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Levy fell into a deep sleep, red wine still in her belly and Spektor purring near her ear. She dreamed of trails and trains; of old cars and new lovers.

Levy’s dreams were interrupted by a loud crash. She heard the rain beating against the window and the slowly fading rumble of the thunder that had awakened her. She felt a stabbing pain in her right eye and her mouth was dry.

Her eyes still closed, heavy with sleep, she sat up. She thought about not opening her eyes, and laying back down and going back to sleep, but she knew that she needed to drink some water and take some ibuprofen or she’d feel even worse at daybreak.

She looked over at her nightstand hoping she had enough sense to put a glass of water there before she fell into bed. She hadn’t.

A movement to her left caught Levy’s attention. The bedroom window. It was closed, but one panel of the curtain had moved. Before her eyes had settled on the window, for a brief moment, she had seen her. Lizzie. She had been peering out of Levy’s bedroom window like she had been watching the rain. She was only a shadow, but Levy was certain she had seen the shape of her - the corner of her blue dress the last to fade into nothingness. The image had been so faint Levy could have imagined it. She probably did.

She rubbed her eyes and stared blankly at the raindrops reflected in the apartment’s faint outside lighting. The only movement she caught was Spektor’s tail swooshing left and right in a spastic fashion. He was staring at the place where Levy could have sworn Lizzie had been standing. As alert as the cat seemed, his hackles were not raised.

Levy could not say the same thing about her hackles.

Levy pulled the heavy velour bedspread off of her and crawled out of bed. She sat on the edge of the bed a moment, feet dangling over the original hardwood flooring of the old brownstone. The apartment was dark. The only sound was from the black-screen sleep sound video playing on her phone. She had chosen this one solely for its name: Creamy Melatonin. She pressed the button on the side of her phone to check the time. The display read 3:05 AM.

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She slowly put her feet to the floor, toes first. She felt a twinge in her back when she tried to sit up straight, and she paused for a moment to stretch out her hips. She walked to the kitchen and Spektor jumped down off the bed to follow her. Levy shuffling; Spektor prancing.

Levy grabbed a glass from the pantry. It was a Betty Boop souvenir glass her sister Isabela had given her just a few weeks ago. Levy’s mom and dad had surprised everyone with the trip at the end of the summer, and Isabela, her husband and their kids had all been able to go.

Levy couldn’t get out from under the magazine’s responsibilities at the time.

If only they had waited until this week to go to Universal, maybe Levy wouldn’t be haunted by a fucking Betty Boop look-a-like from some mid-1900’s nightmare.

Levy filled the glass as Spektor rubbed against her legs and purred. She never moved from her spot as she lifted the glass up and gulped the contents down.

She filled the glass up again, drank half, and left the glass on the counter. She started towards the bedroom again but was afraid of what she might find in there. She grabbed her lighter and her Camels, slipped on her Toms, and shuffled her way to her apartment door.

She preferred her back porch when wanting some privacy, but it offered no solace from the rain. Levy’s apartment was in the middle of an old brownstone. The shared space was a large front porch area that they had all filled with lawn ornaments, art and plants of all varieties. Her back porch overlooked parts of Homewood and the city of Birmingham. She could see the skyline and Vulcan to her left. The front of the apartment building faced a narrow street, cars lining it on both sides, nose to bumper. The ground sloped up steeply on the other side of the street, the terrain thick with red oaks, dogwoods, maples, blackgums, and beeches.

Levy’s heavy door was old and loud, and she had to open it slowly so it wouldn’t wake her neighbors. She didn’t feel like pissing off Mrs. Flippo at this early hour.

As she slowly turned the knob and pushed the door open, she saw that her neighbor, Elly, was outside sitting at their shared patio table, also smoking a cigarette. A bottle of Jägermeister (which Levy could see was almost full) , a can of redbull, and a glass, were all within reach on the table next to her. Elly’s short brown hair cut in a pixie, highlighted all of her most striking features: her small but slightly pointed nose, her button chin and movie-star perfect cheekbones. Perfectly Symmetrical.

Levy had been taken aback by her beauty when she had first met Elly a few weeks ago. Elly had just moved in, new to town. She had found out that Elly had a boyfriend back in Asheville, and was only slightly disappointed at this news. She didn’t like the idea of becoming romantically involved with a neighbor. Most romances in Levy’s life burned out pretty quickly. She thought of Jodi then, and smiled.

But even with thoughts of the mysterious Jodi, Levy couldn’t seem to remember the name of Elly’s said boyfriend as she gazed upon her, sitting with her feet perched on a small worn bejeweled ottoman, and cutting a deck of tarot cards with her free hand. She had on an emerald green and crimson diamond patterned cotton crop top Levy had most certainly seen before at Earthbound, and some black bell-bottomed yoga pants. Elly took a drag off of her cigarette as she watched Levy step outside and close the door behind her. She felt Lizzie’s cold presence slip past her just before the door closed. She chuckled to herself as she wondered why a ghost would be taking the door. The cat also had slipped past Levy before she was able to nudge him back inside. The rain would keep him from running off, Levy thought and let it go.

“The spirits didn’t wake you, did they?” Elly said as she placed her cigarette in the ashtray, still lit. Elly took a sip of the Red Bull and Jäger she had poured in the glass.

Levy was only slightly taken aback by this, but it was enough. She fumbled on her words. “I…uh…the thunder woke me, I think”.

“Might have been the thunder”, Elly replied. “The air is pretty active tonight”.

Levy felt that sentence was loaded with a deeper, heavier, meaning, but she tried to steer the conversation in a lighter direction. Another flash of lightning and slow rumble filled the air. This time the sound seemed distant.

“I think I drank too much wine last night. I am a little dehydrated. I think that was part of the problem. I probably could have gone back to sleep, but I needed to try and remedy the effects of last night’s mistakes.”

“This isn’t exactly ‘hair of the dog’, but you can have a sip of my Jäger if you think it might do the trick.”

Levy considered it, but the stab in her right eye reminded her that was a bad idea.

“I’ll be alright. I’m gonna try to get back in bed after this cigarette….maybe after the second cigarette”.

Elly didn’t argue, only took another sip of her concoction. “I don’t usually stay up drinking this late. My boyfriend and I had a fight last night”. She picked up her cigarette again, a long snake of ash falling from the end, and took another drag before stubbing it out. She exhaled and leaned forward and picked up the deck of Tarot cards. “I can’t sleep…care for a reading?”

“No…thank you”, Levy said, a little frightened at the prospect of thinning the veil around her anymore than it already was. “Not tonight”.

Elly paused as she continued to cut the deck. The look she gave Levy was slightly curious but then turned to amusement. “Mind if I ask the spirits my own question…while we smoke?”

“That…would be okay”, Levy managed to choke out, but was actually thinking of a million reasons why it wouldn’t be okay. The air did feel pretty…active.

“Thank you, neighbor”, Elly chirped, almost in a song. “Will you hold the deck out for me while I pick my cards?” She handed the cards to Levy and asked her to fan them out. Levy did so and Elly picked three cards and laid them face down.

“This card represents the past.” She turned the card over. She studied it for several beats before speaking. “This card is the Six of Cups”. Levy tried to study the card in the faint glow of the streetlight. Two children, one holding a cup out to the other. It took Levy a moment to see in the faint light that it was filled with flowers. There were six golden cups around the children, all holding flowers. Levy couldn’t make anything else out.

Elly continued after a brief pause. “You can see that this card feels almost dreamlike in its imagery. There is a stillness about it. This card is all about memories, nostalgia. The past is becoming mixed with the present.”

She paused again and seemed to almost look at something behind Levy. “Someone from a memory no longer wants to stay a memory”.

Levy felt a chill and rubbed her legs to will away the goosebumps that had now formed. She felt her palms getting sweaty and a knot growing in her stomach.

She said nothing. She pulled a cigarette out from her pack of Camels, crushed the menthol at the filter, and lit it. She exhaled and placed her lighter on top of the Camels she had placed back on the table. She leaned back and took another drag, trying her best to appear stoic as Elly continued her reading.

“This next card is The Moon. Perfect. The moon is hidden to us now, only showing us its faint glow behind the storm clouds”.

Levy looked up but could see no moon and certainly no moon glow. The sky was too dark and the thick growth of trees across from them hid most of it. She looked down at the card that Elly had just turned over. The way the light of the moon was represented on the card seemed distorted, blurred. Also on the card were what Levy thought at first was two dogs, but could see one looked more like a wolf. They were both howling at the large moon.

Elly continued: “Intuition, Fear…The Subconscious”. She paused again and looked questioningly at Levy before she spoke again more softly, “Things moving in the dark”.

Levy took a sharp inhale in, her attention hanging on Elly’s every bewitching word. Her eyes seemed to be glowing a sparkle of silver as she performed this ritual.

Elly’s mouth was tilted in a slight grin as she spoke. “The moon is known to us for its spiritual meddling, its ability to…thin the veil”.

These words seemed to hang in the air. The exact same words Levy had thought to herself a moment ago. Lightning struck somewhere beyond them and another rumble of thunder distantly purred.

“The moon blurs reality,” Elly said as she placed the card down.

She pulled a cigarette from her own pack of Camels and lit it and sat back. “Are you okay?” Elly asked her.

“Sure. She said, “It’s just, a little eerie, I guess”, Levy lied.

“Are you okay with me going on?”

“I…I think so”, Levy lied once more. “It’s fun”. Man, she was on a roll now. She had a feeling that Elly could see right through the bullshit. The hand holding Levy’s cigarette was shaking a little and the other one was gripping the arm of the iron chair.

“Do you mind if I go in for a moment though?” Levy asked. “I am going to grab my water. She stubbed her cigarette out and headed for the door. She thought the cat would follow.

Spektor had been cleaning himself among a large climbing pothos and a variety of succulents that Elly had recently contributed to their front porch jungle. He now jumped up on the table and Elly began to pet him. “Sweet kitty”, Elly spoke to the fluffy tortoise-shell and Levy made her way inside. She drank the water left in the glass in a few gulps and carried it outside with her and held it out to Elly before sitting down again.

“Hit me”, she said to Elly as she sat her glass down next to hers. Elly poured some Jäger and red bull in the Betty Boop glass and then held her own glass out to Levy, suggesting a toast. Levy picked up her own glass and they clinked as Elly said, “To the moon”. They both smiled as they took a sip, but Levy felt Elly’s smile was a little more genuine than her own.

They sat their drinks down on the table and Levy subconsciously pulled out another cigarette and lit it. She decided on another swig when she saw Elly going for another card.

“This last card represents the future.” Elly flipped over the remaining tarot card.

Levy looked down to see a picture of a woman seated between two pillars, one black and one white. She couldn’t make out anything else about the card, although the light outside did seem to be getting brighter. The sun wasn’t too far away from its appearance atop Red Mountain. Levy thought she might regret this. The air seemed to be getting heavier despite the slightly brighter sky.

“This is the High Priestess, reversed. When not reversed, this card represents hidden knowledge and secrets that need to be revealed, or will be soon”. Elly and Levy both decided then to pick up their glass and take a sip of their drinks. “Reversed, like it is now, it represents something, or someone, trying to get your attention but the messages may not be getting through. Coupled with The Moon card, this card holds even more significance.”

“Why do you say that?”Levy asked, but didn’t know if she really wanted to know the answer.

“The moon represents blurred reality, a fog. The High Priestess reversed represents a message you aren’t receiving clearly. Something is blocking you.”

That one word: You. Levy and Elly stared at each other intensely, the air thick between them. “Do you want to say something?” Elly encouraged her as she inhaled the smoke from her freshly lit cigarette. Exhaled.

“This reading was about me?” She looked at Elly questioningly as she took a puff of her own before stomping it out.

“I think so”. Elly sat back and put her legs back up on the ottoman, and grabbed her drink. She took a sip and then rested the cup and her hand on her thigh. “You tell me”.

Levy picked up her glass and forced the rest of the strong liquid down her throat before she spoke.

She sighed.

“I…I think I have a ghost”, Levy said out loud.

Elly smiled devilishly. “Yeah.” She uncrossed her legs, planted her feet on the floor and leaned forward.

“I can see her”.

Levy stood up. She felt dizzy. She sat back down. She picked up her glass. It was empty. Elly offered her another drink but she held out her hand in declination and picked up her Camels instead. She lit another goddamned cigarette. She was almost out. She couldn’t keep this up.

She laughed before continuing, “I think my ghost wants me to quit smoking, but being haunted isn’t helping my situation”.

Elly laughed. “I know. I had quit up until last night, for a week. I walked to the grocery store and picked some up last night before it started raining. Do you know her name?”

“Lizzie…I think”.

Elly nodded and told her that felt right. She asked Levy to slip her feet out of her Tom's and onto the cold concrete floor of the brownstone’s front porch. “Close your eyes and listen to the rain. I want you to become grounded with yourself”. Elly spoke softly. “I want you to pay attention to how you feel. Ignore any other thoughts that might enter your brain that are not about what your body is feeling. What do your feet feel like on the cold floor? What do your legs feel like in the warm thick humid air? What does the wind feel like against your face?”

