“I think the speed limit’s forty-five, Dad,” she said, watching a sign slip through the outer edge of the headlights. Dad’s eyes dipped as he checked his speed.
“You see?” said Mom.
“I’m doing forty-five,” Dad said, eyes meeting Isabel’s in the mirror again. “Honey, you know that was just a story, right? That there’s no such thing as ghosts?”
“Oh, I know. But what was that you said about speed traps?”
Dad snorted a short laugh. “You see?” he said to Mom. “Just local color.”
Well, I half know they’re not real, Isabel admitted to herself. Mostly. Sort of? Anyway, it would be cool if we saw a ghost car. Scary, but cool. Her book remained closed as she did what Tall Paul had suggested and kept an eye out for any sign of big, bright headlights. She snuck glances between Mom and Dad as they talked, watching the speedometer climb from 45 through 50, and maybe just a little more than 55. Speeding, she thought. With out-of-state plates . . .
Isabel remained vigilant. Five minutes passed. Then seven. Nine? There was just too much nothing going on. The book opened.
The page brightened and darkened.
Isabel glanced at the travel light she’d clipped to the back of the book. Usually when the batteries started to wear out the bulb just slowly dimmed, it didn’t pulse or anything. Why had it—
Everything around her brightened and darkened. What the—?
She looked out the rear window—still pretty clean, thanks to Tall Paul—and caught a glimpse of headlights in the distance disappearing behind a bend in the road. “Dad? There’s someone behind us.”
“I saw him, hon. But he’s way back there. Nothing to worry about.”
Isabel kept an eye out the rear window just the same. It wasn’t like there was anything to see: there weren’t any streetlights along this road, so aside from their own taillights splashing redly off the tarmac and trees, there was nothing behind them but blackness. It was a little like they were driving through deep space, except there weren’t any sta—
Headlights came into view far behind them, though not as far as they had been. It was difficult to tell, really, with the complete lack of visible landmarks, but when she’d caught the glimpse earlier it had looked like just one bright light in the night; now it was close enough that she could make out two, side by side. Two brilliant pinholes in the night . . . and they were drawing closer.
“Uh, Dad? I think they’re gaining.”
“Yeah,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “I see that.”
Mom looked back. “I guess that guy at the gas station was right about people around here opening it up along this road.”
Isabel peered at the speedometer: still just over 55. She glanced back at the headlights; they were bigger now, and visibly farther apart: the car was still gaining. Okay, she thought, feeling the thump of her forgotten book sliding to the floor at her feet, that whole ghost car thing? A little more scary than cool. “You don’t think it’s—”
“It was just a story,” said Mom, though that Isabel hadn’t even needed to complete the question told her it had been on Mom’s mind, too. Another speed limit sign flashed through their headlights—Isabel hadn’t been looking for them for a while—this one reading 55.
“Well, that kind of explains it,” Dad said, and Isabel felt the car accelerate.
“What are you doing?” said Mom.
“This must be one of the straightaways that guy mentioned. The limit here’s fifty-five, and if the locals tend to step on the gas a little, then I really am driving like a pokey tourist. I’m not going to go crazy, but we’re what, twenty minutes from Gallway? I can pick it up and try not to annoy anyone. Besides, the quicker we get there, the quicker we eat, right?”
“If you say so,” said Mom.
“I’m not all that hungry,” said Isabel, then thought, I’m being silly. Dad’s right: there’s no such thing as ghosts.
Right?
The speedometer settled on 60 for a minute, but the car behind still gained. The needle crept higher, hovering just shy of 65. The headlights drew closer. Isabel could make out their shape: bright rectangles set to either side of a wide grill.
“Oh, no.” Mom was hunkered down a little, staring into her side-view mirror. “Is that a cop?” A chill ran down Isabel’s spine as in her mind’s ear she heard slow, deep words: lots of people mistake him for a statie on patrol at first. “It’s just a story,” Mom said again, but Isabel couldn’t tell who she was trying to convince: her daughter or herself.
