Speaker 1: Hello, I'm welcomed stories all the time. Glad you are here.
Let's get into it. I was twenty nine when my
cousin ed asked if I wanted to head out of
town for a few days. Said he needed to just
breed somewhere that isn't Auckland. I knew he and Lacy
had split, and it didn't sound like a clean break.
I didn't cry. He threw out a destination drywould Ridge,
the Scrubby hiking spot half way to nowhere, about eight
hours south, and I said sure. We used to go
on random road trips when we were teenagers. Morsey is
an excuse to skip school and clear our heads. So
when he suggested we just get in the car and drive,
it felt familiar, familiar, and necessary. We left Thursday after work.
He picked me up in his dented old Subaru, still
loaded with gum wrappers and an old fun mount that
didn't hold anything any more. I tossed my overnight bag
in the back, climbed in, and we took off. With
that much more than a nod between us. The plan
was always the same. He drives the first half, I
take over after midnight. He liked having control when we're
still near the city, and I don't mind the quiet
eyes once we're in the middle of nowhere. That rhythm
had worked for us for years, and we just fell
into it again like no time had passed. He barely
said anything for the first few hours, and I didn't push.
He had one hand on the wheel and the other
resting in his lap, occasionally drumming his fingers like he
had some song stock in his head. The sun went down,
the lights of the city faded, and pretty soon we
were cruising down am in As five with nothing but
flat farmland and the occasional truck stopped to break up
the view. We pulled into a dusty gas station around midnight,
just outside of town Cold albertch The plays looked like
it hadn't been updated since the early nineties, dim yellow
light buzzing overhead, one of the pumps wrapped in plastic,
and a guy behind the glass eating instant needed straight
from the cup. Nate filled the tank with ever word,
handed me the keys, and climbed into the passenger seat
like his body had just given out. I took over
from there. An hour later, somewhere between Broadwall and some
nameless cluster of trailers that might have once been a town.
Nate looked up from his phone and said, hey, there's
a rut that cuts through the foothills Eastafia, says us.
At least an hour I glanced over, the highway was dead,
not a single car in sight. Sure, I said, your call,
So we veered off. So we veered off. The turn
off wasn't marked well, just a faded wooden sign and
a gravel conch under the tires. At first, it felt
like a good idea. The road was rough but empty,
and there was a weird kind of peace in being
the only people out there, nothing but rolling hills, the
occasional silhouette of a power line, and the hum of
the tires in the road. That's when I noticed the
black piccup. It was just a pair of headlights in
the rear view. At first, nothing strange, But ten minutes
later those headlights were still there, same distance, no attempts
to pass, no variation in speed, just following. I didn't
say anything right away, didn't want to sound paranoid. But
after another stretch of road with no other turns, no
gas stations, no traffic at all, I finally broke the silence.
You see that truck, I asked. Nate lifted his head
and peered over his shoulder, since the motel added the
run down roadside place we passed about half an hour back,
the one with a flickering vacancy sign and no cause
in the lot. He watched for a few seconds, then
pulled his phone back out. Take the next left, he said,
let's see what he does. The next road was barely
wide enough for two cars. We turned. The truck turned too. Okay,
now it felt deliberate. Neither of us spoke after that.
The road narrowed, twisted, climbed, The yellow divider disappeared. Nay
tried refreshing his GPS, but we'd lost signal somewhere along
the climb. I focused on driving, glancing at the mirror
every so often. Still there, not ta abating, not flashing lights,
just matching us exactly. We passed a turn out at
one point, and I instinctively slowed down, thinking maybe i'd
lest him go by. Nay tense beside me and said,
don't don't stop, just keep driving, so I did. Eventually
the pavement ended altogether, Dirt and gravel kicked up under
the tires. We hadn't seen a house or any kind
of structure in over thirty minutes, no fences, no park cars,
not even a broken down mailbox, just endless scrub land
under Starlus sky. Then we hit curve in the road
and the headlights behind us disappeared. I felt a wave
of relief that I didn't realize I was holding on to.
Yes he finally turned off. I mutter, letting my foot
ease up on the gas, But then we rounded the
next bend and there he was. The truck was park
sideways across the road, blocking both lanes, headlights off, engine running,
driver's side door open, but there was no one inside.
I didn't even have time to process before Nate reached over,
grab the gear shift and said it back up now.
I threw it into reverse and knees back, slowly, trying
not to fish out in the list dirt. The road
was narrow, barely enough to turn around. I felt the
wheels dip, then grip again, and that's when something slammed
into the back of the car hard. The whole car
lurched forward. My foot hit the brake out of instinct,
but they shouted, go, don't stop. I floored it. The
wheels kicked up dirt as we spawned, skated, and finally gripped.
I didn't look behind me. My entire focus was on
the road ahead, what little of it I could see
in the narrow beam of the head lights. Every turn
felt like it might throw us off a cliff. We
drove like that for ten, maybe fifteen minutes, no idea
how far we gone, no clue if we were being followed,
or just alone in the dark with our own panic.
Then finally we saw lights. A gas station or maybe
just the ghost of one rusted pumps, A dark window,
one flickering fluorescent above the door. I pulled him, without
even thinking through it into park, and we just sat there,
no engine, noise behind us, no headlights, no sound at
all except the ticking of the engine as a cold
We waited eventully. Nick got out and knocking the door.
After what felt like an eye but was probably five minutes,
an old man in a flannel shirt opened it. He
didn't seem surprised to see us, just gave a slow
blinkin aft if we needed directions. He led us use
the bath room, gave us a couple of paper cups
of tap water, and pointed us to a narrow side
road that eventually hooked back to the main highway. We
thanked him, got back in the car, and that was it.
We made it to dry Out Ridge, just out after dawn.
I'd told day Friday, barely speaking, camped one night under
the stars, packed up early and left. I'd plan a
solo trip down to Big Server, a long weekend, just me,
a small tent and a couple of quai trails. I'd
done solo hikes before, so it wasn't anything new or dramatic. Honestly,
I was looking forward to being unreachable for a few days.
I left Sacramento early, like still dark early, to avoid
weekend traffic. Things went smoothly for a while. The highway
was clear, playlist with Soli cuffee stayed hot enough to
keep me awake. I figured it might even be nice
see Nike LUSS traffic, a little bonus adventure on the way.
At first, it was kind of boring, even, just scrubby
hills and wire fences. I passed a few private ranch
roads than one or two driveways that looked like they
hadn't seen traffic in months. No people, no cars, just
rolling hills, brittle grass and fences sagging in the middle,
like they'd given upholding anything in Then I'd passed a
sign Tassel Creek, barely readable. The paint was flaking off
the wood, and the post looked hawmite eaten and ready
to fall over. It wasn't pointing anywhere in particular, just
sitting off the roadside like it had been forgotten. There
no turn off, no visible creek, just a name floating
in the middle of nowhere. I didn't stop, just clocked
it as another weird little marker in rural California and
kept driving. About twenty minutes later I came across the
first car. It was an old green hatch bag half
on the shoulder, one of the rear doors hanging open.
The car looked abandoned, dusty, dented, like it hadn't been
maintained in years. At first I slowed down, half ready
to pull over and check, but something about it stopped me.
I couldn't see any one nearby. The area around it
was totally still, no houses, no trail markers, not even
a fence gate, just that open door moving a little
in the breeze. I told myself some one probably went
for a walk. Maybe they broke down and hiked back
toward the last meme rod. It felt we're sure, but
not enough to turn around over, so I kept going.
Fifteen minutes after that, I lost signal entirely, not just barrows, nothing,
no GPS, no data, no let us spinning location dot
to reassure me I was still in the mounts. Again,
not a big deal, I'd lost signal plenty of times
on camping trips. I figured i'd get it back once
I got closer to the cursed. But the roads started narrowing,
trees got thicker, the brush looked wilder somehow less maintained.
