I was travelling through Eastern Europe at the time and heard about a curse involving a Hitchhiker on an abandoned road.
I was the kinda person who ran towards shit like that. I wish I hadn’t.
The road was on the outskirts of a town and the locals gave me a good warning about it. The warning was simple - Once the sun drops, don’t drive down Zavodska rd.
I asked if that was because of looters or gangs or punk kids. But the locals said “No. It was because of the curse of ‘Avtostopnyk.’” Which is Ukrainian for “The Hitcher.” They warned me to not just think about myself, but also my friends and family.
I was curious, but lied and said I’d take their warnings.
That night, I went for a drive to Zavodska rd.
On the map, it showed the road started and finished with dead ends that had offshoots left and right.
Zavodska was six kilometres long, but a straight line distance between its beginning and end was only one kilometre. The road curved and swirled so much it made the length of the trip six times longer.
I arrived at the offshoot that led onto Zavodska. The entrance looked like every other quiet country road I’d passed to get here. But this road was separating two sets of forests which grew thicker and canopied overhead the further you went.
I turned onto Zavodska and drove thirty feet before the road curved off to the right. It turned sharply, right again, left again, and before I knew it, I lost all sense of direction.
I drove slow, taking my time as I followed the winding road through the thickening woods.
After five minutes, I came out the other side and Zavodska ended. Either I could go left or right, but Zavodska rd. was done.
The locals said that driving down the road was like playing Russian roulette. People mostly got lucky and the curse wouldn’t materialize.
But sometimes, if you turned your headlights off for a minute while driving then turned them back on, it would cause the curse to manifest.
I flicked off my headlights and slowly re-entered Zavodska. Without my lights, I was just barely able to see five feet ahead. A minute passed. Then two.
I turned my lights back on and immediately saw something ahead.
A figure was standing to the right of the road. Its arm was out, thumb up in a hitchhiking position.
I drove closer and made out the details of the figure.
It was a man. A homeless vagrant wearing a Priest’s outfit with a dirty collar. His hair was dark and wild and his eyes were demented. His face was covered in bloody wrinkles.
I couldn’t tell if he was smiling or screaming.
Within seconds of seeing him, I’d sweat through all my clothes.
I pushed the gas down to speed by him.
But it had the opposite effect. The car slowed. I slammed the gas pedal. Stomped it. Kicked it. But the car crept along, idling up next to the Hitcher.
The Hitcher came right up to the window, pressing his bloody, wrinkled face against it.
His smile pushed through the glass without breaking it and I felt his cold breath on my face. His eyes shimmered like a cat’s with an orange glow.
At this point I’d realized, somehow, I’d confused the gas pedal with the brakes and switched my feet. I hit the actual gas and peeled away, leaving a bloody wrinkle smear across the passenger side window.
I whipped around the next corner and the Hitcher disappeared from my rearview. But he reappeared, three more times along the side of the road, as I tried to get off Zavodska.
Finally, I reached the entrance and got onto the next road. And the next. And before I knew it I was back in the village. I went to my hotel, got my things and cut my vacay short.
The next day, I was on a flight back home.
But I kept seeing him.
It wasn’t often, but sometimes when I’d drive at night, I’d see the Hitcher on the side of the road. He started off with just a smile and a wave. Then he started running out into the street to get in front of my car.
Then he started trying to jump on the car. I was always alone, so I could never ask anyone if they saw him. I couldn’t tell if it was all in my head, or real.
I never saw him when I was walking, so the small amount of time I actually spent in a car went to nearly zero. I rarely travelled in cars or buses or any forms of road transit. I basically walked everywhere.
But I stopped driving or riding in transit altogether two years after I drove down Zavodska.
I was DD’ing my friend Jamie home from a dinner party when I saw the Hitcher in the middle of the road. I swerved to avoid him and figured Jamie thought I was crazy.
But Jamie saw the Hitcher too. He described the Hitcher’s Priest-like outfit and wondered why he was in the middle of the road, raging at me.
I wasn’t sure if it felt better knowing that someone else could see the Hitcher. Or worse knowing that the Hitcher had followed me home from Zavodska and was, in fact, real.
A week later, Jamie called me and told me he’d seen the Hitcher again when he was out for a drive with his wife. She’d seen him too.
A few days after, they both died in a freak car accident.
I haven’t stepped in a car again since.
But last week, I rode the city bus for the first time in years. And the second stop after I got on, I saw him.
The Hitcher.
He was on the side of the road. And he had my friend Jamie with him, and Jamie’s wife, who were both badly decomposed, but not dead.
I could see them weakly struggling. But they were being held up by the back of their necks by the Hitcher, who was in complete control.
The Hitcher made the two bodies move around like grotesque ventriloquist dummies, as he himself laughed and danced.
We drove past the spectacle, and I realized everyone on the bus was staring at the Hitcher too.