Free Loose Ends by Terri Reid Page B

hurtling down the hill out of control,” she lied, reminding herself silently that sometimes honesty wasn’t always the best policy. “I must have hit my head.”
    “How do you feel?” he asked.
    “Like someone hit me with a fort,” she answered with a small smile.
    He chuckled as he shone his flashlight in each of her eyes. “Well, looks like you don’t have a concussion. But you aren’t going to look as pretty as usual tomorrow morning.”
    “You can take some OTC pills for pain, so you can sleep tonight – but if you start having any headaches or blurry vision, I want you to get to your doctor right away. Understand?”
    “Yes, sir,” Mary answered, trying to stop a groan as he helped her on her feet. “How’s the fort?”
    This time he laughed aloud. “No permanent damage was done. If you had had a harder head, well, we’d be asking you for your insurance card.”
    Mary chuckled. “That’s a relief.”
    He helped her over to his truck. “How about if I give you a lift back to your car? That way you won’t have to try this hill again.”
    “I would really appreciate it,” Mary replied earnestly, not sure she could make the climb up the hill and back down the street to the car.
    “Cool fort,” she said to the paramedic. “Well, not so cool up close – but it looks like it’s been around for a long time.”
    “Naw,” the paramedic responded. “It was just built in the early nineties. Some local guy got the idea that it should be reconstructed. They brought in an architect and everything. Then they built it with tools that they would have used back when the fort was initially built – to be historically correct.”
    “Wow, that’s great,” she replied. “So what was there before the fort was built?”
    “A meadow and some woods,” he said, “Oh, and an old shed that had been empty for decades. When I was a kid we would swear that it was haunted.”
    “Really,” she said, knowing that children were often more perceptive to paranormal activity than they realized. “Who did you think haunted it?”
    He laughed nervously. “I don’t know, it was just kid stuff,” he said, “You know, too much imagination and not enough sense.”
    “I’ve had experiences like that too,” Mary said, “Sometimes it’s not just your imagination.”
    The paramedic pulled his truck to the curb behind Mary’s Roadster. He turned in his seat, facing her. “Do you honestly think it could be real?”
    “I know it can be real,” she said, “What did you see?”
    He hesitated.
    “It could be important,” she added.
    “Well, when I was just a kid – maybe ten years old – we were playing ‘catch one - catch all’ one summer night,” he said, “They had just started the excavation on the fort and there were all kinds of cool hiding places down there.
    “Even though all the kids thought it was a creepy place, I knew if I hid down there, no one would find me,” he said with a grin, “I love to win.”
    Mary chuckled.
    “So anyway, I’m down there hiding behind some of the big logs they had brought in when I hear someone crying,” he paused for a moment. “It sounded like my little sister and I think she’s in trouble, so I follow the sound. I see this little girl sitting on the ground and she’s crying her eyes out. I get maybe ten feet away from her and she looks up and sees me. I stop in my tracks because even though she’s there I can see right through her. I mean, she’s a ghost.”
    The paramedic took a deep breath and then continued.
    “Then she gets up and motions to me, like to follow her. I can’t believe that I had the balls to do it – but, you know, you’re kinda in the moment. So, I follow her and she leads me to the edge of the old woods. Then three other little girls come out of the woods – you know, just like her. She runs and joins them and then they all just fade away.”
    “Damn,” he swore, rubbing his arms up and down, “Still gives me goose bumps.”
    “Do