Lonely Road

This was written by Reddit user Jaaaaz and submitted to r/noslpeep. All credit goes to him.

I’ve been lurking for about a year, and I’ve finally decided to share some stories with you. I’m just a regular guy, when I was younger I had a fascination with the paranormal, then I grew up into a science major and took a large dose of skepticism, but I still love hearing people’s stories. I guess you could say I collect them. This first story is from my girlfriend’s dad, he’s a pretty logical guy. He’s a truck driver, and about five to seven years ago he had to haul a load out west, which doesn’t happen often, he usually sticks to the east coast.

So, he’s driving through the middle of the US, nothing but fields, fences and cattle for miles around eleven or twelve o’clock at night. He keeps seeing signs for a truck stop ahead, and figures its as good of a place as any to stop for the night. After some driving, he was about thirty miles out from the stop, and he sees this kid in a dirty suit that’s a couple sizes too big standing on the edge of the road, his mouth hanging open, staring right at him. He blows past him, he’s going too fast to stop a loaded rig and didn’t notice the kid standing there until he it was too late, anyway. A couple miles down the road, he sees another kid, same dirty suit, staring at him, mouth hanging open, he’s shaking his head and has his hands out. At this point, he’s wondering what’s going on, it looked like the same kid, but unless he can run his scrawny ass in that big suit faster than a big rig, it couldn’t have been. He was taking a drink, almost to the truck stop when he looks up from behind his cup and sees the same kid,standing right on the yellow line. The guy has this really angry expression on his face. Dad swerves the truck to miss the kid, he’s relieved that he didn’t feel any bump, but he doesn’t see him in his mirrors.

The rest of the trip to the truck stop was without incident. He gases up his rig, parks it in the lot, and went into the diner to grab a quick bite. He took a seat at the bar and asked the lady behind the counter if she knew why he kept seeing boys in old suits on the road. She gave him a look, that kind of look you give the rambling homeless guy when you’re walking through downtown, and said, “No... I ain’t ever heard off nothin’ like that around here. You been up for awhile, hun?”

Of course not, what kind kid is out at that hour, right? Maybe he has been driving on those empty roads too long today. After eating his late dinner, he returns to the truck for a few hours of sleep before heading back out. He gets back in the cab, goes and lays down in the back for the night. He just starts to fall asleep and he gets hit with this stench like something rotting, then he hears a tapping on the window by his head. He’s almost gagging on the stench, and starts to slowly pull the edge of the curtain back from the window to see who’s trying to get his attention. All he can see is messy hair, two big black eyes and a small, white and veiny hand, with big, hard nails, tapping on the glass. He jumps up from laying down and hears a very faint, extremely sad groan from outside, “Let.... me....in....?”

It’s the same kid from the road, his mouth is still hanging open and he’s starting to pound on the window with his open hand. Dad starts to go towards the glovebox for his pistol, and the kid gets a really angry look, but keeps the same tone, “Let... me... in...? Have... a... phone?”

The kid follows him as he moves to the front with a motion that he described as a slow swing, like he was standing on a tire swing, scraping his apparently hard nails against the cab and glass, his expression getting more angry, his empty, black mouth turning into a grimace and the stench got even stronger. Dad pulls the hammer back and points it at him with the window still up, and tells him that he needs to remove himself from the area. He turns his head, keeping a monotone and responds, “I... need...in...” and slams his hand against the window hard enough to crack the pane of glass.

The glass cracking was the last straw, he shot through the cracked window. It went right through the kid’s mouth, it knocked his head backward, but not the rest of his body. His head moved toward his shoulder slowly, then rose back up to the proper position, with a confused look on his face while lights across the yard clicked on after hearing the gun shot. Dad said he got this feeling, not dread or fear, but a deep hate. The kid went down towards the ground, and by the time he opened the passenger door, there wasn’t any blood or body on the ground. The only thing left behind was a little leathery piece of white flesh in the cracked window. When the police dug the slug out of the ground, there was no evidence of it ever being shot through someone, just a clean bullet. When he told me about his experience, it still clearly bothered a guy who I have never seen bothered by anything. He said sometimes, if he stays up late on the road, every now and then he still hears the tapping, and sometimes he even still gets a whiff of that old stench. I think the worst part is that every now and then at the house when it’s finally quiet you can hear a faint tap... tap... tap...