And then I started noticing the trash. It was scattered
at first, an old paper cup here, a crushkin there.
Then it got stranger, ripped up clothes, half a shoe,
a blanket, bowled up and muddy in a ditch. There
was even what looked like a melted or burned sleeping
by a half tucked behind some brush. There weren't any
kemp rounds nearby, no signage, just trash and more trash,
like some one had dumped out the contents of a
car over a few miles and left it there. That's
when I saw the green hatch back again, only now
it was parked on the opposite side of the road,
facing toward me. Fame dent on the rear panel, same
missing hubkup on the front left, same old bumper sticker.
I think it was a thrash of logo, but faded
to almost nothing. I pulled over, just sat there for
a second, trying to work out how that was possible.
I hadn't turned off, I hadn't backtracked. The road had
only gone one direction, up and forward. No forks, no intersections,
not even a place wide enough to you turn without
a struggle. I got out just a few steps, not far.
There were tire tracks mine, i think, but the green
COR's position didn't match. It was angled, as if it
had just come from where I was headed. That was
the moment my stomach started to twist, like my body
figured it out before my brain caught up. I got
back in the car and locked the doors. I felt
silly and overcautious, but I did it anyway. I told
myself it had to be a coincidence. Two old cars,
same model, same bead up shape. That's all I kept driving.
The next twenty minute were dead, silent, no birds, no breeze,
no trash now, just tight coves and trees. Have felt
like they were leaning in a little two close, the
kind of quiet that makes you rear strained because they're
not used to that much. Nothing. Then I came around
a bend and it was there again, the hatch back,
this time in the middle of the ro like someone
had slammed in the brakes and jumped out. All four
doors were wide open, nothing inside, no movement. I didn't
get out. I sat there with my headlights saying straight
at it, hand hovering over the shifter, every nerve in
my body buzzing. There was no logical way for it
to be there. I hadn't passed a single turn. There
was nowhere for another driver to leap ahead of me.
No engine noise, no brick lights, just that same damn
car again and again, like the road itself was coughing
it back up every time I tried to leave it behind.
My hands were shaking now. I kept watching the brush,
waiting for someone something to step out, but there was nothing.
Just trees, dirt, a smell I hadn't noticed before, faint, metallic, sharp,
like something overheating acting up. Wasn't an option. The road
was too tight and I would have had to reverse
at least a mile, maybe more. So I did the
only thing I could. Iiced around the hatch back tires
crunching into dry brush. Worn of the branches scrape the
side hard enough to leave a mark, but I didn't care.
I just wanted out. Once I was past the eye floored,
I didn't check the speed, didn't look in the mirror.
It drove like something was right behind me, breeding down
the back of my neck. About fifteen minutes later, I
had paved into section and a small gas station, lights
on people inside. It felt unreal, like I'd stepped back
into normal life from something that hadn't followed the same rules.
My phone buzz was service. First thing I did was
check the map, but eventually I did some digging. Tried
searching Tassel Creek to see if maybe there had been
stories about that area, or at least proved to myself
it was real. Nothing came up, not on Google Maps,
except for one archived article from the late nineties. Local
man in his twenties wentnessing near Apostle Robbles, last known
location and a mark service road near Tassel Creek. His
car was found a week later. It was a green Hatchback.
I was twenty eight when it happened, somewhere in the
forgotten stretch between Loss Hills and the coasts, snaking a
long highway thirty three. It was day three of a
solo road trip I talked about three years but never
gotten around to. I planned this roughly, start in a valley,
made my way inland through the dusty parts of central California.
The thing about those stretches of inland road, especially high
with every three, is that you can go a long
way without seeing much of anything. That's part of what
makes them appealing, but it also starts to mess with
your head. After a while. You loose the usual markers,
no fast food signs, no gas station lights blinking in
the distance, just turns and more turns and hills. It
all looked the same if you stare too long. I
remember noticing the shift slowly. The road itself was still fine,
perfect even no potholes, no construction. But the GBS lost
his mind. First it stopped updating. Then I froze. After
a few minutes, it just showed a blue dot hovering
in the middle of a base nowhere. No roads, no names,
just blank. I figured it was just bad reception. You'd
be surprised how often that happens in California even today.
But still something felt off. I hadn't passed another car,
and close to an iro. The hills look somehow too. Still,
it's hard to explain, like the space between things was wrong,
wider than it should have been, like some one had
stretched the landscape by accident. I passed a rusted out
gas station not long after that, no signage, no pumps,
just a skeleton of a building with the sun bleached
dawning and a sagging fence. I considered stopping, but I didn't.
There wasn't anything to stop. For about ten minutes after that,
I saw the sign Los Condonado's twelve miles green highway markers,
standard font were reflective lettering. Nothing unusual about the sign itself.
But I'd never heard of the place, Not on any
map i'd studied, not in the forums i'd browsed for
travel tips. It wasn't an a gybs when it had
been working, or in the paper ATLICS. I kept his back. Still,
it was just a name, probably some small ranching community
with a population of thirty seven in a volunteer fire station.
California has plenty of those. I shrugged and kept driving
the road narrow gradually, like it wanted me to stop,
noticing more turns, steaber climbs, the kind of winding that
forces you to slow down whether you want to own.
When I hit the town limit, the sun was edging low,
right at that point where the hill stock cutting sharp
shadows across the road. The first thing I noticed was
the smell. It wasn't dusty or smoky or anything specific,
just try in a way that didn't match the air,
like paper that had been sealed too long. I didn't
see any parked cars, no movement in the windows. The
houses all look the same, flat roof, stucco, barred windows,
A lawn chair or two sunk into yellow grass. The
griw was tight, just a few blocks deep in each direction.
It didn't feel abandoned exactly. It felt paused. I hadn't
planned to stop, but the rogue curved into a circle
and dropped me in front of what must have been
the town center, a close post office, a dusty diner
with drawn blinds, and what looked like a laundro map
of Plyou across the windows. My engine stuttered. The battery
light blinked once and then turned off. I tapped the
gas and the engine cut completely. I sat there for
a second, blinking at the dashboard. Then I got out
and pot the hope. No smoke, no leaks, nothing visibly wrong.
I checked the oil. The bells looked fine. When I
got back and turned the key, the engine roared back
like nothing had happened. But the clock on the dash
had for set to twelve, like the power had been
completely wiped. I froze for a second, staring at it.
Then I noticed something else. When I'd entered the circle,
there had only been one road leading in and out.
Now there were two. One was definitely the road I
came from. I recognized the curve and the bend. The
other looked identical, but had a handmade wooden side nail
to a post beside it. That reed throughway. No town
I've ever visited, but sub signs like that. Still, I
didn't feel like sticking around. I took what I believe
was the way I came. Five minutes later, I was
back at the same roundabout. No way. I hadn't turned,
I hadn't looped. I hadn't even hit a fork. I
tried again, same result. Third time, I picked up speed,
thinking maybe I'd just miss a cuve somewhere back at
the circle. Fourth time I took the throughway. That's when
the town changed. There were people now, kind of One
stood near the coroner holding what looked like a black
trash bag, just standing there. Another maybe a kid, was
sitting on a cup, had down, arms resting on his knees.
No movement nor acknowledgment, no sound. They didn't react when
I drove past, didn't flinch when I hunt, just stayed
exactly where they well liked they had been placed there.
I don't scale easily, but I've felt something slight into
my gut right then called and slowed. The gas gage
dropped to four quarter in what felt like minutes. I
hadn't drove them far enough for that. I pulled over
in front of a skull at least I think it
was a school. The lettering was half gone, but I
could still make out Intermediate Academy behind appealing paint. I
tried to write the town name down on a scrap
of paper in the center console, just so I could
look it up later. But when I checked the note
a few seconds later. The letters had scrambled, no smeared,
just wrong, like they'd been written when I wasn't looking.
