Wisp of a Thing

35

Denton Sizemore had no time to react. One moment the road was empty; then suddenly she was there, right in front of him. He hit a deer last year, just after he’d gotten his license, and knew how sickening that felt. This was far worse; the sound his truck made when it struck the woman would stay with him forever.

He dialed 911 on his cell phone as he jumped out of the truck. No one used this old highway anymore, and there were no houses within five miles. The only building was the abandoned remains of an old roadhouse nightclub, its parking lot overgrown with kudzu, two faded wood cutouts of what looked like dice or dominoes still mounted on its roof. This was the last place he’d expect to find a pedestrian, especially one who dashed into the road right in front of him.

He knelt beside her. From the way her eyes stared at the overcast sky, he knew she was dead, and he almost threw up. The emergency dispatcher asked him calmly to describe the victim.

“Sh-she looks about thirty,” he told the dispatcher. “She’s got red hair, and she’s wearing clothes like they did twenty years ago. No, I don’t see a purse anywhere.”

Following the dispatcher’s instructions, he tentatively touched her neck for a pulse. Her head lolled to one side the way it could only if her neck was broken. He nearly screamed.

“Y’all, please hurry!” Sizemore said, tears filling his eyes. “I don’t want to be alone here with a corpse!”

The dispatcher stayed on the phone with him until the police and ambulance arrived. The paramedics quickly loaded the body onto a stretcher and carried it away, while the state trooper sympathetically took his statement.

One of the paramedics, a woman with long black hair, put a hand on Sizemore’s shoulder. He recognized her as one of the Needsville Tufas, although he didn’t know her name.

“Don’t feel too bad about it,” she said gently. “It was an accident, that’s all.” She leaned closer. “And really, this woman died twenty years ago.”

Sizemore didn’t understand the strange comment, but the EMT’s smile and touch eased his panic. She hummed a tune he almost recognized as she climbed into the ambulance and closed the door. Red lights flashing, it drove away into the mist.