Welcome to Creepypasta and True Scary Stories
I am your host Spooky Boo. Tonight I have for you two very creepy stories about driving. Have you ever been in a car and felt like you were on the road to nowhere? Like the road never ended? I have. I’ll tell my short story after these two creepypasta stories.
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Now let’s begin.
Story Number 1
I Don’t Enjoy Driving Anymore
A Creepypasta by Spookfox
I never really put much stock in the paranormal or the supernatural. To me, all the weird, creepy, and otherworldly stuff people claim to experience are just poorly-understood natural phenomena, overactive imaginations, or mundane things misattributed to the whimsical world of fantasy just because they gave someone the willies. Even when I’ve been creeped out in the past, I’ve always gone to the rational explanation before all else and come out satisfied that nothing strange had truly happened to me. But nothing in my rational, analytical mind can come to terms with what I experienced about a month ago. No mundane explanation, regardless of how hard I try to jam it into my brain, is enough to convince me that it was anything but real.
Before I begin, some disclaimers are in order: I’m straight-edge. No pills, no booze, no hard drugs. I don’t even smoke weed. It hadn’t been a particularly long day at work, nor had I been sleep-deprived. The best explanation I can hope for is a momentary lapse into insanity; a random psychotic episode brought on by stress, or some other factors I didn’t even realize would play such a role in my life.
Somehow I can’t seem to convince myself of that, though. It was just too real. Too vividly real.
I was on my way home from the office, taking the same route I always did. My job wasn’t particularly demanding or stressful. Just some light customer support for a company that made mobile apps. The pay was decent, and I didn’t dread going in like I had with other jobs of its type. For all I’m consciously aware, I enjoy my work, and my home life is great. I live with my girlfriend Sierra, and we’re quite in love. I have a good relationship with my parents, and have a few good friends whom I know I can rely on and trust. Try as I might, I can’t believe that I’d simply lost my senses that night due to stress. That only happens to unhappy people… right?
The drive home was pleasant; not much traffic, and the weather was nice. It was an ideal end to the day. The sun had set, leaving my car’s headlights to illuminate the road ahead of me. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary the whole way home, until I went to make the turn onto my block. I signaled right, turned the wheel, running almost entirely on muscle memory at this point. I’d made this trip so many times it just came naturally to me. Only when I’d gone half-way down the block did I realize something was amiss.
This wasn’t my street. This was Alder Street, the block immediately after mine. I laughed and rolled my eyes, playfully scolding myself for letting my unconscious mind drive all the time. I was bound to mess up like this at some point or another. I reached the end of the block, turned right, and then right again…
But this wasn’t my street either. I’d turned onto Tangerine Street. The other block flanking my own. Baffled by what I, at the time, imagined to be my own carelessness, I once again made my way to the end of the block, turned right… and stopped. My headlights illuminated the street signs; I was on Howard Drive, the road which intersected my block to the south. But before me lay the intersection of Howard and… Alder.
I began to feel frustrated. How had I missed my block three whole times? Sighing, I reversed my car to the next block and looked up to ensure I would take the correct street this time. I read the sign: Tangerine Street…
I didn’t feel it at the time, but I think my unconscious mind realized something was wrong before I even consciously acknowledged the possibility. I turned back onto Howard, rolled forward at a snail’s pace, eyes glued to the sidewalk to make absolutely sure I didn’t pass my block. I once again stopped when the pavement gave way to an intersection and, surely enough, looked up to see the street sign for… Alder Street.
At this point I finally allowed myself to be afraid. Had I gone insane? Was this really where my street was supposed to be? I didn’t believe it possible to just up and forget where I lived–not for a man in his mid-twenties at any rate! I sat there, pulled over on the side of the road, watching other vehicles casually pass me by. I must have been missing something. Maybe I really did just miss the street entirely, and I was just overly tired or something. That had to be it! I resolved to try again, turning my car around and driving so slowly that other motorists had to overtake me, honking their horns impatiently as they passed. Alder St. gave way to sidewalk, houses, and lawns. The walkway continued for a time, then opened up to another street. I hesitated, afraid to look up and read the street sign, afraid to confirm what I think I already knew.
