"Cold Roads":
The man looked exhausted—shuffling along the shoulder of the rural highway outside Waldron on that gray Sunday morning in January 2003. My husband, Sam, slowed our van as we approached, just like he always did when someone might need help. We were on our way to church, the same route we’d taken every Sunday for years.
“He might need help,” Sam murmured, concern already tugging at him.
I nodded. “Pull over. It’s too cold to be out here walking.”
The stranger wore a heavy coat, hands buried deep in the pockets, face unshaven, eyes down. When Sam rolled down the window, a wave of icy air rushed in.
“You okay? Need a lift?” Sam asked.
The man looked up, his eyes weary—but something in them felt alert, sharp. “Yeah. Thanks. Heading south.”
He climbed into the back seat without hesitation. I turned slightly. “Where exactly?”
“Just down the road,” he said, voice level, giving nothing away.
We eased back onto the empty Arkansas highway, the winter fields stretching out on both sides, quiet and washed in that pale morning light. Minutes passed with the usual small talk—weather, the cold, how he’d been walking awhile.
“Bad day to be out on foot,” Sam offered.
“Got no choice,” the man answered.
Then, without warning, he leaned forward. Something metal pressed hard against Sam’s temple. A gun. Small, dark, unmistakable.
“Keep driving,” he said, his voice suddenly flat, hardened. “Don’t stop unless I tell you.”
My breath caught. “What… what do you want?” I whispered.
“Drive south. Toward Texas. No funny business.”
Sam tightened his grip on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. “If you need money, take it,” he said carefully. “We won’t fight you.”
The man let out a short laugh. “I don’t want your money. I killed two people back in Oklahoma. An old couple. Beat them with a bat, shot them. Cops are looking for me. You’re my ride out.”
The words hit like a punch. Sam’s face went pale. My stomach lurched.
“Please,” I managed. “We have kids. Grandkids. Just let us go.”
He shook his head slowly. “Not happening. Take that side road. Now.”
Sam turned, the van bumping onto a cracked, narrow rural road swallowed by trees. The branches arched overhead like ribs closing us in. No houses. No cars. No help.
Hours dragged as he guided us through a maze of backroads, always avoiding highways where someone might recognize him. Gravel clattered against the undercarriage, branches screeched against metal, and every turn took us deeper into isolation.
“Why us?” I asked finally, anything to keep him talking, to keep him human.
“You stopped,” he answered simply. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
He talked about the murders—how he broke in, how the couple fought, how he finished them. His voice never changed tone. It was like he was reading instructions off a box. The horror of it felt unreal, too cold, too casual.
We passed abandoned farms, collapsed barns, fields overgrown with tall dead grass. My heartbeat barely slowed for a second the entire time.
At one point he pointed to a clearing. “Stop.”
Sam and I exchanged a terrified glance. But all he wanted was to change seating—Sam driving, him beside me. I kept my hands visible, forced myself not to tremble. His gun hovered between us like a living thing.
We crossed into Texas. The roads grew lonelier still—winding, isolated stretches of pine forest and open land. He shifted the gun between Sam and me, over and over, reminding us: “I won’t hesitate.”
Sweat gathered on my forehead despite the cold seeping in through the windows.
“You need medical help?” Sam asked softly. “I’m a doctor.”
The man snorted. “No. Just get me to Lufkin.”
He rambled about his life—his girlfriend, how she’d left him, how everything spiraled after that. I nodded, murmured soft replies, pretending to understand. Inside, I prayed for any opening.
Near Lufkin, he told Sam to pull into a small convenience store.
“You two stay in the van. I’ll get food.”
But as he reached for the door he changed his mind.
“No. Doc, you come with me. She stays.”
My heart hammered as they walked away. I wanted to run, but Sam had the keys. I waited, every second a lifetime, until they returned—him carrying bags, biting into a sandwich like this was a road trip.
We drove on.
Earlier, Sam had quietly reminded me about the small .38 I kept in the console for protection. As the man relaxed, lowering the gun slightly, Sam gave me a look. Now.
When the man told Sam to pull off at another quiet stretch, he stepped out to relieve himself. Sam reached for the console, hands trembling, pulling out the gun.
