TRUCK DRIVER VANISHED ON THE ROAD — HIS TRUCK WAS FOUND OPEN WITH CLAW MARKS ON IT…

The emergency dispatcher could barely get the words out, her voice trembling too hard to steady.

“Patrol Unit 47, respond to Route 9 near mile marker 61.

Possible abandoned semi-truck.

Driver missing.

Caller reports… damage to the vehicle.”

“Damage” turned out to be the most misleading understatement of the year.

By dawn, the highway was crawling with investigators, state police, and one man who had seen enough strange cases in his thirty years of fieldwork to fill a dozen books: Special Investigator Marcus Hale.

Marcus arrived as the sun barely crept up behind the pines, throwing long, ghostly shadows across the stalled tractor trailer.

At first glance, it looked like the usual roadside breakdown: the truck angled onto the shoulder, hazard lights still blinking in a slow, tired rhythm.

But the closer he got, the more wrong everything became.

The driver’s door was wide open.

The engine was running.

A thermos of coffee sat in the cup holder, steam still rising.

And the side of the cab—both metal and paint—was shredded by long, deep gouges.

Claw marks.

Not scratches.

Not dents.

Claw.

Marks.

The kind you’d expect from something wild, angry, and strong enough to peel steel like fruit skin.

Marcus crouched, running a gloved finger along a torn strip of metal.

It curled inward.

Whatever did this didn’t try to get in.

It tried to pull something out.

“Where’s the driver?” he asked the nearest trooper.

“Name’s Henry Lowell,” the trooper said.

“Fifty-two.

Been driving routes for thirty years.

Never had an accident.

No medical issues.

No criminal history.

According to dispatch logs, he radioed in about twenty minutes before we found the truck.”

“Radioed what?”

The trooper swallowed.

“Said he had a… ‘thing’ pacing him from the tree line.”

Marcus froze.

“A thing?” he repeated.

“That’s the exact word he used.

‘Thing.’

Said it was fast.

Keeping up with him even at sixty.”

“Did he describe it?”

Another swallow.

“He said it wasn’t human.”

Marcus stepped inside the cab.

Everything was clean, orderly.

A well-worn notebook lay open on the passenger seat, pen still clipped inside.

The last page had a single line, scribbled in tense, uneven handwriting:

“It followed me.”

He photographed the page, then the dashboard camera.

For a moment he hoped—foolishly—that it might have caught something useful.

When he played it back, the footage was almost normal.

Henry’s voice, steady but uneasy, filled the speakers.

“Dispatch, something’s running alongside me.

I don’t know what it is.

It’s fast.

Too fast.

I’m not imagining this.

I know what shadows look like, and this isn’t a shadow.”

A few minutes later:

“It’s getting closer.

I can hear it hitting the gravel.

Heavy.

Like it’s on all fours one second, two the next.”

Marcus felt a creeping chill.

Then the recording jumped.

A sudden burst of static.

The kind caused by impact or electrical interference.

Then Henry screamed.

Not a long scream.

Not dramatic.

Just a sharp, startled gasp—like someone taken by surprise.

Then silence.

The truck coasted to a stop on its own.

The recording ended.

Later that morning, Henry’s wife, Lorraine, arrived on site.

She was pale, shaking, haunted.

Marcus tried to speak gently.

“When was the last time you heard from him?”

“Last night,” she whispered.

“He called during a break.

He said…” She paused, rubbing her arms even though the sun had risen high and warm.

“He said something was watching him at a rest stop.”

Marcus stiffened.

“Did he describe it?”

“No,” she said.

“But he sounded different.

Like he thought saying it out loud would make it real.”

“Has anything like this ever happened before?” Marcus asked.

Lorraine hesitated—too long.

“Mrs.Lowell?” he pressed.

“If something was going on, I need to know.”

“Henry… changed these last few weeks,” she finally said.

“He kept waking up in the middle of the night.

Checking the locks.

Looking out the windows.

He said he felt followed.

But I thought it was just the long hours getting to him.”

Marcus didn’t say the obvious: truckers weren’t the type to invent monsters.

