Speaker 1: The lane was merging into Highway one fifty two up ahead,
Speaker 1: and I could see the signs like I had a
Speaker 1: thousand times before, but this time there were glowing. I
Speaker 1: had never been around there at that time of night.
Speaker 1: My dad useduld tell me stories of that road, and
Speaker 1: no matter what, he would always suggest a detour. But
Speaker 1: way are round that highway. Take the Coastline road, he
Speaker 1: would say. Or keep going towards Lyon in County, and
Speaker 1: then drive the ten minutes back. He understood wrote he
Speaker 1: had those old maps, the books you would buy at
Speaker 1: the gas stations or car repair shops. He would be
Speaker 1: out in the car by himself with a pencil on
Speaker 1: his ear, flipping through the index and then back to
Speaker 1: the mac. He was drawing out the route and signs
Speaker 1: to watch out for. But not me. I relied on
Speaker 1: the voice that would tell me where to go, and
Speaker 1: I would turn it on, even to go to places
Speaker 1: I knew and had been to many times before, like
Speaker 1: this way back to my college apartment in the six
Speaker 1: hour drive. Had I left the phone off, things would
Speaker 1: have turned out completely different. My name is Edwin and
Speaker 1: here's a scary story. It was late December when I
Speaker 1: was taking that drive. I figured nobody would be out
Speaker 1: on the road so close to Christmas, but I was wrong,
Speaker 1: at least for the parts near the city before the
Speaker 1: first mountain Ridge had stayed on my hometown a little
Speaker 1: bit longer than expected because some old friends came home
Speaker 1: for the holidays. We spent some time hanging out with
Speaker 1: each other, but even on that day, I left much later,
Speaker 1: around eight in the evening, against my dad's advice. That
Speaker 1: road's crazy, we go around to Lyon in County. Listen
Speaker 1: to me, I nodded, grab the car keys. I knew
Speaker 1: Dad's story. Well, actually the whole family knew it. And
Speaker 1: it's not like we don't trust Dad or anything. He's
Speaker 1: always pulled through for us. But it was his story,
Speaker 1: this insignificant part of the trip he did out there
Speaker 1: when he was younger, that really left him shaken up.
Speaker 1: Mom said that he even stopped driving for a bit,
Speaker 1: a thing that he normally loved to do. I thought
Speaker 1: of this as I started on that long path up
Speaker 1: north and the car started spreading out way out in
Speaker 1: the distance. I could see maybe two or three pairs
Speaker 1: of tail lights, no white lights coming back on the
Speaker 1: other side of the divider. I often wondered where all
Speaker 1: those cars went after that hill. The car was dark,
Speaker 1: and the only sound I heard was the humming of
Speaker 1: that engine of that old Chevy suburban making its way
Speaker 1: across the state. Again, I could almost hear Dad's voice here.
Speaker 1: His story turns out that when he was nineteen, he
Speaker 1: had gotten a job for a car salesman. Whenever there
Speaker 1: was a buyer out of state, Dad would be called
Speaker 1: up to drive it to them, and then he would
Speaker 1: get a bus to get back. Three hundred bucks for that,
Speaker 1: he would brag. He started saving for his first car.
Speaker 1: But there was one time when he had gotten a
Speaker 1: gig to take a truck up north. He was to
Speaker 1: be delivered to a ranch. The key used to be
Speaker 1: left on the dashboard. He was supposed to take out
Speaker 1: his camera, one of those disposable ones, take a picture
Speaker 1: of everything before leaving, and on his way back, no
Speaker 1: one would be signing for the car on arrival like
Speaker 1: they usually did. He didn't find it strange. I wasn't
Speaker 1: sure what the name of the town was, but he
Speaker 1: had to take Highway one fifty two to get to it,
Speaker 1: branch off into one of the side roads, and then
Speaker 1: hitch a ride to town in order to get to
Speaker 1: the closest bus station on his way back. He was
Speaker 1: supposed to take another photo there and along the way
Speaker 1: that had his maps with him. Bus schedules he would
Speaker 1: jot down after calling the stations in different cities, So
Speaker 1: he wasn't nervous about that. And you would think hitchhiking
Speaker 1: would scare him, but it didn't. I guess it was
Speaker 1: much more common back then. So he goes out there,
Speaker 1: delivers a truck at the entrance of a ranch. Not
Speaker 1: the typical ranch you were imagining, though, but a large
Speaker 1: place with its own roads and what appear to be shops.
