Genre: fairy tale, horror, short story
Author's Note: A creative reimagining of “Spirit Monster Tracks a Rider,” from Kenneth J. DeWoskin and J.I. Crump, Jr., trans., In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996).
Transcript of witness interview regarding the alleged appearance and disappearance of John Doe. Interview given June 10th, 1973. Witness: Henry Zhou Responding officer: Adrian Moreno
TRANSCRIPT BEGINS
ZHOU: At the beginning? Okay. Right. Well… I was driving. Up around Route 100, but I was on a byway through the mountains that doesn’t get much traffic when it’s not ski season. There was the thickest fog. My headlights didn’t do much, illuminating maybe six feet ahead, so I was going slowly. Under twenty.
I caught the flash right away. Just two winks at first, the same way the sun catches on a watch face or a bracelet. I hit the brakes and threw the car in neutral, coming to a stop in front of it. It wasn’t another car like I had expected. It was—I thought it was a rabbit. It was about the same size, with the round body and the ears. They seemed a little long though, almost twisting back into the fog…
MORENO: Sir, is this relevant to the missing person?
ZHOU: What? Yes, this is relevant. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s important. I’m getting there, just—just give me a minute.
[…pause…]
The thing I thought was a rabbit didn’t move. It sat in front of my headlights, head turned toward me so I could see both its eyes. They were impossibly bright, two mirrors shining in the dark. I know animals, they’ve got the reflective thing in their retinas, but this was different. It was wrong. Besides, animals run away by then. This… creature was still in the road, completely still. I just stared at it. What else was I supposed to do? I stared at it, and it stared back. There’s the deer in headlights expression, and it certainly applied here, but… I felt like the deer. Stuck in its floodlight gaze. It didn’t blink once.
I know I shouldn’t have, for safety reasons, but I turned off my headlights. I just didn’t want to look at those eyes anymore. I didn’t want to see them looking at me. So I flicked off my headlights.
The eyes still shone.
There was no light. No streetlamps, no other cars—even the moon wasn’t making a dent in the fog. I couldn’t see the rest of its body, but I’m telling you, its eyes were still shining, empty white beacons boring into me.
I—I tried to run it over. Or, I was going to, but I didn’t get the chance to follow through. I’m not proud of the thought—I have two kids and I’d never deliberately kill anything. I wouldn’t be able to look at them. But this… this thing, it scared me so bad I didn’t think. I put the car in first and snapped the headlights back on, foot over the gas pedal, when it lunged.
With unnatural speed, it just—just launched itself at me. On instinct I curled up to protect myself and my knees knocked into the wheel. The car stalled out as the thing landed on the windshield. It was bigger, the size of a wolf, but still had the rabbit shape. Long ears, hunched back, big hindlegs. It was—it was slamming its head into my windshield. Heavy hits, bang and bang and bang, that shook the car. I was screaming. I think I was screaming? I don’t know. All I know is it kept staring at me, not blinking, holding my gaze as it smashed its head into my windshield over and over and over again, and I couldn’t look away or close my eyes.
I remember thinking it was about the break the glass, and then I passed out.
[…long exhale…]
Could… could I have some water, please?
INTERVIEW INTERRUPTED [2 MIN 42 SEC]
TRANSCRIPT RESUMES
MORENO: Okay, Mr. Zhou. You passed out. Did the man find you there?
ZHOU: No, the m—no. I came to and the… thing… was gone. I couldn’t have been out for more than a few minutes, if that long. I hadn’t checked the clock beforehand, but when I woke up it was only twelve thirty-eight, which wasn’t unreasonably long after when I got on the road in the first place. And the car was still warm even after stalling out, so the heat couldn’t have been off for long. I tried to restart the ignition, but my hands were shaking. I took a few breaths and convinced myself that it was foggy, and late, and I’d been driving for a while. I was tired and had had a shock. An… extreme shock. It would have been best to pull over and rest for a little right away, but I couldn’t bring myself to stop. Not there. So I figured I’d just go slow until I found a gas station or something.
The fog didn’t let up, but everything was normal for a few miles. I started to think it really was just some crazy sleep-deprived hallucination. The emptiness was still unsettling, but better than… well. Then the hitchhiker showed up.
MORENO: What time was this?
ZHOU: Ten past one. I checked. No one should have been out that late, all the way up there, but I kept trying to rationalize it. His car broke down and he had walked along the road. He was a camper and had gotten lost. He looked like he could have been a camper.
MORENO: Can you describe the man’s appearance?
ZHOU: He was average height and build. Maybe thirty, forty years old? He had on jeans, boots, a white collared shirt, and a Harrington jacket—um, brown, might have been a knock-off. His hair was long and dark, tucked behind his ears. He looked just like any other man I’d pass on the street. The situation was odd, but in all honesty a part of me was relieved. To see a person after driving so long in the fog, unable to see anything—it was comforting, you know? Proof that the outside world still existed.
I pulled to a stop and rolled down the window. I said hello, what was he doing all the way out here, what was his name, did he need a lift—because I couldn’t just leave him there, no matter how weird he was. It was cold and damp out; he’d catch his death. He only answered the last part, saying a ride would be nice, and then he got in the car. The way he shut the door… not a slam, but final. Heavy. He didn’t say anything until I asked where he was headed, and he murmured something about the nearest waystation, which was kind of a weird thing to call a rest stop, but I figured that’s where I was going too, so it didn’t change my course at all. I pulled away from the shoulder and kept driving.
