When They Fade

by Jeyn Roberts

  This could have been any road in America. The pavement beneath me stretched out into darkness, leaving me unable to fully take in my surroundings. But I didn’t need to. I knew exactly where I was. Call it instinct, or perhaps something in my ghostly mind had clued in. It was the road Walter and I had driven down not that long ago. I knew that if I were to continue walking for a few miles, I’d come to the place where he’d dumped my body.

  The field.

  Was my body still there? Decomposing beneath the moonless sky?

  As he killed me, the last thing I smelled was the wildflowers. The meadow was full of them. Millions. Seeds stuck in my hair. Flattened beneath my back, tickling my bare arms and legs, as my blood dripped down to nourish their roots. They’d be dead now. Wilted away as winter sucked the warmth from their stems.

  Another gust blew through my blouse, causing me to shiver. It was cold, but not quite snow-cold. I shivered, wishing I had something warmer to wear. But at the same time, it felt so good to feel, even if what I felt was nothing but biting air. Looking up at the sky, I could see stars. More like late autumn. I’d died in the spring. In May. One month after my birthday.

  Had two seasons passed? Or more? It didn’t seem like that long. In fact, I could have sworn I’d only been at the lake for a few days. But it’s hard to tell when nothing changes. An entire year could have passed and I wouldn’t have known.

  From a distance I could see headlights coming my way. I stepped over to the side of the road, determined to go back into the high grass and hide. But something wouldn’t let me. An unseen force held me back, pressing gently against my body, showing me where to go. No. Hiding wasn’t my purpose. Neither was jumping out onto the road and screaming like a banshee. Slowly, I watched as my hand went up. Then I stuck my thumb out for a ride.

  The car slowed as it approached. The headlights flashed over my body momentarily, and I was too blind to see who was inside.

  I had no fear. Impossible. Fear is the unknown. It’s the uncertainty of what bad things could happen. It’s pain. Despair. Horror. I’d already been through the worst mankind had to offer. I was no longer part of the world. I was pretty sure no one human could ever hurt me again. Unless of course this car held my killer and I would be forced to relive my death over and over again like the tiny Cambodian girl no one liked to talk to. She shook constantly and stammered with broken English, begging for God to help her. I avoided looking in her direction. Hers was a suffering even the dead found difficult to face.

  I studied the car as my legs began walking toward it. No, it wasn’t Walter’s. He drove a VW bus. This car was a Ford, early-sixties style with a hardtop roof. Double headlights. The kind of car Julian wanted to buy if he ever got the money.

  The driver leaned across the passenger side and opened the door a few inches. My fingers reached out and clasped the handle.

  “Where ya goin’, cutie? Next town?”

  I nodded. I had no idea where I was going or if there even was a next town to worry about. But it must have been the right thing to do.

  “I can do that. Hop in.”

  My body agreed to that. I climbed inside and closed the door. Rubbed my hands over my bare shoulders. The interior was still cool, but without the wind it was a huge improvement. I looked at the dashboard, which rattled along with the engine. I reached out and ran my fingers across the surface, feeling the vibrations from the engine. I grinned at the Hawaiian hula girl who bounced along in rhythm. The cheesy dice hanging from the rearview mirror. I touched everything, not caring if I looked weird or not.

  “Good thing I seen you,” the man said as his foot pressed down on the gas pedal. The car lurched forward, and I reached out and placed my fingers against the dash. I glanced over at my driver. An older man in his late forties or early fifties. Conservative. His hair didn’t have a strand out of line. He didn’t look like the sort of man who might pick up young hippie girls in the dead of night. But there was something in his eyes that suggested he was the type who saw things for how they really were. That maybe he understood that once in a while a girl needs to catch a ride with a decent stranger. Someone decent who doesn’t have roaming hands or darker plans.

  “It’s cold out,” the man continued. “Not really a good place to try and thumb a ride. Most people would probably drive on past ya without seeing. I almost didn’t stop myself. Don’t normally pick up strangers. But being it’s so nasty outside, I was worried you might not get another ride till morning. This ain’t a busy road.”

