WINTER

Simon's drive to work in winter was always boring, bland and colourless, except for her piercing green eyes. He'd seen the girl before, many times, always in the same place and always seeming to stare into him as he passed her by the side of the road. She used to have her thumb out trying to hitch a ride into town, but lately, she seemed to stand there limply staring at him. Always in the same spot, he noticed, never further up the road and she was always gone on his drive home.

Someone always picked her up he guessed, it amazed him that people still picked up hitchhikers. Surely the days of friendly wanderers were over and if you watched the news it made it clear you couldn't trust anyone.

She wore a blue denim jacket, faded but that was the style he guessed she was going for. Truth be told the only thing about her that had really stuck with him were those eyes, a piercing green that would make any man look twice. They were similar to an American Actresses he couldn't remember the name of, she'd been in a comedy with Jim Carey and was in some T.V show he'd seen advertised. Her face wasn't remarkably pretty, but those eyes made her beautiful.

He had considered stopping for her once, a long time ago, but must have decided otherwise. Men picking up women by the side of the road never looked good, not that his wife would complain because he didn't have one. Truth be told there hadn't been a steady women in his life for a while, it seemed like his luck with women was a little like hitchhiking too. You stand at the side of the road and occasionally get picked up but eventually, the ride ends and you wind up back where you started, usually worse of than before.

He raised his fingers from the steering wheel in a mock wave, the girl was looking straight at him but she didn't wave back. As he passed her she followed his gaze and he could see a look on her face that upset him in a deep corner of his heart. A look of tired sadness which he had occasionally noticed on his own face after another pointless day at the office. He gazed at her in the rearview mirror, she was still looking at him as he went around the bend in the road and then she was gone. Strange, she usually smiled and he was sure she'd waved back to him before in the past. Everyone had their own problems, it stood to reason she was going through some of her own.

Maybe he should pick her up tomorrow morning and she could accompany him on his trek into town. Part of him liked the idea of that, another part of him was afraid to. Why was that? he wasn't afraid she was going to attack him and hold him at knifepoint, in fact, if anything she should have been afraid of him. Still, he felt something like fear crawl into his belly, he remembered a dream he'd had a while ago but then it went away, back to the place where nightmares sleep and wait to pop out when you least suspect. Later as he arrived at the office he blamed all this on his workload, as most people do in a crisis and stepped out of his car to see what he could do.

The office hours passed both in a slow daze and at times unusually fast. Simon couldn't get the girl away from his thoughts for long enough to concentrate on the tasks he had to complete. He'd tried to casually mention the girl to his friend Paul who worked on the desk just over from his own. Paul had simply picked up the phone and ignored him, he reasoned Paul was still upset over the accounting problems they'd been dealing with for the last few months. Simon and Paul were supposed to be a team and work together but things had been difficult between them for a long time now. He couldn't quite place the problem that had started the fallout, but wasn't that always the way? A shame really because Paul was the closest to a best friend he had made in the years since leaving college and being plunged into the eternal struggle of full-time work.

As the clock struck five he made a hasty retreat and noticed how sullen everyone was as he exited the building. Maybe it was SAD, the seasonal affective disorder that everyone was suffering from. God knew he hated the onset of winter, always seemed like the kiss of death every year. He got into his car and glanced into the rearview mirror and froze. The girl was stood on the edge of the car park area staring at him, her eyes fixed on him and he half cried out in terror.

He whipped his head round to look out of the back window for himself and saw a peculiar thing, there was no one there. He glanced around thinking she had walked further down the street but she wasn't there either. Other workers came through the door of the building and crossed the car park, he started his car and quickly pulled out. On the drive back he saw those green eyes in his head over and over.

He slept poorly that night and dreamt something awful but on waking he could only remember fragments that were too big to fit together. Disjointed images, the girl had been in some, she was soaked to the skin, her clothes tight-fitting on her body. Later, there had been screaming and a terrible light. Was he having a nervous breakdown? no, it was just a little stress. He needed a holiday that was all, his last week off work had ended abruptly.

When he had been just getting into his twenties he thought there was all the time in the world to explore, laugh and live. Now he was in his early thirties he saw how blinkered his eyes had been. It seems there's a time for dreaming and then there's a time for being awake, he badly wished he could go back to that simpler one. As he dressed and readied himself for work, he seemed to float through his own home feeling like a stranger.

The house that he'd rented for the past eight years seemed to be a shell again as if his character had never been impressed upon it. He couldn't understand why this was and put it down to the harsh cold light that filtered through the early morning. Winter always sapped the life out of everything.