At that point, I just wanted out. I tried every road,
every alley, but the layout was different each time fieldings
treated places, the dino switch sides, the school moved behind me.
I'd even got out and walked, trying to follow a
straight path on foot, but every time I turned a
corner or passed a new building, my car was behind
me again, same position, same cracked window, andine cold. I
passed a mirror nail to a utility pole, just a
basic brictannul a mirror, but angled strange. It should have
shown the street behind me. Instead it reflected my crp
park somewhere else at T junction. But there was no
T junction, not behind me, not anywhere. The longer I state,
the more it felt like the place was watching, not
the people of the town. In a last ditch effort,
I turned off the road and drove through dir It Lot,
thinking I could cut through and break whatever loop. I
was in. The car rocked heart, suspension bottomed out, but
then I hit pavement again, and just like that, the
dam was gone. I was in the hills, the real hills, goldenbrass,
power lines, telephone poles. I almost cried. I floated for
twenty minutes, not carrying where I was going, just trying
up for in whatever that had been. Then I saw
another green sign was Condonato's twelve miles. I slammed the
bricks and screened loud and long. There wasn't any one
to hear me. I've blacked out after that. Ton't know
for how long. When I came to, I was parked
at a rest stop just outside Pinefort, near taff Sun
was up, cock clock said seven hundred forty three. My
tank was full again. My backpack was neatly on the
passenger seat, but all the receipts I'd scribbled on were gone.
So was my phone. I found it two days later
under the driver's seat, which tight battery dead. I've usked
around rangers, truckers, old timers, and hardware stows. No one's
heard of lost Condonado's, at least not out loud. One
guy told me to stay away from the Carrizo plane
unless I had permission. I don't drive alone any more,
especially not at night, and if I see a town
on a sign that I don't recognize. I don't stop,
I don't even slow down. My sister Ira said this
job interview in a town called Kailat a few hours south,
and I figured I'd go with her just to clean
my head. Things had been rough at the time, so
we made a lose plan. We'd head down the coast
alley in the morning Takai. We twelve most of the way,
switch off driving after Coal and Bay, and stretched out
into one day, miny road trip, scenic stops, good coffee,
ocean views. Honestly, it sounded kind of perfect. The weird
part started before we even got to Heron about an
iron into the drive, the gas light came on. I
hadn't noticed a drop in it fast, but I figured
we'd hit a small town scene, so I took the
next exit. That's how we ended up in Meryl Glen.
No signs before the turner, no billboards, just a basic
green eggsit sign with the name in small print. Blinkn
you'd miss it. I'd never heard of it. Iris hadn't either.
It was one of those little spots that barely existed.
Quiet streets, maybe four business is total, and not a
single person walking around. It wasn't run down, no spooky,
just still. We found a small gas station about two
miles in one pump, no other cars. It was almost
too clean, like someone had wiped down the whole building
for a photo shoot. I pulled up and started filling
the tank. Ere said she was going to run inside
to use the restroom, and I told her I'd grab
some snacks, standard routine. The inside of the place was off,
not in an obvious way, just in a way you
feel in your roobs without knowing why. It was completely silent,
no music, no harm from coolers, not even the buzzing
of fluorescent lights. The guy behind the counter was on
the phone, not even pretending to acknowledge me. He was
speaking slowly, low, like he was reading from a script.
The shelves were stocked, but in this overly neat way
that fell staged everything front facing, no price stickers, no dust.
There was a rack of pamphlets by the counter, every
one identical, just gossip covers with names like dry Hollow
Path and Eastpilrope. No maps inside, no highway numbers, just
vague directionless phrases like continuous through the second bluff or
stayed to the lower bend. I grabbed a water and
a pack of trail mix and stood at the counter.
He didn't look up, didn't stop talking. After a minute,
I cleared my throat and said, hey, just these still nothing,
But without pausing his call, he reached under the counter
and sid a receipt toward me. No scan beat, no
drawer opening. It was already printed, with the item's listed,
the total, and a timestimep that massed the moment exactly.
I left five, tipped my stuff and walked out. Iris
was already back in the car. Arn's crossed as narrowed.
Why do you move the car, she asked. I told
her I didn't. She said it was part differently when
she came out, further back, more angled. I hadn't touched it,
but she was convinced. I looked around, just to be sure.
Same pum, same position. I even jacked the gearshift, like
maybe the brake had slipped. It hadn't, I said, maybe
she remembered it wrong. She didn't argue, but the tension
stuck in the air. We got back on the road.
For a while. Everything seemed fine. The scenery was beautiful,
rolling hills on one side, ocean cliffs on the other,
but there were no other cars, not one For almost
forty minutes. It felt like the entire stretch of road
belonged to us. I started to feel that low, creeping
alertness that something was wrong, but nothing specific had happened yet.
Then we saw the sign welcome to Marrow Glen again.
I slowed down. We both stared at it. It was
the same sign, same bend in the row, same scuff
on the metal. It didn't make sense. We hadn't turned around.
I hadn't even changed lanes. We had been heading south
the whole time, following the coast line. We drove past
the gas station again, same building, same black as U
V parked up front. That's when Iris said it autloud,
Are we stuck in something? I didn't answer. I was
trying not to admit I was thinking the same thing.
I checked my phone again, no service. Jeep as still
at US. Pointed south, but the blue rut line had vanished,
just a dot floating on a blank background. I slowed down,
thinking maybe we should stop and ask for directions, But
right then we passed another sign drive steady, no more stops.
It was mounted like a regular road sign, but the
lettering looked wrong, too sharp, too perfectly placed, like it
it had been ructually made and hadn't aged a day.
No dirt, no marks, nothing, and no exit numbers are
high ware labels anywhere. After that, irist didn't say anything else.
She folded her hands in her lap and stared out
the window. The air inside the car started to feel different,
thinner somehow, like the inside of an elevator between floors.
Then we passed the gas station again a third time,
only now the suv was gone, the station lights were off,
and across the lot park next to the same diesel
pump where we had stopped earlier, it was our car,
same model, same plate, same tidy dent under the drayer's
side mirror. It was sitting there, quiet and clean, like
it had never moved. I pulled over. The moment I
stepped out of our actual car, the wind changed. It
hit my face colder than it had been all morning.
I walked toward the part version of her car, not
really thinking, just moving. There was a folded piece of
paper tuck under the windshield whipper. I pulled it out.
It was my gas receipt, same items, same time, sam
but across the bottom. Someone had scrolled in shaky handwriting
it doesn't stop unless you do. I stared at it
for a second, longer than I should have. Then I
looked back toward Iris. She hadn't moved, not an inch.
She wasn't even watching me. She was staring straight ahead
as why, like she was forcing herself not to blink.
I got back in and drove. We passed the same
Brantosh bag, tangled in the same fence, the same splint
of mile marker, the same patch of wild flowers by
a rustic Gabriel, again and again. I stopped counting after
the fifth pass. Then it's all narrow, turned out, just
a strip of dot leading into some brush. It wasn't
on the GPS. I took it anyway. As soon as
we bumped off the pavement, it felt like the road
finally resisted us again. Gravel pinged against the undercarriage and
my arms tense at the wheel. That simple physical change
was like a slap to the face. I knew we
had crossed back into something real. After a couple of
winding minutes, we came to a gated fire road. There
was a tiny ranger station next to it, boarded up
a faded SCIgen said access restricted, no cars, no people.
But there was a red emergency phone box mounted to
a wooden post. I picked it up. It ran once,
then clicked. A voice said 're out, don't drive back.
