“The Long Road Home: Three Tales You Won’t Survive”

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Chapter One — The Light in the Fog

It started like any other night—quiet, dull, and heavy with fatigue.
I’d finished another late shift at the bar, one of those rundown places that barely holds itself together but never seems to close. I’ve been there six years now, long enough to memorize every creak of the floorboards and every regular’s halfhearted joke. It’s steady work, the kind that keeps your hands busy and your mind numb, and in a rural town like mine, steady work is a blessing you don’t question.

By the time I locked up, the clock had drifted past two. I slid into my car, the world around me black and still, and began the familiar thirty-minute drive home. The road wound through farmland and patches of thick pine forest—a narrow ribbon of asphalt with no lights, no houses, and no company but the hum of my own engine.

Usually, I didn’t mind it. The solitude was its own kind of peace, a place where the noise of the bar drained away, leaving room for thought. But that night, the quiet felt heavier. Wrong.

The fog began just past the county line. At first, it rolled across the fields in gentle waves, silver in the moonlight. Then, within minutes, it thickened into a suffocating wall of white. The world shrank to the faint glow of my headlights, everything else swallowed whole. Even the trees seemed to vanish into that blankness.

I slowed down. The brights didn’t help—just bounced off the fog, turning it into a pale, blinding glare. My knuckles tightened on the steering wheel. The silence inside the car grew unbearable.

And that’s when I saw it.

Off to the right side of the road—half-hidden, flickering through the mist—was a small yellow light. It blinked at a steady rhythm. A pulse.

I figured it was nothing at first. Maybe a reflector, a marker light, a porch lamp from some distant farmhouse. But as the minutes passed, I realized it wasn’t changing position. It wasn’t getting closer or farther away. It was keeping pace with me—gliding just beyond the fog’s reach, steady as a heartbeat.

My stomach tightened.

I eased off the gas, watching to see if it would drift ahead. It didn’t. When I slowed, it slowed. When I stopped—God help me—it stopped. The air in the car felt thick, and the hum of the engine was suddenly deafening. I stared into the fog until my eyes ached, trying to find shape or meaning in that pulsing glow.

Then, it began to brighten.

Not faster, just… stronger. Each blink burned hotter, as if the light were swelling, feeding on something unseen. The rhythm stayed the same—slow, patient, almost hypnotic—but the space around it seemed to shimmer.

I couldn’t breathe. Every instinct screamed for me to turn back, but when I reached for the gear shift, I realized the engine had gone silent. I hadn’t turned the key. I hadn’t done anything. But the dashboard was dead.

The only sound left was my pulse.

I twisted the key once, twice. Nothing. Not even a click. Panic clawed up my chest. The light outside burned brighter still, casting a dull golden haze across the fog like a rising sun behind a shroud.

I grabbed my phone—dead. Screen black, battery gone, though I knew it had been charged. That was when the light flared.

It exploded outward, blinding. The whole car filled with searing white, like a bomb had gone off without sound. I threw up my arms and squeezed my eyes shut, but even through my eyelids, I could see it. For ten long seconds, there was nothing but light.

Then—darkness.

The fog returned. The road was empty. The light was gone.

My engine started on the next try, smooth as ever. I didn’t question it. I drove the rest of the way home without blinking, afraid that if I looked away, that thing might return.

It never did.

But sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can still see that faint yellow glow pulsing from somewhere deep inside the dark.

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Chapter Two — The Highway Watchers

Long-haul trucking teaches you to love silence—or at least, to live with it. The endless hum of the road becomes your only companion. The stars your ceiling. The radio your only proof that someone else still exists out there.

That’s how it was for me the night I crossed the desert highway—my second-to-last delivery before heading home. A straight stretch of cracked asphalt slicing through miles of emptiness. No gas stations, no rest stops, no houses. Just sand, starlight, and the low growl of my rig.

Then I saw it—an SUV in my mirror.

Black. Unremarkable. Keeping its distance.

At first, I didn’t think much of it. But mile after mile, it held its place—never gaining, never fading. I changed speed, slowed down, sped up. It matched me perfectly. Always visible, always the same distance away.

The road stretched on like a ribbon of glass, and that car was my shadow.

By 2 a.m., I’d had enough. I pulled into a rest area—just a dirt lot and a pair of flickering vending machines under a broken light. As I slowed the rig and parked, I watched in the mirrors.

Sure enough, the SUV rolled in too. It stopped at the far edge of the lot, engine off, lights dark.

Something in me snapped.

I climbed down from the cab, anger beating out fear. Whoever was behind that wheel was about to get a piece of my mind. My boots crunched across the gravel, the air hot and dry in my throat. But before I could take ten steps, the SUV’s engine roared to life.

It spun out in a storm of dust and gravel, tires shrieking as it tore back onto the highway—gone in seconds, tail lights shrinking into nothing.

