The Whispered Wind
Nothing was convenient that late afternoon when Maura’s car began to sputter. With her usual route home hindered because of last-minute bridge work, she had to take a new meandering detour, which she found slightly annoying. Rain was forecasted to start any time now, and all she wanted to do after a long day was be in front of the fire with her cat Sam while wearing her favorite thick wool socks.
With the slightest ounce of luck still on her side, her car rolled safely off the road and onto the entrance of a rutted driveway. With the turn of the key, the last of the sputtering ended, and a glance at the dash gauges gave her no clues about the problem.
She let out a giant audible sigh and opened her door.
First, she looked down the road from where she just traveled. Not one car. Then she pivoted with a bit of hope toward the other direction, but only the wind in the trees filled the air with sound.
Maura reached back into her car for her phone to see that it was at a dwindling 9% with zero bars, giving her heart a slight flutter. The wind whipped up leaves around her feet, and she hugged her arms tighter around herself. She decided the best bet was to walk up the driveway to see if anyone was home.
She trudged up the hill step by step, avoiding the sunken potholes and kicking her feet through piles of leaves that had gathered in clumps. As she crested the hill, her eyes grew wide with surprise. She found no welcoming house with a helpful homeowner as she had imagined, but instead only leaning headstones covered in moss and cracks.
Another loud, breathy gust of wind rushed past her, blowing her hair across her cheeks. Maura swiveled around, “Hello!! Is someone there!?” With near certainty, she had heard a voice coming from the woods. Then, a snap of a branch in the distance, crashing to the ground, gave her a second jump.
She decided heading back down the hill to her car was the best chance for help, but with one last out-loud thought, “Oh! I might have phone reception up here!” She fished into her jacket pocket, and with hope in her eyes, she looked down to instant defeat to see her phone was now at 6% and still no bars.
Her fear began to kick in a little more. She silently scolded herself that it was just the wind and dead people stay dead, but all those horror movies she watched as a teen were now feeding into this sliver of scare. She stuffed her phone back into her pocket, gave one more suspicious glance into the woods, and picked up her pace back down the hill.
Just as she was getting safely away, her toe caught a knobby root, and she landed with a thud in the middle of the driveway. She quickly jumped up, wiping her muddied hands on the side of her jeans, and without looking back, she started rushing down the hill.
As her car came into sight, she heard a muffled phone beginning to ring, coming from back up the hill. She quickly halted with a swivel, “Hello!? I mean it, who is there!?” she hollered, but the only reply was the phone’s incessant ringing. With a quickening breath, she patted her pocket as a habit and realized that her phone must have fallen out when she tripped and fell. Feeling the first spatters of rain on her face, she sprinted back up the hill and reached the phone just as the ringing stopped. The front of her phone now showed 3%, and the caller ID only said “No Name.”
With a whimper on her breath, she turned back and hightailed it as fast as she could to her car, sliding her dirty jeans onto her cloth seat and hitting the automatic lock button as the door slammed shut behind her. She clutched both hands onto the steering wheel, trying to calm herself down. She glanced in the rearview mirror and scolded her smudged reflection, “Get a grip Maura!”
She fished into her pocket for her keys, and with still shaking hands, she decided to give her car one more chance at starting. The dash gauges lit up with promise, and the car started with a perfect purr as if they had never quarreled. Maura put her car in gear, gave one quick glance in her side mirror for an all-clear, and spun the tires across the gravel just as another big gust of wind swirled up behind her.
[photo by me, story is fictional]
It's a deal!
Love the suspense in this story…