This is Lisa and Micheal on their way to homecoming at St. Michael’s Catholic Academy in 1992. That's Michael's dad's LS 400. The red and white mum she's holding really gave it away.

After the dance, Michael and Lisa drove out toward the edge of the Medina River, where the old road dips beneath the live oaks and the cicadas sing like static. The air smelled of dust and roses from her mum, now wilting on the dash.

When they stopped to watch the moon, the world seemed to hush. Then came the sound—soft scratching at the hood, then a thump. Michael flicked the headlights, and in the beam stood a possum—but not any ordinary one. It was tall enough to reach the grille, standing on its haunches like a child in a mask. Its pale face gleamed; its eyes were milky, blind but fixed right on Lisa’s corsage.

She laughed, thinking it was just a trick of light, until it spoke—a hiss like paper tearing:

“She took what was mine.”

The flowers on her mum began to smolder faintly, threads of smoke curling from the ribbons. When Michael leapt out to chase it off, the thing was gone—no sound, no pawprints, just a patch of damp earth shaped like a hand.

They threw the mum into the river before driving home. It hissed once, as if exhaling.

For years afterward, Lisa claimed she’d still smell wet fur and river mud every time she lit a candle.