Estimated reading time — 24 minutes

I like to drive past spooky places.
You can find them anywhere, if you know what to look for. An abandoned building, a mist covered field, a quickly darkening forest at sunset. It was one of my favorite pastimes as a teenager. The town I grew up in was a short distance from a huge number of haunted locales and eerie areas, nestled in the part of the Appalachian Mountains that runs through New Jersey. I found it thrilling, the ability to hop in a friend’s car and quickly be at a creepy, otherworldly place in a few short minutes. That’s one of the perks, and risks, of growing up in a small town in the mountains. Those abandoned buildings we explored held many dangers, both in the physical threat of their crumbling walls and in the consequential threat of triggering a silent alarm. And that’s without considering the danger posed by the very people you explored with, who may or may not be concerned with your well-being. But when you’re a teenager, you don’t mind those lingering threats. The world is wide and you want to explore it.

When I turned 18, and finally gained access to my first car, it opened the doors to a whole new level of freedom.

Whatever time that wasn’t gobbled up by my schoolwork, part time job, or extracurricular activities, was spent loading my friends into my 2005 Pontiac Vibe and taking off for the closest, most mysterious abandoned building we could find. I spent a lot of time out of the house, during a somewhat difficult time following my parents’ divorce. Navigating the quagmire of sisterly obligations and financial stresses that defined that part of my life was incredibly tricky, and seemed to yield disappointing results no matter what I did. Navigating a crumbling church was much easier, and way more satisfying. So, when given the choice, I picked the church. Or the hospital. Or boarding house, or monastery, or unidentified building on the side of a quiet country road. I spent a lot of my teenage years feeling like I was jumping between two worlds. There was the world where I did “family stuff” at home, and the one where I escaped to the woods to do “something spooky”.

Except for one night. The first time that my two worlds collided.

It was mid-February the year that I was 18 when I took this fateful drive. My family was out of the house, leaving me home alone. They had been in Hershey, PA at an annual synchronized ice skating competition that I, too, had participated in until that year. A youthful desire to reinvent myself and a quiet, nagging guilt about the cost of the sport had driven me away from the ice and out of the sport entirely. So for the first time ever, I didn’t join them on their trip west. I felt mature, both because I was in charge of the house, and because I had shooed my mom away when she offered to put me up in an adjacent hotel room. However, the limitless freedom of being left home alone had been quickly stymied when Mom called me just one short day into their trip.

She said that it felt wrong not to have all of us out in Hershey together, and suggested I drive out for the last day of the competition, so that I could join them without worrying about the cost of a hotel room.

I know that I could have dug my heels in, and insisted on the importance of my newfound independence. But as I sat there in the cold gray February light, my resolve crumbled. The allure of chocolate and familiar spectacle was too enticing to ignore. Besides, no one else had been willing to venture out into the dark with me that weekend, or even to visit me at home. Too cold, I guessed.

A short two and a half hours later, I was sitting in Giant Ice Arena watching my middle sister, Alice, skate with her team. Although my mom and our youngest sister Kimmy kept me company, I still felt a haze of loneliness surrounding me. Droves of competitors flooded the stands after they finished their skate, celebrating with their teams after a stellar performance. It was bittersweet to watch, knowing I had given up my chance to do the same, and the day crept on slowly as I sat with my thoughts.

Eventually, the competition wound to a close. Teams stood grinning with their medals next to the Hershey bar mascot as doting parents took their pictures, and milled about the lobby in a thick, hairspray scented crowd. They stood with their garment bags and skating bags and makeup bags, decorated in matching emblems, waiting impatiently for their team busses and minivans to brave the unrelenting winds outside.

I stood among them, trying to ignore the way I stood out, devoid of a team uniform and matching slick bun. I was grateful to my sister and our lifelong friend Mandy for shielding me a bit from the confused looks around me.

“…I had no clue she even fell until I tripped over her.” Alice continued, detailing the on-ice crash with nonchalance. I’d crashed into her before as well, when we were on the same team, and remembered how scary it had been to tumble head-over-blade with my sister.

“It’s a miracle that neither of you got hurt.” Mandy pointed out. “Can you imagine if one of you got cut during official practice?”

“Oh, Coach would have murdered me.” Alice nodded with grim certainty, and they both laughed at the thought, full of implications and dark humor that only the other skaters on their team could fully understand.