  It was time to find out if I could really talk. What kind of words might I be allowed to say?

  “It’s where I got left behind.” My voice came through clear and loud over the engine. A large smile came to my lips. Thankfully, the darkness concealed it. Sweet words! Most ghosts couldn’t talk. I wondered what the powers-that-be would allow me to say. Would they control my vocal cords the way they forced my limbs? Would it always be this way? Was I destined to play puppet, or would they cut my strings when I didn’t fight back?

  “Last guy give you problems?”

  “No,” I said a bit too quickly.

  “That’s good. I’ve got a daughter ’bout your age. She don’t hitchhike—hell, I’d tan her hide if she did. But I pray she don’t get taken in by some creep. Some girl died here not too long ago.”

  I looked over at him in surprise. He must mean me. How many girls died along this road?

  “Who was she?”

  “Not sure. Papers didn’t say much. She belonged to this traveling hippie commune. Fifteen? Sixteen? Not pretty what that guy did to her.”

  They’d found my body. Part of me was happy to hear that. They’d probably returned the remains to my father. I wondered where they’d buried me. The other part was a little sad, wondering if it would have been better for Julian if he’d never found out what happened.

  “Did they catch the guy?” I asked.

  “Yep. Big manhunt. He was one of the people in that commune. Fatherly type. Saw his picture in the papers. Big beard. My mama always said you can’t trust a man who wears a beard, but I always thought that’s a bunch of hogwash. Guess maybe she was right somewhat. But this guy didn’t look like the type to hurt a fly. He had nice eyes. I remember saying that to my wife: ‘He’s got nice eyes, Ethel.’ That’s the problem with people, innit? Can’t always tell the good from the bad.”

  “Yes,” I said. I’d certainly been fooled by Walter. I could easily understand why others could be too.

  “I get that you kids like to be daring and all sorts,” the man said, “but where on God’s green earth is your jacket? You must be freezing to death. I was young once myself, and I remember all trying to pretend I wasn’t cold. Grew up in the north. Used to go out with the coat undone and my lips bright blue.”

  I smiled and tried not to shiver. “I’m fine,” I said, but my face must have given me away.

  “Hold on,” the man said. He pulled over to the side of the road and opened the door. “I’ve got a blanket in the trunk.”

  I watched him as he went around to the back and popped the trunk. How trusting he was to walk away from his car with the ignition turned on. Or maybe he was one of the bad guys, going to grab his tire iron to try and smash my head in. I paused in midthought. What if that was my destiny? To be brought back to earth to be killed over and over by strange men? There couldn’t be that many terrible people in the world, could there? Would the afterlife kick me even further now that I was in the dirt?

  But no, when he closed the trunk, I could see a thick wool blanket in his arms. He handed it to me from across the driver’s side, and as I reached for it, our fingers touched.

  Emotions. Memories.

  He did have a daughter my age. He worried about her because she didn’t have a boyfriend yet when all her friends did. She was a pretty girl (even though all fathers think that) and she dressed well enough, but she lacked confidence and was too shy around strangers. Instead of talking to the boys, she ran from them. She spent
her nights babysitting and refused to talk about it.

  He worried about his bills and the mortgage that was slowly getting out of hand. Business was slow, and he didn’t know how much longer he wanted to spend on the road. Twenty-five years of hitting the pavement made him yearn for simpler times. He couldn’t afford to retire, and he didn’t think there were other jobs he could apply for. No one would give him a desk job when there were all those fresh, shiny faces of the younger workforce.

  He knew these things, and after touching him I knew them too. A jumble of thoughts and feelings washed over me. Summer at the beach when he was sixteen years old. The year he met his wife. She’d looked so cute in the pink bathing suit. Fast-forward to their wedding day. When he removed the veil from her face, tears burned her eyes, but the smile never left her face. Kissing her. The birth of their child. The death of his father. All these memories flooded my mind.

