End of the Road (Ghost Stories Trilogy #1) (12 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

AFTER

Smoke enveloped me, but
didn’t affect my breathing. My eyes snapped open and I could see again. The
orange Datsun was a blazing inferno. Remarkably, even though I’d been thrown
from my car, I was unscathed and didn’t feel any pain. That’s when I noticed a
person hanging headfirst out of the shattered driver’s side window; flames devouring
the body. I recognized the red hair before it went up like a dry haystack. The
new diamond engagement ring winked at me. That too, I recognized.

“No!” I yelled at the
fire. “No!” I bellowed at the retreating storm. A nearby wash, freshly engorged
with rain, drowned out my cries.

“That’s my car over there,”
a male voice said from beside to me. I jumped and turned to see a man. He
dimmed and grew brighter when lightning flashed. He was pointing towards a hunk
of twisted, rusted metal a few feet away from the fiery remains of my car.

“I went off the road in
’55.”

I just stared at him,
trying to make sense of what he was talking about.

“Do you mean 1955?”

“Yes.”

“Are you…so does that
mean…are you a ghost?”

“Yes, my name’s Frank.
They’re ghosts too.” I followed his gaze to three figures standing at the top
by the gnarled guardrail.

“You! You guys did this!”
Lightning flickered across the desert and energy prickled through me,
amplifying my rage. I shoved Frank and he flew backwards with his mouth hanging
open in shock.  

Incensed, I roared up the
steep embankment and pushed at the other male ghost who wore round, old
fashioned glasses which magnified his surprise. I whirled around to face the
two women. Both had taken a few steps back and wore identical expressions of
amazement and fear.

The woman with long blonde
hair, who I later learned was Georgia, raised her arms in surrender and moved
back, away from me. “How did you do that?” she asked.

“Do what?”

“Move Frank and
Lawrence…none of us have been able to touch anything solid before.”

“I don’t have a clue. I’m
new at this. No thanks to all of you!”

I stormed back down the
slope to the smoking scrap heap that used to be my car; I couldn’t even look at
what remained of my body. Frank started to move towards me and I told him to fuck
off. He shrugged and vanished. Moments later he reappeared at the top and
joined the others. It was my turn to stare in amazement. This was only
temporary as the anger at my new situation won out and pulsed through whatever
I was; a shadow, an imprint of my former being, I didn’t know. But, I knew I’d
never get to be Mrs. Stanley Gruber and it was their fault.

***

The next morning the hole
punched through the guardrail was discovered and shortly after that my car. I
watched as they removed what was left, a charred remnant of who I used to be. I
winced as pulled my body out of the metal shell and placed it in a body bag
then zipped it closed. I tried to pound on the hood of my car to get the police
officer’s attention, but I might as well have been a feather for all the impact
I had.  

I stood in front of the
tow truck driver and he walked right through me. For a brief moment I felt his
body heat and a strange sensation, like I was being stretched. As soon as he
was through me he took his baseball cap off and wiped sweat from his forehead.

“Did you feel that cool
breeze?” he asked the one of the guys from the coroner’s office, who was
getting ready to carry my body to the highway

“No, man, but we need
something. It’s already a scorcher.”

“Huh,” he scratched
behind his ear and put the cap back on, then set about attaching a cable to the
rear bumper of my car.

 It was all over in a
matter of hours and the wind gradually erased all the footprints in the sand. Any
trace of my accident disappeared.

Frank attempted to reach
out to me over the next few weeks. I asked him why the others didn’t try and he
told me they weren’t able to go past the guardrail. “Good, I don’t want them
down here anyway,” was my reply.

Summer faded to fall and
then winter. The others had stopped coming to the edge to check on me, which at
first was fine with me because I felt like an animal on exhibit at the zoo. However,
by the time the desert bloomed in the spring I was ready for some
companionship. When I crossed the two lanes of highway, they didn’t say
anything, just rearranged the way were standing in order to make room for me in
the group. Frank welcomed me and told me his reaction after he died had been
similar to mine. He wasn’t ready for his life to be over. None of them had been
ready.

