Let me explain what happened last week, I travel solo pretty often. A few days ago I was driving through rural Alabama after midnight, taking a shortcut my GPS suggested. There were no streetlights, houses, or cars for miles, just thick trees on both sides. After about twenty minutes I noticed a man standing near the tree line. No flashlight, no vehicle, nothing. He wasn’t waving for help either. He was completely still, facing my direction. As I got closer, my headlights lit up his face and I realized he wasn’t looking at the car.
His eyes seemed fixed directly on me. Something about it felt wrong, so I kept driving and didn’t stop. About two minutes later, I saw another figure further ahead. When my headlights reached him, my stomach dropped. Same clothes, Same height and Same way of standing. I know how crazy that sounds, but there was no side road and I had been driving around 60 mph. There was no possible way the person I had just passed could be standing ahead of me. As I passed him the second time, his body stayed completely still but his head slowly turned toward my window.
I immediately accelerated. Seconds later something slammed against the passenger side of my car hard enough to make me flinch. My Bluetooth disconnected, the music stopped, and in that sudden silence I heard something from behind my seat that sounded exactly like a person taking one long, slow breath. I never turned around. I finally reached a small gas station and pulled underneath the lights. An older man working there came outside after I told him something had hit my car.
There was no dent or broken glass, but across the passenger rear door were several muddy streaks that looked disturbingly Like fingers. He asked which road I had come from. When I told him, his entire expression changed. He stared at the marks, then looked toward the dark road behind me and said quietly, “If you see somebody standing out there at night, you keep driving.” I asked him why. He paused and said, “Because sometimes what you pass the first time isn’t what you meet the second time.” I drove straight to my hotel and locked the door. I’ve traveled alone plenty of times since, but I have never taken that road through Alabama again.