It was goddamn Tangerine Street again. I drove back and forth three more times, only to reach the same results on each circuit; there was no street between Alder and Tangerine. Bell Street, the street where I lived, had vanished. Of course, I knew I had to be crazy, and I even contemplated driving to the hospital, but I couldn’t face the idea that I’d suddenly lost my mind.
An idea suddenly occurred to me, and I retrieved my phone from my pocket. With shaking hands, I opened up Google Maps and zoomed in close. My mind spun at what I saw: Three streets. Alder, Tangerine… and sitting neatly between them, as it had for so many years, Bell Street. I wasn’t crazy… but that only made the situation all the more terrifying. Where the hell was my street? My home?
I called my girlfriend. I didn’t know what else to do, but she had always been my anchor, my pillar of strength when I’d been at the lowest of lows. In all honestly, I’m not sure what I expected her to do for me… assuming she still existed. The phone rang… and rang… and I struggled to keep back the thoughts of her having disappeared like the street had.
“Hello?”
The sound of her voice was almost too much–I choked back tears and tried so hard to sound calm and collected. “Hey babe. You uh… you doing ok?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Nothing, no reason!” I blurted out. So much for trying to be calm. “Listen, I’m… having a bit of a brain fart here. What’s that street next to ours again?”
“Alder?” she sounded confused. Honestly, how could I have sounded to her, asking such questions while failing to stifle my panic? “And Tangerine?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” I remember being quiet for a long time after that, just dumbstruck and completely lost for words.
“Honey, are you ok? You don’t sound good.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Listen, there’s some traffic so I’m gonna be a bit late. I’ll be home soon, though, ok?”
“Ok…” she didn’t sound convinced. “Are you sure nothing’s wrong?”
I sat there, frozen in fear. Fear of what was happening. Fear of how she’d react if I told her, of how crazy I’d look. Fear of never seeing her again. “No.” I admitted, straining the words out through the lump in my throat. “But I promise I’ll be home soon.”
“Is it work? Did something happen?”
“I have to go.”
“Wait, Taylor–”
I hung up. I couldn’t bear it anymore; not with the terrible truth lingering at the tip of my tongue like it was. I had to figure this out.
I circled the block again and again, looping between the two streets. I don’t know how long I did this; an hour, maybe, but time got… weird for me. Maybe it was simply due to the immense panic that had now seized control of my senses, but it began to feel as if hours had dragged by, the streets stretching on for miles before I finally reached a turn. I began to feel tired, fatigued from straining my eyes to see the road in my headlights, which almost seemed to grow dimmer the longer I was on the road.
I’m not sure when it happened, but I suddenly realized that the roads had changed again. Howard Drive, which had always stretched from east to west for miles, now suddenly ended at Alder Street. I checked and, sure enough, the same was true for the road at the other end–Rosewood Road. My head ached; my brain felt as if it was boiling. Our feeble human minds weren’t meant to process things like this. We’re so used to our mundane reality, so grounded in simplicity that, when things like this happen, we break down. But I couldn’t break down. Sierra was waiting for me back home. I had a life to go back to. I could only hope and pray that the end to this bizarre nightmare was just around the next corner, and so I pressed on.
As I continued to loop between the streets, ever vigilant in my search for Bell Street, I noticed I hadn’t seen another car in what felt like hours. I usually got home at around eight in the evening, and there were always cars on the main roads well after ten at night. My car’s clock told me it was only eight thirty, but I honestly wasn’t sure if I could trust it at this point. I’d been driving for so long…
My panic had dulled down to an all-encompassing dread for a while, but returned and doubled when I reached Howard Drive again, and saw that it no longer ran any farther east or west than Alder or Tangerine. A seemingly eternal drive up Alder Street confirmed what I’d already figured: Rosewood had changed as well. I was driving on a closed loop of two main roads and two side streets. An endless circuit framed by houses, lawns, and trees.
