Someone walked beside my car for eleven miles, and I still cannot explain how.
I have told this story twice in person.
Both times I could see the moment the other person decided I had either fallen asleep while driving or exaggerated something ordinary into something supernatural.
I understand that reaction because that's exactly what I would have thought before it happened to me.
I was driving home from my brother's place in late November.
It was after midnight, cold but not snowing. The road is rural and mostly forest, with stretches of open field between small villages. I had driven it hundreds of times.
There was almost no traffic.
About twenty minutes from home, I passed a man walking on the right shoulder.
I noticed him because he wasn't wearing reflective clothing.
Dark coat. Dark trousers. No hat.
He was walking in the same direction I was driving.
I slowed slightly as I passed because the shoulder was narrow.
He didn't turn his head.
Ten or fifteen seconds later, I looked in the rearview mirror.
I couldn't see him.
That should have been completely normal. It was dark.
Then I saw movement outside my passenger window.
The man was walking beside the car.
I was doing approximately 70 kilometers per hour.
He wasn't running.
He was walking.
One normal step after another, arms at his sides, head facing forward.
For maybe two seconds I couldn't process what I was seeing.
Then I hit the brakes.
The car slowed to about 40.
He remained beside me.
Same position.
Passenger window aligned with his shoulder.
I accelerated.
80.
90.
He stayed there.
His coat didn't flap in the wind.
His hair didn't move.
His feet kept taking slow walking steps along the gravel shoulder.
I started swearing out loud.
I don't remember exactly what I said.
Probably every version of "what the hell" available in Swedish.
I looked ahead because I was terrified of crashing.
When I looked back to the side, he was still there.
Closer now.
His face was turned toward the window.
He looked ordinary.
That's important.
No black eyes. No wounds. Nothing theatrical.
A man maybe sixty. Pale skin. Gray hair. Long face.
He looked tired.
Then he lifted one hand and tapped the glass.
Three times.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
I almost went into the opposite lane.
I did not stop.
Someone walked beside my car through every turn
The next junction was a left turn toward a larger road.
I took it too fast.
The man disappeared from the passenger side.
I felt such relief that I actually laughed.
Then my navigation recalculated.
The screen froze for a second.
Instead of the map, it displayed a gray background with one line of text:
DO NOT TAKE HIM HOME.
I stared at it.
The normal map returned.
I told myself I had imagined the words.
Then someone tapped on the rear passenger window.
Three times.
I looked.
The man was walking beside the back door now.
He had fallen half a car length behind.
He was looking directly at me through the glass.
I called emergency services on hands-free.
I said there was a man on the road and I thought I was being followed.
The operator asked for my location.
I gave the road number.
She asked if the person was in another vehicle.
I said no.
There was a pause.
"How is he following you?"
I couldn't say it.
I said, "He's beside the car."
She told me to continue to a lit public place if I could do so safely.
The nearest petrol station was about twelve minutes away.
I drove toward it.
The man stayed with me.
Sometimes beside the front passenger window.
Sometimes the rear.
Once I looked over and he was gone.
Then the tapping came from the roof.
Three slow knocks directly above my head.
I screamed. I am not embarrassed to say that.
The operator asked what happened.
Before I could answer, a man's voice came through the car speakers.
Not through the phone.
The radio display still showed Bluetooth call.
The voice said in Swedish, very calmly:
"You missed the turn."
I recognized the voice.
My father.
He had been dead for nine years.
I disconnected my phone.
The call ended.
The voice remained on the speakers.
"Viktor," it said. "Turn around."
I switched off the audio system.
The display went black.
His voice continued.
"It's cold out here."
Then the passenger door handle lifted.
Once.
Dropped.
Lifted again.
I locked the doors even though they were already locked.
The petrol station appeared ahead like the best thing I had ever seen.
Bright canopy. Trucks. Two cars at pumps.
As soon as I turned into the forecourt, the man vanished.
I parked directly outside the shop and stayed inside the car.
The emergency operator called me back.
I had no memory of ending the call, but apparently it had disconnected.
Police met me at the station.
They thought I might have been overtired.
I let them think it.
One officer walked around my car with a flashlight.
He stopped on the passenger side.
"Did you hit something?" he asked.
I got out.
There were five muddy fingerprints on the outside of the passenger window.
Not a handprint.
Five separate fingertips in a vertical line, as if someone had pressed each finger carefully against the glass.
The officer wiped one with his glove.
The mud smeared.
Real.
I stayed at the petrol station until sunrise.
I drove home by a completely different route.
For weeks nothing happened.
Then one evening my wife asked me why I kept leaving the garden gate open.
I told her I didn't.
She said it had been open three mornings in a row.
We checked the camera above the garage.
At 2:18 a.m. the previous night, the gate swung inward.
No one entered.
At 2:21, the motion light beside the house came on.
At 2:24, our passenger-side car door handle lifted by itself.
Three times.
The next clip was 2:27.
A man stood at the edge of the camera's infrared range.
Dark coat.
Gray hair.
Too far away for his face to be clear.
He did not move toward the house.
He simply stood in the road.
Waiting.
I sold the car.
I changed my route to work.
I don't drive that road at night.
But about once a month, usually after midnight, my navigation app opens by itself while my phone is charging.
There is no destination entered.
Just a route.
From my house back to the place where I first passed him.
Estimated distance:
11 miles.
At the bottom of the screen, where it normally says START, there is one different word.
RETURN.
DarkRecord editorial note: This is an original fictional submission-style horror story. The named submitter and events are fictional.