He didn’t make any conversation, which—well, I guess if you’re hitchhiking, you might not want to chat about what circumstances put you there, but I thought he’d at least say thank you. No. He just sat in the passenger seat, mute. I said I was actually glad to have someone else with me, because something strange had happened a few miles back, so it was nice to see another face. He didn’t respond, only grunted to acknowledge I’d said something. I couldn’t look at him—I was focused on navigating through the fog—but movement catches in the corner of your eye, right? Not with him. He was so still I could barely see him in my peripheral vision. It almost seemed like he wasn’t there at all, except I knew he was because of the horrible awkwardness I felt in my stomach. And there was this smell too, damp and thick. Like wet earth or moss. It wasn’t… unpleasant, but it shouldn’t have been in my car. The windows were closed, and I had an air freshener on the rearview mirror. I knew it had to be the man, but I couldn’t imagine why he’d smell like that, and so strongly.
I didn’t like sitting in the silence, so I reached for the radio. Usually the signal is pretty spotty up there and I never bother, but this time I actually found a station. It was playing that new Allman Brother’s song, and I was saying to this man how odd it was that it sounded so much more country than the rest of their music, but this was the song that hit the charts, and wasn’t that strange, you know? I was just babbling, keeping my eyes on the road, hoping he’d say something to get rid of the silence.
He didn’t answer for a long while. Then he said, “Strange.” That’s it. Just “strange.” Like he was echoing me, but his voice was… hollow. I was regretting ever letting him into my car.
Then he asked me what strange thing I saw that made me so scared.
The question startled me. I hadn’t clarified exactly what I’d seen, but that was because I didn’t want him to think I was crazy. He was acting odd too, though, and I guess I just figured why not? He’d say what I already knew: it was just some trick my mind played because I was tired. And if he wanted out of the car then, well, I wouldn’t be too upset by it.
So I told him what I saw. The rabbit shape, the eyes, how it jumped at me. As I finished, the radio started hissing, hitting patches of static every few seconds. That wasn’t unexpected—like I said, the signal up in the mountains is pretty dismal. But in between the static, when the music came through… it wasn’t music. It was warped, like someone had taken the melody and wrung it out like a towel. I thought maybe it was some experimental rock or something my kids would listen to, but this didn’t even sound like music anymore. It was just static, distorted noise, more static… then it cut out altogether. The car was silent again, but even worse than before.
He spoke then. The hitchhiker. I remember it exactly. Without changing tone, he said, “Would you turn around and look at me?”
I did. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I had just ignored him, kept my eyes on the road, and maybe he wouldn’t have changed—
But I did look. I turned and looked at him.
Those eyes. Those awful, horrible eyes stared back at me from his skull. I couldn’t move. I was the deer again, just—just frozen in the light of those two bright holes, hollow and white.
He—it—laughed, and it sounded like the warped notes on the radio. My mouth was dry. I don’t think I could have screamed, even if I was able to break past the shock and terror as the thing pretending to a man began to change.
MORENO: Change?
[…witness’ voice grows quiet, near inaudible, transcriber’s best determination: “Yes.” Followed by 6 seconds of no speech…]
MORENO: Mr. Zhou, how did the man change?
ZHOU: Have you ever wondered what The Scream would look like with teeth?
MORENO: I… can’t say that I have.
ZHOU: It looks like a face elongating, jaw dropping away to stretch open the gaping blackness of a mouth. And above that blackness, there are two circles—just as endless. Just as empty. But white, and never looking away. It almost distracts from the needles that are pushing out around the edges of the open mouth, jagged, razor-sharp fangs, all crooked. A forest of teeth. The face is like ash, cheeks sucked in so the bones jut out. And instead of the hands clapped to its face, they’re reaching out toward you, and they’re claws—
MORENO: Mr. Zhou… could we focus on your statement?
ZHOU: I am focused on my statement. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. I can’t get that thing out of my head—
MORENO: So you’re saying the hitchhiker… transformed into this creature?
ZHOU: Yes. I know you don’t believe me. I know it sounds crazy. But he changed, right in front of me. His face stretched out and his hair pulled back into two thick locks, like rabbit ears. He grew, shoulders hunching to fit inside the car and his hands weren’t hands anymore, they—they were longer, bigger, like the rest of him. They were sharp and he reached for me, mouth open with all those teeth, and I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything…
[…no speech for 7 seconds…]
I thought it was going to kill me. I thought—I thought I was going to die, but then the car slammed into something and the airbag exploded and I blacked out. I guess I hadn’t taken my foot off the gas and I swerved off the road.
MORENO: Yes, you collided with a tree.
ZHOU: How did you find me? I mean, no one else was out. The road was empty.
MORENO: Your wife called in, said you were a few hours late and that you were driving along Route 100. I was already up around the area, so the station told me to keep an eye out.
ZHOU: Oh. Thank you. I should call her.
MORENO: Not yet. You were talking about someone that had been in the car with you when we arrived. The man wasn’t there when you woke up?
ZHOU: The thing wasn’t there, no. I was alone.
MORENO: He didn’t give you his name? Anything to identify him?
ZHOU: I don’t think things like that have names, officer. I don’t know what it was, or what it called itself, and I wouldn’t know how to find it again, even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. Can I call my family now?
MORENO: […heavy sigh…] Yes, you’re free to go.
[…chair sliding back, footsteps, door opens…]
ZHOU: I know you’re the police and all, but… if you see anything out there? Don’t stop.
TRANSCRIPT ENDS
About the Author: Elsa Richardson-Bach is an English and creative writing major, and yeah, she uses “too many packets,” but it’s the best mug of Swiss Miss you’ll ever have in your life, so checkmate.
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