Sparrow Hill Road 2010 By Seanan(48)
If any of the neighbors had chosen that moment to look out the window, they would have seen a small, pale-haired figure dressed in green silk go stalking across the yard to the car parked beside the curb. They might have said "There goes that Marshall girl," might even have commented on what a strange thing that was to wear on an evening drive. But no one saw her go. No one said a word.
Rose Marshall shoved the key into the ignition, turned it, and was gone.
***
I pause for a moment, struggling to find the words that come next; struggling to find the next breath. I don't have to breathe, not really, but here and now and wearing the coat that Emma gave me when the cheerleaders arrived--wouldn't do to have them realize they could see right through me when the lightning flashed--it helps me think. I don't want to tell the parts that come next. I don't want to remember them. I want to lie, say things worked out, say that somehow, this was never a ghost story at all.
I take that next breath, sigh, and say, "The fastest way to Gary's house was by way of a winding one-lane road that ran the length of the closest thing in town to a mountain. They called it Sparrow Hill Road..."
***
Rose slowed as she took the turn-off onto Sparrow Hill Road, a sudden chill making the skin on her arms lump up into hard knots of gooseflesh. Something was wrong. Something was very wrong. Every instinct she had was telling her to turn around, to take the long way, or to just go home; this wasn't worth it.
Rose Marshall was nothing if not stubborn. Tightening her hands on the wheel, she hit the gas, and drove forward into the shadows lurking underneath the trees that covered the hill. It only took a few moments for the light to disappear completely.
No one in Buckley ever saw Rose alive again.
***
Sparrow Hill Road was about three miles long, from end to end, following a winding route around the outside of the hill it was named for. Rose had traveled almost a mile and a half when headlights flashed on behind her, sudden and almost blinding as they reflected off her rear-view mirror. "Ah!" she exclaimed, throwing up an arm to block the glare. "Jerk." She adjusted the mirror, but it didn't help; it was almost like the car behind her was aiming to kill her night vision.
Rose muttered something unladylike under her breath and sped up a bit. She'd been driving Sparrow Hill Road since long before she was legally allowed behind the wheel of a car. If she had to drive it halfway-blind, then so be it. It wasn't like she had another choice. The road was too narrow where they were, and she couldn't turn around, or pull off to the side.
Another half-mile slunk by, sliding away into the night. The headlights faded from her rear-view, and Rose dropped her hand from her eyes, putting it back on the wheel. She had time, barely, to grip before the car that had been driving behind her lunged forward and slammed into her rear bumper.
The impact was hard and unexpected, throwing Rose forward against the wheel. She cried out, more in surprise than pain, and was in the process of straightening when the car was hit again, harder this time, knocking her almost onto the dash.
"What are you trying to do, kill me?" she shouted, even though she knew full-well there was no way the other driver could hear her. Then she paled. There were always stories, urban legends, about girls foolish enough to drive alone on spooky deserted roads in the middle of nowhere...
Rose slammed her foot down on the gas hard enough to break the heel off her shoe, sending Morty's car leaping forward at a speed it hadn't seen since it was new. "Come on, come on, please," she whispered, shifting as she urged the car to go even faster, to break whatever mechanical laws were holding it back. Just a little further. If she could make it just a little further, she could get back onto the surface streets, and then--
She didn't dare slow for the curve in the road. She twisted the wheel sharply left, trying to swing the car around. She would have made it--her reflexes were good, as the reflexes of the young and afraid so very often are--if not for the car that slammed into her own just as she began her turn, sending her, and her brother's car, plummeting down into the darkness on the side of Sparrow Hill Road.
There was time to scream. There was time to think Oh God, oh God, I'm going to die, this is it, I'm going to die, oh, God...
And then there was nothing.
***
Silence reigns in the Last Dance Diner. Silence, and the sound of the rain. The cheerleaders stare at me in open-mouthed silence, waiting for the story to continue. I take a breath.
"If Rose was awake when her car hit the ground, that night granted her a single mercy; she didn't remember it when she came to. The woods were silent all around her..."
***
Rose opened her eyes on darkness.
She was sprawled next to the road at the base of Sparrow Hill, her head pillowed on a clump of fallen leaves. She pushed herself slowly up, eyes wide as she stared at the woods in disbelief. She'd been falling; she remembered that. "There was an accident..." she whispered. "The car..."