No Ghosting Permitted

Cecilia Kennedy

A drive up the rocky coast into Galicia won’t just materialize on its own.  I have to rent a car, get a map, get behind the wheel—while my friends laugh, drink, and tell me I’m doing fine when I can’t figure out the exits or how fast or slow to go. They stumble out of the car at pit stops, drink jerez, sample olives, while I worry about driving in a foreign country. Do I know the rules? Not really. Everyone assumes I’ll get the hang of it with practice. I’m not sure I do.

The light changes, and I go, but glass shatters. Not from my car, but from the one I’ve hit.

“Go! Go! Go!” my friends shout. I freeze. 

“If you stay, you’ll be arrested,” they say.

I see a body slumped over the wheel of the car I’ve hit, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders. I never check to see if she’s okay. If she’s alive. A horrible, mechanical sound churns and shrieks. In a flash, out of the corner of my eye, I see an animal: large and fast, cat-like, darting across the road. It turns to stare at me, its eyes red and soulless. 

“Go!” they scream.

Impulse kicks in and I drive off. We make a pact to tell no one, to bury the memory. So I do.

#

Slopes of concrete and sidewalks rise and fall about the pocket parks in my neighborhood. I’ve never fallen or broken a bone, but years of running have weakened me, made my muscles unbalanced. So I agreed to six weeks of physical therapy and a slow jog up and down hills to rebuild strength. The neighborhood Facebook page is filled with news about wildlife: coyotes, bears, bobcats—creatures that run at terrible speeds—creatures with claws and teeth. I tell myself I’m brave when I head out at 4:30 a.m. I tell myself the wild animals are gone—and I’ll run.

I take the first right up the hill at a steady pace, planting my feet solidly, rolling off onto the balls of my feet, feeling the cold air against my skin. A faint rustling tells me to look left. A steady sound, like a breath, tells me to keep running.

In my periphery, something bounds on all fours: fast, right beside me. Something dark, cresting—something with claws and teeth—and soulless eyes. And it sees me. I don’t dare stop running, but I’m no fool. I can’t outrun it. 

The creature cuts across my path, and I brace for impact because I can’t outrun it anymore. Its dark eyes turn red, and in them, I see a human-shape, slumped over a wheel. I’d never checked to see if she were alive or dead those many years ago of the memory that I’d buried, but I see now. She lived. She lived to hunt me down.