I didn’t know what else to do but drive; I was on autopilot at this point, afraid of what might happen if I stopped. I turned on the radio but got only static, and when I finally resolved to dial 911 my phone refused to function. It wouldn’t even turn on. I drove and I drove, figuring I’d eventually run out of gas and… then what? Walk? I almost entertained the idea of getting out of the car and walking through the back yards of the houses that now stood where the main drag of Rosewood was. To see if anything lay beyond. But my paralyzing fear kept me rooted to my car’s seat, my hands glued to the steering wheel. I wasn’t in our world anymore. Whatever existed beyond what I could see was anyone’s guess, but I was so scared of just walking off the edge of existence that I simply couldn’t even think of trying it.
Another hour passed in my perspective, though my car’s clock hadn’t changed. My eyes hurt. My head was killing me. My hands were sore from gripping the wheel so tightly. I had to stop and rest. I pulled over on Howard, shut off the engine, and rested my head on the steering wheel. Without the drive to distract me from it, the weight of what I’d stumbled into came down on me hard, and I lost it. I screamed and I cried, banged my head on the wheel, honking the horn each time. One final thought occurred to me in the midst of my breakdown: to go to one of these houses and beg for help. I wasn’t even sure if they had people in them–no other cars existed on this road, and I hadn’t seen any pedestrians.
I resolved to try… but when I looked out the window, only darkness greeted me. I squinted to see the houses on the side of the road, but found nothing. The streetlights, once brightly-lit, seemed to have disappeared entirely. Fear surged within me once more as I turned on the car and spun the wheel hard to the left. I turned into the other side of the road to angle my headlights at the houses.
Only there weren’t any houses. Not a single goddamn one. My headlights shone off into infinite darkness, and I felt that if I rolled forward any farther I’d fall into this endless pit of black. I stared, unblinking, into the void, petrified by the realization that had struck me: The houses had gone where the streets had. Vanished into the void that was slowly consuming the world around me. Finally, with no other option, I carefully brought my car back onto the road… and I drove. The road no longer curved. It just went on, seemingly forever. Another hour passed… and another… and another. The clock remained the same, but I knew I had to have spent half a day in this nightmare, at the very least. The road was my only company now; even the stars and the moon had disappeared. Even with how much time had passed, no sunrise greeted me over the empty horizon. My headlights grew dimmer and dimmer as I drove on, until they no longer touched the road.
I stopped at that point, too scared, too defeated to go on. I curled up in my seat and tried my phone again. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. I screamed and screamed into the darkness, slamming my hands on the wheel and rocking in my seat. So alone… So alone…
I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I awoke to a blinding light. Not in front of me, but in my rear-view mirror. It was so bright it hurt, and it took me a moment to realize it wasn’t alone. There were two other lights with it: one red and one blue. Blinking red and blue lights…
The knock at my window caused me to scream in terror, and the imposing figure of a police officer at my window simultaneously mortified and elated me. I rolled down the window in disbelief and, when the tall man said nothing, I cautiously asked him, “Yes officer?”
What else could I have said? I wasn’t even sure what was real anymore, but on the off chance that this was real, I sure didn’t want to come off as crazy to a cop. He pursed his lips and seemed to take his time deciding what words to use. Finally, he answered my question with one of his own. “You ok, son?”
God, what could I even say to that? After what I’d been through, no, no I was not ok! Not even remotely! It wasn’t hard for him to pick up on that, and he relaxed his posture a little. “Anything to drink tonight?”
“No. No sir.”
“Well I’m not gonna lie; you look like hell. No drugs, no nothing?”