  When he looked at me, a small spark of desire filled his body. It made him ashamed and excited at the same time. He loved his wife, and I did remind him of his daughter. But I was young and pretty to look at. Nothing wrong with taking a peek once in a while. But he was a God-fearing man and took his vows seriously.

  Too bad his wife didn’t. She was cheating on him right that very second with her neighbor’s husband. That he didn’t know.

  I gasped in surprise.

  “Go on, take it,” the man said. “You’ll be nice and warm. The heater don’t work so well on the car these days. Taillights burned out too. Keep meaning to take it in, but times are hard.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I pulled the blanket around myself, and the scratchiness of the wool brushed against my skin. I felt warmer instantly.

  I felt that spark of desire inside him disappear, replaced with a fatherly pride in doing the right thing.

  And I saw his wife kiss her lover.

  What on earth was going on? Was this my curse? It was bad enough that I had to spend my eternity haunting, but was I going to be forced to see things I didn’t want to see? Secrets? Did this happen to the others, too? I would have to ask around when I got back.

  The man hit the gas and we began to move.

  “I’m John Gershwin.”

  “Molly,” I said, instantly regretting it. What if my name had recently been all over the papers? What if he recognized it, realized exactly what I was, and drove us off the road in fear?

  For a ghost, I was awfully paranoid.

  Thankfully, none of that happened. We drove along for a while with John talking away, chatting about nothing in general. I listened and watched the darkened woods speed by, the vision of his wife with another man stuck in my brain.

  I had to say something. Why else would the powers-that-be show me such a thing? But how could I tell a nice man such awful news? I remembered how devastated my father had been when my mom ran off with another man. He’d spent weeks sitting in his chair, a bottle of beer in one hand, listening to the saddest country music ever created. All I could do was try and force dinner down his throat and set the alarm beside him on the nights he fell asleep before heading off to bed.

  “We’re not that far now,” John said. “ ’Bout two more miles till we reach town. Is there somewhere specific I can drop you off?”

  My body suddenly tilted on its side, or at least that’s what it felt like. I was Fading. The lines of my vision darkened.

  It was my moment. I had to do something. It was bad enough that I was about to scare the socks right off John by disappearing in his front seat. But could I hurt him too? What was worse? Not knowing the truth or being forced to hear it?

  I decided to be coy.

  “You should talk to your wife,” I said. I let the blanket drop from my shoulders. Already the skin on my hands was disappearing. “You need to ask her if she’s got something to tell you. A secret. Thanks for the ride.”

  And I was gone. I didn’t even get to see the astonished look on his face or whether he drove smack into a tree.

  Hopefully not the latter.

  Then I was back at the lake. My nose no longer felt cold. Neutral again.

  “How was it?” Parker asked.

  I told him everything.

  “That’s impressive,” he said when I finished. “You can see things. Only a few of us can do that.” He pointed over to the corner where a young Japanese girl in a white-and-green school uniform sucked her thumb. “Yuriko has that too. She can foretell disasters. Sadly, no one ever listens.”

  “I wish I could talk to the lifers,” Mary said. “I’d do better than that. I’d sing at the top of me lungs and scare ’em all to death.” She laughed and started belting, off-key, an old song about a man going to sea and the bonny lass he left behind. As she clapped her hands together, her petticoats shuffled and swayed.

  “You’re scaring me right now,” Parker said, but I saw the small smile on his lips.

  That was more than four decades ago. Since then, I’ve Faded more times than I can count, and I’ve learned more secrets than I care to remember. I’ve told people all sorts of things. Some have been innocent and cute: I’ve discovered the hiding spots of treasured items. Others have been darker: Failed relationships. The last words of loved ones, people I’m assuming have left this earth and traveled to places where they aren’t forced to come back.

  And now, sitting on the log, listening to Mary brag about how the men used to whistle at her on a good night, I feel the beginnings of the Fade. The uneasiness in my body as the ghostly blood rushes to my face.

