"The Silent Tail":
I was behind the wheel that evening, guiding our old station wagon south through relentless rain, my family tucked into the warm cocoon of worn upholstery and blankets. Laura sat beside me, a map spread across her knees under the dashboard’s weak glow, the pages wrinkled from years of road trips. In the back, our kids—Emma, ten, and her little brother Danny, eight—were tucked against each other, finally asleep after a long day of excitement. We had left Texas after lunch and crossed into Mexico around midnight, immigration lights fading behind us like a final glimpse of safety.
The desert on either side was nothing but a black ocean. No towns. No billboards. No lights beyond our own. The rain hammered down harder the farther we drove, as though something behind the storm was pushing us south.
Laura tilted the dim map toward the light, tracing our path. “Still on Highway 85,” she murmured, reassuring herself more than me. “Two, three hours until Monterrey.”
“Yeah,” I said, though the thought of two more hours in this storm made me grip the wheel harder. Water streaked the windshield so fast the wipers looked useless. The tires hissed over pavement slick like glass.
Behind us, the world was empty.
Until it wasn’t.
Two white points appeared suddenly out of the downpour, distant at first. Then closer. Too close. They had slipped onto the highway from a side road, silent, stalking.
Laura noticed almost immediately. “Another car?” There weren’t supposed to be many travelers this late.
“Just heading the same way,” I said. My voice sounded flat, not convincing enough. I adjusted the mirror. A dark sedan. Couldn’t see much else.
Minutes passed. The sedan stayed glued to us. Never approached to pass. Never fell behind. Just hovered there, matching us perfectly through the darkness.
A small shiver crawled under my collar.
I tried shaking it off. I sped up slightly. The car behind sped up too. I eased off the accelerator. It slowed. My pulse ticked faster.
Emma stirred and sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her hair was stuck to her cheek from sleep. “Dad… why does that car keep following us?”
“We’re fine,” Laura said quickly. Her hand reached back, soothing Emma. I could hear the forced calm in her tone. “Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”
Emma didn’t. She stared behind us, wide-eyed, sensing what we were trying to hide.
The headlights behind flared brighter. The sedan crept closer, close enough that I could make out water spraying off its hood, shimmering in our taillights. The glow filled the wagon, bleaching out colors and making the shadows seem too sharp.
Danny woke with a jerk. “What’s happening?” His voice was small. Threatened.
My instincts screamed that this was wrong. This wasn’t just someone in a hurry. This was someone watching us.
“Maybe they’re just impatient,” I muttered. “I’ll let them pass.”
I drifted to the right side of the lane, waving them by. The sedan followed me rightward, still behind. Not passing. Just waiting.
Then it lunged forward.
It bumped us. A sharp jolt. Not enough to spin us, but enough to send cold fear snapping up my spine.
Laura gasped and grabbed the dash. “Tom! They hit us!”
My teeth clenched. “I know.”
Rain flooded the windshield, blurring everything like I was looking through tears. The tires skidded for half a second, the car fishtailing before I straightened it. Every instinct said not to stop. Not out here in the void.
There were stories about this stretch of road. Stories I had always brushed away as exaggerated whispers meant to scare tourists. Highway bandits. Cars forced off the road. Families robbed, kidnapped, vanished.
Those stories were real now.
Danny whimpered and buried his face in Emma’s side. Emma wrapped her arms around him protectively, the roles reversed in an instant.
“We need a town,” I said. My throat felt tight. “A gas station, anything.”
Laura searched frantically through the map, the pages shaking. “Nothing for miles. Just desert.”
The sedan drew alongside us. Its windows were pitch-black. Rain sheeted across the glass, making it impossible to see who—or what—was inside. It stayed there just long enough for the message to sink in.
They wanted us afraid.
They fell back behind us again like a predator toying with prey before the kill.
The car hit us again. Harder. Laura cried out. The kids screamed.
I yanked the wheel. “Hold on!”
The wagon swayed dangerously. If we slid into the runoff ditch, we’d be trapped with no help for god knows how long… and those people behind us would have all the control they wanted.
Laura’s voice shook. “Tom, they’re trying to run us off the road.”
“I know. I know.” I scanned the darkness feverishly. No headlights in front. No signs. No stations. Just the storm swallowing us whole.
Emma’s words came out trembling. “Dad… are they going to hurt us?”
