We’re driving into the woods. I think they’re gonna kill me. They’re all staring at me, those beady pupils fixed on me. No one lives out here, we’re over an hour from the nearest town. I think they’re gonna kill me. I’m so sorry, this is my fault I’m so sorry. I guess I should explain though?
Everyone knows about them, but hasn’t anyone wondered why we all know about them? We didn’t really talk about it with each other, not till recently, and the internet was stunned to discover that so many of us share this experience. The runner, the ninja, parkour artist, squirrel, skateboarder, hell, I saw someone talk about theirs being a large ostrich. The form changes, but we all see it: the creature that runs next to the car you are riding in. For some folks, it isn’t that they even see it, they’re just.. aware of it. Running along the guardrail, swinging through light posts. Honestly, we should’ve known better. As many who frequent this sub know, most monsters come about from the collective consciousness of humans. Our fear gives birth to these horrible things. We should’ve known better.
The Creatures were the topic of discussion as we drove towards the cabin. Heather’s parents weren’t exactly rich, as indicated by the beat up Hyundai Heather drove, but her parents were well-off enough to have a cute little rural cabin, tucked in the Appalachian backwoods, willed to them by some deceased uncle or something. They were letting us all stay the week while we were on spring break. Her parents weren’t exactly thrilled about Erin’s boyfriend staying with us too, but we were all in college now, and Jacob had a reputation for being a good kid, a “lovely young man” as the church ladies would say, so Heather’s parents allowed him to stay with us.
I shouldn’t have had that beer. Maybe if I were sober, if we were sober, maybe things would’ve been okay. It started out innocent, Jacob was telling us all about this tumblr post about the runners. Apparently his is a ninja, running with a katana, like from one of those animes he watches. Erin said hers is a large monkey, swinging from tree to tree. Heather’s is a large buck, and mine is just a humanoid shadow. It sounds like they never have a full human face, they usually just have eyes, if even that. As we talked, I watched my shadow creature run by our car, and hypothesized that maybe it was like a personality test, like the creature you see means something about who are. Erin was teasing Jacob about how his ninja was a sign that he watched too much anime, when-
“SHIT!” Heather yelled as she slammed the breaks. The beer bottles in the back crashed into the back of the seat and Jacob swore as his beer spilled all over his gym shorts. We whirled toward the windshield, to watch a large deer lazily make it’s way out of the headlights. “Sorry” she breathed. “It came out of nowhere.” She started driving again, a bit slower now. We stayed quiet at first, but soon the car was once again abuzz. The conversation transitioned into the “rules” for the creatures. Jacob loved r/nosleep, and had decided to write a spooky story about the Creatures here once he sobered up. He said the people on this reddit know a lot of entities, and the rules about certain ones. Apparently rule posts are common here? He said y’all like rule posts, so here’s what we came up with:
1. The Creature can take many forms, but generally doesn’t have a face.2. The driver never sees the Creature while driving.3. The Creature moves at the exact same speed as the car. Clearing obstacles doesn’t slow it down.
Jacob added that all the creatures on nosleep have a rule about what triggers an attack, so he suggested we just make up one. Here is Jacob’s rule:
4. Do not litter while the Creature is running alongside your car. It does not like being bonked on the head by trash.
He and Erin were beside themselves with that last one. “Imagine!” Erin giggled, “someone bonking your ninja guy on the head with an empty soda bottle!”. “He’d probably chop it with his katana, like SWISCH” Jacob mimicked a slashing motion, nearly spilling more of his beer. As I listened to their drunken cackling, I watched as my Creature ran beside us again. It had disappeared when Heather almost hit that deer. “Hey guys?” I asked. “Do you think it disappears cause we stop thinking about it?” “Yeah, that could be it” Heather replied. “They might not be aggressive at all, I mean, they don’t try to hurt us when we’re at a stop sign. Maybe it can’t get into the car?”
5. The Creature might be scared of cars?? Maybe it’s like how the fae are with iron?
I was determined to test my theory as we pulled into the driveway. I stayed focused on the Creature, who was now standing parallel to the car under some trees. Erin got out from behind me, and leaned back into the car to grab her purse. The Creature slowly turned and looked at her.
