My one weakness is ignoring a lot of things. I had never believed ghost stories to be true until the night my car fell into the mud. Immobile, I was trapped along the forest trail, seven miles from the town of Cheadle. The full moon overhead gave me the slightest sensation of gothic horror, similar to the tales of H. P. Lovecraft or Edgar Allan Poe that my grandfather read to me as a child. I was just a man of eighteen, barely out of school, yet a sense of dread overcame me. I opened the car door to inspect what tragedy had befallen my Chevy; it was a thick mess, the Chevy was knee deep in the stuff. Cursing, I slammed my arm against the boot of the car and took a look at my surroundings. Murky fog as far as the eye could see. Turning back, I took note of the dry dirt that covered the car, something I had ignored before. It annoyed me greatly at the idea of cleaning it.
Five minutes later, I set off to look for a payphone or a house. my iPhone had inconveniently decided to run out of battery, and I couldn't push the car out of the mud. I approached the tree line, every plant in view dancing and swaying in the wind as if it were trying to send me a message. I shrugged it off as tired eyes showing tired sights. I looked down both ends of the trail to notice repetitive acres of mist and pine trees. My one weakness is ignoring a lot of things, I realised this when my torch began to flicker, so I decided on waiting for another car to come past. Walking back, I heard the queer sound of tyre scraping against concrete.
Astonished, I discovered the Chevy out of the mud, sat cosily on the side of the path away from trouble. The batteries in my torch had given in and died, but I was too amazed by whatever had occurred to care. I entered the driver's seat and started the engine. Everything seemed to be in order, and just as the fog thickened, I fled the scene.
At midnight, I reached Cheadle. The place was an eerie sight, iconic of old medieval towns with historical buildings and large schoolhouses. I checked into The Moor Hotel, a relatively modern building which was separated from the rest of town. The main lobby was elegant and posh, a place that didn't belong. The receptionist was a friendly woman of thirty-five years, wrinkles began escaping at the sides of her eyes, and she ended all her questions with 'my darling.'
'I had a bit of trouble getting over here' I said, picking up my suitcase and hat from the desk and following her up the pristine staircase. 'At one point my car got stuck in the mud and I struggled getting it out.'
'Was this on the Cheadle Trail?' She asked, to which I nodded. 'You have to be careful on that road, people sayin' it's haunted, my darling.'
'Haunted?'
'Aye, about thirty years ago a school bus full of about twenty kids got stuck in the mud and they all died when a lorry came round the corner. Didn't see 'em, hit the bus and killed 'em all!'
I gasped: 'That's horrible! I'm glad that didn't happen to me.'
That night I slept like a baby, lying in until about eleven o' clock in the morning. The Moor Hotel did a nice breakfast meal, and I left the building with a full stomach. I approached the Chevy, still in its dirty state from the night before. I'll have her cleaned well, I thought. How on earth did she get out the mud? What could have pushed it? As I opened the door the oddest feeling came over me, as if I already knew the answer to that question. I ignored it, and drove down the road. My one weakness is ignoring a lot of things, including the dozens of tiny handprints that covered the back of my car that day.
