Truckers work long hours, their minds stretched by the expanse of the open road.
As fatigue settles with the night, those long stretches of highway seem to transform. Some truckers see things. Others can’t unsee them.
Each year, we tell a trucker ghost story from a real carrier that may make you pause, open the sleeper, and hold off on driving until tomorrow morning.
Happy Halloween!
The Hitchhiker
Harry took a sip from his coffee. It was cold. He had tried to make it last through his run, but the Australian highway seemed endless.
Harry looked out his driver’s side window. Just hours ago, he had enjoyed sprawling views of quaint farmland, dotted with backwater towns and rest stops. Now, a dark forest surrounded him on both sides, squeezing the road.
No matter how often he ran this route, Harry was always startled by the darkness. If his headlights were dimmed, he was convinced the world would vanish. He felt claustrophobic, the trees seemingly inching closer.
Despite the eerie setting, it was strangely hypnotic. Harry rolled his window down, cool air filling his cab and rustling his hair. Even with the chill, Harry’s eyelids felt heavy. He threw the last of the coffee down, swishing it in his mouth. Before he could swallow, his head jerked forward.
Harry’s boss had warned him that this stretch of road was dull, but he hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be to resist sleep. He determined that he would stop at the next gas station and rest.
As he surveyed the landscape for any indication of a gas station, his lights caught a glimmer of something down the road. Two eyes reflected at Harry, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
As Harry squinted, expecting the eyes to belong to a deer or small animal, he felt a chill when he discovered the figure of a girl.
She was standing on the shoulder, unaccompanied by anyone or anything else.
Harry was unnerved by the sight. As he thought back to the last time he saw a house or building of any kind, it had been hours. She was utterly, entirely isolated.
Immediately, Harry’s mind recalled stories of young women feigning distress, their criminal counterparts tucked behind trees, just waiting to attack. But as the truck rolled forward, she appeared helpless. She was spaced far enough from the foliage that an attack would be unlikely.
He rolled down his window and invited her in.
She slowly approached the truck, taking her time as she popped open the door. She entered the cab, wordlessly looking forward.
When Harry finally could see her up close, his skin lit with chills.
She had stringy, uneven hair. Her eyes were so sunken that she appeared skeletal, her arms bruised and pale. She was filthy. The stench was so pungent that Harry suppressed gagging.
They rode for ten minutes in stiff silence. Harry silently pleaded that a gas station, hotel, or anything would appear on the road, but the trees remained fixed.
Finally, the woman delicately raised a knotted finger. She gestured to an unlit and unremarkable line in the trees. Harry, baffled but relieved at the prospect of her leaving, stopped where she pointed.
Without acknowledging Harry, the woman opened the door, gently left the vehicle, and hobbled into a thick grove, vanishing from sight.
Harry sped off. Even with the windows peeled, the scent lingered in the cabin.
The next morning, Harry met with other drivers at a café. As they exchanged small talk, Harry mentioned his encounter with the ominous woman from the night before. He joked that she was probably crazy or at least having a serious psychotic lapse, expecting the group to laugh.
Instead, one of the other truckers looked Harry in the eye and rattled off the exact mile markers where he had picked the woman up. Harry looked at him incredulously, perplexed by how he knew where Harry had been driving.
Then this driver whispered, “She’s not real.”
The driver told him other trucks had described what had happened to Harry, down to the same time, place, and description.
Harry weakly laughed off the legend, assuming the other driver was trying to scare him. He left the café, finished his route, and returned home, doing his best to resist any thoughts of the woman.
Later, Harry’s boss, Tom, called him into his office. Harry recounted all the times he had something to merit the visit. He lost count.
When he entered, Tom immediately began chiding him for picking up a hitchhiker, an enormous breach of company policy. Another driver had reported on Harry.
Harry began to stammer, explaining that she looked vulnerable and that he worried for her safety, being so deep in the woods alone. Tom paused, visibly affected by the sincerity of Harry’s conviction.
Tom invited Harry behind his desk to review the security footage from the cab that night. He told Harry that if the circumstances were extenuating, he supposed that Harry could be excused without penalty.
Hesitantly, Harry helped his boss scrub through the footage to find the moment he picked up the woman. Eventually, he did find the moment.
Harry watched in horror as the cab door opened on its own, apparently without anyone entering. The door closed. Then, upon exit, the door opened again and closed, seemingly on its own.
Harry’s boss stood agape. They sat in silence for a moment. Then, they swore never to speak of that night ever again.
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