Levy closed her eyes and tried to do as Elly suggested. The humid Alabama air clung to her nostrils. She smelled the cigarette smoke. That reminded her to take another exhale.

“This would probably work better if you weren’t smoking” and they both laughed, but Levy’s eyes remained closed.

“Just take a moment to breathe in and out slowly, before you take another inhalation of that menthol. You can resist.”

She handed the cigarette to Elly to stub out. She sat there with her hands on her knees and started to pay more attention to her breathing. She focused on the cold floor, on her legs, the Cicadas…oh wait, her body. Not the bugs. As she pushed out any thoughts that tried to invade her mind, she began to feel Lizzie’s presence near her. The air became sharply cold. She felt the goosebumps on her legs again. Her eyes were closed but she spoke, “Hi, Lizzie”.

She felt a tingle of electricity in her fingertips and her eyes opened.

There she was. Standing behind Elly. She was beautiful. Striking, just as she had remembered from the cafe. She was so faint, but she was there. She could make out the shape of her pompadour and the cotton dress. Lizzie appeared statuesque, like she was glued to the place where she was standing in time, across the veil. But her head slightly moved sideways and Levy followed her gaze down to the pack of cigarettes on the table and then back up to meet Levy’s eyes again.

“That’s your fault”. Levy cried out as her hand slammed down on the table. Lizzie disappeared right before Levy registered the look on her face as shame.

Elly looked behind her. “Is she behind me now? I can’t see her”.

With Elly’s words, Levy’s trance was broken.

“I…I…not anymore”. A tear steamed down Levy's cheek. She wiped it away.

Her hands shook as she lit the last cigarette from the pack. She motioned for Elly to pour her another drink and they sat in silence as they listened to the sound of the Cicadas and the rainfall. The lightning storm had moved off too far for them to hear now and all that remained was the soft tapping of the rain.

Chapter 11

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Spektor purred and buried his face into Levy’s hand as she scratched the cat’s ears. His paws made anxious biscuits on Levy’s pajama pants. The cat was excited to have Levy back home and he had not let up showing her affection since Levy had sat down on the yellow velvet couch.

It had taken a while for the cat to come out of hiding after he met Levy’s new icy traveler. Lizzie had breezed past her when Levy had opened the door to the apartment, as the cat had been bounding towards Levy to greet her after her long absence. Spektor immediately reversed course in a snarl, hair standing up on his back and bolted under Levy’s bed. He had managed to bump into a table, knocking over a cup of water where Levy had been propagating a Monstera Minima.

Lizzie was giving her space for now, but Levy could still feel her presence. Every so often Spektor would leap up in a snarl and take off, like one of those frightened cats in the cucumber compilation videos. He seemed to be slowly adjusting to their new, uninvited roommate. Levy had left the two of them to get acquainted while she tried to scrub away the stench—the rotting, clawing smell from her horrific encounter in Georgia—with a scalding shower and three rounds of lathered soap.

Levy had received two calls from reporters before she reached the Alabama state line. It was six by the time she had reached her tiny apartment. She turned them all down.

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For one, she was still too shaken to talk about what had happened. She wasn’t even sure what she would say. The last thing she wanted was to be chopped into ten‑second sound bites on the news, used to prop up whatever agenda they were promoting at the moment.

When she had left the trail head, she turned her phone on do not disturb and set it to her Favorites playlist through her Bluetooth. This playlist was pretty expansive and eclectic but consisted mostly of Americana, alternative, indie, 70’s rock and 90’s country. Throw in a good bit of Outkast and Goodie Mob. Her friends were not surprised when a Bright Eyes song came on right after Beethoven’s 7th and then followed by SpottieOttieDopaliscious.

Jewel’s You Were Meant for Me was blasting out of her car’s speakers when she pulled into a gas station not far from the trail head in Smyrna. She bought a Coke Zero and a pack of Camel Menthol Crushes. She had stopped smoking and started back many times and had thrown away her last pack before she left for Georgia. She had promised Geri she would quit again before she left for her bike trip and she did have every intention of keeping that promise.

She wasn’t sure how she was going to keep that promise now. She didn’t spend too much time worrying about it as she handed over her cash to the sharply dressed Indian man behind the counter. Olive was still heavy on her mind and the terrible images of the hell in which she had spent her last however many years on this earth. She started to leave but remembered that she had thrown out her lighter as fast as she had thrown out her good intentions. She turned back around and bought a green one with a yellow sun and decided at the last minute to buy a scratch off while she was still in Georgia. She won $40 bucks. She cashed in on her luck and walked away without another ticket, despite the urging of the enthusiastic clerk.

Jewel belted out “I’m doin’ fine” as Levy blew out her first inhalation of smoke from her Camel Menthol Crush. By the time she reached home, Levy had killed 7 menthols. Dwight Yoakam was singing that maybe someday he’ll be fine as she threw the last butt of the ride out of her car window and killed her engine. Before she had left her car, she made sure not to forget her bag of spirits. The first thing she did when she got home was take two shots of tequila and pour a large glass of red wine.

Now, she stood up from her place on the couch and gently placed Spektor down on the floor, despite his protests. She picked up her second glass of red wine and her phone. She felt the cat’s eyeball press into her foot as she started towards the almost half empty pack of cigarettes she had left by the door.

As Levy reached for them, they inexplicably slid off of the counter and onto the floor. Levy was in no mood to play with a self-righteous ghost and told Lizzie to fuck right off as she bent over to pick up the fallen pack. “This is your fault.”

She grunted as she felt a ping in her back. She should have stretched before her long car ride but that was the last thing on her mind when she and the officer had reached her car.

Lizzie made no more moves to stop Levy from the cigarettes, and she successfully made it to her patio with all of her crutches in hand.

Levy closed the door behind her, shooing Spektor back inside with her foot to keep the cat from making his great escape. She imagined the cat cursing Levy under his cat whiskers: One day, woman. One day.

She sat down and placed her items next to her on the table that sat between the matching set of blue lounge chairs. Levy had chosen the one furthest from the door. She got comfortable, pulling her legs up underneath her, retrieved a cigarette from her pack and pushed the menthol button (as she liked to call it). She lit the cigarette, inhaled and exhaled before taking a big gulp of her red wine.

She found Geri’s name from her recent call list. It was still very hot outside despite being late in the day and she already felt a bead of sweat dripping down her forehead. It took three rings before Geri picked up the phone.

Levy told Geri the story of what happened on the trip but left her ghosty friend out of it. When she was done, there was silence on the other end of the phone.

“Hello?”

“I’m still here,” Geri softly replied. “Are you okay?”

“I think I am. I had a lot of reporters calling me asking me for my story, but I turned them all down. I think I want to write about it for the magazine. Are you okay with that?”

Silence.

Levy continued. “I know it’s a lot heavier than the stuff we normally cover, but it’s personal to me. And I think I should be able to own my own story, without fear of talking heads twisting this into something else.”

Geri coughed, nervously.

The silence continued a few more seconds, and Levy started to speak again but Geri interrupted her. “You can write it. Write it how you need to.”

This time, Levy was responsible for the silence that followed. But then she continued. “There’s more.” She heard Geri let out a long exhale. “Hit me.”

Levy had not stopped thinking about her call with Denise, and after the third reporter was rejected, Levy had an idea.

She laid it out for Geri now.

“I want to make it an ongoing thing. I want to feature stories that people do not hear about in the news. The stories people do not want to hear about.” She told Geri about her conversation with Denise.

“Unfortunately, I think you would never run out of material to cover,” she told Levy. Levy made a chuffing sound that might have been mistaken for a laugh but felt more like a sob as it escaped her throat.

“Is that a, yes?” Her voice broke on the “yes” as she exhaled the smoke from her cigarette.

“Are you smoking?” Geri questioned her.

“Not you too. Fuck off.”

Geri must have heard something in Levy’s voice and she said nothing else about it. She only said, “It’s a yes”. Bring me the final draft when you get back from Savannah. I have someone I want you to meet. I hired a new editor. His name is Lasaif. He’s really good. I think you’re going to like him.”

“That was fast.” Levy remarked.

“My old college friend, Martin Spivey, brought him along with him to help me out this week. He told me he thought we could use the help but selfishly wanted me to meet Lasaif in hopes I would want to hire him. And I did. He starts tomorrow.”

“That’s great!” and Levy meant it. She was thrilled to have some help, especially now that her vacation was over. They ended the call and Levy snubbed out her cigarette into her sugar skull clay ash tray she had purchased from a local artist at the Dio De Los Muertos festival at Sloss Furnace last year. She took the pack of cigarettes and the lighter and leaned over the balcony. She started to toss both items into her downstairs neighbor’s small trash can he left on his patio, but then the image of Olive rotting into her couch filled Levy’s head again and suddenly the putrid smell of that place seemed to be all around her. Levy stepped back and turned towards her glass of wine and took another big swig. She pulled another cigarette out of the pack and lit it. She inhaled the wonderful mentholated smoke and, on the exhale, she looked up to the stars and cursed.

Chapter 10

Chapter 8

Levy watched several police and county cars driving to and from the old farmstead. One of them, an unmarked vehicle, pulled up close to her on the bike path and two officers got out and began walking towards her. They were there to question her about what she had witnessed. The medics were still checking her out. She had told them about the condition of the house, and that she wasn't sure what she had been exposed to.

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The police told Levy the woman’s name was Olive Crawford. She was only 57. Her name is so close to her own, Olivia. She also considered her age. How could someone so young end up in this kind of situation?

Levy wasn’t sure what she was going to say when they asked her why she had gone off the trail and up to the house so far up the hillside. She thought at first she would just tell them a version of the truth: that she just had a feeling that led her to opening the door. After considering it a second longer, she decided the truth might land her in some trouble. She was worried that they would charge her with breaking and entering. Or put her in the nearest psychiatric hospital.

Levy read the two officers’ name tags as they approached her: Patrick and Davis. The elder Patrick introduced himself as John Patrick and his much younger partner as Leonard. The younger man repeated his name as though Levy really needed to know it. “The name’s Leonard Davis.” Levy was hoping for direct questions but instead, Officer Patrick just asked her to, “say what happened”, in her own words.

“Please”, the younger Officer Davis added, when he saw the hesitant look she had given them.

Levy took a deep, steadying breath of resignation, and closed her eyes. She opened them again, and told them an even more modified version of what happened, one with the front door already open and Levy hearing signs of distress from inside. Levy asked them if the shock of seeing someone in the house had killed Mrs. Crawford.

Officer Patrick assured Levy that she would have died in the next few hours or days regardless, and they were surprised she had held on as long as she did. He made a chuffing sound and added, “It’s almost like she was waiting on you to find her before she died. If you hadn’t, we may have never been able to seek justice for her”.

About a half hour later, another police car that had been dispatched to the house drove down the hillside and parked next to the unmarked car. Two officers got out and announced they were there to check on Levy and hear her story. Levy saw the man in the backseat of the patrol car. He was looking right at Levy, a look of pure hatred on his face. An officer named Brea Graham informed Levy that they had found the man attempting to take off, packing up an old rusty Toyota.

Levy knew Officer Patrick was right about the old woman waiting for her.

He was more right about that than he will ever allow himself to admit.

She had been led there. Not only so that she could discover the ghastly scene in the woman’s home, but so that she wasn’t alone when she passed. Levy knew that whatever this presence was…this…Lizzie…that had been guiding her there, had been in a hurry.

Did Lizzie kill the woman?

Levy didn’t think so. She decided that it…Lizzie…had helped the woman to pass.

Lizzie had helped her move on.

Levy also learned that the man, Olive’s nephew, had been collecting the woman’s checks for years, living off of her social security.

How could this happen?

The medics told Levy she didn’t have a concussion from what they could see, but they wouldn’t know until she got checked out. She was not interested in going anywhere but home and asked if they could just take her back to her car with her bike. They agreed.

Officer Leonard Davis had her sign a release, and called for a police SUV to transport her and her bike back to the trailhead where her car was parked in Smyrna. As she stepped up into the vehicle, she felt the now familiar icy presence shifting around her torso. She had been hoping the presence was done with her now that she had seemingly finished the task it had led her to. But her new mental illness slipped around her once more and then the feeling was gone.

She knew Lizzie was there with her still.

On the long drive back to her car, Levy fell into a heavy sleep.

After arriving back at the trailhead, she loaded her bike onto the rack, and threw her shit into the passenger seat before climbing in. She turned the car on, the A/C blasting her in the face, radio turned all the way down. She found her phone. It still had 30% battery left. She called Mrs. Flippo to check on Spektor. The cat was fine but Mrs. Flippo was concerned about the way Levy had sounded. She reassured her that everything was okay, and let her know she was on the way home.

