Darkest Mysteries Online — The Strange and Unusual Podcast 2026
Scary And Terryfying Trucker Stories
08 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello, and welcome to Stories All the Time. Glad you are here. Let's get into it. I've been driving long haul for just over four years, mostly doing east coast runs. Pretty routine stuff. New Jersey to Florida, Maryland to Georgia, sometimes as far west as Tennessee. I've gotten used to the overnight shifts, the tight schedules, and the lonely stretches of highway.
Appalachia, though, that always hits different, especially after midnight. The Sparch had booked me on a rush delivery headed to Roanoke, and they were all excited because someone found a shortcut. Supposedly, it would shave nearly an hour off the usual route, but it meant leaving the interstate earlier than normal and taking a small estate road that cut across the mountains.
Chapter 2: What are some common experiences of long-haul truckers?
I turned off the main highway around 11.30 and started climbing into the hills. At first, it wasn't too bad. The road was narrow, but not unusually so. No shoulder, but a decent surface. Saved. No big cracks or potholes. Nothing you wouldn't expect in a rural area. After maybe 10 or 15 minutes, this scenery changed. The trees pressed in tighter and the road started looking a little rougher.
No lights. No reflectors. And no signs. None. Not even those old green ones with mileage or town names. It was like the road didn't want to be found. What really struck me was how clean it looked. Not tidy clean. No leaves in the ground, no gravel, no sticks or mud. Even though it had rained earlier that week, the windshield stayed spotless.
Chapter 3: What happens when a trucker takes a shortcut through Appalachia?
It was just too perfect. And out here, nothing's perfect. I figured maybe it had been recently cleared. Maybe a maintenance crew passed through. Unlikely, given the time and location, but not impossible. Then the radio went haywire. It started as faint static, which I ignored, but suddenly the volume spiked.
Just blasted static like someone turned the knob all the way up scared the hell out of me. I reached for the dial to turn it off, but right as I touched it, everything cut. Radio. CB. Done. Not even background hum. And the GPS? Blank screen. Just white for a second, then flickered back to life, but instead of a route, it showed me looping back on the same road again and again. No turns. No exits.
Just a blinking arrow stuck in a loop like it had lost its place in the world. That's when I pulled over. Not fully off the road, there wasn't really a shoulder, but just far enough to stop and check the GPS. It was still powered. No error message, just stuck, calculating the same direction over and over. I sat back, annoyed more than anything.
I looked up to figure out how far I might be from the next town. That's when I saw the truck. It was just ahead, maybe 50 or 60 yards. Half on the right side, no lights, no brake glow, just sitting there in the dark. At first, I figured another driver pulled over for a nap, but the closer I looked, the more familiar it felt. Same model. Long nose Peterbilt. Same dark red color.
Same decal on the back window. Keep on trucking. Torn in the top left corner, just like mine. That gave me a pause. I slowly rolled forward, had light still on low. As I got closer, I noticed the plate was so covered in grime I couldn't read a single character. The mirrors were folded in, like it had been parked a long time. But the engine? Still running. That soft, deep idle hum.
Just sitting there, alive but unmoving. I pulled up beside it, leaned across the cab, and looked through the passenger window. There was a man in the driver's seat. He was sitting upright, hands on the wheel, facing straight ahead. Still, like a statue, he looked exactly like me. Same cap, same jacket, same beard, even the same tired slump in the shoulders. I didn't know what to do.
My first instinct was that I was overtired, that I'd somehow leaped around and parked beside my own truck, but mine was moving. I was awake. I was breathing. I shouted out the window. Hey, no reaction. Not even a blink. Then, without a sound, the truck shut off. Completely. Engine, lights, cabin power, nothing left but darkness. That's when I hit the gas.
I tried to shift through the gears, but the transmission fought me. I couldn't get past third. The RPM climbed like mad, but my speed didn't match. It was like the truck was dragging a mountain behind it. The road started climbing again, steeper this time. My headlights barely reached a curve ahead, and then I saw them. People lining the road. Both sides just there. They weren't walking.
They weren't even moving. They were just standing still, facing the road, about ten feet apart, all staring straight ahead. Men, women, different builds, different ages. I remember a few clearly, one guy in a coal miner's outfit covered in soot.
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Chapter 4: How does a malfunctioning radio contribute to a trucker's fear?
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. I slammed into the lot and parked like I was fleeing a robbery. Inside, under those harsh fluorescent lights, I finally started to feel real again.
