“Reasonable,” Riley said.
“But it fired up my curiosity again. I counted back and figured out what year that Mom and I saw the guy. Then, I went and started digging through the papers at the library to look for accidents a year before our experience. It didn’t take that long to find the story. A man’s car broke down after a late night at work. He wasn’t that far from home, so he started walking down the side of the road. He turned and tried to hitch a ride when another car came, but the driver must not have seen him. They found his body in the ditch the next morning. The accident had knocked his shoes off. After the story went around, the driver finally came forward.”
“Wait, that was your father?”
“No,” Nick said. “The guy was hit the year before us. We saw his ghost.”
“Such bullshit,” Riley said.
“I’m telling you what actually happened. It’s amazing how arrogant you are that you’re willing to make a decision about something that you didn’t witness just because the facts don’t align with the way you imagine the world works.”
Riley laughed. “If gravity always pulls things towards the ground, and then someone tells me that there’s a stream that flows uphill, I’m going to assume that it’s an optical illusion or the witness was full of shit. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt by saying it was probably a reflection. You filled in all the rest of the details after the fact.”
“You just said that it was bullshit.”
“Your telling of the story was bullshit. You cherrypicked little details that you’re probably misremembering and you’re trying to use those to prove a point. It’s not unreasonable for me to assume that you’re wrong. All these little flourishes are bullshit that you’ve inserted in order to try to prove your point.”
Nick shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“I don’t even know why you bother getting up in the morning. You already know everything, right? What’s left to learn?”
Riley glanced over, back to the road, and then glanced at Nick a second time.
“No, man, that’s what I’m saying. You’re not looking at the facts, you’re just examining this through the eyes of a five year old.”
“Eight. I was eight.”
“Whatever.”
Riley reached out and clicked on the radio. Lynyrd Skynyrd bolted from the speakers, in the middle of a song.
When Riley began to turn it off again, Nick said, “No, leave it. I like that song.”
“This band is racist,” Riley said. “Doesn’t matter how good their music is, they had a Confederate flag on their album cover.”
“Can’t you just enjoy the music without worrying about what was on their album cover? It was made at a different time. Maybe, in their opinion, the flag represented pride instead of racism.”
Riley shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. It’s offensive and I won’t support it.”
By the time he reached to twist the knob, the song had ended.
A canned voice announced, “This is the Muh-muh-muh-mountain of pure rock,” and then a song by Queen took over.
“Any problem with them?” Nick asked.
“Nope.”
“Good.”
They listened to the radio while Riley drove. Neither of them said a word until they saw the flashing red lights of the railroad crossing. Riley slowed down to a crawl. The gates were up and as far as they could see in either direction, there was no train coming.
“You have to be kidding me,” Nick said as Riley slowed to a stop.
Nick thought that Riley was being overcautious.
Riley had to get out to take a piss and said so. The coffee that he drank in order to stay awake had finally caught up with him and he wasn’t going to make it much farther before he had to relieve himself.
When he got out, he shut off the key. It was second nature to him. His car had a strange feature. If the car was left idling, the doors would re-lock themselves when any door was opened and closed. The only way to stop the feature was to shut off the engine.
“Hurry up,” Nick said.
Riley didn’t answer except for slamming the door shut. It was just starting to snow. A flake landed on his forehead and melted as Riley glanced at the train signal. The bell was loud. He walked to the other side of the road and took a wide stance.
Back in the car, Nick started the car and turned up the radio. A second later, he shut the radio off again.
# # #
The clanging bell of the train signal was almost enough to mask the sound. Riley heard the movement of leaves and then the snap of a stick. Had he been hiking, he would have ignored the sound. A squirrel would make that much noise, just looking for nuts. Either because of the coffee or Nick’s stupid story, Riley’s nerves were already on edge. He zipped his pants and stood perfectly still. When he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, he fully expected to see a coyote or a wolf. Those would be the only two animals out here hunting at night.
The animal froze and Riley saw something horrifying. For a moment, he saw the thing creeping towards him. It looked almost like a person down on all fours, but there were several things that made this idea impossible. For one, the thing was naked. It would be crazy to be naked out there on a cold November night with the snow starting to come down. Second, the arms and legs were way too long and the fingers ended in long claws.
As soon as he saw the creature moving in the flashing red lights, it stopped. As it lowered itself towards the packed dirt that made up the shoulder of the road, the thing began to blend in. It was disappearing right before his eyes.
Riley turned and ran.
His first shout was lost in the wind as the bell rang. He reached the car and pounded on the
