The Last 384 Hours

9

S

ong: Start a War by Klergy and Valerie Broussard

~

You know, ghosts should pay for taxi rides, too—or carpooling with strangers.

Veronica definitely would've frowned at the idea of hopping into somebody else's Uber ride and not contributing a single cent. She would've frowned even more at the idea of catching a ride with a couple that are driving back home after visiting a sick family member at the hospital thirty-eight miles away in Newark.

But I'm not Veronica, and I had been in desperate need of a ride. I wouldn't have been able to get to North Road on time by foot anyway. So I'd had to jump into strangers' cars without their knowing. And to my luck, I'd managed to snag a ride that was headed to 54 North Road after I'd jumped out of an Uber when it'd stopped at a traffic light. To my convenience, both cars had had their windows down, despite the arctic weather conditions. I guess smokers really do care how their cars smell, especially if one of them is an Uber driver and if the other is married to a woman with OCD.

The ride with the married couple had been interesting, to say the least. Every now and again the women—Harriet—would make snide remarks about how unclean the hospital in Newark was, and her husband—Malachi, who was drowning in the addictive pleasure of smoking—would reply with generic 'hms' and 'yeahs'.

By the time we were driving down North Road, the car was silent. I think that Harriet had noticed her husband's lack of interest in her critiques and was waiting for them to be in the privacy and safety of their home before she could properly lash out on him. The woman valued her life, I'd give her that. After seeing that car accident that Nicholas had orchestrated, I'd become very aware of the small details on the street that would pose as a threat to my half-life.

But since we were in the Charlestons' neighborhood, I'd told myself not to fret. I'd driven down this road ample times before William had offered to help me save gas by giving me rides to his house and back to campus when we had tutoring sessions together. I'd never come across a single pothole or stray animal.

So when Harriet and her husband's car had finally come to a stop in front of a modern, contemporary two-story house, I'd merrily hopped out of the car the first chance I'd gotten, not expecting any danger ahead.

"Great, it's twelve AM! I'll have to call in sick this morning." I'd heard Harriet exclaim as I marched down their driveway.

So on Wednesday, the nineteenth of February, I'd witnessed a car accident, Nicholas' smile, and I'd gotten a free ride twice in a row.

And now, in this exact moment, it was the early hours of Thursday, the twentieth of February, and I was walking up North Road; the street in which Princeton's beloved Charleston family resided

To my luck, when I'd gotten struck, I'd been wearing warm clothes—the type you'd wear when you live in the North Pole or when you're climbing Mount Everest—so the strong, icy wind didn't bother me, that much. It only stung my cheeks that were out in the open.

Most of the properties on North Road were large and were encased in a dark, sky-high wall of evergreens that were dripping from the fine drizzle that lingered in the air, and it was hard to even see what the houses really looked like. But every now and then, I'd catch the tip of a chimney peeking behind the tree tops, and in betwen the leaves, slivers of light would spill onto the wet asphalt.