Trainwreck

"You fucking cunt," Garrett mumbled to himself as he laid across the front seat of his pickup truck.

Those were the last words he had said to her.

He shook his head at himself and took another pull of the cheap whiskey before letting it rest once more in his lap. He looked down at the bottle, barely able to see anything in the dark, just the shiny tip poking out of the top of the brown paper bag. He laughed to himself. He wasn't trying to be a down on his luck drunk stereotype from a bad movie, but between the paper bag covered liquor bottle and the dirty, decades old pickup truck that he was sitting in, he was certainly pulling it off.

He took another long drink from his bag, then went ahead and turned his truck off, leaving him in total darkness. He looked around, which seemed like a waste of time given that he couldn't see anything at all. He tried making out the shapes of the trees that rustled in the light breeze around him, but couldn't. There was no moon tonight. Aside from the wind moving through the woods, he could hear random, intermittent noises of the various creatures of the night. He wondered if any of them were watching him, wondering what the hell this idiot was doing parked on the train tracks in the middle of the night.

He pulled the keys from the ignition and tossed them blindly out the window. There was no turning back now, he thought.

"Autumn would be so pissed at me right now if she were here," he said aloud to himself with a small laugh. He drained the last few drops of his whiskey before tossing it out the window, too. For a split second he felt bad about littering, but then remembered the absolute wreckage he was about to cause once the train hit him, and thought nothing more of it.

Garrett let his mind wander back to his sister, which seemed more than appropriate given that she was the impetus for his impending mutilation. She really would be pissed at him, and he knew it. Not even because he was killing himself, although that would certainly be part of it. She'd think it super cliche and overly dramatic at the way he was going about it. He could almost here her chiding him.

"You're being super lame right now, Garrett," she would say. "Really? You're going to park your shitty truck on the tracks at the EXACT spot that the train took me out? At the EXACT same time of night? On the EXACT same day, only a year later? Jeez man, why don't you try to be more original and get your own death?" He laughed, harder than he had in a very long time, which seemed silly since he was only amused at the artificial conversation his brain had manufactured. It's not like she had actually said anything, or that she even would have said it like that in the first place. She'd been gone for so long now that he couldn't be sure.

His heart skipped a beat at the faint sound of the train off in the distance. It was easy to hear with his windows down in the dead of night, so even though it sounded pretty close, he knew he had a little while before it actually arrived. He'd heard all those ads on the radio about stopping at the tracks and looking both ways before crossing. They said that even once a train sees you, it can take up for a mile before it can actually come to a stop. He figured that'd make it damn near impossible for the train to put on the brakes before taking him out.

He wished he could do it just like it had happened for Autumn. Just driving along, thinking nothing but happy thoughts, and then it could just happen as he crossed, him none the wiser. Although, that wasn't exactly how it had worked for Autumn, according to the reports.

"I'm guessing she thought she could beat it," the cop had said to him that night. "The crossing arms were down, and I guess she thought she had enough time to get across. It's hard to tell just how fast those things are moving, especially at night. She just misjudged it. It's a shame."

Garrett shook his head vigorously from side to side, desperately trying to fling the memory out of his head. "Happy thoughts only," he said to himself. Off in the distance, he saw a bright little circle slowly approaching, accompanied by the sound of rhythmic grinding. He started to panic, but not due to his impending doom. He suddenly had the horrendous thought that he might survive the wreck, which seemed crazy, but not impossible. Weirder things had happened before, he thought to himself. He shifted his body so that his head was slightly hanging out the passenger side window, which was the side that the train was coming from.

