Chapter 4 - The Dead Man in the Back Seat
Daniel screamed and spun around.
The back seat was empty.
Jonathan stared at him.
“What?”
“My father.”
“What about him?”
“I saw him.”
Jonathan’s face changed.
Rebecca stood outside the passenger window.
Not frightened of Daniel.
Frightened for him.
Jonathan whispered:
“She touched your car.”
Daniel understood.
Not him.
The car.
Jonathan had said anyone Rebecca touched began seeing things.
But that was only his interpretation.
Perhaps contact with her did not cause the visions.
Perhaps it exposed them.
Daniel looked at the mirror again.
Nothing.
“Michael said she wasn’t Rebecca,” Jonathan repeated.
“When?”
“2009.”
Seven years before Michael died.
Jonathan described the investigation.
Michael discovered old reports of a “bride” appearing on Blackthorn Road decades before Rebecca was born.
Different witnesses.
Same pale woman.
Same ivory gown.
Therefore Michael concluded the apparition predated Rebecca.
Logical.
Except—
Daniel looked at Rebecca’s dress.
“Were the descriptions identical?”
Jonathan hesitated.
“No.”
Earlier witnesses described different clothing.
One saw a woman in a blue coat.
Another a teenager in a hospital gown.
Another a man wearing military clothes.
Daniel frowned.
“Then it wasn’t always a bride.”
“No.”
The form changed.
That mattered.
Maybe the phenomenon did not imitate Rebecca.
Maybe witnesses saw whoever mattered to the event.
Daniel had seen Michael.
Jonathan saw Rebecca.
What did Rebecca see?
She stared into the empty back seat.
Tears gathered.
“Who do you see?” Daniel asked.
She whispered:
“My sister.”
The missing sister from the hotel receipts.
Her name was Emily Hale.
Daniel searched quickly.
Emily died in 1996.
Two years before Rebecca’s wedding.
Car accident.
Blackthorn Road.
The story deepened.
Rebecca’s sister had died here.
Michael helped Rebecca investigate.
That explained their secret meetings before the wedding.
Not an affair.
An investigation.
Emily’s crash had been ruled accidental.
Rebecca disagreed.
She believed another vehicle forced Emily from the road.
Police dismissed it.
Michael believed her.
They discovered a pattern of unexplained crashes near Blackthorn Bridge.
Most occurred after rain.
Several survivors reported seeing someone they knew standing beside the road.
Jonathan whispered:
“So Rebecca came here on her wedding night because of Emily.”
Rebecca nodded.
“Why that night?”
Rebecca looked toward the bridge.
“Someone called me.”
“Who?”
“I thought it was Emily.”
Jonathan closed his eyes.
The same mechanism.
A familiar voice.
A trusted identity.
Rebecca followed.
Michael followed Rebecca because he knew what she intended.
Jonathan followed because he suspected an affair.
Three people arrived for three different reasons.
Someone—or something—had manipulated each using what they were most vulnerable to.
Daniel asked the question no one had answered.
“Did you die that night?”
Rebecca’s face became unreadable.
Finally:
“Yes.”
Jonathan made a broken sound.
Rebecca looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Where?”
She pointed toward Blackthorn Bridge.
Jonathan opened the door.
Daniel grabbed him.
“Don’t.”
“I need to know.”
“Not like this.”
Jonathan looked at Rebecca.
“Your body?”
She shook her head.
Gone.
Daniel’s phone buzzed.
A message from the woman who earlier claimed to have survived Rebecca.
YOU’RE WITH JONATHAN.
Daniel typed:
WHO ARE YOU?
The response:
EMILY HALE.
Daniel stared.
Impossible.
Emily had died in 1996.
Another message:
REBECCA IS LYING ABOUT WHICH SISTER DIED.
Daniel looked at Rebecca.
“Did Emily die in 1996?”
Rebecca went still.
Jonathan answered for her.
“Yes.”
Daniel showed them the phone.
Jonathan’s face drained.
Rebecca looked almost angry.
Not scared.
“She’s doing it again.”
“Who?”
Rebecca pointed toward the phone.
“Not Emily.”
“Then who?”
Rebecca whispered:
“It doesn’t have a name.”
The phone rang.
Daniel answered on speaker.
The caller sounded exactly like a woman in her late forties.
“Rebecca?”
Rebecca recoiled.
The caller began crying.
“Oh my God. Rebecca, it’s me.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
“It’s Emily.”
“No.”
“I survived.”
Rebecca covered her ears.
The caller pleaded:
“You watched me crawl out of the car.”
Rebecca’s composure shattered.
“STOP.”
Jonathan stared.
The first true emotional explosion from her.
The caller continued:
“You left me there.”
Rebecca screamed:
“YOU WERE DEAD BEFORE I GOT THERE!”
Silence.
Then the voice on the phone changed.
Not dramatically.
Only one tiny thing.
The crying stopped.
Instantly.
A calm voice said:
“Good.”
Daniel’s skin crawled.
“Now we know she remembers.”
The call ended.
Rebecca slowly lowered her hands.
Daniel asked:
“Remembers what?”
She stared toward Blackthorn Bridge.
“The part Michael made me promise never to tell.”
A distant church bell sounded once through the woods.
Rebecca looked terrified.
May you like
“We have to get off the road before it rings thirteen times.”
The bell rang again.
