The Soul Collector

“So you want to know about the Soul Collector do you?” The old man said shifting in his high backed arm chair. He portrayed a sense of unease and yet his face suggested that he had been preparing for this for a long time.

There was nobody else in the bleak common room except a buxom Nurse fussily re-arranging some dying flowers. It was mutually understood that we should hold all conversation until she was safely out of ear shot so I busied myself with retrieving my notebook from the inside of my jacket.



Eventually the Nurse bustled away and my companion began his story. “I was not much older than you are when I first hear of her” The old man began; I was hanging on every word of his somber tone of voice, like a child receiving a bedtime story.

“It was 1965 and I received a strange phone call from a very distressed young lady: Eva Lassacks. She was a Matron at the Royal London Hospital at the time but since early childhood, she told me, she had been riddled with apparitions and visions of the supernatural. Some people are like that. She was a self-confessed, albeit secretive, Medium and was used to catching fleeting glimpses of the black mist of Death lingering over a patient in the moments after the soul had passed from the body.

“But of late she had been sensing something else, something unnatural and her suspicions had been further roused by the reports of a strange woman seen waiting in the shadows. This odd entity has been spotted on a few occasions, usually by staff running errands along the more desolate corridors of the Hospital. She was described as tall, thin and always covered from head to foot with a billowing white cloak. Nobody had seen her face and the only sound she made was the distinct tap of kitten heels on the bare tiles. Yet she brought with her no sense of alarm, that her presence seemed perfectly acceptable despite her irrational garb, it was only on questioning the experience later that her encounterants became aware that she was entirely out of place. The best that anybody could describe their feelings when they came into contact with her was that she didn’t really seem to be there. Yet she was not spectral, Eva assured me of that. She was real, very real and on a specific mission.

“The beginnings of the investigation were shaky as money was tight for me and the Hospital authorities were reluctant to consider the seriousness of the situation. But eventually we agreed on a sum and I began to discreetly make my enquiries. I had not been a Detective for very long but my experience, with cases most others were keen to dismiss as madness, was substantial. My first port of call was to gather together the files for all the patients to whom this strange lady was seen to be connected, there were some twelve of them spanning over the course of a year and at first glance there was nothing to differentiate one from the next.

“But then I came across a name I was familiar with. Marcus Bellemy, I think, a retired Policeman who had found success writing crime novels. It was well known that he had passed away about a month ago, his death being not entirely unexpected as he had been suffering with a particularly aggressive form of cancer for some time. Then I saw another name I recognized, Peter Sherman, the athlete died from head injuries after a car accident. This sparked some research on the others and I found a definite correlation: all of them had, at some point, shared a few brief moments in the lime light of the media. But I still had no idea what all of this meant, there seemed to be no crime; nothing to suggest any foul play. So what did this mysterious woman want with the Hospital?

“I soon found that I had reached a dead end but on reporting this to her, my contact suggested that we try a little experiment. Arthur Murdoch was a renowned performer in his prime and a lover of women and scandal but as the years drew on he had lost his vigor and with it many friends and relatives. Quite literally alone on his death bed, he had been unconscious for some time and every professional opinion agreed that he wouldn’t last the night. What Eva was suggesting was that we hide ourselves on his ward and watch to see what, if any, events would unfold. It was a long shot, but I was young and at a loose end.



“That evening the pair of us positioned Murdoch’s bed in plain view of the Matron’s office and Eva secured the night shift on the ward. We settled down in the dim glow of the night lights and waited. Hours passed with little activity but around 2:00am the unmistakable sound of kitten heels strode towards the ward. I glanced at Murdoch, the wheezy rise and fall of his paunch suggested he was still very much alive but still the footsteps drew closer. Eva knew immediately what she had to do; she positioned herself at her desk and busied herself with idle paperwork while I remained close behind the door, watching through the tiniest slit of window. It wasn’t long before the doors began to open. As if caught in a slight breeze they swung noiselessly inwards and there she stood.

“She was just as I imagined her; tall and almost skeletal of frame, with only thin white lips and a narrow pointed chin visible under the heavy cloak. She crept forward; one single pale hand extended slightly at her side, long thin fingers stretched out as if sensing the very vibrations of the air. She looked at the Matron’s office and satisfied that Eva was none the wiser of her presence, she continued on her way towards Murdoch. She seemed to be judging something, Murdoch was not dead yet and she made no move to make his passing any quicker. She was simply waiting, stationed firmly at the end of his bed.

“The other hand, concealed until now, produced what appeared to be a porcelain egg shaped box with a golden slit across the middle: like the kind of decorative piece found in stately homes. She held it out in front of her, both slender hands cupping the top and bottom. She stood like this for some moments, and then it happened. Murdoch’s breathing quickened slightly and then ceased altogether. I felt Eva come to my side and we saw the slivery grey soul lift itself from the lifeless form on the bed. As souls do when they are freed from the constraints of the physical form, it hovered awaiting the Reaper to show it the way forward. But it was the lady who acted; she snapped open the box and the disorientated soul made its weary way inside. It happened in an instant and before we knew it she had captured her prize and was turning to make her escape. Eva and I, sensitive as we are, saw the mist of Death form momentarily too late over the body before it slunk away.          

“I don’t know what made me do it, but I burst from the dank office and gave chase; she noticed me quickly and broke into a run. Despite her dainty shoes she was particularly agile on her feet; the pattering heels now a definite clop. I tore after her down the corridors, rousing staff and patients alike but all I saw in front of me was that fluttering cloak. Finally we came to a junction and she made the mistake of hesitating, but that was all I needed. I lunged forward grabbing the cloak, tearing it from her back. She spun around, the lights were dim but I saw her face quite clearly, it was sallow and gaunt but young and not unattractive.

“I relaxed, thinking the chase was up but she threw her thick locks of straw colored hair over her face and ran away. I was too stunned and exhausted to go after her again, I noticed that the egg shaped container was still clasped tightly in her hand, but her white cloak was in mine. I held it there, the last reminder that she haunted those corridors, after that she was never seen nor heard of again. She became the essence of an uncanny memory to those old enough to remember.”



The old man breathed a deep sigh and slumped further into the chair. The story had rolled out of his rusty lungs like it had been frozen detail by detail for over forty years. My pen was still poised stupidly over my notebook even though I had not written a single word.

         We sat in silence for some time before the old man finally got up and hobbled over to the terrace, I followed him; he lit a cigarette. Leaning on the banister’s wooden frame he pointed out over the grounds. “That’s where they get all us oldies playing Bowls in the summer.” He said, taking long drags of his cigarette.

“Do you like it here?” I said automatically for want of conversation, but his mind was still reeling from his tale. “I know why you have come” He said slowly, “She’s back isn’t she?”