I'm posting this because I still feel sick when I think about it
and writing it down is the only thing that made my hand stop
shaking long enough to sleep last night.
My name isn't important. I live in Nevada.
I've driven Hwy. 50 more times than I can count because my
family is split between the Reno area and eastern Nevada.
If you don't know the road from Carson City to Ely, it's two
lanes through empty basins and passes fuel every long while and
not much else. Late October is tricky out
there. Clear one minute, freezing the
next, and so quiet you start listening to your own breathing
just to have a sound inside the car.
My friend Mark came with me this time because I had to be in Ely
early the next morning. We figured we'd save a hotel and
knock it out overnight. I topped off and Fallon around
10, grabbed a coffee, checked the tires and told myself it was
just another night drive on the Loneliest Rd. in America.
I've done it half asleep before without anything worse than a
Jack rabbit in the headlights. That's what I told myself.
I was wrong. By the time we passed Austin,
the dash said 1130 and the temperature read 32.
We kept the windows up to save the heat.
There wasn't a lot to talk about.
Hwy. 50 at night is basically a long tunnel made out of
darkness. You watch the paint stripes in
your own headlight beam, and you try to stay awake.
Somewhere east of town, just before the climb, my high beam
swept over a shape on the right shoulder.
I slowed on instinct. Because out there, if someone's
walking, they're in trouble. The figure stepped into the cone
of light, and I felt my stomach go tight.
It was a man, jeans torn up, long sleeve shirt hanging in
strips, both hands out as if he had been waving but got too
tired to finish. His face looked wrong, like he
hadn't been in the sun in years. His lips moved quick, like he
was talking fast, but with the windows up and the engine
humming I couldn't hear a thing. I eased up as we crept past to
make sure we weren't seeing a post or a fence, and when he
turned, his eyes caught the high beams in a way that made my skin
crawl. It wasn't the normal red eye you
sometimes get in photos. It was like an animal caught on
a Forest Rd. sharp return, a shine that didn't match a human.
I kept going. I didn't even realize my foot
had pressed down until the speedometer climbed and the
figure slid backward. In the mirror, we argued for the
next mile. Mark said we had to go back.
I said I wasn't stopping for a stranger who stepped toward a
moving car on a highway at midnight.
He said if the Rolls were reversed, I'd want someone to
stop. I told him we'd call in at the
next town and send help. We both knew the signal is
patchy out there and the next town could be an hour.
While we argued, the road climbed into the pass near
Hickerson Summit. The radio was nothing but
static, so we shut it off and listen to the tires.
I felt like the temperature dropped another 10°.
I had just gotten my heart rate close to normal when the beams
cut over the Crest. And there he was, not on the
shoulder this time, directly in the lane.
He stood with his head down, arms loose at his sides like he
had been placed there. No hurry, no sign of limping, no
breath. Just standing in the exact
center of my path with empty desert in every direction.
I don't consider myself a jumpy driver, but I jerked the wheel
so hard the right tires clipped the rumble strip.
Mark grabbed the dash and swore we missed him by feet.
The car straightened and I checked the mirror.
He hadn't moved. No flinch, no step.
He was still there, centered, facing forward like I hadn't
just almost hit him at 65. I felt something cold run up my
back that had nothing to do with the air.
I told Mark we were not turning around because that would put us
back on his side again and I wasn't doing a slow roll past
that face. I can't explain it.
Well, it wasn't just fear. It was like my body knew we
shouldn't stop, the same way you know, not to step into water
with a live wire in it. I accelerated.
The car felt too light. A mile later I had to pull my
hands off the wheel one at a time because they were locked.
Eureka came and went. We looked for a cop or a diner
with a light on. Anything but the town felt like
it was sleeping hard. I kept the speed at a steady 70
because I couldn't make myself go slower.
The gauge nudged higher than normal once, like the thermostat
stuck, then dropped again. Mark started rubbing his arm and
said it felt like something cold had been pressed against his
sleeve back when we swerved, he asked me to check behind us.
I said no, I didn't want to look.
I kept my eyes forward and told him to keep an eye on the right
shoulder in case anyone else was out there.
He didn't answer, which was worse.
We both sat in a kind of focused silence that felt like pressure,
like if either one of us said the wrong thing it would make
whatever was out there more real.
The last long stretch before Ely is straight enough that you can
see the faint glow of town from miles out when the clouds lift.
We didn't get that comfort. Heavy clouds kept slipping in
front of the moon, and the darkness felt complete enough
that the headlights looked smaller than they should have.
We were halfway across the basin when the man stepped into the
lane again, so close and so sudden that I didn't process how
there was any ground for him to come from.
One second. Empty asphalt the next he was
there, at the edge of the beam, then full into it, like he had
timed his step for the exact moment we would have no choice
but to hit him or swerve. I didn't break.
I don't know if that was smart or stupid, but the thought of
giving him time to reach us turned my brain off.
I went right, tires biting the shoulder.
His face passed through the center of the beam, and for the
first time I saw it clearly. His skin was pale enough to make
the vein stand out. His lips were split and moving,
like he was repeating the same phrase over and over.
And his eyes, there was that same sharp reflection, a
predator's light at the wrong end of a desert.
As we went by, his right hand was up as if to touch the
Fender. I heard a metallic tap, almost
nothing more like a coin bumped into a hubcap than skin.
And then we were passed, and there was nothing in the mirror
but our own headlights bouncing in the darkness.
We didn't stop. I don't care how that sounds.
We didn't stop until the 1st lit intersection in Ely, where I
pulled into the lot by the White Pine County Sheriff's Office.
I parked crooked. My legs felt like they didn't
belong to me. When I climbed out, Mark
couldn't get his seat belt undone with his fingers.
The first try inside, a duty officer with a Gray mustache and
a heavy ring of keys on his belt looked up from a desk.
I think he read the situation before I spoke, because he asked
if there had been a collision. I told him everything I could
say in order without shaking, where we saw the man, what he
wore, how he stood in the lane. I told him about the eyes
catching the high beams like an animal.
I told him about the tap on the car.
The room felt too warm and my mouth went dry.
Mark kept looking over his shoulder at the glass door, like
we had brought something in behind us.
The officer called it in to the sheriff, who walked out from the
back with a coffee that looked like it had been poured an hour
before. I expected either doubt or a
lecture about leaving a man on the road.
I didn't get either. The sheriff listened without
interrupting, then asked me to repeat the locations as well as
I could. Austin Shoulder, Hickerson,
Summit Lane, long run out before Ely.
