an hour as I crawled up and down the small hills. I tapped my brakes downhill to keep my car straight and said a prayer I’d make it to my destination safely. The gloomy haze thickened through the lower parts of the valleys, and the icy spots multiplied. I gripped my steering wheel, my knuckles white, my wrists aching from the tension. I couldn’t see a thing—not the road ahead or the trees along the edges of the blacktop—nothing.

  I screamed when I hit the icy patch that sent me spinning out of control. I forced the wheel into the direction of the slide and tapped on my brakes, but they wouldn’t work. My car sped up, twirling around in circles until the driver’s side smashed into the side of a tree.

  * * *

  The smell of burning oil brought me back to consciousness. Fire engulfed the front end of my car. I tried desperately to open my door but couldn’t. I knew something blocked it, I could feel it, I just couldn’t see what it was. Had I hit something? Another car?

  I yanked on the door handle, pounded on the window, but my hands went right through the broken glass. “Help! Someone help me! Is anyone out there? I’m stuck in here!” I searched for my seatbelt and disconnected it and then tried to climb to the other side of the car, but the impact had crushed me between the steering wheel and the seat. I pushed on the wheel, hoping to force the seat back, but my body screamed in agony. I couldn’t move. Something thick filled my mouth. I felt it’s sticky heaviness ooze from my lips and drip onto my arms. The metallic taste reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think straight.

  Blood. I tasted blood. I wiped it away, but more came. It just kept coming and coming. The gurgling sounds couldn’t be from me. I didn’t feel them. I felt nothing.

  The flames outside slowly darkened as the air in the car disappeared. I tried to scream for help again, but I couldn’t make a sound.

  My body felt no pain, as a feeling of weightlessness overwhelmed me. I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t afraid, but I understood. I laid my head back against the seat and let myself succumb to that knowing.

  * * *

  Detective Aaron Banner stared at the person sitting across from him. “You haven’t seen her for five days, and you’re just reporting her missing now?”

  I was confused. I couldn’t remember how I ended up in the detective’s office, or why I was there, but hoping it would all make sense soon, I just listened. I couldn’t clearly see the person across from Aaron. I saw the shape of a body, but the features were too blurry for me to catch any details. I saw Aaron and the rest of the room without a problem so what the hell was happening?

  “We’re separated. We’ve barely talked over the last three months. I didn’t think not talking to her for five days was a big deal.” The man’s voice echoed through the room. I knew that voice. I knew it in the depths of my soul.

  It was my husband, Jake.

  I jumped out of my seat. “We are not separated. What the hell are you talking about? I’m right here.” I slammed my hands down on the table. It vibrated underneath them, but neither of the men moved. They didn’t even acknowledge me. “Aaron, I’m right here. What’s going on?”

  Aaron ignored me, and it pissed me off. “Aaron,” I grabbed onto his shoulder. “Stop this. It’s not funny. Something’s wrong. I can’t see Jake clearly. I’m serious. This isn’t funny.”

  “You’ve been separated for how long?” Aaron asked.

  “Four months, but the first month we still lived together. Took her a month to find a place. Since then we’ve not talked more than once every ten days or so.”

  Aaron wrote down what Jake said.

  “This isn’t true,” I screamed. “What is this, some kind of joke? It’s not funny.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?”

  “Five days ago. She showed up that night and told me she wanted me to come home. Said she was sorry and wanted to make things right.”

  Aaron stopped writing. “And what did you say to her?”

  “I told her I’d already contacted an attorney. That I wanted a divorce.”

  My head spun. Jake and I hadn’t had that conversation. Why was he lying to our friend?

  “How did she handle that?”

  “She said if she couldn’t have me, she didn’t want anything.” He paused. I caught a movement in his blurred body but couldn’t decipher what he’d done. “I didn’t think she’d do anything drastic though. I thought she was upset, but figured she’d get over it. Things hadn’t been good for a long time.”

  I tried and tried to get the two of them to acknowledge me, to tell me it was all a joke, but neither of them would listen.

  They talked for a while longer and then Jake left. I followed him to his car, begging him to talk to me, but he acted like I wasn’t even there.

  I sprinted to find my car and follow my husband, but it wasn’t anywhere. The parking lot was almost empty, and my car wasn’t in it.

  What t
he hell was happening to me?

  It was like I wasn’t even there.