“Suzanne,” he whispered, “get ready.”
The man returned and settled into the back seat again. “Go.”
As Sam eased forward, he tried to hide the .38. The man noticed a movement—his body tensed, his weapon rising.
“What are you—”
Sam turned and fired—four deafening blasts in the small space. The man jerked violently, blood splattering across his coat. He tried to fire back, but his gun only clicked—later we learned the firing pin had broken from earlier hits.
“You shot me!” he roared, lunging. He slammed his fist into my head, a burst of white pain exploding behind my eyes. Sam wrestled with him as he thrashed, bleeding but furious.
He grabbed the keys, shoved us out of our own van, and peeled away, tires spitting gravel.
Stunned, bleeding, shaken, we staggered toward the road. A passing car screeched to a stop.
“Please—call the police,” I gasped.
They did. Officers arrived within minutes. Sam told them the man’s name—Scott Eizember. They found him soon after at a nearby store, wounded and desperate, asking for help. He was arrested on the spot.
At the hospital, my head was stitched, Sam checked for injuries. Later, detectives told us the truth: Eizember had been on the run for weeks after murdering that couple in Oklahoma. He had nothing to lose.
If Sam hadn’t acted, we might have been next.
Even now, years later, I still see that backroad in my nightmares—the dark trees swallowing the light, the gun glinting in the cold, the feeling that the world had shrunk to just us and a killer with nothing left to fear.
We survived. But the shadow of that day still follows us on every empty stretch of highway.
"The Clearing":
It was a cool Friday evening in early spring, the kind where the air still held a bite but the sky promised warmer days ahead. After dinner, as we walked out of the restaurant, my boyfriend Jack slipped his arm around my waist and said, “How about a little drive? Something quiet. Just you and me.”
We’d only been together a few months, still in that warm, glowing stage where everything felt effortless. He knew I loved quiet places, spots far from the city where the stars came out brighter. When he suggested an old backroad off the main highway, I didn’t think twice. “It’s quicker,” he said. “Shortcut. Hardly anybody uses it anymore.”
It sounded peaceful enough. We climbed into his old Ford—worn seats, heater that took forever to warm up, the kind of car that felt safe simply because it was familiar. Jack turned the key, the engine shuddered awake, and we rolled out of town.
The pavement eventually dissolved into gravel, popping beneath the tires as we eased onto the forgotten road. Trees pressed close on both sides, thick and tangled, swallowing the last traces of daylight. Even the distant glow from scattered farmhouses disappeared. Jack turned the radio down low, something soft drifting through the speakers—just enough to fill the silence.
“See?” he said, giving my hand a gentle squeeze. “Shortcut. Peaceful.”
I smiled, but my eyes kept drifting to the rearview mirror. No headlights. No cars. Just a narrow gravel ribbon and the dark woods hemming us in. I couldn’t explain it, but something about the emptiness made the skin on the back of my neck prickle.
We drove maybe ten minutes before Jack pulled over near a small clearing—an opening where moonlight leaked through the branches. “Let’s stop for a bit,” he said. “Talk. You’ve seemed quiet.”
I leaned my head against the seat. “Just tired from work. This is nice, though. Being here with you.” And it was—at least for that moment. We talked about ordinary things: his long week at the mill, my plans for the weekend, where we might go once the weather got warmer. It felt easy, natural, like always.
Then a bright beam of light cut across the window—sharp, sudden, unnatural. Jack stiffened. “Another car?” he murmured. But I didn’t hear an engine. Just… silence.
Then came footsteps. Heavy ones, crunching over the gravel.
Jack leaned forward, squinting. “Who the hell—?”
A figure stepped into the beam of his own flashlight. Tall. Broad. Face hidden behind a white cloth mask with crude holes for eyes. The beam swung toward us, blinding. In his other hand, unmistakably, was a gun.
“Get out of the car,” he said, voice low and disturbingly calm—like he wasn’t new to this. Like he’d said those words before.
Jack gripped the wheel. “Hey—look, we don’t want any trouble.”
The man tapped the gun against the window. Hard. “Out. Both of you.”
