Joe Flick's right index finger searched down the page of the tattered history book until it finally found the paragraph he was searching for. "Here it is," he announced excitedly.
"'The legend of the Lady in White is an often told story in the history of Washington Township,'" he quoted. "'It is said that she died in a tragic automobile accident on Niles Canyon Road and every year on February 17, the anniversary of her death, she desperately tries to find a ride back to the safety of town.'"
Joe looked up and smiled. "You were right about the date, Matt!"
"All right!" Ernie Sanchez exclaimed, impressed by their timing.
"I'll tell you what we've got to do," Matthew Trant said, intently studying the book over Joe's shoulder. "We've got to keep our eyes on her."
"What you mean 'keep our eyes on her',?" Ernie asked.
"Sssh!" the librarian called to them. She had been watching the three young men ever since they entered the nearly deserted library. Looking for a history book, were they? On a Saturday afternoon? Like hell, they were! They were taggers more than likely, just waiting for her to turn her head so they could scribble all over her freshly-painted walls!
Matthew ignored the librarian's glare but did lower his voice. "It says here that the Lady in White always gets into the back seat of the car, but somewhere between the place the driver picks her up and the end of the canyon, she always disappears."
"So?" Ernie asked blankly.
"No one ever sees her disappear. It's the same story, over and over. It happens when you take your eyes off of her. So we don't, you see? Once we get her in the car, we watch her like a hawk, and we capture her!"
Joe smirked.
"What's so funny?" Matthew asked. "It's what we want, isn't it? Haven't we talked about this since we were kids?"
"You've been talking about it since we were kids," Joe pointed out. "Anyway, it sure sounds weird," Joe replied. "I mean, like sure, seeing a real ghost is one thing, and if we have the balls to do it, actually getting her into the car is another. But capturing her? You really think we're going to capture her? And if we do, what do you plan on doing with her?"
"Well, trying to get laid by a ghost is definitely out of the question," Ernie observed with a shiver.
"Come on, dummies!" Matthew insisted. "Think about it! Everyone who's picked her up has lost her. I'm not going to spend the rest of my life thinking about the ghost that got away."
"This sounds more like a fishing trip than a ghost hunt," Joe said dryly.
"Call it what you want, but if we do get lucky and find the Lady in White, I want to keep her as long as possible."
Matthew checked his watch. "It's about an hour before sunset. Let's get something to eat and make plans."
The Lady in White, also known as the White Lady or The White Witch is an irresistible legend but also an odd one. The three young men didn't realize it, but the tale of a young woman picked up on a rural road on the anniversary of her death, only to disappear in the shocked driver's back seat, was a story told in just about every state in the Union. It was the McDonalds of ghost stories, franchised to dozens of towns, told around countless campfires throughout the land. Yet, the Fremont, California, version of the story was apparently the real thing, because when Matthew Trant first heard the story, it was from someone who had actually seen her.
Matthew was just eight at the time, but he remembered it like it was yesterday. He was watching T.V. when his Uncle Bill came to his house on Mento Drive one rainy February night. He was white as a sheet, babbling to Matthew's father about a woman he and his friend Jimmy Seishas had picked up out on Niles Canyon Road.
"She was just standing out there dressed up in this frilly white dress like she was going to a party. It was colder than witch's tit out there, but she had no coat, no nothing. We pulled over to help. She said she needed to get home right away. She got in the back of Jimmy's Ford without so much as a shiver. We talked a bit, though she didn't seem too anxious to tell us how she got out there alone.
"I felt kinda embarrassed staring at her. I figured she'd refused some guy and he had dumped her. So I turned my attention to the road for a minute. When I looked
back... ."
"What?" Matthew's father asked, staring at his younger brother with disbelief.
"She was gone," Bill replied hoarsely.
"She got out of the car?"
"Hell, no! Jimmy's got a lead foot, you know that. No way she got out! She was just--gone... ."
Uncle Bill never talked about that night again, even years later when Matthew was in his teens. When Matthew would ask, he would just shake his head and refuse to acknowledge that the night had even happened.