I began to think longingly about my impending return to solitude, away from the bittersweet memories of being in on such a joke. Gazing forlornly over the crowd, I didn’t notice Mom weaving frantically between the skaters. At least, not until she came sprinting towards me.

“We’re staying another night.” She announced breathlessly to the three of us, waving her phone at me.

Alice and Mandy dove for their respective phones as I read the message on my Mom’s cracked screen;

“Hi everyone! Great skate today! We have an issue with one of the busses, and unfortunately we won’t be able to get a replacement until early tomorrow morning. We’re working now with the hotel to arrange rooms for everyone for the night.”

The curt, plan-destroying nature of the message sent the entire team (and their respective chaperones) into a panic. The added expense of a night in a hotel, on top of the fees associated with the competition, was enough to rattle the entire line. They swarmed our little clump, shouting frantic questions to the assembled body of skaters.

“Are there seriously no more busses?”

“Where the hell are they going to get all of us booked?”

“I don’t have enough clean clothes for an overnight.”

“I have a lesson tomorrow!”

“This is why they shouldn’t make us take a team bus!”

Mandy, always level headed and calm in the face of disaster, posed the most helpful question of all. “Do we have to stay, or can we just find our own way home?”

Mom and Alice fell quiet with the rest of the team, considering. One of the skaters relayed Mandy’s question to their group message, and it wasn’t long before a reply pinged in on their phones;

“After some discussion, we have decided that leaving the competition won’t count against your skaters as an absence, in light of the circumstances. If you can arrange transportation home, feel free to do so. Just make sure you confirm your ride with our team moms and coaches, for safety purposes.”

The chatter died down for a moment as a strained sort of relief fell on the crowd. This new policy was more lenient, but still no transportation had been suggested yet.
Mom sighed. “I did bring the van.” she admitted to the nearby teammates. A wave of skaters pushed me out of the way as ten girls immediately fell on her, begging for a ride home.

By the time that the team had a plan figured out, the arena was closing up for the night. The competition was long over, and only our group remained. I’d long since abandoned the pretense of lingering near the team as they discussed, electing instead to sit against a wall and read. As the fluorescent lights began to shut off, Mom finally left the clump of skaters to approach me.

“Okay,” she huffed, checking her phone once more, “it looks like almost everyone is accounted for. The thing is, Evie is having trouble getting a hold of her mom, and the hotels are all almost full. She’ll have to either sleep in a bathtub or pay out-the-ass for the Hotel Hershey if I can’t fit her in my car.”

“Okay,” I said, nonplussed. “Do you need me to give her a ride?” The idea of driving over a hundred miles with someone I didn’t know that well made me squirm, but I didn’t want to condemn her to a night in a bathtub.

“Oh, no Honey! That’s not what I was going to ask.” Mom patted my arm gently. “All I need you to do is take your sister.”

Kimberly, our youngest sister, looked up from her spot on the ground, where she had been making her beloved stuffed cat crawl along the rubbery floor.

“I can’t fit her car seat and all the girls in my car, not with their skates and other bags.” Mom stroked Kimmy’s hair, a pained look on her face. “I don’t want to dump this on you, and I don’t want to leave Evie here-“

“It’s fine, Mom.” I assured her, silently grateful for this forced reprieve from solitude, “It’ll be good to have company on the way back.”

___________

A short time later, I had both Kimmy and her car seat strapped into the back seat of my beat up little car. It rattled loudly, the engine quickly heating up as I stood in the parking lot. Mom eyed the Pontiac suspiciously as her van growled quietly next to us. She tried to ignore its chatter as she continued her lecture.

“Keep your eye on the traffic once you get to the Pennsylvania/New Jersey line, there was some miserable road work going on that you might want to wiggle around.”

“Okay.” I shoved my hands deeper in my pockets, shuffling in place as I tried to shake off the frigid wind blowing through me. “I’m probably gonna end up taking the back roads anyways.”

“What?” Mom’s voice suddenly filled with panic. “You really shouldn’t Lil, the main roads are barely safe enough to drive on. What happens if you break down? Or hit black ice?”

“It hasn’t snowed in days, Mom.” I groaned.