He chewed on that. Then he said level.
We haven't had a report of anyone on foot out there for
days. No stranded motorists, no broken
down vans, nothing that stretch doesn't see people walking at
night, hasn't in years. He said he'd send a unit to
drive it anyway, because if there was a drunk or a runaway
hitch hiking that late in the season, they needed to get him
inside before he froze. Then he looked at both of us and
said you did the right thing not stopping in the dark.
He didn't say why he didn't need to.
He asked if we wanted to make a formal statement.
I said yes, because something about official paper made me
feel like I wasn't losing it. Mark stepped outside for air and
I followed him after the signatures.
That's when I finally forced myself to walk around the front
of the car. I expected a smear or a dent.
There was a scuff on the right front Fender that hadn't been
there in Fallon. 4 faint streaks in the road.
Dust not deep enough to scrape paint spaced like the width of
fingers. I could have made those with my
own hand, just to scare myself. I didn't.
I felt the metal with my knuckles.
It was cold enough to leave a faint fog mark under my breath.
We bought gas at dawn with a sun that finally broke the cloud
line. I told Mark to drive the rest
because the lack of sleep hit me in one heavy wave.
We didn't say much on the way to his place and when he got out he
stood there with the door open and looked at me for a long
second like he wanted to ask if I thought it was a person or
something else. I didn't want to answer.
I still don't. I know what my eyes saw in the
beams and I know how the hair on my arm stood when he appeared
again in the lane after 20 miles of empty Rd.
I know how my chest felt when the sheriff said other drivers
had called in similar things over the years and that units
never found anyone walking. I know the streaks on my Fender
were not there before Austin, and they were there in Ely.
If you ever take Hwy. 50 E out of Carson City at night and you
pass through Austin and up by Hickerson one late October, keep
your windows up and your foot steady and don't convince
yourself that stopping for a stranger on a blind stretch is
the moral thing when every part of you is telling you not to do
it. Call it in from town.
If you see a man with torn clothes step into your lane and
he turns his face towards your lights and his eyes throw that
wrong kind of shine back at you, keep going.
You'll make it to Ely. That's the part I can promise we
did, and that's the only reason I'm around to type this.
If you ever drive the Blue Ridge Parkway after midnight and a
deer steps into your lane but doesn't run, don't inch forward.
Don't honk. Don't wait to see what it will
do. Go around it.
Keep your eyes forward and your doors locked.
If it turns its head slowly, like it has to think about the
motion, you're already in the part of the night where bad
stories start. I learned that the hard way.
I was 21, a junior at Appalachian State in Boone, and
I was driving home to Hickory for the weekend.
It was early November 1st. Good cold snap, the kind where
your breath hangs outside your mouth like a small cloud when
you load your car. I left later than I planned
because I had a paper due, and by the time I got on the Blue
Ridge Parkway, it was close to 1:00 in the morning.
I'd done that stretch in daylight plenty of times.
Overlooks, trailheads, people with cameras, the whole
brochure. But at that hour, the road turns
into something else. No St. lights, no houses, just
two narrow lanes glued to the side of the mountains with Black
Forest stacked on both sides. Right after I passed the sign
for Julian Price Lake, I noticed how still it was.
Even at night I usually catch a flash of movement, tail in the
bushes, raccoon waddling off the shoulder.
That night the trees were motionless.
The only movement was the leaf litter that my headlights pushed
across the road in little flurries.
It made the asphalt look like a conveyor belt of red and gold.
The speed limit signs were just white rectangles that came and
went in my high beams, and the reflectors on the guardrail
winked 1 by 1 as I curved along the Ridge.
I passed Grandview Overlook, empty lot, no other cars past
Holloway Mountain Rd. I caught myself tightening my
hands on the wheel. My gas needle sat just under a
quarter tank, and I told myself I had more than enough to reach
Blowing Rock and then drop down to US 221.
I cracked the window to keep from getting sleepy, and cold
air rushed in. No smell of wood smoke, no wet
earth, just cold. The radio was off.
I didn't want any noise, I just wanted to get home.
Somewhere past Green Mountain Overlook, the deer showed up.
It didn't leap. It didn't bolt, it was just
there, between the stripes of my headlights, like it had been
lowered in on a cable. Mid lane, mid step, body angled
away from me. I hit the brakes hard enough
that the seat belt dug into my shoulder and the tires chirped
before they gripped. My headlights washed over the
buck's sides, the pale shine of its coat, the Ridge of its
spine. I waited for the usual reaction,
Two or three panicked bounds. A flash of white tail, maybe a
second deer I hadn't seen, but nothing moved.
I had time to notice details I don't usually notice in animals
because they're gone so fast. Its legs were too narrow for the
body. The angle of the neck didn't
match where the head was pointed.
The chest heaved once and then stopped like it was holding its
breath. The eyes shined back, not with
that quick glitter I've seen 100 times, but with a steady,
unblinking stare that didn't match the way the head was
angled. It was like the glare was coming
from deeper in the skull than the eyes.
I tapped the horn. 1 short tap. The deer's ears didn't flick.
It didn't startle. It lowered its head a fraction,
then lifted it again, like the motion took effort.
I realized I was rolled almost to a full stop, the car idling,
the dashboard light ticking out each second.
Everything in me said just wait, it'll go.
But the longer I sat, the more it felt like waiting was exactly
the wrong move. I shifted down to first.
The deer twitched. It wasn't a flinch, or that full
body tremor animals get when they're about to bolt.
It was a series of small adjustments, like someone
working the controls of a crane. The front leg straightened, then
bent, then straightened again. The head rotated faster than a
normal head rotates. The shoulders rose.
And then, in a motion I still can't explain without feeling
sick, it pushed itself upright. Not all the way.
Not like a person. It stood in 1/2 rise that put
its chest forward and its rear legs braced like it was trying
to find the balance point and couldn't.
The line of the spine didn't match the rest of the body.
The front hooves hovered for a second, then tapped, then
hovered again. My high beams threw the shadow
of that shape against the Rockwall on my left, a long
stick figure version of the animal that didn't match the way
the joints should bend. I didn't think.
I punched the gas, cut the wheel and threaded the car around it
close enough that something hard nicked my mirror with a tick.
As soon as my headlights slid off its body, the inside of the
car felt too dark. I snapped my eyes to the rear
view out of reflex. In the mirror, the deer tipped
forward and came off that half rise in a way that looked like a
decision. Its hooves hit the asphalt, then
it ran. It didn't run like a deer.
