Gay Male>Sci Fi Fantasy
A Second Chance (a ghost story)
Joseph Feliciano
The universe has a rotation to things. You're born, you live, you die. Usually this is how the story begins, how it is, and how it ends. From point A to B, this is the reason we tick, the motivation of our simple, and most complex moves. Chasing the day for all it's worth, or watching it go idly by. The days are numbered and in the end it all comes back as a flash and you will evaluate whether it was good. Regret everything bad.
But my point A begins at point B. I know it to be true, nothing ever ends and all we experience is simply a reproduction of what once was. I know throughout this universe, all chaos does create control, and life stems from death. Time is circular. Nothing is linear.
Have you ever been overwhelmed by your thoughts? Controlled by an idea you couldn't get out of your head? Have you ever been driven by an unknown force? I did, one day. One day everything changed for me. I as the individual, as the me, ceased to exist as something that is singular. Something I previously believed was linear.
Everything about who I was, became a different story that day. A more important story than the one I was used to telling. But I dare not tell this story to just anyone. I'm not brave enough. I didn't want to be called crazy. Called a liar. I'll never be ready for the backlash which would likely come from telling people this. But it's all true, this secret that nothing is ever over, nothing is ever lost.
I had never been to Irene, or the road before. I had never even heard of it until a week earlier. I had tons of time on my hands and did a great deal of reading. Newspapers, books, junk mail, magazines, online, I read it all at random, never finding too much of interest. Always searching for something. I didn't even know I was looking until I found it.
I am not ashamed to admit I spent a large amount of time staring at maps and atlases. Ever since I was a kid it was something I found hours of comfort in. I found a road, far west from the city, and it held my interest. Since I was a boy the name alone caught my eye and I imagined the things that happened and could happen on the 5.2-mile stretch.
Bloods Point Road, near a town called Irene, population: not enough.
I didn't believe people named roads like that until I took the time to look it up. The road was named after the family whose farm was once there. Of course, a handful of the locals believed it was haunted. I usually dismissed ghost stories however the more I read about the "strange happenings" the more I wanted to know. Most information was obviously untrue. Stories from bored, lonely, people, or people looking for attention by claiming they saw something which wasn't there. But there was one common story each site had. One story I already knew. The tale was familiar, like an urban legend but I couldn't remember where I heard it from. But I knew I heard it.
I was empty reading about the drag race that claimed two high school boys in the seventies. The story seemed like there was a major part missing and it consumed me trying to imagine what that part was. At work, at home, out with friends, it was there for a few weeks, in the back of my mind. I needed to know more, as it was no longer a simple want. So, during a cold October afternoon I filled my tank and took the hour trip. I arrived at the road and the town I had never been to before.
The asphalt hadn't been replaced for several years. Northern Illinois isn't known for the sun however this road could easily be one in the middle of the desert. The ground beneath it was never properly excavated and smoothed so at sixty miles an hour my car kind of hopped along its imperfections. I was out in the open, surrounded by cornfields which had mostly been harvested. There wasn't another car, or another person. A few sheds, a few barns, and maybe two houses a few miles apart.
Ever since I was a kid I hated being in cars. Long rides left me with an agonizing emptiness in my stomach. My impatience reminded me of long car rides. I wasn't sure if it was the anticipation of going somewhere I never been, or if it was being in the car too long, but the feeling in my stomach hurt more than ever.
I didn't have a stopping point in mind, but I could see in another mile there was a curve. I knew from the maps I stared at that the curve was kind of the end of the road. I knew it wasn't what I was looking for. I pulled over next to a tree. Call it an instinct, or old-fashioned instability, but I pulled my car over knowing I was where I was going. I didn't put the car in park right away. A feeling of dread came over me. It was intense, and I had question what I was doing there.
There had to be a good reason but thinking about it only brought more questions. I was mostly skeptical when it came to these types of stories yet there I was, pulled over on the side of the road, for reasons I didn't know enough to explain.
My phones signal fluctuated between none and some. I sat there a few moments before putting the car in park. My running car was the only intrusive sound and when I shut if off what was left was an eerie silence. The wind was still, not even the grass or dead foliage could rustle out the ringing noise.
