Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign I'm Ben, and welcome to the show where you and I gather around this campfire to hear some of our fellow campers scariest experiences.
[00:00:14] Whether you're a new or returning one, I'm glad you're here.
[00:00:18] Tonight we'll hear a story submitted by a camper named Derek, a mechanic who responded to an interesting roadside called one night.
[00:00:28] Now, without further ado, do you Want to hear Cohh's story?
[00:00:35] I've been a roadside mechanic for going on 15 years now.
[00:00:40] That's long enough to know there's two types of calls that come in after dark, the urgent ones and the strange ones.
[00:00:49] The urgent ones are easy dead batteries, blown tires, a little smoke that turns out to be nothing. You fix the problem, you send the driver on their way, and you both get to sleep a little easier.
[00:01:02] The strange ones? Well, those stick with you.
[00:01:07] This particular call happened in late November, a few years ago.
[00:01:12] The air had that edge to it, the kind of cold that nips at your fingers even through your gloves.
[00:01:19] It was a little after 10 when dispatch called me.
[00:01:22] The radio crackled. Uniform flat tire. County Road 7, just past mile marker 12. The caller's name was Evan.
[00:01:31] County Road 7 is the kind of road you only take if you know exactly where you're going.
[00:01:37] Two lanes, no street lights, thick pine forest pressing in on both sides.
[00:01:43] On moonless nights, your headlights are the only thing keeping you from feeling like the world's gone black.
[00:01:49] The drive out there took 15 minutes.
[00:01:52] My coffee had gone cold in the cup holder and the heater was doing its best to keep my cab somewhat warm, but my breath still fogged the inside of the windshield.
[00:02:03] I spotted Evan from about a quarter mile off, just a lone man standing on the shoulder, hazard lights flickering weakly behind him.
[00:02:12] When I pulled up, my headlights swept over an older sedan, maybe early 2000s, the paint dull and weathered.
[00:02:20] He was standing off to the side of the road, hands in his pockets, waiting.
[00:02:25] He stepped forward as I got out of the truck. Tall guy, maybe mid-20s, wearing a dark hoodie and jeans.
[00:02:33] Hey, thanks for coming, he said. His voice had that mix of relief and embarrassment I hear in a lot of these calls.
[00:02:41] I don't know what happened. It just went flat out of nowhere.
[00:02:46] No problem.
[00:02:48] I'll take a look. I crouched down by the rear wheel and just froze.
[00:02:53] The lug nuts were rusted solid with thick, flaky corrosion that had eaten into the metal even with my breaker bar. I knew they wouldn't budge, though. I did give it a few tries, but it was like the wheel had been welded to the axle.
[00:03:11] Finally I turned to him and said, you're not going anywhere in this tonight. Best I can do is give you a ride home. Maybe come back tomorrow with the right setup, a tow.
[00:03:21] He didn't hesitate, just smiled faintly, like he'd been hoping I'd say that.
[00:03:27] That'd be great. Thanks.
[00:03:30] We climbed into my truck.
[00:03:32] I noticed he didn't say much after that, just buckled himself into the backseat and stared out the window.
[00:03:37] Not at anything in particular, just out into the dark.
[00:03:42] We drove in silence for a while. The only sounds were the hum of the engine and the crunch of gravel as we pulled out of the road.
[00:03:50] Every now and then I caught a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror.
[00:03:54] His face looked pale in the dashboard glow, and there was something about his eyes, unfocused, almost like they were looking at something incredibly far away, something I couldn't see out in the night.
[00:04:09] I tried to make small talk.
[00:04:11] So you live around here?
[00:04:14] Not too far, he would say without looking up.
[00:04:17] Do you work in town? Yeah, accompanied with a slight head nod.
[00:04:22] Eventually I just let it drop. He seemed content to not tuck.
[00:04:26] Halfway down County Road 7, a fog started to roll in.
[00:04:30] Not a soft, drifting kind of fog. This was soupy, like it had been waiting in the tree line for us to pass and finally cascaded onto the road.
[00:04:41] My high beams turned it into a white wall.
[00:04:45] I slowed to a crawl.
[00:04:47] That's when I noticed the temperature dropping in the cab.
[00:04:51] My heater was still running, but the air felt colder somehow.
[00:04:56] Not the kind of cold I was talking about earlier that nips at your fingers, but the kind of cold that even when you rub your hands together, you get no reprieve.
[00:05:04] I glanced in the rearview mirror once again to see how Evan was doing, but Evan was just still staring out the window, even though his breath was fogging up the glass. Besides him, we came up onto a few houses. I cleared my throat. Is one of these houses yours? The white one. Third house down at the end, he said.
[00:05:25] His voice was really quiet now, like it was further away, like he was sitting outside the car.
[00:05:32] We turned onto his driveway, a narrow strip of gravel lined with bare trees, their branches twisting in the fog like weird skeletal fingers.
[00:05:42] Pulling further down the driveway, I noticed the house was well worn, paint peeling under the yellow glow of the porch light.
[00:05:50] I pulled up next to it and put the truck in park, turned to tell him that we were there, but the backseat was empty.
[00:05:57] No sound, no movement. Just nothing.
[00:06:01] For a few seconds I just sat there, my hands gripping the wheel, listening to the engine idle. My heart was starting to pound.
[00:06:10] I knew I hadn't stopped yet. I knew I hadn't heard him get out.
[00:06:15] I got out, walked around my truck. But he wasn't there.
[00:06:19] There was a woman standing on the porch now, just outside the door.
[00:06:23] She looked like she'd been up late, a cardigan wrapped around her, reading glasses perched on her nose.
[00:06:30] I'm real sorry to bother you, ma', am, I said. I just gave a young man named Evan a ride. He said this was his place.
[00:06:39] But her face changed instantly.
[00:06:42] I'm sorry, she started slowly.
[00:06:45] I think you must be mistaken. My son Evan. Well, he died three years ago.
[00:06:51] Car accident just passed mile marker 12.
[00:06:55] Her words hit me like a punch to the gut.
[00:06:59] I.
[00:07:00] I must have gotten the name wrong, I muttered, backing away.
[00:07:04] The drive back to the shop felt longer than it should have, and the fog seemed to follow me, curling at all the edges of the road.
[00:07:13] Every now and then I'd check the rear view, half expecting to see Evan sitting there again.
[00:07:18] The next morning, I drove back to mile marker 12, where Evan's car was the night before sat a small wooden cross on the shoulder, faded flowers tied to it, and a photograph, the same face I'd seen in my rear view the night before.
[00:07:35] Evan.
[00:07:36] I still take calls on County Road 7, but every time I do, I make sure the caller's name wasn't Evan, and I always check my rear view on the way home.
[00:07:48] Thank you, Derek, for allowing me to share your story.
[00:07:51] This was such an interesting one. It reminded me of all those hitchhiker stories you see all over the Internet. This is the first one I think I've gotten like this.
[00:08:01] Well, it's honestly hard to keep track of all the stories now, so I guess, correct me if I'm wrong if we've had a story like this, but I think this one was new.
[00:08:10] At least it felt very refreshing when I read it.
[00:08:14] I have no show announcements this week, but if you'd like a shout at the end of an episode, head over to patreon.com do you want to hear Ghoststory?
[00:08:22] As always, I'm just glad to have you all as campers on this journey.
[00:08:26] Please keep sharing the show with anyone you think might like these stories or someone you're just trying to scare. If you're enjoying it, go ahead and leave a review. I would love to hear from you. Until next time.
