 They say the devil is in the details. Well, the truth is in the details too. You can tell when somebody is making up a story, when the details just aren't there, or when there's way too many of them, and they don't quite all fit together. That's why I can't tell anyone about this. Even if I wanted to hold back, it's been so long bottled up inside me, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from saying everything. And if I did that, well, they'd cart me right over to the nearest asylum, probably in a wheelbarrow. No sense wasting valuable, unleaded gasoline on a complete lunatic, after all. I like to think all of us have a story that will never tell another living soul. Those moments of our lives when something so unexplainable and irrational occurred that we try to tell ourselves it never happened, or I must be remembering it wrong. There's just 20 minutes after the fact, even though we know that's only wishful thinking. I guess what happened to me wasn't quite as scary as some of the things other people have experienced, alien abductions, astral projection, ghostly visitations, and a whole long list of other weird phenomena, all of which fit quite nicely outside the realm of what most would consider reality. I'm not sure if the hitchhiker fell under any of the above categories. I don't think he does somehow. I think he's something else altogether. But who knows? Anyways, since I can't really tell anyone this story, since they may decide that I'm completely crazy if I do, I'm gonna write it down and then I'm gonna hide it somewhere no one will find it until I'm good and dead. Maybe I'll just throw it out to sea in one of those big corked bottles. I don't mind people judging me as crazy. As long as I don't have to deal with it. I don't want to get locked up in some little padded room and a jacket with no sleeves, being force fed a dozen brain tranquilizing pills every day. No, I like my fresh air. And freedom is nice too. So time to get this thing off my chest as best I think I can. When you keep something like this inside for too long, it starts to eat away at you. It started with the nightmares, the same one over and over. in the car with a hitchhiker and he's smiling at me with all those crooked plagued teeth and his black and purple gums. He's smiling and laughing because I can't stop the car. He is driving the car and I try to roll down my window to escape from the dead and rotting smell of him. That smell like old wet garbage mixed with something else, undefinable, but still vulgar and rancid like nothing I've ever had the displeasure of breathing in before. But the window is stuck. The door handles jammed. He's speeding faster and faster and flying around turns forcing me to hold on or lean clumsily off balance into the deathly smell of him. And the whole time he's talking, chatting about anything he can think of that's mundane and boring as if he doesn't notice that I've pissed my pants or that I'm trying with all of my being to get away from him as if he doesn't see me banging the passenger side window with my elbow all bruised and aching trying to get it to smash so I can crawl out and tumble onto the highway to my almost certain death. No, he just keeps talking about the weather, how it's not the heat, it's the humidity and how he really appreciates the ride. And as he smiles, I can see that his teeth are not really teeth at all, but just masses of wriggling maggots jam together, but still squirming alive and feeding and his gums are not really gums, but our fat pink worms instead. He leans closer to me as I notice this and he laughs. But of course that wasn't what happened. Dreams can mix up the details, but they usually manage to create a sense of surreal realism that makes details seem not to matter. In reality, it was me driving, not that it made any difference. I had no control over anything that day. The steering wheel in my hands did nothing, but give me a false assurance and bravado akin to a young man in control of a speeding car, unaware of a patch of black ice just ahead. I was driving through the country, not for any particular reason, other than to get out of the house, get some fresh air, and listen to a CD I just burnt. I was as far out into the country as my usual route took me, driving down a bumpy dirt country road which led to the paved one lane highway back to the city. I turned right towards town. When I saw him, he had his thumb out and was obviously in need of a ride. Now, I'm not one of those people who like to think the worst of everyone, but in this day and age I'm a little paranoid about picking up just anyone in my car. I mean, pretty much everyone I meet on a day to day basis seems slightly to all the way crazy to me. Why would I want one of those screwed up strangers in the car with me? So he can pull out a knife and carjack me? Or bore me with the unnecessary details of his life? No thank you. Maybe 30 years ago, but not today. People are just too screwed up these days. Also, I like my time alone on my country drives, it gives me time to think, and I find that I actually do some of my best thinking behind the wheel of a speeding automotive. I've come up with some of my better