That scooter, smooth bound I'm used to seeing, wasn't there.
This was hard, fast contact, rapid steps that didn't match
the length of its body. It matched my acceleration for a
few seconds, then fell back into the dark, then surged again like
it was learning the rhythm in real time.
I hit 50, then 60 on that road in the dark.
Those numbers feel like you're trying to outrun your own
headlights. If you're thinking I misread
what I saw in the mirror, I want you to understand something.
I was too afraid to look back for more than a glance.
Every time I checked, I caught a slice of motion and the shape of
antlers tilting forward, the angle of a neck that didn't
match the strain of the body, the staccato flash of hooves on
pavement. It was there.
It was close enough to make me think I could feel the vibration
of each footfall through the steering wheel.
I kept the car tight to the center line and tried not to
overcorrect on the curves. The guardrail on my right
flicked by in regular flashes. I told myself over and over,
just get to Blowing Rock. Just get to 221.
There's a Ranger station, there's a phone, there's light.
My gas needle dipped past the 8th of a tank mark.
I thought about the way the road looks just before Moses H Cone
Memorial Park, the open Meadow that breaks the trees, and
pictured that as my first safe place.
I kept pushing. Twice I lost sight of it and
thought I was free. Twice it came back into the
mirror like a burst of footage, antlers down, legs moving too
fast for a body that big, the silhouette stretched out by my
tail lights. The second time it cut off into
the trees. I didn't trust that.
I didn't trust anything except the next bend and the next sign
and the thought of a door I could bolt from the inside.
I hit the turn off for US 221 and took it too fast.
Tires squealing, car rocking. Once on the suspension, the
small lot for the Ranger station sat in a pocket of gravel and
dark. The building is nothing
dramatic. Low roof, a porch, a single lamp
near the door. It might have been closed.
I didn't care. I killed the engine and the
car's fan spun down in that high wind that sounds like a sigh,
and I was suddenly aware of how loud my breathing was inside the
cabin. I got out and ran.
The gravel slid under my shoes. My hands shook so hard I slapped
the door instead of the wood frame on the first try.
On the second I pounded until my wrists hurt.
Footsteps, deadbolt sliding. The door opened 6 inches and a
sleep puffy face looked out at me over a chest with a badge.
I must have looked wild. I pushed A rush of words at him.
I almost hit a deer. It stood up, it ran, it chased.
It didn't move right. It's back there.
Can I please come in? And he didn't tell me to calm
down. He opened the door, let me in,
and turn the deadbolt. The light inside was fluorescent
and two white. The office smelled like coffee
that had burned on a hot plate and old paperwork.
There was a map of the Parkway on the wall with push pins
running up and down the Ridge. Behind the desk, leaned into the
corner, was a pump action shotgun.
I stared at it without meaning to.
He noticed and didn't comment. He asked me to sit.
I told him everything. The points where I was sure of
what I saw, and the points where my memory choose the images to
pieces. I told him about the stillness
before it, the way it moved, the way it almost kept up the second
it slid into the trees. I told him about the way it
stood. He didn't laugh.
He didn't accuse me of drinking. He didn't act like I was playing
a prank. He just listened.
His face didn't change much, but there was a small tightness in
how he held his jaw. When I finished, he stared at
the desk for a long moment, then said, you're not the first
person to tell me that this season.
He said it flat. He didn't make it creepy.
He said it like he was reciting a fact he wished he didn't have
to recite. He asked what section I was in
when I saw the deer. I gave him the last overlook I'd
passed. He nodded once, like that
matched something he had, then asked if I wanted coffee.
I said yes, even though the smell of it made my stomach
jump. He didn't turn on any outside
lights, and he didn't open the door again.
Instead, he picked up a radio and spoke into it quietly,
giving mile posts that put a unit in the general area I'd
described. He told whoever was on the other
end that there had been another night sighting, and then some
numbers I don't remember. He asked my name and my phone
number, and I gave both. Here's the part people argue
with me about. He didn't try to explain it
away. He didn't offer a story about a
lame buck or a head injury or rutting season making animals
act strange. He didn't say the word disease.
He didn't give me a safe box to put the image in.
He poured coffee into a white foam cup, put it on the desk and
said you can stay until sun up. I asked him if he'd seen it.
He took a second to answer. Not the way you did, he said.
The radio muttered again, something about fog near Price
Lake and no movement on the shoulder.
The Ranger clicked the transmit and gave a couple of short
answers and then left the mic on the desk.
He sat back in the chair and looked at the map of the Parkway
on the wall, like he was thinking about more points than
the push pins showed. I stayed until dawn.
The window went from black to Gray to that pale blue that
makes everything look flatter and safer.
The coffee went cold. The Ranger told me I could
follow him down to town if I wanted and he would turn off
onto his route. After we got to the traffic
lights, I took the offer. We drove the short stretch to
221 in a line, his truck in front, me behind, my hands still
tight on the wheel like a clamp. When the first gas station sign
lit up in the morning light, I started to feel like my heart
could beat at a regular pace again.
Before he turned off, he looked at me from his open window and
said, don't run the Parkway at night by yourself.
Not this month. There are things I'll leave out
of this because I don't want to feed the tourist blogs that try
to turn every story into a loop trail for thrill seekers.
I'm telling it because you might be a student like me, or a
graveyard shift cook headed home, or a nurse trying to save
15 minutes by avoiding town. You might think you know every
curve and pull off. You might think nothing can
surprise you because you've seen deer 100 times and driven that
road 100 more. If you see one at 1:00 in the
morning and it doesn't move, if it holds the lane and lowers and
raises its head like the motion costs something, if the eyes
shine in a way that doesn't line up with where the face is
pointed, don't wait. Don't try to stare it down or
nudge it aside with your bumper. Don't get out.
Don't flash your brights to teach it a lesson.
Keep your hands steady, go around it clean and aim for
light and other people. People ask whether it followed
me because of the headlights or the engine noise or the way I
slowed. I don't know.
People ask why I didn't take a picture.
If you're asking that, you've never had your mind fail you in
a moment where you needed it to be a camera.
I had a steering wheel, a gas pedal, and a thin idea of
geography. That was enough.
The Ranger's words were the worst part, not because they
were dramatic, but because they were ordinary.
You're not the first person to tell me that this season.
That means there were others. That means my story sits in a
row with other stories lined up at slightly different mile posts
with slightly different details. Maybe in those it stood up
farther. Maybe it moved better, maybe
someone didn't hit the gas soon enough.
I still drive the Parkway sometimes in daylight.