She questioned her further about her cutting her trip short, and she had to spin a tale that her bike had a flat tire and a nice police officer had taken her back to the car. After she sufficiently calmed Mrs. Flippo’s concerns and ended the call, she opened her contacts and found Denise - her friend from college who was now a social worker at a rural community hospital.

Denise had gotten a promotion last year, and Levy and some of their other college friends had taken her out to celebrate. Denise had told them some crazy stories about her work over dinner and drinks.

Levy had been tipsy and half-listening, but had thought maybe Denise had been exaggerating for comical effect, emboldened by her rum and coke. She found her contact and dialed her. Denise’s bubbly southern accent filled her earpiece.

“Leev-eye” she practically shouted. “It has been way too long”.

“It has”, Levy agreed.

Levy didn’t waste time. She told Denise about the woman and as Levy predicted, Denise did not seem surprised. Before Levy could tell Denise about the social security check, Denise interrupted “he just wanted her check! We see it all the time”.

“All the time?” she said, unable to hide the disbelief in her voice. “How do they let this happen?”

“Who is they?” Denise chuckled, then continued.

“If they tell one lie to me, it’s usually always because they are hiding something about money. They are taking Grammie to the cleaners, or they are at least living off her social security check.”

Levy made an audible sound deep in her throat, trying to hold back both the bile and emotions trying to escape. Denise continued.

“If they do end up in the hospital, the family will do everything they can to get them back home as quickly as possible. We have people keeping their family members on life support until the first of the month, just so they can keep their lights on in the house. We had one woman who kept her husband on life support for 4 months. She told us in one breath that she isn’t going to play God and in the next breath, she said her husband would have wanted this, so he could keep paying her bills.” Denise emphasized that last part with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

Levy was shocked at what she was hearing. “And the hospital just allows that to happen? Can anything be done to stop it?”

“We have an ethics team that will help guide the hospital staff and family members, and step in when there is a disagreement between decision makers, but it is highly risky to go against a spouse or next of kin to allow the patient to die. You have to have to get the lawyers involved and a department we simply call “risk” to help make that decision.

But more often than not they will not decide against the family member. Sometimes our chaplains and social workers are able to step in and help the family make a better decision, but it is never easy.”

She went on to tell Levy about a woman currently in the hospital, who had been brought in for a headache, was now unable to talk or communicate. They were going to have to find her a nursing home and were told she had no one but a friend, a neighbor. They had asked the friend if he knew where she kept her bank statements and he told them she had them mailed to her.

He went to get them and explained to Levy that he found them spread out over her house, marked up with a pen. When Denise had started going through everything he brought her, she discovered that the woman had a son in another state, who along with his girlfriend, was spending almost 10 thousand dollars of her money every month on Lyft rides, Doordash, and cash app transfers.

“I really hope they put those mother fuckers in prison” she said angrily.

Levy asked her how she handled the stress of her job, being around that stuff, and dealing with the family and the people that treat these people like trash.

“You compartmentalize until you get tipsy and then you overshare. Saves on therapy. Actual therapy is also an option”.

She admitted to Levy that sometimes she would stop after not being phased by something horrific and thinking, What I think is normal is so fucking weird.

“Unless you work in healthcare, you will not understand. Your friends and family that work in healthcare do not want to talk about this when you get home. It’s not the best topic of conversation to have around the dinner table.”

Levy asked, “How do you process all the shit you’ve been through?”

“I process it daily with my co-workers. I don’t necessarily want to talk about it when I get out of here. I want to veg-out in front of a zombie movie when I get home, eat take out, or escape into a book. Anything to keep my mind off the actual horrors that await me at my job.”

Levy took a deep, audible breath and couldn’t think of anything good to say.

“I thought you had made some of this stuff up before.” Levy said finally.

“Yeah it makes for a crazy story over drinks, but it’s too real. I had beaten myself up for saying anything to y’all last time we hung out. You all looked terribly disturbed and annoyed. No one needs to hear that stuff”.

Levy had been disturbed, but now she was glad she had told her. “I knew exactly who to call. I appreciate everything you do for your patients. It sounds fucking awful to have to deal with that. I really hope you will talk to someone”.

“I do. I see a therapist once a month. I don’t know a social worker who hasn’t been to therapy. And it is awful, but I love my job. I find my peace in bringing joy to these people during their darkest times. Sometimes, I am really fucking up their lives, but I still love everyone of them, even when they are telling me to ‘get the fuck out’”.

“That’s good,” Levy replied. “I guess that does help with dealing with all of that shit... when you love the shit.”

Levy and Denise both laughed.

“I really do think what you do is bad-ass”, Levy said. “I couldn’t handle that shit every day”. Denise made a self-deprecating joke about her own mental illness, they made plans to catch up the next week, and said their goodbyes.

Levy made a mental note to call her own therapist, who she remembered was a social worker too. She plugged her phone up, pulled up her navigation app, and typed in The Pink, which was a liquor store in Birmingham. For now, she was going to need to do a little compartmentalizing like Denise had suggested. She put the car in drive. She felt another chill, this time only across her hand that rested on the gearshift. Levy and Lizzie headed back to Alabama.

Chapter 9

Find my fictional story Here.

Here's a little of the inspiration.

The haunting came first. I had already written the first few chapters before I knew who the ghost was going to be. Was Levy going to see only one ghost or are we talking an Odd Thomas situation.

I decided to pay for a Newspaper.com subscription and started searching for news articles with my family surnames, for a totally unrelated project. The article above was one of the first articles that came up, and this is someone related to me. Not the woman, but the man. He is not in my immediate family. My dad said his wife, Elizabeth, was known to “get around”.

Usually I get the best ideas while on my bicycle and it was on such a bike ride at the Five Mile Creek greenway, thinking about my family and all of those news articles, that gave me the idea of Lizzie. I made the story a little darker to suit the story. Also, I wanted to give Elizabeth a voice.

She may have gotten around but Raymond didn't seem like he was very fun to live with. He was an alcoholic and ran moonshine.

I also found this person, whom I have not proved is related to me, but this demimondaine needed a voice too. So my ghost became Lizzie.

^^^^Let’s just take a moment to appreciate all of that ^^^^^^

Speaking of moonshine, here are a few other gems that I discovered on Newspaper.com:

Looking through old newspapers really is entertaining.

Chapter 7

Levy was in total darkness.

Just before all of her lights went out, she felt the cold embrace of the icy stranger overcome her. There was no sound except a heavy buzzing that seemed to be coming from every direction. A faint dot appeared. It seemed so far away that her vision barely detected the bouncing light. It grew larger and brighter as it began barreling towards her.

That bright light suddenly surrounded her and then she began making out shapes and sounds, even smells.

Gasoline and lilac.

Levy suddenly found herself in the passenger seat of a car that she realized was speeding down a two lane country road.

This road looked familiar. Had she passed this road on her bike ride through Georgia? Maybe, but this seemed different. There were much fewer houses and a lot more open space between them.

She heard a faint sound that was quickly growing louder. She realized it was a train just before The Silver Comet shot past them on the tracks that lay parallel to the highway - the tracks that were paved over in 2014.

That’s when the thought occurred to her that she might be dead. She must have hit her head when she fell, and the soul of the woman in the chair had taken her right along with her on her journey to the afterlife.

A rideshare into heaven.

The windows were rolled down and in the side mirror, Levy could see the car was black. Levy thought it looked kind of like her grandfather’s old Chevy that had belonged to his brother before he had gone to prison. Had he lived in Georgia?

Levy’s attention moved from the car to her own reflection. The wind was whipping her hair and it was stinging her in the face and eyes.

But it wasn’t her hair, and it wasn’t her face or her eyes, she realized.

The woman reflecting back to her now had dark brown hair- almost black - like her father’s mother. It was styled like she had seen her wear it in the black and white photos her and her parents had recently gone through. There was a song she did not recognize playing on the radio. She looked down at her pristinely trimmed nails coated in a light pink polish, a color that Levy would never pick out. Her hands were resting on her lap and she was wearing a blue lightweight cotton, short-sleeve button up dress. It seemed to Levy that it was the same one the woman had been wearing at Frannick’s where she ate lunch along the trail in Dallas.

Instinctively, as Levy had done countless times in countless cars, she picked her right arm up and rested it in the open window. Suddenly there was a hand on Levy’s leg and it made her jump. Heat rushed up to her chest. A bubble formed in her throat. She looked over to see a young man with close-cropped blond hair and daring blue eyes smiling at her. His cotton shirt-off white-was half way unbuttoned and revealed a tanned chest with a little patch of fuzzy light hair. There was a grease smudge on his collar. His sleeves were rolled up, revealing his strong arms. More grease smudges.

“I sure do have fun with you Lizzie Ann”, and the way he said the woman’s name sent a chill through her. He turned the car down a gravel road as he smiled at her. She suddenly became lost in those shining eyes. The car jumped as they crossed the rail road tracks that Levy had temporarily forgotten about. He laughed as she shrieked in surprise and his hand moved up further.

And then he disappeared, as the bright light surrounded them once more.

Levy was standing outside of the car. She looked down at the man she had just been riding with on the highway, hanging halfway outside of the passenger door, one arm outstretched like it was reaching for her. Levy had guessed he had been reaching for the door handle. The place where his left eye had once been was now a bloody hole. His mouth was open in horror as his one eye stared up at her. That is when Levy noticed the gore covering the window, seats, and car interior. She could smell gunpowder and blood.

Gasoline.

Lilac.

Oh, the blood.

She heard the sound of a gunshot and the side mirror she had just been looking into moments ago exploded in shatters. Levy ducked and whirled around. A man in dirty overalls and combed over hair was pumping the gun again for another shot. “Lizzie Ann, you get back in this house you fucking whore” and pointed the gun right at her. Levy froze as the man approached her. She noticed then, the house that he had emerged from. She looked back to her right where she knew what she would find: the railroad tracks of The Silver Comet.

She looked back to the house. It was the old house she had passed on the trail. The one where she had first felt the icy embrace of her new invisible friend.

He was right on her now and she could smell the stench of him. Acrid sweat, moonshine, jealousy.

Resignation.

She looked right into the man’s black eyes searching for an answer of who he might have been. Has she met this man before?

He spat a wad of greenish brown crud on top of her white pumps. Pumps that she knew she had never seen before in her life. Were those panty hose that were now covered in gore? She laughed at the absurdity. Her mother had been trying to get Levy to wear pantyhose her entire life.

She looked up again and was going to say something to the man but he suddenly disappeared and so did Levy. The bright light enveloped everything around her again and then everything was gone. She slid back into the darkness. She thought again that she must have died.

She felt a hand caressing her cheeks. A very cold hand. It brushed her hair back and ran its cold fingers through the strands. The same hand grabbed her hand and pulled.

The name Lizzie Ann escaped with a whisper on her lips.

Her eyes began to open.

There were people hovering over her, medics, urging her to talk to them.

“Did she say, ‘Lizzie?’ the woman medic said.

The frigid helping hand remained tugging on her until she was able to sit up. The team surrounding her made room for her and she felt a couple of sets of warm…human…hands on her back and arms. The spectral hands that had been pulling her up suddenly withdrew, and Levy felt the warmth return to her skin. She clenched and unclenched her hands as she stared down at them. She reached up and felt wetness on her head. She looked down at the blood on her fingers and cursed under breath as she stood to her feet. She looked around for her bicycle and noticed it a few feet away.

She asked if she could stand up and the people crowding her helped her to her feet.

“What about the woman?” Levy asked.

One of the medics, a young man Levy guessed 10 years her junior or more, was the one who answered her.

The woman was dead.

But she had known that already. Lizzie…Lizzie Ann…had made sure that the woman in the house had not died alone.

Tears formed in her eyes as they glazed over, looking past the two cops now approaching her, as she remembered the woman’s rotting skin. Levy now cursed herself for her vivid imagination, as the thought of a forensics team filled her mind, scraping the remains of the woman from the recliner in which she had rotted into.

She leaned over and threw up on the young medic’s shiny black composite toe shoes.

Chapter 8

Buy me some art supplies 🎨🖌️🎨

This chapter gets a lot darker. This is a trigger warning that this chapter includes graphic scenes that may not be suitable for everyone.

Chapter 6

When Levy was six years old, she began venturing out on her own-without permission from her parents-to explore the woods around her house and neighborhood, and along the creek that ran behind all ten of the houses on her side of her street in her small Alabama town.

Her small village could claim two red lights (but only one that counted), a couple of gas stations, a diner, a Methodist and two Baptist Churches, and an old abandoned high school that faced perpendicular to her little neighborhood.

