Ghosts
The Prompt was "The Rain is Full of Ghosts Tonight"
The rain is full of ghosts tonight.
A thunderstorm was nothing new to her, they happened all the time in her little town, being afraid was. She hadn't been scared on thunder since she was little, and the lightning had never made an impression on her.
She sat against the pillows in her window seat, watching lightning arc across the sky and feeling the soft rumble of thunder through the thin windowpane. It was a night like this when the accident happened.
The lightning had been bright, closer than was comfortable. The thunder shaking the small sports car, rain making the roads slicker than ever. They were packed in too tightly as it was, and taking the turn would've been simple any other day. Her friend spun out of control, only one survivor of the crash; her.
She had nightmares when the thunderstorms raged outside, vengeful spirits beckoning, coming for her. She could almost see them, standing under the apple trees. Covered in cuts and bruises, glass in their skin. She ran a finger over the raised lines on her own arms, where the glass had to be pulled from her skin and stitches had crisscrossed on her arms for weeks.
Slowly she unfolded her legs and stood from the windowsill, tiptoeing down the stairs. She grabbed her mother’s keys from the table by the door and walked out into the rain. She clutched the keys hard enough for her knuckles to turn white and the teeth to bite into her soft palms. She hadn't been behind the wheel of a car since the night of the accident, and the line on her throat where the seatbelt cut into her skin was aching.
Standing before her mother’s car there was a moment of weakness before she turned to the apple trees again. The ghosts still stood under the trees, and it felt as if a soft whisper blew through her mind; the air convincing her to open the door. It was all she needed to gather her courage again. There was something so empty about being the only one left. There was something hollow about wearing the same dress to five different funerals, one day after the other. She'd seen them those days too, shards of glass and unnaturally bent limbs.
As she slid into the drivers seat she took a deep breath and started the engine. There was only one place she could go for this, she had avoided it since and the tears stung her eyes as she thought of going back around the corner and to the bridge. She could remember hanging off the edge, held in by her seatbelt and her friends scattered on the road around her, bodies floating in the water.
The rumble of the engine sent her body shaking again and she had to take a shuddering breath, only aware of the tears on her cheeks when the salt invaded her taste. She closed her eyes, taking a moment before she turned to the apple tree again and the white blooms swayed in the breeze. She had buried their keepsakes there, in a little box and a ceremony that was just for her. No one glaring at her for surviving and no one blaming her. Simply placing the box in the hole and crying in her favorite sweater until her parents called her inside. Maybe that's why she always saw them there, tethered to the items and waiting for her. Her best friend held out her glass pierced hand, and she put the car in reverse, backing out of the driveway.
She wasn’t sure how they expected it to work, but the rain was full of ghosts tonight, and she was going to join them.
About the Creator
Morgan Starkey
I am a 28 year old, female. I am part of and an avid supporter of the LGBT community. I have been writing since I was in high school and once dreamed of being a writer, now my dream is to be an English teacher, but I still want to write
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