The Soul Collectors

Dear Coop, By the time you read this, chances are I'll be either missing or dead. Whatever you do, don't come looking for me. Making people disappear, as you already know, is what they do best. They're experts at hiding things: the living and the dead… the truth. They've been doing it for at least a hundred years — longer, if Jack Casey is to be believed, and I have no reason not to believe him. Not any more.

This is what I know for sure. They're known to strike in daylight but more often they wait for darkness, like vampires. They work in pairs. If they come for me — no, not if, it's a matter of when — when they come for me, I'm sure they'll bring a small army. They won't kill me. They want to bring me back to that place they call home.

It's where I belong, they say, to atone for my sins.

I'm writing you this letter on the back porch of a rental home in Oguinquit, Maine. It's remote and private here. The salty air blowing off the water feels unnaturally warm for this first week of December. Maybe it's the Irish whiskey. I'm drinking Midleton, your favourite, and as I look out over the porch railing, at the setting sun, I can't stop thinking about how we're only given one life. How there's no second or third act, just this messy and imperfect one we've been handed, and it's up to us how we choose to live it.

You were right, Coop. I should have chosen you when I had the chance.

I've included the key for my condo, just in case you no longer have the copy I gave you. The condo, everything inside — it's all yours now.

You need to know everything that happened. I want you to know the truth about what I saw. About what happened to me and Jack Casey.

The first time I met him, Casey told me about his early career, his days working as an FBI profiler in what used to be called the Behavioral Science Unit. He called it the Monster Factory. He told me there are creatures lurking around us, doing things that the human mind doesn't want to, or maybe can't, comprehend.

I thought he was being overly dramatic. Now I know Casey was speaking the truth. I've witnessed what lives behind their masks.

I'll tell you one other thing I know for certain:

Casey?

He's the only one who believes me.