“Exactly,” she insisted, “So all the salt will have dissolved and washed off the road.” She stared pointedly at me. “You have to take that kind of thing seriously, hon. You’re a new driver. Do you know how many new drivers I’ve had to pull from car wrecks after they underestimate how dangerous the road is in the winter?”

“Okay, okay.” I put my hands up in submission, immediately regretting it as the icy wind bit into my exposed fingers. “I’ll stick to the highway.”

“Alright.” Mom relented, relaxing a bit. “Just be careful, you have two-thirds of my heart in that car.”

“I know, Mom.” I gave her a quick hug. “I’ll see you at home.”

I crawled into the driver’s seat, shutting the door firmly against the cold. A wave of hot air washed over me, and I pressed my hands gratefully against the heating vents on either side of the steering wheel. Glancing at Kimmy in my rear view window, I felt the weight of responsibility settle over me. I’d babysat her many times before, but driving her all the way home from Pennsylvania felt like a more daunting task.

She looked up from her toy as Mom’s minivan pulled away. A flicker of uncertainty seemed to cross her round little face, as if she could feel the anxiety that infected my stomach. Seeing her so unsettled instantly hardened my resolve. I was not some dumb kid who couldn’t handle a simple drive home. I had to get a grip, considering how much Kimmy relying on me.

“Hey Kim,” I caught her eye in the mirror. “Wanna go get Wendy’s?”
__________

Forty-five minutes later, Kimmy and I were cruising along the highway. My beloved car chugged along, blasting hot air into our toasty cabin as we munched on chicken nuggets and French fries, listening to the only Disney mix CD I had on an endless loop. The GPS painted our route out before us, a straight shot down a nearly deserted highway.

‘See Mom?’ I thought proudly, full of blind confidence. ‘There’s nothing to worry about.’

But soon enough, the wind changed on us. We caught up to some other cars, surprised to have company on an otherwise empty road. The GPS route turned yellow as we all began to slow down. It wasn’t long until we were trapped in a miserable, standstill traffic jam, stretching as far as the eye could see.

My mood soured a bit as our arrival time began to creep further and further away. I did my best to amuse my sister as I grumbled to myself about the situation at hand. What should have been a two and a half hour drive became, according to the GPS, a three hour drive. Then four. Then five. It quickly got to the point where we wouldn’t be arriving home until well after midnight, going on 2 AM.

I was about to give up entirely and go looking for a hotel (although the thought of paying for one twisted my gut) when the GPS offered a brilliant alternative: hop off the highway and follow the back roads home. It would shave over an hour and a half off of our drive, delivering us safely home much faster than the accursed highway would.

Mom’s voice poked at the back of my mind: ‘Stick to the highway’. Surely, she hadn’t realized just how bad the traffic would be, otherwise she would have suggested the back roads too! And I was a very careful driver, especially with my sister in the car.

“Kimmy-Bear,” I asked cloyingly, turning around in my seat, “do you want to get doughnuts?”

She blinked at me. “Doughnuts?”

“Or ice cream, or whatever. Any sweet treat you want! Within reason.”

Familial distrust crept onto her face, furrowing her brow. “Why?” She asked, cautious.

“Well, we’ve been stuck on the road for a while, so I think we should get a treat.”

Kimmy considered this. “I want a treat.” She agreed, tentatively.

“Okay!” I turned back around to face the road as we crept forward a few more inches. “The only thing is, we have to get off the highway to do it.”

“Mom said not to!” Kimmy replied, a sing-song reminder of our mother’s warning.

“I know what she said!” I sang back, “But I don’t think she realized how bad the roads were. If we get off the highway, we can get doughnuts, and get home much faster. It’s a win-win.”

She fell silent, considering the options before us. After staring at the brake lights through our windshield for a few more minutes, she spoke again. “I want a chocolate doughnut with sprinkles.” She declared, nodding with a stern resolve.

I instantly flicked on my turn signal, heading for the next exit. “I’m getting a brownie batter doughnut.” I said as I steered us away from the bright lights of the stopped highway and into the darkness.

______________

There were scant few streetlights as we passed through the small towns of Pennsylvania. Only the faint headlights of my car broke through the black night, giving our trip an isolated, eerie feeling. We didn’t care, chewing on our doughnuts as we rumbled towards the state boarder. A brief dip back onto the highway to pay the toll only fed my belief that avoiding it was the best decision I could have made.