The overlooks are full of normal things again.
People with dogs, couples taking their engagement photos.
You could convince yourself nothing unusual ever happened
there, and honestly, I hope that's what you get to keep.
But if you pass Green Mountain Overlook late and a shape steps
into your headlight beam and doesn't react, Remember Me?
Remember the cold air in the car and the sound of footfalls,
keeping time with my engine and the way the office light turned
my hands the color of paper? Remember to keep going.
And if you make it to the Ranger station and bang on the door
until someone opens it, don't be surprised if he looks like he's
been waiting up for you. Don't be surprised if the first
thing he says is that line and if he offers coffee and a chair
until the sky goes pale. Take both.
You don't need to believe my story to stay alive.
You just need to treat certain things on that road like a stop
sign you don't argue with. A deer that doesn't move is one
of them. If you ever see it stand like
it's trying to learn how. You don't want to learn what
comes next. I'm Jason.
I grew up in Troutdale, Oregon and I've been hunting since I
was a kid. Nothing hardcore weekend stuff,
mostly elk scouting with my buddy Mark.
We stick to public land, check the maps, clean up after
ourselves, go home tired and sore and happy.
Late September is our favorite time near Mount Hood.
Cool air, less traffic, good chance to see sign.
This story happened on a Sunday night.
We broke camp near Government camp later than we should have.
We were dragging. We wanted cheap burgers and
Sandy and our own beds. We loaded the Ford, tied down
the cooler, killed the fire with water and hit the road.
We missed a turn. It happens.
One minute you're on a wide gravel Rd. you know, and the
next the number on the faded Forest Service sign isn't 1, you
recognize. It was narrow and crowned in the
middle with wet ruts and slick patches.
Low clouds hung in the trees. We figured it would loop back to
a bigger Rd. We kept going.
I hate backing a long way in the dark, so does Mark.
The brush was tight on both sides, branches tapping the
doors and roof. It felt like a bad idea to stop.
We were quiet for a while, listening to the tires grind
over rock. I saw movement in the ditch on
the right. Not a deer, not an elk.
It looked like a man crouched low, elbows out, almost like he
was bracing to stand. We both saw it at the same time.
Is that a guy? Mark said.
I let off the gas. My first thought was someone had
wiped out on a dirt bike or a mountain bike.
We've helped stranded people before.
It's not rare. I eased us forward until the
headlights filled the ditch with light.
The thing bolted. It came out of the ditch on all
fours, hands and feet, and crossed the road in front of us
like it was sprinting a track. I don't mean it crawled.
I mean it covered the lane in two or three strides, palm
slapping, gravel back flat, head low.
It was too fast, too smooth, the way a big cat moves.
But the angles were wrong. The limbs looked human.
I hit the brakes without thinking.
The truck slid a foot and settled.
I kept my hands on the wheel because my hands didn't know
what else to do. What was that?
I asked. Person Mark said, but he didn't
sound sure. We sat there with the engine
idling, no wind. The only sound was the tick of
cooling metal and the belt wine from the power steering.
I could see where it had come up from the ditch.
Wet mud, smeared boot or handprints, I couldn't tell.
I't turning around, I said. There's no room, Mark said.
Go up until we can. I feathered the gas.
We rolled 20 yards, then 30. The brush leaned over the road
in places. There was nowhere to pull, a
three-point turn that didn't involve dropping a tire off the
edge into a ditch. Every time I thought about
stopping, my mind flashed. That shape crossing in front of
us, fingers long and spread, the way the palms hit the rock.
We hit a shallow puddle, a washboard stretch, and the truck
jerked. I shifted wrong, got flustered
and killed the engine. The dash light stayed on.
The sudden quiet made the hairs stand up on my arms.
Nice, Mark said, trying to joke. He didn't sound like he believed
it. Hold on.
I turned the key. The starter ground.
The engine didn't catch. I tried again.
The headlights threw pale cones into the brush.
I could see our breath inside the cab.
OK, relax, I told myself out loud.
That's when something hit the hood.
It wasn't a tap. The metal flexed and dropped an
inch. Two hands.
I didn't see the face, not at first.
I saw the hands. They were spread wide, skin pale
and dull, each finger too long. The nails were there, but they
weren't claws. They were more like thickened
ends. The palms were damp and left
dark prints on the paint. Then it leaned forward and the
glass caught a shape that lined up with a face.
The eyes didn't reflect like an animal.
They didn't flare white in the lights.
They were just there. The nose was small and the mouth
was tight and wrong, like someone who had been smiling for
too long and forgot to stop. I turned the key so hard my
wrist popped. The engine coughed and died.
The hands on the hood slid an inch, leaving streaks.
The cab dipped again. I could feel the weight through
the steering column. Go, go, go, Mark said low,
repeating it like a chant. He sounded like he was talking
through clenched teeth. I turned the key again and
feathered the gas. The engine caught.
I dumped the clutch and the rear end slid toward the ditch.
Gravel sprayed the brush. The thing on the hood pushed off
hard and I saw the hood bounce back up a hair like a pushed in
dent popping out part way. We fishtailed and started
rolling. I kept it steady at maybe 15,
trying not to slide. I wanted a wide spot.
I wanted pavement. I wanted to be anywhere else
right there, Mark said, pointing past the windshield.
The road T boned another gravel Rd.
I turned right without stopping. The truck lurched and the right
tires bit in the mirror for a second.
I saw it in the beam of the tail lights, on all fours again,
running hands and feet, kicking gravel.
Its back didn't arch, it stayed flat, like a table with hinges.
I got us up to 40. That's fast on a narrow Rd. but
I didn't care. The suspension slammed my spine
on every dip. Branches reached out over the
glass and I flinched at each one like it was another set of
hands. Something hit the driver's side
panel behind me. A heavy solid punch.
Metal boomed and the truck kicked sideways.
I corrected. Mark had the glove box open now
and had his revolver in his hand.
He didn't point it at me. He pointed it out and back low.
He fired once. The blast filled the cab with
powder smell and my ears rang. I didn't look.
I watched the road and kept my foot down.
The trees thinned. I saw a faint white glow through
the trunks. It was the highway pavement.
I almost sobbed with relief. I didn't slow down, I just
rolled out into the empty lane and felt the tires grab.
The sound changed from gravel to smooth and for the first time in
a while my hands loosened on the wheel.
We blew past the sign for zigzag.
We didn't stop, We didn't talk. We rolled into Sandy and pulled
into the first all night gas station.
