Story 68
Car Sensors
You know how modern cars have sensors that beep “beep beep beep” when they detect an obstacle?
This happened last summer when four friends and I went to a shrine rumored to be haunted to test our courage.
Well, the “test of courage” wasn’t anything serious—we just screamed and made a lot of noise among ourselves.
After staying there for about an hour, we got into the car we had parked. The car was in a parking lot inside the shrine grounds. I was driving, but parking was a hassle, and since there was no one else around, I just parked facing forward somewhere within the lines of the parking space.
So, when I shifted into reverse to leave the parking lot and stepped on the gas…
The moment I did, the sensors went off loudly with “beep beep beep beep!”
I hit the brakes instinctively.
But there shouldn’t have been anything behind the car.
I tried to shift into reverse again and move, but the sensors started beeping again.
It was dark, and I couldn’t see well in the mirrors, so I got out of the car to check.
Then, I saw something wriggling right behind the car.
I jumped in surprise.
It was a baby crawling.
There’s no way a baby would be crawling alone at a shrine in the middle of the night.
The baby was crawling in a small circle behind the car. Despite the gravel beneath, there wasn’t a single sound. It moved so smoothly it seemed almost like it was floating slightly above the ground. In an instant, I knew this was something not of this world.
Terrified, I quickly got back in the car and put it in reverse.
The sensors beeped “beep beep beep beep!” again, but I ignored them and drove away.
When I told my friends, one of them murmured,
“That shrine… it’s for memorial services for miscarried or stillborn children…”
I checked the car afterward just in case, but there was no sign that I had hit a baby, and it never made the news.
I think that was the spirit of an unmemorialized miscarried child.
