by Macy Largo
She handed over the keys. Sarah felt glad she’d pulled off her door and ignition keys and kept the rest or she’d never want her beloved Yoda key ring back.
Following Cindy, they approached the next to last door on the far end of the storage building. The dark cloud threatened to engulf Sarah, but she forced herself to stay firmly by John’s side. Apparently sensing her unrest, he laid a comforting palm on the small of her back.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to touch anything.”
Cindy unlocked and rolled up the door. Sarah gasped at the ruddy brown markings on her white car. “Oh my god!”
John’s palm became his arm firmly hooked around her waist to keep her steady. “It’s okay,” he whispered in her ear. “You want me to take you back to my car?”
She shook her head, horror-struck and riveted at the same time as Del pulled on the gloves and unlocked her trunk. Inside were all her things, not exactly as she’d left them, but still there as far as she could tell.
“That’s not how I packed the trunk,” she said, her voice quivering, terrified the killer might have touched her belongings.
Del nodded. “I’m sure they took everything out when they processed the car. Probably inventoried it. I can ask for copies of their photos so you can see how it was before they started.” He handed out her duffel bags and suitcases, followed by the three boxes of books. “That’s all in the trunk.”
“There was another bag and a box in the back seat.”
He closed the trunk and moved around to the back driver-side door. He tried it, found it unlocked, leaned in, and handed out stuff to Sarah and John.
Her life, what there was of it, lay in a pile outside the open doorway. That almost made her want to cry more than the horror show her car had been transformed into.
He started to back out of the car when he leaned in again, grabbed something, then handed it out. Her address book.
“Thanks.” She tucked it into her back pocket. “I’d be lost without that. I don’t have all the numbers plugged into my phone yet.” Not only that, it held her passwords for many of her online accounts, although she had things coded so someone else hopefully couldn’t figure out which passwords were for what logins.
“Looks like it fell on the floor. Anything in the front?”
“No.” She surveyed the pile. “That’s it.”
Cindy opened the gate so John could drive his Explorer into the yard and save them several trips carrying her things. Before Cindy closed the bay door on her car, Sarah braved the question. “Can I look at it closer?”
Del nodded. “If you really want to. Just don’t touch it.”
She stepped inside, her body trembling. If she had to suffer through this wacky feeling, she’d face it head-on. Dark, evil foreboding struck her like a physical wave as she stepped closer to her car. Whoever had done this had killed before, for sure. Many times, not just a few.
She walked around the car, stopping at the trunk, at the smiley face there. In the air, without touching the dried blood, she traced the shape.
Del stepped in close. “What?”
“You said you believe in intuition?”
“Yeah?”
She looked at him. “He won’t stop looking for me until you catch him, or he kills me.”
* * * *
She returned to the men’s house with John, both of them silent during the drive. He’d heard her comment to Del and knew from the very depths of her soul that she believed it.
I can sympathize.
He helped her unload her stuff into what he now thought of as her room, then sat on the bed and patted the mattress next to him. “Come here. I want to talk to you.”
She sat.
“Tell me, from start to when Del found you, exactly what happened. I mean the full story of last night, your feelings and fears, not just the events.” He gently touched her chin and made her look him in the eye. “I promise I will not think you’re crazy. I have a story of my own, but I need to hear yours first.”
She nodded. “I need to start before last night then.”
“Start where you need to.”
She turned to face him and sat cross-legged on the bed. “I grew up a tomboy. Climbed trees with my cousins and friends, things like that. When I was ten, I was in our backyard, climbing a tree that hung over the patio slab. But the branch gave way, and since I was hanging upside down, I hit head first.
“I fractured my skull and spent several weeks in the hospital, but I made a full recovery.” She nervously twisted her hands together. “Physical recovery. They said I was fine mentally, but I kept having these feelings. I would sense things. When I told my parents about it, they laughed it off at first. Then, as I got older and the feelings got stronger and proved accurate every time, they told me I imagined it. Or I was lying and making it up.”
She hesitated, her fear obvious to him from the way she twisted her hands in her lap.
“What happened?” he asked, gently prompting her.
“I woke up screaming at my mom not to go to Portland on a weekend business trip. Begged her not to go. I knew if she went, she was going to die there.” She sobbed. “A semi blew a front tire on I-5 and the driver lost control. It took out her and another car and sent them off the road. She was killed instantly.”
He watched a tear slip down her face. “My dad ordered me not to talk about it, but some of my cousins and friends knew already. I had lots of flashes here and there, mostly negative stuff. Not usually that bad, but always accurate. I learned to stop talking about it even though it still happened. Then I had another really bad premonition, a scary-ass nightmare that my dad was going to die. I begged him to stay home from a weekend fishing trip. A drunk driver hit the car he and his friends were in and killed all of them.” She sniffled back more tears. “Then three friends died, over the space of a couple of years. I knew it before it happened every time and always had a bad nightmare before. I had one nightmare before a friend’s trip, and told my friend about it. She stayed home. The tour bus her classmates were on crashed, and three people died.”
She harshly laughed. “Then I sensed my ex cheating on me, and that’s what led to the confrontation with him that got me on the road to Miami in the first place. And now I’m here.”
