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I spent last summer backpacking and hitgehiking
from Knoxville to New York. Having just

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finished my sociology degree, I figured
i'd do something bucket listie before starting my

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new job in early September. I've
always loved spontaneous travel, to just go

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where the wind takes me, and
that summer was the first time I had

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the money to do so. With
some comfort, I could stay at the

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occasional motel, hop on a train. I'll just take a cab every now

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and then. I had options,
and I wanted this to be my final

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youthful adventure before I got stuck in
the rat race. I made my way

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up through Kingston, Princeton, and
Beckley, heading northeast. I hedgehiked most

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of the way, but I sometimes
had to walk for hours before someone pulled

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over to give me a ride.
I even had a cardboard sign saying New

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York, New York. But man, it gets rough out. There nothing

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to protect you from sudden rain,
and there's no guarantee you'll find a place

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to stay before it gets dark,
and you don't want to fall asleep when

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you're getting a ride from someone.
Safety first. By the time I got

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to the small town of Juniper.
I was exhausted. I stopped at a

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cafe to get some directions and a
bite to eat, got myself a smiling

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little blue sunflower pin some kind of
local charity thing. I can I say.

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The thing was next to a wanted
post of two kids. I felt

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bad, as I didn't know a
lot of the people in the area and

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I've been walking for the better part
of the past two days. I decided

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to catch a greyhound going north,
not too far, just enough to get

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me to Morgantown. I knew some
people there and figured a shower and a

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warm, home cooked meal would turn
my frown upside down. I asked the

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cheer for directions past this don't stop
in Juniper. She said, we don't

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get those strange. I stuck around
for a couple of hours before I got

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back on the road. No one
was looking twice at my cardboard plea,

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so I just had to keep going
on my own. By that time,

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I learned exactly one thing about Juniper, that buses don't stop there, and

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I was about to learn a second
thing that the roads are concrete garbage.

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I'd been walking for about two hours. It was getting dark I was following

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the main road out of town when
a piece of concrete got loose, causing

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me to slip and twist my uncle. I fell over by the roadside,

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clutching my foot and already seeing some
bruising. Now there was really no other

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option but to get a bus.
I backtracked to a covert down the road

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and found myself a piece of rebar
that I could use as a walking stick.

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As the street lights turned on,
I was annoyed. I thought about

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calling for a cab, but I
was in the middle of nowhere and didn't

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know how to describe it. I
get anxious on the phone. Finally,

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just around the bend, I could
see a bus stop, just this little

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sign by the side of the road, not even a bench or anything.

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But there was already a guy standing
there, so I figured I was on

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the right track. I hobbled up
there and plopped down at the side of

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the road. I tried to bandage
my ankle and give it some support,

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but I'd have a hard time walking
for the next few days either way.

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There was no getting away from that. All the while the other guy kept

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staring at me. I had no
idea what kind of bus went through there,

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but I figured if someone else has
waiting for one, it couldn't be

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too far out of line. But
judging from the way the other guy looked

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at me, something was off.
At first look, there wasn't anything inherently

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strange about him, just some guy
in his early forties, dirty jeans,

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rolled up flannel shirt, and a
gray baseball cap. The only thing that

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kind of stood out was this scarf. It was this yellow, pastel fleece

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type scarf which covered most of his
neck. He looked a bit out of

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place, but not so much that
I initially even thought about it. But

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the guy kept staring at me.
There was something off about the way he

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looked at me, but I couldn't
put my finger on it. Excuse me,

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I said, do you know when
the next bus gets here? No

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response, no acknowledgement of any kind, no nods or headshakes. Excuse me,

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sir, I repeated, is there
a bus coming? Still nothing,

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I shrugged it off. Maybe he
didn't speak English, but even then he

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ought to have said something. I
waited for the better part of an hour,

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the sky grew dark, and always
slowly coming to terms with having to

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sleep outside for the night. If
need be I had a tent, I'd

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be fine. Still, the creepy
guy was still standing there, staring at

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me. He wasn't even checking his
phone or anything. He just kept looking

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my way, pacing back and forth. I tried to put into words exactly

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what bothered me about him. The
first thing I noticed or his eyes.

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They didn't seem to blink in unison. He would close one, open it,

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and then close the next one,
and it wouldn't be a pattern.

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It was seemingly random but quick.
You wouldn't catch it at first glance.

