The Haunting of Steely Woods

by Bonnie Elizabeth

  I stayed at the exit with the fast food places, a couple of gas stations, and an old hotel that had once been nice, but now appeared to be the kind of place I wasn’t at all keen on staying at. Heavier traffic rumbled down the freeway. Friday night and people were heading for far places or perhaps just heading home after a day at work. Living in downtown Charlotte, I had forgotten how many people commuted. Even in Charlotte, commutes tended to be shorter in distance if not in time.

  The air around me smelled surprisingly clean and dry, like the rain that had plagued us in the woods had moved on. Still, plenty of gray clouds darkened the skies as the day headed towards evening. It made me wonder about the timing of the ritual. I wondered if I should wait until midnight or if I could start earlier, perhaps shortly after the rest stop quieted down for the evening.

  Thinking about going back there made my stomach churn. McDonald’s no longer sounded good. No food sounded good, and if I kept thinking about what I needed to do, I’d be forced to choose between vomiting in their toilets or out in the parking lot. I’m sure the manager wouldn’t appreciate either, particularly since I hadn’t been a customer.

  I breathed in and out and started the car. I wasn’t going to eat anything. I didn’t even want a soda, not really. I made my way to the freeway to head south, back to the rest stop.

  I had Ronette on speed dial, though I knew she’d be too far away to help me if something went wrong—if I was even able to call her. Unless someone showed up at just the right time, I would be on my own.

  That thought sent shivers down my spine. I was on the on-ramp, speeding up even as the car climbed the incline to I-5. It was too late to turn back.

  I knew all of this. I didn’t need to keep reminding myself that this was mine to do and mine alone. I’d avoided this confrontation for years. I could have stayed that night, after the girls and their mother left and confronted the ghost then. Maybe just seeing her for what she was would have been enough.

  Or perhaps I could have gone home and studied up on what had happened and then come back a few weeks later and confronted the ghost. Another woman, maybe two, would still be alive today. I’d likely never have met Deborah because if I hadn’t been on the run, I would never have moved to North Carolina.

  I tried to think of what else I might have missed, but sadly, I’d been so shut in, so completely terrified of everything, I hadn’t made a life. I’d missed my life, missed having children, having a long term relationship, having a closer relationship with the sister I loved. If I had confronted the ghost sooner, maybe I’d have lived closer, in Las Vegas or down in Phoenix, though I couldn’t really see myself in the desert. Perhaps I’d have gone to Colorado to live in the mountains. Hard to say.

  Maybe I’d have gotten on a plane to go see her and the plane would have crashed. So many what ifs. I couldn’t turn back the clock. I could only go forward.

  Although there were plenty of cars, they moved along easily, tires eating away at the asphalt that led ever further south to Portland, to Eugene, to Sacramento and beyond. I wondered what it would feel like to keep driving.

  Ronette would be unhappy with me. Or perhaps not. She seemed to understand how terrified I was. She also seemed to understand that this was something I had to do myself.

  I tapped the steering wheel when I saw the first blue sign indicating a rest area was coming up. I hadn’t left the right hand lane, not needing to go any faster, not really wanting to get to the place any sooner than I had to.

  The exit came far too soon. I remembered the night when I’d had to pee, thinking that it took forever between the blue sign that said rest area 1 mile and actually getting there. Tonight, it took no time at all. I’d hardly registered that the sign was there.

  Evergreens still lined the entrance, unchanged from earlier, though they looked more ominous. A few stately deciduous trees of a sort I couldn’t identify stood sentinel with their long boney branches reaching out to the cars.

  A half dozen vehicles sat in the parking area. There were more semis in the truck park across the way. A police cruiser waited in the corner of the parking area, perhaps someone guarding what had once been a crime scene or a lone officer finishing up his paperwork in the car.

  I parked a little ways away from the building, towards the cruiser. I watched as people talked and smoked outside the building. A few hurried back to cars. Two other cars followed me in and their owners got out to use the restroom.

  A woman opened her car door and leashed her dog, a long low dog, perhaps a dachshund, though it was wider than the dachshunds I knew. She led it across the wide parking lot and into the dog area.

  I sat in my car watching.

  The radio blared static, startling me and I jumped.

  “Don’t get too comfortable tonight!” a voice said and then cut out to static which faded into the background.

  I glared at the station. I wasn’t at all comfortable. But Lucy, if that’s who it was, didn’t need to remind me. I was like a mouse to her cat, thinking I was setting a trap but she was determined to make sure I knew that she knew about my plans. Or maybe she didn’t and was hoping I’d give them away.

  I turned the radio off and it stayed silent. That left me alone with the sounds of the people driving in and out of the rest stop. Another police car pulled up, perhaps to spell the officer in the corner. I watched in the rearview mirror. No one noticed me.

  It got darker. Eventually, traffic thinned. I started to feel as if I needed to use the restroom, but I didn’t dare. I’d go in the bushes before I’d go inside, unless I had an armed guard that I trusted, and, at this point, I didn’t trust anyone.

