Post by hydra on Jun 30, 2015 7:00:12 GMT
My first skeleton chat piece! Enjoy?!
While researching local lore I recently came across a particularly strange phenomenon often reported along a stretch of highway that runs through rural Oregon. This particular stretch runs through a heavily wooded section of a state forest that is located between Portland and the Oregon Coast. It is typically dark, often misty, and altogether an eerily beautiful area. Those familiar with the Pacific Northwest would find nothing unfamiliar or out of the ordinary about this place on first glance, but many who happen to travel the road alone during the hours between midnight and 3am sometimes find themselves unwittingly playing the role of chauffeur.
Often the cars that run off the road in this area are suspected to have lost traction due to weather conditions. Sometimes the darkness is blamed, causing the accidental missing of a sharp turn in the night. Or maybe some of the wildlife that the area is known for find themselves in the middle of the road and drivers find themselves slamming on brakes, spinning out, or swerving to avoid impact. And of course there are those drivers who simply fall asleep at the wheel. All of these explanations are perfectly reasonable and there is no reason to doubt that for the most part they are the cause of many accidents reported each year. There are those, however, some rare survivors, who offer an alternative account.
It is the middle of the night and you are driving through the woods. The dark shapes of trees stretching up to meet the sky surround you, blocking out nearly all light cast by the moon. Maybe you drive in silence. Maybe the radio crackles, but it is hard to find a station that isn’t fuzzy around here. Perhaps you came prepared with your own music, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to be wanting to play. Faint voices can be heard through the speakers, like whispers from another room, but the more you listen the less familiar the sound becomes.
Maybe you have driven this way before. Maybe you’ve driven this way before many times and you find nothing uncomfortable about driving this way alone. Regardless, and in spite of your stereo refusing to cooperate, you keep your eyes on the road and your hands generally steady on the steering wheel. After all, it is very dark, and the roads here wind and weave like great black serpents over the Cascade Range. This is where you should be careful, you’ve been driving long enough to know that.
The first strange thing that happens is the cold. It is never particularly warm in this area, but you notice the hair on your arms beginning to stand up and small bumps forming on your skin. In a few moments you can see your breath escaping from your nose and between your lips in small, foggy puffs. Maybe your eyes are just getting blurry, maybe you are more tired than you thought you were, but even if that could explain the way that ice seems to start growing on your windshield, slowly spreading in small clusters of crystals toward your direct line of vision, you can’t deny feeling that bitter cold.
When you are no longer alone you think your mind is playing tricks on you. From the corner of your eye you swear you can see a shape, a slumped human form in the seat beside yours. You don’t look, of course. Eyes on the road, hands on the wheel. You don’t spare a moment to try and blink the peripheral image away because your windshield is starting to become even more clouded, ice spreading in rapid spurts.
And the shape is silent. Not breathing, not speaking. The shape is not even moving, but you cannot help beginning to feel fear crawling its way from the pit of your stomach all the way up into the cavity of your chest. It is not looking at you, it is staring straight ahead, watching the road just like you are, perhaps also seeing you from the corner of it’s… Eye? Does it have eyes? You haven’t looked at it to check.
Minutes pass. Mere minutes, but they feel like much longer. How long have you been driving? Have there always been this many trees here? Has it always been this dark? You feel like you should have been through this bit of the forest by now, but there is no end in sight. Just when you think you will be lost in the darkness forever there is a break, allowing a brief sliver of moonlight to pass through the window on the passenger’s side. You should keep driving, you shouldn’t look, but suddenly the now illuminated form beside you is all too solid.
The next few minutes are nothing like the last. They are quick, only slowing after you have already turned your face to look at the figure beside you. In that short stretch you are looking into what should be a human face, but doesn’t quite meet the usual qualifications. The skin is pallid, a sort of gray that no living person should be. It is peeling and oozing in places, and suddenly you smell the decay and you are overcome with sickness. But you cannot look away because the eyes are holding you, glazed beyond the ability to see, and yet you feel them looking directly at you, or maybe straight through you.
And then, when time speeds up again, your eyes have been off the road long enough that your entire vehicle is now off the road as well.
I cannot make any valuable assessment regarding the nature or origins of these passengers, having not had the experience myself. That being said, the few accounts that I have gathered seem to liken them to what survivors would imagine a corpse to look like after having been exposed to the elements in this particular region for a good amount of time. Though it is not common for a corpse to animate and materialize in the vehicles of unsuspecting drivers, the most popular idea about these passengers are that they happen to be the dead.
