Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan(19)

I just know that I've never seen her before in my life, or in my death. I've been trapped by a stranger, ghost rat in a ghost cage. That makes it all the worse when the last candle is lit and she closes the diner door, finally turning to study me. She runs her eyes over every inch of my body, measuring what she's caught. Finally, horribly, she smiles.

"Hello, Rose," she says.

Shit.

***

I could never have prevented this accident from happening. It was too late before Tommy met me. Maybe it was too late before I got within a hundred miles of this town. I don't know. All I know is that I tried as hard as I could, and that it wasn't enough.

I'm glad I don't need sleep anymore. After this, I'd be awake for a week at least.

The racers came just like Tommy swore they would, rolling over the horizon in their cars that were ten times more expensive and half as alive as Tommy's. Some of them were good men, and some of them were bad men, but they were all of them hard men, because they'd chosen a hard aspect of the highway to receive their worship. A few of them tried to tell Tommy not to race, and those are the ones I'll remember to the Atlantic Highway the next time that I walk her borders. Some just laughed. The boy wanted to put down his pink slip and his pride on a race he couldn't possibly win, well, he'd learn a lesson from the losing. Only there are no more lessons for Tommy on this road, or on any other.

The wheels of his car are still spinning as I run across the blacktop toward him, my breath harsh in my ears, my feet striking hard against the pavement. He's still alive, and so I run to him. Once he dies, slips onto the ghostroads and leaves the daylight forever, the coat he gave me will lose its power to hold me to the laws of the living. That's in the rules. Only live people have substance to share, and you can't steal life from the dead.

The men who raced against Tommy have realized that something is very wrong; that this isn't the sort of accident someone laughs at and walks away from. Their cars have stopped, and the men are getting out, looking back toward where Tommy's car lies shattered on the road. None of them are moving to help him--to help us, since every one of them thinks I'm his townie girlfriend, the one he's doing this stupid, suicidal thing for. They just let me run, my throat raw with screaming, tears running down my cheeks as I reach for another soul I failed to save.

They were going too fast and the road seemed smooth, but there are cracks in the cleanest pavement, slick spots, potholes, rocks. I may never know which one hit the wheels of the car ahead of Tommy, and it doesn't really matter; he spun out, adjusted, caught himself and drove on. In the process, he clipped Tommy, and something about that collision was enough--just enough--to send the smaller, lighter Toyota into a spin it never pulled out of. Tommy's car rolled three times before it stopped, twisted metal and smoking engine, a broken body on the road.

She's already gone when I get there. All that's left is cooling death, and a young man cut almost in half by his own steering column. There's blood everywhere. I don't let that stop me. If there's one thing I've learned since the night I died, it's that blood washes off, but no one--no one--deserves to die alone.

"Tommy? Tommy, can you hear me?" I beat my fists against the glass of the passenger window, trying to catch his attention. I could take off the coat, slide through this door like it was smoke, but then I'd be on the ghostroads again, and I wouldn't be able to hold his hand until the dying finished. He's a fool, yes, and he still deserves to have someone holding his hand while the lights go out. "Tommy!"

Three of the racers come running up, big men, muscling their way past me to wrench the door open. Then they stop, hands dangling uselessly, as they try to figure out what else they can do for him. Maybe someone's called an ambulance, and maybe nobody will; this sort of race is illegal, after all, and they have to be measuring their own lives yet to come against the death of one boy barely out of his teens and too stupid to know when to find another way. They can't take him out of the car, that much is clear; the way it's wrapped around him is like a lover's embrace, and there's no way of breaking it without breaking him even further.

If Tommy can't come to us, I'll go to him. It's the only thing left that I can do. I squeeze my way between the racers (and if any of them notice the sudden give to my flesh, the way I seem to be losing substance by the second, they don't say anything; the ones who'd notice are the ones who know the twilight well enough to know me) and kneel next to the driver's-side door, gravel biting into my knees. My hands are blood even before I realize that his blood is on the seat, and it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, blood can't hurt me.

"Tommy? Tommy, can you hear me?" My fingers almost pass through his cheek the first time I reach out to him. I pull back, concentrate, and try again. This time I can feel my fingers graze his skin, and I don't know if that's because I'm closer to living, or because he's closer to dead. "Come on, Tommy, stay with me. Open your eyes, and stay with me."