ideas on my country drives. I didn't want this smelly stranger getting in the car and messing up my chi or whatever you call it. So I continued driving. As I passed him, I saw that I'd made the proper choice. His clothes looked like they hadn't been washed in years. His faded blue shirt and pants were dirty, stained and wrinkled, and I was fairly certain I could smell him even from inside the car. His hair was mangy and looked oily and unclean, sparse on the top of his head. His weathered and worn face looked like that of a 70-year-old heroin abuser, and his sharp, bird-like features reminded me somehow of a gypsy. And he was smiling, an almost invisible smirk of a smile, but a smile nonetheless. The overall impression I got from the man was indefinably creepy. He looked like he'd just been standing there for a while, waiting for me. I drove by him with a glance in my rearview mirror. He turned as the car passed him, still smiling and holding out his thumb, despite the fact that I didn't want to give him a ride and there were no other cars around. Then, although I can't be sure, it looked like he brought up his index finger and flicked it against his thumb. The second he snapped his fingers, my car lost all power. The speedometer needle began to drop down from 60 to 50 to 40 to 30 until I was stopped and pulled over to the side of the road. At that moment, I was already more than a little bit scared, but when I glanced back in the mirror, I saw the hitchhiker walking towards my car and then my heart really began to hammer. I could feel the beat of it throbbing in my neck and forehead, then it seemed like my heart seized up for a moment and I had to calm myself down with gentle soothing thoughts about how everything would be all right. This was just a hitchhiker. He wasn't some demon, just a friendly old man who needed a ride. The snapping of fingers and my car's sudden meltdown, well, that was a little weird. But maybe I just thought I'd seen him do that. Maybe it was just my shitty car being its shitty self. Hello. Thank you for stopping. I was waiting for a long time. I jumped a little when he spoke through the roll down window on the passenger side. It seemed like he should have taken longer to walk to my car. I could have sworn he'd been a good hundred yards away when I looked in the mirror just moments before. A lunatic thought swirled around my head, like a brief cyclone, then was gone. Demonic visages in mirror may be closer than they appear. The rear view mirror warning label from hell. You, um, you might need to wait a little longer. I said, pretending this was a normal human being, although even then I was clearly sure that he wasn't. My car broke down seems like it just, I don't know, gave out on me. He opened the passenger door and took a seat as if I'd invited him to. He kept his leg hung out the door casually. And for that I was grateful. Maybe he would take the hint and leave me alone after all. Oh, I wouldn't worry about it. The cars these days are very reliable. He said with a voice that probably sounded similar to that of the snake telling Eve that the apples were really very tasty. Most of the time you can just turn it off and turn it back on again. And it'll be good as new. Give it a try. I'd never heard of any such practice, but I was intrigued enough and frightened enough by him to attempt it. As I turned the key, he snapped his fingers and said, bingo, bingo, tango. See, just like I told you. It took me a moment to realize it had worked. The needles on the display all bounced up from their nap and swayed gently into their accustomed positions. The engine once again purred like a 20 year old cat with laryngitis. I sat in stunned silence for almost a minute, checking and double checking all the easy to read vital signs of a car. No oil light on, no gas light or check engine light. The car was the same as it had been before its sudden failure. I looked over at the old man. His door was now closed, although I hadn't heard it shut or seen him shut it. He had a look on his face which seemed to say, how about we get a move on now. His eyes looked impatient, like there was something going on which he was late for and didn't want to miss. I decided to avoid any unpleasantness or awkwardness and just give him the ride into town. I was headed that way anyways. So where about she headed? I asked like the dutiful driver of any hitchhiker is supposed to, at least according to what TV books and movies had always taught me. He seemed to consider the question for a moment as I pulled back onto the road and picked up speed. Finally, he said, just up this road a stretch would be fine. I'll let you know when to toss me out. Thanks again for the ride. I really appreciate it kid. I hadn't been called kid by anyone in about 10 years, but decided to let it slide without comment. No problem. I'm headed this way anyways. I said, and yet you didn't want to stop for us. He said, without any emphasis or enthusiasm, I wasn't sure what to say back. I thought about just pretending that I hadn't heard him, but decided not to. Although I did pretend that I hadn't heard him say us. Yeah, sorry. I, you know how people are these days. I wasn't