The air outside was autumn chilled, but it didn't bother me too much. The sun was minutes from disappearing, though it was only five in the evening. The smell of dry corn husks permeated the surrounding farms. The smell reminded me of going to pumpkin patches when I was a kid.
I looked at the spot, the one across the road from my car. Looking at it sent a shaking down my back and arms. I knew this had to be where it happened. I knew this was where they died. The boys died under the tree.
I stood there for a few minutes while I smoked a cigarette. I didn't know what else I came to do, other than stand there and look around. I had no real plan, so I was kind of lost as to where I would go when my cigarette was out. One thing I knew was I didn't want to leave right away. I couldn't leave it.
My concentration became broken by an approaching sound. Down the road a mile, another car approached from the same direction I came from. As soon as I saw this I wanted to leave. After all I was a visitor, and I was sure with as much information I found about this road, the locals had their fill of ghost hunters invading their territory. But I couldn't leave.
The car pulled over not too far behind mine. I didn't look too closely at the driver, but I observed long enough to see he was alone, and he wasn't a cop. I wasn't trespassing, but I wasn't invited. I figured he was some farmer's son, sent to chase me away. I put my right hand in my jacket pocket to grip my keys in my fist as a weapon if necessary.
"What are you doing here?"
He appeared stronger than I was, his strong arms shown through his jacket. We were the same age. Both approximately twenty years old. His eyes were soft. Too comforting.
"I'm sorry, I don't mean any harm."
"Harm?"
"I read about this place online and I'm sure you guys are sick of people coming here."
I was uncomfortable with how he looked at me. He didn't say anything, and this only added to the burning feeling in my face.
"I'm not breaking any laws anyway...."
"I'm not from around here either."
I shifted my weight to the other leg. "Me either."
A silence came as I looked to the West and the East hoping another car would come down the road. We were alone. He could easily get away with murder out here.
His head followed my lead and looked up and down the road as well. "Why did you come here?"
"I don't know." I didn't know how else to answer.
Again, he was quiet. My discomfort was reaching a level that told me this was a bad idea. I wanted to look him in the eye, but the idea scared me.
"I won't be here long."
"No, it's fine."
I sensed he was also a little nervous. As if he was going to do something.
"This was a bad idea." I said out loud though I meant to keep it to myself.
"No...I mean stay as long as you want...I don't mean to..."
He stopped talking as if he couldn't find the right words.
He seemed to notice his gaze was making me uncomfortable. He looked away from me. Looked away to the same spot I looked to. This didn't alleviate my discomfort. Would I be able to get into my car faster than he could stop me?
"I'm Paul, by the way."
I didn't know what else to say. "I'm Max."
"So, do you know the legend of this road, Max?"
"Just what I read online."
"Me to, at first."
I didn't respond.
To my discomfort he looked back at me. "When I first read about this place a year ago, I didn't know the whole story until I came here."
"You've been coming here for a year?" I asked him, bewildered by his dedication to this strange location.
"No, not all year. I've only been here one time."
This last comment was strange. Strange that this person I didn't know decided after a year he would come back here, to this spot. The same day I would be here.
"So, you know the whole story?"
Paul nodded.
"So why did you come here today?"
My good sense told me to leave. But some part of me froze me to the ground. I didn't know why I was entertaining him, but I couldn't run away.
"It's kind of an important day."
I didn't know if I should keep questioning him. People don't usually talk like this. Strangers on a lost road usually don't go this far in conversation. A few more moments passed where nothing was said, no eye contact made. First, I was apprehensive about him. But my curiosity raised more questions.
"Where are you from?" Was all I could think of.
"I live in the suburbs..."
"Me too."
"...but I used to be from here." A long time ago."
I was weirdly interested in Paul. I wanted to continue our conversation but didn't know where to go from there. I watched him from the corner of my eyes as we stood side by side staring at the road. I ran through my mind dumb things to ask him, pointless things to keep his interest. I didn't even know why I wanted to keep his interest. He scared me but also held my attention.
I remembered something he said a minute earlier. "So, are you going to tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
"About the story, the whole story. You said you knew."
Paul grabbed a stick from the road and threw it into the field. "What do you already know?"
"Drag racers." In the seventies, two high school boys died here. Now their ghosts haunt this road."
