story-ghostof2

The Ghost of Gunderson Road

⊹ 💀 ⊹

I’d never thought of myself as easy to scare. The story of the girl in the red jacket wasn’t anything special. I’d heard a dozen sleepover stories like it. But why the hell would she keep the other side of her face hidden? The more I thought about it, the creepier it got.

I nudged the accelerator. The faster I got to town, the faster I’d be home. The road rose in the long sloping hill again, and as the car headed down toward the intersection of Route 17 and Gunderson Road, I heard a soft rustle behind me, like someone shifting their weight.

I looked in the rear view mirror. A figure sat in the back seat, a deep shadow eclipsing the moonlight and clouds in the back window. Someone wearing a deep, fur-lined hood. I gasped; my foot slammed the gas. The car lurched and roared down the hill, and it was nothing, I realized, as the moon illuminated the back seat. Nothing but shadows. My gaze flicked back to the road as the intersection of Gunderson Road flashed past, and a deer sprang from the trees, its eyes bright sparks in the headlights.

I stamped on the brake and swerved. I smelled rubber and tar and heard the screech of tires, and I was sure, I was absolutely certain, that I was too late. In that flash of an instant, I heard the deer hit the car with a thudding crunch. I saw the window burst into a spider web pattern. I smelled the hot stink of metal and blood. But, none of that happened.

The Camry skidded, bounced off the road, bumping over frozen grass and hard earth, and came to a halt. The deer went bounding away, up over the fence on the other side of the road.

I sat with my foot jammed on the brake, my hands clamped on the steering wheel at ten and two. I was halfway convinced that the car was crushed against a tree, and I was crushed inside it, bleeding to death in the black cold night, and I just hadn’t realized it yet.

I forced myself to move. I eased my foot off the brake, and moved it to the accelerator. The car rolled forward slowly, lurched up out of the shallow ditch, and back onto Route 17. I drove, shaking as if I’d fallen into icy water. It took me nearly an hour to make it back to town, from woods and frozen fields to gas stations and dry cleaners and banks. It was after one o’clock, and most of the businesses in town had closed. Even the Starbucks, but when I saw the green sign with the familiar mermaid, I was so relieved I started to cry, my eyes leaking tears that felt scalding and thick, like grease. I was still crying when I reached home.

The house was dark. I groped my way up the stairs to my bedroom, undressed and fell into bed without bothering to brush my teeth or wash my face. I dreamed about the girl in the red jacket. We stood together in the freezing night, underneath the leaning street sign for Gunderson Road. The metal sign rattled in the wind. The side of the girl’s face that I could see, was Beth’s face.

“It’s always a different story,” Beth said. “Even though it ends the same way.”

Her pale hands reached up, and pushed back the hood of her red jacket. Moonlight spilled across her face. Even knowing there was no one who could hear me in that freezing night, I still screamed.

Friday, I walked from class to class, looking for Beth. I kept seeing a flash of red in the corner of my eye, but whenever I turned to look, nothing was there.

Beth was not in Chem class. I hadn’t really expected her to be. The seat next to mine was empty. Maybe that was where Beth sat, and I hadn’t noticed her. I sat down to take the test, knowing I’d fail it.

About halfway through class, I’d filled out four of the questions on the test, and I was staring blankly at my paper, someone sat in the empty seat beside me. I saw that flash of red again in the corner of my eye, and I looked up, expecting to see the same nothing.

And there she was. The girl in the red jacket. I saw her, but I couldn’t accept what I was seeing. For a moment, one merciful moment, she was a jumble of reds and whites. My brain scrabbled through one explanation after another: I was sleep deprived, I was hallucinating, I was dead; I had died last night on the road, and everything in between then and now was a dream.

Then all the pieces fell together, and I saw her clearly. She sat with her face turned part way toward me so I could see just one side of it. Unlike the dream, her face was not Beth’s face. It was barely a face at all. It was glistening white bone and strings of flesh a deeper, darker red than her jacket. Her cheek was torn away, exposing her teeth in a permanent grin.

I bolted out of my seat and my desk toppled over with a crash, spilling my test paper and my pencils. A scream rushed up my throat, up from my stomach like hot vomit, and exploded out of my mouth. It shattered the silence in Chem class like a rock exploding the still surface of a pond. Kids jumped up, turned around, gaped at me with their mouths hanging open. I leaped away from the girl in the red jacket, colliding with another desk, bouncing off it, scrambling toward the front of the room.

No one moved to help me. Nobody asked me what was wrong. Even Mr. Perkins, the Chemistry teacher. All they did was stare, their eyes blank and shining in the overhead fluorescent lights.

The world spun away. Next thing I knew, I was sitting on a cot in the nurse’s office. The girl in the red jacket sat on a folding chair on the opposite side of the small room, right there in the bright sunlight streaming through the window. Even though she kept her head slightly turned away, I should have been able to see both sides of her face. But, I couldn’t. Somehow, I couldn’t.

My dad walked into the office, and his gaze went straight to me. He couldn’t see her at all. She was only for me. He sat beside me on the cot, and took my hands in his. They felt so warm, that my own hands must’ve been like ice.

“Sweetheart, what happened?”

“Do you know the story?” I said through numb lips. “About the girl in the red jacket?”

Dad flinched, his hands tightening around mine. He knew it.

“Who did you tell?” I asked him. “You must have told somebody. You had to tell somebody.”

“It doesn’t matter, honey.”

I snatched my hands away from his. I could see her in the corner of my eye: red and white and darkness.

“It was years before you were born.” He stood up. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”

“How could you do this to me? How could you bring me here, knowing what you know?”

“I don’t have a job anymore. We don’t have any money. My parents’ old place was the only place we could go.” He smiled a crooked smile. “It’s not so bad. Just tell someone else.”

“Who,” I demanded. “Who can I tell?”

He shrugged. “Tell one of your friends in Boston.”

I stared at him like the kids in Chem class had stared at me. That bitter, burning scream rose in my throat again, and I clenched my teeth to keep it down.

Beth’s words came back to me yet again, from the dream, from the car ride: It’s always a different story. Even thought it ends the same way.

So, I asked my father, “When you heard the story, how did the girl in the red jacket die?”

“I don’t remember.”

I didn’t bother calling him a liar. I knew he would never tell me the truth.

I stood up. My head swam with dizzy darkness, and I put out a hand to steady myself against the wall. My books were stacked on a table next to the door.

“It’s just an old ghost story,” Dad said.

But, his eyes said he didn’t believe that. Nobody in Ashfield believed that.

Legs trembling, I crossed the room, and scooped up my books.

“Wait,” Dad said. “Please.”

I pushed past my father, and walked out of the nurse’s office. He didn’t follow me, but the girl in the red jacket did.

The bell rang. Doors opened, and kids flooded into the halls. No one approached me. No one gave me a sympathetic smile. No one put a hand on my arm and told me, It’s okay. We understand. You’re one of us.

They only stared at me.

Now I had my own story to tell. I didn’t know what that story was yet, or who I would tell it to. Or, even if I would get the chance to tell it, before my life ended at the intersection of Gunderson Road.

⊹ 💀 ⊹