No introduction, no static, just those words. I put the
receiver down gently and got back in the car. IRUs
was still silent. I didn't say anything either, I just drove.
Eventually we saw a real highway sign Lynnville ex fifteen
GPS snap back on like it had never stopped. Full
signal Eta updated, like nothing had happened. We stopped at
a coffee shop near Elbridge. I finally broke the silence
and asked Iras what had happened in the gas station bathroom.
She looked confused, then serious. I never went in, she said,
I waited outside the whole time. I didn't push it.
We made it to Kayla just fine. She had her interview,
nailed it. Actually she got the job. But we never
talked about that drive again. My girlfriend and i'd broken
up about three weeks earlier. She moved out. I kept
the apartment, and suddenly even my own space felt like
it didn't belong to me any more. Every coffeemak reminded
me of her. Every playlist had some song we used
to sing off key together. So I packed a bag,
grabbed my camera, tossed a blanket in the back seat,
and just left. No real plan, just pointed my car
north and started driving out of Saint Gabriel, keeping off
the big freeze whenever I could. I stayed in whatever
town I landed near. Each night, slept in roopside motels
where the towels spelled like bleach and the vending machine
still had buttons that stuck ate way too many peanut
butter crackers, listened to BAB radio and took photos of
anything that caught the sunlight in a weird way, old fences,
rusted water tanks, trees that looked half dead. I wasn't
looking for anything. I just didn't want to be anywhere familiar.
On the fourth day, somewhere outside of place called Hartville,
this tiny town east of Bishop, I pulled off the road.
It was late afternoon, maybe a couple hours before sundown.
I was driving through this long stretch of highway to
cut through dry hills when I saw turn out one
of those dirt loops on the side of the road
where a few tired trucks head others had parked before.
No signs, no buildings, just the hills, the brush, and
the road curving quietly out of sight in both directions.
I figured it'd stopped for a bit, stretched my legs,
maybe nap before heading to Wartown for dinner in a bed.
I rolled the windows down just enough to catch a breeze,
turned off the ignition, and leaned the seat back, and
I must have dozed all because the next thing I
remember is waking up to a weird kind of stillness,
not the peaceful kind, more like the sort of stillness
you noticed when something's wrong but you're not sure what yet.
I've blinked up at the ceiling of the cart, then
sat up slowly. The sun had shifted lower, casting everything
in that orange haze that makes the world look kind
of unreal. I glanced at the road ahead, and that's
when I realized something felt off. The highway looked longer.
I knowed it sounds strange, but I'm telling you, the
curve in the road that had been maybe a hundred
years up before was now barely visible, like the distance
between me and it had stretched. While I slept, I
rubbed my eyes. Checked my watch four hundred twenty two.
I remember it being four hundred ten when I lost
looked before shutting my eyes. It didn't make sense, but
I was groggy and grow ogi. Minds reached for easy explanations.
Maybe I misremembered the time. Maybe the light just looked
different now, I told myself all that. As I opened
the door and stepped out. That's when I noticed the
car had moved, not by much, just a few feet,
but enough that I could see the difference in the dirt.
The tire truck showed where had originally settled, and now
it sat slightly back at an angle lu I had
rolled in its sleep, except I had left it in park.
Emergency break engaged. I checked here was still in park,
brake hadn't budged, nothing wrong. Inside I walked a slow
circle around the car, trying to piece it together. And
behind the vehicle, just a few feet from the bumper,
I saw them marks in the dirt. Notfo prince, no soul, patten,
no heel or tower, just smooth and even ovals, three
or four of them in a rough Simmas circle, like
someone or something had walked half way round the back
of the car. Stopped at the driver's side, then backed away.
The impressions were too shallow for boots, too round for
bare feet, and the spacing was wrong natural. I crouched
down for a better look. That's when my phone buzzed
in my pocket. I pulled it out, intending to snap
a photo of a prince, but the screen glitched. As
soon as I opened the camera. It flickered once, then furroze.
I tried to restart it. The phone powered down, but
when it came back on, the battery had jumped from
somewhere in the eighty to four percent. I hadn't touched
it since checking the time before I fell asleep. I
put it away, uneasy. Now my mouth was dry, the
kind of dry dout doesn't go away with water. I
opened the driver's door to sit down, and that's when
I saw the dashboard clock two point fifty seven. I
stared at it. It didn't make sense. The ignition had
been off. There's no reason the time should have changed.
Definitely not reset. My car's not new, but it's not
old enough to glitch like that. I turned the key halfway,
just enough to bring everything to life without starting The engine.
Radio lit up a sea clicked, but the clock held
steady at two point fifty seven. I manually reset it,
not because I knew what the real time was any more,
just because leaving it wrung felt worse. I glanced in
the rear view mirror one lost time. That's when I
saw it. A car parked about quarter mile back around
the bend where the road curved out of sight. Tail
colored silver or maybe white, no headlights, no movement. It
hadn't been there when I got out earlier. It just
sat there, slightly off center in the lane, not pulled over,
not angled like it was meant to stop. No one
got out, no one opened a door. It didn't idle,
it didn't reverse. I stared at it, waiting for any
sign of life. Nothing. I shifted into drive and started
slowly forward, kept glancing at the mirror. The car didn't
move until it wasn't there any more, no sound, no movement,
just gone. One second it was in the mirror, the
next it wasn't. I didn't stop to figure it out.
I drove fast, not reckless, but faster than I normally
would on stretch like that. After about ten or fifteen minutes,
I saw a gas station, a low building with faded
signs in a single pump, the kind of place that
looks closed even when it's open. I pulled in, left
the engine running, and mut inside. The attendant barely looked
up from behind the counter, middle aged guy in a
ball cap. I asked if he'd seen any one come
through recently. He didn't hesitate, said no one had passed
nearly an iro. I didn't tell him what I saw
didn't seem like it would matter. I checked my phone again,
still dead. When I got back outside, I scanned the road,
the hills, the turn off in the distance. Nothing. I
was about to unlock the car when I saw something
on the rear driver's side window. Three faint streaks, thadonal,
slightly curved, like some one had dried three fingers lightly
across the glass from top to bottom. Not dirt, not sap.
It looked oily, almost like skin oil, but thicker. I
walked it away with my sleeve and opened the door,
checked the locks again, still engaged. That night I found
him motil just outside of town, one of those one
story buildings with buzzing fluorescent lights and the smell of
stale air in the room. I didn't sleep. I lay
on the bed, fully dressed t von, low volume, eyes
half on the screen, half in the window. Every so
often I'd get up and pat the blinds. I never
saw anything outside, but each time I saw the road
in front of the motel looked farther away, like the
stretch from the parking lot to the highway was growing
a few feet more each hoire, like the distance between
me and something was being measured. Before dawn, I packed
up and left. Didn't even bother checking out. I just
slid the key under the door of the office and
got back on the road. My cousin Aiden and I
were about half way through this week long road trip
to northern California. We were hitting every park, and we
had little stretch of coast We could find six sicking
between trails and cliffs and back roads that barely existed
in the map. We used to be pretty much inseparable
growing up, spent every summer together between our family's houses
in Los Alto's and San Diego. But after college I
moved up to Oakland for work and he stayed down south,
and over time the distance kind of stock. We had
this shar dug or map filled with red pins of
places we thought looked interesting, random waterfalls, hot springs, the
band and lookouts. Some were real destinations, some were just
vague dots in the woods. We took turns driving and
picked spots on or whim. It felt like how we
used to be as kids, amos in a good way.
By the fourth night, we were somewhere pretty remote outside
a small town called Mineral. We'd follow this old logging
rode off the highway, hoping it might lead us to
tucked away clearing. It did. Eventually we found this flat
gravel pull off with enough space to puck and set
up our tent. Definitely not official, no signs, no bathrooms,
no cell service. But it was quiet forest in every direction,
no other cars, no distant lights, just us in the trees.