My fingers locked around Jack’s sleeve. “Maybe we should drive—”
He shook his head, jaw tight. “Let’s just stay calm.” And he opened the door. I followed, my legs weak as cold air rushed around us.
The flashlight hovered over our faces. “Empty your pockets.”
Jack dropped his wallet, keys—everything he had. “Just take it. Please.”
The man gave a short, hollow laugh. “This isn’t about money.”
And before either of us could react, he swung the flashlight downward. Hard. It cracked across Jack’s forehead.
“Jack!” I screamed as he stumbled, blood already running down his face.
The man hit him again—this time with the butt of the gun—sending Jack collapsing into the dirt. I backed up, breath tearing in and out of my chest.
“Please—don’t hurt him,” I begged.
The masked eyes turned toward me. “You’re coming with me.”
He grabbed my wrist—a cold, iron grip—and yanked me toward the trees. Jack groaned on the ground, dazed, unable to stand.
“Scream all you want,” the man said quietly as we moved deeper into the shadows. “Nobody hears you out here.”
He shoved me against a tree, bark scraping my back. The gun pressed cold and unforgiving against my ribs.
“Do what I say,” he whispered, “or he dies.”
I nodded, every nerve trembling. “Okay. Just… don’t hurt him anymore.”
He motioned with the flashlight. “Walk.”
We took a few steps. Branches snapped underfoot. My heart hammered so loudly I could barely hear anything else. In flashes, I thought of stories—the ones you assume happen somewhere else, to someone else. Until they don’t.
I looked back once, just once, and saw Jack’s still body near the car. That moment, that angle of him lying there, is burned into me forever.
“Eyes forward,” the man snapped.
And that’s when I saw it—a jagged, loose rock half-buried in the dirt.
I pretended to stumble, bending just enough to wrap my fingers around it. Then I swung with everything I had.
The rock slammed into his forearm. The gun flew into the brush.
He roared, grabbing for me. I dodged and bolted toward the road. “Jack! Get up!”
His footsteps thundered behind me. I reached the car—fumbled at the handle—then he slammed me against the side, pain ripping through my shoulder.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he hissed.
I kicked him—hard—square in the knee. He grunted, grip loosening. I tore free and sprinted down the gravel road, lungs burning, throat raw.
“COME BACK!” he shouted, the flashlight beam whipping back and forth behind me.
I plunged into the trees, branches clawing at my arms. Somewhere ahead—a faint glow. A house. A chance.
I burst from the woods onto a narrow path and saw it: an old farmhouse, porch light glowing like a lifeline. I raced toward it, pounding on the door.
“Help! Please!”
An older woman cracked it open, eyes wide. “What’s wrong?”
“A man—attacked us. My boyfriend—he’s hurt. Please call the police.”
She yanked me inside, locked the door, and grabbed the phone. Through the window, I saw the man stop at the edge of her yard, staring. Then he melted back into the darkness.
The police arrived minutes later. They found Jack alive but badly injured. They searched for hours, combing the woods, but the masked man had vanished as if swallowed by the night.
Jack needed stitches; I needed time. Weeks passed, the bruises slowly fading. But the fear lingered. More reports came in—similar attacks on lonely backroads. People stopped driving at night. Stopped trusting shortcuts.
Jack and I eventually drifted apart. Some experiences bind people together; others carve deep cracks. We loved each other, but that night lingered like a ghost between us.
Still, I think about that road. That detour. That split-second choice to fight.
If I hadn’t run—
If I hadn’t grabbed that rock—
I don’t let myself finish the thought.
Some roads aren’t shortcuts—they're traps waiting in the dark.
"The Trunk":
It was a warm September night in 1992 when I missed the bus—one of those evenings where the desert air hung still around Desert Hot Springs, and every sound echoed a little too loudly off the empty streets. I stood alone at the stop with a plastic bag filled with candy for the girls at work, shifting from foot to foot, already knowing I was going to be late for my ten-p.m. shift. Nineteen years old, working as a nurse’s aide at a home for disabled children, I didn’t have much room to mess up.
The street was deserted. No cars, no voices, just the far-off hum of the highway. Then headlights crested the hill and drifted toward me, slow and deliberate. A small car rolled to a stop, the window sliding down.
