From Night On: Sacred Grounds

Chapters 1-2

To all readers:

I am not sure what is happening when I post these, but the transfer has been smashing words together. I've attempted to go back through and correct these formatting issues, but, please, be aware that you might come across these. Even after I've gone back and made corrections, some of these issues have returned.

From Night On:

Sacred Grounds

By Matthew Stone

Chapter 1

From The Earth

It started for Terry Salzmen the night he died on September 8th. Terry had a history of drug abuse after the death of his mother, Alice. She was a loving woman and her loss was felt by all the lives she touched. Her death hit Terry the hardest and his attempts to cope turned to self medication. It started with pain killers, but evolved into heavier drugs, some to numb the emotional pain and others to give him energy to counter the lethargy. This all led to a final showdown with his wife, Lenore, and his best friend, Les, when they learned of his addictions.

Terry,losing his mind to the loss of his mother and the narcotics pumping through his veins, attacked Les in a desperate attempt to pass the blame, accusing his best friend of planting the drugs he knew he had obtained, himself. The fight was over quickly. The lack of sleep and food, coupled with the chemical abuse, left Terry weakened and Les effortlessly pinned him to the couch. Lenore, furious at her husband,asked Les to let him up and then proceeded to knock him out with aright hook. When Terry came to, the group searched the house for all the hidden paraphernalia, which gave him more perspective on his problem, and he agreed to go to a rehab facility.

Things returned to normal when Terry was released. He continued to seek therapy for the loss of his mother and returned to work with his father, contracting and designing buildings. Terry is a well known architect and his father, Mike, is a well established contractor in Sonoma county. After Terry returned, the two of them went to work bringing buildings and affordable housing to the city of Petaluma. Terry designed the theater district in Downtown Petaluma, an act that earned him a lot of respect. Unfortunately, his history with drugs was still a well known gossip throughout the small town, so it was no surprise that, when he was killed by a lethal dose of acid, the police ruled it as a simple case of overdose.

On that night, Terry learned that there was an afterlife. After the acid worked its way through his nervous system and brought his life to an early end, Terry found himself out of body and a free spirit stuck between the living world and the spirit world. Without understanding what had happened, he followed the last person he was with, Jacob,who was also the person responsible for slipping the overdose into Terry's drink. He learned of his killers and their motives as he spied on them as a specter, following Jacob from the party to a meeting with officer Daniel Bailey who had payed Jacob to commit the crime.

His memories of being dead already set him apart from the others who returned from the grave as none of the others could recall the time between life and being undead. What also set Terry aside from anyone else was the strange encounters he had with a being he observed to change form with every step. While he was dead, the only emotion he felt was fear in the presence of the being. When he first encountered it, he froze, his will incapable of moving him in any direction as the being seemed to be stocking him. Days passed as this continued.When he told others of the encounter later, he withheld a crucial piece of information out of fear.