The Ghosts We Carry

A serial fiction story for your enjoyment

written by James Rada, Jr.

THE CLASS OF ‘16

4: Second to Fall

Will VanSant pulled into the parking lot of the Sleep Inn & Suites in Emmitsburg with a heavy heart, the warming morning air punctuating the stark reality before him. Tucked amid half a dozen unoccupied cars, he watched as EMTs carefully rolled a shrouded body from the front entrance into a waiting ambulance. The metal doors shut with an almost final thud, and without the blare of sirens, the vehicle backed out smoothly and drove away into the darkness. Thomas Hardcastle was dead.

As Will shook his head in disbelief, the weight of the loss pressed upon him. Thomas had been only 28—a number that echoed in the ages of Will and Brian Peyton as well. Life had been cut tragically short, just as it had been for Jack Davis at the tender age of 18. The cruelty of fate was palpable; it seemed unjust that someone so young could be taken far too early. The grief intertwined with a lurking suspicion: Jack’s and Thomas’s deaths had to be connected, a connection that also put both Will and Brian in the shadows of impending danger.

The puzzle pieces began to align in Will’s troubled mind: the untimely deaths of both Jack and Thomas, the eerie connection that lingered like a thin veil between life and death, and the dangerous possibility that he and Brian might now be the next targets. All four friends—Will, Thomas, Brian, and Jack—had once been inseparable at Catoctin High School, sharing classes, racing together on the track team, and confiding in one another long after the final bell had rung.

A chill ran through him as he remembered the unsettling photograph they had all received. Jack Davis’s senior portrait, marked on its back with the foreboding message, “I know what you did,” had once seemed like a cruel joke or a twisted act of blackmail. But then tragedy struck with the death of Frank, and the bonds between Will, Thomas, and Brian had slowly disintegrated—until they were forced back together at their 10-year reunion. That night, emotions flared. Thomas had stormed off in a fit of anger, and now, his parents claimed, he had met his end due to a fatal mix of alcohol and anti-depressants. Even as his voice trembled with uncertainty, Will couldn’t help but notice that Thomas’s parents had always maintained that he had never been one to drink excessively. The contradiction gnawed at Will, feeding his suspicions of something deeper at work.

Inside the hotel, the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office deputies were busy among the sterile hallways, perhaps engrossed in a display of forensic procedures reminiscent of those on television, their motions deliberate yet earnest. The more Will considered the sequence of events, the more he realized that the story simply didn’t add up. The deaths might seem unrelated to an outsider, but an unrelenting feeling deep inside him insisted they were intertwined, a suspicion compounded by the mysterious photograph still unsolved.

Rubbing the back of his neck, as if trying to erase the unnerving thought, Will scanned his surroundings. There was an unsettling sensation that unseen eyes were following him, watching from the shadowed corners of the night. His mind, awash with the memory of unexpected photos, bizarre occurrences at the reunion, and now the irreversible loss of Thomas, edged him toward paranoia.

Unable to find solace amidst the confusion, Will climbed back into his car and drove toward the Resthaven Cemetery along Route 15. He had never been fond of graveyards—not because their quiet, somber atmosphere unnerved him, but because being surrounded by the vestiges of life felt like a reminder of disconnect, a reminder that closeness was measured in the living, not the dead. The cemetery, bathed in dim moonlight and lined with time-worn gravestones, loomed ahead as he made his way off the highway. Following the winding road, he parked near Jack’s grave, his car engine casting soft, fading echoes across the cold pavement. From his seat, he could barely see the neatly inscribed grave marker tucked a few rows in from the road. A touch of tenderness appeared in his eyes as he noted the freshly placed wildflowers in a bronze vase, sitting atop the stone—a silent tribute left by someone who still cherished Jack’s memory. He wondered if the person who left them felt a closeness to Jack on these hallowed grounds, the kind of intimacy that only memories can provide.