Speaker 1: He pulls over, leaves the keys on the dashboard, grabs
Speaker 1: his maps in a duffel bag he had brought with him,
Speaker 1: takes the pictures. Mind you, this was in the afternoon,
Speaker 1: so he had time to get back in everything, but
Speaker 1: he still said that there was something in the air
Speaker 1: that made him feel uncomfortable. He snapped another photo of it,
Speaker 1: started walking back to the town. It would be around
Speaker 1: an hour back to the main road where he would
Speaker 1: hitch a ride for about half an hour to his
Speaker 1: next stop. So he's walking back along this lonely road
Speaker 1: a few hills and rock formations along the way, but
Speaker 1: he was guiding himself on the fence of the property
Speaker 1: what he believed was still a part of the ranch.
Speaker 1: At a certain section, he noticed that there is this
Speaker 1: huge stitch on the road, a thing that he must
Speaker 1: have driven past without noticing, but it made him double
Speaker 1: check his round so right there, takes out his map,
Speaker 1: begins referencing different places around him, and that's when he
Speaker 1: notices a man, or what he thinks is a man,
Speaker 1: lurking on the other side of the trees that divide
Speaker 1: the road from the property line and the fence. He
Speaker 1: moves slowly, acting as if my dad couldn't see him. Now,
Speaker 1: that always makes it a point to emphasize how away
Speaker 1: he was from everything. At that point, in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere, the sun was still loud, but because of
Speaker 1: the time of the year, winter or spring, I can't
Speaker 1: remember that part. He found it strange to see someone
Speaker 1: standing out there. Hey, how you doing? Spoted this ditch?
Speaker 1: They didn't see it on my way here, Dad yelled
Speaker 1: through the trees, trying to make small talk. The man
Speaker 1: stopped completely and stared in his direction, and Dad, sensing
Speaker 1: the unease of the whole situation continues. I came to
Speaker 1: deliver a car, just making my way back just and
Speaker 1: my dad doesn't get to end his sentence. Upon seeing
Speaker 1: the man begin to move toward the trees and the
Speaker 1: property line, the way he looked, skinny, tall, white eyed
Speaker 1: made him think that maybe this man didn't belong there,
Speaker 1: and that it was that man who was the intruder.
Speaker 1: He was crouching down between the trees and slowly making
Speaker 1: his way toward my dad, and that's when his survival
Speaker 1: instincts kicked in and he started running across a ditch
Speaker 1: and down along the road. There was something off about him,
Speaker 1: he says every time while telling the story, and it
Speaker 1: was only going to get worse. So he makes it
Speaker 1: to the main highway one fifty two, and the fourth
Speaker 1: or fifth car he sees picks him up. The kind
Speaker 1: couple in that car say that they're going back home
Speaker 1: from visiting some relatives to happen to live down at Grassborough,
Speaker 1: the place where my dad needed to get to, because
Speaker 1: that's where the bus station was. The point is, they
Speaker 1: agreed to take them all the way there, so they
Speaker 1: make small talk as strangers did back then, and Dad
Speaker 1: explains to them what he was doing out in that
Speaker 1: part of the highway. They both looked at each other.
Speaker 1: The reds Ranch. Is that where you were going, they
Speaker 1: asked him. My dad confirmed the name based on the
Speaker 1: signage she had seen along the way. Glad you made
Speaker 1: it out. That place has been out in the news lately, well,
Speaker 1: not the official news, but the town news, right word
Speaker 1: of mouth, if you will. It turned out to be
Speaker 1: the focus of an investigation in recent months talks of
Speaker 1: people disappearing in those areas. Some especially the ranchers from
Speaker 1: the other side of the highway, have said that they
Speaker 1: had seen strange lights in the sky. Oh there was
Speaker 1: another group of serious developers who had scouted the area,
Speaker 1: saying that they knew for a fact that had belonged
Speaker 1: to a well known cult. Dad has always been a
Speaker 1: skeptic ever since he was young, and this was no exception.