But then last August Uncle Bill got transferred to Texas, and Matthew spent his uncle's last weekend in the Bay Area helping him load the U-Haul for the long trip back. Late Sunday afternoon, when everyone was tired out from the packing, Bill offered his underage nephew a beer and volunteered one last piece of information about the Lady in White.
He was standing at the rear doorway of the truck, leaning against its frame, looking thoughtfully at the sunset when he said it. "She stares," he said.
"Who stares, Uncle Bill?" Matthew asked from his resting place at the bottom of the ramp.
"The Lady in White. You remember, don't you? It's the one thing I can't forget from that night, Matty. The real reason I took my eyes off of her and turned forward was because she was staring at me, and I swear... ." He stopped for a second his lips quivering as if they were resisting releasing the words.
"Swear what, Uncle Bill?" Matthew asked.
"Her eyes. They were like glass marbles glowing in the night, getting bigger, looking into mine like she knew everything I'd ever done."
"Then she disappeared?"
"Yeah, she disappeared. So I guess I'll never know what she saw."
Matthew swore that the next time February rolled around, he'd go out and try to discover what the Lady in White was staring at, but as fate would have it, he almost missed the date.
It was his senior year at Mission High, and there were lots of things to do, lots of plans to be made. The prom was only two months away, and there was college to think about. Then there was his girlfriend, Haley, who took up a lot of his time and interest. It wasn't until one dull, winter Saturday when she was shopping for a prom dress, and he decided to spend the day with his friends that he remembered Uncle Bill's story about the Lady in White.
"Can we borrow your mother's Taurus?" Matthew asked Joe. They were sitting in the Burger King on Mowry Avenue tossing around ideas for the night ahead.
"I guess so, but why do you want to drive around in that? It's an old lady's car."
"It's a Ford. My Uncle Bill was in a Ford that night, an old white Galaxy 500. I saw it from the living room window."
"You're saying that the Lady in White prefers Fords?" Ernie asked incredulously.
"I don't know what she prefers," Matthew replied, ignoring the taunt. "I just want everything to be as close to the way it was when Uncle Bill found her."
"Sure, no problem," Joe said with a shrug. "Mom thinks my Mustang's a death-trap anyway."
"Good," Matthew nodded, munching on a french fry.
"One thing, though," Joe added. "I've got to drive."
"That's okay with me," Matthew replied. "I'm sitting in the back with her!"
Sunset comes early in February, especially when the Bay Area sky is overcast and the smell of rain is thick in the air. After topping off the Taurus, the three boys pulled out of the Chevron station and headed purposely up Mission Boulevard toward the mouth of the canyon.
Niles Canyon Road is a narrow gorge roughly six miles long that follows the path of Alameda Creek as it meanders its way into the San Francisco Bay. Train tracks also follow the path, crossing the road in several places over thick, graffiti-scared cement bridges.
The road is known primarily as alternate route commuters can take to enter the city of Fremont from the east. Few realize that the canyon has enjoyed a colorful past. In the mid-1800's it was infested with bandits who fed on travelers brave enough to navigate the chasm. Early in the twentieth century, the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company built a movie studio in the little town of Niles at the base of the road and used the canyon's rolling hills and rocky precipices to film hundreds of early westerns.
Today the creek is still a place for fishing, swimming and drinking beer, but sadly its place in history is mostly forgotten. It is, for the most part, just another overused country road, except for one thing: dark, windy Niles Canyon Road can be as dangerous as a snake, ready to strike anyone who takes it for granted. Over the years it has claimed more than its share of lives, including one of an unknown young woman who had the misfortune to become known as the Lady in White... .
"So where are we supposed to find her?" Joe Flick asked as they headed up Niles Canyon Road. The evening fog had already begun to settle over the hills, giving the verdant canyon a dark, jungle-like look.
"Uncle Bill never said, but if she's out here, we'll find her," Matthew replied with certainty. "I'm sure of it."
It was soon apparent that their night of searching would not be a smooth one. In spite of the light Saturday evening traffic, an accident midway in the canyon blocked the road for nearly an hour. Eventually, an ambulance passed, moving slowly west toward town.
"Its siren isn't on," Ernie said gravely. "I wonder what that means?"