  “I’ll be back,” I say with a smile.

  “Hope it’s a good one,” Mary says. “Something wicked. No more of those lost pets. The last few have been downright dull.”

  I smile. Mary loves to hear about my visions. They’re the most exciting things in a world that never changes.

  Even the dead enjoy a good story.

  A soft brush of air caresses my face and I open my eyes. I’m back at the side of the road, the exact same spot. My starting point.

  It’s a lovely night. Foggy. But not overly cold. Springtime, I think. March or April. I instinctively look down at the ground beneath my feet. No flowers. Just a lot of dewy grass and a few stones. Too bad. I curl my toes up in my sandals, hoping to keep my feet from getting wet.

  I work my way up the embankment and onto the road. No such luck. My feet are now soaking, and so is the hem of my skirt. I have to admit, I much prefer to Fade in the summertime. I pull the ends of my skirt up and give it a quick shake. My legs are pale and look like thin white sticks. I wonder if my face is just as pallid. I can’t remember the last time I looked in a mirror.

  Glancing in both directions, I admire the way the low clouds close in on everything. It’s been a lifetime since I’ve seen fog. We didn’t get much of it when I was growing up in North Carolina. I had never experienced it this thick until I came out to the West Coast.

  In the distance I hear the rumble of an engine. Unhooking my skirt from a bush, I step onto the side of the road, where I’ll be both visible and safe. It’s taken me a while to get the right position. There have been a few times where I’ve almost been hit. No need to scare the drivers until I’ve had a chance to personally do it with my stories.

  A small gray car comes into view. The headlights flash against me, engulfing me in light. The car is curved and simple—I can’t help but think about how different cars look these days. They’re a lot quieter and less bumpy when you ride in them too. It comes to a complete stop about thirty feet away. I jog toward it, my body urged on by the now-familiar unseen presence. Just like a hand on my back, guiding me to my destiny.

  I open the door and peer inside. A girl. She looks about my age, maybe a bit older. Medium-length hair and a heart-shaped face. She’s wearing a fleece jacket with a hood and a pair of jeans. Black boots. I always look at the clothing first. I like seeing how everything has changed over the years. I rarely get picked up by females. So something like this is a bit of a treat, especially since she’s young. I wo
nder what decade this might be. A few Fades prior, I got a glimpse of a newspaper. The date was 2011. I wonder how much time has passed since then. Maybe tonight I’ll get a clue.

  “Thanks,” I say as I climb inside.

  She smiles, a little wary, but not overly. She’s a very pretty girl, but there’s something in her eyes that says she’s unhappy. Boyfriend troubles, probably. It often is.

  The girl puts the car in gear and the tires start to roll. The fog moves around us, brushing up against the car, keeping everything strictly between us and the outside world.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The next town,” I say. My standard reply. I know that Evander is a small community about ten miles ahead of us. “You can drop me off anywhere.” I smile slightly. That lie always makes me want to break out in a grin.

  The girl hesitates for a moment. “Yeah, sure,” she says. “I wasn’t planning on going that far, but why not.”

  “Where are you going?” I ask.

  “Nowhere. Just out for a drive. Didn’t realize it was going to be this foggy.”

  “It’s beautiful,” I say.

  I remember when I went down to San Francisco with the group. Julian woke me up early one morning and we snuck away. We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog, admiring the way the whiteness swallowed up the ocean beneath us. It was like we were walking across the clouds. I told Julian that it looked like we could jump right into all that softness. He laughed and held my hand tighter.

  All that reminiscing makes me look down at my hands. I swear, I can almost feel his touch. It’s been so long since anyone held my hand. I look over at the girl and wonder what I’m going to see when I touch her skin. Should I do it discreetly or just reach out and get it over with? It’s hard to tell. I’m not sure what sort of reaction I might get.

  She notices me watching her, and her fingers dig deeper into her steering wheel. Her face hardens. There’s something there just beneath the surface.