Published by Undead Literature
Copyright © 2014 Mark Tompkins
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any semblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Contact email:
[email protected] Edited by Josh “Shotgun” Parsons
This story is dedicated to my wife, ELana; it would not exist without her.
The Wraith
Jenna, Wendy and Trish sing aloud to the song on the radio. “Whoooaaah, living on a prayer. Take my hand and we’ll make it I swear, Whoooaaah, living on a prayer!” Wendy reaches over and turns the volume down. “Pull this car over, I gotta pee, now.”
“Where? That abandoned gas station?” Jenna jokes, pointing at the jutting remains beyond the window.
Wendy nods her head. “Yeah, that’ll work, just as long as nobody’s around. All I need is two minutes.”
Jenna pulls into the gas station and gravel crunches loudly under the tires. The headlights flash in the store’s broken windows like lightning in a kaleidoscope. She stops the car and they peer out the windshield, studying their surroundings. The buildings, shadowy skeletons against the moonlight sky, are old and shedding their outer layers. The desolate station has a small house attached to one side of it and their headlights shine on its old screen door. The screen is missing from the top and an unbroken glass pane in the bottom brightly reflects their lights back at them.
Wendy rolls down the window and looks across the stained cement pad. Grass grows a foot high in the cracks in the old sidewalk and the rusty, sentient gas pumps with their fingers in their ears, guard the complex. Dust saunters by, covering the car like an inverse shadow, and a loose chain link fence rattles faintly somewhere in the inky blackness. An acrid, sulfurous smell creeps inside the car, molesting them and tainting their taste buds. Jenna rolls the window up, shutting out the aroma.
“Are you sure you want to get out here and pee?” Jenna asks.
“Nope,” Wendy says. “But I have to pee so bad I can taste it.”
“Nice,” said Trish, rolling her eyes in mock disgust.
“Damn, it is pretty spooky out there, huh,” Wendy states.
“Yeah, there must be a better place down the road,” Jenna says, pulling the gear selector into reverse.
“Don’t you go anywhere, I can’t make it any further down the road. Here is where I’ll piss, scary house or not,” Wendy says, reaching over and putting the car back into park.
“Okay, it’s your death.” Jenna says.
Wendy smirks, “We all have to go sometime. And don’t even think about turning off the lights to scare me. I will kick your ass when I get back if you do.”
Jenna looks outside. “Don’t worry, I don’t want to be in the dark at all here, even inside the car. This place creeps me right the hell out.”
“Yeah, me too,” Trish agrees from the back seat.
Wendy opens the door and steps out into the night, her need to urinate trumping her unfounded fears. She closes the door softly, as if trying to keep from waking something horrible in the darkness. Crickets saw their songs and frogs belch their greetings into the night as she unsnaps her pants and pulls them down to her ankles.
The door locks clunk behind her and she turns her head sharply, looking at Jenna through the glass. She jabs her thumb repeatedly in an upward motion, signaling for Jenna to unlock the door. The locks clunk back into the up position and Jenna smiles broadly. Wendy points at her and squints her eyes in warning. She bends her knees, bracing her back against the car door, and sighs in relief as the warm stream of urine flows onto the gravel.
The door of the abandoned house slowly creaks open and a man glides out, stopping just outside the door, and holds it open with his bulk. Dressed in typical old west garb, he wears a worn leather overcoat, and a plateau-beaded cowboy hat covers his indistinguishable features. No feet protrude from the bottom of his overcoat, yet he is upright, unmoving, the slight breeze fussing the hair below the hat.
The three women stare back, mesmerized by the appearance of this dark specter. A whistling melody Jenna and Trish can’t hear because of the windows, floats onto the air. But Wendy hears it load and clear, and her demeanor changes. He turns to the side, raises his arm, and slowly beckons her to come in. She stares at him like a long lost friend and smiles faintly, unafraid, the relieved gaze of the prodigal daughter’s acceptant return. Inside the car, Jenna is afraid. A shiver escapes from its shackles and dances up her spine. She doesn’t hear the tune and wonders why her friend is acting so strange.
The man beckons to Wendy again, the movement dramatic and mechanical, like audio-animatronic figures at an amusement park. Wendy stands erect and pulls up her jeans, urine staining them dark blue. Not bothering to zip or snap them, she moves towards the man as if in a trance, her eyes glassy. He simply holds the door, nothing more, and she goes to him willingly. The darkness under the brim of his hat changes slightly, nothing explainable. Did he smile? Did he say something? Does he even have a face? His coat moves unnaturally, as if something writhes beneath it. Wendy walks past the man and into the house without turning her head to look at him. Jenna and Trish scream at Wendy to come back, cursing and crying, but Wendy is gone. The man stares at them a moment longer, then disappears into the dark and closes the door.
Jenna locks the car doors and Trish climbs from the backseat into the passenger seat, still warm from Wendy’s recent occupation.
“Where the hell did she go?” Trish asks, staring at the door.
“I…I don’t know,” Jenna answers. “Why would she just go with him? It doesn’t make any sense.” It makes absolutely no sense and she can’t figure out why Wendy would just go off with that creepy man and leave them. She could be getting murdered inside that little house right now and they wouldn’t know it.
“Trish,” Jenna says, not eliciting a response. “Trish,” she says, a little louder this time. “Trish,” she says a final time, reaching over and turning Trish’s chin towards her.