sure if you were all right or I don't know. I mean, who knows? Not that you look like. I stopped speaking at that point. Sure of how exactly to continue without insinuating that he looked like the dirty crazy old gypsy junkie that I'd originally fought him to be. How nice that would have been if only he'd been an average everyday lunatic like the rest of us. Don't worry about it. He said, and I thought I detected a hint of anger in his voice, but maybe it was just impatience. He looked over at the speedometer needle. I was driving roughly the speed limit, maybe more. Who am I kidding? Probably a lot more. He put his hand on the dashboard and seemed to caress the dirty thing with his fingertips. Immediately, the car started to accelerate, even though my foot wasn't pushing down any harder on the gas. I could feel the pedal falling away from my foot instead, as if I'd been increasing the speed using the cruise control, but of course I wasn't. So at that point, pretty much any doubt that I had of him being something other than a human being left my mind. I felt a few moments of sheer panic, at the thought that this thing beside me was perhaps going to steal my soul or take me down to hell or who knows what. Of course, my first thought was to slam on the brake and throw him out, get as far away from him as possible. But how could I? If he had control over my car as much as it seemed, what was the chance of me being able to stop even if I wanted to? And what if he got upset that I wanted to throw him out? Did I really want to test the patience of this apparently magical being? I decided to just go with it. Sure, I was scared shitless, but what can you do when you're hijacked by a mystical spell weaving hitchhiker other than take him to his destination? Wherever that might be. Then a new kind of terror struck me. Where on earth or otherwise did he want me to take him? He'd said just up this road a stretch. How long was a stretch going to be for this thing? Would I be driving him up some never ending highway into oblivion for the remainder of my life? But no, the highway was still the same. It was just the same old highway six heading back into town. The houses and trees and fields which had always been there were still there. We hadn't been teleported into another dimension without my knowledge. People were still riding tractor lawnmowers around their large country lawns. Dogs were still running playfully through fields as we passed by. A sweaty cyclist battled his way up a steep hill ahead. The world was still slowly turning as it should have been. Really nice day, isn't it? I asked the question, trying to sound steady and sure of myself, but it came out sounding scared and unsure, like the squeak of a baby squirrel trying to make small talk with a hungry eagle. Fine day, fine day. He said and pulled a dirty brown satchel out from under his seat. I hadn't seen him carrying a bag before that when he was standing by the side of the road or when he'd gotten into my car. And yet there it was. It was a disgusting looking thing stained and worn and torn like his clothes. He reached inside and felt his way around, apparently looking for something. As he was feeling around inside the bag, I couldn't help but notice a few strange things. For one, there seemed to be sounds coming from inside the bag. Some were odd enough, like the unmistakable sound of a rattlesnake hissing and shaking its noisy tail. But then there were other noises as well. Strange and alien sounds, which were unlike anything I'd heard before, cold and distant noises that somehow sounded alive and in pain, small, childish voices, squealing and screaming and maybe cursing in foreign tongues which I'd never heard before, but sounded almost ancient. Like ancient Greek, maybe, I'm not sure. He reached further into the bag and I saw that he had his arm in up to his armpit despite the fact that the bag was far too shallow to allow for that. Apparently it was a little deeper than it appeared. Just looking at him like that, disappearing into this strange and impossible bag, it made my head hurt. It didn't make sense and yet there it was, no more than two feet from my face. This head disappeared briefly into the bag, then came back out again, like a magician. Just looking for something, he said as he glanced over at me and I realized I'd been staring. Of course, that made me realize that I hadn't been paying attention to my driving. I looked back out the windshield quickly, expecting to see us heading for a ditch or into an oncoming car, but the car was still in its proper lane, straight as an arrow rolling its way toward town. There it is. He said and pulled something out of the bag. He took the colorful little thing and hung it up from my mirror by a string as if it was an air freshener. It bounced up and down and swayed from its string and I found my eyes being drawn to it, despite my newfound remembrance that I was driving. It appeared solid at first, but then began to droop and bloat, like the bubbles inside a lava lamp. Hope you don't mind. It stinks in here a bit, doesn't it? He seemed to be talking from a great distance away. I thought I saw him put his bag back under the seat, but