It was late when we stopped, maybe after nine. We
ate some canchili spled a beer and sat by the fire.
We'd barely managed to get going it and fell asleep fast.
He always curred, like flipping a switch. I stayed up
a little longer. I remember sitting on this log near
the fire pit with my head lamp on, picking through
a bag of trail mixed and reading one of those
cheesy pot per shores about local for and it was
so still. I know people say that all the time,
but I mean litterally still. No breeze, no rustling, no bugs, buzzing, nothing.
It was like someone had hit paws on the forest.
Then I heard footsteps, not TwixT snapping or some animal
crashing around. I know what a raccoon sound's like. This
was different. These were clear, measured steps, like boots on
pine needles. Two maybe three. Then silence, A froze clicked off.
The head lamp. Just sat there in the dark, eyes wide,
trying not to breathe too loud. I was thinking maybe
it was another camper, some one who had pulled and laid,
but that made no sense. We hadn't passed any one
for miles. Then I saw it, a person, or at
least a human shape, maybe thirty feet off, half obscured
behind a tree, just standing there, not moving, not coming closer,
just there. I whisper it didn't but he didn't stir.
I looked back just for a second. When I looked
toward the tree again, the figure was gone. I waited
maybe ten more minutes, not moving. Nothing happened, no sound,
no movement. Eventually I convinced myself. It was just a
trick of the dark, maybe my eyes. Playing games, you
tell yourself whatever you need to win you alone in
the woods. I didn't mention it. The next morning, we
packed up fast like we always did and headed east
toward Lassen Volcanic. It was just another day in the plan.
On the way, we stopped for gas in this blink
and you miss it place culviol Real old school station,
one pump, a faded sign, creaky floorboards. Eden went inside
to grab coffee while I filled up the tank. There
was a woman at the other pump, mid fift as,
maybe weathered face, old sweater, looked like she'd lived in
the area forever. She kept glancing over at me while
work the pump. Eventually she walked over and asked, you
guys camping out here? I has stated, then saidya, sort
of told her we were just passing for She nodded
lowly like she was thinking something over. Then she said,
there's been somewhere stuff in the hills lately. Just be careful.
That said, no details, no storage, just that. I gave
her a plight nod and smiled, trying not to look
worded out, but inside some intents I wanted to ask
her more, but she had already walked off. We brushed
it off. People in small tan say oh things, we'd
head stranger. Later that afternoon, ad And pointed to this
narrow Doubt road that burnt off high with thirty six.
He marked it and the map said it led to
it ven ovlook supposed to be beautiful, he said. I
didn't argue. We were both still chasing the sense of
discovery we did. On the first couple of days, the
road was rough, steep climbs, big rocks, potholes that could
swallow a tire, but the car handled it. Eventually we
got to this wide open stretch where the trees cleared
out and there was this jaw dropping view over a canyon.
No sign, no railings, just a sloping edge in are.
We parked and stood there for a while, watching the
wind move through the tree hups far below. Took a
few pictures ate some jerky We were getting ready to
head back when we saw it, another car, a jeep.
It was parked maybe fifty yards further down the road,
half in the brush, at an angle that didn't make sense.
It hadn't been there when we arrived. We would have
seen it edon, slowed the car as we passed. It
was old but looked intact, dusty windows, no one inside,
and there were no tire tracks behind it. The road
was soft dirt. Ires were clearly visible this jeep not
Then we waited a minute, just staring at it. No
one came out of the trees, no sound, no sign
of movement. I didn't didn't say anything. He just pressed
the gas and we kept going. That night, we didn't
go rogue. We found a proper campsite near Lake Almonor.
There were fire pits, bathrooms, other tents nearby, even a
couple of r v It felt safer normal. We set up,
made another lazy dinner, and clungbed into our sleeping bags.
I remember lying the thinking maybe I'd just let the
isolation get to me. That's what I told myself anyway,
until I run. Two in the morning, I woke up freezing.
The fire was dead, the air was damp, and everything
felt off. I sat up and reached from my back
to zip it tighter. That's when I heard it. A
whisper Ari not Eden, not his voice, softer, not urgent,
just clothes. Then again orry. My throat went dry, My
hands locked around the edge of the sleeping bag, and
then slowly the zipper and the tent started to move,
not fast, yanked, just a soft inching sound, an inch
maybe two. I snapped into motion, threw myself forward and
shrigaded and hard. He jerked away, half shouting. I grabbed
the flashlight and ripped open the tent flap, trying the
beam into the dark. No one, nothing. We sat there
with the light on until morning, not saying much. Aden
was clearly rattled, so it was I. I didn't even
try to play it off this time. As soon as
it was light enough, we packed everything up and got
in the car. No breakfast, no lingering. We just left.
We didn't really talk much on the way home. Every
time we passed another car of all shape on the shoulder,
we both got quiet. That night, I crashed hard in
my apartment in Oakland. I didn't check my phone, didn't
ump back, just collapsed. Two days later, Adam sent me
a text, no caption, just a photo. It was the jeep,
same one we'd see near the ravine, only this time
it was on a missing purse since I some woman
had posted it said it belonged to her brother. He'd
vanished five months earlier. The last confirmed sighting of his
vehicle had been near canyon west of Viola. He never
came back. I stared at the photo for a long time.
Then I deleted the message and the image locked the
site close the tab. I didn't respond, and I don't
take road trips any more. My girlfriend and I had
just broken up a week eel as she packed up
her stuff in one day, took half the furniture, and
left the apartment feeling like one of those weird eque
EBMs that's been cleaned too well. So when my friend
Nolin texted me about a three day road trip up
the coast, I didn't think twice. I said yes before
I even asked who else was going. It sounded simple.
Drive out the one hundred one from Santa Barbara de
Monterey camp a couple of places along the way, stop
at a few strange little roadside attractions for the hell
of it. Nolan had already mapped out most of the route,
as Buddy Mason had the tent and gear, and Mason's
cousin Becca had a reliable car and enough playlist downloaded
to survive any signal dead zone. I'd never met her before,
but she showed up in the silver SUPERU with a
crack windshield and a babble, had Jesus on the dashboard,
and I figured, Okay, she's probably fun. We left Thursday
morning early, that kind of early where your coffee still
tastes half asleep. The first few hours were an eventful,
just music, passing snacks around, stretching out our legs at
gas stations. The water was dry, the hills were brown,
and everything outside the car felt like a screen silver.
Our first actual stop was some half dead miniature western
town behind a boarded up diner off the highway. The
buildings were all sun bleach plywood with names like dead
Man's Gulch and Saloon, two painted and crooked red letters.
The gallows had a fake body hanging from it, a
stuff pair of jeans and an ald shirt nailed together.
The whole place smelled like dry rot and motor oil.
We took dumb pictures, climbed inside the jail cell, joked
about ghosts. It was weird, but in a fun, kitchy way.
I didn't feel great, but I felt better than I
had in days. Then came the second stop. We weren't
even planning to stop again that night. It was a
round six giver take. The sun was starting to dip
behind a range of dusty hills as we drove through
a wide stretch of now were just before Snardo. That's
when pulled over, no warning, no discussion, just drifted off
on to the gravel shoulder, like she'd remembered something at
the last second. What are you doing, Mason asked from
the passenger seat. She didn't answer immediately, just leaned forward
and stared out the windshill, like she was trying to
make sense of something up ahead. There was a sign,
she said, finally, pointing. Didn't you guys see it? None
of us had. She put the car in reverse and
backed up onto this narrow dirt rode that dipped down
into a gully. It wasn't even marked, no visible sign,
just tall grass and loose gravel winding between the hills.