"That ought to do it," he said aloud in a satisfied tone, figuring that this way the train would just crush his head and do the job quickly. He shut his eyes, purposely trying to focus on anything but the sound that was increasingly getting louder and louder. He went to his happy place in his mind, which ironically was simply back home in his own living room. Of course these days it wasn't much of a happy place at all, but when Autumn had lived with him, it was his favorite place of all time. He imagined the two of them sitting together on their couch, binge watching some old show that everyone else in the whole world had already finished watching years ago when it was actually coming out. "Why watch something new and get left on a cliffhanger for a year waiting for the new season, when there are so many shows that we can just watch all the way through and not have to wait?" Autumn would say all the time when Garrett complained about never getting to watch new things. She was right, of course, but it still annoyed him that he couldn't discuss current shows with his friends. Or maybe it didn't actually annoy him, and he just liked giving her a hard time.

Yeah, it was probably the second one, he figured.

His life had been a fucking cliffhanger, he thought to himself. He and Autumn had just gotten to the point where they had acknowledged their feelings for each other, which seemed like it had taken forever in the first place. They were right at the beginning of the constant hand holding, butterflies in your tummy, can't survive a second without the other one's presence part of their relationship when she died. Sure, he had twenty plus years of other good stuff to remember her by, too. The normal brother-sister types of things they had gone through, like hair pulling and opening Christmas presents and such. But in all honesty, when he thought about her now, he only got hung up on the other part. The juicy part. That was the part that left anything but butterflies in his stomach. More like maggots crawling around an infested core.

That was the part that he couldn't get over. The part that had left him in a literal constant state of agony. It was what brought him to the very spot that he currently sat in. That and, of course, those last three words he had said right before she walked out the door. "You fucking cunt," he said once more aloud, still after all this time unable to get over how shitty that was of him to say.

Eventually, the noise was just too loud to ignore. Garrett kept his eyes shut as tight as possible, not wanting to see even a hint of light from the headlamp of the train. He wasn't sure if the engineer had seen his truck yet, but he knew that even if it had, by the sound of things, it was too late to matter.

His truck started to shake slightly, just like it did when the old engine would reluctantly crank, but he kept his eyes closed. Aside from the train, Garrett thought he had heard the sound of a vehicle engine. He hoped like hell that someone hadn't pulled up, some stupid hero looking to save him from himself. It seemed unlikely, given how few people ever traveled this road, let alone this time of night. Then again, Autumn had been driving at this very time and location, too, so it wasn't impossible.

It was a weird time for it, but suddenly Garrett noticed just how drunk he was. He had ingested a lot of whiskey in a very short amount of time, so it made sense that his drunken stupor would come on suddenly like that. Given that he had just seconds until he was crushed, it seemed like good timing.

He was so drunk, in fact, that he even felt his truck begin to shake, as if it were moving. Was this it, he thought? Was he getting slammed by the train, and that was the movement he was feeling? He had heard of accounts of people going through traumatic experiences and not feeling anything in the moment, as if they were being protected by some higher power. Maybe he was dying, and being lifted to the heavens or something. Not that he believed in any of that, but you never know.

The sound was deafening at this point, and he knew that any second now he would get slammed. It was so loud, in fact, that he wasn't sure how it would be possible for it to get any louder. All he knew was that as each second passed, he was more and more surprised to still be sentient.

With great effort, he once more blocked out all external sensations, and instead brought up the image of his sister. He could see her standing there, nothing in the background at all except a dark canvas, as if she were a figure in some sort of "create a player" mode in a video game. In his head, he zoomed in to her face and studied her, soaking in every detail he could before he could think no more. He never had the words to describe exactly what her hair color was. No one did, for that matter. Reddish-blondish-brownish, she would call it.

"I'm pretty sure that's what they call 'auburn'," Garrett would say.

"Nope," she'd always reply. "Not auburn. Reddish-blondish-brownish is the more technical description."

He studied her still in his mind's eye. She was what one might have called a "classic beauty", like someone you'd see in a painting from centuries ago. All her features were the perfect size in relation to one another. Her teeth were perfectly straight, all except one of her lateral incisors that turned slightly away from the rest of the row. Garrett always thought it made her more attractive, the single beautiful imperfection on an otherwise faultless face. Funnily enough, it would make her mad when he would mention her tooth. She always thought he was patronizing her when he said it gave her character. He wasn't, of course. It was strangely maybe his favorite part about her.

