Second Sight Read online

could mum have sent this woman? Was she that desperate to honour her word? Kate thought.

  “So, what’s your name dear, and what peculiar troubles are you having?” the woman continued.

  Kate didn’t hear a word the woman said. She was frozen in place, her spine was arched upwards and she was holding her breath for as the woman was speaking one figure and then another oozed through the wall of the ward and were curiously gazing around the room and at Kate as though they were site-seers.

  In a flash, the woman reached into her bag and pulled out a small jar of what Kate suspected to be salt and began sprinkling it around the room.

  The figures, which were of a woman that looked very much like the conspicuous looking woman before Kate, just younger, and of a young teenage boy began drifting around the room, trying to evade the salt and then they scampered out of the room through the walls.

  “You have the second sight” the woman said excitedly as she replaced the jar in her bag. She drew nearer Kate.

  Kate, who was beside herself with panic, snatched the bedside lamp at her side, ripping away its cord from its frame, and pointed it with both arms at the woman as if to ward her off. Her arms were shaking tremendously.

  “I’m here to help you, girl”

  “What do - do you say I’ve got? The – the second what?” Kate stammered

  “You’ve got the second sight. You can see spirits” the woman said, her eyes were gleaming with excitement. She drew closer to Kate.

  “STAY BACK!” Kate screamed, still pointing the lamp at the woman.

  “I just want to ---” the woman was saying when Mr Winslet pushed wide open the ward door, leapt at the woman, grabbed both her shoulders and began shaking her furiously.

  “WHO ARE YOU? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” he shouted at her

  Mrs Winslet came rushing in; she ran to Kate and hugged her.

  “ANSWER ME” Mr Winslet shouted again

  “Let go of me, please” she pleaded

  “FIRST ANSWER ME”

  “I was told your daughter needed help, so I came. My name is Isabella. I’m a seer”

  “Who asked you to come?” Mrs Winslet asked, clearly shocked.

  “A certain Mr Anderson”

  Mrs Winslet gasped

  “What? I asked him to call a pastor” she said.

  “How could you trust Anderson? He’s a mess” Mr Winslet asked his wife after releasing Isabella.

  “Your daughter sees spirits and save for my dedication I would walk away right now because of the way -” the frazzled Isabella was saying.

  “My daughter sees what?” Mr Winslet asked loudly, he was staring at her as though she were insane. Both Mrs Winslet’s hands were over her mouth.

  “She can see fourth dimensional beings; you know…ghosts, spirits, whatever you want to call them”

  “That’s impossible. Isn’t it? How can that be possible?” Mrs Winslet asked. She turned her gaze from Isabella to Kate.

  “This is completely crazy. You can take your leave now please.” Mr Winslet said to Isabella, he directed his right arm at the door.

  “Why don’t you ask her? I bet she’s been seeing them for a while now” Isabella said, pointing at Kate.

  The three of them stared at Kate.

  “oh no!” Mrs Winslet bellowed after Kate remained silent for a while.

  “That’s right” Isabella said confidently. “And just before your husband pounced on me like a hungry lion I just dismissed two of them from this very room”

  “Oh Boy! I must be dreaming” Mr Winslet said, collapsing unto a chair in the ward.

  “You see – see them too?” Kate asked sheepishly, replacing the severed lamp on the bedside stand.

  “No, I don’t. There are very, very few people who can. I just sense their presence.”

  “What do you mean “can you see them too”?” Mrs Winslet shouted at her daughter. “Kate, you don’t see ghosts”

  “I do, mum. I do” Kate said, as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Ever – ever since Aunt Mariah died I’ve been seeing them. Aunt Mariah was the first one. When she had the heart attack I rushed upwards to get my phone and call 911 while Josh carried her into the car. By the time I got outside I saw her standing and looking into the car. I didn’t know what to make of it. I wondered how she had recovered so suddenly and why Josh was still running to get the car keys and asking me why I was just standing there. Then, I looked into the car and saw her lying in the passenger seat with her eyes closed. I was so scared – ”

  “WAIT!” Isabella screamed so suddenly and forcefully that Kate jerked.

  “Did she know you saw her?” she asked, she stared intensely at Kate, studying her every reaction.

