Ghost Story: When We Leave the Diner (rough draft)

My mother never knew she was adopted until she got sick. Her parents never told her, and when she needed a donor, no one on her side of the family was able. After some digging, we found the records from her adoption. My mom decided not to push the issue, it was bad enough she was sick and living with less time. Her parents must have not told her for a reason, she argued, so she wasn’t going to go against their wishes.

I, on the other hand, decided to figure out my mother’s past. I started tracking my grandparent’s records, finding places they had been around the time of my mother’s birth. Her birth certificate was a duplicate, one she got from the courthouse ages ago. With some help from my aunt, I was able to find the real birth certificate. It listed the doctor who birthed her, as well as the state she was born in, which, due to the adoption process, wasn’t listed on the duplicate my mother had. 

When she finally passed away, my mother’s final wishes were to be cremated and her ashes to be spread at sea. I took on the trip myself, deciding, before I released her ashes, to visit the town where she was born.

During my first day of the trip, I went as far as I could stand then stopped at a small roadside cafe called ‘The Dead End Eatery’. The walls of the place were covered by framed news article clippings. Each one seemed random until I started realizing they all had to do with death.

“Top off your coffee, ma’am?” The waitress asks.

I nod then point to the wall. “What’s with all the-” I wag my finger around, hesitating to say the word.

“All the death?” The waitress seems absolutely chipper about it.

I nod. “Yeah. That.”

“Gotta have a gimmick,” she states simply. “Back when this place was built, it really was a Dead End until they blasted a road through. So ‘dead end’ needed to mean something.” She stares out the window with a nostalgic gleam to her eye. “After that, what with the sharp curve and rock, a lot of deaths started happening around here.”

I grimace a bit. “Don’t you find that kind of macabre?”

She shrugs. “I’m used to it. Besides, who is going to remember these people after a while?” She gazes back at the clipped articles hanging on the wall. “A lot of the faces you see here are just kids. After their families are gone, where do they go?”

Furrowing my brow, I look from the coffee to her. “What do you mean?”

A stony look comes to her face, and her eyes almost seem blank. “Lots of stories around her, old ones. They say the land here is cursed, and anyone who dies before their time is trapped here.”

“Like ghosts?”

Her sunny disposition returns. “Yup! Anything else I can get you?”

I shake my head. “No. That haunting tale will be enough.”

Her smile grows. “I have many more if you’re not in a hurry.”

“I’ve had enough death for today.”

The waitress goes on and I slouch down at the table, sighing heavily as I glance back to the wall. My phone rings and I see it’s my daughter.

“Hey sweetie, how is everything?”

“Fine, but you’re going to have to pay me for babysitting Mom, she keeps trying to repair things while you’re gone.”

“Sorry about that. I’ll be home soon. But it’s funny you call, I’m at the strangest little place.” I glance back up to the wall. “It’s this little diner with tons of news clippings about horrible deaths and accidents all over the wall.”

“Can I see?” She asks excitedly. “Take a picture.”

“Yeah, I’ll send a couple of pictures. I’ll probably get a hotel tonight and finish the trip tomorrow. I should be home in a couple of days. If your mother gets into any trouble, just call your brother.”

“Will do, be safe, Mama.”

I take her pictures of the news clippings around me. One talks about a young man about to graduate, he had baseball scholarships, offers from some of the best colleges, and then one night, his car caught fire and he ended up driving off the Devil’s Backbone, a sharp curve around the mountain. The accident ended up causing a forest fire which spread into the town. It was the sort of story my daughter would enjoy.

I left the diner, heading out onto the road again. It was growing dark, but I was assured there was a hotel at the bottom of the mountain. I saw all sorts of signs for the Devil’s Backbone, warnings mostly. There was a scenic overlook that had some historical plaques all around it, but I would have to stop when I came back through.

I was coming upon the Devil’s Backbone, and it looked like the road completely disappeared into thin air. The closer I got, the heavier the air around me became. It felt like a weight was sitting on my shoulders and the air had a thickness to it.

I could smell smoke and it gathered at the back of my throat. I cleared my throat and coughed, but the smoke was growing thicker the closer I came to that curve. As soon as I turned the curve, there was a flaming car barreling towards me. 

Everything happened in an instant, but it took an eternity for me to witness. I don’t know how I reacted, my body just went completely on autopilot. All I could do was watch, and even then, I felt like I was a viewer watching myself through a screen. The flaming car roared, blowing more flames from the lights. All at once it veered off, crashing through the guard rail and careening down off the Devil’s Backbone. Flames shot up into the air and I sat in my car, still as can be.