He zoomed the image out in his head once more and looked at her as a whole. Her body was flawless, just like the rest of her. That all depended on a person's taste, of course, but for Garrett, she was the model of perfection. She was just the right height that the top of her head would tuck comfortably underneath his chin when they hugged, her modest breasts softly pressing into his torso. His sister's breasts were never something he really paid attention to, of course, until the last couple of years of her life as their relationship slowly morphed into something completely different than what it had been. During that time, Garrett also came to notice how wonderful of an ass Autumn had. She would prance around in her little cotton shorts, knowingly driving him crazy.

"I knew you were looking," she told him early on in their relationship.

"You did not," he argued.

"Oh please, you were so obvious Garrett! That's why my shorts kept getting shorter and tighter, dummy. The more I flaunted, the more obvious your stares became."

She genuinely was perfection, he thought. Everything from her flawless skin, to her perfectly shaped fingernails, to the graceful way that she moved around. He never had any complaints about her, except for how early she left him.

Suddenly, Garrett's eyes darted open. He had been lost in his head for so long that he hadn't even noticed the sound of the train growing fainter. He jumped out of his truck, his feet landing on the dirt road. His truck was sitting safely behind the crossing arms, which in that moment were just finishing raising back up into their usual position. He jogged the few steps up to the railroad track, standing on it and watching the dark outline of the last train car as it quickly moved out of sight.

His head was spinning, either from the alcohol, the confusion, or maybe a little bit of both. He looked down at his feet, unsure for a second as to why he could even see them. He looked up, noticing for the first time the light from his own headlights pouring over his whole body.

"What the..." he began, his voice trailing off. He stared in bewilderment at his truck as it idled in a spot that he had definitely not parked it in. Nothing made sense in that moment. He replayed the events of the last thirty minutes or so, from the time that he pulled his truck up to a stop on the tracks up to the moment when he literally tossed his keys out the window into the dark oblivion and started to hear the oncoming train. Sure he had been getting progressively more and more drunk, but at no point was he so wasted that he couldn't clearly recall the events of the night.

He looked all around him once more, looking for any clue that would indicate how exactly this had happened, but nothing was around. His eyes had been shut the entire past five minutes, but certainly he would have heard if someone opened his door, started his truck, and backed it off the tracks. Furthermore, if they had done that, wouldn't they have said something to him? Like maybe, "Hey guy, I see you're trying to kill yourself in this moment. Is there anything I can help you with?"

That didn't make sense, but no explanation did. He stumbled off the tracks and took a couple of steps towards his truck, the headlights blinding him slightly. Cautiously, he moved to the side so that the light wasn't directly in his eyes. It was dark, of course, but the internal lights of his dashboard allowed him to barely see inside of the truck. A jarring sensation in his stomach hit him suddenly as he noticed the silhouette of a person sitting in the driver's seat. It was so dark that he could make out no details about this person whatsoever, other than that they seemed to be staring at him, shaking their head slowly back and forth. He took a few more steps closer to the driver's side door, stopping just short of being within arm's length. The person was still staring at him, but not saying a word. Through increasingly blurred vision, Garrett fixed his eyes on the stranger, trying to make out anything familiar about them at all through the darkness.

"Idiot," they said simply. The soft, sweet voice just about made Garrett's heart leap out of his body. Every nerve ending he had came alive in that moment, causing a strange mixture of extreme hot and cold to course through his being. The sensation was so much for him that he blacked out immediately, not even feeling the pain as his face hit the dirt.

*****

It was light when he woke up in his own bed. He had no memory of actually driving home the previous night. He made a mental note to scold himself later for driving drunk, not having the energy for it in that moment.

He sat upright swiftly, regretting it instantly due to the throbbing it caused in his head. He shook off the pain, though, and instead focused on the sudden memory of whom he had seen sitting in his truck just before he blacked out.

