The Ghost Of Bakersland Road

“What do you mean?” I knew that was going to be the question I was going to get when I got home and told my father about what I had seen when I snuck out of the house last night. The other thing I was going to hear was when he told me I was grounded for two weeks for sneaking out but, with what I saw, I think that two weeks may be just about fair.

Thinking back I don’t know how or why I expected him to believe me. After all it was just me and Tommy Ingersol out driving that night. I was just 16, never been behind the wheel and I just got my temps that morning. Tommy was 19 and had hid license for three years now, so he said that he’d take me out to practice. He figured that back country roads were the best to learn on since there weren’t many drivers travel that way at night and it was deer hunting season, for just bucks I think, so they’d be spending most of their time in the woods hiding from all those bad assed, drunk out of their socks redneck hunters.

I had watched so many movies about stealing a car, my fave is Gone In 60 Seconds. Anyway I hotwired my dad’s 1989 Pontiac Bonneville. It was a piece of shit. I knew it, my friends knew and fuck man and the whole county knew it. Everyone except my dad knew it. To him that car was worth the best Coupe DeVille on the street and was twice as beautiful. I guess he was looking through rust colored glasses cause that was the only thing holding that car together.

I got that hunk of junk started and out of the driveway. A block away Tommy was waiting. He opened the door and laughed. “Boy, I would never, ever take this car to get your license. They wouldn’t let you leave the parking lot much less take your test in it.” I just nodded my head. I wasn’t about to argue. That was my dad’s car and I sure as hell wasn’t going to defend it. I’d like to see it run into a brick wall myself but that wasn’t about to happen.

We went out 38^th Street. The road was clear and smooth and it was so easy to drive on that I got cocky and got the car up to 45 miles per hours. Now, I know that ain’t much but for a boy who had never driven it was like riding on a rocket. I never stopped for one stop sign and I barely slowed down for the red lights in town and once we got outside the town limits I let go and reached sixty miles per hours about the time Bakersland Road came over the top of the crest.

I slammed on the breaks and man, the smell of that rubber tearing up the gravel and the tires themselves burning nearly made me gag. We left a trail of black smoke and skid marks that covered nearly fifty feet. We slid through the intersection just a minute before a truck crossed on its way into town. God was on our side that night and he knew it…he must have known it. After all, how else did we get through and not die as a fireball on the front grill of a semi doing sixty-five miles an hour.

We sat there a couple of minutes before Tommy brought out a pint of whiskey. “Here,” he said as he handed it to me. “You take the first and then I’ll take some. I think we need it.”

I was young but I knew that my nerves were so shaking I would have drank panther piss if it would have calmed me down. I took a drink, he took a drink, I took another and so on and so on for almost an hour. I think I got the last drop but maybe I didn’t. I was so fucked up I couldn’t remember my name much less how much I had to drink.

By the time we started making sense again it was almost midnight. I know that I still had a little bit of a buzz on but I wanted to get home so I backed up, turned the wheel and started down Bakersland Road.

The speed limit was fifty five but I set the cruise control at forty five just to be safe. Tommy had fallen asleep with his head leaning out of the window. From what I could see in the mirror he had his mouth open and his tongue flapping the way my German Shepard does when he goes for a ride. Man, I was hoping that a moth or something would fly in there just so I could watch him freak.

About two miles down the road there was a church. I think it was called the Mount Zion Church Of Christ or something like that. I know it was Mount Zion but hell there are so many fucking religions today it is damn near impossible to keep track.

I remember that there was a cemetery somewhere around there but I didn’t remember where As a matter of fact I heard that there were two run by the church but I never saw the second one but I heard that one was from the 1760’s to the 1780’s.

I was driving pretty well, especially for having a head that was spinning like a top. I was staying between the lines and not throwing up too much of the side of the road when I did wander a little. Anyway, I was driving when I saw a woman walking along the side of the road. She didn’t look hurt or anything like that she was walking. She wasn’t dressed too bad. She was wearing blue dress which was a little above her knee, a white blouse and a blue plaid coat. It was dirty but with all the dust on the road it couldn’t be anything else.

She was blonde…I remember that. It wasn’t an unpleasant blonde that some girls go for now. It was natural kind of like the color of the hay that was so common out that way and her fingernails were painted with just the right amount of pink.

It was clear to see that she was young but it was hard to guess just how young. I was thinking maybe nineteen or twenty if she was a day but she actually looked more like may age…which I liked.

I pulled over, reached across Tommy and opened the door. It was at that moment that Tommy woke up.  “What’s going on guy,” he asked as his eyes tried to focus in the darkness.

“Get your ass in the backseat,” I said. “You’re sleeping and I am picking up a hot girl so get your ass back there.” He was still groggy but he crawled in the back and, as soon as he sat down he was out. He left the back door open so I went around and closed it and then I helped that girl into the front seat. Hey, I know what you’re thinking but if you had seen her you would have helped her too!!! I got in, shifted into drive and started down the road.

