“The eye is the lamp of the body.”
-- Matthew 6:22
The police are talking to you because you’re the last person to see the guy in the Dodge Charger and the girl he had with him.
They want to know if you can identify the girl. They don’t ask you about the guy—the victim. They figure you know who he is. His name’s been all over the news from the beginning. They do ask if he’d been in before, with any other girls. But they’re focused on who it was in the car with him.
You tell them what you can. Which is less than what you know.
It was late, no other traffic on the road. You watched through the glass when he first pulled up. As he got out of the car to come into the store, the dome light lit up the person sitting in the passenger seat. Only for a moment. But enough that you recognized her.
You leave out that part. Cops would think you’re nuts.
So you say it was just some girl. You can’t describe her, you say. You blame it on the bad light and your astigmatism.
The story they got from the footage off the security cameras is a young, good-looking guy, late twenties or early thirties, stopping to buy a box of condoms and a couple of beef jerky sticks.
The footage showed you stepping out of the store like you were hurrying out to the car to speak to her while he was in back of the store getting the jerky.
Why did you do that, ma’am, the older cop asks.
To see if she was in distress, you say.
The young cop asks why you’d think she was in distress.
It’s late, deserted, you say. You’re not a long-time local, but you’ve lived here long enough to know how guys from the city troll for desperate women at the bars just outside of town.
Did she seem in distress to you, the older cop asks.
No.
But you stopped, the young cops says. You didn’t approach the car. You went back into the store. Did she say something to you?
No.
Did you know who the guy was?
Only from the news.
You ever see the two of them together before?
No.
So. You didn’t recognize her from around here?
No. I didn’t recognize her from around here, you say.
Which is true. The girl in the car wasn’t from around here. But you knew who she was. She’d run away years ago. Over a guy you two argued about constantly. How he beguiled her with all his demonic energy horseshit.
Horseshit, you told her.
A way to arm herself, she said.
More horseshit, you said.
For protection, she said. That doesn’t need a gun permit.
Nothing but an easy way for him to fuck needy young women, you said.
Of course after a while, the guy got tired of her, cut her loose, moved on. That sent her spinning off. You thought it was a good thing at the time. Hard but good.
Didn’t turn out like that. It drove her away.
After that, two or three times over the next couple of months, she’d call home asking for money. Then nothing. The longer it went, the more certain of the worst you became.
It’d been years, hearing nothing, when you happened to see her face on a true-crime show, in the close-up of a faked driver’s license. Her high school yearbook picture pasted over that of a sixty-two-year-old Missouri woman. The woman didn’t know the girl in the picture and had no idea how her license ended up in the ashes of a crime scene three states away.
The girl in the picture was a Jane Doe, the cops said, killed by a jealous wife who’d caught her husband with the girl out at the Hillside Lodge, a motel just up the highway.
The wife followed the two of them to the motel, watching as they took a room at the far end of the building. She didn’t think twice, she said later. She decided to burn the fucking motel down around them.
She jammed their door shut and stood in front of the plate glass window to watch them as the drapes burned away, trapped in the encircling flames.
Her only regret was that the husband managed to squeeze out the bathroom window, leaving the girl behind.
The wife didn’t know who the girl was. Didn’t care, she said. All through the trial, she kept calling the victim that slut her husband picked up hitchhiking along the access ramp to the highway. The husband swore he never knew her name. Just someone who needed a ride and offered a little gratitude in exchange for it.
The most peculiar thing the wife recalled about the girl was how she held her hand out, fingers spread, and shouted something. As if someone else was in the room. Not to the husband, already climbing out the bathroom window.
No, said the wife, it was someone else in the room. She couldn’t see because the heat drove her away as the whole cheap construction went up.
No other remains were found. Some of the locals figured the girl had gone mad with fear being consumed by fire. Others figured it was a last-gasp curse against the wife. Along this stretch of road, people believe those kinds of thing.
The wife finally went to prison and the husband took their son and left the state. Give people time to forget.
As the program took a break for commercials, you gave in to the crush of certainty that you were permanently separated from her. No chance to reconcile, make things right between you.
You decided to see for yourself where she ended up. At least make sure she had a headstone. You couldn’t afford to move her. Not like there was a family plot waiting somewhere nice.
When you realized the program was still running, they were talking about an apparition—locals claiming it to be the murdered girl—that walks the ruins of the Hillside Lodge, making the area an attraction for ghost hunters.
There was nothing left of the place but scattered debris, the scorched foundation, and the metal sign, still visible from the highway, offering vacancies.
The vacancy sign would still light up in the middle of the night. People thought it was caused by some kind of ground current or the electrostatic air of a thunderstorm. No one seemed inclined to find out why. There was a suggestion the town council should hire someone from over at the college to look into what caused it. But people seemed to prefer the color this local oddity gave the place, so they left it alone.
For the longest time no one gave much thought to the ruins, or the young woman’s death, or the peculiar behavior of the vacancy sign in the aftermath of the destruction—until the apparition made its first appearance.
