“Come pick me up plz ready 2go”
“Ok hun omw”
“Can we please give Maddy and Emily a ride please please they’re so drunk omg”
I sighed. This was not how I wanted to spend my Saturday and Friday nights but it was increasingly the norm. I was always happy to go pick up my daughter, now nineteen, from a night out, but she would invariably be accompanied two or more tipsy girls who also needed rides home. Most of her friends where within a 2-minute drive, all of us lived close enough to the downtown area, so I was generally ok with it, and plus how could I live with the guilt if something happened to one of them on the way home? Parents aren’t supposed to judge other parents, but I did judge those parents, hard, for seemingly not giving a damn how their young girls got home at 1 or 2am, two sheets to the wind.
I drove cautiously downtown. As I got closer to the main bar area, the crowds of young ‘uns became thicker, but it was thankfully a calm night. A couple of cop cars were parked down one of the main streets, but nothing in particular seemed to be happening other than the crowds milling about between bars, eating pizza slices and fries and god knows what other greasy after-midnight snacks.
I stopped and texted her.
“Coming!” she texted back and “2 min!” after a good five minutes passed.
Eventually my daughter showed up, her arms around two other girls, all laughing. They clambered all into the back, the car filled with smell of perfume, sweat, pizza and booze.
“This is Emily and you’ve met Maddy before”.
“Thank you so much for giving us a drive!” they hooted and collapsed into laughter. I caught bits of their conversation “Did you hear what Taylor said to her?” “He was getting up in my grill, and I said back off” “I really did not vibe at Molly’s – I’m not going there again-”
I knew Maddy and her place, I turned towards her street and we were there within a couple of minutes. She thanked me profusely and we watched her walk carefully to her front door and go in. Now there was two of them in the back.
“Emily lives a bit further out- by Dickens Park” said my daughter.
I could never tell her friends apart since they became teenagers- they all looked vaguely the same and dressed and sounded the same too. But I gathered Emily was a new friend- I had never driven to that part of town before. It wasn’t that far, thankfully, less than ten minutes away.
Emily started giving directions.
“Second exit at the roundabout. We live on the street next to the old graveyard- right at the end of Howe Road. Yes- take a left here.”
We were far from the lights and noise and crowds of downtown now, just quiet dark surburban houses. Emily and my daughter were quieter too, the excited chatter had died down. I glanced at them back through the mirror. My daughter had leaned back, her eyes closed, and Emily was staring out of the window. I had forgotten a barf bucket and prayed my car would be saved from a deluge of weekend teenage grossness.
We drove past the graveyard- it wasn’t an area I was familiar with- and on Emily’s direction turned down into the street next to it. “-this one!” she said, her voice now much more quiet and steady than it had been.
The street was completely dark. “It’s the house with a basketball hoop in the front” said Emily- but I could barely distinguish anything. My daughter moaned- I looked back again, and her eyelids were fluttering. In the rearview mirror, I caught sight of a figure walking up the street, from the graveyard. Emily looked at me, her eyes bright, shining like the cheap mall jewellery round her neck and dangling off her ears.
“This is great thank you! Just here!”
Two smaller figures were playing ball in the shadows, throwing the ball up at the hoop. At 2am? I frowned and turned back to Emily, who was just getting out of the car, unsteady on her ridiculous shoes.
She leaned in the car, picking up her bag, her long hair falling in a fair silky curtain hiding her face. “Thank you so much! My mom will pick up next time!” she sang, straightened up, and smashed the car door close.
My daughter shuddered, and mumbled something.
“What?” I twisted towards her.
“Because I would not stop for death”
“What? Are you ok love?”
She struggled to open her eyes.
Crash!
Something fell with a hideous sound on my car, hitting the windshield. I yelped- I thought it was the basketball.
I turned back and there was a woman lying on the hood, looking in at us through the windshield. Her hair spread against the glass, her eyes were wide open, her distorted face was distorted. I knew without knowing how I knew that she was dead, a corpse.
But still, I had to get out of the car. I walked over- there was no one there. I looked in the driveway, Emily was walking towards the front door, one hand pulling down the ridiculously short hem of her dress, staggering on her giraffe shoes.
There was no woman on the hood. I looked back, and the person who had been coming up the street were quite close now.
There was no one under the basketball hoop.
“he kindly stopped for me”
“Hey!” I got back in, and shook my daughter’s shoulder, calling her name.
The figure was now going up the driveway, following Emily. She was only a small distance away from the front door, fumbling in her purse.
Somebody or something was rattling the car door handle outside.
I turned the car on. I knew I should wait to make sure Emily was inside safely. The figure was quite close to her as I started the car and did a u-turn, driving back down the street.
I took a last look at the driveway. Emily was nowhere to be seen, the figure was just arriving at her front door. A basketball was bouncing under the hoop.
I drove off.