The car was near them now, as close as regular highway traffic, and though the headlights were startlingly bright and high—shining right over the Camry’s trunk—Isabel could see straight back through the windshield. What she saw made her feel a little far away, like the time the dentist had used laughing gas on her. “It’s not a cop.”
“I can’t see through those lights.” Dad angrily flipped the rearview mirror to night mode as the car drew even closer, tailgating them. “Who is it, can you see? Some jackass kids?”
“I can’t tell,” said Mom.
“It’s not kids,” said Isabel, and speaking the words still felt odd, like hollow sounds from a hollow girl. “It’s an old man.”
Even as she said it the car’s driver glared at her, hair floating wild about his head, a match for his thick eyebrows. She thought it may have all been white, at least as pale as his skin, but everything was tinted a weird green in the glow from his dashboard lights—everything but his eyes, sunk so deep in their sockets the light didn’t touch them, black pits of shadow in his bright, bony face. Isabel met his gaze for a moment—or, what passed for his gaze—then looked up front in time to catch Mom and Dad exchanging a glance.
“Okay, look,” said Mom. “This is just too weird. Slow down and let him pass.”
“I don’t know if I can.” Dad looked from the rearview to his side mirror and back, trying to get a better look at the big car. “He’s so close, I think if I touch the brakes he’ll be in the backseat with Isa.”
Isabel tried to remember what Tall Paul had said, to recall everything he had said about—“It’s Old Charlie.” She expected Mom to say It’s just a story. Wanted her to say it. Needed to hear the words.
“It’ll be fine,” Mom said. “Everything’ll be fine.” She tapped Dad’s shoulder, patting him lightly. “Erik, slow down.”
“I’ll try.”
The car shifted slightly as Dad took his foot off the gas, but he hadn’t actually stepped on the brake before a loud brassy horn blasted the hollow feeling right out of Isabel’s chest and jammed fear in its place. Her scream was short, but piercing.
“Jesus!” The Camry leapt forward as Dad stomped on the gas again.
The last thing Tall Paul had said about Old Charlie popped into Isabel’s head, and that chill that had been climbing about on her spine moved into her stomach: the next thing they know, there’s Old Charlie, trying to get ’em off the road.
“Slow down,” Mom shouted. “Slow down, let him pass!”
“I can’t slo—whoa!”
Isabel fell hard against the door as tires squealed and the Camry slewed into a turn.
“Hang on!” Dad swung the wheel the other way, tires shrieking louder as Isabel was thrown away from the door, her lap belt the only thing keeping her from rolling across the seat. The straightaway had ended and they’d entered one of Tall Paul’s turny bits at speed. The Bane Chronicles rolled over the low center hump, bouncing to the other side of the car as Isabel struggled to sit upright. The characters in her books faced danger all the time, and it always seemed more exciting than scary, but it was very different in the real world: in the real world, it was just terrifying. Trees blurred through the headlights and the horn came again as Dad let up on the gas. “What is he, crazy?” Dad said, fighting the wheel through another turn. “He’s right on me!”
“He’s trying to get us off the road,” Isabel shouted. Mom looked back at her but didn’t argue this time.
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“It’s straightening out ahead,” said Dad, and Mom reached to pat his shoulder again.
“Let him pass!”
Now that she wasn’t being thrown about the backseat, Isabel craned her neck to look back at Old Charlie. He’d followed them out of the turn so close she couldn’t see the bottom half of his headlights, and through the lessened glare he looked even more hunched and angry, brows drawn down over the pits of his eyes in a sharp, bushy V. He jerked the wheel to his left and the boxy car followed suit, and with a terrific roar of thrashing pistons he pulled alongside them. The horrible head turned, pinning Isabel with its black-shadow eyes. Here it comes, she thought. He’s going to ram into us and put us off the road, like Tall Paul said!
The bigger car drew even . . . but then kept going, accelerating like a bullet in the barrel of a gun, flying ahead, speed already bleeding from the Camry as Dad lifted his foot from the gas once more.
“Jesus,” Dad said. “He’s got to be doing a hundred!”
