Travel at Night, Stay Out of Sight

 Living in North Carolina, you hear stories of people traveling. Whether phantom cars, hitchhikers, or ghosts of people who passed in accidents are the subjects of such stories. My neighborhood has an underpass leading into it. I always liked watching the trains go over it.

This underpass has been here since before I was born and unless things change, probably still standing when my grandchildren are adults. The short bit of street from the stop signs on the other side to the traffic lights, there have been all sorts of accidents.

Though people get beat up, mangled, and bruised, I have yet to hear a person actually dying. There have been plenty of close calls, some extremely close to home.

Jason and I were coming home from a late night drive. (That's a different story.) The night was dry and we could roll down the windows. We turned to go into the neighborhood at a gentle pace. We inched the underpass and waited for the other car to go through.

We ​were still trying to relax from the previous month's near devouring experience so we were on edge. The car never moved.

Jason inched forward and so did the other car. They had their high beams on and it was hard to see who was driving. Jason put the car in reverse and started cussing out of irritation. "We'll go around the other way." As we backed up, the other car mirrored us.

The car jumped as he hit the brakes. "What the hell?" I shaded my eyes from the beams of the other car. It was black, just like our car. "Roll forward slowly."

Jason looked at me like I had lost my freaking mind and released the brakes. He let the downward incline slowly move the car. The other car followed suit. The closer we got to the underpass, the more the other car disappeared.

Soon we were nose to nose. We should have hit it by now. Our headlights has disappeared entirely. The light of the street behind the other car cast through their windows. I imagine it was the same for us. We were looking at two human shaped people in a black car of the exact model as ours.

"Hang on. I'm going to gun it. I have an assumption." Jason slammed his foot down and the wind left my lungs in an ugly grunt. My glasses fogged up and my lips went numb.

We made it through to the other side. I could see the welcome sign for our neighborhood. Jason stopped just on the other side and we turned in our seats to look behind us. The other car was gone.

I wonder if anything has changed?