A trucker buddy sent me a meme the other day of a hand-lettered sign reading, “This road is cursed.”

I chuckled, but I can truthfully say that certain roads are sinister.

I fell into over-the-road truck driving as a young man. I had no encumbrances – no partner, not even a loyal dog at home – and the work suited me. I’ve spent 20 years in long-haul trucking now. I enjoy my job, but it can take a toll. Driving can be dull and repetitive. Truckers eat a lot of bad food and spend hours sitting in gridlock.

There are other, stranger hazards, too. Truckers drive through weird places and see uncanny stuff. Every driver has stories.

You might think hitchhikers are one of those hazards, but most people who thumb rides are simply too poor to pay for travel. My standard policy, time permitting, is to pick them up and drop them off with bus fare. Nine times out of ten, they’re desperate, not dangerous, and the outliers are mostly just strung out on drugs.

I’m pretty good at discerning who will be trouble before they get into my cab. I badly miscalculated once, and it was on one of those cursed stretches of highway. Several truckers had gone missing in the area, leaving their rigs abandoned at the side of the road. Folks assumed they’d run afoul of the cartels, but there wasn’t any proof.

I remember it was a chilly night with no visible moon. This hitchhiker was wearing a dress too thin for the weather, and her shoulders slumped as she held out her thumb. She looked frightened and painfully young in my headlights, and anyone hitching on this particular road had to be naive. I pulled onto the shoulder and watched in the side view mirror as she hurried to catch me.

She warily looked me over before climbing into the cab, her teeth chattering. I reached behind my seat and handed her a hoodie. “Don’t worry,” I said. “It’s clean. I did laundry yesterday.”

“Thank you,” she jittered out.

I eased back onto the highway, told her where I was dropping my load, and asked where she was going. She gave me a vague answer about getting home as she darted suspicious glances my way.

“I won’t pry,” I said. I saw the girl’s shoulders stiffen from the corner of my eye, like she expected a blow. Poor kid, I thought. “It’s not safe to hitch rides these days, especially on this stretch of road. I’ll drop you as close as I can to the nearest Greyhound stop and give you the money for a ticket to wherever you need to go.”

“In exchange for what?” Her voice wasn’t hesitant now, but sounded deeper and almost threatening. I realized with a sickening lurch that I’d made a terrible mistake.

An inner sense told me to keep my eyes on the road. “In exchange for nothing but knowing you’re safe. I figure anybody hitchhiking nowadays is in a bad spot, and they only need a helping hand.”

She let the silence stretch as my hackles rose. I could almost feel a cold, probing energy pass over me as she considered my answer. “You’re actually serious, aren’t you?”

I nodded, praying she believed me. “Yes.”

She huffed an incredulous laugh that made my skin crawl. “I thought your sort had died out. Pull over.”

Something in her voice compelled me to obey, though I assumed I was going to disappear like those other missing drivers. I had a weapon under my seat, but I doubted it would be of any use. I heard her unlatch the door as the air brakes hissed. I finally turned to face her as she climbed out, and I’ve often wished I hadn’t. She no longer held the guise of a lost young woman. She didn’t even look human. Her face was too angular, her teeth were pointed, and her eyes were completely black.

“I always let the good ones go,” she said as she hopped to the ground. “It hasn’t happened in years.”

I didn’t bother checking the rearview mirror; I just started rolling as soon as she slammed the door. I don’t know what kind of creature she was, but I had a close call that night, and if I hadn’t been a kind man, I might have ended up among the damned.

I think I passed a spiritual test, but I never want to risk driving that cursed highway again.

• I was experimenting with a copypasta or r/nosleep format for this story, so it’s a little different from my usual style.
• Hi, I’m still alive!
• I’m alive and my fantasy self talked me into getting a Very Bad Haircut. I thought I was gonna be living my Parisienne dreams, but I ended up looking like a suburbanite who shops at Coldwater Creek. Big yikes. At least hair grows back.
• I’ve been reading a lot of bad trash lately (and not good-bad, if you know what I mean), but I recently picked up The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society by C.M. Waggoner on a whim, and it really cracked me up. I wouldn’t say it’s a true parody of paranormal cozy mysteries, but it is a bit of a send-up of the genre. My favorite detail was how the almost breathless cozy mystery prose completely changed tone when the middle-aged librarian MC figured out what was really going on (no spoilers). Anyway, it was a fun read.
• I haven’t sent many newsletters this year, but (barring disaster) I do intend to do a full Spooky Season series in October. In the meantime, I plan to do a couple of clothing/wardrobe posts over the rest of the summer. (Just bin ’em if they’re not for you. You know the deal.)

Stay cool out there — figuratively and literally. OKAY, BYE! 🖤