We saw the lights there. Felt like a stage, a normal 1
with a soda machine humming and a cashier watching a small TV.
We got out of the truck together.
We walked to the front. The hood had two deep dents
about a foot apart, angled slightly in.
You could see where the metal had creased between them. 4
gouges on each side raked toward the grill.
Not clean lines like a tool would make, but rough torn
channels. The paint was shredded.
The bumper had a smear of dark stuff across it, like used motor
oil, but sticky. I touched it with one finger and
wiped it on a paper towel. It came off black and Gray.
On the driver's side panel behind the door there was a fist
sized caved in spot and another group of those rough scraped
lines. I could fit the pads of my 4
fingers into them and they lined up too well for me to feel OK
about it. We went inside.
The cashier, an older guy with a beard, looked up, nodded at the
truck and said hit a bear. No, I said.
He waited like he expected a story.
Neither of us gave him 1. He rang us up for coffee and we
stood there drinking it at the window.
He didn't ask again. We drove home.
I didn't talk much, neither did Mark.
I dropped him at his place in Gresham and then went to my
place and sat in the driveway for a while with the engine off
in daylight the next morning it looked worse.
You always notice more when you're not shaking.
The hood was creased where the hands had been.
The bumper had 4 deep grooves in the steel like someone had dug
in to pull themselves up. The side panel had that caved
spot and scuffed lines leading into it.
I took photos for my insurance and then didn't submit them.
I didn't want to deal with a call where I'd be asked what
happened. I brought the truck to a Body
Shop in Sandy later in the week. The guy there ran his thumb over
the gouges and said, looks like you hooked a piece of rebar.
I was on gravel, I said. He shrugged.
People drag weird stuff on those roads.
He gave me an estimate that made my stomach drop.
I paid it because I didn't want to look at the marks anymore.
For a few nights after I had trouble sleeping.
I'd lie there thinking about the way it moved.
Not the speed, even the posture. The hands going down 1st, the
heel of the palm, the arm snapping straight, the foot
following like a mirrored step. I kept replaying the way it
pressed down on the hood. There's a feeling you get when
another person leans over a car. Shift in weight, flex the metal
telling you someone is there. It was that.
Not a paw, not a thump. Wait, the way a person has it.
I didn't go back to that maze of roads for a while.
When I did, I stayed on the big stuff and was out well before
Dark. Mark and I still hunt, but we
don't push our luck on Sunday nights anymore.
If it's getting dim under the furs, we pack it up and we go no
more. It'll loop around.
I know what this sounds like. I don't care.
I didn't drink that night. I wasn't doing anything stupid.
We saw what we saw. It crossed in front of us on
hands and feet. It climbed on the hood.
It left marks a person could make if a person had hands like
that and strength like that. If you were out there that night
near Mount Hood, crouched in the ditch off a narrow road and you
ran at our truck and put your hands on the hood, let's not
meet again. I'm a 29 year old parts runner
for a construction supply yard in Hattiesburg, Ms. I run
drywall, fasteners and small equipment to job sites up and
down Hwy. 49. Late October of last year I took
a last minute delivery up to Wiggins and finished the drop
after 10:30 PM. It was one of those cool nights
where you can finally turn off the AC and crack the window.
I've driven that stretch between Wiggins and Hattiesburg more
times than I can count. Long straightaways, then easy
curves. Timber on both sides, narrow
shoulders with shallow ditches that hold water after rain.
I've got a newborn at home, so I was thinking about bottles and
sleep and trying not to hit a deer between the little
communities of Brooklyn and Mclaurin.
I rolled the window down a few inches to get some air.
That's where this starts. The first sound didn't make me
hit the brakes. It was faint and came from the
right side through the cracked window and engine noise.
Short broken cries with that high pitch that hits you right
in the chest if you've ever held a baby.
I told myself it was a night bird or ATV from a trailer I
just passed. I drove another mile.
The highway surface changed to chip seal near a work zone.
Loose aggregate ticking the wheel wells.
I slowed to about 50, then 45 because that stuff can kick the
tail out if you're dumb. The cries came again, closer
this time. I dropped to 25 without
thinking, flipped to high beams and swept the right ditch.
Kudzu grass wet with dew, beer cans in the gravel and dark
water in a shallow Slough. The cries stopped the second the
light hit that side. I don't consider myself the kind
of person who stops on a highway shoulder at night.
I've been told 100 times that nothing good waits in a ditch
after dark. But if you've had a baby at
home, you know what that sound does to you.
My foot eased off the brake. I let the truck creep forward on
the fog line, trying to look without pulling over all the way
or shutting it down. The air smelled like wet leaves
and mud. No houses lit up, no porch
lights. Just the faint orange wash from
Hattiesburg sky to the north. I told myself I would look until
the next green sign, and then I'd call it in.
Something ticked the passenger door.
Not loud pebbles snapping underweight the way they do when
you step off the shoulder. I sat up straight and looked
across the bench seat. Nobody there in the mirror,
nothing in the headlight cone except grass and that black slot
where the culvert ran under the road.
I eased the truck forward another 10 yards.
That's when the crying started again, from just outside the
light on the right. And it wasn't moving away.
It was keeping pace, stopping when I stopped, starting when I
rolled. I decided to leave.
I straightened the wheel and came off the brake.
It stepped into the beams like it had been waiting for my
decision. Tall, too thin, layers of filthy
clothes hanging off it, bare calves streaked with mud to the
knee. The head was tilted forward in a
way I first read as drunk or sick, but when it turned I saw
the mouth. The jaw hung off to one side,
loose, the way a joint looks when it isn't seated.
The sound coming out of that open mouth was the same high,
choking cry I'd been hearing, but you could feel the chest
behind it, a grown adult pushing that pitch.
One arm came up and reached for the driver's door, as if it had
done this before and knew right where to go.
The fingers were long and white under the mud, flexing like they
were already around the handle. I didn't think about it any more
than you think about pulling your hand off a hot pan.
I shoved the shifter into drive and stood on the gas.
The rear end trembled over the loose rock and then bit.
Something slapped the door, wet and heavy, and there was the
faint screech of skin or fabric skimming metal just below the
window. I kept the wheel straight and
aimed for open Rd. I did not look at the face
again. I do not think I could have done
anything useful if I had. The work zone had me boxed in
for a few 100 yards, cone stacked on the left, fresh chip
seal on the right, and a shallow S curve with a warning sign.
I couldn't just hammer it to 60 without risking a spin.
I held it at 25, then 30, then tried for 40.