Colonial style houses all done up in snow and ice passed slowly by our windows. Long abandoned schoolhouses, or perhaps orphanages, watched on as we drove past their decaying silhouettes. I marveled at each creepy sight as Kimmy asked about them.

“What’s that?” She pointed at a large, square building looming on a hilltop to our right.

“Looks like a hospital.” I spotted the sign above the entrance. “Yup, it’s an old hospital.”

“Is it haunted?” Kimmy asked.

“Oh, definitely.” I grinned, imagining my friends and I sneaking through rooms filled with old cots and bloody sheets.

Kimmy swung her feet as she stared at the building. By that point in our drive, I’d already claimed that several old structures were haunted, so she was fairly unconcerned with another one.

“What’s makes it haunted?”

“Well, I don’t really know.” I admitted as we drove away. “I do know a lot about haunted places though. But… I don’t know any stories about the buildings we’ve passed.”

“What haunted places do you even know about then?” She challenged, little voice dripping with haughty doubt in my paranormal knowledge.

“I know a lot!” I huffed. “I just…” I thought about my precious time away from home, hours spent with my friends where I wasn’t a big sister or a mini-Mom. “I just don’t tell you because it would scare you.”

“Nuh-uh!” She insisted. “You can’t scare me!”

“Oh yeah?” I glanced at her stubborn face in the rear view mirror. “Have you ever heard about Shades of Death road?”

Kimmy thought for a second. “No.” she grunted.

“Well, you should know about it.” I wove the car through a narrow country road, following the GPS’s prompting. “It’s one of the most haunted places in New Jersey.”

“How haunted?” She asked tentatively.

“Super haunted.” I could hear the interest in her voice. “It literally passes right by a place called Ghost Lake, and through a park named after a girl who died.” I insisted.

“Wow.” She sounded impressed, a detail I noted with pride. “What happened?”

A grin spread across my face. I didn’t want to scare her too much, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to tell such a good story.

“A long time ago, when New Jersey was still being settled, there was a little town that sprang up in what is now a state park. In this town, there lived a girl named Jenny. She and her family spent many years building up the area, working with the local Native American tribe to establish a good settlement. But the land was riddled with problems. Sinkholes made people disappear in the woods. Mosquitoes carried diseases that made the settlers sick. Unstable rock formations let hunters fall to their deaths. And to top it all off, a hostile tribe was trying to take the land the settlers lived on.”

The road curved around a little pond, coated in a thick layer of ice. I glanced appreciatively at its misty surface as I continued the story.

“One day, Jenny went off on her own to pick berries near the town, when members of the hostile tribe found her. They chased her through the woods and up the hill, cornering her at the top of a cliff overlooking a lake.”

“Jenny’s dad realized she was missing, and found her just as she was being cornered. But he was way down on the banks of the lake, much too far away to help. With no way for Jenny to fight her way through the attackers, and no way for him to get up to the top of the cliff in time to save her, Jenny’s dad called for her to jump into the lake.” We passed by a rocky hill, and I pointed at it for dramatic effect. “He thought that the water might break her fall, or at least keep her from being kidnapped.”

“Jenny did just as she was told. But the lake was too shallow, and jagged rocks hid just below the surface of the dark water. Jenny may have escaped the tribe, but she didn’t escape her death, and she drowned in that lake. People say that her ghost still haunts the park, warning hikers away from the edge of the cliff where she died, or rising from the lake to shoo away potential swimmers.”

Kimmy was quiet for a moment. Then, she huffed.
“That’s not real.” She declared, crossing her arms and sinking lower in her car seat.

Irritation shot through my mind like a jolt of electricity. That was my favorite ghost story!

“Yeah, it is.” I replied, firm.
“No it’s not!” She yelled.
“Whatever,” I drawled, “You’re just too little to get it.”

The car rolled on in silence, heavy with the stubborn energy of two sisters who refused to give up the fight. Outside, the deep, dark winter night framed the landscape beautifully as we drove past sleepy farmhouses and barren fields, which melted quickly into a cobblestone studded town. The road beneath our wheels turned rough, the brick laid path putting our long-suffering suspension to the test. It made me a bit uneasy. I wanted to go off the beaten path, but I didn’t want to destroy my car, or get us stranded in the middle of nowhere. Streetlights completely disappeared from the road before us, and every window of every building we passed was completely dark. The only light cutting through the night was our headlights, which seemed all too dim in the face of the pitch black night.