“You need a lift?” the driver asked. He leaned over the passenger seat—a young guy, clean shaven, wearing a simple T-shirt. His voice was calm, friendly. Harmless. I hesitated, glancing at my watch. Time was leaking away.
“Sure,” I finally said, opening the door.
He introduced himself as Andrew, said he was a Marine stationed nearby. The drive was short, barely five minutes, and he talked casually—his job, his schedule, asking me about mine. Nothing overtly creepy, but something in his questions felt a touch too personal, like he was trying to catalog me in his mind. Still, I brushed it off. I was young, naïve, rushing to work.
When we pulled up in front of the facility, he looked at me with an easy smile. “Can I get your number? Maybe we could hang out sometime.”
I didn’t want to be rude, but I also didn’t want him having my real number. I gave him a fake one and thanked him for the ride, hopping out quickly. At the time, I didn’t think it mattered.
Work went as usual—feeding, bathing, comforting kids who depended on us for everything. By the time six a.m. rolled around, I was drained but steady, ready to crawl into bed. The sun was just starting to stain the sky pink when I stepped outside.
That’s when I heard tires on gravel. Slow. Approaching.
I turned, and my stomach dropped—same car, same man, pulling up beside me as if he’d been waiting.
“Hey,” he called out lightly. “Need a ride home? Or maybe breakfast?”
I laughed nervously. “No breakfast. But a ride would be nice. It’s not far.”
I told myself it was fine. He’d helped me once. He seemed normal. And I was tired—too tired to think straight.
We started driving, and for a moment the morning felt peaceful. But the quiet stretched, thickened.
Then he said it, voice flat:
“I called that number you gave me.”
A pause.
“It was fake.”
My heart skipped. “Look, I just—”
Before I could finish, he jerked the wheel and pulled over violently. His hand shot out, gripping my arm hard enough to bruise. His face had changed—tight, sharp, angry.
“Why did you lie to me?” he demanded.
“I—I just didn’t know you,” I stammered, trying to pull free. “Let go!”
But he was stronger. With practiced movements, he reached into the glove box, pulled out a coil of rope, and yanked my wrists behind me. I screamed, kicked, begged, but he tied my hands with quick, brutal efficiency.
“Stop! Please! What are you doing?” I cried.
He didn’t answer. He put the car in gear and turned off the main road, tires grinding onto a dirt path that led into the raw, open desert. Houses disappeared. Streetlights vanished. Just endless cactus, jagged rocks, and emptiness.
We drove for what felt like forever until he stopped in a barren patch of earth. No sound but the wind.
“Get out,” he said.
When I didn’t move fast enough, he opened my door and dragged me out like I weighed nothing. He shoved me against the car, pulled out a knife, and sliced my shirt and shorts away in one clean motion.
“Please,” I whispered, shaking. “Please don’t do this.”
He ignored me. He tried to force himself on me, but something stopped him—anger, frustration, inability—I never knew. Whatever it was, it only fueled his rage. His fist slammed into my face, my ribs, again and again until blood filled my mouth and my vision blurred. Then he leaned in and bit my neck so hard I felt skin tear. I screamed, the pain blinding.
“Why are you doing this?” I gasped. “Just kill me if that’s what you want. You’re a coward!”
The word coward set him off. He hit harder, faster, his fists cracking across my skull, my shoulders, my stomach. I thought that was it—that he’d leave my body in that silent stretch of desert, like so many others.
Instead, he grabbed me by the arms and hauled me to the trunk.
“Get in,” he said coldly.
“I won’t,” I cried, kicking weakly. But he lifted me like a rag doll and threw me inside, slamming the lid shut. Darkness swallowed me. The air was thick, hot, suffocating. A moment later the engine started and the car lurched forward again, heading deeper into the wasteland.
In the trunk, I twisted until my shoulders screamed. My knees banged against metal. My wrists burned. “Help me,” I whispered to no one. To myself. To God. But I kept working at the rope, digging my nails into the knots until one wrist slipped free. Then the other.
My fingers groped the darkness for anything—a hinge, a latch, a weakness. And then, miraculously, I felt it: the emergency release.
The car slowed for a turn.