Once I met everybody,
they bombarded me with questions about how I was able to physically manifest
and push against them. Also, how I was able to see them in the first place? Had
I been able to see ghosts before? I didn’t know what to tell them and just
repeated the events back. Lawrence suggested that maybe the lightning had
something to do with it. Georgia agreed and thought the energy it gave off
triggered something that might make us more visible and stronger. We decided to
test this theory.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Before the next lightning
storm, we had another spirit join our motley crew. There were two among us who
were unable to interact. One just appeared in the evening for a brief period. 
This particular guy joined us less than a month after me. He was a hitchhiker
and not a very good one. He could have just had very bad luck and I appreciated
that.

The sun was just
beginning to dip below the mountains to the West when a lone figure walked
along the shoulder of the highway. He walked backwards so he could face the
oncoming traffic with his thumb extended out. A big hiker’s backpack was
strapped to his back and his wiry, gray hair stuck out in crazy directions from
underneath a baseball cap. I was sitting on the ground on the other side of the
guardrail watching the others, but needing some time to myself. Juanita was
sitting underneath her mesquite tree. Frank and Georgia were off talking in another
part of the clearing and Lawrence stood, staring into the setting sun.

A car accelerated up the
incline and judging by the squeal of tires as it hugged the curves, it was
moving fast. The hitchhiker heard it, but a little too late. The car roared
around the bend and the hitchhiker was swallowed up in the headlights. His
scream was cut off with a sickening crunch. The car rolled to a slow stop on
the shoulder of the road. After a brief hesitation, the driver opened up his
door and ran down towards the man lying in the road.  A pool of blood extended
out from around his crushed head. His baseball cap blew across the lane like tumbleweed.
The backpack had exploded like a piñata and its contents were spilled all over
the highway. Other cars whipped around the curve and swerved to avoid the
accident. Several cars slowed, but only one stopped. A couple in a Volkswagen
Beetle agreed to drive to the nearest call box and send help.

The driver paced back and
forth with his hand tugging at his hair. We stood by and watched as the hitchhiker’s
spirit rose up. He immediately spotted his body and stopped to stare down at
his mangled former self. We all recognized that moment of awareness. Frank
waited for the spirit to vanish, but instead it moved to the spot where the car
had hit his body. Then it vanished.

We were surprised when
the next night the hitchhiker’s ghost reappeared in the same spot. Frank went
over to talk to him, but the ghost disappeared before he could ask any
questions. He looked back at me and I shook my head. I was the newest one and
didn’t have any answers.

We got used to this new
ghost disappearing and reappearing; flickering on and off like a light bulb not
screwed in all the way. He couldn’t interact with us and only stayed for a few
seconds, so like with the newness of a new toy, it didn’t take long for our
interest to wane. By the time the next summer storms hit, we had already moved
on.

***

At first we each tried to
move something when the lighting flickered around us. Nothing happened. Frank
grew increasingly more frustrated and just when he was about ready to blow a
fuse, he succeeded in kicking a rock; it skittered across the road and
underneath a passing eighteen wheeler. I noticed that at the very same moment,
he became brighter, more luminescent.

I could tell by the way Lawrence’s
eyes narrowed and he drew into himself, that he was quickly assessing the
event. We all looked at him expectantly.

“I think Georgia is
right, we draw energy from the lightning and it magnifies a certain emotional
state, making the movement of objects possible. Frank was only able to kick
that rock when he became upset.”

“That makes sense,” I
agreed.

We tried to focus again
and move an object, but the storm was a fast moving one and already passed by
without dropping any rain.

We didn’t have to wait
long for the next storm. A few days later we watched the threatening clouds
roll across the sky. Streaks of lightning lit up the darkness. When the storm
got close enough, we focused on identifying any changes.

“Oh, I feel tingly!”
Georgia exclaimed.

“She’s glowing!” I said.

Georgia was luminous and
she didn’t flicker, her glow was constant and I could actually make out the
freckles on her nose.

