The Crosswalk’s Cold Shoulder

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve carried a secret. Not the kind you tell your friends at a sleepover, but the kind that burrows into your bones and makes you see the world sideways. I could feel them, the ones who had crossed over but hadn’t quite left. The first time one touched me, I was eleven, sprinting toward the corner market on a sweltering July afternoon. My sneakers slapped the hot pavement as I reached the curb, about to step into the street when a hand clamped onto my shoulder. The grip was icy, jarring, and I spun around, expecting my mom or a neighbor. But there was no one. Confused, I turned back just as a delivery truck blew through the red light, horn blaring, missing me by inches. I stood there, heart pounding, and I knew it wasn’t luck. Something had saved me.

By the time I was fifteen, I could see them too, not just feel them. One night, I glanced out my window and saw a boy, maybe a year older, sprinting across our yard. The dead of winter, snow piled high, and he wore nothing but a thin denim jacket. I screamed for my dad, who went outside to check. He came back inside, face pale as the snow, holding two empty mittens. ‘There are no footprints, Maya,’ he whispered. I never saw that boy again, but I started to feel a presence more often, like a static charge in the air.

After I got my driver’s license, the presence became a constant passenger. It would occupy the passenger seat, a cold draft on my neck, the faint smell of pine and old leather. At first, it was benign, almost protective. But then the dreams started. In the dreams, I’m driving on a stretch of highway I’ve never seen, and the headlights catch a figure at the roadside. It’s the boy from my yard, but his face is wrong, twisted in agony. He points at the road ahead, and I see a bridge, broken, a gaping maw. I wake up screaming.

It was after college that I moved to the city, to escape the memories, to start fresh. I found a tiny apartment on a street with a crosswalk that always felt colder than the rest. One evening, I was walking home from the grocery store, and as I approached that crosswalk, my skin prickled. I saw a man in a long coat standing at the curb, but there was something off. He was too still, and the world seemed to blur around him. As the walk signal blinked, he didn’t move. I stepped onto the crosswalk, and a wave of icy air washed over me. I sensed a presence, but it was different from my usual passenger, older, more malevolent. It whispered, not with words, but with a cold dread that coiled in my stomach.

I made it to the other side, but the sensation lingered. That night, I had a vision: a young woman, her eyes hollow, standing in the middle of that same crosswalk, a car barreling toward her. I snapped awake, and I knew I had to do something. The next day, I stood at the curb, waiting. The same man, the still one, was there again. This time, I looked at him. He was translucent, his face a mask of sorrow. He pointed at the crosswalk, and I saw her, the woman from my vision, about to step off the curb. I screamed, ‘No!’ and ran forward, grabbing her arm. She stumbled back as a taxi sped through the red light. She turned to me, terrified, and I saw a flicker of recognition in her eyes. ‘You saved me,’ she said. I nodded, but my eyes were on the man. He was fading, a smile finally breaking through his sorrow.

But the cold didn’t leave. In the weeks that followed, the presence in my car grew stronger, more insistent. It would guide my hands on the wheel, steering me away from near-misses. One night, it was too strong. I was on a bridge, the one from my dreams, and I saw the boy from my childhood, but now he was older, his face scarred. He stood at the railing, mouthing something. I pulled over, got out, and walked to him. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked. He didn’t speak, but he pointed to the water below. Then I saw it: a car, headlights on, sinking into the black. And in the driver’s seat, my own face, eyes closed. I gasped and woke up in my own car, parked on the shoulder.

I now understand. I am a guide, but I am also a bridge. The ghosts are not all benevolent; some are trapped in loops, reliving their deaths, and they pull the living into their final moments. My gift is a beacon for them. The crosswalk, the bridge, the road, they are gates. And I am the key. But every time I save a soul, I feel a piece of myself slip away. I live in a constant state of vigilant dread, knowing that the next touch might not be from a gentle hand, but from a desperate spirit that wants to drag me into its frozen embrace. And yet, I cannot turn away. For if I do, the cold will take me, and I will become one of them, forever waiting at a crosswalk, hoping for a living hand to pull me back from the brink.