‘Alright’, I thought, the thrill of exploration vanishing. ‘I’ve probably given the highway enough time to calm down. It’s time to get back on the main road.’

I rolled the car to a stop at an intersection, stunned by the pristine, historical-looking buildings around us. I would have thought we had driven back in time, looking at the town before me.

I squinted at the street corner, looking for a sign that would lead us to the highway.
“I can’t even tell what street we’re on.” I grumbled to myself.
I thought I was too quiet for Kimmy to pick up on, but unfortunately her hearing was impeccable. “Did you get us lost?” She accused, panic creeping into her voice.
“No!” I insisted, guilt already wrapping around my stomach. “We can’t get lost, we have the GPS.”
I pulled my phone out of its stand and started to fiddle with it, ready to abandon our little adventure.
But the screen was frozen.
I navigated back to the phone’s Home Screen, hoping that would fix the issue.
No luck. I tried closing and reopening the app, but it wouldn’t even load the image of the map.
I was about to repeat the entire process when a flashing word caught my eye.
‘No Service’ read the message at the top of my screen.
Fear started to cloud my mind. “It’s fine.” I reassured Kimmy, who remained uneasy. “All we have to do is figure out where we are. We weren’t that far away from the highway in the first place, so we can’t be that far away now.”
I pulled my phone out of its case and swiped the flashlight on. Sticking my arm out the window, I aimed it at the closest road marker.
‘Historic Downtown Marble Hill’ it read in white print against a chocolate brown background.
“Okay!” I declared, triumphant. “I think I know where we are. Route 80 isn’t too far away.”
We would be back on track soon enough. Still, an uncomfortable feeling settled in my gut. I knew that I’d been in the area recently, but I couldn’t remember why.
I pointed the flashlight’s glow at another sign higher up on the post.
‘Route 80’ it read, with an arrow pointing to the right. ‘Oh, thank God.’ I thought, relief washing over me.
I let my flashlight travel up higher, illuminating the road name.

‘Shades of Death Road’

“Shit!” I hissed.
“You said a bad word.” Kimmy chirped, smug.
Images of riding along the wooded road on a weekend day in my friend’s beat up old sedan flashed before my eyes, taunting me with my own bravado.
“What is it?” Kimmy asked as I reeled. I could practically hear my mom’s voice saying “I told you so” as I realized what we had to do.
“Nothing. I dropped something.” I flicked on my right turn signal.
“Can I reach it?” My sister leaned forward against her seat belt, her car seat creaking in response.
Her eyes landed on the street sign as we passed it.
“Sh-a-d-es.” she sounded out. “Is that the scary road? With the ghosts?” Her voice was panicked.
‘Great job, me’ I thought bitterly as we started down the road.
“Don’t freak out.” I commanded, like that would help. “But yes, it is.”
She ignored my instructions, and immediately started to whine. “I don’t want to see a ghost.”
“Look, don’t be a jerk about it, but ghosts aren’t really real.” I explained. “They’re just a fun way for teenagers to scare each other.”
“You’re a teenager.” She glared at me in the rear view mirror, and it would have been funny if it weren’t for the eerie atmosphere that had emerged.
“Yes, which is why I know those stories.”
“So you can scare other people.”
“Yes. And so they can scare me.”
Kimmy was quiet for a moment as we reached the outskirts of the town. “You promise that ghosts aren’t real?”
“I promise.” I soothed. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep?” I pulled out a CD that our parents played on road trips, full of slow, calm songs from the 80’s, and slid it into the Vibe’s CD slot.

