ADAM PEARSON
Elizabeth
It was an eerie foggy night on an endless stretch of empty highway that Ted found himself driving down for what seemed like the hundredth time. It was always the same when he took out his trash. Always the same long drive to the middle of nowhere. Always in the middle of night. This night was like most others in the small, sleepy town of Whisper Springs, Alabama. Except the thick fog. That was strange. Ted was irritable. He hadn’t been getting much sleep. He suspected the drinking wasn’t helping. He had had the radio on at first. The girl’s shrill singing gave him a headache. He turned it off. He got headaches often. This one was a real rager. He glanced at the box in the floorboard of his ‘93 plymouth for some degree of comfort. The car itself was a mess. He knew this. With a good portion of the paint job being rust and all the sides having at least one characteristic dent, it wasn’t difficult to notice. But it didn’t bother him so much. At least it moved. It moved and it hadn’t tried to leave him. He laughed at the thought. That was something at least. The moment he looked at the box he felt a measure of relief. His headache just barely began to subside. He turned to look at the road again and standing right in the middle of it just visible due to the fog was a silhouette of a woman in a white dress. Ted screamed and reactively jerked the wheel to the side, swerving out of the way. The car swerved off the road but somehow Ted managed to correct himself. He looked in his rearview mirror and saw nothing. The woman he thought he had seen had vanished. Instead replacing her were flashing red and blue lights. At this point Ted would have preferred the woman. Ted slowed down and pulled onto the side of the deserted highway, the patrol car pulling up behind him. Head throbbing once again, 163