Her voice cut deeper than any fear I had felt so far.
“No,” I said, trying to sound certain. “I won’t let them.”
Then, like a miracle carving through the rain, a faint shape appeared ahead. A parked vehicle. The silhouette familiar even before I distinguished details.
A police cruiser.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “There. Thank God.”
I flashed our hazards and eased to the shoulder in front of the cruiser. The sedan slowed, its headlights still on us. For a moment it hovered behind, making me believe they might brazenly stop with us. Then it glided forward and rolled past, disappearing into the watery blackness like it had never been there.
I bolted out into the storm and ran to the cruiser. Rain drenched me instantly, soaking through to my bones. The officer cracked his window, face stern but calm.
“Problema?” he asked.
“SÃ… yes,” I said, mixing broken Spanish and desperate breathing. “Un coche… chasing. They hit us. They… too close. Muy peligroso.” Laura jumped in from the passenger seat, helping me explain between gasps.
The officer’s expression hardened. He glanced down the road, his eyes narrowing.
“SÃ. Hay ladrones aquÃ,” he said. Thieves here. “Sometimes they force cars to stop. Or worse.” He nodded toward his ignition. “Los seguiré. I will follow you.”
I didn’t wait to dry off. I sprinted back, climbed inside shaking. “He’s escorting us.”
Laura wrapped her arms around Emma and Danny, who were trembling but safe in that moment. “See? We’re alright,” she whispered, tears blending with rainwater on her cheeks.
The cruiser pulled in behind us, headlights glowing like a shield. We drove again, this time with a guardian just a few feet back. My heartbeat slowly settled, but I didn’t take my eyes off the road. Every shadow felt like a trap ready to spring.
Ten minutes crawled by. The rain softened into a steady pattering. Then Laura stiffened in her seat, pointing ahead with a shaking hand.
On the shoulder, engine off. Lights off. A dark sedan.
The same one.
Waiting.
The officer must have seen it too. His roof lights exploded into blue and red, slicing through the darkness. He accelerated, flying past us, cutting them off with purpose.
I didn’t stop. I didn’t slow. I kept us moving. I didn’t want to see their faces. I didn’t want to find out what would have happened if that cruiser hadn’t been there.
We drove until city lights finally pierced the storm. Civilization. Safety. Life again.
At the outskirts of Monterrey, the officer flashed his lights once, a silent goodbye, and turned back into the stormy desert.
We reached Laura’s parents’ house just before dawn. They opened the door in surprise at our arrival time. Laura and I didn’t tell them everything. Not then. We just held our kids tight and let silence speak for us.
Later, after the children had fallen asleep on the couch and coffee warmed our hands, Laura asked quietly, “What do you think they wanted?”
I stared at the rainy window and felt my pulse still racing like the road was beneath us.
“Maybe our car,” I said. “Maybe our money.” My voice lowered. “Maybe us.”
We never drove that route again. We took buses. We flew. We stayed where crowds lived.
Yet even now, years later, every time I’m behind the wheel on a rainy night and the mirror fills with headlights, something deep inside me coils tight again.
Because once you have been hunted in the dark, the dark never stops watching.
"No Exit Ahead":
The engine hummed steadily as Chris and I pushed deeper into the night, the highway stretching empty and black behind us. He fumbled with the radio, flipping through static-laden stations. “Nothing but noise,” he muttered, finally settling on a faint, tinny melody. I didn’t answer. My hands gripped the wheel tight, eyes scanning the slick asphalt. Rain from earlier still shimmered in puddles, hissing under the tires like tiny warnings. We were halfway to his cousin’s place in the next state, but the fuel light blinked insistently.
“Need to stop soon,” I said, voice low.
Chris checked his phone, squinting at the dim screen. “There’s a station a few miles up. Looks open.”
Through the darkness, the gas station appeared like a beacon. Its pumps glowed under harsh white lights, stark against the black surroundings. A few cars were parked, doors closed, silent. It looked normal enough, a haven for weary travelers. I pulled up to the middle pump—the one with the best light.
“I’ll fill up,” I said. “You want to grab some drinks inside?”
Chris nodded and headed toward the small, fluorescent-lit store.
