Finished

“She has just finished.  Now the question is where will she go next?”   Samantha pulled her back into the classroom and put her fingers to her lips.  She was serious about this recognizance phase we were trying to pull on our Chemistry teacher.  Samantha was convinced Mrs. Compton was a ghost of her former self.  That she had died the previous summer and somehow come back to the world of the living.  I, on the other hand, was not sure about anything Samantha was talking about. 

Not only was Mrs. Compton my favorite teacher, I also had doubts about the idea of the dead coming back to the world of the living.  Ghosts couldn’t be real or I would see them on a regular basis… right?  But as soon as Mrs. Compton walked by and toward the back exit, Samantha and I tiptoed down the hall behind her.  None of the teachers ever parked in the back lot as it was the only place where students were free to discreetly smoke cigarettes.  Or sell drugs.  There was only one reason why Mrs. Compton would be going out the back door. 

Samantha smiled knowingly as she cracked the back door open.  As she crouched down to peek through the door, I looked over her shoulder, fully expecting to catch Mrs. Compton in the act of doing something illegal.  What I wasn’t expecting was Mrs. Compton walking across the empty parking lot and fading into mist with each passing step.