Further research is necessary to make any concrete claims.
While researching local lore I recently came across a particularly strange phenomenon often reported along a stretch of highway that runs through rural Oregon. This particular stretch runs through a heavily wooded section of a state forest that is located between Portland and the Oregon Coast. It is typically dark, often misty, and altogether an eerily beautiful area. Those familiar with the Pacific Northwest would find nothing unfamiliar or out of the ordinary about this place on first glance, but many who happen to travel the road alone during the hours between midnight and 3am sometimes find themselves unwittingly playing the role of chauffeur.
Often the cars that run off the road in this area are suspected to have lost traction due to weather conditions. Sometimes the darkness is blamed, causing the accidental missing of a sharp turn in the night. Or maybe some of the wildlife that the area is known for find themselves in the middle of the road and drivers find themselves slamming on brakes, spinning out, or swerving to avoid impact. And of course there are those drivers who simply fall asleep at the wheel. All of these explanations are perfectly reasonable and there is no reason to doubt that for the most part they are the cause of many accidents reported each year. There are those, however, some rare survivors, who offer an alternative account.
It is the middle of the night and you are driving through the woods. The dark shapes of trees stretching up to meet the sky surround you, blocking out nearly all light cast by the moon. Maybe you drive in silence. Maybe the radio crackles, but it is hard to find a station that isn’t fuzzy around here. Perhaps you came prepared with your own music, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to be wanting to play. Faint voices can be heard through the speakers, like whispers from another room, but the more you listen the less familiar the sound becomes.
Maybe you have driven this way before. Maybe you’ve driven this way before many times and you find nothing uncomfortable about driving this way alone. Regardless, and in spite of your stereo refusing to cooperate, you keep your eyes on the road and your hands generally steady on the steering wheel. After all, it is very dark, and the roads here wind and weave like great black serpents over the Cascade Range. This is where you should be careful, you’ve been driving long enough to know that.
The first strange thing that happens is the cold. It is never particularly warm in this area, but you notice the hair on your arms beginning to stand up and small bumps forming on your skin. In a few moments you can see your breath escaping from your nose and between your lips in small, foggy puffs. Maybe your eyes are just getting blurry, maybe you are more tired than you thought you were, but even if that could explain the way that ice seems to start growing on your windshield, slowly spreading in small clusters of crystals toward your direct line of vision, you can’t deny feeling that bitter cold.
When you are no longer alone you think your mind is playing tricks on you. From the corner of your eye you swear you can see a shape, a slumped human form in the seat beside yours. You don’t look, of course. Eyes on the road, hands on the wheel. You don’t spare a moment to try and blink the peripheral image away because your windshield is starting to become even more clouded, ice spreading in rapid spurts.
And the shape is silent. Not breathing, not speaking. The shape is not even moving, but you cannot help beginning to feel fear crawling its way from the pit of your stomach all the way up into the cavity of your chest. It is not looking at you, it is staring straight ahead, watching the road just like you are, perhaps also seeing you from the corner of it’s… Eye? Does it have eyes? You haven’t looked at it to check.
Minutes pass. Mere minutes, but they feel like much longer. How long have you been driving? Have there always been this many trees here? Has it always been this dark? You feel like you should have been through this bit of the forest by now, but there is no end in sight. Just when you think you will be lost in the darkness forever there is a break, allowing a brief sliver of moonlight to pass through the window on the passenger’s side. You should keep driving, you shouldn’t look, but suddenly the now illuminated form beside you is all too solid.
The next few minutes are nothing like the last. They are quick, only slowing after you have already turned your face to look at the figure beside you. In that short stretch you are looking into what should be a human face, but doesn’t quite meet the usual qualifications. The skin is pallid, a sort of gray that no living person should be. It is peeling and oozing in places, and suddenly you smell the decay and you are overcome with sickness. But you cannot look away because the eyes are holding you, glazed beyond the ability to see, and yet you feel them looking directly at you, or maybe straight through you.
And then, when time speeds up again, your eyes have been off the road long enough that your entire vehicle is now off the road as well.
I cannot make any valuable assessment regarding the nature or origins of these passengers, having not had the experience myself. That being said, the few accounts that I have gathered seem to liken them to what survivors would imagine a corpse to look like after having been exposed to the elements in this particular region for a good amount of time. Though it is not common for a corpse to animate and materialize in the vehicles of unsuspecting drivers, the most popular idea about these passengers are that they happen to be the dead.
Further research is necessary to make any concrete claims.