The car fell quiet as we drove along. The last few houses melted away as we passed through the little town. Soon, the forest yawned before us, nothing but the dim glow of our headlights and the faint yellow line on the road to guide us into Jenny Jump National Park.
A thick fog rolled in, creeping across the road. I glanced into the rear view, uneasy as the night seemed to close in around us. The town was already out of sight, completely hidden by the fog. It made it feel like there was no way to turn back once we’d started down the road. I tried to shake away the thought, finding myself irritated at my own superstitious nature for the first time.
The road twisted and turned beneath our wheels, swinging around blind curves and dipping across narrow bridges. It was like the road was trying to buck us off. Still, I took each turn at a solid clip, leaning on the practice I’d had on the mountain roads of my own town to get us out of the park as quickly as we could.
We approached a parking lot, an access point for hikers to enter the forest. Ghost Lake itself glinted in my headlights, just barely visible through the fog rolling off of it. My eyes darted across it, as my mind wandered towards Jenny and her untimely end. I wondered if she liked exploring these woods, too. I wondered if she would have liked the fog, or if it would have scared her. I wonder if she felt alone when she died.
We passed the empty parking lot, and the fog started to thin out. I figured that we must have been driving upwind of the lake, and was grateful for the improved visibility.
“Look.” Kimmy spoke, startling me. “Someone’s behind us.”
I glanced into the rear view mirror, and at first saw nothing. But then, as we reached a straightaway, the glow of two yellow headlights came into view.
“Huh.” I said, confused. We’d been alone on the road the entire time, which I’d been acutely aware of as we passed through the dark forest. It was nice to realize that there was someone else there with us. I threw a look over my shoulder at the headlights, relieved by their presence even as an uneasy feeling picked at the corner of my mind.
The car was far behind us, and seemed to be keeping pace with our drive. It bobbed and swerved, headlights dancing through the swirling fog. I thought they were just familiar with the road and its winding path, but quickly realized that their dance was taking them over the double yellow line.
“I’m gonna give them some space.” I pushed the accelerator, urging the car to speed us away from the headlights.
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the bobbing headlights fade back into the fog. I brought my attention back to the road ahead.
“Were they too close to us?” Kimmy asked.
I shook my head confidently. “Nah, they just seem to be having trouble staying on the road. I wanted to give them some room, so they can figure it out.”
As soon as the headlights vanished, a grinding sound rose up around us. It could have been their engine revving, or my own car struggling to speed up, or maybe a pack of growling wolves prowling the woods. I couldn’t tell, and didn’t want to find out. I turned the music up, hoping to drown the sound out as we drove away from Ghost Lake.
A sharp curve appeared in front of us. Naturally, I allowed my car to slow down a bit in anticipation of the turn.

That was my biggest mistake of the night.

The headlights appeared again, but this time they were right behind us, filling up the entire rear view mirror with blinding light. A piercing honk screamed at us, rattling every window in the car as it echoed through the silent woods. Kimmy grabbed her ears, and I wished I could do the same as they chased us around the curve.
“What are they doing?” Kimmy shouted over the noise.
“I don’t know!” I cried. I whipped my car around the turn. The road straightened out before us, stretching far into the darkness. Slamming my foot down on the accelerator, I sent us speeding forward as the headlights chased us through the night. Turn notwithstanding, they stayed right on our tail, driving close to our bumper. I scanned for another parking lot, or a shoulder to pull into, anywhere I could go to allow the car to pass us. Nothing appeared. But the road was deserted, and we were on a straightaway. Choking down my panic, I slowed to a crawl, waving my arm out through the window to allow the mystery car to pass us.
The headlights stayed where they were. They leaned on the horn again, and that horrible, echoing sound ripped through our car once more.
Our car lurched as they nudged our bumper towards the forest, dark trees looming mere inches away as Kimmy shrieked in the backseat. I jerked the steering wheel to the left. Our tires kicked up gravel and salt as I pulled us back onto the pavement and straightened us out, disaster narrowly avoided.
Stories of serial killers and mob initiates hunting unsuspecting victims on Shades of Death Road flashed through my mind. I aimed our car down the road, and hit the gas again.
The speedometer began to climb. 45. 50. 55. Although we managed to pull a bit farther away from them, the pursuing car stayed far to close to mine for comfort. The headlights behind us bobbed and swerved some more, as if trying to nudge us off the road again.
I ripped my phone out of its stand and threw it at Kimmy.
“Here!” I shouted over the vicious honk of the other car. “The second that we have service, call 911!”
“What do I say?” She was nearly in tears, but still opened the phone app and punched in the number like Mom had taught her.
“Try to tell them that we’re on Shades of Death Road and that we’re being chased by a lunatic!” I bellowed, barely audible as another honk pierced the night. “If you panic, just repeat what I say!”
Kimmy hit the call button. It rang for a moment, before beeping in rejection.
“It’s not working!” She cried, a sob escaping her throat as she yelled.
“It’s okay, it’s okay!” I struggled to call to her over the cacophony of the chase. “Just keep trying!”
Another sharp curve emerged before us, a hairpin turn. The headlights stayed on our heels. Thick trees pressed in on either side, promising a quick end if I were to skid off of the road. I took a deep breath, and prayed with all my might, ‘Please let us be okay.’

