The Open Door

The ambulance lights painted the wet pavement red and white.

Miller sat on the back bumper of the ambulance, his arm in a sling. He watched as they loaded Kyle onto a stretcher. The kid was catatonic, but alive.

Cassie sat next to Miller, wrapped in a shock blanket.

"You saved my life, kid," Miller said gruffly. He took a drag of a cigarette with his good hand. "I owe you. Big time."

"You listened," Cassie said. "That’s all I wanted."

Miller looked at her. "You got nowhere to go, right? Foster home is garbage?"

"It's a roof."

"I got a spare room," Miller said, looking at the ground. "It’s not much. But... I could use someone around who knows when to carry an umbrella. We could make it official. Fostering."

Cassie looked at him. She felt a warmth in her chest she hadn't felt in years. Hope. A home. A father figure who wasn't going to die because she saved him.

"I'd like that," Cassie said, smiling. "I'd really like that."

Miller smiled back. He stood up. "Come on. Let's go get some fries. I'm starving."

He turned and walked toward his cruiser.

The streetlamp above him flickered.

Cassie watched him walk away. The smile froze on her face.

The air warped.

The silence returned.

Miller wasn't walking to the cruiser. He was clutching his chest. His face turned a deep purple. He fell to his knees in the wet parking lot, gasping for air. A massive heart attack.

The vision lasted five seconds.

Then it snapped back. Miller was opening the car door, looking back at her, waiting.

"Coming, kid?" he called out.

Cassie sat there, frozen.

She had stopped the wrench. She had stopped the ghost. She had changed the method.

But she hadn't stopped the death.

It was still coming. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. But soon.

Cassie stood up. She pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She walked toward the man who offered her a home, knowing that every moment she spent with him was just borrowed time.

"I'm coming," she said.

She got into the car, and they drove off into the rain that never stopped.