It happened during the early hours of the morning. I was driving home from yet another late night at the office. The road was completely deserted, like it always was.
There wasn’t a single light post in the area, the headlights on my car were the only source of light guiding me along this long, deserted stretch of road.
My eyelids were starting to feel heavier by the second, and I was struggling to stay awake. To fight back against the urge to close my eyes, I reached for the glove box and grabbed a pack of cigarettes. There was just one cigarette left. I grabbed it and threw the empty packing out the window.
After a few seconds of clumsily looking for my lighter, I managed to light the cigarette and I inhaled deeply. I put my hand back on the steering wheel and held the lit cigarette between my fingers.
Usually, I hated these trips to and from the office, but there was something about driving along this deserted road in pitch-black darkness, enjoying a cigarette, that felt strangely soothing.
My mind must have wandered off for a bit, because suddenly, I felt a burning sensation in my fingertips. The cigarette had continued to smolder between my fingers and had now gotten short enough to burn them.
Instantly, I dropped the cigarette, and it fell on the floor, between my legs.
“Fuck!” I exclaimed.
I tried to grab the cigarette, while also keeping my eyes on the road. But as hard as I tried, I had no luck picking it up from the floor, and so I looked down to see where it was.
I managed to spot it, just inches away from my right foot, and I bend over to pick it up. Once I got a hold of it, I turned my eyes back towards the road and gasped…
The headlights revealed a shape, standing in the middle of the road.
I slammed the brakes as hard and as fast as I could, but a crash was unavoidable. The sound of screeching tires pierced my ears, the windshield cracked, and I was jolted forward as the car came to a sudden stand-still.
Then, all that noise went away and made room for a deafening silence. I tried to control my breathing and process what just happened.
Once I had finally mustered the courage to look out the cracked windshield, I saw a body lying in the middle of the road, lit by the headlight beams of the car.
I exited the car, ran over to the body, and knelt next to it to check for signs of life, even though I could instantly tell that there was nothing that could be done.
I looked around the area, but there was nothing. No lights, no cars, and no signs of life anywhere in the vicinity.
“What have I done?” I muttered to myself.
But just at that precise moment, the headlights of the car went out, leaving me and the body in complete darkness. I grabbed my phone from my pocket, turned on the flashlight, and looked back at the car. But I couldn’t see what had caused this.
I looked back at where the body was, but there was no trace of it. Like it had never been there in the first place. Horrified, I fell backwards onto the road and dropped my phone.
After having found my footing again, I made a mad dash for the car and tried to get it to start. The lights flickered each time I turned the ignition.
I looked in the side-view mirror, and the flickering taillights revealed a figure standing just behind the car. I continued to turn the ignition, without success.
Suddenly, the rear door behind me flew open, and I heard something crawling into the vehicle. I froze up, and a tense silence filled the inside of the car. All I could hear was heavy breathing coming from the backseat.
I reached for the rearview mirror and slowly adjusted its position to see who, or what, was sitting behind me. I kept turning the mirror, until I could see two reflective, red eyes staring back out me.
An intense sense of terror come over me, and I practically fell out of the car. Without looking back, I started running down the road as fast as I possibly could, and I kept running until daybreak. That’s when I saw the first house I had seen for hours, and I went inside to get help.
Obviously, I never told the police the truth about what happened, but the incident is still seared into my memory. And I still lie awake at night, wondering when the figure will come back for me…