understand what must run through his head in moments like this, I can guess that it’s hard.
He leans away from the window, toward me, and we sit shoulder to shoulder. His lips gently brush against my temple as he squeezes my hand back.
“Can you imagine what it must have been like for the couple who died?” Sylvia says. “To have been going to a dance? To have spent all of that day excited, the hours spent picking out the dress? The anticipation of the magic that was going to happen and then the fear they must have felt when they realized they had lost control?”
“Don’t get too serious,” Miguel says. “None of this is real.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say as I watch the side of the road for the girl. “The couple and the accident were real. There’s documentation in the county records about it. Sarah was a real girl and so was her boyfriend. They really did die in a crash on this road. Her family owns the cemetery at the top of the hill. Both she and her boyfriend are buried there.”
A heaviness descends upon the car. Sylvia glancing over at Miguel, him looking back quickly, the exchange saying that this is more than what they signed up for. Their fear, palpable.
“How do we want to play this out?” Miguel’s voice is deeply serious.
“The cemetery is at the top of the hill,” I say. “Park near there and we’ll look around.”
We take a hairpin curve and a large white blob shoots in front of the car. Miguel curses, Sylvia screams and the brakes of the SUV squeal as we whiplash to a stop. A strong arm slips in front of me, keeping me safely against the seat.
“What the hell was that?” Miguel shouts while Sawyers asks, “Is everyone okay?”
No one answers either question as we’re all stunned. Because whatever it was moved quickly, moved stealthily, and as fast as it appeared, it disappeared and no one wants to admit the fantastic obvious—that we just saw a ghost.
SAWYER
“Is everyone okay?” I ask again, as my pulse pounds in my ears.
Veronica’s eyes flash with excitement. “I’m great.”
Because she believes she saw a ghost. I don’t have to ask to know she’s now on level-ten-ghost-hunter mode. My friends, on the other hand, are shaken. “Sylvia, Miguel, are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” Sylvia says as she rubs her hands up and down her goose-fleshed arms.
“Yeah,” Miguel answers then mashes his lips together. He edges forward in his seat to look beyond the hood of his car and then toward the thick forest. “You saw that, right? I’m not losing my mind? There was something in the road.”
“I saw it,” Veronica says.
“Me, too,” Sylvia adds.
“It was probably a deer.” I lean my arms forward on the front-row seats and point at the road ahead. “We’ve all seen them before. The cemetery’s right up there. Park off to the side and we’ll get out and look around.”
“All famous words at the beginning of a slasher film,” Sylvia mutters.
Miguel parks off to the side, and Veronica’s out of the car in a shot, digital recorder in hand. Miguel and Sylvia, however, turn to look at me.
“Are we going to die here, vato?” Miguel asks. He’s kidding, and he’s not.
Veronica’s already across the street, in the cemetery, and I’ve already lost her in the darkness. Veronica has one mode—headfirst. While I typically respect that, I only love that quality when I can follow. “Stay in the car if you want.”
“And have Veronica tell the teacher that she did all the work?” Sylvia says. “No way.”
“Veronica’s not that way.” But it doesn’t matter what I say as Sylvia’s already out of the car. Miguel follows. I grab the camera and soon the three of us are knee-deep in high grass in a creepy-ass, dew-ridden cemetery at midnight with Sylvia skintight next to me. Sometimes, I question my life choices.
“Sawyer,” V calls. “Over here.”
I trudge forward through the wet grass and it doesn’t take long for my Nikes to become soaked. Veronica shines the flashlight of her cell down onto a broken gravestone. “This is Sarah’s stone.”
Beside me, Sylvia shivers. “What happened to it?”
“I read on blog posts that someone vandalized it,” Miguel says, and we all turn to stare at him. “Don’t look so surprised. I want an A as much as the rest of you.”
Without being asked, I call out into the night. “Sarah, Sarah’s boyfriend, whoever else is here, we’re not here to hurt you.