After a few moments, I jumped out of my car and ran towards the railing. Looking over the edge, I saw absolutely nothing.

“Fuck.” I run my hands through my hair and sharply dig at my scalp. “What the fuck?” I look back towards my car idling in the middle of the road. I race back, getting inside and driving away slowly. 

I take deep breaths, questioning what I saw, my sanity, my desperate need for sleep. Once I am around the corner, I see signs for the upcoming town and hotel. I begin to relax, and I tell myself everything is going to be okay.

“Take me to the hospital.”

I look into the passenger seat to see the figure of a man on fire. He looks at me, leaning nonchalantly with his arm out the window. 

“Hurry,” he urges. “There’s not much time.”

I scream, stomping on the brakes then basically launching myself from the car. I stand there on the yellow line, looking back at my car which is now empty.

Every breath is shaky and filled with sharp ridges that cut down my throat. Everything is dry and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. There’s a water bottle in the car, but I’m afraid to go back inside it. Once I see the lights of a car coming, I reluctantly go back to it.

I try to crank my car, but it stalls. This is the last thing I need. The car approaches and passes, but a few seconds later, it comes back and parks behind me.

“Need some help?” A young woman asks.

In the dark I can barely see her. “I don’t-” I try cranking again and I huff in frustration. “I don’t know.”

She comes up beside my car. “There’s a pull off spot just over there. If you put it in neutral, you should just be able to coast to it. I can take you to the hotel just down the way.”

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” I’m able to get my car off the road and park it. I gather my things from the back seat, including my mom’s ashes. The woman then pulls up beside me and I can see her car is old, but looks brand new. I sigh heavily as I take a seat in the car. “Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.” 

“No problem at all. I’m glad I was around to help.” I can see that the young woman is extremely pregnant. She looks ready to pop any second. The other thing I notice is just how young she looks, she almost looks to be the same age as my daughter.

The girl looks at me and smiles. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I shake my head. “I think I have.”

“Happens a lot around here,” she says softly. “People like to claim this place is cursed.”

“That’s what the lady at the diner told me too.” I fold my hands in my lap and look out the window.

“Traveling?” The girl asks.

I nod, patting the small bag beside me. “I am. My mother died, and she wanted her ashes spread near the ocean.”

The girl gets a strange, concerned look on her face. “Oh,” she says simply.

“You’re pretty brave picking up a stranger,” I say to quickly change the subject. She seems so uncomfortable now. “Especially in your condition.”

The girl’s hand rests over her belly and her gaze becomes distant out the window. “Not much else to lose now, I figured I could risk it this once.”

“Are you in trouble?” I ask softly.

The girl becomes quiet as we pull up outside the hotel. Her eyes linger on my bags as I pull them out with me.

“Thanks again,” I say to her. I then take money from my purse and offer it to her. “At least for gas.”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t help you for that.” She looks up at me, and her eyes are completely black. She drives off before I can be sure, but I just tell myself it’s the night playing tricks on me.

I get a room at the hotel, and call my wife to let her know what happened and that hopefully I could get the car fixed quickly. 

“I knew you shouldn’t have gone out there alone!” She fusses at me. 

“The car just stalled, should be an easy fix. I’m fine.” I hear our daughter fussing from the other end, and eventually the phone is handed off to her.

“I looked up that article you sent me!” She says excitedly. “About the town and the forest fire.”

“I thought you would.” I lay back in the hotel bed. “Did you find anything interesting?”

“So much!” She laughs. “The fire hit the hospital, and apparently, the people that could help just left! They abandoned so many people in that hospital just to burn and die.”

“Oh my god, that’s horrible.”

“No. Mom,” she then says urgently. “You don’t understand. It gets so much weirder than that. Grandma was born the night of the fire. During the fire!”

I sit back up. “Don’t pull my leg, sweetie.”

“I checked the records you have on grandma. The hospital on her birth certificate matches with the one that burnt down.”

I shake my head. “No, no, when I searched the hospital-”

“It rebuilt several years later. The new hospital has the same name, but it’s not in the same location as the previous one. The whole town built it completely elsewhere after the fire! They thought it would be bad luck.”

“Because of a curse,” I whisper.

“Mom?”

I gather myself for a brief second. “Can you give me the address, if it still exists, of where the old hospital used to be?”

“Yeah, I can text it to you.” She says. “Oh, there’s a bunch of other stuff about this guy too. The one whose wreck started the whole thing.”

“The baseball star?”

“Yeah! I can send you that too. Apparently, he tried to kidnap a girl, then they were found out to be secretly married. It’s a soap opera, Mom! It’s really amazing.”

