This story was sent in by Jenna R. from Rural Vermont.
I was driving home late one night last fall, a little before midnight, taking the same narrow back road I’d used for years. It’s one of those stretches in Vermont where the trees crowd right up to the edge of the pavement, and the canopy blocks out whatever moonlight you might’ve hoped for. I’d worked a long closing shift at the small market in town, and I was dead on my feet. I just wanted to get home, take off my boots, and crawl into bed.
That road was always my shortcut. I knew every bend, every frost heave, every spot where the ditch got soft after rain. I’d driven it in every season—snow, mud, summer dust. It was familiar enough that sometimes I zoned out and let muscle memory do the steering. The only sound was the hum of my tires and the low whine of the heater fan fighting off the cold.
About two miles in, something faint caught my headlights—just a shape at first, dead center in the road. It wasn’t unusual to see a deer or a fallen branch, so I eased off the gas. But as I got closer, it didn’t look like an animal. It looked like a person.
For a split second, I wondered if maybe someone was checking a mailbox. A lot of them are perched awkwardly right at the edge of the road. But this figure wasn’t near a driveway or a post. They were standing directly in the middle of the lane, facing me, feet planted like they’d been dropped there.
I can still picture the way they looked in the high beams: a hood pulled low so I couldn’t see their face, hands hanging straight down, elbows locked, not shifting or reacting at all. Just… still. Too still.
That was the first thing that put a knot in my stomach. Nobody stands that still in the cold unless something’s seriously wrong.
I slowed almost to a crawl. My first instinct was that maybe they needed help—car trouble, lost, something normal. But something about their posture felt off. Too deliberate, too centered, like they knew exactly where I’d have to drive.
I rolled down my window an inch, just enough that I could shout if I had to. But the words didn’t come out. The longer I looked at them, the more the hairs on my arms stood up. They weren’t flagging me down, waving, calling out—nothing. No movement at all.
I told myself maybe they were drunk. Or having some kind of episode. Or maybe it was just a teenager messing around. I really tried to give it a normal explanation. I’ve talked myself out of worrying so many times on that road—animals in the ditch, weird shadows, strangers’ tail lights in the distance. Rural towns do that to you. You get used to filling in the blanks.
But something in me wouldn’t let the car stop.
I nudged the wheel to the right and crept around them, hugging the edge of the pavement. That’s when they moved for the first time.
They didn’t lift their head or raise their hands. Their whole body just turned sharply—too sharply—to follow the car as I passed. Like their feet didn’t shift, just their torso twisting with this rigid, sudden motion. I only caught it out of the corner of my eye, but it made my hands clamp tighter on the wheel.
I pressed the gas a little harder. Not speeding, but wanting distance.
In the rearview mirror, I saw them take one step back toward the center of the road. Then another. Then, as my taillights faded just a bit, they broke into this smooth, quick motion toward the tree line and disappeared between the trunks.
There was no flashlight. No reflective clothing. No path there—just dark woods.
It hit me that they hadn’t been walking anywhere. They had been waiting.
My heart was pounding hard enough that I could hear it over the heater fan. I kept checking the mirror like I expected to see someone sprinting after the car. Every shadow between the trees looked like something about to break loose and run.
For a few seconds, I tried to tell myself again that there had to be a normal reason. Maybe someone out for a night walk. Maybe a hiker who got turned around. But hikers don’t stand perfectly still in the middle of a road without signaling for help. And they don’t vanish into trees like they know exactly where they’re going, especially in the dark.
I didn’t call anyone because I didn’t have anything concrete to say. No face to describe. No car. Not even a clear motive—just the feeling that I’d driven into something I wasn’t supposed to see.
I went the rest of the way home gripping the wheel so tight my knuckles hurt. When I pulled into my driveway, I didn’t get out right away. I sat there with the engine running, headlights on my garage door, trying to convince myself that none of it meant anything.
But the next morning, in daylight, I thought about the exact spot where they’d been standing. It isn’t near a house. Isn’t near a trailhead. There’s no reason for anyone to be there at night unless they wanted to be hidden.
I haven’t taken that road after dark since. It adds half an hour to my drive, sometimes more if the weather’s bad, but I don’t care. Every time I even think about turning down that way, I picture that hooded figure rotating toward my car without lifting their head, like they’d been waiting for me specifically.
I still wonder what would’ve happened if I’d stopped. And I think that’s what keeps me avoiding that road—because I don’t want to find out.