The Past Will Haunt You

“hff…stupid!” thought  Andy. He was thinking about the story that he heard from Ali about the street near University X. Ali told him that that street is always empty, it was a perfect place to drive as fast as he wanted to. Andy was quite intrigued with it as he was looking for the right street to try his new car. However, the emptiness of the street was not the only thing Ali had shared to him. He told him that the place was haunted since two years ago, a lot of people had seen something that made them frightened. Andy never believed such stupid things, there was no such thing as ghost.

Two hours later, he was heading to that street. He wanted to prove to himself that the street was just a street.

“So…here I am and that’s the street! And where is the ghost?” sneered Andy to no one particular as he was all alone in the car. “People are often so silly.“

The street was really long, it surrounded the biggest university in his country. The street was so alive in the morning and afternoon, crowded with cars and people, but it looked death in the middle of the night. He drove his car as fast as he could. It was a good chance to try his new car, checking out how fast it would go.

“Yuhuuuui” screamed Andy full of ecstasy.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a woman walked right in front of his car. He immediately hit his break but it was impossible to stop before it reached the woman. Bam…the car hit the woman right in the stomach and he could feel her underneath his car as the car’s tires ran over her. He felt sick. He wasn’t sure what to do, part of him wanted to run away while his other part wanted to check on the woman.

His good side won over the battle of consciousness. He looked at the body through the mirror. She was lying face down. He couldn’t tell whether she was still alive or not. A sense of dejavu came over him. He had seen this image before.

“Where and when was it?” thought Andy. “I knew I have been in this situation before.”  He couldn’t bring himself to remember it and decided to ignore that dejavu feeling he had.

He got out of his car, but something odd happened the moment he turned his head toward the direction where the woman was supposed to lay. There was no body. He was sure he had seen a body from the rear-view mirror….but where was it now? A chill suddenly ran through his body.

“Get over yourself, Andy!” he tried to assure himself. “The body has got to be there, somewhere.”

He walked few meters away from his car to where the body was supposed to be. He didn’t see anything, he didn’t even see a trace of blood on the surface of the street.

“Okay…this is getting too weird for me, I must have seen things because of his stupid story.”

Andy walked back toward his car.

What he saw inside the car stopped his blood from running through his vein. The woman was inside the car, sitting on the passenger seat. Her head tilted slightly to her side.  She was looking down at her belly. There was something odd with her belly, it was flat and crushed. Blood was soaking through her dress. Her hand was on her belly, it was as if she was trying to stop her blood. Then she lifted her head and looked at Andy’s face.

Andy wanted to scream and ran away but his mouth was locked and his feet were nailed to the ground.

The woman lifted her blood soaking hand as high as her chest. “So, you’ve come back,” she said coldly. There was no expression on her face. “You didn’t leave me this time.”

Andy was hit with memory of the past. He remembered everything now, he did see that image of body lying behind his car. Two years ago, he was heavily drunk when he passed through this street. He hit a woman dressed in the same way as the woman sitting in his car right now. He looked through the mirror. His alcohol and drug clouded mind was shouting at him to leave her alone. He left her lying there. When he woke up in the morning, he couldn’t remember anything….or more precise, he didn’t want to remember anything.

“You left me to die!” whispered the woman in eerie voice. She stretched her hands toward him. “I have been waiting for you  to  come back.”

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Inspired by the ghost  story in the street near  University of Indonesia.