I swiped the card and started pumping. The air was unnervingly still, only the rhythmic click of the nozzle breaking the silence. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw movement. A tall figure emerged from behind one of the parked cars. At first, I assumed he was another customer. But he walked with deliberate precision, straight toward me.
“Hey,” he called, voice rough, low, almost a growl.
My stomach dropped. He held something in his hand—a gun, aimed low but unmistakable.
Before I could react, two more men appeared. One stepped from the side of the building, another from a car I had thought empty. They moved fast, their eyes cold, locked on me.
“Don’t scream,” the first one said, stepping closer. I saw the scar cutting across his cheek. “Keys and wallet. Now.”
My mind raced. The parked cars weren’t just vehicles—they were props, part of a trap. Chris was inside. I had to think fast.
“Okay, okay,” I said, voice trembling but steady. “The keys are in the ignition. Let me get my friend out first—he’s inside paying.”
The man hesitated, glancing at his partners. “Make it quick. No tricks.”
I nodded, backing slowly toward the car, my heart hammering like a drum. One of them followed, gun raised.
I slid in, whispering as I pretended to call for Chris. My hand hit the ignition. The engine roared to life. The man lunged at the door, but I slammed the accelerator. Tires screamed against wet asphalt as we lurched backward, almost clipping another assailant who cursed and jumped clear. I swung the wheel, gravel spraying, and tore out of the lot.
Chris burst from the store, drinks in hand, eyes wide with confusion. But the attackers were already sprinting toward their own vehicle, one of the supposedly empty cars.
“What happened?” he yelled as I swung into the highway. “Get in! They’re after us!”
Headlights flared in the mirror—dark, aggressive, closing fast.
“They had guns. Tried to rob us. The whole place was a setup,” I shouted.
The sedan pressed close, bumping our rear once, sending a shudder through the car. “Hold on!” I yelled, swerving to avoid another hit. Chris gripped the dashboard, white-knuckled.
“Exit up ahead!” he pointed. “Maybe a town!”
I yanked the wheel, tires squealing, and spotted the warm glow of a small diner on the side road. I dove in, horn blaring. People inside froze, then a couple stepped onto the porch.
The sedan hesitated, slowed, then veered back toward the highway, disappearing into the darkness. We sat there, gasping, hearts hammering, as a man from the diner approached.
“You all right?” he asked.
Chris rushed out a jumbled explanation. The man nodded grimly. “Heard of spots like that—fake busy stations to lure travelers. Better call the cops from here.”
An officer arrived within the hour, took our statements. “Stick to main roads from now on,” he said.
We found a nearby motel, but sleep didn’t come. Every shadow, every distant headlight made my chest tighten. The next morning, we continued the trip cautiously, eyes constantly on the mirrors, wondering if those men were still out there, hunting.
Weeks later, news stories confirmed our worst fears: groups using abandoned stations to ambush drivers, sometimes for cash, sometimes worse. We had been lucky. Not everyone was.
"The Shortcut":
I was fifteen, still young enough to believe life could be rewritten overnight. Dancing had always felt like my ticket out. When my parents split, the house turned cold. Meals were silent. The spark in our home was gone. I chased warmth wherever I could find it. For a while I stayed up in the Bay with friends who sketched murals on sidewalks and played guitars around fire escapes. I laughed with them, though I always felt like a guest in someone else’s story. I missed my grandfather in Los Angeles. He used to watch me spin around the living room and call me his “little star.”
One afternoon I decided I could not wait anymore. I stuffed some clothes into a bag, tied my hair in a messy ponytail, and stepped into my scuffed red sneakers. Two guys I had met through friends were also heading south. We figured we could hitch together. The air smelled like exhaust and ocean salt as we stood under a bright sky, thumbs raised.
Cars rushed past without slowing. My feet hurt. I tried to stretch my calves, tried to look confident rather than desperate. Finally a blue van eased onto the shoulder. The paint was faded and dusty. The driver leaned his elbow out the window. He looked about fifty, with sunburned skin and tired eyes.
“You kids headed south?” he asked.
The guys stepped forward. The driver shook his head.
“No room except up front. The girl can come. You boys find another ride.”
Something felt wrong in the pause that followed. One of the guys leaned close enough that I could feel his breath.
“Don’t,” he murmured. “There is something weird about him.”
I should have listened. I should have trusted that prickling feeling under my skin. Instead I looked at the van and thought of my grandfather waiting by his kitchen window. I thought of how close I was to getting home.