Levy didn’t necessarily need permission to go out adventuring. She had already been on these outings with her family, exploring the trails that her father had created in the woods that ran between the bordering neighborhoods. She knew her way around. She could go out her back door and through her back yard to a fenced in pasture that once held horses, until her mother sold them all. Levy was around 5 when that happened. Her sister, Isabella, who was about 4 years older than Levy, had been learning how to ride and show horses. They had bought her a horse that turned out to have a bit of a temper, and it had kicked Isabella in the face. She was okay, just bloodied up and needed some stitches in her eye. Their mom had been nervous enough about the horses before that happened. After looking at her precious daughter getting her eye stitched up, she had told Levy’s dad to sell them all. Her mom had been a pile of nerves during that time, at least from what Levy could remember. She didn’t think it was just the kick in the face that Isabella had taken. They got rid of anything that could lead to death or harm for Maren Olivia Reed’s two girls. They had jet skis, skis, a four wheeler and a go kart. All were sold to help calm her mother’s nerves.

Buy me a new plant! ☘️

Levy would walk up the hill through the pasture and through a path they’d cut between a gate in the fence that bordered their property and the next neighborhood over. There was a dead end road that ended right at the gate, which had been added so that their horse trailers could get in easier to that section of pasture.

She’d usually turn sharply right as soon as she got on the other side of the fence and into the trail system that had been around long before she was even a thought. When she wasn’t walking the trails, she was walking the creek, not worrying that she’d be run off by the neighbors that shared the waterway with her. The whole neighborhood was welcome to enjoy this little jewel.

Levy still dreamed about the creek. The creek ran in a straight line through her and her next door neighbors’ yards, but before the last few houses at the end of the road, the creek curved around and into the woods that bordered their neighborhood. Levy only ventured that way once. It was really too thick with trees and ground cover full of thorny bushes for her to be able to traverse safely.

A few houses before Levy’s, in the back yard of an old widowed woman, the creek opened up to a shallow pool before winding on through rockier terrain and out of the neighborhood where it would eventually join a larger body of water that the residents of Minor referred to as Shit Creek, since it contained runoff from a nearby water treatment plant.

Levy was told that was way before her time, and it never affected their little creek. There had been major successful clean up efforts and Shit Creek was no longer shitty. Levy often had seen fishermen casting their nets under the bridge at Shit Creek so she hoped that was true.

Levy made her way to this pool as much as she was able. Wild flora and bright green thatches of grass grew along this section of the creek bank, and the pool was rarely dry. Levy would sit on her large smooth rocks under the canopy of giant oak and pine trees, her toes dangling in the water. She loved the feel of the slimy moss under her feet as she slid them across the parts of the large stones that were submerged.

When the weather was really dry, the shallow spots of the pool would dry up too. When this occurred, Levy and Isabella would search the dry creek bed for old bottles and other treasures.

Nothing was ever found there that held any value. The real treasure to Levy was the memory of how the wet clay felt squishing up through her toes, as she and her sister stomped barefoot through the creek bed; The feel of it in her fingers as she brushed the caked on layers of it off the old glass bottles-her favorite the tiny apothecary bottles-after her and her sister would free them from the rich Alabama dirt.

This wild colorful world that ran through the backyards of all of her neighbors, was Levy’s happy place.

When Levy was seven years old, she decided she would go around the gate and explore the neighborhood on the other side, instead of heading to the right to traverse the all familiar trails.

The first time Levy did this, she felt like a new world had opened up to her. It was a feeling akin to walking through the wardrobe to Narnia.

That day Levy had a purpose.

There was a home just across the fence from their property that was at the end of that dead end road. An older couple lived there with their special needs adult daughter. Levy often heard her mom complaining about this young woman to my dad. She was feeding their cats so that they wouldn’t come back. Levy also listened fervently to her mom’s phone voice telling the older couple that she knows their daughter means well, but please ask her to stop feeding her cats.

Levy had never seen these people up close, and that was part of the reason she was on this little adventure now. Sure enough, their orange tabby cat was stretched out on an old wooden porch between the old couple, who were sitting in old rusty metal gliders, and their daughter, who was resting in a wooden rocking chair.

They were all rocking slowly. The old couple wore no expression but the younger woman was smiling broadly.

The righteous indignation of her mother soared through Levy at that moment and she waltzed right up to the strangers and announced she was there to get Tabitha, her tabby. They nodded. Levy leaned over to get the cat, but Tabitha darted just out of her reach and into the open front door of their old wooden home.

No one moved from their respective rockers and Levy did not know what else to do but say she’d be back later.

But Levy wasn’t ready to end her adventure just yet, and decided to keep walking. She turned left when the dead end street met with another main road that stretched far up a hillside to the right.

She recognized it as the street that led up to her uncle’s home. She knew that he lived in this neighborhood, but had not realized this road connected there. As time would pass, she’d end up visiting him and his family on foot on several occasions.

This time, she turned left, and a few houses down she saw a little girl playing outside in a sandbox. She saw Levy and called over to her, “Hey! What’s your name?”

Levy approached and introduced herself and the little girl said her name was Faith and asked if Levy wanted to go inside and play Cherry-O. Levy did want to play Cherry-O.

But as Levy followed the girl through the house, she started to worry if she was going to get in trouble. She had gone off during a church softball game when she was five, to some nearby apartments, after she followed a little girl there who she had met on the playground. She followed the girl right inside her apartment and up to her playroom- filled from floor to ceiling with toys. Her parents had looked for her for an hour. They had called the police. They eventually knocked on the door of the apartment and asked if they had seen a little blond girl. After her parents had scooped her up and provided lots of kisses and hugs, they spent the rest of the evening lecturing her about strangers and always making sure she told them where she was going.

Faith introduced her to a woman she said was her ma-maw, and then Levy hurriedly asked the woman if she could call her mom on the phone, so that she could ask her if she could stay and play. She gave the woman her number as the woman reached for her beige phone mounted to the wall of her flowery wallpapered kitchen. Levy’s mom apparently answered and the two began to get acquainted. Levy stared at the back of the woman as she leaned against the wall, twirling the cord in her hand.

“Yep, second house on the right when you come in...yes I know the Graham’s. Nice people. Did you graduate from Minor?”

Levy walked up to the woman and poked her as far up on her back as she could and the woman turned around and looked down, “Oh yes, your mom said it was fine”. Without wasting a second, she turned back around and joined Faith, who was pouring out tiny cherry pieces onto the gray carpet.

It was a week before Christmas and they had a real tree up and some gifts wrapped up under the tree. Levy breathed in the piney smell. Levy’s parents had an artificial tree that had hard sharp needles that stung Levy when she tried to help her mom and dad put it up.

The two girls played for hours before her mother called for the third time to tell her she had outstayed her welcome.

As Levy walked down the hillside pasture that connected with their backyard, Tabitha the Tabby bolted past and beat her home.

Faith was not the first friend Levy made this way.

Eventually, Levy would know almost every kid within walking distance of her home. She was always invited in and welcomed like family, never fearing any danger. She could just recite her phone number and all would be well.

Levy wished she could call her mother now.

She had no lifeline here. She stared at the rotten porch that was caved in - attached to a house that didn’t seem in much better shape.

Not long after Levy passed Michael Tucker Memorial Park, she had approached a neighborhood with what appeared to be many run-down homes and trailers, clutter and trash and old cars dotting the spotty lawns. The bike trail crossed the road that led into the hillside neighborhood.

As she crossed the street, Levy had felt the temperature drop suddenly and felt her legs slowing. As the heat returned she felt a tug and looked to her right. She felt the tug again and she stepped off of her bike and began walking alongside it, inching it forward slowly and apprehensively.

She looked down both directions of the bike trail and did not see anyone. She made her way onto the street that entered the neighborhood and decided to return to her bike once more and began to pedal. The road was slightly elevated as it continued through the neighborhood and then turned to the left up a small hillside. Levy’s legs were tired but she made it to the top of the hill without having to step off of her bike.

Just as she made the small curve, her icy friend tugged her waist again, and Levy slowed her bike. To her left was an overgrown field bordered by a rotten fence that had mostly fallen down. One corner of the field held lines of long dead fruit trees. To her right was what she guessed was the homestead of the neglected farm. The feeling that surrounded her had urged her towards the front of the house where she now stood, but once she had reached the front steps, she suddenly felt the heat rush back to the place on her arm that the cold appendages had just held.

It was gone. And now, she was alone.

She questioned again if she was going mad as one of her black Adidas riding shoes suddenly planted itself on the bottom step.

Before she knew it, she was standing directly in front of a once painted white door, now a dingy yellow spotted with dirt and scuff marks, a multitude of dirty fingerprints encircling the doorknob that her hand was now grasping. She looked back at her bicycle leaning up against the tree and thought about leaving, but somehow, she knew that would be wrong. She also somehow knew that she didn’t need to knock, and that even if she did, no one would answer.

The doorknob suddenly began to turn.

As soon as the door cracked open, a stench filled her nostrils. She grew up in the woods with her dad and she knew the smell of death. Small brown roaches scattered in all directions at her arrival, disappearing into bags and boxes that were piled up in mounds and stacked to the ceiling. The room that the front entrance opened to appeared to be a living area attached to what was once a dining area. This led into a kitchen to the back left of the house. The entrance to the kitchen was blocked by more mounds of junk.

There were no lights on, but Levy could see a faint glow of what might be a TV coming from a room in the back of the house and heard the humming of the window unit somewhere far to her left. She also heard a muffled sound of someone speaking, and she assumed the noises were coming from the television set in the back.

Levy stepped inside, holding her shirt over her nose and mouth, trying her best not to breathe in. A small walking path had been etched into the piles of trash. All of the curtains were drawn but she could see thick dust particles floating through the air in the slits of light that shone in around them.

She heard flies buzzing, and followed the sound to a dingy recliner. There were tied up grocery bags surrounding the chair, and flies were buzzing all around them. Levy approached the chair and realized with a sickening horror that someone was in the chair.

Levy thought the person reclining back slightly in the chair was dead, and had maybe been dead for a while.

The woman’s head was back, eyes closed. Her rotten mouth agape. Suddenly, a struggling rattled breath escaped from the woman’s mouth and her eyes fluttered open. She turned her head slightly towards Levy as she noticed her approach. Levy noticed the woman’s eyes were a beautiful gray as they met Levy’s own.

The woman did her best to smile, obviously surprised to see someone, but then it appeared something had caught the woman’s attention beyond Levy and her gaze seemed to pass straight through her. Another rattled breath escaped from her lungs.

A faint lightness shone from the window closest to the woman, giving Levy a view of the horror. The woman’s arms were resting on the armrests of the vintage chair. She had been unable to move from her position and her flesh appeared to have rotted into the fabric. She looked further down and she saw that the woman’s gown was yellow and brown stained. It was pulled up along her stomach and she was wearing rubber underwear - disintegrating and full of waste. Shit was spread up her torso. That was rotting away also. The diaper had also organically grown into the woman’s body.

Levy looked down at the bags that surrounded the chair and realized in horror that it was filled with excrement and stained paper towels and tissues. The chair was also rotting underneath the woman’s body and her legs were black, her flesh rotting away. She couldn’t tell where the woman’s body ended and the chair began.

Levy saw things moving there.

She tried not to think about it.

The room had been hot and stuffy when she had entered, but now as she stood there looking down on this woman who had rotted into her living room sofa - surrounded by hoards of junk and trash and fuck knows what else - the room suddenly felt cold.

This time Levy did not feel any icy fingertips on her skin or the icy shards that her companion had left behind previously.

Now it felt as if the whole room was suddenly 20 degrees colder than it had been when she had entered. She looked up at the woman’s face again as she let out another pained and rattled exhale. All at once, the woman’s grey eyes glazed over. Levy waited to hear another breath, but none ever came.

Despite the icy feeling in the air, Levy felt her cheeks flush with anger as she remembered the television. She once more felt an icy grip around her arm tugging her towards the way they had come in. The floor creaked and she looked up towards the hallway where the sound had originated. A dark figure filled the entrance to the hallway. It stepped forward and Levy could suddenly see it was a disheveled man, who appeared to be holding something long in his hand. Levy did not think. She was hot from the anger that had begun to rise as soon as she realized someone else was in the home with this woman, leaving her in the next room to rot.

Adrenaline was starting to pump through her veins. The cold enveloped her completely; every icy tendril that gripped her made her feel protected somehow. How could someone allow this to happen?

Levy stepped towards the man and he froze. The anger was evident on her face. The man must have seen her expression in the faint light shining in from behind the drawn curtains. He hesitated. That was all that Levy needed and she charged. She bent low and rammed the full weight of herself into the man’s torso and legs and he fell backwards, the object falling out of his arms as he crashed into a pile of National Geographic and Martha Stewart Living magazines.

Piles of trash and boxes fell on top of Lizzy as she rolled away from the man. She felt something small scurry over her feet, and then a large grey cat jumped out of one of the boxes towards the small creature. Her left hand was in something wet and thick. She began to cry. But as she did she pushed herself up on her arms and looked around. The man was groaning. He was on his stomach and slowly pushing himself up. The smell of booze and sweat wafted up from where he was struggling.