“Did he tell you when the feeling started?”

“A month ago,” she whispered.

“After he picked up a delivery out of Grayford.”

Marcus frowned.

Grayford.

A dying mill town, mostly forest, barely on the map.

A place known for exactly nothing except its isolation.

Except—he remembered—there had been an incident near Grayford about six weeks earlier.

Another abandoned vehicle.

Another missing person.

Another case that went nowhere.

A hunter.

His truck was found with the doors ripped off.

And claw marks.

By afternoon, a full search team had begun sweeping the woods.

Dogs, drones, volunteers.

They found nothing.

Not a footprint.

Not a piece of clothing.

Not a trace of Henry Lowell.

 

But as dusk approached, Marcus found something the others missed.

Thirty yards into the trees, half sunk into the earth, he saw a tree trunk gashed with three long marks—perfectly spaced, perfectly parallel.

The wood beneath was splintered, raw, and recent.

He marked the spot, scanned the ground, and found something else.

Footprints.

Bare.

Human.

The size matched Henry’s profile.

But the stride? It was wrong.

Too long.

Too deep.

A man running full-speed would have left lighter impressions.

These prints looked like someone leaping.

Someone moving with unnatural power.

Or someone being dragged.

Marcus followed them deeper into the woods.

Pines grew close together, branches twisting like skeletal fingers.

The air grew colder.

The soundscape changed—the birds fell eerily silent, insects quieted, wind stilled.

Something was watching.

He could feel it.

Then his radio crackled loudly enough to make him flinch.

“Hale, what’s your position?” a voice asked.

“North of the truck, four hundred yards,” he answered quietly.

“We’re picking up thermal movement near your coordinates.

”

“Animal?”

“No.

Too tall.

”

Marcus tightened his grip on his flashlight.

“Human?”

A long pause.

“We don’t know.

”

Marcus turned in a slow circle.

The woods stared back—black, endless, patient.

Then he heard it.

A low sound.

Not quite a growl—not quite human.

A breath.

A single exhale strong enough to stir the pine needles at his feet.

He whipped the beam of light toward the sound.

Nothing.

But he felt something move.

A shift of air.

A breeze from a body passing just out of reach.

He took three steps backward, heart pounding.

“Marcus?” the radio repeated.

He didn’t answer.

Because something else did.

A whisper.

Right behind him.

Not a word.

Just… a noise.

A rasping breath.

Too close.

Too deliberate.

Marcus spun—

And saw a figure just beyond the trees.

Human-shaped.

Still.

Watching.

“Henry?” he called.

No response.

The figure stepped back.

Quietly.

Fluidly.

And vanished into the forest.

Marcus took off after it.

Branches snapped under his boots.

His breath came sharp and fast.

He swung the flashlight beam across the trunks, scanning for movement.

Then he saw the prints again—fresh, deep.

He followed them until the ground dipped into a ravine.

The prints ended at the edge.

He shone his light down.

The ravine was empty.

The prints stopped abruptly—as if the person had leaped across.

But the opposite side was twenty feet away.

Even an athlete couldn’t jump that far.

No human could.

Night fell fast, and the search was called off.

Marcus stayed late, reviewing satellite feeds and roadside cameras.

At 2:17 a.

m.

, one highway cam near Grayford flashed a blurry shape.

A silhouette.

Long arms.

Long stride.

Running alongside a semi-truck at 55 mph.

The same black shape had been caught on two other cameras across the state.

Always at night.

Always near open roads.

Always vanishing in seconds.

The footage made his skin crawl.

Still, he pushed it aside and returned to the case file.

Something wasn’t adding up.

A month ago Henry went to Grayford for a delivery.

The same place the hunter disappeared.

The same region producing strange sightings.

He checked the shipping records.

The pickup location: an old processing warehouse, shut down years ago.

But someone had used it recently.

The logs were inconsistent, handwritten, the weights off by hundreds of pounds.

Henry’s last delivery came from that warehouse.

Marcus stared at the address.

He knew where he needed to go next.

Grayford was even more abandoned than he expected.