“It is only a ride,” I said, trying to sound sure. “I will be fine.”
I climbed in.
“My name is Emily,” I said, shutting the door.
“Call me Larry,” he replied without looking at me. His voice had no warmth in it. Just flat noise.
We headed toward the interstate. Radio static filled the silence until I talked to fill the emptiness. I told him about dance classes and music and how someday I wanted to perform under bright lights in a city that did not feel divided. He nodded once or twice. He said he had been a sailor. He never smiled.
Miles stretched. Familiar signs faded. Asphalt gave way to cracked roads lined with dry weeds. The sun baked the air. I noticed he was veering away from the freeway.
“Los Angeles is not that way,” I said, gripping the seat belt.
“Shortcut,” he muttered. “Trust me.”
My heart thudded. I watched yellow grass blur outside the window. I counted breaths. I planned excuses to get out at the next turn. When he finally slowed near a wide empty patch of desert, hope flickered.
“I need to stretch my legs,” he said, pushing his door open.
I saw the chance. I unbuckled quietly, pretending to fix my shoe. I felt adrenaline flood me. I had one shot.
I ran for it.
The blow came before the scream. A crushing pain exploded at the back of my skull. The ground tilted. I tasted blood. A hammer. Heavy and cold.
“You should not have tried that,” he growled.
The world turned painful and frantic. He dragged me by the hair into the back of the van. I kicked and clawed until my lungs burned. He tied my wrists with rough rope from a toolbox. Every knot bit into my skin. He warned me to stop struggling. His breath smelled like metal and cigarettes.
He drove deeper into nothing. No headlights except our own. No houses. No chance someone would see me.
He stopped in a canyon wide enough to swallow sound. When he climbed into the back with me, his eyes looked empty of anything human. The assaults that followed took pieces of me I can never list. Pain and fear blurred into a long night. I begged. He laughed like he had heard the same plea a hundred times.
When dawn scraped across the sky he decided it was over.
He returned with a hatchet. His voice had the calm you would expect from someone folding laundry.
“This ends now.”
I begged again. Not for my dreams this time. Only for breath, for time, for anything that meant I still existed.
He swung. The shock was louder than the scream. My left arm. Then the right. My world shrank to bright agony and the pounding of my pulse. He spoke while he worked, like he was finishing a chore.
“You do not need these anymore.”
He threw me over the edge of a cliff like garbage. The drop was rough. Rocks skinned my back and legs. Dust clogged my mouth. Every heartbeat spilled more blood into the earth.
I could have given up then. Something inside refused.
I used my teeth to tear strips from my shirt and shoved mud over the stumps to slow the bleeding. I forced my legs beneath me. The cliff wall felt impossible. I climbed anyway. Knees scraping. Muscles screaming. Inch by inch. I climbed because dying down there meant he decided the end of my story.
When I reached the road I must have looked like a ghost. Bare. Blood drenched. Holding what I had left of my arms up so gravity would not take more from me.
The first car slowed. The passengers stared with horror. Then they drove off. Their tires kicked dust into my face.
I kept walking. Each step felt stolen.
A young couple finally stopped. The woman wrapped a blanket around me, hands shaking as she held it closed. I whispered through cracked lips.
“He cut me. Please help.”
They did. That saved me.
The hospital was bright and loud. I drifted in and out as doctors worked to pull me back from the edge. I told the police everything. The scar on his hand. The shape of his nose. The van. He did not get to hide.
A neighbor recognized him from the sketch. He was arrested. In court I sat with heavy prosthetic arms resting on my lap, refusing to look away from him. He leaned close once when guards moved him past me.
“I will finish what I started,” he whispered.
He got fourteen years and served only eight. Freedom came back to him like a reward. My rage became a mission. I built a life anyway. I learned to paint with my feet. I raised two sons. I stood in front of lawmakers and told them that victims deserve better than this. My voice did not shake.
He killed again. A woman in Florida lost her life to the monster I had already survived. They caught him. I faced him in court once more.
“You did not break me,” I told him.
He went to death row. Cancer took him first.
Sometimes I still wake reaching for arms that are gone. I check locks. I avoid lonely highways. Memories arrive whether I want them or not. They always will.
I lost so much in that desert, yet I walked out alive. Surviving will always be my victory.
