Trucker Storyteller

I remember a few clearly, one guy in a coal miner's outfit covered in soot.

A woman in a faded blue hospital gown.

Some look like they've been out there for years.

Hair matted, clothes torn, faces pale and dirty.

And then I realized they weren't standing on the ground.

They were hovering, just slightly, a foot, maybe less, above the leaves in the dirt, toes pointed down, not floating like ghosts, hanging, like something invisible was holding them in place.

I couldn't stop staring.

I looked in my mirror to see them behind me and they were gone.

All of them vanished.

That broke something in me.

I gripped the wheel like it was the only thing me from losing my mind.

Suddenly, the GPS snapped back.

Real roads.

A proper route.

I'd up ahead a stretch of straight road.

I floored it.

Whatever was happening with the transmission, I didn't care.

The truck jerked and fought, but finally pushed through to a downhill grade.

About ten minutes later, I saw a wide gravel lot with a few lit signs and a row of idling trucks.

It was a truck stop just outside a town called Allen Creek.