Boiling it down to a timeline SPOILERS
I've read the threads attempting to explain this steaming pile of plot and I feel I need a victims timeline for additional clarity:
1918:
-spanish flu pandemic wipes out hoards of people
-preacher gets his daughters inoculated against flu
-preacher and two daughters show up in mountains where mountain-folk practice faith based shenanigans
-preacher tells hill people to trust God instead of getting inoculated
-hill people die
-hill people find out about preacher's daughters being safe
-hill people kill preacher's daughters
-granny puts curse on preacher by sucking out his soul and turning him into an empty shelter, doomed to roam the earth sucking out the souls of those who have lost their faith
-preacher never ages, has no self identity
1982:
-paralyzed David loses faith in God and turns to science for a cure for his paralysis
?How did David come in contact with the preacher? Was this answered?
-preacher sucks the soul out of david
-david is found with symbol etched on his back
?unknown year?:
-Wesley Crite, a miserable musician, finds the preacher in the back seat of his car one day
?Why? How did the preacher find Wes?
-preacher sucks out Wesley's soul
?unknown year?:
-Adam Saber lives in a crappy apartment.
?How did the preacher encounter Adam?
-preacher sucks out Adam's soul and leaves him in the bathtub with the symbol etched on his back
2009:
-Dr Cara's father gets the preacher as a psych case
-Dr Cara's father's colleague Dr Charles examines the preacher
-Dr Charles starts coughing up dirt and gets a back etching because he's lost his faith somehow
?when was his loss of faith explained?
-Dr Cara meets the preacher as Adam/David
-the preacher sucks out Dr Charles' soul
-Dr Cara's father starts coughing
-the preacher meets Dr Cara's daughter at soccer practice
-Dr Cara's daughter starts coughing
-then Dr Cara gets a history lessons from some dude who knows mountain-folk lore. she finds out the Adam/Wes/David is actually the preacher when she sees a movie of him.
-the preacher sucks out Dr Cara's father's soul while Dr Cara is trying to warn him
-Dr Cara's daughter is getting sicker
-Dr Cara's brother brings the daughter to the mountain granny who says there's nothing can be done
-the preacher sucks out Dr Cara's daughter's soul
-Dr Cara kills the preacher
-souls trapped since 1918 are released
-the daughter reanimates, possibly with the soul of David and possibly with the souls of others
Here's what I want to know:
?If the preacher has been cursed since 1918 and all his soul-sucked victims have the back etching, why wouldn't this have become a well known phenomenon when all those bodies were discovered?
?Wouldn't there have to have been hundreds of people found dead with no eyes and back etchings?
?Where was he living and on what income for all those years?
?If he assumed the lives of the people he sucked the souls out of, wouldn't their families have said something about it?
?Or wouldn't he at least have been locked up in an institution?
?And if he was locked up for years wouldn't someone have noticed he wasn't aging?
?And how did he find/select his victims?
?And what caused the back etching to break out on a victim? Was it when he physically touched his victims?
Help me understand. Please.