Levy could tell that he was intoxicated and that she had the upper hand. She rose to her feet and stepped onto the man’s back, pushing him down again on the ground. She turned back towards the door, making her way past the mess. She stepped out into the sunlight and took a deep breath, and instantly regretted it. She stench had not left her and the strong smell filled her once more.

She halfway stumbled down the rotten stairs and with her hand on the broken handrail, she began to retch. She looked up as she heard the man appear in the doorway. She jumped on her bike and pedaled down the hillside as fast as her legs could take her, tears stinging her eyes. She made it back to the trail just as two cyclists rushed by her. She called out for help as she fell to the ground crying. “Please, stop!” She called out again but the man and woman had already turned towards her. “Call 9-1-1!” She screamed, tears streaming down her face. Levy threw up again. The woman pulled out a phone from a pack around her waist. Levy looked behind her but the man was nowhere to be seen.

The cold was enveloping her like a blanket; her world began to go black. She fought the feeling and explained hurriedly to the strangers what she had seen. They seemed to have more questions but let it go and proceeded to explain to the operator what Levy was trying to relay to her. “Please”, she struggled to say through her retching.

“Make sure they bring an ambulance”.

Levy wanted to save the woman. But there was nothing left to be saved.

She knew deep down that the woman was now dead. She had died with Levy…and…and…she had died with…

Levy’s world went black.

Chapter 7

Fiona is using the power of words to filter out all of the shit she gets bombarded with on a daily basis-from being outnumbered by the opposite gender in her home, and as a hospital social worker-and to share with YOU stories about the forgotten people.

Fiona enjoys her many house plants and talks to them quite often. She also enjoys bike riding, lifting weights, watching TV and has a soft spot for old TV shows like Taxi, Frasier, Dick Van Dyke, and Mary Tyler Moore.

According to her most recent Spotify Wrapped, she enjoys over 300 different genres of music. She didn't even know over 300 genres existed but no one was surprised.

She was brought up on old southern values, religion, and manners, and luckily has forgotten all of it that doesn't feel good or help or serve her fellow humans.

She is higher than her hair most days and has never been called graceful.

She has been called insatiable.

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The next morning, climbing higher above the tree line, the hot Georgia sun began to brighten the Beautiful Rock campground, and spurred Levy from her light sleep. She lifted herself up and rested on her elbow. She could smell bacon and coffee and her mouth began to water. She looked around to see other campers just starting their day.

Some of the RVs looked like they had been set up for a while. Levy noticed one with a few vegetables growing out of pots on a makeshift patio covered in quirky lawn decorations, mostly different types of frogs and dragonflies that probably all came from the clearance aisle of a chain hobby store. An older lean woman in a sun hat and khakis was tending to some tomato plants.

She continued to people watch for several more minutes. She wasn’t really in a hurry. She wanted to get a shower soon and maybe find somewhere to eat for breakfast and still needed to grab that disposable camera. Something caught Levy’s eyes to her right. Across from the bathhouse she saw someone crawling out of a small blue and green tent. She was surprised to see it was Jodi.

Levy sunk down in her hammock so she wouldn’t notice her.

She didn’t mind the company, and in fact, would welcome it, and would get her attention soon. But Levy wanted to watch Jodi for a moment. To observe, innocently.

Jodi was an interesting person. She was kind and funny, but Levy also was a very intuitive person and could tell that Jodi wore a mask over something dark. She was sure it was related to the death of her brother. She watched as Jodi stretched, rubbed her eyes like a sleepy child, and looked around, surveying the campground as Levy had been doing a moment earlier. Levy held her breath as Jodi’s gaze seemed to steady on her hammock, but then she continued her scan before heading back in her tent.

She emerged a few moments earlier with a Coleman burner and set to work brewing coffee. Levy tried to sit up, and the struggle must have gotten Jodi’s attention. She smiled and motioned Levy over to her.

Levy was tired and achy, but she nodded and pulled her legs over the hammock to stand up. She slid out and stretched her tired muscles and walked over to Jodi and her brewing coffee. As she got closer a cold tendril slid around Levy’s hip and she was reminded of her icy partner. She had almost forgotten about that she was being harassed by something she couldn’t see and before she reached Jodi, she cursed it under her breath: Can’t you just fucking leave me alone for once!

And suddenly…it was gone. She stopped cold in her tracks and Jodi looked at her with concern, head cocked to the left like a curious cocker spaniel. Levy acted quickly and made a gesture for her to hold on and turned on her heels. She walked back to her tent and grabbed her water bottle. She didn’t need it right now but she thought it a clever disguise for the way she had stopped so abruptly.

The presence itself was not causing her any fear, but she was starting to think she was slowly going insane. Terrible things had started running through her mind. Did she have a brain tumor? Was she actually having a nervous breakdown from work? She was happy to be rid of it for the moment and hurried back to Jodi before it decided to reappear.

As she approached, Jodi smiled and stood up from her chair. She gave Levy a very delicate hug and grazed her arm as she released her embrace. Levy didn’t dare attempt to attempt any physical flirting, fearing a repeat of last night. It was too late anyhow, and she’d probably end up poking Jodi’s eye out.

“What was that?” Jodi asked her.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you looked like you saw a ghost. Then you turned on your heels and pretended that you forgot your water bottle and didn’t think I’d realize you had turned white as snow.”

I lost a ghost, actually.

“Oh. That.” Levy paused. “Maybe perimenopause,” Levy suggested.

“Are you perimenopausal?” Jodi questioned.

“No, but it’s been a couple of years since I’ve been to the doctor. I guess I need to get my levels checked”.

Levy was not about to tell Jodi that she had been haunted for almost 24 hours by some unknown chilly bitch and she just told it to fuck off and…it listened. Levy didn’t think that Jodi’s face portrayed confidence in what Levy was dishing out to her. She didn’t think that left brow was ever going to lower. It finally did, as Jodi pursed her lips and shrugged, turning her attention back to her coffee.

Jodi and Levy shared an easy conversation over the coffee, never speaking of what had just happened, nor Jodi’s dead brother. She wanted to ask his name, but she thought better of it. Heat and humidity this thick, this early in the day, calls for a lighter conversation. Trauma dumping is for cool nights and fires; hot cocoa and blankets.

They talked about their plans for the day and finally exchanged numbers. Jodi was meeting her friends for a hike and then heading to North Carolina before heading out of the country for a while.

Levy wasn’t sure whether or not she had a brain tumor, but she was certain that she had a crush on Jodi. Jodi Lofton, she had told Levy this morning. When Levy had her phone back, she was going to read about what Jodi and her mom were going through. She had seen something about it in the news. Alabama prisons were dangerously full and dangerously understaffed.

After coffee, Levy took a quick shower at the campground’s bathhouse and brushed her teeth. She changed clothes and stepped out to find Jodi waiting with everything packed up. “I’m gonna grab a shower at my friend’s house. I wanted to say goodbye.”

Levy hugged her and decided to chance another show of affection. She moved Jodi’s hair back from her eyes with one hand and left the other softly resting on Jodi’s upper hip. Jodi didn’t flinch, but instead moved closer. She asked Levy if she could kiss her on the cheek.

“You can kiss me on my mouth. But no tongue. I’m shy.”

Jodi laughed and stepped even closer to Levy. Jodi had to lean over to reach Levy, so she met her halfway, standing on her tippy toes. The kiss was so soft and Jodi opened her mouth slightly, almost caressing Levy’s lips with her own. She barely slid her tongue softly across Levy’s lower lip. It sent heat through Levy’s entire body. She withdrew from Jodi’s kiss only to lean back up and give her one more soft peck, and then one on the cheek for good measure. She felt silly for that last one, but Jodi didn’t seem to mind. Jodi’s cheeks were flushed and Levy could feel the warmth in hers as well.

Jodi left in a blue Honda HRV and waved as she drove out of the campground’s parking lot. After Levy rolled up her hammock as tightly as she could, she bound it with the rubber band and shoved it down in her stash bag. She grabbed breakfast from a nearby dollar store but had no luck with the camera.

She hopped back on her bike and headed towards the state line.

As Levy was barreling fast down the path, the wind was blowing hard enough to furiously shake the trees. Leaves, sticks, and acorns were flying everywhere and Levy was thankful she had a helmet on. A squirrel ran in front of her on the trail and scurried into the woods. She was peddling faster now, feeling free and light from her morning with Jodi. The wind picked up almost as if it was riding with Levy. It was just a coincidence. The wind is just blowing really hard.

The air became much colder. Levy knew that it being a coincidence was just wishful thinking. Just as that thought entered her mind she felt the icy grip once more slid upon her spine. She exhaled and pushed on, cursing under her breath. The presence persisted.

Levy finally found a disposable camera in Piedmont, Alabama. She got lucky when she stopped in a little grocery store called WM. At first, she asked a pimply teenage boy, around the age of 16-with what Levy thought might be a receding hair line- if he knew if they had them. He had to, shockingly, ask his manager, and BINGO! A small Kodak disposable camera that Levy thought might be circa 2010. She was going to take some fucking pictures. And she did. She was selective of what pictures she captured. The little camera only held enough space for 24 pictures.

By the time she got to Weaver and the gray painted barn, she had taken 3 pictures. A big rock, a beautiful old oak tree, and a young couple, walking along the path before it ran through the Jacksonville State campus, holding hands in the morning sunlight

Levy was more familiar with Anniston, Alabama than any of the other cities that she had passed through on this trail. Jacksonville was probably the second, but she had not spent any significant amount of time in either city.

She had passed through Jacksonville before reaching Weaver. She had not realized that part of the trail passed through the University campus and bikers had to utilize paved sidewalks. She could hear the marching band playing and guessed that a football game was about to commence.

Cars were rapidly filling up the parking lot and assorted girls and boys dressed up in their Sunday best - but all in Jacksonville colors - were packed in a large field of tents.

Dotted in a row behind this field was what she immediately recognized as a row of fraternity or sorority houses. These were all made of brick. A large painted sign held up by poles was stretched out in front of one of the houses in the center and loud rap music was blasting out of large speakers. A table was set up in front but it was too far to see any distinctive characteristics of the college students filling the lawn. She passed through a group of young boys that were about to cross the road to get to the stadium. They stopped before crossing, discussing something, making a plan, but they saw Levy and started to move out of her way.

A boy dressed in a gray polo and khakis backed up directly into her path, not realizing that everyone else in the group had moved away for a reason. Right before the boy had slammed into her, he seemed to be pushed to the side out of her way. She heard one of the boys yell “You almost hit that lady!” and then heard the kid cry out, “Hey! Who shoved me? That fucking hurt!” No one answered him.

She wasn’t certain, but she didn’t think anyone had pushed the young man out of the way. She pondered on this a moment, but pushed the thoughts out of her mind. She was happy to be clear of the campus. Her near collision had made her a little nervous. She looked back and the boy was staring at her as she drove on, a confused expression on his face. Maybe he was also pondering just who it was who shoved him.

Or what.

Maybe he thought Levy had somehow reached out and pushed him, while also being able to maintain her balance. If so, he was giving her agility a lot of credit she didn’t deserve. She was barely getting used to this bike thing.

While she was still in Jacksonville, she had stopped at a renovated train depot not far down the trail past the campus, which appeared to have been turned into a rest stop for the trail. After filling up her water bottle and using the restroom, she continued further a short distance and then parked her bike at a little gazebo surrounded by a little flower garden; a bike rack was set up in front to let riders know they were welcome to stop.

She had pulled out her pen and paper to make some notes about her trip and added an electrolyte packet to her water. Jodi had given her some ice this morning out of her cooler to add to her water bottle, and it made the beverage that much more refreshing. She mixed it up by shaking the bottle and she made a note about researching the depot, then dropped her pen to take a sip of her water and take in the sights.

The trail she had just traversed had crossed over a four way stop. Near the gazebo was a small parking lot. An old blue Ford pickup pulled up and parked in one of the spaces. The woman in the passenger seat was tiny and had pin straight gray hair pinned back and pulled in a pony tail. She was white, but her skin was dark and wrinkled, having spent many a year under this Southern sun.

A man got out of the driver’s seat holding a little dog that Levy thought might be a pick-a-poo or similar breed. Levy had been given a pick-a-poo for Easter one year - picked it right out of her little Easter basket after her mom had hidden it, and given her clues to its location. As an innocent child, she has been so excited. But not long after, she realized the dog really belonged to her mother. That dog was her mother’s baby. Levy had sometimes felt like she had been replaced. She now realized that the dog had just been…less complicated.

The man smiled at her as he passed by and put the dog down on the trail and began to walk. The dog was on a long, black rope leash. The woman remained in the car. Levy began to write again about her trip so far, describing the sounds, sights, and smells. She stopped and her pen hovered over the wrinkled paper as she tried to think of how to describe the icy stranger.

Had she felt it let loose from her right before that boy was shoved sideways away from her?