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Secondly, there was his chest.
When he stood still, I could see

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him take very shallow breaths. There
was this faint noise coming from his nose,

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like micro whistles. At one point, there hadn't been a single car

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passing by for fifteen minutes. Suddenly
the strange man walked up to me.

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He looked at me with those wild, random eyes. Can I help you?

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I asked, Do you? Before
I could finish my sentence, he

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grasped the bust up sign and tipped
it over. He barely made an effort.

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An uncomfortable thought washed over me.
Maybe he put that sign up in

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the first place. I took out
my phone, as if to show him

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that I was ready to call for
help if need be. I got up

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on my feet, leaning against my
rebarked crutch. There's no bust coming,

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is there, I asked. There
was no response. Instead, he stopped

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pacing. Not just stopped, as
in stopped moving, but it's in stopping

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so completely that it looked like he
wasn't even breathing. The only thing moving

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was the size of his pupils,
slowly growing wider like a cat ready to

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pounce. Something in the back of
my mind screamed at me to run,

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but my ankle didn't let me.
I got about three steps down the road

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before he tackled me, sending us
both reeling down a fifteen feet slope.

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All the while he kept taking these
shallow breaths like an excited dog. I

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found myself face first in the dirt
with the strangest body next to me,

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a dense pine forest stretching out for
miles ahead. Head was spinning trying to

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figure out what was even happening.
As I scrambled to get back on my

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feet, I couldn't stop focusing on
this one stupid detail that his body was

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incredibly light. It was like getting
tackled by a water balloon. By the

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time I got up, my attacker
was ready to pounce again somewhere down the

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slope, and must the drop to
my phone. I swung my piece of

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rebar in a wide arc, smacking
him on the side of the head.

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It was like hitting a sandbag.
It didn't even slow him down. Before

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I could build up the momentum to
swing again, he grabbed me. It

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surprised me, making me trip over
my own feet as he pulled me into

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the woods. He had this grip
like a goddamn vice that just dug into

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my clothes, and he was much
stronger than I anticipated. I was dragged

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along by my backpack. I managed
to get it off and escape his grip

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for a moment, but before I
could get away, those hands got me

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by the neck of my jacket.
No matter how much I kicked and screamed,

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I could see the lights by the
road disappearing further and further away.

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I got dragged through bushes, saplings, and branches. Things were poking into

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my skin, tearing at my clothes. I could barely breathe, but I

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kept struggling. The man in the
yellow scarf just kept pulling me further away

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from the light, all the while
panting with rapid breaths. It didn't matter

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how much I screamed, squirmed,
or twisted. Those hands weren't letting up.

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We battled for what it felt like
ours. I got out of my

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jacket and he grabbed me by the
foot. I got my shoes off,

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but he just grabbed my belt.
After a while, I was just too

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tired to fight. I resigned to
just holding onto whatever I could reach To

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try. I slowed down, but
all it did was bruise my hands.

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At some point, I just laid
there, exhausted, as he dragged me

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further into the woods. The rough
forest floor turned to soft grass. As

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I was pulled into a field.
The full moon was out and I could

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see all the way through the clearing. The man in the yellow scarf suddenly

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stopped and inhaled a deep breath,
his torso swelling up like a balloon.

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It was a faint crackle as his
ribs readjusted. He was smelling something.

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I made an attempt to get up, but he just kicked me back down

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and put a foot on my torso. At the slightest movement, he would

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press down to keep me in check. There were others there. I could

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hear them shuffle through the tall grass
from where I lay, I could only

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see the top half of them.
There were three of them, into two

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men and a woman. Two of
them were carrying their own bus signs.

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All three of them were wearing scarves
similar to that of my assailant. One

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of the men hissed, actually hissed
with his mouth wide open. He made

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this threatening stance and stepped forward,
but my attacker didn't flinch. Instead,

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he hissed back. It was an
a normal sound. It was like someone

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desperately trying to cough, but never
quite getting the flam out. I felt

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like prey. As they non verbally
argued about who gets the two, something

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grabbed to me by the neck,
a fourth one still wielding a bus stop

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sign. I was pulled away,
and as my attacker flinched, they pounced

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on him. It escalated into a
full on brawl, but not like any

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fight I'd ever seen. They were
contorting their bodies at impossible angle. They're

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torso swelling and shrinking like blowfish.
They kept thrusting their necks forward while their

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heads just bobbled back and forth in
the confusion. I started crawling. No

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one was looking at me. I
crawled at my belly, trying to get

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away. My ancle was killing me. Every little bump sent a joulder pain