“What?” Trish says, her gaze looking through Jenna instead of at her.
“Should we go after her?” Jenna asks, recognizing the signs of disassociation in her friend and already knowing the answer she would get.
Trish’s eyes clear as she processes the meaning of the question. “Wha…” she begins, “go after her. No, are you crazy. Are you freakin’ crazy? You want us to go barreling into that house and get killed too? No, we should not go after her! Definitely not!”
“But what if she’s hurt and we can save her?” Jenna asks. “There are three of us, maybe we can overpower him if we work together, he didn’t look that big.”
“No, he didn’t look that big,” Trish responds, “But in case you didn’t notice, he didn’t have any feet. He was floating, Jenna, he was floating off the ground. People don’t float. Ghosts and scary shit that wants to kill you float. Not lost cowboys, or even killers. They don’t float. Now call the fucking police!”
Lost in the moment, Jenna has forgotten about her cell phone resting in the console and picks it up. She tries to dial, but her shaking hands keep her hitting the wrong keys.
Trish snatches it away. “It’s pretty sad when you mess up 9-1-1,” she says, glaring at Jenna. “Now pull yourself together.” She taps the superimposed buttons on the flat screen and successfully dials 9-1-1. Her gaze shifts between the door of the house and the old gas station as she describes the situation to the operator, who tells her someone is on their way and should be there shortly.
Jenna puts the car in reverse, ready to take off at the first sign of movement from the old house.
; “Relax, the police are on their way. Besides, you can’t just drive off and leave Wendy here, it isn’t right and I know she wouldn’t do that to you.”
“I know,” Jenna says. “I’m just freaked out. If that creepy bastard shows himself, I’m taking off and not coming back until I see flashing police lights in the parking lot. Now, I know she would do that, it’s only smart.”
The police arrive and search the run down house, finding no trace of the dark man or Wendy. The buildings are completely devoid of life save for a few rats and evidence of a raccoon lair. One set of footprints leads to the front door and stops, and there are none in the thick layer of dust on the wooden plank floor inside the house. It’s as if Wendy was alone and disappeared as soon as she went in.
Jenna and Trish stand outside the car smoking, their courage bolstered by the presence of the police. A large lawman approaches them with a strange device in his hand. Their story is so outlandish, the law seems to think they may be under the influence of drink or drug and have imagined the entire thing, even though they can’t explain the disappearance of their friend. Obviously, someone went to the door of the house, but they can’t figure out what happened after that. He asks them if they agree to take a breathalyzer test, and they do. They have nothing to hide, they’ve not even made it to the concert yet to procure the tequila and pot they were after. They are stone sober and all thoughts of partying are now far from their mind. Both girls pass the test and the big policeman finishes documenting their story, asking them the same questions time and time again. Even in this situation, Jenna can’t help but notice the young cop’s muscles and rugged good looks and wonders what he is like in bed. She feels guilty those thoughts are cropping up now, in the middle of this crisis, and she tries to dispel them by focusing on Wendy. Where did Wendy go and what would they tell Wendy’s mother?
Wendy is listed as a missing person and is never found.
*
Twenty years later, Jenna is writing a short story about that long ago incident, planning to enter it into a horror contest. She’s decided it’s the best way to exorcise the memory and maybe find some peace in its passing. She’s telling about the wraith and how she felt upon seeing it, when her cell phone rings. It blasts out a song about being sexy and knowing it, shattering her concentration and chasing away her artistic muse. It’s an old friend whose not calling to catch up on lost times. Trish is dead, her legs amputated in a horrible accident involving a train. Suddenly, Jenna doesn’t know if she wants to finish the story. Its creation seems to have been the catalyst for her friend’s demise and she thinks back to the wraith. He had no feet. Were they omens? Was that dark man trying to tell her something, or was the accident a result of not responding to his summons? Was it related at all? She breaks, needing to grieve and purge her soul. During the process, she decides to finish the story and submit it in Trish’s name to honor her, it seems like the right thing to do. She finishes “The Wraith” and hits the send button. It disappears from her outbox and flies off towards its final destination. She doesn’t know if it will win, or even be good enough to garner anyone’s attention, but it’s out of her head and that’s what really matters.
Her phone rings again and she answers it. An eerie whistling melody flows into her ear and she gets up. She has lost control of her limbs, walking on autopilot, but she doesn’t care. All that matters is finding the source of the song. She steps outside and looks across the street; the wraith waits for her. Backlit by a streetlamp, light shines under his coat where his feet should be. The haunting melody emanates from somewhere in the nothingness of his face and he raises is arm, beckoning to her, and she walks to him, unafraid. His coat bulges and writhes and a scaly tail slides out, its bulk pulling the button from the fabric, but she doesn’t notice…the music has her…it is so beautiful…life is beautiful. Together they turn and walk into the woods, witnessed only by the legion of spirits too afraid to approach the whistling wraith.
What Grabs You
What Grabs You Too
Arrhythmia
Pieces
Purge
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Mark Tompkins Official Author Webpage
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Mark Tompkins has been a classical pianist, a bartender, and spent 23 years in the United States Air Force working with the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) system. His works include Road Rage, The Fresinnius Chronicles, Pieces, What Grabs You, What Grabs You Too, Arrhythmia and many others.