The Crossing

A Crossing

Lightning flashed again. There was no time to count the seconds before the thunder. The storm was almost overhead now. The roar from the clouds shook the building, the windowpanes showing distorted reflections under the force of nature at its most violent. The telephone on the desk gave a very short 'ping', the bell inside obviously activated by the discharge of electricity outside. It startled the occupant of the room, who looked at the device with a faint sneer. He wasn't afraid of such things. It was only a phone, after all! But it seemed to know the storm. It wasn't just the telephone, of course. Every electronic device in the flat gave a short buzz with every flash from outside. But with a phone... Its sound was so inextricably associated with a conscious mind on the other end of the line... It was unnerving somehow.

Another flash, followed by thunder, and the phone rang again, longer this time. The man shifted in his seat, staring at it. Thunder again, but no lightning this time. The phone rang, and lightning flashed, almost simultaneously. Almost simultaneously. Was the telephone slightly premature that time? No, the man's imagination was running away with him. He'd had enough, he decided. He stood up, and made his way over to the desk where the phone lay. His hand reached for the receiver. Lightning flashed, the phone chirped, and a car's brakes squealed briefly in the downpour outside.

A flash of memory brought the real reason for his trepidation back to the fore. That storm, now years in the past, still haunted him. He had been driving that time himself, and he hated driving in the rain. The narrow, unlit curves of the road he had been on demanded his full attention, but his apprehension in the driver's seat that night had guarenteed that. Lightning flashed again outside his flat and he was on the road again, rain driving against his windscreen, obscuring the view ahead, except when the flashes drove back the darkness for half a moment.Again the lightning flashed and he was standing in his flat, his right hand inches from the phone. He had to get away from that night.

Again came the flash and the crack, and there it was, almost like an apparition, just to the side of the road. It was definitely a person, fairly short, a skirt flapping in the wind. It waved to the driver, and stepped out. His foot slammed down, almost involuntarily, and the brake disks let out a long screech, the car's momentum carrying it forward into the gloom. Then came the thud. The car ground to a halt, the tyres trapping some shape in front of them. Stupid girl! was the only thought that raced through his head. He had heard no scream, no other sound, just a dull thud and the crunch of gravel. Adrenalin overcame any inconvenience over the rain, the storm, or whatever he might find out there. He dived out of his car and ran to the bonnet. It was gone. Or was it hidden in the darkness. There was a flash of light. There was no corpse. But he had hit something. He must have gone completely over it, but a quick inspection of the undercarriage and behind him revealed nothing.