"Maybe no one was hurt," Joe suggested.
"Maybe someone died," Matthew said ominously.
"Jesus, Matt, do you have to say that crap?" Ernie asked irritably.
"Traffic's moving," Joe said, pointing at the cars ahead of them.
Soon the Taurus slowly slipped around the turn. There, in a turnout near the bridge, were the crushed remains of a car hanging from the rear of a tow truck. A CHP officer waved them past with a flashlight. The orange light from a dozen road flares reflected off his yellow rain slicker, giving him an almost angelic glow.
"It's a Mustang, Joe," Ernie noted as they passed. "Same model as yours."
"I wonder what happened?" Matthew asked from the back seat.
"He must have run right into the cliff," Joe said, pointing out a smear of blue paint on the rocky wall.
The wreckage gave them pause, and silence filled the car as each young man considered the ramifications of their adventure. Was the Mustang a warning or just a coincidence? Was the Lady in White sending them a message?
"Just keep driving," Matthew instructed from the back seat, cutting off their morbid thoughts.
The next two hours passed slowly. The boys continued their course from the mouth of the canyon to the little town of Sunol just beyond its eastern edge, then back. As the night grew deeper so did the fog, making the pavement slick and dangerous, but Joe drove the Taurus carefully. Fewer and fewer cars passed them now, and the road was soon enveloped in a quiet more in keeping with its country past.
During each pass up the narrow road, they were certain they saw things watching them from just beyond the range of their headlights. But when their worried eyes looked closer, the images disappeared, becoming a malformed rock, tree trunk or sometimes the eyes of one of the nocturnal animals waiting for that magical time during the dead of night when the road once again becomes their own.
At 9:50 P.M. they stopped at Big Daddy's coffee shop at the west end of the canyon for a break. Ernie Sanchez was nervous. He had gone along with their goofy plans because he was certain it was all just a bunch of bullshit. There wasn't any ghost out on that road waiting for them. It was just something to do. He looked at his two friends anxiously, hoping that one of the other two would call off this stupid escapade and suggest a movie or a game of pool, but his reprieve never came. Matthew was resolute, and Joe held onto his look of quiet determination.
They drank their coffee in silence. The joking around that had prevailed throughout the day was gone. A part of them knew that the time was near, and within minutes they were back in their car heading eastward once again. Searching. Searching for her. And less than five minutes after they made their turn-around in Sunol, they found her.
What does a ghost look like? If one were to believe the stories, they are nothing more than a wisp of smoke, there for a moment, then gone. But that was not what the three young men found standing alone in a narrow turnout. She looked very real.
She was young, barely out of her teens, and wore a look of worry on her face. Her long auburn hair hung in ringlets over her shoulder. Her dress was white and lacy with short sleeves, broken at the waist by a red sash. She wore black patent leather shoes that glistened in the Ford's headlights. In spite of the cold, she wore neither coat nor sweater.
"You think that's her?" Joe asked uncertainly, the crisp realness of her presence throwing him off guard.
"I suppose we're about to find out," Matthew replied, rolling down the back right window. "Pull up beside her, Joe."
Joe edged the Taurus to the shoulder of the road parallel to the young woman.
"Do you need some help, miss?" Matthew asked, leaning his head out the window.
The young woman looked at him as if noticing the car for the first time. Her brow furrowed with concern. "He, he left me here," she stuttered.
"Who left you?" Matthew asked.
"My beau," she replied. "We had an quarrel, and he left me here to fend for myself."
"Would you like a ride back to town?" Matthew asked.
She looked at him uncertainly, as if debating whether it was safer to get in the car or take her chances outside in the cold.
Matthew studied her closely. She certainly wasn't beautiful, but she definitely wasn't ugly either. She filled out the old-fashion dress nicely. Much to his disappointment, she didn't look like a ghost at all. Could finding this young woman out here be just an amazing coincidence?
"I suppose it will be all right," she finally said.
Matthew stepped out of the car and held the door open for her to get in.
"This is a most unusual motor car," she said, as she entered the car. "What is it?"
"It's a Ford," Matthew replied, sliding in beside her.
"A Ford?" she asked dubiously.