“No.” I answered quickly and raised my hands defensively. “I’ll take any kind of test you want. Just… I’m just trying to get home, and–and–”
There wasn’t any chance in hell I was explaining this in any sane manner, so I just let myself trail off. The officer sighed, and he went through the usual affair of collecting my info–license, registration, proof of insurance. He told me to sit tight and went back to his patrol car. Looking ahead, I could see in the distance that Howard Street kept on going. The houses and street lights had reappeared, and my headlights were as bright as they’d always been. I wasn’t sure if this was a good sign, but having company–even company that thought I was on something–helped calm my nerves. I checked my phone and just about jumped out of my skin.
Some missed text messages from Sierra, asking if I was ok. I quickly answered her and affirmed that I was fine, that I’d be home soon. She started to bombard me with questions, but I had no time to answer. The cop reappeared at my window, handed me my documentation, and shrugged at me.
“You’re only a block from home, man.” he said, bewildered. “You couldn’t wait that long to take a nap?”
I stared at him for a long moment. Irrational anger bubbled up within me. If this guy only knew the nightmare I’d just endured… That I could very well still be enduring! But right now he was my only solid proof that hope still existed, and there was no way he could understand. I sheepishly asked him if he’d follow me home, in case I nodded off again. He was clearly suspicious, but promised to do so.
Within thirty seconds, the next intersection came up, and I nervously glanced up at the street sign. Tears flooded my eyes, and I almost broke down again when I saw that I’d finally reached Bell Street. I signaled, turned, and tried so hard not to race home. I pulled into my driveway, waved a little too enthusiastically at the officer as he departed, so glad that he’d been satisfied with not smelling booze on my breath. Sierra met me at the door, and I practically tackled her in an embrace. The warmth of her body against mine, her gentle hands against my back… things I thought I’d never feel again. She asked the obvious question: “What the hell happened?”
And… I told her. I felt so stupid, so immeasurably idiotic as I spelled out exactly what happened. I was sure I’d lost her right at the beginning, but god bless this woman, she… well, I can’t exactly say she believed it happened, but she believed that I believed it. She didn’t pass it off as me sneaking around on her, or getting drunk with the guys after work. All the insane things I babbled out through bawling tears, she took at face value, regardless of how impossible they sounded. God, I love this woman.
It’s been a month since that day, and not a single thing has happened out of the ordinary. No disappearing streets, no glitches in the Matrix or whatever the hell had happened to me. I just can’t explain it. I went to a shrink, and I’m not schizophrenic. The only explanation they can offer is that it was a really vivid dream, and that I had just pulled over and passed out from exhaustion. I don’t buy it. That isn’t… me. I don’t do things like that. Whatever happened to me was as real as what you’re seeing in front of you right now as you read this.
I’m terrified of driving now. It’s sad, because I used to love it. The open road used to comfort me, give me a sense of freedom and control. Now long stretches of road fill me with dread, and I doubt I’ll ever look at driving the same way again. The thing that tears me up the most about all this is that I’ll never really have answers. No explanation as to how or why this happened. But if that’s the price I have to pay for never experiencing it again, I’ll gladly pay it. No amount of closure is worth being trapped wherever the hell that dark, lonely place was again.
I’m taking some time off work… and I think I’ll make my vacation a staycation this time around. Never know if my street will just up and walk away on me.
Story Number 2
I Found a Dark and Curvy Road
An Anonymous Creepypasta
I try to live my life without too many regrets. Iāve had highs and lows like everyone else, sure, but I do what I can not to worry too much about what could have happened if Iād made a different choice, if I maybe hadnāt ātaken the road less traveledā. I figure everyone makes the best decisions they can with the information they have available to them at the time. Going through all the āwhat-ifsā is ridiculous, because the only way you would have made a different choice is if youād had some other detail, which of course you didnāt. Hindsight is perfect, and even then, you can never be sure exactly what the sequence of events might have looked like if youād gone right instead of left. And yet, there is one choice I made, one road I took, that I just canāt help but wonder how things might have turned out if Iād only done something different.