Paul half smiled. "Pretty close."
"What did I leave out?"
"It wasn't in the seventies, it actually happened in eighty-one."
I was born in ninety-one, but that year, nineteen eighty-one meant a lot to me. I used to joke I was born ten years too late, that I should have been a child of the eighties instead of the nineties. But all joking aside I longed to be a part of a decade I was born after.
By this time the sun had disappeared and all that remained were the first three colors in the spectrum. I didn't want to be there after dark with a stranger, but I knew I couldn't leave him. Something about him made me want to know more, but a part of me said run. I didn't even believe in ghosts, but I loved ghost stories.
The silence between us was becoming loud. The season had pushed the crickets to hibernation so all that was left was the ringing in my ears.
"You know they're not here anymore."
His words stopped my thoughts, and the loud ringing.
"Who's not here?"
"I know you better than you know, Max."
I was afraid of him again. The intrigue was dying.
"I should go."
I turned for my car, which was only a few feet away. Longest few feet of my life.
Paul stood still as I quickly pulled open the door.
"I bet you can't even get that piece of shit over sixty."
His words may have sounded like a simple insult, but they froze me in all my motions. My heart even missed a beat after he said it.
With my keys in hand, I rose out of the car. I couldn't look at him right away. But when I contacted his eyes a world I forgot existed came crashing into my own.
"I remember that."
"I knew you would."
His forwardness no longer scared me. Instantly, everything that scared me about him became inviting.
I kept my eyes on his. "Why do I remember that?"
"Can you imagine dying young?" Paul asked ignoring my question. "Dying younger than what we are now?"
I remembered something else.
"Yes, I can."
"How?"
"I don't know."
I remembered two beautiful girls.
"Francine and Delores."
Paul smiled sadly and looked away.
"Boys do stupid shit to impress their girlfriends."
Paul laughed. "I know."
The feeling throughout my body was of elation, sadness, and of accomplishment.
Paul picked up another stick. "The old newspaper article I found said they were killed instantly. The details were gruesome. They involved decapitation and severe burning. I read somewhere once...sometimes spirits haunt a place because they didn't know what happened, and sometimes they don't even know they're dead."
"I don't believe in ghosts."
"Yes. You do."
I looked away. I could see everything playing out in my head. The car accident, the drag race.
I looked back into his soft eyes. "There was a deer."
"There was."
Another silence. I was alone on this road with Paul, a lone red streak in the western sky was all that was left of the day. My heart beat rapidly, and hard in my chest it felt like enough to kill me. I leaned back against my car and slid until I was sitting on the road. I couldn't look Paul in the eyes, but I couldn't look away either.
He positioned himself in front of me. I wasn't scared.
"How long do you think it took?" Paul asked me.
"How long what took?"
"For them to realize what happened?"
I tried to make up a story directly from my imagination. The idea was taken over as I let the memories come around instead.
"They knew right away. They could hear the screams, the pain. They knew right away."
A tear rolled down my cheek, Paul caught it with his thumb. His touch filtered through my body and I was happy for it.
"You think so?"
"I know so."
"Do you remember?"
"Yes, I do."
Paul trembled as much as I did. "What do you remember?"
"I remember, being lost for a long time."
"Keep going..."
"I remember your comment about my Mustang, and everything after."
Paul looked away. "So do I, but you're missing a major part. I didn't want to admit I was dead."
I nodded with more tears.
"Why didn't you leave me?"
"It was my fault. The deer was in front of my car, not yours. I was the one who swerved. I killed you."
"But I'm alive now?"
I couldn't control my emotions, "but I killed you."
His hands were on my face. His touch was like home.
"You were just a kid, and it wasn't your fault. We did a stupid thing, and now we have a second chance to make it right."
Naturally he moved closer and drew me into a tight hug. When he was close to me, when I was in his warm embrace, a lifetime of feeling empty, a lifetime of incompleteness all went away. I've waited decades to hold the being I loved. As spirits we were never alone, but I never felt his touch.
Our cheeks pressed together, his heart beat as hard as mine. I felt it in his arms, and through my chest.
"I killed you."
"You saved me."
joseph.feliciano.writer@gmail.com