CHAPTER 79
1098 Words
She's not real.
Calla focused on the road. Her hands were tense on the wheel,
knuckles white with strain. She took the next bend too quickly and
cursed, slamming on the brakes.
"Don't you know how to drive?"
Not real.
"How many times are you going to tell yourself that?" Tracy mused
from the backseat. Calla felt something cold brush her neck and
she cranked up the heat, gritting her teeth.
It's just a draft.
"And now you're ignoring me." The girl—the ghost?—snorted.
"Rude. You did kill me. The least you could do is acknowledge it."
Calla squinted at the road. Pale yellow light filtered through the
towering pines, but it wasn't enough to see by. Not by a long shot.
Twilight had settled over Greenwitch, sinking the town into
darkness.
She fiddled with one of the levers, muttering to herself. Headlights.
Where the hell were the headlights?
"Um, hello? Pay attention to the road."
Calla glanced up. Distracted as she was, she hadn't even realized
the Mustang had drifted into the left lane. She jerked the wheel to
the right, cursing.
"Great. Just what I needed. To die twice. " Tracy's petulant whine
suddenly turned sinister. "Maybe this time, I'll drag you down with
me."
Calla's focus drifted to the rearview mirror. A pair of bright blue
eyes glared back at her.
She sucked in a surprised breath.
"What?" Two pale hands gripped the leather seats as Tracy pushed
herself forward. Her face was inches from Calla's when she
murmured, "Did you think I was a hallucination?"
"You're not real," Calla snapped. She pressed on the accelerator
and the Mustang lurched forward.
Forty.
She took the next bend in the road without hitting the brakes. An
empty water bottle rolled across the backseat.
"s**t. s**t. s**t ," Calla hissed, jerking the wheel to avoid hitting a
fallen branch. The tires screeched. "I should have just let him die."
But here I am, she thought, the speedometer climbing rapidly. Am I
really going to die for this kid?
A gravel driveway appeared ahead. She could brake. Turn the car
around. Pretend she'd never left that parking lot. But she didn't
stop. She flew past the driveway and pursed her lips, holding back
a frustrated scream.
Tracy sat back, her eyes still boring a hole into the rearview mirror.
"Look at me."
Calla glanced down at the speedometer.
Forty-five.
The road straightened, and she immediately recognized Pleasant
Grove—one of Greenwitch's few gated communities. She whizzed
by, craning her neck to examine the guardhouse positioned
outside the gate.
It was empty. Any hope that the guard on duty might notice her
reckless driving evaporated.
"Look at me," Tracy hissed. Cold air bit at Calla's neck.
"No," she whispered. Her head throbbed.
Fifty. The engine began to whine.
" Look at me."
Calla let out a wild scream. She reached up and grabbed the
rearview mirror. With an audible snap, she ripped it from the hinge
and threw it into the passenger seat, her chest heaving.
"Look at this, b***h!" she shouted, pushing the Mustang to fifty-five. "Kiss my ass! I'll dig up your bones and light them on fire
just to watch you burn."
Silence from the backseat. Calla panted, her hands trembling on
the wheel.
Don't fall apart now. This time, the voice did not belong to Tracy. It
was weaker somehow. As if it had been shoved into a dark hole
and left to rot.
Calla brought the car to a screeching halt. She whirled around, her
eyes scanning the empty backseat—empty, because no one could
possibly be there.
You promised, Rachel murmured again, her words filling the car
with warmth. Or maybe that was just the heater laboring to keep
up with the frigid wind outside. Catch the bastard, remember?
A pair of headlights shone through the windshield. Dim, but
growing stronger. Calla hit the accelerator. She didn't have to go
far. Even in the darkness, she knew where she was.
I must have been driving faster than I thought.
At the next left, she pulled off into another gravel drive. Enormous
magnolia trees lined the way, casting shadows over the black
wrought iron gate ahead. The gravel ended there, turning instead
to smooth pavement.
Calla pulled the Mustang over into the grass and ripped the keys
out of the ignition. On a whim, she left them in the driver's seat.
She hoped that a passerby might notice Cooper's car; the thing
was hardly discreet.
"Better get moving, Calla," a sweet voice said from over her
shoulder. "You don't wanna be late to the party. You're the guest of
honor."
Calla closed her eyes, one hand braced against the car.
She's not real. She's dead. And so is Rachel.
The thought wasn't reassuring.
"You're not real," she repeated aloud, pushing away from the car.
She kept her eyes focused on the path ahead, her hands shoved in
the pockets of her jeans. "You're a figment of my imagination. I'm
having some sort of mental break."
"I'm as real as you are," Tracy murmured, before going silent once
more.
She didn't speak again for some time, for which Calla was thankful.
Her injured hand throbbed. Her lungs burned. But her head—which
had been aching since her flashback in the parking lot—felt clear.
Tracy is gone. They both are, she thought, her eyes locked on the
house looming in the distance. She could just make out the rooftop
through the thick magnolia leaves. I'm trapped in some hellish
nightmare I can't even remember.
The sky was black by the time she reached the house. Her skin
crawled as she slunk from tree to tree, making the most of what
cover was available. She hesitated outside of the garage, testing
the side door. It didn't budge.
Her eyes darted to the front door. She knew the odds of sneaking
into the house were...well, not in her favor. There were no
shortcuts here. No cheat codes. Calla had, quite literally, reached
the end of the road.
She dug her nails into her injured palm. The pain gave her a jolt of
energy and she stood, ignoring the urge to duck, to cover, to run.
She had not come this far to run. So instead, she strode over to the
front door and knocked.
As expected, no one answered. Calla tried the handle and the door
slid open on silent hinges, swinging wide. She stared inside the
dark house.
It felt a lot like the mouth of some long-forgotten tomb.
- Writer