Becca insisted she'd seen one Juno Hill picnigrounds, she said, No.
One pulled out his phone, searched Google Maps, nothing, tried
read it. Still nothing. I looked too, no results, no mentions,
no geotags. It was like the place didn't exist. Maybe
used to be something, Becka said, like one of those
little family parks that shut down years ago. We should
have said no, should have insisted we just get back
on the road, but no one pushed back. I think
part of me didn't care where we ended up. The
idea of sitting still for a while anywhere didn't sound
so bad. The dip rowed dipp left under a rusted
arch that barely stood upright. The letters were too worn
to read. It opened up into this flat little clearing,
surrounded by scrubby grass and a few tall spinley euclyptus trees.
In the middle stood a wooden structure, a low canopy
with three picked tables underneath, all of them leaning at
odd angles. The whole thing looked like it had been
abandoned midsummer and just left to bake. This is not normal,
Mason said, only half joking. There were no signs of
recent visitors, no tire marks, no trash, no trash, no footprints.
The e f felt dry and too still, like the
inside of a house with all the windows shut tight.
I got out of the car and immediately noticed how
quite it was. Not peaceful, just rong. No birds, no insects,
not even the faint hum of wind through the trees,
just this vacuum of sound, like the whole place had
put on mute. Becka stayed by the car, arms crossed ice,
fixed on the hill behind us. You okay, I asked.
She didn't look at me, just nodded, then pointed behind us.
The road looks different now. I turned and saw what
she meant. The way we'd come and was still visible,
but it didn't look the same. The curve was sharp
at the incline, steeper, and it seemed to craw further
up the heeld 'm before. The grass looked tall out,
and the path itself had narrowed, almost like the road
at his ten years and the time it took us
to park. It's just the light, Nolan said. The sun's
setting shadows mess with perspective. We didn't argue. We were
all thinking the same thing, and none of us wanted
to say it out loud. We sat at one of
the tables and tried to act normal, passing snacks around,
making lame jokes, taking SIPs of warm soda. But every
time I looked back at the road, it felt a
little farther away. Becca wandered off next No warning. She
just stood up and walked patch of tall grass at
the edge of the clearing, didn't say a word. We
called after her, but she didn't turn around. Nolan started
to follow, but stop when she came back thirty seconds later,
she walked straight past us and got into the car.
We need to leave, she said. Her voice sounded different,
not panicked, just colder, detached, like she made a decision,
and that was that. We didn't ask questions, just packed
up and got in. Mason was shaking when he climbed
into the back with me. I asked what was wrong,
and he whispered that he felt something standing behind him
when he was closing the trunk, not moving just there.
Becka started driving slowly, too slowly. It was like she
didn't remember the road. We kept telling her to speed up,
to follow the same path back, but she wouldn't respond.
And then the road ended, just stopped, no fork, no signage,
just a wall of dirt and brush. We all got out,
checked our phones, no signal. Try walking the road back
the way we gin. I did it first, ten maybe
fifteen minutes in the road curve sim as before, and
I ended up right back in the clearing, same table's
same chip bag on the bench. I ran back, told
the others. Nolan didn't believe me, so we walked it
together other side by side. We kept talking the whole
time to make sure we weren't turning. Without realizing it,
we made the curve and found ourselves back at the
same spot. The third time, we left two soda cans
in the road behind us as markers walked fast, no deeters.
We turned the bend. The cans were ahead of us.
That's when Mason said quietly, some one's in the trees.
We turned, but he wouldn't point, just stared at the
eucalypse cross the clearing. Said some one had been standing there,
not moving, just watching. Wouldn't describe them, wouldn't look again.
Then Beck said we have to go back down. She
didn't mean the road, she meant into the grass where
she'd gone earlier, the part no one wanted to get near.
We followed her single file, no one talking. The silence
was heavier now, like it was pressing on us. Ten
steps in the grass started within another twenty, and we
hid a different road erro flat lined with stones. We walked.
Eventually we saw a gas station sign in the distance,
an old flickering alidy one just off the main highway.
We kept walking until we reached it, and there was
the car, somehow parked right there. No explanation, no foo prince,
no one said anything. We got in and drove until
we hit him hotel near King City. Mason left before sunrise.
Becca didn't say a word. The next day she dropped
us off and drove off without looking back. I was
living in a small apartment in older Creep back then,
between contract jobs, just sort of drifting. Most of my
days blurred together, making coffee, scrolling through job boards, telling
myself i'd update my resume. So one dale and texted
me out of nowhere. It didn't feel as strange as
maybe it should have. We hadn't seen each other in
what seven years. We'd taken a few classes together at
community college, car polled a couple times, shared a pack
of gum ones during a test. The message said, Hey,
I'm passing through for a few days. Want to get
out of town. No plan, just to break I'll cover gas.
I stared at it for a while. Normally i'd've ignored
something like that, but I've been feeling stuck lately, like
my life had narrowed down to errands and e mail notifications.
Something about the randomness of it felt like maybe it
would shake me loose a little, so I said yes.
He showed up the next day in a sunfaded green
expedition with peeling whoaming plates and a stack of camping
gear rattling in the back. I half expected there'd be
some one else with him, but it was just Dalen.
His hair was shorter than I remembered, and he wore
the same kind of too clean flannel that made it
hard to guess whether he just washed it or never
worn it before. He smiled when he saw me, but
it didn't quite reach his eyes still. I got in.
I assumed we'd head toward the coast, or maybe take
the mountain roads for a bit something scenic. Instead, he
drove south, turning off the main highway wherever he felt
like it, favoring cracked roads that barely registered on my
phone's map. I asked where we were headed, and he
just shrugged and said wherever the road bends. It sounded
whimsical when he said it at the time. I let
myself find that appealing. The first day passed easily enough.
We stopped at a rose Eide market, bought over ie
peaches and a sack of kettlecrm Dale, and played all
playlists off as phone, some mix of indie bands and
instrumental loops I didn't recognize, and for a while it
even felt like a proper road trip. He talked a little,
mostly about places he'd been recently, none of which I
could picture clearly. That night, we pulled off on to
a why turn out, just outside a shout at campground,
near a place called Miller Ridge. We laid the seats
back and slept in the car. The air was crisp
but not cold, and the night passed without anything worth remembering.
The next morning, something shifted. We started driving before sunrise.
I hadn't even fully woken up when Dalan was already
steering us down in a familiar gravel path. I asked
where we were going, and he said he just wanted
to see something. No details, no tone in that invited questions.
Later that morning, he pulled over without warning, beside the
stretch of dry farmland and walked out into the field,
no explanation, just opened his door, stepped out and left
the engine running. I watched him stand there dead still
for maybe ten minutes, hands at his sides, stirring as
something I couldn't see. Then he came back, climbed in
and drove off like nothing happened. I asked him casually
what that was about. He said, thought I recognized it,
guess not that was it. I didn't press By That night,
we were somewhere ease of a town called Harrow Basin
Dale and pulled off onto a dirts shoulder beside a
scrubby ridge, no lights, no signal, just a patch of nowhere.
I asked if he was planning to sleep there. He
didn't answer right away, just stared up through the windshield
for a few seconds too long, like he was trying
to decide something. Then he said, this is fine. He
didn't move after that, just sat there. I didn't sleep much.
I kept waking up at every small sound, every creak
of the car framed settling, every rustle of when pushing
dry grass against the bumper. I kept my coat sipped
up and one shoe halfway on, just in case I
needed to leave quickly. I didn't know why I felt
that way yet, but I felt it. The next morning
I offered to drive Dale and said no, not maybe later,
not I'm good for now, just no flat and final.
I told him I thought he'd be called to head
back where, maybe even stay somewhere with Wi Fi for
a night. He ignored that, said we were going east now,
toward the desert. Just want to see it, he said,
like it was some museum exhibit we could visit and leave.