I took a breath, swallowed my fear, and pushed.
The trunk popped open.
Wind and sunlight blasted in. I rolled out, hitting the ground hard, skin tearing on rocks. Half-naked, bruised, bleeding, I forced myself up and ran toward the distant glow of the highway.
Behind me, I heard his car screech to a stop. A door slam. His footsteps pounding the dirt. I looked back.
He was running after me with a machete.
“Come back!” he yelled. “I’ll cut you! STOP!”
But I didn’t stop. I ran until my lungs burned and my feet shredded on the desert floor. I ran because stopping meant death.
Then—miracle—headlights. A truck on the highway. Two Marines inside.
I staggered into the road, waving my arms, screaming, “Help! Please help!”
They pulled over instantly. One man jumped out, threw his jacket around me, and guided me into the truck.
“What happened?” he asked, eyes wide.
“He kidnapped me—he tried to kill me—he’s right behind me,” I panted, pointing back.
Urdiales saw them, hesitated, and fled—his car disappearing down the road in a burst of dust.
The Marines rushed me to safety. At the hospital, doctors treated the bite, the bruises, the cuts. Police took my statement. I told them everything.
“His name was Andrew… something. A Marine. Blue car. I think the license had a—”
The desert scene was bulldozed soon after for construction. Evidence vanished. Years passed without an arrest. Nightmares came instead—the trunk slamming shut, his footsteps chasing me, his voice echoing.
But I survived.
In 1997, the call came from Illinois detectives.
“We have a suspect,” they said. “He confessed to attacking you.”
Andrew Urdiales. A serial killer. Eight women murdered, their bodies dumped in places just like that desert patch he took me to. “He described you exactly,” the detective told me. “The fake number. The trunk escape.”
I testified in court, staring at the man who had tried to end my life. “That’s him,” I said, voice steady. “That’s the man who attacked me.” He was convicted—multiple life sentences, then death row. In 2018, he took his own life.
Writing my book helped me reclaim something he tried to steal—my voice, my strength, my life. I forgave him in my own way, not for him but for myself.
But I will never forget that night, the desert wind, the trunk’s darkness, the feeling of almost becoming another nameless victim. It taught me this:
Your instincts matter. Your life is worth fighting for. And sometimes survival is the loudest, strongest truth you can tell.
"The Dark Turnoff":
I had just finished a long shift at the diner in Prince George when I decided to head home early that evening. My old truck had carried me along Highway 16 hundreds of times without complaint, but when I saw traffic slowing to a crawl up ahead, I spotted a narrow side road I’d heard locals mention now and then. They said it cut straight through the trees and came out near Smithers if you were willing to gamble a little. I was tired, smelling of grease and coffee, already dreaming of a hot shower. So I took the turn without giving it much thought.
At first, it wasn’t bad. Gravel popped under the tires, and tall pines rose on both sides like silent walls. I rolled the window down to let in the cool air, the scent of sap drifting in. For a few minutes, I just settled into the rhythm of the drive, letting the hum of the engine calm me. But about ten minutes in, the road started to change—more potholes, deeper ruts, branches clawing across the hood. My headlights flashed over rusted logging signs half-buried in bushes, pointing toward areas no one had worked in decades. That nagging thought crept in: shortcut or mistake?
The engine sputtered once, then again, and before I could even swear, it died completely. The truck rolled to a stop, lights fading with it. I tried the ignition—nothing. Just silence. My phone had no signal, naturally. Out here, the world drops off the map.
I popped the hood and climbed out, pretending I knew what I was looking at. The forest felt too quiet. Even the air felt heavier, like it was listening.
That’s when I heard the rumble of another engine coming from behind me. Headlights broke through the trees, slow and deliberate, until a beat-up dark van rolled to a stop a few feet away. The driver killed the engine, and for a moment everything went dark again except his parking lights.
A tall man stepped out. Broad shoulders, jacket worn to threads, boots caked with dried mud. He looked mid-forties, scruffy beard, eyes that slid past mine before finally settling on me.
“Need some help?” he asked, his voice low and flat—almost too calm.
“Yeah,” I said cautiously. “Truck just died. Won’t start. Do you know much about engines?”