She pushed the thought out of her mind. Levy suddenly realized that she could no longer feel the icy presence. She looked up towards the pickup. The woman was staring at her. The dog began to bark and Levy turned her head down the trail. The dog jumped up and snapped up at something in the air.

There were Cloudless Sulphur butterflies everywhere around the flower garden, migrating south for the winter for months to come. The dog backed up and growled, then scooted behind and pushed into its owners legs. The dog scurried out again and yipped and turned playfully and snapped at the air again. Levy was starting to feel really weird about the whole thing and decided against trying to put words to something that people would tell her was only an unknown anxiety or a pinched nerve. She started to put the pen down when she felt something as cold as ice fill her fingertips.

The feeling seemed to linger there and she picked her hand up again and put it to paper. The dog had stopped barking for a moment. She looked over at the dog and it was looking straight at Levy with its head tilted. She wrote the name

Lizzie

and then warmth seemed to fill her fingertips again. She continued to write.

You be sweet now, ya here?

The dog once again barked and jumped up in the air.

If this continued, she would need to see if her primary care physician would refer her to a neurologist.

Levy made a note about the Jacksonville frat boy, the train depot, and then she paused and wrote the name

Jodi.

She paused before beginning to write again.

I met someone at a bar last night. She was camping at the campsite. Names Jodi. She’s cute, makes me laugh, and she gave me ice for my water bottle. Got her number. I think I will try to call her when I get my phone back. She paused and added:

Brother, inmate…dead. Beaten. Research.

She took a swig of her drink and decided she wasn’t sure what else to write about. She was also sweaty and every time she touched the paper she left a sweaty print. So, she walked back to her bike and put up her belongings back in her stash bag.

Levy turned her bike towards the southward trail and mounted. She looked down the path and saw that the man and his dog had walked further than before but was now turning back in her direction. She hoped that whatever had been following her from Dallas, Georgia, had now made its escape into Alabama as she passed by the man and his dog again. The thought didn’t have time to complete in her mind before she experienced the same feeling she had yesterday when she had passed by the old wooden house on the hillside.

The temperature all around her changed dramatically, her skin icy cold, before the invisible shards began to break off of her again, one by one, the heat returning to her skin where they had been just moments before. All except that one icy tendril that clung to her, this time to her waist.

She felt the Alabama heat pounding down on her back, her face, her shoulders, her arms, and the exposed skin on her legs. But around her torso she felt the cold embrace. She wasn’t able to dismiss whatever was happening to her any longer. She wasn’t sure what came over her.

Again, more confidently, she spoke aloud to this uninvited guest: “If you’re going to hang around, can you please find something else to cling to?” Almost reluctantly, the being let go. The wind picked up next to the bike. For a moment she wondered if she had offended the presence. But later she felt the bike shift down like something heavy sat somewhere upon it. For the moment, she had detected only the hot Alabama sun enveloping her tanned skin. She looked down and noticed her arms were turning a little red. She smiled. She hoped her tan would last through the spring.

This was only about 4 miles from the gray painted barn. The ride from Jacksonville to Weaver was next to open fields of farmland, kudzu canopied trees, and wildflowers. As she passed by a rather large clearing of farmland, she felt the bike shift again like it had been freed from that heavy weight, and that’s when Levy noticed a woman in her mid-forties running ahead of her in the same direction. She was wearing black leggings and a purple tank.

Her straight hair was brown with gray streaks and pulled back in a ponytail that hung low on her neck. Levy noticed the woman was enveloped by an actual whirlwind filled with golden leaves and multiple butterflies. As she passed by, the woman looked up and smiled. Levy laughed out loud. “You are surrounded by a whirlwind! That is so cool!”

It seemed as though the woman was also pleasantly perplexed about what was happening and said “I know! This is pretty cool”. Levy slowed her bike to take in the moment and the woman slowed as well, attempting to take a photo from her smartwatch.

Levy would have ordinarily assumed that the shift in the woman’s movement would have disrupted an event like this, but the event itself was not ordinary. In fact, the last 24 hours had been nothing but ordinary. She pulled out her camera to take a picture, but before she was able to pull the camera to her eye, the whirlwind suddenly lifted.

The leaves fell in a slow flurry and the butterflies scattered. Levy felt an icy breeze drift by with one of the butterflies as it flew past her and felt the bike shift once more. She began to pedal forward again.

There was a busy road that was alongside the bike path to her left and there was farmland to her right. A ditch ran in between the bike path and the farm’s fencing. There were only a few pine trees alongside the path here but the treeline began to thicken as she reached the edge of the farm. Just before the treeline became completely dense again, another deer, this time a rather large buck, jumped out from a pile of leaves along the treeline.

She was scared at first that it would run out in front of her. Instead, it pounced through the edge of the farmland and into the dense forest away from the bike path. Yesterday she would have questioned why the deer had jumped out at that exact moment, when there were multiple other people along the path. But right before the large buck was spurred from its hiding place, the bike had once more shifted and her new friend had left an icy breeze in its wake. Her new friend was a fan of the outdoors it seems.

Maybe this was the things home and all these creatures could see what Levy couldn’t. The creative spark found her once more and her mind was filled with ghosts of the Appalachian foothills playing with forest animals and insects as she approached that gray painted barn.

Levy had not forgotten the gray painted barn by the time she reached Anniston. It was not lost on her that every time she stopped to use her camera, to capture something she felt needed captured, that she was doing exactly what the Bible verse had suggested.

Chapter 6

Chapter 4

Levy ran her finger down the condensation dripping from her glass. She had been sipping on the second glass of Emergency Drinking Beer for a few minutes; she had guzzled the first. The bartender had told her he worked at the brewery—Wild Heaven—a few days a week where the beer was made. She had asked him for a light Georgia beer, and had not imagined she would end up drinking a beer the bartender may have brewed himself. It was pretty damn good. She felt both the brewery and beer names fitting for her weird (but beautiful) ride through Georgia. She would never forget this day, that was certain.

The majestic and picturesque beauty of the sights along the trail had been unforgettable. Levy reminded herself again to grab a disposable camera here in Rockmart before heading back down the path towards Alabama.

The strange presence persisted. It had not let up since Dallas. The cold, spectral weight would shift, but never release its hold on her. She was feeling no pain aside from her sore ass from the long bike ride. The inexplicable icy hitchhiker just…lingered.

When Levy reached Rockmart, she freshened up in a bathroom at the depot after locking up her bike in front of the old brick building. She wanted to look halfway decent while out, but a shower would have to wait until she reached the campground.

She needed to eat and walked across East Church Street to The Rails at Rockmart, the bar and grill she had looked up when planning her trip. She ordered the Rippin’ Rails Dippin’ Delight—a fancily named French Dip, Levy’s favorite sandwich. She then asked Danny, the bartender, to go ahead and add the Oreo cheesecake to her tab to bring out later.

Danny was a middle-aged man, maybe late forties, with salt-and-pepper hair and a dark five o’clock shadow. He was wearing a tight gray shirt with dark jeans. Levy couldn’t help but notice how comfortably he moved around the bar. He has been a part of this place for a while. He had seen her staring as he wiped down a glass and winked at her. She smiled and took a sip of her beer as she moved her gaze away from him and glanced around the room.

A server brought Levy her dish and sat it down in front of her at the bar, where she had remained since guzzling her first beer. Levy was now on her third. The food smelled amazing. She dipped the sandwich into the au jus and took a bite. There aren’t too many things in life as good as a French Dip, Levy thought to herself, then immediately knew that was a lie. It was still a fucking good sandwich, though. She wished she could go back in time and kiss whoever created au jus sauce. And if au jus was involved in the kiss, she suspected it might lead to more than just a kiss.

She went for a second bite as a woman sat down next to her at the bar, slinging her crossbody bag over the adjacent stool. The woman had shoulder-length brown hair, a dark Cake tour shirt, and jean shorts. Levy would notice the green Doc Martens adorning her toned legs later, when she had watched the woman walk towards the exit for a cigarette.

“That looks delicious,” the woman commented. It is! Levy agreed with only a nod and her eyes, as she chewed the mouthful of the drippy sandwich. Levy took a swig of her water and then a bigger swig of beer. The woman watched her the entire time with a small grin, like she was enjoying a show.

“I was just thinking of ways to go back in time and personally thank whoever came up with au jus sauce”. Levy had finally swallowed her bite of food and was able to speak.

“I heard it was a French guy in LA that dropped the bread into a pan of roast beef juice. He just looked at it after taking a bite and said, “Ah! Juice”.

Levy couldn’t help but laugh. “He’ll be crying ‘Ah! Juice!’, after I get done with him”. The woman’s eyes sparkled as she cracked up with Levy at the bar. The woman had round features, side swept bangs, and a button nose. She was sexy as hell, and Levy hoped she would hang around a minute.

“I’m Levy Reed”, she said, her speech only slightly lilting, and held out her hand. The woman took her hand in hers and shook it. “Jodi. What ya drinking?” Levy told her and Jodi signaled for Danny. Jodi handed him a Visa. “Two more of these on my tab.”

Levy told Jodi about her bike trip and her job—including the detail that her boss had actually forced her to take a vacation. Jodi explained her own situation: she “needed to get away” and was visiting friends who lived in Rockmart, whom she was meeting at the bar after they finished work.

It turned out Jodi was from a small town in South Alabama. Levy wasn’t surprised given the close proximity of the states, but she was delighted to have found another “Bammer” in this Georgia bar. Their conversation developed a light, sometimes flirty, rhythm. Levy felt a pleasant spark when Jodi’s hand brushed her arm, and again, when she briefly placed it on her knee.

In an attempt to awkwardly reciprocate the body language, Levy fumbled and spilled the last bit of Jodi’s beer all over her lap, leading to another fit of shared laughter. Levy felt her cheeks warm with color, but Jodi seemed oblivious, failing to realize the mishap was a failed attempt at flirting. Jodi appeared to be enjoying her company, but Levy could feel that something was off. After they each shared another beer between them, Levy pressed. “So, why’d you have to get away so badly?” Jodi sighed and took a swig of her beer. She had switched to drinking a bottle of Sweetwater 420, and had been peeling the paper off as they had been talking.

Levy thought she wasn’t going to say anything, just continue to stare at the bottle and keep peeling back the paper shred by shred. But finally, after one more swig, she took a long inhale in. “Do you smoke?” She asked. Levy almost said, “yes”, but remembered she threw her last pack of Camel Menthol Lights away before leaving on her trip. She was trying to do better. “I don’t have any with me and if you’re asking for a light, you’re out of luck. Unless you have a little while to see what I can produce rubbing my thighs together”. Jodi laughed as she stood up. She threw her crossbody bag over her shoulder and grabbed her beer. “C’mon. My treat if you’ll have one”. Levy stood up with her, downed the last swig of her beer and followed Jodi outside.

They moved far enough away from the door, and Jodi reached in her bag and pulled out her own Camel menthols, and Levy was relieved. She was particular about her cancer sticks. She handed one to Levy with the lighter and after Levy was done lighting her cigarette, she handed it back to Jodi to light hers. They both took a few drags as they stood there in the thick and humid Georgia night. Levy had briefly forgotten the question she had asked Jodi. She was relishing the burning smoke filling her lungs. She looked up at the stars and was lost in the heavens for a moment. Levy’s celestial trance was broken as she felt the icy grip return to her once more. It had left her at some point in the evening. She had been having such a great time with Jodi, she didn’t notice that the icy feeling had withdrawn from her. She closed her eyes tight and tried to force the feeling away, but it remained. She didn’t want Jodi to think she was crazy, so she ignored it. Jodi looked up at the sky herself and took another puff.

Her voice sliced the silence in the air. “My brother was killed last year. Beaten in prison by a fucked up, crazy ass, guard.” She took another drag. “I really didn’t want to talk about it. Not tonight”. They both took in a few more drags of her cigarette before she spoke again. “My mom and I have been dealing with a lawsuit after we hired a civil rights lawyer from Birmingham. He’s working on witness interviews this week and it’s been really tough. My brother’s roommate is refusing to talk out of fear. I think it’s killing my mom.” She took one more drag and then stomped out her cigarette. She stood there looking at Levy for a moment. Levy didn’t know how to respond. “Come back inside and have a beer with me before my friends get here.” And Levy did.

Buy me a biscuit!

They moved to a booth when Jodi’s friends arrived. She hung around a little while, but the air seemed thicker with them all there at the table - like a blanket of grief they all shared - and Levy suspected that everyone, including Jodi, would be more comfortable if she left. And Levy was having trouble hiding her discomfort provided by her new icy companion. She headed to the depot and to her bike and methodically maneuvered the bike to the RV resort.

As Levy drifted off to sleep, a heavy buzz filling her with a heady warmth, she realized she never asked Jodi her brother’s name. She could still feel the icy presence that had been haunting her, but it had been muted by either the beer or her descent into her dreams. She fell asleep thinking about Jodi and her bright walnut eyes.