“So you can see bad things.”
“Not just bad,” she softly said, finally lifting her gaze to meet his. “Usually not good, but every once in a while I see good things. The strange thing is that ever since I met you and Del last night, the warm fuzzies have been in overdrive.” She laughed again, this time sounding a little more composed. “Being here, with you especially, it’s like being wrapped in a sweet-smelling blanket in front of a roaring fire in a cozy house during a blizzard. It feels good. That’s never happened before.”
He laced his fingers through hers and squeezed. “Tell me about last night.”
Her eyes grew haunted as she recalled the fear that pressed on her throughout the evening, growing stronger with every mile she drove, coming to a head when she spotted the sedan, then again when she passed the rig, and her absolute terror when the car died.
“Now tell me about today, at the storage lot, when you saw your car.”
She looked at him, puzzled. “You don’t think I’m crazy?”
“I told you I have a story of my own. Go ahead.”
“It’s like he’s not just evil, he’s…” She looked up at the ceiling as she searched for the word. “It’s entrenched. Like he’s tapping into something ancient.” Sarah met his gaze again. “Does that sound weird or what?”
“I’m sure if you talked to some of the Native Americans in this area, they wouldn’t think it’s weird at all. Keep going.”
She shrugged. “That’s all.” A sad sigh escaped her. “I’m not psychic. I’m not one of those nutjobs who runs a telephone hotline and tries to bilk people out of money. I don’t want to be like this. I didn’t ask to be like this, and the only person who doesn’t care about my
freaky little inner voice is my uncle. No one else wanted me to stay with them, and since my bastard ex screwed me over, it was my only choice.”
He squeezed her hand again. “You’re wrong about that.”
“About what?”
“We want you to stay with us, and we don’t care about your inner voice. It might have saved your life last night.”
“Del saved my life by finding me.”
“You didn’t stop at the rig when someone else might have just so they didn’t break down alone in the middle of nowhere. You knew to put distance between you.” He studied her for a moment. “Maybe you were also feeling some sort of energy from the rig today. The truck and trailer were both in storage there, too.”
“That’s possible.” She sniffled again and nodded. “I didn’t think of that. So what’s your story?”
Chapter Four
Four years earlier.
Close to the end of his shift, Captain John Riley of the South Dakota Highway Patrol sat in his cruiser and filled out reports. Not the best part of the job, but it beat scraping the remains of crotch rocket riders off the asphalt, which he’d done three times in the past month. A new and unfortunate personal record. He could turn around and head home shortly to Del’s waiting arms.
Now there’s a pleasant thought.
Near sunset on a Wednesday evening in late October, because it was a new moon night, it would be pitch black shortly. Then his radio crackled to life.
Shit.
“Unit sixteen, this is base. Report of overturned semi, I-90 eastbound, two miles west of Plankinton. What’s your ETA?”
He immediately fastened his seat belt. Instinctively checking his mirrors as he flipped on his lights, he then shifted into drive to pull onto the highway. Seconds later, on the road and gaining speed, he grabbed the mic. “Unit sixteen to base, ETA ten minutes. En route. Out.”
“Roger, unit sixteen. Out.”
His pulse thrummed. Dammit, he hoped no one was hurt, but this would fuck up him getting home on time. He was already wiped out. Del had to work nights for two weeks starting two nights from tonight, meaning they’d barely see each other even though they lived together. Tonight they’d planned a nice dinner, and a long night of loving since they both had the day off tomorrow.
Less than five miles from the accident site, the sun had almost completely set. Only the lights of the stars and his headlights pierced the inky black cloak settling over the land. With no traffic ahead of him, his cruiser screamed over the pavement, blasting up a short rise.
In the middle of the road stood a little boy.
John barely had time to register that he looked around seven or eight, tow-headed, and wore old-fashioned overalls, before he slammed on the brakes at the same time he whipped the wheel to avoid hitting him. The scream in his ears as he plunged off the pavement and into the gravel shoulder before the cruiser flipped five times was his own.
* * * *
He awoke two days later in the Sanford USD trauma center’s ICU in Sioux Falls. Del, in civilian clothes and looking like shit, sat at his bedside.
Del leaned over and kissed him. “You scared the fuck outta me, man. Don’t you ever do that to me again.”
He had to know. “How is he? Did I miss him?”
Del’s brows knitted in confusion as he tenderly smoothed the hair away from John’s forehead. “Miss who, babe?”
“The little boy. Please tell me I didn’t hit him. Please tell me he’s okay.”
A cold chill settled over him as Del slowly shook his head. “What little boy?”
He grabbed Del’s hand and squeezed as tight as he could. “That’s why I wrecked. I remember it. I came over the rise, and there was this little boy standing in the middle of the road. I swerved to avoid him.”
Del tried to calm him. “There wasn’t a little boy. A car heading eastbound saw you wreck. They called it in. You were airflighted here to Sioux Falls.”
A nurse came in, checked his vitals, and informed Del visiting hours were over. Del kissed him good-bye. “I’ll be back in the morning, babe. Mark will stop by later, though. He needs to get your statement. I’ll tell him you’re back with us.” John wasn’t too out of it to miss the concern on Del’s face.