"Hi!" Joe said nervously from the front seat. Ernie sat bolt upright facing forward, too scared to even turn and look.
"These are my friends Joe Flick and Ernie Sanchez," Matthew said. "I'm Matt Trant. What's your name?"
"My name?" she asked as if trying to remember. "Why it's Clara, Clara Nichols."
"So where can we take you, Clara?" Matthew asked, waving for Joe to get under way.
"I've been staying in a rooming house in Niles, but I'm from a town across the San Francisco Bay, Redwood City. Have you heard of it?"
"Yes, of course," Matthew replied, watching her intently. "It's just across the bridge."
"Bridge?" she asked, her voice trailing off. Her face was filled with confusion, as if she had just remembered something most unpleasant. She looked out the window, then back at Matthew. Her brown eyes were glistening with tears. "Why do you look at me that way, sir?" she asked.
"What was that?" Matthew asked defensively.
"He used to look at me that way; like he owned me, like he could see right through me."
"Who was that, miss?" Matthew asked, trying to concentrate on her face.
"Chester," she replied. "Please turn away your gaze, sir."
"Why?"
There was a long pause before she spoke again. "So that I may return."
"Return where?"
"To where I wait. Wait so long in the cold and dark."
"What are you waiting for?" Matthew asked, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. It was suddenly colder in the car, in spite of the fact that he could hear the whirring of the car's heater. In the front seat his two friends were silent, as if they were holding their breath with anticipation.
She turned and looked at him fully. Tears were now cascading down her ashen cheeks. "Peace. I wait for peace to come and take me home. Please, sir. Let me go."
Matthew felt very bad. Guilty. He hadn't expected this, this overwhelming sense of despair. To catch a ghost seemed like the ultimate adventure, but now that he had her in his grip, caught in the web of his own blue eyes, he knew that it was a tragic adventure. Ghosts were things of sorrow, and this young woman deserved more than to be the object of a teenage prank.
But there was something else. Now that he had her, couldn't he help her in some way? Could he somehow give this young woman the peace she craved so desperately her soul was forced to wander this dark, desperate road throughout eternity?
"Maybe we can help you," he said, watching her.
"Help me?"
"Help you find the peace you are looking for."
"Oh," she said, her gaze returning to the window.
The car got colder still, and when the ghost of Clara Nichols turned its attention back to the teenage boy that had captured her tortured soul, she had changed.
She stared back.
Matthew shivered, and his uncle's words swept through his mind. "She stares!" he had warned. Signaling that the time had come for mortals to turn away, to let the apparition return to wherever it came from, and allow the paper-thin barrier between life and death to once again separate the now and the forever.
But Matthew did not turn away, and in spite of the bitter cold that now held the interior of the car in its icy grip, he was sweating, and he felt himself being pulled in by--her eyes! They had gotten bigger! Almost glowing now, like spinning saucers! Widening until they began to distort the sad face that had hailed them from the side of the road.
"Turn away, sir," she warned. Her voice had changed. It had gotten deeper, gravely, like an old woman who had drunk too much booze and smoked one too many cigarettes. "Or come with me... ."
There was a blinding flash of light and then blackness. Matthew blinked his eyes. The world had changed. The sound of the car's engine had deepened and the smell of cigarettes, liquor and mohair upholstery invaded his nostrils. The Taurus was gone. Joe and Ernie were gone. Matthew was still in the back seat of a Ford, but now it was the narrow seat of a very old car.
Light spilled through his back window. It was late afternoon, and in the front seat Clara Nichols was sitting alongside a man wearing a dark fedora who was maneuvering the automobile carefully down the narrow canyon road. Matthew could see the man's reflection in the small rearview mirror. He was a handsome man dressed in formal attire, sporting a thin, neatly trimmed mustache. He looked worried.
"What's wrong, Chester? You act like you've never seen a woman's breast before," Clara teased.
"For Christ's sakes, cover up, Clara," he said. "It's broad daylight!" But in spite of his words, Matthew could see his eyes fluttering toward the tempting form of Clara Nichols.
"That isn't what you said when you were having your way with me," she replied. "As I recall, you were bound and determined to get me buck naked."