Speaker 1: But he's able to talk about anything with anyone. So
Speaker 1: he entertained the idea. You know there are ghosts out there,
Speaker 1: the woman said from the front passenger seat. He don't say,
Speaker 1: Dad replied, there's a man who disappeared out there not
Speaker 1: long ago. Turns out there it's likely they have some
Speaker 1: secret operation or something. It happened to the mail carrier.
Speaker 1: He lives right along the way. We can stop and
Speaker 1: ask him. Plus, this lady here has been begging for
Speaker 1: a toilet for two hours, she yelled, laughing. My dad
Speaker 1: checked the time. He was a couple of hours ahead
Speaker 1: of schedule. Plus he had no choice. And even though
Speaker 1: it feels like he's going to get to the good
Speaker 1: part of the story here, when they arrive at the
Speaker 1: mail carrier's house, it turned out to be quite literally
Speaker 1: a pit stop. The mail carrier didn't even want to
Speaker 1: talk too much about the situation, but he was relaxed
Speaker 1: and offered all three of them a cold bottle of coke.
Speaker 1: Dad says that maybe the guy thought that he was
Speaker 1: a because as soon as they arrived, he ushered them inside,
Speaker 1: looked around his property, and locked the door behind them.
Speaker 1: If it wasn't for the couple that was giving him
Speaker 1: the ride, Dad would have tried to get out of
Speaker 1: there by any means necessary, he says, And I believe him.
Speaker 1: Dad doesn't joke around with stuff like that. Nobody has
Speaker 1: ever stolen anything from him, and he has a sixth
Speaker 1: sense that tells him when something's not right. I always
Speaker 1: tell him that he would have made a really good
Speaker 1: detective or a spy. He has that eye. But anyway,
Speaker 1: they asked him about that area around Red's Ranch, and
Speaker 1: Gary the mail carrier immediately stared that down. I don't
Speaker 1: go to that place. We leave their mail at a
Speaker 1: complimentary box at the post office. He said. They get
Speaker 1: envelopes and boxes from all over the world. He stared
Speaker 1: at Dad again and then changed his topic. It wasn't
Speaker 1: long before they were on their way again. For some reason,
Speaker 1: that story always include this part about the mail carrier,
Speaker 1: with details the dusty house, the man's miniature city that
Speaker 1: he was working on that was on the coffee table,
Speaker 1: yellow coffee stained teeth, and the strange sense that he
Speaker 1: was being followed. As soon as they left, he shut
Speaker 1: the door and heard the dead bolt snap loudly. Then
Speaker 1: the man rushed to the window to look, not to
Speaker 1: over them, but around the car and off toward the road.
Speaker 1: Him and Dad made eye contact for the last time
Speaker 1: just before he was getting into the back seat. People
Speaker 1: had a reason to not trust anyone out there, but
Speaker 1: Dad didn't find that out until later. In all the
Speaker 1: times he told the story, I've come to understand why
Speaker 1: such a skeptic. The typical logical man that my dad
Speaker 1: is would be terrified of that area where that highway was,
Speaker 1: and would refuse to cross it and discourage anyone else
Speaker 1: from doing so for the rest of his life. Detour ahead,
Speaker 1: I heard the app blasted on my truck speakers. I
Speaker 1: had configured a cassette tape box player and hadn't figured
Speaker 1: out the volume settings yet. Re routing, it said much
Speaker 1: lower this time. I looked at the map and then
Speaker 1: straight ahead that road, tail lights in the distance and
Speaker 1: what appeared to be a clear path up ahead in
Speaker 1: the straightest road you could imagine. I thought about ignoring
Speaker 1: the phone's instructions, but I don't know. I felt like
Speaker 1: it knew more than I did, and I would regret
Speaker 1: not listening to it. So I slowed down and watched
Speaker 1: for Exit forty eight in two and a half miles.
Speaker 1: The sign didn't glow like the others did, but my
Speaker 1: high beams caught it. Just as the off ramp became visible.
Speaker 1: I saw the stop sign and blew right past it.