For a moment, I was relieved. For another, I was deeply unsettled.

Who follows a truck for forty miles in the middle of the desert, only to bolt the second they’re confronted?

I stretched, checked the trailer locks, and decided I’d earned a short break. The adrenaline faded, replaced by exhaustion. I reclined the driver’s seat, cracked the window, and closed my eyes.

Maybe an hour later, I woke to the faint crunch of footsteps.

My body went rigid. I didn’t move, didn’t breathe. Just listened.

The sound came again—soft, deliberate steps circling the trailer. I reached up and peeled back one corner of the window blind.

Two figures stood near the rear wheels of my rig.

They were crouched low, working the latches on the cargo door, whispering in short, hushed bursts. One had a small flashlight, signaling the other. Then I saw it—bolt cutters.

That’s when instinct took over.

I slammed my palm on the horn, the truck’s air horn screaming into the night. Both figures jolted like they’d been electrocuted, scrambling into the darkness.

And then, out of nowhere, the SUV came roaring back—headlights off, engine howling. It tore across the edge of the lot, swung wide, and vanished into the night again.

The entire encounter lasted less than a minute.

I called the police, mostly to get it on record. When the officers arrived an hour later, they found fresh pry marks on the lower lock arms of the trailer—right where those men had been working.

Cargo thieves, they said. Common along that corridor.

But I knew better.

That SUV hadn’t been following me by chance. They’d been waiting—watching—for the perfect moment.

Now, every time I pull off to sleep, I keep one eye open. Because sometimes, out there in the black desert, headlights appear in my mirrors again—far back, steady, patient.

And I wonder if they ever stopped watching.

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Chapter Three — The Shopping Cart Trap

There’s something about driving at night that feels almost holy.
The empty road, the hum of the engine, the air slicing through the open window—it’s freedom distilled to its purest form. That night, summer hung heavy in the air, the asphalt still radiating the day’s warmth.

My dad’s BMW M3 purred beneath me like something alive. I wasn’t reckless, just… exhilarated. Stereo off, mind clear, the only music the whine of the engine and the whip of the wind.

When the urge hit to take the back roads, I didn’t question it. It was sudden, irrational, but irresistible. A voice inside said: turn here.

So I did.

The highway gave way to narrow asphalt veins twisting through farmland. No streetlights, no houses, just fences and fields sliding past in silver moonlight. I let the car stretch its legs, feeling the tires grip through each curve.

Then, out of nowhere, something flashed ahead.

I slammed the brakes. Tires screamed. The car lurched to a stop.

A shopping cart stood dead center in the middle of the road.

It glimmered in my headlights, every metal bar gleaming. Empty. Still. Perfectly placed.

My first thought was confusion. My second was unease.

Who the hell leaves a shopping cart here?

I should have kept driving. But curiosity—it’s the death of reason. I put the car in park, flipped on my hazards, and stepped out.

The night air was thick with the smell of grass and heat. The car ticked softly behind me as it cooled. I approached the cart, half-expecting to find groceries, or… I don’t know, something. But it was empty.

Utterly ordinary.

And then movement caught my eye.

Two figures burst from the fields to my left, running full speed toward me.

I didn’t think. I ran. The car was still idling, thank God. I dove inside, slammed the door, and hit the start button.

One of them stopped a few feet away—but the other didn’t.

He crashed full-on into my passenger door with a sickening thud.

He didn’t even brace for it. Didn’t flinch. He just stood there, eyes locked on mine through the glass—wild, bloodshot, vacant. His face was smeared with dirt… or blood… or both. His clothes were shredded, soaked, his hair plastered to his head.

There was something wrong with him—something off in the way he didn’t move or breathe right.

When his hand twitched toward the door handle, I snapped.

I threw the car into gear, swerved around the shopping cart, and floored it. The tires screamed as I tore down the road, heart slamming against my ribs.

I kept driving until the night opened up again, until the fields fell away and the world felt wide and empty and safe.

The guilt hit later.

Who was that man? Was he hurt? Was he insane?

I called the police on my way home, told them where it happened. They said they’d send someone. I never heard back.

When I pulled into the driveway, I stepped out to check the damage.

The passenger side was streaked in dark, dried blood. It covered the handle, the mirror, even dotted the back quarter panel. There was a dent, small but deep, like a fist pressed into the metal.

My father nearly lost his mind the next morning. He didn’t care about my story, only the car—his pride, his investment, now defiled by blood and a dented door.

He believed me later, once the car was clean, but the damage was done.

I keep telling myself it was just a setup—maybe a robbery, maybe a trap. People desperate enough to lure strangers off the road. That’s the only thing that makes sense.

But sometimes, late at night, when I think about that face pressed to the glass, I wonder if I hit something that wasn’t entirely human.

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