He walked over, hands still in his pockets, and leaned over the hood. “These old models get fussy. Could be the alternator. Maybe the fuel line.” His shoulder brushed mine—not accidentally. I stepped back.
“Name’s Tom,” he added. “Live not far from here.”
“I’m Emily,” I said, because something in me felt wrong not to answer. “If you’ve got a working phone, maybe I could call a tow?”
He shook his head. “No signal out here. But my place has a landline. Five minutes back that way.” He nodded toward the blacker part of the forest where the road curved away, deeper and deeper.
I hesitated. Leaving my truck felt risky, but standing alone in the dark with no way to contact anyone felt worse.
He offered to try giving the truck a jump first. It was a reasonable gesture, so I let him. But after several tries, the truck was dead as stone.
He shut his van door with a dull thud. “Plan B,” he said. “Hop in. We’ll get you to that phone.”
I climbed into the passenger seat. The inside reeked of old oil and something metallic. Tools were scattered on the floorboards, cans rolling under the seat, rags stained dark. He didn’t seem to notice the mess.
He started driving back the way he’d come, deeper into the trees, the branches scraping the roof like fingernails.
“So what brings you down this road?” he asked after a minute, eyes flicking toward me.
“Just heading home from work,” I said. “Thought I’d save some time.”
He gave a soft, humorless chuckle. “People don’t come down here much. It’s private. Quiet. Good place to be alone.”
The way he lingered on “private” made my stomach tighten. I turned my attention to the window. Nothing but darkness and the blur of trees closing in.
“How long have you lived around here?” I asked.
“Long enough to know every turn,” he said. “Seen folks get lost out here. Some find their way back. Others…” He shrugged. “Woods swallow things up.”
I forced a polite laugh. “Sounds lonely.”
He smiled—thin and wrong. “Company shows up sometimes. Unexpected.”
We passed a clearing with an old shed, doors hanging open like a mouth, but he didn’t slow. Just kept driving.
“You got family waiting on you?” he asked.
“My sister,” I said quickly. “She expects me home soon.”
He nodded once. “Sisters are good. Had one myself. Accident on a road like this.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be,” he murmured. “Things happen.”
Then, without warning, he turned onto a narrow dirt path branching deeper into the trees.
I stiffened. “I thought your place was closer to the main road.”
“Shortcut,” he said. “Almost there.”
But we weren’t. We were going further in, the van weaving through overgrown brush. No lights. No houses. Nothing but darkness pressing closer.
A slow, cold realization crawled up my spine.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
I glanced around the van—and that’s when I saw it in the rearview mirror. A glint of metal on the floor behind us, half-covered by a rag. A knife? A tool? I couldn’t tell. But it wasn’t something left by accident.
He caught me looking. His hand reached back casually.
I didn’t wait.
As the van hit a pothole and slowed, I yanked the door handle and shoved it open.
“Stop the van!” I said, voice shaking.
“What the hell are you doing?” he barked, slamming the brakes.
I tumbled out, hit the ground, rolled, and scrambled to my feet. Pain shot through my side, but adrenaline carried me into the trees. Branches ripped at my clothes and skin as I ran blind through the dark.
Behind me, the van door slammed. His boots hit the dirt.
“Hey! Emily!” he shouted—my name echoing through the trees.
“You don’t want to go out there—it’s not safe!”
I ran anyway.
I zigzagged through underbrush, ducking behind trees, listening to him crash through the woods somewhere behind me. My heartbeat drowned out everything.
Then silence. His footsteps stopped. A moment later, the van engine roared to life and faded down the road.
I hid until I couldn’t feel my hands. When I finally crept back to the road, it was empty. The night felt indifferent. Like it had swallowed the evidence.
I walked for miles before I reached the highway. A passing driver picked me up, and the police filed a report, but the van was never found. Neither was Tom. Or whatever his real name was.
I still drive that stretch sometimes. Highway 16—The Highway of Tears. People disappear along it with terrifying regularity.
And when I pass one of those lonely turnoffs, the kind that promise shortcuts, I keep my eyes straight ahead. Because sometimes I hear it again—the way he said it:
Some find their way back. Others… the woods swallow things up.