  “No, she didn’t. I ran upstairs immediately I knew she was a spirit”

  There were taps at the door.

  “Is everything alright in there” came a male voice outside the room.

  Isabella ignored him.

  “I know you didn’t have eye contact with those two here but have you had eye contact with any ghost in this state?”

  *silence*

  “HAVE YOU?” Isabella screamed.

  “You don’t have to answer that” Mr Winslet said to Kate as he got up from his chair.

  The male nurse behind the door stepped in.

  “I don’t know what’s going on in here but please keep it down. Patients in other rooms are bothered” he said.

  “Sorry. We’ll do just that” Mrs Winslet said, politely motioning him out of the room.

  As soon as the door shut after the nurse, the four of them just looked from one to another for a while without saying a thing.

  “I need to know” Isabella finally said to Kate in a much calmer tone.

  “When we passed the cemetery today my eyes met with one’s”

  “OH No! Are you very sure?”

  “I am. He was walking towards me. He almost – almost touched me”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Well, I passed out and ended up here” Kate said, sheepishly.

  “You aren’t safe. You should never, never look ghosts in the eyes” Isabella told Kate sternly, she snatched her large handbag from the foot of the bed where she had placed it, it seemed as though she was on the verge of leaving.

  “Why so?”

  Surprisingly enough, it was Mr Winslet that asked the question.

  “They haunt you, of course. And they won’t stop the tormenting you if they know you can see them until you lose your mind; even then they will continue following you about. They will alert other ghosts and you will be overwhelmed with them.”

  “Are you talking from experience?” Kate asked Isabella suddenly, her parents were bewildered.

  Isabella didn’t reply at first, she just turned around and hastily headed for the exit. Just before she left the room she turned to look Kate in the eyes and said

  “I have got only two on my case and they were my relatives, yet I can barely stand them. Leave Louisiana right now. They can’t follow you across borders… immediately”

  As soon as the door slammed behind the hasty Isabella, Mrs Winslet burst into tears.

  “Why didn’t you tell us Kate? So you can actually see ghosts?” she asked, she was so frightened by this ghastly turn of events that her skin was well drained of colour.

  “Let’s get moving now” dad barked in a matter-of-urgency tone.

  Before she could slip out of her hospital gown they heard a loud cry from somewhere within the hospital.

  Isabella came running back into the ward. She was shivering and whimpering.

  “They-they are everywhere” she cried.

  Kate stumbled towards the ward’s window to look outside and sure enough there was a large congregation of forms outlining the hospital.

  She screamed and began whimpering almost exactly the same way Isabella did.

  They were of different ages, sizes and genders but all had one thin
g in common, their faces didn’t look alive. They must have maintained the facial and bodily expression they had at the moment of their passing on. Most of them had blood stains on their body and had different stages of disfigurement but a few of them were whole; no blood stains, no markings no fractures etc, but their faces looked dead.

  “What are you afraid of? Are you not supposed to be the expert?” Mr Winslet questioned the spiritualist who was now sprawled on all fours on the hospital floor.

  “I can’t stand their entire aura at once. EEWWWW!!!” she wailed.

  “Is anyone of them in this room?” Mrs Winslet turned to her daughter.

  “Someone please help me, someone please me” Kate was saying to herself underneath her breath as she stared straight on and rocked her body back and forth.

  Mrs Winslet grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “KATE, IS ANYONE IN THIS ROOM?” Mrs Winslet cried, it seemed Isabella and Kate’s fright had been fully transferred to her.

  “No! She poured salt or something on the floor that wards them off”

  “Let us leave this place now and drive straight home. I’ll come back tomorrow for the kids in the hotel” Mr Winslet said, he had to greatly raise his voice so as to be heard over Isabella’s wailing.

  “No! They are outside, everywhere outside, I can’t leave here” Kate protested.

  “Let’s say I believe there are actually a number of ghosts outside this building, the longer we stay here, in this room, in this town, the more they will get. You heard what she said. They can’t cross state borders”

  “Dad, I can’t” Kate said, shivering, the tears freely flowing down. She knew that that was the most logical course of action but she couldn’t face them; when she had looked outside some moments back they were at least thirty of them, they could be a lot more now.

  “You have got to” he