“And I say it’s a load of shit!” Carol quips as tightens her seatbelt. “Beth went back to Austria, or wherever it was the age came from. The whole idea you’ve got running around in your skull is ludicrous!”
“Ludicrous, now there’s a word you don’t hear that often,” he says with a wry smile as he nods his towards a vacant spot a few feet from Carol.
“Why the FUCK do you keep doing that!” She screams, as she looks around the otherwise empty car, and then back at Luke.
“Do what?”
“Talk to thin air like someone is there!”
He smiles broadly, “Because there is someone there. In fact there’s someone everywhere. All around us echos of what was and has been bridge this world and the next, making every inch of space between ourselves and the next person jam packed with the ghosts of yesterday.”
“Ghosts? You’re running commentary on everything you do, to ghosts! Are you fucking insane?”
“I’m not surprised you don’t share my attachment to the other side of things, you’ve always been a solid believer of simplicity. The thought of what could be waiting for us after this is alien to you I’m sure, but I’ve seen things that can’t be explained any other way. So yeah, every now and then I like to keep them up to date with what’s happening,” he says shrugging his shoulders as he does. “Is that a crime?”
“Fucking oath it’s a crime. See, there’s some things that defy explanation, like how do huge planes that weigh a fucking tone fly, and other shit like that, those things I can accept. But ghouls and ghosts are another thing entirely.”
“Why, what makes the idea of something after this life an impossibility?”
“Everything. We are meat and bone, nothing more, nothing less. To think that when this body dies some part of us leaks out of our arsehole and begins a new life free of this frail form that houses us is ridiculous.”
“What if I could show you? What if I could allow you to see what I’ve seen. Do you think that would be a worthy experiment?”
She laughs as she adjusts the rear view mirror and turns the key in the ignition. “Honey, you’d need to do a whole damn lot to make me believe in the afterlife.”
“What if I could prove to you ghosts exist by showing you one, would that be enough?”
She laughs louder, “If you can successfully show me a honest to god ghost, I’ll buy into your little world of insanity.”
He points forward, “Drive,” he says.
“Where?”
“Straight, anywhere else it doesn’t matter, as long as you go straight, I can show you the rest.”
“Okay, but for the record we’re wasting our time.”
“Just drive, and you’ll see.”
The engine roars to life and Carol lets out a giggle of amusement as she clicks the indicator on and pulls out from the curb. Several silent minutes pass as they drive aimlessly around the quiet streets, until carol breaks the silence.
“What am I looking for?”
“What do you mean?” He asks.
“Exactly what I asked. What am I looking for, you know, this proof of yours.”
“You haven’t seen it?”
She looks around the empty streets and then back to Luke. “No, ain’t nothing to see.”
“Look again,” he says softly.
Carol looks out the window once more, staring out into the night. It’s the that she notices no matter which way she turns, they always seems to stay on the same road. “Okay, what did you do?” She asks, turning to Luke, who looks at her with a frown upon his face.
“Do you remember what happen after we got in the car?”
“What, what sort of question is that! We started having this conversation,” She replies confidently.
“Are you sure?”
“What the hell do you mean, am I sur…” she stops herself partway though as she stares at her own reflection in the rear view mirror and remembers how the conversation began, after the truck narrowly missed them.