  The fog. The ice. The flames. It all came rushing back to me.

  The blood. I remembered the blood.

  “No! This can’t be happening! No! I’m not dead. I’m not dead!”

  * * *

  I stood there, feet firmly planted on the blacktopped parking lot, clueless. As a psychic medium, I had experience dealing with the dead but had no idea how to be dead. How did they go from one place to another? How did their energy work? Was it desire, focus, prayer, asking?

  Home. I wanted to go home. My son Josh also had the gift, and I knew he could help me. I focused all of my energy on my house, the family room with the big comfy couch everyone left their soft blankets on when they went upstairs to bed, the kitchen bar and the stools never pushed in along it. I imagined myself standing on the other side of the kitchen bar, drinking a cup of coffee and chatting with my husband and kids.

  An elephant appeared in front of me, raised its right foot, flapped its ears and rumbled. It walked toward the street, stopped, and then turned around and did it all over again.

  “What?” I asked. “Do you want me to go with you or something?”

  It raised its foot again and rumbled, flicking its head once toward the road.

  “All right then, I’ll follow you.”

  We reached the road, and the world went dark again.

  Relief and comfort swept over me as my house slowly appeared in front of me. Home. I was home. I didn’t understand what had happened, but I was home, and everything would be okay.

  The elephant appeared in front of me again and walked up the driveway, turning and encouraging me to follow as it did.

  I raced to follow, and then I stopped. The driveway was empty, but that didn’t mean no one was home. I wanted to see Josh, but something Aaron said wouldn’t let me.

  She’s been missing five days.

  They didn’t know I was dead. I couldn’t just suddenly appear in front of my teenage son and ask how his day went. The pain of his mother going missing must have been awful and to be the one that discovers she’s dead would be so much worse. He might be able to communicate with the dead, but he was still my baby, and I couldn’t hurt him like that.

  I stood outside my home unsure of what to do. Someone had to be able to talk to me. “Ma? Where are you? I need you.”

  My mother had died years before, and her death flipped a switch inside me, reigniting my long-buried psychic gift. It took me some time to get used to the whole idea, but I had, and aside from a few ups and downs, I knew I was blessed with something special. Because of that something special, I stayed connected to my mother Fran, who’d been one of my rocks through my struggle of acceptance. “Ma? Come on, aren’t you supposed to be with me now to help me crossover?”

  Crickets. I heard crickets.

  Something wasn’t right. None of it made sense.

  The elephant walked up to my garage, slowly turned around and faced me, its eyes patient and kind.

  “What am I supposed to do?” I cried real tears. Everything about me felt real. I didn’t feel dead, but I didn’t know if that was the norm. “I don’t know what to do.” I buried my face in my hands. “Someone please tell me what to do.”

  Little by little my house faded away until once again everything went black.

  * * *

  Darkness and fog surrounded me. Even the moon and stars, always visible in the north Georgia night sky, couldn’t light my way. I slowed around each curve in the road, my bright lights barely visible in the fog. I struggled to see, the hidden shadows of the trees lining the road dancing in the wind, making the murky vapor even more ominous. Icy spots covered my way, and try as I might, I couldn’t keep my car from sliding.

  I kept my speedometer at a steady thirty-five miles an hour as I crawled up and down the small hills. I tapped my brakes downhill to keep my car straight and said a prayer I’d make it to my destination safely. The gloomy haze thickened through the lower parts of the valleys, and the icy spots multiplied. I gripped my steering wheel, my knuckles white, my wrists aching from the tension. I couldn’t see a thing—not the road ahead or the trees along the edges of the blacktop—nothing.

  When I hit the icy patch and spun in circles, I screamed. I forced the wheel into the direction of the slide and tapped on my brakes, but they wouldn’t work. My car sped up, twirling around in circles until it finally stopped when the driver’s side collided with the side of a tree.

  * * *

  The smell of burning oil brought me back to consciousness. Fire engulfed the front end of my car. I tried desperately to open my door but couldn’t. I knew something blocked it, I could feel it, I just couldn’t see what it was. Had I hit something? Another car?

