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Wednesday, March 9, 2016
Flash Fiction: Rhiannon Frater
by Rhiannon Frater
She stands at the crossroads.
A vaporous concoction of light and mist, she waits against the gloomy backdrop of the gnarled mesquite trees. Hollow sockets devoid of life stare toward the dim glow of the town just a mile away from where her ghostly form lingers. Despite the absence of eyes, I am certain she can see the passengers in the cars sliding through the darkness, headlights briefly catching her ethereal form.
I know she sees me.
I’ve been warned for years to avoid the crossroads by my father, my uncles, my grandfather, and even my great-grandfather before his death.
Billings men stay away from the crossroads, they’d said somberly.
Every male member of my family travels elaborately circuitous routes to avoid the crossroads where the town’s main street intersects with the two-lane highway. Day or night, they’ll travel an extra hour to wherever they’re going just to avoid the specter that waits silently at the crossroads.
We’re the only ones who can see her, my father had explained when I was old enough to ask why we never followed the direct route out of town. And that has to mean something.
When I started driving my dad’s old blue pickup at sixteen, I avoided the crossroads. I obeyed the edict set down my father when I was alone, but that didn’t stop me from riding in the cars of my friends as we headed out of town to football games, midnight keggers under the moonlight, or the big city.
Matter of fact, I was seated in the back of my best friend’s truck the first time I saw her.
Empty eye sockets, limp dark hair, a dirty white nightgown dissolving into mist, she stood on the southwest corner of the intersection. As we passed her, whopping and hollering, music blaring loudly, her head swiveled to watch us pass.
To watch me pass.
Looking around at the faces of my friends, I knew they hadn’t seen the phantom that haunts the crossroads. Who watches my family. That scares my family.
After that night, I saw her many more times. Always in the same spot, always watching me as I cruised past her in the vehicles of others.
Why does the ghost watch us? Why can we only see her? I’d once asked my great-grandfather before he died.
Never look at her, he’d hissed. Never. Her eyes will drag you down into death.
But who is she? I’d persisted.
While shaking his head, white hair and loose skin trembling, he’d replied, Stay away from the crossroads. Stay away from her.
When I started attending college in the nearby town, I followed the family rules. I learned every roundabout way, even driving down dirt roads that cut between cotton fields. I never ventured to the crossroads alone.
Not until I fell in love for the first time when I was nineteen.
Brandy was worth the risk. She lived just on the other side of the crossroads in a sprawling remodeled farmhouse. Her family was new to the area, but looking for a new start with the farm they’d just bought. Dark haired, blue-eyed, and eighteen, she was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen. I met her at church, and even though I was a freshman in college and she was a senior in high school, we were both smitten.
“You’re going the long way to visit her, right?” my dad asked worriedly one night as I prepared to leave for a date.
“Of course,” I lied.
Even though the ghost watched me as I drove past, I was emboldened by my love for Brandy. The frightening figure with the hollow eyes wasn’t enough to keep me from my girl. I didn’t want to travel forty-five minutes out of my way. My youthful hormones pulled me straight through the crossroads. I trained myself to gaze past her, to concentrate on the lines painted on the asphalt and not the apparition staring at me from the weed-ridden corner.
It’s just past sunset and the air is steamy from a late summer rain storm. The road is shiny and slick and the evening sky heavy with clouds. Nothing can keep me away from Brandy tonight. It’s her birthday. Her gift sits on the passenger seat, a bouquet of red roses on the floorboard beneath the dash. I’m dressed in my best pair of jeans, a carefully ironed, white, button-down shirt, and my brand new cowboy boots. I went by the barber today and my blond hair is shorn on the sides and clipped short on the top. I want to look my very best for Brandy and impress her family. She may be my first love, but I want her to be my only love. My parents married close to our ages and I’m a young man smitten with the girl I want to marry.
As my battered truck draws closer to the crossroads, I consider taking a sharp turn onto Cricket Lane and taking the longer route, but only for a moment. I took too long preening in front of the mirror and I’m running late. The clouds above are slowly dissipating, revealing a sky devoid of a moon, but filled with stars. It’s the new moon tonight, and for some reason that thought makes me easy.
I crank up the radio in an attempt to divert my attention from the swiftly-approaching crossroads. I really don’t want to see the lonesome figure at the side of the road. I can’t help but wonder who she is, this dark haired apparition in her simple nightgown. Why is she only visible to my family? Why are the menfolk so afraid of her?