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up my leg all the way through
my spine. Suddenly they all stopped at

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the edge of the forest clearing.
I could see yet another one. This

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one was much larger, a woman
easily six eight. She was carrying a

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bust up sign, this one of
a slightly different model, and she had

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someone thrown over a shoulder, another
victim. Before I could react, hands

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grabbed me my arms, my legs, my clothes, and they had to

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drag me through the clearing. Whatever
disagreements they'd had must have been cleared up

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by the presence of this leader character. Out of reflex, I tried to

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talk. I demanded that they listened
to me, that they explain themselves anything

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I could hear, my voice breaking
as I got nothing but vacant expressions in

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return, these dumb rolling eyes,
all of them blinking at random, all

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of them taking shallow breaths. But
this last one, the large one,

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she was something different entirely. She
moved like a joint, didn't matter.

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She bent her arms back and forth, and she kept swiveling ahead like an

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owl. Her mouth was wide open, like she was constantly screaming, but

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she didn't make a sound, just
a completely vacant expression. We got to

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a mound at the edge of the
clearing where they'd made a makeshift shelter.

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They dug into the dirt and covered
it in branches and moss. It was

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also a sort of storage, with
at least a dozen different signs, stop

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signs, bus stop signs, and
even a couple of simple benches. This

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was some sort of tactic to catch
people who were either on their own,

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lost or desperate. They utilized anything
that could make a victim change their behavior

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to stop for a moment or wait. A large one dropped a person next

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to me, an overweight, balding
man in his late twenties with some of

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the bluish eyes had ever seen.
He was nodding in and out of consciousness,

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and I could see deep bruises on
his neck. He must have been

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choked out. As our five attackers
started going through the collection of signs and

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symbols. I try to wake the
other victim. He was completely out of

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it, muttering something about white doors
and gardens. I couldn't make sense of

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it. When he finally came to, he could barely form a coherent sentence.

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My first thought was that he needed
medical attention. He was clearly unwell.

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Still he was coming to they.
They got me at a red light.

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He wheezed, pulled me out of
the car. They got me at

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a bus stop, had a fake
sign. Do they want money? I

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got money? I don't think so. There was something deeply inhuman about these

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people. If they wanted money,
they would have just killed me. No,

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they wanted something else, and that
worried me. Before we got a

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chance to talk, they grabbed him
by the foot and dragged him along the

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ground. The large woman didn't even
flinch. This guy was easily three hundred

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pounds, but she pulled him along
like he was a bagg of chips.

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He flailed and protested, the sleeve
of his shirt getting stuck and pulled off

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on a sharp root. They all
helped each other, holding him down as

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he looked at me, calling for
help. Those desperate, pale blue eyes

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never seen anything like them before.
The large one took off a scarf,

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revealing a massive wound in the middle
of her throat. It still looked red

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and fresh, a throat wound leading
all the way into esophagus, showing the

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contracting grown musculature. That's where the
whistling sound had come from. I could

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see it now. They weren't just
taking shallow breaths. It was hycling their

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lungs well. One lung breathed in
and out, the other did so at

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a different interval, like when you
peddle a bike. One foot goes up,

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one goes down. That's why the
chest moved so much. They were

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constantly taking breath. The whistling came
from them inhaling and exhaling, seemingly simultaneously

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and continuously. These was something different
entirely. The large woman leaned in close,

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hugging her victim, putting their neck
against one another. Crunch, crunch,

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crunch. I had to do something, anything. I grabbed the sharp

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roots with a ripped off shirt sleeve. I intended to use it as a

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weapon, swinging it wildly, but
I couldn't get over the pain in my

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leg. There was no way I'd
get away from them. They were fast

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and unharmed. I could do things
that I just couldn't, So I just

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sat there with my roote, watching
the large woman undulate, with something large

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moving in and out of the wound
in a throat, still with that expressionless

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face. I put all the things
I knew together. They displayed a kind

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of social structure. They had an
alpha, they had tactics, they needed

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victims alive for something, and all
other people I was looking at were just

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people. There was no pattern,
just broken, twisted people. So I

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had to try something anything. Using
the torn off sleeve, I tied it

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around my neck, using the blue
sunflower pin to hold it together. This

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was a rudimentary scarf in a way. Then I got up, and before

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the rest of them caught on,
I walked up and stood next my attacker,

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the man with a flannel shirt and
yellow scarf. I tried to mimic

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their expressions. There was an immediate
reaction. The man with the yellow scarf

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looked at me, then back at
the others. They in turn, just

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looked at the alpha. She leaned
her head back, leaving the exposed wound

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in a victim open to the air. I could see something white moving in

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her throat, like a long white
tongue retracting into her chest. There was

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a moment of silence as she observed
us she seemed confused. I tried to

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blink seemingly at random and take shallow
breaths. I could feel something wet on

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my throat. Apparently there was a
little blood, probably from my hands.

