It would be fun to write a ghost story about a protagonist that disbelieves in the paranormal so hard that it stop existing around them.
They pick a soaking wet teenaged girl ghost in their cab and take her home. They pull up to the house and ghost girl looks longingly out before resigning herself to be sent back to the roadside.
Protagonist is just like, “so that’s $14.50.”
The ghost is surprised, she’s still there. She fumbles for cash but she didn’t die with any.
Does she feel oddly warmer than normal?
The seat more solid against her skin?
The protagonist sighs, “of course.”
They couldn’t just leave a teenage girl out there on the side of the road in the middle of the night, something bad could have happened to her. But he still had bills to pay.
“Come on. This is your parent’s house right? I’ll walk you in.”
For the first time in twenty years the ghost opens the car door and steps out onto the sidewalk.
The protagonist knocks on the front door and her parents, use to the midnight visits, wearyily open the door.
She starts to cry and hugs her parents tight. Apologizing for sneaking out. Babbling about what happened to her. How her friends had egged her into going deeper into the woods. How they had gotten separated. She’d fallen into a river.
Her parents are crying too. She finally made it home. They finally had confirmation of what happened to her. No body had been found so they were never truly sure.
The protagonist awkwardly interrupts, “so there’s still the matter of her cab fair...”
They don’t want to be insensitive but they need to get going and bills don’t pay themselves.
Eagerly her father rummages around in the pockets of his coat hanging by the door and pushing a twenty dollar bill into the protagonist’s hand. He knows it’s more than enough.
They thank the protagonist for bring her home, “keep the change,” they tell him.
As the protagonist gets in their cab and drives away the ghost can feel herself slipping away from life once more. But not back to the river and woods, waiting endlessly for someone to pull over and offer her a ride.
Her unfinished business is complete.
She’s moving on.
To somewhere warm and bright, she can feel it.
Her parents press final kisses to her cheeks as she starts to go. Through tears they whisper, I love you’s.
She’s finally at rest and there are no more stories of vanishing girls picked up off the backwoods roads