I speed past another side road and again contemplate turning back and taking the longer route. But thoughts of Brandy being disappointed at my late arrival keeps my foot on the accelerator and my eyes on the road ahead.
Wisps of mist peel off the blackened asphalt and float through the air like wraiths. Again, unease burrows into my thoughts. The admonitions of the males in my family echo out of memory. My foot lifts off the pedal for just a second, the vehicle slightly slowing, then my resolve kicks in.
“Gotta get to Brandy’s,” I mutter.
I don’t want to worry my girl.
The copse of mesquite trees lining the sides of the narrow road thicken as the truck barrels toward the crossroads. I see the warning sign of the junction ahead. I ease up on the accelerator, shifting in my seat and tightening my grip on the steering wheel. As I continue to slow, out of the corner of my eye, cattycorner from the vehicle, I can see her watching and waiting. I halt the truck at the stop sign, look both ways, eyes skimming over her pale figure, and see a clear highway on either side. Just a few more yards and I’ll be past the crossroads and her.
I push my foot down, the engine roaring, and start across the road.
The white hazy figure vanishes from my peripheral vision.
“What the—”
In a flash she stands before my truck.
I slam on my brakes.
Back facing me, she is hunched over, long hair falling over bony shoulders as she appears to weep. She’s more solid than previous sightings. I can see water dripping from her hair and her thin frame beneath her soaked nightgown. Did she die on a rainy night?
All my life I have wanted answers to why she haunts my family. It’s that curiosity that drives me to shift gears, pull my emergency brake, and step out onto the wet blacktop of the road.
All my life I have wanted answers to why she haunts my family. It’s that curiosity that drives me to shift gears, pull my emergency brake, and step out onto the wet blacktop of the road.
“Miss,” I say softly.
Fear pricks at my spine, but I’m pulled forward by my need to understand.
“Miss?”
She cocks her head, listening to my voice.
“Miss, why are you here? Why do you haunt us?” I ask, trying to sound as courteous as possible.
As her face lifts so I can see it over her shoulder, it’s not empty sockets that stare at me, but vivid blue eyes. For a moment I think she’s Brandy. The resemblance is startling.
“You said to come here to meet you, but you never came,” she whispers. “I waited in the rain, but you never came.”
I’m close enough to the ghost that I could touch her, and she appears so real I wonder if I can. “Miss, that wasn’t me.”
“You said to stay until you came for me, so I did.” The blue eyes don’t blink, but stare accusingly. “I stayed until the lightning struck.”
The air around me changes, sizzling against my skin. The hair on my head and arms stands on end and a ringing fills my ears. In a panic, I turn to clamber back into my pickup.
Then the night is filled with light. I’m thrown through the air as the world explodes and I’m deafened by the noise. Blind and afraid, I lay on the ground, gasping for breath.
“I waited for you,” the ghost whispers in my ear. “And now you are here.”
The icy tendrils of her presence licks over my skin and I feel her cold, damp fingers against my chest. My vision returns, hazy and tunneled. Crouching over me, her dark hair hangs around her narrow face. Too late I remember being warned to not gaze into her eyes. Empty sockets stare down at me as her hands press into my chest, sliding through my skin. I feel her fingers curl around my heart.
“I waited for you,” she says, “and now you are here.”
And I know, in that moment, I will never leave.
We stand at the crossroads.
The girl and I.
We are waiting.
Copyright©2015 Rhiannon Frater
Rhiannon Frater is the award-winning author of over a dozen books, including the As the World Dies zombie trilogy (Tor), as well as independent works such as The Last Bastion of the Living (declared the #1 Zombie Release of 2012 by Explorations Fantasy Blog and the #1 Zombie Novel of the Decade by B&N Book Blog), and other horror novels.
You can find her online at:
Website: rhiannonfrater.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/rhiannon.frater
Twitter: twitter.com/rhiannonfrater
Tumblr: http://rhiannonfrater.tumblr.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=340109912&trk=spm_pic
Google+: https://plus.google.com/113336058823746385572/posts
Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/Rhiannon-Frater/e/B0027DLFL6/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2310121.Rhiannon_Frater
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/rhiannonfrater/
Email: rhiannonfrater at gmail.com
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