Speaker 1: Make a U turn, the APP yelled. I stopped the
Speaker 1: truck put it in reverse, looking behind me. The only
Speaker 1: real risk there was that I would fall into the
Speaker 1: bushes just off the road. There were no other cars around,
Speaker 1: and through the dim white reverse lights, I saw the
Speaker 1: dried up bushes get closer and closer until the red
Speaker 1: brake light took over. I turned my head back to
Speaker 1: the front, and that's when I saw a figure dash
Speaker 1: across the road. Everything was dark around the car except
Speaker 1: for that area in front of me. I felt my
Speaker 1: hands broke cold as I shifted the car back into drive.
Speaker 1: I tried to turn the truck around, and it was
Speaker 1: then when I realized that my hands were shaking. This
Speaker 1: thing must have been an animal, I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: even though it moved nothing like one, it seemed to
Speaker 1: have flown or floated down the road before disappearing. I
Speaker 1: finally turned it around and was heading back to the
Speaker 1: Enwrap when make A left the app scared me. I
Speaker 1: looked at the ramp and then craned my neck to
Speaker 1: the road the map wanted to take me. It was
Speaker 1: leading up to the hills, in the opposite direction of
Speaker 1: the main highway. I grabbed my phone while keeping my
Speaker 1: eyes wide open in case something else showed up around me.
Speaker 1: I pressed a lock button twice to make sure that
Speaker 1: everything was closed in the car. The map seemed to
Speaker 1: want to take me down the road, loop around one
Speaker 1: of the hills, and then stop it. That changed my destination.
Speaker 1: I took it out of the phone holder and went
Speaker 1: to change it, but it was impossible. The map wouldn't load,
Speaker 1: the signal was weak. But I knew how to get home.
Speaker 1: I had taken that route many times before, so I
Speaker 1: took my foot off the brake and started going forward
Speaker 1: when the thing, the same figure from before, appeared right
Speaker 1: in front of my truck. It was a man who
Speaker 1: would appear to be a man, thin, pale, wide eye,
Speaker 1: staring right at me and bothered by my high beams.
Speaker 1: What I did notice was the steam coming out of
Speaker 1: his body in all directions, giving it a way that
Speaker 1: it wasn't wearing tight fitting gray clothing, was wearing nothing
Speaker 1: at all. It was Dad's phrase that I remember at
Speaker 1: that moment, When it comes down to it, you gotta move.
Speaker 1: It was Dad's quick thinking that had saved us all.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he was ruthless when it came down to making
Speaker 1: a choice. He would say that not choosing something was
Speaker 1: also a choice, and that's the one that would get
Speaker 1: you in trouble. So, almost shutting my eyes completely. I
Speaker 1: stepped on the accelerator until I saw the thing up close,
Speaker 1: almost on my windshield. I opened my eyes wide this
Speaker 1: time and got a clear look. It was a man,
Speaker 1: wrinkles everywhere. He had no expression with this big vehicle
Speaker 1: coming toward him. It was only a split second after
Speaker 1: that when he appeared right in front of me, just
Speaker 1: as the headlights struck him. I heard nothing, the car
Speaker 1: hit nothing. I kept going past the same crooked stop
Speaker 1: sign by the on ramp, and soon I was back
Speaker 1: on the highway. I kept going for almost an hour
Speaker 1: before I spotted the truck stop with the McDonald's, the
Speaker 1: same one I would always stop at on my way home.
Speaker 1: I pulled over, getting a strange sense once I saw
Speaker 1: the stop sign by the ramp. As I looked to
Speaker 1: the last for uncommon cars, I saw it the same
Speaker 1: man again. I stepped on the gas and pulled over
Speaker 1: to the drive through, looking around. It was the first
Speaker 1: time I felt paranoia like that, the same thing Dad,
Speaker 1: I tried to explain to us every single time with
Speaker 1: that story. I ate in the parking lot, my eyes
Speaker 1: scanning everything around me the whole time. There was no
Speaker 1: way that that thing had followed me this far. I
Speaker 1: finished up, started up the truck, and got back on
Speaker 1: the highway, lost in thought about this thing that I
Speaker 1: had seen, just as Dad had described it many times,
Speaker 1: A pale man, unnatural expressionless face, and a lingering thought
Speaker 1: telling me that it wanted to say something to me.
