Munger Road

new shorty from Mallory Smart

collage by Kyle Anderson

MUNGER ROAD

by Mallory Smart

Dave’s been dead six months and still texts like we’re cool.

The first time, I was drunk in the Portillo’s parking lot and thought it was some kind of glitch.

Second time, it just said: you coming out here or what.

No name. Just a number I should’ve deleted.

I didn’t believe in ghosts, but I believed in Dave’s bad ideas. And of course I knew the story before he ever told it.

Munger Road was something everyone did. Your cousin. Your sister. Somebody’s older brother who swore it happened to a friend.

Every place has an urban legend. Jersey has the Devil. West Virginia’s got Mothman. Ours was Munger Road.

You park on the tracks. Dust the bumper with baby powder. Put the car in neutral. Wait.

If you get handprints, the dead kids saved you.

If not, you were already dead and didn’t know it.

It was the Kirkland Signature of hauntings. But we still did it.

Dave brought Axe instead of powder. Said nothing haunts like eighth-grade confidence.

He once made me blast “Suburban Homeboy” by Sparks while we waited. Said it was the kind of song that made things feel like they were building toward something.

We listened with the windows down, and even the trees looked like they were holding their breath.

He always thought he was the main character. Now he’s part of the story we tell. Maybe the message begged for closure. Or maybe I just went because the movie came out.

It had been years since we’d gone out there together.

I parked where we used to. Killed the engine. Checked my phone. Still nothing.

By then he was just a forwarded email. A chain message. Some urban legend in an inbox no one opened.

They said it was suicide.

But legends never die clean.

And the thing is, I wanted the handprints.

Even now, I wanted something to touch me.

A breeze came through the corn. Dry. Aimless.

I lit a cigarette I didn’t want and rolled the window down like maybe something would crawl in.

Waited. Nothing moved but the smoke.

Then my phone lit up: look behind you.

I didn’t. I just sat there.

MALLORY SMART is a Chicago-based writer who loves keeping it weird. She’s the author of I Keep My Visions to Myself and The Only Living Girl in Chicago, the host of the podcast Textual Healing, and Editor-in-Chief of Maudlin House, an indie press for restless, unapologetic voices. Her work shows up where you least expect it and lingers longer than it should. Fine more at mallorysmart.com.