  I yanked on the door handle, pounded on the window, but my hands went right through the broken glass. “Help! Someone help me! Is anyone out there? I’m stuck in here!” I searched for my seatbelt and disconnected it and then tried to climb to the other side of the car, but the impact had crushed me between the steering wheel and the seat. I pushed on the wheel, hoping to force the seat back, but my body screamed in agony. I couldn’t move. Something thick filled my mouth. I felt it’s sticky heaviness ooze from my lips and drip onto my arms. The metallic taste reminded me of something, but I couldn’t think straight.

  Blood. I tasted blood. I wiped it away, but more came. It just kept coming and coming. The gurgling sounds couldn’t be from me. I didn’t feel them. I felt nothing.

  The flames outside slowly darkened as the air in the car disappeared. I tried to scream for help again, but I couldn’t make a sound.

  My body felt no pain, as a feeling of weightlessness overwhelmed me. I wasn’t tired, I wasn’t afraid, but I understood. I laid my head back against the seat and let myself succumb to that knowing.

  * * *

  “I thought she needed some time, so I gave her some space.” Mel. It was Mel, my best friend. I’d know the sound of her voice anywhere, but I couldn’t see her, I couldn’t see anything.

  “What’re you talking about?” I asked.

  She didn’t reply.

  “Mel, where are you? Why is it so dark in here?” I felt around to get a handle on my surroundings, but all I found was space. Empty, dark space. “Come on; this isn’t funny. Answer me. Turn a light on for crying out loud.”

  “Why did you think she needed time?” Aaron asked.

  “If you told your wife you wanted a divorce, she’d probably need some time, too.”

  I stretched my arms out and tried to feel in front of me as I walked toward their voices. “Guys, knock it off. You’re pissing me off now. Come on. Where’s the light?” I turned around and headed back and to my right, hoping I’d hit a wall.

  “Well, I can promise you that’ll never happen,” Aaron said.

  “Yeah, that’s what my first husband said in the beginning, too. And now my best friend and her husband? I mean, they were the perfect couple. If it can happen to them, it can happen to anyone.”

  What? Jake and I weren’t separated let alone talking divorce. What was she talking about? “Mel, is this some kind of joke? Are you punking me or something? Is Ashton Kutcher here? Am I being filmed?”

  What other reason could there be? And I’d expect something like that from Mel. She always messed with me. It was our thing.

  She didn’t answer me. “Why won’t you answer me?” I finally made contact with an object and ran my fingers across it. A table. I used both hands to guide myself around it to an end. When I found the end, I slowly backed up and searched for a light switch or door when I hit the wall. I didn’t find one, so I went back to the table and felt around until I reached the opposite end and then did the same thing. That time I found a door and a light switch next to it. I flipped it on.

  Aaron sat one side of the department’s conference table, taking notes. Mel sat across from him. At least I thought it was Mel. She didn’t look right, her body all fuz
zy and blurry. I rubbed my eyes, but it didn’t help. If not for her voice, I wouldn’t have known it was her.

  My eyes shifted back to Aaron. He appeared clear as a bell. “What’s—I…I feel like I’ve been here before, but not really.”

  “Do you think she’s dead?” Mel asked.

  “I’m still gathering information, ma’am,” Aaron said.

  Ma’am? Why would he call her ma’am? When you’re sleeping with someone, you don’t typically call them ma’am. At least not that I knew of.

  “Okay guys, enough. Mel, whatever costume you’re wearing is really good, and it’s freaking me out big time. Come on. This isn’t funny.”

  Mel sniffled. “I feel like she’s dead. I don’t know why, but I just feel it.”

  “Let’s not jump to any conclusions.” Aaron closed his notebook. “Just keep your phone close by in case you hear from her. If you do, be sure to let me know.” He handed her something from his pocket and walked her out of the room.

  I followed, complaining the entire way. “Why are you doing this? This is a cruel joke, and I really don’t like it.”

  I walked with Mel to her car. “Mel, knock it off. Talk to me. This has gone too far.”

  She wouldn’t even acknowledge me. When she reached her car, she pulled out her cell phone and called someone. “They don’t know anything, but I just know she’s dead. I can feel it in my bones.”

  I sprinted to find my car and follow her, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. The parking lot was almost empty, and my car was nowhere to be found.

  What the hell was happening to me?

  I feel like she’s dead. I don’t know why, but I just feel it.

  The fog. The ice. The flames. It all came rushing back to me.

  The blood. I remembered the blood.

  “No! This can’t be happening! No! I’m not dead. I’m not dead!”