it seemed unimportant now. The colorful dancing thing hanging from the mirror seemed to be the only thing in the world at that point. I stared at it as it oscillated and swayed and bounced. It seemed to be speaking to me, almost, not in words, but speaking nonetheless. As I stared at it, for who knows how long, I began to notice that he was right. It did stink in the car. It was a horrible rancid smell, like a sewer mixed with something else, like rotting food and rotting flesh. The colorful spinning thing hanging from my mirror told me not to mind, to simply stare. And so I did. I stared into the colors and they began to swirl together, forming new colors, ones that I'd never seen before. The new colors began to glow and hum and whisper to me. They told me to watch, to listen, to sleep. They assured me I'd be fine, the car would drive itself. And so I did as the colors commanded. At some point after that, I couldn't say how long, the hitchhiker put the bright-colored fang back in his bag. My eyes followed it until it was out of sight, and then I snapped back to reality like someone hypnotized. I realized with a bit of uneasiness that I'd been drooling a lot. I wiped the warm liquid off my face and neck with my sleeve and yawned. It felt suddenly like I'd been awake for a long time, and yet at the same time it seemed like I'd just awoken from a long nap. It was a very backwards feeling, which I found to be wholly unpleasant. The horrible smell still permeated the car and seemed even to have intensified. I tried to breathe through my mouth, but the stink still found its way into my head. The hitchhiker seemed not to notice, though. He was still sitting in the passenger seat with his little grin. I looked out the windshield and realized that the thing I'd initially feared had happened without me even noticing. We were no longer on the highway, which I recognized and remembered so well. The road we were on now looked nothing like that quaint country drive. For one thing, the highway was a big four lane job like an expressway, except this freeway was empty. There wasn't a pair of headlights or taillights as far as I could see. There were no more farmhouses or fields lining the signs of the road either. Instead, all I could see at the side of the road was blackness stretching out to the horizon. I realized abruptly that the sun had gone down. The sky was dark and starless and filled with fat purple clouds which lit up occasionally with loud crashes of distant thunder. I turned my headlights on. The road ahead became brighter and as soon as it did, I saw the shadowy shapes which were everywhere on the highway. Thousands, maybe millions of them, were moving in the same direction as us at roughly the same speed. The shadowy shapes were somewhat human looking, at least for the most part. A few looked far from human though. It was hard to see them clearly. They seemed to waver and shimmer like mirages. I noticed they were all looking back at me with the glare of my headlights creating an evil shine in their eyes. They stared at me angrily for a moment until the hitchhiker reached over and turned off my headlights for me. Keep those off. He said and I decided to listen. It wasn't like I was driving the car and needed to see where I was going after all. I looked ahead at the road again and the shadowy creatures were gone, disappeared back into the darkness. With no light to illuminate them, they blended back into the utter darkness of the night. I looked far ahead to where we seemed to be going. In the distance, the silhouette of a dark city stood out on the horizon. There were large buildings and skyscrapers but none had a single light on. The shadowy skyline was barely visible against the dark purple clouds in the sky. The usual glow which shone into the sky above most cities was absent here. The city seemed to be draped in darkness and when I looked up I could see no stars. Is that where we're going? I asked the hitchhiker, my voice quavering with nervousness. That is where we're going. He replied. I sat uncomfortably for a moment before asking, is it hell? No, hell is one town over. I looked over and he was smiling the same humorless grin that he'd been wearing at the side of the road. I wasn't sure if he was joking but decided not to ask him to clarify. It wasn't much of a stretch to imagine hell being very near to this place of shadowy forms and unholy hitchhikers. I noticed he was looking out his window and shaking his head as if even he were astonished. He looked straight ahead again and said, there sure is a lot of them this time around. What are you all doing here? Why am I here? I don't belong in this place. The words came out almost involuntarily. He was silent for a long while and I thought he wouldn't answer. But then he said, I needed you to take me here. You can go once I reach my destination. How am I going to get back? I don't have the slightest clue how we even got here. I couldn't help but wonder if maybe he'd overlooked that aspect of the journey. After all, he wouldn't be around to hang the colorful air freshener up again. Once you drop me off, head back the way we came. When you see the lights, head towards them, look