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The Alpha got up, her head
bobbing back and forth. She hissed.

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There a vibration of something rattled in
a chest. My attacker seemed agitated,

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and he pushed me away. I
fell over next to the signs as the

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Alpha stormed forward, first the discipline
my attacker with a show of force,

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and then to inspect me. I
grabbed to stop sign and got up,

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letting the adrenaline flow through me.
I couldn't show pain. I just couldn't

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rapid breaths, blink at random,
head on a swivel. I had to

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look like them or this was doomed
to fail. The Alpha looked me over,

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making her rattling noise. She smelled
the blood, poked at me,

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and presented her neck. I could
see the wound just inches from my face

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and all the way down a throat. I saw something bone white, rattling

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back and forth like a stick in
a barrel. She reached from my sleeve,

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scarf held together by that pin as
her cold hands touched my neck and

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her fingers started to bend into a
grip. She suddenly stopped. The other

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victim was moving. I could have
sworn he was dead, but now he

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was moving. A long white branch
like appendage was moving out of his open

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neck, reaching for open air,
and for a moment, the group just

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looked at him. His body screamed, not him as a person, but

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his body, a long, drawn
out shriek, a growing body crying like

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a newborn blood still spurting from his
open wound. They all gathered around him,

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but as my sailant stepped forward,
the alpha hissed, causing him to

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retreat. Then looking at me,
it hissed again. It didn't like me,

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and it wanted me to leave.
Both me and my sailant still holding

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the bust up sign, I try
my best to confidently walk out of there.

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The sign had this heavy lead pipe
that I could use to defend myself

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if need be. I got about
forty feet before I realized I was being

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followed. The man in the yellow
scarf was still coming for me, and

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he seemed angry, but this time
I had a sturdier weapon. I tried

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to gain some ground to get away
from the others. Whether they had been

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tricked by my antics or just didn't
like me, didn't matter. It was

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just me and this outcast. And
as he charged me to wrestle me down

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again, I was ready. This
time. I swung the bust up sign

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in an overhead arc like I was
chopping firewood. I closed my eyes,

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held my breath, and hit him
square in the chest. This was much

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more effective, and he doubled over. I just started beating him over and

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over and over. As his chest
expanded and shrunk, As his scarf fell

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off, I could see something poking
in and out of his neck wound,

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something white, looking for an opportunity
to escape. It pressed against his throat,

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making it bulge like a snake thrown
up an egg. I just kept

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beating him. I beat him until
the white thing stopped moving, until I

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was covered in blood, until the
shrieking died down, until the fingers stopped

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twitching in different directions, and until
the head stopped swiveling back and forth.

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I beat him until my muscles burned
and my breathing turned rapid from exhaustion.

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When I finally wiped the salt from
my eyes, I was looking at nothing

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but broken bone and a yellow scarf. I barely remember making my way back

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to the main road. I remember
collapsing as the sun rose, and a

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man in a pickup truck calling for
help. I remember her familiar face,

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a white door, something blue.
Later on, my friend drove down from

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Morgantown to see me, and I
got a dozen calls from my friends and

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family asking if I was okay.
They also had me take a drug test.

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Apparently I acted irrationally, so just
be careful. They can easily be

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identified. They wear something to cover
their necks, and they travel one by

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one. They use something to get
our attention or to separate us from others,

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stop signs to catch lonely drivers,
bust up signs to get drifters.

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They probably have a dozen other similar
tactics. I think they're learning about us

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with secondhand information, testing and adding
to see what works. They don't talk,

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and they can be very patient.
That first one stayed with me for

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a long time before he attacked.
Maybe he was just making sure I was

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alone. Looking back at it,
I can barely even believe it happened.

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Have you ever had that one day
that is just so different from anything else?

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You've ever done that. One day
that just feels like another life.

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Another time, that was one of
those days. Sometimes I even managed to

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convince myself that it was all a
lie, a nightmare, something I cooked

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up in my sleep deprived brain.
But then I look at that blue sunflower

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pin, the one that held the
sleeve together, and I know they're still

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owed. Theres