THE SKELETON KEY GHOST STORIES: LAST RIDE

A short while later, a pair of headlights cut through the velvet darkness of the moonless night and he braced himself against a tree and began waving his crutch towards the oncoming lights. The car, a small four door Japanese import, slowed down and pulled up to him. The passenger side door’s window, which was closest to him, rolled down. He hopped up to the car and leaned in the window.

“Hello darling, what can I do for you?” asked the rather attractive woman driver. He figured she was probably in her early thirties.

“My car got a flat and I drove off the rode into a ditch. With no cell phone service and no hope of getting the car out of the ditch, I decided to start dragging myself to the nearest town; it’s a good thing you came about. I am hoping that I could bother you for a lift?” he asked her with his best smile, showing her his crutch.

He noticed her staring at him a bit suspiciously, and he quickly added, “I could understand if you’re a bit nervous about picking someone up at this time of night, so if you’d like just call a tow truck when you get into town, that’s fine.”

“No it’s ok, sorry I seemed hesitant darling, but you can never be too careful, do you need help getting in?” She asked. The expression on her face was a bit more cheerful now, but a bit restrained nonetheless.

“No thanks, I can manage.”

He opened the door, tossed his crutch in the back seat and sat down in the front passenger seat. She looked at him and he nodded that he was ready to go. She put the car in drive and away they went. He always thought of himself as witty and they chatted for a while as she drove along, finding out her name, which was Susan, where she worked, and that she had a passion for exercise.

He noticed how the dashboard lights lit up her bosom in a soft red glow which excited him. He gave her the usual lines about how he hurt his leg and how he worked at the university as a professor. He fed her a false name as he always did, just in case. He couldn’t help himself but keep looking at the blood red breasts and dreaming about the things he wanted to do to her, some of which were not very nice. She seemed to notice how he stared at her bosom and when their eyes met, she just smiled at him. He noticed that she started to slow down and came to a stop at a clearing next to the road. She apparently had succumbed to his charms, they almost always did, the few that they did not were a delightful challenge onto themselves.

She turns towards him and he casually slips the panty hose into his left hand, figuring he could wrap it around her neck when they began to make out. As he reached over to place his arm around her, he felt an unnatural chill coming from her. It was a chill that froze him to the very core of his being.

“Something wrong sweetie?” she asked almost playfully. He started to feel an uneasy feeling and decided to get out of the car. He kept his eyes on the woman in front of him, was grinning at him and also got out of the car. He stumbled out of the car and landed hard on the pavement and turned to run but was stopped dead in his tracks. In front of him was a woman, no not one, but quite a few. He slowly backed away from them and turned in a circle looking all around him. He looked at the ghostly women who had a milky, soft look to them all. He noticed the wounds and the misshapen appendages that looked broken and twisted. He started to remember some of them, and then he came to the realization that these women before him all had one thing in common, they had all been a victim of his.

The woman that drove him here had moved away from the car and moved to the front of the car, joining the congregation of the dead. He looked down and noticed that they all stood outside a large circle which was painted, no; in the soft lights of the interior of the car he noticed it was not paint but sand. His driver had just finished placing some on the tire tracks that were made when they drove over them to complete the circle.

He laughed towards her and boasted “This won’t hold me for long, and these ghosts can’t, no, they won’t do anything to me.”

“Its not meant to keep you here long, it’s just meant to keep you here for a few minutes.” She then raised her hands and all of the 174 ghosts, which had formed around him, let out an ear piercing shriek which seemed to rattle the ground itself. The shriek was then followed by an eerie silence, one in which the noisy Florida wildlife respected, as there seemed to be no sound at all.

He looked around at his victims’ ghastly vestiges, a shadow of who they were in life, doomed to walk the earth in the condition he had left them in as the life seeped out their bodies.

“Ha, is that the best you can do?” He taunted them, sure of himself, as he has escaped from jail and worse situations numerous times. Escaping from this pathetic trap should be child’s play for one of his intellect.

He noticed now that the woman was at the edge of the circle now, at the farthest point away from him. He decided he was going to find a way to somehow make her victim number 175 before the night was through when the car abruptly flew into the air! Below it a squirming mound of larvae grew. He now understood the nature of their trap and fear gripped him for only the second time he could remember.

The mound rose to about ten feet and then spread into a large round circle. The road gave way and flames burst through a gaping abyss that was eaten away by the larvae. From the depths of the hole came a deformed scorpion like creature, with a dozen of clamp like appendages which spewed from various places along its torso.

The abomination rose on its hind legs, and he noticed the beast had smaller versions of itself clinging to its abdomen. The silence was suddenly broken by Susan voice.

“He’s over there and he’s all yours.” She said to the hideous creature.

The seemly thousands of the little beasts crawled towards him and swarmed all over him. He screamed, louder and more horrifying than the wails of his victims if that where possible. The larger creature then grabbed the mass which he had become and quickly went back into the abyss.

The hole closed and all was as it had been before it appeared. Susan let out a pent of breath, which she felt she had held for an eternity. As she looked around, the faces and conditions of the ghostly images seemed to change. They looked radiant now, not a dull color of grey, but a majestic pure white which was bright as the sun. As quickly as they appeared, they walked away from the circle and disappeared into the night. All but one of them left.

Susan walked up to the last ghost and it spoke to her.

“Thank you my love, we are all eternally grateful for what you did for us, putting that bastard Ted Bundy where he belongs.”