She awoke with a scream, before her eyes had shot open—the image of the woman she had seen at Frannick’s the day prior filling her mind’s eye. Levy couldn’t quite remember the dream -the nightmare - only the blood and the screaming. The woman had been screaming, but there had also been shouting. And before that…

You be sweet now, ya here, Levy said under her breath. She had heard that voice. The voice of a man, as the woman had started to scream.

The blood…the blood was everywhere.

You be sweet now, ya here?

Levy looked at her watch.

3:06 AM.

She settled back into her travel hammock and stared at the purple sky. She tried to think of Jodi again, but could only see crimson. She felt the icy weight shift on her spine just before she lost herself to a fitful sleep.

Chapter 5

Chapter 3

Levy sluggishly returned to her bicycle. She stretched and put her helmet on, taking a few moments to soak in her surroundings. It was 3 pm before she was back on the trail headed to Rockmart.

Not far down the path from the trailhead, Levy noted mile marker 21, right before she saw a white-tail deer - a large doe - jump across the trail. She slowed her bike and approached where she had seen the deer cross. She looked into the woods. She could see the creature only 50 feet from her. It was still, and staring straight at her. There were bikers passing by her as she stood there, but the deer only had eyes for Levy.

Maybe the passing bikers posed less of a threat than the human who had decided to stop and stare. She reached into her pocket so that she could grab her phone and take a picture. She panicked for a moment when she couldn’t find it, and remembered once more she had left it in the car. She cursed herself again. She had good intentions of disconnecting. She had not thought about bringing a camera and she hoped, maybe, she could find some sort of cheap camera somewhere along the route. She would have to ask someone there if there was a store that was easily accessible with her bicycle.

She wasn’t used to riding on busy roads, and she didn’t know if she had any interest in doing so. She had always been annoyed when she had to pass by slow peddlers in her car, but she knew soon, if she kept up this hobby, she’d be one of them; annoyed commuters swerving around her the first chance they got.

The deer stood there a moment longer, before sharply looking East and then bolting West and to the North. Levy continued on. A hawk flew ahead of her and landed on a branch that was part of one of many green cathedral canopies that stretched across the trail. As she approached, the large Cooper’s Hawk stared down at her, cocked its head and then screeched loudly as it flew off.

Levy’s legs felt heavy on her ride into Rockmart. Stopping to eat had made it difficult to get going again after such a long morning ride. Her legs and hips were still stiff. She pondered if all of that water had made things better or worse. Better, she decided. She didn’t drink enough water as it is. Around mile marker 22, she passed a man with a goatee, wearing a dark blue Metallica t-shirt and dark jeans, walking his white pitbull. “C’mon Comet”! The man led the dog to the side of the path as Levy passed by them. A story began to unfold in her head of how the dog came to be called Comet.

The man, who had recently gotten his life together after some trouble, had begun walking the trail for meditation and reflection.

Levy imagined his daily walks becoming a major part of this stranger’s healing journey.

He found the puppy, abandoned, along the trail…

Buy me something fun!

Levy felt lighter as the fantasy played out in her head. It took her mind off of her tired body. It had been a while since she had allowed herself to venture down one of her creative trails of imagination. She wrote periodicals about local people and happenings around town for the magazine, but her true love was fiction.

She loved story-telling. Levy didn’t have time to live in her head anymore, to create. And it seemed the only thoughts that plagued her lately was that of everything going on at work. She was starting to see that this trip was going to have a positive effect on her, and she sent a silent thank you to Geri.

As Levy imagined the puppy named Comet jumping through the man’s back yard with a frisbee in its mouth, the trees parted and the path opened up to a kudzu covered hillside that stretched up to a little road dotted with houses along one side as it continued upwards.

The house closest to her was an old dingy white home that had a front porch that overlooked the trail. An image popped into Levy’s head, of an old man and woman sitting on the front porch of that old white house, watching as the Silver Comet sped by. She imagined the native flora that covered the hillside before the invasive kudzu took over the terrain. She imagined their DNA still buried deep in the soil, waiting to be free of the dense kudzu prison.

These thoughts turned to images of the tracks being laid and tunnels dug from hillsides. These haunting scenes brought on a wave of sadness and Levy felt her chest tighten. This smooth, paved trail that she and countless others enjoyed, had been built on the forgotten tragedy of the many men who died in service to the railroad. She felt goosebumps as she wondered how many lives had fallen on the ground she now passed over.

Suddenly, her problems seemed insignificant. She took a long, deep inhale and again took in the rich vegetation that lined the trail. The pain of her thoughts made her feel even heavier than she did before and her legs slowed the pace as she let out her breath. Without the cover of the trees, the air was much hotter on this section of the path.

She had already started to sweat again. The forecast said the temperature in Georgia would reach 91 degrees. That wasn’t the hottest it had been in early September, but it was still pretty hot. Even though it had recently been less humid than Georgia’s typical 67-70 percent average, she felt the moisture-thick air with every breath. Levy didn’t mind the heat.

When she was a child, she didn’t know how she would ever get used to how hot it was in Alabama. As she aged however, her body became accustomed to it, and now she welcomed the wet hot American summers that the South had to offer. If she was surrounded by a body of water, even better. It didn’t matter if it was salt or salt-less. She loved the south fiercely, a devotion that was perpetually at odds with the stubborn Old South’s backward traditions. This place could be paradise, she reflected, if it wasn’t for all the goddamned hate.

Levy could see that the path up ahead entered the woods again. She thought again about how hot it was. There had been a few days the past week where it had only reached 78 degrees, which was not normal for this area this early in September.

In the South, summer temperatures stick around, sometimes through the New Year. Kids are in agony in their itchy Halloween costumes, moving door to door in 85 degree heat. Clawing is one good word to describe how it feels to trick or treat in a cheap polyester Minnie Mouse costume. Most of the time you only had a short time to get your candy before you were back home with a cold rag and a Benadryl trying to get your eyes to stop swelling shut from the chemicals in the face paint that melted into your eyes.

The kids who know better than to wear the face paint and itchy clothes last only a while longer in the heat, and then everybody is at home digging into their bounty of candy so they can eat what isn’t melted. They wait, sometimes sticking their candy haul in the fridge, peeling the chocolate off the silvery wrappers later.

Levy remembered as a child not being able to wear the fall and winter clothes her mom had bought her for Christmas. Her mom usually ordered all of their gifts from the long forgotten JC Penny’s catalog, after she and her siblings dutifully circled each item they desired and dog-eared the pages. They normally could not wear them until late January or early February. Shorts and sandals will be worn by most children nine months out of the year, sometimes ten.

As she was pondering these hot Alabama thoughts, Levy suddenly felt a blast of cold air that completely enveloped her. The cold feeling blocked out the heat so immensely that she thought something was wrong with her. Ice was the best way she could describe the feeling. The cold air that all of a sudden had entrapped her, was invisibly breaking away in tiny shards. It felt like each piece left behind a vacuum where the heat was able to rush back in, and she could finally feel the sun again on her skin. Before the last icy shard had left her body, she felt that one icy something grip her spine. It did not let go.

The coldness built again as it settled only around her neck and back. It did not leave her. She could feel the heat of the Georgia sun on her back where her new companion was not touching her. As the being settled, she realized she had not been breathing for a moment. She suddenly took a breath in and exhaled. She slowed her bike to a stop just before the trees began to cover the trail again and provide shade.

She waited for a moment and closed her eyes. A drop of sweat dropped onto her cheek. She did not feel fear. She felt…concern. She didn’t know what was happening to her. Was this neurological? Had she hurt herself somehow and it was causing some weird nerve issue? Her friend had recently convinced her to try contrast therapy. Had the transition from extreme heat to extreme cold thrown off her entire nervous system? She didn’t think that could happen. Just as she had this thought the icy being shifted and her right shoulder cooled as her left began to heat again. She was spurred forward by something, and before she realized it her bike was moving again, her legs picking up speed. Whatever this unseen force was, it was demanding that she keep going. She felt no need to resist it. She settled into a rhythm and didn’t stop again until she reached the town of Rockmart.

Chapter 4

Chapter 2

Levy was getting hungry and decided to stop somewhere in Dallas to eat. She almost pulled out her phone to look up nearby places, but remembered once more that she didn’t have it with her. She looked around the trail head parking lot and spotted a family of four; two women with two small children, twins. They looked like they were getting ready to pack up their SUV. She assumed they lived nearby and she had assumed correctly.

“Hi!” Levy called as she waved to them. “Sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you could direct me somewhere decent to eat? I am not from around here and…” Levy trailed off, deciding she didn’t want to announce to everyone she didn’t have her phone. The taller of the two women thankfully picked up that she didn’t need to wait for Levy to finish her thought. “Absolutely! You should eat at Frannicks.” she said. She wore a baggy gray tank and white shorts. An ash brown ponytail rested on her shoulders.

She was slightly red on the shoulders and glistening with sweat from their outing. Levy guessed she might be in her early forties. “I usually order their smash burger.” The woman continued. “Can you point the way?” Levy asked them, hopeful it wouldn’t be complicated. It wasn’t. “Turn back east and just across the bridge take the exit for downtown Dallas.

It’s not even a mile down the trail. You just cross over the road to the shopping center after you go under the trail trellis. It’s in a corner unit in that shopping center”.

The shorter of the two, a red-head with a pixie cut covered in beautiful black and white tattoos, chimed in. She wore a white shirt covered in little cherries under loose fitting jean overalls. “I usually get the pimento cheese sandwich.”

The other woman smiled down at her. “That’s also pretty great,” she agreed. Courtney picked up one of the little boys and began to strap him into the car seat, the other child still strapped in the bike pod attached to one of their bikes. “I remember seeing the exit signs. Thank you.” Levy replied. “My name’s Courtney…” the taller woman said, “...and this is Marla.” “Where are you from?” Marla asked, as Courtney continued to struggle with the buckle in the car seat.

Marla reached in and picked up the other little boy, a mop of red hair like Courtney’s atop his little head, and walked to the other side of the SUV. Levy introduced herself and told them a little about her trip, without sharing any of the details about her impending nervous breakdown.

They gave her a few pointers and food recommendations along the path but said they had not been past Rockmart in several years, not since their kids had been born. They weren’t sure what was still open, and they knew that their favorite restaurant in Cedartown had closed recently. They swapped numbers with Levy and told her to call if she needed anything.

Levy thanked them as they got in their car and drove off. She locked up her bike and decided to freshen up at the trailhead restroom. She washed her hands and splashed her face with cold water. Levy retrieved her wet wipes from her backpack and wiped off the dirt and grease from her legs.

The restaurant was only a two-minute ride out of the trailhead park, but there wasn’t anywhere convenient to lock her bike up there, according to Marla and Courtney.

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The restaurant was located in a shopping center called Village Walk. When she entered, an older woman in a black t-shirt and jeans helped her to a small table by the window. The restaurant was about half full, but the tables in the back along the wall were all empty. All except the one in the very back, where an older man and a young woman were sitting. The man had so many wrinkles his skin reminded Levy of the many rings inside of an ancient tree.

Levy was taken aback by the woman’s youth compared to the old man - And she was so beautiful. She was a hipster wearing a blue fifties style dress. Her hair was black as a Ravens and styled in a pompadour that landed just past her shoulders. Her lips were a bright cherry red. Levy could not seem to take her eyes away from the woman as she sat down at her table.

The man didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the woman, but she was talking furiously at him. Levy could not make out what she was saying above the cacophony of sounds in the restaurant. The greeter handed Levy a menu right before she met eyes with the beautiful stranger. Levy started to smile at her but the greeter continued to talk and Levy glanced up towards her to be polite. She thought the woman might have noticed her half attempt at a smile before she was distracted, and she believed she had smiled too.

“Your waitress will be here soon” and then she walked back towards her post at the door. Levy instinctively looked down at the menu, but then remembered the woman with the raven hair and quickly looked back up, wanting to see if she would look her way again. But she was gone.

It had only been a few seconds. Levy thought she would have seen her getting up. The man was slowly chewing his food, wearing the same wrinkly scowl as before. The woman must have quickly gotten up to use the restroom while Levy had looked away, she decided.

Levy shrugged and picked up the menu and began studying the vast selection of items, and considered the women’s recommendations. By the time her waitress arrived - Sam, a heavy set blond woman wearing khakis and an olive polo and a giant tattoo of a butterfly on her forearm - Levy had decided to order the Silver Comet Club. She also ordered water and an orange juice to pair with the sandwich to help her refuel. Sam walked off and Levy’s gaze once again shifted to the table in the back.

The woman had not come back. Levy decided to ask Sam, her waitress, if she noticed the woman leaving, or ask if she knew where she might have gone too. Maybe they were regulars, she thought. It turns out, she was at least partially right. “Lou?” Sam asked, wearing an odd expression Levy couldn’t read, one eye arched cartoonishly high. Her Southern accent was just as animated. “Lou is in here every day and I ain’t ever seen him with anyone. Much less a young and beautiful dark haired hipster-lady. He’s been here all alone for thirty minutes chewing on his steak. Are you sure you saw her with Lou?”