Then, just as suddenly, he relaxed his body once more and laid back down. "Well, that proves I was dreaming, I guess," he said aloud to himself as he rolled over and shut his eyes again. She, obviously, could not have been in the truck like that. "Maybe I never even left the house in the first place."

"Idiot," a voice said from inside the room, causing Garrett to sit up again and look around in a panic. No one was there. He scanned the room once more before laying down again. "Shit, maybe I'm still dreaming," he said aloud.

"You are not dreaming, dummy!" the voice said once more, this time much louder and clearer.

"Who said that!?" Garrett screamed, jumping out of his bed in terror as he scanned the room for signs of an intruder.

"Wait, you can hear me!?" the voice replied, sounding exciting and hopeful and not at all menacing.

"I've got a gun, you know!" Garrett yelled as he turned and started rifling through his bedside table.

"You do not!" the voice replied mirthfully. "There's nothing in there except some NyQuil and an old flyswatter, and you know it."

Garrett turned away from the bedside table, his bluff being successfully called out. There did not appear to be anyone in the room with him, but the voice had been too clear to have come from a different part of the house.

"Show yourself!" Garrett cried, unsure of what else to say.

"I'm right here, dude," they said, seemingly just feet away from him.

"What does that mean!?" he replied, feeling a torrent of emotions as he continued to try and find the source of the voice.

"It means I'm right here, Garrett," the voice said, much softer and calmer this time. That voice...oh god, that voice. It had been so long, but he knew its owner. How could he ever forget it? It used to bring him such comfort. Now, of course, it was sending him in a tizzy of disorientation and, frankly, fright.

"No you're not," Garrett replied in a sort of childish way.

"Oh, I absolutely am," the voice insisted.

"Nuh-uh," Garrett replied, closing his eyes and putting his hands over his ears. He made out the faint noise of a reply, and began humming and singing to block it out.

"Don't stop. Believin'! Hold on to that fee-ee-ee-eelin'!" he sang, keeping his eyes shut tightly and his hands firmly pressed to his ears. He sang for another minute or so, then slowly removed his hands from his ears.

Nothing but silence greeted him. He took a deep breath and smiled in relief, finally allowing himself to open his eyes. When he did, he saw Autumn sitting nonchalantly on his bed in front of him.

"You done?" she asked with an unimpressed look on her face.

"Shit!" Garrett screamed. He stood up quickly, banging his shoulder painfully into the drawer that he had pulled out from his bedside table moments prior, causing him to fall back to the ground. He looked up at Autumn, who stared at him with a little smirk on her face, and once again he scrambled to get himself up. In an effort to keep as far away from her as possible, he leaped across the head of his bed, his foot getting caught on his pillow in the process. He awkwardly fell face first off the side, did a clumsy sort of somersault, and launched himself into his closet, shutting the door behind him. He wedged himself behind some old stuff that he stored in there, squatted down in the corner, and looked out through the slats of the closet door for any sign of movement.

After a couple of minutes, his breathing very slowly started to come down. However, just when he thought that the moment had passed, Autumn spoke again, this time from right there inside the closet with him.

"You know ghosts can go through walls and shit, right?" she asked him. He looked over in a panic and saw Autumn sitting in the opposite corner of the closet, a very amused expression on her face.

"Oh god!" Garrett cried in a panic, trying to wriggle free from all the things he had hidden behind so that he could make a run for it again.

"Can you, like, stay still for a second and chill out, Garrett?" Autumn asked calmly.

"You're dead!" Garrett replied simply.

"No shit, Sherlock."

"So why are you here!?"

"I've always been here, Garrett. The whole time."

"No you haven't!"

"Yes, I have."

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yuh-huh, you petulant child!"

"Oh yeah?" Garrett replied, an idea suddenly occurring to him. "Then prove it."

"How might one go about doing that?"

Garrett smiled. "Tell me what's been going on around here for the past year. Tell me what I've been up to."

"What you've been up to?"

"Yep." He had her dead to rights now. No pun intended, of course.

"Not a goddamn thing," she said simply.

"Excuse me?" Garrett replied, feeling confused by her response.