My job has me move around pretty regularly. Iām not going to get into what I do, that has no bearing on the story. But a couple years ago I was working in Philadelphia and living on the other side of the Delaware River in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Iām originally from northwestern Pennsylvania and, since this was the closest Iād been to home since Iād moved out to college, I took the chance to go see my parents whenever I could. I knew Iād be moving again before long, and my folks arenāt getting any younger, so I tried to find a weekend every month or so to make the seven hour trip to visit them.
If Iād been thinking about it when I was looking for places to rent, Iād have probably tried to live on the west side of Philadelphia instead of in Jersey to avoid the traffic during rush hour, but by the time I realized it the lease was signed and there wasnāt much I could do. The drive to my hometown was pretty boring, honestly. Iād take the Ben Franklin Bridge across the river, head up I-476 for an hour or so, then a long slog across basically the entire expanse of PA on I-80 before another hour north on I-79 to Erie, Pennsylvania, where Iām from. The only variance in the drive was how long it would take me to get through Philly, because once I got on the 476 extension I could typically predict my ETA within five or ten minutes.
My second summer in Jersey Iād taken two weeks off and planned on spending the second week in Erie. Things changed that first Wednesday, though, because a big storm blew through and knocked out power in a good part of the area where I was living. Dealing with ninety degree heat with no air conditioning wasnāt something I particularly felt like spending the first half of my vacation doing, so after one uncomfortably sweaty night, I let my parents know Iād be heading over a few days early.
In retrospect, I should have left first thing in the morning. But, because I had a couple things to take care of before heading out, by the time I finally got on the road that Thursday it was past lunch time and getting on toward mid-afternoon. For whatever reason the traffic in Philly was particularly heavy, and by the time I finally got through town I was a good hour behind schedule. Still, based on my normal timeline, I figured Iād still be able to make it in early enough to grab a dinner and beer with my dad and brother before cashing in for the night. Two things I hadnāt taken into consideration were the number of other folks that, apparently, had the same idea to get out of town that I did, and the road construction that must have sprung up in the time since my last trip home.
The Interstate Highway system is a heck of a thing. Being able to zip along at 65, 70, or, in some remote places like west Texas even faster than that, makes cross-country automobile travel take a fraction of the hours it would otherwise. I canāt tell you the number of times my folks have reminisced about the days before the interstate, when going to see friends outside of DC would take almost twice as long as it does now. Whatās truly remarkable to me, though, is that even though the entire system of highways was built start to finish in a mere thirty-five years, it sure seems like when parts of it go under construction they stay that way forever.
Traffic was uncharacteristically heavy, but moving, and I was making decent time, until I saw the first orange warning signs letting me know that our four lanes were reducing to three. And then two. And then one. Hundreds of cones stretched down the road as far as the eye could see, and see I certainly could as the cars in front of me reached a complete and total standstill. It was one of the worst deadlocks Iāve ever been in. Seriously, I think I moved a mile in an hour. After about three hours my stomach started grumbling. With an exit just ahead, and no end to the traffic jam in sight, I got off and found a diner to grab some dinner. Even if traffic miraculously picked up, I still had a solid five hours of driving ahead of me, so at that point I knew for sure it was going to be pretty late that I was getting in.
After finishing eating, I got back on the road. Things looked like they were picking up for a couple miles, but then I came up to the back end of the jam and was right back to waiting. We were moving a little bit better, I think averaging about five miles an hour at this point, but as the sun started edging toward the horizon I pulled out my phone and started to see if Google maps could clue me in on any kind of workaround.
Itās a funny thing about human nature: most of us donāt like to sit still. Studies at airports showed people would rather walk farther to baggage claim to get their luggage, even if the total time would have been less if theyād have had a slightly longer wait at planeside. Well, the power of the internet appeared to be in my favor. Though I-80 still showed as a dark red band for another fifty miles or so, there was a southbound county road coming up in a few miles, and a northbound a couple after that, either of which looked like theyād let me bypass the worst of the traffic. Since Iād spent the better part of the day sitting on the road my patience was about worn out, and I opted to take the southbound road even though the app told me it would ultimately take about thirty minutes longer to get to my parentsā house. I just wanted to get moving again and reasoned at this rate it might take me more than the thirty-minute difference to get to the northbound route anyway. And that is a choice that will haunt me until the day I die.