Houses boarded.

Stores shuttered.

The warehouse sat at the far end of a dirt lot, surrounded by forest.

Rust bit into the metal siding.

The front door hung loose on a single hinge.

Marcus stepped inside.

Dust.

Silence.

A faint smell of decay.

He flashed his light across the floor.

Claw marks.

Leading toward a back stairwell.

He descended slowly.

One step.

Another.

The basement door was unlocked.

Inside, the room was cold.

Damp.

Concrete walls marked with deep scratches—similar to the truck, but older, angrier.

Then he saw the shackles bolted to the floor.

Human-sized.

Empty.

His stomach dropped.

Someone—something—had been held here.

And escaped.

His light landed on a torn piece of fabric caught on a hook.

A flannel shirt.

Blue.

The same kind Henry wore in his last roadside cam image.

Marcus pulled it free.

Then he noticed something else—etched into the concrete wall.

Not scratches.

Letters.

RUN

The word was carved deep, desperate, uneven.

A warning.

Or a plea.

Marcus backed toward the exit.

Then he heard it.

Footsteps upstairs.

Slow.

Heavy.

Too rhythmic to be animal.

Something descended the stairwell.

Marcus turned off his flashlight, pressing himself against the wall.

Breath silent.

Heart loud.

The footsteps stopped outside the basement door.

A shadow slid under the gap in the frame.

Long fingers.

Or claws.

Then the door creaked open.

A silhouette filled the doorway.

It was tall.

Too tall.

Shoulders hunched.

Limbs long.

Something like hair—or fur—hung matted across its frame.

But the face…

Marcus’s heart clenched.

It was Henry.

Or what was left of him.

The eyes were wrong—wide, reflective, animal-like—but the features were unmistakable.

The jawline.

The cheekbones.

The remnants of a man trapped inside something that wasn’t human anymore.

“Henry?” Marcus whispered.

The creature twitched.

Its mouth opened.

Not to speak.

To breathe.

A low, trembling exhale—full of pain, restrained violence, and something else Marcus didn’t expect.

Recognition.

“Henry,” Marcus said again, more softly.

The creature flinched, stepping back.

It looked… afraid.

Then, from the dark hallway above, another sound emerged.

Footsteps.

More than one set.

Heavy.

Fast.

Coming closer.

Marcus froze.

The creature backed away from the doorway, glancing up the stairs.

It wasn’t hunting.

It was fleeing.

Something else was hunting it.

In a blur of motion, Henry—if he still was Henry—ran down the side corridor and vanished into the darkness.

Marcus didn’t follow.

Because something bigger was coming down the stairs.

Something breathing louder.

Heavier.

Something angry.

Marcus slipped out the back exit of the basement, sprinting through the woods, branches slapping against him as he ran toward his car.

Behind him, something shrieked—high, furious, unnatural.

The scream echoed until the trees swallowed it.

He didn’t stop running until he reached the highway.

The official report filed the next morning stated that “no conclusive evidence” connected Henry’s disappearance to foul play.

The warehouse search was omitted from the record.

The footage went missing.

The claw marks on the truck were dismissed as “likely mechanical damage.

”

Marcus knew better.

Something had escaped that warehouse.

Something had taken Henry.

And something else—something worse—was hunting it.

Three nights later, Marcus received a package on his doorstep.

No return address.

Inside was a dashcam memory card.

He plugged it in.

The footage showed trees rushing past, wind roaring, a truck driving fast.

Then, briefly, a distorted reflection appeared in the side mirror.

A face.

Not human.

Not fully monster.

Watching the road.

Following a car.

Marcus’s car.

The video ended.

Attached was a single note:

“It knows you saw me.

”

He dropped the note, backing away.

Outside his window, something moved beyond the treeline.

Large.

Quick.

Too smooth to be human.

The branches shifted.

Then stilled.

Marcus waited, breath held.

Minutes passed.

Nothing.

Silence swallowed the forest.

But he knew what silence meant.

It meant something was out there.

Watching.

Waiting.

And the case—just like Henry Lowell—was far from gone.

It had only begun.