As Matthew watched with utter fascination, Clara brought up her hand and teasingly pulled apart the top of her pretty white party dress, revealing a little more of her smooth white skin. "Let's go back to Sunol, Chester. Let's take a room in that seedy hotel and make love for the rest of the evening. Maybe we can do the things in those French postcards."
"Stop talking like a harlot, Clara!" Chester bristled. "This has gone too far, I'm afraid. I have a wife, you know, and a career to protect."
"Oh, so now you think of your little wife? Well, it wasn't so important an hour ago, was it, darling? Maybe your wife and I should have a little talk, Chester. What would you think about that?"
With a quick yank of the steering wheel, Chester pulled the Ford into a turnout, stopping it against the rocky side of a hill.
"If you want to be treated like the harlot you are, then that's the way it shall be, my dear."
Clara grinned wickedly, still not appreciating her lover's irritation. "That's my Chester," she said. "Will you take me here? In the car like before? Or shall we find a place out in Mother Nature?"
"I will teach you not to threaten me, Clara!" Chester seethed, ignoring her erotic invitation. "I want you to get out!"
"Out? Here?" Clara asked looking around, her face suddenly alive with anger. "But we're miles from town!"
"You heard me, woman!" Chester bellowed. "Out! Now! Maybe the walk will remind you of your place!" And with that he leaned over, threw open Clara's door and pushed her out, tossing her small handbag after her.
Clara landed indignantly on the dirt and gravel beside the car, her pretty white dress torn and soiled beyond repair. For a moment she was too stunned to speak. She looked at the stinging impressions of pebbles temporarily embedded in the flesh of her soft, delicate hands and slowly lifted herself from the ground with as much dignity as she could muster. She stood on wobbly legs and glared into the car.
"You son-of-a-bitch!" she screeched, shaking so hard she had to brace herself on the car's doorframe. "You think just because you get paid to dress up like a cowboy and parade around these hills, you can treat me like this? I will ruin you!" she said, shaking her fist. "I swear by God I will! I will not only tell your wife about our trysts, I will tell the studio! Then for good measure I will tell the newspapers, God help me! See what that does for your precious career!" And with that she slammed the door.
Chester was too stunned by her outburst to reply. He thought he knew this young woman who had given herself to him without the slightest pretense of resistance or morality. He thought he could control her and a walk back into town would remind her who was the boss. She dared to threaten him? The very thought of it was outrageous!
In a rage Chester threw the car into gear and left Clara standing beside the road in a cloud of dust. Matthew managed to turn and watch as the twitching form of Clara Nichols disappeared behind the curve. His heart was beating madly. Not only was he witnessing this awful scene, he was living it, too. It was as if he were inside these two mad beasts, feeling their passion, feeling their uncontrolled rage.
"How dare that slut speak to me that way!" Chester swore as he drove the car like a mad man, drifting from one lane to the other, muttering under his breath as he wildly aimed the car westward.
Matthew wished he could speak, but he knew Chester would not hear him. In this world Matthew was the outsider, the spirit, the one who was forced to relive a scene that should have been forever hidden in the past.
About a mile from where he left Clara, Chester abruptly stopped the Ford dead in the middle of the road. From the back seat Matthew could see the man's reflection in the mirror. His face was ashen and beads of perspiration were running freely from his face and onto his starched, white collar. He looked like a man about to have a coronary.
For a long moment neither Chester nor the Ford moved. Luckily, no other cars rounded the sharp curve just ahead. An eternity seemed to pass, but eventually Chester shoved the car into gear and made a slow, deliberate "U" turn.
"He's changed his mind!" Matthew hoped, as the Ford started back up the road. "He's going back to get her!"
But then Chester began to speak, and his words chilled Matthew's heart. They were said softly, in a low, guttural monotone that made the man sound as if he were in a devilish trance. "I'm going to kill her," Chester growled. "I'm going to kill her. I'm going to kill her... ."
Chester repeated the threat as if it were a mantra, leaving Matthew with no doubt as to what was about to take place. He now knew how Clara Nichols, aka The Lady in White, earned her union card as a ghost. Chester had murdered her.