We rolled into a gas station just outside of a
place called al Quata. It was one of those places
where everything looked a little too still. I told him
I needed to get water, really, I just needed a
few minutes away from him. Inside I stared at the
drinks in the fridge longer than necessary, reading labels I
didn't care about. The place smelled faintly like rubber and
something burnt. I remember that when I stepped outside, he
was leaning on the front of the expedition, one foot
up on the bumper, door open, just watching me. No smile,
no wave, no wave, just watching. I told him I
was too tired to sleep in the car again and
asked if we could craft somewhere with a real beard.
He didn't argue, just pulled up a motel on his
phone booked it with one hand while the other's day,
topped in his jacket pocket. He said it was in Meville,
about thirty minutes east. That was fine with me. We
didn't talk much on the way there. The place was
exactly what you'd expect, gray stucco, buzzing light above the door,
office that smelled like my crowave coffee. Dalon handed over
his card and asked for one room with two beds.
I stood behind him and felt prickle of something I
couldn't quite name. The clerk slid over a key card
without looking up. Our room was on the second floor,
corner end. I sat on the bed nearest the window.
That's when I noticed a notepad on the desk. It
was open, like some one had been writing in it
earlier that day, not a fresh pad either. Two corners
bent pen impressions bleeding through the page. The first few
lines were ordinary, a list of gas prices, some addresses,
part of a grocery list. Then half way down, centered
and under line twice was a line that made my
stomach twist. Ten is manageable if the spacing works. I
stared at it for a few seconds, not long, just
long enough to remember the way he stood in that field,
the way he didn't want me to drive the way.
He looked at me outside the gas station like he
was deciding something. I didn't say anything. I didn't ask.
The bathroom faucet was running. I could hear him brushing
his teeth maybe or just running water. How to tell?
The door was half closed, the light too bright. I
told him I was crashing alley and climbed into bed,
facing the wall. I didn't turn back around. At some
point in the night, I heard him get up. The
fridge door clicked open, then nothing, just silence. I didn't move.
I kept my breeding steady. A minute passed, then I
heard the springs creek in the other bed. He lay
back down. Eventually I slept for a little while. In
the morning, he was back to acting normal, to normal,
like we hadn't just spent the night avoiding eye contact.
He said he wanted to make a quick stop before
heading north. I told him I aunt lived nearby in
west Ook and I'd stay with her for the weekend instead.
That was a lie. I just needed a way out
that wouldn't cause friction. He stared at the windshield for
a moment, then asked you sure. I said yeah. He
dropped me off outside a diner Pine's something like that.
Didn't say goodbye, just pulled away with the same quiet
expression he did the whole trip. I waited inside for
twenty minutes, used the Wi Fi to book a seat
in the next bus heading north. I didn't text anyone
about it. I didn't post anything online. I just left.
Plan was simple, just a low key road trip from
San josse Dan to Joshua Tree with my cousin Danny
and her friend Micah, two knights round trip. They were
both the organized type, Spotify playlists prepped in advance, cas
station snacks already portioned into zippuc bags, laminated maps. Even
though we had GPS, I was mostly there to drive.
I didn't mind. Danny in out were close growing up
a mecca. Was fun to be around, laid back, good
taste in music, didn't talk through songs. We were supposed
to camp near Palm Springs. The first night. Hit a
few weir of roadside spots through the desert, maybe catch
some stars in Joshua Tree, then cut back north through
the Mahave. Nothing intense, just a desert looped with good company.
And then Mike's brother Lucas asked to come along. I
didn't know Luke as well. He was older, maybe twenty
seven or twenty eight. I'd only seen him a couple
of times at family barbecues, and even then he kept
to himself, one of those people who sort of hovers
near conversations but never joins in. He gave off a
strange energy, like he was always processing something no one
else could see. Danny mentioned he was kind of intense,
but said it like it was a warning and a
joke at the same time. I figured it was one
of those he's just quirky deals. Mike insisted he be fine.
He didn't drive, which probably should have raised a red flat.
He just said he wanted to get out of for
a while, so fine. One more passenger. From the minute
he got into the car, it was clear something was off.
For the first ire, he didn't say a word, just
sat in the back seat behind me, perfectly uppight, staring
straight head Danny and Might get the mood light with
dumb road trip games and music, and I tried not
to feel weird about the silence behind me. Then, completely
out of nowhere, Lucas leaned forward and asked, what do
you think about people who fake their own deaths, not
Joe King no lead. In just that sentence, I half laughed,
expecting a punchline. Nat never came. I said something like,
I guess it depends why they are doing it, re'l
articulate stuff. Lucas didn't respond. He just looked at me
in the rear view mirror, locked eyes with this blank,
unreadable stare, and then leaned back again like nothing happened.
I glanced at Danny. She was already sigh d eying him.
The first night went okay, mostly because we didn't talk much.
We set up kemp near palm springs, ate from a cooler,
drank cheap beer. Micah kept the conversation going, and Lucas
mostly wandered off by himself. He walked this big, aimless
circle around the camp site for a while, like he
was tracing the edge of something invisible. The next morning
he offered to cook. No one argued, we were all
still half asleep. He cracked a few eggs, said he
was making scrambled. When I turned around a few minutes later,
I saw him cracking them directly into the dirt. No pan,
no fire, He just let them run out of the
shell and soak into the ground yellow and white, pull
in in the dust. Micah blinked at him, dude, are
you okay. Lucas didn't even look up. He said cooking
isn't always above food. Then he stood up and walked
off into the brush. We laughed about it later, but
it wasn't the funny kind of laugh, more like ha ha.
That was super weird, right. Danny quietly claimed the front
passenger seat from then on, even though she said she
didn't care. I didn't blame her. By the next day,
the vibe had shifted. Lucas started repeating things I said, literally,
repeating same words, same order, just a second or two
after I said them, Like I'd say we should stop
for gas soon, and he'd say, yeah, we should stop
for gas soon, with the same exact inflection, not like
he was agreeing, more like a recording on a slight delay.
At first I thought I was imagining it, but it
kept happening. Danny noticed too. She didn't say anything, but
I caught her looking at me more and more in
the mirror, like she was waiting for me to say something.
First that afternoon, we stopped near Ambey. It's this weird,
half dead stretch of for out sixty six old motel sign,
rustic gas pump, no real town left, just flat heat.
In silence, Danny and Micah wandered off to take pictures
of the sign. I stayed by the car. Lucas got
back in the back seat, like he had something to
think about. I stood outside with the door open, drinking
the last of a warm bottle of water, debating whether
to just tell Micha we should leave in somewhere with
sell service and be done with it. Then I made
the mistake of trying to talk to him again. I
leaned against the door and said, you doing ok. He
turned toward me slowly and said, you dream about the
wrong people. That's why it follows you. That's all he said,
And I swear he didn't blink the entire time. I
didn't answer, just backed away from the door, sat on
the edge of the head and waited for the others
to come back. I didn't want to be in the
car with him any more, not unless some one else
was awake. To that night, we stayed in a motel
just outside Basto, cheap kind of place, paper thin walls,
one towel per room, curtains that didn't quite close. We
split into two rooms, Danny and I am one, Micah
and Lucas in the other. At around two in the morning,
Danny woke me up. She whispered some one tried the door.
I thought she meant some one walked by or bumped it.
I told her it was probably another guest. Then we
heard the knock. Three slow knocks, spaced out a kind
that on polite or rush, just deliberate, like whoever was
on the other side at time. We froze, didn't say
a word, just waited. Another sound, sore footsteps moving away,
then silence. Neither of us slept after that. In the morning,
I went out to get some ice. As I was
heading back, Lucas was standing in a hallway, leaning against
the wall. I keep been there a while. He looked
straight at me and said, why didn't you open the door.