The way locals tell it, early in the morning, a little before sunrise, a guy in a pickup saw a woman in a scorched bra and half-slip hitchhiking along the stretch of highway that ran in front of the burned-out motel.
He’d pulled over a few car-lengths ahead of where she stood and waited for her. Just as she reached the passenger side, that first bit of light from the rising sun flashed. She howled and cursed and slapped at the truck, leaving sooty claw marks on the windshield.
He decided not to get out and see where she went. Instead, he spun rubber, throwing gravel, and got the hell out of there.
Of course, there was talk right away about what he saw.
Some said it was the ghost of the young woman, unable to rest because of her fiery death. Others said it was a demonic apparition masquerading as the young woman, summoned and bound to take revenge, because everyone ought to know there’s no such thing as ghosts.
Those who believe she went mad in the flames leaned to the ghost idea. Those who think she called down a curse leaned to the demon idea.
The sooty claw marks left no readable fingerprints, so weren’t any help.
There were more appearances after that, but in no way predictable.
Some say they’d seen a woman on fire walking along, calm as you please, with her thumb out. Some swear they saw the whole hillside in flames as the motel burned again. Others were convinced they’d seen a woman in a bra and half-slip standing on the bare hill, staring down on them. Still others, out there just before dawn breaks, swore they could hear the woman howling and cursing.
Locals took to avoiding that dark stretch of road between midnight and dawn. Others, for the hell of it, would risk a drive-by.
Everyone who claimed to have heard her agree that she’s howling threats against the wife, in prison and out of reach. There are some who speculate the howling that came with the dawn is the rage of failure to have her revenge.
It’s best, the locals say, to floor it and race on by that spot, race on by anything that might happen to appear. Better to leave it go. There’s no risk of getting stopped by the state troopers who use the cutover as a handy spot for catching speeders. They’ll be away checking the rest stops and the service plaza at that particular time of night. A professional courtesy, they’ll say, for those who believe such things.
Locals disagree on whether the apparition is harmless or not. Either way, it’s a supernatural peculiarity that’s scarier than shit, and the locals are proud to claim it for their little corner of the county.
So you packed up and went. Locals going on and on about the apparition is horseshit as far as you’re concerned. Dead is dead. But there was something about seeing for yourself. At the very least achieve some sort of closure.
After you saw where she’d been buried, you stuck around, taking a job at the Cash and Go.
You decided not to tell anyone about your connection to the murdered girl. You didn’t want to be part of the freak show that’d grown up around it all. But more than that, you didn’t want to put an end to the apparition’s hauntings if there was the tiniest shred of truth to its appearance and it was—in some incomprehensible way—holding out for you to come, to give her back her name, to let her find peace, and so release her. Then she could vanish forever.
So you kept to yourself and stayed out of trouble. Spent your time drinking at the Horseman and collecting the local lore surrounding the apparition, trying to catalog the sightings with maps and calendars, see if there was any kind of pattern that would let you anticipate the next appearance.
Okay, you had to admit to yourself, if you were taking all this trouble, maybe you weren’t as convinced as you made yourself out to be that it was horseshit.
You weren’t sure what you hoped to see if you should encounter her—the apparition. Her spirit? A representation of her? Would you learn something about why she keeps showing up? What she needs to be set free? For you to ask forgiveness of her? Or was it simply unrest at being murdered and having no way to settle the score with her killer?
Even pondering this, you realized you were giving all this spiritism a lot more credence than you’d ever given it before.
Sightings of the apparition continued, but never in any time or place where you could catch up to it.
All you wanted—you kept telling yourself—was to connect with the beautiful soul she once was, before the man of the demonic energy twisted her into the desperate person she’d become.
Then that guy in the Dodge Charger stopped in at the Cash and Go to buy his beef jerky sticks and condoms.
You didn’t know him from around here, but you recognized her the moment the dome light went on. It took your breath away, made your heart ache.
When he’d gone into the back for the jerky you went out to show your face, to get close, to see for yourself and—perhaps—end her wandering.
You were no more than a few steps out the door when she turned her head toward you, her face twisted in hideous fury, her eyes fierce, molten.
Even in the indirect light of the storefront lamps you could see the figure was not her. Not really her. Nor was it the manifestation of a wandering, restless soul. It was something fearsome and vile, a vengeance masquerading in the skin of an unsettled soul.
You heard the guy call to you, looking to check out, so you went back inside, back behind the counter to handle his purchase.
He asked for the box of condoms displayed behind the counter. He wasn’t the least bit embarrassed like most guys, even making a joke about not seeing any in the super-size. He grinned like he was doing a middle-aged woman a favor, talking about his dick. You made a face like a laugh as you rang it up and bagged it, but you knew he was an asshole.
Still, you thought you should do something. At least tell him to stay out of the car. Call for a ride. Leave that thing waiting in the car to vanish in the daylight.
But you couldn’t think what to say without coming off like a prude. Anything you said close to the truth would sound insane.
Instead, with a tilt of your head to the bag on the counter, you offered to blow him, show him a way better time than he’d get with some skank he might’ve picked up out here, looking to sell it to him.
