The Girl in the Green Hoodie

M Mehran

The storm hit Silverbridge just after midnight—sheets of rain hammering pavement, lightning flashing over the empty streets like camera shutters capturing crimes no one had yet committed. Detective Jalen Cross preferred nights like this. Bad weather made criminals sloppy.

Tonight, however, he wasn’t hunting criminals. He was hunting ghosts.

His radio crackled as he stepped out of his car.
“Cross, you’re sure this is the location?” Captain Hale asked.

“Positive,” Jalen replied. “Third anonymous tip in two weeks. Same description. Same time of night.”

The description was always the same, too:

A girl in a green hoodie. Barefoot. Wandering the abandoned rail yard. Crying.

The first time dispatch received the call, units arrived in under five minutes. Nobody was there. Dogs picked up no scent. Security cameras caught nothing but fog and static. The second time was the same.

Tonight, Jalen wanted answers.

He pushed through the broken gate and stepped onto the gravel. The rain softened into a cold drizzle. The air felt wrong—too quiet, too heavy. The rail yard had been shut down for eight years, after a burning tanker ruptured and killed three workers, including sixteen-year-old Valerie Durnham, a runaway hiding in one of the boxcars.

Some locals claimed the place stayed haunted.

Jalen didn’t believe in ghosts.

But he did believe in patterns.

And this pattern terrified him more than he cared to admit.

As he approached the old station house, thunder cracked overhead. A small figure darted from behind a rusted container.

There.
A flash of green.

Jalen froze. “Hey! Stop!”

The figure didn’t run. Instead, she turned slowly toward him.

It was a girl—maybe fifteen, maybe younger—barefoot, soaked, wearing a green hoodie two sizes too big. Her hair plastered to her cheeks. Eyes wide. Trembling.

Just like the callers had described.

Jalen raised his hands in a gesture of calm. “You’re not in trouble. I just want to talk.”

The girl shook her head violently. “You can’t be here. He’s coming.”

“Who?”

“Please,” she whispered, stepping backward. “He’ll kill us both.”

Jalen took out his phone. “You need help. I can call—”

“No!” she cried. “He listens. He always listens.”

Lightning flashed again—and her shadow disappeared.

Literally vanished.

Jalen blinked hard. The girl still stood there, but the ground beneath her feet cast no silhouette. His breath caught.

“What… are you?” he whispered.

A tear slid down her cheek. “I’m just trying to go home.”

Before he could respond, another voice echoed across the yard.

“Detective Cross!”

Jalen spun. Captain Hale and two officers jogged toward him.

“There’s no one here,” Hale said without looking around. “We scanned the area. False alarm again. Let’s wrap it up.”

Jalen gestured frantically. “What? She’s right—”

He turned.

The girl was gone.

Not running. Not hiding.

Gone.

The ground where she stood was undisturbed. Even the gravel looked untouched.

Jalen’s pulse thundered. “Captain, I swear she was right here.”

Hale placed a hand on his shoulder. “You need sleep. You’ve worked fourteen days straight.”

“I saw her.”

“You saw what you expected to see.”

Jalen wanted to argue, but a cold dread crawled up his spine. Something about Hale’s voice was wrong—too gentle, too final.

“Let’s go,” Hale said. “We’re clearing the yard.”

But Jalen didn’t move.

Because something else caught his eye.

A small footprint. Bare. Fresh. Pressed into the wet gravel behind a train car.

Jalen walked toward it, ignoring Hale’s commands. More footprints appeared, leading toward Warehouse 7—the only building still boarded shut after the explosion.

“Cross!” Hale barked. “Stand down!”

But Jalen had already yanked the side door open.

And discovered hell inside.

The warehouse was massive, dark except for a series of lanterns arranged in a circle on the floor. In the center sat a workbench covered in files—photos of missing teenagers dating back ten years. Notes. Maps. Schedules. All marked in Captain Hale’s handwriting.

Jalen felt the blood drain from his face.

Hale had been running a trafficking network.

And he was using the abandoned rail yard to store kids before shipping them out of state.

A faint sob echoed from behind a crate.

Jalen moved quietly around the corner.

There she was.

The girl in the green hoodie—knees pulled to her chest, shivering. Tangible. Solid. Real.

“You came back,” she whispered.

He knelt beside her. “I’m getting you out of here.”

“No,” she said. “I came to warn you.”

Jalen frowned. “Warn me about what?”

“About him.”

Jalen turned just as Captain Hale slammed the warehouse door shut.

Holding a gun.

“Detective Cross,” Hale said softly. “You never knew when to stop digging.”

Jalen positioned himself between Hale and the girl. “You hurt her.”

Hale smirked. “I didn’t hurt that one.”

Jalen blinked. “That one?”

He turned.

The girl was gone again.

Only her footprints remained.

And then he understood.

She wasn’t from tonight.
She wasn’t even alive.

She was Valerie Durnham—the runaway who died in the explosion eight years ago.

Trying, even now, to save the next victim.

Hale raised the gun.
Jalen lunged.
A shot cracked through the warehouse.

When the officers finally broke in, Hale was handcuffed, bleeding from the shoulder, screaming that Jalen had ruined everything.

Jalen didn’t hear him.

He was staring at a wet footprint near the exit.

Small.

Barefoot.

Pointing home.

And for the first time, he believed in ghosts.