Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-23872426-20170416052943

About a year ago, I learned the hard way why you never pick up strangers. My friend and I were driving back from college on the backroads of Minnesota. Due to a rather annoying amount of road construction our normally 4-hour trip had taken 6, so we opted to take some backroads to avoid the traffic and hopefully cut out some time. It seemed to be working for the most part, right until around 1 in the morning, but then a thunderstorm formed in the distance and the weather took a turn. The wind took a sharp turn, and before my friend Stan and I knew it were surrounded by a thick blanket of fog. All we could see was just a few feet in front of the headlights, with the occasional flash of light breaking through the shroud from the lightning ahead. We slowed the car down, after all there were deer out on this road and I didn’t feel like getting in any accident with other cars. It was like this for about a good 15 minutes or so until my bud, who I thought was sleeping, jerked straight up and began yelling for me to stop the car. From out of nowhere this girl came out of the fog to our right, and stumbled near the road waving us down. I slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a halt just inches away from her. Normally I don’t stop for hitchhikers, but from the way Stan was yelling at me and the way that this girl just threw herself in front of my vehicle I really didn’t have much of a choice. Reluctantly I rolled down the window, and asked her what was wrong. She explained she was in a car wreck just a mile away and it was urgent she got back to town as soon as possible. I was still hesitant but since I wasn’t alone in the car, and the town was just on the way, I decided to let her into the back seat. If I had known what was going to happen next I probably would have just drove off. When she got in I finally got a good look at her. All of her clothes were torn up, and looked pretty outdated. We never did get her name, but she was probably a few years younger than us. After about a ten minutes of just silent driving she finally began to calm her breathing, and thanked us for picking her up. We asked her what happened, and she went quiet again. Right away she apologized to us and told us she lied to us. Turns out she did crash her car, but when got free from the wreckage a strange man appeared and started following her. She then told us she thought she lost him in the fog, but wasn’t completely sure. Stan did his best to reassure her that she was safe and we’d drop her off at the police station. At this point the fog had finally let up and we were in the clear, surrounded by empty fields and roads. This is when things began to get weird. At the first mention of the police station she immediately gunned it down. When we asked why, she simply replied, “I just want to go home,”. Fair enough, so we asked her where she lived. Once again she told us the town name, but nothing else. When I looked back at her tears began running out of her eyes, and I could see blood stains forming on her clothes. Stan noticed too. “Are you okay?” He asked. “No.” “Would you like us to take you to the hospital?” “No.” She then proceeded to begin sobbing loudly, and told us just to take her home. Stan and I gave each other a good look before we asked her address. But she didn’t reply. The sobbing stopped, and was replaced with just silence. We asked again, but heard nothing. At the same time we both turned, only to see…nothing. There was no one in the back seat. It was like she just vanished into thin air. All that remained in her seat was just a rusty locket with her picture in it and what we could only guess was her mother. These photos were very old and aged, and looked like they had been taken decades ago… We were speechless. Not a word was spoke. I could tell from Stan’s face he was probably just as confused and probably just as frightened. We tried calling the police but our phones were dead. So instead we just drove to the nearest police station, and we told the cops everything that had happened. Surprisingly enough, they didn’t mock our story or anything like that. They actually recorded it into logs, and one of the older officers was very eager to see the locker. When we gave it to him, he gave us a very confused look, and asked us where we got it. Once again we told him the same story. He told us how strange that was, and explained that about 40 years ago a 16-year-old girl went missing in the area and the only trace that was ever found of her was the wreckage of her car, found hidden in a ditch by the very road I was driving on. Her physical description perfectly fitted the girl who was in the backseat of my car, and was pictured in the locket. Stan and I were then told that we weren’t the only ones who’d something like this had happened to. Every few years or so, around this time in spring, someone reports picking this girl up and about how she tells her story and then just vanishes. Why she vanishes I do not know. Maybe she’s just scared, or perhaps lonely. Personally I think she’s just waiting for someone to find her body so she can finally rest in peace. Whatever the reason, I’ve never driven down that road again, nor will I ever pick up another hitchhiker. 