Bad Things by Jamison Randazzo

Audrey drove alone through the black night, headlights piercing through the thin fog. 

She’d been driving for hours; there were no signs of life on the worn-out highway. After an eternity, Audrey noticed a blue sign reading “Rest Area” zoom past her. She veered off the highway and found the rest area. The only other car in the parking lot was a red pickup truck. 

Audrey wasn’t excited to stop here, but this was the only stop in sight, so she jumped out of the car and rushed inside. She entered the women’s bathroom and turned on the dim light. Luckily, it was empty. After a minute, she thought that she could hear a small noise. A tapping on the bathroom door. Not a knocking, a tapping. 

“Hello?” she called out. No response. She listened for any more sounds, but the tapping had stopped. Peeking out from the stall, Audrey still saw no one. 

Exiting the building, Audrey worriedly scurried to her car. The pickup was right where she saw it before. She got in the car and drove off. 

Now that she’d finally found a rest stop, she could get back on the highway and focus on getting home. It was getting late though, and she’d be on the highway for at least another two hours. Gazing into the hazy mist, Audrey was about to doze off until she noticed the light. She looked in the rearview mirror and saw the red pickup from the rest area speeding behind her. 

Audrey tried to make out the driver’s face, but she couldn’t see anything—the truck’s headlights blinded her vision. She drove a bit faster, but she couldn’t make it look like she was running away. She kept speeding up; the truck kept following. Audrey started to panic. The mist wasn’t thick, but at this speed she could barely see where she was going. 

Out of options, she had no choice but to slow down and face her attacker. As her car slowed, she saw salvation up ahead. Somebody was standing at the edge of the road with their thumb stuck in the air. 

She slowed her car to a crawl and stopped next to the hitchhiker. When she stopped, she looked out her window and saw the red pickup slowly passing by her. The driver was a confused-looking elderly man. Audrey peered at him as he frowned at her. The old man drove away and Audrey let out a sigh of relief. Her comfort was short-lived though. She looked to her right and saw the hitchhiker standing at the passenger’s window. Swallowing her scream, Audrey rolled down the window and told him to get in. 

The man opened the door and sat down. He looked at least fifteen years older than Audrey, his beard painted with streaks of gray. She tried to make small talk, but the man wouldn’t respond. She was glad to have driven off her pursuer, but now she was stuck with this. The man wouldn’t even look at her, instead choosing to gaze into the vast night. 

Audrey continued along the highway, but she couldn’t shake a horrible feeling in her stomach. She dared to look at the hitchhiker, and she saw him staring at her. His eyes bore into her. 

“Is everything okay?” Audrey said. 

The man didn’t reply, but he turned back towards the window. Audrey tried to control her breathing. If she could just find a place to drop this guy off then she’d be safe. She was grateful to see a sign for a nearby gas station. Without bothering to alert her passenger, Audrey took the exit. At the gas stop, she politely asked the hitchhiker to get out. Again, he refused to speak and left the car without a word. She faked a smile as the man exited the car. This was not her night, but she remembered an old saying she heard when she was young: bad things come in threes. The knocking at the bathroom door, the old man driving the pickup, the hitchhiker. It was all over now. The pounding in her heart started to slow. She took a deep breath, turned on the radio, and started heading back home. 

She never heard the small breaths coming from behind her. A small glint could be seen coming off the reflection of the stranger’s knife in the backseat. Audrey wouldn’t make it home that night. 

Jamison Randazzo is a current junior at Augustana University in South Dakota. He is planning on graduation in the fall of 2023 with a B.A. in English.