Speaker 1: It was around mark seventy when the first junction came up,
Speaker 1: and just there, right after the bridge, I saw the
Speaker 1: familiar blue and red lights behind me. I must have
Speaker 1: been driving distracted or swerving or something. I looked at
Speaker 1: the time on my phone. There was almost one in
Speaker 1: the morning, but I wasn't feeling tired. Once I pulled over,
Speaker 1: the police officer rushed up to the car, his flashlight
Speaker 1: by the side of his face, and then he ran
Speaker 1: toward the right side of the road, an area with
Speaker 1: nothing but a ditch and dried up weeds. A couple
Speaker 1: of minutes later, I saw his lights coming up toward
Speaker 1: the car, and almost out of breath, he signaled me
Speaker 1: to roll down the window and shot off the truck.
Speaker 1: He asked me if I was traveling with anybody. I
Speaker 1: shook my head no. He asked if I knew that
Speaker 1: there was someone latched onto the back of my truck
Speaker 1: by the license plates. I could tell he was realizing
Speaker 1: as his words were coming out that it made no sense.
Speaker 1: The truck didn't have a bed, there was no space
Speaker 1: for anyone back there on the bumper. They'd have no
Speaker 1: word to hold on to. In a near panic, now,
Speaker 1: I asked if it was a pale, thin man, and
Speaker 1: that I had seen him near the car two times.
Speaker 1: He stood still for a moment, then turned on his
Speaker 1: flashlight around and behind him toward the darkness. He looked
Speaker 1: at me. Are you going home, he asked quietly. I nodded,
Speaker 1: be on your waist on. He turned around, grabbing his
Speaker 1: radio from his shoulder, and walking back to his patrol car.
Speaker 1: I made it home around three in the morning, carefully
Speaker 1: looking around the truck. When I arrived and took out
Speaker 1: my bags, something felt different then, a strange, peaceful stillness
Speaker 1: of the night, and I thought of Dad's experience. Dad
Speaker 1: and that delivery to Red's ranch and his encounter with
Speaker 1: a strange, thin, pale man. He had always said that
Speaker 1: there was something going on there, a group of people
Speaker 1: or beings, aliens maybe that were in disguise trying to
Speaker 1: establish a settlement among them. Another theory was that it
Speaker 1: was a government installation with technology that could lure in
Speaker 1: potential recruits. The cult was also an idea that he floated.
Speaker 1: But it was around then when he would think that
Speaker 1: his story was just that, a story, something that is
Speaker 1: mine morphed. That's the years went by and his brain
Speaker 1: tried to combine it into this logical, coherent experience, like
Speaker 1: what happened with me. I think of it as a
Speaker 1: crazy man trying to hitch a ride on the back
Speaker 1: of my car, and that's it. Now. I could leave
Speaker 1: it at that and look no further into it. But
Speaker 1: I still wonder if that thing was even human, if
Speaker 1: the police officer knew it, if everyone around there did
Speaker 1: as well, Because that story, like the mail carrier's experience,
Speaker 1: all felt like pieces of an odd puzzle he was
Speaker 1: trying to put together, but now they all fit. His
Speaker 1: story felt real now, But answers those were not likely
Speaker 1: to show up anytime soon. Because remember that disposable camera
Speaker 1: he had taken as proof of delivery. He developed the
Speaker 1: photos in order to get his money from his boss,
Speaker 1: and in the photo of the hitchhike ride to the
Speaker 1: bus station, you could see the same figure in the
Speaker 1: trunk of the hatchback, and then at the bus station
Speaker 1: when he was sitting on the benches, it was out
Speaker 1: by the security guard booth, and then once again on
Speaker 1: the rear seat of the empty.
Speaker 2: Bus just as Dad got to a spot.
Speaker 1: Now that's where the story ends. But I have a
Speaker 1: short commentary little section here, because this story is based
Speaker 1: on trips that I used to make from southern part
Speaker 1: of California to the northern part where I went to college,
Speaker 1: and most of those rides were at night or early
Speaker 1: in the morning. One time, the GPS, it was Google
Speaker 1: Maps that I was using at the time time, rerouted
Speaker 1: me to this dirt trail, like this dirt road along
Speaker 1: some hills and stuff. Some other cars were also following blindly.