  The number of cars stopping in slowed as the evening wore on. Those that were there stayed a bit longer, people standing and stretching. I waited, not getting out of the car. I played with my phone some, but not too much. I needed a decent charge for when I was alone. I ran the car off and on to charge it back up.

  Pretty soon the only other people around were the police cars, of which there were still two cars, and the semis across the way. One of the police cars drove off. I was almost alone on my side of the rest stop.

  I got out and went to the trunk to gather the things I’d need for the ritual together. No one was around to notice me. I wondered briefly if the police car had been abandoned. Even if it wasn’t, which was most likely, the officer clearly wasn’t around this part of the rest stop. I continued on searching for what I needed.

  I checked my phone for the list I’d compiled from Will’s suggestions. For a moment, I longed to call him, to talk it through, to gather courage, but I was equally certain that talking to anyone would allow me to put off going in to the rest room and doing the ritual.

  I sighed, stretching. I glanced around.

  The truckers were all clearly visible in their cabs, the lights shining just right. No one walked around the grounds. I was as alone as I was going to get. I shivered.

  A breeze came up, light but still there, making the pine needles rattle and the branches sing. The automatic lights around the buildings looked yellow in the night. It wasn’t so different from the time I’d been attacked.

  It was now or never.

  34

  Traci: September Now

  I now had one bag with everything I thought I needed. I also had an electric lantern and my phone. I locked my purse, except for the car keys, into the trunk. I pulled out some of the metal spoons and lined my bra with them, feeling foolish standing by the car, messing with my breasts. If the truckers watched, they probably had an interesting show. Finished, I walked slowly towards the restrooms, the one on the left side, the one where I had nearly died on a night not unlike this one.

  That night I’d smelled French fries. Tonight I smelled stale coffee and damp. I reminded myself that a police officer wasn’t far away. If I had to scream, I had a good chance someone would hear me and come running and help, even if the truckers didn’t.

  I also knew that the officer was probably too far
away to be of help. Really, I was on my own.

  I wore sneakers which squeaked against the lightly damp pavement. It wasn’t raining any longer but the concrete hadn’t had time to dry. A few puddles by the gutter remained, a reminder of the earlier showers. The sound of my shoes echoed in the night as if the very air believed I didn’t belong there.

  I continued towards the building, listening. The hair on the back of my neck stood up but no one followed me. If a presence lurked behind me, it made no move to touch me, not then.

  In the circle of buildings I was more protected from the light breeze, but the air there felt still and expectant, as if I’d walked in on something I had no business knowing about.

  I chanted “Go away,” under my breath. As if that would help. I had no belief in the chant. I wore my sterling silver bracelet and my bra lined with spoons. Not that I could do much with a spoon, but if steel worked, my heart would be protected.

  I walked through the doorway of the restroom. The white tile glared back at me in lights that buzzed too loudly. The dryers waited for someone to wash their hands. I looked down, peering below the stalls, ascertaining the room was empty. I smelled the faint scent of dirty diaper and something else, something older and rotten.

  I pulled out my salt and sprinkled a circle around me.

  The faucet dripped.

  Once.

  I didn’t see which one.

  Paper rustled from far down the stalls, like someone pulling out a seat protector. The room went silent.

  I said a prayer, a real prayer of the sort I hadn’t said in years. Not since I’d tried to bury myself in the church in hopes of cutting ties to this terror. Now I was facing it… and I was alone. I wasn’t as terrified as I expected, but perhaps I’d lived with this level of terror for so long I no longer noticed. I did not, however, speak any words aloud.

  I lit several candles and placed them around the circle.

  I called upon the angels and God.

  Something moved in the far stall.

  I heard, but didn’t see the stall door open and bang shut. By the time I turned I saw only the door slowly swinging shut.

  “Be gone,” I whispered again. I still had no faith in what I was doing.

  I held the sharpest of the stainless steel knives I had, waiting. I used a bit of my regular old bottled water to cover it and then poured salt all over the thing. It might not be holy water but if salt could stop the creature at the circle, then perhaps if it got closer I could cut it with a knife covered in salt.

  I waited. The stillness, the waiting, made my stomach hurt and groan. Every muscle tensed against something I couldn’t see. I wasn’t sure how long I could continue, my muscles already beginning to strain. I wanted to relax, to give over to the ache but I couldn’t. I had to wait.

  Part of me wanted to rush down through the stalls, bang them open, find the creature, and stab it with the knife. The other side wanted the story. Why me? Why the woman who had died. Why Deborah? Why? Just why.

  “Why do you do this Lucy?” I called. I thought I spoke in a room voice, my regular talking voice, but instead it came out a hoarse whisper, as if I didn’t have enough air to speak.

  “Because I can,” the wind whispered to me, a chattering of branches like bone on bone and a slight breeze. It even lifted my hair.

  “Not an answer,” I growled. I really did sound like I was growling. If someone came in, they’d probably report me and not just for making a mess with salt and candles in the rest area.

  “Do you know what I went through?” A howling screech of wind and the sound of words hit me. I was bent forward, nearly having to step out of the circle, which I realized too late, that I had made too small.

  “Tell me.”

  “Betrayal. Betrayer. I will kill her.”