As the curve opened in the side mirror, I saw movement right on
the edge of the tail light wash. The figure was sprinting along
the shoulder, cutting the inside of the curve the way a runner
does to shave distance. The sound kept coming in quick
bursts. Not words, not even close.
Just that broken childlike pitch and then lower gasps when it had
to breathe for 2 or 300 yards. It matched me, and I hated how
long that distance felt at that speed.
The straightaway opened up and I gave it more 4555.
The figure fell back a step at a time until it was just a small
shape at the edge of the red light, and then it dropped
behind into the dark and I couldn't see it at all.
I didn't check the mirror again. I kept my eyes forward and drove
like the road was trying to throw me off.
Somewhere in there, near the end of the work signs, something
thunked off the rear quarter panel.
It wasn't a heavy hit, more like a tossed rock or maybe a hand
catching a corner of the truck as I pulled away.
It was enough to make my shoulders jump.
It was not enough to make me slow.
I didn't stop again until I was under yard lights on Edward St.
It was 11:25 PM by the clock in the truck.
My hands were shaking so hard I had to sit for a minute and
press them flat on my thighs. I told myself I had imagined the
hand on the door. It was the only way I was going
to be able to get out and walk around.
I forced myself to do it anyway because company policy says you
report contact if anything or anyone hits the truck.
I walked around the front with the headlights still on and
looked at the driver's side streaks, 4 of them, angled down
and back from the top of the door toward the handle.
Mud. Not oil, not paint.
The kind you get when you slide off a ditch bank and try to
catch yourself. There was fine grit caught in
the rubber around the window. The handle itself had a darker
smear that looked like a thumb drag along the bed right behind
the wheel, a dull scuff about the size of a fist.
I did not have an explanation I could live with that didn't
involve someone trying to get into my truck.
I called my supervisor. He told me to clock the time and
call non-emergency dispatch for Forest County.
The woman on the line asked for my location and asked if I
needed medics. I said no.
She asked for mile markers and landmarks.
I gave her what I had, A white roadside cross I'd passed before
I slowed the first time, the green Mclaurin sign a little
farther NA small bridge over a Slough, and a brown sign for
DeSoto National Forest farther back.
She told me a deputy would meet me at the yard and asked me to
keep the truck where it was. The deputy who showed up was
steady and calm. He walked the driver's side
slowly, used a small flashlight without flagging down half the
street, and then took a small swab from the mud in the window
rubber and a second from the handle.
He scraped a bit of grit into a paper envelope.
He asked for my route, my speed, my reason for slowing.
He didn't make me feel stupid for slowing when I heard the
cries, he said. I wasn't the first person in a
week to call about that stretch and that sound.
Two other drivers had phoned it in, both saying they'd heard
what they thought was a baby and seen a very skinny man on the
shoulder. Neither made contact, Neither
stopped fully. He asked if I'd be willing to
ride back out there at first light and show him exactly where
I'd slowed. I didn't want to do that at all.
I said yes anyway. I went home and woke my wife by
accident when I set my keys down.
I didn't tell her everything that night because she had to be
up early with the baby. I lay there and waited for her
breathing to level back out and stared at the ceiling, replaying
the way that mouth had looked and the way the fingers had
flexed. I slept maybe an hour.
We went back at dawn. The highway was the same highway
it always is, which somehow made it worse.
Same straightaways, same ditches, same dark water in the
Slough. In daylight, you can see how a
person could melt into the brush in two steps and you'd never
spot them from a moving cab. We pulled off where the shoulder
widened near a culvert and walked the ditch line.
The deputy spotted them first prints on the slope where the
clay was still wet, long stride, narrow heel, some barefoot
impressions. Then shoe tread again, like
someone had lost a shoe in the mud.
And then put it back on, 20 feet off the shoulder, under a
curtain of kudzu. There was a packed down spot
with a cut brush screen in front of it, a little blind.
Nothing fancy, just branches leaned and woven to make a dark
pocket. On the ground was a stained
blanket, balled up like a nest in a crumpled food wrapper.
No electronics, no speaker. Farther down, flush with the fog
line, where a driver easing over would run it right over, lay a
short board with roofing nails driven through at an angle.
You would not have seen it at night until your tire was
hissing. Another scrap of board showed
scrape marks where someone had dragged it, probably planning to
set it in the lane when a car slowed.
A strip of torn blue cloth was caught on a low sapling right at
shoulder height, where a driver's open window would line
up if they leaned out. The deputy radioed, bagged the
board in the blanket and flagged a second car to set up a watch
farther down the line. He told me plainly that I had
done the right thing. He didn't dress it up as
anything mysterious. He said they'd had problems
before with people figuring out what sound will make a driver
hesitate, and that the jaw could be an old injury that gave the
impression of something worse. He asked me to come by later and
give a statement underoath so the timing and locations were
clear. If they found someone, I said I
would. I asked him what I should tell
my wife. He said to tell her I was fine
and that they were working it. I went back to the yard,
scrubbed the door hard enough that my knuckles hurt, and tried
to go about the day like it was any other day.
It wasn't. Every time the baby cried that
week, I felt my body react in a way I had never felt before.
Not fear something colder. I kept seeing that hand on the
door in the yard lights. I started taking the Evelyn
Gandy Pkwy when I could and avoided the corridor between
Brooklyn and Maclaurin after dark.
They called me a week later, just after sunset.
Another driver had phoned in the Sound near the same culvert.
Forest County and Stone County had planned a joint patrol after
the nail board. The plan, as they explained it,
was simple. Stage a plane pickup on the
shoulder with a deputy pretending to be a tired guy
checking a map or looking at a tire and park a unit dark about
1/4 mile back. Wait, listen, they didn't make
me go to the scene for that. I got the rest later, piece by
piece. The crying started from the
ditch behind a brush screen just off the culvert.
The plane truck eased forward like he'd changed his mind.
A gaunt man came out hard from the brush, fast, like a runner
clearing a hurdle. He went straight for the
driver's door and reached for the handle with his right hand.
The jaw looked the same as what I had seen, tilted loose, maybe
an old dislocation that had never healed.
His forearms were scored with old scratches.
They lit him up with takedown beams and pinned him before he
could vanish back into the ditch.
On the ground with him were a short pry bar, a small nail
board like the one they'd found the week before, a folded baby
blanket that smelled like sour formula, a cheap plastic
pacifier with tape wrapped around the shield to use as a
bite piece, and a handful of zip ties.
In his pocket was a utility knife.