Yet, for Will, an even stronger connection to Jack beckoned elsewhere. With a heavy sigh, he restarted his car and headed back to Thurmont, merging onto Route 550 toward Sabillasville. Before reaching the town, a sudden impulse drove him off the roadside and into the cool darkness. Stepping out of his car, he walked over to the old Western Maryland Railroad tracks, the metal ties glistening faintly under the sunlight. He peered both up and down the tracks, silently searching for something—an echo of the past, a hint of understanding—before placing his foot carefully onto one of the worn ties.

For a moment, nothing happened. The stillness was as profound as his own inner emptiness. Will wasn’t certain what he had expected—only that if he were somehow to grasp the thoughts and feelings that occupied Jack on that fateful night, it might be here along these ghostly rails. This stretch wasn’t where Jack had met his end, but it had been the starting point of that irreversible journey. Standing between those cold, rusted rails, Will wished he could capture a fraction of the fear, excitement, or remorse that might have coursed through Jack’s mind in those final moments.

He strained his memory, trying to recall what he himself had been thinking that long-ago night. He remembered them—a group of friends—drunk on laughter and beer, goofing around, and testing their sobriety by daring one another to balance along the top of the worn rail, as if it were a makeshift balance beam. With a rueful shake of his head, he ran his hand over his neck again, unsettled by the persistent feeling of being observed. Perhaps, it was Jack’s spirit hovering nearby?

“I’m sorry, Jack. We panicked,” Will murmured softly to the empty air, his voice cracking under the weight of regret. Of course, no reply came. With a heavy heart, he began to walk along the tracks, retracing the steps of that long-ago night—a night that had haunted him ever since.

Far away, in the cramped confines of a Super 8 Motel room in Thurmont, Brian Peyton paced restlessly back and forth across the worn carpet. The walls, decorated in faded hues and dimly lit by the glow of a single lamp, did little to calm his jittery nerves. His eyes darted repeatedly toward his smartphone lying idle on the bed as if expecting it to suddenly ring or vibrate with the resurgence of bad news. Every few moments, he glanced anxiously toward the door, half-expecting a firm knock from the police seeking answers he wasn’t ready to provide.

He sighed heavily, shaking his head as though trying to disassociate himself from the bitter reality. Returning to Thurmont for the class reunion had felt like a fated mistake, an inescapable trap from which none of them could truly escape. At the time, there had been little choice in the matter—he had come because a strange and sinister blackmail scheme had woven its web around them; a scheme that had only grown darker when Thomas Hardcastle had taken his own life. That photograph, with its chilling message, had tied them all together like cursed relics, passing from Will to Thomas to Brian.

The silence in the room was pierced suddenly when Brian’s phone rang. With trembling fingers, he answered, and the familiar voice of Will cascaded through the line.

“Have you heard anything more?” Brian asked, his voice hushed with apprehension.

“No. I don’t think we will for a while. I saw them put his body in the ambulance,” Will replied, his tone a mixture of resignation and worry.

“Why did you go to the hotel?” Brian inquired, the question heavy with silent accusation and shared despair.

“I don’t know. I just felt like I needed to be there,” Will admitted after a long pause. “I don’t think it was suicide.”

“Why not?” Brian pressed, his mind racing through possibilities.

“For one thing,” Will said slowly, “his parents said he had stopped drinking by the time he graduated.” The implication hung between them, a bitter truth they both understood. “And then, there’s that damn picture. There’s got to be more to it than just a ploy to scare us.”

“Well, nothing’s happened yet. I was planning to go home, to try to forget all of this,” Brian replied, the irony of the words stinging in the silence.

“Do you really think you can just forget? We tried that once before, and look where it got us.”

“I’m going to try,” Will insisted, though his voice faltered. Suddenly, the distant wail of a train whistle cut through the conversation.

“Where are you?” Brian asked, his attention snapping at the sound.

“I’m walking along the tracks,” Will answered quietly.

“Why would you do that?” Brian questioned, his worry now mixing with disbelief.