Even as you said it, putting on a winsome smile you hadn’t used in years, you could just imagine how he saw you—in your baggy uniform smock with the Cash and Go patch, gray hair tied back, stray tendrils framing your face, your hands rough, your nails bare.
He smiled and said it must get pretty boring out here late at night, hunh. Tell you what, when I come back through here, if you’re offer’s still good, I’ll let you show me how you used to do it back in your hippie days. How ‘bout that?
Which made you feel like shit. Nothing like the crusty bitch you’ve practiced so hard to become. It also snuffed out whatever spark of compassion it was that made you demean yourself in the first place.
So you laughed at the joke, said no more, and let him leave.
Maybe it’s all horseshit, the girl’s hard up, the guy’s an asshole. You blowing him wouldn’t have changed anything. But if it’s not? You can tell yourself you tried.
He went back out to the car, got in, and drove off.
Like they were saying—you’re the last to see him alive—if they don’t count whoever it was in the car with him.
The young cop asks if you’d be willing to come down and help with working up a police sketch of the girl in the car.
You aren’t sure you could go on pretending, extending the fiction of ignorance. You simply repeat that the person in the car was not who you thought it was.
Something in the way you stumbled over the word ‘person’ caused the older cop to reach out a hand, causing the younger cop to step back.
Just a minute, he says, and pulls out a worn picture from his notebook.
Holding up the picture from the faked driver’s license, he asks you if the girl in the car looked anything like this.
You’re about to say no, but you don’t want to out-and-out lie, so you say yes.
Thought so, the older cop says, tucking the picture back in his notebook, snapping it shut. She’ll have us chasing ghosts, he says to the younger cop, let’s go.
He thanks you for your time, and they leave.
You really did not know who the guy was when he came into the store. The registration on the car and images from the security footage are enough for the cops to identify him as the son of your daughter’s killer.
Would you have offered to blow the guy if you’d known?
You’re famous now. Everyone who stops for gas or groceries asks you what you think happened. You just shrug.
They still haven’t found any trace of the guy’s body. But the locals say it’s ten-to-one they never do.
One thing’s for sure they all say, the husband should never have let the son come back here, even after all this time, with her just waiting.
Those who lean to the ghost idea are convinced the woman had to appear in the last thing she was wearing—the scorched bra and half-slip. Those who lean to the demon idea are convinced she could appear however she wanted, whatever it took to lure the guy in.
Either way, the guy did stop to buy condoms after all, planning to get lucky. He must have thought she was a sure thing.
What possesses a guy to pick up a strange woman walking along the highway in the middle of the night—in her underwear? Find a phone. Call the cops. Call an ambulance. Don’t pick her up.
Which sends locals spinning off with their shapeshifting demons and mind-clouding ghosts. For those who refuse to believe in the supernatural, it’ll be self-delusional depravity that fogs a guy’s mind and turns needy women into opportunities.
And why—instead of bringing her into town after he left the Cash and Go—did he take the first off-ramp and circle back to the spot where the Hillside Lodge once stood? What made him do that? He had to see there was nothing there.
When cops searched the abandoned car, they found the only thing missing was a single condom from the box he bought. His bloody clothes were spread all over the ground and his wallet and keys were in the pockets. There was no blood trail leading off anywhere. As if the body had been consumed on the spot.
You’ll buy a brass grave marker for her when you leave town. You’ll mail a copy of the page from her high school yearbook to the cops. Anonymously.
Once they make the connection between the murdered girl, you, and the guy in the Dodge Charger, they’ll follow after you trying to tie you into it all. Like some kind of vigilante, acting out your anger on the guy in the Dodge Charger. But it won’t change anything. The security tape clearly places you in the store for the entire night.
The images off the video surveillance tape will add to the confusion as evidence of another appearance of the murdered girl. The high school photo will look enough like the image from the video that locals will take that as solid evidence the murdered girl was spending her fury on her killer’s son.
Cops aren’t interested in ghosts or demons. But beyond the prostitution angle, there’s no likely connection between the guy in the Dodge Charger and any of the women known to work the bars along this stretch.
For the locals, whether they believe it to be the work of a ghost or a demon, both sides will agree the dead girl finally had her revenge.
The vacancy sign will still light up on its own, and between the hours of midnight and dawn, the locals will still avoid that stretch of the highway where the scorched ruins of the Hillside Lodge remain.
You’ll be long gone.
You still don’t believe in ghosts.
You do, however, believe in demons.
-- Otto Burnwell lives and works in the urban northeast where turning up on Unsolved Mysteries leaves the task of explaining your bad life choices to entertainment professionals. Otto writes to stay sane, uses a pseudonym to stay employable, and changes enough detail in what he writes to stay welcome at the family gatherings. He has recently placed pieces in Misery Tourism, Horror Sleaze Trash, The Oddville Press, Yellow Mama, Terror House Magazine, Fiction on the Web, Two Sisters Publishing, and The Stray Branch. He is reachable on Substack and on X (formerly Twitter) @OBurnwell.