I made the turnoff and immediately felt my mood improve. The signs alternated limiting my speed between thirty-five and forty miles an hour, but even that seemed like flying compared to the logjam Iād spent the last several hours in. The drive was interesting. The road started a little twisty, with plenty of elevation changes as it curved up and around the hills of central Pennsylvania. It took me on a general southwest diagonal but turned and doubled back on itself enough that for the first thirty minutes or so I got regular views of the stalled traffic on I-80. Pretty soon after that though, just about the time that the sun was just dipping down beneath a couple of the hills in my rearview mirror, the road took a long curving tack and carried me down and away out of sight of the interstate.
Now, something that a lot of people donāt realize is how big of a state Pennsylvania is. Sure, there are plenty of bigger ones, but PA is deceptively big. And it is remote. Isolated. Hell, the translation of the name means āPennās woodsā after all. The Blair Witch Project didnāt have to embellish that aspect of the state, the fact that you could head into the woods and walk for dozens of miles in any direction without seeing anything like another human being. Itās got a decent number of big cities; Pittsburgh and Philly both have enough of a population to support major sports teams. But away from those centers of development, the Harrisburgs and the Pottsvilles and the Scrantons and what have you, thereās a whole lot of nothing. Nothing, and trees. And dark and lonely road.
Such was the road I was traveling that night, winding through the twists and turns of the Appalachian foothills. Iāve moved around a lot, I mentioned, traveled through most of the continental states anyway. I sometimes used to wonder, when Iād be driving along a patch of asphalt surrounded by only untamed wilderness, what it must have been like to construct such a road. What had it been like before men had intruded with our civilization and our machines? What had lived there? I donāt wonder anymore, not since that night when I went left instead of right.
The way continued to twist, back and forth, up and down. As I wound deeper into the foothills, the trees grew thicker, branches from either side of the road reaching over and almost touching, forming a natural canopy twenty feet up that blocked out much of my view of the sky and the stars above. I drove with my high beams on, because the idea of streetlights had never entered the minds of whoever built this road. The painted lines were old and not well cared for and I found myself gradually straddling the faded double yellow partition running down the middle of the two lanes to keep some distance between myself and the trees that increasingly encroached the pavementās edge.
Iāve never been a particularly good navigator. My parents used to say it was because I spent my childhood with my nose pushed into a book during car rides, but I personally just think itās because Iām bad at it. So it was that, despite there was no possible way I could be lost, as there were no other roads that I could have possibly turned onto and gotten off track, that I more and more frequently found myself checking my phone to ensure I was still on the right path. Which is how I almost ran into the other car.
My mind was wandering, thinking about the fact that my signal bars had dropped and remained at zero for the last twenty minutes, and what possible implications that would mean if I should have some kind of emergency. I raised my eyes back to the road after Google maps confirmed for probably the twentieth time I was still good on my route choice and, after my brain took a beat to process that what I was rapidly approaching was a vehicle stopped in the middle of the lane, slammed my foot on the brake.
I stopped in time, but not by much, with maybe five feet separating my hood from the other carās rear bumper. My heart was pounding in my chest as adrenaline coursed through my body, but my fear quickly gave way to anger. Seriously, what the hell was this guy doing? Not only was he stopped in the middle of the road, but all his lights were off! If I hadnāt had my high beams on, there was a good chance I wouldnāt have seen him before I was practically on top of him, even if I hadnāt been checking my phone!
I could feel my pulse beating in the vein on the side of my neck. Iām not somebody particularly quick to road rage, and after a couple quick breaths I managed to get ahold of myself. Not wanting to outright alarm anyone that might still be in the vehicle, I shifted into reverse and backed up about twenty feet, popping my hazards on. Thatās when I started noticing a few odd things about the stopped car, more than just the fact that the lights were out.