And then, an instant before we hit the curve, a figure appeared on the road in front of us. Directly in front of my car.

Mom had told me stories about what it feels like when your instincts take over in a scary situation. She said it was like moving through molasses, like everything was in slow motion. I always thought she was exaggerating. But in that moment, I felt time slow down firsthand.
A pale silhouette emerged from the thin fog in front of us, appearing right in the middle of our lane. Long brown hair dripped over her shoulders, shielding her face from the blinding headlights of the two cars racing towards her. She wore a flowing white gown, yards and yards of fabric cascading over her body and coating the road beneath her. I spun the wheel, aiming for the oncoming lane as I leaned on the horn. My car’s honk pierced the night, sharp and clear in comparison to the call of the angry car behind us. The girl looked up, catching my eye.

Time stood still.

My hand was glued to the horn. The headlights behind us were pinned in the mirror. Kimmy’s thumb hovered over the phone’s screen. I stared at the girls face, my eyes wide with fear as she regarded me peacefully.
Nothing moved, except for her. She looked me up and down, studying me as I sat frozen in time. She glanced through the windshield, looking at Kimmy in the backseat.
And then she smiled, a sad look coming into her icy blue eyes.
“Save her.” a voice whispered in my head, one that I didn’t recognize. It sent a shiver down my spine. Sudden clarity pushed the fear from my mind, and a newfound certainty tightened my grip on the wheel. I would obey.

Time resumed.

I pulled my hand from the horn, returning it to the wheel, and flung the car around the curve. Two of our tires lifted off the ground, threatening to tip us over, before crashing back down with a bone-rattling Thunk!
The thud of our wheels ricocheted through the forest, echoing like a declaration of victory. And just like that, the car behind us vanished.
The night fell quiet as Kimmy and I raced out of the fog, moonlight flooding the road before us. I struggled to catch my breath, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
“Did—did you get the cops on the phone?” I panted, eyes scanning the rear view for any sign of the headlights.
“Not yet.” Kimmy warbled. “Is that girl going to be okay?”
My stomach flipped. “I don’t know,” I admitted, “but we’ll do our best to help her.”
A dirt shoulder appeared before us, a wide area designed to allow cars to pull off of the road.
“It’s working!” Kimmy announced triumphantly as the phone began to ring.
“Finally!” I pulled the car onto the turn-around, kicking up a cloud of dust as we screeched to a halt.
Kimmy passed me the phone.
“This is 911. What’s your emergency?” The phone sang as I held it to my ear.
I nearly cried with relief. “Hello! My name is Lillian Saunders and I’m on Shades of Death Road, the part near Route 80. My sister and I were just chased by this crazy driver who tried to run us off the road!”
The operator typed something out as I pulled the phone away from my ear, putting the call on speakerphone. Opening the GPS app once more, the map appeared before me, quickly revealing a route home.
“Lil!” Kimmy poked my shoulder, whispering. “The girl!”
“Oh, shit, right!” I spoke into the phone. “Also we saw a girl, she was just standing in the middle of the road. I’m worried she could have gotten hurt.”
“Okay,” the operator soothed. “We’re sending a few units your way. Did you see the girl get hit?”
“No, I was really focused on getting away from the guy who tried to kill us.” I turned my eyes to Kimmy. “Did you see anything?”
“I don’t know!” She had held it together very well until that point, but finally began to cry.
“Okay, it’s okay.” I reached back to rub her arm as the operator spoke up again.
“Can you see either the car or the girl?”
I shook my head, staring through the back windshield. “No, I just wanted to get us away from that crazy driver.”
“Alright.” The operator tapped away again. “There’s an officer on his way to you. I’ll stay on the phone until you see him. Are you okay with showing him where the accident was—might have been?”
My stomach knotted. “As long as he’s the one driving.”

