I never thought I’d write about this, mostly because I had driven the experience deep into the recesses of my mind. I swore never to go down this road again, but I think it’s time I explore the trauma. If I don’t, then I may never truly escape it.
This happened over twenty years ago, and to this day I haven’t gone back down that road. I’ve avoided it at every opportunity I could. I swore I’d never go back, swore that what happened there would die with me, but the story needs to be told. See, there are places in this world not meant for us, not meant for the living. Some of these places are pretty obvious, like graveyards and ghost towns, but others are completely mundane. Places you’d never suspect were claimed, like the shoulder of a road down a mostly deserted highway. That’s where it began, where I made the biggest mistake of my life.
I was seventeen, really big into horror movies and novels, and my then-girlfriend wanted to hang out with a group of her theater friends. Honestly, I wasn’t even remotely interested in spending time with a bunch of people I didn’t know, but she insisted I get to know them. I guess because they were horror buffs, too. The problem was that they also got deep into the supernatural, like when they had gone on their own ghost-hunting expeditions. This was an issue for me. See, I’ve always had a bit of a reverence for the supernatural. I’ve believed forever, but I had never felt the need or the urge to go out and hunt ghosts or cryptids. They had their realms, and I had mine, the two roads didn’t need to cross.
It was me, my girlfriend, Red, and her friends Greg, Chris, Kat, and Tiffany. We were in Chris’ room watching some special about Ghost Hunters in Tombstone. I thought the entire thing was absolute garbage, full of staged scares and falsified moving objects, but they were eating the spoon-fed crap like it was the only meal they were starving for it. Every time I thought of saying something disparaging, Red shot me a glance that told me I should probably just let them watch and talk it out.
“Forget Tombstone!” I had heard one of them say, “There are super scary places that aren’t even on the map. We went on a ghost-hunting expedition one time about twenty minutes up the road, it was on part of the reservation, we didn’t even have to go very far before we started seeing things.” it was Tiffany and the irritation in her voice was almost palpable.
“Yeah, but it’s still cool to see some of these other haunted places.” Greg said with a shrug “I’d love to visit some of them.”
There was a pause in the conversation as the show droned on and another staged scare elicited a gasp from Kat, an eye-roll from me, and a glare from Red. “You know, we could always just go on our own hunt tonight. We can hit up one of the places I read about, it’s just off the freeway on Pecos Road. It’s on the rez, too, but not too far.” Chris suggested, and to me, it seemed like this was the real reason for his inviting everyone to watch this ghost-hunting garbage, he was trying to whet our appetites and tempt us into going on one of these snipe hunts. I gave Red a knowing look, but she just stared daggers at me, daring me to mess this up for her.
“We should go check it out, we’ve got some thermal imaging cameras and night vision. We can hang out in the car and do a little filming. Maybe we’ll catch something spooky and we can send it into a ghost hunter’s show!” Tiffany declared.
“Better yet, we could start our own ghost hunters show and make this our first real hunt.” Greg posited.
“Let’s do it!” Kat was evidently for it.
I looked to Red and she smiled at the others. “Yeah, let’s go check it out!”
I wasn’t getting out of this, I felt like it was a stupid plan, but I was outvoted and I didn’t drive. So, we gathered up their “ghost hunting” materials, piled into Chris’ mom’s van, and were off. The drive itself was fine, it had stormed a little while before we had left and there was some residual sprinkling and flashes of lightning, but the brunt of the storm had passed. Our journey brought us down the road and onto an old stretch of highway that led out into the Navajo Reservation.
After 20 minutes we reached a shoulder along the road and Chris pulled off onto it. “Here we are!” He called out to us, digging out one of the cameras they had brought with them and turning it on. The others followed suit, each digging out another camera to start filming.
“So uh…are we gonna head out?” I inquired, looking at the others in the car.
“There’s no reason to,” Chris said, looking into the viewfinder of his camera. He pointed out into the darkness, toward a small outcropping of rocks. “See those? That’s where the weird stuff happens. Most people don’t see it, because this part of Pecos leads into the reservation, and most of the good stuff happens at night.” His explanation made sense, but I still didn’t like any of this. There was no reason for us to be out looking for this sort of stuff. I was uncomfortable, but everyone else was having a great time.
We stayed and they filmed for a little over an hour while I closed my eyes and listened to some music on my MP3 player. I heard a lot of gasps and silly little noises, but I paid it no heed. As I fell asleep, I heard Chris start the engine and felt the van begin to back out. “We done already?” I asked, pulling my headphones off.
“We’re gonna take a look at what we have, if it’s good we can come back. If not, well, we didn’t waste too much time out here.” Chris replied.
When we got back to their place and watched through the footage, even I was impressed. There, on the monitor for the thermal image camera, was a distinct humanoid shape that appeared to be moving toward the van, but stopping short. We watched the other footage from some of the other cameras and, much to my surprise, we could make out the shadow of whatever it was that was coming up on the thermal cam approaching us. It didn’t run, it had this saunter to it. Like it was posing for the shots.
“Looks like it’s modeling for you,” I muttered.
Chris laughed and nodded, “Weird right? It’s like it knows what we’re doing.”
Red looked at me, I could see the surprise on her face. She took me aside and whispered, “I thought you were going to say something disparaging. I’m glad I was wrong.”
I shrugged, pointing to the screens. “Even I have to admit what they caught was pretty cool. None of us saw anything like that while we were out there.”
Everyone was brimming with excitement, even I had tossed aside my jaded boredom. It was interesting to see what else we could find, so when Chris suggested we all pile into the van and head out a second time that night, there was no apprehension from anyone.
I wish there was.