“That was him,” said Isabel. “Old Charlie.” No one in the front seat replied, just watched the tail lights dwindle in the distance. Seconds later, nothing but far-off red dots in the night by then, the lights flared bright for an instant and disappeared, the fast-moving car apparently entering another turn. Mom finally twisted in her seat.
“Now, hon.” Mom was trying to sound flat and reasonable, Isabel could tell, and she was almost succeeding. “You know that was just some old man, and there’s no such thing as . . . oh, what now?”
She stared past her daughter, through the rear window. Isabel craned around to see, though she was already aware of the car brightening around her. Her heart jumped when she saw more lights coming out of the night—but it was lots of lights this time: a police cruiser had exited the turn behind them, red and blue strobes flashing.
Dad hit the brakes and directional, easing the car over to let the speeding police vehicle pass with a “Yeah, go get him!” He followed it with an “Oh, you have to be kidding me!” when the cruiser slowed and drew up behind them, indicating they should pull over. “This is crazy,” he said, tires crunching in grit as he parked on the shoulder. “What about that old guy? He was going way faster than—”
“Just calm down,” said Mom. “Maybe we can explain—”
“I am calm!” Dad caught himself, took a breath, and repeated in a quieter tone. “I am calm. But this is really—”
They all jumped at the rap on his window. He rolled the glass down with an over-bright “Good evening, Officer.”
“It’s Deputy, sir. License and registration, please.”
“Deputy, sorry, if I could just explain—”
“License and registration, please,” the man repeated, shining his flashlight into the car, illuminating Dad, then Mom, then Isabel, before returning to her father. “We can just get that out of the way, if you don’t mind, sir. Then we can get to your explanation.”
Isabel studied the sheriff’s deputy while he waited: not quite so tall as Tall Paul—though maybe a few years older—he still reminded her of the gangly gas station attendant. It may have been that he spoke in the same slow drawl. He certainly wasn’t as friendly or talkative as the pump jockey, offering only a curt “Thank you, sir,” when he accepted the paperwork and took everything back to his own car.
“I asked about speed traps,” said Dad. “You remember? I said—”
“We remember,” soothed Mom. “We were there. But are you going to tell me we weren’t speeding?”
“Well, okay, yes, but—”
“We have to ask why he pulled us over instead of that old man, that’s what we have to do.”
“Old Charlie,” Isabel piped up.
“Sweetheart.” Mom looked back at Isabel with serious eyes. “We both told you, there’s no such thing as—”
“Do you happen to know the speed limit along here, sir?” The deputy was back at Dad’s window, holding out the paperwork, the star on his breast winking in his cruiser’s flashing lights.
“Fifty-five?” Dad said, passing the license and registration along to Mom. “I know I was speeding, but—”
“Along the straightaways, yes sir, but it slows down for the turns. It’s forty-five back there in that windy bit you just come out of, but do you know what I clocked you at coming through there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe sixty? But—”
“Sixty-seven! Sixty-seven miles per hour on a twisty stretch of road like that is about the least safe thing you can do, especially with your young daughter in the car.”
“But, Deputy—” Mom leaned over to read the nameplate on the man’s breast. “. . . Campton? What about the other car? The one that passed us coming out of that turn? And driving much faster?”
Deputy Campton’s eyes were blank. “What other car?”
“What other car?” Dad sounded incredulous. “The one riding so close he was practically in my trunk, running his high beams and leaning on the horn? That other car?”
Campton stared at Dad levelly for a moment, then: “Am I going to have to make you take a field sobriety test, sir?”
Mom made an angry sound, but Isabel was already powering her own window down. “There really was another car, Mr. Campton, and it was right behind us. I could see the driver, and it was an old man and he looked so angry, and I couldn’t ever see his eyes, and his horn scared me . . . and then he drove by so fast . . .” She realized she was babbling, and her words ran out of steam. “. . . and it was Old Charlie,” she finished. “You know. The ghost.”