Of course, it was halted directly in the middle of the road, but that wasnāt unreasonable since there wasnāt any shoulder to speak of that the driver could have moved it over to. The strange thing, though, was that all the doors were open, those on the driverās side even crossing over slightly into the oncoming lane. And on further observation I saw an item dropped out onto the road by the rear driverās side door, something that appeared to be a childās stuffed animal.
I considered my options and, after a few seconds, decided that I would have to go against my better judgment to just keep on my merry way and head outside to get a better idea of what was going on. I said earlier my job doesnāt have anything to do with this story, which is mostly true. But before you judge my decisions too harshly, it bears mentioning that Iāve spent some time in the military. An obligation to help people has been drilled into me over the years, and Iād seen enough things while deployed to feel I could handle myself.
And so, I got out of my car but kept it running. I popped the trunk to grab the flashlight I keep there and left my headlights on so I could see what I was doing. I looked up and down the road, hoping to spy signs of other cars approaching, but no luck. āHello?ā I called up to the other car as I cautiously started my approach, circling around to the left toward the middle of the road so Iād be able to get a look inside before I got too close. āAnyone there?ā
No answer.
The beams from my headlights helped some, but there were enough shadows to still obscure the carās interior. Shining my flashlight, though, easily determined that no one was inside. I moved closer, stooping down by the rear door to pick up the fallen object off the ground. It was a childās toy, just as I had suspected, a stuffed rabbit with well-worn patches showing signs of frequent love. I frowned. If the folks traveling in the car had hitched a ride with a passerby, they would have taken the rabbit, or the kid would have thrown a conniption.
I shut the rear door and moved up to the front. I put my hand on the hood and found it was still warm to the touch; that meant it couldnāt have been here terribly long. I slid into the driverās seat to try and figure out if there were some kind of mechanical issue that would have forced the car to stop, and was startled to find a set of keys still dangling from the ignition. Pressing the brake, I turned the key and the engine started right up, headlights and the dome light in the roof springing to life. Fuel, oil, temperature, battery; all the gauges looked good, not even a check engine light. Curiouser and curiouser.
Then I saw the purse in the passenger seat.
I picked it up, a normal brown shoulder bag, and briefly rummaged around before finding a wallet inside. Everything appeared to be intact, about forty dollars in cash, a couple credit cards, gym membership, Samās Club card. The driver’s license named the owner as Mary Walker, a pretty blonde that had just turned thirty the month before. A couple pictures showed Mary in staged poses sitting on a blanket under a tree whose leaves were turned red and yellow, captured in the thrall of autumn. A huge, bearded lumberjack of a man hugged her from behind, a small pony-tailed girl with a goofy, over-exaggerated smile on her lap. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, a shiver running down to the base of my spine. Something was very wrong with this situation.
I put everything back in the purse and returned it to the seat, turned off the car and got out, shutting the driverās door behind me. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and dialed 911, holding it over my head to try and get a connection with no luck. Cursing softly, I jammed the red āend callā button and moved around to the passenger side of the car. I played my flashlight around and noticed that some of the foliage at the edge of the road was bent and trampled, like someone had walked through it. I didnāt have enough woodcraft to be able to judge how long ago they might have passed, but even then, I couldnāt imagine any scenario for why they would have gone wandering.
Shining my light into the woods, the beam only extended maybe thirty feet through the trees before being effectively swallowed by the greedy blackness. Looking at the flattened foliage, at the stuffed rabbit in my hand, then at that dark trees crowding maliciously, my thoughts teetered back and forth between what I should do.
I made up my mind. Iād been trained to help people. It was hardwired into my system. There was a child somewhere in the woods. I raised my foot to take a step onto the beaten path. And thatās when a white flicker of movement entered the very edge of my flashlight beam.
It was Mary Walker. She was naked and walking stiffly, unnaturally, her arms swaying out of sync with the rest of her body, like a marionette manipulated by an inexperienced puppeteer.