The wind picked up and
swirled around us. A buzzing sensation began to envelop me. It started in my
toes, as if from the ground itself, and worked upwards. Excitement grew as
everything around me became enhanced; colors, sounds and smells. I looked down
and saw I was as solid as Georgia so I reached across and touched her. My hand
stopped on her shoulder and didn’t pass through it.

“Oh my God, it’s
working!” I yelled over the roar of thunder.

Lawrence stepped closer
to us and his form was so real; every curl on his head, the frown lines around
his mouth from concentrating, all were more visible than before. He linked his
hands with ours. Frank and Juanita joined our circle. I focused on absorbing as
much energy as possible from the others then I broke free and bent over to pick
up a twig.

“I did it!” I twirled
around so everyone could see the stick in my hand.

“Pass it to me,” Lawrence
said and I did. His fingers closed around the thin wood and it snapped in half.
“Goodness! Not only did I touch it, but I had enough strength to break it!”

A current of excitement
mixed in with the electricity, the emotion added more energy and a sense of
euphoria swept over us.

Frank picked up a rock,
more substantial than the pebble he kicked last time. “Watch this!” Without
even thinking he threw it. We followed the stone on its course through the air
and simultaneously we gasped as we realized the direction. Before any of us could
act, the rock hit and cracked a windshield of a passing car.

“Dios mio!” Juanita
yelled and covered her eyes.

Fortunately the driver
maintained control, only swerving slightly before continuing on.

I turned to face Frank
with my hands on my hips. “Okay, let’s not do that again.”

“What? Oh, don’t be such
a square Peggy. I thought that was wild!” He glanced over at Georgia and she shook her head.

“You got lucky, Frank.
That could have been a lot worse. I think enough people have died along this
highway already,” Lawrence said, backing me up.

“Fine, but you have to
admit that was a good throw. We can be strong if we focus.”

“Next time, maybe throw
towards the desert?” I suggested before turning my back and regarding Lawrence. I noticed our forms were fading, our color bleeding from us as if being washed away
by the rain.

Over time we experimented
with our new found abilities, but never had the opportunity to try to reach out
to a person. A few years later this changed.  

Chapter Twenty-Six

As I’d mentioned before, there
were two ghosts who only existed a few minutes out of the day before fading away
as quickly as they arrived. None of us liked witnessing accidents and being
unable to do anything to help the people or person involved, like the hitchhiker.
The next accident, which left behind the second temporary spirit, was so
unusual we couldn’t have made any efforts to prevent it. We did our best to
save the people involved though.

Winds had been ripping
across the landscape for days on end. Cars swayed with the heavier gusts and
struggled to stay on the asphalt. Weather provided the most entertainment for
us, so we watched for anything exciting to develop. We were focused on the
highway and the ground, but we weren’t paying attention to the sky. Juanita was
the first to detect the roaring sound overhead. I looked up, expecting an
airplane and was shocked to see a hot air balloon barreling towards the ground.
The roaring came from the burner which shot a bright orange flame up out of the
basket.

As it flew closer,
screams could be heard coming from above. Lawrence gathered us in a circle.
“This isn’t going to end well,” he said and we latched hands. One by one we
started to grow brighter, less transparent. Not as strong as during a lightning
storm, but we had learned to channel our own emotional energy and draw on the
elements around us. My back was facing the balloon and I glanced over my
shoulder as the roaring increased to a deafening level.

“Get ready!” I yelled and
we separated, waiting to see where it would touch down.

The basket made landfall
at the top of a slope, bouncing and skidded along the ground, stirring up a
billowing dust cloud in its wake. A body flipped out and cartwheeled in the
opposite direction away from the basket before the dust obscured my view. I
thought about being in that spot and was instantly there, saving what could
have been crucial seconds.

A man lay on his stomach
on the ground. Based on the angle of his head it was obvious his neck was
broken. His eyes were open, unblinking and covered with a film of dirt.