The next morning Simon drove along the same stretch of road he always did and saw the girl stood in her usual accustomed spot. He tried to keep his gaze fixed in the middle distance but inevitably he looked over into her face. Those eyes held the same sharpness in them as before and seemed to sparkle at him as if they were the only real things left in the world. She raised her hand and her thumb was up, the meaning apparent immediately. He felt himself reaching for the turn signal, ready to pull the car over and stop. Then the fear rose in him like a wave and he grabbed the steering wheel tighter, swerving a little as he did.

He applied more pressure to the accelerator and sped past her. He glanced back over his shoulder and she was gone, nothing there except some bushes where she'd stood not a moment ago. He turned back to the road and began to shiver uncontrollably.

She'd never been there to begin with, he reasoned weakly, he'd seen her only because he had expected to see her. He tried to tell himself that was all, had her hair been wet? He thought so, in fact, she'd been soaked to the skin just like in his dream. A little daydreaming was all it must have been, that was normal after having such strange nightmares, wasn't it? The eyes though, so sharp and clear, he'd seen her then she'd gone. Crazy thoughts, dangerous thoughts but he couldn't offer up anything to convince him she hadn't been there. He drove without really seeing anything all the way to the office and thought of what this could all mean.

Simon couldn't believe it, he'd given them ten years of his life and this is how they treated him. Sacked for what? a few bad weeks when he'd worked solidly for them for years. As soon as he went in and saw his desk cleared it was obvious. He looked for Paul but hadn't found him, surely that bastard had been dropping hints about his work levels not meeting the company standards. So he'd stormed into the manager's office and had it out with Steve, it was a mostly one-sided conversation and seeing that he wasn't going to change his mind he'd stormed out off the building, knocking over a stack of papers piled on the corner desk near the main door. He'd laughed as he heard the shocked alarm of his former colleagues, that's the biggest reaction he'd gotten from them in weeks.

Sitting behind the wheel of his car he looked back up at the Grey tone building that had been his prison for so many summers and felt a pang of sadness. He caught sight of Paul in one of the giant window paneled corridors on the second floor. It looked like he was upset, even close to tears. Serves him right Simon thought, maybe he hadn't expected them to fire him but only give him a warning to get him back up to speed. It was done now though, you can never go back so what's the point in worrying about it my old friend. Bitterly he started the car and drove out onto the main road at speed, the sun was high in the sky and he reflected this was the first time he'd left that place with any decent remainder of the day left.

That night the dreams had come again, he was driving to work, it was morning but the dark clouds hid the sun. Rain sleeted down on the car and he'd had to turn the wipers up to full just to see the road. He got to that familiar stretch of country road, the girl was there as he knew she would be. Her usual radiant smile was gone, her eyes looked into his and shone out of misery like a drowned rat. He had put on his turn signal and pulled over to the side of the road. She ran around the car and jumped in the passenger side just as it came to a stop.

She thanked him, he smiled at her and said he couldn't have left her stood there to catch her death. He turned the heater up and the girl had laid her hands across the vents greedily. She wiped her face with her warming hands and smiled over at Simon. They were just starting to go round the bend of the road when the car skidded, the steering wheel was useless in his hands. They careered over onto the other lane and suddenly there had been huge lights in front of them blotting out everything. He heard the girl's scream and looked over at her stupidly, her green eyes were huge and he couldn't look away from them. He was terrified but still, he wouldn't look away, they held him. There was a moment where something snapped and crashed but that was over quickly.

He shot up in bed, awake for the first time in a long time, fully realizing what those eyes wanted finally.

He was driving on the road again, his road or perhaps their road now. As he got to the stretch he knew so well there she was. It wasn't her eyes he saw first though, it was her smile. He indicated and pulled up just ahead of her, she slowly walked around the side of the car and he had time to look at the spot where she had stood for so long. There were flowers everywhere, some fresh, some dead and decayed. He had taken them for a clump of bushes before but now he knew what they were and who had placed them there.

He saw an image of Paul placing a reef with a bunch of other people from the office. He no longer felt angry with him, it was a misunderstanding and he knew Paul would be happier now with a fresh start. The girl opened the passenger side and got in gracefully, she wasn't soaked anymore and the sky ahead was clear. She smiled at him, he smiled back. He pushed the accelerator and drove the car onwards and around the bend in the road.

They were both going to the same place so there was no rush. The warm sun shone down onto their faces as winter finally ended.

THE-END

I hope you've enjoyed my story, please leave a heart and read another of my articles below. This one is for my short competition-winning story "Knock at the Door".