It never came.
The squeal of rubber on asphalt faded to a stop. I opened my eyes to see the driver had managed to slide his truck almost sideways at an angle across the intersection before coming to a stop in the road leading to Collinsdale. His headlights still pointed into the crossroads, illuminating the lone figure under the traffic light.
Carol stood there, all alone, hugging herself tightly in the vehicles high beams. She was alive. Her eyes were huge, and tears rolled down her face. But it was over and she was alive. I don’t think I ever covered a distance as fast as I closed the one between her and I that night.
“Are you hurt?” I grabbed her and pulled her in tight. “Did she hurt you?”
For some reason the question seemed to make her cry harder, and I held her without knowing what to say. I remembered the intense cold of the phantom and feared the thing had burned her. I started to push her away a little so I could examine her arms, but she just pulled herself tighter to me.
“Carol! Talk to me!”
“I’m okay,” her muffled voice came between sobs against my chest, “I’m okay, and she’s going to be okay, too. But I want you to promise something.”
“Sure, Carol.”
“I mean it…I need you to really promise me this.”
“Anything,” I breathed in her ear, and I meant it. “Anything at all. Just name it.”
“Promise me, that you will never leave me behind.”
“What? Carol, I would never…”
“Promise me.” She pulled back a little and looked up at me with tear filled eyes. “Promise me, and mean it.”
So I did.
***
I wish the story ended there, but it didn’t.
In the end, it was Carol who ended up leaving me behind. She didn’t want to, but ten years after our encounter with the ghost, her old nemesis, Cancer, paid her another visit. And this time it showed up in her pancreas.
She fought it like a champ—she always did—but this time the outcome was never really in doubt. Within three weeks of diagnosis she lay confined in a hospital bed. And within another three days we knew she would never be leaving that bed again. The disease swept through her like a wildfire, consuming her from within. She fought, slept, cried, threw up, cursed, and held me tight every time she could muster the strength. All she asked of me was I keep the promise I made in the junction that night.
And I did.
I never left her room.
Not from the time they placed her in there, till the moment Carol’s brother came in and gently removed her cooling hand from mine. I kept my promise. Truthfully, I would have been incapable of doing it any other way. When they led me away and closed the door, I left my soul back there in the room with her.
After that, things became a blur.
Family descended upon me from around the country, both hers and mine. I remember little of it other than what seemed a constant parade of sad faces passing in front of me to give their condolences. I endured it as best I could.
The funeral came and went, and everyone agreed Carol looked lovely in her casket. I’m sure she would have found that sentiment hilarious. All I knew at the time was that I was about to close the lid and put her in a hole in the ground. But somehow I managed that part too. I got through it and the graveside service without losing my mind or needing assistance. I remained dry eyed and composed, but there didn’t exist a hollower man on the planet.
Finally, it was over.
Everybody expressed their sorrow once more, and the families packed up and flew back to the far corners of the continent. A few neighbors dropped by the next few days, just to check on me. But, at last, they all got on with their lives and left me to figure out what to do with mine.
I didn’t care enough to even try.
I pretty much just sat in my easy chair, and watched movies ordered in over the internet. Even that was pointless. I discovered I had lost all taste for anything new, and preferred to sit and watch the ones I shared with Carol in the past. I relived the memories of her reactions to the scenes more than I paid attention to the scenes themselves. Without her, they lost their meaning.
Other than that, I read a little and started to brace myself to return to work the next week.
I didn’t look forward to the fresh round of condolences I would receive there, but once I got past those I knew I would be left alone at last. Then I could get on with waiting the rest of my life to die in peace. Hell, it was a plan. So I was a little grumpy to hear the doorbell ring on my last Sunday before work.
“Hello?” I opened the door, and frowned at the vaguely familiar young man standing out on my porch.
“Uncle Mike?” he replied. He had that awkward solemnity young men often get when having serious conversations with an older adult. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Donald, Todd Tanner’s son.”
“Oh, right,” I relaxed. Todd was Carol’s brother who lived in Hallisboro. “Come on in. What can I do for you?”
“I don’t want to bother you.” He winced…clearly uncomfortable. “But I just need you to answer a question for me if you could. It’s about the funeral. I’m sorry.”
“Okay.” I felt more puzzled than annoyed now. “Go ahead.”
“Well, I’ll make this brief. Since our family is all scattered out, my Dad wanted me to be discreet, but to take advantage of the opportunity of everybody being together to get a bunch of photographs and make a little photo album to send off to everybody. So I kind of hung out on the edge of the crowd at the funeral, taking pictures.”
He looked slightly guilty, as if fearing I might take offense at his actions.
I didn’t.
“I never even noticed you,” I admitted. “So you did a great job on the discreet part. What do you want to ask me?”
“It’s about one of the pictures.” He relaxed, seeming more at ease. “I made sure and got everybody’s name so I could label the pictures correctly, but there’s a person in one photo that I can’t identify. I thought she must be on your side of the family and I just missed talking to her somehow. So I wondered if you could tell me who she is. That way I can get her name right.”
It’s funny, but right then I started to get a feeling of who it might be. Even though ten years had passed, she was the first person that popped into my head. I took the photo from his outstretched hand and turned it over to look.
It was her.
Donald had taken a picture of a knot of women standing in the funeral home with the casket in the background. It must have been after the funeral, for the coffin was already closed. Melissa stood beside it, with one hand laid protectively on the lid and looking straight into the camera. She still had the grey knit cap and sweater, but the burn on her face was gone. And the awful, void expression she wore on that terrible night had been replaced with a very human look of sympathy…and reassurance.
She was telling me something.
“Her name is Melissa,” I caught a tear before it fell on the photo. “She’s a friend of Carol’s. I can’t really tell you more than that. I’m sorry…I seem to be…I guess it’s still fresh…”
“It’s okay,” he apologized and backed toward the sidewalk. “It’s enough. I can work with that.”
He left, and I closed the door. I had finally found the ability to cry, and for the next hour or two that’s all I did.
Then, as it always does, life went on.
I returned to work, and slowly found my way back into the world while I did it. In a short time, friends felt comfortable calling on me again and I even got invited to hang out with the group of mostly single male coworkers who got together on Sundays to watch and talk sports. To my amazement, I accepted and I haven’t missed a Sunday since. I guess the old saying is true…life really does go on.
Yet I still miss her.
I miss her so bad that sometimes when I’m alone and thinking about her it makes me want to die.
But I’m going to be okay.
Be
cause it’s at those times, when things are at their worst, I remember that picture. And then I know that when Carol crossed over into the light…a girl she once pulled out of the darkness had been waiting there to embrace her.
About the Author
D. Nathan Hilliard live is Spring, Texas with his veterinarian wife, two kids, and two cats. He draws his inspiration from a childhood living in different small Texas towns, accented by teen years spent in western New Mexico. He has experienced life through a diverse collection of jobs ranging from meter reading and being an assistant manager at a convenience store, to working at cotton gins, window factories, and uranium mills. After coming down with Charcot Marie Tooth (CMT) at the turn of the century, Mr. Hilliard now happily settles for tending house, raising his kids, and exploring the field of writing.
Nathan has currently authored over twenty short stories and three novels, including Dead Stop, Spiderstalk, and The Ways of Khrem.
Shades: Eight Tales of Terror Page 22
