White Lightning

[Ghosts]

Madison, Wisconsin – December 10, 2033

Shirley dropped the bottle of windshield cleaner in place and immediately began rolling the burn out of her shoulder. She hated refill duty, especially in the winter. Hauling the freezing cold 3-gallon bottle back and forth between the utility closet and the pumps was punishing, not just for the cold, but for the weight. She imagined full, the bottle weighed half as much as she did, but then in all her years, the slender woman never exceeded 95 pounds.

As she stooped to pick up the nearly emptied bottle, she noticed the Charger pulling into the lot. It was one of those ridiculous paint jobs, the white camo, but that wasn’t what drew her attention. The car’s speed, or rather lack thereof, was what did it. The car seemed to be idling into the station, and took forever to pull alongside her at the station’s #6 pump. After it did, it sat idling a moment, and yet Shirley couldn’t help but to stand still, watching and waiting to see just who was driving this thing.

The tinted window slowly lowered, and a shirtless man in aviators slowly turned his apparent gaze toward her. The man whispered, “Hello kind being, may I please have fuel for my vehicle?” His head tilted as he spoke, drifting back until he was looking at her from underneath his sunglasses. This was made even weirder by the fact that it was well past sundown.

“You just put your card in like any other gas station. You okay, sir?” Shirley had seen more than her fair share of this sort of thing. The dude was clearly on something. She was about to call her manager over, when the man extended an arm, fluidly and seemingly out of nowhere, holding what appeared to be several hundred dollars in cash of various denominations.

“Please, kind human person, I would like some fuel please,” the man held an eyeless grin that would have been terrifying if not for his overwhelming calm. Shirley considered for a moment, then took the cash, and pumped the man a tank full of gas using her debit card. The total was less than $80, and he’d handed her well over $300. “Free groceries,” Shirley thought, shrugging to herself.

“Listen, man, I’m no narc but are you cool to drive? If not, you can sleep it off over there,” Shirley pointed at the empty lot across the street. “Cops never come by over there,” Shirley assured the man.

“I assure you, madam human woman, that I am fully aware of my surroundings and present no danger to myself or others,” the man continued in his lilting, whispering tone, “Have I received the fuel to continue my journey, dear being of presumably human essence?”

“Uhh yeah, sure have,” Shirley waved the fuel pump at him and re-racked it. As she did the man went on, “I thank you on the successful completion of our transaction,” again in his dreamlike and borderline insidious tone. His gaze never broke from hers as he reached for the gear shift, slid it into drive, and idled forward. As soon as the car lurched forward, he began laughing. His voice now increasing in volume dramatically, he broke into a maniacal laughter before he’d reached as far as the adjoining pump. The vehicle slinked along, rolling effortlessly back the way it came.

“Well at least it won’t be a high speed crash,” Shirley shrugged, and lifted the bottle before heading back toward the store.