“Erin.” Jacob said in a low voice. “Get back in the car.” Erin looked at him, then turned where he was staring. The Creature was somehow visible to my friends now. When did it shift from shadow to a corporeal form?? I hadn’t taken my eyes off of it? Erin froze, and the Creature suddenly lunged at her. “NO!” Jacob scrambled to unbuckle his seatbelt and grabbed Erin’s arm. But before he could pull her in, the Creature reached her. She screamed as it grabbed her face, and tossed her into the darkness of the woods, as if she weighed nothing. As she screamed off in the darkness, the Creature turned it’s attention to Jacob. He was still halfway in the car, and tried to push himself back in, but it grabbed his leg. “NO! HELP IT BURNS!” Jacob screamed, as we heard an odd sizzling sound. “NONONONONO” Heather cried, and she hit the acceleration. The car jolted backwards, Jacob tried to hold onto the seat, but the Creature was too strong. As Heather backed up, he was ripped from the car, now clinging onto the door with all his strength. Heather dove into the backseat to help, but in a moment his grip failed, and he too disappeared into the darkness. Somewhere in the trees, Erin’s screams died down to a gurgling cry. “We have to get out of here!” Heather screamed, grabbing the door to shut it. A shadowy arm shot up from under the car and grabbed her wrist. She screamed in pain as her skin started bubbling. “DRIVE!” she screamed at me. I threw myself into the driver’s seat, furiously kicking the pedals to find the gas. The car jolted forwards, and Heather lost her balance, screaming in terror as the Creature yanked her out. I pushed the pedal to the floor, sobbing as I hit a bump, and hearing her scream as the car rolled over her. I sped off, back into the woods.
Soon the screams stopped. I couldn’t see the Creature anymore. Is it following me? What if I can’t see it cause I’m the driver? My vision was so blurry I could barely make out the road. This was all my fault. Were they dead? I just fucking LEFT them. I RAN OVER Heather! It was MY Creature that we saw. This was MY fault. And what the hell was it doing to them? What was the sizzling sound?
My frenzied thoughts were cut off as I saw a humanoid figure by the roadside. The Creature. I wanted to hurt it, wanted my friends back. “FUCK YOU!” I screamed, as I hit the gas and ran the car directly into it.
I woke up with my head pounding. The airbags had gone off, and my nose was bloody. Was I in an accident? I lifted my face off the steering wheel as I sat up, taking in the woods around me. I was in the car in the dark woods. Why was I driving? I don’t have a license, I can’t drive? Then the memories flooded back. The Creature. My friends. My gaze shot up to peer at the front of the car. A tree. A fucking tree. In my hysterical state, I had rammed my only escape vehicle into a fucking TREE. Oh my god. Am I still the driver? What if the Creature is here? Shaking, I pulled my phone out and dialed 911. I sobbed to the dispatcher, telling her EVERYTHING, the Creature, my friends, the crash. She stopped me - “Ma’am, have you been in a crash?” “Yes” I stammered. “I thought I saw the Creature and I wanted to hurt it, I rammed my car into it, but it was a tree”. She asked me some questions; was I injured, had I been drinking, had I taken any substances tonight? She didn’t seem to believe me about the Creature, but she said she’d send help right away. I made sure all the doors were closed and locked, and ducked down in my seat, hoping that if I can’t see it, it can’t see me either.
Red and blue lights flashed across my eyelids. I sat up, immediately regretting it as the pounding in my head intensified. I looked out to see a police officer walking towards my car. Oh no! He’s outside his car! I started screaming, begging him to get back in his car, I couldn’t watch the Creature take anyone else. He opened my door and shined a light on my face, the pain in my head exploding, I couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. “Ma’am, please calm down. We’re the only ones out here.” He eyed the shattered beer bottles in the backseat. “Ma’am, have you been drinking?” I started sobbing again. He tilted my chin up and shined the light in my eyes, then turned his flashlight off and had me get out and walk to his car. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to arrest you for DUI, and for driving without a license.” He asked if I had any other injuries, and I said no, but a jolt of pain shot through my shoulder as he attempted to handcuff me. “Yeah, that looks dislocated” he said. “Tell you what, the nearest hospital is pretty far from here, and the closest EMS is almost just as far. I’ll take you to the hospital to get your head and shoulder looked at. Now, I’m gonna cuff your hands in front of you so I don’t hurt that shoulder more, but don’t you try anything, okay? These doors lock, so you aren’t getting out alone regardless, so just relax, alright? Here, I’ll put you in the center so you can lay down. Don’t need you pukin in my car.” He put me in the middle of the backseat and buckled me in.