"Eyes in the Storm":
Anna and I had been talking about this road trip since winter, counting down the days like kids waiting for summer break. We both needed a break from our lives that had started to feel too small. She spent her weekdays in a classroom full of restless teenagers, lessons and grading eating up her nights. I spent mine under fluorescent lights, glued to a computer screen, convincing myself each weekend that “next week will be better.” A few days on the Pacific coast sounded like just enough freedom to breathe again.
We packed the car the night before. Snacks piled high in the back seat: chips, gummies, trail mix, and enough water bottles to float a canoe. Anna insisted we bring paper maps “for the aesthetic,” though secretly we both knew it was in case the GPS died somewhere out in the middle of nowhere. We joked that we were prepared for both a cute beach picnic and the apocalypse.
We left before sunrise, the sky still purple and the city quiet. Music played low, something upbeat that matched the energy of starting fresh. Anna drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. Every mile we put behind us made us feel lighter.
Hours later, the world changed.
Dark clouds crawled over the mountains and merged into a heavy, churning sheet of storm. Rain hammered the car without mercy, loud enough to challenge the music. Wind shoved us sideways from time to time. Buildings vanished. So did other cars. The highway cut through the emptiest part of Idaho, flat and exposed, nothing but fences and endless fields beaten down by weather.
Anna leaned in close to the windshield, her knuckles white against the steering wheel. “This is bad. I can barely see the road lines.”
I turned down the volume and squinted through the dark. Water sloshed across the asphalt as though the highway had transformed into a long river. We passed a sign for the next town, but the letters blurred into streaks of white.
“We should pull over,” Anna said. Her voice carried tension she rarely showed. She was usually the fearless one.
I scanned ahead. “There’s an overpass coming up. We can wait it out a bit.”
The concrete structure rose out of the gray haze like something from a nightmare. No lights. No cars. Just a patch of dry pavement sheltered from the rain’s rage. Anna eased us underneath and parked. The sudden quiet was eerie, like stepping out of the storm and into a vacuum.
She shut off the engine. We could still hear the storm crashing around us, but the roof overhead muted it enough to breathe again.
“Maybe twenty minutes?” Anna said, reaching behind her for a bag of chips.
“Sounds good.” I forced a smile. “Then back to sunshine and ocean air.”
She laughed softly, though the worry lingered in her eyes.
Lightning flashed.
The whole world lit up in harsh, white light. And in that instant, I saw something crouched low beside the front passenger tire. A dark shape, human-shaped, but twisted strangely close to the pavement like it was trying to merge with the shadows.
My breath caught. I blinked, telling myself it must have been my imagination. “Did you see anything just now?”
Anna shook her head while crunching on a chip. “See what? Rain monsters?”
Another flash, brighter. Illuminating everything for a solid second.
The figure didn’t move. It hugged the side of the tire, shoulders hunched, fingers pressed deliberately against the rubber. A person. Too close. Too silent.
“Anna…” I whispered. “There’s someone outside.”
She dropped the chip bag. “Where?”
“Right there. Next to the tire.”
She leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “I don’t see anything.”
The next flash erased any chance it was a trick of the light.
The hand—long, pale fingers—pushed something sharp into our tire. Not one thing. Several. Quick, practiced motion. Like this wasn’t the first time.
My chest tightened. “Hey!” I yelled, but my voice came out tight.
There was no response. The figure didn’t flinch, didn’t look up.
That was wrong. People look up when you yell. People react.
“Start the car,” I said. My voice tried to stay steady, but fear frayed the edges.
Anna fumbled with the keys, eyes darting from me to the darkness. “What is he doing? Is he trying to help us?”
“He’s doing the exact opposite.”
The engine started with a growl. Headlights flared outward. The space beside the tire was empty. Completely empty. Like the storm had swallowed the person whole.
Anna didn’t wait for me to decide. She pulled out from under the overpass, putting distance between us and that concrete shelter.
We drove. Quiet. Listening to the storm and our breathing.
“That was probably just someone hiding from the weather,” Anna said after a minute. The doubt in her voice was impossible to miss. “Right?”
“Then why the tire?” I whispered.
Neither of us had an answer.
Miles passed. The storm eased into heavy drizzle. The world looked washed-out and exhausted. We dared to think it might just be our nerves.