I'm not a forensics person, but they told me enough that I
understood. The partial palm smear lifted
from my door had a gap across one of the lines where a scar
cut through the ridges. He had a heeled diagonal scar in
that exact spot on his right palm.
The grit from the window rubber matched that ditch's clay when
they compared it to the board they'd bagged earlier.
The shoe tread they'd cast from the wet slope lined up with the
worn pattern on one of his mismatched sneakers.
None of that is magic. It's just hard work over a week
by people who take it seriously. They interviewed him.
I wasn't in the room, but the deputy told me the basics.
When I came in to sign my statement.
The man said he'd been living rough in the timber stands along
49 and occasionally riding North and South with a day laborer
crew when he could. He said he figured out that the
high pitched cry made people slow, especially if they had
kids. He'd been practicing making the
sound by biting down on the pacifier and forcing the pitch
up. He admitted he had set the nail
board out, planning to pull it into the lane if he got a
chance, and he carried the pry bar to wedge a door if it didn't
open. He said he wanted trucks because
they're easy to sell parts off and because people in trucks
leave cash in the console more than car drivers do.
He did not say he wanted to hurt anyone.
He did not say he didn't. He kept it to taking what he
could take. They charged him with attempted
carjacking, possession of a burglary tool, placing A
hazardous object in the roadway, and reckless endangerment. the
ADA pushed it fast because of the pattern.
I got a call 2 weeks later saying he'd taken a plea.
I didn't ask for the number of years.
I didn't ask for his name. I don't need it in my head any
more than it already is. I know this sounds like
something a bored teenager would post to get a rise.
I also know what it felt like to watch a grown man keep pace with
my truck at 25 on loose rock while making the sound my infant
makes when she is hungry and scared.
I know what it felt like to see four muddy streaks on my door at
midnight under yard lights and realize that they lined up
exactly with someone reaching for the handle.
I know what a nail board looks like in daylight and how
invisible it would be at night. Since then, I've changed a few
small habits. I don't pull over on that
corridor unless my engine is on fire.
If I hear a sound that doesn't make sense for where I am, I
call it in. And I keep the wheels rolling.
I drive with the window cracked less than an inch after dark.
I keep a clean glove in the door pocket so if I ever have to
check something outside the cab at night, I don't have to put my
bare hand where someone else's hand was.
I use the Evelyn Gandy Pkwy more.
The last line here is simple, if you hear a baby where a baby
shouldn't be on a highway shoulder, call it in and keep
moving. There are people who will go
check with backup and lights and training.
I got lucky because I didn't stop and because the road was
slick enough to make me choose speed over curiosity.
I'm writing this because I don't want luck to be the only plan
anyone has. If you ever drive Hwy. 16
between Jasper and Hinton after dark, remember this.
I'm not posting for drama. I'm a 29 year old electrician
born and raised in Hinton. The kind of guy who keeps tire
chains in the bed before the 1st frost and shuts off his high
beams for oncoming trucks out of habit.
I've seen pretty much everything that moves out there.
Elk strung out along the shoulder, bighorn balanced on
outcrops. The odd black bear nosing the
ditch. I know you don't hunt inside the
park. My buddy Tyler and I had camped
near the boundary for a long weekend, hiked up by Pyramid
Lake and ended the night with a soak at me.
Yet we left the Jasper Town site late with a thermos of coffee
rifles locked, encased from a range day earlier in the week
last weekend of September. Air cold enough to burn your
lungs. The highway thins to nothing
after 11. We were eastbound, the flat
stretch by Talbot Lake opening in front of us like a runway.
Water sat black on both sides of the Causeway.
The brush along the ditch had that silver crust you get when
the temperature drops fast. You can always see a faint glow
in the distance, where the Parks Eastgate lights hangover the
road and farther still, the smear of Hinton.
It's a straight run most of the way.
If you've driven it, you know the feeling.
The world narrows to the lane, the paint and whatever your
headlights can hold. That's where we saw it.
Off the right shoulder, a dark shape slumped against the grass.
It looked like a fresh moose hit.
One hind leg lay twisted at a bad angle.
Breath hung in a low cloud over the ditch.
I hit the hazards, ease down toward 40 and told Tyler to
watch for a kilometer marker so we could call it in when we had
bars. Reporting a carcass keeps
somebody else from ending up through a windshield.
It's what you do out here. The light swept across the body
and something didn't line up. The hide wasn't right in places
it looked peeled back, hair slipping off in greasy clumps.
I could see pale tissue where a rib should be too clean, like a
strip cut wrong. The eye facing us gave no normal
shine. It flashed chalky and dead.
I nudged the truck left to give it space, and that's when it
twitched. The mass rolled at the shoulder
and got up in one heave. It didn't rise like a moose,
front leg straightening, back legs bracing.
It planted the front wide and pushed into a Crouch, then took
one staggering step with joints that bent wrong.
Instead of the clean hinge of a foreleg, there was an angle,
like a human elbow breaking the outline.
The head swung toward our lights.
The muzzle looked long enough to sell it, but the jawline was
narrow and tight against a thin neck.
There was a tear in the chest where Hyde peeled back, showing
a pale line underneath. It stepped into our lane.
I didn't think about it. I gunned the truck and tried to
pass. Wide gravel spit from under the
right tires, and I felt the rear end brake a little before the
rubber bit. Back on the blacktop, Tyler's
hand hit the dash. He didn't say much, just enough
to make my foot stay down. As we drew level, the thing
lurched off the paint toward us, like it had been waiting.
On that cue, the first hit came near the Talbot Lake Causeway.
A heavy thud clipped the tailgate hard enough to pop the
cab and set both mirrors buzzing.
The smell rolled in after the kind of sweet, spoiled stink you
only get from meat that sat too long.
It coated my tongue. I tasted it more than I breathed
it. I knew we weren't out running an
animal that weighed 1000 lbs from a standstill, but the way
it moved didn't match that kind of weight anyway.
It covered ground with a bounding shuffle, the front
limbs punched down like elbows while the rear drove the bend in
the legs too high, like knees were somewhere they shouldn't
be. I kept it pinned and watched the
speed climb the highway. There isn't a place to play
hero. You keep it straight and you
keep it smooth. In the side mirror I caught a
smear of dark shape with that pale RIP across the chest and
once the white flash where an eye should reflect.
No glow, no magic, just wrong. Landmarks clicked by the green
sign for Miette. Hot Springs Rd. flashed on the
right. The cabins down there threw a
dull glow into the trees. We blew past the junction and I
didn't lift. The orange Dome over the
Eastgate grew brighter with every second.