I stood there, handshaking, trying to remember how to breathe. A mechanic was doing checks on rigs out back. I flared him down, asked him to take a quick look at my transmission. He popped the hood, ran the diagnostics, nothing wrong. I didn't tell him about the man in the truck or the people in the trees. I didn't tell anyone for a long time. I stayed off the road for a week.
When I finally drove again, I tried to trace that route, looked at satellite maps, checked old state road logs. I mentioned it to a couple of veteran drivers over coffee one morning. One of them, this old guy named Ray, just looked at me for a long second and said, some roads don't show up unless they're meant to. If you saw what I think he saw, don't try to find it again.
I never took another job through southeastern Kentucky. And I never saw that shortcut again. That night, I was driving my 97 Kenworth W900. Nothing flashy, red cap, black top, straight pipes, no chrome toys. Just a workhorse that I kept running better than it looked.
I'd hauled a full load of lumber up to a sawmill near Creighton and was deadheading back home, planning to cross through the old pass east of Calden. Around midnight, I pulled in, let the engine idle for a bit, checked my phone for bars, then shut her down, cracked the driver's side window an inch or two, locked the doors, and leaned back across the seat.
I usually sleep in short stretches when I'm out, maybe an hour here and there. Nothing deep. I don't trust most places enough to let myself knock out completely. I just started to relax, eyes still adjusting to the dark, when I heard this sound. A whistle. Thin and slow. Off-key like someone trying to hum a tune they didn't quite remember.
It drifted in from the trees behind the car, not loud but sharp enough to make me freeze. I flicked the mirror switch and scanned around, but the turnout behind me was nothing but black. No headlights. No movement. Just the gravel and the line of trees.
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Chapter 5: What eerie encounter does the trucker have with a mysterious truck?
About ten minutes passed. I sat there the whole time, wide awake now, watching and listening. Then I heard it. Crunching gravel. Slow footsteps coming from the rear passenger side. Just a few steps. Deliberate. Like someone walking up to knock on the door. The cab was still dark inside. I hadn't turned in the dome light. Didn't want to give away. I was awake.
I reached real slow across the seat and flicked the interior light on. Then I leaned to the right and peeked out the side mirror. nothing. But something wasn't sitting right. The sound of those footsteps had been close. Not distant. I should have seen someone. I didn't hear them back off. Didn't hear another step. I ducked down in the seat real slow and looked across the passenger window.
There they were. Just the legs. Knees down. Right next to the cap. Torn jeans, thick-soled boots, laces frayed out. The left boot was slightly turned and like whoever it was stood with their weight shifted to one side. They weren't moving. I didn't breathe. My hand hovered over the ignition key, not sure if I should try to start the truck or just sit still and wait for. I don't know what.
Then the knees bent like he was crouching or leaning in. That was it. I didn't think. I just cranked the engine and slammed the air horn with everything I had. The whole truck jolted awake. That sound could wake the dead. But the legs didn't flinch. They didn't jump or run. They just stepped back, slowly, into the dark where I couldn't see anymore. No scramble.
No sound of movement through the gravel. Just gone. I threw it into gear and floored it. Didn't check mirrors. Didn't care if I blew a tire on that slope. I hit the curve out of that turnout so fast I could feel the load axle float for a second. I didn't stop until I hit the lights of Lamford, pulled into a gas station that was still open and parked into the brightest lights I could find.
Got out, walked a lap around the cab to make sure I wasn't just losing it. That's when I saw it. A single boot print on the passenger step. Dusty, it's all lead fresh. Just one. No second print next to it. No smear. Just one perfect mark. Like someone stood there on one leg the whole time.
I didn't sleep at night, just sat inside the station for a while, drinking awful coffee and staring at the walls. I called my buddy Benji the next morning. He runs the same routes I do and told him I needed him to meet me out there. He thought I'd clipped a deal or something. I didn't tell him everything on the phone. We met up around noon and drove back to the same turnout.
Gravel was a mess, all kicked up and scattered from when I tore out. Benji gave me a weird look, like maybe I'd fallen asleep and dreamed the whole thing, but I hadn't. I hadn't even been close. About two weeks later, I was eating breakfast at Lonnie's Cafe in Grafton. Same stool I always sat on, same waitress pouring the same weak coffee.