I wish I could say the drive was uneventful. As he got in and started the car, I looked back at the wreckage of Heather’s car and gasped. The Creature stood there, along with three others. The new ones were clearly mid-transformation, covered in blood and two still had faces. The blood coating their skin was bubbling and foaming. One of them had a leg that was crushed from the knee to the ankle. I cried out as I recognized my friends. The officer jumped, whipping his head around. I pointed and he just sighed and said “yeah, you wrecked that car pretty good, that’s totaled. Whoever’s car that is, they’re not gonna be too happy.” He can’t see them. Of course he can’t, he’s the driver. I watched in horror as all four began running alongside the car. The Creature ran steadily, but my friends stumbled and had trouble keeping an even pace. We reached the first crossroads. The officer stopped the car, and my friends started slamming themselves into my door. I screamed as they left blood sizzling all over the window, crying for me to help them, to save them, to just open the door and let them in. The officer had taken to ignoring me. He didn’t feel the impacts, didn’t see the blood. He kept driving. As they ran, I saw my friends mouths slowly disappearing, and they stared at me and wept. This was all my fault. I couldn’t bear to watch anymore, and did my best to lay down on my uninjured shoulder in the backseat. I sobbed into the leather, and while they had stopped slamming into the car, the images were burnt into my mind. I tried so hard not to think about them. If I don’t think about them, they disappear, right? But after what I’ve seen - what I’ve heard - I just couldn’t. All I could think about were those eyes, the screaming, the blood, that sizzling sound, and the bump when I ran over Heather. I just lay there, shaking and crying. This was all my fault.
The car stopped, and the officer got out. “Just need to get some gas ma’am, we’re almost at the hospital but these rural areas burn through gas like nothing else.” He closed the door and walked into the gas station. I sat up, and took in my surroundings. No sign of the Creatures. No blood on the window. We were in a gas station, and in the distance I could see the city, the hospital building rising up high above the nearby businesses. Behind us was the woods. I stared into the darkness, searching. The officer got back into the car, and as he started driving, I laid back down. I didn’t want to risk them coming back. I checked the time on my phone - it had been hours since we’d left the liquor store. How long was I passed out in that car? The brightness hurt my head a lot, so I turned my phone back off and closed my eyes, trying to minimize the pounding in my head.
My first clue was the silence. I saw the city from the gas station, after twenty minutes of driving, shouldn’t I hear the city? And why wasn’t it getting any brighter? I asked the officer how much farther to the hospital. Silence. I asked again, louder this time, and when this was also met with silence, I sat up and looked in the rearview mirror. He didn’t have a face. Just small, black pupils, that were fixed on me. I screamed. I thought they couldn’t get in the car?! Is it cause he’s the driver?? There’s a barrier between the seats, he can’t hurt me, right??? I whipped around and stared out the window. He was driving me back into the woods. The Creature was running beside the car, followed by my friends. My friends. They’ve fully transformed, I think. They are shadows too now. They only have their eyes left. They still cry. Erin’s face is completely gone, I think that’s because the Creature touched it.
I’ve realized that I’m going to die tonight. Well, maybe die? I’ll probably become a Creature too. I think that’s what happens when they touch you. I don’t know if they’re dead, or entities, or what. I don’t know if we can be saved, transformed back. Please don’t put yourselves in danger trying to free us. I wanted to type this out, as a warning to all of you. Jacob said you all know about entities. I don’t think y’all can save me before they…. I hope posting this helps someone else avoid this fate. Here are the final rules:
1. The Creature can take many forms, but generally doesn’t have a face.2. The driver never sees the Creature while driving.3. The Creature moves at the exact same speed as the car. Clearing obstacles doesn’t slow it down.4. Do not think about or look for the creature when getting out of the car. Focus on being at your destination, grabbing your purse, it doesn’t matter, DO NOT think about the Creature. Don’t look for it. If it catches you outside of the car, it will hunt you down. It can match any speed.5. Creatures are NOT afraid of cars.6. I don’t know how the transformation works. I think it just has to touch you. I think maybe it’s coated in acid or something. Don’t let it touch you.
The car has stalled, I think the gas ran out. I mean, we never actually got any gas. The officer got out and they’re all standing outside the car watching me. Heather, Erin, Jacob, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. To the officer - I’m so sorry they got you. Thank you for cuffing my hands in front so I could type this to warn the others. My head hurts so bad. It’s pounding so hard my vision is pulsing. I’m gonna lie down again. Heather - or what used to be Heather - is standing right outside the door now, watching me. She isn’t crying anymore. I’m so sorry. Goodbye.