Mist crept over the road like ghostly tendrils in the light of the high beams. Night had fallen, and beyond the ditches and a few of the forest trees, all was cast in inky darkness. Not a car had passed for miles. No lights glittered in the distance. I was as alone as I had ever been before.
I never liked driving along the backroads when it was dark. Deer often lurked in the ditches and could leap out at any moment. The concern stayed in the front of my mind, and I found myself intently watching the forest line, searching for even the slightest of movement amongst the passing branches.
So eerie it was driving alone at night, I thought. All that existed lying in the narrow wake of the headlights. The world could’ve fallen off for all I could tell, and I would never have known the difference between night sky and the dark vacuum of space. It was what I imagined the cockpit of a lonely spaceship might feel like, shuttling through a starless galaxy.
I fiddled with the green lit knobs on the dashboard until my fingers stumbled onto the power button for the radio. Country music filled the cabin. I allowed my mind to wander to the soft, country lullabies of Alan Jackson. Soon the night felt cozy again, and I found some peace of mind in whispering along to “Remember When” as if I were the cowboy himself.
Ahead, I began to notice something far off in the distance; a flashing, orange light, beginning as just a pixel of color on the horizon but swelling with each mile I drew near. One light became two as I got close enough to tell them apart. They were a pair of hazard lights.
An accident? I wondered. This was a bad place to get into one. Nothing was around for miles. Cars didn’t come by this way often, particularly at night.
I slowed as I drew near to a white, pickup truck pulled over on to the side of the road, the bright, red letters of its brand name almost impossible to make out for the rust on its tailgate. All was still inside. I couldn’t see so much as a silhouette through the back window. No sign of life anywhere.
Someone must’ve picked them up and given them a ride into town, I thought. They’d likely spend the night there and be back first thing in the morning with a tow truck.
But then my eyes wandered over to the nearby field. There were bodies. Four of them, lying motionless, as though they’d been flung from the truck. As though they’d hit something, in some sort of sideward collision.
My heart froze. The night suddenly seemed so silent. I thought about helping. About going out and seeing if they were all right. They all lay so still. It would be a miracle if none weren’t already dead.
But I didn’t go out. In a moment of selfishness, I stayed in the car. Outside was so dark, and the country road so frighteningly alone, that I couldn’t find it in myself to leave the warmth of my vehicle. Somebody else would come, I told myself. Someone more capable, who knew what needed to be done, would stop and lend those people a hand. Perhaps by some miracle, help was already on its way.
I’m not proud of what I did next. It still brings me shame to think back on it. But I slowly drove past the truck, my eyes wet. I knew it was cowardly, that I could be leaving those people to die. I apologized beneath ragged breath, as though that somehow made up for what I was doing. Being so near the truck made me feel all the guiltier, as it became difficult to ignore with the truck taking up so much of my field of view.
As I passed the truck, I looked at the front to see what had happened that had so violently launched the people from their car. But the front was fine. There was not a mark on it. The windshields were intact and all that was astray was that the passenger door was open.
How could that be? I wondered. But then I looked towards the field, and I very nearly cried out. The bodies were standing. They were watching me as I drove by. All four of them stood so still that it nearly made my heart stop altogether. A chill came over me as I gazed into their unwavering black faces, unable to discern in the dark what was in their eyes.
Only after I was long gone did I begin to cry, for I could not understand what it was that I’d just lay witness to. But I felt it. A suspicion of something sinister. That vaguely defined sense of danger that your instincts recognized long before you even realized.
It was the next day when I found out. I’d told my story to some of the locals at the nearby diner, keen to piece together the mystery of that night. They listened politely, but not at all with any of the surprise that I thought my experience deserved. They then, in a whisper, told me about people who live in the more remote parts of the area, who, once in a harvest moon, when food began to grow scarce, staged accidents to lure in unsuspecting motorists. A scourge of people had gone missing on roads just like the one I had been on, with only the strange tales of bizarre roadside accidents from the few in too much of a hurry to have stopped to explain what had happened. They told me that I should feel lucky to be alive. I told them that I didn’t feel that at all. I still think about that night often though, as much as I try not to. Even now, ten years later, the incident still haunts my dreams. And on dark nights, when the mist’s ghostly fingers start to sneak across the road, I sometimes see a car pulled over on the side of the road. I never stop for them. All I do as I pass is whisper a prayer for them, and mutter to myself, “If only you’d broken down during the day”.