“Speedtrap? No, sir, not so far as I know—though I might not put it past some of ourlocal boys in blue to sit out there watching cars go by from time to time. Butbetween here and there’s a few turny bits and a whole lot of straightaway, andjust the kind of road where people like to open her up some.” He flipped thesqueegee blade-side-down and began slicking the dirty water away. “That, andyou have Massachusetts plates.”
“What,”said Mom, “that whole Masshole thing?”
“Oh,no ma’am. That’s not what I was saying at all.”
Finishedwith the windshield, Paul moved to the back of the vehicle, ducking his head tothrow a wink and a “Good evening, miss,” in to Isabel before starting thesponge across the rear window.
“Folksfrom around your way do have a bit of a reputation behind the wheel,” hesaid to Mom. “But this road’s a place where us locals tend to step a littleheavy on the gas, too. No, I just wouldn’t want you runnin’ afoul of OldCharlie, and he seems to have a special place in his heart for cars without-of-state plates.”
Momand Dad exchanged a glance through the windshield, questioning whether theyshould even ask, but Isabel had no doubts. She stuck a bookmark between thepages as she scooted to that side of the backseat and buzzed the window open.“Who’s Old Charlie?”
Paultook a step back so he could see her without bending, wiping the squeegee’sblade again. “Well, now, Charlie’s kind of a local legend we have, but there’splenty who’ve claimed to’ve seen him. Mostly out-of-state folks, likeyourselves. Charlie’s a ghost, you see. There was some drag racing going on fora while, and Charlie, well . . . well, a little lady like youdon’t need to know all the nasty details. Let’s just say Charlie died, and nowhe haunts the stretch between here and Gallway, and he don’t take kindly tospeeders on his turf. Takes it as a kind of challenge, if I had to guess.People tell stories—mostly out-of-staters, like I said—of seeing a big set ofheadlights coming up behind ’em—it’s hard to miss them big Crown Vic lights,lots of people mistake him for a state trooper on patrol at first—and the nextthing they know, there’s Old Charlie, trying to get ’em off the road.”
Thepump stopped and Dad racked the fill nozzle. “Well, thanks for the warning,”said Mom, “but we’re on our way to Hilton Head to visit friends, and we’vealready been on the road for almost ten hours. It’s been a long day, and all wereally want to do is find somewhere we can get some food and sleep, so we canget back on the road in the morning.”
“Youhave a good night,” said Dad, opening the car door. As he slipped behind thewheel, Paul stooped and offered them a finger wave, just as he had Doris.“Y’all drive safe now—you’re about a half hour from Gallway, if you stick tothe posted. And little lady? You might pass the time keeping an eye out for OldCharlie.” He offered her another wink as Dad started the car, and then theywere rolling out from beneath the station’s bright lights and onto the darkroad, following the Camry’s headlights toward dinner and a bed, thirty minutesaway.
* * *
“Canyou believe that guy?” said Mom.
“It’sjust a story,” Dad said. “I don’t think he meant anything by it.”
“Buthe was telling it to Isa, like he was trying to scare her or something. And‘keep an eye out for Old Charlie’?”
“Oh,I think the old guy was just playing it up. You know, being local color.” Dad’seyes appeared in the rearview mirror. “What do you think, Isabel?”
“Ithink the speed limit’s forty-five, Dad,” she said, watching a sign slipthrough the outer edge of the headlights. Dad’s eyes dipped as he checked hisspeed.
“Yousee?” said Mom.
“I’mdoing forty-five,” Dad said, eyes meeting Isabel’s in the mirror again.“Honey, you know that was just a story, right? That there’s no such thing asghosts?”
“Oh,I know. But what was that you said about speed traps?”
Dadsnorted a short laugh. “You see?” he said to Mom. “Just local color.”
Well,I halfknow they’re not real, Isabel admitted to herself. Mostly. Sort of?Anyway, it would be cool if we saw a ghost car. Scary, but cool. Her bookremained closed as she did what Tall Paul had suggested and kept an eye out forany sign of big, bright headlights. She snuck glances between Mom and Dad asthey talked, watching the speedometer climb from 45 through 50, and maybe justa little more than 55. Speeding, she thought. With out-of-stateplates . . .
Isabelremained vigilant. Five minutes passed. Then seven. Nine? There was just toomuch nothing going on. The book opened.
Thepage brightened and darkened.
Isabelglanced at the travel light she’d clipped to the back of the book. Usually whenthe batteries started to wear out the bulb just slowly dimmed, it didn’t pulseor anything. Why had it—
Everythingaround her brightened and darkened. What the—?
Shelooked out the rear window—still pretty clean, thanks to Tall Paul—and caught aglimpse of headlights in the distance disappearing behind a bend in the road.“Dad? There’s someone behind us.”
“Isaw him, hon. But he’s way back there. Nothing to worry about.”
Isabelkept an eye out the rear window just the same. It wasn’t like there wasanything to see: there weren’t any streetlights along this road, so aside fromtheir own taillights splashing redly off the tarmac and trees, there wasnothing behind them but blackness. It was a little like they were drivingthrough deep space, except there weren’t any sta—
Headlightscame into view far behind them, though not as far as they had been. It wasdifficult to tell, really, with the complete lack of visible landmarks, butwhen she’d caught the glimpse earlier it had looked like just