The Ford headed eastward, rapidly picking up speed. In the back seat Matthew hung on as best he could, dearly wishing he were secured by a seat belt. All the while Chester kept talking, his manic chant now reduced to one deadly word: "Kill, kill, kill, kill... ."
The Ford finally found the turnout where Chester had left a highly pissed-off Clara Nichols. She was still standing there, looking as if she couldn't believe she had been left stranded a good three miles from town. For a split second the two former lovers made eye contact, and the spark of telepathic communication between them sent shivers through Matthew's body.
The turnout behind Clara had been blasted out of a solid mass of rock, but Chester aimed the car at her anyway, oblivious to the consequences. To Matthew's surprise Clara made no attempt to dodge the automobile. Instead, her hand emerged from her handbag revealing the white steel of a small handgun. With surprising calm she raised her arm and aimed the pistol at the Ford's windshield.
Clara didn't hesitate. She squeezed off two quick shots. The first hit the car on the passenger side, smashing through the glass. Matthew felt the bullet whiz past his head and out the rear of the car, wondering if in this ghost world a bullet could actually hit him. The possibility only added to his terror.
The second bullet hit Chester in the head.
From his angle, Matthew didn't see the bullet smash the actor's face, but he felt its effect. Blood exploded from the man's head, bathing Matthew's face and chest with warm liquid. Matthew tried to scream but couldn't. This ghost world denied him even that. Instead, he heard the deadening thump as the Ford hit Clara Nichols' body, gobbling up her and her party dress under its front tires like a hungry beast.
And directly ahead was the rocky face of Niles Canyon... .
In the old Ford the story of Clara Nichols was being told in real time, but back in the new Ford Taurus, where a terrified Joe Flick and Ernie Sanchez watched Matthew Trant's duel with a ghost, the whole thing lasted but seconds.
The ghost seemed to be swallowing their friend whole, sucking his soul out of him like some giant leech. Ernie almost pissed his pants in terror, but he couldn't just sit there while Matthew was taken away forever. The ghost of Clara Nichols was gone now, replaced by a howling beast with eyes the size of basketballs. The fine mist of Matthew's life source was drifting toward it like wind-driven fog, and the beast waited hungrily for its feast.
When Joe skidded the Taurus to a stop, Ernie grabbed at his seat belt. Without further thought, he lunged over the seat, his only plan to somehow break the connection between the ghost world and their own.
"Close your eyes, Matt!" Ernie pleaded as he leapt. "Close your God damn eyes!"
"She stares!" Matthew screamed, his face twisted in madness. "She stares!"
When Ernie finally landed between them, the ghost figure screamed with rage. No one had gone this far before. No one had had the courage, the audacity, and the stupidity to challenge its gaze. But the damage had been done. The delicate spiritual connection between this world and the next had been broken, gone until some other fool decided to cruise Niles Canyon Road on the February 17.
Matthew's hands shook openly as he clutched the cup of coffee at Big Daddy's and told them in halting sentences about his glimpse into a dead world filled with hate and murder. He owed his two friends an explanation, but the words were hard to come by. It was as if the ghost world defied translation.
When they were finished they stood in the parking lot, looking eastward toward the mouth of the canyon. It was there, with the cold night wind blowing around them and the evening stars poking though a clearing sky, that Matthew mustered a brief final statement.
"That was not The Lady in White, you know," he said, nodding toward the canyon. "Don't get me wrong. What I saw really happened. But that ghost was not Clara Nichols. It was something else that was using her tragedy for its purposes. Looking for an idiot like me, I suppose."
"I'll tell you this much. Whatever it is in that canyon, it's been there for a long time, hiding under its rocks, lying at the bottom of the creek. It's been many things. Scary things. It feeds on people. Feeds on their hate. It's caused quite a few car wrecks, I suppose. I think it's been there since the very beginning of... ."
"The beginning of what, Matt?" Joe asked.
Matthew looked at them and sighed. He didn't know the proper word. He suspected it was there, but it wasn't in English or any other language spoken by mortals. It was a word that was more feeling than sound.
"Fear," he said, looking at them strangely. And with that he moved to the Taurus' front door and got in.