The officer arrived soon after, and drove us up and down the road. Other emergency vehicles followed, even an ambulance that sat at Ghost Lake, just waiting for a patient to treat. It seemed like the car had vanished, along with the mysterious girl. The fog cleared, and aside from a few tire tracks where we went off the road, and a new dent in my bumper, there was no sign of the car. The only thing of any note was a long strip of white fabric that was caught high in a tree near that final curve where the girl appeared. I pointed it out, suggesting that it had been hers.
The cop shook his head. “That’s been hanging there for years. Kids throw sticks and stuff at it all the time to knock it down, but no one’s been able to get their hands on it.”
We stayed at the end of the road for a while, answering questions and calling our parents. Our Dad was sound asleep, as the time approached 2 AM, and Mom didn’t answer, but Alice was still awake.
“Hey Lil, what’s up?” Our sister’s voice was chipper as Kimmy and I crowded around my phone. The sound of chattering voices and laughter in the background of the call stood in sharp contrast to the dark woods we stood in.
“Hey!” I was surprised by how alert she sounded, as I expected to have woken her from a deep sleep. “Where are you?”
“Oh, we’re actually still in Hershey.” She admitted. “Mom was worried about the brakes on her car, and the team was able to get us a few extra rooms since some big group canceled their stay.”
“Cool, cool,” I chirped, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “So, first thing’s first, everything is fine now.” Kimmy shot me a look as I waved her away.
Alice groaned. “What did you do?”
I sighed. “Don’t tell Mom until I get a chance to talk to her.” I relayed the story of our wild chase to Alice, Kimmy occasionally chiming in with details she felt were important, like getting doughnuts or the number of ‘haunted’ buildings we passed.
After I finished, Alice sat quiet. The chatter in the background dimmed, and it seemed like she had moved into another room.
“Did they find that girl?” Alice asked.
I shook my head. “Not yet, but they’re gonna keep looking.”
“Maybe it was a ghost,” Alice chuckled, “and they aren’t going to find her.”
“No,” I looked quickly at Kimmy, “because ghosts aren’t real, right Alice? Because if they were, Kimmy would be totally freaked out right now.”
The darkness around us seemed thicker than ever as Alice paused.
“No,” she agreed, “I was just kidding, Kim.”
Kimberly didn’t look particularly reassured, but nodded anyways.
“Well,” Alice continued, her tinny voice cutting through the quiet forest, “whoever they are, I’m glad they had your back.
I heard the sound of a door creaking open, and then a quiet voice. “Is Lil okay?”
“Who’s that?” I asked.
“It’s Mandy. I mentioned that you had run into some kind of problem on the road.” Alice confessed. “I didn’t tell Mom yet, I swear, but the team was worried about you guys.”
The team. The words echoed in my head as Alice and Mandy sat on the other end of the line, waiting for my response. Many miles away, wrapped up in the thrill and camaraderie of being together, they were still thinking about us. Hoping we were safe. Calling out.
My throat clenched, and tears prickled in the corners of my eyes.
“Tell them we’re doing okay.”

We left the police to their search, finishing our journey home. They never found the girl that saved us, and to be honest I’m not sure they ever will. They did, however, find the car that had chased us, a beat up old Jeep driven by a gang of teenage boys that had been prowling the area looking for someone to scare. The boys themselves had been scared by the encounter, and called the police to report themselves not long after the piercing gaze of the girl had vanished.

I did tell my mom about the incident, eventually. Of course, she responded with an exasperated “that’s why I told you to stay on the highway.”

She was right, of course. If I hadn’t gotten off the highway, I wouldn’t have taken us down Shades of Death Road, and we wouldn’t have been chased by that car.
Although Mom agreed that it shouldn’t have happened in the first place, she still saw our survival of that encounter as a feather in my cap, a demonstration of my ability to handle an emergency all by myself. But I disagreed. I wasn’t really alone. I had Kimmy in the backseat, keeping me company and trying 911 while disaster loomed. I had Alice and Mandy, sending words of comfort as the dust settled. And somehow, I had that mysterious girl with her simple command: ‘Save her’.
I’m glad that I listened to her.
I think she’s glad, too.

Credit: TechniGoth

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