A couple other drivers were nearby, swapping stories about weird things on the road. You know, little stuff like accidents that almost happened, or weird signs in the middle of nowhere. Since then, I avoid that whole stretch west of Harper's Pass. Don't care how tired I am.
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Chapter 6: What unsettling experiences occur at a rest stop in the woods?
But there's nothing now. Been that way a while. I didn't say anything. Didn't know what to say. The next week, on my return trip, I stopped in daylight. Same spot, same curve, same lot. The gravel still had tired tracks, deep ones, like something heavy had sat there not long ago. but the vending shelter gone. Just a slab of concrete and four rusted bolts.
At a gas station in Mayfield, about 20 minutes east, I asked the clerk if the state had pulled out the machines recently. He looked at me like I'd grown a second head. Sometime around 2011, I think, he said. They yanked all that stuff. Said it wasn't worth maintaining. Shelter got torn down too. I nodded, bought a coffee, got back in the truck, and left.
I'd just started working part-time at this tiny gas station off-road 26, way out in a quiet stretch of Virginia near the Kentucky line. The place looked like it was barely holding on, one oil pump, a single cramped room that always smelled thinly like rubber and cold coffee, and a soda fridge that rattled and hummed like it had to grudge against everyone.
I'd just wrapped up community college and didn't feel like moving back in with my dad, so I was crashing at my cousin's house until I figured things out. That night, I was covering a shift for Kenny. He was one of those guys who always had an excuse to bail.
This time, it was stomach trouble, which, as I found out later, meant he was passed out drunk somewhere with half-eaten can of chili still open on the counter. I didn't mind covering. It was quiet work, and I figured I could get paid to scroll along my phone and maybe sell a candy bar or two to a trucker passing through. After midnight, the place turned into a ghost box.
The locals filled up during the day. After iras, if someone came in, it usually meant they were lost or trying not to be seen. So when a green truck pulled in around 1F15, I definitely paid attention. It was an old Kenworth. Big thing, force green, headlights flickering like one of those dying fireflies you find blinking on your porch in July.
It rumbled into the lot like it was angry to be alive and came to a lopsided stop across both spots up front. Then the driver stepped out. He was huge, six for at least, broad shoulders, thick arms, solid gut. He wore a trucker hat with some faded oil company's logo and a sleeveless denim vest. No shirt underneath, just bare skin beneath the stiff, greasy fabric.
The vest looked like it had seen fires and floods and never quite dried out. It didn't say anything at first, just stepped forward, leaned into the open door and said, pump two ain't running right. Flat boys. Deep but with no inflection. Just straight up volume, like he was used to people listening whether they wanted to or not. I grabbed the reset keys and walked out with him.
We only had one pump. Always had. I figured maybe he was sleep-deprived. We're just looking for conversation. There's no pump to, I told him, glancing at his truck. I expected him to shrug, maybe nod and drive off. But he chuckled, not like he found it funny, but like he was humoring me. I filled up already, just needed to make sure someone came out.
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Chapter 7: How does the trucker react to strange happenings on the road?
Good girls like sweet things. I froze. I should have called someone. I should have locked myself in the office and waited for someone to relieve me. But a part of me, the stubborn part, wanted to believe it was nothing. A prank at worst. Maybe someone dropped candy or a wrapper and I'd overreact. I grabbed a flashlight and stepped out the back door anyway.
Behind the dumpster, half hidden under the blue recycling bin, was a Ziploc bag. Inside, a strip of jerky. Well, slimy. Soaked in something dark that wasn't blood. I mean, it might have been, but I told myself it wasn't. It smelled thick, shop-like motor oil and old gasoline. Not the sweet smell of meat. Definitely not what you expect. Folded underneath it was a small piece of paper.
The note said, I seen your kind before. They cry and bite, but they all hush after. My hand was shaking and I didn't even realize I was backing away until I hit the doorframe. I dropped the flashlight. I dropped the bag. I ran inside. Locked the back door. Locked the front door. Even bolted the small supply closet, though it had nothing of value except cleaning stuff and a half-used mop.
I called my cousin. Told her to come over. Nah. She showed up ten minutes later with her boyfriend. Neither of them said anything when I blurted out what I found. No jokes. No, you're imagining things. They just followed me outside. The bag was untouched under the blue bin. We went into the office and pulled the footage. Rolling it back, I watched what I already knew in my gut. He pulled in.