āHello?ā her voice called out. āAnyone there?ā
More shapes came into view behind her, shambling along. Here the bearded man who must be Maryās husband, there her little daughter, owner of the well loved rabbit, both naked, both moving as oddly as their wife and mother. And now I could tell there were more. Many more, their forms indistinct out of the direct light, but so many they caused the darkness to pitch and swell with their odd, staggering passage, their voices a chorus. āHello?ā they called, āAnyone there?ā parroting back the questions Iād asked only a few short minutes ago when Iād approached the abandoned car.
I took a stumbling step back, away from the woods and the approaching automatons, tripping into the Walkerās car. Catching my balance, I involuntarily shone my light up into the pitch recesses of the branches and in doing so could just make out, barely, a sort of darkness crouched hidden in the upper limits, a void even darker than the trees. Was it my imagination, those lines of pure blackness that extended from that concealed mass and seemed to pierce the flesh of Mary Walker, and her kin, and the countless other shapes moving in concert with them?
āHello?ā
āAnyone there?ā
I sprinted then, back to my car, engine mercifully still running, headlights and hazards flashing welcomingly.
āHello?ā
I shifted to reverse, miraculously keeping enough of my head to avoid running off the road as I completed a three-point turn.
āAnyone there?ā
I chanced a glance in my rearview mirror. The pale form of Mary Walker stood halted just at the edge of the forest where the trees met the road. One hand was raised, beckoning me to return, or perhaps waving goodbye, her face a mask of confused sadness. I pressed the gas and drove back the way I came. I did not look back again.
The rest of the trip was a fog. At some point after I made it back to the interstate I called my parents, let them know I wouldnāt be getting in until late. I drove on autopilot, the traffic jam having cleared while I was off.
I thought about calling 911, but didnāt. What would I have told them? And to what end? There was no one left to be helped.
I try not to go through life with too many regrets, wondering about āwhat-ifsā. But this one, this choice. What if I had left earlier in the day? What if I hadnāt stopped for dinner? Maybe I would have still gone left. Maybe I would have been there in time to help the Walkers. Maybe I would have been taken by that black thing fishing in the dark.
What if I had gone right? Would I still be ignorantly going through life, unknowing there are other things out there? I try not to think of it too often, but every now and then my thoughts turn to the stuffed rabbit. It wasnāt until I reached my parentsā house that night that I realized I still had it clutched in my hand.
I used to wonder, before men brought our roads and civilization, what was the wilderness like? What lived there? I donāt wonder anymore. I canāt afford to, at least if I donāt want to wake up screaming.
And no matter how bad the traffic, I always stick to the interstate.
Story Number 3
OK this is just a quick story of mine that is true and really creepy. My son and I were driving late at night to the place I worked. It was about 30 miles away from home and there was no traffic at that time of night. I normally wouldn’t have brought him, but I couldn’t leave him home alone as no one else was there that night.
We’re driving down the highway and we pass the sign that indicated we were about 5 miles away from our destination while we were talking about something, I can’t remember what. I realized the offramp should be coming up soon so I look to the right for the offramp and suddenly the same 5 miles to town sign shows up again. I pass it off as thinking that maybe I hadn’t seen it earlier and continued to drive.
About 10 minutes later we pass the same sign again and my son looks at me with this really confused look on his face and says, “Mom, we passed that sign twice already.”
We couldn’t turn off because the next offramp would be the one we needed so we kept driving to see if we both noticed the sign one more time. This time the offramp was there and we made it to work 30 minutes later than I expected.
Weird, right? It wasn’t just me imagining something strange because he noticed it as well.
Do you want more spooky stories? This totally strange channel has both fiction and true stories. I also have episodes about true crime such as stalkers and serial killers as well as true paranormal stories with ghosts and creepy things that go bump in the night.Ā Stay tuned for the program Monday through Friday. It releases some time in the deep hours of the night, but you can find it any time you like on the podcast Creepypasta and True Scary Stories.
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Thanks for listening. That’s all for tonight.
I’ll see you in your nightmares.
