Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense Fynn Perry (if you liked this book TXT) 📖

and emotions, how many spirits, just like mortals, forsake their morals and are ready to contemplate evil acts. Some have those tendencies naturally, while others develop them bit by bit. I’m going to hold out for you, John. In the meantime, I can tell you that you and your girlfriend make an interesting little sideshow.”

“Just tell me why Santiago wanted me dead,” John asked, trying again to focus on what mattered most to him.

“It wouldn’t be much of a game if I gave you all the answers, would it? It’s much more entertaining to see you try and figure things out. Count yourself lucky that I have helped you as much as I have.”

“So, what the hell can you tell me?” John exclaimed, frustrated. “Why have you appeared to me like this?”

“I can tell you only this, John. It’s unlikely that your girl will stop seeing spirits. Another hit to her head could do it, removing the power, but the trauma would have to be exactly the same. Either that or she becomes possessed.”

‘Why would that cause her to stop seeing––”

“––It’s too complicated to explain to you,” Nikki interrupted. “Way above your understanding.” With that, Nikki disappeared and John was left standing on a dimly lit street, partially educated about the new world he now found himself in, but mostly feeling more confused than ever before.

“Wow!” sighed Jennifer. There was a distant look in her eyes and she rubbed her arms absently. John had just finished telling her, in broad and basic terms, about The Game and the Voids who control it. They sat in silence in her room, at a few minutes past eleven, mirroring their disbelief and digesting what Nikki had told John.

“So dead people in the afterlife…” Jennifer eventually said, then corrected herself. “Voids…are the reason why 9/11 and other terrible acts take place in the world?”

John nodded.

“And they’re doing this for their own entertainment?”

“And to save us from ourselves. ‘Win-win,’ Nikki called it,” John said. He looked at Jennifer, who was now deep in thought, knowing the kind of mindfuck she must be going through. Yet he had more to say.

He proceeded to relate everything that had happened since he’d last seen her, from the aggressive behavior of the drug-affected man at the club in the Meatpacking District to the transportation of the guy’s brain-dead body and its arrival at the hospital for organ harvesting. He also told her about his shocking discovery of the way in which the corpses of those killed by the Spider Bite pills were used as drug mules in Vargas’s empire.

Jennifer stared at him, stunned. “OK, I thought I was over the worst shocks you’ve delivered as a spirit, but it seems you can still freak me out,” she confessed.

John nodded. “I knew that El Gordito was behind the overdose victims who went missing,” he said with satisfaction. Jennifer could tell he liked to be right, even if it was about something as horrific as this. He went on with his theory. “There was another body in the van leaving the club. A young guy, maybe a bit older than me. He was much better dressed, obviously richer. He must have been brain-dead, too, but they didn’t bother with a ventilator for him. They just dumped him in an alley, like garbage, making no effort to hide him! Instead, they took the body that I had possessed. He looked to me like just a regular guy. No expensive clothes or jewelry like a watch worth a few thousand dollars. "I think that they’re––"

“It’s obvious,” Jennifer interrupted. “They’re taking victims for organ harvesting who they think will easily be lost as just another statistic among thousands of unsolved missing person cases in the city. But they’re dumping victims who they think might come from rich and powerful families. Families that could have the connections to force a prioritized investigation from the police and demand greater resources to find their son, daughter, brother or sister. It wouldn’t make any sense for them to take on that kind of liability to their business.”

“Exactly what I was thinking! John enthused. “But they couldn’t just rely on appearances; they can be deceptive. The bouncers at the clubs must be checking the victims’ backgrounds somehow. . .” he pondered.

“Like getting their details from IDs and then researching them online?”

“Assuming their IDs are not fake, which they could be if they’re under twenty-one and shouldn’t even be in the club.” John paused as a new thought came to him. “Maybe they have some kind of facial-recognition software to ensure they get to the true identity of each guest.”

“It’s definitely a possibility. I read that the cartels are just as advanced in IT as the FBI.”

“Did you find any stories where overdose victims were from wealthy families?”

“A few that made news headlines but none of them went missing. They were found, usually not far from the club, just like you thought,” Jennifer answered.

She looked at the list of names that she had compiled from news reports on drug-related deaths or missing persons and in which DNA or Mayhem had been mentioned. She typed into her browser the first name on the list ‘Dwayne Rogers’ and the words ‘drug overdose.’ “This is the most detailed story I could find, and it’s not a death—he actually survived.”

She let John read from her screen:

ALAN ROGERS’ SON RECOVERS FROM DRUG OVERDOSE

Dwayne Rogers, the son of successful IT businessman and founder of MediaWerx, Alan Rogers, has made a remarkable recovery in the hospital, seven days after initially being diagnosed brain-dead following his collapse as police officers attempted to restrain his drug-induced violent behavior at an apartment in Upper Manhattan. A source close to the family stated that without the rapid response and decision of the paramedics to intubate their son, he would not be alive today. The Rogers family is registered with a premium Manhattan-based ambulance and ER concierge service, which is said to have state-of-the-art ambulances and diagnostic services. Police believe that Rogers