I didn't answer him. I didn't even stop walking back
in the room, I told Diannie. We both agreed we
were done, no more weirdness, no more talking. We just
needed to get home. But Lucas wasn't finished. Somewhere alone
the amnis fadeen, Lucas suddenly asked me to take a
specific exit, said he left something there. I said, you
haven't been on this trip before. Could you have left?
He said, I've been here. He just didn't notice. I
told him there flat out not happening. He didn't argue,
just sat back, real quiet and said something under his breath.
I couldn't catch it, but the sound of it made
my skin crawl. Not what he said, just the way
came out, like he was talking to me. Mica fell asleep.
A little while after that. Danny was buried in her phone.
I was just focused on the road, counting the minutes
until we could drop Lucas off. Then I saw it
in the side mirror. I caught the angle Lucas holding
his phone, angled just enough to point at the back
of my head like he was taking a photo. I
said delete that. He looked at me like I'd said
something confusing. Delete what the photo? There is no photo.
I pulled over gravel crackling under the tires. Didn't say
anything at first, just put the car in park and
turn around. Urudan get out. He blinked like he didn't
understand the words. Then he opened the door, stepped out slow,
and stood there on the shoulder, hands in his pockets,
watching his driveway. He didn't yell, didn't argue, just stood there,
small in the mirror until he disappeared behind a curve.
We dropped Mic off, then Danny. Nobody said much. That
was the end of the trip. After that, I changed
my number, blocked everyone from that trip. I moved to
a different city about four months later, new job, new place,
knew everything. I just walked out of the logistics job
in sam Bruno. Not in some big dramatic way, no
middle finger to the boss or final email blast. I
just woke up one morning, stared at the ceiling for
twenty minutes and realized I couldn't do another quarter bear
root in spreadsheets and endless tracking updates. So I left
papped bag, threw a mattress into the back of my
cuber route back, and pointed myself down the coast. No plan,
no end date, just me and whatever felt right. That day,
I told people I was taking some space to figure
things out, which is just a polite way of saying
I needed to be alone without anyone asking about my
next move. The first day, smooth left late morning, grabbed
coffee in Santa Cruz, then ease into the rhythm of
the road the cliffs, the bends, the occasional pull off
with a scenic marker. I had a decent set up
in the car, a trin fam matter switched in the back,
a little burner stove, an old blue color filled with
cans and sandwich stuff. Nothing fancy, but it worked. I
wasn't even thirty miles past Marina when I saw the
first strange thing. There was this little turnout on the right,
barely marked I would sign, hand painted and splintering with
this overlook no services written in uneven lettering. The word
vista looked like it had been painted over at some point,
just this mess of faded graybrush strokes beneath it, like
someone tried to erase it and gave up pathway through.
Didn't think much of it, just noticed it, pass it
and kept driving. But a few hours later, after miles
of empty stretches and maybe one bar of signal now
and then I saw it again, same sign, same crooked angle,
same word smear over vista. I even slowed down that time,
kind of laughing to myself, thinking maybe it was a
lazy maintenance thing, like someone had cycled old signs or
duplicated them by mistake. There were a bunch of re
entry points around that are loops hidden back roads, so
I tried to tell myself I'd just come around somehow.
Still it left me with this small itch feeling at
the base of my neck. By sundown, I made it
to this quiet camp round outside a little place called
Seats Point. Not a real town, just a post office,
gas pump and a deli with a sun faded open sign.
I grabbed one of the fast spots, tucked against the tree,
lying where it was quiet, and started setting up for
the night. It was calm. I made dinner, can of chili,
some crackers, water straight from the joke. No fire, just
the soft clicking of my bunner and the occasional creak
of trees in the wind. The other campers were parked
way over by the bathrooms, maybe a hundred feet off.
No one near me. That was the appeal, really, being
away from people, from conversation, from performance. After I finished eating,
I walked back around to throw out my trash, and
that's when I saw it. A folded tourist map tuck
neatly under my windshield wiper. No note, just the kind
you grab for free at a gas station, thin paper, trail, highlights,
cartoon mountains drawn at the corners. I looked around, expecting
someone to waver or maybe gnawed from the car. Nothing.
It was dead quiet. I unfolded it out of curiosity
and saw one thing, a red pin circle around a
spot in the coast labeled fist to overlook. Same name
as a sign, same spot, I think, judging by the
line work. I stared at it for a while before
dropping it in the passenger seat. Didn't really know what
to make of it. Maybe someone thought I was lost
and was trying to be helpful. Maybe it was just
a weird prank. That night, I locked the doors and
left the map sitting face up. I remember waking up
just after three. No sound, no sudden movement, just this
weird sensation, like the air inside the car had shifted,
like something was off balance. I sat up slowly and
checked around outside. Looked the same trees, shadows, the faint
orange flicker from a bathroom light across the lot. But
when I reached over to the passenger seat, the map
was gone. I froze light on, checked the floor at
the foot well. Even when my hand under the seat cushion,
nothing cooler was untouched. Backpack stills, it, charger still plugged in,
no signs of anyone opening a door or rifling through,
just the map vanished. I sat there for ires, staring
at the windows and waiting for any kind of explanation
to come to me. Nothing ever did. At first light,
I bolted, didn't brush my teeth, didn't boil water, just
jumped into the front seat and drove. I stayed in
and for the first stretch, hugging tighter roads, until the
GPS pulled me back to the main highway. And then,
like a sick joke, it happened again. The radio playing
some barely audible local station, spot a mid sentence and
dropped into a wall of static. I glanced down to
check the signal, and when I looked up, the same
sign this to overlook no services. At that point I
think I muttered something like okay, fine, and pulled in.
The turnout was nothing special. Gravel horseshoe with a wooden
rail lining the cliff, A single stone market with a
plaque too scratched to read, one of those binocular stands,
long broken. No people, no noise but the surf below.
I left the engine running, bought out, walked to the edge.
The ocean was just there, dark blue, endless. Still. I
turned to leave, but noticed something just past the brush,
a foot bath, then barely visible durre packed down, and
craft with weeds sprouting through. It didn't look official, it
looked left over. I followed it not far, maybe twenty minutes,
twenty five steps before I saw something strange, an aluminum
travel look, a can, gas station cell and bulk, crushed
and half sunk into the dirt. A few more steps
and I found a red flannel sleeve torn off, wedged
into a bush like it had been yanked free. Another
ten feet a single hiking boot, then a pair of
smashed sunglasses, a foam case with no phone inside. It
was all spread out out in by item, like some
one had walked the same path and kept dropping pieces
of their life along the way. That was enough for me.
I turned around and power walked back to the car.
The overlook was just out of you, now, curved out
of sight by the trail's ankle. It felt too quiet,
too intentional. When I got to the car, I didn't
open the door right way. I checked the back seat.
The sitting on the cushion was the map, same one,
same red circle. Only now it had been traced over
again and again, ying pressed so deep it had sought
to rip the paper. I drove, didn't stop, took the
next exit inland, and follow outside roads until I hid
a range a station near an old hiking trail marker,
small building, one desk, one woman behind it. I handed
her the map without a word. She looked at it,
then at me. Where'd you get this, she asked. I
told her, left out the trail pot citatured upon my car.
She nodded, slow, like it wasn't the first time she'd
heard that. You go down the trail, she asked, No,
I lied, didn't see one another nod. You camping out
here tonight? I was, I said, not any more. She
didn't try to convince me. Other just took the map
and slid it into a drawer. That was it. I left,
drove until the sun dipped, pulled into a rest stop
near de Launo, slept delights on inside the kara and
ni key in ignition. And that is the end. Thank
you for listening, and I will see you in the
next one.