Levy was bewildered. “Well, did you see a woman like that come in?”, she asked, hopeful. “I didn’t see anyone by that description but if I do I’ll keep an eye out. But if you’re seeing things, you might want to reconsider getting back on that bike again”. She said this as she pointed at the helmet laying on the table next to Levy’s crossbody bag. Levy was certain the woman had been there. But it had only been for the briefest of moments. Was her workload getting to her more than she had realized? And now, instead of relaxing and recovering on a beach with a cocktail, she was pushing her approaching middle aged body to the limits in the hot Georgia sun.

Levy chugged the water, ordered another glass, and asked Sam if she could fill her water bottle up too. “Sure thing, hun.” Levy got up and walked towards the bathrooms, passing Lou working on his steak, studiously. In the chair where Levy had seen the woman sitting, was his hat. Levy ignored this. Both bathrooms were all gender, and one was vacant. She is in there, Levy thought to herself, and waited for a moment before going into the empty bathroom, but decided it was hella creepy stalking someone outside of a bathroom door and hurried towards the vacant bathroom. Before she closed it all the way, she heard the other bathroom door open and she peeked out from the door and caught a glimpse of a woman wearing a black shirt and jeans, walking from the bathroom back to her post at the front of the restaurant, wiping the remaining water from the sink onto her apron. It was just the greeter. Levy sighed and shut the door and pretended she had business to attend to. She washed her hands again.

She couldn’t finish her sandwich after drinking so much water and she sat there at the table for a moment, bloated and miserable. She looked out the window and watched the cars driving past. Sam came back and took her plate and gave her the check. She stretched as she got up and picked up her stuff from the table. She took the last swig of juice. As she was walking out the door, she glanced back at Lou one more time.

He was holding his cup up and drinking with one hand and holding his fork in the other, still working on his steak, Levy assumed. Or maybe just finished. Victory chug. She slowly surveyed the entire room just to make sure. She let out a deep, disappointing breath and turned to walk towards the trail. She looked up at the green painted trellis of the Silver Comet Trail that crossed over Seaboard Avenue before she passed under it. The sun was bright, but she thought she saw a flash of blue material in the sunlight. She glanced up and for a split second Levy saw the woman standing there on the trellis above, but with a blink, she was gone. Levy removed her glasses and rubbed her eyes. She took another sip of her water as she passed under the trellis and headed towards the trailhead. When she had cleared it, she chanced another look back to the trellis. Nothing. Levy decided she would need to make a call to her therapist when she got back to her phone.

Chapter 3

Chapter 1

Levy breathed in deeply, overcome with the earthy scents of the trail. She passed an array of flora and plants, including sweetgum, wild azaleas, goldenrod, and multiple other vining vegetation. The sights and smells surrounding her were grounding. She really needed this.

It had been thirty minutes since she left the Mavell trailhead of the Silver Comet Trail in Smyrna, Georgia and started heading back south. She had driven up from her small town in central Alabama, on the outskirts of Birmingham. Her current home was a studio apartment she shared with her roommate, a tortoise shell cat named Spektor.

She had named him after her favorite musical artist, Regina Spektor. On a road trip, after a Regina Spektor concert in Atlanta, she and some friends, Sam and Revi, had found the cat behind a dumpster outside of the music venue. The feline was emaciated and flea bitten. Before they traveled back to Alabama, they pooled their cash and had him seen at an emergency vet near their hotel, then drove him back to Alabama. They made a bed for Spektor on the back seat between Levy’s friends, using shirts and jackets they had packed for their trip. Revi was a vet tech and Sam had 3 cats of their own. She knew the feline was in good hands as she drove them home.

This was 2 years ago when Levy was going through a difficult time in her life and her friends decided she could use the company. They had suggested that Levy keep Spektor the Cat for herself. So she did. Spektor was now a not-so-emaciated tortoise shell who loved lounging in her window bed about 23 hours a day. The other hour she spent asking Levy to feed her.

Her neighbor, Mrs. Flippo, a recently divorced lawyer in her 50’s, had agreed to watch Spektor for Levy while she was away and she already regretted not having her phone with her in case Mrs. Flippo needed to reach her about the cat. She had decided to leave her phone in the car when she set out on her bike trip. She had wanted to escape it all and wanted no distractions. She briefly thought about turning back to get it now, but did not want to give up any progress she had already made. She had given Mrs. Flippo a few emergency numbers, including Sam and Revi’s. Spektor was loved by many.

Besides a trip to Savannah next week to meet up with Sam and Revi, Levy didn’t have any plans. The weather was supposed to be decent during the next few days, with no rain or storms in the forecast.

She had packed a few snacks, her water bottle, powder electrolytes, some cash, and her camping hammock, with a couple of changes of clothes wrapped up inside. Her only plan was to push her legs and detach herself from reality. She felt a little self-conscious that she didn’t have a lot of “bike gear”. She hadn’t done a lot of shopping for this new hobby of hers, and the only thing she knew to wear and pack for this bike trip was bike shorts and a couple of t-shirts. She embarked on her journey in a pair of black shorts from Target and Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Concert tee. Her dark brown wavy hair was tied back at her neck in a low pony and was so long it reached her lower back.

Working for over 2 months with barely any time off had threatened to unravel her sanity. Her manager, Geri, had finally intervened last week after she had begun to see the burnout that Levy was headed in. Small mistakes, frazzled appearance, and the abundance of caffeine that Levy had been consuming were only a few of the signs that something needed to change.

“I don’t care what you do, Levy Reed, just don’t do it here. You’re leaving your work phone and your computer on your desk. I don’t want to hear from you unless it’s to tell me about whatever adventure you’re on.”

Levy was the chief writer of a local magazine called The Cahaba Collective, or “CeCe” as it was affectionately known. A couple of months ago, she had inherited all the responsibility of the collective’s day-to-day operations when her writing partner, Bailey, and Bailey’s lover Jeffery - who also happened to be the editor of CeCe, suddenly moved to Indiana to be closer to Bailey’s family. They had given no notice and had left before they could find a replacement for either of them. With Geri’s expectations, they had yet to find anyone suitable to her tastes.

The magazine was bi-weekly, but she had been pleading with Geri to make it a monthly issue while she held interviews for Bailey and Jeffery’s replacements. The magazine was Geri’s baby and as much as Levy pleaded, she knew that was not going to happen. However, after she had seen the shape that Levy was in, Geri called in the help of an old friend, Martin Spivey, from her teaching days at Mile’s college. With his help, she had agreed to take over the work on the next two issues, giving Levy some much needed time off. She promised when Levy returned, CeCe would be fully staffed.

Levy had coffee with Geri the day before and had told her that she planned to ride her bike from Georgia to Alabama and back again, on a “multi-day adventure.”

She looked puzzled as she stirred her coffee. “By yourself?”

Levy reassured her that she would be fine. She had already made the same assurances to her parents.

“The path is well traveled and goes through plenty of towns. I can stop if I need anything and there will be plenty of people to flag down in case of an emergency.”

That didn’t seem to make her parents feel better when she said it, but Geri didn’t seem as worried. She told Levy to drink plenty of water, take snacks, and to watch out for people hiding in the shadows. Levy wasn’t concerned.

It took Levy almost three hours from her starting point to reach Paulding County and the Chamber Trailhead in Dallas, Georgia. She was exhausted by the time she reached the busy trailhead.

Her legs ached. Her ass ached.

She had been riding her bike a little on the weekends at a smaller rails to trail project near her home called Five Mile and was getting used to things. But she didn’t think she had been on a bicycle this long in her entire life, not even as a kid.

She had a gym membership and worked out, some. She’d set her alarm to go off early before work, sleepily pull a tank and leggings on, and drive over to her local “open 24 hours” meat market. Early morning, before the sun was shining, was when Levy preferred to work out. There were fewer grunts from veiny men. But her trips to the gym became infrequent, and recently, had come to a complete stop. For a while, she could make herself go when she would wake up in the middle of the night and couldn’t go back to sleep. She’d decide she had nothing better to do and would use the free time to finally get a work out in.

Recently, however, when she woke up in the middle of the night, she would just lie there until her alarm would go off; unwilling to get out of bed until she had to, and only because other people were relying on her to do so. She knew that something had to change.

Her lack of movement had caused her to put on some weight and she was unhappy with herself. She needed to move more. She was hopeful that this trip would help her develop some better habits. “Sitting is the new smoking” is currently everywhere in the Zeitgeist.

Levy cursed to herself as she dismounted at the trailhead. She was stiff and needed to stretch. She made a mental note to order those padded bike shorts. The first half of her ride had been the hardest. Her legs would not get moving like she had wanted, after being cooped up in a car for several hours. She finally warmed up and found her groove. She had started to slow again before she reached the trailhead, as her legs and hips had begun to ache.

She was 38 years old and she could feel every year in her bones as she stretched out the aches and pains of her morning ride. She had about an hour and a half to two hours to go before she reached Rockmart, Georgia where she was going to camp.

Chapter 2

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Prologue

“Be Still and know that I am God, Psalm 46:10”.

These were the words painted across the back of an old barn. The barn was nestled in a backyard in a row of late mid-century brick ranch style houses; the last house on that street right before a thin thatch of trees that separated the neighborhood from the next. The barn had been painted gray, and the verse had been painted in white block letters except for the last three words:

I am God

…which was written in a fancy script larger than the rest.

Levy Reed softly read the verse to herself, mashing past on her teal Kona Rove.

She was currently biking on a popular paved recreational trail - the Chief Ladiga, an Alabama rails-to-trail project that started in the mid-1990s and eventually connected to Georgia’s Silver Comet Trail, which is almost double the length of the Chief Ladiga.

This particular leg of the trail cut through a town called Weaver, Alabama. Levy hammered westerly past a streak of summer gardens to her left, that were sprouting the usual southern suburban suspects - multiple varieties of tomatoes, cucumbers, okra, and squash. Her eyes briefly landed on a hopeful patch of what might become watermelon…or maybe pumpkin. It was early September and the growing season was still in full swing in this part of the world.

To Levy’s right here was a dense forest of trees. The thick air clung to her, heavy with ripening produce; mingling with the smoky and robust aromas of hickory and oak trees, and the musty sweetness of the wild flora. It was an earthy, humid embrace she had known her whole life.

Along each side of the path in the shallow ditches, pink and purple vetch, black eyed Susans, clover, Queen Anne’s Lace and several varieties of morning glory vines, were growing wild in abundance in the rich soil and humid climate of North Eastern Alabama. Kudzu grew thick along the trail in some places, but had been contained in this particular neighborhood.

Levy imagined that the owner of the painted barn was a stout, stone-faced woman with a wedge haircut and blond highlights. Her heavy bosom and round waist would barely be contained in her discount store bra and XL Jesus t-shirt. She would have demanded that her husband paint the message across their old barn “ try’nta save the sinners” that might be traveling through on the trail. “The Lord spoke to me!” she could clearly hear the woman saying as she shook a bony manicured finger up to the sky.

In Levy’s barn painting scenario, the woman’s husband muttered something under his breath about a message of perseverance being more relevant, as he spelled out the verse of stillness that would be facing the multitudes of people struggling to keep their legs moving in the Alabama heat. She could imagine the little judgy woman setting up motion cameras in her backyard that would snap pictures of these “sinners” as they passed by on the trail. “You can never be too safe!” She’d proclaimed to her husband. Levy smiled to herself as her imagination unfolded. She was brought back to reality with the graze of a stranger’s touch.

The now familiar icy tendrils slid down Levy’s spine. The chilly presence had been with her since Dallas, Georgia, and although she felt the lingering chill, whatever it was remained unseen. The coolness against her skin provided no solace from the Southern Sun; only served as a reminder that she was not alone. She pictured the imaginary pious woman, and the expression that might appear on her face, if she could see her new riding companion. She wished there were motion cameras and that something would appear in the image with Levy that would make any good Pentecostal hit their knees in prayer. The presence shifted around her torso and back up her spine to her neck.

She leaned forward and put more pressure on the pedals, trying to ignore the constant, icy sensation; focusing instead on the warmth from her legs pushing the pedals-the physical strain. As she went on, she imagined all of the sun’s energy focusing right on the stranger’s grip. She had been told many times throughout her life that when you were cold, try to imagine a warm, tropical beach or a dry desert. It might not raise your body temperature, but it would take your mind off of how fucking cold you were. As much as she tried to distract herself, she could not ignore it. Something was happening to Levy. Some thing.

Before Levy had set out on her journey, she had been warned to watch out for the shadows. But now, as the cold and invisible appendage slithered down her spine and wrapped around her torso, bitterly evident despite the stifling heat, Levy suspected this day was going to be, at a minimum, seriously fucked up. Oddly, she wasn’t afraid.

Chapter 1

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