Micro-fiction: Witnessed By The Stars And Steve
A very large array of interpretations for this one
This is your weekly dose of spookiness direct from Spookerton, Spookania. This week we’ve a story inspired by both a true event and a classic ghost tale.
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Let’s dive into the story…
Witnessed By The Stars And Steve
I met Steve at the diner in San Antonio. It’s one of those American bars with no windows, where they hide their drinking from the skies. It was snowing outside, massive flakes nearly the size of beermats, but you’d never know it from inside. Everyone thinks New Mexico is a hot state, but, up at the high altitudes in the winter, it snows like it does anywhere else. They insulate the bar’s walls with license plates, fading photos, bits of animals, and pictures of Jesus. Sunlight hasn’t hit that floor in seven decades, and it won’t until there’s no reason left to drink, which is due to happen right around never in that town.
He wore a blue shirt with a neat ID badge saying ‘Steve’ pinned to the breast pocket. It was a smart shirt and the logo was faintly familiar as belonging to a security firm. The top buttons were open and the waist was untucked from trousers that had neat creases down the seams. His polished boots had gone matte with dust and grime.
“You ever seen people exchange rings?” he said. “It’s sweet. A one off moment. Special, y’know?”
It was a weird conversation opener. I’d never met the guy, but he wanted to get something off his chest. I was in no hurry, so ordered a beer and sat beside him at the bar. We did introductions, then Steve went straight into his story:
I work at the VLA. The Very Large Array. You know it? Out west of here. All these big dishes, just pointed up at the sky, listening for anything they can hear. They turn it all into pictures of galaxies ‘n’ stuff. Proper rocket-scientist shit going on in the buildings.
So, they hire us to do security there, and it’s nothing much. We got opening hours, where any folks can drive up and take a look, visit the guest shop, stand by one of the dishes for a photo, that sorta thing. My job is to make sure they don’t wander off into places they shouldn’t be, or do weird stuff. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who sneak off to make like the animals under a dish. Feeling like a small part of a big universe just makes some folks horny or some shit, I guess.
But, that ain’t what happened yesterday.
The snow had started coming down real thick, and it was closing time. I was just seeing off the last of the visitors, making sure they got out the parking lot okay, and I were about to go get in my vehicle to drive up and lock the main gate for the night. Once that’s locked, the job’s easy: only a few patrols, and you’d have to be nutso to go wandering out there in the snow. It was gonna be a quiet night.
Anyways, the last visitors were headin’ out when an RV comes barrelling into the lot. Not like real-dangerous-fast, but rushin’ faster than they should. The sun were going down behind the clouds, light dropping real quick, it were time to lock up, so I went on over to them. Two kids, early twenties I reckon, they jumped out and were running over to the bottom of one of the big dish buildings.
“Now hold on there,” I said. “We’re closed. You have to go back out.”
From the look on their faces, you’d like I’d shot their puppy. “We’ll only be a minute,” they said. “We got engaged a few days ago, but we haven’t exchanged rings yet. We wanted to do that here, witnessed by the stars.”
Now, they were real nice, pale and tired looking, but real nice, polite like, and I’m a sucker for a sweet story. “You got three minutes,” I said, and they were real grateful.
Right about then, my radio started squawking, but the couple were asking me to take their photo. They stood out there, right under a great big dish, and they slid the rings onto each others’ fingers. I took the photo, and it were one of those Polaroid types, that spit out a real photo from the front, like the hipsters have been getting into again. In the cold, together with that snow swirling around ’em, they looked so small, you’d half think they’d blow away. They got so pale I knew they’d freeze if I didn’t hurry them back into their RV. Romance ain’t dead, but cold is cold.
I gave them back their camera and the photo, and told ’em to follow me up the drive to the main gate. They were so grateful, they never stopped saying thank you ’til their doors were closed. On my radio, I returned the call, and it were the police, saying I was needed up at the gate. “Now that’s good,” I said, “because I’m on my way there.”
I pulled out and saw the couple sitting up front in their RV, knowing they’d be right behind, so I could close the gate once they were gone.
The drive up to the main gate takes a whiles, a couple of minutes on normal days, five or so in the snow like that. I get up there and find a bunch of vehicles parked up—they were all the visitors I’d set off before the couple arrived. They’d called the police, and the police had called me to keep an eye on things.
The police needed me there to control the scene, because there’d been an accident, y’see. In a ditch beside the road, there was an RV, lying upside down. Looked like it’d taken the corner in a hurry, wanting to get somewhere fast, and over they’d gone.
Through the windscreen, I saw ’em. The couple. It were them, as God’s my witness, it were them, knocked about bad, lying there pale and still, no clouds of breath, no doubt they were goners.
Looking back down the drive, back to where that same nice couple should’ve been following, there were no one there. No RV in the lot, no RV coming up the drive. No one.
—
Steve drained his bottle and held up a finger for another. The woman behind the bar popped the cap off a fresh and swapped out the empty. He took a deep swig straight away.
“And,” he said. “It were the damnedest thing.”
I waited for him to finish, but he seemed to drift into the memory. I prompt him, “What’s that?”
“Resting on the inside of the windshield, like it’d been in their hand when they crashed, were the photo, that little square of Polaroid, just finishing developing. Two pale figures, exchanging rings, only seen by the stars and me.”
The end
Okay, so when I said ‘inspired by true events’, there are some bits that aren’t true, but some of it is real. That bar definitely exists. It’s got a weird vibe. When I was there, I looked kind of like a British version of Billy Idol, and it’s fair to say my lack of camouflage-pattern hunting clothing and/or gunrack on the vehicle meant I didn’t blend with the locals.
Hope you enjoyed this one! As mentioned at the top, a ‘like’ or sharing this would be very much appreciated. I’d love to grow the readership for this newsletter and you’re my best way to reach like-minded readers.
Incidentally, after I’d come up with the idea for this story, I realised it was unconsciously heavily inspired by a Victorian ghost story, but I can’t remember who wrote it. In that story, a groom turns up late to a wedding. He looks pale and dreadful, but gets married. He disappears after the ceremony, and he’s later found dead in his carriage, overturned in the rush to get to the church. I’ve a vague feeling it might be by Sheridan Le Fanu, or maybe M. R. James. If anyone knows the story I mean, please let me know in the comments!
Have a great week, go be kind and spooky,
Mata
xxx
Good one, Mata!