The Back Road
1161 Words
The wheels hummed on the asphalt like a lullaby, but neither man could afford to fall asleep.
“Ya still with me, Ray?” Joe’s voice crackled through the CB radio like static laced with gravel.
“Ten-four,” Ray responded, his tone tight, weariness seeping in. “Not gonna lie, Joe. My eyes are gettin’ heavier than a double load of steel.”
“Keep talkin’. We’re only two hours out. Then it’s hot showers and cold beer, brother.”
The two trucks barreled down a lonely two-lane back road in central Arizona, 70 miles from the nearest whisper of civilization. They were coming off a week-long cattle run—grueling, dirty, and thankless. The back road was their shortcut, shaving time off their drive home, and while it was mostly straight and smooth, it had the kind of eerie emptiness that made you feel like you weren’t supposed to be there.
The sky above was a mottled gray-black, thick clouds swimming across the heavens like bloated ghosts. Occasionally, the moon peeked through, casting pale, sickly light across the desert floor. Cacti stood like sentinels, watching silently from the side of the road. No houses. No other cars. Just desert, darkness, and the low rumble of diesel engines.
Ray rode in the lead truck, his Kenworth slicing through the night. Joe followed close behind in his Freightliner, headlights locked onto Ray’s taillights like a lifeline.
Ray reached for his thermos of coffee, one hand on the wheel, eyes flicking down for just a second.
That was all it took.
When his eyes snapped back to the road, something darted out in front of him—a tall, shadowy figure, half-human, half-something else. It moved fast, unnaturally fast, like it belonged to a world where rules didn’t apply. He slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. The front end of the truck clipped the figure.
The impact was soft, like hitting wet grass. The figure stumbled, then bolted into the brush on the other side of the road.
“Ray!” Joe shouted over the CB. “The hell was that? You see it?”
Ray’s hands gripped the wheel tight, his pulse pounding in his ears. “Yeah... yeah, I saw it. Clipped it. I don’t even know what the hell it was.”
“You okay?”
“I think so,” Ray said, though his voice betrayed the truth—he wasn’t sure.
Against every instinct screaming inside them, they pulled over.
Ray stepped out into the thick desert air, cool and unsettling. The night felt wrong now, like they had disturbed something ancient and angry. Joe was already jogging up, flashlight in hand.
The front of Ray’s truck was smeared with a splash of dark red and tangled with a few strands of coarse, black hair.
“What in the…” Joe murmured, shining his light on the blood. It wasn’t like cow blood or roadkill. It was darker, thicker, and it smelled strange—like copper and rot.
They scanned the roadside, flashlights sweeping across the sand and sagebrush. But there was nothing. No body. No tracks. Just the faint sound of howling far off in the hills—long, drawn out, and pained.
A chill swept through them both.
“You feel that?” Ray asked.
Joe nodded slowly. “Like... like something’s watching.”
“Exactly.”
They didn’t say another word. Joe sprinted back to his truck. Ray climbed into his, hand shaking as he turned the key. The engines roared to life, and the trucks sped off down the road, neither driver daring to look back.
---
The next morning, they reached their hometown just past sunrise. They were exhausted, nerves frayed and stomachs churning. After a reset at the yard, they went their separate ways, trying to shake off the night’s events.
Ray couldn’t stop thinking about it.
A few days later, the call came.
“Ray, this is Carl in safety,” the voice on the other end of the line said. “We noticed your dash cam stopped recording a few minutes before your last log entry. Just cut out completely.”
Ray’s stomach twisted. “Stopped recording?”
“Yeah. Weird timing, too. Right before midnight. Can you swing by to have it replaced?”
“Yeah,” Ray said, barely listening. His mind was already elsewhere—on the figure, the blood, the howl in the dark.
He told Joe about the call later that day. They both felt it—the wrongness of it. The coincidence too perfect. They talked about what happened, trying to logic it out. Wild animal? Maybe. Some guy high on something? Possibly. But neither of those answers sat right.
They agreed on one thing: they’d never take that back road again.
---
Weeks passed, then months. The story faded into the shadows of memory, a scar they didn’t want to prod. Until one night, Ray was driving through Nevada, the hum of the highway lulling his mind. He flipped on a podcast—“Truck Stop Terrors,” stories from drivers who’d seen things out there in the dark.
A familiar name pricked his ears.
“…vanished somewhere along Route 82, about 70 miles outside Gila Bend, Arizona. Last seen hauling an empty cattle trailer. Dash cam footage ends abruptly. Truck found parked neatly on the side of the road. Driver door open. No blood, no signs of struggle. Just gone.”
Ray sat up straight.
He knew that road.
It was the one they’d taken. The one where he’d hit the shadowy figure.
The host continued. “Locals call it the Devil’s Cut. Some say it’s cursed. Others say there’s something living out there. Something old. Maybe something that was never meant to be found.”
Ray pulled over and sat in silence, heart racing.
He called Joe.
“You hear that podcast?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“I heard it,” Joe said. “You think it’s the same road?”
“I know it is.”
Joe didn’t respond at first. Then he said, “That driver... you think he hit it too?”
Ray didn’t answer.
He didn’t have to.
---
To this day, neither man has taken the Devil’s Cut again. They stick to the highways now, no matter how long it takes. Whatever lives out there in the desert doesn’t like being seen. And next time, it might not let them go.
Ray still thinks about the blood on his grill, the hair that didn’t match any known animal, the sound of howling that didn’t belong in this world.
Some nights, when he’s parked in a lonely truck stop with nothing but the hum of the engine and the weight of darkness pressing in, he swears he hears it again—the howl.
It’s always just far enough away that he can pretend it’s nothing.
But he knows better.
They both do.
- Writer
