Ghost Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page B

Wellington heard the stories as well, but his response was to simply scoff at them as nothing but utter nonsense. Yet during those years Duke had made a point of going far out of his way to avoid that particular stretch of highway. His corvette had been repaired shortly after the accident and although he still drove much faster than he should, he made a point to never travel that road again.
    That was, until the night of his high school graduation when he was in a hurry to get home after a friend’s party. Duke wanted to see what his father had bought him as a graduation gift. He had asked for a new corvette, as his current one was never quite the same since the accident; at least it never felt right to Duke again. And since his father always bought him everything he wanted, he was certain the new car was waiting for him at home.
    Instead of taking his usual roundabout trip home he decided it made more sense to travel up the winding mountain and pass the site where the accident occurred. Although he had been nervous about doing so, Duke talked himself into it, thinking about how as a high school graduate it was time for him to put his unfortunate past behind him and be a man.  
    As he approached the curve, which had caused him so much trouble two years earlier, Duke deliberately slowed his car so he would be certain to pass through safely. His first inclination was to drive past the site as quickly as possible, but slow and easy seemed the best choice on that dark and somewhat foggy night.
    As he approached the bend Duke saw someone; a man, standing by the side of the road watching as if waiting. The man wore a denim blue work shirt and cotton workpants. His hair hung down over his eyes and at first Duke was not sure who he might be. Then the strange man lifted his head and stared directly at Duke who immediately recognized him as Francis O’Halloran, the man he had killed almost two years earlier. But the man no longer looked as he had back then.
    Now the man’s cheeks were sunken and his flesh was no more than sallow hide stretched tightly over bones. His eyes appeared huge and seemed to bug out of sunken black holes. His lips were mere lines pulled back over a mass of large exposed black and rotten teeth. The horrible creature opened his mouth and let out a roar that vibrated deep into Duke’s skull, causing him to instinctively throw his hands up to protect his aching ears.
    As he covered his ears he was just entering the curve and the vehicle started to veer off the highway. He quickly grabbed the wheel, overcompensating in the process. The car went into an uncontrollable spin before skidding off the highway and slamming into the same cluster of trees at the exact same spot where Francis O’Halloran lost his life two years earlier.
    The police who arrived to clean up the mess could not help but notice the look of complete terror that remained on the face of the battered corpse of Duke Wellington. Since a few of them had been on the job a long time and had been the very same officers who had been called to the original O’Halloran/Wellington accident, they looked at each other with amazement; understanding the strange, unspoken coincidence. Once again the local rumor mill filled with stories of ghostly vengeance and how the spirit of Francis O’Halloran had come back from the grave to claim the life of the person who had taken his.  
    Since that night, sightings of the mysterious stranger stopped. No one ever saw anything unusual at the site of the crashes again, no matter how many stories were told. And they never would. This was because the two cars were now a mile or more deeper in the woods decaying in the middle of a stack of cars; and each of those cars had their own terrible stories to tell.
    If you were to stop by the weed-infested pile of rusting metal late at night and if you were to sit quietly and listen with an ear for the uncommon, you might hear the painful cries of a young