The Specter

Rick turned the key, sliding it out of the door. He dropped it into his pocket and pulled down on the handle, making sure it was locked. He turned away from the back door of his restaurant and started down the alley. The cool night air surrounded him, bringing with it an aura of peace. He walked slower than his routine pace. It had been a long day at work and he wanted to take advantage of the crisp night air and peaceful silence.


Slowly a chill feathered across his neck and down his spine, he could almost feel a heavy weight pulling behind him. He glanced over his shoulder but saw nothing. The alley was empty with the exception of the calico cat that scurried from one dumpster to hide behind another. A brief wind whipped through the alley brushing leaves and loose garbage into the air. Rick grasped his jacket and drew it in tight. He gave the stretch behind him one last glance before resuming his journey home. A few moments of peacefulness returned but then it was there again--something heavy at his heels. He refused to turn.

The feeling grew into an icy panic centered in his chest. He unconsciously lifted his pace. It was an almost tangible force he felt floating silently behind him. Finally he gave in, whipping his head around not knowing what to expect. An empty alley, just as before. Nothing, not even the cat. The panic remained as he turned back and stretched his legs into a sprint. He could feel whatever it was, or wasn’t, still close behind him.

His feet struck the ground hard as he ran. Up ahead, the remnants of what was once a barbed wire fence lay coiled across the alley. Mid stride, his foot tangled in the mess and the sudden pull sent him crashing to the ground landing sideways on his wrist. Pain shot up his arm and sunk back down to his fingertips. His head cracked audibly against the ground and gravel tore at his face. He closed his eyes tightly before reopening them trying to shake the blackness circling in around his pupils. He lifted his head and focused intently on a dull light shining from the back porch of a nearby home. The light slowly stretched into two conjoining bulbs, then to three before disappearing completely. The alley faded into a blur as he sank into an inescapable darkness.

***

The morning dew sparkled beneath the soft sunlight seeping through the clouds. The early air wrapped warmly through the alley surrounding the nearby houses. A ray of solar light splashed against the wind chimes dangling loosely from the back porch of a small antebellum home. The screen door swung open. A corpulent woman appeared carrying a white bag bulging with garbage. She trotted down the narrow steps, her white fuzzy house slippers patted gently against the faded boards of the steep declining staircase. She unlatched the gate that separated her property from that of the alley and threw open the heavy dumpster lid, heaving the trash into the rust covered receptacle. She turned away, facing the long stretch of alley leading out away from her back yard. Something peripherally grasped her attention. She directed her full focus to the middle of the alley, leaning in cautiously to take a closer look. There, next to a coil of barbed wire strewn across the alley laid an amorphous pile of bones; stripped, washed out, white bones and nothing more.