Spooky Writing Contest 2nd Place: “Handprints in the Rain” by Yuhong Fu.

Chapter One – The Car

I was twenty when I bought the car. A pale blue sedan, scratched along the doors, but the price was right. The salesman at the used lot called it “a starter car, nothing fancy, but reliable.” And he was right—it ran smoothly, better than I expected for something that had seen its share of miles.

It became my freedom—drives to class, late-night grocery runs, weekend trips out of town. I didn’t think of it as anything more than metal and wheels, until the night the rain came.

Chapter Two – The First Prints

It was a November evening, the sky thick with storm clouds. I left the library late, my bag heavy with textbooks. When I reached the car, I noticed them: two faint handprints pressed against the outside of the windshield. Palms down, fingers splayed, as though someone had leaned hard against the glass.

I frowned. Maybe some kids messing around in the lot? I wiped them away with my sleeve, the rain already streaking the windshield.

Hours later, as I drove home through the downpour, the handprints reappeared. Faint. Barely visible. Only when the streetlights flashed across the wet glass could I see them.

I told myself it was nothing. Residue, maybe. Trick of the light. I didn’t stop the car. I didn’t want to.

Chapter Three – The Pattern

The next morning, the sun was out. The glass was clear, sparkling. No prints. I used disinfectant wipes anyway. By noon, the car looked spotless.

But the next time it rained, they were back. Always faint, always just enough to unsettle me. Palms. Fingers. Human.

At first, I tried to ignore it. But every storm reminded me: whoever had pressed their hands against the windshield had done so desperately. Not casually, not playfully. The

angle was wrong—it wasn’t someone leaning over to clean or fix something. These hands had been flat against the glass, bracing against something.

Pushing.

Begging.

Chapter Four – Unease

Over time, I stopped noticing the prints. They became part of the car, like the faint hum of the engine or the worn leather of the seats. My friends never mentioned them; maybe they never noticed. But I did.

And sometimes, when the rain was heavy and the air cold, I swore the handprints were warmer than the rest of the glass, a fog blooming faintly around them as though heat still lingered there.

I told myself not to think about it. The car was old. Glass holds memory. Strange things happen.

But deep down, I knew better.

Chapter Five – The Discovery

It wasn’t until years later, after graduation, after new jobs and apartments, that I thought to look up the car’s history. It was a random evening—I had been scrolling aimlessly online, wondering whether it was time to finally sell it. Out of curiosity, I typed in the VIN number.

Accident report. One year before the car came into my possession. Rainy night. A pedestrian struck crossing an intersection. Driver claimed the victim “came out of nowhere.” Victim died at the scene.

The report ended clinically, but one detail stuck with me.

The pedestrian had been thrown forward, sliding across the hood before slamming against the windshield. The hands—bloodied, desperate—had left prints on the glass.

Those prints.

The ones I kept seeing.

Chapter Six – The Return

After reading that report, I couldn’t un-know it. Every storm became heavier, every reappearance of the prints sharper, more defined. They weren’t just there anymore. Sometimes I swore they shifted. Sometimes I thought I saw the streak of fingers dragging downward, as though someone were still sliding.

I stopped driving in the rain.

Stopped telling myself it was nothing.

Because deep down, I knew the truth: those handprints didn’t belong to me. They didn’t belong to any living soul. They belonged to the dead.

And as long as I kept the car, as long as the storms came, they would keep coming back.

Epilogue – The Storm

The night I finally sold the car, it rained. Hard.

I watched the buyer drive off, taillights glowing red in the downpour. For a moment, I thought I saw the handprints again, glowing faintly against the glass as the car turned a corner and vanished into the storm.

And I wondered if they would ever leave.

Or if, wherever the car went, the dead would follow.