John tried to sleep, resisted asking for more pain medication despite the agony in his shattered legs and pelvis, but he wanted to be clear-headed. When his boss, Major Mark Guffrey, came in late that night, alone and in uniform, he looked grim and carried a messenger bag.
“What? Did I kill him?” Despite Del’s assurances to the contrary, he knew what he saw.
Mark set the bag down, spoke to John’s nurse for a moment, then slid the glass door shut on his ICU cubicle and closed the curtain.
He pulled a chair up next to John’s bed and took a deep breath before he removed a copy of an old newspaper from his bag and handed it to John.
When John took it, his hands trembled as another chill washed over him. The date on the front page was exactly seventy years from the day of his accident. Pictured, the same boy, only in Sunday best clothes of the era. The bold print headline read WHO KILLED ROBERT?
Robert Thompson, seven years old. The little boy’s body had been found the morning after his brutal murder, approximately at the location of John’s wreck. Abducted from his family’s farm while working in the field, no one knew who raped, then butchered, the little boy. His throat had been slit so deeply he’d nearly been decapitated and his body eviscerated.
He looked at Mark. “What the fuck?” he whispered. “I’ve never heard about this!”
Mark didn’t speak. Instead, he handed him copies of several other articles detailing the case, which went cold and remained unsolved.
John stared at Mark, shock robbing him of speech. Mark nodded and withdrew a portable DVD player from his bag, turned it on, hit play, and swiveled it so John could watch.
It was video from his dash cam, showing him speeding to respond to the wreck. The oncoming headlights of the eastbound car were visible for a split second through the windshield before the ghostly image of a boy appeared in his headlights. Then came the sounds of his screams as the car swerved and rolled before the camera died.
Stunned, John played the thirty second snippet of video several times before looking at Mark.
Mark finally spoke as he took the DVD player back. “I’m taking your official statement right now. This is what it will say, that you came over the rise and there was a large deer in the road and you swerved to avoid it. It obviously escaped unharmed. It was a reflex action. No points on your record, no citation, just a dumb luck accident. Okay?”
John nodded.
“Your dash cam video didn’t survive the wreck. It was too badly damaged to pull the feed from it. I’ll testify to that.” He carefully eyed him. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
He slowly nodded.
“This is the only copy of the footage. I personally wiped the rest of it. I’ll give this to Del and tell him to lock it in a safe somewhere for those nights when you want to be reminded you aren’t crazy.” He handed John several other copies of newspaper articles, all relating to accidents on the same date in different years, for 1950, 1965, and 1972. All fatalities, all in the same location, no witnesses or survivors. There were several more accidents on the same date, in 1969, 1979, and 1984. In those cases, alcohol was listed as a factor, but the drivers survived.
None of the stories mentioned a little boy.
“What does this mean?” John finally asked.
“You’re not the only trooper or motorist to see little Robert. You probably won’t be the last. But we don’t talk about him.” He took back all the photocopies and tucked them into his bag. “The last thing we want or need is ghost hunters swarming in and trying to solve a case that can’t be solved, because whoever did it is most likely decades in his own grave. We can’t do that little boy any good. He’s dead longer than any of us have been alive. You won’t do yourself any good to talk ab
out him, either. It’ll bring you a helluva lot of attention you—and Del—most likely don’t want.”
Mark carefully eyed him. “You two have a good life. No one minds you being together because you’re good guys, and everyone likes you, but do you really think the people of Mitchell want every new-age nutjob in the world traipsing around fields looking for a ghost? You were raised in South Dakota, and you know there’s two kinds of ghost stories. Ones the towns welcome, because it brings them money and the good kind of attention that pulls in tourist dollars, and ones they bury, because it brings them shame and stirs up bad things. This isn’t a harmless spook that people can’t prove really exists. What happened to that boy, whoever did it, is pure evil. I just wanted you to know you didn’t imagine it, and you aren’t crazy.” He stared at him. “Do we understand each other? Do you get what I’m saying? You and Del have a good, quiet life. Let’s keep it that way.”
John nodded. “Yeah.” He still felt stunned, trying to absorb the facts.
Mark’s voice softened. “You’ve got enough time in, you can retire with full pension, and probably disability payments too, if you want. Say the word, and I’ll push the paperwork through. I can’t imagine you’ll want to be back in a cruiser twelve hours a day after surviving that. Doctors said you’ve got at least six months of rehab ahead of you. Unless you want a desk job, then I’ll be happy to arrange it.”
“No. I’m done. Go ahead and start my paperwork.” He couldn’t think. He wanted to talk to Del. “Will you tell Del for me? About…Robert?”
Mark nodded. “Yeah. I’ll play it for him and show him the articles.” He leaned in. “But let it go, John. Don’t chase a ghost. Chalk it up to one more ghost story in a countless list of South Dakota spirits. You’ve lived here all your life. You’ve seen odd things on new and full moon nights yourself, I’m sure. Whether tricks of the mind or tricks of the supernatural, don’t let it consume you.”
He stood to go and squeezed John’s arm. “I’ll send the report with Del for your signature once it’s done. Okay?”