Then it started. A soft thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Anna stiffened. “That’s a flat.”
My pulse kicked up. “Pull over somewhere safe.”
We slowed onto the wide shoulder near an exit sign. The rain pattered around us, lighter now but cold, sending tiny chills up my arms.
I crouched beside the rear tire and spotted them immediately.
Four nails. Thick. Long. Driven in with intention, equal spacing like they’d been measured. Not some accident from debris on the road.
Anna crouched next to me. “Oh my god.”
“This was planned.” I pulled one free carefully. The rubber hissed with released pressure. “He wanted us to break down farther from shelter. Alone.”
Her voice trembled. “Why? To rob us? To… something worse?”
I didn’t want to say the possibilities out loud.
We worked fast, changing the tire while the storm buzzed overhead. Every sound made us jerk our heads up. A truck driving by. A branch hitting a metal sign. Even the wind felt like something watching us.
Anna whispered, “We’re being hunted.”
I didn’t correct her.
Back on the road, the spare tire rattled on the slick asphalt. Neither of us said a word. We didn’t want to voice the fear crawling under our skin.
A gas station appeared up ahead, a tiny oasis lit by flickering fluorescent lights, surrounded by nothingness.
Inside, the air smelled like coffee that had been sitting too long. The lone clerk, an older man with a beard and tired eyes, listened to our story with increasing seriousness.
“Nails in the tire,” he repeated slowly. “Under an overpass. Storm bad enough to force a stop.”
He spat the toothpick into a small trash bin. “You two are lucky.”
Anna swallowed. “Lucky?”
He leaned forward, voice dropping. “There’s a group working the highways. Storms like this help them. Make you stop, make you vulnerable. At first they’d just rob folks, but lately…” He hesitated, chewing on the next words like they tasted bitter. “People have gone missing. Cars found days later. Doors left open. Phones on the seats.”
The ground seemed to tilt for a moment. My stomach dropped.
“You’re serious?” I said.
He nodded. “We tell every traveler who stops here: stay on main roads. Don’t pull over anywhere isolated. If something else goes wrong, keep driving until you reach people, not emptiness.”
We thanked him and rushed back to the car, scanning every shadow before getting inside. Even the gas-pump light overhead felt like a weak guardian barely keeping the dark at bay.
Back on the highway. Another fault revealed itself—an engine warning light blinking on and off like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
“Not now,” Anna whispered.
We coasted to a careful stop, terrified but with no choice. I popped the hood. The engine hissed with cooling moisture. Then I saw it.
A disconnected wire. Freshly disturbed.
Someone had planned for a second breakdown.
Someone wanted us stuck.
Headlights glowed behind us, creeping closer.
A dark truck rolled to a slow stop. No markings. Tinted windows. The engine purred like a predator studying prey.
A tall figure stepped out, hood up, face hidden.
“You folks need help?” The voice was calm. Too calm. He took a step closer.
Anna honked once, a sharp warning.
“We’re fine!” I forced volume into my voice. “Just leaving!”
“Storm’s dangerous. Tires get tricky,” he replied. He knew exactly what to mention.
Anna screamed my name. I slammed the hood shut and dove into the car. She hit the gas. The spare tire skidded, caught, and launched us forward.
The truck followed.
No headlights in the side mirror looked farther away. If anything, they seemed to gain on us whenever the road dipped into darkness.
Anna kept driving. Hands shaking. Whispering, “Please stop following us. Please stop.”
Finally, as we approached faint lights from a small town, the truck suddenly turned off down some dirt road and vanished like it had never existed.
We didn’t stop until we reached a motel. The lobby lights felt like the first safe place in hours. We locked the door behind us, called the police, reported everything. An officer nodded grimly and said he had heard stories like ours too many times lately.
“You two were smart,” he said. “Most people trust help when they’re scared.”
We stayed awake most of the night. Every sound outside—every car door, every rumble of thunder—made our nerves spike.
The next morning, we decided the coast could wait. We stuck to highways and bustling towns on the way home. No scenic detours. No quiet stops.
Even now, we talk about it sometimes. How easily we could have been another unsolved report. Another empty car left behind.
We used to think the scariest part of a storm was the weather.
Now we know the real danger can move low to the ground, silent as a shadow, waiting for the moment you let your guard drop.