The moose veered out of the direct beam, dropped into the
dark strip along the tree line and paced us.
It would surge when we bled speed for a curve, then fall
back when the road straightened and I could hold 90.
There was method in it like it knew where the light started and
ended when we hit the gate area. I ran the truck straight under
the lamps by the closed kiosk and on toward the big lit signs.
I didn't look back until the highway was empty behind us.
The smell still rode in the cab, sour and thick, and there was a
tremor in my hands. I only noticed when I tried to
reset the cruise. We didn't talk about turning
around. We didn't talk at all.
Hinton's canopy lights might as well have been a lighthouse by
then. We pulled into the 24 hour gas
station right off the highway. Semis idled at the edge of the
lot. Harsh white bulbs threw shadows
under the canopy. I must have looked as bad as I
felt, because the guy behind the counter watched us from halfway
across the store before we even stepped inside.
Is there a number for parks dispatch?
I asked. Or Fish and Wildlife?
He studied my face, then tilers, then the truck, then said,
almost bored. You're not the first ones this
week. About 1/2 dead moose near the
flats. That sentence took more heat out
of me than the run from the gate.
He handed over the number. I called from the forecourt,
gave our names, our truck, our direction and the landmarks east
of Talbot Lake before the Miette Rd. turn.
The dispatcher didn't sound surprised.
She told us to wait. A parks warden would meet us at
the station. She also looped in Alberta Fish
and Wildlife and Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
They showed about 20 minutes later, green and white Parks
truck, a Fish and Wildlife SUV and then in police cruiser.
We walked them around our tailgate.
There was a fist size dent low on the right corner and a smear
of hair and something oily dragged across the metal seam by
the tail light. The warden snapped on gloves and
plucked a tuft of dark hair free.
He bagged it. I tried to hand him the story
fast so I wouldn't rethink it. Wrong joints, tear in the chest,
flat white eye, the way it hugged the dark.
The warden and the officer exchanged a look that wasn't for
us. The police asked whether we were
willing to follow back as far as the gate so they could check the
shoulder under the lights. We said yes.
Under the lamps at the entrance, the world felt sane again.
They had us tucked behind the warden's truck and then we moved
West, shoulder to shoulder with flashlights throwing bright
cones into the ditch. It didn't take long.
You get used to what normal traffic leaves on a shoulder.
Bits of rubber, glass, glitter, old snow plow, gravel, boot
prints from tourists who needed to pee where they shouldn't.
This wasn't that. We found a drag line angling up
from the ditch like something heavy had been hauled to the
edge. 2 parallel scuffs tracked along the pavement, thin rubbery
streaks that weren't tire width. Grass near the culvert had raw
grooves cut through it, as if rope had burned it.
A small sapling held a wad of rotted hair and hide half buried
in silt. Someone's canvas strap lay with
a rusted buckle at the end. The smell hung in one spot near
the ditch, like a pocket of heat, even in the cold.
The Fish and Wildlife officer crouched, looked at the tracks,
then pointed at boot prints mixed in with moose tracks in
the soft dirt. The kind of mix you don't see
unless people have been right up in it, not just driving past.
He said something low to the warden about it not looking like
a clean roadkill sight. The warden straightened up and
told us we were done for the night.
They'd stage near the Pocahontas area and sweep the pull outs.
He took our statements and thanked us without any cheer in
it. Back at home, I hosed the bed
liner because I couldn't stand the smell.
I used pliers to pull a tuft of coarse hair out from the tail
light seam and dropped it in a bag for them.
I slept badly and woke with the taste of rot still ghosting my
mouth. Around noon, the police officer
called. They'd found a man just north of
the highway near the old Pocahontas Mine access.
He tried to slip into the Bush when they pulled up, but what he
was wearing slowed him. They stopped him by the
foundations of an old structure the officer wasn't sharing for
gossip. He gave me the summary because
our truck was part of it. Here's what he said.
They took off the guy. A section of moose hide cut and
stitched into a jacket, hair sloughing off in patches, stiff
where it had dried wrong. A mask built from the top of a
moose skull plate with hide attached over white fogged
safety goggles explaining that. Flat milk white eye in our
lights. Homemade shin rigs, knee braces
and padded hockey shin guard strapped outside his pants,
which shifted where the legs looked like they bent. 2 short
poles with rubber crutch tips lashed to the ends, used like
front legs when he dropped into a Crouch and walked on them.
Rope and straps stashed by the culvert with a spoiled moose
quarter dragged earlier in the week to make scent and a visual.
It wasn't a monster. It was a man who had learned how
to look like 1 long enough to make you stop.
As for motive, there was nothing clever about it.
He'd been living rough near those old buildings.
According to the officer, he planned to scare drivers into
stopping or swerving and then approach as if injured wildlife
needed help. He wanted either a quick robbery
or a truck. He picked the Talbot flats
because the road is straight, cell service can be spotty, and
people let their guard down once they think they're past the park
interior. He didn't count on drivers
punching it for the gate lights. The warden sent the hair from
our tailgate for comparison, but they already knew what it was.
The dent lined up with a shoulder plate he'd strapped
under the hide. Those thin parallel scuffs on
the asphalt matched the crutch tips.
The rope grooves matched the strap.
They recovered Parks, cleaned the site and threw up temporary
signs reminding people not to stop for wildlife unless they
could pull into a lit area. The police took him in.
End of story in the official sense.
For me, closure came when I rinsed the last smell out of the
truck and tossed the gloves. I didn't keep the tuft of hair.
We finished the written statements the next day and that
was that. I still drive that stretch a
lot. I still slow along the flats
because you'd be stupid not to, but I don't stop on the shoulder
for anything. I can't see clearly under a
canopy or within sight of the gate lamps.
If something looks off, I get to light and people first, then
make the call. You'll hear folks in Hinton say
they've had the half dead moose chase their bumper out of the
park and into town. You'll hear variations.
Most of them are noise. What matters is simple and ugly.
Someone figured out that in the right place at the right hour, a
silhouette and a smell can do more than any weapon.
They can make you hand yourself over.
So if it's late and the temperature's dropped and you're
coming off the Talbot Lake flats and see a shape on the shoulder
that doesn't sit right, don't be a hero.
Keep your wheels straight. Keep your speed.
Put your eyes on the glow ahead. Report it when you're under the
lights. The thing in the ditch isn't a
ghost, and it isn't an animal that needs you.
It's a problem wearing a costume, and it moves fast when
you give it darkness.