In a quaint town outside of San Pedro Sula, Honduras is a house owned by the (Real Name not Disclosed for Privacy Reasons) Ramos family; Senor and Senora Ramos and their 15 and 12 year old children. Across the street lives a young woman who, apparently, is to die for. I don't want to state the names of the people involved, for privacy purposes but if giving their names is a requirement I will, for now let's call our young woman Bonita and her beau will be Carlos.
Bonita was only lightly involved with Carlos, she was young and not the committing type. Carlos, however, fell very much in love with her and after only five months of involvement, asked her to marry him. Bonita refused; she wanted to continue to live life. She didn't want a family nor was she ready to be tied down to responsibilities of a married woman; she told him instead that she wished for them to see other people. Carlos was heartbroken, he didn't eat or sleep for weeks but he arrived at her door every day for two months begging her to marry him, ignoring his friend's protests and the fact that the entire town called him a fool. Even though he was relentless in his pursuit, Bonita began to see other men and one night when Carlos came to her home he found another man leaving her house. I watched from my window as he stalked around her yard, finding a better vantage point, and I watched him as he watched them kiss. His whole body tightened and I imagine that he was feeling his heart being wrenched from his chest. He approached her in a rage after the other man left, veins protruding on his face as he screamed, asking her how she could do this to him. As he wailed and pleaded he backed her further and further into the home and finally he declared that if she wouldn't love him he might as well end his life.
Bonita didn't think he was being serious and told him so, she said that he would be a fool to commit such a sin for a woman who didn't love him, that it would be much better for him to just forget her and find someone better suited for him. He pulled a pistol from his belt and asked her how stupid was she to think another woman could compare to the love he had for her and as he held the gun to her head he told her she would marry him. She shrieked at the top of her lungs, waking my parents. My father, Senor Ramos, came running to her door and opened it just as a shot was fired. Bonita came crashing into him, screaming and crying - too hysterical to understand. My father could see blood on the floor in an open door way and pushed past her to see what happened, Carlos was still alive- still breathing, gurgling and moaning. My father knew that an ambulance would take far too long to arrive and Carlos would certainly be dead before they got him to the hospital, he called to my brother and myself and we helped him load Carlos into his truck. We sped away leaving Senora Ramos, my mother, to console Bonita. The drive to the nearest hospital is about a forty minute drive and the old truck had no radio, the only sound we heard were Carlos' moans of agony and the gurgling rasps as he tried to breath. Dad made it to the hospital in a record thirty minutes but as we pulled in the moaning was slowing and the gurgling breaths were almost inaudible. Carlos died as an emergency crew readied a gurney but because he died before physically touching any hospital grounds or property we were forced to drive all the way back with his body in the car. We brought him to his parents' home, expressed our sorrow and went home.
For a while, life went on as usual but unfortunately that didn't last long. My mother noticed, while passing the truck that my father had never cleaned the blood from the back of the cab. She took out her cleaning supplies and began to scrub, as she was scrubbing a chill ran over her shoulders and what felt like a hand settled on her neck, a soft raspy hiss built itself into a groan that rang out from behind her so loud that I heard it in the house. She ran back inside and we watched from the window of the house as sounds came from the truck. It sounded as though the breaks were being slammed, sounds of crushing metal and crunching glass but the truck didn't move it was not at all phased.
When my older brother returned from work and my Dad came home from tending his fields, we always had dinner set and ready for them. We told them what happened and got a bunch of laughs in return, from my brother at least. My father, on the other hand, is a sternly religious man who taught kids to be sternly religious as well, he likes his house hold sane and he certainly was not the type to believe in ghosts or spirits. He scolded me and my mother for "making up" the ridiculous tale. But the fallowing Sunday was one morning that would change my straight laced father forever...
While we were getting ready for church Dad started the old truck up, he heard nothing but knocking under the hood and a light gurgle rumbled from the engine and the area of the cab where Carlos had died. He looked around the car thinking my brother and I we're playing a trick on him but we were nowhere to be found. The gurgle morphed into crying and then a viscous howl as he searched the back of the cab and he felt icy fingers trying to push him from the vehicle. He went in the house to find my mother, my brother and I, he was white as a sheet and goose bumped from head to toe. Mom and I, having heard the noise, asked him and my brother if they believed us now. Though my brother was still sceptical, Dad finally believed us.
The knocking wails and crying continued for so long, Carlos called for his beloved Bonita or cursed her almost nightly, that we considered buying a new car. Dad called in the best mechanic in town, if you asked anyone but my brother and his boss, to come look at the vehicle. The man came out and spent hours on the car, which stayed completely silent, but nothing seemed to be wrong with it. Mom decided to take a different route and begged until the priest came and blessed it but it seemed as though nothing could make the spirit take its leave.
Change finally came after a late August night when Mom and Dad decided to go out to dinner, they had left my brother in charge. If you haven't already gathered my brother, a mechanic's apprentice, didn't trust the mechanic our father had come to look at the truck. My brother decided to take it upon himself to see if there was something wrong with the truck. He opened the hood and looked around; tinkering with various parts but there was nothing wrong with the engine. He started the car and the entire truck shivered and a sob rose from the back of the cab and crying rang through the house, I ran as fast as I could to see what was going on. When I approached the car I could see my brother, paralyzed with fear, in the front seat and a wispy image of Carlos, exactly as I'd seen him the night he died, behind him. As I pulled my older brother from the car the knocking grew louder and louder until it sounded like a man was trapped under the hood, banging and scratching as though trying to escape. Carlos' voice could be heard begging for help, for Bonita and for peace. We ran into the house and as soon as I slammed the door behind us my brother said, "I saw him in the rear view mirror he looked like he did the night he died..."
We told our parents who sold the car to a junk yard the following day.
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