Narrator: Cole W. | Montana, USA
A length of wire fence crossed the road where there hadn’t been a fence that morning. I stopped short of it. It was dark, I was tired, and I assumed a rancher had strung up a temporary barrier after some livestock got loose.
There was no gate. The wire stretched out of my headlights on both sides. A pale shape moved behind it.
I opened my window to listen. No cattle noise. I heard teeth chattering. Several sets, close together, like people waiting outside in serious cold.
The shape rose until its top was above the fence posts. Something pressed against the wire from the other side. The middle strand bent towards my hood.
I reversed with the window still open. That detail gets to me. I was frightened enough to reverse half a mile and couldn’t spare a hand to close a window.
The next morning the road was clear. No wire, no posts, no marks where posts had stood. I took photographs anyway. Seven perfectly useless pictures of an empty road are still on my phone.