Speaker 1: We're all following the path of the GPS. And then
Speaker 1: once we got back to the regular highway, I saw
Speaker 1: no construction or anything like that, and I actually saw
Speaker 1: cars passing by, and it really made me wonder, what if, like,
Speaker 1: how easy is it for a GPS system to i
Speaker 1: don't know, be tweaked somehow so that it could just
Speaker 1: change where you're going and you would just blindly follow it.
Speaker 1: This is where it was based because this was also
Speaker 1: late at night when I got rerouted. It was a
Speaker 1: very interesting night, and I always thought like, what if
Speaker 1: we encountered something else that night.
Speaker 2: But also the.
Speaker 1: Story also deals with inherited fear right. The father has
Speaker 1: this instinct, this way of looking back or sensing something
Speaker 1: thing and being able to completely ignore a situation, like
Speaker 1: not investigate into a thing, but instead avoid it. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to get to here, And this is
Speaker 1: what everybody in the story also did. They knew something
Speaker 1: was there, they say, hey, let's go ask the mail carrier,
Speaker 1: but really was to use the bathroom, and then the
Speaker 1: know the mail carrier also has answers, but doesn't really
Speaker 1: want to investigate into it. They actually now send the
Speaker 1: mail somewhere else for them. This is all about avoiding right,
Speaker 1: which brings in the idea of roads and what they
Speaker 1: are liminal spaces also places you just transit through. You
Speaker 1: just go through it. That's it. You don't need to
Speaker 1: go into anything else into it, don't stop, don't investigate anything,
Speaker 1: just get through it. So that was kind of like
Speaker 1: the main idea, how many things are we ignoring? How
Speaker 1: many things are we not searching? Through or just because
Speaker 1: we're not supposed to do that, or it would be
Speaker 1: a bad idea to do so. So that was the
Speaker 1: main central point of the story. Now about this figure, right,
Speaker 1: this figure thing that showed up.
Speaker 2: What could it have been?
Speaker 1: Now, when I think about it, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: strange things out there that we don't know, right, things
Speaker 1: about forests, the bigfoot, skin walker ideas and aliens or
Speaker 1: little beings that are spotted out into the woods, and
Speaker 1: you hear about these often. This is what it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be, at least in my opinion, although this can change. Right,
Speaker 1: what was this figure that was appearing? There are hints
Speaker 1: there at a government operation, government installation that might have
Speaker 1: hinted something from out of this world, but we don't know.
Speaker 1: All we know is that it didn't harm anybody, but
Speaker 1: it was there to kind of be noticed, like be seen.
Speaker 1: And I think that's a really creepy thing, because that
Speaker 1: might be what all these paranormal entities, all these creatures
Speaker 1: out there are doing. They just want to be seen.
Speaker 1: And that's that that's where it ends so very interested
Speaker 1: to think of, you know, to find out what you
Speaker 1: think about this story. As always, we can keep the
Speaker 1: conversation going for you. For you're to DM me, email me,
Speaker 1: leave a comment on Spotify because it has a comment
Speaker 1: section on there, and we can just keep it going.
Speaker 1: So you have questions or ideas for similar stories or
Speaker 1: things that actually happened to you on roads out there,
Speaker 1: I'm interested in finding out. You can also get all
Speaker 1: these episodes at free over at scary plus that you
Speaker 1: can find it at scaryplus dot com and it really
Speaker 1: supports the show as well. If you want to dive
Speaker 1: even deeper into the whole Scary FM universe. We have
Speaker 1: a Paranormal Club podcast. It's over on YouTube. We can
Speaker 1: find our YouTube channel Paranormal Club Pod All one word
Speaker 1: and you can find it there. It's a video podcast
Speaker 1: where I talk about really creepy mysteries, listener submitted stories
Speaker 1: and more stuff on there, you can find it Paranormal Club.
Speaker 1: It's also available in the podcast podcast form. But that's all.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for listening. Keep it scary everyone,
Speaker 1: See you soon.