“My name is Rose, Rose LaMonica,” she said as she reached for my hand.

“Nice to meet you Rose,” I said as I took her hand and smiled. “My name is Ronnie Dean Warren but my friends call me Toad. Where are you headed?”

“I just want to get to town,” she replied. “I have been away for quite a while. I wonder if anyone will remember me.”

I asked her how long she had been gone and she said, “Honestly, I don’t remember when I left but I know it has been a while.” She scooted closer to me…so close that her hip was right up against mine.

“Are you seeing anybody,” she asked.

“Nope, I am single,” I replied. No, I didn’t tell her that I was just sixteen…do you think I was stupid or something. You know what, after what happened maybe I was.

“Pull over a minute,” she said as her fingers stroked my thigh.

Did I do it…no. I wanted to to. God knows I wanted to but I had to get the car back before my father woke up and found that it was missing. That would have been all I needed, a stolen car rap on my sheet as well as drunk driving. Fuck, I would have never got my license!

We were travelling down the road. I knew there was a turn off at the edge of the cemetery and I knew that was where she wanted to go but I just kept driving. “Why aren’t you stopping,” she screamed but she didn’t give me time to answer her hand came up and she slapped me hard across my face. “I wanted you boy. I wanted you to take me!” She slapped me again and again. I tried to hold her back but it was beyond me being able to do anything.  I saw a glint of something metal as there was a sharp pain in my stomach. “You made your choice boy!” She was still screaming and attacking me as I passed the turnoff.

My eyes were cloudy and my emotions were spinning wildly between pain, anger and fear. I wanted to fight but I couldn’t.  I pulled off the road and collapsed into a world of complete darkness. But, before I faded I looked over, the door was closed but the girl was gone. There was no sign that she had ever been in the car. Even the metal thing I had been stabbed with was gone but I was pouring blood and it was pouring out bad.

In the morning I woke up in the Allegheny Heights Medical Center. My stomach was hurting and I could feel bandages wrapped around my body including my stomach and face. My father was there but there wasn’t the anger I expected in his face….I would see that later. His look was utter concern, I looked around. Tommy was there as were two members of the Allegheny Heights police as well as a captain from the state police.

“Good morning Mr. Warren,” the state cop said. “Can you tell me what happened?”

I laid there and told him how I saw a young girl walking along the side of the road, picked her up and how she attacked me. He just stood there writing everything down and nodding his head. Then he asked for a description, which I gave. He didn’t say a word to me. He reached up to his walkie talkie and called in the information. Then he listened. He didn’t say a word…he just listened.

Turning to me his face was pale, so pale that I doubted that he had any blood flowing through his body. “Did she give you her name,” he asked.

“Yeah, her name was Rose LaMonica,” I replied. As soon as I said that the state cop fell back into a chair and the tow local boys just looked at each other but didn’t say anything.

“Rose LaMonica,” he asked with a tinge of disbelief in his voice. I confirmed that was the name that she gave me. “Lay back,” he said as he stood up and approached the bed. “You picked her up out by the cemetery?” I told him I did. “Mr.Warren, I have a story to tell you.” He sat down and started the story. “Rose LaMonica was arrested and convicted for murdering her fiancée. She, to put it bluntly, was a slut. She had sex with most of the boys in town and when her fiancée said that he wanted to wait she sliced his body apart. She was tried and the evidence was so strong that the jury didn’t deliberate. They just said guilty and she was hung a few minutes later. She’s is buried in that old cemetery out there.”

‘When was she hung,” I asked.

“1779,” he replied. Then he opened the calendar on his phone and said a very, very audible “Yes!”

“The date yesterday was October 5^th, right?”

“Yeah”

“Every year we get reports about a woman out here on October 5^th,” he said. “Most don’t stop to pick her up they just drive by. The ones who do pick her up usually end up here. Some better off that you but a few ended up downstairs.” I knew what he meant by that…he meant the morgue. “You were lucky Tommy was there.”

“You mean…?”

“Yeah, you met the ghost of Rose LaMonica close up and lived to tell about it.” He didn’t say another word to me but he did tell the local cops that there was no case there and that they could leave. Then he turned to me, smiled and told me to tell Rose hello if I ever saw her again and then he left.

Needless to say that from then on…on October 5^th I either stay home or I stay to the opposite side of town. I do still have the scars left from that night to remind me of Rose and her fury and I have been to that cemetery a few times and yes, I did find her grave. I have left flowers for her and I even say a prayer for her tortured soul. I just don’t go there at night anymore as sure as hell I don’t go there in October…not just on the 5^th. I don’t go there at all. After all could you imagine what she would be like on Halloween if she is that pissed off on the day she died?