He got out. He walked behind a dumpster. Then nothing. He didn't walk back out. There's just a tall concrete wall and the lock rear of a shuttered auto parts store that hadn't opened in months. The gravel behind the lot ended abruptly in the weeds. He went in and just disappeared. We watched again. Same thing. He enters. He never exits.
I flagged the deputy the next morning, took the bus into town and sat in a sheriff's office until someone listened. The man behind a desk seemed unsurprised. Said they'd had other reports. Same pattern. Green truck. No fixed plate. Weird interactions with women working late gas station shifts. Always near less patrolled parts of the state line. I quit that job that afternoon. Two weeks passed.
I moved. But then the other message arrived. Different number. Don't need gas to keep moving. You don't either. I'll see you at mile marker 81. That drew me. That rest stop. Mile marker 81. It's near a rest stop my cousin and I hit once, heading toward Asheville for a long holiday weekend. I hadn't mentioned that to anyone else. Not really. My blood ran cold. I changed my phone number.
I moved three counters east. I started applying only to jobs where I didn't have to deal with empty parking lots and overnight shifts. I kept my lights on at home. I locked everything. It's been years now. I moved again after that. I changed routes. I avoid lonely highways and lease shifts.
My route took me east from the outskirts of Dixon, Tennessee, across the quiet backroads of western Virginia, then snake north through the hollows around Wessek. There's this little pull off east of a town called Ash Hollow. Not even a proper stop, just a gravel lot tucked behind a thick stand of pines. The first time I saw the truck, I barely noticed it.
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Chapter 8: What warning signs does the trucker encounter on the mountain roads?
The bottom stained dark like it had been dragged through oil. I spun around, but the peterbilt was gone. Just gone. No headlights. No reverse sound. No engine noise. No Dusclode. Just vanished. I didn't stop again after that. Didn't talk about it either. Not even with Ralph. What could I say? That I saw a ghost? That a dead trucker left me a souvenir? I was 37 when it happened.
I'd been running night hauls out of this small depot in Trenton, West Virginia for nearly a decade by then. That night was supposed to be routine. I had a 50-foot flatbed loaded with industrial piping, nothing especially dangerous or fragile. Picked it up from a yard outside Lanier, scheduled to drop it at a warehouse lot in Hinton.
Dispatch told me to avoid the main interstate because of some construction mess near Charleston, so they rerouted me throughout 47 minutes one of those winding mountain roads that looks harmless on a map and miserable in real life. Still, I didn't think twice. I rolled out a little before six. Sun already behind the hills.
I topped off the thermos at a gas station that still used those ancient metal pumps and had a bug zap at the size of a car battery hanging above the door. The cashier was barely awake. Gave me my change like she couldn't remember why I needed it. It felt like the kind of night you sleep through. Quiet and eventful. The first hour was smooth.
I had the radio low, just a sleepy country station fading in and out with every terran and my CB open, though no one was talking. Not many other trucks take 47. Too tight, too isolated. Cell signal dropped off a few miles past Sparrow Hollow, and after that it was just me, the road, and the sound of the trailer groaning around the bends. That's when I noticed the truck behind me.
It wasn't closed at first. I only spotted it on a curve, just the reflection of its cruel catching in my trailer lights. Old model pickup. Black, maybe dark blue, it was hard to tell in the dark. What stood out right away was that it wasn't using any headlights, not even running lights, just moving in shadow like it didn't want to be noticed. I figured it was some local kid messing around.
Or maybe someone who forgot to flip their lights on after dusk. Happens more than you'd think. Still, the way he stayed back, just far enough to keep from showing up in the mirrors unless I was turning, that started to bother me. At first, I tried to ignore it. People out here drive strange. Sometimes they think saving their battery or bulbs is worth the risk. But ten minutes passed. Then twenty.
Every single curve, I'd catch that same reflection at the exact same angle. No movement. No attempt to pass. just hovering back like he was being careful to match my pace. I tap the brakes once. Not hard, but enough to jolt the trailer and maybe make a point. He slowed down to, perfectly in sync, like we were tied together by a rope. That's when the chill started to settle in.
Not fear, not yet, but the kind of quiet and easy feel when something's just off. I reached for my thermos mostly just to give my hands something to do. The coffee had gone lukewarm, but I took a long sip anyway. Then I saw a rest pull off coming up, a gravel shoulder big enough for a rig to park. poured to John. Faded cantumat bolted to a wooden board, some trash barrels.
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