The Mysterious Passenger
I lived in a rather rural area, but on a road that takes you to the local gas station and Walmart. It’s just gotten dark, and I’m pulling into my yard after getting gas. Walking on the road is a man with a bag and a young girl. There is no sidewalk, so they are literally walking in the middle of the street. It seemed very odd right from the start.
They came from a direction where there isn’t a store for 10 miles, and the direction they were headed in didn’t have a store for another three. I’m still in my car, but in front of my house. I think about going in and telling my parents, but instead, I just go over and ask if they are okay. I ask if they had a car breakdown. The man says no.
He doesn’t take the opportunity to elaborate. The whole thing is weird, and I’m the cautious type. Since he has a kid with him and I want to make sure nothing sketchy is going on, I volunteer to give them a ride. I ask where they’re headed and he says, “Just up the road a bit”. How informative. The girl gets in the back seat and the man sits up front with me.
I forget the name he used, but he then says to the girl: “Stacy, I mean Amber, isn’t it nice that this girl is giving us a ride?” He got the girl’s name wrong. This whole time I’ve been trying to judge her demeanor to see if she feels safe and if this is her father, so that didn’t help. It’s fully dark now and he tells me to take the turn away from the gas station and street lights.
At this point, I’m thinking the joke is on him, because if he tries anything I’ll floor it, without hesitation, into a tree that will hit his side first. We are coming up on an abandoned restaurant now, and he tells me I can let them off in the parking lot. He still hasn’t told me anything about them, so I ask “Do you live around here?” He just says “Yup” and I let them out.
They thank me and I go on my way. In retrospect, it’s pretty funny because I’m sure he thought nothing of it, but I spent the entire ride contemplating every paranoid violent possibility. I’ve never seen them again since.