ROUTE 25, NEAR THURMOND, WEST VIRGINIA
We’re lost, ain’t we?” said Bethany Tremont to her longtime boyfriend Billy. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” They were driving eastbound on Route 25 in Billy’s midnight-blue Chevy Impala. The car’s headlights pierced deep into the rainy darkness, illuminating both sides of the otherwise empty road.
“Shut the fuck up,” Billy responded, as he often did in response to her complaints. Then he reconsidered. “Shit. Sorry, baby. I’m just frustrated here. Did we miss a turn or something?”
Bethany flicked on the passenger-side light and reread the directions to their friends’ party cabin for the fourth time. “East on Route 25 for sixteen miles, right on Beury Mountain Road, eight miles straight, then left into the campsite.”
“Dang. This ain’t right. We shoulda turned at that last big fork. Can’t you find it on your iPhone?”
“I wish.” Bethany held up her iPhone. “No signal.”
“Shit.”
“Just turn around,” Bethany said. “We’re in the middle of . . . Holy shit! Look out!”
Billy slammed on the brakes and held his breath as the Impala skidded and shuddered toward a motionless, silhouetted figure in the middle of the road. “What the fuck!” Billy exclaimed as the Impala’s antilock brakes finally completed their job of bringing the sedan to a stop about five feet from the motionless man. In the headlights, he was a tall, dark figure with a leather coat and long, crazy hair. And now he was coming toward them.
“Is that a cop?” asked Billy nervously.
“He don’t look like no cop.”
“What the f—”
“Billy, let’s get out of here! Back up! Back up!”
But the man was already at Billy’s window. Bethany hit the automatic door locks just as the man attempted to open the driver’s-side door, pulling the latch violently several times.
“Billy, drive!” Bethany screamed. “Drive!”
Billy put the car in drive. But at the same moment, the driver’s-side window smashed into a spiderweb of shards as a steel carbine lantern came flying through it.
“What the f—! Get off me!” screamed Billy as a man’s arm came through the hole in the window and grabbed hold of his shirt, yanking him hard toward the door. The Impala lurched forward and slowly turned left, bumping down a gravel embankment and thwacking through a thick patch of briars before returning to the road.
Bethany screamed louder than she’d ever screamed in her life.
The stranger’s entire upper torso was now through the broken window. Billy grunted and cursed as he struggled with the man. Within seconds, the stranger had Billy in a stranglehold.
“Stop!” Bethany shrieked. “You’re killing him!”
Billy’s head was cranked awkwardly to one side, locked firmly beneath the man’s arm as he walked alongside the slowing car. Billy was making suffocating noises and frantically trying to undo his seat belt to free himself from the deadly choke hold. Seconds later, he succeeded.
The car stopped abruptly as Billy hit the brakes. In an instant, the driver’s-side door was open and Billy was out of the car, thrown viciously to the ground. The next moment, the stranger was in the driver’s seat. He shut the door and looked at Bethany for a second. He was dripping wet and breathing heavily. The car slowly began accelerating forward.
“Please,” Bethany whimpered. “Oh, Jesus Christ, please don’t hurt me.”
The car was still driving forward slowly. Through teary eyes, Bethany looked at the man’s face, which was covered with matted, muddy facial hair. His eyes were expressionless, his long, gray hair wet and tangled. “Please,” she blubbered. “Please don’t . . .” She allowed her eyes to drift downward to his hands, which were filthy, and then to his fingernails, which were like . . . claws. “Oh my God!” she shrieked in terror. Just then, she felt the warm flow of urine in her seat.
The man slammed on the brakes. “Get out,” he said.
Bethany was petrified and could not move.
“Get out!” the man ordered again.
This time, she obeyed. Ten seconds later, she was out of the car, sobbing, on hands and knees in the middle of the rainswept road as the Impala sped off into the darkness.
Billy caught up with her a few seconds later, bloody, bruised, and breathless. “Shit. Baby, you okay? Gimme your phone. I’ll call 911.”
Bethany could barely get the words out of her mouth between sobs: “No . . . signal.”