  “Who? Alma?” I asked.

  “Who else? Sister who was not sister. Who gave me over to die.” The wind was no longer there. The voice was hollow and solid. The hairs on my arms stood up. I should have been more terrified but the fact that she wanted to talk calmed me slightly.

  “Alma is dead, Lucy,” I said. “It’s been years. She died years ago.”

  There was no response to that.

  I lit the sage, letting it burn in the cup. I was supposed to sage the whole place but I wasn’t stepping out of the questionable protection of the circle.

  No voices. I might have been there alone.

  Eventually, as the sage burned and filled the area I was in with the spicy aroma of smoke, I did step out. I carried the sage and the iron knife.

  I walked to the back of the room and started with the large disabled stall, swinging the sage around the space.

  Nothing appeared to me in there. No sounds of a ghost screaming in agony as it lost its grip on this world.

  I saged the stall next to the larger stall at the end.

  Nothing.

  I breathed a little easier. Maybe I was doing something.

  Maybe Lucy was done.

  I saged the next stall and the next. I came to the one I had used. I breathed a little harder but when I opened it, it was empty.

  I used the sage.

  One of the faucets dripped.

  One.

  My breath hitched.

  I heard something in the far stall. A sound like someone waited in there.

  I backed up as quickly as I could, towards my salt circle, hoping to make it, to re-place the salt where I had scattered it when I’d stepped over it.

  A thing, a gross and distorted bundle of bones and rags flew towards me. I had a moment to make out a few stray hairs on top of a skull a dull brown and beige as well as long white fingers made of bone reaching for me.

  I couldn’t move fast enough. I held the sage in one hand and the iron knife in the other.

  I smelled burning flesh, felt a cold chill surround me and as suddenly as it came, it was gone.

  I backed up further towards the salt circle.

  “Be gone,” I said.

  I glanced behind me but there was nothing. My heart hammered from fear but also from exhilaration. I had faced Lucy and won.

  35

  Traci: September Now

  I wanted to laugh and to giggle. I wasn’t done. There was still one more stall to sage. And Lucy was clearly still around despite the sage clearing of the final stall. There was something else I had to do.

  “Did we find your bones this afternoon Lucy?” I asked. I spoke out loud. Though I hadn’t yelled, it seemed too loud for the silence of the restroom. Had I really been alone in there all that time?

  I waited, listening. There was only me, the faintest purr of cars along I-5, and the smell of sage, which was far better than the faint scent of dirty diaper.

  I saw nothing. It was cool in the restroom but not cold, not like I had been in that instant that Lucy should have reached me and perhaps torn out my throat or maybe my femoral artery.

  “Lucy?” I asked again when she still didn’t answer.

  “I am more than bones,” the voice said. This time it wasn’t the wind whispering. This time there was a chill against my right ear and a sound that came from behind. I whirled, holding the sage and the knife but there was nothing.

  “But don’t you want to have it known what happened to you?” I asked.

  “No one knows. No one blamed Alma or the one who murdered me,” Lucy said. “And it’s too late. I’ll never have peace. She might have gotten away, but I will make sure you don’t.”

  “But they’re clearly dead too,” I said. “Can’t you deal with them on your side?”

  There was something like laughter, a canned sort of clacking of something like bone against bone that reached me.

  “I don’t know what happens after death,” I said. “But we can’t help you here.”

  “And so people will continue to die. People here and the people around you.”

  “That doesn’t seem fair,” I said. Weren’t there laws?

  “Was it fair what happened to m
e?” This was anger. I felt it brush through me, trying to gain traction in my soul. Anger at all the things that had happened to me, at all the things I had missed. At Ronette for not being there when I needed her, even if I was the one who had pushed her away. She should have known.

  I heard a car door slam.

  And then there was nothing.

  The soft squelch of sneakers against damp concrete and then against tile.

  Ronette appeared in the doorway.

  “Traci?” she said quietly.

  I must have looked insane. I felt insane. A circle of salt at my feet, holding a bundle of sage and an iron knife ready to stab anyone who got too close to me.

  “Ronette?” I asked. “What are you doing here?”

  And before I could do anything, without even the warning of a faucet dripping, the thing that was Lucy rushed out of the back stall, coming towards Ronette instead of me.

  I stepped in front of the flying creature, using the knife, jamming upwards, waving the sage randomly with my left hand.

  It wasn’t an intentional wave. I was just moving around, trying to keep my balance. This time, I felt like I had hit something.

  Whatever it was, it continued to press towards me, pushing me back.

  I held my ground as much as I could, though I felt myself falling backwards.

  “Run!” I screamed.

  I heard something moving, wasn’t sure it if was Ronette or Lucy or what was left of Lucy.

  Then I was on my back, the cold hard tile pressing into my spine. I hurt. I still held the knife but now it held bits of flesh and something white flecked the edge. I pushed myself up.

  The sage burned low. I was going to run out soon. I wondered if it had done anything at all.

  I looked around, but didn’t see Ronette, didn’t see what I feared, a body lying down, dead with cuts all over her, cuts that the police might think were made by my knife, when in actuality they were made by nothing anyone could see.