into them, listen to them. They'll tell you where to go. That sounds a little messed up. I said, well, either that or you can stay in the city with us. He said, and as he smiled broadly, his teeth suddenly looked very long and sharp. Or I could let you see inside my bag for a little while. He began to reach under his seat. Uh, no, no, that's all right. I'll take my chances with the lights. As you wish. He said, no longer smiling quite as broadly. We sat and drove in silence for a while as the city grew larger and got closer. I began to feel dwarfed and small as we approached the buildings. And I realized that they were much bigger than even those of New York or Toronto. By the time we were entering the giant city, I couldn't even see the tops of most of the buildings anymore. They seemed to just fade away into the fog of the clouds. As we rolled further into the black city, the highway turned into Main Street. I could faintly see the shadow things moving along the signs of the road. Some huddled together in groups, but mostly they walked alone. Many of them turned to look as my car drove by, but then quickly went back to what they were doing. The closer we got to the center of the city, the worse the smell in the car became. I'd already put my shirt over my nose to try to block some of the stink, but now even that was becoming futile. I began to feel like I might pass out as every breath I took seemed worse than the last. You don't want to do that. The hitchhiker said from beside me, as if he'd read my mind, you don't want to fall asleep here. You'd be better off in my bag of tricks. He looked at me like maybe I should reconsider his offer to get thrown into his bag of screaming horrors. I'll be fine, I said, hoping that I meant it. A few moments later he was giving me terse directions, saying left or right, and pointing hastily. And I'd thought that he was in control of the car. I began to wonder if maybe it was all in my head, if maybe I could easily turn around right then and head back the way I'd come. Either way, I decided, I would need to get rid of the hitchhiker first. Might as well take him all the way. As we got further into the shadow city, the hitchhiker seemed to sink into deep thought. He cupped his chin with his right hand and rubbed at his whiskers thoughtfully. He began to make little pondering noises, like... I considered asking him what was on his mind, but then decided that I probably didn't want to know. A little while later, the hitchhiker told me to stop and pull over to the side of the dark road. I did as he asked, and pulled over in front of a very large building. The shadow things were milling around outside like patrons lined up for a busy nightclub, a few of them wandered over to my car and gawked inside, trying to get a glimpse at us. They pressed their dark faces up against the glass of the windows and stared at us, all the while making strange whispering noises. Well, this is it. The hitchhiker reached under his seat and pulled out his bag. I wanted to say something along the lines of goodbye or get the hell out of my car now please, but couldn't quite find my voice. I managed a very feeble wave instead. He seemed still to be deep in thought as he reached for the door handle. He grasped it for a moment, then took his hand away. Ah, you know. He said, on second thought, I hope you don't mind terribly, but I think I will keep you after all. It's so hard to find a ride sometimes, I'm just so sick of hitching. It took me a moment to figure out exactly what he meant, but when he started opening his bag up again, it became clear that he meant to throw me in there. Somehow I would fit. I would live the remainder of my life as a prisoner in his little canvas bag with no bottom. I would become one of the wailing voices screaming for freedom from the depths of this demon's travel bag. And I heard those voices getting closer as he held the opening of the bag up to my face. I felt myself being sucked into it, stretched out like an unlucky astronaut falling into a black hole. For a horrible instant, my face was inside the bag and I could feel my neck and body following slowly after. Was darkness, but the darkness was hot and sticky and oppressing from everywhere came painful wails and agonizing screams. It sounded like a thousand individual voices, all begging and pleading to be allowed to die. If not for one of those voices, I would have joined them. One voice rose up clearly from the dark fog and managed a raspy, parched sounding, run. I yanked my head out of the bag painfully. The hitchhiker looked at me impatiently. His eyes began to dance and shimmer, and he held the opening of the bag over my head. As he lowered it, I tried not to look into his eyes, I tried to find the door handle. He began to speak in a low rumble, mumbling ancient-sounding incantations under his breath. Montravisian Bagra. The more he spoke, the more I wanted to be inside his little satchel. It became to seem like a very inviting and pleasant place. The wailing and moaning and screaming from the bag was still audible as he began to lower it over my head, but it seemed far away and unimportant now. My fingers found the door handle at