My focus shifted to the
basket, which had come to a stop approximately fifty feet away. In seconds I
was there helping the others.

Lawrence and Juanita squatted
down next to another man while Frank and Georgia attended to a black woman in
the basket. Blood oozed from a gash on her head and she moaned with each
attempt to crawl out, but her legs were pinned.

Frank and Georgia
struggled to pull the woman, but didn’t have the strength. A series of pops,
similar to firecrackers came from one of the propane tanks. The woman yelped
and frantically started scratching at the ground as if she was trying to claw
her way to safety.

Cars had come to a
complete stop on the highway and some people were running up the slope to
assist. The ground car, with an AZ Hot Air logo on the side, was one of the
vehicles.

“Dan?” a heavyset guy
with brown hair called as he huffed up the hill. He wore a polo shirt with the
same logo that was on the car and the dead man on the ground had on a matching
shirt. Before he could yell again the fuel tanks in the basket exploded. A
tremendous rush of air pushed outwards; scattering bits and pieces of the
basket, metal from the tanks, and human tissue. Part of the woman’s hand flew
right through my chest and I looked down in astonishment at the human shrapnel.

I couldn’t feel the heat
from the blast, but everyone who had been running towards us stopped and
dropped down low. A series of small brush fires had ignited and this spurred
some people into action. Others ran for the two men lying on the ground.
Lawrence moved away from the victim he had been attending to when a woman knelt
down beside him. The man’s clothes were ripped and the areas of exposed skin
were bleeding. She pressed her fingers underneath the man’s jawline and yelled,
“This one’s alive - he has a faint pulse!”

“A truck driver called
this in, help should be here soon!” the heavyset guy hollered back. His voice
cracked and he stared back down at his co-worker whose heart had already stopped
beating.

*** 

We were all so absorbed
in our rescue efforts we didn’t notice a new spirit had joined us. After the
one survivor was airlifted and the deceased were loaded into the back of a
black and white station wagon with Coroner written on the front doors, only
then did we remember to check for a newcomer.

I experienced a twinge of
disappointment when we realized nobody had joined us. It wasn’t until the next
day when we discovered a spirit did remain behind.

The sun had already moved
over to the western sky. “It was about this time yesterday when the balloon
crashed,” Lawrence commented. I was standing with him watching the horizon when
the low moaning started.

“Shhh listen.”

We turned towards the
sound and saw her. The woman in the basket; only the top half of her body was
visible, the part that had been out of the basket. The rest didn’t exist. Her
hands, frozen into claws, dug futilely at the dirt as she moaned. Minutes later
she was gone.

“Did you see her?” I
asked.

“Barely, she wasn’t very
bright and she disappeared so quickly.”

We went to the others who
were standing together talking. “Did you see our new addition?”

“Who?” Juanita asked.
Lawrence and I explained to them what we had just seen.

The next day we all stood
by to see if the woman would appear again. She did and vanished just as
quickly. Her moans carried on the wind even after she was gone.

Frank paced angrily
behind the group muttering to himself.

“Frank, what is wrong
with you?” Georgia finally asked.

“We came so close, but we
couldn’t save her. We couldn’t pull her away. It’s so frustrating! Why are we
here if we can’t do anything?” He disappeared and a moment later I saw him down
by the rusted remains of his car.

“Damn it, I hate it when
he goes down there!” Georgia said and crossed her arms in front of her chest.

“Give him a few minutes
to cool off. I’ll go get him if I need to.” I reminded her Frank wasn’t the
only one capable of traveling past the guardrail.

“I understand why he’s
upset, but we were able to physically touch them and try to help. I think next
time we’ll have better luck.” It was Lawrence’s turn to weigh in and even
though our forms had faded, his still sparked with occasional clarity.

“I hope there isn’t a next
time.” Juanita said and her brown eyes strayed to the spot where the basket had
made landfall; a small, scorched crater had been carved out of the earth. “But
if there is, we need to be prepared.” We all agreed, however when the next time
came for us to help someone, we didn’t know how to handle a gunshot to the
head.