We made the drive back down Pecos Road along the highway, back toward the shoulder we had left not twenty minutes ago. The storm had all but subsided, with a few pocket flashes of lightning and some light sprinkling being all that remained. When we reached the shoulder, none of us saw the branches right away, not until the light from the minivan hit them. I had never seen anything like this. They were a strange blood red and laid out atop each other to form an “x.” Chris paid them no mind, he just drove right over them, the wood crunching beneath the tires of the van. As we pulled into the spot we had stopped in before something felt…off. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but my stomach was doing backflips. We weren’t wanted here, the message was being sent loud and clear.
“Hey guys?” I heard Red call out. “I…I think we should leave.”
I nodded in agreement, “Yeah, I think it’s time to go.”
Chris was already turning the van back on and nodding. “Yeah, yeah I think we might’ve screwed up here…let’s go.” we peeled out of the spot and sped away from the shoulder, heading back into town. The feeling didn’t fade, though. As I looked out the rear window of the van I caught a glimpse of why. Something was following us. I could barely make it out, but there was shadow moving behind us, and as we got back into town it seemed to be avoiding streetlights, like it was hiding from us.
As we got closer to Chris’ place I called out “We need to keep going. Something’s following us.” I pointed toward the shadow and the others gasped. I didn’t know what it was, but it was fast, intentionally keeping pace.
I watched it the entire time we drove. “Is it still there?” Chris asked.
“It’s not catching up…” Greg said. “Even as we slow down, it just…slows with us.”
“It’s watching us, though. I can’t say how I know, but that feeling we got on the shoulder of Pecos…it’s still there. I think it’s this thing.” Kat whimpered.
“We need to find someplace safe, then.” Red seemed a little more confident than the others, but I could hear the fear in her voice.
“There’s a church up the road. Maybe it doesn’t like hallowed ground?” it was a weird thought, I’m aware, but it was the only one I could posit at the time.
We gunned it toward the church, peeling into the driveway. As I watched the shadow, it broke off as we turned into the parking lot. I didn’t see where it went, but I had a feeling it was still close. We shot out and ran for the door, much to my surprise it was locked. “Aren’t these places supposed to be open all the time!?” Kat was shaken, I could hear it in her voice. We looked around the building and found nothing about hours or closing,
As we headed back toward the van, there was a loud banging coming from the parking structure next to the apartment building across the street. Then again. Then again. Three loud, successive, and controlled knocks against the steel roof. I looked at Chris and he looked at me. “We need to check that out,” I said quietly. “Someone could be hurt.” as if in answer to my statement, there was a scream. It was a man’s scream, pained and angry all at once. I sucked in a shaky breath and began to head toward the sound.
Call it stupid bravado or misplaced duty, but I had to figure out what was going on. I heard the sound of running footsteps behind me as Chris came trotting up. “Thought you could use a little company.” he panted. We continued into the apartment complex, heading toward the source of the sound. As we approached, I heard the sound of an animal growling.
“You hear that up ahead?” I asked, slowing my pace.
“Sounds like a dog,” Chris responded.
“Dogs don’t knock on steel.”
“Could be unrelated?”
I shook my head, “Nothing about this feels unrelated. I feel like we’re being ferried into something. Just…keep your head on a swivel.” as we continued, I saw the source of the growling up ahead. It wasn’t facing, so from behind it resembled a large black dog. As we got closer, the snarling stopped. The thing was hovering over the corpse of an animal, another dog from what I could see. I glanced over at Chris and motioned for us to leave. “We shouldn’t be here…” I whispered.
“No…” came a voice from the dog that turned my blood to ice. “…that seems to be happening a lot to you, though, doesn’t it?” as the creature spoke I felt something lurch in my stomach before its contents just emptied themselves. The black dog turned to face us, its head was just a canine skull. Deep within the sockets, I could make out a pair of yellow pinpricks that danced in the light. It growled again, the sound resonating from deep within it as it stood. The fur hung loosely, almost like a tattered black robe. It let loose a nightmarish roar that broke me from the terrified stupor it seemed to send me into. I grabbed Chris’ arm and we booked it out of the apartment complex.
“Get in the van!” I shouted to the others. “Get in now! No waiting!”
Everyone piled into the van as quickly as they could and Chris shot into the driver’s seat, turning the vehicle on and peeling out of the parking lot just as we caught sight of the creature casually strolling out of the apartments. It raised a clawed hand and waved to us before slowly dropping back to all fours. “What is THAT?!” I heard Red call out.
“It looks like a-“
I immediately covered Greg’s mouth, staring daggers at him. “Don’t say it. Don’t ever say it.” I hissed. “Don’t you know anything?” Greg hung his head sullenly, I glanced out the back window to see the Shadow giving chase once more. Just as it had before.
We kept driving, not anywhere specifically, just kept going. There was a point that night when Chris mentioned running out of gas soon, but I urged him to drive as long as he could. We stayed in the city, keeping to well-lit areas, and only stopped at lights, which our pursuer seemed to honor. Finally, after what felt like ages of being hounded by this thing, we began to see the light of dawn. I heard the creature roar in irritation as the sunlight broke the horizon, and I watched the shadow bolt away from the coming light.
We only stopped because we had finally run out of gas. Thankfully, it was near a station, and as we were filling up I could see the color starting to return to people’s faces. “Listen,” I stated flatly as we were getting settled back into the van. “We need to make a vow. We can’t go back there. I think we were chased off, and this was our warning. We will never travel down Pecos Road again.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. “I swear.” came the reply from each of them.
It has been over twenty years. Red and I don’t talk anymore, we broke up some time ago. I don’t hear from Kat or Greg, either, but Chris and I still talk. We don’t like to discuss that night, the thing that followed us, but he told me recently that Greg had to head out that way for work. He also told me that was over a month ago, and he hasn’t heard from Greg since.