that point, and it took me a moment to remember why my hand had been searching for it. Pull. The voice inside the bag screamed, run. I pulled the door handle and catapulted out of the car. I ran without looking back. I ran through the dark streets of the city, the shadow things watching me go. I let my sense of direction lead me back the way we'd come, hoping that my memory would find my way out. My feet pounded the road beneath me with eventually decreasing force. Still, I ran faster and longer than I ever had in my life. I ran until my head hurt and my heart felt like it was gonna beat right out of my chest. I ran until my throat stung and my legs were like dead wood. The air started to stink less and less as I got further from the hitchhiker. Still, it felt like I was running a marathon through the smogiest, smelliest city on earth. I didn't really think I was on earth anymore, though, somehow. As I got closer to the edge of the city, the shadow things began to approach me more candidly. They got right up to me and spoke their strange, mumbly language in my ear. They tried to pull me and tugged my arm, urging me to go with them, but their black tendril arms slipped and passed through me like smoke. When they noticed this, they would leave me alone suddenly and disappear down the streets into the darkness of the city. Finally, I found the wide highway leading back home. I ran down it and watched over my shoulder as the vast city got smaller. It took a while, but after about half an hour, it was beginning to fade into the distance enough for me to feel somewhat comfortable walking. I was still scared enough that I wanted to keep running, but my heart and legs and throat said no. I kept picturing the hitchhiker speeding up the street towards me in my car, laughing maniacally, ready to run me down or capture me. I put my hands on top of my head to try and alleviate the pain of a bad stomach cramp and walked along the shoulder of a strange highway. I tried not to think about the fact that I would probably never see my little shit box car ever again. It was unreliable, yes, but it was a car. There was no way in hell I'd be going back for it, though. After a while, I began to see what I thought were stars appearing in the sky. They shimmered and twinkled and began to illuminate the road where I walked. The more I looked at them, the more they looked like the colorful thing the hitchhiker had shown me. They danced and swirled and floated around like fireflies. The colors of them swirled together to make new colors, and they began to whisper. I kept walking and watching them, and the lights got bigger and bigger until they covered my whole vision. The colors blended and bled. The whispering got louder and louder. Finally, I couldn't walk anymore. I sat down cross-legged on the side of the road, and I just watched the lights. All the strength seemed to be gone from my legs. As I sat there and watched, I felt asleep and awake at the same time. The lights whispered not to worry that everything would be okay. All I had to do was give myself over to them. I listened and obliged and felt a passing over back into our world. The light which flooded my vision quickly became blue, and I realized it was the sky. I was lying on my back on the gravel shoulder of Highway 6. The sharp stones cut into my back, so I sat up. I looked down at myself and saw that I was covered in brown dust. A car sped by, going well over a hundred, and honked his horn at me angrily. Someone yelled something out of the window that I couldn't quite catch. Usually that might have aggravated me a bit, especially with the long walk I apparently had ahead of me, but not that day. I was so glad to hear the voice of another person and be back to this beautiful reality that I kissed the dirty gravel shoulder of the road. Not even wincing when I noticed the dead and mangled roadkill possum not three feet away. I got up and walked over to the grass beside the road and laid down in it and rolled around like a puppy. I hugged the ground, thinking again of the inside of that dark bag and all the voices which occupied it. That could have been me for the remainder of my existence I thought to myself. And who knows how long that might have been. I remember the ancient sounding tongues which had risen up from the bottom of that bag. Those voices had sounded the most viciously angry, the most insane. I got the feeling that being inside that bag extended one's life, probably indefinitely. The thought made me cringe. I felt a horrible guilt that I hadn't been able to help those poor lost souls. They'd helped me. I tried not to think of an eternity living in the bottom of that dirty and waterless satchel, but it was impossible not to. I got up from the grass and walked back to the road. It was a quiet day on the little highway. There hadn't been another car since the one that had driven by and yelled at me. Then a few moments later a car appeared over the crest of a hill heading my way. It twinkled and shone white in the sun. The hum of the engine and the sound of the tires on the road got louder as it approached. I brushed the dirt from my clothes as best as I could, and I stuck out my thumb.