Dead Start

I went out to the car park to start my long dead car battery. I looked in the dark windows of all the cars occupying the space is until I reached mine. I didn’t look too close. It’s one of those nights where the wind has an eerie sound to it.

Sitting in the front seat, struggling to start this car, I knew I was the only person in the parking lot. The apartment building looming overhead full of shattered windows, dark spaces as everyone is already turned in for the night. Not even 9 PM in the world has gone still outside of this whispering wind.

The apartment building looming overhead full of shattered windows and dark spaces as everyone is already turned in for the night. Not even 9 PM in the world has gone still outside of this whispering wind.

I revved the engine on and off for 20 minutes. I drove one shaky lap around the parking lot the two months of no movement at all betrayed itself in the groaning of the suspension and steering column, as I slowly, slowly made my way back to my starting spot.

A support ambulance ambled into the driveway of the clinic next door. I hoped that no one would be compelled by their inner good Samaritan when they saw my flashlight on the engine block earlier. The water took his time as he loaded or unloaded. Whatever it was, he was there for. Slowly, slowly, like he was copying my earlier toward his lap around the car park, he finally drove away. The amber turn lights flashing left and I was left again with the shadows of the apartment building, dark windows, and a wind that made me quicken my step as I called time on the battery.

The hundred yards between the car and the stairwell to my apartment felt like they lasted two seconds short of breaking my weakened skepticism of the supernatural.

I climbed the stairs under the gaze of blue LEDs and prayed my active imagination would be left on its own. The winds picked back up as I neared the fourth floor. I turned my head to look out towards the ocean— spying a distant ship light burning orange. With my head cocked to the side I could hear the scuff of my shoes as I walked. I turned forward towards the only porch light turned on— mine. The meager rows of steel doors played sentinel to the creeping fears the incoming fog brought.

The battery didn’t even turn over after the twenty minutes we spent revving in the dark. I stepped into my apartment and turned the bolt. Looking at the chain— I lifted it to the resting hold, but not the latch. My foolhardy way of pretending I wasn’t afraid of everything I’d yet to see.