I’m still a little in shock to find out the connections to all this. Ghosts and curses aside, my mother was born during such a horrible event. “That’ll give me something to do before I go to bed. Thank you, sweetie.”

She sends me the address which, when I try to search it, only redirects me to the ‘new’ hospital. I would ask whoever was at the front desk about it come morning. After that, my daughter starts sending me articles about this baseball star. His name was James Holden, a bright athlete with the world at his feet. Having come from a poor family, he became a popular mechanic while still in school. He became a local celebrity for his baseball records, and winning several prestigious scholarships. 

Down the line, he was found to be hiding the daughter of a wealthy lawyer in his home. He was forced to leave town, threatened by the lawyer that he would lose his scholarships and jobs offers should he stay or ever come near his daughter again. 

His death happened almost immediately after when his car caught fire leaving town. He careened off the Devil’s Backbone and to his death below. Due to the fire, not much else was spoken of about him. He seemed to be forgotten, except for the articles hanging in the Dead End Diner. 

I woke up the next morning and, as I went to talk to someone at the front desk, I find my car parked right outside the door. I know for a fact I hadn’t not come here myself last night. The pregnant girl had picked me up! I look up the road and the multitude of signs warning about the Devil’s Backbone. 

I go inside the office anyways, if only to ask about the old hospital. I didn’t pay attention last night because of nerves and fatigue, but behind the front desk, there are several family photos through the ages. In one picture, I see the girl from last night standing by the car that picked me up.

“Can I help you?” The lady behind the counter asks.

I point to the picture. “Who…” I look at her, confused, then back to the picture. “I’m sorry I...that girl looks familiar.”

The woman smiles as she looks back. “That’s my aunt. Don’t know how you would know her. She died before I was born. This was taken during her senior year. Grandpa bought her and my mother that car to share.”

“Did she die in the fire?” I ask cautiously.

The woman looks back at me, just as confused as I am. “How do you know about that?”

I laugh in disbelief. “It’s a very long story, but, the short of it is, I think my mother was born in the hospital that burnt down. I was wondering if you could tell me where that is.”

“The hospital rebuilt, it’s just-”

I shake my head and stop her. “No, I know that. I want to see the old hospital. The one that burnt down.”

“Only part of it burnt down. The rest is abandoned. If you want to see such a thing, I can give you the directions, but that part of town is closed off. They’ve got a barrier around it and everything.”

“I’d still like to see.”

The woman writes down the directions for me and I go back to my car. I hesitate to get inside it. I feel as though it’s haunted now. Luckily it cranks, and I drive off to the abandoned hospital. 

There’s a large gate blocking the road, with fencing all around it. The road is cracked and turned up by roots, so I park my car further back from the entrance. I step up to the gate, looking in to see the ruins of what once was a small town. Things are overgrown, taking over parts of the buildings that remain. Hollow storefronts stare bleakly out into the world with cracked glass turned black by smoke. They just left it like this, they didn’t even try to save it. They left the remains smoldering and festering, and rebuilt their lives somewhere else. How many lives had been abandoned here, though? How many died in this fire? Not just James Holden or my mother’s birth mother, but so many more. This place was a graveyard. 

In the distance, I can see a large building which must be the hospital, but it’s hard to tell with all the overgrowth. I step away from the fence and I swear I can still smell smoke, it even twitches in the back of my throat, making me cough again.

Knowing myself as a teenager, as well as my own children, I know there must be a place in the fence where people can sneak in and out freely. I eventually find the spot, where the fence has come loose from one of the poles. I go back to the car, fetching the bag with my mother’s ashes, and I take her with me into town. 

I call home and my daughter answers.

“How’s the car?” She asks. “Have you had breakfast yet?”

“The car is fine. It started up right away.” I don’t give her the gorey details, I’d save that for another day when I had time. “I found the place,” I tell her like a secret. “It’s not just the hospital they abandoned, it’s basically the whole town.”

“What?”

I look up into the sky. “I know, it’s so weird to look at. I’ll take pictures, but I’m going to take grandma to the hospital with me. I’ll have to walk so it could be a while.”

“Be careful! You don’t know what could be hiding there. People could be squatting, there could be wild animals. Not to mention the buildings themselves.”

“I know, sweetie,” I reassure her. “I’m going to be very careful. I just wanted to call and tell you what was happening.”

“Okay,” she doesn’t seem convinced. “Be careful, call often.”

“I will, sweetie, I love you.” I hang up the phone and look back at the gate. 

Stepping onto the road, I feel a cold breeze whisper around me. I touch the bag to reassure myself. “Let’s see where you were born, Mama.”