The deputy looked from Isabel to her father, and took his time answering. “Look,” he said, finally. “I don’t know what y’all thought you saw, okay? But what I saw—and I was looking, mind—was one car come barrel-assing—excuse me, little missy—through some dangerous turns at more than twenty miles over the speed limit. More than twenty. Then, when I pull them over, it turns out not to be joyriding kids but a married couple with their child in the car. I didn’t see any old angry man, and I sure as hell—pardon me—didn’t see any ghost car.”
He looked in at Isabel. “Whoever told you about ‘Old Charlie,’ or a ghost car or somesuch, they were just tellin’ campfire stories. Pulling your leg. There ain’t no such thing as ghosts, little missy. Especially not on my stretch of road. I wouldn’t allow it.”
He turned to Dad. “That being said, sir, maybe you think you saw something, or maybe you’re just pulling my leg. Doesn’t matter. What you do once you get to Gallway is your business, but until you get there it’s mine. Slow down.” He tore the top ticket off his pad and thrust it into Dad’s hand. Then he grinned. “You have a nice night, now.” He straightened, gave a double rap on the Camry’s roof, and walked back to his cruiser.
Inside the Camry, Dad was quietly exploding.
“Two hundred and twenty bucks? Really? Two hundred and twenty bucks! This is—” He crumpled half the ticket in his fist and raised his hand, preparing to fling the offending paper to the car floor, then took a deep breath and smoothed the ticket on his thigh. “We can fight it later,” he said, folding and slipping it into his shirt pocket.
Mom said, quietly, “He didn’t see the other car?”
“He saw the other car. We were just easier to catch.”
“He didn’t sound like he saw the other car.”
“I saw the car and the old man,” said Isabel. “And I don’t think he had any eyes. I think he was—”
“Old Charlie,” Mom said with her.
“Look,” said Dad. “You heard Deputy Champion—”
“Campton,” corrected Mom.
“—Campton, fine, whatever. You heard him. He says there’s no such thing as ghosts, and he’s out here all the time. If there were anything to see, he’d have seen it, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” said Isabel.
“It was just an old man who probably speeds through here all the time, so he knows the road.” He turned to Mom. “And if he is through here all the time, the
n Deputy Kramden—”
“Campton.”
“—probably recognized the car and would rather give some strangers a ticket than run down one of his good ol’ boys. Hell, he could have been Campton’s father for all we know.”
Mom nodded, but Isabel didn’t think she looked convinced. Dad pulled the Camry back on the road and they drove away from Deputy Campton’s cruiser. Isabel didn’t say anything for the ten minutes it took to round the bend and find Gallway ahead, electric lights glowing in the dark, but Isabel stared out the rear window, watching for headlights; she saw only the night the entire time.
* * *
“Shouldn’t we just go straight to the hotel?” said Mom.
“It’s been a weird night,” answered Dad. “And there are people here, and I think we’re all hungry.” The car slid into an open parking spot near the door of the diner, and Dad ratcheted the gearshift into park. “I just want a little dose of normal before we turn in. Sound like a plan?”
“I want a chicken basket,” said Isabel.
“Okay, then,” said Mom, levering her door open.
Inside, the half-full diner was brightly lit, with lots of chrome accents and leather banquets set up in a fifties theme—or maybe the place was really that old, and all this was original. Either way, though, Isabel still wanted her chicken basket, the smell of the place had her thinking about dessert; she couldn’t identify it, but there seemed to be cinnamon in the air, and brown sugar, and something else just as awesome. There were pies on display beneath the glass counter by the register, and she suspected one or more of them might be the culprit.
“Three?” said the uniformed waitress, her pink dress and white apron fitting right in with the decor of the place, though a delicate nose stud and the tribal tattoo encircling her upper arm spoke of more modern times. “Would you like a booth, or are you sitting at the counter tonight?”
“Booth,” said Mom, and with a nod the waitress scooped up some menus and headed across the floor. Mom started after her and Isabel followed, eyes still on the pies she suspected of full-blown wonderfulness.
Wicked Haunted: An Anthology of the New England Horror Writers Page 23